The Relationship between Tradition and Scripture in the Work of Wolfhart Pannenberg and Walter Kasper

• Applicant: Elisabeth Maikranz
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology
• Term: from 2022 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 513054792

Based on the theology of the Lutheran Theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg and the Roman Catholic theologian Walter Kasper, the study details how both theological approaches grapple from within their own denominational contexts for a renewal of the understanding of Scripture and tradition, in the end arriving at a convergence in their understanding. With recourse to Scripture or tradition, both emphasize the actualization of the inherited tradition into the present, which, at the same time, contains a moment of discontinuity. Thus, tradition is not traditionalism. Based on the two approaches, an understanding of tradition is sketched with reference to the context of the emergence of tradition while also considering the new, contemporary actualization of tradition. The study fills a research gap, since so far there is no comparative study on Pannenberg and Kasper. Focused studies on Pannenberg or Kasper have only had an eclectic focus on the understanding of Scripture or tradition, without elaborating the entire context of revelation, Scripture, tradition, and hermeneutics with reference to further theological and philosophical foundations. Through the two theologians, the study can show that the Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue has come to an effective convergence regarding the relationship of Scripture and tradition. As a comparative study from a Protestant perspective within an ecumenical horizon, it not only highlights how Pannenberg and Kasper describe the relationship between Scripture and tradition, but also focuses on how both implement the associated hermeneutical program in their theological argumentation. In this process, it becomes apparent that the confessional and intellectual traditions govern their framework despite such approximation found in their descriptions of the relationship. In other research projects, such correlation between the description of the relationship and the theological argumentation has not yet been made, indicating the originality of this study. Based on the comprehensive elaboration of the relationship between Scripture and tradition, the study aims to profile a concept of "tradition," which has been neglected in Protestant theology. In so doing, the reference to the bible, as founded by the Protestant "sola scriptura," is not abandoned. The various dynamics and aspects of the process of Christian tradition are considered. Both theologians understand tradition as a dynamic, pneumatological process where divine truth reveals itself anew. lt is not so much a matter of preserving transmitted traditions; rather it is about reappropriating them and thereby transforming the present through tradition. Tradition thus means a process of transmission that is always also a process of cognition, since the historical processes of transmission themselves have an epistemological function for the development of the revelation of God in history. Therefore, tradition - as Scripture - must be reflected upon in fundamental theology.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants