1964–1974

Pannenberg and Küng: christology "from below"

In Jesus – God and Man (1964) Pannenberg distinguishes "christology from above", which starts from the divinity of the Son, and "christology from below", which starts from Jesus of Nazareth and then asks to what extent he was God, and chooses the second approach. The center is the historicity of the resurrection: by raising Jesus, God confirmed all his earlier claims; the incarnation is regarded as the conclusion rather than the starting point of christology, and from the distinction between Jesus and the Father the doctrine of the Trinity begins. Later Pannenberg supplemented this approach with a doctrine of the Logos as the principle of the world's unity. Küng in On Being a Christian (1974) also builds a christology "from below"; critics accused him of adoptionism and of lacking a clear affirmation of divinity, and the German bishops opposed him.