A New Hope Wolfhart Pannenberg and the Natural Sciences on Time

Theology and historiography often see the future as a realm open to new experiences and unexpected events. Yet for classical physics, the future was the result of the universeâ (TM)s predictable development. Given enough information about current states, we could use the laws of nature to uncover the universeâ (TM)s future. Modern space-time theory, with its picture of an invariant four-dimensional universe, only makes this problem more acute. Room for radically novel events, for miracles and new hope seems to have disappeared. It is this hope for something new that the German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg seeks to preserve in his controversial work on time. To defend Godâ (TM)s supernatural freedoms and to escape natural determinism, Pannenberg invokes a medieval understanding of the unsurpassable and absolute power of God, using Godâ (TM)s potentia absoluta to reverse timeâ (TM)s flow and express absolute authority over creationâ (TM)s progress. Time and all its contents are utterly subjected under the free will of a divine â oeall-determining realityâ . But is this tenable for modern understandings of God and the universe? Or does it lead to theological difficulties and promote an arms race between the laws of nature and the rule of God? In this volume, Stephen Lakkis offers an analysis and critique of Pannenbergâ (TM)s approach and suggests a different way forward.