(Bradford E. Hinze, D. Lyle Dabney) Advents of The

ADVENTS
OF THE
SPIRIT
An Introduction to the Current
Study of Pneumatology
ADVENTS
OF THE
SPIRIT
An Introduction to the Current
Study of Pneumatology
edited by
Bradford E. Hinze & D. Lyle Dabney
Marquette Studies in Theology No. 30
Andrew Tallon, Series Editor
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

Advents of the spirit : an introduction to the current study of
pneumatology / edited by Bradford E. Hinze & D. Lyle Dabney.
p. cm. — (Marquette studies in theology ; no. 30)
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 0-87462-679-X (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Holy Spirit. I. Hinze, Bradford E., 1954- II. Dabney, D. Lyle,
1951- III. Marquette studies in theology ; #30.
BT121.3 .A38 2001
231'.3—dc21
2001005938
All rights reserved. Published 2001.
Marquette University Press

© 2001 by Marquette University Press
Milwaukee Wisconsin
United States of America
Printed in the United States of America

for Marquette University Press
by Thomson-Shore, Dexter, Michigan, USA
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction ........................................................................... 11
by Bradford E. Hinze and D. Lyle Dabney
Biblical Perspectives on Pneumatology

2. The Fire in the Word: the Holy Spirit in Scripture ................. 35
by George T. Montague, S.M.
3. The Pluriform Foundation of Pneumatology .......................... 66

by John R. Levison
4. A Response to George T. Montague and John R. Levison ....... 86

by Carol Stockhausen
Historical Perspectives on Pneumatology

5. “Will the Real Paraclete Please Speak Forth!”:
The Catholic-Montanist Conflict over Pneumatology ............... 97
by William Tabbernee
6. “Montanists” Then and Now:

A Response to William Tabbernee ............................................ 117
by Frederick Norris
7. An Advent of the Spirit: Medieval Mystics and Saints ........... 121

by Elizabeth A. Dreyer
8. The Holy Spirit in Medieval Thought:

Some Examples in the Individual, Ecclesial and Scholarly Areas.
A Response to Elizabeth A. Dreyer .......................................... 161
by Wanda Zemler-Cizewski
Contemporary Philosophical Resources

9. In Whom We Have Our Being:
Philosophical Resources for the Doctrine of the Spirit ............. 171
by Philip Clayton
6 Hinze and Dabney Advents of the Spirit
10. Topics in Philosophical Pneumatology:

Inspiration, Wonder, Heart ....................................................... 206
by Steven G. Smith
11. The Idiom of Spirit: Discourse, Human Nature, and Otherness.

A Response to Philip Clayton and Steven G. Smith ................. 231
by Philip Rossi, S.J.
The Shape of Pneumatology: Issues and Debates
12. Why Should the Last Be First? The Priority of Pneumatology in

Recent Theological Discussion.................................................. 238
by D. Lyle Dabney
13. A Response to D. Lyle Dabney ........................................... 260

by Kilian McDonnell, O.S.B.
14. Identity through Self-Transcendence:

The Holy Spirit and the Fellowship of Free Persons ................. 263
by Bernd Jochen Hilberath
15. A Response to Bernd Jochen b?lberath ............................... 293

by Kilian McDonnell, O.S.B.
Spirit Christology and Trinity
16. The Trinitarian Personhood of the Holy Spirit .................... 300

by Jürgen Moltmann
17. Spirit Christology and the Trinity ....................................... 313

by David Coffey
18. A Response to Jürgen Moltmann and David Coffey ........... 337

by Ralph Del Colle
Contents 7
The Spirit and the Church

19. Releasing the Power of the Spirit
in a Trinitarian Ecclesiology ...................................................... 345
by Bradford E. Hinze
20. The Spirit and the Church .................................................. 380

by Miroslav Volf and Maurice Lee
21. A Response to Miroslav Volf and Bradford Hinze ............... 408

by Michael A. Fahey, S.J.
The Power of the Spirit in Christian Practices

22. Solidarity of Others in the Power of the Holy Spirit:
Pneumatology in a Divided World........................................... 414
by Anselm Kyongsuk Min
23. The Green Face of God:

Recovering the Spirit in an Ecocidal Era ................................... 442
by Mark I. Wallace
24. Spirit and the Cunning of Diversity:

A Response to Anselm Kyongsuk Min and Mark I. Wallace .... 463
by Nancy M. Victorin-Vangerud
Contributors ............................................................................. 471
Index of Names ........................................................................ 473
Index of Subjects ...................................................................... 493

Errata sheet for Table of Contents
The Table of Contents is correct through Chapter 5.
Beginning with Chapter 6, add 2 pages to the number given.
E.g., p. 117 becomes p. 119.
This is consistent until the entry for Index,
which should be p. 480 instead of p. 493.
Acknowledgments
“Of the making of books there is no end” (Ecclesiastes 12:12), said
the preacher of old to those who were to come after him. During the
last two years we have often been mindful of those words; but the
making of this book has at last come to an end—and a good end at
that. At the outset, therefore, we wish to acknowledge the help of
those who made both the symposium on Pneumatology that was
held at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on April 17-
19, 1998, as well as the subsequent editing of the symposium papers
for publication possible. First of all we wish to thank both the chair
of the Department of Theology, Patrick Carey, and the Graduate
School of Marquette University for all the support and assistance
they provided. In addition, we would like to express our appreciation
to an institution that has asked to remain anonymous (May its name
be written in heaven!); the grant we received made the symposium
and these papers financially possible. We thank our graduate assis-
tants Mary Ehle, Cheryl Peterson, Tom Harrington, Steve Stude-
baker, Matthew McKinnon, and Radu Bordeianu, whose aid greatly
eased the labor of editing these papers for publication. Finally, spe-
cial thanks to Andrew Tallon, the director of the press, for all his
help.
The Season of Pentecost

Milwaukee, Wisconsin
D. Lyle Dabney
Bradford Hinze
Introduction
“Veni, Sancte Spiritus,” “Come, Holy Spirit,” is an invocation that
has echoed down through the centuries as Christians have recalled,
celebrated, and anticipated the advent of the Spirit—not only that of
the great feast of Pentecost, but also in the countless places and times
in which God has breathed the Spirit anew into the history of God’s
people and the history of God’s world. This collection of essays seeks
to draw attention to that great variety of advents of the Spirit, and by
so doing to offer an orientation for scholars and students alike to the
study of Pneumatology, the disciplined reflection on the Christian
doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
These essays were originally prepared for a symposium on
Pneumatology that was held at Marquette University in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, on April 17-19, 1998. The group of international and
ecumenical scholars that convened for this event—historians, bibli-
cal exegetes, philosophers and systematicians—were invited both be-
cause of their reputation in their respective fields as well as their widely
recognized contributions to the study of this doctrine. Their collec-
tive mandate was to investigate the manifestations of the Spirit as
these are being treated in the various theological disciplines. From
the beginning, therefore, the intention was to produce a set of papers
that would serve as an effective introduction to the current state of
research into Pneumatology.
A New Advent of the Spirit

The publication of this volume itself marks the new advent of the
Spirit that occurred in both Catholic and Protestant theology during
the second half of the twentieth century. This new emphasis upon
Pneumatology represents a profound sea-change in the course of the
theological dialogue: a turn from a singular concentration on the
identity and mission of Jesus Christ that characterized most of mod-
ern theology to a new interest in and investigation of the doctrine of
the Holy Spirit. Perhaps the most graphic way of illustrating that is
to observe that Rudolf Bultmann, writing almost sixty years ago,
claimed that the modern individual—and in that category he in-
cluded the modern theologian—
12 Dabney and Hinze Advents of the Spirit
… finds what the New Testament has to say about the ‘Spirit’
(pneu``ma) … utterly strange and incomprehensible. Biological
man cannot see how a supernatural entity like the pneu``ma can
penetrate within the close texture of his natural powers and set to
work within him. Nor can the idealist understand how a pneu``ma
working like a natural power can touch and influence his mind and
spirit1.
Some sixty years later the situation has changed remarkably. Mod-
ern—or perhaps ‘postmodern’—men and women are once again us-
ing the language of s/Spirit freely; and they seem to think they know
what they are talking about! Correspondingly, any number of theo-
logians have now set themselves anew to recover testimonies of the
agency of the Spirit in the past, to heed experiences of the Spirit in
the present, and to understand how these bear upon the future-ori-
ented identity and mission of the triune God at work in church and
world.
Why and how has this shift occurred? To answer that question, we
must first look to the reasons that caused the modern turn to a re-
newed emphasis on Christology in the first place. Only then can we
make clear what the recent emergence of Pneumatology represents.
Christianity has at its center the confession that in Jesus Christ
“God was at work reconciling the world to himself ” (II Cor 5:18).
From the beginning, therefore, Christianity has contended that Christ
and God must be held together in thought and worship. That was
not only the focus of much of the debate between the early Christian
church and the contemporary Jewish synagogue in the first century,
it was also the central issue in question as Christianity emerged from
the Jewish subculture and began to make its way in the dominant
culture of the Greco-Roman world of the second century. As Jaroslav
Pelikan has pointed out, the oldest surviving Christian sermon fol-
lowing the New Testament, the oldest surviving account of the death
of a Christian martyr, and the oldest surviving pagan report on Chris-
tian worship—each dating back to the end of the first, the beginning
of the second century—all make reference to the fundamental Chris-
tian conviction that in all our words and deeds and worship we “ought
so to speak of Jesus Christ as of God”2.
To the Jewish synagogue this was blasphemy, but to a culture shaped
by Hellenism this was nonsense. For Hellenism had a long and com-
plex history of popular and philosophical discourse about divinity
Introduction 13
characterized by the depiction of the divine as an eternal and imper-

sonal principle, transcendent and unchanging, which both stood above
the realm of the ‘gods’ yet manifested itself in the cosmos through
these subordinate and personal beings.3 On this account, therefore,
divinity could be reflected in history in past heroes and present
Caesars, as well as in those instances of the good, the true, and the
beautiful that dimly mirrored the transcendent and unchanging. But
that was not the Christian claim. In Christ, the early church main-
tained, a quite ‘personal’ God was himself present and active in time
and space in that concrete existence. For Hellenism that was literally
unthinkable: the divine was by definition unchanging and impas-
sible, yet these Christians were claiming that the one who was truly
divine, God, was present and active in the change and suffering of
the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. How could one
possibly think that? For that reason, the history of the theology of
the patristic era is that of the struggle to articulate and defend that
central Christian claim in the context of a Hellenistic culture. That
came to a climax in the patristic tradition first in the creed of 325
confessing that the Son was oJmoouvs io~ with the Father, secondly in
the creed of 381 which then drew the conclusion from that first sym-
bol and the subsequent debates about the Holy Spirit that God was a
Trinity of Father, Son, and Spirit, and finally at Chalcedon in 451
where the doctrine of the two natures of Christ was affirmed. These
councils and creeds by no means reconciled the divergent theological
traditions of Hellenism and Christianity; rather, they restated the
Christian contention that we “we ought so to think of Christ as God”
in the conceptuality of Greek philosophy.
It was especially in the subsequent period, the medieval era, that a
sustained effort was made to go beyond the assertion of the creeds
and to bring these two traditions of theology together in order to
advance the task of thinking constructively about God. In the West,
beginning with Augustine of Hippo, and developed further by a se-
ries of philosopher/theologians such as Boethius, Anselm of Canter-
bury, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and William of Occam, what
in a later age would sometimes be called ‘classical philosophical the-
ism’ reached its apex in a series of early modern philosophers from
Descartes to Leibniz that increasingly developed their understanding
of God without reference to the Christian confession of God in
Christ.4 But whether explicitly Christian or not, this whole tradition
held the divine to be an eternal and unchanging substance, a simple
source of all the perfections and the transcendentals—the true, the

good, and the beautiful. And in Christian theology throughout the
medieval, reformation, and early modern periods, such theism was
the very context in which the specifically Christian account of ‘God
as Trinity’ and ‘God in Christ’ was formulated—whether in Catholic
or Protestant circles.
But it was precisely that theism that was called into question both
as to its rational possibility and substantial claims by the rise of mod-
ern science and philosophy. The changeover from Ptolemaic to
Newtonian cosmology and science led to the claim that God was
superfluous when it came to explaining the processes of the natural
world. The relation between God and world was depicted instead as
like that of the craftsman and the clock: God was the master
clockmaker who designed and created the cosmos and then set it to
running, and the world was a vast and intricate machine that func-
tioned according to its own inherent natural laws apart from and in
the de facto absence of God. This raised all the questions again about
how God could be in Christ; it is no accident that Newton himself
became a proponent of Arian Christology. To make matters worse
for classical philosophical theism, the critical philosophy of Immanuel
Kant then challenged the very possibility of the rational knowledge
of the existence and nature of God, setting the stage for the on-going
struggle in modern philosophy to recover or dismiss the traditional
notion of divinity itself from our vocabulary. Modern critical, em-
piricist, and idealist philosophies chiseled away at the underlying as-
sumptions of classical theism about the divine reality as substance,
the relationship between a knowable natural realm and a dubious
supernatural realm, and how divine action in creation and history
was to be construed. These developments represented a profound
crisis in the history of Western Christian theology. For how was Chris-
tianity to articulate its witness to God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
and how were Christians to speak of God in Christ in the absence of
the theism that had for so long been its linguistic and conceptual
home?
To answer that question, theologians turned anew in the modern
period to the center of Christian witness, to Christology. This turn
took two primary forms: the search for the historical Jesus and the
emphasis on the Son as the revelation of God. Beginning at the end
of the eighteenth century with Hermann Samuel Reimarus and car-
ried on by such figures as Friedrich Schleiermacher, David Friedrich
Introduction 15
Strauss, and Joseph Ernest Renan in the nineteenth century, the quest
for the historical Jesus occupied generations of theologians, both Prot-
estant and Catholic, in countless attempts to construct a strictly his-
torical account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The expectation was
that the application of the developing canons of modern historiogra-
phy to the primary documents of the New Testament would enable
the modern scholar to get behind the questionable ecclesiastical ac-
counts of the Christ of faith to the Jesus of history. Not only would
this provide them with a kind of intellectual leverage in their efforts
to bring change to Christianity, its dogmas and institutions, it would
also provide them with an apparently rational way of approaching
the question of God in Christ that would enable them to bridge the
“ugly ditch” between God and world, the divine and the historical,
the historically accidental and the metaphysically necessary that had
arisen as a result of modern science and philosophy.5 An enlightened
and/or a compassionate teacher, the historical Jesus could avoid the
questions about such issues as miracles, prophecies, and resurrection.
The second primary form of the turn to Christology in the mod-
ern period did not seek to get behind the traditional doctrine of Christ
but rather to reappropriate it in terms of God’s self-revelation. The
theologians who took this turn did so as heirs of the debates between
Protestant and Catholics in the sixteenth and seventeenth century
about nature and grace, and about scriptural and ecclesiastical au-
thority. From the beginning these confessional debates at the cross-
roads of the doctrines of redemption and ecclesiology were most of-
ten set forth, if not resolved in terms of Christology. This was espe-
cially the case among Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, and Roman
Catholic theologians, more so than by representatives of the so-called
‘Radical’ Reformation, not only in the sixteenth century, but with
increasing rigor in the nineteenth and twentieth century. The role of
the Spirit in the work of redemption and sanctification and in the
personal “inner testimony” and ecclesial interpretation of the scrip-
tures was neither denied, nor ignored, but - in keeping with the
Western doctrine of the Filioque—it was the priestly, prophetic, and
kingly offices of Christ that were accentuated in the understanding
of redemption and the church, to which Pneumatology was largely
subordinated. Thus, liberal and rationalist and revisionist depictions
of the life of Jesus were countered by confessional and orthodox re-
sponses. For every rationalist, liberal, and romantic life written, there
were scores of responses by representatives of the Erlangen school,
the Tübingen School, the Oxford movement, and the Neo-Scholas-

tics, and countless other theological centers throughout Europe and
the North America committed to a fuller articulation of the identity
and mission of Jesus Christ in accordance with the received heritage
of the canonical scriptures, the creeds, and baptismal and eucharistic
liturgies.
The story-line of this modern preoccupation with Christology was
not significantly altered for theology in the twentieth century. A lively
interest in the quest for the historical Jesus marked the beginning
and end of the century: Albert Schweitzer and William Wrede and
Alfred Loisy have been followed by John Dominic Crossan, Marcus
Borg, and N.T. Wright. So too has there been the recurrence of criti-
cal resistance to these approaches to Jesus: from Martin Kähler and
Rudolf Bultmann at the beginning of the century to Luke Timothy
Johnson and Schubert Ogden at the end. And in the periods be-
tween and following the World Wars, the theologies that came to
shape the faith and practices of the churches were, in their inception
and their final disposition, christocentric. Karl Barth and Hans Urs
von Balthasar are the standard bearers here. Their theologies con-
fronted the modern challenges to classical theism by emphasizing
the transcendence of God and a high Christology. Their responses
labored with a christological surplus; every doctrine was interpreted
above all through the lens of Christology. The basis of a critique of
modernity for them, therefore, lies in the Word made flesh in Jesus
Christ, the Son of God.
The modern period, therefore, has been characterized by the turn
to Christology in both Catholic and Protestant theology - as well as
in forms of theological discourse at odds with both those dominant
Western traditions. Interest in the doctrine of the Spirit, however
was not entirely absent, and such Pneumatology as there was should
not be dismissed or disparaged. In the nineteenth century, consider-
able attention was given to the divine and absolute Spirit in relation
to human spirit and the spirit of the community. This is especially
noteworthy in the works of Reformed theologian Friedrich
Schleiermacher, the Lutheran philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, and their
Catholic contemporary Johann Adam Möhler. But for all their ad-
vancement of Spirit as a productive topic, it was their christological
contributions that had a more immediate, longer lasting, and more
noticeable reception.
Introduction 17
In the twentieth century, however, when everyone would have pre-

dicted more of the same, when the robustness and energy of
christological inquiry seemed to have no limits, a new advent of the
Spirit in both the theology and the life of the churches began to take
place. It may seem artificial to speak of a new advent of the Holy
Spirit, since it is a staple of Christian faith that the Spirit has never
ceased to work in the church and in the world, in the hearts, minds,
and bodies of believers and churches, and even in peoples and places
seemingly distant from the stirrings of faith. It may seem unwar-
ranted to talk about a renewal of Pneumatology, when the topic of
the Spirit in theological treatises in the various theological disciplines
had not been entirely overlooked. But there is abundant evidence
that increasing attention has been given to the Spirit and to
Pneumatology during the second half of the twentieth century. There
are at least three factors that are responsible for that unforeseen turn
to the Spirit: the emergence of new forms of Christianity which em-
phasize Pneumatology to a greater extent than has often been the
case in the West, the development of the theological conversation
itself among the traditionally dominant churches in which
Pneumatology has been discovered anew as a theological resource,
and changes in contemporary culture which make the language of
spirit more readily available for theological use in worship and wit-
ness. Each of these has contributed something unique to the rise in
importance of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in recent decades.
The first of these factors is the emergence of the Pentecostal and
Charismatic movements, events that have had a profound influence
upon the doctrinal concerns—if not upon the doctrinal formula-
tions—of the churches of the West in the twentieth century. 6 Made
up of a complex set of interconnected ecclesiastical groups and insti-
tutions best described as a ‘movement’ rather than a ‘church’,
Pentecostalism has a history of less than one hundred years. Emerg-
ing among the poor and marginalized in a Western culture undergo-
ing rapid de-Christianization and accelerating globalization, it has
grown from virtually nothing to numbers approaching 500 million
world-wide—second only to Roman Catholicism (approximately 950
million) among the Christian churches. Its theological heritage is
complex if not contradictory. It originated as a kind of Protestant-
ism. But not the kind of sixteenth-century Lutheranism that pro-
claimed the freedom of the Christian who is justified by faith as a
protest against medieval Roman Catholicism with its hierarchical
theology of nature fulfilled by grace. Nor is it the kind of Protestant-

ism which emerged in the second generation of the Reformation, the
Calvinist tradition that sought to interpret all things, including God’s
redemption of the church through Christ, in terms of the sovereignty
of God, and struggled to conform and reform Christendom—both
church and society—to and in light of the revelation of God’s will in
God’s Word. Rather, Pentecostalism was stamped from the begin-
ning by Wesleyanism, a sort of counter-tradition within English Prot-
estantism that protested against what it perceived as the formalism in
doctrine and practice of the established Protestant (and Catholic)
churches and called for both a personal and social experience of not
just forensic but transforming righteousness through Christ in the
free grace of God’s Spirit. From the beginning, therefore, the central
issue for Pentecostals has turned around an emphasis on the experi-
ence of the Holy Spirit as a ‘second work of grace’ subsequent to an
act of redemption by Christ on the cross—a doctrinal formula inher-
ited from John Wesley and mediated through the American Holiness
tradition, a proclamation of a ‘baptism in the Holy Spirit’ that was at
one and the same time a rebuke and promise to the dominant churches
as well as an assurance to its recipients of divine enablement as they
pursued God’s mission of evangelism in what they took to be the
shadow of the second coming of Christ.
Pentecostalism has come to exercise directly and indirectly a perva-
sive influence upon the congregational life of Christians around the
world in the course of the twentieth century, not least through the
related Charismatic movement, a largely middle-class movement that
emerged within the historic churches in the second half of the cen-
tury which tends to interpret the work of the Spirit within the tradi-
tional doctrinal formulations of those churches. These related move-
ments have reshaped much of the Christian experience of divine grace
in Europe and North America. Reports of charismatic experiences
among members of Protestant churches, for instance, including An-
glicans, Presbyterian, and Lutheran, were heard beginning in the late
fifties and early sixties, as well among Catholics in the late sixties.7
More dramatically, a Pentecostal version of Evangelical Christianity
has increasingly influenced how Christianity is being introduced and
lived in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. With these ubiquitous ex-
periences of the Spirit, some have suggested that the Pentecostal
movement now represents a new form of Christianity for a global
culture.8 What began as an explicitly ecumenical revival movement,
Introduction 19
not seeking to found new churches, but to renew them, has increas-
ingly come to represent a challenge to the older churches of the West,
with the result that both church leaders and theologians have had to
ponder and negotiate the rapid growth world-wide in Evangelical
and Pentecostal communities.9 These charismatic movements can be
viewed as a part of a much larger renaissance of interest in spirituality
and mysticism, and experiences of smaller Christian communities
that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century.10 But taken
as a whole these various experiences of the Spirit have raised disturb-
ing questions about how to integrate dynamic personal experiences
of the Spirit of Jesus Christ within the doctrinal and liturgical life of
the churches as well as the significance of these experiences for evan-
gelization and catechesis.
The second factor contributing to the turn to Pneumatology in
the latter decades of the twentieth century is the development of the
theological debates within the traditionally dominant churches of
the West. Theology in this century has been pursued in these circles
in the context of ecumenical rapprochement and social as well as
intellection transition, with each playing a role in the turn to the
Spirit. Ecumenical dialogue, first between Protestant traditions, then
between Protestants and Catholics, and finally between those domi-
nant Western churches and representatives of the Orthodox churches
and Radical Reformation communities have offered important op-
portunities and inducements for deeper reflection on the role of the
Spirit in the life of the believer and in the life of the church among all
the participating parties. For Orthodox and Anabaptist traditions—
long isolated from the dominate Western traditions by both history
and social circumstance—have given greater attention to the experi-
ences and theological expressions of the Holy Spirit in the economy
of salvation and the life of the Christian community than have their
established sister-churches in the West. The ecumenical dialogue has
therefore afforded an opportunity for honest and wide ranging dis-
cussions about the personal and ecclesial implications of Western and
Eastern approaches to the Spirit as well as to differences among West-
ern Christian communities. In the course of the dialogue
Pneumatology has come to be seen as a resource for speaking of that
which makes one of the many communities of worship and witness
to Jesus Christ in the fellowship of the Spirit and that which unites
those communities with all God’s creation. Reflecting this, official
Protestant and Catholic teachings underwent a dramatic shift during
the second half of the twentieth century from a christocentric ap-

proach to creation, cultures, and ecclesial matters to more self-con-
sciously pneumatological and trinitarian approaches. We see this
change taking place during the assembly of the World Council of
Churches in New Delhi in 1961 and during the Vatican Council II
from 1962 to 1965.11 Increased reflection on the role of the Spirit
continued at the World Council of Churches assembly in Canberra
1991 as well as in official teachings of various church communions
during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.12
Pneumatology has also emerged as an important theme in the work
of a number of major theologians in this period as they have struggled
to come to grips with the social and intellectual changes that charac-
terized the twentieth century. This can be seen, for instance, in the
work of Karl Barth, whose theology—forged in the fires of two world
wars that destroyed one European civilization and gave birth to an-
other—is a classic example of the modern turn to a christological
concentration in his investigation into all the traditional loci of Chris-
tian doctrine as he sought to answer what he defined as the anthro-
pological starting point of the Christology of Schleiermacher and
Protestant Liberal theology. Yet at the end of his life, Barth suggested
that his theological program might very well have been better served
by developing it within the context of a theology of the third article
of the creed, a theology of the Holy Spirit. Similar developments can
be seen in the work of important figures in Catholic theology: those
who were initially champions of a christocentric approach to doctri-
nal issues but who in their later years devoted more attention to the
role of the Spirit include theologians of the stature of Hans Urs von
Balthasar and Karl Rahner. And the proponents of Pneumatology
over the past four decades, including Jürgen Moltmann, whose
pneumatological interests are related to social justice and ecological
concerns; Heribert Mühlen, whose Pneumatology is tied to his ecu-
menical and church renewal commitments; and Michael Welker,
whose turn to the Spirit has to do with his interest in consciously
doing theology in a pluralist intellectual context, have contributed to
a now firmly established and wide interest in the study of the doc-
trine of the Holy Spirit. In all of this it must be seen that the turn
from the strict christocentrism that characterized a great deal of mod-
ern theology to the more recent interest in Pneumatology is not a
move away from the center of Christian worship and witness in Jesus
Christ. It is, rather, a search for a mode of witness to and worship of
Introduction 21
Christ that is more true to the biblical witness and the theological
tradition than was much of earlier christomonism—as well as more
authentic to the rapidly changing social and intellectual world in
which Christian theology now must render its account of faith in
Jesus Christ.
The third factor contributing to the turn to the doctrine of the
Holy Spirit in the second half of the twentieth century is the rapid
cultural change that is occurring in Western society. The modern
period began with the Enlightenment, a philosophical and cultural
movement that sought to provide a new intellectual foundation for a
new kind of social world, radically modifying if not utterly replacing
the religious foundation of better than a thousand years of Western
Christendom. Its vision of an objective, universal human rationality
that could investigate and master all the processes of nature and sys-
tematically turn them to the service of the human project was the
ideological impetus for the science and technology that shaped the
modern world. But the last century has seen that vision falter. Its
epistemological foundations have been eroded and its dream of a
technological society has increasingly shown itself to be not just the
boon of humanity but also its bane: the very science that has pro-
duced modern medicine, agriculture, manufacturing, travel, and com-
munication is also that which poisons our water and air, depletes our
resources, contributes to the impoverishment of large parts of hu-
manity and hold us hostage to weapons of mass destruction. It is also
a vision of the world that has proven itself to be strangely barren and
empty; one in which our wealth in consumer goods cannot get what
we so often feel is the poverty of our lives. The declaration of a gen-
eration ago that ‘God is dead’ is thus best understood not as a state-
ment about God but about a social world that has turned from its
traditional moorings in the Christian tradition and the classical philo-
sophical theism in which its witness was couched and has discovered
itself to be adrift in an endless universe. In that context, a host of new
voices: from psychologists, biologists, physicists, and philosophers to
pop commentators and gurus have themselves turned to the language
of ‘spirit’ as that which speaks of something more and something
other. For that reason, the language of s/Spirit has become available
for discourse—Christian and otherwise—in a way that has not al-
ways been the case in the history of the West. And in that context of
talk about spirit, Christian theologians are learning anew to speak
not just of any spirit, but of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
For all these reasons and more we have witnessed a turn to

Pneumatology in much of recent theology. This turn represents a
search for a more adequate language of God in Christ than was or is
to be found in the life of Jesus research—a project whose epistemo-
logical and methodological practices are now deeply compromised
by the erosion of the Enlightenment foundationalism their histori-
ography presupposes. It is at the same time a search for a more ad-
equate way of speaking about God in the world than we have found
in the theologies of revelation that emphasize the address of God to
the human and all too often result in reducing the human and the
world of the human to simply the object of divine word and deed. It
is the search for a mode of discourse that will better enable us to
speak not just of the presence and activity of God in and with God’s
church, but also God’s presence and activity in all God’s world. And
it is the search for a more adequate language of worship and witness
to God in Christ in the aftermath of the modern crisis of classical
philosophical theism. The turn to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit can
be described, therefore, as not just a new advent of the Spirit but as a
new sounding of the cry that has marked the whole of the Christian
theological tradition as it has been called upon to render an account
of faith in Jesus Christ in the various and sundry historical and social
contexts in which Christianity has found itself: “Veni, Sancte Spiri-
tus,” “Come, Holy Spirit.” This collection of papers is an example of
that call—and perhaps an intimation of a response.
The Scope of This Project

If this volume marks a new advent of the Spirit in the theology of the
twentieth century, then the scope of this collection of essays reflects
the diversity of advents of the Spirit in both the past and the present.
By design this collection of essays on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit
has been written by an ecumenical and interdisciplinary group of
recognized international scholars. These essays reflect mainstream
Catholic and Protestant scholarship in biblical studies, historical the-
ology, philosophy of religion, systematic theology, and practical the-
ology. Over the past generation we have witnessed a growing body of
literature on Pneumatology across all those disciplines, and intro-
ductions have begun to appear, but nothing with the scholarly breadth
and ecumenical outlook that this collection of essays embodies.
This collection has been conceived for the widest possible audi-
ence, including graduate students, ministry students, upper-level
Introduction 23
undergraduate students, and specialists across the theological disci-

plines. It has been designed to serve well as a textbook and as a valu-
able resource book for people working in theology and in church
ministries. There is evidence of a growing audience for publications
on Pneumatology and, correspondingly, there are more classes being
offered on this topic than ever before. The ubiquitous courses in
Christology are increasingly being complemented with courses in
Pneumatology. This volume could be a helpful book in these various
contexts and in fact it could be helpful for professors as they seek to
design new courses on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Not only do
these essays articulate the state of the question in this field and offer
various constructive viewpoints, but collectively they can also shape
the ongoing discussions and debates.
The Areas and Contributions

This collection of papers is divided into seven groups, each address-
ing the question of Pneumatology in a different area of theological
inquiry: Scripture, history, philosophy, and basic issues in the doc-
trine of the Spirit, including Pneumatology and the doctrines of
Christology and Trinity, Pneumatology and ecclesiology, and practi-
cal theology and the Spirit. Each group consists of two major papers
and at least one response. It should be noted that we are well aware
that despite our best efforts, two lacunae remain in this collection:
we were unable to involve either a Pentecostal or feminist theologian
as a constributor of a major paper. The first was caused by a failure to
locate in a timely fashion an appropriate representative of
Pentecostalism that could participate. There are a number of newer
Pentecostal theologians now active in the field who would have made
a significant contribution, but that will now have to wait for our next
effort. The second missing voice in this conversation is that of femi-
nism, a movement that has had much to say about the Spirit of late.
That lack is related to the illness of Catherine Mowry LaCugna, who
had accepted an invitation to contribute to the symposium but was
prevented from doing so by her sudden and unexpected death. But
apart from those two lacunae, this collection of papers represents
some of the very best of recent scholarship on the state of the ques-
tion concerning the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
The first set of essays explores current research on the Spirit in the
Bible. George Montague, S.M., surveys the canonical biblical wit-
ness for symbolic and thematic resources for Pneumatology. The first
section is devoted to biblical images of the Spirit: life-breath, wind,

fire, water, cloud, dove, and Paraclete. He then considers God as the
source of the Spirit in the Old Testament and the Messiah as the
source in the New. Finally he reflects upon the Holy Spirit as an
eschatological gift that is relational, sanctifying and transforming,
empowering for endurance, charismatic and ministerial. John Levison
explores various conceptions of the Spirit that may in fact seem con-
tradictory: within the Hebrew Scriptures, and in selected first-cen-
tury Jewish authors of the Greco-Roman era (The Dead Sea Scrolls
found at Qumran, Philo, and Josephus), culminating in an analysis
of the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. In each of his first-
century writers he explores the kinship with various Greco-Roman
conceptions of the spirit found in Stoic texts, Plutarch, and Plato.
Carol Stockhausen interrogates the contrasting methods and materi-
als employed in the two papers and draws on insights garnered from
Levison’s approach to investigate the contribution of Paul on the Spirit
in 1 Corinthians 12-14.
The second set of essays focus on historical perspectives, contribu-
tions, and resources. William Tabbernee reconsiders whether the spirit
which spoke through Montanus, Maximilla, and Priscilla was really
the Paraclete, the “Spirit of Truth,” whom Jesus, according to nor-
mative Christian tradition, had promised would be sent to the church,
or was the spirit which inspired the Montanist prophets a false spirit?
Through an examination of primary texts and his work on epigraphic
sources for Montanism, he seeks to defend the Montanists against
the charge of heresy. Frederick Norris underscores the significance of
Tabbernee’s work and explores provocative parallels with Pentecos-
tals during the twentieth century in Africa, Asia, and South America.
Elizabeth Dreyer investigates five authors on one theme in their
narratives of the Spirit: Augustine on Spirit-empowered speech;
Hildegard of Bingen on the Spirit as viriditas (verdant); Bernard of
Clairvaux on the Holy Spirit as the kiss of the beloved; Bonaventure
on the Spirit as symbol of God’s magnanimity; and Catherine of
Siena on the Holy Spirit as servant. In her response, Wanda Zemler-
Cizewski questions Dreyer’s chosen method of selecting individual
themes and authors in diverse times and places rather than exploring
one time period and wider. She then follows Dreyer’s approach by
exploring the contributions of Rupert of Deutz, Peter Abelard, and
Hugh of St. Victor. She concludes by discussing the difficulties caused
by the differences of time and place in a paper that spans from the
Introduction 25
African Augustine in the 5th and 6th centuries to the German Hildegard
in the 12th century..
The third set of essays is devoted to contemporary philosophical
resources. Philip Clayton examines the philosophical avenues for
Pneumatology under three rubrics: “postfoundationalist” approaches
to Pneumatology, idealist theories of the nature of subjectivity, and
panentheistic construals of the God/world relationship. Steven G.
Smith explores spirit and the spiritual by way of philosophical reflec-
tion on the two aspects of meaning, determinable and indetermin-
able, or specifiable and mysterious as these are manifest in experi-
ences of inspiration, wonder, and heart. In order to address this two-
sided character of meaning, he calls for a position that is transmeta-
physical, situated between monolithic metaphysical systems on the
one hand and the anti-metaphysical gestures on the other. Philip Rossi
explores a variety of convergences in the papers by Clayton and Smith
including their efforts to articulate relational forms of human sub-
jectivity as a resource for conceptualizing spirit, while acknowledg-
ing that metaphysics is a necessary facet of this enterprise even if
contested. He goes on to reflect upon the problem of the diversity of
idioms of spirit and how they might be constructively engaged in
cultural and social spheres; about the absence of the language of hu-
man nature when speaking about subjectivity, intersubjectivity, and
language in these papers and about the reasons for reluctance in us-
ing this mode of discourse; finally, he concludes by turning to the
issue of metaphysics in relation to the linguistic character of the hu-
man person.
The fourth set of papers seeks to identify some of the issues and
debates concerning how we approach the discipline of Pneumatology.
Lyle Dabney explores the notion that has arisen among some recent
scholars that Pneumatology should serve as the point of departure
for all our discourse—theological or otherwise. He begins by exam-
ining the claims of the philosopher Steven G. Smith and the system-
atic theologian Michael Welker and then goes on to develop his own
argument. Christianity now finds itself, he suggests, living in a world
both postmodern and post-Christendom, in that both the privileged
place of Christian revelation in Western society as well as the En-
lightenment epistemological foundationalism that challenged and
sought to replace that particular religious authority with a universal
rational authority have been discredited. In that context, Dabney
argues, the most appropriate form of Christian theology is not the
two versions that have dominated the West, traditions that he char-
acterizes as theologies of the first and second articles of the creed, but
a theology of the third article, a theology of the Holy Spirit. The last
should then, in this sense, at last be first.
Bernd Jochen Hilberath espouses the claim that the Holy Spirit as
person is that which we seek to bring about in our own lives: identity
through self-transcendence. The realization of personhood takes place
in two steps which correlate with each other. The first is the move-
ment of self-transcendence: the “I” reaches beyond itself to others.
Thus the “I” finds its identity, its “self ”: this is “I-myself ”. The sec-
ond step is a “re-gression”: the “I” withdraws to make room for oth-
ers. Thus the “I” makes it possible for others to find their identity
without losing its own in the process: this is you yourself, and this is
“I” myself. In this double movement identity and fellowship, person
and communio, are realized: this is you, this is “I,” this is we. This
understanding of the Holy Spirit as person is then taken as that which
characterizes the role played by the Spirit in the life of the Trinity.
Kilian McDonnell offers a two-fold critical response, first to
Dabney’s paper and then to that of Hilberath. With regard to the
first, he raises the issue of Trinity, the cross, and pneumatological
priority in patristic theology. McDonnell emphasizes that the proper
context for Pneumatology is the doctrine of the Trinity, and he draws
attention to the christomonism that has characterized much of West-
ern theology in both the Catholic and Protestant traditions while
warning that it would not be progress to replace such christomonism,
with an ecumenical pneumatological monism. He commends Dabney
for pointing to the cross as central to the biblical testimony to the
redemptive work of the Holy Spirit and cites a number of Christian
theologians who echo that emphasis. He concludes with series of
examples from patristic theology that also insist that all our knowl-
edge of God begins with the Spirit. In response to Hilberath, some of
the same themes come to the fore: McDonnell praises his effort to
pursue his pneumatological agenda strictly within the context of the
trinitarian tradition, and draws attention to his careful consideration
of the notion of ‘person’ with regard to the Spirit. He then goes on to
draw parallels between Hilberath’s arguments and those of any num-
ber of earlier theologians of East and West.
The fifth area concerns Spirit Christology and the Trinity. Jürgen
Moltmann offers a contribution on the ‘Trinitarian Personhood of
God’ in which he approaches the inner-trinitarian Personhood of the
Introduction 27
Holy Spirit by analyzing his relationship to the Father and the Son in
the trinitarian movements referred to as the ‘Economic Trinity’, and
then turns his attention to the recognition of the so called ‘Imma-
nent Trinity’ in the doxologies of human praise. He does so in the
context of an examination of a succession of conceptual models used
to help understand the Trinity in the history of theology: 1) the mo-
narchical Trinity; 2) the Trinity in eschatological process; 3) the eu-
charistic Trinity; and 4) the doxological Trinity. His conclusion is
that the personhood of the Spirit in the Trinity is clear: If God the
Father is the origin of the divine Being of the Son and the Spirit, and
if the Son is the origin of the divine Love of the Father and the Spirit,
then the Holy Spirit is the origin of the divine Light which illuminated
the Father and the Son. In the complete harmony of Being, Love, and
Light we recognize the full Joy and the perfect Bliss of the Trinity.
David Coffey echoes the theme of this fifth set of papers: Spirit
Christology and Trinity. He raises the question as to the connection
between these terms and the realities that they represent, and argues
the thesis that indeed there is a connection, for Spirit Christology
provides our best mode of access to the theology of the Trinity. The
kind of Spirit Christology that he finds most promising in this re-
gard is that espoused by Cyril of Alexandria and Augustine. Its prom-
ise, he claims, consists in the fact that it can do greater justice to the
entire sweep of the New Testament evidence about Christ than does
the traditional Logos Christology, with which, however, it is by no
means incompatible. As Christ provides our only access to the Trin-
ity, Coffee argues, this means in turn that the way is opened to a
more profound trinitarian theology. This theology is summed up in
the statement that the Holy Spirit is the mutual love of the Father
and the Son. While the reconciliation of Western Filioquism (the
Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son) and Eastern Monopatrism
(the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone) does not depend on this
theology, the latter does illustrate both their reconciliation and their
present limits in a remarkably clear way. As a comprehensive trinitarian
theology, it can accommodate the various and sometimes apparently
conflicting statements about the Trinity issuing from East and West,
and point beyond them to a future in which the one developed
trinitarian faith can be shared in the one great Church, albeit with
different emphases according to particular traditions. Finally, it shows
us the tragedy of schism, for the rupture of communion impedes the
balanced development of doctrine that should act as a binding force

helping to unite the Church ever more closely in faith and love.
Responding to Moltman and Coffey, Ralph Del Colle points out
that within the parameters of common concerns and significant agree-
ment to be found in these papers, there exists an issue that they have
yet to fully consider and adjudicate: the question of how Spirit
Christology explicates the eternal relation between the Son and the
Holy Spirit within the Trinity? For all their commonalities, includ-
ing the claim that Spirit Christology does not dismiss Logos Christo-
logy but includes it within itself, and that Spirit Christology is more
thoroughly trinitarian than Logos Christology has been or can be,
their respective papers imply very different answers to that question.
Their answers, Del Colle argues, are determined by their acceptance
or rejection of the filioque. The bulk of his comments, therefore,
examines the way that doctrine shapes Moltmann’s and Coffee’s ar-
guments and how they might find a way beyond their differing con-
clusions drawn from a common point of departure.
The sixth topic pertains to issues in Pneumatology and the Church.
Bradford Hinze narrates selected episodes in modern Catholic
ecclesiology in order to highlight the transition that has occurred
from a christocentric approach to more Spirit-centered and trinitarian
approaches. The early 19th century theologian Johann Adam Möhler
provides a counterpoint for exploring the pioneering contributions
of Yves Congar, Heribert Mühlen, and Karl Rahner, followed by the
work of liberation theologians, and the critique of excessive empha-
sis on the Spirit by Henri de Lubac among others. The paper closes
by sketching how this renewal of Pneumatology bears upon the for-
mulation of the nature and mission of the church, and in particular
serves as an incentive for greater catholicity, deeper communion, and
more effective communication. Moroslav Volf and Maurice Lee be-
gin their exploration of how the Spirit is related to the church, by
showing how the identification of Christ and the church is partially
based on the fact that it is the same Spirit at work in Jesus’ ministry
and in the church; but the difference between Christ and the church
is based on the difference in the Spirit’s presence in both. The nature
of the church is treated in terms of the gathering of a diversity of
people, with diverse ministerial gifts, who are united in love, and
reflect the tinitarian image. The mission of the church is treated in
terms of identity, rebirth of persons, reconciliation of people, care of
bodies, and finally, hiddenness and openness. Michael Fahey in his
Introduction 29
response highlights three issues that merit greater attention. First, he

emphasizes the importance of exploring the role of the Spirit in sac-
ramental, liturgical theology for a fuller understanding of the church.
Second, he gives particular attention to the important contributions
of Orthodox theology. Third, he underscores the contributions to
this topic in the World Council of Churches, and in the various bi-
lateral and multilateral ecumenical dialogues.
The seventh set of studies explores the new avenues in Pneumatology
for Christian Practices of social justice and ecological integrity. Anselm
Min, proposes to highlight the person and role of the Holy Spirit as
the Spirit of solidarity of Others. His thesis is that “as the Spirit pro-
ceeds from the Father and the Son precisely as their mutual love, so it
is the function of the Spirit to create, empower, inspire, and liberate
finite beings precisely for solidarity and communion with God and
with one another through the exemplary mediation of the Son whose
life is the definitive embodiment of solidarity of Others. The
personhood of the Spirit lies precisely in the power and activity of
relating, reconciling, and in general creating communion and soli-
darity in the life of both the immanent and economic Trinity.” Mark
Wallace explores the deep connection between the yearning for the
Spirit in religious life and the cultural anxiety over the environmen-
tal crisis. He asks, “Could it be that the most compelling response to
the threat of ecocide lies in a recovery of the Holy Spirit as God’s
power of life-giving breath who indwells and sustains all life-forms?
Could it be that an earth-centered reenvisioning of the Spirit as the
green face of God in the world is the best grounds for hope and
renewal at a point in human history when our rapacious appetites
seemed destined to destroy the earth?” He goes on to argue that “hope
for a renewed earth is best founded on belief in the Spirit as the
divine force within the cosmos who continually works to sustain all
forms of life.”
In her response, Nancy Victorin-Vangerund, draws attention to
the different strategies taken in the two papers: Wallace’s transgres-
sive interests, “aimed toward destablizing acceptable conventions of
humans as separate and superior to nature” whereas Min’s are pro-
gressive, aimed toward stabilizing Spirit’s work through ordinary struc-
tures of institutions, vocation and families. Wallace questions an an-
thropocentric approach to the imago Dei, while Min reaffirms it.
She goes on to raise larger questions about Wallace’s correlation of
ecocide and deicide and Min’s understanding of communion amidst
plurality. She concludes by exploring the demands of taking a

perichoretic approach to relationships seriously, specifically, in light
of the diverse kinds of relationships sometimes affected by adverse
power and sexual dynamics. Consequently she calls for the need to
incorporate the importance of boundaries as strongly as mutuality in
Pneumatology.
Consensus Points
These essays reflect the current state of the question about Pneumato-
logy. There are two important points of consensus that distinguish
these scholars. First, these essays reflect a common commitment to
the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit as a distinct, yet related
person in the triune God. This common respect for the received heri-
tage of trinitarian faith rules out any effort to undermine the trinitarian
character of the doctrine of the Spirit. These essays stand against
those theologies or philosophies that risk reducing God’s identity to
Spirit in the form of a pneumatic monism, or pantheism, or
postmodern polytheism. For these scholars the effort to affirm the
importance of the Spirit in the Christian doctrine of God has not
been used as a reason to erase the distinctions in the divine reality in
the interest of promoting the divine unity in the Spirit. Thus, the
position and trajectory of thought indicated by the influential works
of Geoffrey Lampe on God as Spirit and of John Hick on inspiration
christology are judged as seriously flawed and as representive of a
contrasting point of view.13
Second, as much as these essays reflect a profound respect for Chris-
tian doctrine of the Spirit in a trinitarian framework and as such set
certain limits and perimeters, there is, nevertheless, an implied con-
sensus that a commitment to honor the Spirit requires that one be
open to the diversity of manifestations of the Spirit. As a result, no
one subscribes to a unified theory or idea of the Spirit. No one is
searching for a common denominator in pneumatology. No one is
attempting to impose a unified doctrine of the Spirit on the various
advents of the Spirit. No Hegelian idealist model of Spirit is adopted
that advances identity at the expense of difference.
On the contrary, a generosity of human spirit and humble recep-
tivity before the work of the diverse manifestations of the Spirit are
manifest in this volume: looking both within and beyond the bibli-
cal canon; acknowledging the real achievements and limitations of
the doctrinal judgments and heritage of Christian churches about
Introduction 31
the Spirit; discovering anew the traces of the Spirit in the treasures of
traditions (e.g., mysticism, monastic theology, experiences and the-
ology of women); and reexamining historical conflicts, e.g., about
Montanism, office and charism, spirit and institution, in a new light.
These scholars share a commitment to listen to and learn the various
idioms of the Spirit. This requires cultivating an appreciation of the
differences of individual texts and traditions in their context, but
also a willingness to learn from the various symbolic languages of the
Spirit (metaphors, images, and gestures). Also evident is a common
desire to listen and learn from the strong and the feeble testimonies
of the Spirit and to give voice to those who cannot speak for them-
selves (e.g., marginalzied peoples and the endangered creation). This
common posture of resisting monolithic identity and honoring di-
versity in the quest for the manifestations of the Spirit, this self-con-
scious effort to cultivate a generosity of human spirit in the Spirit,
reflects a distinctive, some might say postmodern, sensibility of the
contributors, which leaves the quest for consistency and coherence
in the balance. But as much as this work reflects a steadfast commit-
ment to honor the Spirit by acknowledging the diversity of manifes-
tations, one also sees the impulses to work through this diversity in
order to arrive at a new normative pneumatological standpoint.
Diverse Styles, Disputed Questions

These essays combine diverse scholarly styles and methods. Some
pursue the nuances of classic texts and debates, while other ponder
mystical experiences and social actions. Some advocate a phenom-
enology of the Spirit in various domains of nature and human expe-
rience, while others develop a theological hermeneutics drawing on
classic categories and distinctions and advancing new formulas and
theories.
Amidst this diversity of styles, there are several disputed questions
that surface in this collection of essays. These call for further reflec-
tion and negotiation. Are the positions advanced in various essays
complementary or contradictory? Can we find common standards
or minimum requirements for speaking about the Spirit? Two areas
of disagreement will be identified.
First, as much as these scholars concur in their affirmation of the
basic tenets of the classic doctrine of the Spirit, that the Spirit is fully
divine, equal with and mutually related to the Father and Son in the
Trinity, an underlying disagreement can be detected about how one
deals with tradition, that is, both theological models and official doc-
trinal formulations. Does the received tradition provide a normative
framework that establishes definitive boundaries or does it provide a
point of departure? Are classic formulations necessary, sufficient, or
adequate for describing and disclosing the experience of the Spirit?
The representative Catholics tend to view the received heritage as
normative and binding in a way that is not always shared by the
Protestant contributors, even though both Catholic and Protestant
contributors explore new alternatives as complements to the received
tradition or as corrections.
One example of this dispute concerns the debate between the de-
fenders of Augustine and Latin Christianity’s approach to the Spirit
and the Trinity and the proponents of a social model of the Trinity.
David Coffey’s approach to the Trinity builds on the Augustinian
tradition of conceiving the Spirit as the mutual love of the Father
and the Son or in terms of a psychological analogy of lover, what is
loved, and love. Jürgen Moltmann has been one of the proponents of
a social model of the Trinity as the most helpful way to conceive of
the Trinity and as a helpful alternative and corrective to Augustinian
and Latin Christianity. Are these two mutually exclusive? If we sub-
scribe to the Augustinian tradition of trinitarian reflection, must we
rule out these new models? If we advocate the legitimate use of new
models, must we discredit Augustine’s and other representatives of
the Latin tradition? Or is there a third alternative, like the one es-
poused by Bernd Jochen Hilberath, who acknowledges the fruitful-
ness and limitations of both approaches.
A second example of this debate about how one values tradition
and innovations concerns the ways of articulating the personhood of
the Spirit. Is one obliged to adhere to the Western use of the Filioque
in the Nicene Creed for articulating and understanding the
personhood of the Spirit? This doctrine has long been criticized by
Byzantine theologians as a problematic way of conceiving God with
detrimental repercussions for ecclesiology and anthropology. One
approach taken by Coffey among others is that the doctrine of the
Filioque can be judged insufficient, without viewing it as unaccept-
able or unhelpful. On the other hand, other contributors such as
Moltmann seem to reject this formulation in light of new judgments
and models.
A second area of disagreement intersects with the first disagree-
ment about received traditions and creative proposals, and concerns
Introduction 33
which philosophy or philosophies are most appropriate and useful

for pneumatology. One version of the debate about the Latin ap-
proach to the Trinity versus social trinitarianism concerns the former’s
indebtedness to a substance metaphysics, whereas some question
whether the latter, social trinitarian approach is anti-metaphysical.
Are theologians being forced to choose in their reflections on the
Spirit between a tacit substance metaphysics that undergirds classic
Eastern and Western trinitarian theology in classic figures such as
Augustine and a version of postmodern anti-foundationalism that
subscribes to a post-metaphysical doctrine of the Trinity as relational
subject? At a deeper conceptual level there is raised the perennial
need to clarify the relationships between the divine Spirit, the hu-
man spirit, and the spirit of communities in identify and mission
formation.
The Unfinished Agenda and The Common Hope

For every asset in this collection of essays, there are corresponding
gaps that demand further investigation. The exploration of Protes-
tant and Catholic traditions on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit was
originally intended to be complemented by a paper and a response
by representatives of the Orthodox tradition. The need to more ex-
plicitly engage the Orthodox tradition was keenly felt among the
contributors. There were occasional allusions to the rise of
pentecostalism within Protestant and Catholic churches and beyond
in the papers and far more in the deliberations, but much more at-
tention should be given to this avenue of inquiry. Third, it was widely
held that there is a need to explore what liturgical theology can con-
tribute to the explorations of the Spirit. And fourth, although the
practical repercussions of this work were explored, so much more
work on the ramifications of a robust Pneumatology for evangeliza-
tion, catechesis, and practices of faith is yet to be undertaken.
The collection of essays expresses the common hope that this new
advent of the Spirit has afforded us a new opportunity and responsi-
bility to speak in the present social context with power and convic-
tion of “Spirit” and to seek to live a “life by the Spirit.”
Endnotes
1
Rudolph Bultmann, “New Testament and Mythology”, in Kerygma and Myth, (ed.)
Hans Werner Bartsch, (NY: Harper & Row, 1961), 6; the essay was first
published in German in 1941. Cp. idem., The Theology of the New Testament,
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951/ 1955), I: 335; Zur Geschichte der
Paulus-Forschung, ThR NF 1 (1929), 29-59. Further, see Walter Schmithals, An
Introduction to the Theology of Rudolph Bultmann, (Minneapolis: Augsburg
Publishing House, 1968), 259f.
2
Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition. A History of the Development of Doctrine.
1. The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600), (Chicago/London: The
University of Chicago Press, 1971), 173.
3
See A. M. Ritter, “Dogma und Lehre in der Alten Kirche”, in C. Andresen (ed.),
Handbuch der Dogmen- und Theologiegeschichte, Bd. I: Die Lehrentwicklung im
Rahmen der Katholizität, (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982), 128f.
4
For a thorough account of the development of this tradition from the pre-Socratics
to Leibniz, see Wilhelm Weischedel, Der Gott der Philosophen, Erster Band:
Wesen, Aufstieg und Verfall der philosophischen Theologie, (Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1972).
5
Gordon E. Michalson, Jr., Lessing’s “Ugly Ditch”: A Study of Theology and History
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1985).
6
See the work of Walter J. Hollenweger, The Pentecostals, 2 volumes (Peabody, Mass:
Hendrickson,1988, 1996); Harvey Cox, Fire From Heaven: The Rise of Pentecos-
tal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-First Century (Reading,
MA:Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., 1995); Pentecostals After a Century: Global
Perspectives On A Movement in Transition, eds. Allan H. Anderson, Walter J.
Hollenweger in Journal of Pentecostal Theology, supplement series: 15 (Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic, 1999).
7
Killian McDonnell, Charismatic Renewal and The Churches (New York: Seabury,
1976); Léon Joseph Cardinal Suenens, A New Pentecost? (New York: Seabury,
1975).
8
Charismatic Christianity as a Global Culture, ed. Karla Poewe (Columbia, SC:
University of South Carolina Press, 1994).
9
Erfahrung und Theologie des Heiligen Geistes, eds., Claus Heitmann, Heribert
Mühlen (Hamburg, Argentur des Rauhen Hauses; Munich: Kösel, 1974);
Pentecostal Movements as an Ecumenical Challenge, Concilium, no. 3, eds. Jürgen
Moltmann, Karl-Josef Kuschel (London: SCM; Maryknoll: Orbis, 1996).
10
Bernard McGinn, one of the foremost historians of mysticism, with the claim that
“we are in the midst of an explosion of interest in mysticism,” in “Quo Vadis?
Reflections on the Current Study of Mysticism” Christian Spirituality Bulletin
(Spring 1998), 13-21, at 13.
11
The New Delhi Report: The Third Assembly of the World Council of Churches 1961
(London: SCM, 1962), see especially the reports on Witness, 77-90, and Unity,
116-134. Vatican Council II, ed., Austin Flannery, O.P. (North Port, NY:
Costello, 1996), see for example, the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revela-
tion, Dei Verbum, 97-115, and the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,
Lumen Gentium, 1-11.
12
World Council of Churches, Signs of the Spirit: Official Report Seventh Assembly, ed.
Michael Kinnamon (Geneva: WCC; Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B.
Eerdmans,1991).
13
Geoffrey Lampe, God as Spirit (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977); John Hick, The
Metaphor of God Incarnate (London: SCM Press, 1993).
The Fire in the Word 35
The Fire in the Word: The Holy

Spirit in Scripture
George T. Montague, S.M.
In deciding how to cover this vast topic, even if limited to the Scrip-
tural witness, I was led by the practical concern to offer a basis for
subsequent papers and discussion on the theology of the Holy Spirit.
Thus, unable to provide a detailed exegesis of individual texts within
the limits of this paper, I prefer to survey the biblical witness on
issues in pneumatology that might lend themselves more readily to
further systematic reflection. Biblical revelation is not primarily propo-
sitional but symbolic. The search then for the “biblical theology of
the Holy Spirit” is a matter of distilling from the vast biblical corpus
some general directions which it is the role of systematic theology to
refine and expand.
In the first section, “Toward the Personhood of the Holy Spirit,” I
shall review the major biblical images of the Spirit, touching on their
development through the Old Testament into the New: life-breath,
wind, fire, water, cloud, the dove and finally, the Paraclete. The
images are taken from the material world, the animal world, and
finally the personal world, each of them contributing to an aspect of
the mystery of the Spirit.
In the second section I shall explore how the Spirit, radically sourced
in God, became sourced in Jesus as well. This will involve touching on
the major New Testament witnesses: Paul, the gospels, and the
Apocalypse.
In the third section I shall look at how the Holy Spirit, the
eschatological gift, is communicated from this twin source to the
church and the individual Christian. This involves first examining the
foundational stage, which is faith in Jesus Christ and Baptism—
briefly, the process of Christian initiation. We shall discover that the
gift of the Spirit was such an expectation that without the Holy Spirit
one could not be considered a Christian. And since the earliest model
of initiation was adult baptism, there was a clear expectation in the
reception of the sacrament of an experiential, i.e., life-changing,
manifestation, often (though not always) with the evidence of charisms
36 George T. Montague
leading to ministry in the church. We will touch briefly on how this

expectation of the effect of the Holy Spirit in initiation continued into
Patristic times.
After examining the role of the Spirit in this foundational or initial
stage, I shall look at how the early church regarded this activity in the
ongoing transformation of the Christian and the church. Four prin-
cipal dimensions are seen to emerge. The Holy Spirit is a gift that is
(a) relational; (b) sanctifying and transforming; (c) empowering for
endurance and (d) charismatic/ministerial. In the relational area,
besides relating the Christian in a vital way to the Father and the Son,
the Spirit is also the bond of unity and love among Christians, and in
the context of today’s divided Christianity (to say nothing of our
encounter with world religions) the ecumenical implications of the
Holy Spirit will be raised. In terms of the charismatic/ministerial
dimension, some implications for the church today will be drawn.
Toward the Personhood of the Holy Spirit

The Bible presents a rich mine of images of the Spirit. The most
primitive come from the realm of physical nature, one from the ani-
mal kingdom, and one, finally, from the realm of intelligent
personhood.
a. The Life-Breath
One of the earliest traditions is found in Genesis 2:7, where the Lord
is said to breathe into the nostrils of the man and the man becomes a
living being. The word neshamah is used here instead of the more
familiar ruah, but elsewhere this breath of life is described as the ruah
eloah, the breath (or the spirit) of God (Job 27:3), where it is parallel
to neshamah (as also in Isaiah 42:5). This passage of the creation of
the first human being is an important forerunner of John 20:22,
where Jesus breathes upon the disciples and says, “Receive the Holy
Spirit.” In the Old Testament texts, although the breath abides in the
human being and is the effect of God’s creative action, it continues
to belong to God, who can recall it at his pleasure (Ps 104:29-30).1
“Spirit” as breath can therefore stand for life itself, particularly in its
aspect as a gift of God. There is clearly no suggestion here in this
anthropomorphic image that God’s breath is a separate hypostasis.
The breath image simply points to God as the source of human life.
Inasmuch, however, as the breath from God is distinguished from
the nephesh hayyah (“living soul”) of which it is the source, the text
lent itself to Paul’s use of the triad of body-soul-spirit in a kind of
liturgical flourish in 1 Thes 5:23.2 It is this breath of God, rather
than the blood of the gods, that directly relates man to the divine
world, an orientation he can ignore only at the peril of his life.
b. Wind
A closely related usage of ruah is that of wind (Gen 8:1; Num 11:31;
Isaiah 27:8, etc.). In Genesis 1:2, the ruah elohim has traditionally
been translated, “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the wa-
ters” (KJV) or “the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the
waters” (RSV), whereas other modern translations like the NAB have
“a mighty wind…swept over the surface of the waters” (NEB) or “a
wind from God swept over the face of the waters” (NRSV). The fact
is, of course, that ruah in some cases means literally wind and in
other cases it is appropriately translated “spirit,” though even there it
does not lose its semantic root in the notion of “wind.” Elohim like-
wise admits of alternative translations, usually “God,” but it can also
have the sense of an adjective: “extraordinary,” “magnificent,” “tre-
mendous,” “powerful,” even “divine” (see 1 Sam 14:15; 1 Kings 3:28).
The result of this ambiguity is that several interpretations are pos-
sible: 1) that the primeval ruah is a cosmic storm that is part of the
chaos that will be ordered by the creative word of God (recall Jesus’
stilling of the storm in Mt 8:23-27); 2) that the mighty wind is a
theophanic element. A mighty wind or storm is elsewhere in the Bible
part of theophany or a preparation for the divine voice (cf. 1 Kgs
19:11-14; Job 38:1); 3) that the ruah is the wind or breath of God by
which he begins to push the waters of chaos into order; or 4) that the
ruah is the spirit of God, a projection of the prophetic spirit onto the
canvas of cosmic creation.
While the first two interpretations are not to be excluded, we will
focus our attention on the last two. It has been suggested that the
miracle of wind-water-and-dry land at the Exodus and the wind-
water-dry land of the first chapter of Genesis are of one piece.
According to this position, the priestly author’s choice of ruah elohim
in the face of the watery chaos has been influenced by his poetic
description of the divine ruah (in the sense of breath) over the waters
of the sea in the Exodus. In the Song of Moses, generally attributed to
the priestly redactor, who is also responsible for the present form of
Genesis 1-2:4a, we read:
At a breath (ruah) of your anger the waters piled up, the flowing
waters stood like a mound, the flood waters congealed in the midst
of the sea…. When your wind (ruah) blew, the sea covered them;
like lead they sank in the mighty waters. (Ex 15:8, 10)
A few lines earlier, within the prose description of the event, in what
may very well be a priestly insertion into the Yahwist text, we read:
“Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord swept
the sea with a strong east wind (ruah) throughout the night and so
turned it into dry land” (Ex 14:21). The event of nature described in
14:21 is turned into a theophany in chapter 15, in which the wind is
“personified” as the breath of the Lord pushing the waters back and
revealing dry land on which the Israelites might walk to freedom,
and then blowing the waters back to engulf their pursuers.
The same poetic device is used in Psalm 18:16, which may very
well ante-date the priestly author and may even have been the source
of his imagery:
Then the bed of the sea appeared, and the foundations of the world
were laid bare, at the rebuke of the Lord, at the blast of the wind
(ruah) of his wrath.
Psalm 18 is actually a celebration of the Lord’s protection of the king,

but it associates this protection with the foundational moment of the
people of Israel, namely the Exodus.
In this context, then, the originality of the priestly author-editor in
Genesis would appear. He transfers to the very creation of the world
the Exodus imagery, making the latter the model, so the speak, for the
cosmifying of the universe. The same priestly technique will recur in
Gen 8:1 in which the receding of the flood is due to a ruah of God:
“God made a wind sweep over the earth, and the waters began to
subside.”
There are problems, however, with this position. One is that in the
Genesis text the appearance of the dry land (verse 9) is textually quite
removed from the ruah elohim in verse 2. In other words, while wind
and water are joined in verse 2, the relation of that wind to the
appearance of the dry land is not at all explicit nor clear. Secondly, and
more importantly, the Hebrew verb merahepheth suggests a less
violent activity. It has now been determined that the Hebrew word is
related to the Ugaritic rhp, used in the Tale of Aqhat to describe the
soaring or circling of vultures over their prey.3 The only other biblical
use of the word is Deut 32:11, where the NAB renders, “As an eagle
incites its nestlings forth by hovering over its brood…” The related
Syriac rahef means to move oneself gently, to fly to and fro, to keep
nest eggs warm, to brood.4 The activity, then, is more like that of a bird
gently beating its wings to get its nestlings to fly. In keeping with the
non-conflictual tone of the entire creation account (deliberately
contrasted with Marduk’s slaying of Tiamat) and the attribution of
creation to the gentle and effortless word of God, the role of the ruah
here appears as preparing the chaos to hear the creative word of God.5
The Palestinian Targum on Genesis 1 (generally dated around New
Testament times) understood this well by amplifying the last part of
verse 2 to read, “And a spirit of love from before the Lord was blowing
over the face of the waters.”6 Chaos is not therefore the enemy.
Because the spirit of God is hovering over it, chaos becomes promise.
The only remaining question, then, is whether we should translate
ruah here as “wind” or “spirit.” The figures are of course mixed—not
uncommon in biblical discourse. But inasmuch as the image of the
bird is so closely attached to the verb, and it is difficult to think of a
wind hovering, I would prefer “spirit,” which suggests more a caring,
life-giving activity than that of wind. But that leads to another
consideration in favor of “spirit.” This text is the poetic crown of the
priestly tradition, which was influenced by or at least related to the
priest-prophet Ezekiel, who gave great emphasis on the Spirit recre-
ating the people (Ezek 36-37). Current too at the supposed time of its
composition were the creation poems of Second Isaiah, which give
great attention to the spirit and the word of God, and Psalm 33:6: “By
the word of the Lord the heavens were made, by the breath [ruah] of
his mouth all their host.” Instead, therefore, of being related to the
Exodus imagery, Genesis 1:2 is rather directly related to the creative
word of God in the exilic and post-exilic tradition and only indirectly
and distantly related to the Exodus tradition.
John the evangelist in Jesus’ discourse with Nicodemus will use the
image of the wind to describe the mysterious nature of the new birth
of the Spirit (John 3:7-8). While retaining the relationship to creation,
“wind” thus has also the nuance of surprise, the mysterious and
unexpected. And that seems to be the sense in which the spirit falls on
charismatic leaders or prophets (Num 11:25-26 and throughout the
Deuteronomic history and the prophets). Unlike the breath of life,

which is constant, the prophetic spirit of God is as unpredictable in
its visitations as is the wind.7
c. Fire
Rarer is the use of the fire symbol to describe the spirit. In Isaiah 4:4,
which speaks of the Lord’s cleansing judgment to come: “When the
Lord… purges Jerusalem’s blood from her midst with the spirit of
judgment and with the spirit of fire.” (The NAB translation abbrevi-
ates: “with a blast of searing judgment.”) A similar text threatens
judgment: “My spirit shall consume you like fire” (Is 33:11). This
text, along with others in Isaiah concerning the coming judgment
(27:4, 8; 30:28), forms the background for the eschatological preach-
ing of John the Baptist, who, in the Q tradition, proclaims that the
mightier one coming after him will baptize with the holy Spirit and
with fire, the purifying fire of judgment (Mt 3:11-12; Lk 3:16-17).
Both Matthew and Luke have the accompanying Q text in which
Jesus explains to the disciples of John the Baptist that he has not
come to apply the heavenly blow-torch to his people but to proclaim
the healing mercy of God (Mt 11:2-6; Lk 7:18-23). Luke further
reinterprets the baptism in the holy Spirit and fire as the fire of Pen-
tecost (Acts 2:1-11).8
d. Water
Two other passages from Isaiah foretell the coming salvation in terms
of God’s spirit being “poured out”: Judgment will come with disaster
upon the complacent, with destruction of field and village “until the
spirit from on high is poured out on us. Then will the desert become
an orchard and the orchard be regarded as a forest…. Justice will
bring about peace” (Is 32:15-17). And in Is 44:3: “I will pour out
water upon the thirsty ground, and streams upon the dry land; I will
pour out my spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing upon your
descendants.” The imagery prepares John’s use of the image of living
water in the Johannine tradition. Jesus promises the living water to
the Samaritan woman (John 4:10) and to every believer (John 7:38-
39), a promise symbolically fulfilled when blood and water flow from
Jesus’ side (John 19:34) and, in the Apocalypse, of the river of life-
giving water flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb (22:1-2).
What do all of these images from the world of inanimate nature have
in common? Every one of them is an image of movement, and every
one of them suggests a source. The source is obviously God or, in the
New Testament, also Jesus. The movement originates from God (or
Jesus) as source but it works a manifest effect in the created order,
specifically in human beings. Something happens when the Spirit
moves upon a person, and while that activity conceivably in some
cases could be observed only by faith, the texts regularly point to some
observable phenomenon as an effect of the Spirit. This is an issue of
serious concern for the life of the churches. We shall return to it in the
second part of this paper. At this point, however, the images we have
examined so far would not justify concluding to the personhood of the
Holy Spirit. The images of movement and life of themselves are
simply alternate ways of speaking of the activity of God.
e. The Cloud
In the Old Testament the cloud serves as a frequent manifestation of
God’s presence and glory—with Moses on Mount Sinai (Ex 24:15-
18), at the tent of meeting (Ex 33:9-10), during the wandering in
the desert (Ex 40:36-38), and with Solomon at the dedication of the
temple (1 Kgs 8:10-12). Although this symbolism is not associated
with the Spirit in these Old Testament texts, they do provide the
stock from which the New Testament draws. The Holy Spirit, the
power of the Most High “overshadows” the Virgin Mary, as the cloud
overshadowed the meeting tent (the same Greek verb is used for the
overshadowing in the Septuagint text of Exodus 40:35 and Luke 1:35).
And in somewhat complicated imagery Paul exploits the figure of
the cloud for the Spirit in 1 Cor 10:1-2:
I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our ancestors were

all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, and all of them
were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.
Paul is warning his readers against presuming on the gifts received

in their baptism to save them independently of their behavior. Moses
is a type of Christ, into whom Christians are baptized (1 Cor 12:13).
The sea represents the baptismal waters and the cloud the Holy Spirit,
both constitutive element of Christian initiation. As the cloud was a
manifestation and assurance of the presence of God, so the Holy Spirit
is the guarantee of that holy presence in the baptized.
f. The Dove
We now turn to the animal kingdom. In only one narrative does the
image of the dove appear, and that is in the story of Jesus’ baptism in
the Jordan, but all four gospels mention the dove when describing
this event. The association of the dove with the Jordan waters sug-
gests to many commentators the dove that returns to Noah herald-
ing the new creation after the flood. Thus the dove over the Jordan
would announce a new creation inaugurated at the baptism of Jesus.
Others connect the dove with the “Spirit of God” that “hovered”
over the waters of the first creation, the Hebrew verb for “hovering”
being that typically used for a bird hovering over its brood and en-
couraging them to fly (Deut 32:11). Later Jewish tradition under-
stood this bird image to be that precisely of a dove: “The spirit of
God was brooding on the face of the waters like a dove which broods
over the young but does not touch them.”9 In any case, the appear-
ance of the dove over the Jordan gives the baptism of Jesus a truly
cosmic significance, an insight greatly developed in the post-apos-
tolic period.10 As the dove brought news of a new creation to the ark,
so the Holy Spirit proclaims that the world will be made anew begin-
ning with the baptism of Jesus.
g. The Paraclete
The dove image has enhanced the picture of the Holy Spirit but not
sufficiently to demand that the Holy Spirit be a separate hypostasis,
a person. For this we turn to the world of intelligent beings, the
human and even the angelic order. When Jesus at the last supper
announces the coming of another Paraclete, he implies that he is the
first Paraclete. Jesus is specifically named as a paraclete in 1 John 2:1,
and there the sense is that he is an intercessor with the Father on
behalf of the disciples. That would seem to imply personhood. The
function of the Paraclete in John’s gospel, however, is not as a heav-
enly intercessor but rather a teacher dwelling with the disciples and
battling for them against the world. But what is a Paraclete, and where
did the concept originate?
Although the History of Religions school postulated that the idea
of the paraclete originated in proto-Mandean gnosticism, this theory
is generally discredited today and a Jewish background is preferred.
Although no contemporary Hebrew word has been found which
would be the precise Vorlage of the Greek parakletos,11 a number of
characteristics of the Johannine Paraclete can be discerned in Jewish

tradition. Raymond Brown summarizes these:
A tandem relationship whereby a second figure, pattered on the

first [Moses/Joshua, Elijah/Elisha], continues the work of the first;
the passing on of his spirit by the main salvific figure; God’s
granting a spirit that would enable the recipient to understand and
interpret divine deed and word authoritatively; a personal (angelic)
spirit who would lead the chosen ones against the forces of evil;
personal (angelic) spirits who teach men and guide them to truth;
Wisdom that comes to men from God, dwells within them, and
teaches them, but is rejected by other men.12
Max Turner maintains that in the Old Testament the “Spirit of God”
is not elevated, as is Wisdom or the Logos, to the status of a quasi-
hypostasis.13 But Isaiah 63:9-14 speaks twice of God’s “holy spirit”
and once of “the spirit of the Lord” in language that parallels the
quasi-hypostatic language of the Wisdom texts. The holy spirit is
“grieved” (Is 63:10), God places his holy spirit in the midst of his
people (Is 63:11) and the “spirit of the Lord” guides the people to the
promised land (63:14). This text is an allusion to the guarding and
guiding angel the Lord placed in the midst of his people in Ex 23:20-
23, which the Isaian text, via Ex 32:30-33:6, transfers to the Lord
himself. Furthermore, in the Wisdom of Solomon, the spirit rides
tandem with Wisdom, being hailed with 21 attributes (Wis 7:22). It
would seem, then, that while the texts on the spirit are not as exten-
sive as those on the Logos or Wisdom, the same movement toward
hypostasis is there.
Closest in time and plausible provenance is the concept of the “spirit
of truth” at Qumran, the only pre-Christian use of the word which
John uses as synonymous with the Paraclete. There the term is used
for a spirit that dwells within the community, for the spirit that
cleanses and unites them to God’s truth, and also for an angelic spirit
that leads them in the eschatological battle against the enemies of the
truth.14 All the “spirits of truth” are under the dominion of the “Prince
of Light,” whom God has appointed to bring “the company of thy
Truth” to “a destiny of Light according to thy Truth.”15 The Prince
of Light is elsewhere called the Angel of Truth.16 This Prince of Light
is probably Michael.17 This militant role fits well the Paraclete’s
description in John as the one who will prosecute and condemn the
world for its sin, specifically its disbelief in Jesus (John 16:4-11). The
Paraclete is not an angel, but an angelic function has been transferred

to him. Obviously, the image is a personal one.
Aside from the Paraclete passages, there are other passages which
suggest the personhood of the Holy Spirit. Consider the “Trinitarian”
passages in Matthew and Paul where the Spirit is placed on an equal
footing with the Father and the Son (Matt 28:19; 2 Cor 13:13; 1 Cor
6:11) and the fact that the Spirit initiates voluntary actions (1 Cor
12:11; Rom 8:16). Though the impersonal nature of the Spirit in Acts
has often been commented upon, Marie Isaacs has listed characteris-
tics of the Spirit which are more understandable if the personhood of
the Spirit is supposed.18
Source of the Spirit: God and the Messiah

It should be evident from the above that the source of the spirit of
God is God. Even when God takes some of the spirit that is on Moses
and distributes it to the elders in Num 11:25, it is still God’s spirit,
not Moses’ spirit, that is being distributed. The one possible excep-
tion to this rule is found in 2 Kings 2:9, where Elisha tells Elijah he
wishes to receive a double portion “of your spirit,” and the guild
prophets later say, “The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha” (2:15). Elijah
had told Elisha, “Ask for whatever I may do for you, before I am
taken from you” (2:9). Is this to suggest that Elijah bestowed his
spirit upon Elisha? Or is it merely to affirm that Elisha is fully, even
superabundantly, in the Yahwistic prophetic tradition prototypically
portrayed in Elijah, where God gives the spirit? The latter would
seem more consistent with the rest of the Old Testament, especially
the transfer of the spirit from Moses to the elders (where it is God
who takes some of the spirit he has given to Moses and distributes it
to the elders) and those passages where the transfer of the spirit is
conveyed by anointing (Saul, 1 Sam 10:1-13; David, 1 Sam 16:13).
Isaiah prophesies that the spirit of the Lord will rest on the Messiah:
“a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and of
strength, a spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord” (Is 11:2), but
nowhere in the Old Testament is the Messiah portrayed as the
conveyer of the spirit. The mysterious personage in Isaiah 61:1 (“The
spirit of the Lord is upon me….”) refers not to a king but to an
announcer of salvation, the effects of the spirit being felt in his works
but not in the conveying of the spirit which is upon him.
The only place in the Old Testament where a subject other than
God pours out that subject’s own spirit occurs in Proverbs 1:23, where
Lady Wisdom says, “Lo, I will pour out to you my spirit, I will acquaint
you with my words.” Not only does Lady Wisdom speak on her own
authority like a goddess (with traits borrowed from ancient concep-
tions of a goddess of wisdom), the spirit comes upon the listener and
is poured out by the speaker as her own spirit. And the effect is to seal
a friendship, or at least a familiarity, between her listeners and her
words. Such is the nuance of the Hebrew verb which the NAB
translates “acquaint.” In the context it means to make known, but not
in the mere sense of telling or announcing but rather of introducing
as person to person, suggesting the creation of a connaturality between
knower and known. The Wisdom of Solomon will follow suit. The
Wisdom tradition thus appears to be the bridge to the New Testament
understanding of Jesus not only as God’s incarnate wisdom but also
as the one who pours out the Spirit.
a. Paul
But Judaism was not prepared to understand a human as pouring
out the Spirit.19 At this point the normal historical sequence would
be to look at John the Baptist’s heralding of Jesus as the one who will
baptize with the Holy Spirit. But I prefer for our purposes to follow
the literary sequence and begin with Paul, since his letters were writ-
ten before the gospels and they tell us what at least an important
segment of the early church believed about the relation of Christ to
the Spirit. Since the resurrection of Jesus is central to Paul’s preach-
ing and theology, it does not surprise us that the Holy Spirit is seen
primarily in that light. The apostle does not speculate about the Spirit
in the conception of Jesus or even in Jesus’ earthly ministry. And
when he does associate the Spirit with Christ’s resurrection or his
present risen state, it is not the Spirit that works Jesus’ resurrection
but Jesus’ resurrection that makes possible his gift of the Spirit. It is
the Father who raises Jesus by his glory (Rom 6:4). And instead of
saying “If the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead…,” Paul says, “If
the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the
one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal
bodies also, through his Spirit that dwells in you” (Rom 8:11). No-
tice that the Holy Spirit is the principle of the resurrection of Chris-
tians, but Paul avoids saying that the Spirit raised Christ. The argu-
ments of J.D.G. Dunn appear conclusive in this regard.20
Paul’s Christology is already surprisingly high. In the early 50’s he
writes to the Thessalonians, “May God our Father and our Lord Jesus
himself direct our way to you; and may the Lord fill you and make you
overflow in love for one another and for all…” (1 Thes 3:11-12).
While there is no mention of the Holy Spirit here, the Father and the
Lord Jesus are bound together by the same Greek pronoun autos
(himself) and by the singular verb depicting their action (katetheunai—
”direct”—the English translation does not reveal this nicety). They
are thus considered a single source of the grace sought. In the same
letter Paul describes “God” as the giver of the Spirit (1 Thes 4:8), as
indeed he does often elsewhere.21 However, in the same verse in which
Paul speaks of the Spirit of God, he speaks of the Spirit of Christ: “You
are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells
in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong
to Christ” (Rom 8:9). In prison Paul experiences the “support of the
Spirit of Jesus Christ” (Phil 1:19). “Where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is freedom” (2 Cor 3:17). “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into
our hearts…” (Gal 4:6). And finally, “He who is united to the Lord
is one spirit with him” (1 Cor 6:17).
This last text introduces us to a deeper Pauline motif—the relation
of the Holy Spirit to the body of Christ. In 1 Cor 15:44-45 Paul
discusses the difference between the natural body (soma psychikon)
and the spiritual body (soma pneumatikon). The latter is the body of
the resurrection, and it applies in the first place to Christ, who by his
resurrection is not only a spiritual body but a “life-giving spirit”
(pneuma zoopoioun), i.e., the source of resurrection life for others.
What this means for believers appears in 1 Cor 6:13-20: “The
body…is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the
body. God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power” (vv.13-
14). That is, the destiny of the Christian’s body is to share the glorious
state of Christ’s risen body. And then, “Do you not know that your
bodies are members of Christ?” (v. 15). Applying the very graphic
contrast of physical union with the prostitute, Paul uses the same verb
to describe the Christian’s union with Christ. He thinks of the union
in a very “bodily” way both by the image of “member” and the verb
“join.” The effect of this “bodily” union with the risen Christ, unlike
that with the prostitute, is to become “one spirit with him” (v. 17).
Union with the spiritual body of Christ is inseparably a union with his
life-giving Spirit. The Christian’s body thus becomes a temple of the
Holy Spirit (v. 19).
These texts shed light on the sacramental text of 1 Cor 12:13: “In
one Spirit we were all baptized into one body…, and we were all given
to drink of one Spirit.” L. Cerfaux, J.A.T. Robinson and others have

convincingly demonstrated, it seems to me, that the body here is not
the church but the individual, risen body of the Lord Jesus Christ.22
Like the Eucharist, baptism joins one to that body in a real, if
sacramental, way, and the effect of that union is to receive the Holy
Spirit. Further confirmation is found in 1 Cor 10:1-5, where Paul calls
Christ the spiritual rock from which the Israelites, in prophetic
symbol, drank. “Spiritual rock” corresponds precisely to “spiritual
body.” Both mean the risen Christ, source of the Holy Spirit. Further
reflections on the effects of the Holy Spirit in the Christian and the
church will be reserved for the third section of this paper. Suffice it to
say here that by the middle of the first century, within three decades
of Jesus’ death, there was in place, at least in the Pauline churches, a
highly developed pneumatology grounded solidly in resurrection
Christology, a development that one could not have expected from
the spirit-texts of the Old Testament.
b. The Gospels and Acts

Paul’s development probably depended in part on early traditions
that eventually found their way into the later gospels. The evange-
lists, of course, were not reporters but painters of literary portraits of
Jesus, working their theological concerns into the web of their works.
The expression of those concerns was limited by the constraints of
the narrative they proposed to undertake. They had to tell the tradi-
tional story of Jesus, working their theological concerns into the nar-
ratives. They did this in a marvelously skillful way. Only Luke drew
a clear separation between the time of Jesus and the time of the church,
and he had the luxury of two books to do it with. The others used
the stories, with the discourses, catechetically for their communities
and selected, edited, and touched them up accordingly. Among the
many motivations which inspired the writing of the gospels we can-
not exclude the concern to root the pneumatic element more rigor-
ously in the historical Jesus. We can see even in the letters of Paul
that elements in the church would like to divorce the Spirit from any
tethering in Jesus,23 and Matthew’s accrediting of the early disciples
as the bearers of the authentic tradition (Mt 13:51and passim) over
against the emergent claims of false prophets (Mt 7:15-20; 24:11)
points in the same direction.
All three gospels tell of the baptism of Jesus, the synoptics narrating
it and the fourth gospel giving the Baptist’s recollection of it. The
appearance of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus designates him as the Spirit-
anointed Messiah (Isa 11:2; 42:1). But all four accounts speak of the
promise that the coming one would baptize with the Holy Spirit. That
claim would certainly surprise a Jew whose expectations had been
shaped by the Old Testament, for, as we have seen, while the Spirit
might rest on the Messiah, only Lady Wisdom was said to pour out
her spirit, and no prophet had been known or foretold to immerse the
world in the Holy Spirit. In the Q tradition common to Matthew and
Luke the Baptist adds “and fire,” evidently meaning the fire of
purification and judgment (Mt 3:11-12; Lk 3:16-17). John thus
echoes the judgment tradition of fire as we noted above and a motif
also found in the Qumran documents (1QS iv 18-21; 1QH 16:1-12),
a notion that Jesus rectifies in the other Q text about his ministry of
healing and proclamation (Mt 11:2-6; Lk 7:18-23). Mark and John
lack the element of fire and judgment, the Baptist simply foretelling
that the coming one will baptize with the Holy Spirit.
How Jesus actually baptizes with the Holy Spirit is not clear from
Mark, for nowhere in this gospel is there an explicit statement of how
Jesus fulfills this prophecy. This and other considerations have led to
the proposal that Mark wrote his gospel as a passover haggadah to be
read at one sitting, to be followed immediately by the baptism of the
neophytes, which would be the fulfillment of John’s prophecy.24
Short of that, Jesus’ baptizing with the Holy Spirit must be equated
with his powerful ministry of preaching, healing and delivering from
evil spirits, culminating in his heroic and saving death (see Mark 3:23-
30; 10:38-45).25
Matthew’s gospel is somewhat clearer, but only somewhat. Jesus of
course receives the Holy Spirit at his Jordan baptism, and in a passage
proper to Matthew, Jesus fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah 42:1: “Behold
my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom I delight; I shall
place my spirit upon him…” This Spirit enables him to cast our demons
“by the Spirit of God” (Mt 12:18, 28). But the Spirit acts in the very
conception of Jesus (Mt 1:20). How, then, does Jesus convey the
Spirit to the church? Matthew lacks Luke’s account of the Ascension
and subsequent Pentecost. In Matthew’s view Jesus does not leave the
church and then send the Spirit as his replacement. Instead by his
resurrection Jesus enters the church as a permanent, spiritual pres-
ence. He is the Emmanuel, God with us till the end of time (1:23;
28:20), present where two or more gather in his name (18:20), the
corporate personality embodying faithful Israel of old and the new
Israel which is the church. In keeping with that same theme Matthew
creatively co-ordinates the Jordan scene with the great commission to
baptize “in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit.” He does this by modifying the expression “Holy Spirit” in the
baptismal scene to “the Spirit of God,” an expression which he uses
again in 12:28. However slight this editing may seem, in Matthew’s
view, Jesus does not receive the Spirit and then give it to the church;
in the Jordan he receives the Spirit for the church, which is one with
him.26 In other words, the church receives the Spirit by participating
in Jesus’ own baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Luke, too, affirms the conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit (Luke
1:35). Throughout his two works, however, the Holy Spirit is
primarily the spirit of prophecy. During the public ministry Jesus
alone bears the Holy Spirit, anointing him for his ministry (as he
explicitly states in Lk 4:18-19).27 Though the Baptist says that Jesus
will baptize with the Holy Spirit, Jesus also says that the Father will
give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him (Lk 11:13). And the Holy
Spirit sent on Pentecost is the Spirit which Jesus, glorified, receives
from the Father and then pours out upon the church (Acts 2:33).
Luke, who knows Jesus has the Holy Spirit from the moment of his
conception, here joins the broader, especially Pauline, tradition that
ties the gift of the Holy Spirit to the resurrection of Jesus, though, in
a way different from Paul inasmuch as Jesus first receives the Holy
Spirit from the Father. In keeping with the Christological focus we
have already seen, the gift of the Spirit follows upon or requires
baptism in the name of Jesus (Acts 2:38; 10:48; 19:1-6).
In John, Jesus is even more explicitly portrayed as giver of the Spirit.
Though John 3:34, “He does not ration his gift of the Spirit,” does not
make it clear whether the “he” refers to God or Jesus or both, elsewhere
it is abundantly clear that Jesus gives the Spirit: “Whoever drinks the
water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become
in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (Jn 4:14). “Let
anyone who thirsts come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me,
as scripture says: `Rivers of living water will flow from within him’. He
said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in
him were to receive. There was no Spirit yet, because Jesus had not yet
been glorified” (Jn 7:37-39). Obviously wisdom motifs from the Old
Testament have been racheted to a higher level here. The incarnate
Word is Wisdom pouring out her spirit. John exploits the moment of
Jesus’ death to suggest that the Spirit is given already there, at least
proleptically. For, instead of saying that Jesus simply expired (as do

Mark and Matthew) or that he handed over his spirit to God (Luke),
John says Jesus “handed over the Spirit” (Jn 19:30). In keeping with
John’s coalescing Jesus’ death and resurrection in one saving mystery,
he sees Jesus giving the Spirit at the very moment of his death. Finally,
after the resurrection Jesus breathes upon the disciples and says,
“Receive the Holy Spirit…” (Jn 20:22).
Returning to the Last Supper discourse, we find that the Spirit
proceeds from the Father yet Jesus sends the Spirit from him (Jn
15:26), and the Father sends the Spirit in the name of Jesus (Jn 14:26).
Finally, in the Apocalypse the river of life flows from or proceeds from
the throne of God and the Lamb (Rev 22:1).
There is evident support in these texts, then, for the tradition
explicitly followed in the West, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the
Father and the Son, coordinated in their mutual gift of the Spirit. But
there are other texts, some of which we have cited, where the Spirit is
prior in agency to Jesus and even acts upon him. Jesus is conceived by
the Holy Spirit (Mt 1:20; Luke 1:35). In the baptism Jesus receives the
Holy Spirit (Mk 1:10, par.), who then leads him into the desert testing
(Mk 1:12-13; Mt 4:1; Luke 4:1), then into Galilee (Luke 4:14), where
Jesus himself proclaims his anointing by the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:18).
If Genesis 1 is in any way in the background of the baptism of Jesus
(as may be suggested by the dove), it must be remembered that there
the Spirit of God precedes the creative, cosmifying word of God. One
might be led to conclude that the only texts which see Jesus receiving
the Spirit, or the Spirit acting on Jesus, concern his earthly state. But
Acts 2:33 points otherwise: “Exalted at the right hand of God, he
received the promise of the holy Spirit from the Father and poured it
forth, as you both see and hear.” Consequently, in the economy of
God’s action, we have both relationships expressed, texts in the
messianic tradition of Isaiah 11:2 and 42:1 which speak of Jesus as
recipient of the Spirit and others, in the light of the resurrection, that
speak of Jesus as the source of the Spirit.
The Activity of the Holy Spirit

a. In Christian Initiation28
(1) The eschatological Gift
The Holy Spirit is the eschatological Gift of God. Already in the
ministry of Jesus, according to Matthew 12:28, Jesus’ expulsion of
demons by the Spirit of God is evidence that “the kingdom of God

has come upon you.” In Acts, the Holy Spirit given now is Jesus’
answer as to when the kingdom is to be restored to Israel (Acts 1:6-
8). And in Galatians 3:6-14, the blessing given to Abraham is now
fulfilled through the gift of the Spirit.29 Elsewhere Paul identifies the
Holy Spirit as the arrabon, the down-payment of the glory to come
(2 Cor 1:22; 5:5), or “ the first installment of our inheritance” (Eph
1:14). The same thought is echoed in Hebrews 6:4, where “sharing
of the Holy Spirit” is parallel to “tasting the heavenly gift” and tast-
ing “the powers of the world to come.”
(2) Given at Baptism

Numerous New Testament texts show this gift of the Spirit to be
given in Christian initiation. Even the gospels’ interest in the bap-
tism of Jesus is motivated in part by the catechetical potential of that
event as the icon of Christian baptism. We have already noted the
hypothesis that Mark understood Jesus’ baptizing in the Holy Spirit
to take place in the sacrament conferred after the reading of the gos-
pel. Matthew, as we have noted, deliberately edits his Jordan account
to draw the parallel between the baptism of Jesus and the Christian
baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit (Mt 28:19) and to indicate that Christian baptism is a partici-
pation in the baptism of Jesus.30 Luke even more clearly parallels the
baptism of Jesus and Christian initiation by the manifestation of the
Holy Spirit both at the Jordan and at Pentecost and in subsequent
initiation scenes.31 Peter sets out the structure of initiation at the end
of his Pentecost sermon: “Repent and be baptized…in the name of
Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the
gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). The gift of the Holy Spirit is the
hallmark of baptism in the name of Jesus, as is evident in the case of
the Ephesian disciples of the Baptist (Acts 19:1-7). For Paul, to be a
Christian is to have the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9); the anointing of
the Christian with the Holy Spirit is closely tied to Jesus’ own anoint-
ing with the Spirit (2 Cor 1:21). And we have already referred to
1Cor 12:13: “In one Spirit we were all baptized into one body…and
we were all given to drink of the same Spirit.”
The earlier New Testament writings avoid calling this present
participation in the kingdom a new birth, but John does not hesitate:
“No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water
and the Spirit” (John 3:5). The thought reappears in Titus 3:5, “the
bath of rebirth and renewal by the holy Spirit.”
In Romans 6:1-11, however, we have the death-resurrection model,
which does not mention the Holy Spirit. The context is Paul’s
exhortation to a new ethical life, for which he finds the death-to-the-
old and the life-to-the-new congenial. But he is equally capable of
using the contrast between the spirit and the flesh (Rom 8:1-13; Gal
5:16-26) to the same end. The Romans text, then, should not be
allowed to overshadow the predominant Pauline witness that the
principal effect of baptism is the gift of the Holy Spirit. In the later
church the death-resurrection model for baptism (rather than the
baptism of Jesus) became the dominant one, for reasons that are not
entirely clear. Perhaps the immersion-emersion rite lent itself more
easily to the death-resurrection motif. Perhaps, too, the reaction to
adoptionism led the church to mute the emphasis on the baptism of
Jesus. The later separation of confirmation from baptism may also
have led to relegating the primary role of the Holy Spirit to the later
sacrament. One could argue, of course, that the baptism of Jesus
points to his death and resurrection as its fulfillment, but it is
undeniable that the death-resurrection model tends to diminish the
role of the Holy Spirit, who does not appear in the Romans text used
as the primary grounding for the liturgical catechesis. The Syrian
church, however, continued to consider the baptism of Jesus so
important that it was included as an article of the creed.
The universalizing of the practice of infant baptism marked a major
shift in the understanding of the activity of the Holy Spirit in
Christian initiation. Like the Jewish practice of circumcision, the
emphasis now lay more heavily than ever on the parents’ (and
sponsors’) responsibility for forming their children in the faith. No
response on the part of the baptized infant and consequently no
manifest activity of the Holy Spirit were any longer expected. The
faith of the parents sufficed, in the hope that the baptized would
eventually come to a mature response to the grace of the sacrament.
However reasonable the baptism of infants may have been (and the
“household” texts are often cited as biblical warrant for the practice),
when the majority of the baptized receive the sacrament in infancy,
there is clearly a paradigm shift in the common expectation of the
effects of baptism. One merely believes that the child has been
adopted into the divine family, that sanctifying grace has been given
and original sin removed. While such effects would still be a matter
of faith and unperceived by the senses even in adult baptisms, at least

normally one would notice a behavioral change in the baptized often
accompanied by a perceptible spiritual experience, such as peace, joy,
praise, even in some cases tears. The tears of the baby may well be a
protest to the water!32
It was this observation that led Augustine and the pre-scholastics to
speak of the awakening or actualization of baptismal grace at a later
time.33 Whether the “baptism in the Holy Spirit” as practiced in the
charismatic renewal is an actualized baptismal grace or is a grace
merely of prayer is a matter of dispute among Catholic theologians
today.34
Classical Pentecostal doctrine has traditionally held that the Bap-
tism in the Holy Spirit is a “second blessing” distinct from water
baptism, that the Holy Spirit is conferred only then, with the initial
evidence of speaking in tongues. Appeal is made to the Samaritan
mission of Philip, where the Holy Spirit was conferred only at some
distance from baptism and by the laying on of hands by Peter and
John.35 Yet recently in a major study Pentecostal scholar Max Turner
holds that Luke means Acts 2:38-39 to be the norm for Christian
initiation, with the Spirit being received without delay, and that Acts
8 is an exception and should not be used to justify the gift of the Spirit
as a donum superadditum.36 He adduces other arguments to sustain the
Pentecostal position, which I have addressed in my review in the
Catholic Biblical Quarterly (60 [1998] 177-78).
Whatever the ultimate solution concerning the instrument (sacra-
ment or prayer) and the moment of the conferring of the Spirit, what
is of most interest is the effect of the Holy Spirit on the receiver and
how this affects the ongoing life of the believer. To that we now turn.
b. In the Subsequent Christian Life

Although our principal interest in the preceding section was the rela-
tion of the Holy Spirit to Christian initiation, we could not avoid
introducing several aspects of the Holy Spirit’s effect upon the be-
liever. In this section we will explore further the major effects. While
beginning in a foundational way in Christian initiation, they are ex-
pected to continue and deepen as the Christian and the community
grow.
(1) Relational
The relational character of the Holy Spirit is particularly emphasized
by Paul. It is the Holy Spirit that enables the Christian to cry out,
“Abba! Father!” (Gal 4:6) and since this is the Spirit of “his Son,”
clearly the Christian’s prayer to the Father is a participation in Jesus’
own experience of the Father. Romans clarifies this further as an ex-
perience of sonship in contrast to that of slavery: “You have not re-
ceived a spirit of slavery leading you back into fear [a likely reference
to the law, which was supposed to mark deliverance from the slavery
of Egypt but ended up producing a new kind of slavery], but you
have received a spirit of adoption by which we cry, ‘Abba, Father!’
The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of
God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with
Christ” (Rom 8:15-17). We have access in one Spirit to the Father
(Eph 2:18). There is a rarely noticed Lukan motif that echoes the
Pauline one here. In Luke 11 the disciples observe Jesus praying and
ask him to teach them how to pray. He gives them the Lord’s prayer.
But his response to their inquiry does not end there. He gives them
additional advice about perseverance in prayer, with a final encour-
agement to ask with the assurance of receiving, and then, “If you
who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much
more with the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask
him” (Luke 11:13). The gift of the Holy Spirit is the ultimate answer
to the disciples’ request to learn how to pray as Jesus prays. Jesus first
gives them the words, then tells them to ask for the Holy Spirit which
is upon Jesus as he prays (as Luke already told us in the Jordan scene,
3:21-22). It is the Holy Spirit who will make the Abba prayer a lived
experience.
The Holy Spirit also enables the Christian to proclaim,”Jesus is
Lord” (1 Cor 12:3) and to witness to Jesus (Acts 1:8). The prophetic
spirit proves its authenticity by bearing witness to Jesus (Rev 19:10).
In this connection we might describe the Holy Spirit not only as
relational but revelational. The Holy Spirit reveals the depths of God
(1 Cor 2:9-16) and the mysteries of Jesus (John 16:12-15; Eph 1:17).
The Holy Spirit is also the bond of unity among believers. Paul
speaks of the koinonia created by the Holy Spirit once in Philippians
(Phil 2:1) and again in an important “trinitarian” text in 2 Corinthians
13:13. The letter to the Ephesians speaks of the unity of the Spirit in
the bond of peace (Eph 4:3). One may ask whether the biblical
understanding of Spirit also provides a place of encounter with non-
Christian religions. Jewish scholar and rabbi E. B. Gertel maintains it

is the best ground for interfaith dialogue.37 So does Buddhist scholar
Thich Nhat Hanh.38 And of course the role of the spirit in many tribal
religions, particularly the native American, is well known. Certainly
the creation story in Genesis 2:7 indicates that the “breath of God” is
given universally. Ezekiel calls the spirit from the four winds (Ezek
37:9). In the book of Job Elihu says, “It is the spirit (ruah) in man, the
breath (nishmath) of the Almighty , that gives him understanding”
(Job 32:8).39 If the New Testament insists that Jesus is the giver of the
Spirit, does this mean God has limited his gift of the Spirit to those
who embrace Jesus? In any case, when Paul says that the Holy Spirit
bears united witness with our spirit, he seems to imply that every
human being has the faculty of receptivity (“our spirit”) to God’s
Spirit (Romans 8:15), although in the context he is clearly thinking
of the specifically Christian experience. This leads to considerations
about the role of world religions in the plan of God and the issue of
the uniqueness of Christianity, a question recently addressed by the
International Theological Commission.40 But this question goes
beyond the biblical scope of this paper.
(2) Sanctifying, Transforming

Sanctification as an effect of the Spirit is already implicit in the modi-
fier “Holy.”41 The texts in which Paul speaks of this effect of the
Spirit are many. “God chose you from the beginning to be saved,
through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth” (2 Thes
2:13).42 Although sanctification radically means consecration, a once-
for-all setting aside of a thing or a person for God’s service, it also has
in Paul a strong ethical sense, as can be see from 1 Thes 4:1-8, where
Paul says, “This is the will of God, your sanctification,” and then
goes on to define it in terms of sexual morality, concluding: “God
has not called us to uncleanness, but holiness. Therefore whoever
disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit
to you.” The present tense “gives” is significant. God is constantly
giving the Holy Spirit to the believer, just as living water, image of
the Spirit, is constantly flowing. The ethical demands and power of
the Spirit are elaborated in great detail in Romans 8:1-13, Paul’s fa-
vorite contrast of the flesh and the spirit, as in Gal 5:16-25, where he
pits the fruit (singular) of the Spirit against the works (plural) of the
flesh.
A more mystical understanding of this process is given in 2 Cor

3:17-18, a passage fraught with many exegetical difficulties, particu-
larly in determining the meaning(s) of the various uses of “Lord” and
“Spirit” in the passage, and exegetes are divided on almost every
word.43 The NAB Revised New Testament translates verse 18 thus:
“All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being
transformed into that same image from glory to glory, as from the
Lord, who is the Spirit.” J. A. Fitzmyer has done an excellent analysis
of Paul’s loosely associated thoughts and midrashic techniques into six
major shifts of meaning within the larger passage.44 The last phrase,
apo kuriou pneumatos, is susceptible of at least three translations: “by
the Lord of the Spirit,” “by the Lord’s Spirit” (= “by the Spirit of the
Lord”), “by the Lord, (who is) the Spirit,” and in the last instance
“Spirit” could also be lower case, indicating “the spirit” over against
the old law (although this is less probable). Whatever position one
takes, the Holy Spirit, intimately identified with the risen Lord Jesus,
is clearly involved in this process, which is called transformation. Since
the verb metamorphousthai does not appear in the Septuagint, it comes
either from a memory of the oral tradition of Jesus’ transfiguration or
resurrection (see Mk 9:2; Mt 17:2 and Mk 16:12)45 or, more likely,
from the Greek world of Paul’s day. Hellenistic mysticism knew of the
transformation of the initiate into the seen image of God.46 But if Paul
uses the term, he suffuses it with motifs found in the Bible and
Qumran, and he sharply preserves the distinction between the human
subject and the divine.47 In the word image, moreover, Paul shows his
more usual dependence on Jewish traditions. It is not merely a matter
of restoration of the divine image in which man was created, however
(Gen 1:26). The eikon theou is now Christ, into whose image we are
to be conformed (Rom 8:29). It is surprising, though, that Paul says
“that same image,” when, in fact he has not mentioned image at all in
the preceding context. To what then, is he referring? Most scholars
conclude that he is equating “image” here with “the glory of the Lord”
which has just preceded. In fact, “glory” and “image” are concepts so
intimately related in Paul (2 Cor 4:4; 1 Cor 11:7) that one can
substitute for the other, and so it seems here. Christ is not only the
image of God; in the subsequent context Paul says he is God’s glory (2
Cor 4:4). Thus it is into that glory and image that Christians are being
transformed “by the Lord, [who is] the Spirit.”
(3) Empowering for Endurance

The Spirit that gives an initial experience of the kingdom also in-
spires hope and power for the Christian journey. A careful reading of
Romans indicates that as the justice of God justifies the believer on
the basis of his faith, so the love of God given by the Holy Spirit
begets hope and endurance for the subsequent journey. This theme
is introduced already in Romans 5:1-5. Having been justified by faith,
Christians now boast in the hope of the glory to come. And they
boast even of their afflictions, for they are certain that the hope that
inspires them will not disappoint, that is, it will achieve the goal. The
reason for that certitude is that the “love of God has been poured into
our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us.” Paul picks up that
theme again in chapter 8, where, after discussing the sanctifying role
of the Spirit vs. the flesh, he says that Christians are coheirs with
Christ, “provided we suffer with him so that we may be glorified
with him” (8:17). He then shows how the Spirit “groans” for the
“not-yet,” the fullness of redemption, leading the Christian in prayer.48
And the love of God, already identified as the effect of the Holy
Spirit, makes the Christian invincible and victorious amid all imag-
inable counter-forces (8:28-39).
(4) Charismatic/Ministerial
A neglected aspect in western pneumatology yet highlighted both on
the official level by the Second Vatican Council and on the popular
level by the charismatic renewal is the role of charisms in the life not
only of extraordinary Christians but of all the baptized as well.49
Multiple New Testament texts witness to the expectation of charisms
to be given as part of the grace of Christian initiation. We discussed
above the Jordan baptism of Jesus as the icon of Christian baptism.
That anointing with the Holy Spirit was not only a manifestation of
Jesus’ divine sonship but also his empowerment to proclaim the king-
dom through a ministry of preaching, healing and deliverance, and
as such also was programmatic for the works the baptized would do.
Such at least is the meaning of the Markan conclusion: “Whoever
believes and is baptized will be saved…. These signs will accompany
those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will
speak new languages. They will pick up serpents, and if they drink
any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the
sick, and they will recover.” (Mark 16:16-18). The list is probably
not meant to be exhaustive, and there is no limitation of these gifts

to official ministers.
In the Acts of the Apostles, the programmatic Pentecostal event is
renewed whenever one is baptized, as Acts 2:38 makes clear. The
crowds drawn by the manifestations of the Spirit ask what they are to
do, to which Peter responds, “Repent and be baptized, every one of
you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and
you will receive the gift of the holy Spirit.” The holy Spirit here is
obviously the Pentecostal Spirit which drew the crowds in the first
place. At important turning-points of the progress of the church in
Acts, initiation is accompanied by tongues and prophecy (Acts 10:44-
46; 19:5-6). The case of the Samaritans converted by Philip is
anomalous and is probably meant to confirm Luke’s concern to bring
all new apostolic initiatives under the supervision of the apostles,50
though certainly the laying on of apostolic hands does not appear
necessary for conveying the Spirit, since Paul receives the Spirit
through the laying on of hands by Ananias (Acts 9:17).
The author of the letter to the Ephesians, after treating the elements
that all Christians hold in common, including the “one baptism,” goes
on to state that “to each one of us grace was given according to the
measure of Christ’s bestowal” (Eph 4:7), referring to charismatic
grace. The same thought is echoed in almost identical words in 1 Peter
4:10: “As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as
good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” This text appears in the
midst of a letter most critics hold to be based on a baptismal liturgy.
The pattern follows that already set out by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12-
14, where, having spoken of the one Spirit by which Christians are
baptized into one body and receive the same Spirit, he immediately
launches into the diversity of gifts and provides the longest New
Testament treatment of them. That these gifts would be manifest in
some way from the moment of initiation seems implied by Galatians
3:1-5, where Paul appeals to the Galatians’ initial experience of the
Spirit as confirmation of the superiority of the gospel over the law:
“After beginning with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?
Did you experience so many things in vain?—if indeed it was in vain.
Does, then, the one who works mighty deeds among you do so from
works of the law or from faith in what you heard?” “Working mighty
deeds,” closely associated with the gift of the Spirit, resembles lan-
guage elsewhere referring to the charisms.51
The epistle to the Hebrews speaks of tasting “the powers of the

world to come” in the context of Christian initiation (Heb 6:1-5).
These “signs, wonders, various acts of power, and distribution of the
gifts of the Holy Spirit” are confirmations of the gospel message (Heb
2:4), much as in Gal 3:1-5.
A Look Ahead
A dispensationalist view holds that the charisms were meant for the
apostolic age only, to witness to the truth of the message, to get the
church started, but then by divine design, ceased. Such has never
been the teaching of the Catholic church, although individuals at
times have espoused it. A survey of the early Christian literature in-
dicates an ongoing conviction of the actuality of the charisms, even
down to the eighth century. This has been thoroughly documented
in the work of Kilian McDonnell, from which I should like to cite
two examples, one from Tertullian at the end of the second century,
the other from Hilary of Poitiers in the middle of the fourth century.
In his treatise on baptism, in what is clearly his Catholic period,
Tertullian describes the initiation rites of the church of north Africa.
He addresses the neophytes:
Therefore, you blessed ones, for whom the grace of God is waiting,
when you come up from the most sacred bath of the new birth,
when you spread out your hands for the first time in your mother’s
house, with your brethren, ask your Father, ask your Lord, for the
special gift of his inheritance, the distributed charisms, which form
an additional, underlying feature [of baptism]. Ask, he says, and
you shall receive. In fact, you have sought, and you have found: you
have knocked, and it has been opened to you.52
Tertullian is not inventing; he is describing a rite of some antiquity.

