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Eberhard Jüngel and Wolfhart Pannenberg as Interpreters of the Doctrine of Justification Rev. Dr. Tomi Karttunen
The Lutheran-Roman Catholic Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ), signed in 1999, remains one of the most significant ecumenical achievements. Furthermore, it paves the way towards the ecumenical celebration of 500 years of Reformation in 2017. However, the declaration awakened strong criticism, especially during the preparation and publication phase, and has to some extent continued to do so since that time.1 Professor (em.) Eberhard Jüngel, a United Church (Reformed-Lutheran) theologian, started wide discussion among German university theologians which led to a critical statement, signed by 160 German professors. Surprisingly enough, Jüngel himself did not, in the end, sign the statement but pointed out that JDDJ gives an opportunity to move beyond doctrinal judgments to continue the work with these questions.2 I would like to investigate Jüngel’s (b. 1934) understanding of the doctrine of justification and to ask why he arrived at a critical position whereas another noteworthy German systematic theologian, internationally even more famous than Jüngel, the Lutheran Wolfhart Pannenberg (b. 1928) considered the criticism too sharp and saw in it echoes of the old controversy theology model of building Protestant identity in a negative way, through distancing itself from Rome. According to Pannenberg, the criticism did not do justice to the text of JDDJ. He asks: “How can anyone who has read the Joint Declaration make such ungrounded claims?”3
In order to uncover the points of departure in the thought of these theologians, in addition to their confessional backgrounds, let us first analyze the arguments in their theologies of justification and compare their positions before drawing conclusions regarding the broader theological and ecumenical implications of their positions. The sources used for Jüngel’s thought are his Das Evangelium von der Rechtfertigung des Gottlosen als Zentrum des christlichen Glaubens (1999) and his early work, Gottes Sein ist im Werden (1965). The latter will serve as a help in understanding the wider perspective of his systematic theological orientation. On Pannenberg’s 1
Saarinen 2000, 109. Jüngel 1999, VII; Mattes 2004, 23-24. 3 Pannenberg 2000 a, 289; 295; 297. Mattes cites Literature references to Pannenberg in Mattes 2004, 56 notes 1 and 2. He gives literature also to Jüngel (Mattes 2004, 23, notes 1 and 2). To this discussion is linked the question of how the doctrine of justification is understood as a criterion of the Christian doctrine faith. Because this criteriological character of the doctrine of justification has been researched quite a lot in this connection I exclude this question from the scope of this article. On the discussion see e.g. Saarinen 2000, 119-137 and Rytkönen 2006. According to Saarinen (2000, 122-123) the concept of criteria has “brought to the discussion on the doctrine of justification epistemological and hermeneutical features” which originate from the neo-Kantian theory of knowledge in the thought of Hans Joachim Iwand and Rudolf Herrmann and lead towards an “epistemological reduction of the doctrine”. In the second wave of discussion, Saarinen (2000, 130) sees the doctrine of criterion to be more in the background, having been replaced by the conviction that the Evangelical and Roman Catholic understandings of Christianity are incompatible. 2