More good Pannenberg...

Ok, so I'm finding good stuff here, can you tell? Here's something that might not preach to modern Western society very well, but oooo! is it good:

"The connection between act and consequence and therefore the liability of culprits for their actions precede the development of the idea of guilt and create the objective need for such a development. It is only this objective state of affairs that forbids our making no distinction between guilt consciousness generally and the various kinds of neurotic guilt feelings, and deciding that since the latter exist, all guilt consciousness is the manifestation of a disease from which human beings ought to be liberated through a more humane type of education and through instruction of the masses. For if in fact there is a necessary connection between actions and their consequences, so that in the interaction that makes up society the consequences either strike back at the agent or do harm to social life itself, then it shows a lack of realism to shut our eyes to it and to declare that we can do without the idea of guilt, at least in the sense of holding agents responsible for the consequences of their actions."

- Pannenberg, Wolfhart. Anthropology in Theological Perspective. Translated by Matthew J. O'Connell. London: T & T Clark, 2004, 291.