The newly baptized, on coming up from the waters, extend their
hands and ask for the charisms of the Holy Spirit. And Tertullian
assumes that they have indeed received at least some of the charisms
they have prayed for.
Hilary is a doctor of the church. Referring to his own baptismal
experience, he writes:
We who have been reborn through the sacrament of baptism

experience intense joy when we feel within us the first stirrings of
the Holy Spirit. We begin to have insight into the mysteries of
faith, we are able to prophesy and to speak with wisdom. We
become steadfast in hope and receive the gifts of healing. Demons
are made subject to our authority. These gifts enter us like a gentle
rain, and once having done so, little by little they bring forth fruit
in abundance.53
Other early authorities who refer to the charisms in the context of

Christian initiation are Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom
and Philoxenus. Augustine’s description of jubilation is a late fourth
or early fifth century witness to the survival of Paul’s singing in
tongues, though called by a different name.54 That is not to say that
the charisms were as evident in the later church as they had been
earlier. Chrysostom laments that the church of his day, bereft of the
charisms, is like a woman who has fallen from her former prosperous
days.55 Gregory the Great says that the imminence of the Antichrist
can be known from the decline in the church of the charisms, such as
prophecy, healings, and miracles, thus leaving the church all the more
vulnerable to the prodigies of the Antichrist.56 What is noteworthy is
that the decline of the charisms is not merely noted but bewailed, for
these authors are aware that charisms correspond to the apostolic
model. Given the scriptural and other Patristic evidence of a charis-
matic expectation associated with Christian initiation, one may be
permitted to wonder, with Chrysostom and Gregory, why this di-
mension is significantly muted in the mainline churches today, to
say nothing of those dispensationalist churches which have no use
for the charisms.
Conclusion
To attempt to summarize the biblical theology of the Holy Spirit is a
bit like trying to summarize the Encyclopedia Britannica. We have
examined the major symbols of the Holy Spirit in the Old and New
Testaments, finding them exceedingly rich and suggestive. We then
found that the source of the Spirit in the Old Testament is God him-
self (or God’s wisdom). In the New Testament alone do we find the
Messiah, Jesus, the risen and glorified Lord, as source with God. Fi-
nally, we surveyed the major kinds of activity attributed to the Holy
Spirit in Christian initiation and in the ongoing life of the Christian
and the church. Surely we have here a mine of riches but also a great
challenge to the church of the third millennium.
Endnotes
1
The life-breath is shared with the animal kingdom (Ps 104:29), but in the Genesis
text it is quite clear that this does not put man and animals on an equal plane, for
only in the creation of man is it said that God breathes directly into his nostrils,
and furthermore man is created first, the animals afterwards, and naming them
shows that he is superior to them.
2
Some Evangelicals and many Pentecostals (especially Watchman Nee) have inter-
preted this text as affirming a real trichotomy in the human person in contrast to
the traditional dichotomy body-soul. Indeed the distinction between spirit
(pneuma) and soul (psyche) is made repeatedly by Paul (1 Thes 5:23; 1 Cor 2:14-
15; 15:44-46) and is implied in Heb 4:12 (the division between soul and spirit).
The question is whether pneuma is a real “part” of the human person, ontologi-
cally distinct from psyche as psyche is distinct from soma, or whether pneuma and
psyche represent different functions or orientations or relationships of the same
entity. Josephus interprets Gen 2:7 as implying a trichotomy: “God took dust
from the ground, and formed man, and inserted in him a spirit and a soul” (Ant.
I, 1. 2). The issue entered into the doctrinal disputes of the fourth century when
Apollinaris, whose teaching that in Christ the Word replaced the human soul was
condemned, revised his position. Accepting the body-soul-spirit trichotomy, he
maintained that Christ had a human soul but denied he had a human spirit.
Apollinaris’ teaching was condemned by the council of Constantinople (381).
Though this did not settle the nature of the distinction of soul and spirit, it
perhaps explains the subsequent reluctance to see the two as distinct components.
Aquinas followed Aristotle in affirming that the soul has a lower and a higher
function.
3
Aqhat B iv, 20, 22, 31, 33; ANET3 152-153.
4
F. Zorell, Lexicon Hebraicum et Aramaicum (Rome: PBI, 1968), p. 768.
5
For the uniqueness and distinctive moral quality of Yahweh’s non-conflictual
power even in such poetic works as Job and Second Isaiah, see J. Gerald Janzen,
“On the Moral Nature of God’s Power: Yahweh and the Sea in Job and Deutero-
Isaiah,” CBQ 56 (1994), 458-478.
6
Neophyti 1, I, ad loc.
7
Based on the fact that ruah is sometimes used negatively in the Bible, Rabbi E.B.
Gertel holds that ruah is not only unpredictable but unreliable, and he sees Isaiah
59:21 as assurance that the promised Spirit will be contained in and controlled
by the words of Scripture, thus removing ambiguity (“The Holy Ghost and
Judaism,” in Conservative Judaism [Winter, 1997}, p. 40). That the word discerns
the spirit appears evident to us from our study of the development of biblical
pneumatology. But that the word adequately contains the Spirit is another
question.
8
As Luke Johnson has observed (The Gospel of Luke [Collegeville MN: Liturgical
Press, 1991], p. 209), Jesus’ saying in Luke 12:49 “I have come to cast fire on the
earth” is sufficiently obscure that it could refer, on the one hand, to the coming
judgment by the Son of Man (12:40) and thus be a carry-over of the Baptist’s
prediction of judgment, or, on the other hand, to the eschatological gift of the
Holy Spirit (Acts 2:3). Given Luke’s overall theological interest and Jesus’ refusal
to call down fire from heaven on the inhospitable Samaritan villages in 9:54-56,
it would seem preferable to opt for “fire” in 12:49 as referring, in Luke’s narrative,
to the gift of the Holy Spirit.
9
Ben Zoma, Bab. hag. 15a.
10
See most recently, Kilian McDonnell, The Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan: The
Trinitarian and Cosmic Order of Salvation (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press,
1996).
11
Among others, G. Johnston (“The Spirit-Paraclete in the Gospel of John,”
Perspective 9 [1968], p. 32) has suggested the Hebrew melis, “interpreter,” but the
Johannine Paraclete is much more than that.
12
R.E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (xii-xxi), AB 29A (Garden City NY:
Doubleday, 1970), p. 1139.
13
Power from on High: The Spirit in Israel’s Restoration and Witness in Luke-Acts
(Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), p. 277.
14
See 1QS iii, 6-7; iv, 23-24.
15
1 QM 13.
16
1 QS 3:24-25, 38-39.
17
1 QM 17.
18
M. E. Isaacs, The Concept of Spirit (London: Heythrop Monographs, 1976), p.89.
19
Nor, according to Rabbi E. B. Gertel, is Judaism of any age so prepared: “The New
Testament speaks interchangeably of the ‘Spirit of God’ and the ‘Spirit of Christ.’
This is, in Guignebert’s words, a ‘shocking and blasphemous proposition’ to the
Judaism of the time or of any time.” (“The Holy Spirit and Judaism,” p. 43).
20
J.D.G. Dunn, Christology in the Making (London: SCM, 1980), 144. Romans 1:4
does not seem to be relevant here. Dunn, Romans 1-8 (Dallas, TX: Word, 1988),
p. 15.
21
Rom 8:11, 13; 15:19; 1 Cor 2:10, 11, l4; 3:16; 6:11; 7:40; 12:3; 2 Cor 3:3; Eph
3:16; 4:30.
22
L. Cerfaux, The Church in the Theology of St. Paul, tr. G. Webb and A. Walker (New
York: Herder & Herder, 1959), pp. 262-276; J.A.T. Robinson, The Body
(London: SCM, 1952), p. 47; R. Schnackenburg, Baptism in the Thought of St.
Paul (New York: Herder & Herder, 1964), p. 26; D. M. Stanley, Christ’s
Resurrection in Pauline Soteriology (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1961), p.
181; A.Wikenhauser, Pauline Mysticism (Freiburg: Herder, 1960), p. 20, and
many others.
23
Paul’s reference to those who in the spirit might say, “Cursed be Jesus” (1 Cor
12:3), would be unthinkable if there were not some who claimed that the Spirit
freed them from any responsibility to the tradition. See W. Schmitals, Gnosticism
in Corinth (Nashville: Abingdon, 1971).
24
This thesis was originally introduced in 1978 by B. Standaert, was viewed favorably
by M. Hengel in 1984 and adopted by in 1989 by A. Stock, The Method and
Message of Mark (Wilmington, DL: Michael Glazier, 1989), pp. 15-19.
25
Mark 10:38, “Can you…be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”
refers to Jesus’ passion and death, but the allusion to his earlier baptism by John
(where he experienced the Holy Spirit) cannot be overlooked.
26
The Emmanuel theme is Matthew’s equivalent of Paul’s “body of Christ,” or
John’s “the vine and the branches.” Much of his understanding of church as one
with Jesus can be seen in the way he edits the tradition.
27
Note that in Luke’s infancy gospel, others enjoy the Holy Spirit: Zechariah, Mary,
Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna. Luke is using his first two chapters as a prologue not
only to his gospel but also to Acts. In Luke 1-2 the Holy Spirit works domestically
what the Spirit will do publicly in Acts.
28
See Kilian McDonnell and George T. Montague, Christian Initiation and Baptism
in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries, 2nd ed. (Collegeville
MN: Liturgical Press, 1994) with bibliography.
29
See George T. Montague, The Holy Spirit, Growth of a Biblical Tradition (Peabody,
MA: Hendrickson, 1994), pp. 194-196.
30
McDonnell-Montague, Christian Initiation, pp. 19-20; R. H. Gundry, Matthew:
A Commentary on His Literary and Theological Art (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1982), p. 235.
31
In the gospel the Holy Spirit comes upon Jesus after he is baptized by John and is
praying (Luke 3:21). While this removes it only slightly from the baptizing by
John, it does co-ordinate it better with the Pentecost event, where the Holy Spirit
comes upon the community while they are praying.
32
The Eastern church has apparently a different view, namely that the infant
experiences the grace without being able to verbalize it. So says Ecumenical
Patriarch Bartholomew of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople, in an
address he gave at Georgetown University, October 21, 1977: “Those baptized
as infants, whose Orthodox parents grafted them into the body of the church, are
unable to express in words the change that took place in them, but they feel it.”
(Emphasis ours.) Origins 27 (1997), p. 336. Bi-ritual (Byzantine/Latin) Right
Reverend Stephen Barham told me that on one occasion when he baptized a new-
born baby in terminal condition because of a defective liver the baby immediately
began recovering to normal health.
33
See McDonnell-Montague, Christian Initiation, pp. 94-95.
34
McDonnell-Montague, working off the biblical and patristic models, hold for it
being a baptismal grace actualized later, while Francis Sullivan, noting that
multiple impartings of the Spirit are also biblical, sees it as a gift of prayer, not
related to the sacraments. See F. Sullivan, “‘Baptism in the Holy Spirit: A
Catholic Interpretation of the Pentecostal Experience,” Gregorianum 55 (1974),
pp. 49-68 and “Baptism in the Spirit,” in Charisms and Charismatic Renewal (Ann
Arbor: Servant, 1982), pp. 59-75.
35
Some Catholic authors, though not recently, appealed to the same narrative to
justify confirmation. N. Adler, Taufe und Handauflegung: Eine exegetisch-
theologische Untersuchung von Apg., 8:14-17 (N.T. Abhandlungen XIX 3: Münster:
Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhundlung, 1951; B. Neunheuser, Baptism and
Confirmation, trans. J.J. Hughes (New York: Herder & Herder, 1964), pp. 47-
48.
36
Max Turner, Power from on High: The Spirit in Israel’s Restoration and Witness in
Luke-Acts (Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), p. 359. “Luke does not know of two
such separate ‘receptions’ of ‘(the gift) of the Spirit’ in any individual (though he
may well have anticipated the Spirit regularly ‘filled’ believers subsequent to their
receiving the gift). For him, Acts 8:17 describes the Samaritans’ first and only
reception of ‘the promise of the Spirit’.” (p. 369)
37
“Its universality, according to the biblical perspective, makes it the most fertile and
reasonable ground for interfaith dialogue” (Gertel, “The Holy Spirit and Juda-
ism,” p. 38). Though he has serious reservations about the way dialogue is carried
out, he believes that the universal “spirit of Wisdom” is the most promising
starting point for such exchange (pp. 48-49).
38
Living Buddha, Living Christ (New York: Berkley , 1995).
39
The context of Job 32:8 shows this spirit, this breath of the Almighty, standing in
contrast to the traditional source of wisdom in human days and years, i.e., age and
experience. Since Elihu claims this spirit against the elders who do not have it, the
use of this text for the universalizing of the spirit, as Gertel does (p. 38) is therefore
questionable.
40
“Christianity and the World Religions,” Origins 27 (1997), pp. 149-166.
41
Paul speaks of Jesus’ resurrection as done in the realm of the “Spirit of holiness,”
a very Jewish way of speaking of the Holy Spirit (Rom 1:4).
42
Spirit here could conceivably refer to the spirit of the Christian which is sanctified.
Such a usage is surely possible (see 1 Thes 5:23). But it is more likely that the spirit
here is the Holy Spirit, the title “holy” being dropped to avoid redundancy with
“holiness” (or “sanctification” already mentioned).
43
See C. K. Stockhausen, Moses’ Veil and the Glory of the New Covenant: The
Exegetical Substructure of II Cor. 3, 1-4, 6 AnBib 116 (Rome: Pontifical Biblical
Institute, 1989), who reviews the literature to 1989 on pp. 4-16. J. D. G. Dunn,
“‘The Lord is the Spirit,’” JThS 21 (1970) 309-320. J. Lambrecht, “Structure and
Line of Thought in 2 Cor 2:14-4:6,” Bib 64 (1983), 344-380. Idem., “Transfor-
mation in 2 Cor 3:18,” Bib 64 (1983), 247-251. Earlier: B. Schneider, Dominus
Autem Spiritus Est (Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1951); D. Greenwood,
“The Lord is the Spirit: Some Considerations of 2 Cor 3:17” CBQ 34 (1972) 467-
472; Scott J. Hafemann, Paul, Moses, and the History of Israel: The Letter/Spirit
Contrast and the Argument from Scripture in 2 Corinthians 3 (WUNT 81;
Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1995).
44
J. A. Fitzmyer, “Glory Reflected on the Face of Christ (2 Cor 3:7-4:6) and a
Palestinian Jewish Motif,” TS 42 (1981), 630-644.
45
See E. Laarson, Christus als Vorbild. Eine Untersuchung zu den paulischen Tauf- und
Eikontexten (Acta Sem. Neotest. Upsal. 23; Upsala, 1962) 111-323.
46
References in Behm TDNT IV, 757-758.
47
Lambrecht, “Transformation,” 252; Fitzmyer, “Glory,” 644.
48
This “groaning” for the consummation balances Paul’s statements elsewhere that
the Spirit is “already now” the downpayment of what is to come (2 Cor 1:22; 5:5).
The groaning of the sons of Israel for their liberation from slavery (Ex 2:24; 6:5)
is surely in the background here. Though already justified and at peace with God,
for Christians the fullness of adoption is “not yet.” But Christian “groaning” is
the work of the Holy Spirit who, by giving the foretaste of what is to come, whets
even more their longing and their prayer for its fulfillment.
49
See Vatican II, Lumen Gentium #12; Apostolicam Actuositatem, #3, 30; Ad Gentes,
#23. On the relation of charisms to baptismal grace, Kilian McDonnell and
George T. Montague, Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit, 2nd ed.
(Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1994). This portion of my paper is drawn largely
from this latter work.
50
Even the Pentecostal scholar Max Turner departs from the widespread Pentecostal
position that Acts 8 shows the Holy Spirit to be a donum superadditum given at
a later date; he admits that Acts 8 is exceptional (Power from on High, pp. 360-
375, where he also surveys the explanations given for the anomaly).
51
See Gorden D. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), p. 389.
52
De Baptismo, 20. SC 35:96
53
On Psalm 64:15; CSEL 22:246.
54
On Psalm 32, Sermo 1, 7-8; CCL 38, 253-54.
55
On 1 Corinthians, 36. PG 61:312, 313. See McDonnell-Montague, Christian
Initiation, p. 286-293.
56
Moralia 34.3.7 (PL 76:721-22).
66 John R. Levison
The Pluriform Foundation of

Christian Pneumatology
John R. Levison
Introduction
In the New Testament, the word, “spirit” (pneuma) is to be under-
stood as the spirit of God approximately 275 times; in as many as
ninety-two of these occurrences, the expression is “holy spirit” (pneuma
hagion). This impressive frequency of references should not be sup-
posed to suggest that the words, pneuma or pneuma hagion, were
termini technici in the environment of the New Testament to which
were attached a relatively established or assumed meaning. The sce-
nario is to the contrary; enormously diverse conceptions of pneuma
co-existed during the Greco-Roman era.
Although a survey of this breadth of conceptions might be benefi-
cial, I shall limit my focus instead to one particular dimension of that
diversity, namely the co-existence of varieties of conceptions within
literary corpora and within the writings of individual authors. I shall
first highlight various interpretations of the term, holy spirit, in the
Hebrew Bible and writings from Qumran. Then I shall explore the
writings of Philo and Josephus to observe the ways in which individual
authors of the first century C.E. incorporated conceptions of the spirit
which to us might seem to clash. The focus of the lion’s share of this
analysis, however, is a single chapter of Acts—the Pentecost narrative
in Acts 2—which is intended explore the ways in which Luke, like
Philo and Josephus, embraced diverse conceptions of the spirit. The
implication of this study is that contemporary pneumatologies which
permit the co-existence of various forms of pneumatology—even
those which seem uncomfortably to co-exist—find precedent in the
Hebrew Bible, in first century Jewish authors of the Greco-Roman era
(the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, and Josephus), and in Acts 2.
Hebrew Bible
References to “Holy Spirit” in the Hebrew Bible (MT Ps 51:13; Isa
63:10, 11) suggest widely varying applications of this designation. In
The Pluriform Foundation of Christian Pneumatology 67
Psalm 51, the Holy Spirit is that which vivifies individual human
beings. The psalmist therefore implores, “Do not cast me away from
your presence/Do not take your Holy Spirit away from me” (Ps 51:13).
In Isaiah 63:7-14, in contrast, the Holy Spirit is similar to the angel
of Exodus 23 which guided Israel through the wilderness. The
prophet’s recollection that Israel “rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit,”
in a context permeated by exodus and wilderness imagery, is reminis-
cent of the command that Israel “not rebel against” the angel sent to
guard Israel on its wilderness sojourn (Exod 23:20-23). The further
recollection that “the spirit of the LORD gave them rest” (Isa 63:14)
is reminiscent of Exodus 33:14, according to which God’s presence
gave Israel rest.1 In the Hebrew Bible, then, the designation, holy
spirit, refers both to the vivifying power of individual human beings
and the angelic presence which led the community of Israel through
the wilderness.
Dead Sea Scrolls

During the centuries preceding the first century C.E., this flexibility
with respect to conceptions of the holy spirit persisted, as the Dead
Sea Scrolls illustrate. In CD 7:4 and 5:11-13, the term, holy spirit,
replaces the biblical term, nephesh, to describe that which can be de-
filed. While Leviticus 11:43 and 20:25 contain the command not to
defile the nephesh, CD 7:4 describes sinners who defile “their holy
spirit, for with blasphemous tongue they have opened their mouth
against the statutes of God’s covenant” (see CD 5:11-13; 12:11).2
Compare this with the hymn writer’s thanks to God that he is
“strengthened by the spirit of holiness …” (1QH 16:15) or the words
of praise that God has chosen “to purify me with your holy spirit”
(1QH 16:20). Still farther afield from the anthropological interpre-
tation of the term, holy spirit, in CD 7:4 is the belief expressed in
1QS 4:21, according to which the holy spirit is the eschatological
agent of purification. The scrolls provide, therefore, a window into
the diversity which characterized the era that gave birth to Christian-
ity. The holy spirit could be conceived as a constituent dimension of
human life from birth to death (nephesh), as that power that strength-
ens and purifies those who join themselves to the community of
Qumran covenanters, and as that which will bring eschatological
purification.
68 John R. Levison
Philo Judaeus
The sort of diversity that characterizes these two corpora is evident as
well in the writings of individual first century C.E. authors. Philo
Judaeus, a leading Jewish citizen of Alexandria who was born be-
tween 20 and 10 B.C.E. and who died approximately 50 C.E., un-
derstood the expression, “divine spirit,” in various ways.
Stoic Pneuma
When, in On the Creation 134-35, Philo interprets Genesis 2:7, he
attempts to portray human beings as the borderland between the
divine and human worlds, composed, that is, of immortal breath
and mortal clay: “It says, however, that the formation of the indi-
vidual human, the object of sense, is a composite one made up of
earthly substance and of Divine breath … nothing else than a Divine
breath that migrated hither from that blissful and happy existence
for the benefit of our race … .” Philo’s interpretation of Genesis 2:7
exhibits an extraordinary kinship with Seneca’s description of the
human soul as:
a holy spirit [that] indwells within us … . If you see a person who

is unterrified in the midst of dangers, untouched by desires, happy
in adversity … . Will you not say: “This quality is too great and too
lofty to be regarded as resembling this petty body in which it
dwells? A divine power has descended upon that person” (Moral
Epistles 41.2, 4).
For both Seneca and Philo, the divine or holy spirit is that constitu-
ent portion of human beings which participates in the divine world.3
Prophetic Pneuma
When, on the other hand, Philo turns to explain the phenomenon of
prophetic ecstasy, he explains in quite different terms that “the mind
is evicted at the arrival of the divine Spirit, but when that departs the
mind returns to its tenancy” (Who is the Heir 264-66).4 The foun-
tainhead of this explanation of prophetic ecstasy is Plato’s discussions
of mania, such as Ion 534C-D: “And for this reason God takes away
the mind of these men and uses them as his ministers, just as he does
soothsayers and godly seers … it is God himself who speaks and
addresses us through them.” The closest affinities, however, Philo
shares with Plutarch, another first century author, for an external

influence, such as the divine spirit, which has no place in Plato’s dis-
cussion, is integral to Plutarch’s interpretation of Plato: “There is a
second kind [of mania], however, which does not exist without di-
vine inspiration. It is not intrinsically generated but is, rather, an
extrinsic afflatus that displaces the faculty of rational inference; it is
created and set in motion by a higher power. This sort of madness
bears the general name of ‘enthusiasm’” (Amatorius 16 [II.758E]).
The vapor of Delphi, in particular, a “prophetic current and breath…
most holy and divine,” causes a bodily temperament “through which
the reasoning and thinking faculty of the soul is relaxed …” (On the
Defection of Oracles 432C-D).
Philo’s explanation of scriptural prophetic ecstasy is altogether simi-
lar to Plutarch’s explanation of Delphic prophetic inspiration. Both
entail a transitory loss of mental control occasioned by an external
pneuma. Of what precisely this pneuma consists Philo is not alto-
gether clear, though Plutarch identifies it unequivocally as the vapor
which arose from the cleft of the rock at Delphi.5
Pneuma as Customary Friend

Still further variety with respect to the divine spirit is evident in Philo’s
autobiographical reflections on the inspiration he alleges to receive
in order to interpret the Scriptures. In On Dreams 2.252, Philo refers
to the invisible voice which he hears: “I hear once more the voice of
the invisible spirit, the familiar secret tenant, saying, ‘Friend, it would
seem that there is a matter great and precious of which thou knowest
nothing, and this I will ungrudgingly shew thee, for many other well-
timed lessons have I given thee.’”
This form of inspiration differs markedly from prophetic inspira-
tion, for Philo’s own experience involves instructing, rather than by-
passing, his mind.
Moreover, the attachment of the adjective, “customary,” to the spirit
is evocative of Socrates’ inspiration, for Socrates referred to “the cus-
tomary prophetic inspiration of the daemon” (Plato Apology 40A),
“the daemonic and customary sign” (Plato Phaedrus 242B), and “my
customary daemonic sign” (Plato Euthydemus 272E). In On Dreams
2.252, then, Philo models his own experience of the spirit after
Socrates’ experience, which was interpreted by Lamprias in Plutarch’s
On the Genius of Socrates, as a daemon: “the messages of daemons
pass through all other people, but find an echo in those only whose
70 John R. Levison
character is untroubled and soul unruffled, the very people in fact we

call holy and daemonic” (On the Genius of Socrates 589D).
The affinities between the renowned Socrates and Philo, at least in
Philo’s estimation, include an untroubled mind which is taught by
the presence of a customary inspiring friend. Once again, then, the
inspiring spirit has undergone a transformation through its coales-
cence with Greco-Roman conceptions of inspiration; in this instance,
Philo portrays it as an angelic (or daemonic)6 being who instructs
Philo when he encounters occasional exegetical conundrums.7
Pneuma as Daemon
Philo’s ability to characterize the spirit as a daemonic being is evident
as well in his version of the story of Balaam, in which he identifies
the angel with the inspiring spirit. In the biblical version, the angel
promises to place words in Balaam’s mouth (Num 22:35), and the
spirit of God subsequently comes upon Balaam (Num 24:2) in an
apparently unrelated experience. Philo in contrast exploits the rela-
tionship between the prediction of the angel and its fulfillment by
the spirit. In an expanded version of Numbers 22:35, the angel pre-
dicts: “I shall prompt the needful words without your mind’s con-
sent, and direct your organs of speech as justice and convenience
require. I shall guide the reins of speech, and, though you under-
stand it not, employ your tongue for each prophetic utterance” (Life
of Moses 1.274). This prediction is fulfilled when Balaam “advanced
outside, and straightway became possessed, and there fell upon him
the truly prophetic spirit which banished utterly from his soul his art
of wizardry” (Moses 1.277). In Philo’s version the angel who had prom-
ised to prompt Balaam’s words actually accomplished this when it
reappeared, designated appropriately in this new context as the pro-
phetic spirit.
In addition to this identification of the angel with the inspiring
spirit, the interpretation of Philo underscores the passivity of Balaam.
Philo’s angel predicts Balaam’s experience with such words as “with-
out your mind’s consent … though you understand it not … employ
your tongue … .” This coalescence of ingredients—an angelic spirit
and the loss of mental control—may well be the product of inter-
preting the biblical text in light of Greco-Roman discussions of Del-
phic inspiration.
The interpretation of inspiration which exhibits the strongest af-
finities with Philo’s version of Balaam is Cleombrotus’ explanation of
the decrease in oracular activity at Delphi in Plutarch’s On the Defec-

tion of Oracles. Cleombrotus attributes this decrease to the withdrawal
of angelic beings—daemones—who, he believes, utilize the Delphic
prophetesses as passive instruments of inspiration. He argues: “coin-
cidently with the total defection [withdrawal] of the guardian spirits
assigned to the oracles and prophetic shrines, occurs the defection of
the oracles themselves; and when the spirits flee or go to another
place, the oracles themselves lose their power” (On the Defection of
Oracles 418C-D). He further explains, “For what was said then [i.e.,
earlier], that when the demigods withdraw and forsake the oracles,
these lie idle and inarticulate like the instruments of musicians …”
(On the Defection of Oracles 418D).
These two elements—an angelic or daemonic presence and the
passivity of the prophet—characterize alike Cleombrotus’ explana-
tion of Delphic inspiration and Philo’s interpretation of Balaam’s in-
spiration. From this perspective, the spirit is less a power or vapor
than a personal divine being capable of effecting oracles without the
voluntary acquiescence of the prophet.8
Summary
In the writings of Philo, a single first century Jewish author, there-
fore, we encounter diverse interpretations of the divine spirit. Philo
is capable of construing this spirit with Seneca as the human soul
which is present throughout life, with Plutarch’s Lamprias as a tran-
sitory force, such as a vapor, which ousts the human capacity for
understanding and enables the prophet to perceive the future, with
devotees of Socrates as an angelic being which occasionally inspires
Philo’s vigilant mind, and with Plutarch’s Cleombrotus as an angelic
presence which ousts the intellect and produces oracles via a passive
prophet.
Flavius Josephus
This final interpretation appears as well in the Antiquities of Josephus,
whose birth in 37 C.E. and move from Palestine to Rome render
him an extraordinarily close counterpart of Luke, who also wrote
during the late first century C.E. about first century events which
brought Jerusalem and Rome into an association with one another.
72 John R. Levison
Angelic Pneuma
Josephus arrives at an identification of the angel and spirit of Num-
bers 22-24 which is similar to Philo’s. In Ant. 4.108, Josephus care-
fully draws a parallel between the initial approach of the divine angel
and the ass’s perception of the divine spirit: “But on the road an angel
of God confronted him in a narrow place, enclosed by stone walls on
either side, and the ass whereon Balaam rode, conscious of the divine
spirit approaching her, turning aside thrust Balaam against one of
these fences, insensible to the blows with which the seer belaboured
her … .” In this summary, Josephus shows no reluctance to use the
expressions, “angel of God” and “divine spirit,” interchangeably. Fur-
ther, Balaam, in Josephus’ version, explains to Balak: “that spirit gives
utterance to such language and words as it will, whereof we are all
unconscious” (Ant. 4.119). Once again, then, as in Philo’s interpre-
tation of Balaam and Cleombrotus’ explanation of Delphic inspira-
tion, an angelic being employs the prophet as a passive instrument of
oracular words.9
Stoic Pneuma
The Antiquities contains a different conception of the divine spirit in
Josephus’ revision of 1 Kings 8. In recasting the biblical version of
the dedication of the temple, Josephus excludes references to war
and concludes Solomon’s prayer, not with the hope that “all the peoples
of the earth may know that the LORD is God; there is no other” (1
Kgs 8:60), but with the hope that all people may realize that the Jews
“are not inhumane by nature nor unfriendly to those who are not of
our country, but wish that all people equally should receive aid from
Thee and enjoy Thy blessings” (Ant. 8.117). The issue at stake is
alleged Jewish misanthropy and the potential of 1 Kings 8 to buttress
the false opinion that the Jews were exclusivistic.
To counter this libel, Josephus allows Stoic vocabulary to pervade
his revision of 1 Kings 8. He depicts God according to a Stoic ideal
as “in need of nothing” (Ant. 8.111) and asserts, in accordance with
Stoic theology, that God dwells in all the creation, “through all of
which Thou movest” (Ant. 8.107). In such a context, Josephus’ addi-
tion of Solomon’s request, “I entreat Thee also to send some portion
of Thy spirit to dwell in the temple …” (Ant. 8.114), functions deftly
to mitigate the accusation of Jewish misanthropy and exclusivism,
for the pneuma functioned in Stoic physics as the unifying principle
of the cosmos. In Cicero’s On the Nature of the Gods 2.19, for ex-
ample, the Stoic Balbus claims that the world order is “maintained in
unison by a single divine and all-pervading spirit,” while Alexander
of Aphrodisias in On Mixture 214.14-17 summarizes Chrysippus’
theory of mixture: “he assumes that the whole material world is uni-
fied by a pneuma which wholly pervades it and by which the uni-
verse is made coherent and kept together and is made intercommu-
nicating.” Thus, the spirit of God in the temple serves not to distin-
guish but to connect the Jews with their neighbors.
This understanding of the spirit is borne out by God’s response to
Solomon’s request. According to 2 Chr 7:1, fire came down from
heaven and consumed the sacrifices. Josephus records instead that “a
fire darted out of the air and, in the sight of all the people, leaped
upon the altar …” (Ant. 8.118). The fulfilment of Solomon’s prayer
with the advent of fire from air suggests a Stoic understanding of
pneuma in the Antiquities 8, for the two components of pneuma,
according to Stoic cosmology, are fire and air. Alexander of
Aphrodisias, for example, writes, “if breath (pneuma) composed of
fire and air passes through all bodies …” (On Mixture 224.15-16).
This request for the spirit and its fulfilment in the perception of
fire from air constitutes a remarkable apologetic maneuver by which
Josephus transforms fodder for the libel of Jewish misanthropy into
an affirmation of Jewish connectedness to the pagan world. The dedi-
cation of Solomon’s temple becomes the occasion to recognize that a
portion of the spirit by which the entire cosmos coheres dwells in the
Jewish temple.10
Summary
A comparison of Josephus’ revision of the stories of Balaam and the
dedication of the temple indicates the capacity a late first century
author possessed to incorporate conceptions of the spirit which do
not dovetail easily. Although the angelic spirit of Antiquities 4 and
the cosmic spirit of Antiquities 8 are not necessarily incompatible,
they cannot be said to reflect a uniform conception of the divine
spirit.11
Acts 2
Luke sets the earliest experiences of Acts 2:1-13 into a consistent
narrative framework. The early promise of the Holy Spirit in Acts
74 John R. Levison
1:8 both echoes Jesus’ promise of the spirit in the final lines of Luke’s
gospel (Luke 24:48-49) and anticipates the experience of Pentecost,
which Peter interprets, in light of Joel 3, as the fulfilment of ancient
prophecy (Acts 2:17-21) and as the consequence of Jesus’ exaltation
at God’s right hand (Acts 2:34).
This apparently effective tidying up belies the presence of diverse
forms of inspiration in Acts 1-2. For example, Luke referred earlier,
through the mouth of Peter, to “the writing which the Holy Spirit
spoke beforehand through the mouth of David” (Acts 1:16). How is
that spirit, which possesses some sort of individuality in Acts 1:16, to
be poured upon all flesh? Again, Luke has conveyed that the disciples
were “filled” by the Holy Spirit and spoke with other tongues (Acts
2:4). One could easily reconcile an outpouring of the spirit with the
baptism or immersion in this spirit promised by the Baptist and Jesus;
but how does this prophetic outpouring generate as well an experi-
ence of being filled with the spirit?
We discover, therefore, in Acts 1-2 diverse modes of the spirit’s
presence. Such a recognition of pneumatological diversity is hardly
novel, and various solutions have been adopted to explain this ele-
ment of Luke’s perspective. An early and influential source critic, F.
Spitta, divided Acts into two sources and presented them separate
from one another in an appendix.12 E. Schweizer attributed this di-
versity to the clash of Israelite and later hellenistic influences, so that
“alongside the originally animistic view [i.e., Israelite] whereby the
Spirit is an independent entity which comes on man and stands out-
side him we now find the originally dynamic view [i.e., hellenistic]
according to which the Spirit is a fluid which fills man.”13 N. Turner
proffered a linguistic explanation : “as a general rule … whenever [in
Luke-Acts] the Holy Spirit has the definite article the reference is to
the third person of the Trinity … but when the article is absent the
reference is to a holy spirit, a divine influence possessing men.”14
The sort of diversity which Spitta, Schweizer, and Turner have iden-
tified in Luke-Acts is, we have seen, characteristic of biblical and
post-biblical Antiquity. The nature of that diversity will become evi-
dent further if we explore two complementary images of inspiration
in Acts 2, filling (Acts 2:4) and outpouring (Acts 2:17, 22), in the
course of which I shall suggest that the diversity of Acts 2 is due to
the coalescence of two traditions, both of which have rich biblical
and post-biblical roots.
Filling with Pneuma

Luke narrates that “all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and
began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability”
(Acts 2:4). Since “all of them” refers to those who, “each of them,”
had a divided tongue, as of fire, resting upon them (Acts 2:3), we
ought first to explain the enigmatic element of tongues as of fire
before proceeding to interpret the element of filling with the spirit.
The idiom, tongue of fire or fiery tongue, occurs in the literature
of biblical and post-biblical Judaism in Isaiah 5:24, 1 Enoch 14:8-
15, and 1 Enoch 71:5, although in all of these instances only the
shape of fire is being described, much as we might say that the fire
licked up the grass as it destroyed the house. Philo’s explanation of
the revelation at Sinai may contain a phenomenon similar to Acts
2:3: “Then from the midst of the fire that streamed from heaven
there sounded forth to their utter amazement a voice, for the flame
became articulate speech in the language familiar to the audience,
and so clearly and distinctly were the words formed by it that they
seemed to see rather than hear them” (On the Decalogue 46). While
the similarities between Philo’s On the Decalogue and Acts 2 are patent,
there exist as well important distinctions; here there is no individual
flame on each person, as in Acts 2, and the audience is the recipient
rather than tradent of revelation, as in Acts 2.
Crisper correspondences characterize popular Greek and Latin lit-
erature. Homer, in The Iliad, describes how “the charioteers [of the
Trojans] were stricken with terror when they beheld the unwearied
fire blaze in fearsome wise above the head of the great-souled son of
Peleus; for the goddess, flashing-eyed Athene, made it blaze” (The
Iliad 18.225-27). Euripides describes the maenads: “upon their hair/
They carried fire unscorched” (The Bacchanals 757-58). Closer to
Luke’s time, Virgil depicts an omen which confirmed a son’s safety in
battle and the preservation of Troy: “From above the head of Iülus a
light tongue of flame seemed to shed a gleam and, harmless in its
touch, lick his soft locks and pasture round his temples” (Aeneid 2.682-
84). The theophanic accouterments of this omen include a crash of
thunder and a shooting star (Aeneid 2.692-94).
Two discussions in particular associate such flames with persuasive
oratory. Pliny, who wrote during the first century C.E., recalls “that a
similar flame burnt on Lucius Marcius in Spain when he was making
a speech after the death of the Scipios and exhorting the soldiers to
revenge” (Natural History 2.241). Aelius Aristides, writing ca. 147
76 John R. Levison
C.E., in a discussion of inspired oratory, contends that the dancers of

Hermes, the Muses, and other priests and prophetesses ought to dance
and move dramatically, like the Corybants: “You do not find fault
with the helmet and the shield of Diomedes which emitted fire, as
Homer says, but you even express admiration for them and make
that a token of their greatness. Yet do you not share your compas-
sionate understanding with those from whose very head the goddess
emits fire?” (Natural History 28.110). He turns as well to consider
“speeches inspired by the gods” (Natural History 28.112):
And what battle shall you claim is proceeded by so much heat as

proceeds true and living oratory? Perhaps, as Darius said, “fire has
ordered the whole Universe,” an expression not more proper to a
king than to a philosopher. But this is the one fount of oratory, the
truly sacred and divine fire from the hearth of Zeus, under whose
influence the initiate, brought before the public, can have, in fact,
no rest.
Echoes of the popular depictions of Homer, Euripides, and Virgil15

would have lent to Luke’s account a particularly strong impression of
divine sanction and theophanic presence. So would the more par-
ticular association of fire and head with prophetic and rhetorical in-
spiration have provoked the expectation of, as Aelius phrases it,
“speeches inspired by the gods.” This is precisely what happened ac-
cording to Acts 2:4-40; the disciples spoke of God’s mighty deeds
(Acts 2:11) as the spirit gave them utterance (Acts 2:4), and Peter de-
livered his rhetorical tour de force, replete with ingenious exegetical
citations, with the result that three thousand were persuaded and
baptized at Peter’s final appeal.
It is in continuation with the image of tongues as of fire that Luke
selects the image of filling, as the specific mode of the spirit’s pres-
ence, to depict the inception of inspired oratory (Acts 2:4). Luke’s
biblical foreground had already associated filling by the spirit with
the wisdom of those who possessed exceptional skills:
And you [Moses] shall speak to all who have ability, whom I have
filled with a spirit of wisdom, that they may make Aaron’s
vestments to consecrate him for my priesthood (Exod 28:3). [And]
I have filled him [Bezalel] with [the] spirit of God, with wisdom,
intelligence, and knowledge in every kind of craft, to devise artistic
designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for
setting, and in carving wood, in every kind of craft (Exod 31:2-5).16
In Deuteronomy 34:9, the cognate adjective, “full”, is employed to

describe Joshua: “Joshua son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom,
because Moses had laid his hands on him; and the Israelites obeyed
him, doing as the LORD had commanded.” The sapiential associa-
tions of the verb, filling, or adjective, full, are evident in each case in
the close relation of ruach to wisdom, even in Exodus 31:2, where
that spirit is called “spirit of God.”
As early as the eighth century B.C.E., Micah had contrasted seers’
illicit visions with his own experience of being “full of the spirit”:
Thus says the LORD concerning the prophets who lead my people
astray, who cry “Peace” when they have something to eat, but
declare war against those who put nothing into their mouths.
Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision, and darkness to
you, without revelation. The sun shall go down upon the prophets,
and the day shall be black over them; the seers shall be disgraced,
and the diviners put to shame; they shall all cover their lips, for
there is no answer from God. But as for me, I am filled with power,
with the spirit of the LORD, and with justice and might, to declare
to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin (Exod 3:5-8).
The contrasts in this prophetic oracle are multiple: leading astray by

declaring peace over against Micah’s declaration of Israel’s sin; mouths
filled with food paid for by visions over against Micah’s being filled
with power, the spirit, justice, and might; the closed mouths of the
disgraced diviners over against Micah’s forthright declaration. Par-
ticularly apropos of our discussion as well is the contrast of modes of
revelation to the people. The false prophets allegedly receive visions,
and the diviners presumably employ techniques of divination such
as are denigrated in Deuteronomy 18:9-14 (e.g., soothsaying, au-
gury, consultation of the dead). Micah, in contrast, lays claim to no
extraordinary modes of revelation, no exceptional visions. He associ-
ates rather his direct declaration of Jacob’s transgression and Israel’s
sin with being filled by the spirit of Yahweh. His prophetic procla-
mation is due to an inspiration that issues in cogent intelligibility.
During the early second century B.C.E., Ben Sira, arguably the
quintessential early Jewish representative of the wisdom tradition, in
78 John R. Levison
self-conscious reflection upon his own scribal calling, describes the

wisdom of the scribe:
If the Lord Almighty desires, he [the scribe] will be filled by a

spirit of understanding; he will pour out his own words of wisdom
and by prayer he will give thanks to the Lord. He will direct his
counsel and knowledge. and he will reflect upon hidden matters.
He will make known the instruction of what he has learned and
boast in the law of the covenant of the Lord (Sirach 39:6-8,
translation mine).
Integral to the scribal task, according to Ben Sira, is the interpreta-

tion of sacred texts. The lines which follow upon Sir 39:6 indicate
that the scribe’s instruction is tethered to Torah, consisting of what
he has learned from his study of the law of the covenant of the Lord.
The praise of the scribe in which Sir 39:6 is situated begins in fact
with three references to portions of the Hebrew Bible: the Torah (Sir
38:34); prophecies (Sir 39:1); and elements of wisdom literature, such
as sayings, parables, and proverbs (Sir 39:2-3).
Ben Sira, like Micah nearly six hundred years earlier, sets the sort
of inspiration associated with being filled by the spirit over against
various illicit modes of inspiration. He exhibits intolerance toward
fools who accept knowledge which is attained through divination,
omens, and dreams: “The senseless have vain and false hopes, and
dreams give wings to fools. As one who catches a shadow and pur-
sues the wind, so is anyone who believes in dreams … Divinations
and omens and dreams are unreal” (Sir 34:1-2, 5a). Ben Sira opts
rather for the life of study: “For dreams have deceived many, and
those who put their hope in them have perished. Without such de-
ceptions the law will be fulfilled, and wisdom is complete in the mouth
of the faithful” (Sir 34:7-8).
The association between being filled with the spirit and skill (Joshua;
Bezalel) or intelligible declaration (Micah) spawns, therefore, during
the Greco-Roman era, a specific association between the filling of
the spirit and inspired interpretation (Sirach). In the early first cen-
tury C.E., Philo Judaeus as well adopts this association between the
spirit and inspired interpretation when he explains that the Decalogue
was given directly by God and that the accompanying (i.e., particu-
lar) laws were given by Moses as an inspired interpreter. Philo ex-
plains: “the particular laws [were given] by the mouth of the most
perfect of the prophets whom He selected for his merits and having
filled him with the divine spirit, chose him to be the interpreter of
His sacred utterances” (On the Decalogue 175). Once again, inspired
interpretation is associated with a particular mode of divine presence
identified as filling with God’s spirit.
Within the decades—perhaps the same decade—during which Luke
composed Acts, the author of the pseudepigraphon, 4 Ezra, lent con-
siderable space to a depiction of Ezra’s inspired ability to dictate the
books of the Hebrew Bible which were destroyed in 70 C.E., along
with seventy other books which were to be given only to the sages (4
Ezra 14:45-46). What renders Ezra capable of this inspired feat is the
response to his request, “send the Holy Spirit into me” (inmitte in me
spiritum sanctum) (4 Ezra 14:22):
Then I opened my mouth, and behold, a full cup was offered to me;
it was full of something like water, but its color was fire. And I took
it and drank; and when I had drunk it, my heart poured forth
understanding, and wisdom increased in my breast, for my spirit
retained its memory; and my mouth was opened, and was no longer
closed (4 Ezra 14:39-41).
The presence of the spirit within, in association with understanding,

wisdom, and the retention of memory,17 results in the miraculous
production of ninety-four books (4 Ezra 14:44).
There exists, therefore, an exegetical tradition in biblical and post-
biblical literature which sustains the strong association of filling by
the spirit with inspired interpretation. What began as a general asso-
ciation of spirit with wisdom is discernible in Sir 39:6, Philo Dec.
175, and 4 Ezra 14 in the form of an association between filling by
the spirit and inspired, intelligible interpretation.
This understanding of the spirit suits Peter’s sermon in Acts 2:14-
40, which contains several explicit and creatively interpreted cita-
tions of Scripture:
Acts 2:16-17a: No, this is what was spoken through the prophet
Joel, “In the last days it will be, God declares …”
Acts 2:25: For David says concerning him, “I saw the Lord always
before me, for he is at my right hand so that I will not be shaken;
…”
80 John R. Levison
Acts 2:31: Foreseeing this, David spoke of the resurrection of the
Messiah, saying, “He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his
flesh experience corruption.”
Acts 2:34 For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself
says, “The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand… .’”
That association between the spirit and interpretation of sacred and

ancient texts explains as well the thrust of references to the spirit in
Acts 4. Peter, “filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 4:8), delivered a
speech, at the conclusion of which, “when they saw the boldness of
Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary
men, they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus”
(Acts 4:13). The filling of the spirit had transformed uneducated
people into skilled orators, as it had earlier in Acts 2:4-40.18
This interpretation of the spirit and its effects does not exist in
isolation in Acts. Luke permits its peaceful co-existence with another
interpretation with a claim to an equally robust biblical and post-
biblical tradition: the outpouring of the spirit.
Outpouring of Pneuma
Joel 3, which Peter cites to explain the phenomena of Acts 2:1-13,
belongs to a cluster of texts in which the spirit functions within ex-
pectations for the future renewal of Israel. According to Isaiah 32:15,
a period of desolation will be succeeded in Israel’s future by a time of
fruitful plenty:
For the palace will be forsaken, the populous city deserted; the hill
and the watchtower will become dens forever, the joy of wild asses,
a pasture for flocks; until a spirit from on high is poured out on us,
and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is
deemed a forest. Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and
righteousness abide in the fruitful field. The effect of righteousness
will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust
forever (Isa 32:14-17).
The post-exilic vision of Joel 3:1-5 echoes even more clearly Ezekiel’s
exilic vision of the restoration of Israel: “Then they shall know that I
am the LORD their God because I sent them into exile among the
nations, and then gathered them into their own land. I will leave
none of them behind; and I will never again hide my face from them,
when I pour out my spirit upon the house of Israel, says the Lord
GOD” (Ezek 39:28-29). Integral to Ezekiel’s vision, unlike Joel’s ex-
pectation, is the promised gathering of the scattered exiles which takes
place, according to Luke, in nuce in the gathering of the exiles in Acts
2:5-11:19
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living
in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was
bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native
language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all
these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each
of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and
residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and
Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belong-
ing to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,
Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking
about God’s deeds of power.”
Peter’s citation of Joel 3 in Acts 2:17-21 is related as well to several

texts in Isaiah 40-66. In the conclusion of his sermon, Peter tells his
audience that the gift of the Holy Spirit is “for your children, and for
all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him”
(Acts 2:38-39).20 This promise to those “afar off ” constitutes an allu-
sion to the promise of healing in Isaiah 57:19: “Peace, peace, to the
far and the near, says the LORD; and I will heal them.” The refer-
ence to “your children” in this context comprises an allusion to Isaiah
59:20-21, which contains as well the familiar Lucan image of out-
pouring: “And as for me, this is my covenant with them, says the
LORD: my spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in
your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouths
of your children, or out of the mouths of your children’s children,
says the LORD, from now on and forever.”21
The inclusion of the images of those afar off, children, and outpour-
ing in Peter’s sermon suggests the influence of Isaiah 57-59 upon
Luke’s interpretation of the earliest experience of the spirit.22
This association of the spirit with descendants (i.e., children) and
outpouring is characteristic as well of another eschatological vision
in Isaiah 44:3, which lies just marginally farther from Isaiah 57:19:
“For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry
ground; I will pour my spirit upon your descendants, and my bless-
ing on your offspring.”23
82 John R. Levison
This text in particular was appropriated by the desert community

on the shores of the Dead Sea. Their Words of the Luminaries
contains an allusion to Isaiah 44:3: “For you have poured your Holy
Spirit upon us, to fill us with your blessings, so that we would look for
you in our anguish, [and whis]per in the grief of your approach.” The
context of this allusion in the Words of the Luminaries is occupied
primarily with Israel’s exilic status among the nations: “You remem-
bered your covenant, for you redeemed us in the eyes of the nations
and did not desert us amongst the nations … . Look at our [distress,]
our grief and our anguish, and free your people Isr[ael from all] the
countries, both near and far …” (4Q504 V-VI).
The relationship between outpouring and repentance to the end
that God will gather the exiles from nations far and near exhibits a
kinship with Acts 2, where Peter urges the gathered exiles of Acts 2:5-
11 to repent in order to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. In both texts,
moreover, the eschatological outpouring of the spirit is fulfilled, while
the promised eschatological ingathering of Israel’s exiles has not yet
fully taken place.
There exists, therefore, an exegetical tradition of prophetic texts
which refer to the outpouring of the spirit—Joel 3:1-5, Ezekiel 39:28-
29, Isaiah 44:3, and 59:21. While Peter, according to Acts 2, cites
Joel 3, the presence of gathered exiles and the promise of the spirit to
the hearers’ children suggest that Ezekiel 39 and Isaiah 59 lie also
within Luke’s purview. Further, the association of the outpouring of
the spirit with repentance and the promised ingathering of Israel’s ex-
ilic community in both Luke’s account of the earliest Jerusalem fol-
lowers of the Way and the desert people of the Way evinces the exist-
ence of a shared perception of the spirit and an exegetical tradition
clustered around the conception of eschatological ingathering via the
outpouring of the spirit.
Summary
Luke has woven these complementary interpretations of the advent
of the spirit into the narrative of Pentecost. The image of infilling is
carved primarily from the sapiential tradition, where a scribe such as
Ben Sira, a philosopher such as Philo, and an apocalyptist such as the
author of 4 Ezra can obtain inspiration to interpret the Scriptures; an
eighth century prophet such as Micah could also lay claim to this
form of inspiration when setting himself over against the diviners
and visionaries of his own day. The image of fire on individual heads
bears out this interpretation, for in discussions of rhetoric during the

first and second centuries C.E., the presence of fire over the head was
associated with persuasive oratory. The miracle of Pentecost was, from
this perspective, the inspired ability of uneducated people to narrate
the great acts of God with rhetorical persuasiveness and exegetical
perspicacity.
The image of pouring out, culled primarily from Joel 3:1-5, is part
of an altogether different cluster of biblical texts, most of which asso-
ciate that eschatological outpouring with repentance and the ingath-
ering of Israelite exiles. This interpretation obtains both for Acts 2—
where Peter’s audience is gathered from the nations to witness the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit and to receive for themselves and for
their children, through repentance, the promised gift of the Holy
Spirit—and for the Words of the Luminaries, in which devotees at
Qumran recognize God’s covenant faithfulness in that outpouring,
and where penitential prayer is raised on behalf of Israel’s scattered
exiles.
These perspectives co-exist in Acts 2. Both are culled from Luke’s
Scriptures, although from differing portions. Both were held by other
Jewish authors of the Greco-Roman era. Both were of value to Luke,
the one to emphasize the way in which the spirit transformed indi-
vidual believers into powerful scriptural interpreters cum orators and
the other to invest the events of Pentecost with eschatological im-
port, both in a communal prophetic endowment and as a communal
ingathering.
Conclusion
This study corroborates the thrust of God the Spirit, in which Michael
Welker has attempted to develop a contemporary pneumatology
which “takes seriously the various biblical traditions with their dif-
fering ‘settings in life’” because “God’s vitality and God’s freedom are
expressed in a plurality of contexts and structural patterns of life,
including ones that are not automatically compatible with one an-
other.”24 I have provided evidence—canonical and non-canonical—
to indicate the depth to which ancient authors were willing to go in
their embrace of complementary, perhaps even incompatible, con-
ceptions. The lesson of this evidence for ongoing discussions of
pneumatology is that our comprehension of early Christian
pneumatology will be diminished if we fail to recognize the varieties
of conceptions which coalesced in first century writings. In other
84 John R. Levison
words, the pluriform foundation of early Christian pneumatology,

and the diverse exegetical traditions it reflects, cannot be presented ad-
equately by a collection of biblical texts within a single set of paren-
theses or an eclectic list—as if the word, spirit, provided sufficient
cohesion for such groupings. No uniform conception of pneuma
dominated the first century in such a way as to grant legitimacy to
these collections of texts. In contemporary pneumatologies, these
various conceptions of pneuma, with their differing foregrounds, ought
rather to be set alongside one another without imputing to them an
artificial uniformity.
I have intimated as well that contemporary pneumatologies ought
to extend “biblical traditions” to encompass post-biblical permuta-
tions of those traditions which constitute the foreground of early
Christian pneumatology. We are the richer for Philo’s recollection of
his “customary friend,” for Josephus’ placement of the spirit at the
core of Jewish philanthropy, for Ben Sira’s conviction that biblical
interpretation arises from the spirit’s infilling, for Qumran’s hope that
the outpouring of the spirit will accompany the ingathering of God’s
penitent people.
Endnotes
1
See further my “The Angelic Spirit in Early Judaism,” in Society of Biblical Literature
(Atlanta: Scholars’ Press, 1995), 470-71 and 475-76.
2
See further my The Spirit in First Century Judaism, Arbeiten zur Geschichte des
antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums 29 (Leiden/New York: E. J. Brill,
1997), 73-76.
3
See further my “Inspiration and the Divine Spirit in the Writings of Philo Judaeus,”
Journal for the Study of Judaism 26 (1995): 277-80; Spirit, 144-51.
4
See also On the Special Laws 4.49: “the reason withdraws and surrenders the citadel
of the soul to a new visitor and tenant, the Divine Spirit.”
5
See further my “Philo Judaeus,” 281-88.
6
In On the Giants 6-18, Philo explicitly identifies these daemons with biblical angels.
7
See further my “The Prophetic Spirit as an Angel According to Philo,” Harvard
Theological Review 88 (1995): 195-207; Spirit, 171-211.
8
See further my “Prophetic Spirit as an Angel According to Philo,” 190-95; Spirit,
27-55.
9
See further my “The Debut of the Divine Spirit in Josephus’s Antiquities,” Harvard
Theological Review 87 (1994): 123-38; Spirit, 27-55.
10
See further my Spirit, 131-37.
11
See further my “Josephus’ Interpretation of the Divine Spirit,” Journal of Jewish
Studies 47 (1996): 234-55.
12
F. Spitta, Die Apostelgeschichte: ihre Quellen in deren geschichtlicher Wert (Halle:
Waisenhauses, 1891). Acts 2, according to source A, includes Acts 2:1a, 4, 12,
13-14, 37-42, 45-47; source B includes 2:1b-3, 5, 6, 11b, 9, 10, 11a, 43.
13
TDNT 6.406. Similarly R. Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, 2 vols. (New
York: Scribner’s, 1951), 1.155-60.
14
N. Turner, Grammatical Insights into the New Testament (Edinburgh: T & T Clark,
1965), 19.
15
Further examples can be found in P. W. van der Horst, “Hellenistic Parallels to the
Acts of the Apostles (2.1-47),” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 25
(1985): 49-52.
16
Exod 35:30-32 reads, “The LORD … has filled him [Bezalel] with [the] spirit of
wisdom, with skill, intelligence, and knowledge in every kind of craft, to devise
artistic designs …”
17
This detail signals the absence of ecstasy. See further my Spirit, 122-24.
18
For the association of the spirit with wisdom, see also Acts 6:3, 10.
19
Additionally, the final line of Ps 15:11 which Peter quotes in Acts 2:28, “you will
make me full of gladness with your presence [face],” and the enigmatic Petrine
assertion, in the subsequent speech, that “times of refreshing may come from the
presence [face] of the Lord” (Acts 3:20), may contain an echo of the hope that
God would no longer hide God’s face from the gathered exiles when God would
pour out the spirit upon the house of Israel (Ezek 39:28).
20
The promise to “everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him” is inspired by a
portion of LXX Joel 3:5 which Peter does not cite in Acts 2:17-21.
21
Paul applies Isa 59:20-21a in Rom 11:26-27 to the eschatological salvation of
Israel, though he does not refer to the outpouring of the spirit. The issue in
Romans 11 is the ingathering of the nations.
22
Luke cites Isa 59:8 in Luke 1:79 and Isa 61:1-2 in Luke 4:17-19. These citations,
and the echo of Isa 57:19 in Acts 2:39, indicate Luke’s familiarity with this
portion of Scripture.
23
MT only.
24
Michael Welker, God the Spirit (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1994), 46-47.
86 Carol Stockhausen
Response to George Montague and

John Levison
Carol Stockhausen
Introduction
First, let me thank you for allowing me to participate as a scripture
scholar, particularly as a student of the Pauline tradition, in this pres-
tigious symposium on the Holy Spirit. Second, I want to express my
profound thanks to the organizers of the conference for beginning
and grounding this theological inquiry in scripture. And, third, I
would like to also thank our first participants, George Montague and
John Levison, whose fine papers it is my pleasant task to discuss with
you this evening. I am pleased to do so on a number of levels, both
personal and professional. Let me explain. To be truthful, the Holy
Spirit has always bothered me, and bothers me still. When this hap-
pens, when I am bothered by a topic, I have the strong feeling that
the answers I’m getting about it are wrong, but I don’t have any bet-
ter ones, and don’t know how to get them either. So, rather than
repeat the wrong answers, I let the topic lie fallow, ignore it, until its
time comes. It looks to me as if the “time of the Spirit” is here. As a
student of Roman Catholic Systematic Theology, which, I readily
admit is not my area of expertise professionally, I concluded some
time ago that the traditions I was aware of, or the tradition insofar as
I was aware of it, suffered chiefly from an impoverished Pneumatology.
It seemed to me that this was due to a root problem in Christology.
There seemed to me to be a focus on Jesus, on the Son, to the exclu-
sion of a truly trinitarian, or an adequately trinitarian, notion of, or
relation to, the divine and that within a tradition that proclaimed
itself fundamentally trinitarian theologically. This in turn profoundly
affected ecclesiology, which somehow fell short of expressing what I
understood to be the central characteristic of the church: the locus of
God’s presence as Spirit to the world. These are not matters for me to
probe, since you are all much more qualified than I to do the work
that I felt was needed, so long ago and so very urgently. I see in
reviewing the papers to be presented and discussed during the course
Reply to Montague and Levison 87
of this conference that you have been doing this work, and I am both
intrigued and relieved and eager to learn.
However, even as a scripture scholar this problem of the Holy Spirit
plagued me. Although relieved of the duty to be adequately trinitarian
by the very early date of the Christian literature in which I chose to
specialize, the letters of Paul, I continued to find the Spirit a pervasive
yet elusive presence in these documents. It has been clear to me for a
long time, and many others have said it, that the Spirit is the key to
understanding many aspects of Pauline theology: Paul’s concept of
life in Christ, his understanding of the place of the Mosaic law with
regard to that life and his way of expressing the reality of the church.
But, it is one thing to say that and quite another to comprehend it. It
is as if I had been handed a key, and given a clear view of the doors that
it would unlock, but stood there without the most rudimentary
understanding of the process by which this unlocking might take
place. Believing that it could be done, I was without the knowledge to
put the key into the lock and turn it. Such is my state of mind. Let me
give you an exegetical example.
Paul is a scriptural thinker. Like the overwhelming majority of his
counterparts in Jewish and Christian groups of his time, he sought the
answers to his questions in his scripture. He found a God-given
interpretation of his experience in these scriptures. He did not do so
alone, of course, nor without the influence of the culture of the
Judaism outside of Palestine or apart from the intellectual life and
literature of the Roman Empire. Still, he sought and he found answers
exegetically. One of his most famous exegetical enterprises is his
interaction with the Genesis narrative of the patriarch Abraham,
which he interprets, with the help of other texts and interpreters, to
say that the one God’s blessing is extended to non-Jewish peoples
without the “works of the law,” his favorite way of expressing it. The
experiential proof of this is the presence of the Spirit in his non-Torah-
observant Gentile churches. But the detachment of the Holy Spirit
from works of the law, and its presence among non-Jews is not only
an experiential, but an exegetical step for Paul, I am sure. The problem
is that I cannot put my own feet in the prints he has left. Yet my own
work on Paul’s writings has progressed to the point at which it is
imperative that I be able to follow exactly this step. I cannot see my
way clear to doing so, nor can I just repeat his words. A recitation of
the correct answer will not do. I must now understand it or I cannot
go on, and to do that I must discover why he thinks what he thinks,
and how he thinks the way he thinks. This is an impasse on the

exegetical level, parallel to the impasse I tried to describe above on the,
for me, more general theological level. Into this personal and profes-
sional experience of confusion comes this conference, and in particu-
lar the papers of Professors Montague and Levison on the scriptural
basis for theological reflection on and speech about the Holy Spirit,
and the fog lifts a little. For this I am deeply grateful. I would like to
describe for you briefly the ways in which each paper has been helpful,
and conclude with a small foray into further exegetical progress that
might be made in my future because of directions the papers provide.
Since the process of interpretation is always affected by the precondi-
tion and needs of the interpreter, I have just described for you here
very briefly the questions with which I have approached my task.
Response to Montague
Montague has provided an admirable overview of the results of ex-
egesis on some of the major issues in Pneumatology. It is, as he says,
an immense task to cover the whole of the scriptural witness on any
topic, much less on such a pervasive and important one as the Holy
Spirit. However, his goal is only to offer a basis for subsequent dis-
cussion on the theology of the Holy Spirit. That basis is well begun
by his efforts. His Introduction provides a clear and helpful outline
for the reader, as well as a summary of the results he will obtain.
From that Introduction, several ideas stand out as promises to be
fulfilled.
First, I am struck by the provocative sentence: “Biblical revelation
is not primarily propositional but symbolic.”1 I agree, but I wonder if
we as interpreters of the Bible, or as theologians, deal with this
character of the biblical text very well, or indeed, if we manage to keep
it firmly in mind at all. In fact, it seems to me that, when we are dealing
with a text which uses language conditioned by a culture and a society
recognizably distinct from our own, we are comfortable with recog-
nizing the symbolic character of the language. But as soon as we are
dealing with a text which we think we can understand in correspon-
dence to our own cultural situation, the language begins to seem less
symbolic and more propositional and definitional (Gen 2:7 as ex-
ample). So images such as life-breath or fire drawn from the Pentateuch
are clearly symbolic, while the “sourcing” of the Spirit in Jesus is
probably not, nor is the association of the Spirit with Jesus’ baptism
in the gospels.
As Montague rightly says the images or symbols are entrance ways

to encounter with the mystery of God. When our use of scriptural
language becomes less symbolic and more propositional or historical
can we possibly enter into the mystery in the same way? And isn’t the
Spirit the scriptural expression of that mystery par excellence? Perhaps
this is why our more “propositional” theology about the Spirit, our
Pneumatology, has been so prone to inadequacy. But we are better
students of language, in the sense of communication theory, than we
used to be, so perhaps now we will do better and allow metaphor to
be metaphor and story to be story. Montague discovers that the
Hebrew Bible is full of the Spirit under differing metaphors all
describing God-in-action in a variety of ways,2 but primarily in
creating, i.e. giving life, and in judging, i.e. taking it away.
The Christian gospels and Paul’s letters share some of these symbols
and see the Spirit as God-in-action in many of the same ways as does
the Hebrew Bible. It turns out to be impossible to discuss the
Christian imagery apart from its predecessors in the Jewish texts, since
expressing a theology of the Spirit for Luke, or John, is an intertextual
or exegetical enterprise image upon image, or from one glory to
another, to use a Pauline phrase. The essential Christian modification
is the connection of the imagery and so the concept to Jesus Christ,
who was for the Christian authors the same God-in-action. For
Montague the closest parallels in Jewish literature to this kind of usage
are the Logos and Wisdom figures, which serve as the immediate
background for the Johannine Paraclete. All of these reach the status
of “quasi-hypostasis,” says Montague, quoting Max Turner.3 But
aren’t we losing our sense of metaphor and symbol now? As a
scriptural thinker that worries me.
As Montague explicitly moves into consideration of Christian texts
alone (Part Two), he chooses to treat the writings of Paul before the
witness of John the Baptist drawn from the gospels4 and my applause
is loud and long. This is the only sound way for the review to proceed
methodologically, for in Paul we possess the writings of a first-century
Jew, albeit an avowedly “Christian” one, although he does not himself
use this self-designation. His writings predate the gospels by several
decades and their relationship to, and attitudes toward, the Jewish
background is uncertain while his is not. Paul associates the Spirit with
God, or the Father, and with Jesus, the Lord, in a relatively indeter-
minate pattern, but what does he mean? It is critical to know this. It
is further crucial to know how these assertions fit into his overall
theological schema, because here is the bridge between the Spirit of

God in Judaism and later Christian theology.
Montague highlights the Spirit’s relationship to the resurrection, to
Paul’s ecclesiology and to the ritual life of the Pauline churches. (I
prefer the word “ritual” to “sacrament.”) In all cases the Spirit is giving
life, new life, God’s kind of life to either an individual or a community,
and in all cases in association with the Christ. It is essential to know
these primary connections and for them to continually find a place in
later Christian Pneumatology. But, within the scope of this brief
paper, Montague is unable to tell us enough about the exegetical, or
intertextual, relationship of Paul’s statements to their Jewish, textual
background. Because of this we are unable to hold on to the symbolic
or metaphorical character of the statements, and, to me, this is our
loss. The note that is continually struck by these references to the
Spirit in connection with Jesus, in the gospels as well as Paul, is that
Jesus is God-in-action. This is clear. But, because we have lost control
of the referential language, we are in difficulty when we try to use it
definitionally. We tend to reify and historicize it on the one hand,
while on the other hand, it remains ambiguous and elusive.
Gospel texts are difficult to work with pneumatologically, because
references to the Spirit seem to me to be intentionally christological
rather than pneumatological. That is, the point is, when or how did
Jesus become God-in-action and not, what is the Spirit to do with it?
For the Pauline tradition, as Montague says on page 18, clearly it
happens in his resurrection. Luke follows this ecclesiologically as he
tells the story of the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost in Acts. Yet
the gospel of Luke also knows “Jesus has the Holy Spirit from the
moment of his conception” in his Infancy narrative. Should we ask
which it is? And, what really is the theological focus of the use of the
Spirit in these stories? How should we use them later, now? As we
move later in the Christian corpus with John, Jesus is more and more
clearly the giver of the Spirit (John 7:37-39). Although the imagery of
the water and breath are in use here, the distance from the Jewish
background has grown considerably, but not uniformly. Can the use
of symbolic language ever be uniform? These first two parts of
Montague’s study take the lion’s share of his effort, but the catalogu-
ing of these statements does not constitute an analysis of them so
Montague’s work does what he hopes it will do, that is, provide a
direction which “it is the role of systematic theology to refine and
expand,” but not more.
In section three, there is no doubt that the Holy Spirit is God’s

eschatological gift.5 The question is when and how does God give this
gift? The New Testament clearly suggests baptism. This clarifies why
it is said earlier in the paper that the New Testament evidence suggests
that “without the Holy Spirit one could not be considered a Chris-
tian.”6 Without its proper initiation rite, no group would consider one
a member. The question, though, is why is the Spirit as consistently
associated with baptism, as it is? It must be because the ancient symbol
of water coupled with God’s life-giving activity is embodied in the
rite, although I do not find Montague as clear in this as I would wish.
I also do not agree that the earlier Pauline death-resurrection
pattern, which does not explicitly mention the Spirit, is substantially
different theologically.7 I think this because the same symbol is
operative, in spite of the different language. But what is Pneumatology
itself then on the basis of these texts? The bottom line is that the Spirit
is a part of the language used to describe God-in-action relating to us,
and enabling us to relate to God. Such relating to a relating God is a
transformation of our human life, which also empowers us to relate in
transformed ways to each other, that is, in God’s way. The rest of the
language, whether it refers to love or ministry, explains this God-in-
action character of the lives undertaken by members of the Christian
churches. Is this sort of action to be limited to Christians, that is, to
those who “embrace Jesus?”8 Well only because in Christian texts,
Christians are using the language.
In his conclusion, Montague says, “To attempt to summarize the
biblical theology of the Holy Spirit is a bit like trying to summarize the
Encyclopedia Britannica.”9 I agree, but Levison paradoxically offers
an implicit critique of the effort as inadequate for lack of material, to
which I will turn in a moment. For now I would like to note a final
question for Montague. He has found the major symbols of the Holy
Spirit in the Old and New Testaments exceedingly rich and sugges-
tive.”10 The question is, for me, what kind of theology can and should
be built on symbolic language. It seems to me that biblical language
must retain its elusive symbolic character as it moves into extra-
biblical theological, propositional discourse, and I don’t think that it
has, at least not frequently enough. But only in symbol can we
approach the mystery of God, and the Holy Spirit best communicates
that mystery.
Response to Levison
Levison does not use the survey approach of Montague, but formats
his paper as an exploration of the concept of diversity or pluriformity
in the conceptualization of pneuma in the Greco-Roman period, that
is, the coexistence of various conceptualizations of a single reality
within literary or traditional units. While from a survey approach
such pluriformity is revealed, its existence can be understood to be
problematic. For Levison this is not the case, but is in fact a form of
resistance to the clear biblical and traditional intention and model.
Levison’s work provides another implicit, not intentional, counter-
point to Montague’s work in that it does not limit itself to now ca-
nonical or even biblical works, but ranges over a field of non-biblical
literature that is seen as necessary to an adequate grasp of the concept
and is furthermore helpful in determining nuances even in the bibli-
cal concept of spirit that would otherwise go undetected. In many
ways, the contemporary theological scene is as much indebted to and
determined by non-biblical, Jewish and non-Jewish, literature as it is
by the biblical text itself. It seems to me that this is not only a correct
observation, but one with tremendous importance for the theologi-
cal enterprise today. As Levison says, “contemporary pneumatologies
which permit the co-existence of various forms of Pneumatology—
even those which seem uncomfortably to co-exist—find precedent
in the Hebrew Bible, in first century Jewish authors of the Greco-
Roman era (the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, and Josephus), and in
Acts 2.”11 The implication is clear that such a Pneumatology is also
the one that remains authentically biblical, and at least in the percep-
tion of many, to do that is to remain closest to the reality of the
divine Spirit.
In addition, it is clear from Levison’s work that biblical and non-
biblical writers alike from the era that gave birth to the Christian
movement were heavily indebted to the literary and religious culture
that formed and surrounded them. The implication is once again clear
that contemporary pneumatologies have no need to fear a departure
from biblical precedent in adopting, although not uncritically, the
philosophical and literary culture of our era. Levison finds a complex
interplay of variety and similarity everywhere and a remarkable
kinship in writers of quite diverse backgrounds. There are also some
signal contrasts which are especially helpful to me in my search for the
gears in the engine that moves the process of Paul’s Pneumatology in
particular, if indeed he could be said to possess or articulate such a
thing. But, I can only conclude on the basis of these works before me
that if anyone does, Paul does. Levison does not relate his discussion
here to the Pneumatology Symposium to the particular Pauline text
that I have in mind, but I would like to close with a description of the
way I might find the evidence he provides helpful exegetically.
One of the strongest of the diverse associations of spirit language is
with oracular or prophetic speech. Levison illustrates the various
conceptions of the spirit in this function from a wide set of writings
including Philo, Luke, Ben Sira, 4 Ezra, Plato, Plutarch and Josephus.
Even within this single function, which all of these authors discuss,
there exist a number of conceptualizations which do not coalesce
easily into a unitary concept. The options are 1) the spirit is an external
influence which takes over or ousts the mind of an individual and
speaks through the human mouth as its agent without his or her
knowledge or conscious contribution and participation, 2) the spirit
is a familiar companion which instructs the human mind to perceive
and convey divine messages as a teacher for others; and 3) the
particular focus of this “spirited” teaching is the interpretation of
scriptural texts under divine influence. This of course is characteristic
of Jewish authors, while the first two understandings of oracular
speech, that is mania or heightened eloquence and elevated rational-
ity, are common to both Greco-Roman and Jewish authors. All three
options might be termed prophecy. They differ among themselves on
two counts: First, whether the spirit is inside or outside the human
person when the activity takes place and, second, whether the mind
is active or passive in conjunction with the Spirit’s activity. Levison
argues persuasively for the presence of diverse traditions about these
questions in Acts 2, the Pentecost account. I would like to argue
similarly, but very briefly, for the presence of the same diverse
traditions in Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 12-14, in order to show
the potential inherent in Levison’s presentation of his case for diver-
sity. Paul, however, is less comfortable with the proposed pluriformity
than either Levison or I am, and that is in itself something to ponder.
At this moment I am not prepared, nor have I the time, nor would
it be appropriate, to work through 1 Corinthians 12-14 in detail
exegetically, although I assure you that I will do so at the earliest
opportunity. But I want to say that I have Levison to thank for
providing me with a wealth of background material, presented in a
coherent synthesis, that it would have taken me a very long time to
assemble myself even if I had had the wit to realize the necessity of
doing so. (I confess, I have used his longer work The Spirit in First
Century Judaism, Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und
des Urchristentums 29 [Leiden/New York: E.J. Brill, 1991] as a
reference to double-check my understanding of the implications of his
paper, and the feasibility of my hypothesis, so excited was I by the
prospect of work to come, as well as to see if he had already done it
there. He hadn’t.)
I have long argued that Paul’s reason for mounting the argument
that he does in the inclusion of 1 Corinthians 12, 13 and 14 is not that
he is primarily concerned with a multiplicity of so-called charismatic
gifts in Corinth and the disorder they caused, but that he is concerned
to make it clear that there is only one Spirit in the Corinthian church,
just as there is only one God of that church to which this Spirit-
language is referred. I must note that this makes 1 Corinthians 12-14
stand out in a survey of the New Testament, since here, as only rarely,
Paul is talking about the Spirit for the sake of talking about the Spirit,
and not in service of talking about something else. It therefore deserves
more attention than it has gotten. His pagan converts were unfamiliar
with such restriction of what Levison, I think, would call prophetic
activity. Surely they knew of many spirits, angelic, demonic or divine,
just as Levison has shown that they, as well as their fellow Christians
of Jewish background, would have known of a pluriformity of
spiritual identifications and manifestations, and have been quite
happy to allow the co-existence of various identifications.
But, still, it is clear from the beginning of Chapter 12 that Paul
wants only one Spirit in the church: the Spirit of God, described not
as an angelic companion, not as a demon, but the Holy Spirit
indwelling in believers, and causing speech and action. First Paul
narrows the kind of speech that the Spirit of God can be expected to
cause: the proclamation of Jesus as Lord, and not other kinds of
speech, i.e. Jesus is cursed. Next Paul describes the various activities
that this indwelling Spirit will cause: knowledge, faith, healing and
last, as well as least, ecstatic speech. At this second level Paul seems to
follow the pattern Levison has outlined, while at the first level he
rejects it. Pluriformity of exactly the kind Levison has described is
preferred functionally. Variety is an essential quality of pneuma-
discussion. But, immediately there is heard a note of anxiety, a
concern is voiced that this very pluriformity will lead to the conclusion
that many spirits live in the church and cause the church to live, and
this Paul will not allow. Furthermore, pluriform manifestations of the
Spirit do not have a pluriform purpose. The single purpose of all

pneumatic functions is the upbuilding of the church. Many have
brought to light the very common Stoic philosophical and political
background for the body metaphor and ecclesiologically to bring
pluriformity into unity. Still, in Paul there is a polemical edge, not a
happy acceptance of diverse views. Perhaps later theologians take after
him in this way? At any rate, they have emphasized the ecclesiological
impact of the use of the metaphor, not its focus on clarifying a
pneumatological discussion.
At the latter end of the included section, Chapter 14, Paul takes on
another level of Levison’s pluriformity: mania, or ecstatic speech,
speaking in tongues versus prophetic, instructional speech informed
by the human mind. Allow me to cite Paul briefly: “One who speaks
in a tongue should pray for the power to interpret. For if I pray in a
tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unproductive. What should
I do then? I will pray with the spirit; but I will pray with the mind also
(1 Cor 14:13-15a) and “I thank God that I speak in tongues more than
all of you; nevertheless, in church I would rather speak five words with
my mind, in order to instruct others also, than ten thousand words in
a tongue” (1 Cor 14:18-19). So Paul represents the pluriformity
Levison describes, but he is much less sanguine about it than we would
expect on the basis of Levison’s presentation. It is something of a
counter-case.
Commentators have often noted that much of the symbolism used
by Paul in these chapters is common in the description of pagan
worship—clanging cymbals, and other musical instruments for ex-
ample—while his references to prophecy represent the Jewish side of
the church. But Levison has been persuasive in arguing that distinc-
tion as invalid. Yet we certainly have to do with a representative
pluriformity in a discussion of pneuma into which Paul wants to
introduce preferences, order and control. Paul prefers prophecy to
manic speech, even though both are authentically pneumatological
and he admits it. I am intrigued further by Levison’s implication using
other texts and authors that what is termed “prophecy” here might
well be the inspired exegesis of scriptural texts. So I have always
thought, but, I was until now at a loss as to how to prove it. I am
grateful to Levison for bringing together a set of disparate back-
grounds that suddenly has made me see familiar material in a new
light.
My last two remarks: highest and preferred pneumatic manifesta-

tion is described in the center of the inclusion in the famous “digres-
sion” on love. In-his longer work Levison discusses the Platonic source
and precedent for the identification of love as the vehicle for the
communication of the divine world to the human world. “God with
humans does not mingle: but the spiritual is the means of all society
and converse of humans with gods and of gods with humans, whether
waking or asleep… . Many and multifarious are these spirits, and one
of them is Love” (Symposium, 202E-203A, in Levison, Spirit, 44).
And I had always wondered why Chapter 13, as uplifting as it is, was
there. Finally, the suggestion that exegesis of the prophecy of Balaam
as a root source of the discussion of prophecy in Judaism has led me
to reconsider the background for the very vexing passage, 1 Corinthians
14:20-25, concerning prophecy for believers and unbelievers. Cer-
tainly we can investigate this passage further along the traditional lines
outlined by Levison, and perhaps get behind the Isaiah citations alone.
In doing so, we will make Paul once again at home among his
contemporaries as an interpreter of Scripture.
In sum, I am grateful to both presenters for stimulating my dormant
thoughts about the mysterious reality of the Spirit of God in the Bible,
and awakening as well my exegetical work on texts previously allowed
to lie fallow. Their contributions have impressed me with their
thoroughness, precision and clarity, as well as challenged me to further
discussion and more fruitful work.
Endnotes
1
George T. Montague, “The Fire in the Word: The Holy Spirit in Scripture,” in this
volume, 35-39, and 35.
2
Montague, “Fire in the Word,” 41.
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
John R. Levison, “The Pluriform Foundation of Christian Pneumatology,” in this
volume, 66-85, at 60.
The Catholic-Montanist Conflict 97
“Will the Real Paraclete Please

Speak Forth!”:
The Catholic-Montanist Conflict
over Pneumatology
William Tabbernee
Introduction
Around 192 C.E., a man whose name has been lost to posterity wrote
a lengthy treatise to Avircius Marcellus, the catholic bishop of
Hieropolis. Hieropolis (modern Koçhisar, Turkey) was one of the
five cities of the Phrygian Pentapolis. Pepouza, the stronghold of
Montanism,1 a Christian prophetic movement founded about thirty
years before Avircius received the treatise, lay somewhere to the south-
west of the Pentapolis—perhaps no more than sixty or seventy miles
away.2 Proximity to Pepouza meant that the Christian community at
Hieropolis was, at least potentially, vulnerable to the influences of
Montanism and that its bishop needed to determine the legitimacy
of Montanist prophecy. Because the Montanist prophets and proph-
etesses were deemed by their followers to be the mouthpieces of the
Holy Spirit, Avircius was also obliged to come to a decision about
the orthodoxy of Montanist Pneumatology.
Was the spirit which spoke through Montanus, Maximilla, and
Priscilla3 really the Paraclete, the “Spirit of Truth,” whom Jesus, ac-
cording to normative Christian tradition, had promised would be
sent to the church (John 14:15-17, 25-26)? Or was the spirit which
inspired the Montanist prophets a false spirit? How could one tell? If
the former, what does this say about the way in which the Holy Spirit
relates to the church in the post-Apostolic period? If the latter, what
is to be done about the adherents of Montanism? Are they to be
excommunicated as heretics? Can they be readmitted to the catholic
church at a subsequent time? If so, on what basis and by what proce-
dure? Questions such as these troubled not only Avircius Marcellus,
but continued to haunt the church for the next four centuries.
98 William Tabbernee
Spurious ecstasy
Avircius Marcellus needed more data on Montanism and its
Pneumatology before he felt comfortable about making an informed
decision. Consequently, he asked the now anonymous bishop for
additional details concerning the movement and information regard-
ing how other catholic bishops had dealt with Montanism. The
Anonymous, who was probably the bishop of one of the other cities
of the Pentapolis (see Anon., ap. Eus., H.E. 5.16.5), had developed a
reputation as an expert opponent of Montanism. When he finally
responded to Avircius’ protracted requests, the Anonymous had only
recently returned from Ankyra in Galatia where he had lectured for
many days on the errors of the movement, repelling the Montanists
from the catholic church there (Anon., ap. Eus., H.E. 5.16.4). The
Anonymous’ busy schedule prevented him, at the time, from putting
into writing the content of his anti-Montanist polemics, but he prom-
ised the presbyters of Ankyra that he would do so as soon as he re-
turned home (Anon., ap. Eus., H.E. 5.16.5). Fulfilling his promise
and remembering Avircius’ earlier requests, he sent Avircius a copy
(Anon., ap. Eus., H.E. 5.16.3,5,6).
The treatise sent to Ankyra is now lost, but portions of the copy
sent to Avircius have survived. They are quoted by Eusebius in H.E.
5.16-17, preserving the Anonymous’ denunciation of Montanist
Pneumatology. The Montanist view of the Holy Spirit, claims the
Anonymous, is heretical because, although Montanists attribute the
prophecies of their founders to the Holy Spirit, the source of these
prophecies is, in fact, the devil—the spirit of false prophecy (Anon.,
ap. Eus., H.E. 5.16.7-9; cf. 5.16.15-17, 22).
According to the Anonymous, clear evidence of the demonic ori-
gin of the prophecies of Montanus, Maximilla, and Priscilla is that
they prophesied in a manner contrary to the normative customs
handed down via authentic prophetic succession from the beginning
of the church (Anon., ap. Eus., H.E. 5.16.7). Montanus, permitting
the adversary access to himself and being carried away with enthusi-
asm would, says the Anonymous, suddenly be possessed and enter a
state of “spurious ecstasy” (parekstas) and begin to babble and utter
strange noises (Anon., ap. Eus., H.E. 5.16.7). The Anonymous also
claims that the devil similarly filled Maximilla and Priscilla with the
“counterfeit spirit” so that they, too, would babble unexpectedly in a
strange and frenzied manner (Anon., ap. Eus., H.E. 5.16.9).
While to some, the unusual phenomena which accompanied the

intelligible utterances of the founders of Montanism confirmed the
genuineness of Montanist prophecy, to the Anonymous it proved
exactly the opposite. He cites an earlier anti-Montanist writer named
Miltiades (or Alcibiades4), who had shown that ecstasy is not the sign
of a true prophet (Anon., ap. Eus., H.E. 5.17.1), and argues that
parekstasis is the sign of false prophecy (Anon., ap. Eus., H.E. 5.17.2).
He challenges the Montanists to show that any of the genuine prophets
of either the old or new covenant (including those such as the daugh-
ters of Philip, Ammia of Philadelphia, or Quadratus—claimed by
both Montanists and catholics as belonging to the true prophetic
succession) prophesied in this manner (Anon., ap. Eus., H.E. 5.17.3-
4).
Whereas the earliest Montanists called their movement “The New
Prophecy” (Anon., ap. Eus., H.E. 5.16.4), the Anonymous denounces
Montanism as “The False Prophecy” (Anon., ap. Eus., H.E. 5.16.4)
or “The Phrygian Heresy” (Anon., ap. Eus., H.E. 5.16.22). Having
established to his own satisfaction that the spirit which spoke through
Montanus, Priscilla, and Maximilla was not the real Paraclete but a
fake, it was obvious to the Anonymous that the movement’s
Pneumatology was erroneous. Moreover, any movement with a false
Pneumatology was, by definition, to be considered heretical.
Episcopal opposition
The Anonymous was not the first, and certainly not the last, to de-
nounce Montanism as a heresy because of its Pneumatology. In fact,
the Anonymous himself reports that “the faithful in Asia” met on a
number of occasions in various places for the express purpose of ex-
amining carefully the recent sayings of the Montanist prophets (Anon.,
ap. Eus., H.E. 5.16.10). The judgment was unanimous: the sayings
were profane, the movement was heretical, adherents were to be ex-
communicated (Anon., ap. Eus., H.E. 5.16.10).
One of the earliest, if not the earliest, gatherings of the faithful
dealing with Montanism may have been a synod held ca.172 at
Hierapolis (modern Pamukkale), a city approximately 160 km. S.W.
of Hieropolis. The Libellus Synodicus, a ninth-century and frequently
unreliable catalogue, records as its second entry a synod of twenty-six
bishops convened by Apolinarius of Hierapolis which condemned
the errors of Montanus, Maximilla, and a man named Theodotus.
Although the number provided for the bishops present is spurious,

and the author of the Libellus confuses the Montanist Theodotus
(see Anon., ap. Eus., H.E. 5.16.14) with the non-Montanist
Modalistic Monarchian Theodotus the Cobler (see ap. Eus., H.E.
5.28.6), independent evidence for the historicity of an early anti-
Montanist synod at Hierapolis comes from a letter written no later
than ca.210 by Serapion, bishop of Antioch in Syria (see Eus., H.E.
5.19.1-4). Serapion appended to his own correspondence what ap-
pears to have been the synodical letter condemning Montanism signed
by Apolinarius (ap. Eus., H.E. 5.19.2) and, perhaps, also by some of
the other bishops present at Hierapolis (ap. Eus., H.E. 5.19.3). Sig-
natures of still other bishops who concurred with the anti-Montanist
position of Serapion and the earlier bishops are also appended (ap.
Eus., H.E. 5.19.3[?]-15.19.4).
The testimony of Aelius Publius Julius, bishop of Develtum in
Thrace, is likewise included by Serapion, revealing that an unsuc-
cessful attempt had been made by Sotas of Anchialus to exorcise
Priscilla (ap. Eus., H.E. 5.19.3). Convinced that Priscilla was inspired
by a demon rather than by the Holy Spirit, Sotas undoubtedly chal-
lenged the spirit which possessed Priscilla to show, somehow, that it
really was the Paraclete or to depart forever from Priscilla. Similar
unsuccessful attempts by Phrygian bishops to exorcise Maximilla are
recorded by the Anonymous (ap. Eus., H.E. 5.16.8,16-18) and by
another early anti-Montanist writer named Apollonius (ap. Eus., H.E.
5.18.13).
Tertullian versus Apollonius

Apollonius, probably a catholic bishop residing in the Roman prov-
ince of Asia rather than Phrygia, wrote his anti-Montanist polemic
in the first decade of the third century. As in the case of the Anony-
mous’ treatise, the only extant sections are those preserved by Eusebius
(H.E. 5.18.1-4). Apollonius not only attacks the founders of
Montanism but also a second generation of Montanist prophets and
leaders. More so than the Anonymous, he utilizes the alleged evil life
style of Montanist prophets in an attempt to show “by their fruits”
that they were false prophets, possessed by an evil spirit, and in need
of exorcism (ap. Eus., H.E. 5.18.2-11,13). Apollonius also makes
explicit the charge of revelational novelty, which for the Anonymous
(ap. Eus., H.E. 5.16.3) was only implicit: Montanists “blaspheme
against the Lord and the apostles and the holy Church” when they
dare to instruct those whose faith is better than their own—espe-

cially when they, mimicking the apostle, compose and circulate “catho-
lic epistles” containing their prophecies (Apollon., ap. Eus., H.E.
5.18.5; cf. Eus., H.E. 5.18.1; Hipp., Haer. 8.19.1).
According to Jerome, Tertullian wrote a treatise on ecstasy origi-
nally consisting of six books, to which a seventh was added, refuting
the charges of Apollonius (Vir. Ill. 24, 40, 53). Tertullian, the
Carthaginian church’s most prominent early lay theologian, became
attracted to The New Prophecy ca. 206/7 by reading the very same
literary collections of Montanist oracles which Apollonius condemned
(e.g., see Tert., Fug. 9.3). There is no need to assume, however, that
Tertullian actually left the catholic church in order to join a separate
Montanist community–if such a separate Montanist community in-
deed ever existed in Carthage. Adherence of The New Prophecy ap-
pears not to have been incompatible with continued membership in
the catholic church in Carthage.5 Augustine’s belief that Tertullian
later separated from the “Cataphrygians” and formed his own con-
venticles (Haer. 86) is an erroneous view deduced from the existence
in Augustine’s day of a (post-Cyprianic?) sect which called itself “the
Tertullianists” (Haer. 86).6
Tertullian, while pro-Montanist and a defender of The New Proph-
ecy (e.g., Res. 63.9; Marc. 3.24.4, 4.22.4; Prax. 30.5; Mon. 14.4;
Jejun. 1.3), remained the pre-eminent authority on catholic theology
for North-African bishops such as Cyprian (see Hier., Vir. Ill. 53).
Most of his writings (including the pro-Montanist ones!) have sur-
vived as a result of wide circulation in catholic circles. Not surpris-
ingly, the De Ecstasi is among the small number of Tertullian’s works
which has not survived. Only one sentence remains (ap. Praedest.,
Haer. 1.26). Consequently, we do not know how Tertullian, in the
seventh volume, answered Apollonius’ charges that the wicked lives
and the pecuniary interests of the Montanist prophets proved their
prophecy to be false. Nor do we know specifically how Tertullian
defended ecstatic prophecy in the first six volumes of this work. Nev-
ertheless, there are sufficient comments about the legitimacy of ec-
stasy in his extant “Montanist” writings to enable us to deduce the
type of arguments he used in his reaction to the charge that the man-
ner of Montanist prophecy was contrary to normative catholic tradi-
tion.
In Tertullian’s view, ecstasy is the ability of the soul “to stand out of
itself ” and the means through which genuine prophecy is expressed.
Just as in dreaming, the body is asleep but the soul remains active; in
the ecstatic state, a prophet’s normal sensory functions are suspended
while the prophet’s own human spirit is overshadowed by the Spirit
of God. But this does not mean that the prophet is either mad or
demon-possessed—even if the phenomena accompanying the ecstatic
state may appear strange. Proof that a dreamer is still of sound mind
is the ability to recall dreams. Proof that a prophet is not deluded is
the ability to recall and relate spiritual insights gained while in the
ecstatic state. Memory is a special component of the gift of prophecy,
showing that, even in the ecstatic state, the prophet is still in control.
Memory allows the content of the prophecy to be verbalized and
tested by the community of faith (Marc. 4.22.5; Anim. 9.4).
The Holy Spirit’s continued activity in the church

Tertullian’s defense of The New Prophecy shifts the focus from the
manner of Montanist prophesying to the content of the prophecies.
In making this shift, Tertullian is obliged to defend the charge that
the Montanists, through their alleged revelations from the Paraclete,
are introducing unwarranted novelties. The pneumatological issue at
stake here is whether divine revelation had concluded with the apos-
tolic period. Is normative Christianity limited to the teaching of
Christ, handed on to the apostles, recorded in the (as yet not com-
pletely defined) canonical Scriptures, and safeguarded by the ortho-
dox bishops? Or can the Holy Spirit continue to provide additional
revelation to the church?
Tertullian strongly denies that the Montanist prophets introduced
novelties. To him, what the opponents of Montanism denounced as
novelties were merely the ethical applications of what Christ had al-
ready taught. Jesus would have told his disciples about these specific
ethical applications, but the church was not yet ready to bear the full
burden of the rigorous implications of the Gospel. Basing his expla-
nation on John 16:12-14, Tertullian argues that the Paraclete merely
teaches that which Christ deferred (Mon. 2.4; cf. 2.2). The Paraclete
is not an innovator, but speaks only that commanded by Christ (Virg.
1.7); a restitutor rather than an institutor (Mon. 4.1); the determiner
of discipline (Pud. 11.3), not doctrine. Whenever the Paraclete
through The New Prophecy reveals something, it is not novelty but a
return to the underlying principles of the message of Christ (Virg.
1.4-5). The Paraclete’s final revelation was postponed to the time of
the Montanist prophets because the church was not ready for it until
then, but now through the interpretative, Christ-dependent revela-

tion of the promised Paraclete, those willing to receive it can learn
how to act in the age of Christian maturity (Virg. 1.7).
Tertullian’s defense of the charge that The New Prophecy intro-
duced unwarranted novelties provides a way for him to argue that
the content of Montanist prophecy is not incompatible with the rule
of faith. His defense assumes rather than denies the concept of pro-
gressive revelation. But Tertullian restricts progressive revelation to
matters of practice. Tertullian distinguishes carefully between regula
fidei (the already complete body of Christian doctrinal truth handed
down from Christ via the apostles) and disciplina (the as yet incom-
plete body of Christian teaching regarding conduct of life). In terms
of Pneumatology, this distinction presupposes belief in the contin-
ued revelatory activity of the Holy Spirit in the church. The Montanist
emphasis on the “more complete” nature of the revelation imparted
by the Paraclete via Montanus, Maximilla, and Priscilla led to charges
that the Montanists distinguished between the way in which the Spirit
related to the church at the time of Pentecost and the alleged ulti-
mate coming of the Paraclete. For Tertullian, this charge was illogical
because it was the same Holy Spirit who was operative in the church
for the whole period. The distinguishing factor was not any sup-
posed separation of Holy Spirit and Paraclete but the difference in
human readiness (or willingness!) to hear what the Paraclete had to
say to the church (see Prax. 30-31).
Notwithstanding Tertullian’s defense of Montanist Pneumatology
and his claim that Pentecost was the beginning rather than the end
of the Holy Spirit’s special relationship to the church, it is not diffi-
cult to see how some opponents of The New Prophecy could accuse
Montanists of distinguishing between the Holy Spirit and the
Paraclete. An anonymous work, called Adversus Omnes Haereses, at-
tached to the end of some manuscripts of Tertullian’s De Praescriptione
Haereticorum (but clearly not by Tertullian) reports that all Montanists
share the common blasphemy of teaching that while the Holy Spirit
was in the apostles, the Paraclete was not (Ps.-Tert., Haer. 7[21]).
Some later opponents claimed that Montanists taught that the Holy
Spirit had not come at Pentecost (e.g., Thdr. Heracl., fr. Jo. 14:7;
Hier., Ep. 41.1-2, Vigil. 8; Aug., Agon. 28.30, C. Faust. 32.17, Ep.
237). Others, more accurately, complained that Montanists taught
that the fullness of the Holy Spirit had not come until The New Proph-
ecy (e.g., Filastr., Haer. 49; (Ps.-?) Didym., Trin. 41.2-3).
Heretical Pneumatology?
Did the Montanists’ ideas about the fullness of the Holy Spirit being
delayed until the latter part of the second century constitute heresy,
or were the Montanists merely guilty of sinning against the Holy
Spirit by attributing to the Spirit what was really the work of demons
(cf. Matt 12:22-32, esp. 31-32) when they claimed that the Paraclete
spoke through Montanus, Maximilla, and Priscilla? But, if the latter,
did this also not constitute heresy? For a time, a few within the church
appear to have been undecided about this issue. Some early catholic
opponents were prepared to concede that, in matters of doctrine,
including Pneumatology, Montanists were not heretical. For example,
the anonymous writer of a treatise utilized by Epiphanius acknowl-
edges that Montanists “hold the same view of the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit as the holy catholic church” (ap. Epiph., Haer. 48.1.4).
The anonymous writer’s main complaint against the Montanists is
that their emphasis on “spiritual gifts” had caused them to devote
themselves to demonic spirits (ap. Epiph., Haer. 48.1.4-5, 48.2.3,5).
The thrust of this particular anti-Montanist’s polemic is aimed at
proving that the spirit who spoke through Montanus, Maximilla,
and Priscilla could not possibly have been the true Holy Spirit, not
only because (as already argued by the other Anonymous quoted by
Eusebius) the true Holy Spirit does not cause prophets to lose pos-
session of their faculties (ap. Epiph., Haer. 48.2.5; 48.3.1,11) but
also because the content of their prophecies is false, as shown, for
example, by the non-fulfillment of Maximilla’s prediction that “the
end” (sunteleia) would come soon after her death (ap. Epiph., Haer.
48.2.4-6,8). In the opinion of Epiphanius’ source, technically speak-
ing, the Montanists are not heretics but they, like the heretics re-
ferred to in 1 Timothy 4:1-3, are lying, demon-possessed false prophets
who lead true faithful astray (ap. Epiph., Haer. 48.1.4-5, 48.8.7-8,
48.9.3-5, 48.13.6-8).
Blasphemous oracles?
The line which Epiphanius’ source draws between pneumatological
heresy and pseudo-prophecy is a fine one indeed. It takes but a small
leap to declare the Montanists heretics on the basis of the manner
and content of their pseudo-prophecy. Epiphanius’ source lays the
groundwork for this by quoting, among others, two of Montanus’
authentic oracles. On the basis of these oracles, he claims that
Montanus equated himself with God. This anonymous (early third

century?) anti-Montanist appears to have been the first writer to bring
this charge. The particular formulaic pronouncements uttered by
Montanus and quoted by Epiphanius’ source to substantiate his charge
are: “I, the Lord God Omnipotent am the One dwelling in a human
being” (ap. Epiph., Haer. 48.11.1) and “Neither angel nor emissary,
but I, the Lord God the Father, have come” (ap. Epiph., Haer
48.11.19). The wording of these pronouncements utilized the
Septuagint text of Amos 9:5 and Isaiah 63:9 respectively.7 Both in-
troductory pronouncements were undoubtedly intended to indicate
that God was the source of the prophecy itself, which (frustratingly!)
is not preserved by our sources but which would have been uttered
immediately after the authenticating formulae. Similarly, in one of
the oracles of Maximila quoted by Epiphanius’ source, Maximilla
pronounced: “The Lord has sent me as adherent of this discipline,
revealer of this covenant, interpreter of this promise; compelled, will-
ing or not, to know God’s knowledge” (ap. Epiph., Haer. 48.13.1).
She also, however, told her listeners: “Hear not me, but hear Christ”
(ap. Epiph., Haer 48.12.4). Epiphanius’ source, nevertheless, was
offended by Montanus’ pronouncements, spoken in the first person
as the words of God, and claims that these prove that Montanus’
prophecy is not from God. Whereas Christ glorified God the Father
and the apostles and true prophets glorified Christ, Montanus glori-
fies only himself by saying that he is the Omnipotent Father (ap.
Epiph., Haer 48.11.6-9).
Despite the arguments advanced by Epiphanius’ source, there is
no warrant for assuming that Montanus actually claimed divinity. As
is clear from another of Montanus’ genuine oracles, which also used
the long-standing prophetic technique of speaking in the first person
as God’s mouthpiece, Montanus merely claimed to be God’s human
instrument: “Behold a human being is like a lyre and I hover like a
plectrum; the human being sleeps but I remain awake” (ap. Epiph.,
Haer 48.4.1; cf. Just., Dial. 7; Ps.-Just., Coh. Gr. 8; Theoph. Ant.,
Autol. 2.9.10). Montanism’s catholic opponents, however, were more
than willing to believe that Montanus equated himself with the Al-
mighty.
Eusebius, at the beginning of the fourth century,8 is the first to
publish the specific charge that Montanists boasted that Montanus
was the Paraclete (H.E. 5.14).9 In the post-Constantinian era, this
charge is repeated frequently (e.g., Cyr. H., Catech. 16.8) and ex-
panded to include at least one of the founding prophetesses. Basil

the Great, for instance, in order to bolster his argument that
Montanists were heretics, not merely schismatics, declares that
Montanists blasphemed against the Holy Spirit by giving the name
“Paraclete” to Montanus and to Priscilla (Ep. 188.1). As with the
more general charge that Montanus claimed to be God, there is no
evidence to support the view that he claimed to be other than the
mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit or that his supporters ever equated
him personally with the Paraclete.10
Modalistic Monarchianism?
Not one of Montanus’ authentic extant formulaic pronouncements
is spoken in the name of the Holy Spirit/Paraclete. Invariably, it is
“the Lord God the Father/Omnipotent” who is heard speaking in
the first person—legitimating the prophetic utterances about to fol-
low. Among the spurious oracles attributed to Montanus, however, is
one which declares: “I am the Father, and the Son, and the Holy
Spirit” (Dial. Mont. et Orth. [Ficker,11 455 ll.30-31]). This alleged
pronouncement is also quoted variously as “I am the Father, and I
am the Son, and I am the Paraclete” (Dial. Mont. et Orth. [Ficker,
452 ll.13-14]), “I am the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit” (Dial.
Mont. et Orth. [Ficker, 454 l.20]), and “I am the Father, and the Son,
and the Paraclete” ([Ps.-?] Didym., Trin. 3.41.1). The context of these
quotations, however, reveals that not even the fourth-century author(s)
who quoted this alleged oracle considered it to indicate that Montanus
identified himself with the Holy Spirit/Paraclete or with the Father
or the Son. The matter under consideration in each case when the
statement, allegedly made by Montanus, is quoted is not oracular
prophecy but Modalistic Monarchianism. The point at issue is not
whether Montanus blasphemously equated himself with the Paraclete
as well as with the Father and the Son but whether Montanists equated
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and, therefore, subscribed to the
heresy of Modalistic Monarchianism—a heresy condemned in Rome
ca. 200.
A late fourth-century work on the Trinity, probably correctly as-
cribed to Didymus the Blind,12 charges Montanists with believing
that there are not three holy hypostases but that Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit are one and the same (Trin. 2.15; cf. 3.18,23,38). The
author of the treatise considers this alleged view of the Montanists to
be irrational nonsense, based on an inaccurate exegesis of the
Johannine passages in which the Son is reported as saying: “I and the

Father are one” (John 10:30); “I am in the Father and the Father is in
me” (John 14:11); “The Paraclete [is] the one whom the Father will
send in my name” (cf. John 14:26). According to (Ps.-?) Didymus,
Montanists cite such texts to support their heretical trinitarian views,
basing their exegesis of these texts on statements made by Montanus.
(Ps.-?) Didymus’ exact words in Trin. 3.41.1, however, are:
“Montano;~ ga;r, fhsi;n, ei\pen ˘ ‘ jEgwv eijmi oJ path;r kai oJ uiJo;~
kai; oJ paraklhto~’” (“For Montanus alleges he said: ‘I am the Fa-
ther and the Son and the Paraclete.’”) It is clear that (Ps.-?) Didymus
means that Montanus said that Christ said “I am the Father, and the
Son, and the Paraclete”—not that Montanus said this about himself.
That the spurious oracle is really an alleged misquotation by
Montanus of Jesus’ words is also apparent from the context of the
anonymous Dialogue Between a Montanist and an Orthodox Chris-
tian which may have even been written by (Ps.-?) Didymus or, more
likely, was the source he used for this part of the De Trinitate.13 The
Dialogue employs the format of debate to point out in detail the
fallacies inherent in (alleged) Montanist heretical doctrines such as
Modalistic Monarchianism. In each of the three occasions when
Montanus is attributed as having used the words “I am the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit/Paraclete,” it is clear from the context that the
author of the Dialogue considers this to be a misinterpretation of
Jesus’ teaching.
On the first occasion, the “Orthodox Christian” defends the oppo-
site point to that allegedly made by Montanus by pointing out that
“if the Son teaches that the Father is one and the Paraclete is another
it must be believed” (Dial. Mont. et Orth. [Ficker, 452 ll.17-19]). On
the second occasion, the “Orthodox Christian” challenges the
Montanist to show where in the Gospels is written “I am the Father,
and the Son, and the Spirit” (Dial. Mont. et Orth. [Ficker, 455 ll.19-
20]). The “Montanist” responds by quoting Jesus’ words “He who
has seen me has seen the Father” (Dial. Mont. et Orth. [Ficker, 455
l.21]; cf. John 14:9).
On the last occasion, the “Orthodox Christian” cites John 14:16
to prove that the Paraclete is distinct from the Son and that identify-
ing Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is contrary to the teaching of the
Son—and that by his misquotation Montanus is shown to be a false
prophet (Dial. Mont. et Orth. [Ficker, 455 ll.28-32]). Significantly,
each time the statement attributed to Montanus is quoted, it is used
by the “Orthodox Christian.” It is never quoted or cited by the

“Montanist,” suggesting that the author of the Dialogue was pru-
dently cautious in the way he used this literary genre to put words
into the mouth of his “debaters.” This fictive dialogue, however, only
accuses Montanus of misinterpreting Christ’s teaching on the Trin-
ity, not of inserting himself into the Godhead. Yet even the charge
that Montanus in particular and Montanists in general were Modalistic
Monarchians cannot be sustained.
Modalistic Monarchianism14 sought to reconcile belief in mono-
theism with belief in the divinity of Christ by positing temporary
modes of divine activity by the one divine monarch revealed to hu-
manity first as Father, then as Son, and finally as Holy Spirit.
Modalistic Monarchianism’s teaching concerning alleged different
phases of divine activity certainly has some parallels with The New
Prophecy’s understanding of progressive stages of revelation, climax-
ing in the ultimate ethical revelation given to the church by the
Paraclete through Montanus, Maximilla, and Priscilla (see Tert., Virg.
1.7). Montanus himself, however, could not have been a protagonist
of Modalism, as this explanation of the Trinity was not promulgated
until ca.190—well after Montanus’ death.
Modalistic Monarchianism enjoyed a brief period of success in
Rome, before being condemned there ca.200. It is possible that,
around this time, some Montanists in Rome had been attracted to
the theory. Ps.-Tertullian reports that Montanism was divided into
the “followers of Proclus” and the “followers of Aeschinus” (Haer.
7[21]). This information must relate to Rome, as in that city, ca.200
or a little earlier, a catholic churchman named Gaius had a public
debate with a Montanist leader named Proclus (Eus., H.E. 2.25.5-7,
6.20.6).15 According to Ps.-Tertullian, the party led by Aeschinus
believed that Christ himself is both Son and Father (Haer. 7[21]).
Hippolytus, whose Refutatio Omnium Haeresium is perhaps the source
of Ps.-Tertullian’s charge, declares that some Montanists equate the
Father and the Son and teach that the Father has experienced birth,
suffering, and death (Hipp., Haer. 8.19). Hippolytus traces this view
to the heresy of the Noetians (Hipp., Haer 8.19 and cf. 10.26). Noetus,
or his followers, had introduced a Christocentric form of Modalistic
Monarchianism to Rome.
If, at the beginning of the third century, a group of Roman
Montanists was guilty of subscribing to a Noetian form of Modalistic
Monarchianism, their contemporary Tertullian was unaware of it.
He certainly did not defend The New Prophecy against the charge of
Modalism. To the contrary, he himself launched a full-scale attack
against a Modalistic Monarchian opponent of Montanism resident
in Rome. In his treatise against Praxeas, Tertullian spells out his own
anti-Modalist views and presents the first comprehensive systematic
theology of the Holy Spirit. In doing so, he laid the foundation for
normative catholic trinitarian theology.16 Tertullian had already
touched on the relation between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in his
pre-Montanist period (e.g., Apol. 21). In the Adversus Praxean, how-
ever, he develops his earlier thought claiming that now, through the
Paraclete, he understands even better the nature of the Trinity. There
is only one God, but, through the mystery of divine oikonomia, this
one God exists in a functional Trinity consisting of three persons:
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Prax. 2). This distribution of Unity
into Trinity is not to be misunderstood as being “substantial” (Prax.
2). Consequently, this functional distribution does not threaten the
“monarchy” of God (Prax. 3-4, 10). But neither is the Unity-in-Trin-
ity to be considered as anything other than having permanent dis-
tinctions (Prax. 21-27). Equating the Father with the Son or the Son
with the Holy Spirit on the basis of a theory of temporary modes of
divine being is a foolish, blasphemous heresy (Prax. 28-30). Accord-
ing to Tertullian, by introducing Modalistic Monarchianism to the
Roman church and by opposing the Montanists there, Praxeas suc-
ceeded in two demonic activities: he introduced heresy and drove
out prophecy; he crucified the Father and chased away the Paraclete
(Prax. 1).
It is clear from Tertullian’s vehement condemnation that there is
no inherent affinity between Montanism and Modalistic Monarch-
ianism. Even if some Roman Montanists at one time held Modalistic
views, there is no evidence that they continued to do so once the
theory was formally condemned as a heresy or that it was ever adopted
by Montanists elsewhere. Nevertheless, the belief that all Montanists
were Modalistic Monarchians became widely held in the post-
Constantinian period. The bishops who objected to adding the word
homoousios to the creed at the Council of Nicaea in 325 thought
those who approved it favored the opinion of the Modalistic
Monarchian leader Sabellius and of Montanus (Socr., H.E. 1.23.7;
cf. Soz., H.E. 2.18). Toward the end of the fourth century, the opin-
ion prevailed that the chief doctrinal fault of Montanism was that it
rejected permanent distinctions in the Godhead (e.g., Hier., Ep. 41.3).
“Spiritual Christians”
There is no evidence that “rank and file” Montanists prophesied
ecstatically or spoke in tongues.17 Nor is there evidence to support
the long-held view that Montanists were spiritual fanatics, provoca-
tively courting martyrdom.18 It is clear, however, that adherents of
The New Prophecy believed that, by following what the Paraclete
had revealed through Montanus, Maximilla, and Priscilla, they were
living their lives as “spiritual Christians.” Tertullian frequently de-
nounces his opponents as “psychics,” using the term in the sense of
“unspiritual persons” (e.g., Marc. 4.22.5; Prax. 1.7; Mon. 1.1-2,7;
Jejun. 1.1, 3.1, 11.1, 16.8), contrasting them with those, like him-
self, who could justly be called “spiritual persons” because they rec-
ognized spiritual gifts (Mon. 1.3; cf. Pud. 21).
Clear confirmation of the Montanist use of the self-designation
“spiritual person” (pneumatikosh) comes from Eskisehir, near an-
cient Dorylaeion (IMont 63):
P P
LOYPIKINOSMOYNTAGH
SYNBIWCREISTIANNH
P N E Y M A T I K H G N-M-I S
CARIN
Fig. 1: Facsimile of Mountane’s epitaph
The name of the deceased Mountane (i.e., a feminine form of

Montanus), the double pp abbreviation and its Phrygian provenance
are indicative of the Montanist nature of this epitaph.
A number of other epitaphs of Christian lay people (IMont 72, 93,

95), which similarly use the designation pneumatikov~ are undoubt-
edly also Montanist. Montanist Pneumatology, it appears, included
designating ordinary Christians who practiced the discipline taught
by the Paraclete as pneumatikoi.
Montanist clergy, of course, could also be called pneumatikoi. An
inscription (IMont 86) found in Bandirma (ancient Kyzikos) reads:
Memorial tomb of Neikandros, episkopos (and) holy pneumatikos.
Fig. 2: Neikandros’ funerary plaque
The use of the term koinonos for the second highest rank in the
Montanist clerical hierarchy (Hier., Ep. 41.3; Justn., Cod. I.5.20.3;
IMont 80, 84, 85) suggests that Montanist senior bishops were deemed
to be “companions of the Spirit,” faithfully guarding and passing on
the content of what the Holy Spirit had taught through Montanus,
Maximilla, and Priscilla.19 There is no literary or epigraphic evidence
to indicate whether there ever were female Montanist patriarchs or
koinonoi. There is no doubt, however, that women were included in
the ranks of Montanist bishops, presbyters, and deacons (e.g., see
Epiph., Haer. 49.2.5; IMont 4). The Montanist “enthusiastic” pro-
phetic tradition was kept alive by Montanist prophetesses including

“lamp-bearing virgins” who participated actively in Montanist wor-
ship (Epiph., Haer. 49.2.3-4; IMont 87). Presumably, at least some
of the persistent opposition to Montanism from catholic (male) clergy
stemmed from gender- and authority-derived issues rather than from
strictly pneumatological ones.20
Montanist baptism
(Ps.-?) Didymus reports that when Montanists join the catholic
church, they are baptized, even if they have been “baptized” previ-
ously, because Montanists do not “baptize into the three holy hy-
postases but believe that the same one is Father, and Son, and Holy
Spirit” (Trin. 2.15). Irrespective of the accuracy of the assumption
that Montanists were invariably Modalists, it is significant that the
catholic community which (Ps.-?) Didymus represents considered
Montanist baptisms to be invalid because such baptisms, even if per-
formed liturgically “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”
were null and void because they were deemed to be performed with
an heretical understanding of the Trinity.
The principle that erroneous Pneumatology invalidates even seem-
ingly correct sacramental practice in respect of Montanist baptism
was first promulgated by the Council of Ikonion (modern Konya)
ca.230-235.21 Firmilian of Caesarea, who had attended this council,
later reported its findings to Cyprian of Carthage (Firmil., ap. Cypr.,
Ep. 75.7.4, 75.19.4). The council declared that, because the Montanist
doctrine of the Holy Spirit was heretical, Montanist baptism was
invalid (Firmil., ap. Cypr., Ep. 75.19.4). Firmilian’s account does not
state why the assembled bishops considered Montanism’s view of the
Holy Spirit to be erroneous. It does reveal, however, that the bishops
by some ingenious logic determined that not only Montanist
Pneumatology but also its Christology and, in fact, its whole theol-
ogy regarding the Godhead was heretical. While Montanists appeared
to share with catholics orthodox beliefs about the Father and the Son
(Firmil., ap. Cypr., Ep. 75.19.4), error regarding any Person of the
Trinity tainted the orthodoxy of doctrines held regarding the other
Persons. Those who do not possess the true Holy Spirit cannot pos-
sess the truth regarding the Father and the Son (Firmil., ap. Cypr.,
Ep. 75.7.3-4). Consequently, although Montanists are “baptized” in
the name of the Trinity, their erroneous understanding of the Holy
Spirit means that they have not been baptized in the name of the true
Holy Spirit nor, by logical extension of the argument, have they been
baptized in the name of the true Father or the true Son (Firmil., ap.
Cypr., Ep. 75.19.4).
The canons of subsequent church councils reiterated the view that,
whereas the former adherents of some Christian groups (such as the
Novatianists) may be admitted to the catholic church without
(re-)baptism on the basis that they had previously been baptized by
schismatics rather than heretics, former Montanists (even the most
senior Montanist clergy) had to be rebaptized because their previous
“baptism” was an heretical rather than a true baptism (e.g., C. Laod.,
Can. 8; contrast Can. 7).
A statement by Basil the Great is sometimes taken to mean that
late fourth-century Montanists actually changed the baptismal lit-
urgy so as to baptize “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of Montanus or Priscilla (Ep. 188.1).22 Alleged confirmation23 of this
practice is assumed to be provided by an inscription (IMont 71) from
Khenchela, ancient Mascula in Numidia:
Flavius Avus, domesticus, has fulfilled what he promised in the

name of the Father and of the Son (and) of dominus Muntanus.
Fig. 3: Graffito recording fulfillment of vow
The text of this graffito, clearly, records the completion of a vow. The
use of the designation dominus (a title frequently given to martyrs in
North Africa) and the traditional North-African practice of making
vows in the name of a martyr (as well as in the name of one or more
Person[s] of the Trinity) shows that this graffito does not refer to the
Phrygian (co-?) founder of Montanism but to a North-African mar-
tyr of the same name.24 The martyr whose name was invoked is prob-
ably the Carthaginian martyr-saint Montanus who died in 259.25
There is no valid connection between this graffito and an allegedly
heretical Montanist baptismal formula. The context of Basil’s state-
ment, moreover, reveals that he did not mean that Montanists used
an heretical formula but that the effect of baptizing into the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit while equating Montanus or Priscilla with the
Holy Spirit was to baptize erroneously. Basil’s opinion of Montanist
baptism, of course, was based on the inaccurate assumption that
Montanists indeed equated the Montanist prophets with the Holy
Spirit.
Conclusion
Wrong conceptions, no matter how many times repudiated, are al-
most impossible to eradicate. Even at the very end of The New
Prophecy’s existence, contemporary Montanists were still being
charged with equating Montanus with the Holy Spirit. In ca.550,
John of Ephesus destroyed a great marble shrine at Pepouza report-
edly containing the relics of the Montanist prophets. According to
the account of Michael the Syrian, when the shrine was opened, the
skeletons of Montanus, Maximilla, and Priscilla were discovered with
thin plates of gold on their mouths. Before they burned these bones,
the catholics ridiculed the Montanists present for calling Montanus
“Spirit,” pointing out unnecessarily that a spirit does not have flesh
and bones (IMont 2).
Historically speaking, many of the pneumatological charges lev-
eled against the Montanists are blatantly erroneous. Montanus did
not call himself the Paraclete, nor did his followers equate him with
the Holy Spirit. His use of the first person in prophetic utterances
was neither novel nor blasphemous. Belief in the Holy Spirit’s con-
tinued activity in the post-apostolic church was not unique. Few, if
any, Montanists became Modalistic Monarchians. Montanism did
not teach that the Holy Spirit revealed new doctrines. Montanists
did not baptize in the name of Montanus or Priscilla. Rank and file
members of The New Prophecy did not themselves prophesy or speak
ecstatically, but they did use the self-designation “spiritual persons”
(pneumatikoi).
Montanism, of course, did pose some enduring pneumatological
questions for the church. Is ecstatic utterance proof of the presence
of the Holy Spirit or is it a sign of demonic possession? To what
extent may the fullness of the Holy Spirit be said to have been com-
pleted at Pentecost? Is there such a thing as progressive revelation,
even if limited to matters of Christian practice rather than doctrine?
Does heresy with regard to one dimension of Christian theology af-
fect detrimentally all other components of that theology? What is
required of rank and file Christians to live as “spiritual persons”? To
answer these and similar questions definitively: “Will the real Paraclete
please speak forth!”
Endnotes
1
For a brief survey of Montanism, see William Tabbernee, “Remnants of the New
Prophecy: Literary and Epigraphical Sources of the Montanist Movement,”
Studia Patristica 21 (1989): 193-201. The literary sources are collected and
translated by Ronald E. Heine, The Montanist Oracles and Testimonia, North
American Patristic Society Patristic Monograph Series 14 (Macon, Ga.: Mercer
University Press, 1989). The epigraphic sources are collected and translated by
William Tabbernee, Montanist Inscriptions and Testimonia: Epigraphic Sources
Illustrating the History of Montanism, North American Patristic Society Patristic
Monograph Series 16 (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1997). The
abbreviation IMont with the relevant inscription number is used in this paper to
designate inscriptions from this corpus. The most recent monograph on
Montanism, the only one published in English for more than a century, is
Christine Trevett, Montanism: Gender, Authority and the New Prophecy (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), reviewed by William Tabbernee in
Journal of Early Christian Studies 5 (1997): 595-596.
2
The exact site has not yet been identified, but Pepouza was located in S.W. Phrygia,
probably somewhere N.W. of the bend in the Meander. The Turkish villages of
Ücçkyu, Bekilli, and Dumanl have been the most frequently suggested likely
sites; see August Strobel, Das heilige Land der Montanisten: Eine religions-
geographische Untersuchung (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1980), 31-34, 128-221;
Christoph Markschies, “Nochmals: Wo lag Pepuza? Wo lag Tymion? Nebst
einigen Bemerkungen zur Frühgeschichte des Montanismus,” Jahrbuch für
Antike und Christentum 37 (1994): 7-28; Tabbernee, Montanist Inscriptions, 27-
28, 153-154, 487-488. After undertaking preliminary field work in the area in
1997, I now think that the most promising site is near Külköy—a village not
previously proposed. An extensive archaeological survey of the ancient ruins near
Külköy is planned for 1999.
3
For the view that the women, Maximilla and Priscilla, rather than the man,
Montanus, were the historical founders of Montanism, see Anne Jensen, “Prisca-
Maximilla-Montanus: Who was the founder of ‘Montanism’?” Studia Patristica
26 (1993): 146-150. For a comprehensive discussion of Priscilla and Maximilla’s
role in the movement, see Jensen, Gottes selbstbewußte Töchter: Frauenemanzipation
im frühen Christentum? (Freiburg im Bresgau: Herder, 1992), 268-362 [cf. the
slightly abridged English version, published under the title God’s Self-Confident
Daughters: Early Christianity and the Liberation of Women (Louisville, Ky.:
Westminste/ John Knox, 1996), 133-188].
4
Heine, Montanist Oracles, 3 n.1.
5
For a discussion of the Montanist circle at Carthage which probably included, apart
from Tertullian, the author-editor of the Passio sanctarum Perpetuae et Felicitatis
and perhaps, but less likely, Perpetua and Felicitas themselves, see Tabbernee,
Montanist Inscriptions, 54-59, 105-123.
6
Tabbernee, Montanist Inscriptions, 475-476.
7
For a helpful discussion of Montanist use of “charismatic exegesis,” see Dennis E.
Groh, “Utterance and Exegesis: Biblical Interpretation in the Montanist Crisis,”
in Dennis E. Groh and Robert Jewett, eds. The Living Text: Essays in Honor of
Ernest W. Saunders (New York: University Press of America, 1985), 73-83.
8
For the view that Eusebius did not actually publish the first edition of his
Ecclesiastical History until 313/4, although he had completed a draft of Books 1-
7 by 303, see William Tabbernee, “Eusebius’’ ‘Theology of Persecution’: As Seen
in the Various Editions of his Church History,” Journal of Early Christian Studies
5 (1997): 319-334.
9
Trevett’s view that Origen had already made this charge in his De Principiis (see
Montanism, 79 where she inadvertently cites De Princ. 2.7.30 instead of 2.7.3)
is incorrect. Origen, in De Princ. 2.7.3 refers to a group of people (perhaps, but
not necessarily, Montanists) who misunderstood what is meant in the Gospels by
the term “Paraclete”—comparing the Paraclete to some sort of common spirits.
If the passage indeed refers to Montanism at all, Origen is merely repeating the
charge that Montanists attribute the work of the Paraclete to the false spirits
which inspired the Montanist prophets—not that the Montanists called Montanus
the Paraclete. On Origen’s knowledge of Montanism, see William Tabbernee,
“The Opposition to Montanism from Church and State: A Study of the History
and Theology of the Montanist Movement as Shown by the Writings and
Legislation of the Orthodox Opponents of Montanism” (Ph.D. diss., University
of Melbourne, 1978), 64-67, 750-753.
10
For the, in my view, unlikely theory that the later erroneous identification of
Montanus with the Paraclete has its historic roots in Montanus’ role as the
“advocate” of Maximilla and Priscilla, see Jensen, Töchter, 305 [Daughters, 154]).
Similarly, I find no support for Trevett’s theory (Montanism, 93-94) that
Montanus, Maximilla, and Priscilla were deemed by the Montanists as Paraclete
figures for the Christian community.
11
The editio princeps of the Montanou kai OrqodoziV is by Gerhard Ficker,
“Widerlegung eines Montanisten,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 26 (1905):
447-463. It is reprinted with an English translation by Heine, Montanist Oracles,
112-127, cf. 6-9.
12
13
Tabbernee, Montanist Inscriptions, 355.
14
Contemporaries simply referred to Modalistic Monarchianism as “Monarchianism”
(e.g., Tert., Prax. 10.1). The adjective “Modalistic” distinguishes the modalist
form of Monarchianism from “Dynamic Monarchianism”—also known as
Adoptionism.
15
William Tabbernee, “‘Our Trophies are Better than your Trophies’: The Appeal
to Tombs and Reliquaries in Montanist-Orthodox Relations,” Studia Patristica
31 (1997): 206-217.
16
E. Buonaiutti, “Montanisme et le dogme trinitaire,” Revue de théologie et de
philosophie, n.s. 17 (1929): 319-333 and Jaroslav Pelikan, “Montanism and its
Trinitarian Significance,” Church History 25 (1956): 99-109.
17
William Tabbernee, “Dissenting Spiritualities in History,” The Way: A Review of
Contemporary Christian Spirituality 28 (1988): 138-146, esp. 138-141.
18
William Tabbernee, “Early Montanism and Voluntary Martyrdom,” Colloquium:
The Australian and New Zealand Theological Review 17 (1985): 33-43.
19
William Tabbernee, “Montanist Regional Bishops: New Evidence from Ancient
Inscriptions,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 1 (1993): 249-280 (cf. Trevett,
Montanism, 214).
20
See, for example, Christine Trevett, “Gender, Authority and Church History,”
Feminist Theology 17 (1998): 9-24.
21
On this and other church councils which dealt with Montanism, see Joseph A.
Fischer, “Die antimontanist-ischen Synoden des 2./3. Jahrhunderts,” Annuarium
Historiae Conciliorum 6 (1974): 241-273.
22
Most recently by Trevett, Montanism, 219.
23
Trevett, Montanism, 219.
24
25
Tabbernee, Montanist Inscriptions, 449.
Response to Tabbernee 119
“Montanists” Then and Now:

Response to William Tabbernee
Frederick Norris
Watching Protestants do penance is intriguing, perhaps informative.
William Tabbernee has written the definitive volume on epigraphic
sources for Montanism.1 Ronald Heine published a smaller but bet-
ter edition of the texts from and about Montanists and supplied an
English translation.2 I was the editor of the North American Patristic
Society’s monograph series when those pieces were accepted. All three
of us work within the heritage of Christian Churches, often referred
to as a nineteenth-century North American restoration movement
for Christian unity—now fragmented into three sections—which
lived through the nineteenth-century revivals and frequently did not
like them. I have read tracts written by people within my tradition
which insist that charismatics are not Holy Spirit led but either tools
of the Devil or demon possessed.3 At the same time I have come to
know a number of Pentecostals who represent what I take to be the
very best in catholic Christianity. Tabbernee, Heine, and I have at-
tempted to facilitate a restudy of Montanists in a more gracious light.
Tabbernee’s insistence that Montanists must not be shackled by
the false charges of their opponents, particularly that they taught a
blasphemous view of the Trinity, is surely an important plea. Not
only we but also some of our Pentecostal friends have not yet under-
stood how much could be gained from studying this apparently odd
second-century group were all of us to notice that for them the Holy
Spirit is not the wastebasket for theological scraps, but the guide into
all truth.
Because of the careful attempts to silence Montanist views, we have
little literature from them. Much of Tertullian’s work was continually
recopied, but his treatise On Ecstasy disappeared. He was such a cre-
ative theologian that even during his so-called Montanist period, we
cannot be certain that he expressed the center of the group’s convic-
tions and theology. He didn’t always do that during the periods in
which he is generally recognized as a Catholic. His formative
trinitarian views and language are impressive to us,4 but his incessant
120 Frederick Norris
attacks on Roman culture strike at least some as obsessive. Oppo-

nents of Montanists describe their doctrine and practice but seldom
sympathetically or empathetically. Yet they provide interesting tid-
bits.
Modern historians have clouded the picture with numerous sug-
gestions of which I mention only a few. One thought they never
existed.5 Another found their source in Phrygian pagan cults.6 Some
say that they were reacting to the emergence of a tightly organized
ecclesiastical hierarchy, but the Anonymous tells us that Montanists
were more rigidly organized than Catholics.7 Other moderns see
Montanism primarily as a reform movement worried about what we
might call secularization: not particularly interested in theology, in-
tensely concerned with practice.8 Origen was not impressed with their
Nazarite-like avoidance of wine, but Tertullian found their rejection
of wine, their opposition to second marriages, and their encourage-
ment of fasting to be positive.9 Still other recent historians have sug-
gested that Montanists held on to traditions of Biblical prophecy
and moved some inklings of its ecstatic character to the center.10 Sec-
ond- through sixth-century opponents sometimes insisted that proph-
esy must remain within the Church; the ecstatic aspect was what
made Montanist prophecy false.11 But Epiphanius and apparently
his source thought that prophecy and the need for it had probably
ceased.12 Apparently no modern historian has insisted that the
Montanists were a reaction to liturgical developments or regulariza-
tion. That is a bit strange because they were accused of wrongly using
bread and cheese in their worship and they did present some unusual
liturgical features such as a procession of seven virgins dressed in
white carrying torches and offering prophecies.13
One outcome of looking at Montanism and its opponents more
carefully and thus reaching a more positive judgment is that contem-
porary Pentecostals in their various manifestations within North
America and Europe, but particularly in Africa, Asia and South
America might teach us much in theology and practice, specifically
about the Holy Spirit. It is interesting to note that the Holy Spirit’s
activity in healing and casting out demons is not a point of conten-
tion between Montanists and Catholics in early centuries. Perhaps
the attempts to exorcise demons from Priscilla and Maximilla were
unsuccessful because no demons dwelt within them.14 Some of my
seminary students from Africa, Asia and South America speak softly
and rationally of healings and exorcisms because they believe in the
life-giving Holy Spirit as well as that Spirit’s demonic adversaries.

