Well,

and Tripp, I should just add that this is a historic conversation because for whatever five or seven years, our relationship's been controlled by a power dynamic because you had to be really nice so that I wouldn't fail you in the dissertation. That's right. We can have a no holds barred, no bullshit plate this if I may discussion and you can go and say anything you want and I'm really curious to see how negative it's going to get. Ooh.

Alright. So so so I I've been collecting questions at all the theology beer camps that, and surprisingly, because the last two I did with Peter Rollins, the question people had at the end that impact their faith just so happened to be related to the doctrine of God. And I think this might be because I spent most of Pete and I's argument times explaining to everyone the biggest contrast was I was a realist about God and divine action. And Pete wasn't. And that's kind of a parting in the ways. But those that came to the open and relational or process themed breakout sessions and stuff, wanted to have questions for you and I to talk and argue about. And there's a lot of them, a lot of them. But the first one, and Daniel Rosado in Denver has been wanting to know just what was most exciting about my dissertation and what you really wish you had ample time to tell me just how wrong I was. Well,

that's a really interesting way to start, Tripp, because of all the questions you could ask, like the eternal nature of God and so forth, you picked your own dissertation. Yeah. Now, I'm not saying that was egotistical in any sense, but that was kind of interesting. Well,

so

what I really liked about the dissertation it's funny to be able to say this publicly. You know, after we had a room with three people talking about it, and that was, that was the height of your academic career. So you get the doctor in front of your name, Dr. Fuller. I won't say that sounds like a contradiction in terms. But what I really liked about the dissertation was you took on the really hard questions. Right in the beginning, you said, I want to talk about the Christological conundrum, the fact that it just isn't easy to think a Jesus who's the historical guy walking the dusty roads of Palestine, and the guy who's the eternal son of God, the logos. And most people shy away from that question. And you just wanted to grab it by the horns, if I may, and work on it. What you did is you took that one, and then the question of the historical side of Jesus, the existential relationship to God, and then the metaphysical understanding of God, like three registers, you called it within one overarching framework. So the gutseeness of it all was impressive in the genre of dissertations where folks are so careful that they don't want to say anything that they can't footnote. And I think you didn't say anything that you did footnote. But it made for dissertation that was like one of those weather balloons, you know, and they pull a button and it fills up with gas and it shoots up to 20,000 feet or something and measures the weather for a little bit. And then it pops and kind of falls down to earth. So we're worried whether you could really pull together those three dimensions and talking about Jesus, the historical side, the existential side, and the metaphysical side. Frankly, I think you had most trouble with the metaphysical side. You made a strong statement about the historical. I think you made a powerful statement about the existential, like the Jesus book, which I think is amazingly well done. And then you wanted to give it this overarching metaphysical or theological framework. it's at that point that I kept wondering, so Tripp's got this beautiful Christology of Jesus. Jesus is the prophet, Jesus is the one who comes alongside and the healer, the actual historical Jesus as you see it. And you made a pretty good case for that. And then he's got this absolutely high Christology, Logos Christology, in dialogue with his six thinkers. And it's that place where in the end those two hold together. It's almost like you're a guy with an evangelical Baptist background that leads you to see Jesus as the Christ and who got influenced by process thought, who leads you to see Jesus as this kind of cool guy who manifests the lure of God in the first century. And it's almost like you're trying to say a process guy could be an evangelical with a high Christology. And you know, is that even possible?

I don't know if it is. All I know is it's the only time I've seen Dolford tell me he thought I was more orthodox than I imagined. And Professor Coleman was after it. I guess she was on another podcast and said I was process friendly. That's what, my category. And I'm fine with that. Tell

me, I'll ask you a question. What is the most dramatic moment of your dissipation? Either where you sweat the most or where something came to the surface you didn't expect?

I guess there are two parts. One was I had no, I did not anticipate having as high affirmation of God's special revelation in the person of Jesus as I did based on the kind of opening of the problem. And like, because the way I kind of set it up is let's assume a broad open and relational kind of philosophy of religion where you have like a kind of evolutionary panentheism. And then let's assume that there is revelatory traction in the historically mediated, yet particular revelation of the history of Israel into the life and person of Jesus, into the community of Jesus and his disciples and the church and such. Well, I didn't anticipate reorganizing the metaphysics to the level I did in parts in chapter six at the beginning. And then the second part was I didn't anticipate organizing it to having was way too close for me, a Pahnenbergian eschatological, if then, statement. Now, Pahnenberg would have not liked me saying that God's divine self-investment in each moment that comes to be a personal type of investment when you get the emergence of conscious beings at least like us. And then in cultures, traditions, and histories all the way down to an individual Jesus whose faithfulness leads you to say that in this life, in that context, in that community, you have the image of the invisible God, the word made flesh, and that type of thing. Well, when you get to that point, that's all well and good. You hook normal kind of, I would say that's a, I dunno, tens towards high, but pop, but Cobb says something almost that close around logos, Chris algae. You hook that to the questions liberation theologians ask around the work of Christ on the cross and stuff. And you don't just dodge the cross question like liberal theologians are apt to do. And then you end up with this, the last chapter, which was the most energizing chapter to write, and the one when I got done, I'm like, now I have to say that to finish the dissertation, but I don't know. And that's the section where it's on that God needs salvation just as we need it, and that God's self-investment, the hand of God, when you're using the Andrew Sun Parking Company, that then God is in need of salvation because God in Christ is revealed to be the God who has refused to be God without us. And so that relation, the opening between God and the world for genuine freedom and love is an opening that remains a wound until reconciliation.

