CRITICAL REALISM AND THE THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE OF WOLFHART PANNENBERG: EXPLORING THE COMMONALITIES.

The commonalities between critical realism and the theological science of Wolfhart Pannenberg are examined. It is suggested that the commonalities exist in the following areas: 1) the programme of revelation-as-history and the implications of this for a philosophy-of-history, 2) the view of the resurrection of Jesus as event, 3) the approaches to understanding Jesus in history, 4) the relationship of theology to philosophy-of-science, and 5) the understanding of God as the all-determining reality. It is suggested that within the theological science of Wolfhart Pannenberg one might find some theological foundations for critical realism, or at least some scope for future dialogue. Article In the context of the history of ideas, one might naturally expect that there would be something of a dichotomy between the discourse of critical realism and religious discourse. Writers of an avowedly materialist philosophical orientation have tended to be decidedly non-theistic and non-religious. One only needs to think of the influential work of Ludwig Feuerbach. However, this is not the case with critical realism. There has been a continuing religious interest in critical realism (Barbour 1974, 1984; Dree