Pannenberg's Philosophical Foundations

Abstract

Prolepsis became a technical term in Pannenberg's theology in the first edition of Offenbarung als Geschichte (1961). In this series of essays, he used the term to describe the salient characteristic of the Christ-event, namely, Jesus' resurrection as the preappearance of the end of history in his life and fate.' Though the term was a new one for Pannenberg. the idea had already been enunciated in an earlier essay, Heilsgeschehen und Geschichte, where he referred to Jesus as the anticipated end and not the middle of history.2 It was, however, only in 1962 that Pannenberg made his real intentions clearhe proposed to demonstrate that the whole of reality has a proleptic structure.3 This article investigates the philosophical underpinnings of the proleptic nature of reality in Pannenberg's theology. By way of introductory statement, it might be pointed out that the noun prolepsis, the corresponding adjective proleptic, and the adverb proleptically, are technical terms in Pannenberg's theology. Prolepsis refers to the anticipatory nature of reality and should be understood ontologically and noetically. Pannenberg not only asserts that man noetically anticipates the future through his plans, hopes, and expectations, but that the whole of reality is anticipatorily structured in its very being; that is, its very substance is anticipation of the yet outstanding future end of history. The following discussion will begin with his idea of truth, which operates, in Pannenberg's conceptual universe, as presupposition for his understanding of reality. Then it will proceed to a description of the interrelationships of future and finite reality, and of being and knowing in a proleptic perspective. Finally, two fundamental structures of Pannenberg's proleptic reality-the principles of retroaction and negative mediation-need to be and will be uncovered.