Pannenberg on God and Freedom

Abstract

No problem has been more difficult for Christian theology than the relation between divine power and human freedom. Many theologians have sacrificed the latter for the former, and a few have been willing to sacrifice divine power for human freedom. But it has often been maintained that God is omnipotent and that human beings are free in the sense required to render them morally responsible and to give them a sense of dignity. The problem is immediately obvious. If omnipotent is defined, as it sometimes is, in such a way that the power of God is thought to determine all historical events, including human decisions, then the latter would seem to be functions of the divine will or, in other words, necessitated. And, of course, if they are necessitated, it would seem to be logically impossible to maintain that they are free in the crucial sense. Stated succinctly, the problem is this: How can human beings be morally responsible and have a sense of personal dignity if their acts are necessitated by the power of an omnipotent God? With characteristic candor as well as courage, Wolfhart Pannenberg has addressed this issue in many of his writings, most directly in his book, The Idea of God and Human Freedom. Everyone senses that Pannenberg's theology is still in the making and that he has yet to say his final word on this or any other major topic. Nonetheless, he has made some very provocative suggestions regard-