Theological Fragments: Christology and Soteriology

2 Comments Posted by on 10 May, 2010

“The divinity of Jesus and his freeing and redeeming significance for us are related in the closest possible way. To this extent, Melanchthon’s famous sentence is appropriate, “Who Jesus is becomes known in his saving action.” Nevertheless, the divinity of Jesus does not consist in his saving significance for us. Divinity and saving significance are interrelated as distinct things. The divinity of Jesus remains the presupposition for this saving significance for us and, conversely, the saving significance of his divinity is the reason why we take interest in the question of this divinity.”

–Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus- God and Man, (The Westminster Press: Philadelphia, PA, 1968, 1977), 38.

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2 Responses to Theological Fragments: Christology and Soteriology

  1. Tapani 11 May, 2010 at 19:14

    Quite so. Except I would replace ‘presupposition’ with something stronger, such as ‘prerequisite’.

    Reply
  2. Ben Duarte 22 July, 2011 at 02:35

    I would concur. “Presupposition” may not be a significant enough term for the task and goal of Christ’s overall message. However, on the other hand, Pannenberg, by saying that Christ’s divinity is a “presupposition”, he admits that Christ’s divinity is in the mind and belief system of the Christian as Jesus relates to saving humans.

    Reply

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