They regularly see the effects of such spiritual warfare. Since they
represent views common among Christians in lands where mission
expansion is strong, lands which now comprise the majority of the
world’s Christians, their calm witness is weighty.
Getting some sense of what Montanism may have been and why it
was so often erroneously attacked will help us reflect on theologies of
the Holy Spirit which too many of us for too long have considered
outside our tasks of theological reflection. If I may speak with a touch
of humor to myself as well as to all of us as professional students and
teachers, I may offer some sobering thoughts. It is difficult to know
what might upset a rigorous theological consultation like this one
more: (1) a group that stands against alcohol consumption, second
marriage and for fasting, (2) a group that practices healing and exor-
cism in the name of the Holy Spirit, (3) a group that has rigidly
organized leadership and intricate practices of liturgical renewal un-
like our own, (4) a group that expects ecstasy in its leaders because
they are mouthpieces of the Spirit, (5) a group that develops its the-
ology primarily through symbols and, rather seldom, through propo-
sitions. Any group marked by all five of these characteristics is fear-
some and yet much like a number of the so-called independent and
mainline African churches, Asian national churches, and South Ameri-
can Pentecostals. All of them accept and embody the Missio Dei
through the Holy Spirit with a joyful seriousness.
It is unlikely that a full, positive understanding of the Holy Spirit
can be grasped without these brothers and sisters. And if the response
of early Catholicism to the Montanists suggests that worse teachings
and practices developed among the Montanists after their exclusion
from Catholicism, a full, negative reaction to contemporary groups
well might produce more harm than good.
Endnotes
1
William Tabbernee, Montanist Inscriptions and Testimonia: Epigraphic Sources
Illustrating the History of Montanism, Patristic Monograph Series 16 (Macon,
Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1997).
2
Ronald E. Heine, The Montanist Oracles and Testimonia, Patristic Monograph
Series 14 (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1989).
3
The Anonymous in Eusebius, HE. 5.16.8-9 made those charges against Montanists
in the second century.
4
Jaroslav Pelikan, “Montanism and its Trinitarian Significance,” Church History 25
(1956): 99-109.
122 Frederick Norris
5
Anton Schwegler, Der Montanismus und die christliche Kirche des 2. Jahrhundert
(Tübingen: L.F. Fues, 1841).
6
Wilhelm Schepelern, Der Montanismus und die phrygischen Kulte: eine
religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1929).
7
The Anonymous in Eusebius, HE 5.16 4. See Hugh Lawlor, Eusebiana: Essays on
the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius Bishop of Caesarea (Oxford: Clarendon,
1912), 123-127.
8
For example Henry Chadwick, The Early Church, The Pelican History of the
Church, vol. 1 (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1967), 52 and M.J. Kreidler,
“Montanism and Monasticism. Charism and Authority in the Early Church,”
Studia Patristica 18.2 (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1989), 229-
234.
9
Origen, On the Epistle to Titus (PG 14:1306). Tertullian, On Monogamy 1.1-6, 2.1-
4, 14.3-7, 15.1-3; On Modesty 1; On Fasting 1, 10-13, 15.
10
Kurt Aland, “Bemerkungen zum Montanismus und zur frühchristlichen
Eschatologie,” Kirchengeschichtliche Entwürfe (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1960),
105-148.
11
Pierre de Labriolle, Les sources de l’histoire du montanisme: Textes grecs, Latins, &
syriaques (Paris: Earnest Leroux, 1913) includes the later materials which make
that claim. For a later debate between an orthodox representative and a Montanist
in which the orthodox debater insists that there were prophets after Christ, a
claim the Montanist expected him to deny, see Heine, Montanist Oracles, 117.
12
Epiphanius, Panarion 48.2.1-3
13
Epiphanius, Panarion 49.2. Tabbernee, Montanist Inscriptions and Testamonia,
23-24 does not mention such a position in his exhaustive survey of suggestions
made in modern secondary literature.
14
Serapion in Eusebius, HE 5.19.3 notes that Sotas wanted to exorcise the demon
from Priscilla. The unclear wording in Eusebius, HE 5.16.16 and 5.18.13
suggests a similar attempt by others with Maximilla.
An Advent of the Spirit:

Medieval Mystics and Saints
Elizabeth A. Dreyer
Context
Renewed interest in the Holy Spirit is visible in at least three con-
texts: individual Christians who hunger for a deeper connection with
God that is inclusive of all of life as well as the needs of the world; the
church that seeks to renew itself through life-giving disciplines and a
return to sources; and the formal inquiry of academic philosophy
and theology. In effect, one can hear the petition, “Come Creator
Spirit” on many lips these days, a phenomenon signaled in the title
of this conference—“An Advent of the Spirit.”
Many Christians desire to encounter a Holy Spirit who brings new
life to their spirits in the concrete circumstances of their lives and who
renews the face of the earth as we enter the third millennium. Not
unlike earlier times of perceived crisis, Christians today attempt to re-
connect with the wellsprings of the faith, hoping these roots will bring
stability, order and meaning to a postmodern world that is often felt
to be hopelessly fragmented. In particular, many seek to retrieve a
three-personed God who is related to the human community and to
the entire universe in love, challenge, and care—a personal God who
identifies with human joys and sorrows.
The church needs to seek and acknowledge the many faces of the
Spirit in its midst continually, questioning its tendency to distrust
what Congar calls “the personal principle,” that is, “the place that is
accorded to the initiatives of individuals as persons and to what those
persons have to say on the basis of personal conscientious conviction
and motivation”—without eclipsing an “institutional principle” that
sees the church as a communion of such persons led by the Spirit.1
In the theological arena, the Eastern tradition is usually given credit
for preserving a trinitarian theology that honors the fullness and
distinctions of the persons, especially when it comes to the Holy
Spirit.2 For over a century we have heard that western trinitarian
theologies are overwhelmingly monotheistic, and thus neglectful of
the roles of the persons; that they are unrelated to creation; devoid of
124 Elizabeth Dreyer
soteriological concerns; and, already in Paul, divorced from the actual

experiences of daily life.3 Now, however, fresh efforts are underway to
redress past negligence and silence. Even a cursory survey of recent
theological literature discloses a rich and diverse smorgasbord of new
approaches to, and insights about, the Holy Spirit.4 Systematic
theologians seek a Spirit who enjoys the fullness of a distinctive role
and personhood (proprium), and yet is genuinely equal to the other
persons. They aim to craft a Pneumatology that is philosophically
respectable, intelligible and coherent.
As a vital part of this retrieval, theologians need to attend to
concrete, particular aspects of the tradition as well as to the abstract
and ontological, and guard against projecting post-Enlightenment
values on pre-modern texts.5 What symbols and metaphors were
chosen to give voice to the experience of the Spirit’s presence? How do
particular historical situations influence talk about the Spirit? Atten-
tion to the specific ways our ancestors in the faith perceived and spoke
about the Spirit within the concrete historical unfolding of salvation
history will provide a “richer” and more accurate description of how
the Spirit functioned in the past—providing assistance to interested
individuals, the church, and theology alike. The focus of this essay is
an exploration of the particular aspects of neglected medieval texts on
the Holy Spirit.6
These texts correct the common perception that doctrines of the
Holy Spirit were divorced from the original, polyvalent and enliven-
ing experiences that were their source.7 One reason for this inaccurate
perception is the paucity of traditional texts on which many contem-
porary systematic statements are based. And even these favored texts,
such as Augustine’s De trinitate or Thomas Aquinas’ Summa theologiae,
are viewed from a perspective that separates doctrine from the
Christian life in ways never intended by their authors. John Cavadini
writes that Augustine’s De trinitate is a “parade example of a genre
which eludes us precisely because it joins ‘theology’ and ‘spirituality,’
with the results that we who are intent on disjoining these aspects and
favoring the ‘theological,’ look upon it as a failed or inadequate
summary of Trinitarian ‘dogma’ when it is in fact our sense of genre
which has failed.”8
Viewing medieval systematic theological texts differently as well as
delving into neglected genres can forge new links between concrete
religious experience and theological statements. This approach also
challenges received conclusions about the minimal place the Holy
Medieval Mystics and Saints 125
Spirit has held in the tradition. An examination of genres such as

biblical commentaries, sermons, prayers, letters and hagiographical
accounts brings us closer to the thinking (and to the experience that
gave rise to it) of these authors and their communities. Such texts
provide a glimpse into the praying church, thus holding in tension
primary and secondary theology, reaffirming the importance of
theology’s concrete narrative contexts.9
In order to find language to express ineffable experiences of God,
spiritual writers turn to image, symbol and metaphor. This language
has the potential to function like a wellspring to which one can return
to renew and reinvigorate one’s own spiritual experience. To the
extent that systematic theology becomes divorced from its source in
experience or mistakes its more abstract language and categories for
the reality of experience, it loses its ability to influence and shape the
community’s experience in fruitful and life-giving ways. Doctrine
must always emerge from, and return to, the community’s experience
of the triune God.10
The rationale and methodology for this study echo recent concerns
expressed by philosophers, theologians and literary figures who want
to maintain a creative, constructive tension between formal system-
atic reflection and concrete historical practices. Thus, philosopher
Steven Toulmin comments on the dead end we seem to have reached
after three hundred years of Cartesian theater. For Toulmin, the main
question today is what we should be doing, not thinking. He wants to
give primacy to the practical, placing theory in its service. Philosophy,
he says, is not just a mind game. Philosophical theses are not useful
unless they are useful. Rationality must make way for, and accommo-
date, the inevitable complexity of human existence.11 Divorced from
the practical, systematic thinking alone is inadequate to the task.
In recent years, some theologians have begun to take account of this
complexity by examining the role of narrative contexts in the theologi-
cal enterprise. The call to attend to narrative structures suggests the
need to appreciate better the creative possibilities of what Langdon
Gilkey calls the tension between particularity or the language of story,
and universality or the language of ontology.12 Perhaps because of the
dominance of metaphysical and then scientific analyses in our culture,
there is a greater need for Christian theology to remain in touch with
traditional language of narrative and symbol. Narrative is important
because it is the primary language of theology, recounting the encoun-
ter between God and humans in essentially dramatic ways.
In an analysis of the treatment of Augustine in contemporary

trinitarian theology, Michel Rene Barnes criticizes the preference for
what he calls grand, architectonic, and idealistic styles of writing in
which details matter less than perspective and historical facts become
epiphenomena, often reduced to an “expression or symptom of a
hermeneutic or ideology.”13 He complains when history is treated as
the material enstructuring of those themes constitutive of contempo-
rary systematics, and when the broad range of relevant historical texts
and their polemical contexts are ignored.14 The requirements of these
architectonic schemes dictate the interpretation of experience rather
than vice versa.
But systematicians are not the only ones at fault. Historians are
unhelpful when they relegate the past to the past, refusing to entertain
the kind of dialectic that connects the past and the present in mutual,
critical, and meaningful ways. They approach the past as dead and
over, rather than as the living resource it can be when one allows the
ancient texts to “read” us even as we read them. Such a stance blocks
“stray breezes of the Spirit from wafting forward to upset contempo-
rary complacencies.”15 As David Tracy reminds us, if a text is a
genuinely classic one, it will provoke, challenge and transform our
present horizons.16 The tradition can call us to account, not primarily
by judging us and finding us wanting, but by expanding our horizons
through exposing us to other ways of seeing, other ways of thinking
about God.
Understanding faith through philosophical analysis has a neces-
sary and valuable role, but can never stand alone. Symbols and narra-
tive stand behind all philosophical and theological expressions and
analyses.17 Understanding that comes through attention to symbols
and historical context and that which is reached through analysis
complement and correct each other. The divine/human relationship
cannot be expressed exhaustively or without remainder in either on-
tological or historical terms. As Philip Endean reminds us, any di-
vorce between experience and doctrine is misguided in several ways.
It is obvious that theology and doctrine cannot exist without a prior
“spirituality” or experience of God. But it is also true that the lan-
guage of theology and doctrine plays an important role in ordering
and correcting religious practice.18 For instance, cults and certain
strains of fundamentalism seem not to have benefitted from the kind
of ordered reflection systematic theology provides.
Narrative or personal language recalls us to original insights that

can empower us. Ontological analysis can refine our understanding
of primary religious experience and correct misleading notions, but
it cannot replace the narrative structure. Attending to traditional
narratives and symbols is not aimed at absolutizing the past, but at
recovering the strength that comes from understanding and inter-
preting these symbols in terms of contemporary experience and con-
ceptual forms—and vice versa. All symbolic expressions are relative
and must be continually reappropriated if they are to remain authen-
tic and relevant.
Some of the criticisms of early pneumatologies reflect inadequate
attention to, and connection with, the particular and dramatic di-
mensions of experiences of the Holy Spirit. We will see below how
Augustine’s description of Peter at Pentecost reveals the intensity of
Augustine’s vision of the connection between the Holy Spirit and
inspired, effective speech. And we can better understand his Spirit
language in the context of his role as bishop, with the responsibility
of leading a community of faith in the midst of the trials and tribula-
tions of the North African church in the fourth century Roman
Empire.
Michael Welker has addressed the issue of particularity in his work
on the Holy Spirit, Gottes Geist.19 Asked in a recent interview whether
his choice to begin his systematic theology with the Holy Spirit sig-
naled a comment on the anti-systematic mood of our time, Welker, a
philosophical theologian himself, assures his interlocutor that he is
decidedly not anti-systematic—but he does want to correct what he
perceives as reductionistic tendencies in theology.20 Welker suggests
that solutions to major social and moral dilemmas offered by con-
ventional theology have often been heavily shaped by “misleading
abstractions.” His antidote is to “readdress complex symbolic re-
sources.”21
Welker is interested in establishing a better connection between
systematic theology and the biblical tradition for similar reasons. He
notes that biblical material is more creative and complex than one
might think, given the thrust of some systematic statements. For ex-
ample, theological talk about “law and gospel” and “creation” has
often reduced these concepts—to mere commandment in the first
case and the theme of control/dependence in the second—denuding
them of their diverse, complex and creative biblical expressions.22
Such analysis, decoding, and reformulation of the complex sym-

bolic resources that still operate in society, for good and bad—many
of which come from the Bible—call reductionist interpretations into
question. George T. Montague’s exploration of the complex meaning
and development of the major biblical images of the Spirit provides a
foundation for the correction of such reductive tendencies.23 The same
can be said of many important texts that offer enriching variations
on biblical symbols and themes throughout the tradition. Theolo-
gians, Welker says, have legitimately sought for simplicity in the in-
terests of plausibility, as a way to center dogmatic and confessional
traditions, and as a coping mechanism in the face of the overwhelm-
ing complexity of postmodern culture. But now, we need to “go back
to the stronger symbolic resources which have been developed over
1500 years … .”24 He uses his work on the Holy Spirit as an example.
Many treatments emphasize the vagueness of the Holy Spirit; you

cannot grasp it, it is numinous. Well, if you look at these more than
three hundred biblical texts on the Holy Spirit, you do have three
or four that emphasize this vagueness and this mysticism. But I
thought that it would be wiser to see these three or four sentences
in the light of the three hundred others instead of the three hundred
others in the light of these three. So here you have my kind of
approach, looking at abstractions, misleading abstractions, and
trying to correct them. Here I feel myself very much in agreement
with Whitehead, who described the task of philosophy as a critique
of abstractions, and I think we need this in theology too.25
Welker’s approach to biblical material can be applied productively to

texts throughout the tradition (although I use the term “mysticism”
in a quite different and more positive way than Welker). The ab-
stractness of much systematic theology is due to its being removed
from personal experience and disconnected from foundational scrip-
tural images and metaphors. I suggest that just as we need to plumb
the symbolic resources of the Bible, we need also to provide a “rich
description” of the subsequent theological and mystical tradition on
the Holy Spirit.
Jürgen Moltmann reminds us that “whatever we may say in general
about ourselves and other people in the light of eternity, the Spirit of
life is present only as the Spirit of this or that particular life. So the
experience of the Holy Spirit is as specific as the living beings who
experience the Spirit, and as varied as the living beings who experience
the Spirit are varied.”26 Sabine MacCormack comments on the
historical dimension of this task: “We cannot claim to understand the
past if we are not prepared to lend our ears to those who spoke in it
and to listen to them in their own words; if we are not prepared to
consider the images and objects they created within the context in
which these were first meaningful or to comprehend the social and
political order that produced words, images, and objects in the first
place.”27
Let us turn then to a sampling of medieval texts on the Holy Spirit
that open a window onto the particular ways in which our ancestors
in the faith thought of, spoke about, and called upon the Spirit in their
concrete, historical settings. I am convinced that aspects of this
material can serve as a resource for both a renewed Pneumatology and
a more vibrant role for the Spirit in the church and in the lives of
individual Christians.
Medieval Narratives of the Spirit

Out of many possibilities, I have chosen five authors and focused on
one particular theme in each author. These five authors are known
for their ability to articulate their encounters with God in language
and concepts that are both rich in symbol and image and theologi-
cally informed. They all left records of intense, intimate religious
experience; had responsibility for the spiritual well-being of others;
and played significant, albeit vastly different, ecclesial roles. They are
1) Augustine on Spirit-empowered speech; 2) Hildegard of Bingen
on the Spirit as viriditas; 3) Bernard of Clairvaux on the Holy Spirit
as the kiss of the beloved; 4) Bonaventure on the Spirit as symbol of
God’s magnanimity; and 5) Catherine of Siena on the Holy Spirit as
servant.
The Spirit and the Power of Speech: Augustine28

At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit wiped out fear and instilled courage in
the hearts of the apostles, allowing them to bear witness to the risen
Lord (unfortunately at the expense of the Jews, and of women whose
witness remains largely invisible).29 In several different contexts, Au-
gustine focuses on Peter as an embodiment of this courage. I cite at
some length a stirring description of the Spirit’s effect on Peter from
Augustine’s commentary on the gospel of John:
And then that Spirit, pervading him thus with the fullness of richer
grace, kindled his hitherto frigid heart to such a witness-bearing for
Christ, and unlocked those lips that in their previous tremor had
suppressed the truth, that, when all on whom the Holy Spirit had
descended were speaking in the tongues of all nations to the crowds
of Jews collected around, he alone broke forth before the others in
the promptitude of his testimony in behalf of Christ … . And if any
one would enjoy the pleasure of gazing on a sight so charming in
its holiness, let him read the Acts of the Apostles: (2.5) and there
let him be filled with amazement at the preaching of the blessed
Peter, over whose denial of this Master he had just been mourning;
there let him behold that tongue, itself translated from diffidence
to confidence, from bondage to liberty, converting to the confes-
sion of Christ the tongues of so many of His enemies, not one of
which he could bear when lapsing himself into denial. And what
shall I say more? In him there shone forth such an effulgence of
grace, and such a fullness of the Holy Spirit, and such a weight of
most precious truth poured from the lips of the preacher, that he
transformed that vast multitude of Jews … .30
In this rhetorically powerful passage, we glimpse how Augustine en-

visioned the working of the Spirit, and sense how he may have wanted
the Spirit to work the same kind of effective eloquence in himself.
Augustine may have identified with Peter on other fronts as well.
The Confessions reveal a kind of betrayal on Augustine’s part prior to
his conversion, after which he spent his life proclaiming the one true
God he had encountered in Christianity. And as a rhetor, Augustine
also seemed to have high expectations of his preaching skills. In his
response to a request from a Carthaginian deacon, brother Deogratias,
for some help in catechizing the uninstructed Augustine says:
Indeed with me, too, it is almost always the fact that my speech
displeases myself. For I am covetous of something better … when
my capacities of expression prove inferior to my inner apprehen-
sions, I grieve over the inability which my tongue has betrayed in
answering to my heart. For it is my wish that he who hears me
should have the same complete understanding of the subject which
I have myself; and I perceive that I fail to speak in a manner
calculated to effect that … .31
Augustine perceived the decadence of his society and the forces of

personal and social evil to be daunting, requiring a superhuman love,
intelligence, and speech—gifts which he ascribes to the Spirit-filled

Peter. That Augustine’s efforts to reign in the Donatists often fell on
deaf ears may be another reason he spoke about the effectiveness of
Spirit-filled speech with such passion. Augustine sees the Spirit’s dis-
tinctive role as agent of visible change and renewal in both the preacher
and in the listeners. Frigid hearts, locked lips, diffidence, fear of speak-
ing the truth, bondage and mourning for sin—all are transformed in
the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit’s presence is described as a
fuller effulgence of grace, a presence that compelled Peter to witness
to Christ with astonishing ease—surely a desideratum for the strug-
gling bishop of Hippo. Through Peter’s words and actions, the truth
and power of Christ, given through the Spirit, were visible and effec-
tive, leading to the conversion and renewal of those who were once
Christ’s enemies. One can imagine other churches—Augustine’s and
many others down through the ages—that needed the Spirit’s gifts
visible in those who could preach and witness to the truth of Christ’s
liberating love.
The “Greening” of the Spirit:

The Prophetic Voice of Hildegard of Bingen
Twelfth-century Benedictine, Hildegard of Bingen, whose 900th
birthday we celebrated in 1998, was truly a “renaissance” woman
years in advance of the period we now label “Renaissance.”32 Theolo-
gian, herbalist, medical theorist, composer and visionary, Hildegard
is enjoying an unprecedented popular revival. She has become a touch-
stone for persons who are drawn to the images through which she
explicates her reform theology; who see her as a resource for ecologi-
cal concerns; who explore herbal remedies and other alternative forms
of healing; and for those who are students or recent converts to me-
dieval liturgical chant. In addition to almost four hundred letters, we
will consult the first of her three theological works, the Scivias, a
doctrinal work with a trinitarian structure, often described as a summa
since it encompasses the broad sweep of salvation history from cre-
ation to eschaton. Her other two major theological works are the
Liber vitae meritorum which examines the virtues and vices; and the
De operatione Dei, an exposition of her ideas on cosmology, history
and eschatology.
The eleventh-century reform begun by Gregory VII (1073-85) had
sought to free the church from secular evils and clerical vices. This
reform reached its culmination in the twelfth century. Its success has
been attributed to several factors: the foundation of new religious
orders; a shift toward personal piety; and the emergence of new her-
esies. An affluent and lax monasticism, a maturing and critical laity,
a complacent and corrupt clergy, and a series of bloody struggles
between church and state, in which Frederick Barbarossa named three
anti-popes, set the scene for Hildegard’s prophetic voice. In her four
preaching tours, Hildegard called the church back to the poverty and
singleness of purpose of the early church. It was against the growing
strength of Catharism that Hildegard often spoke. Her frequent posi-
tive assessment of the material world must be understood in the con-
text of her polemic against the dualistic doctrines of Catharism. The
stringent ideals of asceticism and poverty to which these heretical
groups adhered drew the most fervent Christians, and shamed and
bewildered reformers everywhere—Hildegard foremost among them.
Despite her visionary life, Hildegard is probably best described as a
prophet—a role that both she and her admirers connect with the
Spirit’s presence within her. The Spirit is repeatedly named by her
and by others as the source of her inspiration and the authorization
of her speech. In the second book of the Scivias, Hildegard is ad-
dressed by God:
O you who are wretched earth, and, as a woman, untaught in all

learning of earthly teachers and unable to read literature with
philosophical understanding, you are nonetheless touched by My
light, which kindles in you an inner fire like a burning sun; cry out
and relate and write these My mysteries that you see and hear in
mystical visions. So do not be timid, but say those things you
understand in the Spirit as I speak them through you …. 33
In the Liber vitae meritorum, Hildegard recalls that in 1158, at the

age of sixty-one, she heard a heavenly voice that said, “from infancy
you have been taught, not bodily but spiritually, by true vision through
the Spirit of the Lord. Speak these things that you now see and hear
… . Speak and write, therefore, now according to me and not ac-
cording to yourself.”34
Her friend and secretary in her later years, the monk Guibert of
Gembloux, writes about Hildegard,
The Apostle does not permit a woman to teach in the Church. But
this woman is exempt from this condition because she has received
the Spirit, and with a heart instructed in wisdom by his teaching,
she has learned through her own experience what is written:
“Blessed is the one whom you have instructed, O Lord, and out of
your law you have taught him” (Ps 94.12 … . But although the
anointing of the Spirit, like a school-mistress, teaches her all things
inwardly and bids her…to offer confidently in public what it has
taught her in secret so as to instruct her hearers, she is nonetheless
mindful of her own sex and condition … . Yet she obeys the Spirit,
not him whom the Spirit send … . Beholding the glory of the Lord
with unveiled face, she is being transformed into the selfsame
image as by the Spirit of the Lord, from glory to glory.35
And in a letter to Pope Eugenius III, Hildegard described her own

vocation with the image of a small feather, touched by the king so
that it flew miraculously, sustained by the wind of the Spirit so that it
would not fall.36
Like many other medieval figures, Hildegard identified the struggles
of her own time with those of the apostles. In the Scivias, she spoke
of how the Trinity was declared openly in the world by the verdant
virtues and tribulations of the apostles. She described how ravening
wolves sought to tear them apart, but how their various calamities
strengthened them for the struggle. It is through the inspiration and
anointing of the Spirit that the church was able to build up its faith.37
In her struggle for ecclesial justice and orthodoxy, Hildegard, “the
Sibyl of the Rhine,” called upon the Spirit whose testimony, she says,
is this: “death cannot resist the justice of God.”38
Hildegard also spoke vividly of the Pentecost event. In her vision
entitled “The Pillar of the Trinity” in Book Three of the Scivias, she
writes,
… the Holy Spirit came openly in tongues of fire … the Holy Spirit
bathed them [the apostles] in Its fire, so that with their souls and
bodies they spoke in many tongues; and … they cried out so that
the whole world was shaken by their voices … . And the Holy Spirit
took their human fear from them, so that no dread was in them …
all such timidity was taken from them, so ardently and so quickly
that they became firm and not soft, and dead to all adversity that
could befall them.39
As Caroline Walker Bynum notes, “it is hard not to see in [Hildegard’s]

parable of the apostles a description of her own prophetic role.”40
In addition to the Spirit’s role as prophetic inspiration, Hildegard

links the Holy Spirit with the term viriditas or “greening.” She
imagined the outpouring of the Spirit in natural rather than cultural
metaphors. She combined images of planting, watering, and greening
to speak of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Hildegard linked the flow
of water on the crops with the love of God that renews the face of the
earth, and by extension the souls of believers.
Scholars explain the prominence of the color green in Hildegard’s
work in a number of ways, one being that she was influenced by the
lush green countryside of the Rhineland Valley. But “greenness” or
viriditas played a larger role in Hildegard’s theology. In the English
language edition of her letters the translators lament, “This viriditas,
this despair of translators, this ‘greenness’ enters into the very fabric
of the universe in Hildegard’s cosmic scheme of things. In Hildegard’s
usage it is a profound, immense, dynamically energized term.”41
Viriditas was a key concept that expressed and connected the bounty
of God, the fertility of nature, and especially the presence of the Holy
Spirit. Barbara Newman comments about this aspect of Hildegard’s
thought, “If you are filled with the Holy Spirit then you are filled
with viriditas. You are spiritually fertile, you are alive.”42 Hildegard
describes the prelate who is filled with weariness (taedium) as lacking
in viriditas, and counsels the neophyte in religious life to strive for
“spiritual greenness.”43
In addition to life and fertility, the viriditas of the Spirit points to a
life of virtue, the active fruit of the Spirit’s gift. The garden where the
virtues grow is imbued with viriditas, and in a letter to Abbot Kuno,
Hildegard describes St. Rupert, a man of exceptional virtue and the
patron of her monastery, as the viriditas digiti Dei, the “greenness of
the finger of God.”44
In one of her many descriptions of the Trinity in the Scivias,
Hildegard also connects the Holy Sprit with the flowing freshness of
sanctity:
And so these three Persons are in the unity of inseparable substance;

but They are not indistinct among themselves. How? He Who
begets is the Father; He Who is born is the Son; and He Who in
eager freshness proceeds from the Father and the Son, and sancti-
fied the waters by moving over their face in the likeness of an
innocent bird, and streamed with ardent heat over the apostles, is
the Holy Spirit.45
Like a fallow field, a person with good heart receives the seed of
God’s word and thus is granted the gifts of the Holy Spirit in super-
abundance. The person who sometimes accepts and sometimes re-
fuses God’s word has some greenness, though “not much,” she says.
But one who never chooses to hear the word or waken the heart to
the admonition of the Holy Spirit dries up and dies completely.46
Hildegard employs a bounty of metaphors to describe the sweet-
ness of the Holy Spirit given at Confirmation, which is both serene
and boundless, swift to encompass all creatures in grace. She contin-
ues, “Its path is a torrent, and streams of sanctity flow from it in its
bright power, with never a stain of dirt in them; for the Holy Spirit
Itself is a burning and shining serenity, which cannot be nullified,
and which enkindles ardent virtue so as to put all darkness to flight.”47
In sum, Hildegard gives a prominent and distinctive role to the
person of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit’s presence brings an aliveness
that allows one to live the Christian life with energy and commit-
ment and to remain faithful to developing and practicing the virtues.
Both Hildegard and others in the ecclesial community turn to the
Spirit to justify the public, prophetic expression of a woman’s voice
in a time when such expression greatly exceeded accepted boundaries
of propriety and legitimacy. One can conclude that the Spirit in-
spired Hildegard to persevere in the midst of her fears and doubts, to
“cry out and write” what was revealed to her, so that the church, in
both its leaders and its members, might be filled with the Holy Spirit,
filled with viriditas—that is, spiritually fertile and alive.
The Spirit as Kiss of the Beloved:

Bernard of Clairvaux
Hildegard’s contemporary, Bernard of Clairvaux, is one of the most
celebrated and written-about figures of the twelfth-century. In addi-
tion to his key role in the renewal of twelfth-century Cistercian mo-
nasticism, he is best known for his eighty-six sermons on the Can-
ticle of Canticles. Study of Bernard’s intense preoccupation with union
with Christ has overshadowed his pneumatological thought, which,
while clearly secondary to his christological interests, deserves atten-
tion.48
Although Bernard was vigilant in guarding orthodoxy, it is clear
that his theology was fueled and shaped by his own religious experi-
ence.49 In describing the spiritual life, Bernard often invites his
audiences to consult their own experience in order to test what he is

saying about the spiritual life.50 In the context of silence and calm, one
opens oneself to the gift of God’s presence in faith. Commenting on
Paul’s statement about the inscrutability of God’s ways and judg-
ments (Rom 11:33), Bernard says, “If you are holy, you understand
and you know; if you are not holy, be holy, and you will understand
by experience.”51
Experience yields several truths for Bernard. On the one hand, it is
crucial to understanding sinfulness. In a sermon for the feast of the
ascension that reflects the dualism of the Neoplatonic tradition,
Bernard laments that our animal souls cannot ascend with Christ until
our bodies become spiritual. He writes, “For at present, what labor it
costs us to lift up our hearts! And that because—as each of us may read
in the book of his own sad experience—the corruption of the body is
a load upon them, and the earthly habitation presses them down”
(Wis 9:15).52
But experience also teaches spiritual aliveness and growth in the
heart whereby one can say that it is the Spirit bearing witness with our
spirit that we are children of God (Rom 8:16).53 In On Conversion, we
find a very clear, succinct statement of Bernard’s conviction about
experience. Here Bernard describes the comfort and the kindling of
desire that follows a stage of grief in the spiritual life. The soul, resting
in contemplation, delights in the taste of God. The sweet, inner voice
of the Comforter brings joy and gladness to the ears (Ps 50:10).
You do not need any speech of mine to commend this to you. The
Spirit reveals it himself (1Cor 2:10). You do not need to look it up
in the pages of a book. Look to experience instead. Man does not
know the price of wisdom. It comes from hidden places and it has
a sweetness with which no sweetness known to living men can
compare. It is the sweetness of the Lord, and you will not recognize
it unless you taste it. “Taste and see,” he says, “how sweet the Lord
is.” (Ps 33:9)54
Indeed, Jean Leclercq notes that for Bernard, “everything begins and
ends with experience and, in between, experience is the object of
reflection.”55 Although Bernard’s theology involves some speculative
thinking, it is above all a practical theology, rooted in, and intended
for, everyday life. For Bernard, practical truth is ultimately ordered,
not to theological systems, but to the contemplative vision and the
authentic virtue that flows from it. Bernard’s rhetorical strategies make
abundant use of metaphors in which he moves the reader from a
concrete object of experience to spiritual realities. Fragrant flowers,
breasts, ointments, kisses, arms and feet point to virtues, support,
purification, divine embrace and merciful judgment.56
Bernard held traditional orthodox positions on the Spirit, teaching
that the Spirit, who is the mutual love between the Father and the Son,
proceeds from the Father and the Son.57 The Spirit is “the imperturb-
able peace of the Father and the Son, their unshakable bond, their
undivided love, their indivisible unity … the love and the benign
goodness of them both.”58 Bernard’s complex development of desire
and of the role of the will in the spiritual life also points to the Spirit,
who since Augustine, had been associated with the faculty of the will.
But Bernard produced no treatise or extended treatment of the Holy
Spirit. In order to glean what he thought about the Spirit, one must
range across the whole of his corpus, combing through letters and
sermons, as well as his spiritual works to catch a glimpse of the Spirit’s
appearance. To focus the discussion, I will concentrate on the image
of the Spirit as the spiritual kiss.
In his masterpiece, On the Song of Songs, Bernard gives the Spirit
a prominent role. In the first sermon, Bernard links the Spirit with the
truth that he will try to communicate and that his listeners should try
to receive (Wis 1:5; John 14:17).59 As one advances in the spiritual life
from novice to advanced stages, the Spirit provides nourishment
through Ecclesiastes, Proverbs and the Song of Songs—books of the
Bible which Bernard calls loaves of bread (1 Cor 3:1-2; Heb 5:12-
14).60 The text of the Song, says Bernard, was composed by the artistry
of the Spirit, inspiring its author, Solomon, to write a joyful song out
of the experience of exulting in the Spirit.61 Bernard writes, “This sort
of song only the touch of the Holy Spirit teaches (1 John 2:27), and
it is learned by experience alone.”62
For Bernard, the Spirit as kiss has two primary roles. The Spirit
makes the knowledge of revelation possible and represents the inti-
macy of love within the Trinity and between God and the believer. At
every point in his exposition, Bernard weaves knowledge and love
together as he describes the missions of the persons. He notes that
when the bride seeks her beloved, she does not trust her external senses
or rely on vain speculations. Rather she asks for a kiss, calling on the
Holy Spirit through whom she will receive both the taste of knowl-
edge and the savor of grace, just as the bee is able to carry both wax and
honey. Knowledge that is given in a kiss and received with love is not
a knowledge that puffs up (1 Cor 8:1). The grace of the kiss brings a
double gift—the light of knowledge and the wealth of devotion. The
Spirit of wisdom and understanding brings both gifts to the soul.
When the bride receives the Spirit’s kiss, she understands with love
and loves with understanding.63
Citing John 20:22; “He breathed on them, i.e., the apostles and the
primitive church and said ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’”—Bernard equates
the Spirit’s breathing with the kiss. “What was it? A breath? No, but
the invisible Spirit, who is so bestowed in the breath of the Lord that
he is understood to have proceeded from the Son as well as from the
Father” (John 15:26). The bride realizes that this kiss is no small thing,
for to be kissed by the kiss is to be given the Holy Spirit. Bernard
continues, “Surely if the Father kisses and the Son receives the kiss, it
is appropriate to think of the Holy Spirit as the kiss, for he is the
imperturbable peace of the Father and the Son, their secure bond,
their undivided love, their indivisible unity.”64
With his extra-biblical distinction between the “kiss of the kiss,”
and the “kiss of the mouth,” Bernard portrays the distinct yet related
bonds of the persons within the Trinity and those that tie the bride to
God in Christ.
Listen if you will know what the kiss of the mouth is: “The Father
and I are one” (John 10:30); and “I am in the Father and the Father
is in me” (John 14:10). This is a kiss from mouth to mouth, beyond
the claim of any creature … . The truth is that the things that no
eye has seen, and no ear heard … (1 Cor 2:9) were revealed to Paul
by God through his Spirit, that is, through him who is the kiss of
his mouth. That the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son
(John 14:10) signifies the kiss of the mouth. But the kiss of the kiss
we discover when we read: “Instead of the spirit of the world, we
have received the Spirit that comes from God, to teach us to
understand the gifts that he has given us” (1 Cor 2:12).
The kiss of the Spirit is the source of the bride’s outrageous boldness
with God and the object of the bride’s desire when she asks for a
kiss.65 Even when Scripture mentions only the first and second per-
sons (John 14:9; 1 Jn 2:23), Bernard insists that the Spirit is implied,
for the Spirit is their very love and goodness66 and the sole witness to
the embrace of Father and Son.67 Therefore, when the bride asks for
a kiss, she is asking for the grace of a threefold, trinitarian knowl-
edge. The revelation of Father and Son is given through the Holy
Spirit (1 Cor 2:10), who not only illumines the understanding but
also fires with love (Rom 5:5).68 Since the kiss is common to the one
who gives and the one who receives it, it must be the Holy Spirit,
says Bernard.
In his fluid, synthetic approach to contemplation, Bernard associ-
ates the Spirit’s kiss with a kind of knowledge that always embraces
love. The Spirit’s kiss is the crucial element that allows humans to
receive the revelation of God (1 Cor 2:9).69 In the gift of the kiss, the
soul, endowed with reason, receives the Word of God, the knowledge
and the love of virtue. The divine lips placed on the bride bestow on
her the virtue and the wisdom of God. With human lips the bride gives
to the bridegroom the kiss of reason and will. When either reason or
will stand alone, one has but a “half-kiss.” The kiss is complete only
when wisdom illuminates reason and virtue moves the will.70
Bernard’s account of the spiritual life challenges readers to attend to
and trust their own experience of the Spirit’s presence in their lives.
But his use of the kiss as a metaphor for the Spirit raises a number of
further questions. Can this image speak to Christians today about the
real or potential intimacy of the God-human relationship? For
Bernard, the way of contemplation leads one from the kiss that is the
Holy Spirit to participation in the life of the Trinity, since the Spirit
is the very kiss of the Father and Son. Can contemporary Christians
use this sensuous metaphoric language of love, bequeathed to us in the
Song of Songs, to speak meaningfully about their closeness to a God
who is imagined as spouse? Can experience of the Spirit’s intimate
presence lead to the kind of marvelous boldness that only lovers know?
And how does one extend the personally intimate encounter with
Spirit to the command to reach out in love to a suffering world?
Bernard’s language about the experience of Spirit clearly embraces
knowledge and love in a way that we might call a “holistic” under-
standing of the spiritual life. Contemporary anthropologies no longer
analyze the human person in terms of medieval faculty psychology,
but many do seek to describe a relationship with God that embraces
all aspects of human life. In spite of inherited dualistic perspectives,
Bernard points the way to an experience of Spirit that is progressive,
intense and all-consuming.
The Spirit as Magnanimous God: Bonaventure

Bonaventure of Bagnoreggio offers an abundant smorgasbord of Spirit
narratives.71 In large measure, they reflect Bonaventure’s concern to
retain the practical, affective, religious orientation of theology that
marked the monastic schools of the twelfth century. For Bonaventure,
theology is above all a practical science whose overriding purpose is
to assist the faithful in achieving loving union with God.72
Any discussion of Bonaventure’s theology of the Holy Spirit must
take into account the intense interest among some medieval
Franciscans in the prophetic tradition associated with Joachim of
Fiore. 73 One can agree with Marjorie Reeve’s statement that
Bonaventure both condemned and embraced various aspects of this
prophetic tradition.74 On the one hand, Bonaventure clearly regards
Francis as alter Christus and identifies him with the “Angel of the
Sixth Seal” of Apocalypse 7.2;75 speaks of the ages of history in terms
of the three persons;76 and especially toward the end of his life, read
the “signs of his times” as ripe for impending crisis.77 But other expe-
riences might well have given Bonaventure pause in speaking about
the Spirit. For example, his experiences with the Spiritual
Franciscans—his predecessor in the government of the order, John
of Parma, had been asked to step down because of sympathies with
the Spirituals; the condemnation of Joachim’s ideas on the Trinity at
the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 and of Gerard of Borgo San
Donino’s Introductorius in Evangelium Aeternum by Alexander IV in
1255; the intense emotions associated with the prediction that the
year 1260 would inaugurate the third age of the Holy Spirit—lead
one to wager that Bonaventure would have practiced restraint when
it came to talk about the Holy Spirit. And yet, he left many vivid
examples of Spirit language and imagery.
One of Bonaventure’s Spirit images builds on Pseudo-Dionysius’
concept of God as self-diffusive goodness (bonum diffusivum sui), a
term Bonaventure uses 240 times in his corpus.78 His obvious appre-
ciation of this metaphor results in narratives of the Spirit that em-
phasize God’s generosity.79 He sees positive qualities in “unbegotten-
ness”—the first person is the fountain of all fullness, the fecund source
from which flow all goodness, immanent processions, and external
productions.80 The texts suggest that this quality in God was no ab-
stract idea for Bonaventure, but one that lived and breathed in his
own psyche and experience, and one he wanted to communicate to
others. In order to nurture a disposition of gratitude, Bonaventure
encouraged his audiences to meditate on God’s marvelous qualities

and gifts.
God’s liberality is manifest above all, for Bonaventure, in the in-
carnation, the sending of the Holy Spirit, and also in endless gifts,
virtues, fruits, beatitudes—all gratuitously given.81 In true Francis-
can fashion, the cross, for Bonaventure, is the symbol par excellence
of God’s generous love.82 Sin is horrid, but it takes on even more
sinister dimensions because it is a negative response to the kind of
love revealed in the cross. In a Pentecost sermon delivered in 1253,
he says, “Who has a heart so unyielding that, when they reflect and
consider the generosity which the Lord manifests in creation, in re-
demption, in calling us individually … they are not wholly touched
and transformed into love for God?”83
But he relates the generous gifts of God in a distinctive way to the
third person to whom is appropriated the name Gift, and who comes
in fire at Pentecost to bestow a host of charisms on the church.84 The
work of a contemporary of Bonaventure, Mechthild of Magdeburg
(ca. 1208-ca. 1282-97), also makes abundant use of this theme. She
speaks of the Holy Spirit as the source of her revelations, which she
calls “gifted address.” She described receiving her text as a flowing,
and thus entitled it, The Flowing Light of the Godhead. She says, “I,
unworthy sinner, was so flowingly greeted by the Holy Spirit.” Like
Bonaventure, Mechthild’s “bewildering fertility” of the theme of flow-
ing finds its center in her understanding of the Trinity, and in par-
ticular in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.85
In a Pentecost sermon delivered in Paris to the Friars Minor,
Bonaventure invited his Franciscan brothers “to gather in, ruminate
on, and embrace with affection the unparalleled event of Pentecost,
since it revealed so clearly the divine mysteries.”86 He wanted not
only to arouse gratitude in their hearts, but also to offer instruction
on how to be good friars and ecclesiastical leaders. For Bonaventure,
it is the Holy Spirit who assists in the proper living of the vows, in
holding the community together in unity,87 and in decision-mak-
ing.88
Bonaventure also related the spirit of gratitude to the virtue of
humility, which he sees as not only the proper response to God’s love
but also as a necessary predisposition to receive the Spirit’s gifts.89 He
counsels both church leaders and the faithful about the importance
of humility, without which leadership flounders90 and salvation is
jeopardized. Humility, Bonaventure says, is the basis “of complete
spiritual health.”91 The exemplar for this humility is the Christ of

Ephesians 4:10 who “descends and ascends that he might fill all
things.” As we will see in our final example, Catherine of Siena will
use the image of the meal to make a striking connection between the
Holy Spirit and humility a century later. Secondary exemplars of
humility are the apostles who did not presume to face the powers of
the world on their own, but only when fortified by the tongues of
fire sent by the Spirit. The mission of the Holy Spirit to be carried
out by them is “sweet,” that is, it is devoid of haughtiness. Humility,
therefore, is a sine qua non of the gift of leadership.92 The anti-exem-
plar is Simon the magician of Acts 8:20, who thought he could buy
the gift of the Holy Spirit with money.93
Bonaventure communicates not only the concept of the overwhelm-
ing outpouring of God’s generous goodness in the sending of the
Spirit, but he also conveys what one might call a “felt sense” of this
overflowing goodness. One way in which he accomplishes this in his
Pentecost sermons is by “piling on” biblical language and imagery
that describe fluids (mostly water) flowing, gushing, bubbling.94 Water
imagery is also prevalent in the more christological Sermon VIII, in
which Bonaventure offers the metaphorical similitude: “By ‘living
waters’ is meant the Holy Spirit … . This is so because of the proper-
ties of living water. It is living in its source (the Holy Spirit proceeds
from Father and Son—Apoc 22:1 and Johnn 5:26); in its continual
flowing (the church is like a watered garden that will not fail because
of the influence of the Holy Spirit in her sacraments and members—
Isa 58:11 and Ps 45:4); and in the excellence of its effects (the twelve
fruits of the Holy Spirit—Apoc 22:2 and Gal 5:22 and Ps 1:3).95
Now anyone who teaches medieval sermons knows that they are not
exactly “user friendly” to modern audiences. But attention to sound
and imagery as well as to content can penetrate their opacity and
allow a glimpse into how this literary technique might have func-
tioned.
Images of flowing water include: the river flowing out of the gar-
den of Eden in Genesis represents the Holy Spirit’s exuberance of
life, joy, fruition and consummation (Gen 2:10); “A spirit of com-
passion and supplication will be poured out on Jerusalem” (Zach
12:10); rivers flowing out of Eden water the garden which becomes
four rivers (Gen 2:10); a little spring becomes a river and there is
water in abundance (Esther 10:6); the response to their cries was like
a great river brimming with water that came from a little spring (Esther
11:10); “the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from
the throne of God … was shown” (Apoc 22:1); “the well where God
made a covenant with Hagar,” (Gen 16:14); “a garden fountain, a
well of living water, and flowing streams from Lebanon” (Cant 4:15);
“I will make this dry stream bed full of pools” (2 Kgs 3:16); Gideon
discovers who is to fight with him by observing how they drink water
(Judges 7:5); “clean water will be sprinkled” (Ezek 36:25); “spirit will
be poured out” (Joel 2:28); Wisdom is infused into all God’s works
(Ecc 1:9); a fountain will be opened to cleanse the house of David
(Zach 13:1); a spirit of judgment and burning will wash away the
filth of Jerusalem (Isa 4:4).96
Take a moment to recite aloud these Latin terms in order to hear
the sounds suggestive of flowing liquid: effundam, effusam, fluvium
paradisum irrigantem, per fontem scaturientem, fluvium…procedentem,
per puteum viventis et videntis me, per puteum aquarum viventium, per
alveum torrentis, per aquas Gedeonis, distributam, opulentam, fruc-
tuosam, infusio, diffusionis, abluerit, mirabiliter largiflua, amplificata.
Bonaventure’s construction of this sermon was intended either to
show off his biblical virtuosity like a show of pyrotechnics, make a
plug for the thoroughness of medieval Bible aids and concordances,
or as I prefer to think, to move and compel the brothers to pay atten-
tion to the incredible, wondrous, amazing God of Pentecost, and to
allow the Spirit to influence them in their religious lives. Bonaventure
wants to convince his audience that through the Spirit, God was
offering them the power to repent, renew commitments, understand
the mysteries of God, be unified, tranquil, inflamed by desire, and
made beautiful by being conformed to the light.
Since the imagery of God as fons plenitudo, and of the Holy Spirit
as the fullness of this outpouring, is found in so many medieval au-
thors, should we not ask if some have too precipitously jettisoned
this dynamic way of speaking about the Spirit in the interest of a too
rational sophistication or fear of subordinationism?97 It is inadequate
to view this tradition solely as a primitive viewpoint that can no longer
offer any light. For instance, a renewed appreciation of this tradition,
which Catherine LaCugna links with God’s ecstasy,98 may also con-
tribute to David Coffey’s proposal that we add a “bestowal” or “mu-
tual love” model to the “procession” model in our articulation of
trinitarian theology.99 Clearly the tradition has a substantial invest-
ment in aspects of a Neoplatonic viewpoint that have less currency
today. But I contend that these narratives remain quite suggestive

and provocative for theology, spirituality and ministry.
The Spirit As Servant: Catherine of Siena

Catherine of Siena’s spiritual theology is explicitly trinitarian. Marie
Walter Flood comments that the Trinity is, in fact, the centerpiece of
Catherine’s theology.100 On occasion—as in her description of the
Spirit as a waiter—Catherine is strikingly innovative in her use of
language and imagery, but more often she reiterates doctrine on the
Trinity that she has inherited from the tradition. For example, as if to
shore up orthodoxy in a time of strife and danger, she frequently
reminds her readers that the Holy Spirit is God and that the Spirit
proceeds from both Father and Son—calling to mind the neuralgic
filioque argument that divided eastern and western branches of Chris-
tianity. She notes the Spirit’s hand at work in Mary’s conception of
Jesus, a mystery so great that only the Spirit’s grace and mercy could
have brought it about.101 She writes to the sisters at the Monastery of
Santa Maria in Siena: “He [Christ] now has the form of flesh, and
she [Mary] like warm wax has received from the seal of the Holy
Spirit the imprint of loving desire for our salvation.”102
Catherine’s trinitarian focus extends to her anthropology. She is
thoroughly Augustinian, building on Augustine’s vision of the reflec-
tion of the Trinity in human memory, intellect and will,103 and of his
understanding of the Holy Spirit as the bond of love between the
Father and the Son.104 This divine bond is extended to humanity. The
Holy Spirit functions as “an intermediary binding our soul with our
Creator, and enlightening our understanding and knowledge so that
we can share in the wisdom of God’s Son.”105 Catherine frequently
calls attention to the doctrine of imago Dei. God speaks to Catherine
of the intimate linkage between God and humans created through the
incarnation. “Member for member he joined this divine nature with
yours; my power, the wisdom of my Son, the mercy of the Holy
Spirit—all of me, God, the abyss of the Trinity, laid upon and united
with your human nature.”106 A classic statement of this theological
anthropology can be found in one of Catherine’s prayers.
You made us in your image and likeness so that, with our three
powers in one soul, we might image your trinity and your unity.
And as we image, so we may find union: through our memory,
image and be united with the Father … through our understand-
ing, image and be united to the Son … through our will, image and
be united with the Holy Spirit, to whom is attributed mercy, and
who is the love of the Father and the Son.107
Being bound to God through the Spirit leads to sorrow for sin and
weeping for a church that has gone astray. In a letter to her sisters of
the Mantellate in Siena, Catherine speaks in lyrical tones about the
fruits of this binding.
Your will be bound with the bond of the Holy Spirit, abyss of
charity, and in this charity you will conceive a gentle, loving,
tormenting desire for God’s honor and the salvation of souls. Being
so sweetly raised into the midst of the Trinity, sharing as I’ve said
in the Father’s power, the Son’s wisdom, and the Holy Spirit’s
mercy, you will weep in burning love and boundless sorrow with
me, your wretched and worse than wretched foolish mother, over
the dead child, humanity, and over the mystic body of holy
Church.108
For Catherine, union with God is always oriented outward toward

reform and mercy for sinners, among whom she included herself above
all. In her many triadic descriptions of the persons in God, Catherine
associates the quality of mercy with all three persons. But most often
she attributes mercy to the Spirit. After Christ ascended to heaven,
the Holy Spirit became the means of God’s merciful activity toward
the world. In the roles of gentle care-giver, nurturing mother, nurse,
or reliable leader as captain of the ship of the church, the Spirit is the
agent of God’s mercy.109
For Catherine, the entire Trinity works together in both the
creation and the redemption of the world. God speaks in the Dialogue,
“For the Holy Spirit did not come alone, but with the power from me
the Father and with the wisdom of the Son and with his own mercy.
So you see, he returned, not in the flesh but in his power, to firm up
the road of his teaching.”110 Catherine employs the metaphor of
bread-making to link the three persons in a very intimate way. God
speaks to her,
My power is not separate from his [Christ’s] wisdom; nor is the

heat, the fire of the Holy Spirit separate from me the Father or from
him the Son, for the Holy Spirit proceeds from me… . The person
of the incarnate Word was penetrated and kneaded into one dough
with the light of my Godhead, the divine nature, and with the heat
and fire of the Holy Spirit, and by this means you have come to
receive the light.111
Like her English counterpart, Julian of Norwich, Catherine experi-
enced each person of the Trinity as deeply related to the other two
persons, and all three involved in the divine encounter with the world.
While both authors follow the tradition of assigning certain func-
tions to one or other of the divine persons, they interweave these
functions in ways that implicate the others. It is clear that they are
quite comfortable assigning a function to one person in particular
and then extending it to the other two. For example, usually the
medieval metaphor of nursing at the breast refers to Christ, but
Catherine extends this metaphor to the Holy Spirit. “Such a soul
[wholly surrendered to God’s love] has the Holy Spirit as a mother
who nurses her at the breast of divine charity.”112
The spontaneous and vivid character of Catherine of Siena’s writing
stems in part from her penchant to express herself in images. Mary T.
O’Driscoll comments, “Metaphor trips over metaphor; one image
barely formed, gives way to another.”113 Her creativity is notably
visible in a fresh and startling metaphor for the Trinity, not previously
developed in the tradition—the persons of the Trinity are table, food
and waiter.114 The Father is the table, the Son is the food and the Holy
Spirit is the servant, offering enlightenment, charity, hunger for souls
and blazing desires for the church’s reform.115 One can conjecture that
the starting point for this metaphor was her service to her family—as
a young woman, Catherine’s parents made her work in their home as
a servant in response to Catherine’s refusal of marriage—to her needy
neighbors, and her experience of eucharist.
Catherine writes explicitly of an experience of the Spirit as waiter
when she was at eucharist on the feast of St. Lucy. She recounts that
St. Lucy allowed her to taste the fruit of her martyrdom—a desire that
Catherine always harbored for herself. At the table of the Lamb, God
says to Catherine, “I am table and I am food.” Catherine continues,
“The hand of the Holy Spirit was dispensing this food, sweetly serving
those who relished it.”116 The Holy Spirit serves God and every
spiritual and material gift.117
In the Dialogue, when Catherine describes the experience of those
who have reached the fourth and highest stage of the spiritual
journey—those who experience the indwelling of God in a steady, on-
going way—she says that these souls find rest which includes finding
“table and food and waiter.” God is their “bed and table.” The Word
is their food and the Holy Spirit, God’s loving charity, is the waiter
who serves God’s gifts and graces. “This gentle waiter carries to me
their tender loving desires, and carries back to them the reward for
their labors, the sweetness of my charity for their enjoyment and
nourishment. So you see, I am their table, my Son is their food, and
the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from me the Father and from the Son,
waits on them.”118 The fruits on this table are the “true solid vir-
tues.”119
Catherine is angry at the abuses in the church, in particular at those
who “sell” the Holy Spirit’s grace like a piece of merchandise. The
vices that cause ministers to do this are impurity, bloated pride, and
greed.120 She charges, “Not only do they not give what they are in duty
bound to give to the poor, but they rob them through simony and
their hankering after money, selling the grace of the Holy Spirit.”121
When the church administers the sacraments worthily, the Spirit is
able to serve those who partake. God speaks to Catherine of the
eucharist in which God provides for the soul’s growth in hunger and
“within the soul’s emotions by administering grace through the
service of the Holy Spirit.”122
In a letter to a Florentine bishop, Catherine specifies the image of
waiter further, referring to the Holy Spirit as a cellarer. She writes of
Christ, “Bleeding from every member, he had made himself cask and
wine and cellarer for us. Thus we see that his humanity is the cask that
encased the divine nature. The cellarer—the fire and the hands that
are the Holy Spirit—tapped that cask on the wood of the most holy
cross.”123
In addition to food for the soul, the Holy Spirit also serves food for
the intellect in the form of teaching, and food for the neighbor in the
form of charity. In one of her prayers, Catherine says, “And the Holy
Spirit is indeed a waiter for us, for he serves us this teaching by
enlightening our mind’s eye with it and inspiring us to follow it. And
he serves us charity for our neighbors and hunger to have as our souls
food and the salvation of the whole world for the Father’s honor.”124
Especially arresting in this sentence is Catherine’s final juxtaposition
of opposites—the Holy Spirit serves us hunger. Not exactly what one
expects to receive at the table! But being hungry for souls and for the
world’s salvation goes hand in hand with being fed charity for these
same neighbors.
In one instance, Catherine writes that the Spirit even serves the
worldly, indicating just how great God’s love really is. God speaks,
“For the Holy Spirit, my mercy, waits on these and gives them love
for me and warm affection for their neighbors, so that with immea-
surable charity they seek their salvation.”125 By having the Holy Spirit
“wait on” the worldly, Catherine points to the awesome nature of
God’s condescending love who chooses to bridge even the widest
gap, reaching out to those who are the least deserving of tender care.
In other places, Catherine extends the “waiter” image to the more
general metaphor of “servant”—sometimes laborer or gardener.
Catherine prays, “Oh gentle fire of love! You have given us as servant,
as laborer, the most merciful free-flowing Holy Spirit who is love
itself! He is the strong hand that held the word nailed fast to the
cross.”126 In another letter, Catherine offers encouragement to Abbot
Giovanni, who wrote to her that his garden (monastery) had no plants
(monks). She writes, “Take heart, and do what you can, for I trust
that in God’s goodness the gardener, the Holy Spirit, will adorn the
garden and provide for this and every other need.”127
In the section of the Dialogue that explores divine providence,
Catherine often speaks of the Holy Spirit as “servant,” providing what
is needed to individuals or communities. Sometimes the Spirit works
through other persons, sometimes the Spirit intervenes directly. The
services the Holy Spirit performs are many. God speaks: “This
servant, the Holy Spirit, whom I in my providence have given her,
clothes her, nurtures her, inebriates her with tenderness and the
greatest wealth.”128 The soul comes to know the Truth through the
“light from the Holy Spirit, whom I have given her as a servant.”129 In
this part of the Dialogue, Catherine is wrestling with her intense desire
to receive frequent communion. Since this was not the custom, she
makes sense of this deprivation by attributing it to the way God
thwarts her in order to enhance her hunger. In the end, God provides
for her in unimaginable ways. For Catherine, God’s goal in this “cat
and mouse” game is to get Catherine to trust “that the Holy Spirit, her
servant, would nourish her hunger.”130 The Spirit even pricks the
conscience of the priest who refuses Catherine communion!131
Catherine always interprets life’s obstacles and suffering in terms
of a loving God who sends hardships in order to test faith and
strengthen the faithful in love. God makes things difficult in order to
invite the believer to see better that God can and will provide what-
ever is needed. God speaks about bringing souls to the brink “so that
they will fall in love with my providence and embrace true poverty as
their bride. Then their servant, the Holy Spirit, my mercy, when he
sees that they lack anything that is necessary for their bodies, will
light a nudging spark of desire in the hearts of those who are able to
help, and these will come to help them in their need.”132
On one occasion, in a letter to Bartolomeo Dominici that is rich in
references to the Holy Spirit, Catherine has the Holy Spirit—
described as “God’s hand”—speak to her directly. I cite it at some
length as an example of Catherine’s powerful poetic style.
The Holy Spirit is the light that banishes all darkness, the hand that
upholds the whole world. In that vein I recall his saying not long
ago, “I am the One who upholds and sustains the whole world. It
was through me that the divine and human natures were brought
together. I am the mighty hand that holds up the standard of the
cross; of that cross I made a bed and held the God-Man nailed fast
to it.” He was so strong that if the bond of charity, the fire of the
Holy Spirit, had not held him, the nails could never have held
him.133
Catherine links the Spirit intimately with the redemptive action of

Christ, assigning to the Spirit the unusual role of holding the nails in
place so that Christ could complete his sacrifice.
Clearly, for Catherine, the Holy Spirit is not on the sidelines in
God’s relationship with the human community. God’s providence is
reliable because the Holy Spirit is alive and well and acting throughout
salvation history. The Holy Spirit sometimes acts directly on an
individual. But the Spirit’s service is also deeply incarnational and
communitarian. Catherine asks her readers who are in distress to trust
that the Spirit will inspire someone to bring needed aid. And she
expected her followers to respond to the Spirit’s call to provide service
for others with a whole heart. Catherine’s theology of the Spirit keeps
before us the kenotic gestures of a God who assumes human form in
order to be of service to the world and continues that service in the
work of the Spirit. And it is as servant that the church remains faithful
to its truest being and calling.
Conclusion and Further Questions

Attending to particular descriptions of the Spirit’s presence and work
lifts the veil from the faces of our medieval forbears, releasing them
from an anonymous, vague, or collective identity that is unrelated to

their concrete, historical setting. “Crossing over” into past worlds
can stem the loss of communal memory that leads to our becoming
spiritual amnesiacs, persons without the kinds of memories that nur-
ture and enrich our lives. A more detailed exploration of the theol-
ogy and spirituality of ancestors can awaken consciousness of the
communion of saints, reminding us that we are part of a larger story
and inviting us to taste the “mystic sweet communion with those
whose rest is won.”134
Against those who see the tradition primarily in its shortcomings,
one must observe that studying the tradition in more detail inevitably
leads to further discussion about it. Indeed, the interplay of various
interpretations constitutes its reality and development, saving it from
becoming a moribund “thing” that is incapable of touching the
particular contours of communities and individuals today. A respon-
sible and sensitive reading of past encounters with the Spirit not only
saves us from the arrogance of detached observers but invites us to new
awareness of, and confidence in, the Christian community that was
and is constituted by these narratives of the Spirit.
In addition to the recovery of spirit language, imagery and sym-
bols, historical study of the broad range of genres employed by Chris-
tians throughout the ages can make a number of important contri-
butions to contemporary awareness of the Spirit and to Pneumatology.
Help in thinking about the work of the church and the nature of
theology are but two areas that come to mind.
First, medieval texts on the Spirit can shed light on pneumatological
issues in the spiritual life of the church. For example, might the present
experience of the absence of God be alleviated by crossing over to,
and recalling the truth behind the imagery of “flowing fullness” that
is used to describe the Spirit as the abundance of God’s loving pres-
ence? Or might the image of the Spirit as servant and waiter serve as
a corrective to a church that is aloof and arrogant by reminding us of
the ways in which Spirit life leads to humble service?
The Spirit who functioned throughout the tradition as the source
of inspired and courageous utterances can play a renewed, empower-
ing role for women and other silenced ones who want to contribute
to ecclesial, theological and spiritual developments. The tradition also
offers counter-models that remind us of behaviors to be avoided—for
example, calling on the Spirit to exclude and condemn those who are
different from us, or silencing those whose Spirit inspired speech calls
us to new and uncomfortable positions. But the tradition also suggests

ways in which the Spirit might function to bring about the desire and
the will to effect forgiveness, harmony and communion in a war-torn
world and amidst the tensions and gaps of racial, gender and economic
imbalance. Cannot the tradition teach us new ways to inspire and
effect dispositions of mutual respect and reconciliation?
And surely the many concrete ways in which the Spirit has func-
tioned throughout the tradition can lead us away from a Spirit who is
anonymous, abstract, ethereal, and unrelated to the warp and woof of
daily Christian existence. The Pentecosts of the past can instruct and
inspire us in our on-going celebration of the feast of Pentecost as we
make decisions about the values we wish to proclaim and live, the
prophets to whom we want to listen and the renewal we seek in
individual lives, in the church, and in societies across the globe.
Second, a retrieval of a broader Spirit tradition can serve to inform
contemporary theologies of the Spirit. To the extent that the divine
missions reveal the distinctiveness of the persons, this exploration into
the functions of the Spirit provides evidence of the variety and depth
in which earlier communities experienced and spoke of God as triune.
By taking this variety seriously, theologians, as well as the faithful, are
protected against the idolatry that is the result of a too narrow
conception of how we think and speak about God. Theological
statements about the Spirit need to be validated in the diverse
expressions of the concrete, historical mission of the Spirit as it has
been perceived throughout the tradition. 135
The roles assigned to the Spirit in prayer, in accounts of the holy
ones, in exegesis and in sermons also invite reflection on the self-
implicating nature of the theological task. Knowledge of, and respect
for, the diversity and particularity of the ways in which Christian
theologians and mystics wrote of the Spirit can propel us to reflect on
how our own encounters with the Spirit function to shape our
theologies and on how our theologies of the Spirit function to renew
the faith of the church.136 These narratives serve as a caution against
the objectification of God that bans the heart from the theological task
and obscures the utterly transcendent dimension of God’s imma-
nence.
The certitude and vibrancy of witness to the presence of God in
the lives of saints and theologians can also ground arguments for the
existence of God. Study of a broader range of traditional texts on the
Spirit discloses that Christians in every age experienced God in the
daily workings of their lives and struggled with both how to love
God and others, and how to fight the demons that prevented this
love from flowering. We can agree with Michael Buckley’s complaint
about the failure of theology to appreciate the relevance of accounts
of religious experience, since the saints surely point to the reality of
God in compelling ways. Buckley describes formal theology’s failure
to take sufficient account of the saints’ witness to the faith through-
out the centuries as nothing short of extraordinary. He also laments
that theologians have not worked to forge intellectual devices to probe
concrete expressions of saints’ experience as a warrant for the exist-
ence of God.137 This bracketing of religious experience, this divorce
between spirituality and theology, between life and thought, appears
even more strange inasmuch as Christian theology has always held
that the closeness of God witnessed by the saints is the fruit of the
Spirit transforming human affectivity and awareness in ways that al-
low one to recognize in oneself and in others the image of God.138
As a result of this bracketing, theologians have neglected the study
of religious experience in favor of more formal, theological texts. We
have seen how accounts of Augustine’s trinitarian theology are an
example of this kind of selective reading. It is true that the language
of religious experience presents challenges distinct from those of more
systematic, theological treatises. But the rewards include a fuller, more
lively, and truer portrait of Christian talk about the Spirit through-
out the tradition.
Accounts of religious experience in medieval texts can also contrib-
ute to efforts to make the Spirit more visible in Christology. Theolo-
gians have made significant efforts to retrieve a broader, more lively
trinitarian perspective through “Spirit-Christology.”139 The point of
recovery of the Holy Spirit in theology is, of course, not to move
Christ to the sidelines, but to explore the distinctive traits and the
dynamic links among the three persons. Many medieval authors
achieved a type of trinitarian integration that can serve as a resource
in the task of recovering the Spirit dimension in Christology. Both
Julian of Norwich and Catherine of Siena speak of a profound
integration in the way the three persons act in the world. Without
abandoning the distinct function of each mission, they are quite
comfortable extending the work of each person to the other two. For
instance, Suzanne Noffke notes the many ways Catherine links the
incarnate Word and the Spirit. In Catherine’s terminology, every
attribute of the Spirit is attributed to the blood. “The passion of Jesus
is in fact, for Catherine, as intimately the work of the Holy Spirit as

is the incarnation itself.”140 In Catherine’s mind, “there is no blood
[Christ] without fire [Holy Spirit].”141
Finally, it is clear from an analysis of these medieval texts that the
Spirit’s presence has been associated consistently with a constellation
of biblical symbols, language and activities that were deeply embed-
ded in the consciousness of the authors and their communities. These
texts provide a catalyst for theologians charged with articulating a
contemporary Pneumatology to forge new links with the living
language and imagery of the Bible and, in the process, ward off
criticism about the sterility of some contemporary theology discon-
nected from its scriptural foundations.142 The narrowly defined
methodologies of some contemporary biblical scholars, theologians
and literary critics can be enriched by the more fluid, multi-vocal
approaches to the biblical text in the patristic and medieval periods.
Historical-critical methods have resulted in valuable insight and
breakthroughs in Bible study. But this approach alone can prema-
turely close off the power that biblical language has exercised through-
out the tradition to shape and influence a great deal of human life and
action.143
The recovery of narratives of the Spirit in the tradition has just
begun. Ordinary Christians and theologians must continue to col-
laborate, gathering data from diverse cultural spheres and experien-
tial forms. Such a recovery can enhance our awareness of the Spirit;
acknowledge the complex and pluralistic nature of the human en-
counter with God; renew theological and spiritual imagination; re-
sist a reductionist understanding of God; and ground theology in the
concrete, historical circumstances of revelation and trinitarian mis-
sions. Theological abstractions, simplicities, and systematizations need
to be balanced with the specificity, messiness, diversity, and creativ-
ity in the language and symbols of past and present.
The tradition is an insufficiently used resource of connectivity,
enshrined in meaning that comes out of the past to be engaged and
revised in the present. This resource presents itself as an array of
possibilities for the future. An adequate sense of tradition manifests
itself in an ability to grasp those future possibilities which the past has
made available to the present. We need to keep before us the truth that
Christians throughout the ages have prayed, “Come Creator Spirit,
Come, protector of the poor, Come kindly comforter,” amidst the

joys and sufferings of their time and place just as we do in ours.
Endnotes
1
Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, vol. 2, Lord and Giver of Life (1979; New
York: Seabury, 1983), 153-154.
2
Unfortunately, the perception of the gap between East and West and its specific
contours became solidified after the publication of Theodore de Regnon’s Etudes
de theologie positive sur la Sainte Trinite, four volumes bound as three (Paris: V.
Retaux, 1892/1898).
3
For example, see Catherine Mowry LaCugna, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian
Life (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991), 102-103; David Griffin, “Holy
Spirit: Compassion and Reverence for Being,” in Religious Experience and Process
Theology: The Pastoral Implications of a Major Modern Movement (New York:
Paulist, 1976), 109; Louis Dupre, The Common Life: The Origins of Trinitarian
Mysticism and Its Development by Jan Ruusbroec (New York: Crossroad, 1984),
10-11; 16-17.
4
For example, feminist theologians give preeminent place to the Spirit as they
explore ways to broaden ideas and language about God, while incorporating
ecological concerns. See Elizabeth Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in
Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: Crossroad, 1992); Woman, Earth, and
Creator Spirit (New York/Mahwah: Paulist, 1993); Sallie McFague, Models of
God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987); s.v.
“Holy Spirit” in Dictionary of Feminist Theologies, eds. Letty M. Russell and J.
Shannon Clarkson (Louisville: Westminster/ John Knox, 1996); H.K. Chung,
“Welcome the Spirit; Hear Her Cries: The Holy Spirit, Creation, and the Culture
of Life,” Christianity and Crisis 51 (July 15, 1991): 220-23; Rebecca S. Chopp,
The Power to Speak: Feminism, Language, God (New York: Crossroad, 1991).
5
One example involves a discussion of the relationship between religious experience
and theology in a recent issue of the Christian Spirituality Bulletin, 3/2 (1995).
Philip Endean, “Theology out of Spirituality: The Approach of Karl Rahner, 6-
8; Mark McIntosh, “Lover Without a Name: Spirituality and Constructive
Christology Today,” 9-12; J. Matthew Ashley, “The Turn to Spirituality? The
Relationship Between Theology and Spirituality,” 13-18; Anne M Clifford “Re-
membering the Spiritual Core of Theology: A Response,” 19-21. See also Ellen
T. Charry, By the Renewing of Your Mind: The Pastoral Function of Christian
Doctrine (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). On the need to
interpret texts in their historical context, see John C. Cavadini, “The Quest for
Truth in Augustine’s De Trinitate,” Theological Studies 58 (1997): 429-440.
6
Two three-volume works trace the Holy Spirit’s presence in the Bible and Christian
tradition. Yves Congar’s I Believe in the Holy Spirit investigates the theology of
the Holy Spirit from the Hebrew Scriptures to the present. Congar explicitly
states that he is not tracing the course of experience of the Spirit as it was expressed
as a living reality in spiritual writings and the lives of the saints—the approach
taken in this essay—but rather interpreting that reality theologically. He at-
tempts to evolve a theology of the Holy Spirit and the Spirit’s role in the church
by attending to “theoretical aspects or objective dimensions of our knowledge of
the Spirit.” See vol 1: The Holy Spirit in the ‘Economy’: Revelation and Experience
of the Spirit. Trans. David Smith (New York/London: The Seabury/Geoffrey
Chapman, 1983), xviii. The second trilogy is Stanley M. Burgess’ The Holy Spirit
(Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1984-1997). Volume one treats the ancient
church, volume two Eastern Christian traditions and volume three Western
Christianity from the sixth to the sixteenth centuries. Burgess’ objective is to scan
the tradition in search of evidence of paranormal charismatic gifts such as
speaking in tongues, prophecy, divine healing and miracles.
7
Johnson, She Who Is, 192.
8
John Cavadini, “The Holy Spirit and Culture: A Response to Elizabeth Dreyer,”
Christian Spirituality Bulletin 4 (1996): 14.
9
LaCugna, God for Us, 358.
10
One specific aspect of this rapprochement is the conversation about the relationship
between spirituality and ethics. See William C. Spohn, “Spirituality and Ethics:
Exploring the Connections,” Theological Studies 58 (1996): 109-123; Mark
O’Keefe, Becoming Good, Becoming Holy: On the Relationship of Christian Ethics
and Spirituality (New York: Paulist, 1995); Michael K. Duffey, Be Blessed in What
You Do: The Unity of Christian Ethics and Spirituality (New York: Paulist, 1988);
Dennis J. Billy and Donna L. Orsuto, eds., Spirituality and Morality: Integrating
Prayer and Action (New York: Paulist, 1996).
11
Television intervew on PBS, 1996.
12
For a discussion of this issue, see Langdon Gilkey, Catholicism Confronts Moder-
nity: A Protestant View (New York: Seabury, 1975). See also The One, The Three
and The Many, in which Colin Gunton suggests that a theology that resists the
pressures of the modern cultural tendency toward homogeneity by giving due
weight to the particular should begin with a theology of the Spirit (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1993), 181.
13
Michel René Barnes, “Augustine in Contemporary Trinitarian Theology,” Theo-
logical Studies 56 (1995): 237-250.
14
Barnes, “Augustine in Contemporary Trinitarian Theology,” 245. In his criticism,
Barnes includes Bertrand de Margerie, La Trinite chretienne dans l’histoire (Paris:
Beauchesne, 1975); LaCugna, God for Us; David Brown, The Divine Trinity
(LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1985); James Mackey, The Christian Experience of God
as Trinity (London: SCM, 1983); John J. O’Donnell, Trinity and Temporality:
The Christian Doctrine of God in the Light of Process Theology and the Theology of
Hope (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983); and Jürgen Moltmann, History
and the Triune God (London: SCM, 1991).
15
John Cavadini, “The Holy Spirit and Culture,” 13.
16
David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of
Pluralism (New York: Crossroad, 1981), 102.
17
Paul Ricoeur’s work on the processes by which symbols give rise to thought has
spawned decades of fruitful reflection and analysis on the role of symbols and
images in the tradition. See, among other works, The Symbolism of Evil (Boston:
Beacon, 1969); and Figuring the Sacred: Religion, Narrative, and Imagination,
trans. David Pellauer, ed. Mark I. Wallace (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995).
18
Endean, “Theology out of Spirituality,” 6.
19
Michael Welker, Gottes Geist: Theologie des Heiligen Geistes (Neukrichen-Vluyn:
Neukirchener, 1992). English translation by John F. Hoffmeyer, God the Spirit
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994).
20
Michael Welker, “‘Why are you so interested in the wandering people of God?’
Michael Welker on Theology and Common Sense.” Soundings 79 (1996): 128.
21
Welker, “‘Why are you so interested in the wandering people of God?,’” 131.
22
Welker, “‘Why are you so interested in the wandering people of God?,’” 132
23
George T. Montague, “The Fire in the Word: The Holy Spirit in Scripture,” (paper
presented at the symposium, “An Advent of the Spirit: Orientations in
Pneumatology,” Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette University, April 17-19, 1998).
24
Welker, “Why are you so interested in the wandering people of God?,’”132.
25
“Why are you so interested in the wandering people of God?,’”132-133. Welker
cites Moltmann’s Theology of Hope, Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza’s In Memory of
Her and James Cone’s Black Theology as examples of theologians who engage the
biblical tradition in a “thick way.”
26
Jürgen Moltmann, The Source of Life; The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), 57.
27
Sabine MacCormack, “How the Past is Remembered: From Antiquity to Late
Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Beyond,” in The Past and the Future of Medieval
Studies, ed. John Van Engen (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1994), 107.
28
For a fuller treatment of the Spirit in Augustine, see Elizabeth A. Dreyer,
“Spirituality as a Resource for Theology: The Holy Spirit in Augustine,”
Christian Spirituality Bulletin 4 (1996): 1-12.
29
On the Gospel of John, Tractate XCII.2. NPNF, 7:363/PL 35:1863. See also
Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Ps XCI.16. NPNF 8:451/Ps XC.8. PL 37:1167.
The root of our boldness and confidence is also attributed to Christ in Ephesians
3:11-13.
30
On the Gospel of John, Tractate XCII.2 NPNF, 7:363/PL 35:1863.
31
On the Catechizing of the Uninstructed 2.3. NPNF 3:284/PL 40:311.
32
Hildegard of Bingen was the recipient of visions from her earliest childhood.
Endorsed by Bernard of Clairvaux and Pope Eugene III at the synod at Trier in
1147-48, she became a religious leader and prophet, abbess of a Benedictine
community in Rupertsberg, preacher to clergy and laity. She left an extensive
correspondence with bishops, popes, and emperors.
33
Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, trans. Columba Hart and Jane Bishop (New York/
Mahwah: Paulist, 1990), 2.1.
34
Hildegard of Bingen, Liber Vitae Meritorum, trans. Bruce W. Hozeski (New York:
Garland, 1994), 9-10.
35
Guibert of Gembloux, Letter 16. Analecta S. Hildegardis, vol. 8 of Analecta sacra,
ed. J.-P.Pitra (Monte Cassino, 1882), 386. Gembloux refers to 2 Cor 3:17-18:
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed
into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord
who is Spirit.”
36
The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, trans. Joseph L. Baird and Radd K. Ehrman
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), vol. 1, p. 7; and Letter 2 to Pope
Eugenius written in 1148, The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, 1, 32-33. Hildegard
also receives wings from the Spirit: “‘O daughter, run! For the Most Powerful
Giver whom no one can resist has given you wings to fly with. Therefore fly
swiftly over all these obstacles!’ And I, comforted with great consolation, took
wing and passed swiftly over all those poisonous and deadly things.” Scivias 1.4.2.
37
The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, 2.4.3 and 6.
38
The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, 2.4.8.
39
The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, 3.7.7.
40
Preface to Hildegard’s Scivias, (New York: Paulist, 1990), 6.
41
The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, 7. Hildegard connects viriditas with moisture
(humor, humiditas). If the earth did not have moisture or greenness it would
crumble like ashes. In the spiritual realm both viriditas and humiditas are
“manifestations of God’s power, qualities of the human soul, for ‘the grace of God
shines like the sun and sends its gifts in various ways; in wisdom, in greenness,
in moisture.’” (Letter 85r/a), 195. In the spiritual realm, a lack of moisture causes
virtues to become dry as dust (Letter 85r/a), 194.
42
Barbara Newman, “Hildegard of Bingen” video (Washington, D.C.: The National
Cathedral, 1989.
43
The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, 7.
44
Letter 38r, PL 197:203.
45
Scivias, 3.7.9 (p. 418).
46
Scivias, 3.10.4 (p. 475); 3.10.7 (p. 478). Hildegard describes the power of
Antichrist as the ability to set the air in motion, bring forth fire and lightnings,
raise thunders and hailstorms, uproot mountains, dry up water and take the
greenness from forests. 3.11.27 (pp. 502-503).
47
Scivias, 2.4.2 (p. 190).
48
Bernard is known, above all, for his interest in the humanity of Christ. However,
his vivid meditations on Christ as spouse are situated in a Christology that reveals
a decidedly neoplatonic bent. The incarnation was necessary, in Bernard’s eyes,
because the human race was too frail to return God’s glorious, unapproachable
love, thus requiring the human Christ as an accommodation. The love of the
heart is the way of humans, but it is inferior to the love of the spirit. Therefore,
the soul’s journey is to transcend the love of God in the flesh in order to arrive
in the end at the love of God in spirit. See Marsha L. Dutton, “The Face and the
Feet of God: The Humanity of Christ in Bernard of Clairvaux and Aelred of
Rievaulx,” in Magister Bernardus, ed. John R. Sommerfeldt (Kalamazoo: Cistercian
Publications, 1992), 205.
49
See G. R. Evans, The Mind of St. Bernard of Clairvaux (Oxford: Clarendon, 1983),
141; Kilian McDonnell, “Spirit and Experience in Bernard of Clairvaux,”
Theological Studies 58 (1997): 3-18; Ulrich Kopf, Religiose Erfahrung in der
Theologie Bernhards von Clairvaux (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1980) and “Die
Rolle der Erfahrung im religiosen Leben nach dem heiligen Bernhard,” Analecta
Cisterciensia 46 (1990): 319.
50
See Dom Pierre Miquel, Le vocabulaire latin de l’experience spirituelle (Paris:
Beauchesne, 1989), 96-106.
51
On Consideration 5.30 in S. Bernardi Opera, 8 vols in 9, ed. J. Leclercq, C.H.
Talbot, H.M. Rochais (Rome: Editiones Cisterciensis, 1957-77), 3.492.10-11
(hereafter cited as Opera).
52
Sixth Sermon for the Feast of the Ascension 2 (Opera V.151).
53
Ad Mil. templi, 11, 24 (Opera 3.233.21-28). In his theological treatise, On Grace
and Free Will, Bernard discusses at some length Paul’s discussion of the tension
between the human inclination to sin and the life of the Spirit in Romans 5-8.
See Jean Leclercq, Bernard of Clairvaux: Selected Works (New York and Mahwah:
Paulist, 1987), 21.
54
On Conversion 13.25 (Opera 4.99.17).
55
Leclercq, Bernard of Clairvaux, 30.
56
Leclercq, Bernard of Clairvaux, 121-122.
57
“First Sermon for Pentecost” (Opera 5.161). English translation, St. Bernard’s
Sermons for the Seasons and Principal Festivals of the Year 3 vols. (Westminster,
Md.: Carroll, 1950), 2:287-88.
58
On the Song of Songs 8.2,4,6 (Opera 1.37-39).
59
On the Song of Songs 1.3 (Opera 1.4).
60
61
On the Song of Songs 1.5 and 1.8 (Opera 1.5, 6).
62
On the Song of Songs 1.11: “Istiusmodi canticum sola unctio docet, sola addiscit
experientia” (Opera 1.7).
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
Sermo 89 (Opera 6/1.335).
70
Sermo 336.
71
My primary, though not exclusive, referents are the Itinerarium; ten sermons given
on the feast of Pentecost; and two sermons on the Trinity. All references in
parentheses are to Opera Omnia (Quaracchi: Collegio S. Bonaventurae, 1882).
72
For Bonaventure, the wisdom that is theology is midway between the purely
speculative and the practical because it embraces each of them. He says, “… this
[wisdom of theology] is the grace of contemplation and is for us to become good,
but chiefly that we become good (ut boni fiamus)… . This knowledge aids faith,
and faith is in the intellect in such a way that by its very reason its nature is to move
the affections. And this is clear. For unless someone is a sinner and hard of heart
(durus), to know that Christ died for us and similar truths moves us to love (movet
ad amorem); the same is not true of this truth, that the diameter is asymmetrical
to the circumference.” Sentences, Proemium, q. 3, Resp. (1, 13).
73
See David Burr, “Bonaventure, Olivi and Franciscan Eschatology,” Collectanea
Franciscana 53 (1983): 23-40, “Franciscan Exegesis and Francis as Apocalyptic
Figure,” in Monks, Nuns, and Friars in Medieval Society (Sewanee, Tenn.: 1989),
51-62; Bernard McGinn, “The Abbot and the Doctors: Scholastic Reactions to
the Radical Eschatology of Joachim of Fiore,” Church History 40 (1971): 30-47;
Joseph Ratzinger, The Theology of History in St. Bonaventure (Chicago: Fanciscan
Herald Press, 1971), 104-108; 117-118.
74
See Marjorie Reeves, Joachim of Fiore and the Prophetic Future (New York: Harper
& Row, 1976), 36-37; See also M. Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later
Middle Ages: A Study in Joachimism (1969; reprint Notre Dame, Ind.: University
of Notre Dame Press, 1993); Bernard McGinn, Visions of the End: Apocalyptic
Traditions in the Middle Ages (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979),
Apocalyptic Spirituality (New York: Paulist, 1979), The Calabrian Abbot: Joachim
of Fiore in the History of Western Thought (New York:Macmillan Publishing
Company, 1985); Richard K. Emmerson and Bernard McGinn, eds., The
Apocalypse in the Middle Ages (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press,
1992); Malcolm Lambert, Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from the Grego-
rian Reform to the Reformation (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1992), 189-214.
75
Legenda maior (8, 504-549); Legenda minor (8, 577-579); Hex. 16, 16 (5, 405). See
also “The Legenda Maior: Bonaventure’s Apocalyptic Francis,” in The Apocalyptic
Imagination in Medieval Literature by Richard K. Emmerson and Ronald B.
Herzman (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992), 36-75; and S.
Bihel, “S. Franciscus fuitne Angelus Sexti Sigilli?” Antonianum 2 (1927): 57-90.
76
Hex. 15.9 (5, 399) and 15.20 (5, 401).
77
Hex. 1.6-9. (5, 330). For Bonaventure, one negative eschatological sign was the
presence of Aristotelian errors in theology. “False theologians and true spiritual
men will be the opposed signs of the dawning age for the seraphic doctor.”
Bernard McGinn, “The Abbot and the Doctors: Scholastic Reactions to the
Radical Eschatology of Joachim of Fiore,” Church History 40 (1971): 45.
78
Of these 240 iterations, 140 appear in the Sentences.
79
See Hexaemeron 3.1 (5, 346); 14.28 (5, 397); and Breviloquium. 4.3.4 (5, 243);
5.2.2 (5, 253).
80
Saint Bonaventure, Disputed Questions on the Mystery of the Trinity, vol. 3, The
Works of Saint Bonaventure, trans. Zachary Hayes, (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: The
Franciscan Institute, 1979), 41.
81
Sermo 10 (9, 345). In Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language, Umberto Eco cites
Gilbert of Stanford who does not explicitly mention the Holy Spirit but speaks
of the multiple meanings of Scripture in terms of a flowing river: “Imitating the
action of the swiftest of rivers, Holy Scripture fills up the depths of the human
mind and yet always overflows, quenches the thirsty and yet remains inexhaust-
ible. Bountiful streams of spiritual sense gush out from it and, merging into
others, make still others spring up—or rather (since ‘wisdom is undying’), they
do not merge but emerge and, showing their beauty to others, cause these others
not to replace them as they fail but to succeed them as they remain” (in Cant.
20.225), (Bloomington, Ind.: University of Indiana Press, 1984), 150.
82
In Bonnefoy’s analysis of Bonaventure’s treatment of the gift of piety, the cross
figures prominently. Bonaventure counsels novices to meditate always on the
passion (Regula novitiorum, 7.1-2/8, 483). His response to a request for a letter
of edification from the abbess of a monastery in Longchamp takes the form of a
little treatise on Christian perfection in which one of the eight chapters is
dedicated to the cross (De perfectione vitae ad sorores, 6/8, 120ff.). And Bonaventure
recounts a personal story in which thoughts of the cross saved him from the devil’s
attacks (Sermo II de Donis, XIII post Pent., 1/9, 404). Le Saint-Esprit et ses dons
selon Saint Bonaventure (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1929), 150.
83
Sermo 9 (9, 342).
84
Brev. 1.1.9 (5, 210); 1.6.1 (5, 214); 5.1.4 (5, 252); 5.5.1 (5, 257).
85
Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light of the Godhead (2.6, 26). Mechthild
also links the metaphor of flowing liquids with the abundance of God’s love. She
speaks of the flood of love (5.31); the flowing fire of God’s love (5.1); the great
overflow of God’s love that in its abundance and sweetness causes our small vessel
to brim over (7.55); the playful flow of love flows in the Trinity, which love she
desires to have released into her soul (3.1; 7.45). Oliver Davies comments, “The
bewildering fertility of Mechthild’s conception of the theme of ‘flowing’ … finds
its centre in her understanding of the Christian Trinity. It is this which is the
conceptual basis which underlies the unifying image of ‘flowing’ and which serves
to unite the disparate themes of cosmic creation, Mechthild’s own literary
creation, the outflow of grace and God’s gifts, as well as the soul’s ecstatic reditus
to God into a single integral vision of the dynamic fecundity of the Godhead…
. The Trinitarian dimension can be seen also in the fact that she frequently links
the language of flowing with the Third Person, and also uses this term in order
to speak of the generation of the Son from the Father.” “Transformational
Processes in the Work of Julian of Norwich and Mechthild of Magdeburg,” in
The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England. Exeter Symposium 5, ed. Marion
Glasscoe (Suffolk: D.S. Brewer, 1992), 49.
86
Sermo 2 in Pentecoste (9. 333). Henceforth Sermo 1, 2, etc.
87
Sermo 2 (9. 333-334).
88
Sermo 1 (9, 332); See also Sermo de trinitate (9, 357).
89
Sermo 7 (9, 337, 339).
90
Sermo 1 (5. 332): “Quia Apostoli non extollebantur in superbiam, licet essent positi
rectores totius orbis a Spiritu sancto … .”
91
Sermo 9 (9, 345).
92
Sermo 1 (9, 331-332). In Sermo 10, Bonaventure applies the gifts of the Spirit (Joel
2:28) in a particular fashion to the gift of preaching (9, 345-346).
93
Sermo 7 (9, 339).
94
Sermo 3 (9. 335): “… quantum ad modum emanandi per nomen fluvii scaturientis,
qui est ipse Spiritus … “ and “… quantam ad receptaculum emanati per irrigationem
paradisi, qui est ipse ecclesiasticus coetus.”
95
Sermo 8 (9, 340).
96
Sermo 4 (9, 335).
97
William Hill seems especially concerned about this danger. See The Three-Personed
God (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1982), 16, 37,
142, 235, 278.
98
LaCugna, God For Us, 351-53.
99
David Coffey, “The Gift of the Holy Spirit,” The Irish Theological Quarterly 38
(1971): 202-223; Grace: The Gift of the Holy Spirit (Manley NSW, Australia:
Catholic Institute of Sydney, 1979); “The ‘Incarnation’ of the Holy Spirit in
Christ,” Theological Studies 45 (1984): 466-480; “A Proper Mission of the Holy
Spirit,” Theological Studies 47 (1986): 466-80; “The Holy Spirit as the Mutual
Love of the Father and the Son,” Theological Studies 51 (1990): 227-250.
100
Marie Walter Flood, “St. Thomas’s Thought in the Dialogue of St. Catherine,”
Spirituality Today 32 (1980): 27.
101
Catherine of Siena, The Prayers of Catherine of Siena, ed. Suzanne Noffke (New
York: Paulist, 1983) 18 (p. 158); 23 (pp. 202-203).
102
Letter 1. The Letters of St. Catherine of Siena, vol. 1, Medieval & Renaissance Texts
and Studies, no. 52, trans., Suzanne Noffke (Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval &
Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1988), 38.
103
Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue 165, ed. Suzanne Noffke (New York: Paulist,
1980), 365.
104
The Dialogue 13 (p. 49).
105
The Letters 61 (p. 195).
106
The Diaolgue 140 (p. 289).
107
Prayers 4 (p. 42).
108
The Letters 57 (p. 178-179).
109
110
The Dialogue 29 (p.70); 63 (p. 119).
111
112
113
Mary T. O’Driscoll, “St. Catherine of Siena: Life and Spirituality,” Angelicum 57
(1980): 311.
114
115
For Catherine, the Spirit, who is agent of mercy, serves the faithful at table with
Christ’s teaching through enlightenment to understand it and inspiration to live
it. The Spirit also “serves us charity for our neighbors and hunger to have as our
souls food and the salvation of the whole world for the Father’s honor.” Finally
the Spirit serves to its servants blazing desires for the church’s reform. Prayers 12
(p. 102). See also Letters 5 and 14 (pp. 48, 119). In The Dialogue, Catherine has
God speak, “The Holy Spirit, my loving charity, is the waiter who serves them
[souls at the fourth stage] my gifts and graces. This gentle waiter carries to me
their tender loving desires, and carries back to them the reward for their labors,
the sweetness of my charity for their enjoyment and nourishment.” The Dialogue,
78 (p. 146). See also Letter 278 to Monna Bartolomea di Dominico in Rome.
Cited in The Dialogue, 146n.
116
117
118
The Dialogue 78 (p.146). Noffke references Catherine’s Letter 278 to Monna
Bartolomea di Domenico in Rome in which Catherine refers to her experience
on the feast of St. Lucy, December 13, 1377. “On her feast day she let me taste
the fruit of her martyrdom. In my longing I was carried to the table of the Lamb,
and he said to me … . ‘I am the table and I am the food upon it.’ And the hand
of the Holy Spirit fed me.” In The Dialogue, n. 110 (p. 146).
119
120
121
The Dialogue 114 (p.213); 119 (p. 221); 121 (p. 232); 127 (p. 247); 127 (p. 248);
See also The Letters 28 (p. 101); 65 (p. 207).
122
123
124
Prayers no. 12 (p. 102).
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
The Letters L29 (p. 103).
134
From the hymn, “The Church’s One Foundation.”
135
For example, see Walter Principe, “Toward Defining Spirituality,” Sciences
Religieuses 12 (1983): 127-141; Sandra Schneiders, “Theology and Spirituality:
Strangers, Rivals or Partners?” Horizons 13 (1986): 253-274; “Spirituality in the
Academy,” Theological Studies 50 (1989): 676-697; and “Spirituality as an
Academic Discipline: Reflections from Experience,” Christian Spirituality Bulle-
tin 1 (1993): 10-15.
136
See Sandra Schneiders, “The Study of Christian Spirituality: The Contours and
Dynamics of a Discipline,” Presidential Address, Society for the Study of
Christian Spirituality (1997); and “A Hermeneutical Approach to the Study of
Christian Spirituality,” Christian Spirituality Bulletin 2 (1994): 9-14; Belden C.
Lane, “Galesville and Sinai: The Researcher as Participant in the Study of
Spirituality,” Christian Spirituality Bulletin 2 (1994): 18-20; Mary Frohlich,
“Participation and Distance: Modes in the Study of Spirituality, Christian
Spirituality Bulletin 2 (1994): 24-25; Bernard McGinn, “The Letter and the
Spirit: Spirituality As An Academic Discipline,” Christian Spirituality Bulletin 1
(1993): 1-10; Bradley Hanson, “Theological Approaches to Spirituality: A
Lutheran Perspective,” Christian Spirituality Bulletin 2 (1994): 5-8; Philip F.
Sheldrake, “Some Continuing Questions: The Relationship Between Spirituality
and Theology,” Christian Spirituality Bulletin 2 (1994): 15-17.
137
Michael Buckley, “The Rise of Modern Atheism and the Religious Epoche,” in The
Catholic Theological Society of America: Proceedings of the Forty-seventh Annual
Convention, ed. Paul Crowley (Santa Clara, Calif.: The Catholic University of
America, 1992), 77.
138
Buckley, “The Rise of Modern Atheism and the Religious Epoche,” 80 and 83.
139
Examples include Roger Haight, “The Case For Spirit Christology,” Theological
Studies 53 (1992): 257-287; Ralph Del Colle, Christ and the Spirit: Spirit-
Christology in Trinitarian Perspective (New York/Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1994); Kilian McDonnell, “Jesus’ Baptism in the Jordan,” Theological
Studies 56 (1995): 209-236; David Coffey, “The Gift of the Holy Spirit,” 202-
223; Grace; “The ‘Incarnation’ of the Holy Spirit in Christ,” 466-480; “A Proper
Mission of the Holy Spirit”; “The Holy Spirit as the Mutual Love of the Father
and the Son.”
140
Suzanne Noffke, “Catherine of Siena: The Responsive Heart,” in Spiritualities of
the Heart, ed. Annice Callahan (New York: Paulist, 1990), 67.
141
Noffke, “Catherine of Siena: The Responsive Heart,” 67. Citation from Letter 80
to Master Giovanni Terzo.
142
In discussing the relationship between theology and spirituality, Rowan Williams
criticizes a theology that seeks to ape scientific method. He locates theological
method within the humanities rather than the sciences and turns to patristic
theology for insight into the nature of a unity theology has lost. He suggests that
allegory, which has been jettisoned by much contemporary theology, is one
resource that draws us back to liturgy and the spiritual life, disclosing a unity
between theology and prayer/worship that is not always evident in the theology
of more recent times. Discerning the Mystery: An Essay on the Nature of Theology
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1983), 132-133.
143
Karlfried Froelich, “Church History and the Bible” Lutheran Quarterly 5 (1991):
127-142.
Response to Dreyer 163
The Holy Spirit in

Medieval Thought:
Some Examples in the
Individual, Ecclesial and
Scholarly Areas
A Response to Elizabeth Dreyer
Wanda Zemler-Cizewski
Professor Dreyer’s essay challenges us with a call to return to the sources
of our catholic tradition if we seek to achieve renewal in the indi-
vidual, the ecclesial, and the scholarly areas of Christian existence.
Indeed, she not only challenges, but takes up her own challenge,
offering her readers a survey of outstanding theologians from Augus-
tine to Catherine of Siena, each of whom has contributed through
symbolic, systematic, and affective writings to the doctrine of the
Holy Spirit in the church and among the individuals of whom the
church is composed. Her survey invites us to begin with Augustine,
who shows how the Spirit moves and empowers the Apostles for ef-
fective preaching and pastoral care. Then she takes us into the high
middle ages, beginning and ending with Hildegard of Bingen and
Catherine of Siena, two medieval women whose theological works
are beginning to be appreciated for their innovative insights and yet
deeply traditional roots. At the same time, Professor Dreyer includes
two men who are, perhaps, the most familiar of the medieval masters
of the affective mode, namely Bernard of Clairvaux and the Francis-
can Bonaventure. In their works, too, she traces innovative uses of
traditional symbolism, drawn from Scripture and the liturgy, as these
disclose a richly nuanced doctrine of the person and work of the
Holy Spirit. Finally, she alludes to the thought of Mechthild of
Magdeburg, a contemporary of Bonaventure, who draws on the na-
ture imagery of air, water, and fire to express her mystical experiences
of the Spirit.
I shall make my response to Professor Dreyer in three parts. First,
I wish to offer a few comments by way of a brief critique of method.
164 Wanda Zemler-Cizewski
Second, by way of answer to the call for “retrieval” of the sources, I

shall offer a handful of interrelated examples from my own area of
expertise, the early twelfth century. These examples have been selected
specifically to address the three areas identified by Professor Dreyer as
contexts for renewed appreciation of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit,
namely, the areas of individual piety, of renewed spirituality in the
church, and of scholarly endeavor, both past and present. They have
also been selected for their relevance to Professor Dreyer’s examples as
possible sources or contemporary but contrasting approaches to the
doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Finally, by way of conclusion, I shall
briefly and in general terms advert to the gap which can be observed
to exist between Professor Dreyer’s first example, Augustine, and the
next, Hildegard of Bingen. The seven hundred years and thousands
of miles that separate African Augustine from German Hildegard are
almost as great a gulf as the nine hundred years and many miles that
stand between Hildegard and the present conference in Wisconsin. It
may be that treasures, and not dragons, are to be found in those
uncharted spaces between patristic and medieval.
In fact, that above-mentioned gap brings me to the first of my
methodological queries. Granted that in a conference setting one can
only do so much, the decision to “arbitrarily choose” a handful of
“samples” from the tradition seems somewhat risky. A sample cannot
reveal the connections that are the life-lines of the tradition, or
handing-on, of catholic doctrine. An author’s reception by her peers
and later generations is obscured if her work is pulled out of historical
context and presented thematically in a configuration imposed by the
interests of modern readers. It might be better to limit oneself to a
small group of related or contemporary figures, or to a single historical
problem as, for instance, Professor Tabbernee does in his paper on the
Montanist controversy. Nevertheless, Professor Tabbernee’s approach
is not without risk: an inattentive reader of his paper might form the
impression that he has sought to “rehabilitate” from the perspective
of modern historiography a community once misjudged as heretics.
It is my belief that if we truly confess the communio sanctorum we will
not look to the past as if to parents, whether in rebellion or in
reverence, but will see instead that these were our brothers and sisters
in Christ’s Spirit, whose decisions might well have been our decisions
given the same set of circumstances. Consequently, I would urge that
we turn to the past in search of greater clarity and greater precision in
answer to the perennial questions, “what really happened?” and

“why?”
Having raised questions about methodology, I confess I may now
prove guilty of the very same sins that I seem to condemn in others!
The authors I have selected do represent the theology of the early
twelfth century, but they are also quite simply a very likeable bunch
on the basic level of human interest. Let me introduce as the first and
senior figure, Rupert of Deutz, a German Benedictine of the monas-
tery of St. Laurent near Liège. Like Hildegard, he was an oblate child,
but was born a generation or so ahead of her, in 1075, and died about
1129 or 30, some ten years before she began to record her visionary
experiences.1 His work exemplifies both the record of a personal,
mystical experience of the power of the Holy Spirit, and a theology
that touches upon the impact of the Spirit in the individual, the
scholarly, and the ecclesial areas. Like Hildegard, he claims to have
been the recipient of a series of visionary encounters with the triune
God, and describes them in an autobiographical chapter of his
commentary on the Gospel of Matthew. It would be an interesting
study, indeed, to search for traces of his influence in the works of
Hildegard. Some of Rupert’s visions occurred during his adolescence,
while he and other monks of St. Laurent loyal to the Gregorian reform
were living in exile in France. Others came to him later, in his twenties,
as he was deciding whether or not to be ordained to the priesthood.
In those politically and personally troubled circumstances, Rupert
tells us, he turned for comfort to the Scriptures and Augustine’s City
of God and relates that he invoked the Holy Spirit directly for aid and
understanding. He explains:
[E]ven if there is one substance of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
one divinity and [one] inseparable operation, nevertheless, just as
the proper work of the Father is the creation of humankind, and the
proper work of the Son is the redemption, so [also] the proper work
of the Holy Spirit is the illumination of that same human being, the
grace of revelations, and the distribution of all gifts.2
In the visions themselves, moreover, the Spirit plays a prominent

role, comforting Rupert in the midst of anxiety, appearing once in
the guise of a venerable, white-haired old man, and later in the shape
of a mysterious globe of liquid fire, which poured itself into Rupert’s
bosom, filling him with a sense of peace and confidence. His prayers
seem to have been abundantly answered, as his astonishing series of

visions culminated in acceptance of a vocation to interpret the Bible
for those who had no books3 as well as his decision to accept ordina-
tion to the priesthood. In this way, Rupert’s individual experience of
the Spirit found meaning and validation exclusively in the context of
the ecclesial community, which was to be served both through schol-
arship and in the sacramental priesthood. Now, although the door to
priestly ministry was closed for Hildegard, her appropriation of her
visionary experiences resembles the self-understanding achieved by
Rupert. She was able to serve the ecclesial community by public teach-
ing and preaching normally forbidden to women of her day, thanks
to the persuasive evidence of her prophetic gift.
The fruits of the Spirit, in Rupert’s case, were almost immediately
apparent, taking the form of intense exegetical activity resulting in
commentaries on the liturgy, De divinis officiis, and on the whole of
Scripture, De sancta Trinitate et operibus eius. The latter work is
especially interesting in that a generation or two before Joachim of
Fiore, it offers a trinitarian interpretation of earth’s history, with
creation week as the age of the Father, the time from Eden, and God’s
first words to human kind, until the incarnation of the Word, as the
age of the Son, and as the age of the Holy Spirit all time from Pentecost
until now. Strangely optimistic, given the troubled times in which he
lived, Rupert identifies the age of the Spirit as an age of scholarship and
intellectual flourishing, in which knowledge of languages will aid in
spreading the Gospel throughout the world.4
In his work on the divine office, Rupert takes a similarly trinitarian
approach. As far as I have been able to ascertain, he is the first
commentator on the liturgical year to offer an account of Trinity
Sunday, a feast that had recently been added to the Benedictine
calendar and would eventually be included in the calendar of the
whole western church. To select only one item from a remarkable
exposition, let me quote at length a passage in which Rupert embroi-
ders upon the fabric of Proverbs 8:31 with the imagery of Psalm 148,
so as to describe relations among the three Persons and their created
works:
In truth it was a lovely game for God the Father to see in his
Wisdom what he was about to make, first the blessed court and
beautiful republic of heaven, to be distinguished by the ten orders
of angels, then the visible architecture of this world, the spherical
chamber of heaven, the sun and moon, the shining stars, the upper
waters, the lower waters, every abyss, snow and hail, mountains and
hills, and each open space on earth, the sea, and all things that are
in them, whatever flies above, whatever crawls or walks below,
beasts and all cattle, kings of the earth and all people … to see this,
I say, before it came into being, was a game for God and his
Wisdom, a festive game, a happy game, a delighting game. But
truly, to rejoice at such things, to see all this with hilarity in
greatness of heart, is the Love of Wisdom—a zealous love, a holy
love—which we said earlier is the Holy Spirit.5 Meanwhile, all
those who have received the Holy Spirit through God’s grace
become participants in the great game of creation, as sharers in the
love between the Father and the Son.
This is not the only surprise in Rupert’s liturgical commentary. Turn-

ing to his interpretation of the baptismal liturgy for Holy Saturday,
we find an image of the Holy Spirit that is both traditional in its
sources, and startling in its innovative application. Just as the Spirit
of God moved over the waters at the beginning of creation, so also
there is a movement of the Spirit over the waters of baptism. Rupert
explains the restoration of likeness to God, which had been lost
through Adam’s sin, in terms of this double movement of the Spirit,
using the image of the cosmic egg as a link between the two. At the
beginning of creation, the Spirit first moved over the waters “like a
bird, vivifying the egg with its warmth.” In the sacrament of bap-
tism, the Spirit again moves over the waters, “so that by warming
them, she may regenerate into true life those who enter under her
grace, spreading her wings and drawing them up, and even carrying
them on her shoulders. And if it is necessary that she approach even
more closely to someone, that is, if someone is prevented from ap-
proaching the waters … then indeed the mother of divine grace flies
to him and extends her wings beyond the nest of waters.”6 The imag-
ery seems derived, perhaps by some oral transmission we cannot trace,
from eastern, specifically early Syriac descriptions of the Holy Spirit.7
For Rupert, the Spirit is literally both mother and father, and so also
more than either. Turning to his interpretation of the feast of
Pentecost for one final example from his work, we find an application
of the Song of Songs to interpret the mission of the Holy Spirit. Using
the same passage that Bernard would later interpret in terms of the
Spirit as divine kiss, Rupert paints a very different picture. The
impudent bride who demands a kiss is sexually immature, like so
many of the little aristocratic child-brides of Rupert’s day. The kiss is

the incarnation, and as her bridegroom decorously kisses her through
the lattice of her window, but does not fully embrace her, so also the
words of Christ before his resurrection and ascension are addressed to
an immature band of followers, not yet capable of bringing forth
offspring to his name. For, as Rupert remarks, nobody ever made
anyone pregnant with a kiss.8 When, at last, the Spirit is sent forth on
the day of Pentecost, it is as if the marriage is consummated, because
the Holy Spirit has the power to penetrate the souls of the Apostles so
as to make them pregnant by the Word.
The image is startling to modern sensibilities, perhaps, but not
unique in the twelfth century. A similar theme is developed by Peter
Abelard in one of the hymns that he wrote for Heloise and the sisters
of the Paraclete, or convent of the Holy Spirit. Describing the Spirit’s
life-giving powers on the first day of creation, he sings:
Aquae fovens vivificus

Iam incumbebat Spiritus,
Ut hinc aquae
iam tunc conciperent
unde prolem
nunc sacram parerent.9
[“Warming the waters, the life-giving Spirit lay over them long ago,
so that hence in those days the waters might conceive, whence now
they may give birth to holy offspring.”]
In this bold image, the Spirit, named “Lord and Giver of Life” in the
Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, is depicted as conjugal Lord and
masculine Giver of Life, both nurturing and impregnating the mate-
rial creature.
I referred to Heloise and the sisters of the Paraclete, but before she
and her community received it as their permanent home, Abelard had
named his hermitage for the Holy Spirit, who comforted him, he
states, amid the adversity of persecution by his theological opponents.
When Heloise was granted the Paraclete, Abelard encouraged her to
rededicate it as a place in which to pursue a program of biblical
scholarship, dedicated specifically to correction of the existing Latin
text of the Bible by careful comparison with the Hebrew and Greek.
In a general letter to the community, he states that Heloise herself
knows both Greek and Hebrew, and can teach the sisters the original
languages of the Bible. Indeed, he goes so far as to use the word

magisterium to describe her authority: Magisterium habetis in matre
[Heloissa].10 Meanwhile, in a sermon for the feast of Pentecost, he
urges the women of the Paraclete to seek the assistance of the Holy
Spirit in their work, since the Spirit at Pentecost was able to give the
unlettered disciples not only the interior word of grace, but also the
exterior power of languages, with which to preach the Gospel.11 Like
Rupert, therefore, Abelard identifies the outpouring of the Holy
Spirit with scholarship, especially in the study of languages. His
understanding of the influence of the Spirit in the individual soul
accordingly emphasises the intellectual rather than the affective
aspect. Scholarly work under the guidance of the Spirit is described as
a benefit to the women’s spiritual growth, but also as a potential
contribution to the whole community of the church, insofar as the
work done by the women of the Paraclete was to supply the erudition
which, in Abelard’s opinion, the men of their day sadly lacked.12
The affective mode would, of course, play a central role in medieval
teaching on the Holy Spirit, as Professor Dreyer has amply illustrated.
For my final example, accordingly, I shall turn to a passage from Hugh
of St Victor’s meditation De tribus diebus, “On the Three Days of
Invisible Light.”13 Hugh was Peter Abelard’s contemporary in Paris in
the 1130’s, and they died within a few years of each other in the
1140’s. Like Abelard, and like the earlier Rupert, Hugh thinks of the
Trinity in relation not only to the human creature, but in relation to
all created things. Drawing upon Romans 1:20, he makes the whole
of the material creation a textbook in which to read about the power,
wisdom, and goodness of God. Following Abelard, Hugh ascribes
power to the Father, wisdom to the Son, and goodness to the Holy
Spirit. Having described ways in which created magnitude suggests
the power of the Father, and created beauty presents traces of the Son,
Hugh proceeds to show how the usefulness of creatures instructs us in
the goodness of the Holy Spirit. Within the category of usefulness, he
includes the necessary, the convenient, the agreeable, and the gratu-
itous:
What is necessary to each thing is that without which it could not

conveniently subsist—for instance, bread and water as human
food, wool or skins or any covering of that sort as clothing. The
convenient is that without which life could continue, although it
sometimes delights with more abundance—for instance, a cup of
wine and a dish of meat for human food, fine linen and silk, or any
other kind of softer garment as clothing. The agreeable and
congruous is that which, although it does not benefit the users, is
nevertheless appropriate for use; such things are coloured dyes,
precious stones, and whatever things of that nature may be sug-
gested. The gratuitous is the kind of thing that is not, in fact,
suitable for use, and yet delightful to behold. Such things, perhaps,
are certain kinds of vegetation, and animals, birds, and fish, and
similar things.14
By giving us not only the necessities of life, therefore, but also the
conveniences, the pleasures, and even the little unnecessary extra de-
lights, God shows an overflowing goodness in creation that mani-
fests, for those who can see it, the superabundant graces of the Holy
Spirit. A century or so after Hugh’s little meditation was composed,
Bonaventure would take up the theme of God’s vestiges in creation
in his Itinerarium mentis in Deum, so as to develop his spiritual
roadmap of the soul’s journey home. However, that journey is more
than I can attempt to cover here; it has in any case been amply de-
scribed by Professor Dreyer, beginning with her Marquette disserta-
tion.
I shall conclude by adverting briefly to the gap of seven hundred
years that separate Augustine from Hildegard. It is a formidable blank.
Was the Holy Spirit then asleep? We are perhaps inclined to think of
the centuries from 430 to about 1100 as a murky wasteland of
barbarian invasions and obscure theological disputes. Discourag-
ingly, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit seems prominent only in that
most divisive of struggles, the dispute over the Filioque in the Latin
creed. Can modern scholars in search of resources for renewal find
anything in the so-called Dark Ages, or the Carolingian and Ottonian
centuries? If we are tempted to answer in the negative, we overlook one
of the church’s greatest resources, namely the liturgical books. The
centuries commonly known as the Dark Ages were a time of enormous
creativity in liturgical composition, as the benedictionals,
sacramentaries, graduals, and ordines of the Latin rite took shape. To
recover the spiritual and doctrinal treasures buried in those texts
requires a lot of digging and careful sifting of debris, knowledge of
languages, and palaeographical skills. Nevertheless, the familiar old
words of the Latin liturgy provide both the tools, and just the surface
layer of excavation: richer sources must be sought between the lines,
in theological texts behind the hints and suggestions encoded in the
formulaic language of prayer.
By way of example and encouragement, let me leave you with an

image from the recently published work of an art historian, the late
Robert Deshman. He literally devoted his life to the study of a single
manuscript, the benedictional created for Aethelwold of Winchester,
a tenth-century Anglo-Saxon archbishop and monastic reformer.15
Among the several magnificent images in this extensively illustrated
manuscript is the miniature of Pentecost, showing the eleven seated
in a semicircle under a somewhat eagle-like dove, from whose beak
flow forth the tongues of fire which will inspire the expectant Apostles.
Surprisingly, they are seated on a rainbow bench, as if they have
borrowed or been lent the throne of Christ in glory in Revelation 4.
What does the artist intend? A hint of an explanation may be
discovered in the benedictional’s first blessing for Pentecost: “And
may he who deigned to unify the diversity of tongues in the confession
of one faith, cause you to persevere in the same faith, and by this to
come from the hope to the vision of God.”16 It is by the Holy Spirit
that the apostles are joined to Christ, partake of his life, and journey
from hope to the vision of God. So intense is the first experience of that
life-giving Spirit that it is as if the disciples have been transported then
and there to the goal of their earthly journey, sharing the throne of
glory with their Lord. So also may we live in hope, as an anonymous
Anglo-Saxon homily for Pentecost suggests:
[T]he Holy Ghost came upon the disciples … and thereby were
they set free from all sins, and brought to everlasting life, and that
they might also, through that gift blot out other men’s sins … not
alone to the apostles was this gift [of the Spirit] bestowed, but
also, indeed, to all mankind was given forgiveness of all sins… . To
us also is permitted a way of return to everlasting life, and to occupy
heaven’s kingdom with all saints and with the Lord himself.17
Endnotes
1
John Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz (Berkeley: University of California, 1983).
2
Rupert of Deutz, De gloria et honore filii hominis super Mattheum 12, ed. Hrabanus
Haacke, Corpus christianorum continuatio medievalis 9 (Turnhout: Brepols,
1979), 375 [tr. mine].
3
Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 342-52.
4
Van Engen, Rupert of Deutz, 92-93.
5
Rupert of Deutz, De divinis officiis 11. 8, ed. Hrabanus Haacke, CCCM 7
(Turhout: Brepols, 1967), 378-79; W. Cizewski, “A Theological Feast: The
Commentary by Rupert of Deutz on Trinity Sunday,” Récherches de théologie
ancienne et médiévale 55 (1988): 41-52.
6
Rupert, De divinis officiis 7.4, p. 228.
7
Susan A. Harvey, “Feminine Imagery for the Divine: the Holy Spirit, the Odes of
Solomon, and Early Syriac Tradition,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 37
(1993): 111-140.
8
Rupert, De divinis officiis 10.6, p. 330.
9
Peter Abelard, Hymnarius Paraclitensis ed. J. Szövérffy (Albany, N.Y.: Classical
Folia Editions, 1975), vol. 2, p. 22.
10
Peter Abelard, Ep. 9, PL 178:333B.
11
PL 178:511D-512A; Wanda Cizewski, “‘In saeculo quondam cara, nunc in
Christo carissima:’ Heloise and Spiritual Formation at the Convent of the
Paraclete.” PMR Proceedings 9 (1984): 69-76.
12
PL 178:334C.
13
Wanda Cizewski, “Reading the World as Scripture: Hugh of St. Victor’s De tribus
diebus,” Florilegium 9 (1987): 65-88.
14
Hugh of St. Victor, De tribus diebus 14, PL 175:822D [tr. mine].
15
Robert Deshman, The Benedictional of Aethelwold (Princeton: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1995).
16
Deshman, Benedictional of Aethelwold, 104.
17
Deshman, Benedictional of Aethelwold, 108.
Philosophical Resources for the Doctrine of the Spirit 173
In Whom We Have Our Being:

Philosophical Resources for the
Doctrine of the Spirit
Philip Clayton
The doctrine of the Spirit has become a key point of contact between
philosophy and theology. Here urgent issues arise for philosophical
theologians: how can the transcendence, the otherness, of Spirit be
thought today in light of our ever increasing knowledge of the
lawlikeness of the natural world? What’s the relation between Spirit
and spirit? between spirit and body? between spirit and personhood?
Such questions bear upon, and shade naturally into, the central con-
cerns of systematic theologians today. They bear especially on the
task of integrating individual theological insights about the Spirit
into a systematic Pneumatology: how are the vastly different func-
tions of Holy Spirit to be thought together: the Spirit of creation …
of life … of redemption and sanctification … of understanding …
of freedom.
The following few pages examine some of the philosophical re-
sources for Pneumatology. To put it incautiously: this is the concep-
tual background that every theologian needs to master in order to do
constructive theology today. At the same time, I have not been able
to resist sketching a systematic position of my own on the theology
of the Spirit. That a philosophical theologian would do such an au-
dacious thing expresses an important assumption. It assumes that
lines of reflection which do not emerge directly out of systematic
theology but which have their origins in neighboring philosophical
debates can still be crucial to the task of formulating a Christian
doctrine of the Spirit. In what follows three topics in particular will
demand our attention: “postfoundationalist” approaches to
Pneumatology, idealist theories of the nature of subjectivity, and
panentheistic construals of the God/world relationship.
174 Philip Clayton
Reflections on the Spirit

in a Postfoundationalist Vein
Any talk of new approaches to the doctrine of the Spirit will have to
pay close attention to the context for contemporary work in this area.
Other chapters treat the social, ethical and other aspects of the con-
text question. If one asks about the philosophical context, two spe-
cific topics stand out: what are the prospects for a metaphysics of the
Spirit? And what factors in the theory of knowledge (epistemology)
impinge on this project?
Leaving aside the caveats for a moment, I suggest that we are wit-
nessing a renaissance of (the possibility of ) a metaphysics of Spirit, a
possibility that has been closed (roughly) since Neo-idealism went
out of vogue after the 1920s. Two factors in particular—the demise
of positivist theories of knowledge, which labeled Spirit language “lit-
erally meaningless” and the urgent need for metaphysical interpreta-
tions of contemporary scientific developments—have opened the door
again for links between science, philosophy and Pneumatology.1 To-
day we see the blossoming of integrative metaphysical reflection even
within analytic philosophy, the very domain that once sought to end
it—as witnessed for example by the tremendous growth and influ-
ence of the Society for Christian Philosophers and by the publica-
tions associated with philosophy departments such as Notre Dame
(and Marquette, for that matter). Rather than encountering a philo-
sophical world antagonistic to all metaphysical questions, theologians
today are finding discussion partners in philosophy departments who
are handling at least analogous issues.
At the same time, and not unrelated to the first development, have
come certain developments in epistemology that have opened the
doors to a genuinely postfoundationalist theology. Postfoundation-
alism’s more flashy cousin, postmodernism, is much in the air these
days (sometimes reducing pollution, sometimes adding a haze of its
own). I am not convinced that one needs to embrace those more
extreme theories of language that march under the postmodern ban-
ner: the view that all signs are arbitrary and all reference language-
constructed, and the (sometimes) resultant charge that constructive
Christian theology necessarily commits the sin of “metanarrative”
and must thus be abandoned. By contrast, the claims of postfounda-
tionalist theorists are both clearer and less extreme2: theories do not
require grounding in a more foundational discipline (type of evi-
dence, observation) in order to pass as rational or to be viable candi-

dates for truth. Thus, for instance, a doctrine of the Spirit does not
need a foundation in a universal philosophy of Absolute Spirit in
order to have intellectual credibility. Postfoundationalism helps to
drop that albatross from our necks, opening theology to dialogue
with the philosophical traditions without enslavement.
This changed attitude is important. At best, it liberates one in a
single stroke from the great “Yes or No” debates on whether
Pneumatologists should ever consort with philosophers—debates that
we know only too well from the early Barth and from the Barth/
Brunner debate in the 1930s. One can now discover, and profit from,
Anknüpfungspünkte without finding oneself “unlawfully wed” or en-
meshed in the service of idols. The postfoundationalist climate thus
fosters theories of the Spirit that are coherence-based, eliminating
the need to draw back from distinctively Christian language. Instead,
the goal can now be to spell out the logic of interlocking sets of
beliefs without first having to establish their probability according to
neutral standards. This makes it possible to maintain the truth-di-
rectedness of God-language, summoning all the relevant rational re-
sources at our disposal, while at the same time acknowledging the
historical conditionedness of Christian claims and the plurality of
other options that are open to believers today. I view these develop-
ments as a renewed invitation to philosophical theology to join the
theological enterprise without fear of hegemony; they form an im-
portant backdrop for the Pneumatology outlined in this paper.
Beyond Substantivalism
The new situation for systematic theology is both frightening and
exciting. Frightening, because things long held to be certain or taken
for granted are now up for questioning. Basic exegetical assumptions,
older interpretations of the creeds, and philosophical machinery that
once set sharp parameters for Pneumatology are now matters of open
debate. Yet exciting, too: the same removal of old parameters which
leaves us in a bewilderingly open space also allows for creative appro-
priations of the Christian tradition that are innovative and powerful.
We are free to use new metaphors (in this volume, for example, “the
green face of God” and “the theater of the spirit”), to employ new
conceptualities (e.g., person-centered ontologies), to draw on new
sources for theologizing (mystical writings, the lives of the saints, the
experience of oppressed persons, non-Christian and non-Western
176 Philip Clayton
sources). In the process we are free—indeed, encouraged—to come

to some new conclusions.
I want to argue now that part of what has opened up this new
freedom has been the removal of a particular metaphysical structure
that constrained talk of God and the human person, subordinating
Spirit language in a way that appears foreign to the biblical texts. The
culprit was the strictures of substance ontology. Within this frame-
work, each object and every person was viewed as a separate sub-
stance. Consequently, most of classical philosophical theism consid-
ered God to be one substance, albeit a substance consisting of three
persons. What made a given substance a person-substance rather than
a rock-substance, say, was the fact that personal qualities or attributes
(subjectivity, consciousness, will) “pertain” to it, whereas such quali-
ties do not pertain to or “inhere in” rock-substances.
Today’s common-sense way of thinking of the world has largely
lost touch with the substantivalist manner of speaking, and philoso-
phers no longer appeal to it as a significant resource for resolving
debates. Yet its influence on theology continues to be immense, since
classical philosophical theism was institutionalized in creedal state-
ments that silently presupposed it. Consider for example three doc-
trines: the doctrine of creation, the God/world relationship, and the
imago dei, which expresses the similarities and differences between
God and the world.
For classical philosophical theism (CPT) everything was either a
substance or the attribute of a substance; where one substance is, no
other substance can be at the same time. Thus God had only two
choices in creating the world: first, as a set of attributes (or “acci-
dents”) with God as their substance—but then the world would exist
only as a manifestation of God, and there would be no room for
personal substances to exist other than God (as in the pantheistic
view of God’s relation to the world). Or God could create a world of
really (i.e., independently) existing substances—but then they must
exist completely outside the divine substance. Hence, it seemed, if
pantheism was to be avoided there would have to be a “space” out-
side God “in” which this collection of finite substances could be lo-
cated. Since in earlier centuries space (and time) were understood as
an objective framework—something like a big box into which events
or objects might be placed—there seemed to be no problem with
God creating this big box somewhere and then making a bunch of
substances ex nihilo to place into it. With this picture you have the
creation narrative of CPT, and one still widely assumed by theolo-

gians today.
There are many problems with this picture. One is that we now
know it to be physically incorrect: time is not an absolute quantity
but depends on the inertial frames of the observers. Likewise, the
geometry of space is transformed by the mass (or energy) of objects,
such that in an important sense the space of the universe comes into
existence along with the objects themselves. And there are equally
grave theological problems. On this model, it becomes difficult to
express the way in which God is present in the world (which may
help to explain the headaches theologians have had in trying to make
sense of the various modes of God’s presence). How can God be
present to the believer if one substance can never be internally present
to another? Perhaps, some thought, God’s omnipresence could still
be preserved by asserting a God who perceives the physical world
from every point in space simultaneously. Yet locating God at every
point in space, while it does provide a pretty good vantage point
(God won’t miss much), does not express the same intimate presence
to humans as the mystical interiority of which the biblical writers
and mystics have spoken.
Moreover, it’s not clear that a substance-based picture can capture
the vivifying presence of the divine rûach of the Old Testament, the
One who is life-giving Spirit. The moment that this breath is with-
drawn, say the Hebrew writers, there is no more life, for no separa-
tion between the life and the breath can be thought. In fact, “pres-
ence at every point in space” doesn’t even seem to be the right cat-
egory for describing the person-to-person presence asserted by the
biblical documents. Can omnipresence really do justice to the exist-
ence of subjects, and specifically to the sense of enveloping personal
presence reflected in the biblical texts: “Even before there is a word
on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, Thou dost know it all. Thou hast
enclosed me behind and before, And laid thy hand upon me” (Ps.
139:5-6)?
Equally worrisome, CPT has made the notion of divine action in-
creasingly problematic. In a pre-modern context these difficulties had
not yet surfaced. Unlike modern physics, Greek and medieval phys-
ics required constant interventions by a divine agent, since the world
order needed to be maintained at every moment.3 They also needed
some being who would supply the highest goal toward which all things
strive, since the understanding of motion included (inter alia) the
178 Philip Clayton
final cause toward which things move. As long as the goal of perfec-
tion had to be imparted to the system to make the physics work, a
most-perfect being (ens perfectissimum) was almost a physical neces-
sity.
By contrast, we live in an age that has come to accept a very differ-
ent view of the physical world. The basic assumption of modern phys-
ics, the “without which not” of the physical sciences, is that physical
systems are closed to causal interventions from outside (the principle
of the conservation of energy). This closure has led to a several cen-
turies-long struggle to rethink what divine action in the world or
miracles could mean. It will still be possible, I believe, to conceive of
the active presence of the divine Spirit in the world, but not using
the vocabulary of separate and sometimes interacting substances. It
is fair to say that no answer to these questions has been found within
the context of CPT that is both theologically and scientifically ad-
equate.
Pneumatology in a New Key

I wish now to argue that the new freedom—the freedom that emerges
after the rejection of substance metaphysics and the perplexities fac-
ing CPT4—does not mean eschewing metaphysical reflection alto-
gether. This is not the freedom to abandon the quest for a conceptu-
ally consistent Christian position on the nature of Spirit, nor a free-
dom from the obligation, so clear to our forebears, to specify fully
what one means by the Spirit of God. These tasks remain. Instead,
what we have is the freedom to explore new and more appropriate
models of what “Spirit” might fundamentally be. Let’s call it the dif-
ference between responsible and relativistic pluralism.
Relativistic pluralism occurs when one uses whatever metaphors or
analogies for spirit are useful at the present moment, without con-
cern for the consistency of one’s various models. Think of it as the
theologian’s own variant on situation ethics.5 Situation ethicists de-
nied there were any overarching ethical principles to guide behavior
from situation to situation. This conclusion left the individual actor
with maximal freedom to act in each situation in whatever manner
seemed best to him or her at the time. In the 1960s this approach
struck many readers as a pleasant escape from the restrictive guide-
lines and parental mores of the previous generation (an especially
useful liberation when the question of sexual freedoms was at stake).
Our more jaded eyes more easily recognize the difficulties with such
freedoms; we now recognize more clearly that in social environments

dominated by a particular power group the exercise of unmitigated
freedom too easily licenses oppression without a bad conscience.
Could it be that something similar occurs with the situational use
of theological models, which also sometimes mascarades as a total
freedom from conceptual restrictions? At first it was exciting to be
freed from the need to pay attention to underlying conceptual struc-
tures. The productivity of this freedom is evidenced in books like
Sallie McFague’s Metaphorical Theology,6 for clearly models like par-
ent, friend and lover can help to open up the theological imagina-
tion. Today, of course, a thousand such flowers bloom. Isn’t it time to
go back and look for a more adequate shared conceptual framework
for talking of the divine Spirit—a systematic Pneumatology—within
the context of a responsible pluralism?
Of course, it will have to be a framework that enables models to
grow rather than blocking all creativity, and it must be a framework
that supports Christian practice. Creativity and practice require some
open-endedness, since contexts change. Nonetheless, appropriate
Christian language about the Spirit is not fully unconstrained. Vari-
ous parameters guide the constructive theologian: biblical scholar-
ship, insights from the tradition, scientific progress, ethical and po-
litical principles. Let’s be pluralistic in our Pneumatology, to be sure,
but let’s also do so within the context of intellectual virtues such as
conceptual coherence, rigorous systematicity, and attention to the
conceptual underpinnings of what one is asserting.
Resources
I take philosophical theology to mean systematic theological proposals
developed with an eye to breadth, coherence, and underlying con-
ceptual structures, particularly as these structures have been devel-
oped within the philosophical traditions. What kind of holistic prin-
ciple can serve as the central concept for a philosophically informed
(though still postfoundationalist) Pneumatology? If substance meta-
physics doesn’t provide the principle, what will? It is often said that
what theology needs is a personalistic metaphysics rather than an ob-
ject-based metaphysics. But where will its specific content come from?
Necessarily, biblical language and the theological tradition must con-
tribute; yet they are not in themselves sufficient. Since others have
written in detail on the resources of biblical language and historical
theology, I propose to focus here on some specific conceptual re-
180 Philip Clayton
sources, looking in particular at the history of modern philosophy.

