While Pannenberg emphasizes the compatibility of faith and reason against many of his contemporaries, he does not fall into the trap of conflating the two terms. He argues that “reason is always interested in present things in the first instance” because reason is always concerned with naming present realties in conversation with its presuppositions from the past. Faith, on the other hand, is always oriented primarily to the future, and to the fulfillment of divine promises and the consummation of the kingdom of God.
