ABSTRACT
What makes Wolfhart Pannenberg's theology so appealing is that for him, unlike pluralists, the doctrine of God occupies the centre of all of his theology. Pannenberg's theology highlights the significance of theology – and of religions – to the quest for ultimate truth. Conducive to his positive appraisal of religions is his foundational anthropological insight according to which faith in God is nothing external imposed on human beings but rather something inherent in humanity. Pannenberg's point of departure for assessing the value of religions is the phenomenology of religions. For Pannenberg, the main thrust of the history of religions is the competition between conflicting truth claims of adherents of various deities. The most important way in which Pannenberg revises the traditional discussion of the doctrine of God relates to the order of the topics: while it has been customary to treat the unity of God prior to the Trinity, Pannenberg takes it the other way.