What kind of Pneumatology begins to emerge when one avails one-
self of these resources?
Perhaps the first thing to say is that one cannot speak of the re-
sources of modern philosophical thought about God for reflecting
on the Holy Spirit without presupposing that there is a distinctively
modern problem of God in the first place. After all, “resources” pre-
supposes that there is a challenge for which these things are helpful.
For this reason I must differ rather sharply with the otherwise in-
formed and intelligent treatment of modern theistic thought in Wil-
liam Placher’s recent The Domestication of Transcendence.7 One quickly
realizes that Placher’s “resources” are only used for “correcting some
of the errors of modernity by learning from some earlier theology.”8
Thus, for example, he takes recent process theology as a negative
example “of continuing the seventeenth-century project of trying to
get clear on the categories we use to speak of God, to subject the
divine to the structures of human reason, and thereby, I believe, to
domesticate the transcendent.”9 Of course, if one sees no need to
reflect on the categories used for speaking about God, then clearly
one will hold that the specific philosophical discussions of the mod-
ern period can only lead theology astray. But I would have thought
that one would wish to get as clear as possible on how God can best
be conceived—not only in light of the shortcomings of modern secular
thought, but also as requirements of Christian faith and practice it-
self. The reassuring thing about having God as an object of thought
is that no matter how much progress one makes in understanding
one’s object of attention, one still remains infinitely far from full
comprehension! In light of the divine infinity, the danger of domes-
tication that Placher finds endemic to modern thought strike me as
rather less urgent—certainly less urgent than the dangers of irrel-
evance or conceptual confusion that theology faces.
So why say, “No” to the resources that have become available over
the last centuries? Why admit that believers (academics and
nonacademics alike) are deeply influenced by the thoughts and con-
cepts of our day, and at the same time dismiss those thoughts and
concepts as obstacles to be pushed aside or overcome? Placher’s view
that we modern thinkers should seek to return to premodern ways of
thought is reminiscent of Barth’s “No!” in the famous debate with
Brunner.10 But if such nay-saying is misguided, what are the resources?
From substance to spirit

The most important single change in modern thought was the
movement from substance to spirit. During this period spirit came to
be defined not as a special case of a more general category, substance,
but as a foundational ontological principle in its own right—and
even as the foundational ontological principle. Aristotle had devel-
oped a notion of substance which owed its motion and its telos to a
highest substance; St. Thomas advanced an existing substance which
owed its existence to the divine being who is Being itself; and Spinoza,
the culminator of the substance tradition, spelled out its logical re-
quirement by allowing for only one substance, of which all things
(and thus all persons) are modes.
The key modern resource for Pneumatology is the switch from
substantivalist thinking to a subject-based ontology. During these
years the Spirit came to be linked in the first place with human sub-
jects and their experience. This is a tremendous transformation from
the medieval period, where the Spirit represented an objective meta-
physical principle, tied closely with principles such as order, appro-
priate place in the hierarchy of being, goal-directedness or universal
teleology, and the ontological separation between God and world
(“‘your thoughts are not my thoughts,’ saith the Lord”). The impor-
tance of the shift cannot be overstated. Hegel, who like the owl of
Minerva came later and began to grasp the full philosophical signifi-
cance of events that had already transpired, labeled it the epochal
shift from a philosophy of substance to a philosophy of Spirit:
On my view, which can only be justified by the presentation of the

system itself, everything depends on grasping and expressing what
is true not as substance, but just as much as subject… . Living
substance is, moreover, that Being which is in truth subject—or,
what amounts to the same thing, which is in truth real only insofar
as it is the movement of positing itself (Sichselbstsetzens) or the
mediation of “becoming other” with itself.11
In his discussion of Hegel’s Logik Marcuse comments, “From the

knowledge of being as movement and of this movement as ‘relation
to itself ’ (Sich-verhalten), [Hegel] constructs not only the doctrine of
being and essence, but also the doctrine of the concept. The entire
ontology is nothing other than a concrete pursuit of the fundamen-
tal modes of being, understood as ‘relation to itself,’ throughout the
182 Philip Clayton
basic regions of what exists.”12 The highest and fullest expression of

this self-relating movement is Spirit.
This is a radical shift indeed! The Spirit, which in the Middle Ages
had served as a principle of demarcation between the human and su-
perhuman, the natural and supernatural, now became the principle
of unity between the two, the basic principle of all being. We exist as
Spirit and pervasively in Spirit; Spirit now becomes the basic onto-
logical category, that which unites all living things.
Spinoza and the Spinoza Tradition

I have argued elsewhere13 that the clearest place to observe the col-
lapse of the substance paradigm and the emergence of its successor is
in the Spinoza tradition. By the Spinoza tradition I mean the 100
years of debate and controversy surrounding Spinoza’s philosophy
between his death in 1677 and the emergence of the new philoso-
phies of Spirit in the wake of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Spinoza
should not technically be credited with a direct role in the new meta-
physics of the subject, since his Ethica still espouses a classical theory
of substance. But the culminator of a tradition is in one sense the
parent of what follows, and Spinozism does represent the culmina-
tion of substance metaphysics. Following a hint in Descartes’ Prin-
ciples (1, 51), Spinoza realized that, strictly speaking, there could only
be one substance, that is, one thing “that is in itself and is conceived
through itself ” (E1def.3). All other things are then, strictly speaking,
merely modes of one single substance (E1def.5), which he called “God
or nature” (deus siva natura). Spinoza correctly saw that it would
follow that “whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be con-
ceived without God” (E1P15).
On this view, then, a personal substance is not really a substance
any longer; personal substances are actually just modes with particu-
lar sorts of characteristics. It’s true that it may be the essence of a
living thing to “strive to persist in its own being,” a universal charac-
teristic which Spinoza called conatus (E3P7). It’s also true that Spinoza
was a dual-aspect monist, holding that the one reality is truly under-
stood by using the attributes of both mind and body. But although
this theory moved modern thought beyond Descartes’ dueling sub-
stances, res cogitans and res extensa, it failed to grasp what is unique
about spirit. Dual aspect theory makes three assertions: there is the
order of thought, which consists of a nested series of ideas of ideas of
ideas (etc.); and there is the order of things, which consists of modes
containing modes containing modes (etc.); and there is (allegedly) a

perfect correspondence or matching relation between them. But pos-
tulating two separate “orders” with a one-to-one correspondence be-
tween them falls short of comprehending the nature of that active
principle that we call spirit. Consciousness, the dynamics of a self-
unfolding Spirit, is still missing.
Contrast Spinoza’s position as just sketched with G. E. Lessing’s
philosophical theology. It was Lessing’s controversial reliance on
Spinoza which gave rise to the famous “Spinoza Dispute” in the middle
and late eighteenth century, one of the formative influences on Ger-
man Idealism as well as on Schleiermacher and the birth of modern
theology. In The Education of the Human Race, Lessing already pos-
ited a plurality and a movement in God based on self-understanding.
God’s unity, “must be a transcendental unity which does not exclude
a sort of plurality”; he must have “the most perfect conception of
himself, i.e. a conception which contains everything which is in
him.”14 This divine self-conception is then mirrored in humans, who
share a subjectivity that seeks to rise toward the divine: “And why
should not we too, by means of a religion whose historical truth, if
you will, looks dubious, be led in a similar way to closer and better
conceptions of the divine Being, of our own nature, of our relation
to God, which human reason would never have reached on its own?”15
Major advances in the understanding of Spirit emerged as the
Spinoza dispute flamed during the subsequent decades, especially at
the hands of the two famous protagonists Jacobi and Mendelssohn.
On the one hand, Mendelssohn, like Spinoza, suggested that any
adequate theism must understand the world as internal to God,
whether or not it also posits a world outside of God. On the other
hand, in contrast to Spinoza, he attributed to God consciousness,
intentionality and agency. His reason is important: God must be ca-
pable of representing to himself (sich vorstellen) all finite things, to-
gether with their moral qualities, beauty and order, and of giving
preference to the best and most perfect series of things. This active
role for God draws closer to a theory of subjectivity that could be
applied both to God and to finite subjects, pointing at the same time
(and for the same reason) beyond Spinoza’s pantheism toward
panentheism:
[For both theist and panentheist] I, a human, a thought of the

divine, will never cease to be a divine thought … hence [the two
184 Philip Clayton
positions] are distinguished only by a subtlety that could never
make a practical difference …: whether God let this idea of the best
group of contingent things shine out, roll out, stream out—or with
what picture should I compare it? (since this subtlety can’t be
described other than with pictures); whether he let the light shine
away from him like lightening or only illumine within? Whether
it remained a spring or whether the spring flowed out in a stream?
… Fundamentally, it is a misinterpretation of the metaphors that
transforms God too pictorially into the world or places the world
too pictorially within God.16
Kant and the German Idealists

Without doubt, the breakthrough in the movement from substance
to subject occurs in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, and specifically in
the notion of the transcendental unity of apperception:
There must, therefore, be a transcendental ground of the unity of

consciousness in the synthesis of the manifold of all our intuitions,
… a ground without which it would be impossible to think any
object for our intuitions… . There must be a condition that
precedes all experience, and which makes experience itself possible
(A106-7). The abiding and unchanging “I” (pure apperception)
forms the correlate of all our representations insofar as it is to be at
all possible that we should become conscious of them (A123)….
An understanding in which through self-consciousness all the
manifold would eo ipso be given, would be intuitive; our under-
standing can only think, and for intuition must look to the senses.
I am conscious of the self as identical in respect of the manifold of
representations that are given to me in an intuition, because I call
them one and all my representations, and so apprehend them as
constituting one intuition. This amounts to saying that I am
conscious to myself a priori of a necessary synthesis of representa-
tions (B135).
These texts defend the necessity of postulating an “I” that accompa-

nies every perception of a given individual—precisely that aspect of
Spirit that’s missing in Spinoza’s account. Spinoza knew that one has
to be able to speak both of a series of ideas and of a world of things
(modes) that the ideas either correctly represent or fail to represent.17
But Kant was the first to insist that the real mystery lies in that sense
of ongoing personal identity which accompanies every one of my
perceptions and by virtue of which each perception is my percep-
tion.18 Arguably, it was the mystery of this transcendental unity of

apperception which suggested to Kant the need to write a second
critique (on practical reasoning) and later a third critique (on imagi-
nation and judgment), because (arguably) Kant’s discovery of the
role of self-consciousness in theoretical knowledge launched him on a
phenomenological exploration of the practical and aesthetic dimen-
sions of this same “transcendental” self.
Without doubt, it was this very mystery of the subject that exer-
cised Kant’s first great follower, Fichte, in his gradual development of
a subjective idealism through the various drafts of the Wissenschaftslehre;
indeed, the mystery of subjectivity is probably the Leitmotif of Fichte’s
entire philosophical project. Schelling then continued the struggle
with the nature of subjectivity. Like Hegel, he combined the ques-
tion of the subject’s knowing with the ontological question of what is
and the theological question of the highest being: “since [this knowl-
edge of the infinite] encompasses the intuitions of the individual as
well as the thought of the general, it encompasses the unity of the
general and specific, of thought and being, of infinite and finite. The
infinite knowledge of the absolute is at the same time the being of the
absolute. With this we reach absolute idealism.”19
Yet Schelling’s form of idealism refused to let the logic of the abso-
lute stand in the way of divine freedom. Especially in the “Essay on
Freedom” (Freiheitsschrift) of 1807, and perhaps better than any be-
fore him, Schelling conceived the centrality of will, of freedom and
of the irrational (or transrational) moment in the life of the subject.
The focus on freedom follows also from a consideration of what is
required if self-revelation is to be possible: “now a free being is free in
the sense that it does not have to reveal itself. To reveal itself is to act,
and all acting is a self-revelation. In order to be a free being, it must
be free either to remain with its mere ability [to act], or to make the
transition to action. If this transition were made with necessity, [God]
would not be what he really is, namely free.”20
Eventually these struggles gave rise to the birth of the first full phe-
nomenology of spirit, Hegel’s Phänomenologie des Geistes, with its
famous manifesto of the shift from substance to spirit:
With the attainment of such a conception, therefore, self-con-

sciousness has returned into itself and passed from those opposite
characteristics… . Its object is now the category become conscious
of itself. Its account with its previous forms is now closed; they lie
186 Philip Clayton
behind it in the forgotten past; they … are developed solely within
itself as transparent moments… . [Throughout all these moments]
self-consciousness holds firmly to that simple unity of self with
objective existence which is its constitutive generic nature.21
There is much, much to say about the modern theory of the subject,
the continuities with Greek and medieval thought, the breaks with
those traditions, and the significance for theology. Here I can em-
phasize only the most fundamental point. With the wisdom that only
hindsight can bring, Peter Strawson boiled down the rich distinc-
tions of the German idealists to the fundamental contrast between
the first-person and the third-person perspective.22 To be a person is
to be a being that can be characterized in both fashions; and first-
personal terms are not translatable without remainder into third-per-
sonal (say, scientific) accounts. After Strawson, other analytic phi-
losophers have continued to analyze the unique features of a subject-
centered ontology (though they would turn over in their graves be-
fore they called it that). For example, Thomas Nagel, in the process
of reflecting on “what it would be like to be a bat,” argues analo-
gously that there is something irreducible involved in being a per-
son.23
We have just observed the emergence of a new understanding of
the spirit in modern thought. Included in this new concept are at
least five key features: spirit as the active principle of thought; self-
consciousness; freedom; a principle of individual identity through
time; and a notion of person that includes both the physical and the
mental aspects of human existence and their interrelationship. There
is much here that is of value for theologians.24 Yet, surprisingly, theo-
logical reflection on the Spirit often contents itself with what is in
essence a pre-modern notion of the personal, for instance with Spirit
as a metaphysical attribute, an aspect of the one divine substance.
Then, when such substantival ways of conceiving God prove to be
inadequate or lead to skeptical conclusions, theologians are tempted
to throw up their hands and declare that Spirit just can’t be grasped
by the human mind. (Relativistic) pluralism then takes over, and
multiple metaphors replace concerted efforts toward a unified
Pneumatology.
Schleiermacher
But perhaps assertions of the death of Pneumatology are premature.
Let’s go back to one of the formative figures of the turn to the sub-
ject, and a thinker who was in the first place a theologian.
Schleiermacher clearly exemplifies the shift from substance to spirit;
further, certain tendencies that this so-called father of modern theol-
ogy bequeathed to his children have multiplied in influence along
with the number of his offspring.
In the Speeches Schleiermacher linked religion with the Spirit, and
the Spirit with the realm of the subject’s experience. The core of the
Speeches is intuition and feeling, the two “combined and inseparable”
(73);25 and the object of religious feeling/intuition is the infinite.
Herein lies the theme of religion: not to ask how things appear to our
eyes, “but rather in and for the universe” (80), since religion arises in
the subject’s “instinct for the universe” (Instinkt fürs Universum, 114).
Religion is first and foremost a perspective (Ansicht, 118) that the
subject takes. For example, a miracle need not be construed as a con-
tradiction of natural law; it may have a natural explanation; but it is
at the same time “the immediate relation of an appearance to the
Infinite, the Universe” (117). This is emphatically not a God-of-the-
gaps position, finding God in the “unexplainable and foreign” (117);
instead, it is a way of seeing the trans-natural in all natural things,
the infinite in and through the finite.
The Spirit moves always upward, seeking to understand the infi-
nite; and religion lives in the “infinite nature of the Whole, the One
and All” (51). In my view, a single claim underlies the whole of the
crucial second speech: “all finite things exist only through the deter-
mination of their boundaries, which must be ‘cut out’ (herausgeschnit-
ten) out of the Infinite. Only in this manner can anything within
these boundaries itself be infinite and formed on its own.”26 This is
the sine qua non for the doctrine of the Spirit: “Nothing individual
[can] be separated, except insofar as it is arbitrarily cut out [of the
one Whole or Spirit] in time and space.”27
For Schleiermacher, then, the individual differentiation (the
principium individuationis) is subsequent and secondary to the one
Spiritual unity. We are, as it were, cut out of the one all-encompass-
ing whole. The problem is no longer how to constitute the unity of
humanity with God, but rather how to understand in what respect
humans are other than God. Note also that Schleiermacher here sets
up Spirit in contradistinction to mind or rationality. For the Sturm
188 Philip Clayton
und Drang thinkers, like the Romantics who followed them, Spirit is
on the side of emotion, that which is pre- or anti-rational. In a fa-
mous passage Wordsworth thus construed the realm of Spirit as “the
sense sublime / Of something far more deeply interfused, / Whose
dwelling is the light of setting suns, / And the round ocean and the
living air, / And the blue sky, and in the mind of man” (“Tintern
Abbey”). Similarly, the metaphors of Spirit that Schleiermacher pre-
ferred were those of the lover and the baby borne upon in the arms of
its loving parent. To the extent that something is of Spirit, it is known
prior to, and even in some manner above, any rational cognition.
It is not uncommon for theologians to distinguish Schleiermacher’s
early position in the Speeches, where the concept of God occurs in the
context of a sort of pantheism (or better, panentheism) from the later
work in the Glaubenslehre, where the links with traditional theism
and dogmatic theology are much more fully pronounced. But to sepa-
rate the two works too sharply is a mistake. Isn’t the sense of absolute
dependence at root another expression of the primacy of Spirit as the
all-encompassing medium of our existence? Indeed, God-conscious-
ness as the systematic principle of Schleiermacher’s mature theologi-
cal reflection functions primarily as a hermeneutical principle that
allows him to draw multiple inferences from a basic monism of the
Spirit. The logical movement of Schleiermacher’s theology is from
the fundamental unity of Spirit to an initial differentiation between
infinite and finite spirit, and from thence to (at least identifiable para-
phrases of ) traditional Christian doctrine. Schleiermacher’s later work
is thus an attempt to take an essentially undifferentiated ontological
principle, one which is for that reason anomalous or even “savage,”
and to “domesticate” it in a manner consistent with the institutional
church and the existence of communally expressible doctrines—to
dress it up and take it out into public, so to speak.
But, as critics have often noted, the domestication is only partly
successful. Clearly, a tension remains between the Romantic side of
Schleiermacher’s thought and the more differentiated conceptual for-
mulations that he attempts in his later doctrinal work. It would be
fine if Schleiermacher had simply discarded his earlier position as
youthful enthusiasm; but if (as I’ve argued) that’s a misinterpreta-
tion, then the later doctrinal formulations must be viewed as much
more provisional than is commonly held. On this view they become
snapshots of a continuously flowing reality that are antiquated be-
fore they are even printed. The same tension between the ever-flow-
ing “one Spirit” and any expression of it, built into modern theology
by Schleiermacher, runs, as students of nineteenth and twentieth the-
ology know all too well, straight from him through the intervening
years and into the theological present. In the words of Peter Hodgson’s
recent book, the “winds of the Spirit” blow as they will (John 3:8),
not despite but because of the fact that it is the one Spirit that blows
in every case. Herein lies the appropriateness of Langdon Gilkey’s
baptizing the task of theology over the last forty years as one of “nam-
ing the whirlwind”—if not, as some suppose, actually “taming the
whirlwind.”28
Here again we unearth what may be a problem with Bill Placher’s
idea of “the domestication of transcendence.” Modern theologies of
the Spirit in the tradition of Schleiermacher are not so much guilty
of domesticating a truly transcendent God, but rather of re-figuring
theological ontology in the direction of even greater transcendence.
In the wake of this process the undomesticated principle is not so
much “a transcendent being” as “the one Spirit which we are and in
whom we have our being, the Spirit that is always already transcen-
dent/immanent.”
Closing with Hegel

Against a certain widespread prejudice in Anglo-American circles, I
have narrated the modern philosophical resources for Pneumatology
as culminating with Hegel. Few critics of a “metaphysics of the sub-
ject” today seem to understand the amazing synthesis of Greek, me-
dieval and early modern motifs that this theory of subjectivity in-
volves. Human subjects may slip far below the full self-awareness that
Hegel presupposed—for reasons that Marx, Durkheim, Nietzsche
and Freud were later to bring painfully to our attention. But if the
highest being (or Being itself ) is a personal reality, full self-conscious-
ness and a sense of spiritual unity are precisely the features one would
expect it to have.
I must express one hesitancy, however. Ironically, Hegel may be
more guilty of domestication than the German Idealists who pre-
ceded him. For example, Fichte in his later work moved beyond the
self-assertive Ego (das Ich) as the unifying principle, finding again in
the undifferentiated One or das absolute Ich the ultimate principle.
Hegel made the attempt to wed again Spirit and Rationality after
they had (as he might have said) tragically fallen into opposition in
the work of Schleiermacher, Fichte and Schelling. In his philosophy
190 Philip Clayton
Spirit becomes the ultimate principle of rationality, the reason why

“the Real is the Rational.” The result, as readers well know, is a uni-
versal necessitarianism: all events occur according to the necessary
unfolding of reality in and toward absolute Spirit. Even creation,
according to the Philosophie der Religion, must be a necessary cre-
ation. The ineluctable movement toward self-consciousness must be
consummated according to very concrete steps; ethics, social theory,
politics—not to mention art and religion—must all find their pre-
cise places as they are aufgehoben into the final dialectical unity.
One worries, however, that this stress on rational necessity may
have been a somewhat conservative over-reaction to what Hegel must
have seen as the antinomian tendencies in Schleiermacher’s and
Schelling’s work. Hegel’s attempt to wed the Enlightenment Kant
with Romantics like Schelling appears to the more skeptically minded
as an impossible marriage, one that impoverishes both parties. If there
is any domestication, surely it is here! But what should one then
conclude? Does it spell an end to Pneumatology if Hegel’s synthesis
(and related efforts) fail? Undoubtedly their failure leaves one with a
less rationalist Pneumatology; it also raises roadblocks in the path of
any proposed union of philosophy and theology—at least any as tight
as that which Hegel claimed for his own work. But if this is the ac-
tual situation, then we are better advised to work at the more humble
connections than to mourn the loss of more dramatic syntheses.
Toward a Theology of the Person:

The Birth of Panentheism
What relevance do these historical developments have for a theology
of the person today? Clearly, dualist theories of the person—theories
that treat spirit and body as two substances—must be avoided, since
spirit has superceded substantival thinking. Out of the remaining
alternatives on the relation of body and spirit, the strongest option
from a theological perspective is psychophysical unity: spirit and body
are not two substances, nor is the one reduced to the other, but both
are dimensions of the one existing person.29
Persons consist (in part) of complicated physical systems, yet what
they are is something more than can be analyzed or explained in
physical terms. In humans, “spirit” arises out of a very complex set of
interactions that includes the human body, its brain, and its interac-
tion with its environment. Spirit is an emergent phenomenon inso-
far as it’s not reducible to the physical system which gives rise to it;
hence persons are best understood as an emergent level of reality.30
Emergence here must be understood in an ontological sense: with
the advent of spirit, a new type of property and activity is present,
one that needs to be analyzed in its own terms and not merely in
terms of the lower levels which preceded and gave rise to it.
Such a view stands opposed to so-called reductionist theories of
the person, according to which a sufficient explanation of the human
person can be given in terms of the underlying neural structures, or
biochemistry, or even quantum-physical events.31 Put differently, this
view is in one respect essentially theological, maintaining that the
vocabulary of spirit is necessary to account for some of the vital di-
mensions of personhood—and presumably for whatever that
overarching unity is which makes of the moments of an individual
life a single spiritual unity. The study of mental phenomena thus
plays a particularly important role in grasping what is peculiar to
personhood. Still, psychophysical unity means that consciousness
must be understood in connection with the body in which it is mani-
fested. Ideally, this perspective will allow physical scientists and theo-
logians to work together toward understanding persons and their
interactions in a way that does not negate the concerns (or the basic
methods) of either approach.
What then of the divine Spirit? Theological terms are best intro-
duced, I suggest, in light of their ability to help explain the data of
science and human experience in the world. We find in the world
levels of increasing complexity. One of these levels is that of
personhood as just described. Yet humans are not “pure spirit.” In-
deed, much of what defines our humanness has to do with the struggle
between—or, in happy cases, smooth synthesis of—the physical, psy-
chological and spiritual dimensions of human existence (as in Paul’s
description, in Romans and elsewhere, of the conflicts between sarx
and pneuma).
If the spiritual side of personhood is emergent, then a spiritual
being that transcends the world will have to be introduced as a higher
experiential or ontological level—indeed, for theists, as the culmi-
nating level—above the level of embodied spirit that characterizes
human experience. The mistake of positions like vitalism and pan-
theism is to introduce God too early, at too low a level (say, the level
of a basic life-principle), rather than at, or above, the highest level of
which we are aware, the level of consciousness. By contrast, if one
192 Philip Clayton
introduces God-language in complete abstraction from what we know

of the human spirit and human personhood, one is bound to fall
back into the dualism from which we have just escaped—either the
dualism of spirit and body, or a complete dualism between the hu-
man and divine spirit which threatens to erase the imago dei.
How are such dualisms to be avoided? I suggest that one can apply
something like the theory of levels worked out above, at least during
the “from below” phase of Pneumatology. The theory of levels led us
to conceive human spirit as embodied mental functioning. The goal
of an experientially based Pneumatology, then, is to apply this same
relationship between various levels to the understanding of the di-
vine Spirit and the God/world relation. We can speak of God, too, as
embodied spirit. Note that this argument concerns the introduction
of language about the Spirit of God; it has to do with the context of
discovery and not yet with the final theoretical context (which may
include, e.g., a fuller trinitarian vocabulary). The introduction of God-
language thus utilizes what I would like to call the Panentheistic Anal-
ogy.32 Just as spirit is the dimension of personal being that we only
find in conjunction with highly complex physical systems such as
the human body, so God can be introduced as that spiritual identity,
presence and agency that we come to know out of the physical world
(the universe) taken as a whole. Recall that panentheistic theologies
maintain that the world is within God, although God is also more
than the world. Each human being is a center of identity which,
although involving the identity of a body, also functions as a spiritual
unit, that is, a unity having characteristics, wishes and predicates that
do not apply to the body taken by itself. Likewise, God as an agent
has wishes, intentions, and actions that go beyond anything in the
world. (This is why pantheism represents an inferior view of the di-
vine: it no longer allows us to conceive of God as a divine agent.)
In God and Contemporary Science I discuss two correlates of the
Panentheistic Analogy: it allows one to understand law-like behavior
in the world as an expression of the autonomic action of God in this
“body” which is never fully separate from the divine Spirit which
animates it, and to understand focal divine agency as those events in
the world which express divine intentions in a particularly sharp man-
ner. Both correlates express the assumption that the problem of di-
vine action becomes much less intractable when God is not under-
stood as a separate agent located outside the world but rather as em-
bodied in the world (though also transcending it).
Once we have gotten this far (but only then) does it become pos-
sible to think more directly about the nature of the divine Spirit whose
nature is reflected, however dimly, in our own. Here we reach, at last,
the distinctively theological moment: to drop the limitation to em-
pirical experience and reflect, to the limited extent that we are able,
on the nature of God “from above.”33 Theological reflection “from
above” is also justified by the non-reducibility of emergent levels.
Recall that each new level (physics, biology, psychology) requires its
own explanatory categories and its unique level of analysis; and each
one introduces surprising new characteristics that could not have been
anticipated from the lower level alone. Analogously, we find that the
divine agent must be characterized not only in psychological (hu-
man-spirit) terms, but also in terms of a level of pure Spirit that
transcends the universe as a whole.
At this point classical theological concepts also come into play:
God is not contingent but necessary, not mortal but eternal, not fi-
nite but infinite. As such, God serves as the Ground of the world,
and it in turn must be understood as grounded in God. (Note that
the metaphor of grounding is not spatial, though it is consistent with
the structure of panentheism.) What is the nature of the one who
grounds? According to the logic of the concept, the infinite, though
first arising out of the notion of the finite as its other, must encom-
pass the finite within it while at the same time infinitely transcend-
ing it. Infinite Spirit may include personal predicates and qualities
within it, but as such it is also more than personal, trans-personal.
This is one reason why traditional theology was right to maintain
that God consists of three divine persons rather than that God is a
personal being.
Now it’s necessary to look back: how has the original context of
discovery been transformed by this more systematic reflection on the
nature of divine being? The notions of Ground, Infinity, and neces-
sary existence are new to the theological level of analysis and would
not be predictable from within the empirical world alone. Likewise,
the way that the divine infinity partially relativizes personal predi-
cates when applied to God could not have been predicted from the
lower level.
What happens to the God/world relation? In one sense the
Panentheistic Analogy also has been corrected. Is the world “in” God
in the same logical sense that the finite is “within” the infinite? Well,
this may work for the divine Spirit and the world (cf. the inclusion
194 Philip Clayton
relationship that characterizes panentheism), but certainly one would

not say that the human body is “in” the human spirit in the same
sense! “Spirit” is a holistic level of description for what is most char-
acteristic of the living, thinking, feeling human person. Spatial meta-
phors don’t finally do justice to the unitive nature of this phenom-
enon. The body is “in” the spirit in the sense that the living human
body qua physical system has its identity, its locus and its telos “in”
the spiritual life which is the highest expression of its identity (and in
an additional sense which will emerge out of the discussion of Levinas
below). It’s true to speak of the world as “contained in” the divine—
but only in the sense that the divine is omni-present within it, and in
the sense of ontological dependence: no finite thing would exist at
the next moment were it not for continuing divine concurrence.
In summary, we might say that “Pneumatology from below” ex-
presses the way in which the concept of divine Spirit is arrived at
within the context of modern thought, whereas “Pneumatology from
above” is the attempt to rethink that content from a theological per-
spective. Or, to put it differently, Pneumatology involves a two-fold
transformation of our own experience of spirit: (1) we extrapolate
from the qualities of spirit known through the natural world and
through encounters with other human persons, augmenting them to
the level appropriate to divine Spirit, and (2) we seek to conceive the
nature of Infinite Spirit based on our experience as embodied agents.
Neither of these routes provides a direct basis for understanding
God in Godself. One response to this limit is simply to throw up
one’s hands: God is a complete mystery; nothing whatsoever can be
said truly of the nature of the divine. But whatever skeptical or post-
modern reasons there may be for taking the ineffable way out, there
are Christian reasons for resisting the “complete mystery” response.
The Christian belief is that God has in some ways made Godself
known. The line of ascent upwards towards an understanding of the
divine nature certainly has its limits when it is drawn from the hu-
man side—just as the line of moral ascent towards Godlikeness is
questioned in both Jewish and Christian traditions. But God has
broken down the dividing wall (Eph 2:14), making known his na-
ture and plans that had been hidden since the foundation of the
world (Eph 1:9ff.). Now a “salvation economy” (Heilsökonomie) can-
not be grasped without also grasping something of the character of
the One who acts to bring about the divine will. Any attempt to
draw a sharp distinction between the way God reveals Godself to be
for purposes of salvation (as in the language of revelation, the eco-

nomic trinity, God at work in the world) and the way God really is in
God’s own nature (the immanent trinity; God an sich) would raise
serious problems of reliability. For surely God cannot reveal the di-
vine nature falsely given the character of God as understood by the
Christian tradition.
Infinite Spirit, All-Encompassing Spirit

Spirit or subjectivity thus constitutes the over-arching connection;
in one sense it bridges the gap between human and divine. And yet
only in one sense, for the distinction between the human and the
divine must also be thought. The key means for expressing the differ-
ence between God and humanity in modern philosophical theology
has been the concept of Infinity.34 Infinite is a privative; it seems to
say that the infinite subject must be absolutely other than the finite
subject. Only one entity can be absolutely infinite, the necessary source
or ground for all that exists. Thus the moderns have thought God as
infinite Ground, the condition of the possibility of all finite or con-
tingent things.
Yet there is also a wrinkle, which Hegel perhaps expressed the most
clearly: an infinite that excludes the finite is “the bad Infinite” (das
schlechte Unendliche) and not “the true Infinite” (das wahre Unendliche)
at all. Such an infinite is not un-limited in the strongest sense, inas-
much as it is limited by the finite that lies outside it and is other to it.
The true infinite, Hegel realized, must therefore include the finite as
a part, while at the same time retaining within itself the distinction
between infinite and finite.
This famous Hegelian insight alone, even apart from other com-
pelling arguments, would be enough to raise panentheism to the fore-
front of theological attention. Panentheism asserts that all things are
encompassed by the divine being, while God is also more than the
set of all finite things. This is closely analogous to the claim, sketched
in the last paragraph, that the finite must be contained within the
all-encompassing Infinite. Whatever is finite must be a part of the
infinite whole without losing its distinctiveness from that which
grounds it.
Now it may be sufficient for a dialectical philosopher merely to
note this logical similarity and logical difference, but the theologian
is charged with understanding more concretely what these terms mean.
The difference between God and world is a major theme in the He-
196 Philip Clayton
brew and Greek scriptures. It finds perhaps its most powerful expres-
sion in the doctrine of creation: all finite things are traceable back to
a free and unconstrained act of the Creator. They continue in exist-
ence only because of God’s sustenance of the world; no contingent
thing would exist without God’s ongoing concurring will at each
new moment. Numerous other theological doctrines stress the dif-
ference between God and world, including the doctrine of God’s
absolute goodness or moral perfection and the doctrines of sin, salva-
tion, redemption and sanctification to which they give rise.
Unfortunately, theologians have done less well at thinking the other
half of the puzzle, the not-otherness of God and God’s creation.35 Tra-
ditionally, the major reminder of this truth has been the imago dei. It
would be interesting to explore the various ways the imago dei has
been parsed out—consciousness, will, freedom, rationality, sociality
or communality, self-transcendence—and to ask exactly what model
of the “other and not-other” each one assumes about the divine/hu-
man relationship. My own proposal is that Pneumatology offers the
key to answer the question of the not-other today. That is, combining
a panentheistic understanding of the God/world relation with a richer
theory of the nature of the spirit that is shared by humans and God will
provide the sort of material theological content needed to supplement the
formal stipulations discussed above. A positive theory of the Spirit al-
lows one to think the similarities between God and creation without
abolishing the differences that remain.
What happens when the dynamics of self-aware spirits are com-
bined with the interpenetrating movement of finite and divine? A
new two-sided movement emerges which is worthy of our careful
attention. Human thought begins with the movement upwards, which
(thanks to the spiritual nature shared by God and creatures) allows
thought to move conceptually from finite things to the all-encom-
passing Infinite. But what about the task of conceiving finite things
from the perspective of the Infinite; what about making sense of the
divine being “from above”? Here, as Emmanuel Levinas notes, in
one sense it’s true to say that the infinite is incarnated within the
finite, since the infinite is thought by the finite.36 The thought of the
Infinite is part of the content of finitude. Indeed, Levinas continues,
this thought is the most basic thought for the finite, since it is prior
to all that the finite knows and is. At the same time, the thought of
the Infinite is the one thought which by its very nature goes beyond
the finite’s comprehension. The finite is given the thought of some-
thing which is its source, its being, its perspective or definition—and

yet this “thing” is by definition incomprehensible for it. This is the
paradox of divine Spirit.
The discussion suggests a dual role for infinite Spirit. On the one
hand, it represents the all-encompassing framework within which
the individual Spirit “lives and moves and has its being.” On the
other hand, the Infinite is present as a thought within finite mind,
present yet ungraspable, present in its absence or (perhaps better from
a Christian perspective) revelatory in its elusiveness. Divine Spirit
confronts the thinking subject with what Levinas calls “the more in
the less”—the task for thought which can never be fulfilled: “The
Infinite affects thought by devastating it and at the same time calling
upon it; ‘putting it back in its place’ it puts thought in place. It awak-
ens it.”37 In this case the unthought is no peripheral thought; what
teases the mind at the edges of consciousness is at the same time
what suggests itself as the ground of consciousness itself. Let me put
this point even more strongly: one encounters here importantly two
different “in”-relations or subsumption relations—the idea “in” hu-
man consciousness of an Infinite Ground “in” which consciousness
itself lives and moves and has its being—which appear to exclude
one another. And yet they are for Pneumatology two halves of a single
dialectical whole, which represents the constitutive condition of con-
sciousness itself.
I wish to argue that panentheism provides the account of the God/
world relation which most successfully thematizes this double “in”-
relation. Because panentheism emphasizes the immanence of God to
a greater degree than classical theism, it helps reduce the problems
associated with the transcendence—and thus foreignness (or at least
perceived foreignness)—of God. Of course, theologians should not
pretend that even panentheism’s greater stress on the immanence of
God will overcome the widespread resistance to grounding the hu-
man subject in a divine source. The reason is that most of the mod-
ern history of the subject has involved the self-assertion of the sub-
ject, and hence its independence from any sort of grounding rela-
tion. It would not be an over-statement to say (as Louis Dupré has so
convincingly shown38) that the subject came to be taken as the sole
source of meaning and value in the modern period. As causa sui, as
self-constituting, and as the creator of all things that it values (hence:
of all things that are of value), the modern subject has taken itself to
198 Philip Clayton
replace both Creator and created in the traditional view—to have

abolished Absolute Subject altogether.39
For the modern subject, and equally so for the postmodern
(post-)subject, spirit is set free from any meta-physical parameters
and allowed to roam freely over the turf once ruled by metaphysics
and theology, emerging itself fully in the self-creating enterprise which
is its natural birthright. What makes a position like that of Levinas
so significant is that it confronts the causa sui perspective from within.
On Levinas’ reading, the subject still finds itself pre-occupied with
the notion of an Infinite Other. Reading backwards historically, one
finds signs of this continuing preoccupation with an infinite ground
even in those modern philosophers (e.g., Fichte) in which the self-
grounding of the Ego is most pronounced. This, I have argued, is the
key opening for a theological doctrine of the Spirit today.
Theology Anthropomorphized,
Anthropology Theologized
What are the costs of this new opening for Pneumatology today? The
heading of this final section may come as somewhat of a surprise at
the end of what is perhaps the most metaphysical sounding paper in
this volume. What in the position developed so far would suggest
such an intermingling of theology and anthropology?
As we saw, in the late medieval and early modern periods the Spirit
of God was held to be ontologically transcendent yet present to the
world. Two major modern developments in particular—the Kantian
critique of metaphysics and the strong focus on immanence in
Spinoza’s philosophy—then led to doctrines of the Spirit that chal-
lenged the separateness and transcendence typical of the earlier mod-
els. In the nineteenth century, skeptics (paradigmatically, Nietzsche)
claimed to complete the cycle by dismissing any trans-human or trans-
natural reference whatsoever for God-language. In this paper I have
attempted to argue that Christian language of the Spirit still has the
resources for retaining both the immanence and the transcendence
of God, at least when understood within a panentheistic framework
rather than as the fully transcendent God of classical philosophical
theism.
It is easy for one to continue with very traditional sounding for-
mulations when speaking theologian-to-theologian. After all, many
theologians inhabit the language of transcendence in the daily lan-
guage and practice of their churches; many are culturally Christian,

socialized through the doctoral level in the creeds and creedal lan-
guage, enculturated in Christian groups and sub-cultures. But what
happens when one searches for language that makes genuine contact
with those outside such Christian cultures? And how is the status of
theological language transformed in the process? These final words
are not for those who are still convinced that doctrinal theology can
continue to be done in the traditional way; nor are they a direct,
unavoidable consequence of the position defended up to this point.
Instead, they represent a radicalization of the recognition of imma-
nence—for those willing to follow the line of inference yet one step
further.
Here’s the idea: it may no longer be possible, once Spirit has be-
come a shared framework in the sense here described, to distinguish
completely in one’s language between the transcendent and imma-
nent dimensions of Spirit.40 The reasons have to do both with the
philosophy of language and with the nature of the Spirit itself. In the
philosophy of language, what may have been lost is the sense that
one can describe transcendent realities in a language that is fully ap-
propriate to its object. Human language simply cannot be purged of
its “merely human” sources in culture, historical epoch, and personal
experience. Without pausing to list the various epistemological
grounds for the irreversible co-mingling of human and divine, I sug-
gest that attempts at regaining the purity of God-spawned language
appear to have fallen short. Depending on one’s orientation, one may
call it, following Yovel, “the adventures of immanence” or, with a less
welcoming embrace, “condemnation to immanence.”
It is an age, we might say, in which one can no longer hold Feuerbach
at arm’s length.41 Feuerbach’s thesis was that language about God is
really language about the human species; it projects our wishes, aspi-
rations, and self-understanding onto an empty heaven. Now Feuer-
bach clearly overstated his thesis: no amount of evidence of correla-
tions between human desires and needs on the one hand and theol-
ogy on the other would suffice to establish the direction of influence.
Just as statistical correlations in the social sciences require background
assumptions in order to decide what causes what, so some prior theo-
retical assumptions must be used to decide which realm (the human
or the divine) is prior and which is the product of projection. As we
saw, Hegel is the thinker who helped to establish the intimate con-
nection between anthropological and theological language about Spirit
200 Philip Clayton
(Geist). Feuerbach employed assumptions that reduced God-language

downward, while the Right Hegelians and their more conservative
followers into the present century reversed the assumptions, reduc-
ing anthropological language “upwards.” The battle will continue
over which discipline, anthropology or theology, should trump. Here
to stay now, however, is the relation of mutual dependence between
them.
It is no more likely that a-theological arguments will “prove” that
no transcendent being exists to bear the predicates attributed to it
than it is likely that theological arguments will “prove” the existence
of a transcendent being. Thus, Feuerbach’s best efforts to the con-
trary, God’s existence remains a live option. On the other hand, the
failure of proofs on both sides has left theologians without the ability
(again, outside the faith community and its guiding assumptions) to
show the extent to which God-language is rooted in direct divine
revelation. I have in the past challenged sharp line-drawing between
the “inside” and the “outside” of faith communities.42 If correct, this
means that many of the ambiguities that exist in the broader philo-
sophical debate and society are ambiguities that should characterize
Christian thought as well. No evidence requires one to eschew claims
for the existence of God, but the best evidence requires one to admit
that the language about God is also language about ourselves. If, as
the tradition maintains, a transcendent Spirit inspires theologizing,
then it is equally true that the Spirit does so out of and through
human embodied experience in the world. The result is theological
language that points toward God at the same time that it just as
clearly expresses much about the speaker, her background, her cul-
ture, her intellectual milieu.
Note how this dual indebtedness of theological language is expressed
in other papers in this volume. The interest in redemptive metaphors
for the Spirit, in models that are acceptable to a broader range of
believers (e.g., not exclusivist, sexist, or oppressive), and in meta-
phors that support environmental awareness and a more reasonable
mode of living on this planet—all of these concerns already implic-
itly imply that theological language is, while clearly about God, also
about humanity. It is language aimed to inspire, to guide, to express
and evoke the various modes of human being-in-the-world. This
anthropomorphic dimension of language about the Spirit, already
present on many pages in this book, urgently needs to be thought as
part of the pneumatological project itself. For example, the biblical Spirit
of Christ who reveals the Father is not wholly other than the spirit
that speaks out against oppression, reinterprets the text, coins a new
metaphor. Anthro-theologically, it is the one Spirit who is in both,
“to will and to work for [the Spirit’s] own pleasure.”
In the Christian tradition the Spirit has always connoted the pres-
ence of God in the world. In John’s account Jesus says, “I will ask the
Father and he will give you another Counselor, the Spirit of truth, to
be with you forever… . But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom
the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will
remind you of everything I have said to you” (John 14:16-17, 26).
This is a Spirit who cannot be on center stage when the focal revela-
tion of God, the person Jesus, is present; only in the ambiguity of his
absence can the Spirit be present (John 16:7). The ambiguity of the
Spirit’s leading is necessitated by the mode of its speaking: the Spirit
will “prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judg-
ment” (John 16:8). Thus when the Spirit “guides into all truth” (John
16:13) it is a different sort of presence, a more muffled presence, an
internal guidance—the still, small voice which, often as not, does
not wear its source on its sleeve.
Conclusion
What do these results mean for Pneumatology today? Of course, it’s
possible to write about spirit/Spirit in a purely descriptive, or purely
political, or purely metaphorical fashion, eschewing transcendent or
metaphysical notions altogether. In the pages, though, we have traced
another possibility—a doctrine of the Spirit which nonetheless re-
mains fully immanent and closely linked to the human spirit. What
emerged from our review of the modern resources for Pneumatology
(esp. German philosophy between 1750 and 1850) and survived the
attacks of anti-metaphysical and anti-theistic thinkers during the last
century is a close correlation between human and divine Spirit. The
same correlation that Feuerbach thought would justify his projection
critique also gave birth to the great works in theological anthropol-
ogy this century.43 The result is a Pneumatology that declines strong
opposites between the spirit human and the Spirit divine, yet with-
out abandoning the speculative strengths of theistic metaphysics.
More specifically, the constructive argument of the paper involved
reappropriating (and transforming) idealist theories of the subject
and of divine subjectivity. The resulting position is not in the first
place trinitarian, though it does stem from the attempt to do justice
202 Philip Clayton
to both the monistic and the trinitarian components in a doctrine of

the divine Spirit.44 It is monistic because it stresses the sense in which
God is one; all that exists, being dependent on God, is included within
the divine presence in a unified fashion. Although such monism may
be difficult for some systematic theologians to accept, I do think its
effects are mitigated by the panentheistic context, which (unlike pan-
theism) preserves the ontological distinction between God and
world.45 And yet the view is trinitarian because only a God who en-
ters into relationship with other subjects as genuine others to Godself
could be the sort of personal God that one finds in the Hebrew and
Greek scriptures. The moment of mediation has been variously pre-
sented: in the classical trinitarian theology of Father, Son and Spirit;
in the theories of self-consciousness of German Idealism and
Neoidealism; in recent process variants;46 in liberation theologians;
and in various modified forms among liberal theologians of our day.
Specifically, a panentheistic Pneumatology emphasizes six themes:
(1) Spirit or person is the basic category, not substances and things.
(2) The study of Spirit is not monist; Spirit always involve relation-
ship with an Other. This is the deep insight underlying the Christian
affirmation: God is internally complex; the divine consists of mul-
tiple persons.
(3) Thus Spirit always involves the notion of community. The con-
nection between these two concepts is ontological as well as ethical.47
(4) Spirit is not immutable and impassive, but involved in constant
change and response. Philosophical perfections (or alleged perfections)
such as omnipotence, immutability or aseity must never be allowed
to get in the way of the affirmation that God’s Spirit mediates the
divine presence to the world in understanding and love.
(5) God and world are non-separable, yet in a manner that pre-
serves the distinction between Creator and created order. Panentheism
emphasizes Spirit as that in which we “live and move and have our
being.” Spirit is like the water in which the fish dwells; as the very
medium of life, it is invisible precisely because it’s pervasive. Yet Spirit
is not a stuff, an object. In this case, the “water” is a personal pres-
ence. Perhaps the better analogy would be to the child who stops
crying and falls asleep because she feels her mother’s presence in the
room. Mother and infant are not to be confused; yet at another sense
they remain bound by a relationship of “not-otherness” (Nicholas of
Cusa).
(6) The distinction of God and world is not only Creator to created,
necessary to contingent, infinite to finite; it is also one of perfect holiness
to human imperfection. In the history of the Hebrew and Christian
traditions, the recognition of God’s infinite holiness came first and
only later gave rise to the more philosophical distinctions. The one
in whom we live and move and have our being also represents the
highest standards of righteousness and justice. Thus “the spirit of
community” expresses not just the communities one actually lives in
but much more the sort of community one ought to be striving to
create.
Reflections of the sort explored in this paper often raise fears of the
“subordination” of Christian systematic theology to a foreign power
or to a sort of philosophical foundation-building. I therefore wish to
conclude by emphasizing again the “Nein!” that still confronts philo-
sophical theologians when we speak of the Spirit of the living God. Is
there any way to incorporate this negative moment without tacitly
assenting to a “crucifixion of the intellect,” a demand that reflection
cease for the sake of faith? In his Dialectics Schleiermacher empha-
sizes the role of limit language in talk of God, yet without demand-
ing a crucifixion of the intellect. Talk of Spirit, whether human or
divine, implies an intrinsic “unavailability to analysis” which places
an inherent limit on all language about God. Likewise, Levinas has
argued powerfully that the spirit of the other is that which recedes
infinitely from our grasp, while retaining its ethical call upon us.48
Nonetheless, it remains possible, and perhaps spiritually and ethi-
cally necessary, to reflect systematically on the God whom one is en-
countering in the sacraments, in the scriptures, in the corporate ex-
perience of the church. For the interpretation of biblical texts and
the dynamics of the theological tradition are closely wed with meta-
physical models; and reflection aimed at consistency and systematic
coherence remains central to an appropriation of the Christian rev-
elation and a living of the Christian life. Hence we end where we
started, with an acknowledgment of the pluralistic context that leaves
behind philosophical foundationalism and at the same time encour-
ages the quest for new models of the Spirit in philosophical theology
today.
204 Philip Clayton
Endnotes
1
The strong and growing interest in “spirituality,” even within the Academy, should
be mentioned as a third factor. But this is more a social factor than directly a
philosophical one.
2
See J. Wentzel van Huyssteen, Essays in Postfoundationalist Theology (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1997).
3
According to the pre-modern notion of inertia, if motion were not added afresh at
every moment all things would stop; hence God’s action was physically necessary
at every instant. We often forget that even Newton’s physics in the Principia still
required the existence of God in order to be applied to the world.
4
See Clayton, Das Gottesproblem: Gott und Unendlichkeit in der neuzeitlichen
Philosophie (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1996).
5
See Joseph F. Fletcher, Situation Ethics: The New Morality (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1996).
6
See Sallie McFague, Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982).
7
William C. Placher, The Domestication of Transcendence: How Modern Thinking
About God Went Wrong (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox, 1996).
8
Placher, The Domestication of Transcendence, 7 (my emphasis).
9
Placher, The Domestication of Transcendence, 7.
10
And by no coincidence: Placher, like his teacher Hans Frei, remains deeply
influenced by Barth in his work.
11
G. W. F. Hegel, Phänomenologie des Geistes, ed. J. Hoffmeister, PhB 114 (Ham-
burg: F. Meiner, 1952), 19f. my translation; cf. The Phenomenology of Mind,trans.
J. B. Baillie (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), 80.
12
Herbert Marcuse, Hegels Ontologie und die Theorie der Geschichtlichkeit, 2nd. ed.
(Frankfurt a.M.: Klostermann, 1968), 120.
13
Clayton, Das Gottesproblem, chapter 7.
14
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Die Erziehung des Menchengeschlechts, §§ 73f.; in
English see The Education of the Human Race, in Henry Chadwick, ed. and trans.,
Lessing’s Theological Writings (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1956).
15
See K. Lachmann & Muncker, eds., G. E. Lessings Sämtliche Schriften (Leipzig,
1900), 15:610f.; quoted in Chadwick, p. 95 and Henry Allison, Lessing and the
Enlightenment: His Philosophy of Religion and Its Relation to Eighteenth-Century
Thought (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966), 158.
16
See Moritz Brasch, ed., Moses Mendelssohn’s Schriften zur Metaphysik und Ethik
sowie zur Religionsphilosophie, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Leopold voss, 1880), 1:412.
17
In the interests of fairness I should admit that Spinoza sometimes came closer, e.g.
in the notion of an active principle or natura naturans (nature “naturing”), which
he contrasted with natura naturata or nature “natured.” But arguably it was not
until Kant that a thinker really did full justice to the active moment in
subjectivity.
18
Note however that this is for Kant a purely formal principle; it’s not a theory of the
empirical self or personhood in the sense that a social scientist might use these
terms. There is an important line from Kant’s theory of consciousness to the
empirical social sciences (via neo-Kantianism and early German psychologists
such as W. Wundt), but we will not have space to follow it here.
19
Walter Kasper, Das Absolute in der Geschichte. Philosophie und Theologie der
Geschichte in der Spätphilosophie Schellings (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald, 1965),
53, quoting from Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schellings sämmtliche Werke, 14
vols. in two divisions, ed. K. F. A. Schelling (Stuttgart and Augsburg: J. G.
Cotta’scher Verlag, 1856-1861), especially 4:240, 4:325, 4:247 (emph. added).
20
Schelling, Sämtliche Werke, 8:306.
21
Hegel, The Phenomenology of Mind, 415 (trans. Baillie).
22
Peter F. Strawson, Individuals (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1963).
23
See Thomas Nagel, “What It’s Like to Be a Bat,” vol. 1, Readings in the Philosophy
of Psychology ed. Ned Block (Boston: MIT Press, 1981). Among the important
analytic treatments of the person—to mention just a few of the major titles—see
Bernard Williams, Problems of the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1973); Sidney Shoemaker, Self-Knowledge and Self-Identity (Ithaca: Cornell,
1963); Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons (New York: Oxford University Press,
1984); John Perry, The Problem of the Essential Indexical and Other Essays (New
York: Oxford, 1993); Amelie Rorty, ed., The Identities of Persons (Berkeley:
University of California, 1979); Peter Strawson, Individuals (London: University
of London Press, 1959); Harold Noonan, Personal Identity (New York: Routledge,
1989); Peter Unger, Identity, Consciousness and Value (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1990); and now Carol Rovane, The Bounds of Agency: An Essay
in Revisionary Metaphysics (Princeton; Princeton University Press, 1998).
24
Including the fact that most, if not all, of these thinkers were deeply concerned
about the nature of the divine subject and that their own reflections on
subjectivity emerged in many cases out of reflection on the nature of God’s
creative activity.
25
All the references that follow are to the pagination of the 1799 edition. See
Schleiermacher, Über die Religion. Reden an die Gegildeten unter ihren Verächtern,
ed. Otto Braun, Philosophische Bibliothek vol. 139b (Leipzig: F. Meiner, 1911),
or the version edited (and copiously annotated) by Rudolf Otto, 6th. ed.
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1967), both of which contain page
references to the first edition of the Speeches.
26
“Alles Endliche besteht nur durch die Bestimmung seiner Grenzen, die aus dem
Unendlichen gleichsam herausgeschnitten werden müssen. Nur so kann es
innerhalb dieser Grenzen selbst unendlich sein und eigen gebildet werden”
(Schleiermacher, Speeches, 53).
27
“Nichts Einzelnes (kann) gesondert werden, als indem es willkürlich abgeschnitten
wird in Zeit und Raum” (Schleiermacher, Speeches, 127).
28
Langdon Gilkey, Naming the Whirlwind: The Renewal of God-Language (India-
napolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969); Gilkey, Reaping the Whirlwind: A Christian
Interpretation of History (New York: Seabury, 1976).
29
See Clayton, “Neuroscience, the Person, and God,” in Robert Russell, Nancey
Murphy and Michael Arbib, eds., Neuroscience, Personhood and Divine Action
(Vatican Observatory, 1999). There is also good reason to think that psycho-
physical unity has strong exegetical support. The literature is immense; for one
recent treatment that pays attention to the biblical texts as well as to scientific
evidence, see Warren S. Brown, Nancey Murphy, and H. Newton Malony, eds.,
Whatever Happened to the Soul? Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human
Nature (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1998).
206 Philip Clayton
30
Ian Barbour defines a level as “a unit which is relatively integrated, stable, and self-
regulating, even though it interacts with other units at the same level and at higher
and lower levels” (unpublished paper from the Vatican conference on theology
and the neurosciences, Poland, June 1998, p. 19).
31
See Henry P. Stapp, Mind, Matter, and Quantum Mechanics (Berlin: Springer,
1993).
32
For more detail see Clayton, God and Contemporary Science (Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998).
33
Another entré for theological reflection is belief in the givenness of direct divine
revelation; although I do not follow that path here, I do not dismiss it either.
34
Especially helpful is Wolfhart Pannenberg, Metaphysics and the Idea of God (Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990).
35
I am here influenced by Nicholas of Cusa’s classic treatment of the not-other, De
non-aliud.
36
See Emmanuel Levinas, The Levinas Reader, ed. Sean Hand (Oxford: Blackwell,
1989), 128, 174. Note that “incarnated” is not a term that Levinas uses.
37
Emmanuel Levinas, The Levinas Reader, 176.
38
See Louis Dupré, Passage to Modernity: An Essay in the Hermeneutics of Nature and
Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993).
39
One sees this direction especially clearly in Yirmiahu Yovel’s important The
Adventures of Immanence, vol. 2 of Yovel, Spinoza and Other Heretics, 2 vols.
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989). The book chronicles the
influence of Spinoza’s immanence-based pantheism over the subsequent centu-
ries. Yovel argues that, as the metaphysical side of Spinozism began to wane, the
purely immanent understanding of the world came to replace any transcendence-
based metaphysic. Thus in his tale the true inheritors of the Spinozistic tradi-
tion—and thus the post-philosophers who have replaced the metaphysics of
old—are Marx, Nietzsche, Freud … and Richard Rorty!
40
Note that this point is not about retaining the language of transcendence but about
distinguishing the transcendent and immanent dimensions of spirit in actual
practice.
41
I am indebted to Van Harvey’s important recent book on Feuerbach, Feuerbach
and the Interpretation of Religion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1995).
42
See my notion of the “secular believer” in Clayton, Explanation from Physics to
Theology: An Essay in Rationality and Religion, (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1989), chapter 5.
43
See especially Wolfhart Pannenberg, Anthropology in Theological Perspective, trans.
Matthew J. O’Connell (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985).
44
These comments presuppose some reflections on “process Trinitarianism” that
were recently published; see Clayton, “Pluralism, Idealism, Romanticism: Un-
tapped Resources for a Trinity in Process,” in Joseph Bracken, S.J., and Marjorie
Hewitt Suchocki, eds., Trinity in Process: A Relational Theology of God (New York:
Continuum, 1997). I argue there that the One God is both single and undivided
(monism), Ground to the world as Consequent (dualism), and active Subject
who interacts with the world as Other and gives rise to a unity which relies on both
(idealistic trinitarianism, or self-conscious synthesis).
45
The view is dualistic only insofar as I accept something like Tillich’s (and
Schelling’s) distinction between God as the Ground of Being and the personal
side of God that develops in the process of God’s interaction with the universe.
It is here that the resources of (pre-Hegelian) idealist theories of the subject come
into play: the Other remains of constitutive importance in the development of
subjectivity.
46
See the various essays in the work cited in note 42.
47
For a treatment of Spirit as the divine field, see Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic
Theology, vol. 2, trans. G. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 76-115.
Joseph A. Bracken has developed a community-based doctrine of Spirit in several
important publications; see The Triune Symbol: Persons, Process, and Community
(Lanham: University Press of America, 1985); Society and Spirit: A Trinitarian
Cosmology (Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press, 1991); The Divine Ma-
trix: Creativity as Link between East and West (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books,
1995).
48
Similarly, Jean-Luc Marion is right to insist on a theology of ethics and of
sacramental encounter in God Without Being, trans. Thomas A Carlson (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1991).
208 Steven G. Smith
Topics in Philosophical
Pneumatology:
Inspiration, Wonder, Heart
Steven G. Smith
Philosophical Pneumatology and Theology
A properly philosophical treatment of concepts stays in touch with
both the determinable and the indeterminable aspects of their mean-
ing. Refusing to resolve into either technical problem-solving or
mystical gesturing, philosophy challenges technicians and mystics alike
with its two-sidedness. As philosophy endeavors at once to explain
and to consider, its ultimate internal challenge is to maintain tact-
fully the most fruitful relationship between the two sides of mean-
ing, opening up what is too narrowly determined and bringing speci-
fication to what is too vague, according to thought’s utmost possi-
bilities.
This characterization applies to any philosophical exercise, but
most patently and importantly to philosophy of the “spiritual.” For
“spirit,” in the leading senses in which it would be taken most seriously
either in ordinary discourse or in philosophy, is a preeminent example
of a concept that is consciously meant two-sidedly and that proceeds
from a most profound experience of a two-sidedness in life, a
combination of definite direction and mystery. The breath or wind
metaphor in “spirit” reckons with the unfathomed character,
unassurable presence, and only-partly-foreseeable trajectory of what
shall count as the prime moving force in and among us—a “force” to
be identified not with vitality as such (mysterious enough in its own
right, to be sure), but with motivations and coherences and prospects
of our vitality, that is, with the life of life, or validity in the strongest
sense. The life of life cannot be specified theoretically, partly because
it isn’t clearly evidenced physically or entailed metaphysically, but also
for the more important positive reason that it can be specified
practically as the supremely overriding principle of rectification. We
speak of spirits and spirituality in order to take positions with respect
to rightness, whatever rightness turns out concretely to involve. The
Topics in Philosophical Pneumatology 209
“whatever” projected by spirit rules over anything that might figure as

its “what,” and it rules by aerating, opening up, calling out. Spirit
cannot lack practical precedence any more than life can lack move-
ment. Although the claims of spirit are like the claims of life (for spirit
has its own versions of desire and sensibility), still they are distinct, and
even potentially opposed: in a consciously spiritual perspective one
realizes that one can gain the world and still “lose one’s soul,” that is,
fail as a spiritual being.
Since a well-oriented pneumatology must be guided by the axiom
that spirit makes supreme claims, the wind-like “force” of spirit must
be associated with the beings and issues in relation to which we
actually find ourselves to be supremely claimed. We are not at liberty
to identify these beings and issues in just any way. The occasion of
spirituality for conscious subjects like ourselves is the encounter with
real other beings in their two-sidedness for us—their presence to us and
their freedom with respect to our cognitive and practical horizons—
and in issues of right comportment in relationships with them. It is
possible to argue for this proposition with an eye toward philosophical
systematics, showing how it solves the basic puzzle of intersubjective
validity and best sorts out the norming program of reason, but one can
also confirm it by checking its fit with our deepest everyday horrors
and joys.1 Whether it registers intellectually or affectively, the propo-
sition implies that spiritual subjects are bound to deal rightly with the
real others of whom or of which they are actually aware and that they
must be ready to heed the claims of all other real others.
As spirituality is first among all constraints on thought and practice,
the concept of the spiritual is the site of first philosophy. In philo-
sophical pneumatology we attempt lucidly to enact the meanings that
norm all meanings. We cannot presume to adjudicate the possibility
of relationship and rectification; we may, however, participate in the
most general exemplification of the reality of relationship and of the
exigency for rectifying it. General pneumatology differs from other
branches of philosophy in that it revolves tightly around two basic
pluralist theses that can have no external justification (their purpose
being to acknowledge the sources of justification itself): on the one
hand, an extreme scruple of refusing to pretend to encompass the
being of others or relationship with any positive theoretical formula-
tion, and on the other hand, an extremely optimistic proclamation of
community among beings. It dwells on these points to attest to their
universal and decisive relevance. It is uncompelling, perhaps even
210 Steven G. Smith
basically unintelligible, for anyone who does not submit to it. In this
way, as well as in the ultimacy of its claim, it resembles religious
proclamations and practices. Yet general pneumatology maintains the
same distance from a particular religious program that it maintains in
relation to philosophical metaphysics and ethics and aesthetics. It is
committed to certain ultimate terms of meaningfulness for any
program, but it is uncommitted as to the kind of relationship or
rectification strategy that might be invoked for enhancing the life of
life on a particular front.
A theology of “Holy Spirit” depends on a general conception of
spirit at least for its preliminary intelligibility, and perhaps also for its
discipline and lucidity in being maintained in practice. To that extent,
it asks to be interpreted by philosophical pneumatology. What might
come out of an encounter between philosophical and religious
pneumatologies? A religious pneumatology might be found by philo-
sophical pneumatology to be better or worse warranted than other
pursuits of validity; a religious pneumatology might diverge impor-
tantly from philosophical pneumatology, yet not in a way that the
latter could effectively criticize; a religious pneumatology might
change or evolve in new ways, taking cues from general pneumatology;
a general pneumatology might be reoriented by a religious
pneumatology.
Philo offers a classic case of precisely this sort of negotiation between
pneumatologies in his cautious handling of the Septuagint’s transla-
tion of God’s spirit, in Hebrew rûach, as Greek pneuma. Caution is
needed, from his point of view, since pneuma is by this time already
understood as a material first principle by Greek physicians and Stoic
cosmologists. With a scruple at once Platonic and biblical, Philo
insists that the divine—the fundamental creative power and eternal
being—cannot be identified literally with anything material.2 His
Christian successors Origen and Augustine argue on the same line.3
All three thinkers are occupied with their objection to a physical first
principle in such a way that they do not develop an objection to the
metaphysical character of the explaining game in which the concept of
the spiritual has been enlisted. (They leave that sort of objection to be
made in an anti-philosophical way by fideists: “What has Athens to do
with Jerusalem?”) In the metaphysically biased frame of reasoning
shared by Philo and the Christian Platonists, we see that the move past
materialism to a supposedly purer conception of first principles
confounds the properly transmetaphysical project of perfecting (rec-
tifying) being with the metaphysical ideal of “perfect being” or

invulnerable permanence. (Compare how a biblical prophet’s
transpredictive “perfecting knowledge” is analogously reduced by
interpreters to a “perfect knowledge” in which the separation of future
from present is cancelled.)4
A metaphysical bias threatens also more recent negotiations be-
tween theological pneumatology and the Hegelian philosophy of
spirit, which is much closer to what I regard as a defensible position—
and probably can be wrestled into a defensible position—but still is
dominated by a tendency to adapt spirit to the requirements of noetic
rationality, wrongly confining the horizon of relationship issues
inside the horizon of intelligibility issues.5
I allude to my disagreements with Stoics, Platonists and Hegelians
partly to highlight my own transmetaphysical orientation, but also to
acknowledge that philosophical pneumatology exists in the plural;
thus, while I will stake out certain positions of a most-reasonable
“general” pneumatology in order to start a conversation with theo-
logical “special” pneumatologies, I won’t pretend that on my “gen-
eral” side I speak from an uncontested vantage point.
Inspiration
“As our soul (psyche) being air holds us together and controls us, so
does wind (pneuma) and air enclose the whole world.”6 By making
the air of psuche and pneuma a principle of psychology and cosmol-
ogy, Anaximenes set up a metaphysical estrangement of these spirit-
words from their ordinary point, which is precisely that moving air is
no ordinary thing. Whether in provoking an organism’s bodily ac-
tion or in ruffling the larger atmosphere, the moving air referenced
by spirit-words is experienced as an impingement on a situation and
not as part of a situation’s inertia. The life of an organism may be
ordinary in the sense that we encounter it every day, but when we
contemplate it as “animation”—as in, “Then she became quite ani-
mated”—we mark the somewhat unaccountable manner in which it
arrives and departs. (This might also be marked by calling life a gift,
or by calling life “spirit” as a way of attributing a gift-character to it.)
Appreciated thus, life is an extraordinary phenomenon that is only
the more extraordinary in being so common. Further, life provides
metaphors for a class of inspired events analogously woven through
our everyday experience, births and healings for example, that are
even more radically and impressively extraordinary. I suggest, then,
212 Steven G. Smith
that the first assessment to be made of any appropriation of spirit-

words is to see whether the point of the appropriation is to address
an extraordinary dimension of occurrence. But Greek pneumatology
normalizes spirit by making it a regular causal principle and also (as
that causal role may be thought to require) by construing it as a ma-
terial or quasi-material substance. Although this spirit-metaphysic
will intellectually out-perform a vulgar marveling at nature, at the
same time it will obscure the transrational, transmetaphysical hori-
zon of questions about the meaning of life that arise in the life of life.
That philosophical pneumatology does not have to be formed in
this way is suggested by a number of passages in Plato. Plato’s interest
in the frontier between rational and transrational meaning shows up
in his myths (including the Apology myth of Socrates as an oracle-
heeding, daimon-checked sage) and rather pointedly in Socrates’
praise of artistic and religious “possessions” as great blessings (Ion 533-
534, Phaedrus 244-245). If that which is spiritual is inherently
exceptional, then the more auspicious way to thematize the spiritual
is not to ask about spirit—grammatically, a thing, and so naturally
taken by philosophers for a being—but rather to ask about events of
inspiration, accountable-and-unaccountable qualifications of being.
Claims of inspiration are bound to provoke questions about causation
and authority—what gives true artists and prophets, for example, the
power to affect us as they do and/or the right to bind us in some way
by their action?—because they challenge the basic orientation in
which we usually interact with power and settle what is right.
Inspiration knocks us out of our more comfortable position, forcing
us to balance comprehension and noncomprehension in the interpre-
tation we make of life. To say that a poet was inspired by a Muse is not
to say that a specifiable (though invisible) thing came into knowable
relation with the expressive subject or text; rather, it is to open oneself
up to a mystery at the heart of the occurrence of speech and thought—
a mystery that is not, however, merely abstract or weird, but bears a
certain physiognomy and regularity, in this case the whole track
record of poetry which we now extend in our relations with a
practicing poet. Similarly with the prophet. Religious inspiration is
from “on high” not in the way in which metaphysical principles are
above physical principles in being more general and abstract, but
rather in entering from above the plane of the rational constitution of
meaning, mysteriously yet familiarly.
I have charged metaphysical pneumatology with spiritual inepti-

tude. But Anaximenes’ parallel between the world-air and the per-
sonal soul can be made to signify as more than a metaphysical
hypothesis; even allowing it to be a good metaphysical hypothesis, we
can push it beyond the tidy correlation of macrocosm and microcosm
that it secures in that character. It can symbolize the large scale of
inspiration, which is never merely local. We confront this point even
when we distinguish the more immediate sense of a particular claim
of inspiration, such as “a spirit came upon him, and he did an
exceptional thing,” from the additional historical or metaphysical
reflection that would fit the causation of the event into the largest of
causal schemes; for the immediate claim is always that an exception-
ally important intrusion of power and meaning took place. A decisive
factor was disclosed, one capable of changing everything that we care
about. Tying this factor to a world-ruler, whether or not plausible as
a theoretical inference, may be deemed fitting; thus a metaphysical
pneumatology can represent spiritual awareness for the sake of maxi-
mizing spiritual alertness, just as a legend of mighty human action or
clairvoyance can.
The dangerous limitation of a metaphysical construal of spirit is that
its more determinate handling of the causal implications of inspira-
tion are won at the expense of losing touch with inspiration’s
normative force. In the immediate import of inspiration, causation
and authority are not separate: the inspired event has special power
because it has special rightness and special rightness in the guise of a
special power. Contact with the Other is like being plugged into a live
socket. The giving of validity is given—or “imparted,” as we some-
times say to differentiate the kind of giving that confirms relationship
from simple transmission. That exceptional power can be ratified by
metaphysical thinking within the horizons of comprehensible causa-
tion, but the superordinate rightness in inspiration, which supposes
a continuing relationship with a free Other, can only be lost or falsified
thereby. For instance, the thought that a divine spiritual being has
supreme authority over the universe because that same being “authored”
the universe is a flimsy normative claim, easily dismissed by any child
who has righteously defied parents, unless it symbolizes a
transmetaphysical appreciation of the universal role of spirit in the
constitution of meaning. Similarly, the idea that a “revealed truth”
deserves and rewards belief because it is necessitated to be true by a
more fundamental (though invisible) being, according to a quasi-
214 Steven G. Smith
physical cause-and-effect relation, is unfalsifiable and obnoxious to a

reasonable ethics of belief, unless the idea of revelation symbolizes the
staying-on-tenterhooks of spiritual awareness.
The opposite, anti-metaphysical peril is that a fanatical religious
devotion to relationship with the Other of a certain inspiration will
install itself at the expense of any coherent or negotiable thought
about the place of inspiration in the real world. In that case we are
placed under despotic authority and denied meaningful participation
in the constitution of validity. Metaphysics and the rest of the arts and
sciences must be invited back into the discussion to serve the interests
of all the real others.
Spirits, like winds, die down, but inspirations, like sounds, rever-
berate. A community can transmit the authoritative and causal
implications of inspired actions and proclamations through time,
provided it continues to be able to learn how to retrieve and reactivate
these. That at least is the concept of a spiritual tradition. Such
traditions posit their inspirations to be constraining, “authoritative,”
insofar as they establish a supreme normative framework, and also
empoweringly “inspirational” insofar as they offer possibilities of
exceptional action or experience. There is already empowerment
simply in locating a valid normative reference: knowing how to begin
working out answers to normative questions is highly advantageous.
But another part of spiritual empowerment consists of the exceptional
energy an inspiration lends to an agent, an encouragement that brings
about a peculiarly self-subordinating and expansive willingness (the
thumos or “spirited part” of Platonic anthropology).7 Subjects may see
an inspiration as the first cause of their own more-auspicious causa-
tion, as much the basis of their heart (regarding their most-real “heart”
as the renewal in themselves of the authoritative inspiration) as it is the
basis of the normative framework in which they make judgments.
It is difficult to imagine a viable religion without the elements of
spiritual authority and courage. But both of these elements involve
tensions and create predicaments of misplaced determinacy that can
only be protected against or relieved by appropriate assertion of
spirit’s two-sidedness. This is a task in which philosophical
pneumatology can make an important contribution. I propose to
explain, on the basis of the general characterization of spiritual
existence already given, (1) how a spiritual subject’s awareness of the
normative principles implied by an inspiration must be qualified as
wondering, in such a way as to preclude insistence on any interpreta-
tion of those principles that maximizes their determinacy, and (2) how
a spiritual being’s heart, though distinct from mere resoluteness by
virtue of a certain openness, is nevertheless prone to commit itself to
particular channels of zeal in a communally divisive way for which a
pertinent remedy is the cognitive qualification of wondering.
Wonder
The dominant questions in logic and epistemology have naturally
been either/or questions: Is an inference valid or not? Is a proposi-
tion credible or not? Do I know something or don’t I? But this con-
centration on the alternatives of concluding or believing or knowing
vs. not concluding or not believing or not knowing has meant that
little attention has been paid to issues of relative determinacy in aware-
ness and meaning. It has also meant that questioning is usually val-
ued only for its instrumental role in deciding between logical and
epistemological alternatives. On this view, questioning X means lay-
ing the affirmation and negation of X side by side, making them
equally available in principle, so that an adequately motivated deci-
sion about X can be reached. If we’re not sure what we’re actually
talking about when we talk about X, we set up a series of yes-or-no
questions about the definition of X on the way to adjudicating the X
question we finally want to answer. The role of questioning in the
process of relatively opening up, narrowing, or otherwise adjusting
cognitive and practical horizons remains to be explored.8
In general, the function of a question is to open a cognitive field to
be determined in some way. We are intimately bound to questioning,
obviously, because we live forward in time, amidst ceaseless change,
and we do not have the option of keeping the cognitive field just as it
is. But questioning, though necessarily chronic, need not be narrowly
purposeful, impatient, or overt: I could question by announcing a
theme, “John,” or by simply looking at a picture of John to open my
mind to new perceptions and thoughts about him. Any concept or
name or assertion is latently a question, and in turn every question is
grounded in a certain understanding; in declarations and questions
alike there is always a partly confident but partly curious and vulner-
able groping into an always-reforming field of experience.9
A standard reason to formulate a freshening of consideration of
something as a question about it is to invite help from another subject.
Questions are social events in which a questioner passes to an answerer
the role of making a new determination of shared awareness of
216 Steven G. Smith
something. Of course you always have the prerogative of making your

own new determinations respecting anything I say, but if I pose to you
a question, I explicitly invite you to do this and at least make the
gesture of waiting for your contribution before we go on. A questioner
calls to an answerer; the answerer answers the questioner as well as the
question; the answer becomes an element of a jointly constructed
cognition and practice. Thus the meaning of an answer depends on
the meaning of a question in more than one dimension. It depends on
the kind of invitation the question was and the kind of project that is
afoot as well as on the presuppositions and entailments that a purely
logical analysis would disclose.
The most decisive, sharply impinging questions are admittedly Yes/
No questions of the Do you believe this? and Will you do this? sort.
But such questions are most often answered only on the basis of a prior
handling of more interesting and necessarily indeterminate questions,
and the meaning of their final answers depends on the meanings of
more diffuse considerations leading to them. For example, a business
executive will give a Yes or No answer to a question about building a
factory in Mexico only after entertaining a series of non-Yes/No
questions like “How will the unrest in Chiapas affect the decision-
making of the national government?,” some of them perhaps in
concert with other persons who come at the question in different
ways. Such considerations can be rendered determinate and calculable
up to a point by “analysis.” But any important and intelligent
questioning of the Mexican situation will involve a palpable degree of
wondering about the beings and events and relations in question, that
is, an opening of a somewhat freely playing awareness to a somewhat
indeterminate field of referents in search of a somewhat unforeseeable
Gestalt as a member of a still-forming community. Two different
executives might each answer the question, “Shall our company build
a factory in Mexico?,” with an affirmative, and the immediate
practical consequences of either answer would be the same—from an
employee or stockholder or customer point of view, they have given
the same answer to the same question—yet in another sense they will
be answering substantially different questions if they have considered
the Mexican situation in different ways.
An ethical question, we recognize, is logically different from a
purely operational question because of the proportionally greater
importance of considerations leading toward its answer. We are
prepared to say that two people who decide that honesty is the best
policy are really taking different positions if one arrives at it for the
sake of making ideal policy in Kantian fashion and the other arrives
at it egocentrically and prudentially. Both answer “Yes” to the
question “Shall I consistently tell the truth?,” but we can judge that the
respect in which their answers are the same is less important than the
respect in which their answers are different. It is worth pausing to look
closely at the reasons for this different complexion worn by moral
questioning and answering, since we meet here a move into overtly
spiritual reckoning.
Admittedly, there does exist a purely operational reason for differ-
entiating the two positions on honesty. To calculate the future
conduct of these two moral agents, we want a view of where they are
coming from and the manner in which they are coming. The honesty
question is like a stop sign at a traffic intersection. Both agents will
stop, but one is a driver who stays within lanes and speed limits while
the other drives whimsically. You want to know which type of driver
you’re sharing the roads with.
You have, however, a deeper question about who you are sharing life
with. You want to assess the person, recognizing the whole fabric of
his or her intentions and capacities adequately, and you want to
understand the nature of the community you belong to that is partly
constituted by that person. To assess the person most adequately, you
need to know what realities and appearances the person is engaged
with—whether, for example, a person committed to honesty has
contemplated or acquired any experience of scenarios in which
honesty is most difficult—and a person who questions ambitiously
and sensitively will earn a different trust than one who walks a narrow
and streamlined path. To appreciate a person’s specific policy, you
want a view of his or her larger policy in life. To appreciate a person’s
strength against temptations, you want a sense of how tempted he or
she is. Before committing yourself further to any joint project with a
person, you want a sense of how (qualitatively as well as in extent)
flexible he or she is.
It is easy to shrug off such issues of personal assessment as irresolvable.
A more hard-headed “operational” approach to practical policy is
cleaner. In moral affairs, however, the more mysterious aspects of
awareness and motivation are of decisive importance. We esteem very
differently a legalistic Kantian, one who delights in consistency as a
mathematical rather than social value, and a Kantian moved by
genuine reverence for the kingdom of ends. And the difference
218 Steven G. Smith
between these two agents is made in large part by the differences in

their questioning. The legalist is not open to considering problems of
fit between real situations and ideal prescriptions and will not anguish
in the search for more adequate moral determinations. The legalist
knows too much and questions too little—is too reliable, in a sense,
and not responsible enough.
Schleiermacher made the argument in On Religion that a subject’s
inmost and most global “feeling” for life makes the difference between
a truly living and valid morality (or science) and the absence thereof.
The logic by which I just drew out a more morally authentic
Kantianism than mere legalism is extended by Schleiermacher to
ground true morality in the most comprehensively open and respon-
sible stance conceivable (he calls it “piety”).10 This logic I call spiritual.
The hallmark of spiritual meaning is always an enduring positive
significance of otherness, a presumption in favor of ongoing relation-
ship with free Others. Questioning that is not merely instrumental to
the making of some cognitive or practical determination and that goes
beyond momentary play is inherently spiritual because it is precisely
the mind’s positive response to Others as such. Devotion to question-
ing is the essentially spiritual side of cognitive life and a necessary
cognitive part of spiritual life.
A spiritual perception or conviction, as it reaches toward the
unaccountable side of the presence to which it responds, opens the
subject toward a certain mystery, aiming the subject into a manifold
of branching and blurring paths, and thus may be regarded as a
question. But a more natural way to express this is to say that it has the
character of wondering. In religious life, the difference between a
believer who contentedly repeats assertions about God’s providence,
for example, and a believer who relates to God’s providence wonderingly
corresponds to the difference we drew earlier between two kinds of
moral conscientiousness. The same difference of spiritual authenticity
is found between a text that is said to be “inspired” only in the sense
that it is posited as inerrant, a perfect authority, and a text that is said
to be “inspired” because it is a site of exceptional cognitive stretching.
(“Do they say, ‘He forged it’? Say: ‘Bring then a Sura like unto it,’”
God challenges in the Qur’an [10:38].)11
A spirit is a program of inquiry, and any strong program of inquiry
represents a spirit. Feminism, for example, is in one aspect a commit-
ment to asking about the unacceptable effects of sex-related beliefs and
practices. In another aspect, it is a program of fellowship among
human beings who, on the basis of rich concrete strategies for dealing
with each other rewardingly, nevertheless are venturing together into
uncharted personal and social terrain. Feminist questioning and
fellowship assume and demand each other: there could be no flourish-
ing of the feminist kind of questioning without a community that
stakes itself to the practices and fruits of that questioning, nor could
a feminist kind of community exist if opposition to sexism meant only
endorsing certain analyses and tenets.
A religious community is a spirit for the same purely human reason
that Hellenism or democracy or feminism is a spirit (or, to use the term
recently preferred, a “movement”). It can make its religious claim,
moreover, simply by maximizing the questional depth, worldly breadth,
and temporal length involved in its construction of better life. The
Ethical Culture Society raises the stakes of spirit in this generally
reasonable way. But a religious community requires a special
pneumatology when the character of its fellowship is affected by its
members having been drawn into relationship with a transhuman
reality. Then the paramount spirit acts even more markedly like a
visitor, more something encountered than personally generated, more
like wind than breath. The religious community has or knows this
spirit. Inspiration involves being acted on by this spirit. Yet the
character of life in this spirit remains questional, indeed more pro-
foundly so given the transcendent location of the divine spirit partner
and the limitlessness of the project. It is as though the richer oxygen
of validity brought by relationship with a divine Other makes the
minds of the inspired ones giddier, tormenting them with unavoid-
able yet unclosable questions—about “the problem of evil,” or how
history will end, or the nature of nirvana. A religious community may
deliberately harness this intellectual instability and gain momentum
from it by including paradoxical teachings (parables, koans, the
concept of the Trinity, the image of a bloodthirsty goddess) in its
catechism. It will very likely make the same move in a less spectacular
way by capitalizing key terms in its everyday discourse—Father,
Word, Love, Mind—making each of these represent not merely a
mystery-tinged idea elevated from worldly life but a question directed
back toward the true meaning of the terms in secular usage. This is
not, I hold, improperly mystifying. It is in principle a cognitively
ambitious pursuit of the same kind of two-sided balance that philoso-
phy is normally concerned with, except on the peculiar terms set by
an exceptional relationship.
220 Steven G. Smith
Questioning is not necessarily or self-evidently wholesome, how-

ever. Questions can repress thought just as assertions can, for every
question enforces its own set of presuppositions and prospects. One
can also be spiritually marginalized by questions if one lacks resources
for dealing with them. Questioning is always under a spiritual
requirement to be appropriate, and the conditions of appropriateness
will not always be clear. A religious community will experience
growing pains when new horizons of questioning appear (like Galileo’s
in Christendom).
Heart
We can adopt a definition of spiritual life—that is, as thinking, feel-
ing, willing, and acting in pursuit of rectification of relationships
with Others—for the sake of studying the general structure of valid-
ity without troubling about who actually lives spiritually, how an
individual can be initiated into spirituality, or how greater or lesser
degrees of spirituality come to be realized in anyone’s life. My in-
quiry into the role of questioning in spiritual thinking just now moved
on an impersonal logical plane, for the most part. But I could not
avoid referring to the special attitude of the subject who takes and
pursues questions seriously, the one who wonders. Attitude is indeed
the psychological crux of spirit, the location at which the required
energy and direction for pursuing relationship are either present or
absent in a subject. Those who are charged with the maintenance of
spirits (parents, educators, supervisors) generally feel a need to pay
the closest possible attention to the attitude of the persons they deal
with. For attitude, in a familiar sense, is everything. In the realm of
what happens in a specifically personal way, attitude determines what
can happen and the meaning of what happens. All competencies and
virtues depend on a favorable basic orientation in the subject. “Mo-
rale,” “esprit,” “dedication,” any meaningful joining of subjects—in
other words, any enterprise that is truly collegial, not merely collec-
tive—requires a basic one-for-all, all-for-one orientation of the par-
ticipating subjects. In spiritual perspective, the definiteness and en-
ergy of a subject’s most basic orientation, his or her ardor or zeal, is a
paramount criterion of assessment.
But what is spiritually requisite is not necessarily present, as we well
know. Just as spirits blow where they will uncontrollably, thanks to
the irreducible freedom of Others, so there are mysteries of the heart
rooted in the constitutive freedom of subjectivity in the self. Where
there is life, there is … movement, certainly, but perhaps not hope, or

appreciation, or sincerity. Where there is life of life, there are such
things as hope. But how do we locate the life of life in the subject? And
what would its basic structure be?
Two of the earliest contributors to modern philosophical anthro-
pology, Kant and Schleiermacher, adapted a long-standing religious
emphasis on “heart” and “soul” in positing that the key to superordinate
meaning can be found only at some central junction of knowing,
feeling, and willing at which all our faculties are primordially affected
and by which the ultimate meaning of their exercise is determined.
They made instructively different approaches to this center. Kant, the
moralist, was interested chiefly in prescribing the ideal of pure
practical consistency to anyone, and accordingly he thought of the
anthropological center as an active orientation toward possibility, a
“disposition” (Gesinnung).12 Schleiermacher, on the other hand,
wanted to direct attention to the actuality of pious persons’ relation-
ship with the World-All, a reality more received than wrought, and so
his favored conception of the center was “feeling” (Gefühl).13 Taken
together, their arguments suggest that “disposition” and “feeling” (or,
alternatively, “motivation” and “mood”) are active and receptive
specifications of a center that in itself submits to neither specification.
That which realizes the most basic coordination of activity and
receptivity cannot be expressed adequately on either one or the other
side of human nature, although it can be approached from either side,
as in Kant’s manner or Schleiermacher’s. Our everyday talk about
persons amply illustrates how we are bound to refer to attitude in
order to make the most searching assessments of persons or predic-
tions about them—think how much it means to say “She has a bad
attitude” or “He means well”!—and yet the peculiar power of this
variable, the depth of the freedom in question (as with the analogously
peculiar normative authority of spirit), entails that we can never have
a very definite grasp of it beyond our understanding of its supremacy.
Attitude would seem on this account philosophically intractable,
even if alluring in its character as a sort of first cause. Yet attitude has
a great structural affinity with philosophy itself, again with an analogy
to philosophy’s relation to spirit. Just as a spirit is a rectification or
relative justification project, and nothing more concerns and propels
philosophy than issues of justification, so attitude is the site of the
most fundamental and globally applicable position taken by a subject,
and nothing is more essential to philosophizing than occupying or
222 Steven G. Smith
trying out a position (even if it is meant to be a wholly negative or

anarchic one). I admit that philosophy normally wants more determi-
nate justifications than spirits ultimately offer and more determinate
positions than attitudes ever congeal into. But philosophy wants to get
as close as it can to these two sites of ultimate constraint on meaning-
fulness. If philosophy were to give up its relationship with the
indeterminable grounds of meaningfulness it would lose its own
special mission and excitement and descend into technical analysis.
We might mean by the “inspiration” of a subject a fundamental
change of attitude that ordinarily would not have been in the cards.
“What inspired him to do that?” is the hyperbolic everyday way of
pushing our appreciation of an unexpected act into its subjective core.
More deliberately, we will praise a subject’s capacity to do extraordi-
nary things by citing “heart,” as in the “heart” exhibited by an
intensely competitive athlete. There seems to be a difference between
the two interpretive approaches in that “What inspired him?” could
also be expressed as “What got into him?”—implying a dissociation
of the motivating factor from the subject’s own character—whereas
appreciations of “heart” are meant as applying to that character. I
suggest, however, that there is a mystique of “heart” such that to
regard a person as possessing a noteworthy “heart” is implicitly to
regard that person in relationship with external sources of capacity. As
the concept of “heart” normally refers to a person’s capacity to act for
the best, it expresses a most venturesome hope: the best cannot be
within the reach of any person acting solely on his or her own. For a
romantic, then, heart cannot be imagined outside of a Lover-Beloved
relationship, or the prospect thereof. For a theist, heart cannot be
divorced from theism. A person does not simply “have” a heart; a
person of heart does not live unrelated to God.
This point is an axis of biblical thinking. Besides its numerous
assessments of characters by the contents or direction or strength of
their hearts, the Bible contains provocative scenes of a divine “hard-
ening” of human hearts, an event which seems to assume not simply
that any creature’s organ is alterable by its creator, as though by a
sculptor pressing clay—heart-hardening would be rather monstrous,
on that scenario, and the creation of a new heart as envisioned by
Ezekiel and Jeremiah less amazing—but rather that the heart is a sort
of communicating window between the human subject and God that
either God or the human can close at any given time (though perhaps
not forever). Biblical texts refer to God’s own heart during especially
moving, human-sensitive passages in God’s life, such as in contem-

plating the horror of persistent sin (Gen 6:6) or the prospect of a truly
satisfactory partnership with humans (1 Sam 13:14, Jer 32:41).
Heart, then, is a desideratum of relationship, but also already a
realization of relationship. One finds oneself able to reach toward the
Other because one has already been reached and bound (as regards the
terms on which righter life can be attained) and thus “encouraged” by
the Other.
The full actualization of one’s capacity to act for the best—that is,
full capitalization on the opportunity of relationship—is the attitudi-
nal telos of a spiritual being. We conceive sincerity, ardor, and zeal as
perfections of subjective intensity within this framework. But here a
spiritual difficulty is created also; for the human heart is apt to plunge
into a certain channel of appreciative response, confiding itself to one
rectification strategy to the exclusion of equally important others.
Kant and Schleiermacher can, again, furnish illustration.
Schleiermacher found in the anthropological center the attitude of
piety, a maximally appreciative response to the given situation of the
finite subject linked with the Infinite. His choice of the term “piety”
(frommigkeit) accords with a long-standing tradition of defining the
religious attitude in relation to already-actual good, as for example
filial and civic piety (pietas) express gratitude for and loyalty to the real
preconditions for a person’s life. That Schleiermacher approached
attitude on the side of receptivity meant also that he had an ontologi-
cal bias toward the constituted and prior.14
Now it is remarkable that Kant, in his Religion, was critical of piety,
which he identified as “the principle of a passive attitude toward a
godliness which is to be awaited from a power above.”15 By magnify-
ing the disproportion between God’s demonstrated greatness and
human power, piety diverts us from active engagement with morally
obligatory tasks. It is a misguided seriousness. Moreover, there is
another form of devotion that Kant the moralist mistrusts equally
(although he does not attack it so directly, and in his analysis of the
dialectic of practical reason takes pains to allow its claims), namely
faith as a future-oriented, hopeful religious attitude interested above
all in the good that is yet to be realized (immortality and virtue’s
reward). What shall we call the religious attitude that Kant does
recommend? The famous Achtung, “reverence” for the moral law,
sounds suspiciously like piety, and there is indeed a strong pious
coloring in Kant’s zeal to satisfy knowable conditions of virtue and
224 Steven G. Smith
show himself worthy of happiness. Be that as it may, if we bear in mind

that Kant means in the Religion to take a middle position between the
distractions of passivity and wishfulness, which are two ways of
thinking too little of one’s present agent responsibility, I think a better
word for the prime Kantian attitude is “submission,” understood as an
ideal islam of activist self-surrender to relationship with the divine.
The subject of submission concentrates more on the actual process of
realizing good than on acknowledging already-realized good or hop-
ing for yet-to-be-realized good.
These alternative forms of devotion need not conflict with each
other. In any durable religious institution like a scripture or a liturgy
or a comprehensive theology, appeals to all of them will be found. My
present point is simply that they can be rivals, as the polemics of Kant
and others prove. Each can present its claim with a cutting edge
against the others. Each can reinforce spiritually infelicitous clinging
and avoidance. For what can be seen as a basically ontological or
metaphysical reason, namely, that our existence is inflected by the
threefold scheme of being-realized, realizing, and being-realizable, the
heart of the spiritual subject is apt to increase its energy in ways that
promote dogmatism, intolerance, and insensitivity. How readily can
you turn onto a different road when your vehicle is straining toward
infinite speed?
A basic openness to good, stronger than the discriminations that
create the problem, is the spiritual prescription for it. I suggested in
the previous section that the best term for a basic cognitive openness
is “wonder”; here I suggest that we have no better term than “heart”
itself (“She has heart”). We foster “heart,” in this sense of broad
appreciativeness, by arranging for a full range of kinds of Other-reach
into our lives of subjects, exciting in us a desire for partnership with
past, present, and future forms of good. This desire is associated with
wonder in cognition; to put the point as a warning to educators, the
prospects of living with heart (in the eminent sense) are unfavorable
if the cognitive part of life is starved of wonder.
On the Christian Conception of the Holy Spirit

In my sketch for a first-philosophical assessment of Christianity, I
will move from more general religious issues to specifically Christian
ones, and then I will try to sharpen the edge of strategically impor-
tant critical questions for Christianity by applying the ideas about
inspiration that I introduced in the previous sections.
In principle, Holy Spirit would be the living form for rectifying

relationships than which none greater can be conceived. Building on
general pneumatology, religious thinkers can create a pneumatological
equivalent of “natural theology” to establish and characterize a priori
the Validity of all validities. (Something very much like this happened
in Barth’s profoundly neo-Kantian dialectical theology of the 1920’s.)
Of greater practical importance, religious visions like that of the
Kingdom of God or the Pure Land can be understood to realize
maximally the potentialities of relationship that are partially shown by
other named and heeded spirits (democracy, feminism, etc.). They
can argue that they do not disagree with secular wisdom but go beyond
it.
More specifically, the gambit of theism may be taken, as in biblical
thinking, to personalize the ultimate reference points in evaluating
human experience, including that of the Holy Spirit. Does theism face
a greater logical difficulty in personalizing spirit than what it has
already faced in the personalizing of the ground of the existence of
things, or the Being of beings, as Creator? One might plausibly say
that ideas of transcendent generosity and guidance are important on
either front and are equally well served by a model of divine personhood
(although I will ask in a moment about difficulties peculiar to the
personalizing of spirit). This is in fact one of the lines on which
religious thinkers have gloried in outdoing secular wisdom: it makes
a massive difference to how one relates to the world to see its general
patterns as ideas in the intelligent and well-meaning mind of Some-
one, for example, and so too one’s comportment in spiritual existence
would be significantly more amazed and emboldened if one under-
stood one’s ultimate Partner or Milieu to be a divine person.
One might judge that the Holy Spirit is indispensable to Christian-
ity inasmuch as the Gentile successor to Israel needs a counterpart to
Jewish Torah as a vehicle of ongoing relationship with Israel’s God.
Thus in Pauline theology “spirit” must supplant “letter” and the Holy
Spirit must trump Torah (Rom 7:6). To be sure, the Torah, for post-
Temple Judaism, must be a Holy Spirit also.16 Paul the Pharisee knows
how to make this point (Rom 2). But the Christian Holy Spirit is, in
its wind-like relative ineffableness and breath-like personal intimacy,
a notably dynamic force, providing a relationship framework and
content (in what is “imparted”) for those who were lost and now are
found, for those who are excited about transformation, animated by
hope, for persons of faith, I daresay, whose greatest investment is in a
226 Steven G. Smith
still-greater future, unlike the investments of submission (dominant

in rabbinical Judaism) and piety (dominant in Roman religion).
One reason that Spirit would become increasingly crucial in the
self-understanding of a religious community like the Christian church,
even as it remained conceptually elusive (and perforce doctrinally
thin), is that a greater appreciation for the way a community generates
its own higher reality of validity in the very process of negotiating
relationships would encourage references to a form of holiness that
isn’t a holy entity at all. Aspiring to a final personal purification, or
immortality, or even deification would be seen as less than ultimate by
a relationship-oriented devotion (as would, for that matter, the very
notion of God as such, or Brahman, or the Tao, apart from the
inflection of relationship). The extent to which Christians actually
embody this sort of relationship-oriented devotion at any given time
and place might not be clearly determinable, but a leading indicator
would be the use they make of spirit-talk.
I suggested earlier that a religious pneumatology might be found by
philosophical pneumatology to be better or worse warranted than other
pursuits of validity. Recognizing the debt my philosophical conception
of the spiritual owes to historic sources and contemporary movements
of Christianity, I have to concede a circularity in any approving
judgment of Christian pneumatology I might make from the vantage
point I have adopted here. I will make one anyway. Christian thinking
about the Holy Spirit that is focused on the Kingdom of God is
focused also on the true center of first philosophy’s concern with
spirits, namely, the question of right-enough relationship among
beings, preeminently of intentional beings with each other, and not
abstractly but in the mode of proposing and exercising unreservedly
serious handlings of that question. Christianity is best-warranted,
ultimately reasonable, just insofar as it is led by its pneumatology, that
is, insofar as its doctrines are aimed and aerated by the Christian
community’s wrestling with the question of the Kingdom of God.
Where Christians are liable to go wrong shows up more clearly when
we examine possibilities of inspiration than when we theorize about
“the Spirit” as such. For inspiration is quite commonly invoked as a
category for (a) teaching and doctrinal authority that closes question-
ing and is thus antithetical to the spiritually essential cognitive
qualification of wonder, and (b) the sort of motivation that most
sharply focuses a subject’s energies, channeling zeal even more in-
tently than it arouses it, such that the openness of heart is infringed
upon. There is often a dangerously excessive determinacy in Chris-

tianity, and it arises not only from the technical work of theologians
on creeds and manuals but as much or more in the believing and
persuading of first-order socializers, the parents and preachers, whose
influence so much affects how Christians use theological formula-
tions. Of course Christianity is not unique among religious bodies in
experiencing this. What is of special interest about Christianity is
how, on the one hand, its pneumatology promises both a fundamental
overcoming of this very danger, and how also, on the other hand, the
exciting indeterminacy of God-as-a-spirit provokes strong cognitive
and practical backlashes, sometimes in sanctimonious postures up-
held precisely by the appearance of spiritual and therefore unsurpassable
validity.
I wondered whether a religious pneumatology might diverge impor-
tantly (yet irreproachably) from philosophical pneumatology. Any ac-
tual religious tradition will be defined by some “positive” elements,
specific commitments that cannot be deduced from general
pneumatology (even though specific commitments must be licensed
in principle, lest spirit questions hang in the air without full serious-
ness). Christianity’s most basic positive commitments are (1) its
theism, as an account of the real constituents of the spiritual situation,
and (2) its agapist ideal for rectifying relationships. I will comment on
these in turn.
(1) Christianity’s commitment to Jesus Christ as an incarnation of
the divine makes basic sense to Christians (even though the premise
generates fierce theological difficulties) because the divine, as “God,”
has already been personalized in ancient cultures as a lord of Olympus
or Israel or afterlife. Thus I would locate the most important diver-
gence of Christian pneumatology from philosophical pneumatology
not in its attachment of the Holy Spirit to a particular human being,
Jesus, whom the tradition rigorously posits as an unsurpassable
human embodiment of spirituality, but rather in its fundamentally
imposing the category of personhood on spirit. I doubt whether the
concept of God can adequately represent the holy, and whether the
framework of the Trinity can allow Christians to overcome the
subjectivizing of validity without betraying their theist premise—a
premise that is spiritually formidable, I hasten to admit, in that it
brings the most profound relationship questions home to us by
confronting us with a divine Other One, a Countenance, and involv-
ing us in the most intimate way. The Holy Spirit is placed under the
228 Steven G. Smith
contradictory requirement that it be a person—as a position in the

Trinity and as God—and that it consist of relationship between
persons. Does the Holy Spirit actually need not to be God, if God is
necessarily a person? Should Christians accordingly make a point of
never referring to the Holy Spirit as “she” or “he”? Must the Gospel
of John’s “Paraclete” be demythologized?
I don’t think that general pneumatology can forbid Christianity to
identify the Holy Spirit as God. Any a priori point made about the
character of spirits and persons can be met by religious explanations
of the exceptional character of the Person under discussion (that it
consists of an eternal newness or giving or departure from selfhood,
for example). The key religious prerogative, after all, without which
religions would lack their defining ultimacy, is to exercise just this
kind of option in experiencing, representing, and fostering holiness.
But general pneumatology will persist in raising a mistrustful question
about the personalizing of spirit; and this question, too, is best
pursued with an eye on the category of inspiration.
According to the ordinary ontology of inspiration, to say that I am
inspired by you is not to say that your personal being enters and takes
over my personal being—that would be a grotesque “possession”—
but rather that the alignment of my personal being with yours is
influential and fruitful. What is specially noteworthy in this is the
profundity with which I am moved and the value of the effects, not
the “spirit-travelling” of a person between bodies. Christians are
inspired, they want to say, by the ultimate inspirer, God. The Holy
Spirit is their inspiration by God. Even the expression “God is a spirit”
can be understood as “God is an inspirer.” To say “inspired by the
Holy Spirit” with the same grammar as “inspired by God” works
against Christian purposes inasmuch as it maintains a separation of
the inspired from the spirit, whereas the inspired ought to be in that
spirit. Yet God, Christian pneumatology wants to say, is also the
transaction of inspiration; God doesn’t just sit in heaven or in Jesus as
a pole for alignment. It seems then that Christians should say that the
transaction is divine and affirm theologically that the category of
divinity and God do not perfectly coincide. This would deeply
complexify, in the right way, the issue of precedence that so preoccu-
pies trinitarian theology (and also theology of the relationship be-
tween Christian and non-Christian beliefs.)17 How is right rule to be
understood? General pneumatology knows that in one sense spirits
take precedence over personal intentions—they lead and validate—
while at the same time persons, as sites of initiative and effect, take
precedence over spirits in the way that members of a democratic
political constituency retain precedence over whomever they elect.
How and who are both ultimate issues.18
(2) The Christian prescription for the heart is agape, a maximal
dedication to the well-being of others. It is worth worrying about a
triumphalism in agape; people who believe that in living in love they
are actualizing God’s presence in the world (1 John 4) might rub
against their neighbors with a spiritually inappropriate confidence
and zeal. But agape’s outstanding danger seems to me to be that it tends
not only to accept but to embellish evil for the sake of intensifying its
paradigmatic drama of overcoming evil by forgiveness and service. In
the grip of agape, a subject is not necessarily very appreciative of the
good that might be embodied by an other; in fact, the extreme
possibility exists of truly heartless Christian lovers who see themselves
as lights bravely shining in a deep general darkness, addressing sinners
and fallen creations everywhere with grimly constructive intent.
Christianity needs a pneumatological aesthetics to open the Christian
heart to all the dimensions of realized, realizing, and realizable
goodness that lovers ought to affirm in beings and relationships. Some
important Christian thinkers have worked in this area, and biblical
tradition provides some noteworthy resources in the Psalms and the
Song of Solomon, but the main thrust of agapism is such that
aesthetics is likely to remain a secondary concern and a relative blind
side of Christianity.
I speculated that a religious pneumatology might change or evolve in
new ways, taking cues from general pneumatology. Due in part to the
influence of Levinas and other postmodern philosophers, we are
seeing now the development of new transmetaphysical versions of
Christian apologetics and natural theology, along with a general tilt
toward openness and pluralism in all channels of Christian theorizing.
I assess any example of this work by gauging the amplitudes of
inspiration, wonder, and heart in it. But since I am not presently on
that side of the conversation, I will end by considering how general
pneumatology might be reoriented by a religious pneumatology.
Philosophy is an evaluative pause in life, the sovereign reasoning of
a person or community at a given moment. Its strong innate tendency
is to construe problems in a timeless present tense; simply to ride on
a debt or wait for a salvation would be contrary to its function.
Religious life, in contrast, must work out relationships with past and
230 Steven G. Smith
future reality. In accounting for spiritual progress and expanding on

faith, a religious individual is necessarily interested in transformation;
the religious community, meanwhile, in maintaining itself must
discern a narrative continuity to bind its generations together. Reality
is changeful in both of these ways, as departure and as development,
and philosophizing subjects always need the prompting of the reli-
gious to open their eyes fully to temporality and to take this dimension
(of indeterminacy as well as determinacy) seriously. But taking
temporality seriously means that the phenomenology or conceptual
analysis of “inspiration” cannot be indifferent to antecedents and
consequents of such relationship impingements, which always exhibit
particular historical shapes and questions—and not only exhibit, but
presuppose and entail. Do the histories of “inspiration” sum to a
master history? Can a pneumatological History be conceived? Hegel
rose to this challenge; Rosenzweig and Buber rose to it in a counter-
idealist way; postmodernists have contested the question. The full
structure of this discussion is not yet clear, but it is clear that the
Abrahamic vision of time as a history within God’s providence lies
behind it and will continue to inspire it.
Endnotes
1
So I attempted in The Concept of the Spiritual (Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 1988), Chaps. 1-6.
2
See Philo, On the Creation XLVI; On the Giants 5; and Concerning Noah’s Work as
a Planter 5. Cf. Origin, Against Celsus 6, 71. For the materialistic metaphysic of
pneuma in Stoicisim, see e.g. Chrysippus’ views reported by Diogenes Laertius,
Cicero, and Plutarch, in Brad Inwood and L. P. Gerson, eds., Hellenistic
Philosophy (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1988), 101-102, 104-105, 123, and the great
study by G. Verbeke, L’évolution de la doctrine du pneuma du Stoicisme à S.
Augustin (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1945), chap. 1.
3
Origen, Against Celsus 6, 71; Augustine, Confessions 7.1 and 4.
4
Philo considers this kind of prophecy: “For [Jacob’s] annunciation, ‘Assemble
yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall happen to you in the last days’
(Genesis 49:2) was the expression of a man possessed by inspiration; for the
knowledge of the future is not appropriate to, or natural to, man” (“Who is the
Heir of Divine Things” LII [261], The Works of Philo. Complete and Un-
abridged, C. D. Yonge, trans., (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publ., 1993)). But
he is quite capable of saying that this prophetic knowledge of the future symbolizes
the true superiority of the inspired person’s position.
5
Alan M. Olson, Hegel and the Spirit (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992)
argues for an intimate connection between Hegel’s “scientific” project and the
German mystical cultivation of a religious consciousness uniting finite and
infinite subjectivity. For the prospect of a Hegelian pneumatology in which
relationship rather than comprehension is paramount, consider Robert R.
Williams, Recognition: Fichte and Hegel on the Other (Albany: SUNY, 1992).
6
Reported by Aetius, cited as selection no. 160 in G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven, and M.
Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1983).
7
Represented for example by the ideal soldiers of the Republic and the fair steed of
the Phaedrus.
8
Newer work in philosophy of science has called more attention to the heuristic
importance of questions and the significant contingencies in question formation.
But even in this discussion, interest has attached largely to “paradigm shifts,” that
is, to answer differences to which questioning is instrumental, rather than to
equally momentous “question shifts”—on which see Steven G. Smith, “Bowl
Climbing: The Logic of Religious Question Rivalry,” International Journal for
Philosophy of Religion 36 (August 1994): 27-43.
9
Hermann Cohen gave this interpretation to concepts in his Logik der reinen
Erkenntnis, 2nd ed. (Berlin: B. Cassirer, 1914), 83-84, 378-379. In The Visible
and the Invisible, Merleau-Ponty built up an ontology of “question-knowing”
from a foundation in perception: “It is necessary to comprehend perception as
this interrogative thought which lets the perceived world be rather than posits it,
before which the things form and undo themselves in a sort of gliding”—trans.
Alphonso Lingis (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968), 129 and 102.
10
In the Second Speech, Schleiermacher even links piety with the Socratic agenda of
serious questioning: “The pious man may know not at all, but he cannot know
falsely”—On Religion, 3rd ed., trans. John Oman (New York: Harper & Row,
1958), 39.
11
Abdullah Yusuf Ali trans.
12
Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone [1793], trans. Theodore
M. Greene and Hoyt H. Hudson (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), 20 (B 14).
13
In On Religion, see esp. pp. 45 et seq. in the Second Speech. For Schleiermacher’s
mature conception of “feeling” as “immediate self-consciousness” see The Chris-
tian Faith, §3—trans. H. R. Mackintosh (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1928), 5-
12.
14
One hears, however, a different note at the end of the Second Speech, when
Schleiermacher insists that “immortality” must always mean grappling with the
problems of life in the present (Schleiermacher, On Religion, 101).
15
Schleiermacher, On Religion, 172 n. 2 (B 285n.).
16
Impressively evident in Aboth 3.6: Rabbi Halofta ben Dosa of Kefar Hanania said:
If ten men sit together and occupy themselves in the Law, the Divine Presence
rests among them, for it is written, God standeth in the congregation of God (Ps
82:1). And whence [do we learn this] even of five? Because it is written, And hath
founded his group upon the earth (Amos 9:6). And whence even of three? Because
it is written, He judgeth among the judges (Ps 82:1) And whence even of two?
Because it is written, Then they that feared the Lord spake one with another: and the
Lord hearkened, and heard ((Mal 3:16). And whence even of one? Because it is
written, In every place where I record my name I will come unto thee and I will bless
thee (Exod 20:24)—The Mishnah, Danby trans.
17
Christian theologians who distinguish divinity from God are able to pay more
constructive attention to non-Christian religions. Tillich shows this, but most
232 Steven G. Smith
instructive is John Cobb’s Beyond Dialogue: Christianity and Buddhism in Mutual
Transformation (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982).
18
A “who,” a person, is indeed in one aspect a “how,” a way of relating to others, and
to acknowledge this mode of reality a category like “subsistent relation” may be
used. (I’m inspired to consider this point by David Coffey.) But the how of a
person is anchored in his or her centralized intending, that is, in a selfhood, which
is always a term of a validity equation and never, like spirit, its solution (even
though spiritually impressive persons can represent spirit-solutions). Spirit is of
uniquely “high” importance for persons because it gathers selves in a way that no
self as such could.
Response to Clayton and Smith 233
The Idiom of Spirit:

Discourse, Human Nature, and
Otherness
A Response to Philip Clayton and Steven Smith
Philip Rossi, S. J.
In a context where key “modern” conceptualities no longer hold un-
contested sway, Philip Clayton and Steven Smith offer us proposals
for construing “[the] spirit” in categories which they present as both
philosophically plausible and theologically significant. Although the
differences between the two papers, both in substance and style, are
worthy of extended discussion, my comments will focus just on those
points in which I find them in striking convergence. One reason for
attending to their convergence is that even though “spirit” has been
no more than a peripheral topic of discussion in philosophy for much
of this century, the philosophical landscape has recently seen changes
and shifts which seem to open space again for a category of spirit. In
these circumstances, it thus seems that an important initial task for a
philosophical retrieval of spirit is to locate itself with respect to the
range of philosophical options currently available. This task of “philo-
sophical location” seems especially incumbent, moreover, upon any
construal of “spirit” that hopes as well to engage the multiple dis-
courses of current theology. This is so because the theological land-
scape has also changed1—and the transitions which have started to
become visible in each discipline also affect those parts of the terrain
of inquiry in which a philosophical articulation of spirit will most
likely take abode: the often quite precarious terrain where philoso-
phy and theology have variously co-habited, contended, or even at-
tempted co-dominion.
Within this terrain, there are a number of sites which I see both
papers identifying as a specific common ground on which a philo-
sophical construal of “spirit” can be located. My comments on the
common ground staked out by these proposals are offered from a
perspective which is, in the main, sympathetic to much of what they
234 Philip Rossi
ambition with respect to a notion of “spirit.” This common ground

is situated around four coordinates:
First, in their efforts aim to fashion an idiom of “spirit” that will be
mutually intelligible in and for philosophical and theological
discourse(s);
Second, in their location of an important part of that intelligibility
by reference to the dynamics of an embodied, social, and historical
human existence. Both papers reference their projects—and the cat-
egories to be shaped in it—to the dynamics of an embodied, social,
and historical human existence; these dynamics attend especially to
the relational form of human subjectivity and to the relational form-
ing of human intersubjectivity in interaction with a world; I note
here that this is itself a central part of the contested terrain of the
modern condominium of philosophy and theology.
Third, in their taking account of striking contributions (positive
and negative) made by thinkers such as Kant, Hegel, Schleiermacher,
and Levinas to articulating the relational forms of human subjectiv-
ity as a resource for conceptualizing “spirit”; and
Fourth, in their recognition that, if we are at all to speak philo-
sophically about such matters—about subjectivity, relationality, and
spirit—we cannot but do so metaphysically, i. e, that our talk about
such matters requires the systematic articulation of the constitutive
categories and the fundamental character of what we affirm as real
and true and good and beautiful. Both papers thus speak in philo-
sophical idioms not so long ago considered part of the “dead” lan-
guage of metaphysics—but both do so, however, aware that the very
project of metaphysics has been a contested conceptuality, for both
philosophy and theology, within “modernity”, and that it remains all
the more so in a our so-called “post-modern” context.
Yet as I try to move with each proposal along the lines they have
sketched out with respect to these four coordinates, I find myself
wondering (which, pace Steven Smith, I’ll not yet try to claim as an
authentic motion of “spirit”!) whether these are precisely the direc-
tions along which I would recommend striking out in order to bring
us closer to places where our contemporary philosophical and theo-
logical conversations could begin to resonate more fully with the lan-
guage [or should it be languages?] of the “spirit.” Let me try briefly to
express what these “wonderings” are as a way to further discussion of
each proposal.
1. As I read both papers, it seems to me that both Smith and Clayton

acknowledge that, in a world of plural philosophical and theological
discourse, no single idiom of “spirit” may be mutually intelligible to
all. As a result, the project of construing spirit philosophically must
rely on identifying which forms of discourse and which discourse
communities it hopes, both now and in the future, the idiom of spirit
to address. My wondering on this point, however, is not so much
about which communities of discourse Smith and Clayton seek to
engage in conversation about the spirit now, but more about how
they might envision engaging those forms of philosophical (and other)
discourse and, perhaps even more crucially, those forms of social and
cultural practice which seem in principle closed to an articulation of
“spirit” in any idiom. My point of reference here is to the work of
thinkers such as Charles Taylor, Michael Buckley, Louis Dupré,
George Steiner and, more radically John Milbank, each of whom has
delineated ways in which we are situated—indeed ways in which we
situate ourselves—within a widely pervasive dynamic of modern/post-
modern culture that enables and encourages us to perform, in Taylor’s
words, “spiritual lobotomy” upon ourselves.2 In these circumstances,
there certainly can be little doubt for many of us that there is need—
even desperate need—for the breath and the utterance of the Holy
and of the human “spirit.”
But this very possibility that we can be willing, complicit agents of
the self-stifling of spirit makes me wonder how these proposals could
be further elaborated with a view to addressing those parts of our
culture—and thus of ourselves—in which imperviousness to the
movement of spirit and deafness to spirit’s utterance are deeply and
systematically entrenched: for instance, to addressing spirit-stifling
practices which seem part of a global, post-industrial, and putatively
market-driven capitalism. On this point, it seems that Smith’s dis-
cussion of the dynamics of “spirit” as rectifying—especially as a rec-
tifying of relation—and of “attitude [as] … the location at which the
required energy and direction for pursuing relationship are either
present or absent in a subject” (p. 220) might prove to be useful
starting points for such an elaboration. The direction of such an elabo-
ration, moreover, is one that I hope would enable at least some idiom
of the spirit—and thus the dynamics of rectifying spirit—to enter
into those spheres of wider public discourse which bear upon the
shaping and the right ordering of a society’s relational practices.
236 Philip Rossi
2. While my first bit of wondering may have more to do with

matters which the papers do not directly address, my second one has
to do with matters which they do. It’s also not unconnected with my
first bit of wondering, since it concerns the specific forms of philo-
sophical discourse which both papers do engage. Two of the markers
of the “spirit discourse” which they propose are the particular refer-
encing of the idiom of “spirit” to the dynamics of an embodied and
social human existence and, as part of this, to relational forms of
human subjectivity: it is along these anthropological coordinates which
they direct us to seek primary resources for fashioning a philosophi-
cally intelligible idiom of “spirit.” This idiom, moreover, is polyglot—
by design I suspect—since in it can be discerned accents that are
postmodern, modern, and premodern as well. It is modern in (among
other things) its turn to subject and to the anthropological; it is
postmodern in (among other things) its concrete situatedness and its
attention to interruption and otherness. It is an idiom, moreover, in
which a key matrix for the transformative interplay of modern and
postmodern is found in the intersubjectivity of language. And then
there are discernable accents of the pre-modern as well, in that these
proposals each seek a living—or even better, a vivifying link with—
idioms of “spirit” that have been shaped in communities which still
attend to idiom of spirit as it was given voice in ancient Israel and to
the echoes, resonances, and transformations of that idiom in the cen-
turies of Christian discourse.
My wondering here thus concerns the complex interplay—at once
phenomenological, historical, and systematic—among relationality,
intersubjectivity, and language which these proposals offer as a dy-
namic for fashioning an appropriate idiom of “spirit.” Both papers
recognize that referencing the idiom of spirit to the relational, inter-
subjective, and linguistic dynamics of our human existence must con-
tend with lines of philosophical thinking that stretch at least as far
back as Descartes and on their way to us have passed through (among
other places) Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Königsberg, Jena, Berlin,
Copenhagen, Basel, Vienna, Cambridge, Frankfurt and Paris. One
intriguing sign of this common recognition is the way that Kant and
Schleiermacher, both historically and systemically, serve as key refer-
ence points in each paper; and even as Clayton’s paper explicitly situ-
ates itself with respect to a number of particular figures who traced
these lines, Smith’s more allusively casts its argument against the back-
ground of various efforts to grapple with this modern philosophical
heritage. Both papers recognize that this heritage is itself contested

ground and they each seem to have different vantage points upon
that contestation. But I also think—subject to correction—that both
papers share one point of consensus that seems to have emerged from
this heritage: the hesitancy of the modern and post-modern alike to
speak of the dynamics of human existence (be it of individuals or of
us in common) in terms of a “human nature.”
I don’t propose to argue that the hesitancy is not well-founded:
there are indeed good historical and conceptual reasons to tread cau-
tiously in the vicinity of a concept—or, I think more accurately, a set
of concepts—whose significance and function currently elicits little
consensus even within “regional” circles of philosophical discourse,
let alone across those circles, and, least of all, in cross-disciplinary
discourse. My wonder here, then, is not so much about the absence
of “human nature” as vocabulary entry in the discourse of subjectiv-
ity, intersubjectivity, relationality, and language. My question is rather
about the syntax governing the use of these terms: how do (or might,
or ought) we structure our use of the vocabularies of subject, person,
intersubjectivity, relationality in the absence of reference to a notion
of human nature which, it seems to me, functioned syntactically to
place some constraint on what it makes sense to say about who—and
what—we are, both individually and collectively? This, I think, is
akin to the questions that Clayton raises on pp. 190-92 of his paper
about the self-constituting subject—though in his discussion, the
syntactical constraint on what we may say of the self comes in terms
of a notion of transcendence. (Though I will not pursue it further
here, it seems that some of the important relations among these no-
tions of “self/subject,” “nature/world” and “transcendence/God” could
be usefully explored in terms of how they place mutual syntactical
constraints on one another.)
3. My third-and final—bit of wondering derives from the second.
I perceive in the hesitancy to use the vocabulary of “human nature”—
even while acknowledging the need for some kind of counterpart
syntactical constraint on what we may legitimately say of our
(inter-)subjectivity—a tension between the “anthropological” and the
“metaphysical”—and, in the case of Smith’s proposal, between these
two and the “transmetaphysical”—in forging an effective and a per-
suasive contemporary idiom of spirit. The larger context in which I
would like to place this wonder is not, however, the oft-told (and in
my judgment, the by-now-tired) story of the contestability of meta-
238 Philip Rossi
physics and the rumors of its death; it is, instead, the shift which
seems to have taken place in the locus from which metaphysics is
construed and metaphysical discourse is constructed. This is the shift
from “thought” and “being” (or, as some might put it, from the “ra-
tional” and the “real”) to “language” and “relation”—a shift which,
though it certainly encompasses the one from “substance” to “sub-
ject,” is just as certainly not exhausted by it. This shift, as I see it, is
not one of replacement, but of what we might call “focal displace-
ment”: it is not that the systematic articulation of fundamental con-
stitutive categories for what we affirm as real and true and good and
beautiful no longer can be referenced to “being” or “thought” and or
“substance”—but that these earlier focal categories for metaphysical
discourse now in turn need to be referenced to new and at least equally
weighty points of focus—“language” and “relation” and, perhaps most
intriguingly, to “otherness” and “difference.”
My sense is that the idioms of spirit which Clayton and Smith each
present are fashioned not only in awareness of this shift but as par-
ticipant in it. As in the case of the hesitancy to speak in terms of
human nature, my concern is not about whether such a shift—and
making the idiom of spirit participant in that shift—is well founded.
Modern and post-modern accounts of “the real”—even though they
may not use that precise term—have made it difficult for to us avoid
the importance, perhaps even the necessity, of construing it—and
thus ourselves—in terms of language. As Charles Taylor has pointed
out: “From where we stand, we are constantly forced to a conception
of man as a language animal, one who is constituted by language.”3
To this conception of our being constituted as human by language,
we are increasingly being led to add “and by relation, by difference,
and by otherness.” Though it may very well be a matter of legitimate
dispute whether we should (or even can) avoid going along the paths
these notions enable us now to chart, prudence suggests to me that
we consider ourselves as already moving on them. As a result, I think
that our concern should be about the role which a (re)new(ed) idiom
of spirit might play in illuminating where this shift is taking us—or,
to put it in a different voice—with whether and how the spirit is
with us as we move along the paths of living which we have already
started to chart from this shift.
Endnotes
1
The most visible of these shifts has been in the rise of so-called “post-modernist”
issues and modes of inquiry, but there are others: e. g., the internal and sometime
even fractious pluralism of the long dominant and seemingly monolithic “ana-
lytic philosophy” of the English-speaking world has become far more apparent;
there has been a significant revival of interest in philosophy of religion and in the
history of philosophy, both previously considered shabby and disreputable in
comparison to the hard-nosed and tough-minded conceptual analysis of “real”
philosophy. In most Catholic philosophical and theological circles the break-
down of an Aristotlean-Thomist-scholastic “consensus”—if there ever really was
one—has long been apparent and no single successor option holds sway.
Similarly, as Protestant theology has moved out from the towering landmarks set
down by the giants of neo-orthodoxy, paths have been staked out along almost
every point on the theological compass.
2
Taylor uses this phrase in Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989): 520. A succinct presentation
of key elements which motivate his project to retrieve a notion of the spiritual is
found in his Marianist Award Lecture “A Catholic Modernity” (Dayton: The
University of Dayton, 1996). For some of the other notable efforts to diagnose
the roots of the current culture conditions which make possible denial and
forgetfulness of “spirit” see Michael Buckley, At the Origins of Modern Atheism
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987); Louis Dupré, Metaphysics and
Culture, The Aquinas Lecture 1994 (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press,
1994); Passage to Modernity: An Essay in the Hermeneutics of Nature and Culture
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993); John Milbank, Theology and Social
Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990); George Steiner, Real
Presences (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1989).
3
“Language and Human Nature,” Human Agency and Language: Philosophical Papers
I, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989): 246
240 D. Lyle Dabney
Why Should the Last Be First?

