Paradoxical Constellations in the Hermeneutics of Scripture – Considerations on Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Approach

Abstract In the reception and discussion of Wolfhart Pannenberg’s work, the term “paradox” has not been associated with the specific profile of his theological approach. Pannenberg himself rarely uses the term, mostly in marginal contexts. The following considerations, however, seek to show, in a first step, that Pannenberg’s diagnosis of a paradoxical development in the history of biblical hermeneutics is a constructive element in the formation of Pannenberg’s theology of history. In a second step, the essay demonstrates that Pannenberg’s understanding of history within his theology of history involves another paradoxical constellation regarding the concept of universal history and the discrepancy between the role of historical events before and after the divine revelation in Jesus Christ. While this constellation is unintended, it will be argued, in a third step, that this paradoxical constellation can be understood theologically in light of the idea of God’s self-realization as the one conceptual example of a paradox that Pannenberg himself presents in his Systematic Theology .