Pannenberg as Precedent. On the Question of a Trinitarian Panentheism

Abstract

In Klaus Müller’s panentheistic understanding of God, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity acquires a specific relevance for determining the relationship between transcendence and immanence of God insofar as it expresses the “monistic profundity” of Christian theism. Based on Müller’s debate with Wolfhart Pannenberg, this article attempts to define more precisely the different models of the God-world relationship subsumed under the term panentheism. Given the questions of the redemption of humankind and the entire reality of evil and suffering, a permanent difference between God and the world, which is expressed in the idea of creatio ex nihilo, is maintained. The article steers a middle course between a doctrine of the Trinity that in a one-sided way emphasizes the differentiation between the three persons in the Trinity (Pannenberg), and a leveling of the personal in the conception of the Trinity and God (Müller). A rapprochement between “essential” models of the Trinity, emphasizing God’s self-realization, and “personal” models is strived for.