The Priority of Pneumatology in
Recent Theological Discussion
D. Lyle Dabney
In the last three decades we have witnessed a dramatic increase in the
number of serious works on Pneumatology. Gone are the days when
Hendrikus Berkhof could begin his Warfield Lectures at Princeton
in 1964 with the complaint that even in the Anglo-Saxon literature
one could discover little of substance on the topic. Despite the fact,
he remarked, that the English and American tradition was much richer
in this regard than its European counterpart, even though what one
could find here was largely “of a devotional or semi-theological na-
ture.1 Such is no longer the case. Since the mid-sixties we have been
inundated with a veritable flood of scholarly articles and monographs
on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Important works have appeared
on hæwr{ and pneu`ma in the biblical literature, on these same terms in
the intertestamental period, on the historical development of
Pneumatology in the theological tradition, on the concept of spirit
in philosophy, and, more recently, on treatments of the Spirit of God
in the context of volumes on Systematics and/or theologies of the
Holy Spirit. In the following I want to draw attention to one of the
important themes that have emerged in this literature: the claim that
talk of s/Spirit should have priority in philosophical and/or theologi-
cal discourse, the claim that we should ‘start with the Spirit.’ For in a
surprising way, a number of voices have been raised in this discussion
which claim that s/Spirit—which in Christian theology has usually
played a secondary, even tertiary role in trinitarian thought—should
now be accorded pride of place. Christian theology should begin its
task, that is to say, with an account of the Spirit; and thus that should
now be first which has traditionally been last.
In what follows I want to examine three of these claims: initially,
that of a contemporary philosopher who argues for the priority of
‘spirit’ or the ‘spiritual’ for what he terms a ‘first philosophy’; then,
that of a recent work on systematics which makes a case for the cen-
Why Should the Last Be First? 241
trality of the Spirit of God for what it calls a ‘realistic theology’; and
finally, that of a suggestion of my own concerning what I refer to as
a ‘theology of the third article.’ Thus, my intention in this paper is to
bring to our consideration today the question which each of these
claims raise: Why should the last be first?
I begin with the work of a philosopher. After a long eclipse, the
concept of ‘spirit’ is re-emerging into the light of philosophical in-
quiry. At the very beginning of the nineteenth century, Hegel claimed
that the conception of the absolute as ‘spirit’ or Geist was “the most
sublime Notion” of his time, “and the one which belongs to the
modern age and its religion.”2 Given the central role subsequently
played by the notion in German and English Idealism, we should
perhaps not be surprised that we find a significant number of recent
publications in the literature which take up that concept anew and
stress its importance for philosophy today.3 But what is surprising in
that literature is that a very similar claim for the importance of spirit
has been made by one whose work stands in an intellectual tradition
which explicitly repudiates Hegel and Idealism. The philosopher is
Steven G. Smith, and the argument is found in his book, The Con-
cept of the Spiritual: An Essay in First Philosophy.4 Reflecting his intel-
lectual debt to Emmanuel Levinas,5 Smith sets out in this volume to
develop a systematic and utterly pluralistic account of ‘spirit’ and the
‘spiritual’ in conscious contradistinction to what he characterizes as
the objectifying and totalizing spirit philosophy of Hegelian thought.
In doing so, he criticizes Hegel both for his “misidentification of the
concrete”6 as “the activity of reason”7—the concrete being the “prime
resource and beginning point”8 of a given philosophy—as well as for
defining spirit in those rationalistic terms. “Hegel,” Smith writes,
“invites his readers into a scientific scheme wherein what is can be
comprehended as what cannot be otherwise.”9 Smith, on the other
hand, intends in his philosophical journey to take as his point of
departure a very different account of the concrete, “a problematic
one that promises risky relationship rather than self-certainty.”10 For,
he writes:
I find that I am not in a position to comprehend … apart from the

determination of another program, another element in my situa-
tion that calls for the response of this rather elaborate enactment in
words. I face others—the host of other beings with places of their
own in the world, and … preeminently the others who are
intenders. This first fact of my life has two dimensions, that the
242 D. Lyle Dabney
others are there and that I am not at liberty to ignore them… . I am
in the first place the one whom actual others have not left alone. My
existence is qualified from the ground up as existence-toward-
them. I am not free not to be this, but at the same time I am only
free to propose and argue, to say what is and what should be,
because I am this. Philosophy as I practice it cannot swallow the
others into any other program than being with them, because its
own truth is that it springs (not just historically but logically) from
being with them.11
Smith, therefore, will develop his philosophical account of the spiri-

tual not in terms of the one, but of the many; more specifically, in
terms of the plural relationships that exist between that plurality of
beings. For the concrete, according to Smith, as that which comes
first as beginning and resource, is first in the relating and not in the
thinking.
Although Hegel is a major figure in his argument, Smith develops
his thesis concerning relationship and spirit by no means simply in
relation to German Idealism, but rather with reference to the entire
history of philosophy in the West. He notes that the western philo-
sophical tradition has put forward three ways to approach the issue
of a philosophia prima or ‘first philosophy.’12 The first is that of classi-
cal ontology, which asks whether we can rightly claim to understand
anything that exists if we have not first of all come to grasp what
existence, i.e., ‘being’ itself, is. The second way of approaching the
issue is the modern question of epistemology which asks how we can
claim knowledge about being until we have clearly laid out the grounds
and limits of the human capacity to know anything whatsoever. And
the third great approach to a first philosophy in the West is that of
language, which asks how we can possibly define knowing or grasp
the nature of being without having first gotten clear as to the condi-
tions and rules determining all our statements about being or know-
ing, without, that is to say, having clarified how language mediates
all our knowledge. Having rehearsed that history, Smith then goes
on to argue that even the third approach, the twentieth century shift
to the question of speech, is not properly basic. For that which sets
language apart as the starting point for philosophy, according to Smith,
is: “that it is essentially interpersonal, or to be more specific, essen-
tially an activity of creating and maintaining forms of commonality
among persons. Interpersonal commonality is not just what language
is for; it is in language, and in it more than in anything else.”13
Therein, according to Smith, it becomes apparent that hidden in

the approach of language to the problem of a first philosophy is a
question yet more basic; indeed, prior to all other questions: the ques-
tion of relationship. And the language of relationship is, he argues,
the language of ‘spirit.’ Thus he sets himself the task of demonstrat-
ing that: “In spite of its lapse from favor in English-speaking philo-
sophical circles, … the term ‘spiritual’ remains uniquely suited to
bear an adequate conception of the original situation where the or-
der of priority in questions begins.”14 In other words, he sets out to
show that the question of the ‘spirit’ or the ‘spiritual’ is, in point of
fact, the proper theme of first philosophy and in just what such a
philosophia prima would consist.
Now, if Steven Smith represents an ‘anti-idealist,’ pluralist philoso-
phy of spirit, then the program of the systematic theologian I would
like to examine next can easily be described in very similar terms. For
Michael Welker explicitly defines his approach in his book God the
Spirit,15 first published in German in 1992,16 as a “realistic theology,”
by which he means at the very least an ‘anti-idealist’ and pluralistic
theology. If in the very first paragraph of the English translation of
his prologue he specifies in general that he intends his book to serve
as “a guide past the mistaken paths of totalistic metaphysics, merely
speculative trinitarianism, abstract mysticism, and irrationalism un-
dertaken by conventional understandings of the Holy Spirit,”17 he
later explicitly and emphatically goes on to define his approach over
and against all idealist metaphysics:
With regard to metaphysical ‘totalization’ … a realistic theology

gives up the illusion that a single system of reference could put God
and God’s power at our disposal. God acts neither only in those
particular structural patterns of life that are ‘ours,’ nor only in
abstract generalizations of those structural patterns. God does not
fit into metaphysical constructs that we have designed in harmony
with important characteristics of our structural patterns of life.
Rather God’s vitality and God’s freedom are expressed in a plural-
ity of contexts and structural patterns of life, including ones that are
not automatically compatible with each other.18
As all this makes clear, Welker the theologian, although he eschews

the term, explicitly assumes the philosophical stance of post-
modernism. Reality, he repeatedly insists, is irreducibly pluralistic.
The task of a ‘realistic theology’ such as his own, therefore, is to get
244 D. Lyle Dabney
beyond what he calls the “disintegrative and debilitating” forms of

such pluralism and put forward an alternative account of “powerful
and invigorating” pluralism in God the Spirit.19
Note carefully, the account of pluralism that Welker develops in
this book is expressly one which he contends is now to be under-
stood in terms of God the Spirit. As he himself explains on the first
page of his prologue, and as even a cursory survey of his publications
illustrate, he had long intended to develop his own theology in a
reformulation of the categories represented by the Reformation watch-
words ‘Law and Gospel.’20 Indeed, his earliest publications in En-
glish were initial sketches of just such a theological program.21 But it
was precisely his effort to carry out that conception in a further and
more complete manner, he writes, that led him to Pneumatology: die
Sache selbst, the thing itself, turned or directed him to ‘God the
Spirit.’22 Thus it is that the very first line in the text of the original
German prologue reads: “At the beginning of my major publications
concerning the most important themes of Christian theology stands
the ‘Theology of the Holy Spirit.’”23
It is here then that we must pose the question: Why? What is it in
die Sache selbst that drives Welker to turn to Pneumatology?24 Why,
to return to our earlier formulation of the question, has the last be-
come first? It is the theology itself that Welker unfolds in the text
that makes it clear how we are to understand the matter. The key is
to be found in his constantly reiterated ‘postmodern’ insistence that
the cultural world in which we live is an utterly pluralistic one in
which any and all claims to continuity or unity of reality or experi-
ence are dismissed and difference and discontinuity are emphasized.
In such a context, resources for addressing the various processes of
disintegration and destruction are sought not in all-encompassing,
‘totalizing’ conceptualities which claim to offer orientation and di-
rection (‘totality of meaning’ or ‘universal history,’ for instance) but
rather in ‘emergent’ processes and realities—novel, unexpected and
unforeseeable events and developments which represent new possi-
bilities of understanding and creating continuity within the pro-
foundly fragmented and fragmenting world in which we find our-
selves. In such a context, Welker claims, Pneumatology comes into
its own, for there the witness of the Scripture to the power of God
which creates all things new can be heard. Thus he writes:
A theology of the Holy Spirit can be developed better against this
background than in the artificial light of an apparently unbroken
reality and rationality continuum. It can be better developed
against this background than in the midst of an integral moral
market or of other powerful ideological devices. For against this
background a theology of the Holy Spirit can more clearly call
attention to the power that the ‘primary witnesses’ see at work in
the very situations where human beings and societies are rent
completely asunder, in their dispersion and in their act of their
being brought together. These primary witnesses saw God’s Spirit
at work precisely in the implausible reciprocal mediation of the
valid perceptions of reality of persons who were separated and
alienated from each other by sexist, social, racist, nationalistic, and
religious ‘systems of order’ and ‘models of reality.’ This Spirit, this
power, this dynamic, the forms of this Spirit’s action await new
discovery.25
Why does Michael Welker call for the last to be first? Because he
believes that die Sache selbst demands that he do so. And for Welker
that means both the demands for relevance in the pluralistic age in
which we live as well as the demands of faithfulness to the biblical
witness. Both, he maintains, direct us today to begin the task of
theology with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.
That now brings us to the third and final example of recent claims
for the priority of Pneumatology. This is the case I myself have begun
to make for what I have called a ‘theology of the third article’ in
previous papers and articles as well as in my book, Die Kenosis des
Geistes: Kontinuität zwischen Schöpfung und Erlösung im Werk des
Heiligen Geistes.26 While very sympathetic to the kinds of arguments
advanced by Smith and Welker, each of which reflects on the role of
s/Spirit in a pluralistic intellectual world, I think that there is yet
another and more important reason for giving priority to
Pneumatology. If Smith the philosopher argues that we must turn to
the category of the ‘spiritual’ in order to get at that which is truly
first, i.e. relationship which makes possible speech about and knowl-
edge of that which is real, and if Welker claims that we must take up
Pneumatology first in order to do ‘realistic’ theology, i.e., a kind of
theology which reflects the ever new and unexpected reality of a
pluriform God in the inescapable pluralism of the real world, then
what I want to suggest is that we must begin with the Spirit in our
theologizing today in order to help Christianity to begin to ‘act its
246 D. Lyle Dabney
age,’ to begin, that is to say, to re-conceive the relationship between

Christianity with the Gospel it proclaims and the new social world
in which it finds itself at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
By ‘acting its age’ I do not mean to conform to its age, but rather to
learn anew to understand itself and go about its mission in a manner
appropriate to its age. For the pluralism of our time has consequences
that are not simply intellectual, they are also social and cultural; and
those consequences represent a profound challenge to Christianity,
to its theology, and to its mission. Starting with the Spirit, I argue, is
precisely the step we must now take, if we are to give account of faith
in Christ in an appropriate and authentic manner today.
As the work of Smith and Welker reflect, we live in an intellectual
world that is in the midst of profound transition. The Enlighten-
ment, which set the course for the development of western thought
for the last three centuries, has faltered, in that the systematic erosion
of its epistemological foundationalism has led many to the conclu-
sion that the intellectual framework of modernity has suffered irre-
mediable damage. Thus we now live in what many term a
‘postmodern’27 age in which every universal claim to knowledge is
rejected in favor of particular epistemic claims of race and gender
and nation and class, and in which all forms of totalizing metaphys-
ics and metanarratives are dismissed. As those who live during an era
marked by such a new and disquieting Zeitgeist, argues Stephen
Toulmin, a not atypical representative of the current North Ameri-
can intellectual climate, “we find ourselves [today] back where the
[sixteenth century] humanists left us” before the Enlightenment claims
for cognitive certainty had carried the day: in a pragmatic state of
intellectual and moral skepticism.28
But our situation is actually much more complex than that, for the
profound changes that challenge Christian theology today are not
simply intellectual, they are also social and cultural. Indeed, it may
very well be better to say that the intellectual transformation appar-
ent in our age is in reality an expression of a deeper cultural and
social transformation. For unlike the sixteenth century humanists
who lived in an apparently ordered and ostensibly Christian world,
we find ourselves at the end of the twentieth century living in a pro-
foundly disordered social world that can perhaps best be termed ‘post-
Christendom.’ ‘Christendom’ was that synthesis between Christian-
ity and occidental culture which was the central—if by no means
unbroken or unchanging—historical project of western civilization
from roughly the fourth to the nineteenth century. It represented, in

the words of Orlando Costas, “a vision of a society organized around
Christian principles and values with the Chruch as its manager or
mentor.”29 From the fourth century, in which Christianity moved
with breath-taking speed from illicit to licit to official cult of the
Roman Empire, to the modern era, in which its social roll in the
western nation-state changed almost as dramatically, Christianity and
western civilization were inextricably bound up with one another. If,
in the best of times, Christianity provided the ostensible spiritual
‘foundation’ and ethical structure for western civilization, then the
intellectual traditions and social institutions of the west provided a
‘roof ’ of sorts which gave Christianity a kind of cultural shelter from
the historical elements. But that now is no longer the case, for in the
course of the rise and decline of modernity we have witnessed
Christianity’s increasing cultural dispossession. The result, as George
Lindbeck writes, is that Christianity finds itself today “in the awk-
wardly intermediate stage of having once been culturally established
but … not yet [being] clearly disestablished.”30
The result is widespread confusion, for neither church nor society
knows what to do about that as yet. The one struggles with the ques-
tion, ‘What kind of society are we, if not Christian?’ and the other
asks, ‘What are we, if not the expression of the religious sensibility of
western civilization?’ Thus, in North America our public institutions
grope for a legitimizing and communalizing form of civil religion,
suitably vague and malleable and therefore acceptable somehow to a
society publicly, if by no means privately, declared secular. And the
church flounders as well, for it simply does not know how to ‘act its
age’ in a world post-Christendom. Institutionally and theologically
conditioned by its history to be society’s weather vane, it instinc-
tively responds to the social and ideological winds blowing at the
moment, swinging first right, then left, then back again, in an un-
ceasing effort to continue to play a role of perceived public relevance.
And like a widower who lives in denial of the death of a wife by
refusing to consider life in her absence, it is loath to give itself to
serious theological discussion of what it might mean to be the church
of Jesus Christ in a world opening before it that is profoundly differ-
ent than that which is now behind it. Douglas John Hall is therefore
perfectly correct when he concludes that, “The single most far-reach-
ing ecclesiastical factor conditioning theological reflection in our time
248 D. Lyle Dabney
is the effective disestablishment of the Christian religion in the West-

ern world by secular, political, and alternative religious forces.”31
That widespread confusion is compounded by the fact that just as
the western church is awakening to the fact that Christendom is no
more, it is discovering that the clearly demarcated and self-enclosed
Western European/Anglo-American world that Christendom presup-
posed has passed away as well—and that Christianity has in this cen-
tury left those boundaries behind. The ancient river of western civi-
lization has emptied into a new ocean of a world civilization, and the
global civilization that is arising is calling into question every paro-
chial cultural tradition. Given the role played by western ideology
and technology in this process, it can certainly be argued that this is
simply the final ‘westernization’ of the whole globe.32 But the result
is that Christianity no longer can be thought of as belonging prima-
rily to the west, to the realm of ‘Christendom’ sharply differentiated
from the realm of ‘heathendom,’ nor can the western church be
thought of as the measure of all things Christian. Indeed, Christian-
ity has led in this move to globalization. Stephen Neill has pointed
out that, “It is rarely that it is possible, in the history of the church or
in the history of the world, to speak of anything as being unmistak-
ably new. But in the twentieth century one phenomenon has come
into view which is incontestably new—for the first time there is in
the world a universal religion, and that is the Christian religion.”33 A
working group on North American theology has elaborated on this
theme: “… during the twentieth century Christianity has become a
truly worldwide movement, with churches established on every con-
tinent and among every major cultural group. The great modern mis-
sionary movement has been, despite all the controversy and debate, a
truly successful enterprise.”34 The western church finds itself near
the end of the second millennium, therefore, in a situation some-
what analogous to what it experienced near the beginning of the first
millennium. Much as the early church emerged out of Palestine into
the larger Greco-Roman world, so Christianity finds itself today
emerging from one kind of social world, western Christendom, into
a larger and much more complex and pluralistic world, a world in
which the global church is making new inroads into different cul-
tural contexts, facing new challenges, and answering new questions.
And it is in that context, indeed, that plurality of contexts, that Chris-
tianity must ask the question of faith in Christ today: What does it
mean to be Christian in a world post-Christendom? And what is

authentic witness to Christ in such a world?
It is here that we must ask how we are to go about answering those
questions. Western Christianity at the end of the twentieth century
is the heir of two great theological traditions that have come down to
us from the medieval world of Christendom. As a heuristic device,
they might be termed respectively a theology of the first and a theol-
ogy of the second article of the creed. These two trajectories in Chris-
tian theology have dominated the western tradition for almost a thou-
sand years, and they continue to shape our understanding of God
and church and world even now. Our dilemma is that these theolo-
gies of Christendom offer us inadequate resources for answering the
question of faith in Christ today in a world post-Christendom.
The first of the trajectories which has dominated the West is seen
most clearly in medieval Scholasticism, a form of theology which
begins with the first article of the creed and makes creation, i.e. the
capacities of our created nature, its point of departure, and interprets
salvation accordingly as an ascent to knowledge of God the Father
and Creator of the world through the assistance of grace.35 It begins
with a kind of syllogism:36 God is good in being and act; creation is
an act of God; ergo, creation is essentially good and in search of its
highest good. Now that is by no means to be understood as denying
the presence and pervasiveness of sin in the world, nor as implying
that creation is somehow complete. Rather, according to this theol-
ogy, despite the acknowledged imperfection and incompleteness in
the world, it is ultimately the goodness of God’s creating that defines
the creation.37 That goodness expresses itself above all in an innate
human capacity for God (homo capax Dei), an openness to or a desire
to ascend to the fulfillment of our nature in union with our Cre-
ator;38 a yearning for that which human nature cannot by itself at-
tain. Thus the point of departure for this tradition is expressed in the
words of Augustine in his Confessions: “You have made us for your-
self, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in you.”39 Catholic
theology of this sort is, therefore, cast as an appeal to the created
nature of human beings to find the fulfillment of their being by as-
cending to God through a receiving of an infusion of the grace which
the Father has provided in Christ through the church,40 an infusion
beginning as operative grace progressing to habitual grace and lead-
ing finally to co-operative grace.41 In this way the natural virtues,
both moral and intellectual, it is claimed, lead to even as they are
250 D. Lyle Dabney
transcended and guided to fulfillment by the theological virtues of

faith, hope and love. Hence, while Scholasticism explicitly differen-
tiates between nature and grace, it does not contrast but rather or-
ders them in an unbroken hierarchical relationship.42 Its clear ten-
dency, then, is to posit a fundamental continuum between nature
and grace, the Creator and the created, creation and redemption; for
it is a theology of nature fulfilled by grace. Thus the representative
affirmation of medieval Scholasticism was: “Grace does not destroy,
but rather presupposes and perfects nature.”43
Over and against that sort of thought stands the theology of the
sixteenth-century Reformation, the second dominant theological tra-
jectory in the West. This tradition can be said to take the second
article of the creed as its point of departure in interpreting the faith.
The fundamental logic of Reformation theology is protest, indeed,
Reformation theology is protesting, or Protestant theology.44 What
Reformation theology protests against is above all the root affirma-
tion of Scholastic theology: that human nature by virtue of being
God’s good creation possesses an innate capax Dei and is thus intrin-
sically open to and in search of its Creator. Casting itself in the role
of the Bishop of Hippo confronting the teachings of Pelagius, this
Protestant tradition declares, in the words of Augustine, that any
teacher of such a theology of “human nature verses the grace of God”45
was one who simply did not understand “why he was a Christian,”46
for such doctrine would “render the cross of Christ of no effect.”47
Thus, Luther argued in his Disputation Against Scholastic Theology of
1517 that, “on the part of man however nothing precedes grace ex-
cept ill will and even rebellion against grace.”48 For not the goodness
but the sin and consequent incapacity of the creature for the Creator,
not the yearning for but the flight from God, is this theology’s point
of departure; and that sin and incapacity and flight is seen as the
defining reality in all of creaturely existence. Now that is not to say
that all is interpreted as simply evil: when Calvin spoke of the ‘de-
pravity’ of nature,49 for instance, he did not mean that there was no
good in the world, what he meant was there was no unalloyed good
in the world, no part or capacity or desire untouched by the fall
(homo non capax Dei). For sin has spoiled all, according to this theol-
ogy, and there is no untouched humanum or residual imago to which
one can appeal as purely good, as open to and in search of its Creator.
Indeed, according to this reading of the faith, the claim that there is
such a possibility, such a capax Dei, is the essence of sin itself, in that
it constitutes the implicit claim that one can by one’s own efforts be
redeemed. Reformation theology, therefore, is cast not in the form of
an appeal to the good, but in the form of a dialectic,50 according to
which the Redeemer Jesus Christ as the Divine Word stands over and
against creation, extra nos, confronting human beings in their sin
and shame and summoning them to faith in the free grace of God
made manifest in his death on the cross pro nobis. We come to right
relationship with God, it is claimed, not through being enabled by
infused grace to fulfill nature’s law and so ascend to our Creator, but
rather by forswearing such reliance on law and placing our trust in
Christ the Redeemer who by grace freely imputes his righteousness
to us.51 This sort of theology, therefore, finds its point of departure
not in creaturely good, but in creaturely sin, and takes the form not
of creation’s ascent to its God and Father, but of God’s descent to
creation in Jesus Christ the Son.52 Its clear tendency, then, is to assert
utter contradiction between law and Gospel, God and world, cre-
ation and redemption, Redeemer and those in need of redemption.
Not creation and anything, most certainly not nature and grace, but
rather solus Christus, sola fide, sola scriptura, sola gratia were the Ref-
ormation watchwords. Indeed the one ‘and’ the Reformers allowed,
law and Gospel, simply underlines that point, for the ‘and’ in this
instance marks a relation not of continuity but of discontinuity; for
this is a theology of law contradicted by Gospel.53 Reformation the-
ology is a theology, therefore, not of continuum but of contradic-
tion. As the Anglo-Catholic John Burnaby expressed the issue in the
midst of a conflict with such theology earlier in this century: “Against
the ‘Both-And’ of the Catholic, Protestantism here as everywhere
sets with … insistence its ‘Either-Or.’”54
The question today, therefore, is how are we—heirs of these two
great theologies of Christendom—to do theology in such a context
as our own? For a world postmodern and post-christendom calls into
question both intellectually as well as culturally the theologies of Scho-
lasticism and the Reformation. Medieval Scholasticism sought to
demonstrate the continuity between classical reason and Christian
revelation as two expressions of the one rationality of the one God
and Creator of the world. While we must today clearly and unam-
biguously affirm the truth of their insistence that the Redeemer is
the Creator, especially as that came to its initial expression during the
patristic era in response to the pagan and quasi-Christian dualisms
which tried in various ways to assert that the God who was savior in
252 D. Lyle Dabney
Christ was other than the Creator of the world, we must nevertheless
question the adequacy of such a theology now. For what is the sense
of such a theology in a context such as our own in which the notion
of a created rationality has long been abandoned and any and all
universal epistemic claims are rejected? Indeed, one of the primary
reasons medieval Scholasticism—as well as modern Protestant Lib-
eral theology, which in its day employed the same strategy55–was so
powerfully effective was precisely because it could address a situation
in which such a universal claim for human rationality as reflecting a
divine rationality was widely accepted and could then trade on that
presupposition in its reading of the Christian faith in a culture that
already explicitly understood itself as Christian. But what, we must
ask, is the appropriateness of such a theology now in the absence of
any such epistemological or cultural claims—indeed, the utter dis-
missal of any such claims? It is for this reason that twentieth-century
heirs of Tridentine Scholasticism of the stature of Bernard Lonergan
and Avery Dulles, to name but two, argue that theology today “is
entering a new age and cannot continue to be what it has been since
the sixteenth century.”56
The situation in which Reformation theology now finds itself is no
better. For while the Reformation protest in the name of utter dis-
continuity between law and gospel was a necessary and profoundly
meaningful response to a late medieval world dominated by corrupt
Papal self-assertion and Scholastic nominalism, and furthermore,
while this “No” has even served yet again as a potent answer to the
evil pretensions of nineteenth and early twentieth century European
and American ‘Kulturprotestantismus,’ it seems nevertheless clear that
in the contemporary context of postmodernity the adequacy and
appropriateness of such a Protestant theology must be seriously
doubted. What is the sense of the Reformation protest today in the
absence of any established assertion like the one against which the
protest was first fashioned? It is one thing to protest in the face of an
established and dominant evil, it is an entirely different thing to stage
a protest in the midst of what appears to be imminent collapse. It
was precisely this realization that led Karl Barth in post-war Europe
to modify his pre-war insistence that God is “wholly other” and un-
dertake his ‘turn to the world’ in which he came to speak of that
which earlier would have been unthinkable to him: the “humanity of
God” in Jesus Christ.57 And it was this same conviction that led Paul
Tillich a generation ago to warn that Protestant theology in North
America was itself in danger of “participating in the increasing disin-

tegration” of our age.58 The theological protest of the Reformation is,
therefore, just as problematic at the end of the twentieth century as is
the theological assertion of the high middle ages.
It is in the light of the inadequacy and inappropriateness of the
theologies of the first and second articles for meeting the intellectual
and social challenge to Christian theology today that we can point to
the promise of what might be called a theology of the third article.
For what I suggest is that it is to a theology of the Holy Spirit, a
notion much abused and misused in this and earlier centuries, that
we must now turn. For as we saw above, in a world post-Christendom
and postmodern, Christian theology must be about its task in the
face of a new and complex set of considerations. To do so it must be
able to “distinguish between spirits” (1 Cor 12:10), to speak not just
of continuum between the creature and the Creator, nor simply of
contradiction between the Redeemer and creatures in need of re-
demption. Rather, theology must learn new to discern and speak of
both continuity and discontinuity, of both grace and sin, of both the
free grace of nature and the free nature of grace. Thus it must articu-
late an account of faith in Christ that can enable the Christian com-
munity both to socially and intellectually affirm some and yet con-
tradict other aspects of the age in which we live; a theology which
can dispel the illusion that Christian faith can be dissolved into some
form of society’s general religious or cultural discourse or can ratio-
nally demonstrate its truth on universally acceptable grounds and,
just as clearly, emphatically repudiate any and all ecclesiastical or pi-
etistic tendencies to acquiesce to the temptation to withdraw into a
Christian ghetto or to flee into irrationality. In doing so, Christian
theology must address itself both to the church and to society in
general, speaking to the question of the identity of the one and to the
issue of engagement with the other. For it must speak to a church
which is slowly awakening to the realization that its traditionally privi-
leged status in western society is becoming increasingly a thing of the
past and is too often responding with empty self-assertion and/or
resentful resignation. And it must also speak to a society which, in
the face of the on-going erosion of the tenants of the Enlightenment
and the ideologies it engendered, is turning more and more in de-
spair to an egocentric consumerism and in apathy away from the
neighbor. Thus theology must seek to both serve the church in help-
ing it to discover anew who it is and what it is about at one and the
254 D. Lyle Dabney
same time as it seeks to serve creation by speaking to the confusion,

violence, and injustice so patent in society at large. In other words,
this new challenge to Christian theology demands a more appropri-
ate reading of the Christian faith. A theology of the third article could
very well represent a way of responding to that demand.
What would such a theology look like? A full answer to that ques-
tion is beyond the scope of this paper. But for now let me very briefly
say that a theology of the third article has at least three characteris-
tics: it starts with the Spirit, it unfolds in the story of the trinitarian
mission of God in the world, and it finds its focus in the center of
that story—in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
First, it starts with the Spirit. In an age that has rejected the univer-
sal for the particular, a theology of the third article begins not with a
universal claim for human capacity nor incapacity, but with an ut-
terly particular claim: in and through Jesus Christ a quite particular
community finds itself through the centuries moved in unlooked-for
ways to new and transforming relationship with God, with one an-
other, and with all God’s creation. The possibility of that redemptive
relationship, that community claims, is the Spirit of God.59 Such a
theology begins, therefore, with neither human possibility nor im-
possibility, as do theologies of the first and second article, but rather
with the Spirit as the possibility of God. For having seen ‘Christ
crucified,’ as Paul reminded the Galatians (3:1), we acknowledge that
we have received a Spirit that is not our own, and that Spirit is bring-
ing about God’s good purposes in and through us for all creation.
Embracing that particularity, “starting with the Spirit,” a theology of
the third article then begins to ask the question of the emergent ‘com-
mon’ rather than of the universal, precisely the question implied in
the work of a philosopher like Steven Smith. It seeks to discover what
kind of theology would result if the Word of God, that by which
God is realized in the world, was seen to be in fact not that which is
ultimately basic but as itself assuming an even more fundamental
reality, a relational reality, the Spirit of God, implicit in creation and
explicit in redemption through Jesus Christ. What would it look like,
it asks, if we undertook a theology giving an account of ‘interper-
sonal relationship in the Spirit,’ claiming we human beings are ‘spiri-
tual,’ in Smith’s sense of the word, because God toward us is Spirit?
In this two-fold sense, such a theology starts with the Spirit and makes
first that which has usually been made last.60
Second, a theology of the third article seeks to unfold the story of

the trinitarian mission of God in the world from the perspective of
the third article of the creed, indeed, it understands itself as having
been taken up into that mission. It seeks therefore to be a theology
for a global Christianity, helping Christianity to ‘act its age’ in the
time and place it now finds itself. With Michael Welker, such a the-
ology claims that to be ‘realistic’ and to get at the ‘thing itself ’ we are
forced today to turn to a theology of the Holy Spirit. But the ‘real-
ism’ we would reflect is that of the eschatological reality of God’s
presence and activity in God’s world, and the ‘thing itself ’ is to be
understood as mission, the task of witnessing in faithful word and
telling deed to Jesus Christ in the world in which we find ourselves
today. “Mission,” as Martin Kähler used to remind his fellow theolo-
gians, “is the mother of theology.”61 And a theology of the third ar-
ticle is a theology of God’s mission of a transforming recreation of
creation, a theology of continuity in God’s presence and purpose in
creation and re-creation through the discontinuity of human sin and
death. It is thus a theology of neither continuum nor of contradic-
tion, but rather of resurrection and new creation, and in this sense,
of transformation.
And third, such a theology finds its focus—that is defines what it
means by Spirit—in the center of the story of God’s mission: in the
life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Spirit of which such
a theology speaks, therefore, is defined neither in terms of a general
ontology or anthropology nor simply as the bearer of a redemptive
message from the God who stands over and against us in Christ.
Rather, the Spirit of God, this theology insists, is the Spirit of the
cross; the Spirit, that is to say, of the trinitarian event of the death
and resurrection of Jesus Christ, an event in which God has entered
into our death and made it God’s own and has thereby taken us into
God’s life and made it our own. For according to the witness of the
New Testament, the Spirit of God is that ‘Lord and Giver of Life’
which raised Christ from the dead, having first lead Christ to that
suffering and death on the cross for the sake of new life for all cre-
ation. It is, furthermore, that same Spirit which is then mediated by
the risen Son of God for the new creation of creation in which the
old is encompassed in a new and transforming relationship to God.
Thus it is that all four Gospels announce at the very beginning of
their narratives that the ministry of Jesus Christ is to be understood
in explicitly pneumatological terms: “I baptize you in water,” John
256 D. Lyle Dabney
the Baptist declares, “but he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit”
(Mark 1:8 par). For the Spirit of God, whose brooding over the wa-
ters of the deep in the beginning meant that even that chaos became
promise, who as the very breath of God was breathed into the dust of
the earth producing human life, and who was promised by the proph-
ets of old as that which was to be breathed anew into the dead and
dry bones of the people of promise, was now to be poured out in an
act of new covenant and new creation. Building on that notion, the
Gospel according to John portrays therefore the very first encounter
between the resurrected Christ and his fearful disciples as one in which,
echoing those Old Testament creation traditions, Jesus fulfills the
Baptizer’s promise by “breath[ing] on them and [saying] to them
‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (John 20:22). It is that pneumatological
definition of the salvation that is realized in and mediated by the
crucified and resurrected Son which is then reflected in Paul’s Epistle
to the Romans when he points to the work of the “Spirit of sonship”
(pneu`ma uiJoqesiva~, Rom 8:15) as that which marks the church of
Jesus Christ: “When we cry ‘Abba! Father!,’” the apostle writes, “it is
that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of
God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with
Christ—if,” Paul adds, lest the work of the Spirit be separated from
the cross in ecclesiastical triumphalism, if “in fact, we suffer with
him so that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom 8:15b-17).
Finally, let me point out that such a theology of the third article
has one further important distinguishing feature: it intends to be a
thoroughly ecumenical theology. The time for polemics and party-
spirit in Christian theology is over: ours is an age that demands of us
a truly ecumenical theology. In this century, as Christianity has be-
gun to awake to its progressive marginalization in the west, theolo-
gians have made a concerted effort to rediscover and reclaim the vari-
ous theological traditions that have shaped us all. Thus we have seen
a revival of interest in Augustine and the Patristic theologians, in the
medieval Scholastics, in the Protestant Reformers and in Wesley and
early modern Evangelicalism. All of that is to the good. But I would
suggest that in the course of that otherwise laudable development we
have spent far too much time and effort implicitly or explicitly try-
ing to justify the various versions of the conflicting traditions we
have reclaimed over and against other renewed traditions.
Christendom is now over; and what that means positively is that the
struggle for hegemony or dominance over western society may and
must at last be set aside. That does not mean that we disclaim or in
any way dismiss the traditions that have nurtured and shaped us; nor
that we do not still have things we must learn from those traditions.
But it does mean that as we go about our task in the present we must
honor those who have gone before in a way that is perhaps different
than we have honored them in the past. We can no longer simply say
what our sisters and brothers have said in the past, or, at the very
least, we can no longer say it in the same way. It is however incum-
bent upon us today to do now what they did then. Be it Augustine or
Thomas or Luther or Calvin or my own Wesley: one and all sought
in their own time and place, employing the tools then available to
them, to give account of God’s reconciling grace through Jesus Christ
and in the Holy Spirit. Concerning Wesley for instance, Richard
Heitzenrater has written that, although he held the early church in
highest esteem, “… his purpose was not to replicate the first century
in eighteenth-century England, but rather to live in his own day a
life that was faithful to the love that God had shown for humankind
in Jesus Christ.”62 We must do now what Wesley did then. And in
doing that, we must do today what Aquinas and the Scholastics as
well as what Luther and the Protestant Reformers did in their day:
we must give account in word and deed of the ‘love God [has] shown
for humankind in Jesus Christ’ in the circumstances of the age in
which we live. Theologically, we must act our age. That does not
mean conforming the faith to the age, it means proclaiming that
faith in a manner that is appropriate to the age, in a way that is both
faithful to God and authentic to God’s world today. A theology of
the third article, a theology of the Holy Spirit, could very well be a
way we could begin to do that together now. Ecumenical theology,
in this sense, would thus be best understood not simply as the task of
resolving our ‘internal’ disputes concerning faith and practice, but
rather as the common task of living and thinking as disciples of Christ
in the new ‘external’ situation in which we now find ourselves, of
participating in God’s on-going mission of reconciliation. In taking
up that task, we may learn to lead this broken and confused age in
the words spoken by Jacob at Bethel so long ago as he found himself
in new and unfamiliar territory (Gen 28:16), words that Christianity
has had to speak anew time and again in its history: “Surely the Lord
is in this place—and I did not know it!” Such is now the promise, I
suggest, of a theology of the third article, and such is the reason that
the last must now be first.
258 D. Lyle Dabney
Endnotes
1
Hendrikus Berkhof, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit (Atlanta: John Knox, 1964), 10.
2
G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon,
1977), 14.
3
Two of the best of those recent studies are Alan Olson’s Hegel and the Spirit:
Philosophy as Pneumatology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992) and
Robert R. William’s Recognition: Fichte and Hegel on the Other (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1992). Each emphasizes the fundamental role
played by Pneumatology in that idealist tradition. Moreover, they contend that
an explicitly Christian understanding of the Holy Spirit was, in Olson’s words,
“the definitive religious horizon not only for Hegel’s philosophy of Spirit but
also, in a very real sense, for the whole of German Idealism” (28f.). For a very
different account, one that emphasizes Hegels dependence upon a heterodox
tradition concerning spirit that can be traced back through the early modern and
medieval mystics (Jakob Boehme, Meister Eckhart, and Joachim of Fiore) to
Neo-Platonism, cf. Cyril O’Regan, The Heterodox Hegel (Albany: State Univer-
sity of New York Press, 1994).
4
Steven G. Smith, The Concept of the Spiritual: An Essay in First Philosophy
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988).
5
See Steven G. Smith, The Argument to the Other: Reason Beyond Reason in the
Thought of Karl Barth and Emmanuel Levinas (Chico, Calif.: Scholars’ Press,
1983.)
6
Smith, Concept of the Spiritual, 75.
7
8
9
10
11
Smith, Concept of the Spiritual, 77f.
12
13
14
15
Michael Welker, God the Spirit, trans. John F. Hoffmeyer, (Minneapolis: Fortress,
1994).
16
Michael Welker, Gottes Geist. Theologie des Heiligen Geistes (Neukirchen-Vluyn:
Neukirchener, 1992), 11.
17
Welker, God the Spirit, ix.
18
Welker, God the Spirit, 47.
19
20
Welker, God the Spirit, ix.
21
See, for instance, his articles: “Security of Expectations: Reformulating the
theology of Law And Gospel,” Journal of Religion 66 (1986): 237-260; “Righ-
teousness and God’s Righteousness,” Princeton Theological Review (suppl) 1
(1990): 124-139.
22
Welker, Gottes Geist, 11.
23
“Am Anfang meiner größeren Veröffentlichungen zu den wichtigsten Themen
christlicher Theologie steht die Theologie des Heiligen Geistes “ (Welker, Gottes
Geist, 11). Inexplicably that sentence has been relegated to the third paragraph
in the English translation and greatly reduced in its expressive force. Further-
more, one might mention as an aside, that the title of the book has been
unaccountably altered in translation. A literal translation of the German is ‘God’s
Spirit. A Theology of the Holy Spirit.’ Instead, the published translation bears the
rather ambiguous title ‘God the Spirit.’ This, I am told, is to be understood as the
product of the mysteries of the mind of a publisher.
24
Cf. Michael Welker, “‘… And also upon the Menservants and the Maidservants
in Those Days Will I Pour Out My Spirit’: On Pluralism and the Promise of the
Spirit,” Soundings 78 (1995): 49-67; and idem, “Why Are You So Interested In
the Wandering People of God?,” Soundings 79 (1996): 127-147.
25
Welker, God the Spirit, 39f.
26
D. Lyle Dabney, Die Kenosis des Geistes: Kontinuität zwischen Schöpfung und
Erlösung im Werk des Heiligen Geistes (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1997).
27
I use the term with some hesitancy in that ‘postmodern’ and ‘postmodernity’ have
become much used and much abused terms, and as such, suffer from imprecision.
I know, however, of no better way to characterize the broad transformation in the
fields of philosophy, aesthetics, and social theory beginning in the last part of the
nineteenth and continuing through the twentieth century. For an attempt to
clarify the terminology cf. Michael W. Messmer, “Making Sense Of/With
Postmodernism,” Soundings 68 (1985): 404-426. The amount of literature
treating this transformation has become immense. For an introduction and
overview cf. Steven Connor, Postmodernist Culture: An Introduction to Theories of
the Contemporary (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), and Steven Best and Douglas
Kellner, Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations (New York: Guilford, 1991).
For what is perhaps the best, or at least the most pointed, general account of the
dissolution of the modern from the perspective of the postmodern, cf. Richard
Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1979).
28
Stephen Toulmin, Cosmoplis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (New York: Free
Pess, 1990), 44.
29
Orlando E. Costas, Christ Outside the Gate: Mission Beyond Christendom (Maryknoll,
N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1982), 189.
30
George A. Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine. Religion and Theology in a Postliberal
Age (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984), 134.
31
Douglas John Hall, Thinking the Faith. Christian Theology in a North American
Context (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989), 201.
32
Corresponding to that, Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1990), argues that our present social situation is not
to be understood as ‘postmodernity,’ but rather simply a radicalized version of the
modern.
33
Stephen Neill, A History of Christian Missions (New York: Penguin Books, 1964),
559.
34
Darrell L. Guder ed., Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in
North America (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 1.
35
Cf. Brian Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992),
chp. 2, esp. p. 33: “So God, for Aquinas, is the reason or cause of there being
anything apart from himself. Or, as we may also say, God for him, is the Creator.”
260 D. Lyle Dabney
36
On the role of syllogism in Aquinas as compared to other Scholastics, as well as
compared to Luther, see Denis R. Janz, “Syllogism or Paradox: Aquinas and
Luther on Theological Method,” Theological Studies 59 (1998): 3-21.
37
Thus, for instance, already by the time of Anselm original sin was defined not as
an active but a passive reality, i.e. as a privation or lack of original righteousness,
and the subsequent Scholastic tradition followed him in this. Cf. Jaroslav
Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, vol. 3, The Growth of Medieval Theology (600-
1300) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 112f.
38
Martin Anton Schmidt, “Dogma und Lehre im Abendland, Zweiter Abschnitt:
Die Zeit der Scholastik,” hg. Carl Andressen, Handbuch der Dogmen- und
Theologiegeschichte, bd. 1, Die Lehrentwicklung im Rahmen der Katholizität,
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982), 567-754, 650ff., esp. 654f.
39
Augustine, Conf. 1,i.
40
See Joseph Ratzinger, Theologie 3. Katholische Theologie, RGG, 3. Aufl., 6:775-
779, 775f; idem, Kirche 2-3., LThK, 6:172-183. Further, see the excellent
overview of Ratzinger’s Ecclesiology in Miroslav Volf, Trinität und Gemeinschaft.
Eine ökumenische Ekklesiologie, (Mainz/Neukirchen-Vluyn: Matthias-Grünewald/
Neukirchener, 1996), 26-69.
41
See Stephen Duffy, The Dynamics of Grace, New Theology Studies 3 (Collegeville,
Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1993).
42
The locus classicus for this schema is, of course, Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica,
1a.1. Further, see A. M. Fairwather ed., Aquinas on Nature and Grace (Philadel-
phia: Westminster, 1956).
43
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 1a.1.8. et al. Further, see Pelikan, Christian
Tradition, vol. 3, The Growth of Medieval Theology (600-1300), 103f, 284-293,
esp. 292; Eric Przywara, “Der Grundsatz Gratia non destruit, sed supponit et
perficit naturam ,” Scholastik 17 (1942): 178-186; Duffy, Dynamics of Grace,
132.
44
Cf. the description of “the Protestant principle” in the discussion of Paul Tillich,
The Protestant Era, trans. and abridged James Luther Mays (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1957), 226.
45
Augustine, Retract. 2,lxviii,42. Cp. 2,lxxiii,47; De nat. et grat. 2,2; 6,6; lix,69.
46
Augustine, De nat. et grat. 1.
47
Augustine, De nat. et grat. 6,6; 7,7.
48
LW 31:11. See Bernhard Lohse, “Dogma und Bekenntnis in der Reformation: Von
Luther bis zum Konkordienbuch,” hg.Carl Andressen, Handbuch der Dogmen-
und Theologiegeschichte, bd. 2, Die Lehrentwicklung im Rahman der Konfessionalität
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980), 1-166, 22f.
49
See Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. J. T. McNeill, trans. F. L. Battles,
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975), 2.1.8-11. Cf. Wilhelm Niesel, The Theology
of Calvin (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1980), 80ff.
50
See Ernest B. Koenker, “Man: Simul Justus et Pecator,” Accents in Luther’s Theology,
ed. Heino O. Kadai (St. Louis: Concordia, 1967), 98-123.
51
See Jared Wicks, “Justification and Faith in Luther’s Theology,” Theological
Studies 44 (1983): 3-29.
52
Cf. the language of ‘ascent/descent’ in Luther, “The Babylonian Captivity of the
Church,” LW 36:56, and in Calvin, Institutes, 2.12.1.
53
Cf. The discussion of both medieval Scholastic and modern Protestant Liberal
theology in regard to such an ‘and’ in Karl Barth, CD, , 557.
54
John Burnaby, Amor Dei: A Study of the Religion of St. Augustine (1938; reprint,
Norwich: Canterbury, 1991), 4.
55
N.B. Gottfried Hornig’s acute account of Enlightenment theology in which he
terms it “eine Theologie des ersten Glaubensartikels,” “Lehre und Bekenntnis im
Protestantismus,” 128.
56
Avery Dulles, The Craft of Theology: From Symbol to System, rev. and enl. (New
York: Crossroad, 1995), 53; Bernard J. F. Lonergan, “Theology in Its New
Context,” A Second Collection (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), 55-67.
57
Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, tr. John Newton Thomas (Atlanta: John Knox,
1960), 37-65.
58
Tillich, Protestant Era, 226.
59
Cf. Colin Gunton, The One, The Three, and the Many (Cambridge/New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1993), 181.
60
For an initial theological development of this position, see my article “Otherwise
Engaged in the Spirit: A First Theology for a Twenty-First Century,” The Future
of Theology: Essays in Honor of Jürgen Moltmann, eds. Miroslav Volf, Carmen
Krieg, and Thomas Kucharz (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1996), 154-163.
61
Martin Kähler, Schriften zu Christologie und Mission (1908; reprint, München:
Chr. Kaiser, 1971), 190.
62
Richard P. Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People Called Methodists (Nashville:
Abingdon, 1993), 319.
262 Killian McDonnell
A Response to D. Lyle Dabney

Kilian McDonnell, O.S.B.
I cannot assess how much Pneumatology has been influenced by
Hegel’s objectifying and totalizing of Spirit. I suspect that the totaliz-
ing is redeemable in a way the objectifying is not. In theological
Pneumatology objectifying the Spirit may just be our tendency to
reduce to the measurable. The Holy Spirit cannot be objectified and
viewed from a distance simply because, though distinct, the Spirit is
not separable from the very processes by which an attempt is made to
define the Spirit. Or in another vocabulary, the formal principle of
understanding does not allow itself to be adequately reflected upon
because this reflection is nothing else but itself. Or, when a person is
trying to reflect on reflection itself, one is moving in a circle, because
to think about thinking is already doubling. One is already using
thinking in attempting to discover what the “object” of thinking is.
The Spirit cannot be an object because we must be “in” and “using”
the Spirit to understand the Spirit.1
Steven Smith has said that “interpersonal commonality is not just
what language is for, it is in language, and in it more than in any-
thing else.” I want to point to the importance of relationality in con-
temporary trinitarian doctrine, e.g. John Zizioulas, Catherine
LaCugna, David Coffey. Relationality in Pneumatology (and Trin-
ity) might be further explored with the help of linguistic analysis.
In the face of deconstructionist radical relativism, and the dissolu-
tion of humankind into a plethora of uneven and unrelated commu-
nities of discourse, where the church can only speak to those in the
Christian ghetto, Professor Dabney sets aside the Catholic model of
a theology of the first article with its emphasis on the continuum
between nature and grace, and the Protestant model of a theology of
the second article, which in a dialectical form God stands over and
against us, confronting us with our sins and extending free grace
manifested in the death of Jesus Christ. Professor Dabney rather pro-
poses a theology of the third article, a theology of continuity through
discontinuity, beginning with the Holy Spirit bringing us to witness
to Jesus Christ, rooted in the trinitarian event of the cross, with the
Response to Dabney 263
church defined in those categories. I would like to comment on two

elements: the trinitarian moment and the cross.
One of the problems with the Catholic theology of the first article
and the Protestant theology of the second, was that they were often
not fully trinitarian. I do not speak of the divine threeness. I speak of
a trinitarian movement, a dynamic, in which there is a movement
from God and to God: the Father sends the Son in the Spirit to save
and transform the world and the church, and lead them in the Spirit,
through Christ, back to God. This is a salvation history paradigm,
but also cosmic and “secular.” It would not be progress to replace
Catholic and Protestant christomonism, with an ecumenical
pneumatological monism. Somewhere Yves Congar suggested that
the health of Pneumatology is in Christology. That is true only if the
Christology itself is fully trinitarian. With some trepidation, I would
modify Congar’s dictum. The health of Pneumatology is in Trinity,
and in the trinitarian movement. (I would say the same of Christo-
logy.) There one finds the deepest riches, the controls, and checks, and
the true character of an eschatology which belongs at the beginning.
One should not over react to deconstructionism. One can take the
truth to which deconstructionists point, namely discontinuity, as long
as it is not the discontinuity of a pneumatological monism, little
Holy Spirit shards, fragments which do not even have the grace to be
a jigsaw puzzle, are unrelated and therefore do not fit together. One
remembers that Pavel Florensky called the Spirit “interruptedness.”
That interruptedness is the divine staccato of the Spirit’s radical con-
nectedness, the constancy of the pulse of life in the one who is its
Lord and Giver. So therefore, continuity through discontinuity.
The cross and the Spirit. This is an aspect which has been under
represented in Pneumatology written by Catholics. (This is an area
of strength for Protestants, e.g. Professor Moltmann’s writings.) Pro-
fessor Dabney rightly accents the importance of Paul’s formulation
in Romans 8:15b-17 lest the Spirit be separated from the cross in
ecclesiastical triumphalism. The cross is the revelation of what kind
of Father we have, and the character of the Spirit. The patristic scholar
Raniero Cantalamessa put it well: “The last breath of Jesus [on the
cross], is the first breath of the church.”2 Keeping Pneumatology and
the cross together also permits one to honor the experiential dimen-
sions of Pneumatology without being carried away into enthusiasm.
That same Roman’s text allows us to look at the deconstructionists’
little gatherings of scattered reality bytes, unconnected and uncon-
nectable pieces of actuality, and give them meaning and coherence.

“Abba, Father” is precisely a cry of children to their Father, lifting up
the whole of the created order which shares in Adam’s ruin. There-
fore the cosmic birth spasms as the firmament groans in labor to
share in our liberty and freedom as those who live the life of the
Spirit constituting us God’s children. The Spirit praying in us asks
God to free the whole of creation from fragmentation and decay in
favor of a mode of being that belongs to God alone, lived in the
Spirit through Jesus Christ.3 The issue is cosmic redemption in soli-
darity with human redemption, the basis of cosmic hope.
The question of “first philosophy,” philosophia prima. The earliest
tradition saw in the Spirit as the first way of knowing, or better still,
the first possibility of knowing God. Irenaeus talks about the Spirit
as “the ladder of our ascent to God.”4 Or more specifically Basil who
says that “the way of knowledge of God goes from the Spirit, who is
one, to the Son, who is one, even to the Father, who is one.”5 John
Meyendorff speaks about how these early centuries thought of the
role of the Spirit as “the first contact” in the self-revelation of the
Father through the Son, first not being understood chronologically.6
Gregory of Nyssa has a crude formulation, all the more helpful be-
cause its crudity will insure it will be taken seriously but not literally.
He says, “As he who grasps one end of a chain pulls along with it the
other end to himself, so he who draws the Spirit draws both the Son
and the Father along with it.”7 Pneumatology is the priority not only
in recent theological discussions, but in antiquity. Pneumatology is
to theology what epistemology is to philosophy. Pneumatology de-
termines the “rules” for speaking about God.8
Endnotes
1
See Kilian McDonnell, “A Trinitarian Theology of the Holy Spirit?” Theological
Studies 46 (1985): 214-218.
2
Raniero Cantalamessa, Life in the Lordship of Christ (Kansas City: Sheed & Ward,
1990), 140.
3
Ernst Käsemann, Commentary on Romans (London: SCM, 1980), 237.
4
Against Heresies 3,24,15: Sources Chrétiennes 211.472.
5
On the Holy Spirit 18.47; SC 17 to 412.
6
John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology (London: Mowbrays, 1974), 168.
7
The letter is found in Basil, Letter 38.4; Courtonne 1.86. Though found among
Basil’s letter, it is an authentic letter of Gregory of Nyssa. Richard Hübner,
“Gregory von Nyssa als Verfasser der Sog. Ep. 38 des Basilius,” Epektasis:
Festschrift in honor of Jean Danielou (Paris: Beauchesne, 1972), 463-490.
8
McDonnell, “A Trinitarian Theology of the Holy Spirit?” 217.
Identity through Self-Transcendence 265
Identity through
Self-Transcendence:
The Holy Spirit and the
Fellowship of Free Persons
Bernd Jochen Hilberath
My paper aims to show that the Holy Spirit as person is that which
we seek to bring about in our own lives: identity through self-tran-
scendence. The realization of personhood takes place in two steps
which correlate with each other. The first is the movement of self-
transcendence: the “I” reaches beyond itself to others. Thus the “I”
finds its identity, its “self ”: this is “I-myself.” The second step is a “re-
gression”: the “I” withdraws to make room for others. Thus the “I”
makes it possible for others to find their identity without losing its
own in the process: this is you yourself, and this is “I” myself. In this
double movement identity and fellowship, person and communio,
are realized: this is you, this is “I,” this is we.
Introduction: A rarely mentioned reason for the

pneumatological deficit
(“forgetfulness of the Spirit”)
The complaint of forgetfulness of the Spirit made against the West-
ern, Latin Church and its theology is not new. It has long been ac-
cepted in self-criticism, and has assumed its topos in the introduction
to every Pneumatology. As a result, the expression “forgetfulness of
the Spirit” suggests that the church and its theology have entirely lost
sight of the Holy Spirit. But this is not so. We do better to speak of a
pneumatological “deficit”: the Holy Spirit is subordinate, not prop-
erly valued, he is repressed or controlled. We have suggested already
that there are a number of reasons for this deficit.
In regard to the theology of the Trinity, Augustine is held respon-
sible.1 He depersonalized the Spirit as the vinculum amoris.2 With his
266 Bernd Jochen Hilberath
concept of absolute person there is no place for an intersubjective or

interpersonal conception of the Trinity, nor is it attained through his
talk of relatio. Admittedly, we must count in Augustine’s favor that the
subordination of the Spirit does not follow simply from his preference
for psychological analogies. In regard to the function of the Holy
Spirit in the economy he continually returns to Scripture, which
certainly does not suffer from a lack of images and assertions about the
Spirit. However, as L. Dabney rightly points out,3 abundance does not
necessarily make for clarity. But above all, Augustine is a striking
example of the methodological difficulty involved in the transition
from the economic to the immanent Trinity.
Augustine laid down the theological basis of the Filioque. The more
immediate circumstances of its introduction in the creed of the Latin
Church are not yet sufficiently known. That the orthodoxy of the
addition—which as such was by no means always conscious—was
never in doubt is explained also by a constantly necessary delimitation
against Arianizing tendencies. Thus, thought structure and apologetic
necessity get linked together: procession is no longer from the Father
as source of divinity, but from the one divine substance, with emphasis
on equality of “persons” exemplified, after as before, in the Father-Son
relationship.
In regard to ecclesiology the church’s ambivalent experience with
charismatic, prophetic movements is responsible for the fact that the
Spirit has now become subordinated to office and church order. Again
it is to be noted that apologetics and church politics on the one hand
and theological reflection on the other become reciprocally intensi-
fied. The ecclesiological undervaluation of the Spirit together with the
consequences of this for the church structures is attributed by Eastern
Orthodox theologians to the Christomonism of Western theology.
Efforts toward a communio-ecclesiology in the Catholic Church after
Vatican II are directed to the overcoming of both the theoretical and
the structural deficits. Against all attempts to restrict the language of
communio to the inner life of the church or to deflect it from
unwelcome debates over structures, it is necessary to insist on the
interdependence of trinitarian foundation and ecclesial structure. As
the concept of communio is widely favored as a leading idea in
ecumenical theology, it is hoped that the different expressions will
correct and enrich each other. Not least, a common reflection on the
Holy Spirit as the life-principle of the church, on his specific role in
both trinitarian and ecclesial communio, can both move us forward
and bind us together. This is so even if we must take into account the
even “greater dissimilarity” of all analogy.
However, patristic and Eastern theology also speaks of the anonym-
ity of the Holy Spirit, who not infrequently is introduced as the
“unknown third (person).” Here we come upon a reason for the
lamented forgetfulness of the Spirit, and one that must be character-
ized as profoundly theological. The biblical texts, the ambivalent
experiences of charismatic activities, and the difficulties of theological
reflection all indicate that the Holy Spirit is not something we can
grasp or conceptualize for the sake of possession. Clearly, strangeness
and anonymity, tension between impersonal power and personal
support, characterize our experience of the Spirit. The Spirit of God
is even one who hides, who retreats. Of course in this he does not
simply disappear. Rather, he reveals himself as one who by withdrawal
allows others to come to the fore: as bond of love he binds Father and
Son, giver and receiver of love, and as Spirit of life he makes possible
the positing of creation and the emergence of human beings along
with fellowship into the realm of new and renewed life.
Finally, I come to speak of a reason for forgetfulness of the Spirit
which in comparison with the theologico-historical, ecclesial and
pneumatological motives referred to above is rarely mentioned. I call
it the psychological or spiritual reason: in my observation those respon-
sible for the pneumatological deficit or rather the domestication of the
Spirit in the church and in theology have too seldom undergone or
been able to undergo the experience that self-transcendence toward
others does not mean loss of one’s own identity, but rather furthers it
or makes it possible. This forgetfulness of the Spirit can become
obsessive anxiety or lead to a fundamental distrust and excessive need
for security. Thus is explained the dominance of the institutional,
juridical, and formally dogmatic elements.4
These observations and reflections lead me to the thesis: the Holy
Spirit manifests in an exemplary way—i.e. Creator Spirit reveals to
created spirit—what it means to acquire and preserve one’s identity:
through self-transcendence, through reaching beyond self to others.
In this we see what is proper to the holy-healing Spirit, viz. when we
recognize and realize that self-transcendence means kenosis (L. Dabney).
In reaching beyond self to the other it is not a matter of instrumentalizing
the other as a means of self-discovery. Rather it has to do with coming
to oneself by giving room to the other. In this way both—the I and the
others—come to themselves together.
Recently I have become more cautious regarding the interpersonal

analogy and an intersubjective conception of the Trinity. Yet it
remains true: the self-transcendence of God, as it is revealed in the
Father who graciously devotes himself to his creation, and in the Son
who abases himself for the salvation of the world, and in the Holy
Spirit who makes space for the creation to breathe freely, belongs to
God’s essence, from which the creation lives and to which it orients
itself.
From this follows the second part of my thesis, which in the third
part I shall concretize in ecclesiology. Before that, however, I shall
expound the first part of my thesis, and in two steps: the first concerns
the aspect of self-transcendence, and the second the concept of person
that it implies.
God’s self-transcendence in his Spirit creates the

possibility of human self-transcendence
The Spirit of Creation
If we want to structure the various Old Testament testimonies con-
cerning the Spirit, the connection of Spirit and life offers itself as a
point of orientation. But by no means need this connection appear
exclusively positive: the Spirit is experienced not only as promoting
life but also as destroying it. Even in its original etymological mean-
ing5 the Hebrew word rûach indicates the connection of Spirit and
life. In the sense of a surprising, strong motion of air, it denotes the
thrust of wind and breath, and hence also the breathing-air or cli-
matic atmosphere necessary for life (the refreshing, cooling, and also
fertile, rain-bearing wind). Neither is to be taken for granted; and
the experience of the death-dealing absence of rûach or the destruc-
tive powers of the East wind highlight the ambivalence of human
existence. This is expressed also in the early anthropological context
of use, where rûach can indicate an unpredictable, powerful, even
violent physical or psychic vitality. This includes forces acting on
human beings not only from within but also from without. Only
since the exile does rûach stand for the peaceful, normal breathing of
human beings. Now, beyond “vitality,” “feeling” and “will,” rûach
can be rendered by “spirit.” Here spirit “is to be understood to be not
so much a component as a faculty of human beings, and in poetry as
a synonym for ‘I.’”6
The relation to the word rewach, formed from the same letters (with
the u read as w), which as a verb means “to be light, wide,” or as a
substantive “breadth, room” (also “liberation, alleviation”), is dis-
puted. In regard to Pneumatology a basic meaning of “make room, set
in motion, lead from narrowness to breadth and thus enliven”7 would
be most interesting.8 Recourse to the original Sitz im Leben makes the
connection of rûach/rewach and life illuminating. The word, there-
fore, intends neither the breath nor the wind themselves, “but the life-
force, the vitality, the energy, active therein.”9
It is characteristic of Old Testament experiences of spirit that the
profane or anthropological use of rûach is often integrated into a
theological context of meaning. This fluid transition is apparent
where the wind is presented as the instrument of the healing or
destroying action of God and the human life-spirit is referred implic-
itly or explicitly to God or his Spirit as giver of all life.
Once again the experience of the exile opens the eyes to the action
of God in creation. The denationalization and universalization of
Israel’s experience of God makes it possible to connect more closely
the natural phenomena of wind and breath with the action of the
Creator. What was earlier experienced in particular life-situations is
now broadened to the experience of the abiding presence of Yahweh’s
life-giving Spirit. His creative power is celebrated in striking fashion
in the creation Psalm 104, whose central verses 29 and 30 say, “Hide
your countenance, and they are destroyed; take back your breath and
they return to the dust of the earth. Send forth your Spirit, and they
are all created (barah), and you renew the face of the earth.”
The text recalls a basic feature of the phenomenon of spirit, viz. that
it is unmanipulable. Theologically this means that rûach is not the
divine depth-dimension of life, but rather the life-force, which God
in his self-transcendence towards humans constantly bestows. The
dynamic relation between the divine and the human rûach can be seen
in the fact that not only God’s Spirit and the human spirit are brought
into relationship, but also God’s “countenance” and the “face” of the
earth:
v. 29 your countenance their spirit

v. 30 your Spirit the face of the earth.
The facing, the turning of God in his countenance, permits life and
renews life, allows human beings and indeed the whole creation to
“breathe freely” and to “look up.” To open oneself, to turn to an-

other, to enter into relationships—from the point of view of the the-
ologies of creation and covenant these elements of the “theo-anthro-
pological” concept rûach have consequences for the communio of
human beings:
The “Spirit of the Lord” intends this mutual openness and rules out
all suggestion that God and world/humans present themselves as
mutually exclusive and opposite “quantities” without communica-
tion. But such “Spirit-worked openness” is also characteristic of the
human being in his or her relation to God and other humans, not
least the relation of man and woman.10
The self-transcendence of God in his creative Spirit makes possible

the self-transcendence of human beings toward fellow creatures and
toward the Creator.11
In recent theology Paul Tillich and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
above all have reworked the relation of spirit and life or spirit and
matter. In this connection two main ideas can be formulated: a) spirit
is not identical with consciousness, even if human consciousness
presents a particular intensification of life-spirit; and b) the capability
of a living being for self-transcendence must be understood as an
aspiration made possible by God and oriented to completion in his
Holy Spirit. “Now the self-transcendence of life presents itself simul-
taneously as an activity of the living being and as the working of a
power that ceaselessly raises that being above its limits and precisely
thus grants it its life.”12 When in regard to the evolution-process we
speak of spirit as the inner side of matter, this must not be misunder-
stood as though the spirit of life were the self-activating movement of
the creation. Here, therefore, the distinction of human and divine
spirit must be taken into account. On the other hand the theological
concept of self-transcendence does not mean that created life and
finite spirit gradually lift themselves and rise into the Spirit of God.
Rather, the latter is always at work in them, without depriving them
of freedom or ceasing to remain the unmanipulable Spirit of God: the
(relative, because given) independence of the creation is not dimin-
ished, but rather enhanced, through the self-transcendence of the
divine Spirit toward human beings.
The Spirit of Reconciliation to New Life

Because of the inconstancy, infidelity and self-centeredness of hu-
man beings, creation and life are always endangered.
Therefore experiences of loving attention, mutual trust, experi-

ences that give meaning and hope to our life, must touch us
precisely as supernatural events, especially if our life despite its
brittleness and imperilment gains permanent identity and integrity
through them. And in just such a way does the Christian message
communicate, with its promise of a new life no longer subject to
death, a new and unshakable confidence, a new presence of the
Spirit.13
God’s good creation, the work of the Spirit, is constantly threatened

by the fact that human beings do not live up to their Spirit-given
responsibility for it. Rival egotistical and exploitative interests endan-
ger the well-being of the entire creation. Therefore the work of the
Spirit, who helps us in our weakness (Rom 8:26), is necessary for its
protection and for the promotion of life.
In the renewal of creation through the work of the Spirit there come
together the prophetic word on the one hand and the transformative
deed in the hearts of human beings on the other. In Ezekiel, with
whom the theological depthing of the word rûach begins, we find this
connection presented in a characteristic way. In the vision of Ezekiel
37 the people of Israel, buried alive and without hope (cf. Ezek 11-13),
are awakened by the Spirit of the Lord to new life and hope through
the prophetic word. What the prophet sees is not in the first instance
the resurrection at the end of time, but the new creation of Israel
described by analogy to the first creation (cf. the verbs “breathe upon,”
“make alive”), concretely: the return to the Land (Ezek 37:14).
Theologically, it is worth noting that this new creation is compared
with the opening of graves and the extraction of the bodies from them:
God’s Spirit works at the dividing line between death and life. As in
Ezekiel 37 the description of the death-rigor of the people is height-
ened, so the text resumes the traditional image of rûach and surpasses
it: rapture (v. 1), cosmic winds and the breath of life (v. 9), which
stands them “on their legs” (v. 10), impels them from their graves, and
leads to new communion with Yahweh (v. 14), thereby making
possible the knowledge of God (vv. 6, 13, 14).
After the experience of the exile the prophetic fulfillment of ancient

promises (land, people) presupposes the transformation of human
beings, as impressively described in Ezekiel 36:24-28 (in a post-
Ezekielic version?):
I will take you from the peoples, I will gather you from all lands and
bring you into your own land.
I will pour clean water over you, and then you will be clean. I will
purify you from all your uncleanness and from all your idols.
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will take
the heart of stone out of your breast and give you a new heart of
flesh.
I will put my Spirit in you and cause you to follow my laws and heed
my commandments and fulfill them. Then you will dwell in the
Land that I gave to your fathers. You will become my people, and
I will become your God.
The meaning of leb (heart) forbids any individualistic restriction of

the promised transformation and renewal. It has to do rather with a
new centering of human beings, through their orientation to God and
their turning to fellow humans (“so that you follow my laws …”), i.e.
the Spirit reorganizes human relationships. This is the most basic
proper work of the Creator Spirit, for the realization of which the
pious already pray (cf. Ps 51:12f., beginning with the key word barah).
The goal of the gift of the Spirit is the new communion. Ezekiel 36
even surpasses the promise of the new covenant in Jeremiah 31:31-34,
in that in the Ezekiel text the Spirit himself appears as the gift of
salvation.
The supplement Ezekiel 39:29 (“I will hide my face no more from
them; for I have poured out my Spirit over the house”) combines
Ezekiel 37:14 and 36:27, and anticipates in its terminology Joel 3:1-
5, where the outpouring of the Spirit over all Israel (“all flesh” = all
peoples?) is promised. The prayer to make all people prophets centers
in this context not on ecstatic raptures but on the experience of the
closeness, indeed the immediate presence, of God and knowledge of
his will. While this function is taken over in the wisdom literature by
Wisdom itself, precisely Joel, more than Jeremiah or Ezekiel, accen-
tuates the prophetic interest in the saving intervention of God, who
throughout all catastrophes ultimately bestows everlasting salvation.
In the two principal New Testament witnesses, Paul and John, we
can discern the characteristics of this Spirit of the new, reconciled life.
From the perspective of Pneumatology the proclamation of Paul has

two mutually conditioning goals: the Spirit of the Lord is both gift and
obligation (but obligation only because gift). The following state-
ments express the essence of the Pauline proclamation. 1) Through his
death on the cross Jesus the Messiah, the Christ of God, has delivered
us from slavery and the power of sin, and liberated us from all coercion
to justify ourselves before God. They who venture upon faith in this
will receive the promised Spirit, the gift announced by the prophets.14
2) They who have died and risen with Christ in baptism, and through
the Spirit have attained the freedom of the children of God, should
take heed lest once again they die and become enslaved to death-
dealing powers.
In our context it suffices to draw attention to the fact that the self-
transcendence of God in his Spirit makes it possible for both the
individual and the community to transcend themselves, so that the
promise of the fullness of life can be realized. They who follow the
Spirit take no stand on their own achievements, but receive righteous-
ness before God in faith (cf. Gal 3:16-21), let themselves be liberated
for freedom (cf. Gal 5:1), live as sanctified by the Spirit (cf. 1 Cor 6:11,
2 Thess 2:13), free for a sanctifying and healing life in service of their
brothers and sisters (cf. Gal 5:13-26). For Paul spiritual existence
means, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me” (Gal 2:20).
Paul’s spiritual maxim—they who have received the Spirit live by
the Spirit—implies two things: they to whom the freedom of the
children of God is given in the Holy Spirit are not to become enslaved
once more; and to this freedom from subjugating, death-dealing
powers corresponds freedom for Christ, and, in the discipleship of the
crucified one, for fellow human beings as well. In this context, Paul
in Galatians 5:19-26 contrasts the works of the flesh and the fruit of
the Spirit, thus underlining the gift-character of the pneuma and the
unity of the new life. Before “joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
fidelity, gentleness, and self-control” he puts, in the first place, love.
In it is concretized the freedom of the Spirit, and in it, for Paul, is
summed up the entire law (cf., along with Gal 5:14, also Rom 15:30
and, above all, 1 Cor 13). To avoid all misunderstanding, the apostle
speaks not of a “new law,” but of the “law of Christ,” which is fulfilled
out of freedom and in service of one another (cf. Gal 5:13, 6:2). While
the Qumran parallels in 1 QS IV are determined by the dualism of the
two spirits, for Paul the new life according to the law of the Spirit
(Christ) is a break with sarx, i.e. with all egotistic fixation on self (cf.
1 Cor 6:19, 2 Cor 5:14f., Rom 14:7).
At the center of the Pneumatology of the Gospel of John stands the
Paraclete as the Spirit of Truth. That this conception has taken up the
old experience of the connection of spirit and life is shown by the
interchange of the typically Johannine theologoumena “word–truth—
life–spirit.” What Paul says in 1 Cor 15:45 of the spiritual Christ as
the definitive human being, becomes in John the characteristic of the
Spirit: he is “pneuma zoopoion,” life-giving Spirit (John 6:63a).
Therefore the words of Jesus are “spirit and life” (John 6:63b), as in
them the life-giving Spirit is at the same time communicated.
Further, John also knows the connection of faith and receiving the
Spirit, of baptism and new life from the Spirit: “Unless a person be
born of water and Spirit, they cannot enter the kingdom of God”
(John 3:5). This rebirth of the believer is a being-born “anew” (John
3:3, 7: anothen, literally: from above), “from the Spirit” (John 3:6),
which means: from God himself (cf. John 1:13). This rebirth is
neither an automatic nor a magical or mysterious process, but a free
event of receiving and answering. According to 1 John 4:13, the gift
of the Spirit is a sign of union with God; and this being born of God
is rendered manifest in sinlessness, righteousness and love of brothers
and sisters (1 John 3:9f., 4:7). The action of the Spirit, his vital power,
his help and witness to truth, are in the first place undergone in the
heart, but this experiential certainty pushes outward and strives to be
confirmed in the witness of life. It is not a matter of spectacular Spirit-
experiences. What Paul has already emphasized, stands in the Johannine
writings at the very focus of interest: the reception of the new life of
the Spirit is actualized in the Christian’s daily life, a life by no means
understood by the “world.”
With the help of our systematic concept “identity through self-
transcendence,” we can interpret the experiences of the Spirit wit-
nessed to and reflected on in the Bible in the following way. Only a
radical (i.e. reaching to the roots, affecting the center of the heart) new
creation of the human being can bring about that the creation again
functions in a manner pleasing to God, according to the Holy Spirit.
From this insight emerges a hope centered on the eschatological, re-
creating action of God: he bestows a new heart, a new spirit (cf. Ezek
36), so that human beings—reborn of the Spirit (cf. John 3:1-13)—
can share in the kingdom of God and actualize the new communion
of life. The gift of the Spirit means assurance that this new life is
possible; and it implies the task of actualizing this new life, of living
by the Spirit received. Paul speaks in this context of the contrast of
“spirit” (pneuma) and “flesh” (sarx), between life oriented to the Spirit
of God and life that gives free rein to human selfishness at the expense
of others (cf. especially Gal 5).
In terms of an evolutionary view of creation15 we can now say: the
re-creating action of the Spirit is directed to a change in human beings
and their basic way of life. Admittedly, animals too exhibit social
modes of behavior, and these can even lead to self-sacrifice (in popular
belief the pelican nourishes its young with its own blood; in the
middle ages this was seen as a symbol of Christ the Redeemer).
However, this behavior seems to be limited to the preservation of the
species. This seems to be so even where it is observed that the co-
operative rather than the stronger (in the physical sense) prevail and
are rewarded by selection. In the framework of their cultural evolution
human beings have developed new social forms of behavior that
transcend the scope of the group and can integrate the weak, the
disadvantaged and the marginalized. This change of biologically
based behavior is of course not simply (co-)given as a fixed basic
endowment; in each case it must be newly acquired, accepted and
developed. Precisely in their negative behavior human beings are
determined to a far greater extent by what they have acquired than by
what is biologically endowed. In this egocentric and anti-social
behavior human beings often appear worse than animals, i.e. as such
as bite and devour each other (cf. Gal 5:15). A life flowing from the
Spirit of God stands, then, in confrontation with biologically based
and (perhaps to a greater extent) culturally transmitted patterns of
behavior, which are often labeled “typically human” and insuperable.
Christian faith confesses that in Jesus of Nazareth, “conceived of the
Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,” God has made a new start in
the history of creation. Thus God’s good creation is as such not denied
or despised, but rather renewed, in that the predominant sinful modes
of behavior and sinful structures of human society are broken up from
within. Christian faith confesses that human beings are born in the
“one baptism for the forgiveness of sins” from water and the Holy
Spirit, “from above/anew.” Thus they participate in the new life that
is nourished by communion in the holy gifts of the Eucharist. Having
become in the Holy Spirit a new creation, people can overcome their
egotistical behavior, conquer their addiction to inherited modes of
behavior, escape the spiral of violence, and flee the mechanism of
blaming others, which is always in need of a scapegoat. “From now on,

therefore, we judge no-one by human standards… . Therefore, when
someone is in Christ, that person is a new creation: the old has passed
away, and the new has come to be. But all this comes from God, who
through Christ has reconciled us to himself and laid upon us the
ministry of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:16-18).
The Holy Spirit as Trinitarian Person

Our cautious approach to speaking about God (hinted at already in
the introduction), especially when it comes to the immanent Trinity
and the use of the concept of person, now requires us to take up a
twofold task. First, for the sake of methodological support I shall
attempt an application of Rahner’s trinitarian Grundaxiom (basic
axiom) to Pneumatology. Then I shall concern myself with a concept
of person whose most important elements emerge from experience
of the Holy Spirit.
Pneumatological Application of the Trinitarian

Grundaxiom (K. Rahner)
The Grundaxiom of trinitarian theology. What Karl Rahner called
the “trinitarian Grundaxiom” is the formulation of a basic method-
ological position of trinitarian theology: “The ‘economic’ Trinity is
the immanent Trinity, and vice versa.”16 In the discussion of this po-
sition three types of argument are to be distinguished.
The first type amounts ultimately to the assertion that God as God
(“in and for himself,” in se) is not trinitarian, but only becomes such
in the history of salvation. But has this “economic manifestation”
anything to do with the “immanent essence,” if by “Spirit” we mean
nothing more than “experience of the unity with the personally acting
presence of God himself?”17 That we experience the presence of God
precisely in the Holy Spirit is well attested biblically. Hence it
certainly seems to me problematic when Lampe finally confesses that
for articulating basic Christian experience he holds the trinitarian
model as less satisfactory than the “unifying concept of God as
Spirit,”18 for in my view this admission affects the trinitarian character
of God, in so far as the immanent Trinity no longer appears to be
trinitarian.19
The second type of argument, represented particularly by Piet

Schoonenberg, pursues two aims: first, the trinitarian Grundaxiom is
to be taken seriously in the sense that apart from the experience of
salvation history we can know nothing about God. Further,
Schoonenberg is concerned about the integrity of the anthropological
concept of person, which he sees as endangered if Word and Spirit in
their state or process before salvation history are already characterized
as persons. Instead, he speaks of a personalizing of the Logos and the
Pneuma in the economy. Against objections, Schoonenberg has
attempted to strengthen his position. His argumentation can be
summed up thus: “Hence in the Christ-event all three become
something that they were not before, and in so doing remain what they
are.” 20
The third type of argument I should like to characterize as an
attempt to forge an analogical (or perhaps, to avoid misunderstand-
ing, doxological) link between the saving experience of the triune God
(Deus in se pro nobis) and our halting expression of God in his glory
itself (Deus in se pro nobis). In this sense Rahner’s basic trinitarian
assertion can be expounded in six statements. The axiom affirms:
1) We can formulate statements about the triune God only on the
basis of the experience of God in history.
2) These experiences are to be traced to the self-revelation of God,
his self-communication, i.e. made possible through these.
3) On the basis of experience in salvation history we cannot
ultimately conceive, encapsulate, or exhaust God in his essence.
4) But in these historical experiences we can experience the triune
God himself (otherwise our conviction of revelation as self-commu-
nication would be nullified).
5) While our theological statements cannot adequately grasp the
essence of God, they are not so inadequate as to suggest that our
experiences have nothing to do with the reality of God.
6) Through our self-opening to the always greater God, our
metaphors and concepts must constantly remain open to correction
by confrontation with our basic experiences.
To me it seems crucial that the opposite movement, which the
Grundaxiom intends to describe by means of the frequently over-
looked “and vice versa,” is borne in mind: our path of knowledge goes
from the experiences, from the action, to the reality, of God; God’s
path of revelation, his reaching out beyond himself to us, is recognized
as the condition of possibility for our experience, our path of knowl-

edge.
Pneumatological application. Applied to Pneumatology, the basic
methodological statement asserts that we are to proceed from our
experiences of the Spirit in history, and try to come close to what can
be called the reality and especially the personhood of the Holy Spirit.
The adaptation of the Grundaxiom to Pneumatology means, there-
fore:
1) We proceed from specific experiences of the Spirit.
2) We experience these as given from the Spirit of God himself.
3) We remain conscious that we cannot comprehend the “es-
sence” or the “person” of the Holy Spirit.
4) Nevertheless we can discern this essence or person in the
experience of the self-giving Spirit.
5) We check the adequacy of our concept of person.
6) And at the same time we allow our concepts, especially that of
person, to be corrected on the basis of our experiences of the Spirit.
These six points are interrelated. It can be shown that they consist
of three contrasting pairs. We are dealing with our experiences—but
as given by the Spirit; we cannot comprehend the Spirit—yet we can
discern him; we apply our concepts—and in the application let them
be corrected.
A Pneumatological Concept of Person

My point of departure is what the two principal New Testament
witnesses regarding the personality of the Holy Spirit offer for our
consideration.
The evidence of the New Testament. Over a hundred times in the
undisputedly authentic letters of Paul pneuma denotes the Spirit of
God. Over and above the absolute use (“the Spirit”), the reference to
God can be expressed through the adjective “holy” (Holy Spirit); only
twice does Paul speak of the “Spirit of Christ” (Rom 8:9; Phil 1:19)
or of the “Spirit of his Son” (Gal 4:6). The apostle is not interested in
a discussion of inner-trinitarian relations, but what is important for
him is that through the Spirit believers come to faith, to the knowledge
of God, and share in the new life opened up in Christ and the new
fellowship. Even if his talk of the Spirit occasionally sounds imper-
sonal or exchangeable with sophia or dunamis (cf. 1 Cor 2:4-5, 13), for
Paul the Spirit is no anonymous power but the operation of the exalted
Lord, the eschatological gift and power of God.
He therefore directs his attention less to the distinction than to the

unity of the saving work of Father, Son, and Spirit. But on the other
hand, in spite of the dynamic identity of the exalted Lord and the Holy
Spirit, pneuma is not simply another word for Christ or God. Rather,
the Spirit appears as subject in the process of liberation (cf. Gal 4:5-
7; 2 Cor 3:17; Rom 8:2), of the (new) vivification (2 Cor 3:6; Rom
8:10-11), of sanctification (1 Cor 6:11; Rom 15:16), he gives the
charisms (1 Cor 12), functions as witness (Rom 8:16), intercessor
(Rom 8:26-27), revealer (1 Cor 2:10, 13; 2 Cor 6:4-6), inspirer of
preachers (1 Thess 1:5; 2 Cor 3:6), and guide (Rom 8: 14).
In the Spirit is carried out the execution of what Paul promises his
communities in the greeting formulae (cf. 1 Cor 1:3; 2 Cor 1:2; Phil
1:2; Philem 3; Rom 1:7), viz. “grace and peace from God our Father
and the Lord Jesus Christ.” In 2 Corinthians 13:13, Paul expands the
usual christological conclusion of his letters (cf. 1 Thess 5:28; 1 Cor
16:23-24; Gal 6:18; Phil 4:23; Philem 25) to a trinitarian-sounding
formula: “The grace of Jesus Christ the Lord, the love of God, and the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all!” It is no less typical of
Paul to attribute grace to Christ and love to God than for him in
speaking of the koinonia tou hagiou pneumatos in the context of the
Corinthian correspondence (cf. also Phil 2:1) to address the commu-
nity both formed and sustained by the Spirit. Similar extensions
resulting in a trinitarian differentiation in regard to the common work
of salvation are found in 1 Corinthians 12:4-6, Galatians 4:4-6, and
also Romans 5:1-5. This conception is not explained in Paul, but this
theological extension is revealed as a consistent development of
inherited (Old Testament) theology in the direction of the later
trinitarian formulation of the Christian experience of God.
In the farewell discourses of the Gospel of John the Spirit appears as
the gift of the Father as well as of the Son. While on the one hand the
evangelist stresses the parallelism of the missions of the Son and the
Spirit, on the other the Spirit’s being sent through the Son is self-
evident for the developed Christology of the Johannine school. In this
there is no thought of inner-trinitarian procession, the origin of the
Spirit from the Father, like the coming of the Son from the Father
(John 8:42, 13:3, 16:27-28, 17:8), being related to his function in
salvation history. From this is to be gleaned the “essence” of the Spirit,
who in John as Spirit of Truth witnesses to the Son, thus giving the
faithful a share in the new life. More clearly than in Paul, the Spirit
appears not only as the one in whom the event of salvation reaches
believers from the Father through the Son, seizing and permanently
sealing them and uniting them with Christ and the Father, but as the
one who unites the Father and the Son in their communion of action
and life, the Spirit of the Father and the Son.
At the same time through his different functions the Spirit appears
more clearly in his “personality.” Both the parallelism of the missions
and the specific role of the Paraclete permit a clearer emergence of the
Spirit’s status as subject, which can no longer be sufficiently explained
as a mere figure of speech (cf. especially the formulation in John 16:13,
ekeinos, to pneuma = he, the Spirit).
Summing up, we can say that the Holy Spirit bears witness to the
truth of the revelation of the Father in the Son, is at work in preachers,
and awakens faith. Through him the faithful receive for their lives a
new basis, which they are to live up to through living by the Spirit in
the community of the faithful and in missionary witness. The Spirit
is revealed in present and future afflictions as helper and first partici-
pation in eschatological consummation. Because he is the Spirit of
God, the Spirit of the Father and the Son, he is the way to communion
with God. It is of the essence of the Spirit to open oneself to others,
enable communication, and draw people into unity, koinonia/
communio. Lastly, this is no human possibility, but a divinely be-
stowed power of life, which since the revelation in Jesus Christ has
been given a name, i.e. Spirit of the Father and the Son.
Systematic outline: the Spirit of life in his “personal” reality. For the
sake of transparency of method and for checking the argumentation,
in what follows I shall strictly adhere to the six inter-related points set
down above in explication of the trinitarian Grundaxiom as applied to
Pneumatology.
1) Starting Point: Experiences of Spirit

The attempt to do justice to the various and partly contradictory
phenomena called “experience of spirit” both within and without
the biblical writings, and at the same time to construct an under-
standing approach for contemporary reception, can be oriented to
the fact that underlying this expression is an original connection of
“spirit” and “life.” Mostly it indicates a basic religious meaning. Fur-
ther, “spirit” is frequently characterized by the properties of
“unmanipulability” and “communicative power leading to union.”
2) Being Sure: Experience of the Holy Spirit

With the phenomenon of experience of spirit there seems to have
emerged very early, possibly from the beginning, the problem of the
distinction of spirits. Which are evil spirits, which are good, which
are demons, which are angels? And even if the “spirit” is experienced
or adjured as life-giving, the question remains: What is true life?
Here applies a first criterion: the Spirit who gives true life is
unmanipulable. True life cannot simply be produced, but it can be
received, preserved, but also lost—and regained. Where this basic
experience is put into words, it is expressed as “Spirit of God” or “Holy
Spirit.” The second criterion is more concrete: though it is true that
individuals are granted experience of the Spirit, are seized by the Spirit
(admittedly, there can also be a whole group of “prophets”), that each
of them is graced, changed, created anew by the Spirit, this “spiritual”
event is oriented to communion. The Spirit makes possible turning to
others, relationship, communication, fellowship.
The following is decisive: unmanipulability or the character of gift
is not just attributed to experiences of the (in the final analysis divine)
Spirit, is not mere interpretation, but is co-experienced, and forms
what is called the “experience accompanying experience.”
At the same time this is where the ground of experience of the
Christian confession of the “personality” of the Holy Spirit is to be
sought: in pneumatic experiences is revealed no impersonal, anony-
mous divine power, but rather the effective presence of God himself.
The Gift simultaneously makes present the Giver. From the experi-
ence of the Spirit can be deduced that he who makes possible being a
person in freedom and communion, cannot himself be thought of as
impersonal.
3) Limits of Understanding
For reassurance as to method let it be emphasized once more: in
what follows we are concerned not with speculations remote from
experience, but with locating, fixing, pneumatic experiences in the
reality of the divine Pneuma itself. Even though it is clear that it is
correct to ground experiences such as life as a gift, freedom as be-
stowed, and truth as supportive, in the “essence” of the “Spirit,” and
to uncover the same basic structure in what is meant by “Spirit” and
by “love,” the (Holy) Spirit (of God) continues to resist definition.
Indeed any such attempt would contradict his essence. The ultimate
test of human speech consists in letting itself be confirmed or cor-

rected by experience. If, then, the biblical-Christian experience testi-
fies that “experiencing the Spirit” means “experiencing God him-
self,” what trinitarian theo-logical and pneumato-logical explanation
is then needed to protect this experience?
4) Possibilities for Understanding

But how are we to conceive the personhood of the Holy Spirit, and
what relationship does it have to that of the Father and that of the
Son? Is there anything common to these respective personhoods, and
what does it mean to confess a personal God in three persons?
Anyone who wants to construct an anthropological approach to
Pneumatology can start with what is usually accepted as the common
characteristic of spirit, viz. “the ability of the one to be in or with the
other.”21 It is clear that this relationship of sharing and participating
at the interpersonal level is described as love.
In trinitarian theology and Pneumatology it is usual on the one
hand to characterize the reality of God in general as spirit and love, and
on the other to characterize precisely these two qualities as specifics of
the holy and healing Spirit. If this language somewhat complicates the
task of determining the property of the Spirit but is retained neverthe-
less, perhaps an attempt to use precisely this twofold characterization
as clues for determining the unique quality, place and function of the
Spirit in the trinitarian and relational God will be worthwhile.
Hence if the reality of the Spirit consists in being outside himself and
with the other, and if it must be said of God that he is always outside
himself with the other and thus is with himself; if love takes place in
an ecstatic going-out of oneself and being one with the other, and if
it must be said of God that he always opens himself to the other, is one
with him or her in love, and thus is himself; then “Holy Spirit” stands
for precisely this process, in which the Father in the Son is with the
other of himself and at the same time always with himself, and the Son
in the Father is with the other and at the same time with himself. The
Holy Spirit is the “space,” the “medium,” the “event,” in which Father
and Son are always with themselves and with the other, “self-possessed
in still greater selflessness.”22 Uniting thus in himself selflessness and
self-possession, the Holy Spirit can be characterized simply as “the
being-in-the-other-of-himself of God in person.”23
The Holy Spirit is the event of loving encounter, the space into
which Father and Son transcend themselves, and he binds them in
love into unity. To this extent spirit and love as the characteristics of
divine life are the specific properties of the Holy Spirit.
5) Inference: Suitability of the Concept of Person

From this results the possibility of outlining the trinitarian meaning
of person and also the specific character of the “third person.” Being-
in-relation belongs essentially to the definition of person: human life
is to be characterized as personal from its very inception. It has its
ultimate ground in the conviction that every human being is called
by God into existence, addressed by him, animated by the breath of
his Spirit, and called to fulfillment through encounter with him. On
the anthropological level personal life appears as the fruit of human
encounter. It is realized in relations that are essential (“Bezugs-
personen”!). Identity, self-possession, is made possible in the encounter
with the identity of the other. Relation is therefore no mere accident,
i.e. something attaching later to the essence of a person so that rela-
tion would mean simply the coming-into-appearance of subjects al-
ready autonomously constituted for themselves. On the contrary, the
truth is that person and relation belong essentially together.
What is not so clear in this conception is that it is not just a matter
of coming to oneself through others, but that this implies a mutual
giving of room, a mutual opening of space for encounter: “The human
being is the one who came to be through encounter with others, the
one to whom others have offered themselves as space for self-
encounter. In brief, if human beings want to encounter themselves,
they must find others who make themselves inwardly free for them.”24
What human personhood as “embodied personality” always realizes
in a threatened and imperfect way in the process of living, is always
already realized in the “trinitarian personality,” the “self-encounter-
ing personality of God.”25
As the use of the correlative metaphors “Father/Son” and our
reference to mutual relations (of origin) show, the trinitarian persons
can only be determined in their individuality when the fact that they
exist in relationship is articulated. In the Father as source of the
Godhead room for encounter is opened up, and perfect participation
in the divine life is bestowed on the Son. At the same time this action
is that of mutual giving of room, or of the perfect correspondence of
Father and Son. And again this action is at the same time the common
self-opening of Father and Son to the Spirit who unites them, to
whom they grant participation and correspond perfectly, just as they
participate in him who corresponds to them perfectly. Precisely, then,

in the “person” of the Holy Spirit a basic feature of personhood
emerges clearly: he is not only the condilectus, the co-loved third
person, in whom the duality of the mutual love of Father and Son
transcends and offers itself, and precisely in this is bound together
again (vinculum amoris = bond of love); rather he is the one who
perfectly grants room for being-in-each-other, the perichoresis of
Father and Son, he is the one whose own being is realized in selflessly
making possible this being-in-each-other. Thus the Spirit proceeds
not in supplementary fashion as a third from the first and second self-
constituting or rather mutually constitutive persons; rather, he reveals
himself as the always already opened space for interpersonal encounter
in person.26
If I am not mistaken, the recently proposed pneumatological
concept of M. Welker points in the same direction. While in what I
have said so far my interest has borne more strongly on the inner-
trinitarian presuppositions of the economic personality of the Holy
Spirit, Welker develops the concept of the Holy Spirit as a “public
person” in an economic perspective.27 If we inquire about the person-
ality of the Holy Spirit in the sense of an individual act-center, “we are
referred … to Jesus Christ. He is the primary individual human act-
center of the Spirit.”28 But according to Welker this is “a reductionist
presentation of the Spirit” and “even in extra-theological contexts of
experience, an unsatisfactory understanding of person…. Only in
engagement with an organized social environment does an individual
act-center become a person,” which Welker, following N. Luhmann,
formulates also as follows: “Only through a domain of resonance does
an act-center become a person.”29
6) Application: Correcting the Anthropological Preconception

The reality of the Holy Spirit can be gleaned from experiences of the
Spirit and from love, but only by taking constant cognizance of the
“even greater dissimilarity” of all analogous speech.30 Now, therefore,
it is necessary to pay attention to the contrariness of theological speech
mentioned above: from the experiential impact of the Holy Spirit
basic human experiences are to be seen in a new light.
What I have said so far highlights the respect in which the specific
personhood of the holy-healing Spirit can serve as a model. This
consists above all in the fact that the trinitarian, and particularly the
pneumatological model, of personhood reveals that retreating and
granting room to others also belongs essentially to personhood, and

that this process is self-actualization, not self-destruction. The ideal of
human personhood is characterized not by the ruthless self-assertion
of the isolated or rather self-separating individual which is euphemis-
tically called autonomy or independence, but by the open, vulnerable
readiness and availability that yields the self to, and then receives it
back from, the other. “In any case those overcome by the Spirit
experience themselves as freely retreating, as making room for others,
and working for the development of others.”31
Attention to the contrariness of theological speech means therefore
in this case: if personality be understood from the perspective of the
self-realization of the autonomous subject constituted for self, then in
the inner-trinitarian self-realization the person of the Holy Spirit
seems to withdraw completely from view. On the other hand, if
personality be understood from the movement in which the spiritual,
loving subject transcends self in order to be him- or herself in the
other, then the Holy Spirit appears as nothing less than the very model
of personhood. The Holy Spirit is with himself, while he allows Father
and Son to be with themselves in the other.
Summary:
Integrating Model and Basic Christian Experience
The trinitarian Grundaxiom made concrete in Pneumatology sup-
plied us with a hermeneutical rule containing six inter-related points.
It is now a matter of identifying experiences as experiences of the
(Holy) Spirit, in which the Spirit is experienced as retreating and yet
as unmistakably working on us, so that we can characterize him as a
person, while at the same time being prepared to revise our previous
understanding of this concept. Spelled out pneumatologically this
means: in the experiences of true life and true freedom human be-
ings experience themselves as gifted by the fullness of infinite love.
What goes beyond human possibility and so is neither expressible
nor recoverable, withdraws from conceptualization and apprehen-
sion, but even so creatively affects reality. Whatever assists human
beings toward life, truth, or freedom, can with good reason be char-
acterized as a personal reality. In so far as this personal reality pro-
vides us with possibilities that we ourselves cannot account for, and
acts in a way that we in our human domain can only intimate and
realize in a deficient way, it is to be characterized by a concept of
person not grounded analogically from below, but emerging dialogi-

cally and dialectically from above.
The model here outlined is intended for the integration of the two
analogies favored by trinitarian theology. The model of spiritual self-
realization is integrated into that of interpersonal self-realization,
which is to be understood as realization achieved with others. At the
same time there results the possibility of mutual illumination and of
an integration of Spirit, love and person.
Moreover, from the unity of trinitarian action and being, life, truth
and freedom can be determined in their differentiated relationship, as
characteristics of the saving work of the Spirit. Bearing in mind the
conviction of faith that the saving work of the triune God is undi-
vided, presenting itself nevertheless as a differentiated unity, we can
make the following statements.
In the Son as mediator of creation the Father gives life to creatures,
and in him as sole mediator between God and human beings (cf. 1
Tim 2:5), new, eternal life. What takes place through the Son becomes
in the Spirit reality in both the creation and the new creation, so that
life as well as new life means life brought about by the Spirit and drawn
from the Spirit of the Father and the Son.
The Son is the word of life and truth corresponding perfectly to the
Father, and is the Father’s self-communication. The self-revelation of
the Father to the Son in the Spirit becomes known through the Spirit
to human beings as the self-communication of the triune God, while
the Spirit recalls to our minds the truth revealed in the Son and leads
us more deeply into it.
The Holy Spirit grants participation in the love that opens up true
life. Father and Son transcend themselves in the freedom of the Spirit,
who opens up the space for loving encounter and unites them in love
into unity. This action of life and truth, as free, is the self-realization
of spiritual, loving personhood.
The functions of the Holy Spirit in salvation history as Spirit of life,
truth and freedom are the unfolding of his proper personhood. They
are grounded in his inner-trinitarian function as space for life, truth
and freedom, into which the divine persons transcend themselves, and
in which they are ever (immer schon)32 with themselves, in the other.
What is true for trinitarian theology in general—that it “[is] the
extremely difficult expression of the simple truth that God lives
because he lives as love”33—is confirmed in the case of Pneumatology.
The model outlined above ventures—even in the mode of referential,
metaphorical speech—to the very limits of what can still be said.

