Faithful to Save Pannenberg on God's Reconciling Action

Faithful to Save is an exposition and analysis of Pannenberg's doctrine of reconciliation as it appears in his three-volume Systematic Theology. It suggests that this doctrine is best approached by bearing in mind its three most salient characteristics, all of which are inter-dependent, and when kept in view make the essential tenets of Pannenberg's account transparent: God acts freely and immediately in and for creation; history is a function of the faithfulness of God to his creation; reconciliation is an expression of this faithfulness towards sinful creation - God's 'holding fast' to creation despite its self-destructive self-assertion. On the basis of a detailed examination of the central texts, it argues that Pannenberg's doctrine of reconciliation at once marks out God's action in the world as the true Infinite and issues an invitation to consider how such a God extends himself in reconciling love to his creatures so that their finite creatureliness is at every turn affirmed and found to be in the end 'good'.