One key reason for Pannenberg’s departure from the definitions of theology as established by Schleiermacher and Barth is his conviction that it is an academic discipline that belongs in conversation with other academic disciplines. In other words, theology is a science—a form of human inquiry that seeks to anticipate eschatological truth through a process of formulating hypotheses and refining them through the development of consensus (across time and place) and falsification. Falsification, while completely objectionable to both Schleiermacher and Barth, is key for Pannenberg because it is a
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