Premium
Lutheran Systematic Theology: Where is it Going?
Author(s) -
Ratke David C.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
dialog
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.114
H-Index - 5
eISSN - 1540-6385
pISSN - 0012-2033
DOI - 10.1111/0012-2033.00077
Subject(s) - citation , library science , world wide web , computer science
A dozen years or so ago when I was a student in seminary, we used Christian Dogmatics edited by Carl Braaten and Robert Jenson as the main text for our introduction to systematic theology. At that time there were no serious single author Lutheran systematic theologies. And indeed it did not seem that any were soon to appear on the horizon. Little did I know that Robert Jenson was probably already hard at work on his two volume opus, Systematic Theology (1997–99) and that Ted Peters’ God—The World’s Future: Systematic Theology for a Postmodern Era would appear in 1992, thus unleashing a storm of systematic theologies. In addition to the already named offering by Jenson, Bradley Hanson of Luther College (Decorah, IA) published his Introduction to Christian Theology in 1997 and Robert Kolb produced The Christian Faith: A Lutheran Exposition in 1993. In addition to these volumes Hans Schwarz published Christology and Eschatology in 1998 and 2000 which are not, to be sure, full blown systematic theologies; they do however represent an update of or rather a supplement to his 1986 volume, Responsible Faith: Christian Theology in the Light of 20th-Century Questions, which is a comprehensive systematic theology. Moreover Schwarz’s two books give some insight as to how two theological loci are handled and how other loci might be handled. Behind all of these works stands the scholarship of Wolfhart Pannenberg. More than any other twentieth century theologian, Pannenberg has influenced the shape and direction of Lutheran theology. I will say more about Pannenberg later. For now it will suffice to say that Pannenberg’s emphasis on the openness of history and of God, his eschatological understanding of theology and proleptic view of history, as well as his ecumenical interests have impacted Peters, Jenson, Hanson, and Schwarz. This brief mention of the influence of Pannenberg occasions the first area I wish to examine the theologies of Hanson, Jenson, and Peters: their influences. From there I will consider how each of them sees the task of theology and the method of the theological enterprise.