German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg dies at 85

German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg died September 5 at his home near Munich at the age of 85. He was professor at the University of Munich from 1968 until his retirement in 1993, and he held visiting professorships in the 1960s at the University of Chicago, Harvard, and the Claremont School of Theology.

Pannenberg was widely hailed as a giant on the theological scene. “He had the most encyclopedic mind I have ever encountered,” wrote Philip Clayton, a professor at Claremont, and his theology was “unrivaled in its comprehensiveness, depth, and rigor.”

He studied with Karl Barth but quickly moved in his own direction. While he appreciated Barth’s emphasis on God’s sovereignty and on the decisiveness of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ, Pannenberg was troubled by what he saw as the intellectual dualism in Barth’s work.