"True respect for the mystery [of the incarnation] can express itself, among other ways, just in the attempt to understand it fully", according to Pannenberg.
As an undergraduate I delved into various theologies, hoping they could guide me in a quest better to understand the God of the Bible. But it was not until I picked up my copy of Jesus: God and Man (1964) by Wolfhart Pannenberg for a series of seminars by our philosophical theology prof that I made significant progress. Others had helped me to see the transcendence of God and the majesty of the creator, but Pannenberg brought me face to face with the manifestation of God's glory on planet earth. It was here that the discovery of the historical Jesus became relevant to my expedition of fides quaerens intellectum.
Instead of assuming Jesus' divinity, Pannenberg saw the task of Christology as offering reasons why one should embrace the divinity of Jesus. His commitment to Scripture as the defining source of theological reflection brought me face-to-face with the importance of the Bible that's stayed with me since. In an age in which systematic theology and biblical studies have long been separated, Pannenberg has brought back together what none of us should ever have separated. In that way, he's influenced me in ways I've never really acknowledged before.
Pannenberg awakened in me a love for the historical Jesus and for careful study of Scripture, as well as an awareness of other issues in theology, such as the role of science, ethics, anthropology and metaphysics. This doesn't mean that I fully understand or appreciate all that Pannenberg has to offer. But I've found him to be a worthy friend who leads us to discover more and more about the world we live in, the God who is there, and the hope that will unite us all in the future.
It was this unknown German, in a semester filled with so many other academic requirements, in a series of one-hour seminars -- where we read Martin Kahler's So-Called Historical Jesus and the Christ of Faith, Pannenburg's Jesus, Karl Barth's Humanity of God, and Albert Schweitzer's Quest for the Historical Jesus -- who helped introduce me to the One who's been my life's first love. In that way, Pannenburg was a young college student's theological cupid. If it hadn't been for Pannenburg, I'd have never read Bonhoeffer. Pannenburg lured me to a place to read Bonhoeffer's Discipleship. And Bonhoeffer taught me to love Jesus.