Therefore it is appropriate and advisable to end by recalling the
Christian basic experience that makes such expression possible. In
regard to Pneumatology “the simple truth” runs more or less as
follows. In the Spirit of life and truth, who is the love of God in person,
the love that seizes us, gives us space in freedom, and leads us together
to unity in communion, we not only receive a gift, we have the Giver
himself present in and among us. What the Father has done in the Son
for the sake of our salvation, is present in the sanctifying-healing
Spirit; he is the arrival of God in our midst, of God himself as gift. It
is for the theology of grace to explain in its turn that our receiving, our
acceptance, is itself made possible through the Spirit.
Ecclesiological Consequences
Human beings live in relationships, and hence their renewal centers
on the renewal of their ability for relationship. This is why the new
communion of life of human beings renewed by the Spirit of God
was touched on in the last paragraph. We take it up again now, since
the actualization of the new communion of life is endangered not
only by its members’ lapsing into anti-spiritual behavior, but also by
the amibiguity inherent in all institutionalization and structural or-
ganization. In this regard two tendencies should be kept in mind:
that toward delimitation to the outside, and that toward institutional
stagnation within. Each of these dangers should be countered by
pneumatological ecclesiology.
The Double Self-Transcendence of the Church As

Sacrament of the Spirit in the World
The first problem can be outlined, again in an evolutionary perspec-
tive, as follows: “We experience in the history of religion a conflict
between the unholy spirit of religious behavior guided by selection
and the ‘Holy Spirit’ of conscious counter-measures against the prin-
ciple of selection.”34 From the history of Israel and the church we
learn of the tension between on the one hand a consciousness of
election bent on excluding others and claiming the new life as pri-
vate property, and on the other the prophetic critique of this false—
because humanly based—certainty about salvation. At Vatican II the
Roman Catholic Church gave clear signals for the renewal of the
church as sign and instrument of the new communion of life. The
image of the church as Body of Christ, which in the sense of a pro-

longation of the Incarnation is open to misunderstanding, was
relativized by the vision of the church as sacrament of the Spirit for
the world. The Holy Spirit is the life principle of the church, which
serves his saving work as an instrument (cf. LG 8.48). It is the Spirit
who gathers together human beings in the church. Membership of
the church is therefore “not to be ascribed to their merits, but to the
special grace of Christ.” It bestows no privilege, nor is it a guarantee
of salvation, since it does not suffice to belong to “the body” of the
church without belonging to “the heart” (LG 14).
Moreover, the church knows itself to be joined to the separated
brothers and sisters of other churches and church communities. Not
only does the Council see in this a sharing in manifold spiritual goods,
but it says that “in a real way they are joined with us in the Holy Spirit,
for to them too he gives his gifts and graces whereby he is operative
among them with his saving power” (LG 15). The constitution on the
church goes a step further when it sees all human beings as in some
manner aligned to the People of God. That human beings seek God,
follow their conscience and act accordingly (cf. LG 16), is a work of
the Spirit or rather of divine grace. This does not detract from the
missionary task, since the church is compelled by the Holy Spirit to
do her part that God’s plan, whereby he has appointed Christ as the
source of salvation for the whole world (LG 17; cf. AG 3, 4, 24), may
be fully realized.
The Spirit makes possible and furthers our relation to God. Devel-
oping this thought ecclesiologically, we can call the Holy Spirit
“Mother of the faithful” (cf. John 3:3-6) and “Mother of the Church.”
Here images from patristic theology would shine with new light.
Western theology is familiar with the image of the procession of the
church from the pierced side of the exalted crucified one, from blood
and water. While here the origin of the church is determined in a
christological and sacramental way, Syrian Pneumatology (3.3.3.2)
expands this image through the idea of the Holy Spirit as the “rib of
the Logos.” In this image the church does not proceed immediately
from the side of the crucified one. Rather, it is depicted as formed by
the Holy Spirit, who is taken from the side of the Logos as his rib. The
creation of human beings serves as a typological model: just as Eve was
formed from the rib of Adam and became the mother of life, so the
Spirit as rib of the Logos became the mother of the new life who
gathers those born of God’s Spirit in the life-community of the
church. Hence the following parallels result: Adam—Logos, Eve—

the Spirit, life of the children of humans—life of God’s children (in
the church). In analogy to Eve, the mother of life, there stands—as
Mother of the new life—not the church, nor Mary (as “Mother of the
faithful”), but the Holy Spirit. Recalling this image from Syrian
theology can contribute to a necessary pneumatological correction of
eschatology.
The Holy Spirit bestows the new life revealed by the Father in
Christ. He empowers human beings to overcome both inherited and
acquired self-centered ways of behaving and to build up a new
communion of true life and true freedom. The church, which serves
the Spirit as instrument of his sanctifying-healing work, is abidingly
characterized by the tension that exists between the self-binding of the
Spirit and his free, unmanipulable action. The church does not live
from itself, but from the vivifying Spirit of God. It does not live for
itself, but actualizes itself in existence for others. As sacrament of the
Spirit for the world, it approaches the consummation, i.e. the Spirit-
created community of all human beings in the communion of the
triune God. Hence characterizing the church as sacrament does not
imply its sacralization or hypostatization, but intends a double
relativity: the church is not an end in itself, since it does not live of,
nor for, itself.
Church As Communio in the Sanctifying-Healing Spirit

When it is emphasized at present in the church that “the Spirit blows
where he wills,” this is said in the context of a critique of an undue
institutionalization of the charismatic and prophetic in the faith-com-
munity. But care should be taken that for its part this legitimate criti-
cism does not remain imprisoned within the false alternatives “charism
or institution.”35 Here it is appropriate to link the pneumatological
dimension with the christological: the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the
Father and the Son; he leads more deeply into the truth, but he pro-
claims nothing other than the new life revealed by the Father in Christ.
Corresponding to the incarnational or sacramental structure of the
divine work of salvation, the Spirit binds himself to Scripture, to the
proclamation and the sacraments, and in a certain manner also to
the official action of the church, which is ordered to the elements
listed above as their servant. This implies neither automatic salvation
(verbal inspiration, sacramentalism) nor human or official control of
the work of the Spirit (clericalism). Rather, there corresponds to the
free self-binding of the Spirit the free self-binding of human beings

and of the church, self-surrender to the movements of the Holy Spirit.
Thus the word of Scripture discloses itself only to a spiritual reading;
and the sacraments are only effective where the faithful open them-
selves in prayer “in the Spirit and in truth” (John 4:23), call down
the Spirit, and let themselves be encountered and sent by him.36 And
official witness only becomes plausible when ministers allow them-
selves to be led by the Spirit, when they understand the gifts of the
Spirit which have been given to them, not as their own possession
but as promise and pledge.
Charism and office are not in opposition (office also is a gift of the
Spirit), but they do co-exist in tension. To office belongs the task of
fostering the manifold charisms in the Holy Spirit, and of helping
them be effective in building up the community. For its part office is
ordered to the gifts of the Spirit, and particularly it should pay heed
to the gift of prophetic criticism. The Second Vatican Council calls
continual renewal “under the influence of the Holy Spirit” a necessity
for the whole church (LG 9; cf. GL 48; PO 22; GS 21,33). As the
pilgrim People of God, the church is on the way toward the consum-
mation of salvation history, which itself is the work of the Spirit (cf.
LG 48-50).
Conclusion: “And that We might live no longer for

Ourselves …”—Identity and Relation
The “forgetfulness of the Spirit” described at the beginning, espe-
cially the stagnation or constraint of the spiritual-charismatic ele-
ment in the church, can lead to the Holy Spirit’s being sought where
rules are broken, crusts burst open, and vitality manifests itself. In
this situation it is important to distinguish the spirits: Which life-
signs are signs of the vivifying Holy Spirit? Which new life is life
according to the Spirit?
The first criterion is taken from the witness of Scripture: human life,
like that of all creation, owes its existence to the creative work of the
divine Spirit. Hence respect for life is a profoundly spiritual attitude.
Life and living cannot be produced, and human beings depend on the
power of God’s Spirit even for the maintenance of life and the
preservation of creation. To live means to exist from God and to God,
in the power of the Creator Spirit.
As the non-divine, the creation can and may exist as God’s other,
because God gives room to the creation proceeding from his fullness,
since he sets it free. Hence a second criterion of life according to the
Spirit: living from the Spirit means giving room to other life, respect-
ing it, and fostering its freedom.
The reality of the Spirit displays the same structure as that of love,
realizing itself in being-outside-oneself and being-with-the-other.
Hence a third criterion: living according to the Spirit is living in
relationship. A presupposition for this is a readiness for ecstasy, i.e.
going-out-of-oneself to find oneself in and with the other. Just as the
Spirit works in creation without limiting its freedom and without
ceasing to be the unmanipulable Spirit of God, so being-with-the-
other means neither violating the other nor losing oneself.
Experience of life as testified in Holy Scripture and interpreted in
faith shows that human beings, the creatures who have been liberated,
repeatedly either make themselves unfree, slaves to non-divine or anti-
divine powers, or are made such. From this developed the recognition
that we should continually depend on the liberating and revivifying
Spirit of God. Hence a fourth criterion, which orients us in two
directions: to live by the Holy Spirit of God means to disengage oneself
from all false security, i.e. from whatever is based on one’s own powers,
and to make oneself free for the gift of true and truly liberating life. At
the same time life from God’s Spirit means turning in a sanctifying
and healing way to all oppressed, exploited and enslaved creatures.
The co-heirs of the Kingdom of God, workers for the community
of the new life in truth and freedom, know themselves to be unprof-
itable servants who await the consummation, the fullness of life
through the Spirit of the Father and the Son. Hence a fifth criterion:
to live from the Holy Spirit of God means to carry out one’s work with
eschatological reserve; in giving witness to the ground of the hope that
fills us (cf. 1 Pet 3:15), to pray that this hope in the Spirit will not be
confounded; and to rely on the ultimate revelation of the supporting
foundation of life.
Living out of the Holy Spirit of God means: to accept life as a gift,
to give room to other life, to live in relationship, to allow oneself to be
liberated and to liberate others, and in all engagements to await the
consummation from God. In brief, with the Fourth Eucharistic
Prayer we can say: “And that we might live no longer for ourselves but
for him, he sent the Holy Spirit from you, Father, as his first gift to
those who believe, to complete his work on earth and bring us to the
fullness of grace.”
Translated by David Coffey
Endnotes
1
For the problem of the trinitarian concept of person in history and at present see
my analysis and reflection in Der Personbegriff der Trinitätstheologie in Rückfrage
von Karl Rahner zu Tertullians “Adversus Praxean, Innsbrucker theologische
Studien, bd. 17, (Innsbruck: Tyrolia, 1986); here on Augustine, 97-104.
2
Augustine, De Trin. 6.7.
3
D. Lyle Dabney, Die Kenosis des Geistes: Kontinuität zwischen Schöpfung und
Erlösung im Werk des Heiligen Geistes, Neukirchener Beiträge zur systematischen
theologie, bd. 18, (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1997), 83.
4
The distinction in John Hicks’ pluralistic theory of religion between self-centeredness
and reality-centeredness could be reconsidered from a pneumatological and
spiritual point of view.
5
For the following, specialists can consult the relevant lexicon articles; a more
popular treatment is available in the first two chapters of H. Schüngel-Straumann,
Rûah bewegt die Welt: Gottes schöpferische Lebenskraft in der Krisenzeit des Exils,
Suttgarter Bibelstudien, 151, (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1992), 9-36.
6
R. Albertz/C. Westermann, “rûach,” in THAT 2, 741.
7
H. Schüngel-Straumann, “Rûah (Geist, Lebenskraft) im Alten Testament,” in M.
Kassel ed., Feministische Theologie. Perspektiven zur Orientierung (Stuttgart,1998),
61. In her last relevant publication Schüngel-Straumann seeks to make an
original connection of rûach and rwh plausible by reducing it to a concrete
experience at the origin of this outcome.
8
Schüngel-Straumann, Rûah bewegt die Welt, 9-12. The author discovers the Sitz im
Leben of the original idea in the following: “There are two actions in human life
to which this [viz. that rhw denotes heavy, rather than normal and peaceful
drawing of breath] particularly applies, both of which have a sexual connotation,
viz. sexual arousal and birth. Above all, there would be no human experience in
which what creates room is as closely connected with heavy breathing as the
action of giving birth. To be able to breathe (again) and survive (cf. Ps 66:12), or
rather find relief in a critical situation, can occur in many other situations in either
a literal or a transferred sense, but nothing fits it more exactly than giving birth.
The audible panting at birth and the lighter drawing of breath after a successful
birth, which in a literal sense ‘creates room’ again for the woman, are at the same
time creative and life-bringing” (Schüngel-Straumann, Rûah bewegt die Welt,
10f.).
9
Schüngel-Straumann, Rûah bewegt die Welt, 12.
10
J. Blank, “Geist, Hl./Pneumatologie A. Bibeltheologisch,” in NHthG 2, 155.
11
The parallels, God’s countenance—God’s Spirit, are found also in Ps 51; Ps 139:7;
Is 63:9,10; Ezek 39:29 (I thank G.T. Montague for this reference).
12
J. Blank, “Geist, Hl./Pneumatologie,” 51.
13
J. Blank, “Geist, Hl./Pneumatologie,” 55.
14
So runs the concentrated version of the Apostle’s message of salvation; cf. Gal
3:13f.
15
On this matter I am grateful to Gerd Theissen, Biblischer Glaube in evolutionärer
Sicht (Münich: Chr. Kaiser, 1984), for many helpful suggestions.
16
Thus the original formulation in Karl Rahner, “Bermerkungen zum dogmatischen
Traktat ‘De trinitate,’” in Schriften zur Theologie 4, (Einsiedeln: Benziger, 1960),
115. Cf. my critical presentation on this in Der Personbegriff der Trinitätstheologie,
30-54, 297-308.
17
Geoffrey W.H. Lampe, God as Spirit (Oxford: Clarendon, 1977), 219.
18
Lampe, God as Spirit, 228.
19
The critique of Alasdair I.C. Heron, The Holy Spirit (Philadelphia: Westminster,
1983), moves in a similar direction. In this context the theses of M.E. Lodahl,
Shekinah/Spirit, should also be critically discussed.
20
Piet Schoonenberg, Der Geist, das Wort und der Sohn: Eine Geist-Christologie
(Regensburg: F. Pustet, 1992), 188. For a discussion with my position, see
Schoonenber’’s helpful essay, “Eine Diskussion über den trinitarischen
Personbegriff. Karl Rahner und Bernd Jochen Hilberath,” in ZKTh 111 (1989):
129-162.
21
On this see E. Lessing, “Geist/Heiliger Geist/Geistesgaben V. Dogmatisch und
Ethisch,” in TRE 12, 218.
22
This expression goes back to Eberhard Jüngel, Gott als Geheimnis der Welt: zur
Begründung der theologie des Gekreuzigten im Streit zwischen Theismus und
Atheismus (Tübingen: Mohr, 1977), n. 20 (Der Gott, der Liebe ist. Zur Identität
von Gott und Liebe).
23
Cf. Jürgen Werbick, Trinitätslehre, 4.5.4 (Selbsthabe und Selbsthingabe).
24
Lothar Lies, Sakramententheologie. Eine personale Sicht (Graz: Styria, 1990), 35.
25
Lies, Sakramententheologie, 34.
26
Hans Urs von Balthasar’s thoughts move in the same direction. See his “Der
Heilige Geist als Liebe,” in Spiritus Creator, Skizzen zur Theologie 3, (Einsiedeln:
Johannes, 1967), 106-122; “Pneuma und Institution,” in Pneuma und Institu-
tion, Skizzen zur Theologie 4,(Einsiedeln: Benziger, 1974), 201-235.
27
Cf. Michael Welker, Gottes Geist: Theologie des Heiligen Gottes (Neukirchen-
Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1992), 287-290.
28
29
Welker, Gottes Geist, 287f.
30
The concepts “spirit” and “love” sum up experiences. The experiential content can
be interpreted by bringing the individual experiences to expression with the help
of metaphors, from which concepts then emerge. On this, see, for both method
and content, Jürgen Moltmann, Der Geist des Lebens: Eine ganzheitliche
Pneumatologie (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1991), 281-324.
31
32
Characterizing the reality of the Holy Spirit with the phrase “immer schon”
(“always already”) should not be misunderstood in the sense of a static image of
God. Even in the Western metaphysics of spirit in Aristotle and Hegel, spirit
means life and process. With M. Welker, we locate the decisive difference in the
fact that Hegel grasps “the vitality and freedom of the Spirit only as living and—
in all relations to the other—free being-with-self, as self-production and return
to self” (Gottes Geist, 279). What appears in the perspective of Hegel as a
grandiose process of the self-becoming of the Absolute Spirit, is from the biblical-
Christian point of view the drama of the history of God’s love for human beings,
i.e. the God who makes himself free for the non-divine, sets it free, and enables
its freedom. With all sympathy for the spirituality of a theologia negativa, it seems
to me that speech of the trinitarian God-in-himself-for-us is indispensable for
safeguarding and verifying precisely this basic experience.
33
Berhard Jüngel, “Das Verhältnis von ‘ökonomischer’ und ‘immanenter’ Trinität.
Erwägungen über eine biblische Begründung der Trinitätslehre–im Anschluss an
und in Auseinandersetzung mit Karl Rahners Lehre vom dreifaltigen Gott als
transzendentem Urgrund der Heilsgeschichte,” in ZthK 72 (1975) 353-364; also
Jüngel, Entsprechungen: Gott—Wahrheit—Mensch. Theologische Eröterungen,
Beiträge zur evangelische Theologie, bd. 88, (Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1986), 265-
275, at 265.
34
Jüngel, Entsprechungen: Gott—Wahrheit—Mensch, 196.
35
For this see the comprehensive volume of the Wissentschaftliche Gesellschaft für
Theologie, ed. Trutz Rendtorff, Charisma und Institution (Gütersloh: Gütersloher,
G. Mohn, 1985).
36
This perspective of sacramental doctrine is particularly clear in Herbert Vorgrimler,
Sakramententheologie, Leitfaden Theologie, 17, (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1987).
Response to Hilberath 295
A Response to
Bernd Jochen Hilberath
Kilian McDonnell, O.S.B.
I am honored to be asked to respond to Professor Hilberath’s pro-
vocative, creative paper. Professor Hilberath has proceeded in an or-
ganic way to develop his thesis in a way I find creative and compel-
ling. Together with other scholars, Professor Hilberath is moving Trin-
ity and Pneumatology into closer relation with creation and culture.
This will aid in the restoration of Pneumatology to its rightful place
in theology. Though “forgetfulness of the Spirit” still has its uses, I
agree with the Professor that “pneumatological deficit” is a happy
alternative. The issue is not pneumatological nose counting (how
many times the Spirit is mentioned). The issue is the integrity of the
theological vision. One can have a superabundance of references to
the Spirit and still have a serious pneumatological deficit because
Pneumatology has not been integrated into the theological vision in
a way that is appropriate.
In 1960 Leo Scheffczyk, historian of trinitarian doctrine well aware
of the range and riches of thought, suggested that “speculative
trinitarian theology cannot easily develop itself further; it has reached
near to the boundaries.”1 But the recent work of Jürgen Moltmann,
David Coffey, Ralph Del Colle, Michael Welker, and Bernd Jochen
Hilberath, among others, show that the outer border has not yet been
reached. Important creative work is still being done when
Pneumatology is taken as the point of departure for trinitarian
reflection.
I appreciate the way Professor Hilberath has approached the diffi-
cult problem of the Holy Spirit as person. He does not suggest that the
concept of person is found in the New Testament writings with regard
to the Spirit but cites the appropriate texts indicating, not demon-
strating, personal existence. I would caution about asking an exegete
a question he cannot answer. He is being asked to answer a philosophi-
cal question of which he had no awareness. I would largely agree with
the general direction of Hilberath’s exegesis, namely that the New
Testament calls out for a recognition of the Holy Spirit as a person,

but would point out that Paul not only “sometimes” but “much more
often speaks of the Spirit as a impersonal power,” as Joseph Schierse
has said.2 There is some support in the central exegetical tradition (see
for instance, Otto Kuss’ Der Römerbrief3) for Bultmann’s reflections
on the animistic and dynamistic conception of the Spirit in the
biblical text.4
As Otto Kuss remarks, the texts which are cited as indicating the
personal character of the Spirit can “without doubt” be used to
indicate personification.5 Further, the personal way of speaking of the
Spirit is used also for “sin” (Rom 5:21; 6:12; 7:17,20) or “flesh” (Rom
8:6f.), and “the Law” (Gal 3:24), where the three appear as acting and
speaking persons. Nonetheless, in John’s Gospel “the Paraclete is
more clearly personal than is the Holy Spirit in many New Testament
passages.”6 Whatever the exegetical problems of individual passages,
as a whole the New Testament calls out and moves toward an
affirmation of the Holy Spirit as a person, however problematic that
concept is. As John Meier remarks concerning the “Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit” of the Great Commission of Matthew: “One does not
baptize people in the name of a divine person, a holy creature, and an
impersonal divine force.”7 The association of the Spirit with the
Father and the Son, both undoubtedly personal beings, does has some
effect on one’s personal perception of the Spirit.
Professor Hilberath contends that “the crucial test of all human
attempts at speaking of [the Spirit] consists in being confirmed or
corrected by experience.” I affirm this with him, and note that
experience is social and part of a continuing history. One has only to
remember the large role Christian experience played in the develop-
ment of the doctrine of the Trinity and early Pneumatology, for
instance in Basil’s experience of baptism. For Basil baptism is “the
origin and mother of doxology.”8 Or Wolfgang Bender’s contention
that it was Tertullian’s experience of prophecy that strengthened his
view of the Holy Spirit as a person.9 However, Tertullian, in his
Catholic period also recognized the Spirit as a person.10 I take it for
granted that experience here is not an autonomous norm, but stands
in dialectical relation to the truth proclaimed.
There is no doubt that Paul and John’s Pneumatology has its roots
in personal and community experience. The tie between experience
and Pneumatology is important for making concrete in the social and
political order the relationality which belongs to the Spirit’s identity,
especially the relation to the great social issues. We need to experience

God in the same room where we experience ourselves. The experience
of the Spirit is not a matter of pure interiority, is not a walled island;
it should push us out to the world with the Spirit’s compassion and
insistence. Further, Michael Buckley points out in his study The
Modern Origins of Atheism that the antidote to atheism is the experi-
ential dimensions of Christology and Pneumatology.11 Some years
ago Klauspeter Blaser in his small study of Pneumatology called for a
study of experience as a constitutive element of faith.12 Experience is
one response to what Michael Welker calls the abstract totalizing of
the action of the Spirit.13 It will aid us in avoiding a too textual and too
conceptual theology and proclamation.
Professor Hilberath holds that for a person relation is not a mere
accident. Relation is constitutive of person, a first moment founding
quality, making the meeting of others possible, but also having
resonance in a social environment. This formulation makes it possible
to see the Spirit as, to use Welker’s formulation, “a public person.”14
In my vocabulary public person would mean a person related to
religious and non-religious creation—to speak perhaps too carefully
and too ambiguously. The relationality of the person of the Spirit
makes it possible for us to move beyond a too sacral Pneumatology,
a Pneumatology tied too exclusively to interiority and the spiritual
life, or too enclosed in the church (inspiration, infallibility, sacra-
ments, orders). Unless the Spirit is seen as a public person, then we are
unable to relate the Spirit to the great areas of poverty, under
development, war, and the environment and the political domain.
Though a number of the Spirit sayings of Jesus in the Synoptics have
been questioned as to authenticity, the one in which Jesus promises
the Spirit to those facing persecution by human tribunals, by “rulers
and authorities” (Luke 12:11-12), both religious and political, seems
so well attested it is hardly possible to doubt its authenticity.15 Joseph
Blenkinsopp has much support for his contention that “prophecy in
Israel was essentially concerned with international affairs.”16 This is
confirmed especially in the influence of cultic prophecy on interna-
tional relations in last decades of Judean independence in the prophets
Nahum and Habakkuk.
To return to the creation theme. If the Spirit is not related to
creation, then we can complain with Gregory of Nyssa about the lazy
Spirit. If the Spirit did not take part in creation, Gregory asks “Where
was he? Was he employed in some other works, and therefore had no
hand in building the universe… . Do we suppose he disassociated

himself from the busy work of creation by reason of an inclination to
ease and rest, which shrank from toil?”17
Professor Hilberath says that the Holy Spirit as the loving subject
transcends itself in order to be in the other, yet still with itself. This
has possibilities for a paradigm of the human personality, but also for
a trinitarian ecclesiology. It would be an antidote to psychological
monism, but also to the church as an absolute organism. In ecclesio-
logical terms this would be a church unafraid of losing its identity by
virtue of its double relationality (not derived from itself and not living
for itself); indeed the relation to the other is part of its identity. It is
not an addendum. Like the sacraments the church is propter hominum
(propter humanum). If the church radically denies this relational
quality, this healing mission, the church unchurches itself.
Eschatology: There are a number of clerics present. Perhaps we
should recall it was the priestly tradition in the Old Testament that
lost eschatology. I take it that the eschatological reserve of which the
paper speaks would refer not only to keeping alive the hope for social
and political transformation beyond what our exhausted, burned out
efforts have achieved, but also to keeping alive the integral cosmic
hope of rational and non-rational creation, the Spirit helping in
attaining full cosmic freedom and salvation. This is a celebration of
the indissoluble bond between human suffering and cosmic suffering
on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the hope we share “as the
whole of creation groans in labor pains” (Rom 8:22) waiting for the
revelation of the children of God, the latter being specifically the work
of the Spirit. Physical creation is not a mere spectator of humanity’s
ultimate liberation and triumphant glory. Physical creation is caught
up into the transformation of the heirs of God. The hope the Spirit
inspires and actualizes reaches beyond believers to creation as a whole.
If the Spirit is the down payment, then this cosmic process is already
in movement toward consummation. We live off the future already at
work among us. In a Prozac world of depression we need this cosmic
hope. This again restates Professor Hilberath’s position of the
relationality of the Spirit to the created order.
In his conclusion to his second section, Professor Hilberath says that
in the Spirit of Life and Truth who to us is the touching love of God
in person, He is the arrival of God in our lives.18 The receiving and
accepting of grace is made possible by the Spirit. The Professor here
alludes to the contact function of the Spirit. God reaches through the
Son, in the Spirit, to touch and transform the church and the world,
and to lead them in the Spirit, through Christ, back to the Father. The
Spirit is the finger of God touching creation; the Spirit is the turning
around point on the way back to the Father. This model is usually tied
to the order of the Great Commission (Matt 28:19) or to the
processional model of the Trinity. But if one looks carefully at the
Syrian model of Father—Spirit—Christ the Spirit still functions as
the contact person. For instance Gregory of Nyssa using the model of
an athlete anointed with oil, says: “Whosoever is to touch the Son by
faith must needs first encounter the oil in the very act of touching….
There is no interval of separation between the Son and the Holy
Spirit.”19 The model here is Father—Spirit—Christ. In all the New
Testament models (including Spirit—Christ—Father; Christ—
Spirit—Father), whatever the order of the persons, the Holy Spirit has
a contact function. If one looks at the other models in the New
Testament one finds that the Spirit has consistently this contact
function. I am treating this in an upcoming publication.
There are biblical creedal models in various forms (one member,
two member and three member). The specifically trinitarian models
are also various, but in each the Spirit has this contact function. So the
contact function is not tied to one model. It is the perception that the
Spirit fulfills this contact function, that one meets in the literature,
expressions like Athanasius saying that the purpose of the incarnation
was the imparting of the Spirit.20 Behind this perspective is the
conviction that the Spirit is the “place” where God touches the world
and the church. Symeon the New Theologian wrote: “Such was the
purpose and goal of the whole work of salvation by Christ: that the
believers might receive the Holy Spirit.” In early Antonian and
Pachomian literature the spiritual life was directed toward acquiring
the Holy Spirit. Saint Seraphim in the last century held that “the true
goal of the Christian life consists in the acquisition of the Holy
Spirit.”21 Nicholas Cabasilas held that the effect of the work of Christ
“is nothing other than the descent of the Holy Spirit on the church.”22
Bishop Kallistos Ware contends that “the whole aim of the Christian
life is to be a Spirit-bearer, to live in the Spirit of God, to breathe the
Spirit of God.”23 And finally, the Roman document on the year of the
Holy Spirit uses this same perspective, saying that the Spirit “is the
final ‘touch’ through which God unites with his creatures.”24 Much of
the talk about the reality and actuality of God in our own personal and
institutional histories is essentially pneumatologically based because
of this contact function of the Spirit. This is why Professor Hilberath’s

remark about the touch and the arrival of the Spirit is so important
both methodologically and theologically.
Endnotes
1
Leo Scheffczyk, “Die heilsökonomische Triniätslehre des Rupert von Deutz und
ihre dogmatische Bedeutung,” in Kirche und Überlieferung, eds. J. Betz and J.
Fries (Freiburg: Herder, 1960), 90.
2
Franz Josef Schierse, “Die neutestamentliche Trinitätsoffenbarung,” in Mysterium
Salutis: Grundkriss heilsgeschichtlicher Dogmatik, eds. Johannes von Feiner and
Magnus Löhrer, 5 vols. (Einsiedeln: Benziger, 1965-1976), 2.120.
3
Otto Kuss, Der Römerbrief: übersetzt und erklärt 3 vols., (Regensburg: Pustet, 1963-
1978), 2.580.
4
Rudolf K. Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament 2 vols., trans. Kendrick Grobel,
(New York: Scribner, 1951-1955), 1.155.
5
Kuss, Römerbrief, 2.583-584.
6
Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel according to John 13-21, 2 vols., (Garden City:
Doubleday, 1970), 2.1139.
7
John Meier, Matthew, New Testament Message, vol. 3, (Wilmington: Glazier,
1980), 371-372.
8
On the Holy Spirit 27.68; Sources Chrétiennes 17 bis: 488, 490. See also 10:24; 10:26;
17:43; 25:59; SC 17 bis: 332, 336, 338, 398, 400, 458, 460, 462.
9
Wolfgang Bender, Die Lehre über den Heiligen Geist bei Tertullian, Münchener
theologische Studien 2; Systematische Abteilung, vol. 18, (Munich: Hueber,
1961), 10-11, 150-163, 169.
10
Georg Kretschmar, “Le développment de la doctrine du Saint-Esprit du Nouveau
Testament à Nicée,” Verbum Caro 22 (1968): 37.
11
Michael Buckley, The Modern Origins of Atheism (New Haven: Yale University,
1987), 361.
12
Klauspeter Blaser, Vorstoss zur Pneumatologie, Theologische Studien, vol. 121,
(Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1977), 10.
13
Michael Welker, God the Spirit, trans. John F. Hoffmeyer (Minneapolis: Fortress,
1989), 163.
14
Welker, God the Spirit, 74-77.
15
C.K. Barrett, The Holy Spirit and the Gospel Tradition (London: SPCK, 1947),
130.
16
Joseph Blenkinsopp, A History of Prophecy in Israel (Philadelphia: Westminster,
1983), 147.
17
Against the Macedonians 11-12; Gregorii Nysseni Opera Dogmatica Minora ed.
Werner Jaeger et al, 10 vols., (Leiden: Brill, 1960-1996) 3/1.98.
18
Bernd Jochen Hilberath, “Identity through Self-Transcendence: The Holy Spirit
and the Fellowship of Free Persons,” in this volume, 287.
19
Against the Macedonians 16; Jaeger, 3/1.102-103.
20
On the Incarnation and Against the Arians 8; PG 26:995. See also Vladimir Lossky,
The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood: St.Vladimir’s Seminary
Press, 1976), 179
21
“The Revelations of Saint Seraphin of Sarov,” quoted in P.Evdokimov, L’Esprit
Saint dans la Tradition (Paris: Cerf, 1969), 94.
22
Explanation of the Divine Liturgy 37; SC 4.
23
Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way (London: Mowbray, 1979), 119.
24
The Holy Spirit: Lord and Giver of Life The Theological-Historical Commission of the
Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 (New York: Crossroad, 1997), 31.
302 Jürgen Moltmann
The Trinitarian Personhood of the

Holy Spirit
Jürgen Moltmann
Let us begin by looking at two icons of the Holy Trinity. One is
Andrei Rublev’s wonderful fifteenth-century picture. The three Per-
sons show the profound unity joining them, in which they are one.
The chalice on the table points to the surrender of the Son on Golgatha
for the redemption of the world. The other icon is the medieval im-
age of the Trinity in the Western church presented by the ‘mercy
seat.’ God the Father holds the cross-beam of the crucified Son in his
hands and the Holy Spirit descends in the form of the dove from the
face of the Father to the face of the dead Son. The painters often
reflected on the Father’s face the pain of the Son’s death. This picture
was therefore often called ‘the pain of God.’ It is the divine situation
of Holy Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday which is
shown here, a situation later called ‘the death of God’ in one of our
hymns long before Hegel took up this phrase. Common to both icons
of the Trinity is the centrality of the cross of the Son. At this point
the unity of the three divine Persons is an open and inviting Trinity:
it is the crucified Christ, the eucharistic cup, or the church in the
person of Mary. C.G. Jung misunderstood this as quaternity,’ but it
is nothing else than the openness of the trinitarian unity for the world.
What is different in the two icons is the form of the Holy Spirit:
there a divine person—here an animal, the dove. Is this not a speak-
ing sign for an underdeveloped pneumatology of the West? We still
have problems with attributing full divine personhood to the Holy
Spirit, a personhood which on the other hand we confess with all the
dogmas of the ancient church.1
How can we approach the personhood of the Holy Spirit? I think
there are two ways: it is one thing to work back from our experience
of the work of the Holy Spirit to his essential nature; it is quite an-
other to perceive his (or: her) essential nature from his (or: her) con-
stitutive interpersonal relationships. The deduction from the deeds
to the doer of them begins with the human experience of the Spirit.
This knowledge, however, is always only an indirect knowledge. Be-
The Trinitarian Personhood of the Holy Spirit 303
cause we draw conclusions about the transcendental origin of these

religious experiences, our knowledge remains tied to the experiences,
which are its point of departure. Can we in this way perceive more
than the energies of the Holy Spirit? The essential nature of the Holy
Spirit is evident only in his interpersonal relationships with the Fa-
ther and the Son in the trinitarian unity, because only they are of
‘like nature.’ Their trinitarian inter-subjectivity illuminates the sub-
jectivity of the Holy Spirit. Their trinitarian community illuminates
the personhood of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit’s personhood is consti-
tuted by his interrelatedness with the Father and the Son. But can we
enter upon this level of the so called ‘immanent Trinity’ at all? Do
not all our attempts to explore even the ‘depth of the Godhead’ re-
main fettered by our earthly existence and the limits of our experi-
ence? But what then actually happens when we forget ourselves and
in doxological ecstasy praise and glorify the triune God, not for our
sake, but for his own sake? Are we then not departing from his opera-
tions on us and our experiences of his energies and adoring the good-
ness and beauty of his essential nature? What we revere for itself, rests
for us in itself and exists in itself even without us.
We shall now try to approach the inner-trinitarian personhood of
the Holy Spirit by analyzing his relationship to the Father and the
Son in the trinitarian movements we call the ‘economic Trinity’ and
shall then turn to the recognition of the so called ‘immanent Trinity’
in the doxologies of human praise. We shall draw on the previous
‘doctrines’ of the Trinity held in the Western and Eastern churches;
however, we will use these as conceptual frameworks (Denkmodelle).
By relating them to the fundamental movements in the ‘History of
God,’ we shall relieve them of the rigid inflexibility they have as-
sumed in the process of their dogmatization. We shall work with the
patterns of 1) the monarchical Trinity; 2) the Trinity in eschatological
process; 3) the eucharistic Trinity; and 4) the doxological Trinity.
The Monarchical Concept of the Trinity

The great Cappadocians already spoke of a monarchical order (taxis)
of the Trinity in all of God’s works. “Every operation has its origin
from the Father, proceeds through the Son, is perfected in the Spirit.”2
But it was developed preeminently in the West. The starting point
for the modern, idealistic doctrine of the Trinity is God’s self-revela-
tion (Karl Barth) or God’s self-communication (Karl Rahner).3 It is
one, single movement, in which the One God reveals himself through
himself and communicates himself through himself to human be-

ings. This one movement proceeds from the Father through the Son
and is effective in the power of the Spirit. This monarchical structure
can be recognized in all of God’s work: the Father always acts through
the Son in the Spirit. The Father creates, reconciles and redeems the
world through the Son in the energies of the Spirit. In the monarchi-
cal order all activity proceeds from the Father; the Son (Logos, Wis-
dom) is always the mediator, and the Holy Spirit the mediation. The
Father is the revealer, the Son the revelation, and the Spirit God’s
revealedness (Barth). The Son is nothing else than God’s self in rev-
elation or God’s self in communication. In the unified movement of
God’s self-revelation/communication, the Holy Spirit appears directly
as the ‘Spirit of the Son’ and is mediated through the Son as the
‘Spirit of the Father.’ He proceeds from the Father ‘through the Son’
and is the gift of the Father ‘and the Son,’ not a giver himself. Under-
stood, then, as ‘God’s efficacious presence’ in the world, no indepen-
dent Personhood can be perceived in the Spirit over against the Fa-
ther and the Son.
According to this monarchical pattern for the Trinity, the ‘economic
Trinity,’ as Karl Barth stressed, is bound to correspond to the ‘imma-
nent Trinity’ and indeed must be identical with it, as Karl Rahner’s
thesis runs; for if God is the truth, then God corresponds always and
everywhere to Godself in his revelation, thereby making his revela-
tion dependable.4 How else are we to trust God’s promise, unless
God is faithful to his promises? And God is faithful to his promise
because God is essentially the faithful One, for he ‘cannot deny him-
self ’ (2 Tim 2:13).
It follows from this presupposition that the ‘trinitarian deduction’
(trinitarischer Rückschluß, as Karl Barth says) from the revelation which
is believed and experienced finds just that in God’s essence which
revelation presupposes, because it corresponds to it as God’s ‘self-
revelation.’ God must be ‘beforehand in himself ’ (Barth’s phrase)
what he is afterwards in his revelation.5 As God’s self-revelation the
‘economic Trinity’ corresponds to the ‘immanent Trinity.’ But what
precedes the self-revelation of God as its eternal and transcendental
foundation is by no means an ‘immanent Trinity’ as the Trinity is in
itself. If the doctrine of the ‘immanent Trinity’ describes only ‘the
transcendent primordial ground of salvation history,’ as Karl Rahner
teaches us, then it must infer the transcendental ‘primordial ground’
from the historical operations and experiences, and can naturally find
nothing in the ‘primordial ground’ that fails to correspond to salva-

tion history. But if this is the conclusion, then there is in actual fact
no ‘immanent Trinity’ at all in the trinitarian theologies of Karl Barth
and Karl Rahner. What they call the ‘immanent Trinity’ is nothing
other than the ‘Primordial Trinity’ as the eternal origin of the ‘eco-
nomic Trinity’ or salvation history. ‘Primordial Trinity’ is a Trinity
already open and willing for revelation and salvation, but not an ‘im-
manent Trinity’ which could exist independently in itself, for itself
and by itself. Following the ‘trinitarian deduction’ (Rückschlußlogik)
we can only reach the ‘God for us’ and can recognize nothing of
‘God in Godself ’ (Gott an sich).
In this monarchical divine movement, we cannot know God di-
rectly in his essential nature, as God knows himself in his Word, and
as the Son knows the Father (Matt 11:27). This is not due to God’s
inaccessibility; it is due to the power of the divine movement into
which we are drawn when we experience God’s self-communication.
In the dynamic of this divine movement we have God at our back, as
it were, and the world in front of us, as the field for the proclamation
of the gospel and for acts performed in God’s Spirit. Here God is the
one, single, mighty subject and sovereign in his revelation. Even our
knowledge of his self-revelation is determined by him, that is, through
his Spirit: God gives himself to be known (Gott gibt sich zu erkennen).
We might also call this monarchical trinitarian pattern the ‘iden-
tity model,’6 because it shows the following sequence of identifica-
tions: God’s essential nature in his operations, God’s being in God’s
revelation, the Father in the Son, the Son in the Spirit, the Spirit in
us: “Who hears you, hears me.” This is however certainly a model of
a functional doctrine of the Trinity.
The Trinity in Eschatological Process

A historical (geschictlich) concept of the Trinity is linked to the mo-
narchical concept, transposing it from the vertical eternity-time-rela-
tion to a sequence of the ages of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit in the eschatological process of the kingdom of God. Already
Gregory of Nazianzus saw a progress in the revelation of God from
the recognition of the Father in the Old Testament to the Son in the
New Testament and to the Holy Spirit in the Church.7
Although according to Augustine the opera trinitatis ad extra sunt
indivisa, from earliest times on Christian theology has ascribed the
work of creation to the Father, the work of reconciliation to the Son
and the work of sanctification to the Holy Spirit. These personal

attributions do not exclude the other divine Persons from the special
work in question. The opera ad extra belongs within the context of
God’s history with the world from creation in the beginning to the
consummation in the end. The work of sanctification presupposes
the work of reconciliation, and both have the work of creation as
their premise. The sense of time in this history is the eschatological
tense of the future of the coming God. The eschatological ‘arrow of
time’ presses towards the eternal sabbath of the creation in the king-
dom of glory in the triune God: the work of creation is aligned to-
wards the work of reconciliation, and the work of reconciliation is
aligned towards the work of sanctification. The eschatological con-
summation of the world is the fulfillment of the promissory history
of God with humankind as well as the fulfillment of the ontological
promises of the creation ‘in the beginning.’
We are indebted to Joachim of Fiore for this interpretation of the
Trinity in the eschatological process of history.8 His historical
periodization of this eschatological process and his visions of its per-
fection shaped the Western interpretation of history, particularly in
the messianic interpretation of the modern world as we can see it on
the seal of the USA as novum ordo seclorum, or in the German term
Neu-zeit. Joachim’s vision of the coming new ‘age of the Spirit’ grew
out of his study of the relationship between the New Testament and
the Old Testament. He discovered promises of God in the Old Testa-
ment which the New Testament neither fulfills nor abrogates, but
endorses and expands. In this way he arrived at the conviction that in
the eschatological process there was not only the one transition from
the ‘old law’ of Moses to the ‘new law’ of Christ, as Aquinas taught,
but that a further transition from the nova lex Christ to the intelligentia
Spiritus Sancti was to be expected: ‘the knowledge of all truth.’ The
third ‘age of the Spirit’ was expected as the ‘end-time,’ before the end
of history in the kingdom of eternal glory. Joachim continually drew
up new lists of the ages of history: the age of the Father embraces the
Mosaic law; the age of the Son embraces the Gospel of Christ; the
age of the Holy Spirit will bring the immediate knowledge of God.
In their relationship to God, human beings will proceed from ser-
vants of God to children of God and to friends of God. In the first
age marriage prevails, in the second the order of priests, in the third
the order of spirituals, etc.
The temporal concepts of anticipations and abrogations in Joachim’s

view of the eschatological process of history are misleading however,
if we disregard the trinitarian doctrine of ‘appropriations’ to which
Joachim adhered as his intricate diagram of the three intersecting
rings shows. If this is taken into account, it is impossible to say with
Henri de Lubac that Joachim hoped for a coming of the Holy Spirit
‘without Christ.’ There is nothing ‘post-Christian’ in Joachim’s
eschatological theology. Sanctification, illumination, and enlighten-
ment are ascribed to the Holy Spirit without exclusion of the Father
and the Son. Just as the Father creates the world through the Son in
the Spirit, so the Spirit sanctifies and illuminates the world through
the Son in the Father. The change of determining subjects in the
sequence of works in the economy of salvation is a change within the
Trinity, not a dissolution of the Trinity in history. Joachim described
the monarchical concept of the Trinity only diachronically. History
begins with creation and ends with the transfiguration of the world.
Everything begins in the Father and is consummated in the Spirit.
The Eucharistic Concept of the Trinity

The eucharistic concept of the Trinity is the logical consequence of
the monarchical form of the Trinity, for the experience of grace arouses
gratitude, and where God is known in his works, creation’s song of
praise awakens. Thanksgiving, prayer, adoration, praise, and the si-
lent sinking into wonder, proceed from the energies of the Spirit,
who gives life, and are directed towards the Son, and go with the Son
to the Father. In this movement (taxis) all activities proceed from the
indwelling Spirit, all mediation takes places through the Son, and
the Father is purely the passive recipient of the thanksgiving and songs
of praise of his creatures. The Spirit glorifies the Son, and together
with the Son, the Father.9 The Spirit unites us with the Son, and
together with the Son, the Father. This is expressed in the New Testa-
ment with the phrase: ‘… for the glory of God the Father’ (Phil 2:11).
In this perspective God’s Being is described not through what he
does but through the way in which he receives. From the God whom
we wish to thank, sing, and dance to, we await receptivity, not activ-
ity. We speak, and want God to hear. We live, and want God to
experience us.
The situation in human life for this concept of the Trinity is the
celebration of the eucharist and the life which in the Holy Spirit
becomes a ‘feast without end,’ filled with grace and happiness. This
eucharistic concept of the Trinity was best developed by Orthodox

churches, whose center is the celebration of the eucharist, and whose
desire is to present themselves with their divine liturgy as the true
public adoration of God.10
If we look at the experience of God which men and women find in
his works, then the monarchical order of the Trinity precedes the
eucharistic form of the Trinity: without God charis no human
eucharistia. But if we ask about God’s intention in his works of cre-
ation, reconciliation and redemption, then it is only in the eucharis-
tic form that the monarchical form of the Trinity arrives at its goal.
For the intention of God’s works is not that they should just happen,
but that they should awaken joy and thanksgiving, and the song of
praise that returns to God. Just as in the first chapter of Genesis is the
completion of the works of creation and hence their goal too, the
sabbath of creation and God’s rest, in the same way, the eternal sab-
bath in the kingdom of glory is the end of all God’s works of redemp-
tion.
God’s suffering history in Christ’s passion serves the history of God’s
joy in the Spirit over the homecoming of human beings and all other
creatures into the realm of God. Athanasius summed this up in his
famous statement: “God became human so that human beings should
be deified.” The first phrases is talking about the divine katabasis, the
second about the human anabasis. The katabasis holds within itself
the monarchical form of the Trinity, the anabasis, the eucharistic form.
The eucharistic form is the reversal of the monarchical form. In the
monarchical form the divine dynamic is: Father Son Spirit, in the
eucharistic it is: Spirit Son Father. The energies of the Spirit flow
back to the Son and to the Father. These are the two divine move-
ments: ‘from God’ and ‘to God.’
But whereas in the monarchical form of the Trinity we find the
sequence of identifications, which tells us that God is wholly present
in his revelation, in the eucharistic form of the Trinity we discover an
experience of differentiation. We feel that our human concepts can
never grasp God in Godself, and our thanksgiving leads therefore to
fathomless wonder over God, in apophatic silence and in
eschatological expectation. “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a
foreign land?” (Ps 137:3). All our words, symbols, and concepts are
taken from the God-alienated situation of this world and are thus
inadequate. Theology in our human condition here and now can be
a theology of faith, but not yet of sight; theology of the cross but not
yet theology of glory; theologia viatorum, but not yet theologia pa-
triae, for the whole earth is not yet “full of his glory” (Isa 6:3).
When the glory of God appears on earth ‘a world without parables,’
symbols, and metaphors will come into being, for the indwelling
glory of God has no need of images and cannot be imaged. The im-
mediate, sensory nearness of God will make superfluous all the im-
ages, symbols, and parables which we construct and need for our-
selves “in the foreign land,” in order to bridge the distance. In the
kingdom of God we shall also no longer conceive of and even think
“God” as we do here in the world of alienation. In his encompassing
real presence, God will no longer be that hidden counterpart to whom
we here call “God.” The apophatic experience of difference itself arises
out of the human attempt to give God thanksgiving and praise. It
leads inevitably to the eschatological relativization of the theology of
faith in the love of God to the hoped-for eternal theology of sight in
God’s glory.
Trinitarian Doxology
The trinitarian doxology leads beyond these three conceptions of the
‘economic Trinity.’ This doxology is touched on in the Nicene Creed
in the clause about the Holy Spirit ‘who with the Father and the Son
together is worshipped and glorified.’ Anyone who is glorified ‘to-
gether with’ others cannot be subordinated to these others and also
cannot be numbered as ‘third Person’ in the Trinity. The Holy Spirit
is their equal.
Worship and glorification go beyond the salvation that has been
experienced and also beyond the thanksgiving that has been expressed.
The triune God is glorified for God’s own sake. The trinitarian dox-
ology is the only place in the Christian liturgy and life in which—at
least in intention—our gaze passes beyond history to the eternal es-
sence of God in himself, so that here we can talk about a doctrine of
the ‘immanent Trinity.’ The trinitarian doxology is the Sitz im Leben
for the true concept of the ‘immanent Trinity’:11 ‘Glory be to the
Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the begin-
ning is now and ever shall be, world without end.’ The trinitarian
doxology interrupts the liturgical drama which begins in the name of
the triune God and ends with the blessings in his name, because it
directs the sense of the people to the eternal present in which we no
longer remember the past and no longer wait for any other future.
The doxology brings unutterable points of rest into the liturgical
process. Before the God who is ‘for ever and ever’ the things which
concern us become petty. Even God’s own works and God’s
eschatological process recede behind God’s eternal being as such.
What corresponds in life to the trinitarian doxology is the percep-
tion of the eternal moment (der Augenblick). I mean by that an aware-
ness of the present which is so intensive that it interrupts the flux of
time and does away with transience. We call the moment in which
life is as intensively experienced as this, ecstasy.12 It is a momentary
awareness of eternity, not a permanent one. We feel that these mo-
ments belong to a different category than the time of everyday life
and that our everyday standards cannot grasp or judge them. We
would like to say to these moments as Faust in Goethe’s drama: “Lin-
ger on, you are so beautiful.” This Augenblick is an “atom of eter-
nity,” said Kierkegaard.13
Since times unknown and in our culture since Plato, the ‘time-
circle’ is understood as a symbol for eternity. In the monarchical and
the eucharistic concepts of the Trinity the unity of the three Persons
was seen in the unifying movement ‘from—to.’ For Joachim this was
the eschatological drive ‘from’ the Father via the Son ‘to’ the Holy
Spirit in history. If the unity of the Triune God lies in the unifying
movement, the unity of the ‘immanent Trinity’ (i.e., of God in Godself
and in eternity) could be seen in the circular movement of the
perichoresis of the divine Persons. If the Holy Spirit ‘together with
the Father and the Son is at the same time (simul) worshipped and
glorified,’ as the co-equality-axiom of the Nicene Creed says, then
the Spirit is seen in the perichoretic fellowship he shares with the
Father and the Son, and this puts an end to his numbered position as
“third” Person in the Trinity, for ‘at the same time’ permits no ‘pre-’
and no ‘post-.’ There is equality beyond numbering in the self-cir-
cling and self-reposing dynamics of the trinitarian perichoresis.
Trinitarian doxology does not put an end to the monarchical Trin-
ity, the Trinity in eschatological process and the eucharistic Trinity; it
completes their movement and dynamics. That is the reason why it
can also be viewed as a presupposition for the origin and the end of
these divine movements in God’s history with the world. Its underly-
ing conception of the ‘immanent Trinity’ must however preserve the
structures of the other, the ‘Economic’ conceptions of the Trinity.
Even if it excels these, nothing can emerge in its own concepts which
could contradict any of the economic movements of the Trinity. There
are not different trinities but only the One, Divine Trinity in the
trinitarian works and in itself as we adore it in our doxologies.
The Immanent Trinity in Doxological Perspective

To love and praise God as God is in himself means to see God in his
perfection: the perfect Being, the perfect Community, the perfect
Love, the perfect Joy, the perfect Light. The immanent Trinity is the
community of perfect Love and shows the structure of perfect Com-
munity. This is eternal Life, for eternal Life is communication in
community. To speak of the three divine Persons, Father—Son—
Holy Spirit, means to speak simultaneously about the One, divine
Community, i.e., the Trinity. Without community a person cannot
be a person, and without Persons a community cannot be a commu-
nity. The three divine Persons and the One, divine Community must
be understood as co-original. Neither the three Persons precede the
One Community nor the One Community, the three Persons. In
order to exclude tritheism and modalism we must balance the three
Persons and the One Community all the time. In German we have
the two expressions, Dreifaltigkeit, which starts with the Oneness and
then comes to the Threeness, and Dreieinigkeit, which starts with the
three and then comes to their Community.
There is an ancient concept for community without uniformity
and for personality without individualism. It is the term perichoresis.
This is the most fruitful concept for the understanding of the imma-
nent Trinity, for the divine community in the persons, and the per-
sons in their community. Perichoresis is also the concept for a social
understanding of the Trinity, which seems to be more appropriate
than the Augustinian ‘psychological doctrine of the Trinity.’
The semantic history of the word perichoresis has been well investi-
gated.14 The noun means ‘whirl’ or ‘rotation,’ the verb means ‘going
from one to another,’ ‘walking around,’ ‘handling around,’ ‘encir-
cling,’ ‘embracing,’ ‘enclosing.’ John of Damascus wanted to con-
ceive with this term the unity of the Son and the Father in the Trinity
according to the gospel of John: “I am in the Father, the Father is in
me.” (John 14:11) The Son and the Father are not one subject, but
one in a singular unity. They are unseparated and unmixed. The ex-
pression of the one “in” the other expresses this singular unity in the
best way. The Latin translation of perichoresis was first circumincessio,
later circuminsessio. The first term speaks of a dynamic interpenetra-
tion (in-cedere), the latter of a lasting and resting mutual indwelling
(in-sedere). The Council of Florence (1438-1445) formulated a dog-

matic definition in order to prepare the ecumenical unity of the catho-
lic and orthodox churches: “Because of this unity (perichoresis) the
Father is totally in the Son and totally in the Spirit. The Son is totally
in the Father and totally in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is totally in the
Father, totally in the Son. No one precedes the other in eternity or
exceeds the other in magnitude or power.”15 With the Latin transla-
tions circumincessio and circuminsessio a double meaning of a trinitarian
unity is expressed: movement and rest. You may get the same result if
you use as verbs for perichoresis the Greek words perichoreo and
perichoreuo. Then mutual resting in each other and dancing around
with one another are meant. In the eternal life of the Holy Trinity
there is simultaneously absolute silence and endless whirlwind. In
any cases, however, there is on the level of their perichoresis no prior-
ity of the Father, but only equality of the divine Persons. If no one
precedes or exceeds the other, they cannot even be numbered.
The special idea of perichoresis is that the divine Persons are habit-
able for each other, giving each other place for residence, life-space
and home. Each one of them is Person and Room at the same time.
Each one of them is active and passive, giving and receiving at the
same time. By giving themselves to each other, the perichoretic com-
munity is also a kenotic community. The Persons are emptying them-
selves into each other. If one wants to see the Father, one must look
at the Son and the Spirit; if one wants to know the Spirit, one must
look at the Father and the Son, because the Holy Spirit is ‘totally in
the Father and totally in the Son.’ Each Person is in ecstasy out of
herself in the other. This is the meaning of their ‘ek-sistence.’ It is
divine love which draws a Person so much out of himself, that it
exists “in” the other. In human terms this is the mystical language of
love. This perichoretic concept of the divine Person does not fit into
the general definition of personality according to Boethius: “Persona
est individua substantia naturae rationalis,” which was used in West-
ern trinitarian thinking so much. The divine Person in the divine
perichoresis is an ecstatic hypostasis.
In the relationships to each other, every divine Person has not one,
but two names: the one is Father in relationship to the Son and Pro-
ducer (proboleus) in relationship to the Spirit. The other is Son in
relationship to the Father and Word in relationship to the Spirit. The
third is Spirit (or: breath) in relationship to the Father and Light in
relationship to the Son. Each Person unites and distinguishes the
two others through their different relationships to each other.16 It is

the Father who makes the difference between the Son and the Spirit
because of his different relationships to the Son and the Spirit. If one
does not notice this, one could not distinguish between the Son and
the Spirit. It is the Son who makes the difference between the Father
and the Spirit because of his different relationships to them. By not
taking note of this, one could easily speak of ‘God as Spirit.’ And it is
the Spirit who distinguishes between the Father and the Son through
his different relationships to them. The Spirit cannot ‘proceed from
the Father and the Son (filioque).’ This would make the Son another
Father. What the Spirit received from the Father is different from
what he receives from the Son. Because every Person and every rela-
tionship in the Trinity is unique, one must not speak of a ‘filioque’
and one should also drop the idea of the Father as the ‘mon-arche’ of
the Son and the Spirit.
Augustine defined the Holy Spirit as the vinculum amoris between
the Father and the Son. The result was—against his own intention—
the reducing of the Trinity of divine Persons to a Binity of two Per-
sons and a common bond of love, peace, and unity. If one wants to
maintain the full divine Personhood of the Holy Spirit and respect at
the same time Augustine’s deep insight of the mutual bond of love
between the Father and the Son, one should say: the Holy Spirit ‘ek-
sists’ in the mutual love of the Father and the Son, but is not this love
itself, because this mutual love is already there in the mutual rela-
tionships of the Father and the Son. The Father and the Son are not
united through the Holy Spirit, because they are already one in mu-
tual love, but they are united in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is
perichoretically ‘totally in the Father and in the Son.’ The Spirit is
not only the ‘Spirit of the Father,’ and not only the ‘Spirit of the
Son,’ and not only the ‘Spirit of the Father and the Son,’ but God in
Godself and in his Godhead, a divine Person in different relation-
ships to the Father and to the Son.
If we call God the Father the origin of the divine Being of the Son
and the Spirit, we may see the Son as the origin of the divine Love of
the Father and the Spirit, and the Holy Spirit as the origin of the
divine Light which illuminated the Father and the Son. In the com-
plete harmony of Being, Love, and Light we may recognize the full
Joy and the perfect Bliss of the Trinity.
Translated by D. Lyle Dabney
Endnotes
1
I have dealt extensively with the doctrine of the Trinity and Pneumatology in: The
Trinity and the Kingdom, the Doctrine of God, trans. Margaret Kohl (San
Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981); The Spirit of Life, A Universal Affirmation,
trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992); and History and the Triune
God, Contributions to Trinitarian Theology, trans. John Bowden (New York:
Crossroad, 1991).
2
See the contribution of David Coffey, “Spirit Christology and the Trinity” in this
volume. Cf. Also Basil of Caesarea, Treatise on the Holy Spirit 31d.c.
3
Karl Barth, Kirchliche Dogmatik 1/1, Zürich, 1932; Karl Rahner, Der dreifaltige
Gott als transzendenter Urgrund der Heilgeschichte, Mysterium Salutis 2, (Einsiedeln:
Benziger, 1967), 317-401.
4
Karl Rahner: “Die ‘ökonomische’ Trinität ist die ‘immanent’ Trinität und
umgekehrt” (Rahner, “Dreifaltige Gott,” 328) Cf. Yves Congar’s critical remark:
“In der ökumenischen Trinität enthüllt sich die immanente Trinität. Enthüllt sie
sich aber gang? Es gibt doch eine Grenze… . Die unendliche göttliche Weise, in
der die von uns ausgesagten Vollkommenheiten verwirklicht sind, entgeht uns.
Dies muss uns zurückhaltend machen, wenn wir sagen: ‘und umgekehrt,’” Der
Heilige Geist, Christlicher Glaube in moderner Gesellschaft 22, (Freiburg im
Breslau: Herder, 1982), 377.
5
Barth, Kirchliche Dogmatik 1/1, 404, 419, 470.
6
Cf. Duncan Reid, Energies of the Spirit: Trinitarian Models in Eastern Orthodox and
Western Theology (Atlanta: Scholars, 1997), 27-54.
7
Gregory of Nazianzus, Die fünf theologischen Reden, Griechisch-deustch (Düsseldorf:
Patmos, 1963), 26.S.263.
8
Jürgen Moltmann, “Christian Hope—Messianiac or Transcendent? A Theological
Conversation with Joachim of Fiore and Thomas Aquinas,” in History and the
Triune God, 91-110.
9
Basil, Treatise on the Holy Spirit 39c-40a, “Der Weg der Gotteserkenntnis geht also
von dem einen Geist durch den einen Sohn zu dem einen Vater.”
10
Dumitru Staniloae, “Die Heilige Dreieinigkeit, die Strukture der höchsten Liebe,”
in Orthodoxe Dogmatik 1 (Gütersloh: Benziger/Gütersloher, 1985), 1.1.3 (see
esp. sec. B: “Die Intersubjekivität Gottes,” 272-290).
11
Leonardo Boff, Der dreieinige Gott (Düsseldorf, 1987), 243-248; Bruno Forte,
Trinität als Geschichte: Der lebendige Gott–Gott der Lebenden (Mainz: Matthias
Grünewald, 1989), 211-230.
12
Martin Heidegger, Über den Humanismus (Frankfurt am Main: V. Klostermann,
1965), 15: “Ek-sistenz bedeutet inhaltlich Hinausstehen in die Wahrheit.”
13
Sören Kierkegaard, Werke, vol. 1, Der Begriff der Angst, ed. L. Richter (Hamburg,
1960), 82.
14
Ciril Sorc, “Die perichoretischen Beziehungen im Leben der Trinität und in der
Gemeinschaft der Menschen,” Evangelische Theologie 58 (1998): 2, 100-118.
15
Denzinger, n. 704.
16
Staniloae, Orthodoxe Dogmatik, 280. Cf. Also his essay, “The Procession of the
Holy Spirit from the Father and His Relation to the Son as the Basis of Our
Deification and Adoption,” in Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ: Ecumenical Reflec-
tions on the Filioque-Controversy, ed. Lukas Vischer (London: SPCK, 1981), 174-
186.
Spirit Christology and the Trinity 315
Spirit Christology and the Trinity

David Coffey
This paper has for its title the exact topic of the current session of our
symposium: Spirit Christology and the Trinity. Is there a connection
between these terms, or better, the realities that they represent? It is
the thesis of this paper that indeed there is, and moreover that Spirit
Christology provides our best mode of access to the theology of the
Trinity. If this be true, we have, then, one more reason for being
thankful for the present revival of Spirit Christology.1 But first we
must clarify our terms, and we begin with Spirit Christology.
In its proper sense this term is used to designate the Christology of
certain Church Fathers of the second and third centuries, which took
up the early Two-Stage Christology of the New Testament and
transformed it by interpreting it ontologically in the light of the late
New Testament Christology of pre-existence. A typical instance of the
Two-Stage Christology is to be seen in 1 Peter 3:18, which states that
Christ was “put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.” Here
the background meanings of the terms “flesh” and “spirit” as correla-
tives are supplied already from the Old Testament: spirit is power,
while flesh is weakness; spirit is the specific characteristic of God, who
is transcendent, omnipotent and eternal, while flesh characterizes
human beings, who are embedded in this passing world and hence
desperately weak and destined to decay and die. These, then, are
functional terms, characterizing contrasting modes of existence. In
the case of Jesus they denote respectively the two successive stages of
his saving manifestation as marked off by his death and Resurrection,
i.e. his earthly life up to and including his death, and his glorified life
initiated by the Resurrection and extending into eternity. Represent-
ing an early stage of christological reflection, they do not contemplate
for him either the actuality or the possibility of a pre-existent state.
The situation changes when we come to our early Fathers. They
retain the terminology of spirit and flesh, but these no longer have the
meaning they had in the New Testament. Instead of signifying
contrasting modes of existence, they now signify distinct but compat-
ible principles of being. In the case of Christ, instead of denoting
successive stages of his saving manifestation, they now denote simul-
316 David Coffey
taneously operative constitutive principles of his person, flesh the

human element in him, and spirit the divine. It would be wrong—
because anachronistic—at this early stage to think of spirit in terms of
the third person of the Trinity. The outstanding instance of the Spirit
Christology approach is Ignatius of Antioch, who wrote that “there is
one physician, composed of flesh and spirit, generate and ingenerate,
God in man, authentic life in death, from Mary and from God, first
passible and then impassible, Jesus Christ our Lord.”2 Further, in the
case of Christ, the order flesh-spirit which we encounter in the New
Testament gets to be inverted to spirit-flesh under the influence of the
doctrine of pre-existence, which became established on the basis of the
prologue of the Fourth Gospel and perhaps certain Pauline and
deutero-Pauline texts. It is interesting to note that in their formula-
tions the Fathers about to be quoted draw out an unstated presuppo-
sition of John’s prologue: if the Word became flesh, his original
condition must have been spirit. Thus the author of 2 Clement
declares that “Christ the Lord, who saved us, being first of all spirit,
became flesh,”3 and for Tertullian the Word who is spirit “clothed
himself” with flesh in the womb of the Virgin.4 Likewise Cyprian says
that at the Incarnation the Son of God “descended into the Virgin and
as holy spirit clothed himself with flesh.”5
Such, then, was the early Spirit Christology. It was characterized by
a certain primitiveness and the openness that goes with it. However,
while a renewed Spirit Christology in our own day has many options,
simply to revert to the original form is not one of them. A modern
Spirit Christology cannot ignore the doctrinal and theological devel-
opments that have taken place in the meantime. Thus, first, because
of the development of the doctrine of the distinct personhood of the
Holy Spirit canonized at the First Council of Constantinople, it
should now understand the word “Spirit” in Spirit Christology as
referring to the Holy Spirit, third person of the Trinity, and no longer
simply as the divine element in Christ; and even if it does not go as far
as this, it cannot have done other than benefit from the sophisticated
reflection on the Holy Spirit that has occurred in the long history of
theology. Most importantly, taking its cue from certain New Testa-
ment texts that point in this direction, e.g. Luke 1:35, it must appeal
to the Holy Spirit as an explanatory principle of the divinity of Christ.
Secondly, it needs to take a stand on the Logos Christology, whose
ascendancy began already with the Apologists and has been main-
tained in main-stream theology ever since. In this respect many a
modern form of Spirit Christology has been proposed precisely as an

alternative to Logos Christology, which is perceived as unsatisfactory
on the grounds that it downgrades the humanity of Christ.6 If Christ’s
personhood resides solely in the divine person of the Logos, so the
argument goes, then he cannot be a human person. In regard to
humanity, therefore, he is something less than other human beings:
his humanity is deficient. My position on this objection is that it rests
on a misunderstanding, as I shall explain soon. While the proposition
that Christ was, and is, the incarnation of the Logos, second person
of the Trinity, is not taught directly in Scripture, a sound basis for it,
viz. John 1:14, is so taught, and the developed doctrine passed into the
tradition and the faith of the Church through the teachings of the first
four ecumenical councils. It has therefore become a non-negotiable
datum for subsequent theological reflection.
Admittedly, the scriptural forerunner of Spirit Christology was
elaborated without reference to Logos Christology. How could it have
been, since it preceded it? But this does not mean that later versions
of Spirit Christology can do the same. They have a responsibility to
take into account not only the rest of the New Testament but all
relevant teachings that have developed subsequently in the tradition
of the Church. This taking-into-account could be either negative or
positive, that is, it would at least not deny any other article of faith, or
it could actually incorporate other such articles. Obviously, if it can
successfully incorporate positively some article of essential relevance,
which undoubtedly Logos Christology is, it will have more to recom-
mend it than a form that cannot. I acknowledge, by the way, that these
remarks come out of a background ecclesiology common to Catholics
and Eastern Orthodox but not shared universally.
A Spirit Christology that successfully incorporates Logos Christo-
logy will, then, be superior to one that does not. This is because it will
do greater justice to the total data of the New Testament about Christ
and therefore to the person of Christ himself. For the same reason a
Spirit Christology that incorporates Logos Christology will be supe-
rior to a Logos Christology that does not incorporate Spirit Christo-
logy. But no Logos Christology incorporates Spirit Christology, for
by definition Logos Christology understands the mystery of Christ
simply and solely in terms of the hypostatic union between the Logos
and the humanity of Christ. In this regard no appeal is made to the
Holy Spirit, for in such a Christology any and all activity of the Holy
Spirit relative to the person and the ministry of Christ is understood
318 David Coffey
as subsequent to the constitution of the hypostatic union. Therefore a

Spirit Christology that successfully incorporates Logos Christology
will be superior to a Logos Christology tout court. But the mystery of
Christ revealed in the New Testament is our sole access to the mystery
of the Trinity, and New Testament Christology is our sole access to
the theology of the Trinity. Hence the thesis of this paper, that Spirit
Christology provides our best mode of access to the theology of the
Trinity. It remains, of course, to show that a Spirit Christology such
as I have described is possible.
Let us now take up the question of whether Logos Christology
necessarily diminishes Christ’s humanity. For Rahner personhood
denotes the ontological principle of the achieved self-consciousness of
a being whereby it is referred to an intramundane Thou and ultimately
to God.7 On this understanding the subsistence of Christ’s humanity
in the Logos, far from diminishing his humanity, renders it the
supreme instance of humanity. By comparison, all purely human
personhood, involving as it does a lesser surrender to God, implies a
certain negativity. Rahner adds that in its “ek-stasy” (its standing
outside itself because of its orientation beyond itself) it constantly falls
back on itself and becomes “hypo-static” (presumably standing “be-
low” that to which it is really referred, viz. God, and therefore finite).
I would like to add a final precision that hopefully explains why it must
be precisely the Logos in which Christ’s humanity subsists. In its
complete ontological surrender to God (the Father), an accomplish-
ment, I emphasize, of grace alone, requiring no co-operation on the
part of Christ, this humanity must coincide ontologically with, and
therefore subsist in, that divine person whose property in the Trinity
is to be wholly given over to the Father. This person is the Logos, since
he alone in the Trinity draws his being, and indeed in its entirety, from
the Father. The other divine person, the Holy Spirit, draws his being
from the Father and the Son together (Western position) or from the
Father through the Son (Eastern position, of which I shall speak later).
(Here we equate Logos and Son, of which more anon. See later also
for a discussion of Monopatrism.) This response, I submit, more than
adequately meets the objection that has been raised, as it not only
answers the objection, but demonstrates the indispensability of Logos
Christology.
I mentioned earlier that, taking its cue from texts like Luke 1:35, a
contemporary Spirit Christology would need to invoke the Holy
Spirit as an explanatory principle of the Incarnation. However, to be
acceptable in the Catholic tradition, and I think in the Orthodox as

well, such a Christology would need to fulfill two further conditions:
first, take into account in a positive way the later doctrine of the Holy
Spirit as the third person of the Trinity; and second, understand and
present the role of the Holy Spirit in the Incarnation not as substitut-
ing for, but as shedding light on that of the Logos. To my knowledge,
this has never been done, at least in the ideal way just outlined. Indeed,
it has scarcely even been attempted, so overpowering has been the
tradition of a thoroughgoing Logos Christology. Hence anyone
assuming such a task today faces a daunting prospect indeed. This is
why it is helpful to indicate that at least two prominent Church
Fathers, one from the East, the other from the West, at least made a
beginning in this regard. I refer to Cyril of Alexandria and Augustine
of Hippo, from each of whom for reasons of space I have made only
a sparing selection. But before continuing, it is necessary to comment,
as promised, on the propriety of equating Logos and Son as designa-
tions of the second person of the Trinity.
It was only gradually that the tradition was able to clarify the
relation between the Logos and the Son. For Ignatius it seems that
there was a pre-existent Jesus who became Son only through his
conception in Mary’s womb.8 Justin held for an eternally pre-existent
Logos, but it is not clear whether for him the Logos was always a
distinct person, i.e. the Son, or only became such shortly before and
in view of the creation of the world.9 It is only with Origen that a clear
statement is to be had identifying Logos and Son and telling of his
generation from eternity.10 Aquinas had no trouble interchanging the
titles Logos (Verbum) and Son, as in either designation the mode of
production is the same, i.e. generation.11 Such has remained the
tradition in East and West, though Lossky has observed that the Logos
title belongs primarily to the economic order, which would make it
secondary in comparison with Son.12 Of course, Son too belongs
primarily to the economic order. However, there is a further consid-
eration, which confirms the conclusion I have drawn from Lossky: in
regard to a person the Logos title could only be metaphorical, whereas
Son is analogical. Even, however, if these titles are unequal in rank, it
is permissible today, given the justified way in which the tradition
actually developed, simply to interchange them as designations of the
eternally pre-existent second person of the Trinity. For the same
reason the Son title can be used as the link between Spirit Christology
and Logos Christology, and in fact that is what will be done in this
320 David Coffey
paper. It should be noted, however, that in the New Testament, where

these titles referred concretely to Jesus, they approached him from
totally different perspectives. The Logos title, accruing to him through
his pre-existent state, belonged to the context of descending Christo-
logy, whereas Son (of God), being messianic, pertained to ascending
Christology.
The first of two texts I have chosen from Cyril is from his
commentary on Isaiah, specifically his treatment of 61:1-3, “The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, therefore he anointed me, etc.” On this
text Cyril says:
He who said above (i.e. in the previous verse) concerning those to

be called by faith, “I am the Lord, at the due time I shall gather them
together,” said, as if the time had already arrived at which he had
promised to gather them, and as if he were already made man, and
had assumed our likeness and humbled himself unto emptying,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.” Moreover, existing by nature
as God, the Only-begotten is the Saint of saints, and sanctifies the
whole of creation, in that he is born of the holy Father and sends
as his own the Spirit poured forth from him (the Father) both to
the powers above and to those who acknowledge his appearance.
How, then, did he come to be sanctified? Existing as both God and
man, he gives the Spirit to creation in the divine way, but receives
it from God the Father in the human way. This reception we call
the anointing. Thus he clearly establishes the cause of the Incarna-
tion (enanthropesis). For saying that it was from the Father, he felt
obliged to add, “Therefore he anointed me, he sent me to announce
good news to the poor, to heal the broken hearted, to announce
release to captives, to give sight to the blind, and to call for these a
day of retribution.”13
In this text the event spoken of is the Incarnation, as is clear from the
use of the word itself and the allusions to Philippians 2:6-11. How-
ever, in dependence on the Isaian prophecy it is referred to as brought
about by an anointing of the Son, the “Only-begotten,” in his hu-
manity, by the Father, with the Holy Spirit. That the Incarnation is
brought about thus is asserted, but how this is done is left unex-
plained.
The second text is taken from Cyril’s commentary on the Letter to
the Hebrews, at 1:9:
“Therefore God anointed you:” You see that God is anointed by
God. For when he became man, remaining what he was, then also,
humanly, he was anointed for apostleship. For his humanity was
anointed by the divine Spirit, but he (the Spirit) did not work as on
ordinary men like prophets or patriarchs, but the anointing was, as
it were, the whole presence of the anointer. The Son was anointed
when he came into the world, that is, when he became incarnate.
For then he entered into communion with creation, uniting a
created reality to himself and anointing the humanity with divinity
so as to make the two of them one.14
That this text is meant to be understood in line with Isaiah 61:1-3 is

clear from the mention of apostleship, as the Isaian scripture reads,
“Therefore he anointed me, he sent (apestalke) me to announce good
news to the poor, etc.” Again it is the Son in his humanity who is
anointed, but here the anointer is the Holy Spirit. This, however,
does not contradict the assertion of the Isaian commentary that the
Father is the anointer, as there the Father anoints with the Holy Spirit.
That the event considered is the Incarnation is stated directly, and
also is clear from the statement about the whole presence of the
anointer as distinct from his partial presence to prophets and patri-
archs. The latter reference is to John 3:34: “It is not by measure that
he (the Father) gives the Spirit (to Jesus).” As the text continues there
is a change in perspective: now the Son becomes the anointer, as his
hypostatic conjunction to the humanity of Christ can fittingly be
called an anointing. Again, how the anointing by the Spirit, which is
presented as paramount, brings about the Incarnation is not explained.
In the course of the two texts Cyril has said that each of the three
divine persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is the anointer. How-
ever, in the light of the Cappadocian principle of the unity of the
divine action ad extra this is not surprising. Gregory of Nyssa had
expressed it thus: “Every operation has its origin from the Father, and
proceeds through the Son, and is perfected in the Holy Spirit.”15 In
this case, however, there is a difference based on the uniqueness of the
hypostatic union: the Father anoints (the Son in his humanity),
inasmuch as he does so with the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit anoints
(again, the Son in his humanity), inasmuch as he actually does the
anointing or is the ointment; the Son anoints (just the humanity this
time) with himself, inasmuch as he (alone) is hypostatically united
with it. What emerges clearly from all this is that the anointing by the
Holy Spirit is paramount, and that it is the cause of the Incarnation,
322 David Coffey
though no explanation is offered as to how this is so. Nevertheless,

what we have here in Cyril is the beginnings of a relatively sophisti-
cated Spirit Christology that via Son Christology clearly is conceived
as not at odds with Logos Christology. I say “the beginnings,” because
the step from Spirit Christology to Son Christology still remains to be
explained.
We turn now to Augustine, in regard to whom I am indebted to
Jacques Verhees for his fine article, “Heiliger Geist und Inkarnation
in der Theologie des Augustinus von Hippo.”16 I have selected two
texts, the first from the commentary on St. John’s Gospel:
When John the Baptist said, “For God does not give the Spirit
according to measure,” he was speaking of the very Son of God, to
whom the Holy Spirit was given not according to measure, for in
him dwells the entire fullness of the Godhead. It is not without
grace that the man Christ Jesus is the mediator between God and
human beings, for he says that he is the one in whom the prophecy
was fulfilled, “The Spirit of God is upon me, therefore he anointed
me, and sent me to bring good news to the poor.” That the Only-
begotten is equal to the Father is the work not of grace but of
nature, but that a man was taken up into unity of person with the
Only-begotten is the work not of nature but of grace… . To the rest
of humankind, however, the Spirit is given according to measure.17
Note that in this text the Isaian prophecy is coupled with John 3:34
to yield a Christology, indeed a Spirit Christology. The Father anoints
Christ’s humanity with the Holy Spirit, thus effecting the Incarna-
tion of the Son, but why this anointing should result in the Incarna-
tion is not explained. Verhees in commenting on the text says that
the grace referred to is “the grace of the Holy Spirit,” “whom the
man Jesus received without measure, while others receive him only
ad mensuram, according to a particular measure.”18 What Verhees is
rightly saying is that for Augustine the “grace” effecting the Incarna-
tion is purely and simply the Father’s radical gift of the Holy Spirit to
the humanity of Christ.
The second text is taken from Augustine’s The Predestination of the
Saints:
Was it not by being created and taken up by the Word that this
man, from the time he began to be, began to be the only Son of
God? Did not that woman full of grace conceive God’s only Son?
Was it not of the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary that God’s only
Son was born, not by the lust of the flesh but by God’s singular gift?
… Let us recognize, therefore, in our head the very source of grace,
from which it flows through all his members according to the
capacity of each. The grace by which that man, from the moment
he began to be, became Christ is the grace by which every man or
woman, from the moment they begin to believe, becomes a
Christian. It is of the same Spirit that Christ was born and the
Christian reborn. It is through the same Spirit that we have our sins
forgiven and that he was without sin.19
Summarizing the text, Verhees writes, “It is one and the same ‘grace,’
one and the same gift of the Spirit, that makes Jesus of Nazareth into
the Christ and—through him—believers into Christians.”20 It is clear
from the text that for Augustine the terms Son and Word are inter-
changeable, and that therefore for him there is no difference between
what we call a Son Christology and a Logos Christology.
To sum up, Augustine like Cyril proposes a Spirit Christology that
he sees as in no way incompatible with Logos Christology, that he sees
indeed as requiring a Logos Christology, but again like Cyril he
advances no explanation as to how the Father’s radical gift of the Holy
Spirit results in the Incarnation of the Logos. I conclude this section
with the observation that with such strong, even if scarcely noticed
support from a major Father from each of East and West, a modern
reconciling Spirit Christology, far from being ruled out in advance,
merits at the very least our respectful and sympathetic consideration.
We now move on to consider the meaning of Trinity in the present
context. The view that I advocate, in line with the epistemology of
Lonergan, is that corresponding to the three stages of knowing in
general, apprehension, understanding, and judgment,21 there are
three levels of knowledge of the Trinity, the data of the New
Testament, the immanent Trinity, and the economic Trinity. How-
ever, there is a difference, dictated by the unique case with which we
are dealing. Whereas in knowing in general the second stage, under-
standing, exists of itself only at the level of abstraction (it exists
concretely only as affirmed in the third stage, judgment, which is the
return to the data now affirmed to exist as understood in the second
stage), in the Trinity two judgments are made, the first being that the
immanent Trinity exists of itself not just at the level of abstraction but
really and actually, i.e. in itself, and the second being that it exists also
in the return to the New Testament data, i.e. as precisely the economic
324 David Coffey
Trinity. Without pursuing the matter here, we need to clarify which

of these two judgments is intended in the present paper, and the
answer is the first, i.e. the immanent Trinity in its own right. In saying
all this, I am aware first, that I have modified the widely accepted
methodological principle that in the matter of the Trinity one may
argue only from the economic to the immanent order, and second,
that the very existence of the immanent Trinity as such is challenged
by some authors in the field of Spirit Christology. But these are issues
which for lack of time we cannot take up here.
The traditional Logos Christology, combined with the theology of
the missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit, resulted in the two forms,
Western and Eastern, of the doctrine of the immanent Trinity with
which we are familiar. These agree that the Son comes forth by way
of generation from the Father, but whereas the West, following
Augustine, teaches that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and
the Son as from a single principle (the Filioque), the East teaches either
that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son (per Filium),
or, from the time of Photius, that he proceeds from the Father alone
(Monopatrism). While this difference between East and West is by no
means insignificant, constituting as it does the principal disagreement
between the two sides, there is agreement on the important matter of
the taxis, or order, of the persons, i.e. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, this
consisting first in the Monarchy of the Father and then in the relative
positions of the other two persons. Obviously this order is affirmed in
the West and in the per Filium school of the East, as in both it
corresponds to the actual comings-forth of the second and third
persons, but it holds also in the Photian version, as the latter has no
desire to question the fact that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the
Father precisely as the Father of the Son. From this it is important to
draw the conclusion that despite the area of disagreement the taxis is
sacrosanct in both East and West, a conclusion that will be invoked
later in the paper.
However, when we come to the economic Trinity, we notice that
there are two taxeis. The first, consequent upon the missions of the Son
and Holy Spirit, is as we would expect, i.e. Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
The second, however, inverts the order of the second and third
persons. It itself is found in two forms, the first having to do with
ordinary Christians, and the second with Christ. An example of the
first would be Ephesians 2:18: “Through him (Christ) we both (Jews
and Gentiles) have access in one Spirit to the Father.” Here the taxis
is Holy Spirit, Son, Father. Scheeben explained this as a simple

inversion of the original taxis: if the divine persons approach us in the
order, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, we respond by moving in the opposite
direction, i.e. in the Holy Spirit, through the Son, to the Father.22
Obviously this text and others like it can aptly be called texts of return,
i.e. of our return to God. When we consider the case of Christ himself,
the inversion of order of the second and third persons is not so easily
explained. An example would be Luke 1:35: “The Holy Spirit will
come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow
you; therefore the child to be born of you will be called holy, the Son
of God.” Here the order is Father, Holy Spirit, Son. In general the
texts belonging to this category are all those that link Jesus’ divine
Sonship, and therefore the Incarnation, with the Father’s radical gift
of the Holy Spirit, i.e. the texts of Spirit Christology. And these too
can be called texts of return, for having come forth from the Father,
Jesus returns to him in his life and death in the power of the Holy
Spirit given to him in all fullness, as St. John’s Gospel states many
times.
It was reflection precisely on these texts that led me to see that the
traditional doctrine of the origination of the Son and the Holy Spirit
in either of its forms, Eastern or Western, was only a partial statement
of what we could know of the immanent Trinity. This doctrine
accounted only for those texts that concerned God’s outreach to us,
not for those concerning our return to him. Indeed, speaking meth-
odologically, it was an extrapolation, in Lonerganian terms the
intellectual understanding and practical affirmation, of precisely and
exclusively those texts. Further, these texts either were simply those of
the dominant Logos Christology or, if they concerned ordinary
Christians, were dependent upon it. Now whereas outreach does not
necessarily imply return, the converse is not true: return does imply
and involve outreach. Hence a trinitarian model based on outreach
texts, i.e. on Logos Christology, will be partial, whereas one based on
return texts, i.e. on Spirit Christology, will be comprehensive.(I
remind the reader that I earlier pointed out that an orthodox Spirit
Christology will include Logos Christology, whereas the converse is
not true.)
In my work to acquire from Scripture a return model of the Trinity,
it was a relief to find that the emergent model was not something
completely new, but a conception that had already been current for
centuries, though not, of course, as a model of return. I refer to the
326 David Coffey
scheme whereby the Holy Spirit is understood as the mutual love of

the Father and the Son. First formulated by Augustine, it had always
maintained a modest position in Western theology, though in mod-
ern times it has had its critics.23 Justly it can be conceived as the model
whereby the Son, having gone forth from the Father, returns to him
in the power of his love, the Holy Spirit, which he, the Son, has made
his own. The mutual love of Father and Son, by definition the love of
two persons in distinction, also by definition draws them into one by
acting as the vinculum, the bond, between them. This it does by
reclaiming for the Father the Son who has gone forth, bringing him
back, causing him to return. Is not this a statement in personal terms
of what is said impersonally by such technical terms as homoousion and
perichoresis? And though pertaining to the patrimony of the West, it
has not been without resonance in the East. Palamas himself came
close to affirming it, and Boris Bobrinskoy has listed it among the
three points he discerns in the Latin theology of the Holy Spirit
“which have their place in an Orthodox vision of the Trinity””24
In favor of this model I now want to argue two claims. The first is
that in its comprehensiveness it satisfactorily accommodates the two
taxeis we have noted in the economic Trinity. The argument proceeds
as follows. The mutual love of the Father and the Son has two
constituent elements, the Father’s love for the Son, and the Son’s love
for the Father. Between these elements there is a certain order, without
prejudice to their mutuality (more of this anon). Since the Son comes
from the Father, he is second in priority to the Father, which means
that the Father’s love for him has priority over his love for the Father.
This in turn means that the Son’s love for the Father is an answering
love, a love evoked by the Father’s love for him. Now each of these
elements individually is to be identified with the Holy Spirit, as the
latter is indivisible (note that Aquinas also says this25). As the Father’s
love for the Son has priority over the Son’s love for the Father, we
conclude that the most basic, though not the most adequate, state-
ment we can make about the Holy Spirit is that he is the Father’s love
for the Son. This means that the Father’s love for the Son, which is the
Holy Spirit, rests on the Son as its proper, indeed its sole proper object.
(The East says something quite similar when it declares that the Son
is the “treasurer” of the Holy Spirit received from the Father.26) When
the Father directs his love, which is the Holy Spirit, beyond the
Trinity, this love, like all love bestowed in or on the world, will be
creative and assimilative. But the bestowal of the Holy Spirit of which
we speak in the Incarnation is an utterly radical one, the giving of the

Spirit “without measure.” We should not be surprised, therefore, that
it is radically creative and radically assimilative. Thus in the one act it
calls the humanity of Jesus into existence and assimilates it to its divine
source by sanctifying it with the fullness of sanctifying grace and
drawing it into hypostatic union with that divine person who in the
Trinity is the sole proper object of this love, viz. the Son. The love that
rests on the Son in the Trinity draws into union with the Son when
directed beyond the Trinity. Thus is explained, without disturbing
the taxis of the immanent Trinity, the inversion that takes place in the
economic Trinity in the Spirit Christology texts of Scripture. (I realize
that by this statement I have reversed the Thomistic order between
created sanctification and hypostatic union, but by way of comment
suffice it here to say that Aquinas thought only in terms of Logos
Christology.)
The mission texts of the New Testament, i.e. texts that have the
Father sending the Son and the Son sending the Holy Spirit from the
Father, clearly reflect what I call the procession model of the imma-
nent Trinity, i.e. the generation of the Son and the procession of the
Holy Spirit, the latter understood in either the Eastern or the Western
way. But if the return model is supposed to be comprehensive, the
question arises: how does it accommodate these texts? To this ques-
tion we now turn. According to the return model, in the immanent
Trinity the Son returns the Holy Spirit to the Father (or alternatively,
himself returns in the Holy Spirit to the Father). When the Father’s
gift of the Holy Spirit brings about the Incarnation of the Son in the
economy, the same thing happens: the Son returns in love, his own
human or better, theandric love, which is the Holy Spirit, to the
Father. This is divine love humanized, because it is the love of the man
Jesus. Speaking analogously, we can even say in the case of Jesus that
in a way comparable to the incarnation of divine being in human
being, divine love is “incarnate” in human love.27 But Rahner has
clearly shown on anthropological grounds that love of God and love
of neighbor are inseparable elements of human love as such, a
conclusion supported by the New Testament at least to the extent that
it recognizes a de facto inseparability of these elements.28 Therefore in
Jesus’ love of God, the Holy Spirit now become “Spirit of Jesus” or
“Spirit of Christ,” is also the love with which he loves his fellow human
beings. Thus, I submit, are we to understand the sending of the Holy
Spirit by Christ upon the Church, i.e. as the opposite side of the coin
328 David Coffey
of his love of God. The sending of the Spirit by Christ is his bestowal
of the Holy Spirit, or alternatively his bestowal of himself in the Holy
Spirit, to his fellow humans. Peter Carnley has argued persuasively
that love is not just any attribute of a person; rather, it sums up in a
dynamic way just who and what a particular person is.29 In the case of
Jesus, therefore, where uniquely it is the Spirit of Jesus, it is the mode
in which he remains present to his community after his death and as
a result of his Resurrection. In this way, I suggest, the return model in
its comprehensiveness accounts for the New Testament mission texts,
as well as the Spirit Christology texts. But it does more than just
account for the mission texts. It interprets them more profoundly
than the procession model does or can, as it does far greater justice to
the integrity of Christ’s humanity.
The second claim I wish to make for the return model is that again
in its comprehensiveness it sheds new light on the question of the
reconciliation of Photian Monopatrism and Western Filioquism. I do
not claim that it solves this problem, for to me it seems solved already
on other grounds. Let me explain. Athanasius’s achievement in
understanding the homoousion in terms of the identity of each divine
person with the one divine being contributed to trinitarian thought
a factor that in itself should have constituted a counterpoise in Eastern
thought to the Monarchy of the Father, however true the latter
principle may have been. The reason it did not was the inability of the
Cappadocians to appreciate it. We can be grateful to Thomas Weinandy
for pointing out so clearly that the Cappadocians, in continuing to
insist solely on the Monarchy of the Father, showed that in this matter
they failed to rise to Athanasius’s level. But their very failure has been
a continuing influence in Eastern thought. The recovery of the
ground thus lost remains a challenge to the East, a challenge, however,
that can be met from within its own resources. Weinandy writes,
“While the Cappadocians were great terminological and conceptual
innovators in regard to the Trinity and wished to ensure the monarchy
of the Father and true individuality of the Son and the Holy Spirit, yet
because they did not possess the metaphysical acumen of Athanasius,
Platonic emanationism became firmly grafted into Orthodox trinitarian
thought, and it is present to this day.”30 If the homoousion is unchecked
by the Monarchy, it will lead to modalism; but if the Monarchy is
unchecked by the homoousion, it will lead eventually to
subordinationism and tritheism. The two must be kept in balance.
Keeping the Monarchy in a creative tension with the homoousion,

therefore, we are obliged to say two things. First, from the perspective
of the homoousion, the Father and the Son must constitute a single
principle of the Holy Spirit. In this regard even the Cappadocian
formula that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son
does not offer a real alternative, for if the Son’s role is active and
positive, as it must be to do justice to the biblical data, the per Filium
quickly turns into the Filioque. But the Filioque is not the last word,
because the Son himself issues forth from the Father. Therefore, from
this perspective we can only agree with Photius–and this is the other
thing we must say—in the sense of ultimate derivation the Holy Spirit
proceeds from the Father alone (of course, Augustine himself said
this31). But this statement is not the last word either. Filioquism and
Monopatrism have to be affirmed each in conjunction with the other,
and the reconciling principle between them is that the Son himself
issues forth from the Father. This, then, constitutes the ground on
which Filioquism and Monopatrism are reconciled. The Holy Spirit
proceeds from the Father “alone” in the sense that the very word
“Father” implies the existence of the Son who, constituting a single
principle with him, breathes forth the Holy Spirit. A little later I shall
return once more (and briefly) to this theme.
Jean-Miguel Garrigues has pointed out that where Latin and
French (and English) have just one word for “proceed,” Greek has two
words, exporeuesthai and prochorein.32 As there is a subtle difference of
meaning between these words, confusion can result from this fact.
Only exporeuesthai means “to issue forth,” “to originate;” prochorein
means “to advance, while remaining connected to the starting point.”
To bring out the meaning of prochorein, consider the following
example. If the sentence, “The academic staff will proceed into the
hall,” were to be translated into Greek, the correct word for “proceed”
would be prochorein. To distinguish between these meanings I shall
designate “originate” the “strong” meaning, and “advance” the “weak.”
When we say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the
Son as a single principle, we employ the strong meaning. When we say
the Spirit proceeds (ultimately) from the Father alone, again we use
the strong meaning. However, I wish to point out that even when we
have occasion to use the weak meaning, this logically presupposes the
strong. Thus, if we say that the Holy Spirit “advances” from the Father
to the Son, this can only be because he has first originated from the
Father. Likewise if we say that the Holy Spirit advances from the Son
330 David Coffey
into the world, this presupposes that he has originated from the Son
(as well as from the Father). Bearing this in mind, we note that if, like
Gregory of Nyssa, we say that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the
Father and receives from the Son,”33 either meaning is possible,
though doubtless Gregory himself intended the strong meaning.34
But if the statement is divorced from context and no longer in Greek,
the weak meaning is possible, at least as the intended meaning.
However, this would be acceptable only on the supposition of the
Filioque, as advancing from the Father presupposes origination from
the Father and receiving from the Son presupposes origination from
the Son.35
On the nature of the procession of the Holy Spirit the recent Roman
“clarification” of the Filioque question is content to quote the new
Catechism of the Catholic Church (at n. 248), which says that “this
legitimate complementarity (between Eastern and Western expres-
sions of the procession) provided it does not become rigid, does not
affect the identity of faith in the reality of the same mystery con-
fessed.”36 I take it that the “rigidity” referred to would be an exclusive
insistence on either of these expressions. This is a good and apt
statement. The only fault with it is that the Eastern statement it has
in mind is that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son,
which for the reason already stated is really a non-issue. The Roman
judgment, I suggest, would have been stronger and more helpful if the
Eastern statement chosen for comparison were the Photian one.
Let us return now to the second claim, viz. that the mutual love
theory sheds light on the reconciliation of Filioquism and
Monopatrism. In order to substantiate this claim it is first necessary
to make, justify, and apply a particular distinction, viz. that of the
Trinity in fieri, in the state of becoming, and in facto esse, in the state
of constituted being. (I shall employ these Latin terms hereafter,
because of their succinctness). Immediately, however, there arises an
objection on the grounds that the eternity and perfection of the
Trinity rule out any consideration of it in fieri. However, while readily
granting the grounds of the objection, I have to say that the distinction
itself remains unavoidable, because it is imposed by the Monarchy of
the Father and the consequent taxis. With the Trinity we are forced
to use deficient modes of speech, the only alternative being not to
speak at all. For example, we must be careful to rule out in advance in
the matter of the Trinity any suggestion of temporal sequence. But
sequence of order there undoubtedly is, and we can only refer to it in
temporal terms. I trust that all will understand that when because of
its clarity and inevitability I use temporal language, what I mean is
atemporal order. The very fact that the divine persons are given in the
order, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, makes it inevitable that our speech
about them will make use of temporal terms. This in turn necessitates
that any movement in God, e.g. the movement of love, will appear as
a progression, i.e. as a transition from imperfection to perfection.
When I speak in this way what I actually intend is a state of affairs into
which its necessary pre-conditions are integrated. Thus, for example,
speaking of God as passing from self-love to love of another and thence
to mutual love actually indicates a mutual love into which are
integrated its necessary pre-conditions, viz. self-love and love of the
other. Our task, then, will be first, to speak of the Trinity both as in
fieri and as in facto esse, and second, to attempt to reconcile the results
of this exercise.
We begin, then, with the Trinity in fieri. The Father generates the
Son. Aquinas rightly says that “every agent, whatever it be, accom-
plishes every action out of love of some kind.”37 According to the taxis,
the only love with which the Father can generate the Son is self-love,
identical with his own person. The apparent egocentrism of the
Father’s initial movement of love is overcome by the fact that it comes
to a certain perfection in his love of his other, the Son, into which it
is integrated. In generating the Son, the Father gives him all that he,
the Son, has, including his ability to love the Father in return. The Son
then begins to love the Father, and so now they love each other with
a mutual love that in its “objectivization” transcends its constituent
elements. This love is identified with the Holy Spirit.38 Thus the
divine love is brought to its complete perfection. Now can be seen the
Filioque, the fact that the Holy Spirit is breathed forth by the Father
and the Son as a single principle. The singularity of principle resides
in two factors, first, the simultaneity of the constituent loves, and
second, the strict unity of the Father and the Son in spirativity, i.e. the
ability to breathe forth the Holy Spirit, which the Father communi-
cates to the Son in the act of generation. (I shall deal later with
Photius’s objection that spirativity belongs to the Father alone.) Thus
we arrive at the second stage, the Trinity in facto esse. Now all we have
is the Father generating the Son out of his self-love, and the Father and
the Son breathing forth the Holy Spirit out of their mutual love.
However, within this mutuality the Father’s love for the Son has a
certain precedence over the Son’s love for the Father, this being the
332 David Coffey
residual remainder of the fieri stage, in which the Father loved the Son
first. It constitutes the locus of the apparent conflict between stages
one and two, and is that which calls for resolution.
On the one hand, in the mutual love of the Father and the Son the
Father’s love for the Son precedes that of the Son for the Father, and
on the other, these constituent elements of the mutual love are
simultaneous. Can these two statements be reconciled? Yes, once an
important difference between personal and mutual love is appreci-
ated. In mutual love the constituent loves are necessarily simulta-
neous, but insofar as they are personal loves one necessarily precedes
the other. In human mutual love the memory of who loved first
bestows a permanent quality on the nature of the mutual love. Thus
it is also with the Father and the Son. The mutuality of their love,
which is the Holy Spirit, cannot abolish the fact that the Father loved
first, though the priority in this case results from the taxis, not from
a memory. This priority of the Father’s love gets to be expressed in the
economic Trinity in the fact that there the Father loved Christ sine
ullis praecedentibus bonorum operum meritis, “without any merits of
good works preceding,” as Augustine tells us.39 Qua mutual, the loves
are simultaneous; qua personal, they are successive. Admittedly, in the
Trinity in fieri the Father’s prevenient love is not the Holy Spirit,
while in the Trinity in facto esse it is. There it remains in a priority of
order within the simultaneity of the mutual love. This, as I indicated,
is what happens in human mutual love as well. A paradox it may be,
but a contradiction it is not.
Another avenue of approach to the situation I have described by
recourse to the terminology of fieri and factum esse is to take up the
characteristic difference of perspective of East and West in the matter
of the Trinity as discussed earlier, i.e. on the one hand the Cappadocian
insistence on the Monarchy of the Father, and on the other the
Augustinian concentration on the consubstantiality, the homoousion,
of the three divine persons. These must be treated not in isolation but
in combination. Roughly speaking, what I have said of the fieri stage
fits in to the Cappadocian perspective, and what I said of the factum
esse corresponds to the Augustinian. But in this avenue of approach
too it becomes necessary to invoke temporal concepts. For on the one
hand the homoousion presents us with a timeless picture of the one
divine being existing as already differentiated into two relationally
distinct persons. But these can only exist as already united in a
consubstantial love, which, because it exists only between them (and
therefore cannot be simply identical with the divine being), must be

yet another person. But Monarchy, on the other hand, inevitably
involves us in a consideration of the successive origins of the second and
third persons from the first, the Father. Thus there is no escaping the
temporal categories with which I have described the situation.
We have now reached the point at which some clarification can take
place. In the in fieri stage of the Trinity only the strong meaning of
“proceed” occurs, and in the in facto esse stage both meanings, the
strong and the weak, are possible. In the in fieri stage the Filioque is
first to be seen: the Holy Spirit proceeds (proximately) as the mutual
love of the Father and the Son (strong meaning). Also evident is the
fact that the Holy Spirit proceeds (ultimately) from the Father alone
(strong meaning), inasmuch as the Son himself issues forth from the
Father. That the Holy Spirit proceeds also from the Father through
the Son is to be seen as well (strong meaning), and for the same reason.
In the in facto esse stage, if we say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from
the Father to the Son, the meaning has to be weak. In the following
formulations within this stage the meaning can be weak, i.e. at least
as the intended meaning: the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father
and rests on the Son; the Son is the “treasurer” of the Holy Spirit
proceeding from the Father; and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the
Father and receives from the Son. The reason is the same in each case:
the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father as the latter’s love for the
Son. In the last mentioned case what the Holy Spirit receives from the
Son is the attribute of being the Son’s answering love of the Father.
But in these latter cases the meaning can also be strong, provided the
Filioque is allowed. The ability of the mutual love theory to accommo-
date all these formulations garnered from East and West shows that
it represents a higher viewpoint in which apparent contradictions
between the two sides can be reconciled. It also reveals what in this
matter is primary and what secondary. It is therefore a truly compre-
hensive theory. In what I have said here about the mutual love theory
I have consciously responded to the encouragement given back in
1973 by Irénée Dalmais to pursue dialog with the East along precisely
these lines.40
Above I promised to comment on Photius’s insistence that to
breathe forth the Holy Spirit belongs to the Father alone. By what
right does he say this? If he were correct, the Father would have to have
an additional name, as “Father” on its own would not suffice, since it
expresses only his power to generate the Son. But the Father has no
334 David Coffey
other name. If it be said against this that in the Western position both
the Father and the Son would have to have additional names, I would
counter that this would not be necessary, as the additional attribute in
these two divine persons is implied already in their existing names. I
refer to the universally agreed fact that the Son comes forth from the
Father by way of generation. Now according to Aquinas what is
characteristic of generation is “likeness in the nature of the same
species.”41 This is not the case with the procession of the Holy Spirit.
In the New Testament the Son is said to be the “image” of the Father
(cf. Phil 2:6; Col 1:15; Heb 1:4), a statement that is never made about
the Holy Spirit. It is this likeness that the Father and the Son have to
each other and is implicitly expressed in their very names, that the
Holy Spirit lacks. But this is precisely what is said of spirativity. Indeed
the two must be very closely related: spirativity must be based in the
likeness that the Father communicates to the Son in generation.
Aquinas himself, speaking of the procession of the Holy Spirit, says
that “likeness is the principle of loving.”42 Hence the likeness between
the Father and the Son is the principle of their mutual love which gives
rise to the Holy Spirit. Unless the Son were co-principle of the Holy
Spirit along with the Father, he would not be truly “like” him, in
which case it would not be by generation that the Father originates the
Son, and so the Father would not be Father, nor the Son Son. In the
position just outlined the traditional names of the three divine persons
account adequately for the production of both the Son and the Holy
Spirit, but in the Photian position they do not. For that position to be
justified the Father would need to have an additional name.
Thus concludes the presentation of my case for a direct and
important link between Spirit Christology and the theology of the
Trinity. The paper now concludes with a brief supplementary exer-
cise: a critique of a recent book that enters into dialog with the position
here presented but comes to a rather different conclusion about the
Trinity. I refer to The Father’s Spirit of Sonship: Reconceiving the
Trinity, by Thomas Weinandy, from which I have quoted once
already. Weinandy does not consider the possibility of two trinitarian
models, i.e. of procession and return, but basing himself on what I
have called the Spirit Christology texts of the New Testament comes
to the conclusion that in the immanent Trinity “the Father begets the
Son in or by the Holy Spirit,”43 and thus “the Spirit simultaneously
proceeds from the Father,”44 i.e. with the Son. Further, the Holy Spirit
“conforms the Father to be Father for the Son and conforms the Son
to be Son for (of) the Father.”45 In this understanding the Son retains
a role in the procession of the Holy Spirit: “the Holy Spirit proceeds
principally from the Father (the concern of the East) and derivatively
from the Son (the concern of the West).”46 By this statement the
theory is extended so as to cover what I have called the mission texts
of the New Testament. Something rather like it had already been
suggested by Edward Yarnold in a 1966 article and by François
Durrwell in a book in 1983.47
The trouble with this theory is that it changes the taxis in the
immanent Trinity, placing the Holy Spirit before the Son. Now the
taxis reflects one basic fact, the order of origination of the divine
persons. What I am about to say is contrary to Weinandy’s intention,
but it is the inevitable consequence of what he has said. If the Father
begets the Son “in” the Holy Spirit, this can only mean that the Son
comes forth from the Father and the Holy Spirit (Spirituque). What
else can the preposition “in” signify in the immanent Trinity? We may
be able to return to God “in” the power of the Holy Spirit, but that
is because we are creatures. I hold that in the immanent Trinity the
Son returns to the Father “in” the Spirit, but that is possible only
because the Son is co-principle of the Spirit. The infinity and
perfection of the divine persons dictate that any use in their regard of
prepositions denoting activity can only signify that they are co-
principles of other divine persons. Essentially the same objection must
be brought against Weinandy’s statement that the Holy Spirit “con-
forms” the Father to be Father and the Son to be Son. Unless we are
talking about “essential” acts, i.e. acts common to all three persons
because performed in the first instance by the divine essence or God
as such, the only acts a divine person can perform in regard to another
are “notional” acts, i.e. originating acts. This is why we said above that
the weak meaning of “proceed” implies the strong. Finally, while
Weinandy’s statement that the Holy Spirit “proceeds principally from
the Father and derivatively from the Son,” is, of course, correct in
itself, in his scheme it fails to do justice to the Filioque as set forth by
the Council of Florence, which requires that the procession be from
the Father and the Son as from a single principle and by a single
spiration.48
In this paper I have tried to show that, while not all forms of Spirit
Christology are acceptable, at least there is one, witnessed to by Cyril
of Alexandria and Augustine, that is both acceptable and promising,
i.e. as regards possible future development. Its promise consists in the
336 David Coffey
fact that it can do greater justice to the entire sweep of the New
Testament evidence about Christ than does the traditional Logos
Christology, with which, however, it is by no means incompatible. As
Christ provides our only access to the Trinity, this means in turn that
the way is opened to a more profound trinitarian theology. This
theology is summed up in the statement that the Holy Spirit is the
mutual love of the Father and the Son. While the reconciliation of
Western Filioquism and Eastern Monopatrism does not depend on
this theology, the latter does illustrate both their reconciliation and
their present limits in a remarkably clear way. As a comprehensive
trinitarian theology, it can accommodate the various and sometimes
apparently conflicting statements about the Trinity issuing from East
and West, and point beyond them to a future in which the one
developed trinitarian faith can be shared in the one great Church,
albeit with different emphases according to particular traditions.
Finally, it shows up the tragedy of schism, for the rupture of commun-
ion impedes the balanced development of doctrine that should act as
a binding force helping to unite the Church ever more closely in faith
and love.
Endnotes
1
See Ralph Del Colle, Christ and the Spirit: Spirit-Christology in Trinitarian
Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994); John McDade, “Jesus
and the Spirit,” The Month, December, 1994 (Second New Series, vol. 27, no.
12): 498-503; Harold D. Hunter, “The Resurgence of Spirit Christology,” EPTA
Bulletin 11 (1992): 50-57.
2
Epistola ad Ephesios 7 (PG 5:649-52).
3
Epistola ad Corinthios 2 9 (PG 1:341).
4
See Liber adversus Praxeam 27 (PL 2:190), also Liber adversus Praxeam 26 (PL
2:188-89).
5
Liber de idolorum vanitate 11 (PL 4:578-79).
6
E.g. Roger Haight, “The Case for Spirit Christology,” Theological Studies 53
(1992): 257-87 G.W.H. Lampe, “The Holy Spirit and the Person of Christ,” in
Christ—Faith and History, ed. S.W. Sykes and J.P. Clayton (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1972) 111-30; Lampe, God as Spirit (Oxford: Clarendon,
1977). See also Piet J.A.M. Schoonenberg, “Spirit Christology and Logos
Christology,” Bijdragen 38 (1977): 350-75. Schoonenberg is in a class of his own.
While he does not replace Logos Christology with Spirit Christology, he has the
Logos becoming a person in the human person of Jesus at the Incarnation (and
reciprocally, the human person of Jesus made a person in and by the Logos). He
also has the Holy Spirit becoming a person at the glorification of Jesus. Prior to
these personalizations the Logos and the Holy Spirit are for Schoonenberg only
extensions of the single personhood of God.
7
See Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler, “Person,” in Concise Theological Dictio-
nary, ed. Cornelius Ernst, trans. Richard Strachan (London: Burns & Oates,
1965), 351-54, at 352-53.
8
See Ad Smyrnaeos 1 (PG 5:708).
9
Edmund Fortman writes, giving references to various authorities: “It is not clear (in
Justin) whether the eternal Logos is eternally a distinct divine person, as some
scholars think, or originally a power in God that only becomes a divine person
shortly before creation of the world when He emanates to create the world, as
others believe. Nor is it clear whether Justin held an eternal generation of the Son,
as some maintain, or merely an ‘economic’ emission of the Son in order to be
creator, as others hold” (The Triune God—A Historical Study of the Doctrine of the
Trinity [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972], 45-46).
10
See Peri archon 1.2.6 and 4.28 (PG 11:134-35, 401-03); Fragmenta in epistolam ad
Hebraeos 93 (PG 14:1307-08).
11
See Summa Theologiae (Herafter ST) 1, q. 27, a. 2 in corp. and ad 2.
12
See Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London: James
Clark & Co. Ltd., 1957), 83.
13
In Isaiam 5.5 (PG 70:1349-52).
14
In epistolam ad Hebraeos (PG 74:961).
15
Quod non sunt tres dii (PG 45:125).
16
Jacques Verhees, “Heiliger Geist und Inkarnation in der Theologie des Augustinus
von Hippo,” Revue des études augustiniennes 22 (1976): 234-53.
17
In Johannis evangelium tractatus 74 3 (PL 35:1828).
18
Verhees, “Heiliger Geist und Inkarnation,” 240.
19
De praedestinatione sanctorum 15.30, 31 (PL 44:982).
20
Verhees, “Heiliger Geist und Inkarnation,” 243.
21
See Bernard Lonergan, Insight (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1958), 357.
22
See Matthias Scheeben, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 2, Die Mysterien des Christentums
(Freiburg im Br.: Herder, 1958), 152, 123.
23
Notably Rahner and Congar. See Karl Rahner, The Trinity, trans. Joseph Donceel
(London: Burns & Oates, 1970), 106, and Yves Congar, who, in I Believe in the
Holy Spirit, vol. 1, The Experience of the Spirit, trans. David Smith (New York:
Seabury, 1983), 90, endorses the negative judgment of H.F. Dondaine.
24
See Boris Bobrinskoy, “The Filioque Yesterday and Today,” in Spirit of God, Spirit
of Christ, ed. Lukas Vischer (London: SPCK, 1981), 133-48, at 142.
25
See In 1 Sententiarum d. 10, q. 1, a. 2.
26
See Dumitru Staniloae, “The Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and His
Relation to the Son, as Basis of our Deification and Adoption,” in Vischer, Spirit
of God, Spirit of Christ, 174-86, at 181.
27
See David Coffey, “The ‘Incarnation’ of the Holy Spirit in Christ,” Theological
Studies 45 (1984): 466-80.
28
See Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, vol. 6, “Reflections on the Unity of the
Love of Neighbor and the Love of God,” trans. Karl-H. and Boniface Kruger
(Baltimore: Helicon, 1969), 231-49.
29
See Peter Carnley, The Structure of Resurrection Belief (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987),
331.
30
Thomas Weinandy, The Father’s Spirit of Sonship—Reconceiving the Trinity
(Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1995), 13.
338 David Coffey
31
See De trinitate 15.29, 47 (PL 42:1081, 1095).
32
See Jean-Miguel Garrigues, “A Roman Catholic View of the Position Now
Reached in the Question of the Filioque,” in Vischer, Spirit of God, Spirit of
Christ, 149-63, at 158-60.
33
Adversus Macedonianos 9 (PG 45:1313).
34
We note that Gregory has here used exporeuesthai, but in so doing he has only
echoed the language of John’s gospel at 15:26 and 16:14, where it means “issue
forth into the world” (and nothing more) and hence does not directly indicate the
technical meaning “originate.” This is borne out by the fact that in John 15:26
the Spirit is related to the Father by means of the preposition para (from) rather
than ek (out of).
35
In passing, Garrigues acknowledges the existence of a third word for “proceed,” viz.
proeimi (see “A Roman Catholic View,” 157). This word, which the Greek
Fathers sometimes used for the procession of the Holy Spirit, has quite a general
meaning, viz. “to go forward.” It can therefore be used, and in fact was used, for
either the strong or the weak meaning of “proceed,” and even, at times, like
“proceed” in English and procedere in Latin, to comprise the generation of the Son
as well as the procession of the Holy Spirit.
36
Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, “The Greek and Latin Tradi-
tions Regarding the Procession of the Holy Spirit,” in L’Osservatore Romano,
Weekly Edition no. 38, 20 September, 1995, pp. 3, 6, at 6.
37
ST 1-2, q. 28, a. 6.
38
To be more precise, were it not for this mutuality, the Son’s answering love of the
Father would not be the Holy Spirit but only himself, i.e. the Son. Their mutual
love is more than the sum of their personal loves. This is why I insist in my writings
that the more exact expression is that the Holy Spirit is the “objectivization” of
the mutual love of the Father and the Son. Hence it must be acknowledged that
the Holy Spirit proceeds (issues) from the Son as well as the Father. But this does
not mean that there are two principles of the Holy Spirit. As spirativity is
complete in each of the Father and the Son, the two must constitute a single
principle, for the reason contained in the adage “In Deo omnia sunt unum ubi non
obviat relationis oppositio.” Together they constitute “subsistent spirativity”
(Billot’s phrase), without thereby becoming a fourth trinitarian person (reason:
unlike the three persons, subsistent spirativity is not distinct.)
39
De trinitate 15.46 (PL 42:1093).
40
See I.H. Dalmais, “The Spirit of Truth and of Life,” Lumen vitae 27 (1973): 41-
53, at 52.
41
See ST 1, q. 27, a. 2.
42
ST 1, q. 27, a. 4 ad 2.
43
Weinandy, Father’s Spirit of Sonship, ix.
44
Weinandy, Father’s Spirit of Sonship, 17.
45
46
47
See Edward Yarnold, “The Trinitarian Implications of Luke and Acts,” The
Heythrop Journal 7 (1966): 18-32, and F.-X. Durrwell, L’Esprit Saint de Dieu
(Paris: Le Cerf, 1983), 177.
48
Denzinger-Schönmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum, 1300.
A Response to Jürgen Moltmann

and David Coffey
Ralph Del Colle
It gives me great pleasure to respond to the papers of Jürgen Moltmann
and David Coffey. On a personal note, it was after reading Moltmann’s
early trilogy—Theology of Hope, The Crucified God, and The Church
in the Power of the Spirit—that I decided to take up graduate studies
in theology; and it was upon discovering David Coffey’s work that a
number of issues became clear to me when I was dissertating at the
end of that venture. To both then I am in debt. Additionally the
subject for this session—Spirit Christology and the Trinity—contin-
ues to be a very fertile area for theological investigation. Fortunately,
within the parameters of common and shared concerns, even signifi-
cant agreement, these papers present us with a rather substantial is-
sue to consider and adjudicate. Specifically, how does Spirit Christo-
logy implicate the eternal relation between the Son and the Holy
Spirit within the Trinity?
Moltmann and Coffey agree on two basic points. First, Spirit
Christology does not replace Logos Christology as much as it comple-
ments and illuminates it. This is no idle gesture. Spirit Christology
which (as Coffey puts it) incorporates Logos Christology indeed sur-
passes it as a mode of christological understanding. And that leads to
the second point, namely, that Spirit Christology in contrast to Logos
Christology is more thoroughly trinitarian. And to be more
throroughly trinitarian is to be more thoroughly pneumatological,
extending not merely to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit
but to a robust acknowledgment of the person of the Holy Spirit;
hence the title of Moltmann’s paper.
Excluding compromised Spirit Christologies which dilute the di-
vinity of Christ via adverbial or inspiration modalities, and compro-
mised trinitarian theologies which attentuate the hypostatic differ-
entiation of the divine persons, the task then remains to negotiate
the desired trinitarianism via the newly-worked Spirit Christology.
As our presenters recognize, this has everything to do with the rela-
tion between the Son and the Holy Spirit in God and in God for the
340 Ralph Del Colle
sake of the world. Both propose several trinitarian models in their

theological execution and here is where they differ, a disagreement
which really comes down to the viability of the Filioque when situ-
ated amid Spirit Christology and its implications for trinitarian the-
ology.
Let me begin with the major areas of agreement. Moltmann and
Coffey think it essential to speak about the immanent Trinity and in
such manner that a qualification is rendered regarding the identity
between the economic and immanent trinities per Rahner’s now classic
axiom, at least with regard to method. So there are two things here.
Theology about God in Godself is still important and theological
understanding about God in se cannot simply be derived from rea-
soning backwards from the temporal missions of the divine persons
to their eternal processions.
Therefore, theological investigation into the mystery of the triune
God can no longer rest on any one overarching model of the Trinity.
The renaissance in trinitarian theology of which Moltmann and
Coffey are representative has revealed the inadequacy of any one ap-
proach to the Triune God. This is good news for ecumenical engage-
ment—clearly Orthodox theology has contributed greatly to the work
of Western theologians—although as we shall see, it has not resolved
all dogmatic differences. More importantly this move has allowed us
to think the triune God more directly in concert with the deep struc-
tures of Christian and ecclesial life.
The necessity for rethinking the Trinity in diverse and comple-
mentary modes is motivated by the introduction of Pneumatology as
a constituent dimension of Christology, viz., Spirit Christology. In-
terestingly enough, in order to maintain the orthodox configuration
of Christology, i.e., Pneumatology illuminating rather than displac-
ing the divine Sonship of Jesus as the Word incarnate, the traditional
taxis of trinitarian relations requires revisioning; or, so it is thought.
Our presenters differ on this point. I will attempt to negotiate this
difference for the sake of discussion in three steps, all of them brief. I
will begin with a word about the trinitarian models, then turn to the
personhood of the Holy Spirit, and conclude with some reflections
on the nature of the divine tri-unity.
Moltmann and Coffey each propose three models of the Trinity
for our understanding. Moltmann advances the monarchical, eucha-
ristic and doxological models (I am collapsing the historical model
into his monarchical one for the sake of comparison) and Coffey
Response to Moltmann and Coffey 341
proposes three levels of knowledge of the Trinity: the New Testament

data or biblical Trinity (essentially functional as distinct from onto-
logical in nature), the immanent Trinity, and the economic Trinity
(both possessing ontological density). In all three one ought to adju-
dicate between two models of conceptualizing the trinitarian rela-
tions; the traditional procession/mission model which establishes the
immanent Trinity and—now looping back to the New Testament in
light of the immanent Trinity—the bestowal/return model. These
acts of judgment which the two models afford are even further re-
fined in a more precise and comprehensive version of the bestowal/
return model, namely the mutual-love model.
If we attempt to line up the two efforts things get a little compli-
cated considering their different perspectives and readings of the tra-
dition—their appropriation of Eastern perspectives is quite differ-
ent—but it would look something like this. Moltmann’s monarchi-
cal model which presumes a primordial posture of openness to the
world in God links the sendings of the Son and Spirit to their proces-
sions from the Father; hence its correspondance to Coffey’s proces-
sion/mission model. His eucharistic model in which there is a move-
ment back to the Father in the Spirit and through the Son corre-
sponds to Coffey’s bestowal/return model. Finally, his doxological
model is best lined up (although we may have an argument here)
with Coffey’s mutual-love model. Overall, there is a certain compat-
ibility between the two approaches except for two issues which bring
us to the heart of the matter.
Be it noted, however, that both theologians envision their models
in dynamic relation to each other. In fact, there is movement in each
model which suggests the possibility of the other models. Addition-
ally, the recent efforts in some trinitarian theologies to move from
the economic to the immanent Trinity without qualification is aban-
doned by both in favor of a more integrated movement which ac-
counts for the insights gained in the process of trinitarian thinking.
Thus Moltmann arrives at his doxological immanent Trinity only
after registering the receptivity of God to the world in the eucharistic
model and Coffey explicitly considers the economic Trinity to follow
upon the immanent Trinity. The latter gains the distinction of per-
sons (a contrast to Moltmann here) that can now be employed in
return and mutual love. As we shall see in both cases it is Spirit Christo-
logy or the “Spirit-history of Christ” as Moltmann phrases it (308,
##) which forces this new juncture.1
342 Ralph Del Colle
Now back to the two issues which differentiate them. In an imagi-

nary conversation between our presenters I suspect each would make
one major point against the other. Moltmann would still consider
that Coffey’s revisioning has not entirely broken through the limita-
tions of the Latin tradition, namely that the Holy Spirit is presented
almost exclusively in terms of “gift, not giver” (1992, 291). The pas-
sivity of the third person—this is true, the explicitly pneumatological
relation in God is conceived in the scholastic tradition as in fact “pas-
sive spiration”—precludes conceiving the Spirit as active vis-á-vis the
other persons, at least with regard to notional properties. Are we not
then maintaining an implicit subordination of the Holy Spirit, the
perennial accusation made against the West and its Filioque?
Coffey, on the other hand, defends the Filioque when considered
in the light of insights from the East and when properly situated
within his more comprehensive bestowal/return model. But he is even
more vigorous in defending the tradional taxis of trinitarian relations
common to both East and West, something which some Western
revisionists of the Filioque, e.g., Leonardo Boff, are quite willing to
dispense with. Coffey’s accusation to Thomas Weinandy of a
Spirituque could be made of Moltmann as well when the latter gives
priority to his doxological model wherein the hypostatic Persons of
the triune God are “seen and contemplated in their eternal perichoresis
and their eternal simultaneity” where the “constitutive hypostatic
primordial relations … have no meaning”(1992, 308). However, as
the quote makes clear, this does not apply to the intra-trinitarian
relations of origin. There the traditional taxis still holds, albeit in an
Eastern variation. It applies only to those relations in glory. What
was once conceived as the eternal trinitarian processions of the im-
manent Trinity (and remember, Moltmann intentionally abandons
“the conceptual framework … of immanent and economic Trinity”
[1992, 290]) is now eschatologically transfigured into total
perichoretic reciprocity. Priority in the eternal relations now yields to
equality.
Therefore, we may focus the issue at hand even more specifically. I
shall phrase it as follows: What import does the inherent dynamism
of the trinitarian revelation of God, i.e., the triadic configuration of
the movement from and to God in salvation history with their atten-
dant variations within the economic taxis of the missions
(F>S>Sp,F>Sp>S,Sp>S>F) have for our understanding of the
personhood of the Holy Spirit within the taxis of intra-divine rela-
tions? In Moltmann’s terms does the transitio from primordial to

doxological Trinity alter the constitution of the hypostatic relations?
In Coffey’s terms does the Holy Spirit as the objectivization of the
mutual love of the Father and Son, their very self-communication to
each other, preclude the self-communication of the Spirit that seems
to be evident in the history of salvation? Is the Holy Spirit strictly the
communication qua gift of the Father and Son and not the Spirit’s
own self-communication? In other words, the Holy Spirit is never
giver.
As you might suspect, behind all this lies the Filioque with all of its
implications; superfluous and objectionable in Moltmann’s mind, who
nevertheless preserves an eternal relation between the Son and the
Spirit; affirmed and resituated by Coffey in his mutual-love theory
which lends greater pneumatological density to the divine economy.
Coffey by the way is quite willing for the sake of ecumenical peace to
drop it from the Creed and even proposes an alternative formula
with more Eastern resonance, namely, the Spirit proceeds from the
Father and receives from the Son (331 ); a hair of a difference (but
what a difference!) from Moltmann’s suggestion: the Holy Spirit pro-
ceeds from the Father of the Son, and receives his form from the
Father and the Son.
My own response to these issues proceeds along two lines. First, I
agree with Moltmann that we may distinctively discern the
personhood of each of the trinitarian persons, especially the Holy
Spirit. The divine persons are not persons in the same modality al-
though each is subsistent and relational in God. The Spirit exists in
inter-personal relations with the Father and the Son and those rela-
tions are constitutive for the Spirit’s personhood as well as for those
relations themselves. Moltmann then proceeds from this base—and
here I differ—to argue without stricture that the Holy Spirit “stands
over against the other persons, and as person acts on them” (1992,
289-290). Against Coffey, the Holy Spirit is self-communicating and
the transitio to “transfiguration within the Trinity itself … proceeds
from the Spirit” (1992, 308). Indeed this becomes the path by which
“the original hypostatic differentiations are ended and consummated
in the eternal perichoresis” (1992, 308). For reasons which I will
mention shortly I want to affirm a transfiguration in God but not
one which alters the constitutive relations of the divine persons. Here
I stand with Coffey. The traditional taxis holds, but why?
344 Ralph Del Colle
Let us return to the subject of this session, Spirit Christology. Re-

member our basic thesis. The Holy Spirit as person is a constitutive
agent within the incarnation of the divine Son, his ministry and pas-
chal passage to resurrection and exaltation, so much so, that the risen
Lord sends the Spirit as his own, the Spirit of Christ. How then is the
Spirit person here, affirming that the mission of the third person
does not begin at Pentecost, as if there were sequential missions of
the Son and Spirit? How is the Spirit person in simultaneous and co-
existent mission—or joint mission as the Catholic Catechism states
it (no. 689)—with the Son who is also person? Moltmann argues for
the simultaneous accompaniment in God of the processions of Word
and Breath from the Father, thus already prefiguring the reciprocity
instrinsic to Spirit Christology—from Spirit to Son and Son to
Spirit—and which will be eschatologically achieved in glory. This
reciprocity allows for the persons to act upon each other. Subordina-
tion of one person to the other—which is how Moltmann reads the
Filioque—does not.
Yet we are still confronted by the “how” of this reciprocity. The
answer, I suggest, lies in how the Holy Spirit is person, that is, consti-
tuted person by the originary hypostatic relations. Moltmann con-
figures the eternal relation between the Spirit and the Son as one of
accompaniment, resting and shining from—“the Spirit accompanies
the Son, rests in the Son, and shines from the Son”—precisely because
it “corresponds much better to the Spirit-history of Christ and the
Christ-history of the Spirit about which the New Testament talks”
(1992, 308). If, however, we seek such correspondence without nec-
essarily reasoning back from the missions to the processions (as nei-
ther of our presenters desires), ought we not also to account for the
modality by which the Spirit emerges as person within the knowl-
edge of faith? I mean “person” not just power and presence. In other
words, Christian knowledge of the Holy Spirit in which the Spirit
faces the Father and the Son (Moltmann’s “counterpart”) proceeds
from Pentecost where the Spirit is sent as gift and thus effects the
movement from the Spirit through Christ to the Father. Here I am
not proposing an inversion of relations back into the immanent Trinity
nor a negation of other taxeis. Rather I am suggesting a re-cognition
that the Spirit is fully personal when given, in this case, by the Father
and the Son in the Pentecostal sending creating a community of per-
sons-in-relation, analogous to the relationality recognized between
Father and Son in another, the person of the Holy Spirit. Since we,
the Church, know the Spirit (to borrow from the title of a book by
Tom Smail) as the “Giving Gift” from the Risen Lord and his God
and Father, it is reasonable to posit that the correspondance between
the gift of the Holy Spirit and his constitutive procession in God are
analogous to that between the generation of the Son and his incarna-
tion. Even as Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, corresponds in his
incarnate personhood with the divine Son who wholly receives his
being from the Father, so too, the Holy Spirit’s manifestation as gift
(and here I concur with Coffey) corresponds to the Spirit as the mutual
love of the Father and the Son.
But what about the variety of taxeis in the economy? Indeed! The
economic taxeis, whether it be F>Sp>S or Sp>S>F do not alter the
originary relations, for the issue is not simply one of order as se-
quence but order as constitutive of the person revealed. It is not so
much a matter of the Spirit acting on the Son as the Son acts on the
Spirit in favor of an egalitarian and homogenous reciprocity of no-
tional agency in God, but how the subsistent modality of the Spirit
as person effects through notional agency the incarnation of the Son
and the glorification of all things in the Father. That subsistent mo-
dality in the Latin tradition admittedly (and here I need to skip a
great deal of argumentation) is one of passive spiration in which the
Son is active co-spirator with the Father, derivative but not indirect.
That active breathing forth on the part of the Son is not incidental to
the breathing forth of the Spirit in Pentecostal sending and therefore
cannot be incidental, i.e., not directly active, in the Spirit’s eternal
procession that is primarily from the Father. Without this passive
proceeding in the economy the Son could not become incarnate nor
we born anew in Christ, because it is precisely that notional modality
of the Spirit as person which enables the emergence of the other as
person without displacement, whether that other be the persons of
those graced with adoption in baptism or the person of the divine
Son as a human being. In other words, only passive spiration and not
passive generation or active generation or active spiration (to use the
scholastic terminology), enables the emergence of the other into the
fullness of personhood. To exclude active spiration as notionally in-
tegrated within the generation of the Son is to deny to the breathing
forth of the Spirit in accompaniment with, resting on and shining
from the Son the very proprium of the third person to enhypostasize
the other in their own hypostasis or personhood. For what is not
received is not given. To paraphrase Congar’s “no Christology with-
346 Ralph Del Colle
out Pneumatology and no Pneumatology without Christology;” no

generation without spiration and no spiration without generation in
either the Begetter or the Begotten.
Two brief concluding comments: If I am right then I need to push
my friend Coffey to consider that the manifestation of the Holy Spirit
as gift, that is, as one given and received, (here I quote from a soon to
be published manuscript of his) also entails, in the reception of the
one given, a giving that is a self-communication of the Holy Spirit—
the Holy Spirit as “Giver of Life”—which does not contradict but
confirms the third person as the communication of the Father and
the Son. The Eastern conception of the divine energies which are
non-hypostatic but communicated by the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit
and the Western conception of created grace and charismata which
proceed from the uncreated grace of the Spirit’s indwelling and em-
powerment, I believe, will bear this out. Second, out of deep respect
for Professor Moltmann I implore him to consider that the divine
unity is indeed a perichoretic tri-unity (as he so strongly affirms), but
that this tri-unity manifests now and in glory the constitutive dis-
tinction of persons without which our participation in the divine
nature could not occur, for our very persons are birthed anew by the
Spirit to manifest the Son to the glory of the Father.
1
Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, Margaret Kohl, trans.
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 308.
Releasing the Power of the Spirit

in a Trinitarian Ecclesiology
Bradford E. Hinze
To establish a context and frame of reference for this investigation,
let us recall the work of one of the most influential contributors to
modern Roman Catholic ecclesiology, a theologian who began his
career by giving special attention to the role of the Holy Spirit in the
church. Johann Adam Möhler in 1825 advanced a Spirit-centered
ecclesiology with the publication of Unity in the Church or the Prin-
ciple of Catholicism. Möhler’s vision of the church drew inspiration
from biblical sources, especially Pauline and Johannine traditions,
and from a wide variety of patristic sources, but also from the reflec-
tions on Geist, Volksgeist, and Gemeingeist associated with the Lebens-
philosophie of romantic and idealist thinkers like Schelling,
Schleiermacher, and Neander. This pneumatic vision of the church
offered an attractive alternative to the juridical and moral paradigms
of the church that reflected post-Tridentine and Aufklärung patterns.1
In this early work Möhler accentuated the presence and agency of
the Spirit in the genesis of Christian conversion and the formation of
Christian community, and so depicted people attracted and drawn
into participation in the divine life and into an inner living organic
union of hearts and minds. He also identified the Spirit as the source
of a dynamic unity in diversity in the church which disavows both a
rigid uniformity and egoistic versions of diversity. Doctrines and the
external structures and offices of the church are described as the fit-
ting expressions of the internal agency of the Spirit. Möhler’s height-
ened attention to the presence of the Spirit in the church in this early
work was at the expense of a fully formed treatment of the
christological character of the church.
In subsequent writings, beginning with a book on Athanasius in
1827 and continuing in his widely read 1832 comparison of Protes-
tant and Catholic doctrinal symbols, Möhler sought to redress the
christological deficit in his earlier publications. Moreover, he came
to the judgment that the classical Protestant theology of Luther,
Calvin, and the Anabaptist tradition, like Montanists and disciples
348 Bradford E. Hinze
of Joachim of Fiore before, had accentuated the importance of the