So I think that part is beautiful. It's the kenosis and it always reminds me of the crucified God by Moltmann. I think the liberation aside that you tied with the historical Jesus is powerful, but it seems to me that you struggle with a problem and it's not just yours. So it's not a problem that we can lay on your shoulders only, though we like laying it on your shoulders and watch you suffer, the Han of Trip Fuller. But it's this question, how can you fit together the gentle lure of God in all events, which is the process notion, the way hedian notion that God pulls us towards God's self and toward the eternal values, the eternal ideas of God. sense that only from the future final eschatology where human and God are reconciled, only with that force backwards, which Panbirg calls the alles bishtim and the bichdichkeit, the all determining reality, which in the end has to win, or as a friend of ours once said, God wins. And the process thinker says, well, maybe God wins if we're lucky. How do you put those two together?

So I guess one part is anticipating that's why I differentiated the three kind of registers. Because I think that the existentially engaged person who has identified Jesus as the Christ, that is their – that is a way of thematizing their metaphysic in light of the cross. But I don't think until the eschaton that would make, that would be persuasive to anyone. Paulinburg and a dissertation with you, but uh, early Pannenberg to me seems like he, he says something like, uh, like on one side he's like, I will learn any academic discipline and argue for this. And I think I'm right. So don't, don't try me. And then on the other side of it, the way it sounds is, um, I have no problem arguing for it as a completely plausible thing that upon actual old, the perousia will, uh, that, that sensible explanation will have been the rational, you know, rational reflection on God or something. And if it's not, then Christian theology is problematic, not my dog, like, like his philosophical ideas around God or something or his engagement of historical Jesus is a You know a a picture of the historical Jesus and that you can assess using historical tools or whatever But I feel like there's a that he has this ability to go If you've made this existential commitment in relationship to this historical person, you don't get to say these, what the resurrection was about is unrelated to apocalyptic Judaism or that or things like that. And so the metaphysical issue you're seeing, I see as something that should remain problematic. And that's why I talk about it as a, a thematized open and relational reflection as opposed to a obligatory one.

Okay, we love your goals. You know, you move us to goosebumps with your goals. And the question is whether this works for you or for anyone. Think about Pannenberg's argument there for a second. If you're going to have a persuasive Christianity, then you have to have a vibrant and powerful eschatology, which in some sense is already complete. Pannenberg. But for a lot of podcast listeners, it's like, hey, that is the question, right? I mean, imagine telling Pete, it's got to be true, because it's the only way to have a really realistic Christology. And Pete Rawlin says, yeah, so we don't. I think a lot of podcasts listeners feel the same way. So Here's a question

How much of that do you think is connected to Cultural phobia about using the word God in any definitive, and because I think a lot of times, um, Christians, because, uh, especially progressive ones who feel the weight of Western civilizations, imperialism, cultural domination, horrible missiology and such, we quickly part ways with anything this particular definitional to our tradition or something like that and so eschatology particularly one that the Christian eschatology and the Trinity are like the two things that even the other monotheists are like So sometimes I think there's a The reason people are uncomfortable with a doctrine is because deep down they're just uncomfortable with God in any way. Like they're just uncomfortable talking about God.

Okay, that strikes me as not quite fair. People may be fascinated with talking about God and want the thing to work. I want this whole damn thing to hold together. And yet they look at the certainty of some of the answers. The word metaphysical for a lot of people means certainty because it's a full system top down. What if the nature of God, this actually gets to some of the other cool questions from your tour. What if the nature of God is to be always already unsure? To be grasping for something in the dark that you're not quite sure if it's there or where it is? And that, I mean, that's one paradigm. There's Pete who says, no, it can't be true. So it's great symbols. There's a lot of folks who say it has to be certain or it's not serious. I kind of like the quest, the grappling, the hunting side. And for either you or Pete to rule those out from the outset seems to me like a disappointment.

