An Examination of Pannenberg's Fundamental Theological Anthropology and Its Breakthrough of Barth's Formal Anthropology

Pauline Anthropology, An Examination of Pannenberg's Fundamental Theological Anthropology and Its Breakthrough of Barth's Formal Anthropology, and 1 Corinthians 15

Keith Ka Fu CHAN and LI Haoyu

This paper argues that while Wolfhart Pannenberg and Karl Barth both ground their anthropology on a Christological foundation, Barth on the one hand emphasizes the corresponding structure between Christ's humanity and human authentic humanity, and his epistemological foundation is located in the idea of God's self-revelation ; Pannenberg on the other hand emphasizes the openness to the world and to God within human nature through the empirical-historical analysis of human manifestation. Moreover, even though Pannenberg starts his anthropological project “from below,” this paper aims at demonstrating that his “ from below” approach is justified by a close examination of his eschatological-historical approach of God’s revelation and his idea of “human becoming.”