Spirit to the detriment of the place of Christ in the church. Modern
Protestant theology, with Schleiermacher as his key example, had in
his judgment run the risk of Sabellianism and pantheism, with the
result being an excessively immanentized, and even secularized,
pneumaticism. In response, Möhler needed to alter his position: in-
stead of a Spirit-centered orientation, Möhler championed an Incar-
nation-centered ecclesiology. In what would become a remarkably
influential formula, Möhler described the church as “an ongoing In-
carnation,” and thus set in place his central christocentric justifica-
tion for the visible, sacramental, and hierarchical character of the
church. In the process of reconfiguring his ecclesiology, Möhler re-
stricted, without denying, the dynamic role of the Spirit in the church.
However, his response to excessive pneumaticism risks being an
overcorrective. He acknowledges that the Incarnation and Pentecost
are both defining moments in the formation of the church. But he
was more concerned in his later career with the faithful transmission
of the doctrinal heritage by the hierarchy and the obedient reception
of this doctrine than in the power of the Spirit at work in the entire
church in the genesis, transmission, and development of doctrine
and in the ministerial praxis of the entire church.
Möhler’s later Incarnation-centered ecclesiology profoundly influ-
enced Roman Catholic theology and official doctrine during the sec-
ond half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth
century. The incarnational and mystical body ecclesiologies of the
early twentieth century can be seen as the working out of Möhler’s
later position within a predominantly neoscholastic paradigm. But
during the second half of the twentieth century a momentous new
recovery of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit began, the repercussions
of which will be felt for many generations. It is this more recent
recovery of pneumatology and its implications for a trinitarian un-
derstanding of the church that will be the focus of this essay.
This essay proceeds in two parts. The first major part is devoted to
identifying significant contributions to the fuller reception of the
doctrine of the Spirit in twentieth century Catholic ecclesiology. My
presentation here can only be sketchy, but this kind of historical in-
quiry and narration is necessary not only in order to appreciate im-
portant contributions and historical dynamics involved in the recov-
ery of pneumatology, but more importantly in order to consolidate
insights and adjudicate disputed questions in pneumatology, which
The Spirit in a Trinitarian Ecclesiology 349
can serve the ongoing formation of a comprehensive and balanced

ecclesiology, one that can address effectively the current situation in
the church and world. I focus on Catholic contributions in the inter-
est of clarifying various characters and developments in one particu-
lar subplot of a larger story that necessarily includes, and ultimately
must incorporate, Orthodox and Protestant contributions. The pa-
per concludes with preliminary constructive remarks about how the
power of the Spirit is being released in a trinitarian ecclesiology. A
renewed pneumatology, it will be shown, serves as a catalyst in three
particular areas of ecclesiology: the drive for greater catholicity, the
summons to forge deeper communion, and the challenge to be more
effective in communication.
Receiving the Spirit Anew

The twentieth century renewal of pneumatology in Catholic
ecclesiology could be construed as an attempt to reaffirm Möhler’s
early Spirit-centered ecclesiology and to reintegrate it with his later
incarnational ecclesiology in a fully developed trinitarian framework.
Although there may be a fragment of truth in that scenario, it risks
misleading in significant ways. By the end of the twentieth century
the exploration of the origins, nature and mission of the church in
terms of the trinitarian economy of salvation, and the analogy be-
tween the Trinity and the church had moved far beyond that of Möhler
and his contemporaries. In fact, within particular churches and in
ecumenical dialogues a trinitarian approach to the church has taken
on a new axiomatic status. How the Christian doctrine of God is
understood, both the personal identities and missions in the Trinity,
and the perichoretic communion of persons, bears upon and in fact
should determine how the nature and mission of the church is to be
understood and judged. Alternately, how the nature and mission of
the church are construed will reflect the operative understanding of
the Christian doctrine of God.2 This essay concentrates on pneuma-
tology, but it must be acknowledged at the outset that the develop-
ments in Catholic ecclesiology both leading up to and since the Sec-
ond Vatican Council (1962-65) owe as much to developments in
our understanding of the identity and mission of Jesus Christ as to
the renewal of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. We have witnessed a
progression from a high christology that emphasized the divinity of
Christ sometimes at the expense of Jesus’ humanity, and that corre-
lated with a high ecclesiology, through a period where descending
and ascending christologies were sometimes pitted against each other

along with the ecclesiologies they authorized. There are indications
or at least aspirations that suggest we are entering now into a period
where the genuine diversity of scriptural and traditional voices at-
testing to the identity and mission of Jesus Christ (with full har-
monic splendor as well as constructive cacophony), are beginning to
reverberate into a more comprehensive understanding of the church
today.3
Incarnational and Mystical Body Ecclesiologies

If the twentieth century reception of the doctrine of the Spirit had a
remote source in Möhler’s early Spirit-centered ecclesiology, a more
proximate contributing factor to the recovery of pneumatology must
be attributed to what may seem an unlikely candidate: neoscholastic
theology, both in the attention that it simultaneously did and did
not give to the Spirit, and in the ways it constrained the Spirit’s agency
in the understanding of the church’s nature and mission. In truth
there are some neoscholastic ecclesiologies, juridical in focus, where
the Holy Spirit was not mentioned at all.4 But, following the pattern
of Möhler’s later Incarnation-centered ecclesiology, numerous
neoscholastic theologians, also within an incarnational frame of ref-
erence, traced the work of the Spirit along two tracks, one for the
hierarchy and the other for all the faithful, one for the visible church
and the other the invisible, one the ecclesiological, and the other the
anthropological.5 On the one track, the role of the Spirit is identified
as the source of the truth of the teaching of the magisterium and its
proper teaching authority; on the other track, the indwelling of the
Spirit through created grace in the human person is acknowledged as
the source of the obedient, often appearing predominantly passive,
reception of the church’s teachings in the faithful, and the individual’s
graced participation in the divine life in the church. So the Spirit
works in the magisterium to teach the entire church, and in the faithful
to be obedient and virtuous members of the church. Obscured or
out of focus in these neoscholastic interpretations is the role of the
Spirit active in the entire church in the genesis, development, and
transmission of doctrine, and in the universal baptismal charism to
share in ecclesial ministry. The two tracks of the Spirit were never
fully intersected and intertwined into a dynamic synergism. A vital
spirituality and life of liturgical and moral practice were promoted,
but within an ecclesiological paradigm that was largely clerical and

paternalistic.6
Two influential examples of this bifurcated pattern of tracking the
Spirit from the neoscholastic period can be given. One is offered by
the British Cardinal Henry Edward Manning, a zealous proponent
of papal infallibility and a defender of Catholic Christendom as a
bulwark against the ravages of modernity. He wrote The Temporal
Mission of the Holy Ghost (1866) and The Internal Mission of the Holy
Ghost (1875). The second example is Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical on
the Holy Spirit, Divinum Illud, which was issued on May 4, 1897.
For both figures the outward and visible agency of the Holy Spirit is
manifest in the institutions and offices of the Catholic Church, while
the inward and invisible mission of Spirit is reflected in the obedient
reception of official doctrine. These two sources recognize personal
fruits and gifts of the Spirit, but these are not assigned any ecclesio-
logical import. Leo’s encyclical also mentions the anointing of Christ
by the Spirit, but the ecclesiological ramifications of this doctrine are
left unexplored. The Holy Spirit is active in this earlier incarnational
ecclesiology, but her sphere and range of action is limited. Indeed it
is instructive and portentous that here, especially in the work of
Manning, the Spirit sponsors a Christendom and an infallibilist men-
tality as the prophetic response to the waywardness of the modern
world.
The theology of Matthias Scheeben (1835-1888), the Cologne
seminary professor, merits special notice. While subscribing to an
incarnational ecclesiology, his work was particularly attentive to the
role of the Spirit in the life of the church, and in the life of Jesus
Christ, and most valuably, he explored the interconnection between
these two manifestations of the Spirit. We read in The Mysteries of
Christianity:
In all its members the Church is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who
dwells in it as the soul in its own body, and manifests His divine and
divinizing power in it. He is active in the Church not only in the
way in which, as the Spirit of eternal wisdom and order, He guides
and directs all well-regulated societies, not merely by sustaining
with special assistance individuals and the entire community in its
religious pursuits, by granting the remission of sins, and by helping
to heal our moral weaknesses and infirmities. No, He must be
active in the members of Christ’s body as He is in the real body of
Christ, by filling them with the plentitude of the divinity.7… The
anointing [is that] by which the man in the God-man becomes
Christ, that is, the Anointed.8
As Scheeben explains: “When the Fathers say that Christ is anointed

with the Holy Spirit, they mean that the Holy Spirit has descended
into the humanity of Christ in the Logos from whom He proceeds.”9
Furthermore, “He is anointed not merely by divine deputation for
the discharge of an office, nor even merely by the outpouring of the
Holy Spirit in His deifying grace, but by personal union with the
principle of the Holy Spirit.”10 Scheeben’s work is a harbinger of the
concerns that would animate Spirit christology and ecclesiology in
the second half of the twentieth century.
New attention to the role of the Spirit was also fostered by the
historical studies of the doctrine of the mystical body of Christ which
flourished in the 1930s and 1940s. These studies were consistent
with the incarnational ecclesiology of the Roman school, but avoided
scholastic causal analysis, and gained considerable prominence in the
first half of the twentieth century in Catholic ecclesiology, culminat-
ing in Pius XII’s encyclical Mystici Corporis Christi (1943). With the
retrieval of a mystical body ecclesiology, drawing from Pauline and
patristic sources, the role of the Holy Spirit in the formation of the
body of Christ received renewed attention. Sebastian Tromp, the pre-
sumed author of Mystici Corporis Christi,11 Emile Mersch, who pro-
vided rich historical studies of the mystical body doctrine,12 and
Charles Journet, the author of the massive work L’Eglise du Verbe
Incarné,13 all acknowledged the role of the Spirit in an incarnational
and mystical body ecclesiology; however, its effect upon their under-
standings of the nature and mission of the church was negligible.
In short, neoscholastic incarnational ecclesiologies and their varia-
tions in mystical body ecclesiologies could be alert to the supporting
role of the Spirit, but only within the restrictive limits established by
the institutional and hierarchical concerns that predominated in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. An ongoing polemical
posture toward Protestantism and modernity on the part of many
Catholic officials and theologians led to entrenched institutional
borders which were primarily constructed by drawing from abiding
claims about the christological identity of the church, and, sadly, in
the process the work of the Spirit was restricted and overlooked.
Nonetheless, the efforts under these confining conditions to be mind-
ful of the Spirit combined with the preoccupation with the
incarnational and mystical body framework, may in fact have goaded

and expedited the fuller reception of the doctrine of the Spirit that
took place later in the twentieth century.
Advocates of the Forgotten Spirit

Three theologians deserve special credit for initiating the fuller re-
covery of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in Catholic theology in the
twentieth century: Yves Congar, Heribert Mühlen, and Karl Rahner.
Yves Congar (1904-1995) has been the most outspoken Catholic
proponent during the twentieth century of the recovery of
pneumatology in ecclesiology, which he advanced in a variety of ways.
He is chiefly recognized for providing detailed historical investiga-
tions of the sources of pneumatology in biblical literature, the his-
tory of dogma, and the history of theology. His primary theological
aim has been to challenge the excessively juridical and institutional
understanding of the church. One of the ways he has done this is by
calling into question late nineteenth and early twentieth century
theology’s narrowly focused and bifurcated approach to the Spirit as
the basis for the teaching authority of the magisterium and as the
agent of the individual’s incorporation into the body of Christ. Congar
argued that the indwelling of the Spirit in the individual, accompa-
nied by cognitive, affective, and moral fruits and gifts of the Spirit,
needed to be more sufficiently integrated into an ecclesiological frame-
work. Moreover, he urged that the Spirit must be venerated as the
principle of the four notes of the church: one, holy, catholic, and
apostolic.
Congar’s quest for the signs of the Spirit should be recognized as a
decisive impetus contributing to his attentiveness to the diversity of
members in the church with their distinctive contributions and
charisms and to the rich reality of ecclesial reception. Likewise, his
attention to the Spirit authorized his advocacy for more effective col-
legiality and communion in the church. The two topics that defined
Congar’s career, the nature of tradition and ecumenical relations with
Protestant and Orthodox traditions, were also intertwined with his
inquiry into the Spirit.14
Two catalysts for Congar’s investigations merit attention. The first
is his life-long engagement with the ecclesiology of Johann Adam
Möhler. The second is his research on the work of Orthodox
ecclesiologists and their critique of Christomonism in Roman Catholic
ecclesiology. These intersecting influences are evident from the be-

ginning of Congar’s work.
Congar discovered the significance of Johann Adam Möhler’s work
early in his career.15 And his lifelong interest in the agency of the
Spirit in the church can be traced back to his study of Möhler in
relation to Orthodox theology.16 It is fitting that Congar wanted
Möhler’s Spirit-centered ecclesiology, Unity in the Church, a text that
Möhler himself refused to have reissued, as the first volume in his
series ‘Unam Sanctam’ to serve as a “antidote” to the juridical and
christological ecclesiology that dominated earlier in the century.17
As fascinated as he was with Möhler, however, Congar, like Heribert
Mühlen as we shall see, became deeply concerned about the recep-
tion and effects of Möhler’s later incarnational ecclesiology. He ac-
knowledged that Möhler’s approach to the incarnational character of
the church was nuanced and had successfully maintained the dis-
tinction between the human and the divine elements in the church.
But at the same time Congar worried that speaking about the church
as an ongoing incarnation ran the risk of “ecclesiological mono-
physiticism,” that is, a construal of the unity of the divine aspect and
the human aspect of the church that jeopardized its human charac-
ter. Triumphalism, authoritarianism, and juridicism can find credence
in such an incarnational paradigm. Congar does not attribute these
problems to Möhler, but it is clearly indicated that Möhler’s
incarnational ecclesiology was received and reformulated in ways that
promoted ecclesiological monophysitism. Congar’s interest in pneu-
matology and especially in Möhler’s earlier Spirit-centered ecclesiology
must be viewed in part as an attempt to overcome this problem.18
Congar also realized early on that there was an important relation-
ship and an affinity between the early work of Möhler and the influ-
ential orthodox ecclesiology of A. S. Komjakov,19 and that attention
to the agency of the Spirit in the church could serve ecumenical pur-
poses. It is likewise evident that Congar took very seriously the Or-
thodox charge of Christomonism leveled against Roman Catholic
ecclesiology. When Congar considered this criticism he could not
help but think of the two faces of Möhler, both his early inroads into
pneumatology, and his legacy in an incarnational ecclesiology. And
in order to offer an adequate response to the Orthodox critique, which
he believed was partially warranted,20 Congar attempted to do what
Möhler did not do: affirm the necessity of a robust pneumatology in
the church without sacrificing christology, remain committed to the
incarnational character of the nature of the church without restrict-

ing the power of the Spirit. Möhler’s earlier transition to an
incarnational ecclesiology was now offset by Congar’s transition to a
pneumatological ecclesiology.21
Congar discussed the place of the Spirit in Christology and in the
trinitarian perichoresis, but their significance for the nature and mis-
sion of the church were left largely unexplored.22 Nevertheless,
Congar’s life work, and especially his latest work The Word and the
Spirit (1984) provides in the final analysis an invitation to develop a
trinitarian ecclesiology of communion that could envision how the
Father works together through the missions of the Word and the
Spirit.23 Such a trinitarian understanding of the church would give
fuller weight to the role of the Spirit than previous incarnational and
mystical body ecclesiologies.
In two major works Heribert Mühlen (1927- ), professor of dog-
matics at Paderborn, set the person and work of the Spirit at the
center of his systematic theology.24 The first work, Der Heilige Geist
als Person (1963) urges that the personal character of the Holy Spirit
needs to be brought into clearer focus than has been done in classical
teachings. Distinct from the scholastic understanding of the person
as “rationalis naturae individua substantia,” and “intellectualis naturae
incommunicabilis existentia,” he advocates the importance of think-
ing of the Spirit in personalist terms as the “we” that is the bond
between the “I” and “You.” This paradigm of personhood, he argues,
could elucidate the person-to-person relationship between the Fa-
ther as I and the Son as You and the Spirit as We in the inner life of
the Trinity. Moreover, the anointing of Jesus with the Spirit, a topic
disregarded in scholastic theology, but acknowledged by Matthias
Scheeben, could serve to elaborate on the one hand, the bond be-
tween the Incarnation and the inner-trinitarian “We-Action” of the
Spirit,25 and, on the other hand, the “We-Action” in the grace of
headship that enables the Christian to participate in the We of the
divine life.26
In his subsequent book, Una Mystica Persona (1966), Mühlen ad-
vances the use of a basic definition, “one person in many persons” as
an effective clarification of the classical formula “una mystica per-
sona,” a term derived from the teachings of Augustine and Thomas
Aquinas, which was used in the encyclical Mystici Corporis. This new
formula, he argues, avoids two extreme ecclesiological tendencies:
naturalism and mysticism (identified in Mystici Corporis). So, Mühlen
contends, on the one hand, Robert Bellarmine’s definition of the

church emphasizes the visible and juridical nature of the church at
the risk of promoting naturalism.27 By not addressing the role of the
Spirit in the church, and by stressing the external acts of human be-
ings, this definition neglects the deepest personal character of the
church’s corporate identity, which is locus of the activity of the Spirit.
On the other hand, Johann Adam Möhler’s definition of the church
as “an ongoing incarnation” runs the risk of mysticism.
Mühlen does not offer a historical reconstruction of Möhler’s tran-
sition from a Spirit-centered to an incarnational ecclesiology. Rather
he targets his definition of the church as “die andauernde Fleisch-
werdung” as the unintentional impetus for an organic interpretation
of the body of Christ doctrine that risks ecclesiological mono-
physitism, a theological trend which surfaced between the two world
wars in the twentieth century and has been identified with the 1940
book of Karl Pelz, Der Christ als Christus. It is this history of recep-
tions and effects of Möhler’s formula that impels Mühlen’s criticism
of Möhler’s formula. He even acknowledges that “the function of the
Holy Spirit in the ‘ongoing incarnation’ of the Son of God is in no
way overlooked” by Möhler. Like Bellarmine, Möhler stressed the
anti-Reformation aspect of the church as visible, but in order to mar-
shal an argument against Deism he grounds the visibility of the church
in Jesus and in the visible sending of the Spirit into receptive hearts.28
Möhler is judicious, according to Mühlen, but his definition is still
problematic; insofar as it is utilized in isolation from the nuanced
judgments of Möhler’s fuller theological construction, it is suscep-
tible to dangerous misunderstandings. The union of divine and hu-
man in the church, without confusion or separation, gives way to a
one-sided emphasis on the divine.
In Mühlen’s estimation a renewed attention to the identity of the
Holy Spirit in the anointing of Jesus and in the anointing of Chris-
tians could escape these extremes. To support this claim he revisits
the biblical doctrine of the people of God and the body of Christ as
corporate personality (Groß Ich). It is the Spirit, originally of Yahweh
in the Old Testament, and the Spirit of Christ in the New Testament,
which is the source of this collective identity.
Mühlen returns to Möhler when he delineates the difference and
connection between the Incarnation and the church within a larger
trinitarian frame of reference.29 Möhler’s efforts to combat the errors
of naturalism and ecclesiological deism led him to develop the for-
mula that the church is a continuation of the Incarnation. “He wants

to emphasize that the redemptive activity of Christ continues unbro-
ken in the church and that in the church the divine and the human
are united in a similar undivided way as in the incarnate Son.”30 But,
in Mühlen’s judgment, “the mediating function of the Spirit in this
formulation is not thoroughly thought out.” Certainly for Möhler,
the church is the “institution of Christ ‘in which he [Christ] lives on,
[and] his Spirit works on.’”31 Moreover, in conjunction with speak-
ing of the church as an ongoing incarnation Möhler speaks of the
divine in the church as “the living Christ and his Spirit.”32 But Möhler
did not precisely distinguish between “the incarnatio continua and
the ongoing work of the Spirit of Christ in the church. He wanted
only to emphasize against the naturalism of his time that Christ him-
self somehow lives on in the church. However, insofar as he is not at
the same time explicitly mindful of the danger of mysticism, his for-
mulation is vulnerable to weighty misunderstandings.”33 “It is not
the incarnation as such which continues in the church, but some-
thing of Christ’s self lives on in the church.” Christ is the anointed
one and “the church can indicate the continuation of the anointing
of Jesus with the Holy Spirit.” But this kind of approach requires the
distinction between the Incarnation and the anointing.
So it is Mühlen’s contention that the doctrine of the anointing of
Jesus with the Holy Spirit “avoids mysticism by emphasizing the dis-
tinctiveness (and inseparability) of the incarnation and anointing,
and it avoids naturalism by emphasizing the inseparability (and dis-
tinctiveness) of the Spirit and office. Both are intended with the for-
mula ‘One Person in Many Persons.’”34 Thus, for Mühlen, the doc-
trine of the Holy Spirit provides the ground of the perichoresis (the
circumincession) of trinitarian relations:
Because and insofar as the Holy Spirit is in the inner Trinity one
person in two persons, [the Holy Spirit] shows himself in the
economy of salvation as one person in many persons. It is the
personal property of the Holy Spirit to bind persons, and indeed
both in the inner trinity as in the economy of salvation. This
elucidates also the fact that it conforms to the statements of the
scripture and church teaching, if one designates the Holy Spirit as
the We in person, [which is also the ecclesiological] “we.”35
Recently it has been proposed that “no one in our century has
contributed to the renewal of systematic theology through
pneumatology” more than Karl Rahner (1904-84).36 After recalling
the contributions of Congar and Mühlen (and prescinding from the
requisite discussion of the contribution of Hans Urs von Balthasar),
this contention may seem unwarranted or at least premature pending
further comparative analysis. One could offer the rejoinder that it is
Rahner’s theology of the Incarnation that provides the most basic
orientation for his understanding of the church, both directly in terms
of its sacramental and hierarchical nature, and indirectly insofar as the
Incarnation provides the fulcrum for his construal of the relationship
between christology and anthropology. That conceded, however, the
systematic integration of the work of the Spirit in Rahner’s theology
should neither be overlooked nor underestimated.
From very early in his career, Rahner was alert to the distinctive
relationship between the divine Spirit and the human spirit in the
world.37 As he reflected upon the human striving for knowledge and
freedom, he simultaneously explored how uncreated grace is opera-
tive after the manner of a formal cause in these human longings as
the condition for the possibility for the acceptance of the divine of-
fer, and how the disposition to participate in the divine life and seek
the beatific vision is realized through the causal efficacy of created
grace. Then as he went on to explore the receptivity of the human
spirit as a potential hearer of the Word,38 he also developed his un-
derstanding of the trinitarian self-communication in the economy of
salvation. In the human odyssey in history, Rahner perceived the
presence of the Spirit at work.
Rahner’s treatment of the Spirit must be situated in relation to his
well-known discussion of the Trinity as the “self-communication of
God” in accordance with the axiom that “the ‘economic’ Trinity is
the ‘immanent’ Trinity and the ‘immanent’ Trinity is the ‘economic’
Trinity.”39 As a result, the inner trinitarian processions are only known
to us through the economic missions of the Son and the Spirit as
distinct “manners of subsisting.” Thus it can be said that the Spirit at
work in the economy of salvation is a communicative act of God.
Rahner identifies the communicative mission of the Spirit with
the graced participation of the individual in the divine life of the
Trinity.40 Although he initially offered no definitive judgment as to
whether uncreated grace is the divine self-communication, or send-
ing, of the Spirit, he was aware that recovering the doctrine of
uncreated grace “offers the possibility of determining man’s relation-

ship to grace as a non-appropriated relation to the three divine Per-
sons, without doing injury to the principle of the unity of efficient
causality in the creative action of the threefold God ad extra, and
without making the indwelling conjunction of the three divine Per-
sons into a hypostatic union.”41 But, he also suggests that “the per-
sonal particularity of the Spirit and of his going forth from the Fa-
ther and the Son” corresponds with the indwelling of the Spirit in
the human person as “a power who sanctifies, consecrates, moves,
etc.”42 Later, in Foundations of Christian Faith (1976) he identified
the grace of justifying sanctification and divinization with “the com-
munication of God’s Holy Spirit.”43
Rahner’s initial concentration on God’s self-communication
through the Spirit to the individual human person in the gift of grace
was soon complemented by an effort to identify the Spirit’s agency in
the church.44 In 1946 he spoke of the mission of the Spirit in the
church as an “element of dynamic unrest—if not of revolutionary
upheaval,”45 and in 1955, following Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis, he
began to speak of the charismatic structure of the church alongside
of its hierarchical structure.46 In 1956 he provided a broader articula-
tion of “The Church as the Subject of the Sending of the Spirit.”
Here he set forth the dynamic bond between the Incarnation and the
Spirit: the “permanent dwelling of the Spirit in the world [after Pen-
tecost] is only the outcome of that overshadowing of the Spirit which
took place in the Incarnation of the Son of the Father.”47 This Spirit
who is really “the Spirit of God made man” provides the incarnational
and pneumatological foundation of the one church: “There is no
Holy Spirit apart from the holy Body that is the Church.”48 This
analysis provides a framework for Rahner’s understanding of the sac-
ramental and hierarchical nature of the church; equally important,
and more distinctively, it kindles his reclamation of the importance
of charisms, plurality, and freedom as signs of the Spirit in the church.
Rahner wrote about the need to be receptive to the charisms of the
Spirit before either Congar or Mühlen. His governing premise, which
has become commonplace, is that the charismatic element in the
church is not to be set in opposition to ecclesiastical office and min-
istry. Rather we must begin by affirming that the charismatic “assis-
tance of the Holy Spirit” is promised and given to those in ecclesias-
tical office. At the same time, “there are charismata, that is, the im-
pulsion and guidance of God’s Spirit for the church, in addition to
and outside her official ministry.”49 “There are persons in the church
endowed with the charismatic gifts of the Spirit outside the sacred
ministry. They are not merely recipients of orders from the hierar-
chy; they may be the persons through whom Christ ‘directly’ guides
his Church.”50
Rahner appeals to the Pauline dictum: “Do Not Stifle The Spirit!”
(1 Thess 5:19) to call zealously for a recognition of the charisms of
the Spirit of prophetic critique and of creative new ecclesial forms.51
Over the course of his career, Rahner came to a profound realization,
as did Congar, that being open to the Spirit requires being open to
the diversity of persons and charisms, and the plurality of gifts in the
church and world. Correspondingly, to be open to these works of the
Spirit requires in the church a greater freedom and openness to re-
ceive the gifts of the Spirit through dialogue. Rahner’s later attention
to the priority and vitality of the local church is also a reflection of
his renewed pneumatology.
In the fullest sense, then, the mission of the Spirit for Rahner is
identified with grace and the charismatic character of the church.
Rahner is rightly credited for his advocacy of the renewal of the doc-
trine of the Trinity, but he did not always draw out the ecclesiological
implications of his own deepest insights and convictions in this area.
He did not accentuate the anointing of Spirit in the narrative of Jesus
as Mühlen had following Scheeben, nor did he inquire into the place
of the Holy Spirit in Christology as had Congar.52 In the end Rahner’s
call for a vital trinitarian theology did not result in an explicitly
trinitarian ecclesiology where the various topics of ecclesiology are
treated in terms of the mission of the Son and the Spirit, and the
perichoretic communion of persons.
These three twentieth-century explorers of the mission of the Spirit
ascertained and accentuated distinctive features: Congar, ecclesial
communion; Mühlen, the doctrine of the anointing and the corpo-
rate identity of the church; and Rahner, the communicative action of
the Spirit in grace and the charismatic church. It could be said that
Congar and Mühlen were more interested in the pneumatological
and trinitarian character of ecclesial communion, while Congar and
Rahner were more attuned to the pneumatological impulses for di-
versity and pluralism in the church. Together, however, these theolo-
gians set the Roman Catholic Church on a path away from a rigidly
institutional and juridical vision of the church, and laid the ground-
work for a renewed anthropology and ecclesiology that drew inspira-
tion from pneumatology as well as christology. Moreover, the in-

creasing attention given to the role of the Spirit in Christology and
in trinitarian theology, and their ecclesiological repercussions is a
genuine legacy of their achievement.
Three additional steps need to be taken to bring this narrative out-
line to its provisional completion: the contributions of liberation and
inculturation theologies, the critique of excessive pneumaticism, and
the emergence of a self-consciously trinitarian ecclesiology.
Reconsidering the Mission of the Church

Theologians dedicated to issues of liberation and inculturation, in-
cluding not only representatives in Latin America, Africa, and Asia,
but also those in Europe and North America, including feminist,
black and Hispanic theologians who have identified with these com-
mitments, have during the 1970s and 1980s focused predominantly
on christology. Their advocacy of the social mission of the church to
work for justice and effective inculturation and their call for church
reform has usually been made on the basis of a prophetic under-
standing of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. These authors have
not been pioneers in the area of pneumatology. However, since the
1980s, some of these theologians have given increasing attention to
the role of the Spirit in the church and their contributions reflect
important impulses and trajectories.53
Leonardo Boff and Edward Schillebeeckx are important examples.
Both espoused a christological and sacramental understanding of the
church early in their careers, and subsequently became advocates of a
prophetic model of christology and ecclesiology. In recent years, how-
ever, Boff and Schillebeeckx have invoked the importance of the Spirit
in their plea for the ongoing renewal of the people of God, for the
reform of the church’s institutions, and for greater receptivity to the
diversity of charisms and ministries.54 Here they offer a continuation
and indeed a more reformist articulation of the legacy of Congar and
Rahner: if pneumatology and a prophetic christology truly inform
our conception of the church, our understanding of the church’s
power, ministry, and mission will change.
Catholic feminist theologians have devoted considerable time to
the question posed by Rosemary Radford Ruether: Can a male savior
save women?55 and to the related ecclesiological question: Can women
act “in persona Christi” as priests and bishops? The critique of gen-
der subordination, androcentrism, and patriarchy has generated wide-
spread debates about the assumptions and repercussions of speaking

about the “fatherhood” of God, Jesus as Son of God, and priests and
bishops as the iconic representatives of Christ. An increasing num-
ber of women have testified to a call of the Spirit to seek priestly
ordination, but they have been told that the priestly nature of Jesus
Christ disavows such a call. A trinitarian conundrum indeed. Of
course, the christological argument about women’s ordination is only
part of a larger debate about feminist reconstructions of christology
and the Trinity. The recovery of Sophia christological traditions as a
counterpart to the prophetic identity of the Christ, along with the
historical reconstruction of suppressed voices of women in the New
Testament, have served as a helpful complement and corrective to a
restrictive traditional christological hermeneutic. However, a few femi-
nist theologians have expressed grave reservations about concentrat-
ing on Jesus as a heroic individual. An alternative focus on the role of
the Spirit in the prophetic figure of Jesus and in the prophetic move-
ment of nascent Christianity of which he was a part, provides for
some a way to reconfigure incorporation into the body of Christ in
an inclusive manner freed from this faulty paradigm.56 In this con-
text it should be recalled that Congar among others had earlier pro-
posed that we cast the Spirit as the feminine face of God. Against
this, Elizabeth Johnson charges that speaking of the Spirit as femi-
nine cannot take the place of a more thoroughgoing effort to recon-
sider the entire doctrine of God and its ecclesiological ramifications,
in light of the violation of the human dignity of women.57 Still, it
cannot be denied that the forgetting of the Spirit and the
marginalization of women are interwoven, Johnson reckons, along
with the exploitation of the earth, and that their mutual release needs
to be fostered.58
In another vein, various theologians, predominantly in Africa and
Asia, have championed constructing local theologies intentionally
freed from the cultural trappings of Europe. Many of these theolo-
gians are receptive to the animating concerns of liberation theolo-
gies, especially the social mission of the church to redress economic,
racial, ethnic, and gender injustice. But they have devoted greater
attention to the challenges posed by the evangelical mission of the
church to proclaim and interpret the Christian gospel within par-
ticular cultural matrices. Once again, christology has been a focal
point; indeed the phrase “incarnating the gospel” in a given culture
seems like a variation on the Möhlerian coinage, the church as an
“ongoing incarnation.” Yet recently a few theologians have begun to

address the agency of the Spirit in the transfiguration of cultures in
light of the gospel.
Several important trends in pneumatology can be ascertained in
the work of liberation and inculturation theologians. The summons
to a greater recognition of the diverse gifts of persons and cultures, as
a manifestation of the Spirit, which we have seen in the work of
Congar and Rahner, finds a more social and political articulation: to
the commitment to receive, purify, and transform the diversity of
cultures and persons as a work of the Spirit is now added an explicit
repudiation of the older vision of a Eurocentric Christendom, and
the cultural, racial, and gender injustice that accompanied it. In ad-
dition, Congar’s and Mühlen’s emphasis on the Spirit’s efficacy in
creating a communion of persons is further elaborated in terms of
the call to solidarity with the poor and the marginalized: there can be
no genuine communion without this kind of solidarity. At a deeper
level, these theologies have been catalysts for a fuller articulation of
the mission of the church as evangelical and social, mystical and po-
litical. Moreover, one finds here an acknowledgement, yet to be fully
developed, that this fuller articulation of the mission of the church
requires a more robust pneumatology. Though to date this more com-
prehensive understanding of the mission of the church has been ad-
vanced by these theologians in terms of christology, one can argue
that it is precisely the prophetic and sapiential traits of their
christologies that accentuate pneumatological impulses. Their ap-
proaches also offer important incentives to a Spirit-Christology. Jesus
in his life and mission is one who is empowered by the Spirit “to
preach the good news to the poor and to set the captives free.” In the
Spirit, he transgresses social boundaries and confronts the destruc-
tive powers that bind people and frees them. The prophetic church is
to be such an agent of the Spirit creating a community of resistance
to the destructive powers at work in the world and in the self, and a
community that offers the hope, power, and life of the reign of God.
Asserting the Christological Norm against

Excessive Pneumaticism
The ecclesiologies of Henri de Lubac (1896-1991), Hans Urs von
Balthasar (1905-1988), and Joseph Ratzinger (1927- ) have had a
profound impact on official Roman Catholic teachings during the
pontificate of John Paul II. Each of these theologians has given some
attention to the role of the Spirit in the church, most notably and
thoroughly Balthasar, as well as to larger trinitarian issues.59 But they
are not considered the trailblazers of a renewed pneumatology. In-
stead they have each championed a christocentric, and specifically an
incarnational, understanding of the church as the source and norm
of the sacramental, hierarchical, and clerical character of the church.
For this reason they can be considered the rightful heirs and defend-
ers of Johann Adam Möhler’s later incarnational ecclesiology.60
One common feature of their work merits attention, and it is some-
thing they all share with the later Möhler: each has seen in an exces-
sive pneumaticism a dangerous threat to the life of the church—the
specter of Montanism and Joachim of Fiore in the modern world; an
immanentized and secularized spirit that undermines the apostolic
character of faith, revelation, the sacraments, and legitimate ecclesial
authority.61
Henri de Lubac considered the threat of excessive pneumaticism
in Joachim of Fiore’s anticipation of the third age of the Spirit and its
history of effects, both before and after the Second Vatican Coun-
cil.62 Putting aside a discussion of the debates surrounding his inter-
pretation of Joachim’s position and his heirs, the problem Joachim
represents for de Lubac is that “detached from Christ, the Spirit can
become almost anything.” As a result, “the Spirit would come to be
set up in opposition to the church of Christ—and by an ineluctable
consequence, against Christ himself—for the sake of a ‘surpassing’ of
Christ and his Church; or, at least, for a hundred completely differ-
ent ways of understanding them. From then on, this Spirit, whose
coming reign Joachim celebrated in anticipation would no longer be
the Holy Spirit.”63 De Lubac identifies this threat not only with
Joachim and the spiritual Franciscans who followed him, but also as
“a spiritual line with numerous branches … who whether they claimed
Joachim as their master or not, all more or less betrayed signs of his
vision of tending as he did to conceive of a third age, an age of the
Spirit, succeeding to the age of Christ of which the Church was the
guardian.”64 Anabaptists, Protestant mystics, E. G. Lessing, J. G.
Herder, Karl Marx, Ernst Bloch, Jürgen Moltmann, José Comblin,
and Michel de Certeau are all branches. De Lubac is afraid not only
of secularized forms of immanent pneumaticism outside the church,
but also of the versions in the church that undermine the ecclesial
norm of faith and the hierarchy’s authority: “In the ‘emancipation’
from the regula fidei which is maintained by the institution of the

Church, the ‘Spirit’ proclaimed as liberator becomes just about any-
thing.”65
Joseph Ratzinger, in his earlier writings, wrote of Augustine’s cor-
rective of the “pneumatic church” of Mani and the Manicheans,
Tertullian and the Montanists, and Tyconius and the Donatists, so
that the christological and pneumatological understanding of the
church clarifies the relationship between the visible and invisible and
the sacramental and charismatic nature of the church.66 Subsequently,
he explored Bonaventure’s correction of Joachim of Fiore’s trinitarian
reading of history as culminating in the age of the Spirit. Joachim’s
utopian vision of the church “departs from the Son in order to raise
itself to a higher level,” which is an “irrational hope that attempts to
pass itself off as a real and rational program.” Reflecting his long
study of Augustine and Bonaventure, Ratzinger holds firm in his
conviction that the “Spirit dwells in the Word, and is not in flight
from the Word… . The Spirit does not allow itself to be seen when
we depart from the Son.”67 In the modern era, the chiliasm of Joachim’s
age of the Spirit has been transformed, secularized, and turned into a
political utopia now stamped by the work of Hegel and Marx: “his-
tory is a process that pushes forward in which man is actively at work
building his or her salvation.”68 Ratzinger’s critique of political and
liberation theology as pelagian and utopian follow from this.69 In
contrast to false spirits, “if he reveals himself to be the Spirit of the
Trinity, the Spirit of the one God in three persons, this is precisely
because he does not appear as a separate and separable self, but disap-
pears into the Father and the Son.”70
Hans Urs von Balthasar throughout his career has battled against
the promethean and gnostic tendencies of the modern age and mod-
ern theology in the interests of defending the christological form in
the church. The “arch-enemy of Christianity” is Jewish-Gentile gnos-
ticism, in which gnostic “pneumatics” have the “arrogance of a mo-
nistic ‘Enlightenment’, which, in tolerant superiority (since it knows
the rules of ‘the progress of the human race’), addresses those who are
still in bondage to faith and committed to the ‘kingdom of the Son’
and endeavors to guide them to the ‘age of the Spirit’ that has awak-
ened to absolute Knowledge. Joachim’s successors in this field are as
innumerable as the sand of the sea.”71
De Lubac, Ratzinger, and Balthasar have identified an excessive
pneumaticism with the loss of ecclesial unity, the challenging of the
apostolic authority of the papacy and episcopacy, and with the rise of
secularization, pluralism, and relativism. In response, they have de-
fended the importance of the universal church and the authority of
the papacy in relation to the local churches as the proper means to
foster sacramental and doctrinal unity in the face of secularizing plu-
ralism and relativism, and in the local church they have stressed the
episcopal and priestly powers in matters of teaching and the admin-
istration of sacraments. Questions could be raised about whether these
three theologians have given sufficient weight to the role of the Spirit
in fostering the diversity of charismatic gifts of individuals and groups
in the church (Balthasar’s exploration of clerical and lay styles sug-
gests that he does), and whether they have underestimated the need
for more collegial and collaborative processes of decision-making and
teaching at every level of the church’s life that would complete and
not undercut priestly, episcopal and papal offices. But there is no
doubt that their work witnesses to the need to clarify the proper
relationship between the missions of the Son and the Spirit.
The Emergence of a Trinitarian Ecclesiology

The final and yet-to-be-completed episode in this short story is the
emergence of a more fully-developed trinitarian ecclesiology. During
the second half of the twentieth century there was a growing realiza-
tion that a revived pneumatology is needed to correct and comple-
ment a christomonist ecclesiology, but that this correction must not
result in an excessive pneumaticism. To set up an opposition between
a Spirit-centered and a Incarnational ecclesiology is false and fruit-
less. Instead, we need to develop a trinitarian ecclesiology that can
release and receive the full power of the Spirit.
A variety of avenues of inquiry bear upon the development of a
trinitarian ecclesiology fully responsive to the person and mission of
the Spirit. First, efforts to construct complementary ways of speak-
ing about the traditional ordering of Father, Son, and Spirit in the
Trinity are being offered to give greater attention to the role of the
Spirit in trinitarian relations. Hans Urs von Balthasar’s trinitarian
inversion or economic reversal of the relation between the Son and
the Spirit,72 David Coffey’s “bestowal model” or “return model” as a
supplement to the procession model of trinitarian relationships,73 and
Boros Bolotov’s proposed formula that the Son is generated from the
Father and the Spirit (ex Patre Spirituque) as a supplement to the
Eastern formula that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the
Western formula that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the
Son (Filioque), provide three important examples.74 Second, diverse
attempts to develop a Spirit Christology reflect renewed interest in
the role of the Spirit in the life of Jesus as presented in the gospel
narratives, especially in relation to the baptism of the Lord and the
“three-fold offices” of Christ as prophet, priest, and king. Third, re-
newed appreciation of the perichoretic communion of persons in the
Trinity not only has ramifications for how one understands indi-
vidual personal identity and mission, but also provides a means to
conceive of diversity and unity in the church.
Now, of course, the attempt to understand the nature and the mis-
sion of the church in relation to the identity of the trinitarian doc-
trine of God has been implied and even intentionally considered at
various times throughout the history of the church. But thanks to
the explorations of the trinitarian doctrine by Congar, Mühlen,
Rahner, (not to mention the contributions of Karl Barth, Jürgen
Moltmann, Eberhard Jüngel) the growing realization of the practical
ecclesial and social implications of this renewed doctrine by libera-
tion and inculturation theologians, and the careful formulations of
Ratzinger and Balthasar, the emerging consensus is that neither
christomonist nor pneumatomonist ecclesiologies suffice, but that
the trinitarian doctrine of God provides the most comprehensive and
most adequate frame of reference for conceiving the nature and the
mission of the church.75 This establishes the starting point for any
future ecclesiological inquiry.
Releasing the Power of the Spirit in the Church

Thus far we have identified some of the key episodes in the history of
the recovery of pneumatology in twentieth century Catholic
ecclesiology.76 Other crucial moments and contributions, such as the
documents of the Second Vatican Council, Pope John Paul II’s
Dominum et Vivificantem [1986], and the rise of the charismatic
movement in the Catholic Church, still need to be set in this plot,
and the pneumatology of Hans Urs von Balthasar merits further at-
tention. But to bring this study to completion, let us step back from
all of the details and try to identify larger patterns at work as we
consider what impact this new receptivity to the person and power
of the Holy Spirit has on our understanding of the nature and mis-
sion of the church.
At the most basic level of a theology of the church, it is no longer

sufficient to construe the historical and anthropological foundation
of the church in terms of the nature and mission of Jesus, the Incar-
nate Son of God. Now we must also describe how the Spirit is the
“co-institutor” of the church. An anthropological approach to the
need for community and church must consider the ways in which
the invitation of the Spirit through the deepest aspirations of the
human person toward identity and mission reflects the imago dei in
each person that can only be fully received, purified, and realized in
an ecclesial communion of persons. The theological construction of
the sacramental, prophetic, and institutional nature of the church
may still employ a christocentric concentration, but it will only be
adequate to the degree that it includes attention to the anointing of
Jesus with the Spirit and that accounts for the agency of the Spirit
and Christ in a dynamic relationship and framework. The commu-
nity called church is as much a sacrament of the Spirit as of Christ,
and each of the sacraments of the church must be so construed. Its
prophetic voice is not only one of official teaching and apostolic
memory, but also of discerning the Spirit in new moments of tena-
cious remembrance and courageous witness in word and action. Min-
isterial offices and charisms cannot be set in opposition as offices
founded by Christ and charisms bequeathed by the Spirit, but must
be envisioned in terms of Jesus, the prophetic and sapiential incarna-
tion of God, and the Spirit working in concert. While the
christological grounding of ministerial offices cannot be dismissed,
neither can the inspiration of the Spirit in reforming old forms and
advancing new ones in order to address new situations be ruled out
before any ecclesial process of discernment has taken place. More-
over, the evangelical and social missions of the church must be un-
derstood in terms of the continuation of the work of the two hands
of God, the Word and the Spirit. These are the basic directions of a
trinitarian ecclesiology attuned to the agency of the Spirit.
Presupposing the need for this larger trinitarian vision of the church,
there is evidence that a renewed awareness of the presence of the
Holy Spirit is providing a catalyst in three particular areas of
ecclesiology. First, the new receptivity to the Spirit can be credited
with motivating a centrifugal movement in the church toward a more
genuine catholicity. Second, the new devotion to the Spirit has en-
gendered a centripetal movement into a deeper communion, a more
profound appreciation of communion with God and with the com-
munity of disciples that constitutes the identity of the church. Third,

the new awareness of the Spirit also contributes to the call for more
effective communication in the church; dialogue, consultation, col-
laboration, rhetoric, and reception fosters the church’s centrifugal
movement toward catholicity and its centripetal movement toward
communion. The church’s communicative action should reflect and
will be judged by the self-communication of God in history through
Word and Spirit. Let me close with a word about each.
The new openness to the Spirit at work in the church has resulted
in a new impetus and desire to become more genuinely catholic,
which in this context means a fuller understanding of the universal-
ity of the church’s nature and mission. The stimulus to greater catho-
licity is evident in the documents of the Second Vatican Council.
The call to a more genuine catholicity is evident in the Council’s
teaching on the universal call to holiness as the Spirit works in each
individual. The Council affirmed that all those baptized in the Spirit
and in the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ share in the universal call
to participate in the anointed offices of Christ as priest, prophet, and
king.77 These grand gestures of openness to the catholicity of the
Spirit were complemented by an equally dramatic recognition of the
need for collegiality between bishops around the world and the pope,
and ecumenicity between Christian believers and communities, and
respect for the work of the Spirit of God in other religions and in the
stirrings of the human heart. The cumulative effect of these efforts to
catholicize the church of Christ is evident in that the Second Vatican
Council signaled an end to a Eurocentric and Christendom vision of
the Catholic Church, which was maintained in the modern period
by a heavily juridical, authoritarian, and clerical church structure that
promoted a polemical attitude toward other Christians and other
religions. With this demise there has been introduced the promise
and task of creating a global, collegial, and collaborative vision of the
church where local churches around the world recognize the power
of the Spirit at work in their midst.
As we have seen, Congar and Rahner perceived the work of the
Spirit in the church’s struggles to realize a more profound catholicity
through a deeper appreciation of the plurality and diversity of local
churches, schools of thought, and individual charisms of persons
within the church. Balthasar’s celebration of the manifold styles in
the life of the Church has its place here as traces of the creative Spirit,
and not only as imitations of the form of Jesus Christ. Liberation,
feminist, and inculturation theologians have recognized the Spirit of

the prophetic Christ challenging the church to take seriously the cul-
tural and social implications of a more genuine catholicity.
The Spirit’s work of grace in local churches and in individuals is
the source of the sensus fidei, the perception born of the gift of faith.
It is the Spirit’s work of grace that enables people of all types from
around the globe to participate in the divine life. The glory of God is
manifest in this pluriformity of the Spirit’s presence in the world and
in the church. And as a result the call to collegiality, not only be-
tween the pope and bishops as this term is strictly used in official
documents, but also collegial relationships including those with
priests, religious, and laity invites a deeper form of collaboration
empowered by the Spirit. Church authority is effective to the extent
that it is catholic, that is, exercised in a collegial and collaborative
manner. In humble and mutual receptivity to the work of the Spirit,
the entire church is called to be a learning church and a teaching
church, where the sensus fidei yields a sensus fidelium, which provides
the conditions of the possibility of a consensus fidelium that emerges
from the communication action of the traditioning process.
The Spirit’s summons to a more genuine catholicity is a hard call-
ing because it pulls and pushes the church to grow, to a deeper con-
version, and when needed to institutional change at the local and
universal level. Such change is not in the interest of faddish innova-
tion or at the expense of the gospel of Christ, the apostolic heritage
and offices, but rather is pursued in fidelity to the gifts of God. The
Spirit’s call to catholicity symbolized at Pentecost and epitomized by
the initial Hellenistic mission is but the further realization and ongo-
ing evolution of the catholicity of Jesus’ mission in Galilea to those at
the margins, those religiously and socially disconnected, those who
have yearned to be released from the destructive powers at work in
the world and in their own personal lives by the power of God’s reign.
In some cases the Spirit’s appeal for greater catholicity can appear
to risk tearing the church apart through disagreement and disunity:
the debates about liberation, inculturation, and relativism offer ample
evidence. But perhaps this agitation is in the interest of purgation,
sanctification, and the holiness of the church. As contentious as these
debates can sometimes be, one thing we know for certain: factional-
ism cannot be the ultimate outcome, for the Spirit that beckons to
catholicity also lures to communion, koinonia, the friendship of the
Holy Spirit.
One of the major achievements of the Second Vatican Council was

its retrieval of an ecclesiology of dialogical communion. A trinitarian
faith, especially one attuned to the Holy Spirit, bids us to a deeper
dialogical communion with God and each other. Since the time of
the council, many have feared that the unity and prophetic witness
of the church is being threatened by pluralism, secularism, relativ-
ism, and globalization. Calls for changes in the requirements of min-
isterial priesthood, for women and married priests, and for greater
collegiality and collaboration in the practice of the ordinary and ex-
traordinary magisterium are a source of consternation for some. An
older ecclesiology, christocentric in orientation and ultramontanist
in impulse, would demand unity from above and a firm and unas-
sailable stand against these tempests. Today, the question we must
address is how to promote a genuine dialogical communion within a
trinitarian construal of the church that incorporates a robust
pneumatology.
The answer is not simple. Indeed we find competing approaches
to dialogical communion in the church. An instructive contrast is
between the approaches of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and Domini-
can theologian J.M.R. Tillard. On one level, the chief difference be-
tween these two models of communion consists in the relative weight
given to certain structures in the church: Ratzinger gives ontological
and temporal priority to the universal church in relation to the local
church, whereas Tillard emphasizes the importance of the local church
and the communion of churches. Both emphasize the we-structure
of trinitarian faith and agree that dialogue provides the spiritual con-
dition for the possibility of genuine ecclesial communion that does
not sacrifice prophetic witness and effective leadership. Both empha-
size the centrality of the eucharist celebrated by the local ordinary as
a special sign and instrument of communion. But one must consider
how the agency of the Spirit is understood as active in the promotion
of communion. Although the ecclesiology of communion espoused
by Ratzinger is professedly trinitarian and dialogical, it embraces a
predominantly christocentric approach to ecclesial authority, office,
and ministry, while the older two track approach to the Spirit’s role
seems operative: to inspire and protect the official teaching of the
church and to induce the obedient response of the faithful to this
prophetic office and sacramental administration. Tillard, on the other
hand, seems more intent on being receptive to the Spirit at work at
the local level; the communion of the church requires the patient
restraint of higher levels of authority, adherence to the so-called prin-

ciple of subsidiarity, and the exercise of legitimate episcopal and pa-
pal leadership in such a way that the authority of the universal church
does not undermine the activity of the Spirit in the life of the local
church.78 The degree of consensus between these two about the as-
sets of a communion ecclesiology is considerable and reflects a larger
consensus in the church, but their differences reflect unresolved is-
sues not only about church structures, but also precisely about how
the Spirit is at work in the church.
The Spirit is not the source of a smothering communitarianism or
authoritarianism where individual self expression is stifled and fac-
tions squelched. Rather the nature of the communion amidst diver-
sity in the Church requires that its members strive in hope for the
realization of the perichoretic communion of persons of a shared
trinitarian life. The communion that is desired in the church and in
the world will ultimately be based on and judged by the self-commu-
nication of God. Seen from this perspective, the Spirit is the prin-
ciple of vital communication in the church through inspired dis-
course, dialogue, and reception. The incarnational ecclesiology cham-
pioned by Möhler and others is to be credited with offering an ap-
proach to the problems of divided Christendom and modernity that
nurtured the sacramental and moral life of Catholic believers. But it
simultaneously stifled communication by creating a fortress mental-
ity in the church and by fostering a juridical authoritarianism. The
new reception of the Spirit holds the promise of creating the condi-
tions of communication required for a more genuine catholicity and
dialogical communion in the church of the next millennium.
The late twentieth century understanding of catholicity and com-
munion in the church through inspired dialogical communication is
a trinitarian vision of the church that Johann Adam Möhler could
recognize as reflecting the deepest impulses in his own achievement.
Yet in certain important respects, especially in terms of the global,
ecumenical, and ministerial implications of catholicity and the dia-
logical character of communion, his vision of the church is being
transformed beyond what he could have conceived or imagined. And
this new work in progress can only be appreciated in light of the new
reception of the power of the Holy Spirit.
Endnotes
1
For my analysis and evaluation of Möhler’s position, see Bradford E. Hinze, “The
Holy Spirit and the Catholic Tradition: The Legacy of Johann Adam Möhler,”
in The Legacy of the Tübingen School: The Relevance of Nineteenth Century Theology
for the Twenty-First Century, eds. Donald J. Dietrich and Michael J. Himes (New
York: Crossroad Herder, 1997), 75-94; also see Michael J. Himes, Ongoing
Incarnation: Johann Adam Möhler and the Beginnings of Modern Ecclesiology (New
York: Crossroad Herder, 1997).
2
See Miroslav Volf, After Our Likeness: The Church As the Image of the Trinity (Grand
Rapids, Michigan, 1998); Bernhard Nitsche, “Die Analogie zwischen dem
trinitarischen Gottesbild und der communialen Struktur von Kirche. Desiderat
eines Forschungsprogrammes zur Communio-Ekklesiologie,” in Communio–
Ideal oder Zerrbild vom Kommuikation? ed. Bernd Jochen Hilberath, Questiones
Disputatae 176 (Freiburg: Herder, 1999), 81-114.
3
While developments in Christology and Pneumatology have generated profound
insight into matters ecclesiological during the most recent past, little direct
attention has been given to the ecclesiological implications of the understanding
of God as creator, father and mother, source, and term.
4
Yves Congar, “The Council as an Assembly and the Church as Essentially
Conciliar,” in One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. Studies on the Nature and Role
of the Church in the Modern World, ed. Herbert Vorgrimler (London: Sheed and
Ward, 1968), 45.
5
The neoscholastics spoke of the “assistentia Spiritus per se negativa” as the charism
of the Spirit operative in the work of the Pope and the college of bishops in
guarding the transmission, proclamation, and defense of revelation, and which
is distinct from revelation and inspiration. It is negative because the teaching
office cannot teach new truths, but must ensure the truth and guard against
teaching error. The charism of the Spirit at work in the magisterium came to be
viewed not only as negative, but also as a positive gift for those in office. Later in
the twentieth century the importance of this gift of the Spirit in the entire Church
would be developed by a number of figures. For a discussion of the neosholastic
manuals on the negative assistance of the Holy Spirit, see John Boyle, Church
Teaching Authority: Historical and Theological Studies (Notre Dame: University
of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 47-55, n.26, on p. 195, 152, 165-169. A more
detailed understanding of this neoscholastic approach to the Spirit would require
a closer study of the ecclesiologies of Joseph Kleutgen, the Roman School of Carlo
Passaglia, Clemens Schrader, Giovanni Perrone, and Johann Baptist Franzelin,
figures like Charles Journet, and representative examples of the manuals of
theology, like that of Adolphe Tanquerey.
6
Elizabeth Groppe considers the “disjunction” between these two tracks and has
identified a variety of sources reflecting this pattern; see, Yves Congar’s Theology
of the Holy Spirit (Ph.D. Dissertation: University of Notre Dame, 1999).
Adolphe Tanquerey’s Brevior Synopsis Theologie Dogmaticae (Paris: Desclée, 1st
edition 1931, last edition, 1952) is used as a representative of the neoscholastic
manual approach to the Holy Spirit. Also representative is Barthélemy Froget’s
De l’Inhabitation du S. Esprit dans les âmes justes (Paris: Leithielleux, 1890); Hugh
Francis, Life with the Holy Ghost: Thoughts on the Gifts of the Holy Ghost
(Milwaukee, Wisc.: Bruce, 1943); James Carroll, God the Holy Ghost (New York:
P.J. Kennedy & Sons, 1940); G. F. Holden, The Holy Ghost the Comforter
(London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1907); Edward Leen, The Holy Ghost and
His Work in Souls (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1937); Luis M. Martínez, El
Espiritu Santo (Mexico City, 1939).
7
Matthias Scheeben, Die Mysterien des Christentums (1865, revised edition from
1881 notations in 1941), 544, translated under the title, The Mysteries of
Christianity (St. Louis, Mo.: Herder, 1951). On the Spirit in the life of the
Trinity, see pp. 95-117; on the Spirit in the Church, see pp. 544-557, 561-2, 569,
passim.
8
Matthias Scheeben, The Mysteries, 331, see esp. 331-34 and also Handbuch der
Katholischen Dogmatik, 3 vols., 1873-82; 1954 edition of Gesammelte Schriften,
Book 5/1, pp. 176-184. For critical analysis and elaboration, see David Coffey,
Grace: The Gift of the Holy Spirit (Manly, Australia: Catholic Institute of Sydney,
1979), 99-144.
9
Scheeben, The Mysteries, 332.
10
Scheeben, The Mysteries, 332.
11
Sebastian Tromp, Corpus Christ Quod est Ecclesia (New York: Vantage, 4th ed.,
1960 from 1946 2nd Latin edition), 29-30; he also collected sayings from the
Greek and Latin fathers on the Holy Spirit that animates the mystical body, “De
Spiritu Sancto Anima Corporis Mystici: I. Testimonia Selecta e Patribus Graecis”
Textus et Documenta (Rome: Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana, 1948), 1:1-91;
“De Spiritu Sancto Anima Corporis Mystici: 2. Testimonia Selecta D Patribus
Latinis,” Textus et Documenta 7 (1952): 1-77.
12
Mersch not only tracked the importance of the Holy Spirit in his patristic studies,
but also offered a systematic presentation of the role of the Spirit as the animating
presence in the body of Christ . See Emile Mersch, Le Corps Mystique du Christ
(Paris: Desclée, De Brouwer, 2nd edition, 1936); translated under the title The
Whole Christ: The Historical Development of the Doctrine of the Mystical Body in
Scripture and Tradition (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1938); and La Théologie du Corps
Mystique (Paris: Desclée, De Brouwer, 2nd edition, 1946); translated under the
title The Theology of the Mystical Body (St. Louis: Herder, 1951), see p. 376, 415-
452: “The Spirit is all and accomplishes all in his own way, just as the Father and
the Son are all and accomplish all in their way. But everything is summed up in
the incarnation and in the incarnate Word, and the explanation of the Spirit’s
work has to be found within the totality of Christ… . If we wish to know how
mankind possesses the Spirit, all we have to do is know how the Son possesses
Him, or more accurately, how the humanity assumed by the Son possesses
Him”(416).
13
Journet’s three volume work treats the role of the Spirit in numerous places. The
three ages of the world corresponding to the Father, Son, and Spirit are
introduced in relation to Pentecost and Petrine primacy, see Charles Journet, The
Church of the Incarnate Word: An Essay in Speculative Theology (New York: Sheed
& Ward, 1955), 401-403; the three ages are considered in relation to the doctrine
of grace in L’Église du Verbe Incarné: essai de théologie speculative, 3 vols., (Paris:
Desclée, De Brouwer, 1941), 2: 278-306, with the age of the Spirit receiving
greater attention, 290-306. A lengthy chapter is devoted to the divinizing Spirit
of the church, see 2:454-603. The final volume is devoted to salvation history and
again he returns to the formula of the three ages of the world, but the attention
to the role of the Spirit is late in the volume and short, 3:604-634.
14
Elizabeth Groppe notes, following Joseph Farmerée and Jean-Pierre Jossua, that
Congar’s accentuation of the importance of diversity [in I Believe in the Holy
Spirit 2:17] represents a qualitative shift in his thought. In his early Divided
Christendom, Congar stressed “unity” and treated “diversity” as a provisional and
secondary reality. In contrast, Congar’s Diversity and Communion emphasizes
communion and treats “diversity as a necessary and positive dimension of this
communion.” See Groppe, “The Temple of the Holy Spirit: Pneumatology,
Ecclesiology and Anthropology in the Theology of Yves Congar” (paper pre-
sented at the American Academy of Religion, November 1997), 15, n. 47.
15
See Pablo Sicously, “Yves Congar und Johann Adam Möhler: Ein theologisches
Gespräch zwischen den Zeiten,” Catholica 45 (1991): 36-43. Congar is quoted
as saying that “in him [Möhler] I found a source, the source, which I directly used.
What Möhler had done in the nineteenth century became for me an ideal toward
which I would aim my own reflections in the twentieth century.” J. Puyo, Une
vie pour la vérité. Jean Puyo interroge le Père Congar (Paris, 1975), 48.
16
Congar, “La pensée de Möhler et l’Ecclésiologie orthodoxe,” Irénikon 12 (1935):
321-9; Congar, “La signification oecuménique de l’oeuvre de Moehler,” Irénikon
15 (1938): 113-130; Congar, “Sur l’évolution et l’interprétation de la pensée de
Moehler,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 27 (1939): 205-212;
Congar, “Die Häresie, der Riß durch die Einheit,” Die Eine Kirche. Zum
Gedenken J. A. Möhlers 1838-1839, ed. Hermann Tüchle (1939), 282-301.
17
Yves Congar, The Word and the Spirit (London: Chapman; San Francisco: Harper
& Row, 1986), 115 Because he requested a new translation, it was released second
in the series in 1938.
18
The charge of ecclesiastical monophysitism is raised in numerous contexts in
Congar’s work. A Nestorian and monophysite approach to the reality of the
church is mentioned in “La pensée de Möhler et l’Ecclésiologie orthodoxe,” 323;
Tradition and Traditions discusses Möhler’s formula of ongoing incarnation and
its impact on the Roman school of Perrone, Passaglia, Schrader, Franzelin, where
the result is that “the Church is Christ’s body so its mouth would be Christ’s
own,” which implies a certain ecclesiological monophysitism. To my knowledge
the recognition of ecclesiological monophystism as a problem in Catholic
theology, and in particular in Möhler’s later work, Symbolism, and not simply in
those he influenced, goes back to the accusation by Philipp Marheinecke, who
spoke of Eutyches in relation to Möhler’s polemic against the Lutherans and his
identification of the Church with the hierarchy; see Ueber Dr. J. A. Möhler’s
Symbolik … : Eine Recension (Berlin, 1833), 24-28, which was also later cited by
F. C. Baur in Katholicismus und Protestantismus (2nd edition, 1836), 536. It must
be recognized that the risk of ecclesiological monophysitism in Möhler’s theology
is to be found not only in his incarnational ecclesiology, but also in his Spirit-
centered model. Interestingly, Congar says of the formula in the 1897 encyclical
by Leo XIII, Divinum illud munus, “If Christ is the Head of the Church, the Holy
Spirit is its soul,” which is quoted in Mystici Corporis, that “taken literally, it
clearly points to an ecclesiological monophysitism” (Congar, I Believe in the
Spirit, 1:154). Augustine does not say the Holy Spirit is the soul of the Church,
but “what the soul does in our body, the Holy Spirit does in the Church; what
the soul is for our body, the Holy Spirit is for the Body of Christ, which is the
Church. The statement, then is functional and not ontological” (Congar, I
Believe in the Spirit, 1:154).
19
On this relationship besides the article cited above, N. von Arseniew, “Chomjakov
und Möhler,” in Die Ostkirche (1927), 89-92; S. Boshakoff, The Doctrine of the
Unity of the Church in the Works of Khomyakov and Möhler, (London, 1946); Paul
Patrick O’Leary, The Triune Church: A Study in the Ecclesiology of A. S. Xomjakov
(Dublin, Ireland: Dominican Publications and Freiburg, Switzerland:
Universitätsverlag, 1982), iv, 84ff. For Congar’s later comments on Möhler and
ecumenism, see chapter 16, “‘Reconciled Diversity’ How would Möhler have
reacted,” Diversity and Communion, 148-152.
20
Congar, “Die christologischen und pneumatologischen Implikationen der
Ekklesiologie des II. Vatikanums,” in Kirche im Wandel, eds. G. Alberigo, Y.
Congar, and H.J. Pottmeyer (Dusseldorf: Patmos, 1982), 111-112; Congar, The
Word and the Spirit (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986), 113-117; also see his
reflections on the theology of Thomas Aquinas, in Word and Spirit, 85-86.
21
Groppe points out Congar’s use of the term “une ecclésiologie pneumatologique”
in “Pneumatologie dogmatique,” Initiation à la practique de la théologie, eds.
Bernard Lauret and Francois Refoulé (Paris: Cerf, 1982), 493. On the christological
and pneumatological approach to ecclesiology in Congar’s later writings, see
Cornelis Th. M. Van Vliet, Communio Sacramentalis: Das Kirchenverständnis von
Yves Congar (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald, 1995), 229-284; Joseph Famerée,
L’ecclésiologie d’Yves Congar avant Vatican II: Histoire et Église. Analyse et reprise
critique (Lueven: Lueven University Press, 1992), 437-457.
22
See Congar, Word and the Spirit, 84-100.
23
The capstone of Congar’s contribution to the recovery of pneumatology is not his
monumental study of the history of the theology pneumatology, but his later
book, La Parole et le Souffle in the series “Jésus et Jésus-Christ,” (Paris: Desclée,
1984) which is translated under the title Word and the Spirit. Also see Pneumatologie
ou Christomonisme” in Ecclesia a Spiritu Sancto edocta, Bibliotheca Ephemeridum
theologicarum Lovaniensium, 27, (Gembloux: J. Duculot, 1970), 41-63; and
“La Tri-unité de Dieu et l’Église,” La Vie Spirituelle 128 (1974) 687-703
24
Heribert Mühlen, Der Heilige Geist als Person: In der Trinität bei der Inkarnation
und Im Gnadenbund: Ich-Du-Wir (1963; 3rd edition, Münster: Aschendorff,
1969); Una Mystica Persona: Die Kirche als das Mysterium der Heilsgeschichtlichen
Identität des Heiligen Geistes in Christus und den Christen: Eine Person in Vielen
Personen (1966; 3rd edition, Munich, Paderborn, Wien: Ferdinand Schöningh,
1968).
25
As David Coffey notes Mühlen’s treatment of the anointing follows the work of
Ignace de la Potterie, “L’onction du Christ. Étude de théologie biblique,”
Nouvelle Revue Théologique 80 (1958): 225-252 translated under the title “The
Anointing of Christ,” in Word and Mystery, ed. L. O’Donovan (New York, 1968),
175-182.
26
Congar has criticized Mühlen’s work here for failing to distinguish duo Spiratores
and for calling the Spirit the “We” in Person, “which surely applies to the Spirit
what is common to both the Father and the Son as a personal attribute” (see Word
and Spirit, 109; I Believe in the Spirit 1: 22-25). David Coffey has criticized
Mühlen’s formula of the Spirit as the We-act, because the use of We is appropriate
to the Father and the Son relationship, but it fails to distinguish the proper
identity of relation that is the Holy Spirit, and it views this We-act as the common
and not the mutual act of the Father and the Son. See Grace: The Gift of the Holy
Spirit, 33-37. Hans Urs von Balthasar has also expressed difficulties with facets
of Mühlen’s position for not developing an approach to the trinitarian relations
that can account for the distinctive presence of the Spirit in the life of the
incarnate Word (cf. Balthasar’s “trinitarian inversion”) and in the formation of
the person and the mission of each individual in the Church. See Hans Urs von
Balthasar, Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory (San Francisco: Ignatius,
1992), 3:346-351; on trinitarian inversion, 183-190. These three offer converg-
ing reservations about Mühlen’s formula.
27
Mühlen discusses Bellarmine’s definition of the Church, which was crafted to
avoid the Reformers’ distinction of a visible and an invisible church (Una Mystica
Persona, 3-8).
28
Mühlen, Una Mystica Persona, 9-10.
29
Mühlen, Una Mystica Persona, 173-216.
30
Mühlen, Una Mystica Persona, 176.
31
J.A. Möhler, Symbolik, oder, Darstellung der dogmatischen Gegensätze der Katholiken
und Protestanten nach ihren öffentlichen Bekenntnisschriften (Mainz: Kupferberg,
1884), § 36.
32
Möhler, Symbolik, § 36.
33
34
35
36
John R. Sachs, “Do Not Stifle the Spirit”: Karl Rahner, the Legacy of Vatican II
and Its Urgency for Theology Today,” Proceedings of The Catholic Theological
Society of America 51 (1996): 15-38, see p. 20. Philip S. Keane concurs with
Sachs’s judgment: “While Congar has the strongest content on the Holy Spirit
of any twentieth-century Catholic theologian, in terms of a methodology for
pneumatology and moral theology I found that Karl Rahner had the most to
offer” (“The Role of the Holy Spirit in Contemorary Moral Theology,” Proceed-
ings of the Catholic Theological Society of America 51 [1996]: 109, n. 41).
37
Karl Rahner, Spirit in the World (1939; 3rd edition, New York: Herder and Herder,
1968) and Rahner, “Some implications of the Scholastic Concept of Uncreated
Grace” in vol. 1, Theological Investigations (1939; 3rd edition, Baltimore, Md.:
Helicon, 1965).
38
Karl Rahner, Hearers of the Word (1941; reprint, New York: Herder and Herder,
1969).
39
Karl Rahner, The Trinity (New York: Herder and Herder, 1965), 22. Congar has
lauded the first part of Rahner’s formulation, but has expressed reservations
about the second part that says “the `immanent’ Trinity is the `economic’
Trinity” (Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 3:13-17).
40
For a helpful analysis of Rahner’s position on the proper mission of the Holy Spirit,
but without any discussion of its ecclesiological implications, see Barbara A
Finan, The Mission of the Holy Spirit in the Theology of Karl Rahner (Ph.D. diss.,
Marquette University, 1986). Also see David Coffey’s treatment of Rahner’s
position in Grace: The Gift of the Holy Spirit, and “The Proper Mission of the
Holy Spirit in Christ,” Theological Studies 45 (1984):466-90.
41
Rahner, “Uncreated Grace,” Theological Investigations (Hereafter TI) 1:346;
Rahner, The Trinity, 24-28.
42
Rahner, “Uncreated Grace,” TI 1:345, n. 2
43
Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith (1976; reprint, New York: Crossroad,
1978), 118 and 120.
44
For a useful treatment of the role of the Spirit in Rahner’s ecclesiology, see Richard
Lennan, The Ecclesiology of Karl Rahner (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), 80-109.
45
Karl Rahner, “The Individual in the Church” in Nature and Grace, trans. Dinah
Wharton (London: Sheed & Ward, 1964).
46
Mystici Corporis mentioned the charismatic character of the Church in DS 3801,
3807-8. For Rahner’s first statement on the structure of the church as hierarchical
and charismatic, see “The Church of the Saints” (1955), TI, vol. 3.
47
Rahner, “The Church as the Subject of the Sending of the Spirit” (1956), TI 7:187.
48
Rahner, “The Church as the Subject of the Sending of the Spirit,” TI 7:189 and
190.
49
Karl Rahner, “The Charismatic Element in the Church,” (1959) in The Dynamic
Element in the Church (New York: Herder, 1964), 49.
50
Rahner, Dynamic Element, 51. Hans Küng accentuates the charismatic, Spirit-
inspired character of the church in nascent Christianity in The Church (New
York: Sheed and Ward, 1968). Also see the helpful essay by Avery Dulles,
“Institution and Charism in the Church,” in A Church to Believe in: Discipleship
and the Dynamics of Freedom (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 19-40.
51
Rahner, “Do Not Stifle The Spirit!” (1962), TI 7:72-87.
52
See Finan, Mission of the Holy Spirit in the Theology of Karl Rahner, 153-227. Finan
argues that although Rahner’s theology of real symbol was conceived out of a
trinitarian frame of reference, it suffers from a christocentric and binitary
predilection (183-196).
53
I have chosen the 1980s because of the books by Boff and Schillebeeckx, which I
will cite below. See also José Comblin, The Holy Spirit and Liberation (Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis, 1989).
54
Leonardo Boff’s initial christological approach to the church, Die Kirche als
Sakrament im Horizont der Welterfahrung (Paderborn: Bonifacius-Druckerei,
1972), was written under the direction of Joseph Ratzinger. More attention to the
role of the Spirit in the Church is evident in his book, Church, Charism, and Power
(New York: Crossroad, 1985) and in Trinity and Society (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis,
1977). For Edward Schillebeeckx’s christology, see Christ the Sacrament of the
Encounter with God (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1965); Jesus: An Experiment in
Christology (New York: Seabury, 1979); Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord
(New York: Seabury, 1980). More attention is given to the role of the Spirit in
The Church with a Human Face (New York: Crossroad, 1985) and Church: The
Human Story of God (New York: Crossroad, 1990).
55
Rosemary Radford Ruether, To Change The World: Christology and Cultural
Criticism (New York: Crossroad, 1983), 45-56; Sexism and God-Talk (Boston:
Beacon, 1983), 116-138.
56
See Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus: Miriam’s Child, Sophia’s Prophet (New
York: Continuum, 1994); Discipleship of Equals: A Critical Feminist Ekklesia-logy
of Liberation (New York: Crossroad, 1993). Mary Rose D’Angelo, “Re-membering
Jesus: Women, Prophecy, and Resistance in the Memory of the Early Church,”
Horizons 19 (1992): 199-218.
57
Elizabeth Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse
(New York: Crossroad, 1992), 50-54.
58
Elizabeth A. Johnson, Women, Earth, and Creator Spirit, 1993 Madeleva Lecture
in Spirituality (New York/Mahwah: Paulist, 1993); also her “Who is the Holy
Spirit?” Catholic Update (June, 1995): 1-4.
59
See Henri De Lubac, see Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man (San
Francisco: Igantius, 1988), 48-52; The Christian Faith: An Essay on the Structure
of the Apostles’ Creed (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1986), 114-131. Joseph Ratzinger,
“Der Heilige Geist als communio,” in Erfahrung und Theologie des Heiligen
Geistes, eds. C. Heitmann, H. Mühlen (Hamburg: Agentur des Rauhen Hauses;
Munich: Kösel, 1974), 223-238; Vom Wiederauffinden der Mitte:
Grundorientierungen (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1997), 127-173. Hans Urs
von Balthasar, Explorations in Theology, vol. 2, Spouse of the Word; vol. 3, Creator
Spirit; vol. 4, Spirit and Institution (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1991; 1993; 1995);
Theologik, vol. 3, Der Geist der Wahrheit (Basel: Johannes, 1987). Secondary
literature, see Susan Wood, Spiritual Exegesis and the Church in the Theology of
Henri de Lubac (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans; Edinburgh, T & T Clark,
1998); Christopher James Walsh, Henri de Lubac and the Ecclesiology of the
Postconciliar Church: An Analysis of His Later Writings (1965-1991), (Ph.D. diss.,
Catholic University of America, 1993); James Massa, The Communion Theme in
the Writings of Joseph Ratzinger: Unity in the Church and in the World through
Sacrament Encounter (Ph.D. diss., Fordham University, 1996). Kossi K. Joseph
Tossou, Streben nach Vollendung: Zur Pneumatologie im Werk Hans Urs von
Balthasar, Freiburger theologischen Studien, 125, (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder,
1983).
60
The importance of Möhler’s ecclesiology is acknowledged by each: Henri de
Lubac, The Church: Paradox and Mystery (Shannon, Ireland: Ecclesia, 1967), 24
and 207, n. 38. The Splendor of the Church (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956),
61-62 and 173; Joseph Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism & Politics (New York:
Crossroad, 1988); Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Office of Peter and the Structure
of the Church (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1986), 82-86, 146, 152, 167-172 and
230; Theo-Drama vol. 3, p. 343, n. 9; vol. 4, p. 416, n. 27. On the christocentric
character of their ecclesiologies see de Lubac, The Splendor of the Church (New
York: Sheed & Ward, 1956), 29-86, 147-173; Ratzinger, Called to Communion:
Understanding the Church Today (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1996); Balthasar,
Theo-Drama 3: 339-351; and his Explorations in Theology vol. l, Spirit and
Institution (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1995), 139-168.
61
Yves Congar also criticized excessive pneumaticism. See his remarks on Leonardo
Boff in The Word and the Spirit, 79. Unlike the other critics, like Ratzinger, for
example, Congar remained a proponent of a more thoroughly developed
pneumatology as an important corrective to christomonistic ecclesiology.
62
Henri de Lubac, Exégèse médiévale (Paris: Aubier-Montaigne, 1959-64), 3:437-
558. La postérité spirituelle de Joachim de Fiore 2 volumes (1978, 1981).
63
Citation taken from Christopher Walsh, Henri de Lubac and the Ecclesiology of the
Postconciliar Church, 267-8, from La postérité spirituelle, 2:439 and 1:18. Con-
cerning the debates about interpreting Joachim of Fiore, see Bernard McGinn,
The Calabrian Abbot: Joachim of Fiore in the History of Western Thought (New
York: Macmillan, 1985).
64
Cited by Walsh, Henri de Lubac and the Ecclesiology of the Postconciliar Church, 267,
from Mémoire sur l’occasion de mes écrits, (Namur, Belgium: Culture et Verité,
1989), 160.
65
Cited by Walsh, 273, from La postérité spirituelle de Joachim de Fiore, 2:444.
66
Ratzinger reflects on Augustine’s appreciation of the importance of the gift and
love of the Holy Spirit in the formation of the dialogical communion of the
Church against Donatism, and about the bond between institution and charism,
instead of polar opposition, “Der Heilige Geist als Communio: Zum Verhältnis
von Pneumatologie und Spiritualität bei Augustinus,” in Erfahrung und Theologie
des Heiligen Geistes, eds. Claus Heitmann and Heribert Mühlen (Hamburg:
Agentur des Rauhen Hauses; Munich: Kösel, 1974), 223-234. Also see Ratzinger,
Volk und Haus Gottes in Augustins Lehre von der Kirche (1954; reprint, St.
Ottilien: Eos, 1992); Ratzinger, “Beobachtungen zum Kirchenbegriff des Tyconius
in ‘Liber regularum’” in Das neue Volk Gottes. Entwürfe zur Ekklesiologie (Düssel-
dorf: Patmost, 1969), 11-23. He mentions Mani who claimed to be the
incarnation of the Holy Spirit, in The God of Jesus Christ (Chicago: Franciscan
Herald, 1979), 97-8. A
67
Joseph Ratzinger, The God of Jesus Christ, 101; for his treatment of Bonaventure’s
rejection of the excessive pneumaticism of Joachim, see The Theology of History
of St. Bonaventure (Chicago: Franciscan Herald, 1971), esp. 95-118
68
See, Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, vol. 9, Dogmatic
Theology, with Johann Auer (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America
Press, 1988), 13; Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism, & Politics, 251.
69
Ratzinger, Eschatology, 57-66.
70
Ratzinger, The God of Jesus Christ, 104.
71
Balthasar, Theo-Drama, 4:446. The three ages of Joachim “quickly adopted radical
forms, aiming to overcome the institutional Church of Christ in the name of the
Holy Spirit, who is destined to rule the Third Age of the world” (Theo-Drama
4:453-469 at 458); also on Joachim see 3:400 and Balthasar, The Office of Peter
and the Structure of the Church, 71, 99-101.
72
Balthasar, Explorations in Theology, 4:231; Balthasar, Theo-Drama, 3:183-191;
511-523; 4:361-367.
73
David Coffey, Deus Trinitas: The Doctrine of the Triune God (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1999.
74
This proposal of Boros Bolotov is discussed by Paul Evdokimov, Présence de
L’Espirit Saint dans la tradition orthodoxe (Paris: Cerf, 1977), 69-78 and Leonardo
Boff, Trinity and Society, 204-206.
75
The shift to a trinitarian ecclesiology is evident in the following: Edward Kilmartin,
Christian Liturgy, vol. 1, Systematic Theology of Liturgy (Kansas City, Mo.: Sheed
& Ward, 1988); George Tavard, The Church, Community of Salvation: An
Ecumenical Ecclesiology, New Theology Series, vol. 1 (Collegeville, Minn.:
Liturgical, 1992); Bruno Forte, The Church: Icon of the Trinity (Boston: St. Paul’s
Books, 1991); also Forte’s La Chiesa della Trinità. Saggio sul mistero della chiesa
communio e missione (Rome: San Paolo, 1995). Medard Kehl, Die Kirche: Eine
katholische Ekklesiologie (Würzburg: Echter, 1992); Hermann J. Pottmeyer, “Der
Heilige Geist und die Kirche. Von einer christomistischen zu einer trinitarianischen
Ekklesiologie,” Tutzinger Studien 2 (1981): 45-55; Catherine Mowry LaCugna,
God For Us: The Trinity & Christian Life (New York: Harper Collins, 1991).
76
Avery Dulles has commented in numerous places on the importance of
pneumatology in twentieth century ecclesiology: Avery Dulles, The Dimensions
of the Church: A Postconciliar Reflection (Westminster, Md.: New Press, 1967), 6-
7, 27, and 40-41; Dulles, Models of the Church (Garden City: Doubleday, 1974),
passim, especially in chapter 3 on the church as mystical communion; Dulles, A
Church To Believe In: Discipleship and the Dynamics of Freedom (New York:
Crossroad, 1982), 19-40 and 152-155; Dulles, “A Half Century of Ecclesiology,”
Theological Studies 50 (1989): 419-442.
77
On the “triplex munus Christi” see John Begley, “Prophet, Priest, and King,” in
The Word in the World, eds. Richard J. Clifford and George W. MacRae
(Cambridge, Mass.: Weston College Press, 1974), 145-157; Josef Fuchs “Origens
d’une triologie ecclésiologique à l’époque rationaliste de la théologie,” Revue des
sciences philosophiques et théologies 53 (1969): 185-211.
78
See Tillard, Church of Churches: The Ecclesiology of Communion (Collegeville,
Minn.: Liturgical, 1992); Michael O’Connor, “The Holy Spirit and the Church
in Catholic Theology: A Study in the Ecclesiology of J.M.R. Tillard,” One in
Christ 28 (1992): 331-341.
382 Miroslav Volf and Maurice Lee
The Spirit and the Church

Miroslav Volf and Maurice Lee
Introduction
The third articles of the Christian creedal tradition consistently pair
“the Spirit” and “the church.” We can trace such pairing back at least
to the early third century. According to the Apostolic Tradition of
Hippolytus (c. 215), the third question to be asked of the candidate
for baptism was “Do you believe in the Holy Spirit and the holy
church and the resurrection of the flesh?”1 This connection in the
creedal tradition echoes the close ties between the Spirit and the church
found throughout the New Testament. As the account of the Spirit’s
coming at Pentecost paradigmatically attests, the church was born
out of the womb of the Spirit. From their beginnings and through-
out their history, the Christian dogmatic and theological traditions
have acknowledged the Spirit as the generative force and life-giving
“environment”—the “breathing room,” as it were—of the church.
The pervasive association between “Spirit” and “church” notwith-
standing, theologians have reflected relatively little on precisely how
the two are related. Take as an example Calvin, a theologian who (on
the whole) cannot be faulted for neglect of the Spirit.2 Though he
stresses in the Institutes that the elect “are made truly one since they
live together in one faith, hope, and love, and in the same Spirit of
God,”3 he does not venture to explore how the Spirit of the triune
God shapes the nature and mission of the church.4 In Calvin, as often
in the history of Western theology, the distinctive relation of the Spirit
to the church is elusive5—although, as Elizabeth Dreyer points out
in her contribution to this volume, there is ample testimony to the
Spirit’s presence in the lives of individual believers. Even in the East-
ern churches, whose theologians have tended to ascribe a greater role
to the Spirit than their Western counterparts, noting repeatedly the
neglect of the Spirit in Western ecclesiologies,6 the Spirit’s work in
the birth and life of the church remains vague. In commenting on
recent Orthodox reactions to Catholic dogmatic formulations (par-
ticularly those of Vatican II), John Zizioulas, one of the most astute
of contemporary Orthodox theologians, remarks that while the Or-
The Spirit and the Church 383
thodox criticisms may be valid, the proper way in which the Spirit
should be brought into the doctrine of the church - “what the Or-
thodox would in fact like to see [Western theology] do with
Pneumatology in its ecclesiology”7–has not yet been worked out.
By contrast, there has been abundant reflection on how the church
is related to Christ—as body (to head), as bride (to bridegroom), as
servant (of the Lord), as redeemed (of the Crucified One), to name
just a few dominant ways of conceiving the relation. These
christological modes of understanding the church not only draw from
the rich reservoir of metaphors employed by the New Testament to
describe the church’s relation to Christ but, more significantly, build
on the core of the underlying New Testament narrative of the life,
death, resurrection, exaltation, and continuing lordship of Christ.
The logic of that narrative is straightforward, and its ecclesiological
implications were expressed by the early tradition most succinctly in
the famous phrase of Ignatius of Antioch: ubi Christus, ibi ecclesia.8
But where does this concentration on the relation between Christ
and the church leave the Spirit? Does the Spirit come only after the
church has already and independently been “constructed with
christological material alone,”9 to play a secondary role as the life-
infusing and invigorating “breath” of the ecclesial body?
Part of the reason why the tradition has not developed the
pneumatological side of ecclesiology is a certain elusiveness of the
Spirit. This is a well-known pneumatological theme, and we want to
underscore only one of its aspects that relates directly to ecclesiology.
Much of what Christian theology claims about the Spirit is filtered
Christologically. We identify who the Spirit is and what the Spirit
does by pointing to Christ. Except for being a source of life and
power, the Spirit would then seem ecclesiologically redundant. We
want to argue that the impression of redundancy is false. Though
(above and beyond vivification of the church) the ecclesiological func-
tion of the Spirit seems more formal than material—the Spirit guards
a certain kind of relation between Christ and the church rather than
directly, and independently of Christ, giving concrete content to the
identity and mission of the church—that function of the Spirit is
nonetheless significant. Later we will briefly explicate this signifi-
cance. Here we want to indicate only the basis on which this signifi-
cance rests.
Why, then, can the Spirit’s work in the church not be limited to
vivification of the church? For that to be the case, the identity and
mission of Christ would have to be understood independently of the
Spirit, and Christ portrayed solely as the giver rather than also as the
receiver of the Spirit. But this is not so. Though our knowledge of
the Spirit is filtered Christologically, the being and the activity of the
Spirit are not unidirectionally determined by Christ. Indeed, research
in the Gospels during the past decades has resulted in a widespread
persuasion that the identity and mission of Christ were fundamen-
tally shaped by the Spirit. Even if one does not find an exclusive
Spirit Christology persuasive, as we do not, it seems clear that the
New Testament writers believed that Jesus was Christ because he was
anointed by the Spirit. If we take this insight of biblical scholarship
seriously, then we have before us a triplicity of relations that is of
fundamental significance for ecclesiology: the relation between the
Spirit and the church, the relation between Christ and the church,
and a complex relation between the Spirit and Christ in which Christ
appears both as bearer and giver of the Spirit. No ecclesiology which
fails to take into account the particularities of all these relations can
be adequate to the biblical testimonies, to the tradition, or, for that
matter, to experiences of the divine presence in the church.
But how should the nexus of the relations between Christ, the Spirit,
and the church be theologically expressed? Some thirty years ago, in
Una Mystica Persona, Catholic theologian Heribert Mühlen proposed
an ecclesiology whose foundation was neither Christ alone nor the
Spirit alone, nor Christ simply as giver of the Spirit, but Christ as
bearer and giver of the Spirit. Distancing himself explicitly from the
influential Catholic tradition of understanding the church as an “on-
going incarnation” in which the Spirit seems superfluous, and reject-
ing implicitly any “spiritualistic” conceptions of the church which
render Christ ecclesiologically inconsequential, Mühlen argued that
the church should be conceived as the continuation of Christ’s anoint-
ing by the Spirit—the anointing by virtue of which Jesus of Nazareth
is the Messiah of God.10 Though we will diverge from Mühlen sig-
nificantly, particularly from his understanding of the church as a “cor-
porative mystical person,” we want to explore in a more Protestant
way the relation between the Spirit and the church by following his
basic insight. We will first examine the nexus of the relations be-
tween Christ, the Spirit, and the church, and then offer a proposal
on how the Spirit is related to the nature and mission of the church.
By doing so, we hope to sketch an ecclesiology which gives full weight
not only to the Ignatian rule ubi Christus, ibi ecclesia, but also to the
Irenaean rule ubi Spiritus Dei, illic ecclesia, et omnis gratia.11
Christ, Spirit, Church

The relations between Christ, the Spirit, and the church suggested in
the New Testament can be explored at two levels—the level of the
practice and self-consciousness of the “earthly” Jesus (reconstructible
in terms of the “historical Jesus”), and the level of the biblical writers’
theological reflection on the “earthly” Jesus (redescribable in terms of
the “biblical Christ”). Although, for reasons we cannot expand on
here,12 we give preference in systematic constructive work to the the-
ology of the biblical writers, here we pay much of our attention to
the level of the “historical Jesus,” to underscore the congruence be-
tween Jesus’ practice and self-consciousness on the one hand and the
church’s remembrance and reflection on the other, and to ground the
emergence of the church in the mission of Jesus. And so we seek to
address consecutively the following two questions: How did Jesus of
Nazareth see himself in relation to the Spirit and to the community?
And how did the early church understand those relations?
The Spirit of Christ

Integral to Jesus of Nazareth’s Messianic identity and mission was his
consciousness of the “power” of God’s Spirit at “work” in him.13 Some
“historical Jesus” scholarship has tended to see Jesus in less apocalyp-
tic categories and more, for example, in terms of “peasant Jewish
Cynicism,”14 and has therefore been hesitant to ascribe to Jesus an
awareness of his own endowment with the eschatological Spirit,15
the gift promised in such texts as Isaiah 11, (deutero-) Isaiah 42, and
(trito-) Isaiah 61 in connection with the advent of God’s definitive
rule (or “reign” or “kingdom”)—the unprecedented arrival of God to
consummate God’s authority and to reclaim God’s people in the world.
But the apocalyptic dimension of Jesus’ life and proclamation is too
well attested to leave doubt that Jesus saw his vocation of announc-
ing and inaugurating the kingdom of God as guided and driven by
the eschatological Spirit of the prophets.16
If we assume the crucial role of the Spirit in Jesus’ mission, two key
questions arise for our purposes here. First, what concrete content
did the Spirit give to Jesus’ proclamation and inauguration of God’s
reign? Second, how is “the church” related to this proclamation and
inauguration? We will take the second question first, and begin by
asking more particularly: Was the “founding” of the church explic-
itly a part of Jesus’ mission, as the tradition claimed for centuries?
Contemporary scholarship seems agreed that “ecclesiological” pas-

sages in the Gospels, such as Matthew 16:18, do not go back to Jesus
himself. Jesus did not “found” the church. Does it therefore follow,
as some scholars have argued, that the emergence of the church has
nothing or very little to do with the original mission of Jesus, or even
that Jesus’ eschatological self-understanding is incompatible with the
idea of the church?17 Gerhard Lohfink has appropriately suggested
that behind the disjunction between the mission of Jesus and emer-
gence of the church lies a dichotomy between the reign of God and
the people of God. The dichotomy is false, however, because the reign
of God is in fact unthinkable without the people of God among
whom it becomes a concrete reality.18 In Jesus’ ministry, the indis-
soluble bond between the reign of God and the people of God is
most clearly manifest in the calling of the Twelve, who symbolized
and enacted “the incipient gathering of Israel to be the eschatological
people of the twelve tribes.”19 Rather than being an “alternative” to
the people of God, the reign of God is the coming and final presence
of God with God’s people, the reconstitution of the people as
unforsakably God’s.20
Essential, then, to Jesus’ announcement of the reign of God was
the calling and gathering of the people of God. Though not yet “the
church,” the gathering of God’s people around Jesus is nonetheless
ecclesiologically significant. Consider the following four features,
which distinguish formally the communities gathered around Jesus
from the larger Jewish community of that time, and which we syn-
thesize from N. T. Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God. First, the
center of the gathering, the “attractor” to whom God’s people were
to be drawn and renewed in the very drawing, was Jesus himself,
whose self-perception was as “the focal point of the people of YHWH,
…[who] embodied what he had announced.”21 Over against tradi-
tional construals of community-constituting symbols, Jesus regarded
himself as “the true interpreter of Torah; the true builder of the Temple;
the true spokesperson for Wisdom.”22 Second, although the gather-
ing was aimed at the whole of Israel, it took concrete shape as the
formation of “a network of cells loyal to [Jesus] and his kingdom-
vision”23 who “believed themselves to be in some sense the true Is-
rael.”24 Third, although Jesus insisted that his own mission and that
of his disciples during his lifetime was “restricted to ethnic Israel,” he
believed that the reign of God that was arriving through his work
would bring hope to the gentiles because “Israel would be the light of
the world, so that nations, seeing it, would come in and glorify the
god of Israel.”25 Fourth, Jesus’ disciples, whom he sent out during his
lifetime as “agents of the kingdom,”26 were empowered, even as Jesus
was, by the Spirit: in that Jesus authorized them to heal the sick, cast
out demons, and announce the nearness of God’s reign, he made
them share in the Spirit with which he had been anointed for his
mission.27 Both Jesus’ sending and the Spirit’s presence were essential
to their mission.
All of these features, appropriately transformed, can be seen in the
theology and practice of the church of the mid- and late first century.
The ways in which Jesus gathered God’s people for God’s reign in the
power of the Spirit helped give impetus to the later emergence of the
church. But the church would not have emerged were it not for the
specific character of the gathered communities, which stemmed from
the concrete content of Jesus’ proclamation and enactment of God’s
reign.
Jesus announced and demonstrated the reign of God among the
people of God in a variety of concrete modes: forgiveness offered to
“sinners,”28 fellowship that welcomed the outcast,29 and care for the
physically needy.30 Central to Jesus’ kingdom work was the making
of persons, relationships, and bodies whole. And as a comparison
with his immediate predecessor John the Baptist, the preacher of judg-
ment, shows, the most striking feature of Jesus’ “whole-making” ac-
tivity was that it was the expression of unconditional grace, of the free,
noncoercive, unbrokered outreach of God to restore God’s people to
fullness of life.
The “power” of such grace, the power of restoration to wholeness,
community, and life, must be the kind of power that gives, not re-
stricts, freedom: power that opens up a space in which the uncondi-
tioned outreach of God can be extended, witnessed and experienced,
and accepted—or rejected. The Spirit with whom Jesus was anointed
and who thus empowered Jesus’ mission constituted that freedom: in
the relations established between Jesus and those whom he encoun-
tered,31 as well as in Jesus’ own joy in the works and words given to
him by his Father,32 room was made for the interplay of divine initia-
tive and human response. The grace that both creates and fills this
“space” of freedom is marked by at least two features that give it its
particular “shape.”
First, unconditional grace is not “cheap.” Rightly understood, for-
giveness, rather than ignoring evil, always already includes the nam-
ing of the wrong being forgiven. Forgiveness affirms the assumptions

and requirements of justice in the very movement of transcending
them.33 Similarly, fellowship that goes beyond mere proximity to in-
clude peace and well-being between people does not turn a blind eye
to inequalities and injustices, but depends on a dynamic of commu-
nity in which barriers of economic status,34 gender identity,35 and
religious purity36 are taken down and in which hierarchies that repli-
cate relations of power in the world are subverted.37 Finally, care for
the body presupposes a robust notion of bodily “well-being,” and
means recognizing and setting oneself over against forms of physical
entrapment—suffering, sickness, possession, death—that endanger
and restrict creaturely life.38 The unconditional grace mediated by
Jesus was not a vague “tolerance” associated with a principled com-
mitment to “take in” rather than to “keep out,”39 but rather went
hand in hand with a vision of the good life, involving substantive
values and determinate practices.
Second, the offer of grace is not directed toward isolated individu-
als, remaining free of social or political import. Since Jesus saw in his
own proclamation and enactment of God’s reign the fulfillment of
the prophetic promises according to which God’s Spirit-endowed
servant would “bring forth justice to the nations,” “preach good news
to the oppressed,” “bind up the brokenhearted,” “proclaim liberty to
the captives” and “the year of the Lord’s favor,” and “provide for those
who mourn,”40 his mission was inescapably and deeply political. He
was not engaged in “politics” in the usual sense, though. For one
thing, by announcing the true and ultimate kingdom as now present
in his person through the offer of grace, he subverted the defensive
strategies of the various levels of established authority that enforced
stability through subjugation. Moreover, by insisting that the
noncoercive ethic of the renewed heart is appropriate to the Scrip-
tures’ construal of God’s reign, he subverted the offensive agendas of
the various levels of nationalistic fervor which advocated victory
through violence. Jesus was not only aware that what he was saying
and doing was profoundly incompatible with ruling and revolution-
ary programs alike; he saw the path of suffering and death marked
out for him by such incompatibilities as bound up with his messianic
task.
The way in which Jesus presented his claims and his message, both
to individual persons and to larger social networks, involved a com-
plex interplay between “hiddenness” and “openness.” His teaching
and “acts of power” were certainly “public,” in that they were acces-
sible to and aimed at diverse groups of people. Yet Jesus did not try to
implant a particular term or image representing his own identity—
be it as “Messiah,” “healer,” or other such title—in the public con-
sciousness, where, torn loose from its moorings in the specificity of
his mission, it would have been misrepresented and misunderstood.41
The “hiddenness” served the “openness,” because it was meant to
ensure that the message could be heard and accepted in its full integ-
rity, as the eschatological presentation of God’s grace. Moreover, Jesus
surely saw the role that had been granted him in the regathering of
God’s people as visibly central. Yet he pointed away from himself to-
ward the Father, precisely in claiming to be the “way” to the Father.42
This theme is reflected in the words of the Johannine Jesus: “My
teaching is not mine but his who sent me.”43 In pointing away from
himself to the Father he was making the most radical claims about
himself.
The Church of the Spirit

Our brief exploration of the relations between Jesus, the Spirit, and
the gathered communities of God’s people suggests the following
picture: Because the reign of God is unthinkable without the people
of God, the gathering of the communities was inseparable from Jesus’
earthly mission which he carried out in the power of the Spirit. More-
over, participation in the mission of Jesus was part of the identity of
the communities formed in his name: called and gathered around
Jesus and loyal to him and his vision, these messianic communities
were also sent by Jesus and endowed with the same Spirit which rested
on Jesus, so as to carry on the same mission—to proclaim God’s
reign as the power of unconditional grace to make persons, relation-
ships, and bodies whole.
The basic structure of the relations between Jesus, the Spirit, and
the community evident in the ministry of the historical Jesus is theo-
logically reaffirmed and further developed by the Gospel writers, ex-
cept that the identity of Jesus is expanded to include the narrative of
his resurrection and exaltation, and the identity of the community is
expanded to include the gentiles. Within the confines of this paper it
is impossible to examine the nature of both of these “expansions”
and of the theological shifts they entailed. For our purposes here it
suffices to note the structure of the relationships between Christ, the
Spirit, and the church in the theologies of two evangelists. In Luke-
Acts, the one whose baptism marked the start of his mission under
the anointing of the Spirit44 poured out on his disciples, after his
resurrection and exaltation, the prophetic Spirit through whom, ac-
cording to the prophecy of Joel, all God’s people would be gathered
and empowered to speak God’s word and enact God’s reign.45 Simi-
larly in John, the One upon whom the Spirit descended and re-
mained,46 the One to whom the Spirit was given “without measure,”47
was the One who after his death, resurrection, and exaltation breathed
the Spirit upon the disciples as he sent them into the world as he
himself had been sent by the Father.48 Clearly, Luke and John be-
lieved that the emergence of the church was bound up with Christ’s
sending of the Spirit, who anointed the disciples to continue the
mission of Jesus.49 This complex of theological affirmations concern-
ing the relations between Christ, the Spirit, and the church on the
part of the evangelists, which build on the remembered practice and
self-consciousness of Jesus, is well summarized by Raniero
Cantalamessa’s metaphorical claim that “the last breath of Jesus [on
the cross], is the first breath of the church.”50
The relations between Christ, the Spirit, and the church that we
have just sketched can be summed up well in Mühlen’s claim that the
church is the continuation of Christ’s anointing by the Spirit. In the
remainder of the paper we will explore the implications of this claim
for the nature and the mission of the church. But before we do so, we
must indicate briefly what kind of relationship between Christ’s iden-
tity and mission, on the one hand, and the identity and mission of
the church, on the other, is entailed by an ecclesiology conceived in
this manner. The relationship is one of both identicality and non-
identicality.
The identicality between Jesus Christ and the church is manifest
in the goal toward which they are directed (the reign of God) and the
power by which their mission is carried out (the Spirit of God). The
church is called, certainly under circumstances different from those
surrounding Jesus, to participate in Christ’s mission by announcing
and demonstrating God’s coming in grace. Even more fundamen-
tally, the sameness of goal and power rest on the fact that Christ
himself is present in the church through the Spirit. Just as the mis-
sion of the communities gathered around the earthly Jesus entailed
the interplay of being gathered around and sent by Jesus on the one
hand, and being empowered by the Spirit on the other, so the church
lives and pursues its mission in virtue of Christ’s coming to the church
through the Spirit he has sent. Far from simply being engaged in a
mission similar or parallel to Christ’s, the church in the power of
Christ’s Spirit is engaged in Christ’s own mission, on his behalf51 and
accompanied by him.52
Above and beyond its living under different circumstances, how-
ever, a relationship of non-identicality between Christ and the church
obtains in at least three significant respects. First, since the reign of
God that Christ proclaimed is bound up with his own person, he is
the very content of that reign, as in his person he embodies, demon-
strates, and establishes God’s gracious lordship; the church, on the
other hand, can be the content of the reign only to the extent that it
is first a creation of the gracious coming of this reign into the world.
Second, since Christ is the content of the reign of God, his identity
coincides with his mission: to be Jesus Christ with all that that en-
tails, is what he is to do. Since the church was created as the sphere of
God’s reign by grace, its identity often diverges from what it is sup-
posed to proclaim and enact before the world; the church is always
ambiguous because it is made up of people prone to deny Christ
even given their most ardent attempts at clinging to him.53 Third,
whereas Jesus’ mission is properly his own, the church does not have
a mission of its own; the only mission the church has is the very
mission of Jesus.
Here we see the emerging contours of a key dimension of the
ecclesiological significance of the Spirit. The idea that the Spirit which
rested on Jesus was after his resurrection sent by the exalted Christ to
mediate his presence and thereby constitute the church, functions to
secure the proper interplay of identicality and non-identicality be-
tween Christ’s and the church’s identity and mission. Were it not for
the Spirit, the relation between Christ and the church would be ei-
ther one of sheer non-identicality (the church as a society founded
historically by Jesus and/or obedient to a transcendent Lord) or of
sheer identicality (the church as the continuation of Christ’s incarna-
tion). Since the Spirit of Christ mediates the presence of the absent
one, the church can, like a bride, both stand over against Christ and
be most intimately united with him.
This interplay of identicality and non-identicality between Christ
and the church arises partly, on the one hand, from the fact that it is
the same Spirit at work both in Jesus’ ministry and in the church and,
on the other hand, from the difference of the Spirit’s presence in both.
For one thing, the presence of the Spirit in Jesus’ ministry was imme-
diate: the Spirit had descended upon him and made him into the
Messiah of God. The presence of the Spirit in the church is mediated
through Jesus: the disciples received the Spirit because they were Jesus’
disciples, and it was he who sent the Spirit upon the church after his
resurrection. In biblical terminology, Jesus was given the Spirit “with-
out measure”;54 in the church, the Spirit operates “according to the
measure of faith.”55 In the terminology of later tradition, Jesus was
endowed with the Spirit “by nature”; the church is endowed with the
Spirit “by grace.” So an adequate explication of the idea that the
church is the continuation of Jesus’ anointing by the Spirit would
require a detailed exploration of both the differences and the simi-
larities between the roles of the Spirit within the economic and the
immanent Trinity on the one hand and within the ecclesial commu-
nity on the other. Obviously, we cannot undertake such an explora-
tion within the confines of this paper. Instead, we will concentrate
on the immediate ecclesiological task, which consists in explicating
the nature and the mission of the church so conceived.
The Nature of the Church56

Earlier we argued that God’s reign as proclaimed and inaugurated by
Christ in the power of the Spirit is unthinkable without God’s people,
and suggested that God’s people are directed toward God’s reign.
From this it follows that the nature and the mission of the church,
though clearly distinct, are intimately related. When we speak about
the nature of the church, we are looking at the church as a fruit of
Christ’s proclamation and inauguration of God’s reign; when we speak
of the mission of the church, we are examining the participation of
the church in the very mission of Christ of which it is a fruit. We will
first examine the nature of the church, in particular how the Spirit
who rested on the earthly Jesus and who was given by the risen Christ
is related to the gathering and the internal life of the community,
and how as a result of the activity of the Spirit the church emerges as
the image of the Trinity.
Gathered in Diversity
Any community, of course, must somehow be gathered. The gather-
ing of a Christian church occurs as the Spirit moves people in varied
and specific forms of social, cultural, and physical embodiment to
acclaim—in a bountiful diversity of ways—the crucified and risen
Jesus Christ as the “Yes” by whom God fulfills God’s promises to

God’s people,57 the source in whom true life is to be found,58 the
reality to whom all life is to be oriented.59 Since the church under-
stands itself as a potentially universal community, it is essential that
this confession be made in the hearing, the presence, of others–pub-
licly.60 Though always a broken and gradually unfolding sign of the
Spirit’s work, the public confession of Jesus Christ is nonetheless a
fundamental constitutive element of the church. A people gathered
in the Spirit to worship the one God through common allegiance to
and confession of Christ is a “communion of the Spirit,” and thereby
a concrete church.61
Two essential elements of the public profession of Christ are faith
in Christ as Savior and commitment to Christ as Lord. The church is
the communion of the faithful, whatever else it may be beyond this.
Without faith in Christ as Savior, without the giving over of basic
trust to God’s mercy in Christ, there is no church. Similarly, if faith
is not to degenerate into a false quasi-religious solace, it must be
accompanied by the intention to follow the way of Christ. Without
commitment to Christ as Lord, without obedience to Christ’s way of
holiness, there is no church. Certainly, the church does not stand or
fall with the faith and commitment of every individual member. The
church can exist even if an individual member does not trust or obey,
but without at least someone trusting and obeying Christ, there can
be no church.
It might seem that such an emphasis on faith and commitment
would make the church into a human “work.” After all, it is indi-
vidual people who believe and who commit themselves. Yet the New
Testament sees precisely these most basic human acts which lie at the
foundation of the church as generated by the Spirit.62 Thus, though
no church can arise and live without the faith and commitment to
Christ of its members, the real subjects of the genesis of the church
are not the people themselves; the subject of the church’s coming-to-
be is the Spirit of Christ, acting through the communal proclama-
tion of the Word and the celebration of the sacraments.
That the community gathered in faith and commitment is a
church—that is, that the community’s trust and obedience are in and
to Christ—implies that it must be a catholic community. Since the
Spirit who creates the community in continuation of Christ’s anoint-
ing is the Spirit of the reign of God, and since the eschatological
reign of God will mean the creation of a single people of God from
every tribe and nation,63 every local community must see itself both
as part of that one people of God and as its microcosm. Hence, no
church in a given culture may isolate itself from other churches in
other cultures; every church must be open to all other churches. Even
more, every local church is a catholic community because all other
churches are part of that church; all of them shape its identity.
For a community to be truly catholic, it must be composed of
catholic persons. In coming to persons, the Spirit of God breaks
through the self-enclosed worlds they inhabit; the Spirit renews, re-
creates, them, and sets each on a road toward becoming a site of the
eschatological reign of God. To be such a site is to be a catholic per-
son, a person enriched by others, a person whose identity arises not
from and of itself, but precisely because multiple others are reflected
in it in a particular way. By opening each person and community to
all other persons and communities, and all of them to God’s univer-
sal eschatological reign, the Spirit fashions the church into a site of
reconciled and mutually enriching diversity.64
Gifted for Ministry

Over against notions according to which faith either comes through
the narrow portals of ordained ministry or is directly given by the
Spirit to the souls of individuals, the New Testament texts suggest
that the Spirit of God creates faith through the multidimensional
proclamation of the gospel, in which, in principle, all members of
the community participate. This is clearly evident especially in Pauline
ecclesiology. In the process of working to establish peace within the
enthusiastic and chaotic Corinthian congregation, Paul does not seek
to bolster hierarchical structures but, on the contrary, reaffirms a model
of ecclesial life whose structure is polycentric and participatory. Sum-
ming up his own ecclesiologically extraordinarily important instruc-
tions in 1 Corinthians 12-14, he writes: “When you come together,
each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpre-
tation. Let all things be done for building up the congregation.”65
Commensurate with their calling and endowment by God’s Spirit,
all members of a church are stewards of God’s manifold grace through
their deeds and words,66 and all have something to contribute in
worship and in the entire life of the church. The church arises and
lives insofar as grace is mediated through mutual service with
pluriform spiritual gifts.
The Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of functional diversity, creating

the one body in which all members have differing roles.67 True, not
everyone participates in the same way and with the same intensity in
the life of the church. Ordained ministers clearly play a particularly
prominent and indispensable role. Yet the whole life of the church is
not ordered around them. Different persons and networks of per-
sons become soteriologically “significant others” for various other
members and groups of the community. Beyond this, the commu-
nity as a whole, and not just its officeholders, creates the “plausibility
structures” in which the mediation of faith and faithful life become
possible in the first place. Thus the Spirit does not constitute the
church exclusively through its officeholders, but also as every mem-
ber serves others with his or her gifts.
If all the ministries in the church are fundamentally equal in sig-
nificance for the church’s life, and if all members are equally gifted by
the Spirit, it would seem that there would be no need for ordained
ministry. Yet this is not the case. Of course, since all ministries in the
church derive from the gifts of the Spirit, the necessity of ordained
ministry cannot be derived from the gifts themselves. Instead, it must
be grounded in the particular features of those ministries performed
by officeholders and of the gifts bestowed upon them for those min-
istries. The specific necessity attaching to the gifts of office is their
reference to the entirety of the local church; officeholders are respon-
sible not for a part of the congregation or a narrow aspect of its life,
but for the vital concerns of the congregation as a congregation. An
officeholder acts both in the name of the congregation before God,
individual members, and the world, and also in the name of Christ
by the power of the Spirit before the congregation as a whole.
United in Love
The gathering of a catholic community with a multiplicity of charis-
matic ministries aims at creating a people with distinctive communal
practices.68 In Acts 2 the Spirit establishes a community whose mem-
bers are free from the compulsion of self-aggrandizement to give of
their possessions to each other—free to love each other in concrete
and specific ways. The Spirit who brings freedom69 generates the fruit
of love,70 which is the greatest of the gifts.71
Love grows up in the space of freedom. Freedom for love is
necessary both from an exclusive self-focus that nurtures radical
independence and autonomy at the expense of the determinations of
mutual presence, and from the dissolution of the self threatened by

abusive relationships or bureaucratic mentalities.72 Indeed, love both
is enabled by and enables freedom: personally oriented and commu-
nally practiced, it unites people who are differently situated without
indiscriminately erasing the differences, and opens those who love and
are loved to develop in individually specified yet mutually enriching
and freeing ways. Love, in its multitude of concrete manifestations—
speaking the truth,73 bearing others’ burdens,74 refusing to seek evil for
evil,75 showing hospitality to strangers,76 even laying down one’s
life77—and freedom are thus intimately connected. Love gives rise to
freedom; freedom is the precondition of love.
Both freedom and love, of course, can be sorely abused, and coun-
terfeits easily constructed. If the freedom that opens a space for true
love is possible and available at all, it arises from the Spirit’s gracious
power and presence; and if the love which gives genuine freedom is
possible and available, it is because God’s love is prior and paradig-
matic,78 indeed, because God’s love is the source, having been poured
into believers’ hearts by the Spirit.79 And this is another way of saying
that the Spirit grants believers participation in the love given and
love received by the Son,80 that is, in the perfect cycle of self-giving
love which characterizes the triune divine life.
Imaging the Trinity

The sacrament of baptism has rightly been described as the gateway
into the church. Significantly, through baptism “in the name of the
Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” the Spirit of God leads
believers simultaneously into both the trinitarian and ecclesial com-
munions. Emerging from the baptismal waters, the members of the
church enter the ecclesial space in which the eschatological commun-
ion of the triune God and God’s glorified people is lived out in a
proleptic way.81 From this vantage point the gathering of catholic
communities, the equality of their members, and the mutuality of
their love all emerge as ways in which a church images in a broken
but nonetheless real way the triune divine life.
Clearly, we cannot argue here for an understanding of the Trinity
which makes the identification of these particular correspondences
between the trinitarian and ecclesial communities possible. Neither
can we argue for a particular construal of the way in which the
trinitarian and ecclesial communities correspond and of the limits to
all such correspondences. We must simply assume all this,82 and pro-
ceed to sketch three ways—beyond the obvious fact that in both

cases we are talking about a “community”—in which the Spirit of
communion makes the church into an image of the Trinity.
First, catholicity. One notable characteristic of the divine persons is
their personal interiority. Echoing important passages from John’s
Gospel,83 John of Damascus writes in De Fide that the divine persons
“have their being in each other without any coalescence or commin-
gling.”84 Every divine person is indwelled by other divine persons,
and all the persons interpenetrate each other without ceasing to be
distinct; distinctions of the persons are rather a presupposition of
their interpenetration. Analogously, a member of the church is a catho-
lic person because other members of the church are part and parcel
of his or her identity (although, differently from the divine persons,
not of his or her personhood); a local church is a catholic commu-
nity–and together with them to the glorified people of God—in such
a way that they shape its very identity and that it in turn shapes their
identities.
Second, equality. The divine persons are distinct yet equal. Since
each divine person shares all the attributes of divinity, there can be
no place for non-reciprocal subordination in their mutual relations
(except for the subordination of the incarnate Word to the One who
sent him and, significantly, to the One in whose power he was sent).
The distinctions of persons concern their identities and, secondarily,
their roles; they are not a function of their unalterable “places” on a
hierarchical line of super- and subordination. Analogously, all mem-
bers of the church are fundamentally equal in that they all have been
baptized by the Spirit and all have received gifts of the Spirit. Their
distinctions stem from their specific personal identities and their con-
crete and changing gifts for ministry within the community. Though
life in the community requires willful subordination and mutual ser-
vice, no principled and unalterable hierarchical relations obtain be-
tween the members. Similarly, all local churches are equal, and the
universal church, whether understood as the whole communio
sanctorum or as the “global” church, is not superordinate to local
churches.
Third, love. Both the equality and personal interiority of the divine
persons are rooted in the perfect divine love—an interchange be-
tween the self and the other in which the giving of the self coalesces
with the receiving of the other and in which, paradoxically, each gives
first and at the same time gives because she has received. In its en-
counter with a deeply flawed world that cries for transformation, the
delight of the perfect divine love is transmuted into the agony of that
same love that in freedom “spilled over” the boundaries of the divine
community to create the world, a world now gone astray—the agony
of opposition to non-love, the agony of suffering at the hand of non-
love, and the agony of sympathy with non-love’s victims. The love
exhibited in the community of the Spirit should be modeled on the
love of the divine persons for one another and for the world, the love
that enjoys the other and the love that suffers for the sake of the
other. Even more fundamentally, the love of the ecclesial community
is the fruit of the labor of that very love which it seeks to replicate.
The Mission of the Church

In the power of the Spirit which rested upon Jesus as he announced
and enacted the reign of God and which the resurrected and exalted
Christ poured out on his followers so that they can continue his mis-
sion in the world, churches live as catholic communities of equal
persons who give allegiance to Jesus Christ and seek to embody di-
vine love. As such communities, churches image in a broken way the
trinitarian life of God.
This way of defining the nature of the church suggests a close rela-
tionship between the identity of the church and the mission of the
church. If the triune God whom the church should image is
redemptively engaged with a world gone awry, then it would seem
that it is integral to the nature of the church to do the same. In the
following sections we want first to explicate precisely such a relation
between the nature and the mission of the church and then propose
how the mission of the church is to be conceived if the church is
understood as a continuation of Christ’s anointing by the Spirit.
Mission and Identity

If we understand the church as the image of the Trinity, then the very
being of the church is a form of mission. As an image of the Trinity,
the church is a sign of the coming reign of the triune God.85 The
function of a sign is to point to the signified reality. At the risk of
oversimplification, one can say that signs fulfill that function in two
distinct ways: they can be extrinisic to the reality to which they point
(like road signs) or they can be intrinsic to it (like love letters). The
church is this latter kind of sign: it points to the reign of God by
being its present realization under the conditions of history. Put dif-
ferently, the church signifies by sampling—admittedly in an ambigu-
ous and inadequate way. If this is the case, then it follows that the
identity of the church is its first mission, a mission not simply to-
ward itself but toward the world. The frequently invoked tension
between identity and mission is spurious for the simple reason that
identity is mission; mission cannot acquire gain by identity’s suffer-
ing loss.
If mission is compromised by a concern for identity, the problem
is not that identity has been overemphasized, but that it has been
wrongly conceived. The claim that the church’s identity is its first
mission is valid only if mission is understood from the start as part of
the church’s identity.86 The church emerged as a result of the mission
of Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit to announce and inaugurate
the reign of God. Since the reign of God is unthinkable without the
people of God, the church is not simply a means toward the reign of
God; rather, the church is in some sense an end in itself. But it is an
end only insofar as it is oriented toward and contributes to the emer-
gence of something greater than itself—the reign of God. As a bro-
ken and ambiguous but nonetheless real sampling of the reign of
God, the church is called to serve that reign by continuing the mis-
sion of Jesus in the power of the Spirit. As preached and presented by
Jesus, God’s reign is the inbreaking of God’s favor and God’s love,
which eagerly seeks out those trapped in sin as one would seek a
wandering sheep, a lost coin, or a wayward child, to return them
back to where they most properly belong. In the power of the Spirit,
the church must participate in this inbreaking of God’s favor - or
cease to be the church. As David Bosch puts it in Transforming Mis-
sion, “the Christian faith is … intrinsically missionary.”87
All the essential elements of the church’s mission should be under-
stood as aspects of the inbreaking of God’s favor manifest in the mis-
sion of Jesus under the anointing of the Spirit that the church is
called to continue, albeit in a non-identical way. In the following, we
will sketch briefly three key elements of the church’s mission.
Rebirth of Persons
The church is called to proclaim that God “through the Holy Spirit”
seeks to pour “God’s love” into the hearts of those who are “weak,”
“sinners,” and “enemies.”88 At the cross we see that the reach of God’s
love cannot be limited or confounded by ungodliness; as God lets
the sun shine on good and evil, so God bestows grace on all. God’s
commitment to each human being is irrevocable and God’s covenant
with them indestructible. No deed is imaginable which could put a
person outside the scope of God’s love. Hence the universal offer of
forgiveness. Forgiveness, of course, entails blame. Far from treating
human sin as if it were not there, in the act of forgiveness God names
deception as deception, injustice as injustice, violence as violence.
The good news is not that human sin does not matter, but that, the
reality of the most heinous sin notwithstanding, the offer of embrace
still holds. Hence the cross.
By naming sins in the context of God’s immutable grace, the Spirit
of truth frees human beings from self-deception rooted in conscious
or unconscious efforts at self-justification. Facing God’s arms out-
stretched toward us on the cross, we dare to look into the abyss of
our own evil and recognize ourselves as who we are—”weak,” “sin-
ners,” and “enemies,” the “ungodly.” Freedom from self-deception
comes, however, not simply because we know that we will be em-
braced, indeed that we have been embraced, but also because of the
certainty that the embrace of God will liberate us from the enslave-
ment to evil that has so profoundly shaped us. “So if anyone is in
Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see,
everything has become new!”89 The grace that forgives is the grace
that makes new.90
“New creation” is, of course, an eschatological reality. This sug-
gests that the good news of God’s grace toward sinful humanity con-
cerns not only our past and our present but also our future. Forgiven
and transformed, we have been given “a new birth into a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,”91 a hope
“that does not disappoint.”92 In the words of Serene Jones, “the pu-
rity of grace that God has poured upon our imperfect, impure souls,”
through Christ who was put to death for our transgressions and was
raised for our justification,93 gives us certainty that our end has been
“folded into God’s promise.”94
Summing up the three aspects of the proclamation about the re-
birth of persons—forgiveness, transformation, hope—we can say that
the church is called to proclaim the eschatological event of justifica-
tion by grace through which God forgives, transforms, and promises
to glorify sinful human beings, and thus take them up into God’s
own Trinitarian embrace.
Reconciliation of People
At the center of God’s offer of grace, which remakes the sinner into a
new creation, lies the cross of Christ as an act of God’s self-giving. In
baptism, which marks the beginning of the Christian life and there-
fore reaches forward to characterize the whole of it, persons are iden-
tified with the death of Christ and are portrayed as those who live
“by faith in the Son of God, who loved them and gave himself up for
them.”95 In the Lord’s supper, whose reiterated celebration enacts
ritually what lies at the very heart of Christian life, Christians re-
member the One who gave his body “for them” so that they would
be shaped in his image.96 Since the very being of the church is
grounded in God’s self-giving and constituted by that self-giving’s
being made present to those who believe by the Spirit, the life of the
church must be modeled on God’s self-giving, by which God has
reconciled human beings to himself.97 And since the mission of the
church is nothing but the face of its identity turned toward the world,
the church must engage in the ministry of reconciliation—a minis-
try that in the early church was pursued in the power of the same
Spirit of communion98 which was seen at work in the communities
themselves to reconcile their members to one another.99
For the most part, the church has understood its ministry of rec-
onciliation to refer to the call for individual persons’ reconciliation
to God.100 Reconciliation in this vision has a theological and per-
sonal meaning, but not a social meaning. For the larger world of
social relations, in recent decades, the twin categories of liberation
and justice have come into special prominence. For many theologi-
cal, socio-philosophical, and political reasons which we cannot ex-
plore here, we think that this is a mistake.101 The social mission of
the church ought to be pursued out of the heart of its own identity.
Hence we must retrieve and explicate the social meaning of divine
self-giving in order to reconcile sinful humanity. Though Paul de-
scribes the ministry of reconciliation as entreating people to “be rec-
onciled to God,”102 that ministry for him has an inalienable social
dimension because reconciliation between human beings is intrinsic
to their reconciliation with God. At its center, and not only at its
periphery, reconciliation has a horizontal dimension as well. It con-
tains a turn away from enmity toward people, not just from enmity
toward God, and it contains a movement toward the other who was
the target of enmity. Hence the Pauline vision of reconciliation be-
tween Jews and gentiles, between men and women, between slaves
and free.103 And hence the grand deutero-Pauline claim that “in
[Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through
him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on
earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”104
The ultimate goal not only for the church but also for the whole of
reality is a vision of the reconciliation of all things in the embrace of
the triune God.
If we put reconciliation and therefore grace at the center of the
church’s social mission, it is essential not to conceive reconciliation
in opposition to liberation and grace in contrast to justice. Instead,
within the dialectical relation between reconciliation and liberation
we need to give priority to reconciliation. It is essential to underscore
both the priority of reconciliation over liberation and the dialectical
relationship between the two. Apart from the priority of reconcilia-
tion, the pursuit of liberation will never lead to peace and love be-
tween former enemies because truth and justice are unavailable out-
side of the prior commitment to reconciliation. But without a com-
mitment to justice within the overarching framework of love, the
pursuit of reconciliation will be perverted into the perpetuation of
domination and oppression. Just as the proclamation of God’s em-
brace is centered on grace that affirms justice as part of its inner
makeup, so also the understanding and practice of social reconcilia-
tion must include the struggle for liberation within the overarching
framework of embrace.
Care of Bodies
As we have seen, central to Jesus’ mission was the care of bodies. His
programmatic sermon in Nazareth makes this plain: “The Spirit of
the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news
to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and
recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to pro-
claim the year of the Lord’s favor.”105 Attempts at spiritualizing Jesus’
care for bodies abound. Consonant with his soteriology, Martin
Luther, for example, consistently translated accounts of Christ’s
healings of human bodies into reports on how Jesus liberates the
conscience through forgiveness of sins.106 But this will clearly not do
as an adequate reading of the Gospels: Jesus forgave and he healed.
The early church, at least ideally, continued with the same kind of
care for bodies: it healed the sick and it supported the poor so that
“there was not a needy person among them.”107 The apostle Paul,
too, did not only proclaim reconciliation; he also helped the poor108
and healed the sick.109
Behind the care of bodies lies the persuasion that the rebirth of
persons who live in this material world, and who with this world
make up the good creation of God, cannot be complete without the
redemption of their bodies. The new birth of persons through the
Spirit must be seen as the beginning—the ambiguous but nonethe-
less real beginning—of the rebirth of the whole cosmos.110 Similarly,
the reconciliation of people who live embodied lives will be complete
only when the reconciliation of all things takes place; there can be no
eschatological bliss for God’s people without eschatological shalom
for God’s world. Hence the care of bodies, broadly conceived, be-
longs properly to the mission of the church.
If we understand the mission of the church to include care for
bodies, and in so doing to address larger social and ecological issues,
where does the Spirit come in? Often the work of the Spirit has been
limited to the church, to gathering people into communities, to gift-
ing them, to uniting them, to inspiring them to proclaim the gospel,
which aims in turn at further gathering. But is such a “centripetal”
understanding of the work of the Spirit adequate? Even more, are the
implicit ecclesiological assumptions that inform it correct—namely,
that the church is only a church when gathered, but not when “scat-
tered,” and that the work of the church is therefore primarily liturgi-
cal and not “secular”? Properly understood, the church is not a “gath-
ering” but a community that gathers, and ecclesial work is therefore
done both when the community is “gathered” and when it is “scat-
tered” in the world. Since to live as a Christian means to “walk in the
Spirit,”111 all Christian work is done in the power of the Spirit—
whether it concerns the rebirth of persons, the reconciliation of people,
or the care of bodies.112
As the community of faith reaches into the world to touch all di-
mensions of its life, it will find that the Spirit of Christ at work in the
community is the Spirit of life at work in the whole creation. Anointed
by the Spirit, the church is sent to go where the Spirit is always al-
ready to be found preparing the way for the coming of the reign of
God.
Hiddenness and Openness