So what did you think about the image of the flashlight? That was intentionally kind of going, this is a process way of talking about Pannenbergian themes in the sense that the future is not settled because there's a light at the future pointing back, but because the one who revealed God as, the one revealed in Christ is the one who is with us, for us, and goes with us with the flashlight. In every present, God is there looking forward towards and giving light and possibilities to the greatest truth, goodness and beauty. So there's not going to be a point where God and the world are not in mesh and intertwined and the light of love and possibilities there. But it's not a light like a floodlight from the eschaton shining so stinging bright, no matter how long it takes to get there, it's always shining at us.

a great solution. I'm not sure you wrote about it in your dissertation The flashlight forward is a great picture if you're going to synthesize the Historical might be in

the chapter that's in the fortress version

You haven't shown to me yet, I mean now that you're graduated like no Phil you can't see anything I write unless you pay for it first now

in surprisingly I've been busy last

month and a

half. I think you're

one of the four people. So, you know, it would be really a cool answer, bringing together process and traditional Christian theism. So, Panberg, to imagine a light, a flashlight pointing forward in our actual existential experience in search of the God who is self revealing now, we hope is the final resting place. And the flashlight pointing backward, which is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things unseen. And this dual shining from the present forward and from the future back would be a group and their unification in the beam of light. That would be a beautiful way to do the both hand. I

think Lewis Ford would be very proud of that. Yeah,

because he was playing with that in the in the 1980s. Let me do one last thing on education that we should move forward. Remember you have these three. And the historical Jesus and the metaphysical are two things that Panhard does succeed or try to bring together anyway in Jesus God and man. So he's got the strongest statement of historical studies or what he calls historiography in Jesus God and man. He says on page 109, there's no way to say anything about Jesus that historical studies couldn't verify. And if it can't verify it, we can't say it. I have never heard it higher standard for the historical Jesus than that. make sense of Christology unless you think about the final eschaton thinking back proleptically into the present from the standpoint of the resurrection of Jesus and his ministry. there you've got the max historical and the max metaphysical Combined and if that works if that would work we'd have two-thirds of the answer

Yeah, and and I wonder if The it's it it's like he never lost sleep reading Kierkegaard enough or something because like I always read him in ways where that existential register is something he works out in historical or metaphysical arguments. be totally connected to your upfront autobiographical reading of my dissertation. But I don't have a whole lot of days since I returned to my faith in my 20s that I have... I don't wake up existentially shaking. My contemplative prayer life is pretty down. I could probably pass as an... do contemplative practice. I read the Bible and have a very personal piety That you know depending on who I'm around I can use more or less of it, but my ongoing relationship with God is a very personal intimate one and And and I have it with a second naivete I just find like why exiting the tradition would be exiting the resources that a lot of people earned and handed down to me that if you gone through the desert of criticism seemed like a loss, but the existential register is much more to me about discipleship and things like that, which is, as a minister, or someone of the free church tradition, tends to be your preoccupation. So

it's really interesting that that's the existential register that you have, and in some way, Pannenberg has had in the same manner. A lot of us have an existential register, which is more like the angst of Kierkegaard or of Paul Tillich. That is a search, a hope, a quest. Steve Knapp and I call it, Hope plus Faith. It's like you're locked in this jail cell and the guy next to you says, hey, I'm going to make, I'm going to escape tonight. I've got, you know, I've dug this hole and there's a helicopter coming landing on the roof. And if you come, we're gonna escape. And you're saying, shit, you know, if I'm wrong, they're gonna shoot me or lock me up forever. But how can I not try this? And so you follow the guy up on the roof and you're hoping like hell that this helicopter comes down in 15 minutes. And for some of us, faith, the existential register feels a lot more like that one.

no, that's what I was saying is I like, uh, because, because the different, the existential register happens at a different place. Um, which in, in the dissertation I tried it, which Monica was closer to point out. She's like, uh, I mean, you're talking about disciples the whole time and I don't know if my Christology is high enough to count, but that's always where it's existed since I overcame my time with the Jesus Seminar.

Okay, I have a question for you. I'm going to put together three features of Pannenbeg's life, and I want to make sure I'm not saying factual statements where his estate might sue me. But in my humble opinion, these three factors influenced his existential approach to Christianity. One, he really did have a conversion experience, a powerful Damascus road kind of experience, when he was in occupied East Germany, early in his life, it was, I forget, it was age 16, let's say. And he absolutely believed at that moment and forever after that that was the living God that he'd encountered. I think the doubt never arose for him in that way. And then the second factor for Pannenberg was an incredible confidence bordering on egotism. So there was a series once where he was asked to write for the series, how I changed my mind. And everyone else had done a great job of saying, oh yeah, you know, I progressed in this way and that way. And then Panabreg begins in the opening sentence says, I am a systematic theologian. Systematic theologians do not change their mind or they are not systematic. So nothing here represents I've ever changed my mind on anything. In fact, even when he did change his mind.

The only tweetable answer to that question.