At work in all these aspects of the church’s mission is a complex in-
terplay between “hiddenness” and “openness” analogous to that which
characterized Jesus’ ministry. The church does not seek to draw at-
tention to itself. Instead, the church in its worship and service points
to Christ as the way to God the Father, and by pointing to him points
to the reign of God. This takes Jesus’ own practice of “hiddenness” a
step further still. Jesus refused to identify and to exalt himself in ways
that would have reinforced popular expectations and assumptions,
even as he acted and spoke from his belief in his own centrality to the
mission—of proclaiming and enacting God’s grace—for which he
had been anointed and which was meant to go forward to all of God’s
people. The church, sent by Christ and anointed by his Spirit, simi-
larly does “not wrangle or cry aloud” in self-interest, does not de-
mand that “anyone hear [its] voice in the streets.”113 And the church
must harbor no illusions about its “centrality,” for its anointing is
with Christ’s Spirit for Christ’s mission, and the “center” around which
its existence and work are organized is found displaced from itself in
Christ, for the sake of making the grace of God’s reign known.
This radical “de-centeredness” is by no means an excuse for the
church to avoid agency, but entails the courage to remain “misfitted”
as it pursues its proper mission in the world: the courage to be openly
out of step with the surrounding culture’s reigning plausibility struc-
tures and social arrangements—dominant paradigms that might oth-
erwise dictate to the church what is publicly expected of and appro-
priate to it, independently of its mandate to proclaim and present
the reign of God. To the extent that the church understands that its
identity and mission are not its own but Christ’s, it will resist having
its boundaries and its place marked out for it by assumptions and
pressures other than those arising from its union with Christ in the
Spirit.
Thus the church’s “hiddenness” is not equivalent to “withdrawal”
or a sectarian privatization of religious life, a blissful, unsullied—
somehow “apolitical”—isolation in which the church can float above
and beyond the concrete tapestry of needs, wounds, enmities, and
hopes that characterizes every human social context. Rather, the
church’s hiddenness is a form of openness. “De-centered” from itself in
Christ, it is publicly “un-bent” by forces that would shape it into
merely another socio-cultural institution, and thereby “unleashed”—
pointing away from itself—to announce and demonstrate God’s grace
that changes the world. This interplay of hiddenness and openness
coming out of the church’s anointing by Christ’s Spirit protects its
identity and mission from facile distortions and oppressive demands,
and thus frees the church to subvert, challenge, and transform both
the public’s visions of its own salutary future and its ways of creating
such a future. To be “public” as the church, in other words, is to offer
an alternative vision, in which the image and reign of God are dis-
played to all and brought to bear on all aspects of life—to pursue the
very mission which is at the core of the church’s identity.114
Endnotes
1
Apostolic Tradition, 2.21-17.
2
Werner Krusche, Das Wirken des heiligen Geistes nach Calvin (Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1957).
3
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford
Lewis Battles, Library of Christian Classics, vols. 20-21 (Philadelphia: Westminster,
1960), 4.1.2.
4
By that Spirit’s work, to be sure, believers “have entered into fellowship with Christ”
and receive “gifts variously distributed” (Institutes 4.1.3)—Calvin devotes par-
ticular attention to the gift of pastoral ministry—but why it should be the Spirit
who does these things, how the nature of the church is characterized by “en-
Spirit-edness,” is left unsaid.
5
John Milbank,The Word Made Strange: Theology, Language, Culture (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1997), 171.
6
See, e.g., Nikos Nissiotis’s critical comments on Dei verbum, quoted in Dumitru
Staniloae, Theology and the Church, trans. Robert Barringer (Crestwood: St.
Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1980), 48ff., and Staniloae’s own scoring of Protes-
tant pneumatological individualism (14).
7
John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion : Studies in Personhood and the Church
(Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), 123.
8
Ad Smyrnaeos 8.2.
9
Zizioulas, Being as Communion, 123.
10
Heribert Mühlen, Una Mystica Persona: Die Kirche als das Mysterium der
heilsgeschichtlichen Identität des heiligen Geistes: eine Person in vielen Personen
(Munich: Schöningh, 1968), 216-286.
11
Adversus Haereses. 3.24.1.
12
Luke Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus: The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus
and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels, (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1996)
and Living Jesus: Learning the Heart of the Gospel (San Francisco: HarperCollins,
1999).
13
N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 162 and
James D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit: A Study of the Religious and Charismatic
Experience of Jesus and the First Christians as Reflected in the New Testament
(Philadelphia: Westminster,1975), 67.
14
John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish
Peasant (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991).
15
In his summaries of what can be said with reasonable certainty about the historical
Jesus, Crossan (Crossan, The Historical Jesus xi-xxvi and 417-426) does not
mention the Spirit at all, the summaries merely reflecting an almost total absence
of this theme from the main body of the work as well.
16
Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 162; cf. Matt 12:28 (although the substitution
here of “Spirit” for Luke 11:20’s “finger” is probably secondary relative to Q).
17
Hans Conzelmann, An Outline of the Theology of the New Testament, trans. John
Bowden (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 33.
18
Gerhard Lohfink, Wie hat Jesus Gemeinde gewollt? Zu gesellschaftlichen Dimension
des christlichen Glaubens (Freiberg: Herder, 1982), 38-41 and Lohfink, “Jesus
und die Kirche,” in Handbuch der Fundamentaltheologie, vol. 3, Traktat Kirche,
eds. W. Kern, H. J. Pottmeyer, and M. Seckler (Freiburg: Herder, 1986), 49-50.
19
Lohfink, “Jesus und die Kirche,” 76.
20
Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 615ff.
21
Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 538.
22
23
24
25
Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 309-310.
26
27
Matthew 10:1-23 (esp. 20); cf. Mark 6:6-13, Luke 10:1-20. Also cf. W. D. Davies
and Dale C. Allsion, Jr., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel
According to Saint Matthew, Vol. 2, Commentary on Matthew 8-18 (Edinburgh:
T & T Clark, 1991), 186 and Max Turner, Power From On High: The Spirit in
Israel’s Restoration and Witness in Luke-Acts (Sheffield: Sheffield, 1996), 333-341.
28
E.g., Matt 9:2 pars.
29
E.g., Luke 15:2.
30
E.g., Mark 1:34.
31
Luke 1:17 and John 6:63.
32
Luke 10:21 and John 3:34.
33
Miroslav Volf,”The Social Meaning of Reconciliation,” Interpretation 54 (2000):
158-172.
34
E.g., Luke 19:1-10.
35
E.g., Luke 8:11-3.
36
E.g., Mark 5:25-34 and Luke 17:11-19.
37
Mark 10:42-44.
38
Cf. Michael Welker, God the Spirit, trans. John F. Hoffmeyer (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1994), 195-203.
39
Alan Wolfe, “Democracy versus Sociology: Boundaries and Their Political Con-
sequences,” in Cultivating Differences: Symbolic Boundaries and the Making of
Inequality, eds. M. Lamont and M. Fournier (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1992), 309.
40
Isa 42:1 and 61:1-3.
41
Cf. Matt 12:15ff. and cf. Welker, God the Spirit, 203ff.
42
Cf. Matt 11:2 and John 14:6.
43
John 7:16 and cf. 14:24.
44
Acts 10:38.
45
Acts 2:33.
46
John 1:32-22.
47
John 3:34.
48
John 20:19-23.
49
The language describing the Spirit’s activity in relation to Jesus is varied, perhaps
reflecting, as John Levison suggests in his contribution to this volume, the
freedom with which the evangelists drew from disparate sources and traditions.
“Anointing” and “baptism,” for example, are images with different histories and
forces. Yet Luke makes it clear that the baptism of Jesus by John and the anointing
of Jesus with the Spirit could be held by early Christians in the closest connection
(Luke 3:21-22 and 4:18; Acts 10:37-38).
50
Raniero Cantalamessa, Life in the Lordship of Christ (Kansas City: Sheed & Ward,
1990), 140. We owe this reference to Kilian McDonnell.
51
1 Cor 5:20.
52
Matt 28:20.
53
Matt 26:33-35, 69-75 pars.
54
John 3:34.
55
Rom 12:3.
56
In this and the following main sections we are building and expanding on the
arguments presented in Miroslav Volf, “The Church as a Prophetic Community
and a Sign of Hope,” European Journal of Theology 2 (1993): 9-30; Exclusion and
Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation
(Nashville: Abingdon, 1996); After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the
Trinity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998); and “‘The Trinity is Our Social
Program’: The Doctrine of the Trinity and the Shape of Social Engagement,”
Modern Theology 14 (1998): 403-423.
57
2 Cor 1:20-21.
58
John 20:31.
59
1 Cor 12:3 and cf. Rom 10:9-10.
60
Volf, After Our Likeness, 149.
61
2 Cor 13:13 and cf. Phil 2:1.
62
1 Cor 12:1-3.
63
Rev 7:9.
64
Acts 2.
65
1 Cor 14:26 and cf. 1 Pet 2:5-10, 4:10.
66
Cf. 1 Pet 4:10-11.
67
Rom 12:4-5.
68
Acts 2:41-47.
69
2 Cor 3:18.
70
Gal 5:22.
71
1 Cor 13.
72
Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, trans. Margaret Kohl
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 251.
73
Eph 4:15.
74
Gal 6:2.
75
Rom 12:9-21.
76
Heb 13:1-2 and cf. Rom 12:13.
77
1 John 3:16.
78
1 John 4:19.
79
Rom 5:5.
80
Rom 8:15-17 and cf. John 17:24-25.
81
Cf. 1 John 1:3-4 and Rev 21-22.
82
Volf, After Our Likeness, 191-220, Volf, “‘The Trinity is Our Social Program,’”
403-423, and “Trinity, Unity, Primacy: On the Trinitarian Nature of Ecclesial
Unity and Its Implications for the Question of Primacy,” Petrine Ministry and the
Unity of the Church, ed. James F. Puglisi (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press,
1999), 171-184.
83
John 10:38.
84
De Fide Orthodoxa 1.7.
85
Miroslav Volf, “The Church as a Prophetic Community and a Sign of Hope,”
European Journal of Theology 2 (1993): 9-30.
86
David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission
(Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1991).
87
Bosch, Transforming Mission, 8.
88
Rom 5:1-11.
89
1 Cor 5:17.
90
Moltmann, Spirit of Life, 123ff.and 144ff.
91
1 Pet 1:3.
92
Rom 5:5.
93
Rom 4:25.
94
Personal Communication.
95
Gal 2:20.
96
1 Cor 11: 21, 24.
97
Johnson, Living Jesus: Learning the Heart of the Gospel.
98
Paul does not state explicitly that his ministry of reconciliation was carried out in
the power of the Spirit. But it is clear that that ministry was central to his
apostleship, which he did conceive as a gift of the Spirit (cf. 1 Cor 12:28; 2 Cor
5:18-20).
99
Phil 2:1; 2 Cor 13:13; cf. Eph 4:3.
100
Gregory Baum and Harold Wells, eds., The Reconciliation of Peoples: Challenge to
the Churches (Geneva: World Council of Churches; Maryknoll: Orbis, 1997), 5.
101
Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity,
Otherness, and Reconciliation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), “‘The Trinity is Our
Social Program,’” 403-423, and “The Social Meaning of Reconciliation.”
102
2 Cor 5:20.
103
Cf. Gal 3:28. For an argument for interpreting Gal 3:28 in terms of reconciliation,
rather than the erasure of differences, see Judith M. Gundry-Volf. “Christ and
Gender: A Study of Difference and Equality in Gal. 3:28,” in Christus—Mitte der
Schrift, ed. H. Lichtenberger et al. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1997).
104
Col 1:20.
105
Luke 4:18-19.
106
Miroslav Volf, “Materiality of Salvation: An Investigation in the Soteriologies of
Liberation and Pentecostal Theologies,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 26 (1989):
447-467 and Gustav Wingren, Theologische Realenzyklopadie, vol. 5, “Beruf 2,”
eds. G. Krause and G. Müller, (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1980), 663.
107
Acts 4:33.
108
2 Cor 8-9 and cf. 1 Cor 16:1-4 and Gal 2:10.
109
1 Cor 2:4 and Gal 3:5.
110
Cf. Matt 19:28 and 2 Cor 5:17.
111
Rom 8:4 and Gal 5:16ff.
112
Miroslav Volf, Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work, (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1991).
113
Matt 12:19.
114
We thank Todd Billings, Jin Cho, Jill Colwell, and the participants in the
Marquette symposium for valuable comments on previous versions of this paper.
410 Michael A. Fahey
A Response to Miroslav Volf and

Bradford Hinze
Michael A. Fahey, S.J.
I am delighted to have the opportunity to respond to two distin-
guished theologians who for me are representatives of the next gen-
eration, namely Miroslav Volf and Bradford Hinze. In responding to
their presentations today, I also want to draw our attention to several
methodological and conceptual presuppositions that have subtly but
notably affected the way they and in fact most of us have envisaged
the theme of the conference as a whole, perhaps thereby somewhat
limiting our horizon and reducing the fruitfulness of our reflections.
As it will become clear, it is not that I disagree with the thrust of the
papers by Hinze or Volf, except for some relatively minor details.
Rather my concern is that their assessment of the modern period is
somewhat truncated by neglecting some crucial dimensions in their
elaboration of a solid tradition-based, yet open to contemporary
pneumatology. This is, if you will, another form of Geistvergessenheit.
Here I echo several remarks heard yesterday from Professor Wanda
Zemler-Cizewski. It is symptomatic of some of the ways that, in
European and North American university departments of theology
and many of our divinity schools, we have cut the theological cake
forgetting to pass a plate to one or two of the guests.
In preparing my reactions to Professor Volf ’s pneumatology, I have
drawn not only upon his paper prepared with Maurice Lee especially
for this conference, but I have also focussed on his published book,
After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity,1 as well as a
major lecture of his delivered several years ago at an international
symposium at Salamanca, Spain, on the catholicity of the local church
at which we were both present. I am indebted to the richness of his
vision.
In the case of my Milwaukee colleague, Professor Hinze, I had his
text well in advance and also have had the opportunity on several
occasions to discuss with him some of his favorite topics: Johann
Adam Möhler, communio ecclesiology, and “Reclaiming Rhetoric in
Response to Volf and Hinze 411
the Christian Tradition,” an article he recently published in Theologi-

cal Studies,2 the journal published here at Marquette University.
Let me begin with Hinze’s paper. I am much impressed with Hinze’s
excellent tour d’horizon of modern ecclesiology in its interaction with
pneumatology. He is clearly familiar with the German and North
American ecclesiological gems from the past 175 years. In his over-
view of Catholicism’s later post-Tridentine period he understands the
significance of the neo-Scholastic Roman school represented by
Kleutgen, Passaglia, Schrader, Perrone, and Franzelin. He knows why
Manning had such a strong impact on Anglo-Saxon Catholic
ecclesiology. There is reference to Scheeben, Tromp, Mersch, and closer
to our times, Congar, Mühlen, Rahner, de Lubac, and Balthasar.
Together with the Germans Heribert Pottmeyer and Medard Kehl
and the Brazilian student of Joseph Ratzinger, Leonardo Boff, he also
heralds the role of French neo-émigré theologian George Tavard. My
own preference would be to stress more emphatically the notable
contributions of Avery Dulles, whose Models of the Church has argu-
ably had more impact on modern ecclesiology (at least in the English
speaking world) than any other twentieth-century publication on
ecclesiology.
What Hinze neglects to take into consideration (and this holds
true for Volf and the conference as a whole) are the crucial investiga-
tions and reflections of liturgical theologians or sacramental
Systematiker on the missions of the Son and of the Spirit especially as
they relate to the eucharistic and baptismal liturgies. In trying to
understand the Spirit’s role in the epiclesis and the Son’s anamnesis
in the eucharistic prayer, with the central question that liturgical
theologians have been wrestling with in regard to the Holy Spirit—
whether indeed the Spirit has a distinctive, specific, unique mission—
Hinze has given a rather one-sided assessment of progress that has
been made in the last fifty years about theological pneumatology and
ecclesiology. I am thinking here especially of the work of the late
Edward J. Kilmartin, but also the ongoing contributions of David
Power and Geoffrey Wainwright. I am also thinking of researchers
dating back to Josef Jungmann, and to research of more recent times
accomplished by Professor Gabrielle Winkler of Tübingen, Professor
Robert Taft, S.J., of the Pontificio Instituto Orientale (Rome).
Kilmartin, as he himself freely acknowledged, drew heavily and with
profit on the work of Johannes Betz of Würzburg, Hans Bernard
Meyer and Lothar Lies both of Innsbruck, as well as on the bestowal

model elaborated by David Coffey.
Hinze, I would argue, reflects a notable pro-Western Vorverständnis,
focussed especially on the Katholisch and the Evangelisch (in the
sense of Lutheran Protestant) theology. Except for a passing refer-
ence to Khomiakov, he does not highlight modern Eastern Ortho-
dox pneumatic ecclesiology. Volf ’s use of Zizioulas is an important
corrective. I would argue that the Orthodox contribution has not
been what it has had to say for or against the Filioque, but rather its
insistence on the epicletic nature of the Eucharist, and even the
epicletic character of all Christian living. The closest we have come
to dealing with this issue I think was touched upon last evening by
Professor Moltmann’s eucharistic model.
What is also surprisingly absent in Hinze’s and Volf ’s summing up
of this century, something characteristic of our symposium as a whole
(except again for Moltmann’s reflections on the Klingenthal confer-
ence) have been the enormous accomplished, invaluable work spon-
sored by the World Council of Churches, especially under the aegis
of the Faith and Order Commission (I think specifically of the Spirit-
theology of the Lima Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry report, the
Apostolic Faith Today project) which began as a Protestant venture,
but was eventually expanded through Orthodox and Catholic input.
We cannot ignore the work of the international and national bilat-
eral consultations, such as the Lutheran/Roman Catholic Consulta-
tion, the Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission (both ARCIC I and
II ), the Methodist-Roman Catholic conversations, the work of the
Groupe des Dombes, the Ecumenical Association of Third World
Theologians (EATWOT), etc., all of which have achieved important
contributions to contemporary pneumatology, a contribution insuf-
ficiently recognized (at our own peril). What is the reason for this
lack of engagement with this specific ecumenical world of discourse.
I certainly hope that it does not reflect a conviction by university and
divinity school professors that the work of the WCC and profes-
sional ecumenists (which include mirabile dictu even the views of the
unlettered non-academic types). Despite the presence of some theo-
logians who have a foot in both camps, there does seem to be a grow-
ing gap between theology elaborated in academia and in oecumenica.
After all, the seventh assembly of the WCC meeting in Canberra in
February 1991 had as its theme Come Holy Spirit, Renew the Whole
of Creation.
The leaders of the Roman Catholic Church are among the most
notable offenders here in their marginalization of the achievements
of the WCC over the last five decades. Instead of trying to reinvent
the wheel at the 1997 Synod of America, those members of the hier-
archy could have drawn upon at least some of the astounding in-
sights of the previous ecumenical consultations.
But to return to liturgical theology. Liturgical theologians in their
sacramental treatises and histories have stressed the dialogic struc-
ture of the Eucharist showing how it originates in the divine activity
within the life of faith. This gift of faith is the source of the Church’s
expression of praising remembrance of God’s deeds in Christ (anam-
nesis) that grounds the confident petition for God’s continuing be-
stowal of blessings. The epicletic or intercessory aspect of the liturgy
reflects the goal of all forms of Christian liturgical activity and should
receive the attention it deserves not only in the theology of worship
but in pneumatic ecclesiology. Trying to understand the epicletic
nature of liturgy requires us to try to comprehend the structure and
content that mirror the covenant relationship between God and the
Church, founded in two acts, the life and salvific outpouring of the
life of Christ, and the sending of the Spirit at Pentecost. This entails
the rethinking of the christological dimension of worship essential
for any systematic explanation of the full scope of the theology of
Christian liturgical-sacramental activity. How are we to integrate theo-
logical reflection on the role of the Holy Spirit in the liturgy so that
the complementarity of the activity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit
is made more understandable.
The traditional eucharistic theologies of the East and the West agree
that the sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit changes the bread and
wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, and that the properly dis-
posed participants of holy communion are united to Christ through
the sanctifying action of the Holy Spirit. All classical eucharistic
prayers reflect this theology of sanctification by including a twofold
invocation: for the sanctification of the bread/wine, and of the com-
municants.
What they have tried to assert is that the sending of the Spirit by
the Father in the Eucharist corresponds to the bestowal of the Spirit
by the Father on the Son in the Trinity. The distinction between the
twofold sending (by the Father and by the Son) is expressed in the
(1) recitation of the account of the institution of the Eucharist and
(2) the epiclesis. The recitation of the words of Christ is a confession
of the enduring theandric act of the risen Christ who is personally

present in the community celebrating the Eucharist. What I have
found neglected so far in our discussions is reflection on the fact that
since the Resurrection a new but eternal dimension is added to the
activities of the Triune God, namely the theandric actions of the God-
Man, the Risen Christ. In the post-Resurrection period, it is not busi-
ness as usual within the Trinity, in the sense that henceforth every
activity of the Logos is a theandric activity.
The epiclesis is the confession of the transcendental act by which
the Father sends the Spirit to transform the gifts. When the epiclesis
is placed before the words of institution, the theandric act of Christ
is clearly seen as sacrament of the sending of the Spirit by the Father.
When the epiclesis is placed after the account of institution, the role
of the Spirit in the perfecting of the theandric act of Christ is brought
to the foreground. But in both cases the same theology is reflected:
the theandric act of Christ is sacrament of the Father’s act of sending
the Spirit, i.e., it draws this act into history without destroying its
transcendentality.
With our universities dividing our curriculum into biblical, his-
torical, fundamental, systematic, and pastoral, without affording a
place at the table for the liturgists, we fail to see how what we do in
sacramental actions in actu exercito can help us understand the inner
dynamic bestowal model as signified here below.
I applaud Professor Volf ’s highlighting how Spirit and Church are
so intimately intertwined in the third article of the creed. But that
Church is not in a state of repose. It is a Church rendering an ongo-
ing berakkah prayer of thanksgiving in the divine liturgy which is
where we can best see our trinitarian substructure in action. As the
Orthodox are quick to emphasize today, there is too a liturgy after
the liturgy in which we are bound to concretize in just actions what
we have celebrated sacramentally. In that sense I agree with Volf that
the mission of the Church is also political (in the original sense of
polis). If the Church is the continuation of Jesus’ anointing by the
Spirit, then obviously its members are called upon to preach the good
news to the poor.
In conclusion, while recognizing the valuable insights of the two
papers, I simply call upon them to integrate more fully the reflec-
tions of liturgical theology, to stress the theandric activity of the Son
in the depth of the Trinity and to see as theologically central the
work of the World Council of Churches.
Endnotes
1
Miroslav Volf, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity (Grand
Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1998).
2
Bradford E. Hinze, “Reclaiming Rhetoric in the Christian Tradition,” Theological
Studies 57 (1996): 481-99.
416 Anselm Kyongsuk Min
Solidarity of Others in the Power

of the Holy Spirit:
Pneumatology in a Divided World
Anselm Kyongsuk Min
(N.B.: Speaking of the divine persons in the Trinity today, one
must come to grips with the sexism of the traditional language
about the triune God. My own solution to the problem is to refer
to the first and second persons as Father and Son in the masculine,
while referring to the third person and to God when taken simply
as God in the feminine. This has the virtue of balancing the
feminine and masculine references, keeping the personal pro-
nouns, and avoiding awkward neologisms such as “Godself.”1)
Trinitarian theologians have always recognized something odd about

the Holy Spirit in comparison with the Father and the Son. The
Father is the source of all divinity and all reality, to whom we owe all
honor and glory. He is a distinct center or subject of action who
“generates” the Son and “spirates” the Spirit. The Son is the Word of
the Father and his perfect Image, the model of all creation. As a dis-
tinct center of action the Word became flesh and revealed the Father
to us. All creation is to be “incorporated” into his body. Both the
Father and the Son are distinctive or substantive entities each in his
own right. Both are also relational realities. The being of the Holy
Spirit, on the other hand, appears to be only relational, without a
distinctive reality of its own. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Fa-
ther of/through/and the Son and exists as their mutual love. The
Spirit neither becomes incarnate nor reveals the Father but rather
makes it possible for the incarnate Son to become incarnate and re-
veal the Father. The Spirit is neither the lover nor the beloved but
their reciprocal love, which makes the Spirit rather odd. Both the
lover and the beloved are entities in their own rights and related to
each other. Mutual love indicates at best mutual relation or activity
but hardly a distinct subject of being and action. In the absence of
readily intelligible personhood, the Holy Spirit seems always in dan-
Pneumatology in a Divided World 417
ger of being reduced to a relation between the Father and the Son,
turning the Trinity itself into a binity.2
Is it not perhaps possible, however, to say that the distinctiveness
of the Holy Spirit lies precisely in her apparent lack of distinctive
substantiality, in being wholly relational and as such the divine source
of all relations, communions, and solidarities, just as the distinctive-
ness of the Father lies in his being the principium sine principio, and
that of the Son in his being the principium de principio? The idea of
the Holy Spirit as a being whose being lies totally in being relational
and creating relations seems corroborated in many passages of the
New Testament. In each case, the role of the Spirit is never to call
attention to herself but to relate and bring together diverse parties
into communion and fellowship. The Spirit comes from the Father
and testifies not about herself but about the Son in his work for the
Father (John 15:26; 16:13-14). As the Spirit of the Son, the Spirit
brings together people of diverse races, religions, genders, and classes,
incorporates them into the one body of Christ, the Son, and renders
them all children of the Father in the Son (Gal 4:6; 1 Cor 12:13;
Rom 8: 14-17). It is in “one Spirit” that we, Jews and Gentiles, have
access to the Father through Christ (Eph 2:18). Like the mutual love
of the Father and the Son that Spirit is, she does not bear witness to
herself or seek to glorify herself. She is the self-forgetting God whose
sole role seems to create fellowship between the Son and human be-
ings, and in the Son, among human beings themselves as well as
between them and the Father, and ultimately to introduce all cre-
ation into the fellowship of the Father and the Son.
Perhaps our age with all its divisions and hostilities is in special
need of the Holy Spirit precisely as the Spirit of fellowship and soli-
darity. Today we are living in an increasingly divided, fragmented,
and alienated world. The middle classes of the advanced industrial
societies may be materially very well off, but they suffer alienation
and meaninglessness on a massive scale; their families are broken,
their neighborhoods have become armed fortresses, and human rela-
tionships have been reduced to impersonal, commercial, and often
mechanical exchanges. The clashes between classes, genders, ethnic
groups, cultures, and religions have become more acute all over the
world. We have become Others to one another in the most alienat-
ing ways. The fear of the Other, the stranger—xenophobia—is eat-
ing away at the very fabric of our common life so deeply and so
pervasively that we are increasingly reduced to our own individual
resources in utter helplessness and loneliness. Perhaps there is a strong

but suppressed yearning for the return of the Spirit of fellowship
who will turn xenophobia into xenophilia, the love of the stranger,
hostility and suspicion into solidarity and trust, empowering us to
live as human beings with dignity and meaning. We cannot remain
isolated, hostile, and suspicious Others to one another. Deep down,
we need fellowship and solidarity of Others to sustain our existence,
our very dignity and meaning. The very cry of oppression, alien-
ation, and loneliness we hear everywhere today is a silent invocation
of the Holy Spirit, an epiklesis to the Spirit of fellowship to come and
connect us once more. Veni, Sancte Spiritus! Veni, pater pauperum!
Veni, dator munerum! Veni, lumen cordium!
In this essay I propose to highlight the person and role of the Holy
Spirit as the Spirit of solidarity of Others. In the first part, I provide
a brief analysis of the contemporary world in its fragmentation and
alienation as the Sitz-im-Leben for contemporary theology. In the
second part, I provide a theology of the Holy Spirit which I think is
both rooted in the theological tradition and relevant to the contem-
porary world. My thesis is that as the Spirit proceeds from the Father
and the Son precisely as their mutual love, so it is the function of the
Spirit to create, empower, inspire, and liberate finite beings precisely
for solidarity and communion with God and with one another
through the exemplary mediation of the Son whose life is the
definitive embodiment of solidarity of Others. The personhood of the
Spirit lies precisely in the power and activity of relating, reconciling,
and in general creating communion and solidarity in the life of both
the immanent and economic Trinity. In the third part, I indicate some
of the areas of contemporary life in which we can especially locate signs
of the movement of the Holy Spirit, as well as some of the ways our
pneumatological praxis is responsive to those signs.
Solidarity of Others
There are many ways of analyzing and characterizing the dominant
needs and urgencies of the times in which we live and in which we
also have to carry on our theological reflection. Looking at the world
from the perspective of North America, I can see several overriding
needs. There is, first of all, the need for liberation of certain op-
pressed groups throughout the world, be they women, ethnic mi-
norities such as Native Americans and African Americans, the eco-
nomically marginalized and socially excluded. For all the progress
that has been made, the need for liberation from imposed suffering
remains urgent. There is, secondly, the need for liberation of nature
from human exploitation and destruction, which is ultimately our
self-destruction. The situation of ecology is getting steadily worse.
Thirdly, there is the urgency of interreligious and intercultural dia-
logue and understanding. This need too is becoming more and more
compelling as intercultural contacts become more intimate and ex-
tensive. These three needs have been recognized by theologians for
some time, as their respective theologies—various liberation theolo-
gies, ecological theology, and religious pluralism—seem to testify.
There is a fourth need, the need of the middle class for community
and meaning, which has largely been ignored by theologians, espe-
cially liberal, and addressed instead by the growing movements of
pentecostalism, spirituality, and mysticism.
Although these needs are not mutually reducible, they are still less
mutually separable needs. They are products of a global process that
has been going on for centuries whose impacts are especially felt and
recognized today. I am referring to the process of growing global
interdependence brought about by trade, transportation, and now
increasing information technology. Interdependence is an ambiva-
lent process and has many sides to it. On the one hand, it brings
diverse peoples ever closer together, often by sheer colonialism, im-
perialism, and economically motivated migration, forcing peoples to
face one another as masters and slaves, employers and employees,
oppressors and oppressed, majorities and minorities, as mutual com-
petitors, as colleagues and neighbors, and in any case heightening
their sensitivity to the Other as Other. Interdependence ironically
intensifies the struggle for liberation and competition, often pitting
the oppressed against one another.
On the other hand, interdependence also offers the challenge of
living together with Others by together creating common conditions
of living with dignity and meaning. Interdependence does not simply
juxtapose or place diverse peoples side by side in blissful indifference
to one another. It brings them into common political space where, like
it or not, they have to find a mode of living together with a modicum
of justice and peace. They have to agree on a minimum system of
identity—laws, policies, regulations—which will guarantee basic
economic needs, political rights, and meaningful culture for all
groups. Interdependence, which intensifies the pluralistic conscious-
ness of otherness, also intensifies the political challenge and respon-
sibility of creating a common res publica. Pluralism itself is possible

only in a political community that supports the value of pluralism and
thus only insofar as it is compatible with the demands of common life.
By the same token, the political community remains legitimate only
insofar as it protects the just demands of pluralism and viable only to
the extent that it proves acceptable to the different groups.
Global trade also leads to increasingly massive exploitation and
waste of natural resources and degradation of the natural environ-
ment, creating incalculable, often irreversible ecological disasters for
all. Liberation and ecology are not two separate problems. It is the
self-expanding dynamic of the free market with all its irrationalities
that creates rich and poor, masters and slaves, generating the need for
liberation of the oppressed, and that creates in the same process the
unrestrained, competitive exploitation and degradation of nature,
bringing about the ecological movement. By the same token, both
need a political solution that will restrain at once the exploitation of
the poor and the degradation of nature. The free market as such will
not liberate either the oppressed or nature from its own dynamic of
exploitation. It is short-sighted and misleading to pit the demands of
liberation and those of ecology against each other. Our ecological
relation to nature is always mediated by our political relation to one
another in society, just as our social relations are always mediated by
our natural relations. Problems of liberation and ecology are two prod-
ucts of the same economic process that embodies both our social and
natural relations.
The problem of interreligious dialogue and understanding is not a
separate problem either. Religions as such do not encounter one an-
other. Only concrete human beings with their religions do. It is the
globalizing process that brings together people of diverse origins, lan-
guages, religions, and cultures and in the process also generates the
need for mutual understanding in the matter of religions, cultures,
and languages. It is not primarily their religions or cultures but the
global economic process that brings them into common political
space, that brings together Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Confucians,
Orthodox, Protestants, and Catholics into the metropolitan centers
of the world such as Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, London, Bir-
mingham, and Frankfurt. By the same token, it is the dynamics of
the concrete context of coexistence that determines the success or
failure of interreligious dialogue. Human beings do not enter into a
dialogue as pure, disembodied intellects; they do so only with their
concrete needs, interests, and perspectives. Encountering the religious

Other as Other, without prejudice, and with the willingness to learn
from the Other—conditions stipulated by theorists of interreligious
dialogue—will be possible only when Others perceive a minimum of
justice and equality in the socially imposed conditions of life. No
authentic dialogue is possible between oppressors and oppressed. The
problem of interreligious dialogue and understanding is not reduc-
ible to the economics and politics of justice, but it is not separable
from or independent of the latter either. One of the serious problems
neglected by mainline religions and their theologians is the problem
of the middle class, the majority in advanced industrial societies. They
are materially well off and politically free, better off and freer than
human beings have ever been, yet they also suffer, in silence, broken
families, loneliness and alienation, lack of transcendent meaning in
their lives. Their wealth depends on their fortunes in the free market,
which makes their lives always anxious, while the reigning imperson-
ality and commercialism of the market reduce all aspects of life to
the trivial, superficial, and meaningless. There is a silent cry for au-
thenticity, depth, communion, and transcendence, which they seek
to find in spirituality, mysticism, and new religions. This problem of
the middle class, however, is inseparable from the global economic
process, which in the same process makes them wealthy while de-
priving and marginalizing others, exploiting nature, and bringing
diverse religions together into common space. The sheer number of
the middle class as a majority in society makes their problem an ur-
gent problem of pastoral care. Their position in the network of the
global process also renders it a compelling theological problem. As
human beings they too suffer from the problem of existential mean-
ing in their lives. As beneficiaries and agents of the global economic
process they also bear political responsibility for the oppression of
the poor, exploitation of nature, and the general consequences of the
globalizing process. They cannot just separate their problems from
their responsibilities; somehow, their personal search for transcen-
dent meaning must be related to their social responsibility for what
their governments and corporations do both at home and in the world,
and in particular to their self-transcendence in political solidarity
with the countless suffering Others of the world.
What is common to the preceding problems both formally and
materially is the challenge of Others, those who are other and differ-
ent in class, gender, ethnicity, religion, and culture. The problem of
liberation is the problem of creating economic, political, and cul-

tural conditions for living with dignity and meaning. Insofar as no
one group today can achieve its liberation by its own unaided effort
but every group requires the collaboration of other groups, the prob-
lem of liberation becomes the problem of collaboration and solidar-
ity of Others in mutual liberation. Insofar as some groups are more
oppressed than others, it also means a preferential option for those
who suffer more, and transcendence of collective selfishness and ob-
session with one’s own group in the struggle for liberation. The eco-
logical problem is doing this precisely in such a way as to also respect
the rhythm and integrity of nature of which human beings are a part
without being its master. Nature remains the Other that cannot be
reduced to human self-identity. The precondition for interreligious
dialogue is the establishment of justice and equality in the very con-
ditions of living together as and with Others so as to make genuine
mutual trust possible. The problem of the middle class is in part how
to find self-transcendence not only in spiritual immersion in the Tran-
scendent but also in concrete, political solidarity with the suffering
Others of the world
In short, the compelling problems of the contemporary world can
be summed up as the problem of solidarity of Others, of how to
transcend ourselves in solidarity with Others so as to learn to “live
together with Others,” those who are different in class, gender,
ethnicity, religion, and culture, including nature, of how to create
together the common social conditions of life that will guarantee ba-
sic needs, justice, and meaningful culture to everyone. The problem
is not how to leave one another alone in all their differences; it is to
learn to live together with Others, both suffering and enjoying the
dialectic of otherness and togetherness.
I prefer “solidarity of Others” to the more usual “solidarity with
Others” because the latter still implies one’s own group as the privi-
leged center and norm by which to decide with whom to enter into
solidarity, while the former implies no such privileged center and
regards all as equally Other to one another.
I also prefer “solidarity” to the more theologically popular term
“communion.” Communion implies a state of union already achieved
and an interpersonal, face-to-face relationship. Insofar as all histori-
cal relations are always in dialectical process of change and transcend
by far the intimate, interpersonal relations, communion is inadequate
and misleading as a historical, social category. It abstracts from the
concrete dialectic of change, contradiction, and the struggles for

power, and fails to attend to the larger historical consequences of
social phenomena. Solidarity, on the other hand, is a multivalent
concept. It is an ontological category referring to the constitutive
interdependence of all reality including human beings and nature. It
is also a historical category referring to the process in which such
ontological interdependence becomes concrete in history and soci-
ety. It is likewise an ethical category demanding the transformation
of our ontological and historical interdependence into self-conscious
acts of ethical, political solidarity. Finally, it does include the theo-
logical category of fellowship and communion of those reborn in
Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit to which all are called as to
their eschatological destiny. Solidarity is a concept with rich associa-
tions in that it is both metaphysical and ethical, both theoretical and
practical, both philosophical and theological, allowing of varying
degrees of intimacy from interpersonal communion to voluntary as-
sociations to international communities to ontological interdepen-
dence with remote creatures.3
The Holy Spirit as the Spirit of

Solidarity of Others
Is it possible to interpret the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of this solidarity
of Others that we so desperately need? I would like to begin with a
discussion of the biblical presentation and early Christian experience
of the Holy Spirit for a clue to her function and activity before going
on to a conceptualization of her personhood.
The Hebrew Bible presents the divine Spirit, the rûach of God, in
a variety of roles. The Spirit is pictured as creating, sustaining, and
renewing the life of all creation (Gen 1:2; Ps 33:6, 104:29-30; Job
34:14; Isa 32:15), empowering leaders such as Moses, Joshua, Gideon,
Saul, and David for political leadership at critical points in the his-
tory of the nation, inspiring the prophets to proclaim God’s justice
and peace to idolatrous and oppressive kings (Amos, Isaiah, Ezekiel),
transforming the nation’s “heart of stone” into “a heart of flesh” in a
new covenant (Ezek 11:19-20; 36:26-28; Ps 51:10-12; Isa 59:21),
and above all inaugurating the messianic, eschatological age of social
justice, harmony with nature, and reconciliation of all creation with
God (Isa 11, 32, 42, 61).4
In the specific Christian context of the New Testament the role of

the Spirit becomes more distinct, more christological, and more
ecclesial. The Holy Spirit empowers Jesus in his salvific work from
his conception through his ministry of proclamation and healing on
behalf of the Kingdom to his resurrection from the dead (Matt 1:20;
Luke 4:1, 4:18; Matt 12:28; Acts 10:38; Rom 8:11). The Spirit bears
witness to Jesus, proclaiming his divine sonship (Luke 3:22; John
1:33), testifying to his coming in the flesh (1 John 4:2), enlightening
individuals to recognize his soteriological significance (Luke 1:68;
2:26) and his lordship (1 Cor 12:3), inspiring people to believe in
him and his gospel of salvation (Eph 1:13-14). First and foremost,
the Spirit is God’s eschatological presence and power, inaugurating
the end time by raising Jesus from the dead and in principle all hu-
man beings in him as the new Adam (Rom 8), manifesting her
eschatological presence by granting the gift of prophecy equally to
men and women, young and old, masters and servants, and elimi-
nating the division between Jew and Gentile (Acts 2, 10, 15), liberat-
ing us from the bondage of law, sin, and death (Rom, Gal), and em-
powering us to live as new creation (Gal 5, 6, 7). The Spirit guides
the church, the body of Christ, the eschatological community of those
born again through faith in Christ, speaking to the churches in times
of crises (Rev 2, 3), guiding the churches and their leaders in their
pastoral and doctrinal decisions (Acts 8, 10, 13, 15, 16), enabling
them to preach the word of God with joy and courage in times of
persecution (Luke 12:12; Acts 4:31; Rom 15:18-19; 1 Cor 2:4; 1 Pet
1:12), and building up the church by empowering members to main-
tain their unity (Acts 4) and serve the common good with their di-
verse gifts of ministry (1 Cor 12; Eph 4).
Both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament speak of the Spirit
as God’s creative, vitalizing, empowering, liberating, guiding, and
directing eschatological presence in the universe, human history, and,
in the case of the New Testament, especially in the church. It is cru-
cial, however, to note a peculiarity of the Holy Spirit in comparison
with God (the Father) and Christ (the Son). Both God and Christ
are distinctive persons each with his own subjectivity as agent and
demanding a distinctive response from us. God creates the world
and sends his Son to redeem the world. God sends rain on the just
and the unjust. We are to give thanks and glory to God. The Son is
born as a definite human individual, engages in specific ministries
for his Father’s Reign, dies on the cross, and is raised from the dead
by God. We are “to be conformed [summorphous] to the image of his

Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brethren”
(Rom 8:29), following him, bearing witness to his resurrection, and
hoping to share in his fellowship with the Father.
There is something odd, however, both about the identity of the
Holy Spirit and our response to her. That the personhood of the
Spirit as God’s rûach is ambiguous in the Hebrew Bible is generally
acknowledged. The Spirit is more a personification of God’s breath,
power, or wisdom than a distinctive agent in her own right. In the
New Testament, the ambiguity may be considerably reduced but not
eliminated altogether. Insofar as the Spirit is the subject of verbs such
as searching (1 Cor 2:10), knowing (1 Cor 2:11), teaching (1 Cor
2:13), giving life (2 Cor 3:6), dwelling (Rom 8:11), crying out (Gal
4:6), having desires (Gal 5:17), leading (Gal 5:18), bearing witness
(Rom 8:16), interceding (Rom 8:26-27), working (Rom 8:28),
strengthening (Eph 3:16), accomplishing (1 Cor 12:11), and being
grieved (Eph 4:30), and insofar as the fruits of the Spirit are personal
attributes such as love, joy, peace, patience, etc., it is arguable that
the Spirit is a person.5 Because of the peculiarity of the ontology of
spirit, however, even these references can be interpreted as the meta-
phorical personifications of God’s presence, power, and activity in
the world, not as a spiritual subject of action in her own right dis-
tinct from God. A person’s spirit, soul, or mind is normally part of
the person, who remains the subject of that spirit, soul, or mind, not
a distinct entity apart from the person. Likewise, the actions of a
person’s spirit, soul, or mind belong to the person as their subject.
Furthermore, if the Spirit stands for God’s presence, power, and ac-
tions in the world, either such presence, power, and actions belong
to the category of accidents, not substance, which alone can subsist
and be persons in case of rational substances, or become identical
with God’s own being by virtue of divine simplicity. In any event,
the ontology of the Holy Spirit, one might say, remains at least odd.
There is likewise something odd about the action of the Holy Spirit
and our response to that action. We normally pray to the Father in the
name of the Son, but not to the Holy Spirit. We give thanks and glory
to the Father for what he has done through the Son, but not to the
Spirit. (I recognize that the Gloria Patri is a late development in
Christian history.) We follow the Son in his pursuit of the Father’s will
in the world, but not the Spirit. We bear witness to the Son but not
to the Spirit as such. This oddity of our response to the Spirit follows
from the oddity of her action in the world, which is not so much to
call attention to herself, either to her own sovereignty or to her own
action in the world, as to empower us to follow the Son in his
fellowship with the Father. The Spirit inspires us to pray to the Father
in the name of the Son without herself being the object of our prayer,
to give thanks and glory to the Father without herself being the object
of our glorification, and to bear witness to the Son without herself
being the object of our witnessing. The Father wants us to do his will
in the world and become his children. The Son wants us to confess and
follow him in his life, death, and resurrection. The Holy Spirit wants
us to do neither regarding herself, instead only empowering us to do
the Father’s will and to confess the Son in word and deed. The Son
becomes incarnate in Jesus and reveals the Father. The Spirit neither
becomes incarnate nor reveals the Father; instead, she makes such
incarnation and revelation possible.
The Holy Spirit is a self-effacing, selfless God whose selfhood or
personhood seems to lie precisely in transcending herself to empower
others likewise to transcend themselves in communion with others,
to urge the Father to give himself to the Son and the Son to give
himself to the Father and to the world for the sake of the Father, and
to liberate humanity and creation from their self-isolation and em-
power them to transcend themselves towards one another and to-
wards God in union and solidarity. The Holy Spirit remains the tran-
scendental horizon of our knowledge of God, that power by which
(principium quo) we get to know God, without herself being a direct
object of our knowledge, as well as the transcendental power of our
praxis, that power by which we are empowered to act and live as
children of the Father and brothers and sisters of the Son, without
herself being either the Father or the Son. This does not mean that
we cannot also thematize the Holy Spirit as object of our prayer,
glorification, witnessing, and knowledge, but it does mean that we
do so precisely in the transcendental horizon and power of the Spirit
herself, which is not true of the other two persons.
Scripture confirms this role of the Holy Spirit as the transcendent
and transcendental power of self-transcendence and creator of rela-
tions. In the Hebrew Bible the Spirit empowers the future messiah
not to seek himself or even the Spirit but to fear the Lord, establish a
relationship of justice and equity among the people, and restore the
original harmony between beings in nature, between nature and hu-
manity, and between God and all creation (“the wolf shall dwell with
the lamb, … and a little child shall lead them,” Isa 11:1-9). The
eschatological outpouring of the Spirit is not intended to call atten-
tion to herself through wonders and signs but to establish the pro-
phetic equality between women and men, young and old, servants
and masters (Joel 2:28-29), as well as to eliminate linguistic barriers
among different ethnic groups (Acts 2:1-12) as signs of the end time.
The role of the Spirit in Jesus’ conception, ministry, death, and res-
urrection is not to establish Jesus’ own identity in himself but to
empower him to bear witness to his Father’s reign by bringing hu-
man beings closer to God and one another through repentance, for-
giveness, and hope. The testimony of the Spirit at Jesus’ baptism is
not intended to either call attention to herself or show Jesus’ divinity
in himself but to proclaim the fellowship between the Father and the
Son (“this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” Lk
3:22).
The work of the Spirit with the church and individual Christians
is likewise to empower them to bear witness not to themselves or
even to the Spirit but to Christ in praxis and preaching and to bring
them to the Father through him. The purpose of the diverse gifts of
the Spirit is not to celebrate diversity as such but to serve the com-
mon good, which is to build up the body of Christ (1 Cor 12). The
fruits of the new life in the Spirit are precisely love, joy, peace, pa-
tience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control,
which are thoroughly self-forgetting and relational because they come
from becoming “servants of one another” (Gal 5:13) and “bearing
one another’s burdens” so as to “fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal 7:2).
We “grieve the Holy Spirit” not in our self-isolation but in our alien-
ating relations such as bitterness, anger, slander, and malice; we please
the Spirit by being kind to one another and “forgiving one another,
as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph 4:30-32).
As an eschatological power, the ultimate goal of the Holy Spirit is
to create a relation of unity and reconciliation among all the alien-
ated parties, among human beings themselves, between human be-
ings and nature, and between God and all creation. Human beings
have been alienated from one another because of oppressive differ-
ences in class, gender, ethnicity, religion, and culture. Human sinful-
ness has also brought about alienation between humanity and na-
ture, which too groans for liberation from decay and futility (Rom
8:20-21). These social and natural alienations, however, are deriva-
tive from the basic alienation between God and humanity. This basic
alienation as well as the other alienations can be overcome only when

human beings are regenerated as children of the same Father and
thus become sisters and brothers of one another in the one divine
family.
Such regeneration itself becomes possible only through the media-
tion of the Son. The Son is the primordial image of the Father, “the
first born of all creation,” in whom, through whom, and for whom
all things were created (Col 1:15-16). He is the model or archetype
of all creation. In his incarnate existence as a human being, Jesus the
Son showed his communion with the Father by dedicating himself
to his Kingdom in which his unconditional, universal love for hu-
manity, especially for the oppressed, became concrete. In preaching,
healing, and table fellowship Jesus identified himself with the out-
cast Others of society, the marginalized “nobodies” excluded from
the dominant social systems of identity. For this solidarity with suf-
fering Others, Jesus was murdered by crucifixion as a political crimi-
nal. The Father, however, raised him from the dead, vindicating Jesus
in his life and death, and accepting all humanity in solidarity with
him. As a suffering servant, he lived and died for solidarity of Others,
bearing our sins and sufferings in his body, a universal person repre-
senting all humanity in their brokenness and alienation. As “the first
born from the dead” (Col 1:18), he is the new Adam in whose resur-
rection we too will share, a universal person modeling and embody-
ing all humanity recreated onto authentic solidarity of Others in God.
For in him we are “one” beyond all oppressive and invidious distinc-
tions based on class, gender, power, ethnicity, religion, and culture
(Gal 3:28; Col 3:11; Eph 2:14-19). We are all “called into the koinonia
of his Son” (1 Cor 1:9) and to be “conformed to the image of his
Son” (Rom 8:29). As the eternal image of the Father, the Son is the
model for the creation and recreation of all things including human-
ity, and it is precisely the salvific “mystery” of God’s will to “unite all
things in him [the Son], things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph
1:10).
Overcoming human alienations, then, takes being born again as
children of the same Father and experiencing solidarity of Others as
sisters and brothers of the Son who embodies that solidarity in his
life and resurrection. It is precisely in this work of divine filiation of
humanity and achieving reconciliation of all in the Son that the Holy
Spirit shows her most appropriate identity. As the Spirit of Christ, it
is the Holy Spirit in us that cries “Abba! Father!” (Gal 4:6) and makes
us “children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and

fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that
we may also be glorified with him” (Rom 8:16-17). “All who are led
by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Rom 8:14). It is the Spirit
who incorporates us into the “one body” of Christ through baptism
and empowers us to transcend oppressive distinctions (1 Cor 12:13).
It is also “in one Spirit” that both Jews and Gentiles have access to
the Father through Christ (Eph 2:18). By liberating us from law, sin,
and death, and empowering us to transcend ourselves in solidarity
with those who are different, the Spirit unites and introduces us into
the communion of the Son with the Father, accomplishing the “mys-
tery” of God’s salvific will. If Christ is the corporate person embody-
ing the solidarity of all in God, it is precisely the Spirit who, in the
words of John Zizioulas, “realizes in history that which we call Christ,
this absolutely relational reality, our Savior.”6
Christ, too, as the Son, creates relationships between humanity
and God as well as among human beings, but does so as the exem-
plary model in which we participate and to which we are to conform.
It is the Spirit who actualizes the full potentialities of the model in all
its relationships by bringing about our participation and conformity,
and does so not by calling attention to herself but by making us
members of the body of the Son. As the Spirit of the Son, the Holy
Spirit effects solidarity of Others by introducing them into the com-
munion of the Father and the Son.7 As Alasdair Heron well points
out, “the Spirit is God, but God acting within, directing us, not to
himself as Holy Spirit, but to the incarnate Son, and in him, to the
Father.”8
How, then, should we conceptualize the role and personhood of
this self-effacing, other-directed, relation-creating God in the imma-
nent Trinity? Perhaps her economic role as the power of self-tran-
scendence for communion and solidarity gives us a clue to her being
in the immanent Trinity, where she is the mutual love of the Father
and the Son.
Whether Eastern or Western, it seems that all theologians (have to)
recognize a certain primacy or “monarchy” of the Father as the
unoriginate origin of all things including the divinity of the Son and
the Spirit and all finite reality. The Father is the originating principle
in the Trinity from whom both the Son and the Spirit proceed. He
eternally “generates” the Son by sharing the totality of his numerically
identical divine substance with him. The Son is the Father’s Other in
whom the Father’s divine substance is totally shared and externalized,

the Word and Image in which the Father knows himself and all reality.
As the Other, Word, and Image of the Father, the Son is the othering
and pluralizing principle in God and all reality. The Word is the
archetype for the creation of all finite others and models in himself all
finite reality in its structure and plurality. It is only appropriate,
therefore, that the Word alone should become incarnate, not the
Father who remains the unoriginate origin of all things, not the Holy
Spirit whose role is precisely to make the incarnation, the personal
union of the divine and the human possible, not to become incarnate
herself.
It is out of the Father’s love for the Son that the Father generates
him by giving and sharing his whole divine being with the Son. The
Son returns the Father’s love by an equally total self-giving to the
Father. Out of this mutual love between the Father and the Son there
proceeds the Holy Spirit, which the Father “spirates” by way of will
and love, as he “generates” the Son by way of intellect and word. It is,
then, in the Spirit of this mutual love that the Father generates the
Son and in the process distinguishes himself as Father and unites
himself to the Son, just as the Son distinguishes himself as Son and
unites himself with the Father by accepting and returning the Father’s
gift of self. The Spirit is the uniting and reconciling principle for the
communion and solidarity of Others in God and in the world. Pro-
ceeding from the Father of/through/and the Son, the Spirit unites
the Father and the Son in their mutual otherness in a communion of
Others, and reconciles finite Others with the Father by uniting them
to the Son in his fellowship with the Father.9
Without the Father as the originating principle, nothing would
exist, not even the Son or the Spirit. Without the Son as the pluraliz-
ing, othering principle, the Father alone would exist, and there would
be neither the Trinity nor any finite creature. Without the Holy Spirit
as the uniting, reconciling principle, however, there would be nei-
ther the Son nor finite creatures because there would be no love to
generate the Son and create finite realities in the Son, and even if
these others did exist, they would remain completely separate in sheer
otherness and isolation. In the absence of the reconciling and con-
necting Spirit the world would tend to fragmentation and nothing-
ness. The Spirit gives being and life precisely by relating, uniting,
reconciling, and bonding.
Now, according to Aquinas, the difference between the Son and

the Spirit is analogous to the difference between intellect and will.
The procession of the intellect is by way of likeness of the object, the
procession of the will by way of love, impulse, movement, and incli-
nation to the object.10 It is the nature of love to move and impel the
will of the lover toward the object loved. There is here, however, a
peculiarity to note. The procession of the intellect terminates in a
concept or idea of the object understood, and there exists a word,
i.e., Word, to describe the relation between the subject and object of
understanding and speaking. The procession of love terminates in a
certain impression of the loved object in the affection of the lover,
but there is no appropriate word other than love to express the rela-
tion between lover and beloved. As we do with Word for the Son, so
we have to do with Love for the Spirit. Although understanding and
loving are actions, they remain in the agent, and in the divine agent,
they are identical with the divine essence and thus subsistent Word
and subsistent Love respectively. The Holy Spirit is the subsisting
“unitive love”11 or bond between the Father and the Son, proceeding
as “the love of primal goodness [amor primae bonitatis] whereby the
Father loves himself and every creature”12 and also as the gift of the
Father, as the eternal “aptitude to be given,”13 insofar as love is the
most primordial of all gifts.
The three divine persons are not all equal in every respect. As en-
gendering love, the Father is the source of the Son and, in him, also
of the Spirit. As receptive love, the Son is derivative from and subor-
dinate to the Father. The Spirit too is derivative, from the Father of/
through/and the Son. or, more precisely, from their self-relating to
the other. The point of the trinitarian doctrine, however, might be
precisely that these differences need not be degrading and oppressive
differences. In the eternal simultaneity and perichoresis of the triune
God, such differences are sublated into positive modes of mutual
love. The Father’s love for the Son sublates his ontological superior-
ity to the Son into an expression of love; the Father does not take
glory in his ontological superiority but uses it precisely by sharing
and emptying his total divinity with the Son, for the capacity to share
one’s total self with an Other and still remain oneself or rather be
more authentically oneself for doing so is the prerogative of an infi-
nite being. The Son does not feel degraded but feels more himself in
deriving and receiving his total being from the Father, giving himself
back totally to him, and returning his love. The Spirit does not feel
humiliated but rejoices in deriving her existence not from one but
from two persons, sublating that dependence into a celebration of
love between the Father and the Son. The Spirit finds her true iden-
tity not in asserting her equality as a distinct person in her own right
but in effacing herself in order to inspire the union of the Father and
the Son in their eternal communion. The unequal relations of origi-
nation, the only source of differentiation in God according to classi-
cal trinitarianism, is sublated into modes of love beyond equality,
into engendering, receptive, and uniting love.
It is the uniting love of the Holy Spirit that also sublates the pri-
mordial inequality of the divine persons into the primordial equality
of love. The Father remains indeed the source of both the Son and
the Spirit. There is inequality between the begetter and the begotten,
between the source of procession and that which proceeds. This in-
equality of origination, however, is cancelled by the equality of the
content that is communicated in the process of origination. What
occurs in the process of generation and procession is not only the
Son and the Spirit but also the communication of the numerically
identical divine substance of the Father. Relationally unequal, the
three persons are totally equal in their divine nature. The Father is
neither the Son nor the Spirit, but the Son and the Spirit are pre-
cisely what the Father is, namely divine. Because of the sharing of the
numerically one divine substance among the three persons, they also
exist in one another (perichoresis).14 The role of the Spirit as uniting
love in this communication and perichoresis is crucial. It is precisely
this uniting love that eternally inspires the Father to share the totality
of his divine substance with the Son and the Son to receive, return,
and share that totality with the Father, and makes it possible for the
Father and the Son to exist in each other. It is the uniting and equal-
izing function of the Holy Spirit that keeps the Father’s ontological
originality from becoming monarchy/patriarchy and turns it into
creative, sharing love, as it also keeps the Son’s ontological depen-
dence from becoming impotent masochism and turns it into respon-
sive, sharing love.
This brings us to the question about the personhood of the Holy
Spirit. Is it not forcing it to turn mutual love, normally an activity or
relation among human beings, into a person by making it subsistent
on the ground that in God there are no accidents? Unless we do so,
however, how can we avoid falling into binity? Here I would like to
argue that we should recognize that the divine persons are not per-
sons univocally but analogically, that each person is a “person” in a

different way, and that we should stretch our notion of person to fit
the theological data rather than trying to adapt the theological data
to our own fixed notion of person.
According to the classical tradition, persons in God are “consti-
tuted” by relations, which in relating also distinguish the persons
from one another.15 The identity or person of the Father lies precisely
in relating himself to the Son by way of total sharing. As the originat-
ing principle in the Godhead, the Father’s personhood lies in engen-
dering, creative love. As the pluralizing principle, the Son’s personhood
lies in the relation of derived, receptive, responsive love to the Father.
The Father and the Son are not persons in the same way. The
relationality of the Holy Spirit is much more complex. As the mutual
love of the Father and the Son, the Spirit is related to both in their
mutual relation. It is not simply from the Father or simply from the
Son but precisely from their reciprocal love that the Spirit proceeds,
and as such, the Spirit not only is related by way of origin to both but
also relates them to each other in the eternal simultaneity of
perichoresis. Generation and filiation mediate and are mediated by
(passive) spiration.16
The peculiarity of the Spirit here is that its personhood lies pre-
cisely in relating and uniting the Father and the Son to each other,
not to herself, in transcending herself in order to inspire the relation
of love between the two from which she proceeds. The Father’s rela-
tion to the Son is direct in that to be a father is to generate a son; his
relation to the Spirit is indirect in that his love for the Son accompa-
nies his generation of the Son as its enabling horizon. The same is
true, conversely, of the Son’s relation to the Father and the Spirit. His
relation to the Father is the direct object of his filiation; his relation
to the Spirit is an indirect accompaniment of that filiation as its en-
abling horizon. The relation of the Spirit to the Father and the Son,
on the other hand, is both direct and doubly relational in contrast to
the respective relation of the Father and the Son, which is singly
relational. If we are not to reduce the Trinity to a bland community
of three abstractly equal persons, it is imperative to consider each
person precisely in his or her difference from the others and intro-
duce the dialectic of such differences into the community of the tri-
une God.
In taking relations as constitutive of divine persons the classical
tradition was quite aware that human categories do break down when
they are applied to God. In the Boethian definition person means

“an individual substance of rational nature.” A person means a sub-
stance or subsistent being, not an accident such as relation, a rational
rather than an irrational being, an individual entity rather than a
generic nature. In God, however, relations are subsistent, a rational
being contains the possibilities of non-rational beings as their cre-
ator, and a subsistent relation is at the same time his or her own
essence. In the divine persons as subsistent relations traditional di-
chotomies break down: substance and accidents, rational and irratio-
nal, individual and nature. At the heart of the classical tradition is
this relational definition of the divine person. Here we are invited to
revolutionize our concept of person: instead of a fixed, individual
substance of rational nature, we are to conceive of the person in terms
of relations, processes, and movements. It is also important to realize
that in God this relationality is itself a mode of being of divine per-
sons in whom essence and existence coincide and therefore a modal-
ity of the Ipsum esse per se subsistens, of the fullness, actuality, and
movement of the divine esse. This is especially true of the person of
the Holy Spirit who, as the will of the Father, connotes love, impulse,
movement, and inclination. As a subsistent relation of the mutual
love of the Father and the Son whose function lies precisely in creat-
ing relations and relating the relations to the mutual love of the Fa-
ther and the Son, the Holy Spirit moves and relates all things to their
ultimate end as the grace of divine motion that executes the plan of
divine providence.17
In relation to the economy of salvation, we can say that the Holy
Spirit is the divine energy that creates, redeems, and recreates all real-
ity. She is a cosmological power—the divine breath, wind, power,
and force—that creates nature, liberates it from futility and tran-
sience, prepares it for human solidarity, and transforms it for its ulti-
mate, eschatological recreation.18 She is an interpersonal power that
creates relations, communions, and solidarities by producing the
“fruits” of the Spirit such as “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5:22-23). She is
an ecclesial power, the “soul” and “heart” of the church as the body
of Christ that vivifies, renews, and unifies the church in its procla-
mation, liturgy, and witness to the Kingdom in the world.19 The Spirit
is also a historical power that inspires social events and movements in
history that embody greater possibilities of liberation from oppres-
sion and solidarity of Others.
As the vitalizing, liberating, and transforming power for solidarity,

the Spirit is active wherever there is a movement of self-transcen-
dence towards communion and solidarity at all levels, cosmic, inter-
personal, ecclesial, historical. She is present not only in the church
and in the “hearts” of individuals, not only in pentecostal gatherings
and interpersonal relations but also in all areas of our social life and
our relations with nature. Perhaps the point of the classical
Pneumatology that turns the movement of love itself into a subsis-
tent or personalized love is to revise our static, substantive concep-
tion of the person and to see the Holy Spirit precisely in the move-
ments and events in the world where relations are created and soli-
darities formed for liberation and communion. It is not possible to
confine the role of the Spirit to any one level, interpersonal, ecclesial,
historical, or cosmic. The great imperative today is precisely to over-
come all such dualisms: matter and spirit, inner and outer, individual
and social, church and world, humanity and nature, finite and infi-
nite. As a relating, integrating, and reconciling power and activity,
the Spirit promotes solidarity of Others precisely by sublating such
dualisms.
Winds of the Holy Spirit Today

Where are the winds of the Holy Spirit blowing today? Where should
we be especially attentive to the signs of her movement? We are liv-
ing in a divided, oppressive, and alienating world, with daunting
challenges to the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of Jesus
crucified on behalf of all and still being crucified in the members of
his body continues to struggle and cry not only “Abba! Father!” but
also “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
One of the places where we can look for the signs of the Spirit
today might be precisely where we should look for them at all times,
in situations of natural inequality in which the weaker always remain
vulnerable to manipulation and domination by the stronger. There
are many such situations today, as there always have been, the rela-
tion between parents and children, teachers and pupils, the healthy
and the sick, legitimate authority and those subject to that authority,
violent nature and human victims. These are relations that are essen-
tially unequal yet also “natural” in the sense of being inherent in the
human condition as such, not artificially caused by oppressive social
arrangements. The possibilities of manipulation, violence, and suf-
fering here remain huge. How could the stronger in the relation show
the active, self-giving love of the Father, the weaker the receptive,
responsive love of the Son, and how does the Holy Spirit mediate
and reconcile the two by inspiring the two loves respectively? How
does she sublate these natural inequalities into the equality of mutual
love and sharing? Despite appearances to the contrary, there are to-
day countless ministers of the Holy Spirit actively involved in the
praxis of uniting, reconciling love all over the world, self-sacrificing
parents, dedicated teachers, health care givers, family and pastoral
counselors, conscientious public servants, relief workers for victims
of violent nature.
The most distinctive and most frightful crisis today, however, has
been the artificial, structural creation of oppressive, alienating in-
equalities based on class, gender, ethnicity, culture, religion, and tech-
nology, which also mediate and intensify the negative potentialities
inherent in natural inequality. We today suffer immeasurably more
from one another because of structural, institutional, and organized
inequalities than from the hands of nature or inherent natural in-
equality. Artificial suffering caused by exploitation of the poor, dis-
crimination against women, marginalization of ethnic minorities,
suppression of dissent, exclusion of the religious Other, imperial domi-
nation of other nations, and the grand, full-scale technological as-
sault on nature restrained by nothing is the central fact of our time
and our world. As discussed in the first part of this essay, our chal-
lenge is not to leave Others alone in their otherness but to forge
solidarity of Others in which others together can achieve the mini-
mum conditions of common life, such as basic needs, basic justice,
and basic culture as a basis for the flourishing of constructive, en-
riching otherness in the realm of freedom (Marx). The struggle in-
volves resistance to and overcoming of the powers and principalities
of this world, the vested interests and the entrenched powers. It in-
volves sweat, blood, and unlimited patience and hope. The struggle
is infinitely multi-faceted: it may be local, national, or global, on the
sexist front as well as on the classist and racist fronts, on the level of
politics and culture as well as on that of economics.
The winds of the Holy Spirit have been blowing in this area for
some time. The very heightened sensitivity to classism, sexism, rac-
ism, ethnocentrism; the rise of pluralist cultural and religious sensi-
bility and the ecological movement; the formation of active grassroots
movements and organizations: these too are facts of our time and our
world, and signs of the movement of the Spirit who unites and rec-
onciles into solidarity of Others. The Spirit sometimes works vocif-

erously as in revolutionary movements and mass protests, more of-
ten quietly as in routine organizational work for social change as well
as in works of mercy by unsung heroes. The breach of the Berlin
Wall, the collapse of Soviet communism, the dismantling of apart-
heid in South Africa, the displacement of military dictators in many
parts of Latin America, the peace agreement in Northern Ireland:
these and more stand as signs of hope. Quite often, the Spirit also
moans and sighs on the verge of despair, interceding for us to the
almighty Father in the name of his crucified Son.
The human praxis of the Holy Spirit, then, is to discern the au-
thentic presence of her movement in the world and respond to her
challenge and call. The Spirit is where the action is, the action of self-
transcendence and liberation in and for solidarity of Others. In this
regard our response must fully respect the irony of the Holy Spirit as
the self-effacing God: the point of the praxis and spirituality of the
Spirit is not to call attention to or cultivate the Spirit for her own
sake but to attend to that to which she calls us, the solidarity of
Others in the solidarity of the Son. This praxis of the Spirit requires
certain adjustments in our theories and attitudes.
The first necessary adjustment is an adjustment in our basic meta-
physics. A substantialist metaphysics is not capable of appreciating
the larger historical relations and movements because of its primary
focus on individual substances and its relegation of relation and move-
ment to the secondary categories of accidents, not to speak of its
ahistorical, cosmological orientation. The metaphysics of I-Thou,
interpersonal relations may be an improvement on substantialist
metaphysics as far as relations among persons are concerned, but it is
just as inadequate in comprehending historical movements and chal-
lenges because it abstracts from the concrete dialectic of social rela-
tions. Persons are not taken as the concrete totality of constitutive
social, historical relations but only as subjects of consciousness and
intentionality in isolation from the concrete challenges and pressures
of our socio-historical existence with profound impact on the very
content of such consciousness and intentionality.
We need a concrete social metaphysics that sees a society as a total-
ity of economic, political, and cultural relations at a particular time
in history, relations which do not merely exist side by side but enter
into a dialectic of negation and transcendence among themselves,
necessarily generating transformations of structures and institutions,
and that sees human individuals precisely as dynamic networks of

personal, social, and natural relations within the conditions set by
society. A concrete social metaphysics will see the work of the Spirit
precisely in the qualities and transformations of social relations in
their dialectic and in their impact on individuals. That traditional
Pneumatology limited itself to the role of the Spirit in the sanctifica-
tion of individuals and at most in the guidance of the ecclesial
magisterium, not also in history and the universe, in concrete social
struggles and our violent relations to often violent nature, has not a
little to do with its lack of a concrete social horizon.
Secondly, the praxis of the Holy Spirit requires a political sense of
history in order to discern the most relevant signs of her work. As
discussed already, human suffering today is more a result of artificial
social structures, institutions, and habits of thought than that of merely
natural disasters. In short, it is politically caused and can be redeemed
only politically in the broad sense of collective human action for the
creation of the common conditions of life. Genuine politics requires
a sense of solidarity with regard to the very alienating conditions in
which we live, the collective responsibility for transforming the con-
ditions, and the ends and values we pursue. As collective praxis for
the improvement of the res publica, politics involves the horizon of
totality and identity. We cannot live as others in common space while
doing our own things. We have to establish minimum totalities or
systems of identity such as laws, institutions, and policies that apply
to all and that will provide basic needs, justice, and culture for all.
Like it or not, we have to think in terms of totalities, often global,
even if we have to act locally. It is indispensable to analyze the impact
of global economic totalities on the welfare of the nation and its
citizens, and arrange measures for such an impact. Apolitical atti-
tudes, often in the name of a postmodernist critique of totality, fail
to take this political dimension seriously. A politically conscious
Pneumatology will discern the signs of the Spirit in the political im-
plications of social change and political responses to them rather than
abdicate the whole realm of politics in the name of human impo-
tence.20
Thirdly, it is imperative to maintain openness and flexibility with
regard to where the signs of the Spirit are to be found. A tendency of
postmodernist and eschatologically oriented pneumatologies is to see
signs of the Spirit only in the new, the unpredictable, the surprising,
the unusual, only in what negates and contradicts human expecta-
tions and labors. It is true that the Spirit as the eschatological dyna-
mism of transformation is especially experienced in the emergence of
the new and unexpected. It is equally true that the new and unex-
pected, if these are to bear concrete fruits in terms of enduring im-
pact on our historical existence, must become institutionalized and
become the basis of a new order that is also stable and dependable.
Human beings cannot live in a Humean universe of pure succession
of unrelated novelties. We should be able to experience the Spirit not
only in the extraordinary and exciting but also in the ordinary and
quotidian where most people live. A Pneumatology of difference
underestimates the existential significance of order and stability, the
ordinary and quotidian, the institutional and affirmative.21
Fourthly, we need to overcome the extreme theological fragmenta-
tion of recent decades. For understandable historical reasons theolo-
gies have become regional theologies in the sense of responding to
the specific context and need of a particular group, whether it be
women, African Americans, Latin Americans, Black women, His-
panic women, or Asian Americans. Each group seeks its own theol-
ogy. Considering that these are traditionally marginalized groups,
and that theology is itself a form of power, it is both urgent and
justifiable that theology too should address their particular needs,
reflect their particular experiences, and encourage their particular
hopes in a hostile world. This has now been going on for some thirty
years. Should this fragmentation continue? Or is it time that theol-
ogy should struggle for a new form of universality that does not cease
to respond to the particular needs of each as long as such needs re-
main but also integrate such needs into a solidarity of Others?
There are important considerations why we need a new paradigm
of theology. One is the increasing interdependence of the social situ-
ation, which makes it impossible for each group to bring about its
own liberation by its own isolated effort; only a coalition of various
groups united by a strong sense of solidarity of Others can bring it
about at all. The other is the recognition of the overlapping character
of identities; I am not only African American, but also a male, not
only a male but also poor, not only poor but also a U.S. citizen, not
only a U.S. citizen but also a Muslim. I embody multiple identities.
I cannot isolate and stress any one of them without suffering the
worst kind of schizophrenia. The third and most important consid-
eration is that theologically, all human beings, regardless of their par-
ticular identity, are children of the same Father in his Son, Jesus Christ.
This is their deepest identity which connects all into a solidarity of

Others in God. No Christian theology is authentically Christian with-
out recognizing this solidarity of theological destiny of all. Even while
pursuing the liberation of a particular group, this solidarity of all
humanity should always be kept in mind.
This is not to argue for a return to the old style universal theology,
which in fact turns out to be just as particular in its Eurocentric,
patriarchal, and clericalist character. The point is rather to struggle
for a new paradigm of theology, in which each not only seeks its own
theology based on its own context and needs but also consciously
seeks to integrate the needs and perspectives of others into one’s own,
especially those of the more oppressed, with the hope that what
emerges in this dialectic of self and other will be less particular and
more universal, not abstractly but concretely. African American the-
ology will integrate both the African American perspective and the
Hispanic perspective into its theology, as white women will seek to
integrate not only their own experiences but also those of African
American, Hispanic, and Asian American women into their theol-
ogy. What emerges in this process of dialogue and integration across
the conventional boundaries will be a theology that reflects the soli-
darity of Others in God.22
Finally, how relevant is this theology of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit
of solidarity to the situation of religious pluralism? Is not such a
thoroughly Christian, quite traditional theology an obstacle to inter-
religious dialogue? Several things can be said in response:
(1) The interreligious situation does not require that religions give
up their particular beliefs, but it does require that each religion pen-
etrate its own tradition deeper and retrieve its own grounds for relat-
ing to and appreciating other religions.23
(2) A dynamic theology of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of solidarity
of Others in God makes it possible for Christians to believe, as Vati-
can II recognizes, that the Holy Spirit is also active in the world, in
other religions and cultures, “offering to every human being the pos-
sibility of being associated with this paschal mystery [of the death
and resurrection of Christ]” but that we do not know yet how she is
present there; this “how” remains “known only to God.”24 There is
no danger of denying the possibility of salvation in other religions.
(3) The actual perceived difference between Christianity and other
religions is not itself an argument for the absence of the Spirit in the
latter. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ, and there cannot be any
contradiction between them in principle. However, even though the

historical Jesus as the Word incarnate does remain the decisive, nor-
mative savior of all humanity, this decisive universal significance is
derived from his hypostatic union with the Word. Insofar as there is
not only identity of person between the human Jesus and the divine
Word but also difference of nature, it is legitimate to say that the
Word cannot be exhaustively identified with all that has been re-
vealed through Jesus. It is possible to think that the Holy Spirit as the
Spirit of Christ may be actualizing different aspects of the Word in
other religions. The difference between Christianity and other reli-
gions, then, is not a contradiction between the Word and the Spirit
as such but a difference between the Word incarnated in the particu-
larity of the human Jesus and other manifestation of the Word brought
about by the Spirit in non-Christian religions. Even though we do
not know yet how different religions may be mutually compatible,
the fellowship of the Word and the Spirit in the immanent Trinity
also gives us hope that they may be compatible and complementary
and that in and through those religions the uniting and reconciling
Spirit is nonetheless working to bring different religions together into
a solidarity of Others in her own mysterious way.
Endnotes
1
I am not happy with some of the existing solutions to the sexism of the traditional
language about the triune God. One solution has been to completely forget about
the Trinity because of the sexism of its traditional language. The trinitarian
doctrine being the heart of the Christian faith, I consider this solution unaccept-
able. Another solution has been to eliminate all personal pronouns and substitute
“God” and “Godself” where such pronouns would have been appropriate. I reject
this solution for its bad style. A third solution has been to refer to the three persons
as creator, redeemer, and sanctifier. I reject this solution for its bad theology; it
fails to convey the sharing of the same divine nature denoted by the biological
metaphor of the “generation” of the Son by the Father, and the consequent
presence of all three persons in all economic activities.
2
See Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom (San Francisco: Harper, 1991),
168-69.
3
For further discussion of the concept of “solidarity of Others,” see my “Dialectical
Pluralism and Solidarity of Others,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion
65 (1997):587-604, and “Solidarity of Others in the Body of Christ,” Toronto
Journal of Theology 12 (1998):239-254.
4
On the role of the Spirit in the Hebrew Bible, see Hans Walter Wolff, Anthropology
of the Old Testament, trans. Margaret Kohl (1974; reprint, Philadelphia: Fortress,
1981), 32-39; Eduard Schweizer, “Spirit of God,” in Bible Key Words, ed.
Gerhard Kittel and trans. Dorothea M. Barton, P. R. Ackroyd, and A. E. Harvey
(New York: Harper & Row, 1961), 3:1-7; Gordon D. Fee, God’s Empowering
Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson,
1994), 904-910.
5
Fee, God’s Empowering Presence, 829-31.
6
John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church
(Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), 110-11.
7
For a detailed overview of the concept of the Spirit in the New Testament, see
Schweizer, “Spirit of God,” 24-108; James D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1970); Fee, God’s Empowering Presence; my essay,
“Renewing the Doctrine of the Spirit: A Prolegomenon,” Perspectives in Religious
Studies 19 (1992): 183-98.
8
Alasdair I. C. Heron, The Holy Spirit (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983), 176.
9
For a thorough historical, biblical, and theological discussion of the concept of the
Holy Spirit as the mutual love of the Father and the Son, see David Coffey, “The
Holy Spirit as the Mutual Love of the Father and the Son,” Theological Studies 5
(1990): 193-229.
10
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (ST), 1, 27,4; 36,1.
11
ST 1, 36, 4.
12
ST 1, 37, 2.
13
ST 1, 38, 1.
14
ST 1, 42, 5.
15
ST 1, 40, 2.
16
The statement that “the Father and the Son love each other by the Holy Spirit” does
not mean, for Aquinas, that the Spirit is either the efficient cause, a sign, or a
formal cause of the mutual love of the Father and the Son; rather, she is the
“formal effect” of that mutual love. See ST 1, 37, 2. It is reasonable, however, to
believe that in the eternal simultaneity of perichoresis such a formal effect also
exercises an impact, however derivative, on the agents themselves, the impact of
reinforcing their mutual love, just as the relations and acts of human love
reinforce and mediate the mutual love of the human agents, although only
analogically.
17
ST 1, 45, 6; 1-2, 109, 1.
18
On the presence of the Holy Spirit in nature, see further Jürgen Moltmann, God
in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God, trans. Margaret
Kohl (1985; reprint, San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991), 98-103.
19
ST 3, 8, 1.
20
An example of an apolitical or even antipolitical Pneumatology, otherwise bril-
liant, is Michael Welker, God the Spirit (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994); see my
review, “Liberation, the Other, and Hegel in Recent Pneumatologies,” Religious
Studies Review 22 (1996): 29-30, and my essay, “Towards a Dialectic of Totality
and Infinity: Reflections on Emmanuel Levinas,” Journal of Religion 78 (1998):
571-592.
21
Min, “Towards a Dialectic of Totality and Infinity: Reflections on Emmanuel
Levinas.”
22
I provide further elaboration of the theology of solidarity of Others in my essay,
“Solidarity of Others in the Body of Christ: A New Theological Paradigm,”
forthcoming from the Toronto Journal of Theology.
23
See my essay, “Dialectical Pluralism and Solidarity of Others: Towards a New
Paradigm,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 65 (1997): 587-604.
24
The Second Vatican Council, The Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the
Modern World, #22.
444 Mark I. Wallace
The Green Face of God:

Recovering the Spirit in an
Ecocidal Era
Mark I. Wallace
I enter a swamp as a sacred place,—a sanctum sanctorum.1
Spirit of God in the clear running water,

blowing to greatness the trees on the hill,
Spirit of God in the finger of morning,
fill the earth, bring it to birth and blow where you will.2
In the beginning [the Spirit] hovers like a great mother bird over
her egg, to hatch the living order of the world out of primordial
chaos (Gen 1:2).3
At the dawn of a new millennium I believe we are witnessing a pro-

found sea change in the spiritual sensibilities of our culture. Many
people now sense that we live in the “age of the Spirit,” a time in
which late twentieth century culture is undergoing a fundamental
shift in its religious sensibilities. The medieval mystic Joachim of
Fiore prophesied that humankind has lived through the periods of
the Father and the Son and has now entered the age of the Spirit.4
Karl Barth mused at the end of his life that the Holy Spirit might
well be the best point of departure for a theology that is right for the
present situation.5 The theorist Ihab Hassan locates the topic of the
“Holy Spirit” along with such themes as “absence,” “difference,” and
“indeterminacy” as distinctly postmodern emphases that challenge
an earlier modernist paradigm.6 Practitioners of nature-based religion,
from native peoples to modern neopagans, claim that a reverence for
the Spirit in all life-forms, from people and animals to trees and wa-
tersheds, is the most promising response to the threat of global eco-
logical collapse at the end of the second millennium.7 There appears
to be an emerging sentiment that the topic of pneumatology is the
right focus for an ecumenical theology that speaks to the spiritual
hopes and desires of our age.
The Green Face of God 445
And yet amidst this renewed religious longing for the Spirit is a
deeply felt theological and cultural pessimism. The origins of this
malaise are many, but I am convinced that one of the root causes of
our corporate anxiety—if not the chief cause—is a profound dis-
quiet about the prospects of the planet for future generations. Few
observers of the contemporary situation doubt that we face today an
ecological crisis of unimaginable proportions. Whether through slow
and steady environmental degradation or the sudden exchange of
nuclear weapons, the specter of ecocide haunts all human and non-
human life that share the resources of our planet home. Many of us
have become numb to the various dimensions of the crisis: acid rain,
ozone depletion, global warming, food-chain pesticides, soil erosion,
mass consumption of nonrenewable fossil fuels, agricultural runoff,
radioactive wastes, overpopulation, deforestation and desertification,
carbon emissions, and loss of habitat.8 In our time nature has been
commodified and domesticated into a piece of real estate; it has be-
come one more consumer item to be bought and sold in order to
maximize profits. Once a source of terror and awe, nature no longer
functions as wild and sacred space for the eruption of the sublime or
the manifestation of transcendence. We have exchanged the power
and mystery of the earth for the invisible hand of the marketplace
and we are all the poorer for it.
These two phenomena—the yearning for the Spirit in religious life
and the cultural anxiety over the environmental crisis—have led many
theologians to a profound awareness of the deep interrelationship
between God and the earth. Could it be that the most compelling
response to the threat of ecocide lies in a recovery of the Holy Spirit
as God’s power of life-giving breath (rûah) who indwells and sustains
all life-forms? Could it be that an earth-centered reenvisioning of the
Spirit as the green face of God in the world is the best grounds for
hope and renewal at a point in human history when our rapacious
appetites seemed destined to destroy the earth?9 In this essay my the-
sis is that hope for a renewed earth is best founded on belief in the
Spirit as the divine force within the cosmos who continually works
to sustain all forms of life. The Nicene (Constantinopolitan) Creed
named the Spirit as “the Lord, the Giver of Life”; the purpose of this
paper is to contemporize this ancient appellation by reenvisioning
the Holy Spirit as God’s invigorating presence within the society of
all living beings. This life-centered model of the Spirit expands the
understanding of the Spirit in terms of its intratrinitarian role (tradi-
446 Mark I. Wallace
tionally expressed as the bond of unity between the Father and the
Son) to include the Spirit’s biocentric role as the power of healing and
renewal within all creation.
Ecological Pneumatology
My methodological approach is rhetorical and exegetical. I do not
attempt to prove the reality of the Spirit here but rather perform a
hermeneutical retrieval of certain biblical tropes of the Spirit in a
manner that is self-reflexively aware of my own commitments and
passions. In this vein I seek to recover a variety of earth-centered
images of the Spirit in the Bible for the purpose of addressing the
environmental crisis we currently face, especially the urban environ-
mental crisis. In conversation with current work in theology and en-
vironmental studies I offer a very particular theology of the Spirit
that uses imaginative-symbolic discourses as well as argumentive-
propositional analyses.10
I believe the Spirit is best understood not as a metaphysical entity
but as a healing life-force which engenders human flourishing as well
as the welfare of the planet. I label this approach “ecological
pneumatology” in order to distinguish it from metaphysically-based
notions of the Spirit characteristic of normative Western thought. I
want this distinction to relocate understandings of the Spirit outside
the philosophical question of being and squarely within a nature-
based desire for the integrity and health of all life-forms—human
and nonhuman. This model understands the Spirit not as divine in-
tellect or the principle of consciousness but as a healing and subver-
sive life-form—as water, light, dove, mother, fire, breath, and wind—
on the basis of different biblical figurations of the Spirit in nature.
Philosophers of consciousness (for example, G. W. F. Hegel) have
bequeathed to contemporary theology a metaphysically-burdened idea
of the Spirit that has little purchase on the role of the Spirit in cre-
ation as the power of unity between all natural kinds. The wager of
this paper is that a rhetorical understanding of the Spirit (beyond the
categories of being) can provide resources for confronting the envi-
ronmental violence that marks our time.
The idea of the Spirit has existed in the borderlands of the acad-
emy since Hegel’s masterful but flawed attempts to subsume all philo-
sophical inquiry under this rubric. Recent studies of the nature of
Spirit (or spirit) have reawakened Hegel’s concern, but both conven-
tional usage of and residual philosophical prejudice against spirit-
language have prevented an overturning of the traditional biases.11

“In Western theology and philosophy the very concept of ‘spirit’ has
for the most part been fraught with difficulties, conveying some-
thing vapid and dualistic, implying a separation of and a hierarchy
between the mental and the physical, the soul and the body, the hu-
man and the natural, the male and the female, the holy and the pro-
fane.”12 Discourse about spirit remains saddled with ethereal and
pejorative connotations, conjuring images of ghosts, phantoms, and
other incorporeal forces; of vaporous clouds and gaseous substances;
of whatever is airy, immaterial, invisible, nonsubstantial, bloodless,
bodiless, passionless, and unearthly.
A nature-based pneumatology challenges these conventional as-
sumptions by figuring the Spirit as a living embodied being who
works for healthy communities within our shared planet home. An
ecological pneumatology that is right for the current crisis will recap-
ture the disorienting freedom of the Spirit as a wild and insurgent
natural force in the healing of human persons’ violence towards na-
ture and one another. As the divine wind in Genesis, the dove in the
Gospels, or the tongues of flame in Acts, the Spirit reveals herself in
the biblical literatures as a life-form who labors to create, sustain, and
renew humans and otherkind in solidarity with one another. An earth-
based understanding of the Spirit will not domesticate the Spirit by
locating her activity simply alongside nature; rather, nature itself in
all its variety will be construed as the primary mode of being for the
Spirit’s work in the world. In this framework, the earth’s waters and
winds and birds and fires will not be regarded only as symbols of the
Spirit but rather as sharing in her very being as the Spirit is enfleshed
and embodied through natural organisms and processes.13
The Green Face of God

In historic Christian thought the work of the Holy Spirit has always
been understood in terms of communion, mutuality, and the over-
coming of divisions. The early Latin Fathers conceived of the Spirit
in the bosom of the Trinity as the divine power that unites the Father
and the Son in a bond of mutual love. Basil of Caesarea wrote that
the Holy Spirit is the agent of inseparable union within the Trinity.
The Spirit labors alongside the Creator and the Redeemer as the
Perfector who strengthens and completes the divine work of salva-
tion in the world.14 Similarly, Augustine analyzed the role of the Spirit
in terms of the vinculum caritatis or the vinculum Trinitatis, the com-
448 Mark I. Wallace
munion that binds the other two members of the Godhead together
in dynamic unity.15 The Spirit enables the mutual indwelling of each
divine person in the other. Moreover, as the bond of peace and love
universal, the Spirit is not only the power of relation between the
other members of the Trinity but also between God and the whole
creation as well.
A vision of the Spirit as the vinculum caritatis elucidates the dis-
tinctive temporality of each member of the Godhead. The trinitarian
actions of each divine person are embedded in particular temporal
structures—present, past, and imperfect—that mediate God’s pas-
sionate concern for the integrity of the earth and its biotic communi-
ties. In the Bible and church tradition, the first person of the Trinity
is represented in the present tense as the God who actively nurtures
and supports all members of the biosphere. The second member of
the Godhead, the Son of God, is definitively figured in the aorist
tense as having acted once-and-for-all to redeem the cosmic order
from its bondage to sorrow through the death and resurrection of
Jesus. Acting in the registry of the imperfect tense, the third member
of the Trinity is portrayed as moving on the earth and sustaining all
living things in solidarity with one another. Each member of the
Trinity acts in its own time: the God who loves is the God who loved
us to the point of death even as this selfsame God continually is
loving toward us in the maintenance of the biosphere’s health and
vitality. God is the God of love whose love for all forms of life is both
manifested in the cross and actively performed on a daily, ongoing
basis as the Spirit invigorates the biota that constitute our common
web of life.
From the perspective of biocentric trinitarian theology, nature is
the enfleshment of God’s sustaining love. As Trinity, God bodies forth
divine compassion for all life-forms in the rhythms of the natural
order. The divine Trinity’s boundless passion for the integrity of all
living things is revealed in God’s preservation of the life-web that is
our common biological inheritance. God as Trinity is set forth in the
Father/Mother God’s creation of the biosphere, the Son’s reconcilia-
tion of all beings to himself, and the Spirit’s gift of life to every mem-
ber of the created order who relies on her beneficence for daily suste-
nance. As creator, God is manifested in the ebb and flow of the sea-
sons whose plantings and harvests are a constant reminder of earth’s
original blessings. As redeemer, God is revealed in the complex inter-
actions of organisms and the earth in mutual sustenance—an economy
of interdependence best symbolized by Jesus’ reconciling work of the

cross. And as sustainer, God shows Godself through breathing the
breath of life into all members of the life-web, a living testimony to
the Divine’s compassion for all things.
God’s presence in the living Christ through the Spirit’s mainte-
nance of the ecosphere is the basis for the greening of trinitarian
theology. The then and there incarnation of God in Jesus is recapitu-
lated in the here and now embodiment of the Spirit in the world
which hearkens back to the originary Mother God’s birthing of order
out of chaos. This trinitarian enfleshment of God in nature repre-
sents a tripartite movement. The first move to an embodied doctrine
of God is signaled by the inaugural hymn of Genesis where the Cre-
ator Spirit (rûah) breathes the world into existence and thereby
enfleshes itself in the creation and maintenance of the natural order.
The embodiment of the divine life in Jesus—an earth creature like
Adam who is fashioned from the muck and mire of the soil—is the
second move toward a nature-centered model of the Godhead. And
the perichoretic union of Jesus in the Spirit—like Jesus, an earth
being as well but now figured in the biblical tropes of water, dove,
fire, and wind—represents the third move toward a biophilic notion
of God. It is the move to embodiment—the procession of Godself
into the biotic realm that sustains all life—that is the basis for unity
within the Godhead. In perichoresis, God as Trinity subsists in inter-
personal unity through incarnating itself in all things that swim, creep,
crawl, run, fly, and grow upon the earth.
The understanding of the Spirit as a life-form intrinsically related
to nature emphasizes a generally neglected model of the Spirit in the
history of Western theology. In theory, the Spirit has always been
defined as both the Spirit of God and the Spirit of creation. As the
Spirit of God, the Spirit is the power of reciprocity between the first
two persons of the Trinity, on the one hand, and the interior power
of redemption within human beings, on the other. And as the Spirit
of creation, the Spirit has been defined as the breath of God who
indwells and sustains the cosmos. In practice, however, the Spirit has
been almost exclusively understood as the Spirit of God; the stress
has fallen on its roles as the source of consubstantiality within the
Godhead and the divine agent of human salvation. The result is that
the biocentric role of the Spirit as the power of life-giving breath
within creation, including nonhuman as well as human creation, has
been consistently downplayed.16
450 Mark I. Wallace
This long-standing deemphasis on the Spirit’s ecological identity is

remarkable given the abundance of imagery about the Spirit drawn
from the natural world within the Bible. Indeed, the body of sym-
bolism that is arguably most central to the scriptural portraiture of
the Spirit is suffused with nature imagery. Consider the following
tropes for the Spirit within the Bible: the vivifying breath that ani-
mates all living things (Gen 1:2, Ps 104:29-30), the healing wind
that brings power and salvation to those it indwells (Judg 6:34, John
3:6, Acts 2:1-4), the living water that quickens and refreshes all who
drink from its eternal springs (John 4:14, 7:37-38), the purgative fire
that alternately judges evildoers and ignites the prophetic mission of
the early church (Acts 2:1-4, Matt 3:11-12), and the divine dove,
with an olive branch in its mouth, that brings peace and renewal to a
broken and divided world (Gen 8:11, Matt 3:16, John 1:32).17 These
nature-based descriptions of the Spirit are the basis of my attempt to
shift the theological focus back to the Spirit as the Spirit of creation.
Such a focus neither denigrates nor ignores the normative under-
standing of the Spirit’s other roles as the power of relationship be-
tween the Father and Son or as the agent of human sanctification
within the history of salvation. Rather, this emphasis on the Spirit’s
cosmic identity as the divine breath who interanimates all other life-
forms readdresses our attention to the Spirit’s work in all realms of
life—which includes, but is not limited to, the inner life of God and
salvation-history. Part of the burden of this essay, then, is to shift the
weight of theological emphasis away from understanding the Spirit
either theocentrically or anthropocentrically toward an explicitly
biocentric model of the Spirit in nature.
The Wounded Spirit

To reconceive the Spirit as the enfleshment of God’s sustaining power
in the biosphere is to emphasize the coinherence of the Spirit and the
natural world. Whether manifesting herself as a living, breathing or-
ganism like a dove, or an inanimate life-form, such as wind or fire,
the Spirit indwells nature as its interanimating force in order to lead
all creation into a peaceable relationship with itself. Spirit and earth
internally condition and permeate one another; both modes of being
coinhere through and with one another without collapsing into un-
differentiated sameness or equivalence. The reciprocal indwelling of
Spirit and earth is neither an absorption of the one into the other nor
a confusion of the two. By the same token, this mutual indwelling is
not an outward and transitory connection between the two realities

but rather an internal and abiding union of the two in a common life
together. Insofar as the Spirit abides in and with all living things,
Spirit and earth are inseparable and yet at the same time distinguish-
able. Spirit and earth are internally indivisible because both modes of
being are living realities with the common goal of sustaining other
life-forms. But Spirit and earth also possess their own distinctive iden-
tities insofar as the Spirit is the unseen power who vivifies and sus-
tains all living things while the earth is the visible agent of the life
that pulsates throughout creation.18
Under the control of this dialectic, the earth is the body of the
Spirit. Metaphorically speaking, God as Spirit corporealizes Godself
through her interanimation of the biosphere. In breathing life into
humankind and otherkind a fundamental transformation within
Godself occurs: God is fully incarnated in the green fuse that drives
all forms of life to their natural fruition in a carnival of praise to the
Creator Spirit. As once God became human in the body of Jesus so
continually God enfleshes Godself in the embodied reality of life on
earth. Quintessentially, then, both Spirit and earth are life-givers: the
Spirit ensouls the earth with the quickening breath of divine life and
the earth enfleshes the Spirit as it offers spiritual and physical suste-
nance to all living things. The Spirit inhabits the earth as its invisible
and life-giving breath (rûah), and the earth (gaia) is the outward
manifestation, the body, as it were, of the Spirit’s presence within,
and maintenance of, all life-forms.19
This proposal for an ecological pneumatology of internal related-
ness presents an extraordinary challenge to the traditional Aristote-
lian and early Christian doctrine of God as an unchangeable and
self-subsistent being fundamentally unaffected by the creation God
has spun into existence.20 One intriguing but troubling implication
of ecological pneumatology, therefore, is that it places the divine life
at risk in a manner that an extrinsic doctrine of the Spirit vis-à-vis
the earth does not. The theological problem is that if Spirit and earth
mutually indwell one another then it appears that God as Spirit is vul-
nerable to serious loss and trauma just insofar as the earth is abused and
despoiled. In an earth-centered model of the Spirit, God is a thor-
oughgoing incarnational reality who decides in freedom, and not by
any internal necessity, to indwell all things. But in making this deci-
sion the Spirit places herself at risk by virtue of her coinherence with
a continually degraded biosphere. God, then, is so internally related
452 Mark I. Wallace
to the universe that the specter of ecocide raises the risk of deicide: to
wreak environmental havoc on the earth is to run the risk that we
will do irreparable harm to the Love and Mystery we call God. The
wager of this model is that while God and world are not identical to
one another, their basic unity and common destiny raises the possi-
bility that ongoing assaults against the earth’s biotic communities
may eventually result in permanent injury to the divine life itself.
Moltmann’s The Crucified God (and the wealth of similar books it
spawned on the topic of divine suffering) argues that God in Jesus
suffers the godforsaken death of the cross.21 In antitheopaschite terms,
the cross does not signify the “death of God” but rather the death of
Jesus as a terrifying event of loss and suffering within the inner life of
Godself. The cross is not an instance of God dying but an event in
Godself where the divine life takes into itself the death of the godless
son of God crucified for the sins of the world. In the cross God now
becomes radically discontinuous with Godself by taking up the cru-
cified one. Moltmann maintains:
[W]hat happened on the cross was an event between God and God.
It was a deep division in God himself, insofar as God abandoned
God and contradicted himself, and at the same time a unity in God,
insofar as God was at one with God and corresponded to himself.
In that case one would have to put the formula in a paradoxical way:
God died the death of the godless on the cross and yet did not die.
God is dead and yet is not dead.22
In the cross God splits Godself by incorporating the godless death of

Jesus into the inner life of the Godhead. In this rift caused by Jesus’
death God now undergoes a permanent and fundamental change by
becoming a willing victim of death itself.
As Jesus’ death on the cross brought death and loss into Godself so
the Spirit’s suffering from persistent environmental trauma engen-
ders chronic agony in the Godhead. From the perspective of ecologi-
cal pneumatology, Moltmann’s “crucified God” has a double valence:
death enters the inner life of God through the cross of Jesus even as
the prospect of ecological mass death enters the life of God through
the Spirit’s communion with a despoiled planet. Because this trauma
deeply grieves the Spirit she pleads with God’s people to nurture and
protect the fragile bioregions we all inhabit. Paul writes that human
arrogance causes the whole creation to groan in agony as it waits for
deliverance; he continues that as creation sighs in pain the Spirit on
our behalf likewise groans in sounds too deep for words—interced-

ing on our behalf that God’s love for all creation will be consum-
mated (Romans 8:18-39). In the midst of the current crisis the cre-
ated order groans under the weight of humankind’s habitual
ecoviolence; in turn the Spirit intensely beseeches us to care for our
planetary heritage. God as Spirit agonizes over the squalor we have
caused and through her abiding earthly presence implores us to stop
the violence before it is too late.
From this viewpoint, as the God who knows death through the
cross of Jesus is the crucified God, so also is the Spirit who enfleshes
divine presence in nature the wounded Spirit. Jesus’ body was in-
scribed with the marks of human sin even as God’s enfleshed pres-
ence—the earth body of the Spirit—is lacerated by continued as-
saults upon our planet home. Consider the sad parallels between the
crucified Jesus and our debased planet: the lash marks of human sin
cut into the body of the crucified God are now even more graphi-
cally displayed across the expanse of the whole planet as the body of
the wounded Spirit bears the incisions of further abuse. God is the
wounded Spirit even as God is the crucified Christ—as God suffered
on a tree by taking onto Godself humankind’s sin so God continu-
ally suffers the agony of death and loss by bringing into Godself the
environmental squalor that humankind has wrought.
The Spirit in the Killing Fields of Urban America

I have suggested that we refer to the Spirit in our time as the “wounded
Spirit” who, like Christ, takes into herself the burden of human sin
and the deep ecological damage this sin has wrought in the biosphere.
But as Christ’s wounds become the eucharistic blood that nourishes
the believer so also does the Spirit’s agony over damage to the earth
become a source of hope for communities facing seemingly hopeless
environmental destitution. The message of the cross is that senseless
death is not foreign to God because it is through the cross that God
lives in solidarity with all who suffer. The promise of new life that
flows from the suffering God hanging from a tree is recapitulated in
the ministry of the wounded Spirit whose solidarity with a broken
world is a token of divine forbearance and love. Hope, then, for a
restored earth in our time is theologically rooted in the belief in the
Spirit’s benevolent cohabitation with all of the damaged and forgot-
ten members of the biosphere—human and nonhuman alike. The
Spirit’s abiding presence in a world wracked by human greed is a
454 Mark I. Wallace
constant reminder that God desires the welfare of all members of the
life-web—indeed, that no population of life-forms is beyond the ken
of divine love, no matter how serious, even permanent, the ecologi-
cal damage is to these biotic communities. And yet a Spirit-centered
and earth-centered basis for this hope is difficult to sustain on a planet
scarred by savage violence. Such hope is difficult to sustain when
one’s bioregion is under daily assault by ravenous demonic forces
that labor to destroy hope through the politics of despair. Such is the
case in the bioregion where I live, in close proximity to the city of
Chester, Pennsylvania, nearby my home and the college where I teach.
I remember well my first visit to the west end of the city of Chester
a couple of years ago. Chester, a postindustrial city just outside Phila-
delphia, was known by me at the time as notorious for its chronic
environmental problems, and I had traveled there to see first hand
the nature of its difficulties. The first thing I noticed upon arriving
in Chester was the smell: waves of noxious fumes enveloped me like
the stench of rotting meat. Next I felt the bone-jarring rumble of
giant eighteen-wheel trash trucks, dozens of trucks from all over the
mid-atlantic and eastern seaboard, bearing down on the residential
streets on which I was walking with tons of trash—trash which I
knew contained everything from toxic chemicals and contaminated
soil to sewage sludge and body parts. Then I remember looking to
the horizon and seeing the destination of these terrible truck con-
voys: a line of giant chemical and waste processing plants belching
putrid smoke—like Blake’s dark Satanic Mills—tightly interspersed
among the homes and churches and businesses of Chester residents.
I was then and remain now overwhelmed by the bald injustice of
siting these plants in a residential area. Since the time of this visit I
have asked myself what is the role of an earth-centered faith in the
Spirit—in short, what is the role of green spirituality—in resisting
and combatting the injustice done to the people, and the wider bio-
sphere, of Chester.
Many local economies in urban and rural America today are de-
pendent upon the production and management of toxic wastes. In
economically distressed communities the promise of a stabilized tax
base, improved infrastructure, and jobs for underemployed residents
is almost impossible to resist. The waste management industry offers
an immediate quick-fix to chronic poverty and instability in declin-
ing cities and neighborhoods that can no longer attract government
and private investment. The price for allowing the storage and treat-
ment of biohazardous materials in one’s community may be long-

term environmental problems. But people in the grip of poverty and
joblessness have few options when their very survival, materially speak-
ing, is contingent upon the construction of a trash incinerator or
chemical dump in their neighborhood.
Corporate investors know a good thing when they see it. Waste
management facilities cannot be sited where politically empowered
middle- and upper-class residents will fight through the courts the
establishment of such facilities. Close proximity to hazardous indus-
tries immediately depresses property values in residential areas where
virtually no one wants to risk endangering his or her physical and
economic well being by allowing such a liability to be built in their
own backyard. And in those rare instances where such facilities have
come on line in high-income areas the residents have the means and
mobility to “‘vote with their feet’ and move away from a high risk
place of residence.”23
Chester is an impoverished, predominantly African-American com-
munity in an almost all-white suburb, Delaware County. Its median
family income is 45% lower than the rest of Delaware County; its
poverty rate is 25%, more than three times the rate in the rest of
Delaware County; and its unemployment rate is 30%. Chester has
the highest infant mortality rate and the highest percentage of low-
weight births in the state.24 In the light of its alarmingly bad public
health, Chester would appear to be the last place to build a constella-
tion of hazardous facilities. Nevertheless, three waste and treatment
plants recently have been built on a square-mile site surrounded by
homes and parks in a low-income neighborhood in Chester. The
facilities include the American Ref-Fuel trash-to-steam incinerator,
the Delcora sewage-treatment plant, and the Thermal Pure Systems
medical-waste autoclave. A fourth waste processing plant devoted to
treating PCB contaminated soil has recently received a construction
permit. The clustering of waste industries only a few yards from a
large residential area has made worse the high rate of asthma and
other respiratory and health problems in Chester; it has brought about
an infestation of rodents, the impact of five-hundred trucks a day at
all hours into the neighborhood, soot and dust covering even the
insides of people’s homes, and waves of noxious odors that have made
life unbearable.25 In a landmark health study of the environmental
degradation of Chester, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
found that lead poisoning is a significant health problem for the
456 Mark I. Wallace
majority of Chester children; that toxic air emissions have raised the
specter of cancer to two-and-a-half times greater than the average
risk for area residents; and that the fish in Chester waters are hope-
lessly contaminated with PCB’s from current and previous industrial
abuses.26
The EPA study has made public what many Chester residents have
long known: the unequal dumping of municipal wastes in Chester
has permanently undermined the health and well being of its popu-
lation. Chester is a stunning example of environmental racism. 100%
of all municipal solid waste in Delaware County is burned at the
incinerator; 90% of all sewage is treated at the Delcora plant; and
close to a hundred tons of hospital waste per day from a half-dozen
nearby states is sterilized at the Thermal Pure plant.27 As Jerome Balter,
a Philadelphia environmental lawyer puts it, “When Delaware County
passes an act that says all of the waste has to come to the city of
Chester, that is environmental racism.”28 Or as Peter Kostmayer,
former congressman and head of the EPA’s midatlantic region says,
high levels of pollution in Chester would “not have happened if this
were Bryn Mawr, Haverford or Swarthmore [nearby well-to-do white
suburbs]. I think we have to face the fact that the reason this hap-
pened is because this city is largely—though not all—African Ameri-
can, and a large number of its residents are people of low income.”29
Chester has become a “local sacrifice zone” where the disproportionate
pollution from its waste-industrial complex is tolerated because of the
promise of economic revitalization.30 But the promise of dozens of jobs
and major funds for the immediate areas around the existing toxics
industries have never materialized. Indeed, of the $20 million the
incinerator pays to local governments in taxes only $2 million goes
to Chester while $18 million goes to Delaware County.31
Chester is Delaware County’s sacrifice zone. The surrounding
middle-class, white neighborhoods would never allow for the sys-
tematic over-exposure of their citizens to such a toxics complex. The
health and economic impact of siting even one of the facilities now
housed in Chester would likely be regarded as too high a risk. But to
build a whole cluster of such complexes in nearby Chester is another
matter. Nevertheless, many in Chester have tried to fight back against
this exercise in environmental apartheid. The Chester Residents Con-
cerned for Quality Living, led by community activist (or as she pre-
fers, “reactivist”) Zulene Mayfield, has used nonviolent resistance
tactics—mass protests, monitoring of emissions levels, protracted
court actions, and so forth—to block the expansion of the complex.

In opposition to the granting of a permit for operation for the fourth
waste facility to be built in the area, the Soil Remediation plant, the
former mayor of Chester, Barbara Bohannan-Sheppard, concluded
her remarks at a public hearing with the following: “Chester should
not and will not serve as a dumping ground. A dumping ground for
what no other borough, no other township, or no other city will
accept. Yes, Chester needs the taxes, Chester needs the jobs. But,
Chester also needs to improve its image and not be a killing field.”32
Hope is not lost in Chester. There is a growing awareness of the in-
justice being done to low-income, often minority communities that
have suffered from the unequal distribution of environmental haz-
ards in their neighborhoods. Bill Clinton has signed an executive
order mandating all federal agencies to ensure the equitable location
of polluting industries across race and economic lines.33 And recently
the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled that the
Chester Residents organization has the legal right to file a class ac-
tion lawsuit against the Department of Environmental Protection
charging that the DEP violated their civil rights by clustering a series
of waste-processing facilities in their neighborhood.34
What role if any can green spirituality play in the struggle against
environmental racism in areas such as Chester, Pennsylvania? What
is the place of the wounded Spirit, the green face of God, in the
struggle for environmental equity in neighborhoods that bear a dis-
proportionate and unfair burden for society’s pollution? In response,
it should first be noted that few people see it in their interests to
express solidarity with disadvantaged communities that have suffered
the brunt of unequal distribution of environmental risks. Many people
have become inured to the gradual environmental degradation of
their home and work environments and most likely consider the de-
velopment of occasional toxic “sacrifice zones” and “killing fields” to
be a tragic but necessary result of modern technological life and its
attendant creature comforts. If everyone has the right to pursue his
or her own material self-interests, and if some persons are better able
to do this than others due in part to their family or national origin,
socio-economic class, and so forth, then it follows that some disad-
vantaged groups will be marginalized in the human struggle for in-
creased wealth, security, and power. Green spirituality challenges this
self-centered assumption by affirming instead that all persons are
fundamentally equal and that everyone has the right to family stabil-
458 Mark I. Wallace
ity and meaningful work in a healthy environment regardless of one’s

racial, cultural, economic, or sexual identity. Green spirituality af-
firms the common interdependence of all persons with each other—in-
deed, of all species with each other—as we all struggle to protect the
integrity of the life-web that holds together our planet home.35 Insofar as
the Spirit breathes into and sustains life for all members of the web,
green religion testifies to the bond of unity that unites all God’s chil-
dren together on a sacred earth. As the participants of the First Na-
tional People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit put it:
“Environmental justice affirms the sacredness of Mother Earth, eco-
logical unity and the interdependence of all species, and the right to
be free from ecological destruction.”36 Thus, earth-centered religion
values the interconnections between all members of the biosphere in
contradistinction to the egoistic ideal of maximizing self-interest.
Conclusion
In the struggle against environmental injustice green spirituality can
serve an important role: the inculcation of an empowering vision in
which all forms of life subsist together in mutual interdependence
through the agency of the Spirit. I believe this vision of a green earth
infused by the wounded Spirit’s love for all creation can sustain com-
munities of resistance over the long haul. While this model cannot
directly fund the material needs of antitoxics campaigns, it can fire
the imagination and empower the will as members of embattled com-
munities seek to end the inequitable dumping of hazards and toxins
in their neighborhoods. The study and use of fact sheets and health
reports alone is not enough to enable the struggle over the long term
and in the face of overwhelming odds. By motivating all of the par-
ticipants to better understand their interdependence on one another—
to envision the common bond between rich and poor, cityfolk and
suburbanites, anglos and people of color, humankind and otherkind–
green religion provides the attitudinal resources necessary for endur-
ing commitments to combatting environmental racism and injus-
tice.
One of the many ironies of Christian faith is the belief that out of
death comes life, from loss and suffering comes the possibility of
hope and renewal. This irony is symbolized in the Creator’s empty-
ing of herself in creation so that all beings may enjoy fullness of life;
in Jesus’ crucifixion where the spilling of his life blood becomes the
opportunity for all persons to experience the fullness of new life in
him; and in the Spirit’s kenotic coinherence with the earth and con-
comitant willingness to endure our ecological violence so that we can
be offered again and again the chance to change our habits and reen-
ter the sorority of the earth and her Creator. Our rapacious habits
daily wound afresh the Earth Spirit who breathes life into all things;
and daily the Earth Spirit intercedes for us and protects us by allow-
ing us to remain richly alive in spite of our behavior to the contrary.
The Spirit in and through the body of the earth groans in travail over
our addictions to ecoviolence. But in her wounds we have life be-
cause it is in the wounded Spirit that we see God’s love overabundant
and outpouring on our behalf. In her wounds we see God’s refusal to
remain aloof from creation—apathetic, unmoved, uncaring—just in-
sofar as God decided to enflesh herself in all of the processes and life-
forms that constitute life as we know it. We continue unabated in
our ravaging of the earth body of the one who has given herself for us
so that we might live. But to this point the Spirit has not withdrawn
her sustaining presence from the planet—a reminder to us that God
is a lover of all things bodily and earthly—and a call to a renewed
passion on our part for nurturing and protecting the biosphere that
is our common inheritance and common home.
Endnotes
1
Henry David Thoreau, “Walking,” in The Norton Book of Nature Writing, ed.
Robert Finch and John Elder (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1990),
183.
2
East African Medical Missionary Sisters, “Invocation,” in Earth Prayers: From
Around the World, 365 Prayers, Poems, and Invocations for Honoring the Earth, ed.
Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco,
1991), 177.
3
Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological
Discourse (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 134.
4
See the analysis of Joachim’s tripartite theology of history in George H. Tavard,
“Apostolic Life and Church Reform,” in Christian Spirituality: High Middle Ages
and Reformation, ed. Jill Raitt (New York: Crossroad, 1987), 1-11.
5
See Eberhard Busch, Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts,
trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), 494.
6
Ihab Hassan, quoted in David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1990), 42-45.
7
7See Margot Adler, Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worship-
pers, and Other Pagans in America Today (rev. ed.; Boston: Beacon, 1986).
8
See Bill McKibben, The End of Nature (New York: Random House, 1989), and
Jeremy Rifkin, Biosphere Politics: A Cultural Odyssey from the Middle Ages to the
New Age (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 71-91.
460 Mark I. Wallace
9
My position is that an ecological recovery of the Spirit is the best theological model
for changing the attitudes that lead to violence against the earth. Sallie McFague’s
recent work is similarly optimistic about a pneumatological approach to
ecotheology. In her earlier work, however, McFague argued that the model of
God as Spirit is not retrievable in an ecological age. She criticized traditional
descriptions of the Spirit as ethereal and vacant, and concluded that Spirit-
language is an inadequate resource for the task of earth-healing because such
language is “amorphous, vague, and colorless.” See Models of God: Theology for an
Ecological, Nuclear Age (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 169-72. But in her recent
writing McFague performs the very retrieval of pneumatology she had earlier
claimed to be impossible: a revisioning of God as Spirit in order to thematize the
immanent and dynamic presence of the divine life within all creation. See The
Body of God: An Ecological Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 141-50. For
an appreciation and critique of McFague’s ecotheology see my Fragments of the
Spirit: Nature, Violence, and the Renewal of Creation (New York: Continuum,
1996), 139-44. Some of the material in this section of my paper is borrowed from
Fragments of the Spirit.
10
Martin Heidegger maintains that any mode of inquiry into “first principles” is
liable to the charge of begging the question. He continues, however, that such
fundamental inquiry is not viciously circular whenever the inquirer makes clear
the provisional answers she always already presupposes in response to the
questions at issue. For Heidegger the question of Being cannot be approached in
a manner entirely divorced from the presumptions of the inquirer. Rather, the
critical awareness of such presumptions productively enables fundamental in-
quiry in the first place. Philosophy, then, is a hermeneutical investigation into
what the inquirer tacitly regards to be the structures of lived experience rather
than a presuppositionless attempt to prove certain apodictic truths as incorrigibly
certain. Heidegger’s method makes theological sense as well. The problem of the
Spirit in Christian thought is a “first principle” question akin to the interrogation
of Being in hermeneutic philosophy. While the material focus of this inquiry is
different (the reality of the Spirit in Christian witness should not be conflated
with the question of Being in general philosophy) the structural agreement
between both fields of inquiry is noteworthy: thinking toward first principles in
hermeneutical disciplines should begin with one’s tacit assumptions about such
principles and avoid the temptation of commencing thought from a neutral
starting-point. See Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie
and Edward Robinson (from the 7th German ed.;New York: Harper & Row,
1962), 24-35.
11
A number of recent texts have initiated recoveries of discourse about “spirit,” “the
Spirit” or “the spiritual” in a variety of genres. In theology, see José Comblin, The
Holy Spirit and Liberation, trans. Paul Burns (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books,
1989), D. Lyle Dabney, “What is the Task of Theology Now?” unpublished
paper, 1995, Peter C. Hodgson, Winds of the Spirit: A Constructive Christian
Theology (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1994), Chung Hyun-Kyung,
“Welcome the Spirit; Hear Her Cries: The Holy Spirit, Creation, and the Culture
of Life,” Christianity and Crisis 51 (1991): 220-23, Elizabeth A. Johnson, She
Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York:
Crossroad, 1992), Mark McClain-Taylor, “Tracking Spirit: Theology as Cul-
tural Critique in America,” in Changing Conversations: Religious Reflection and
Cultural Analysis, ed. Dwight N. Hopkins and Sheila Greeve Davaney (New
York: Routledge, 1996), Anselm Min, “Liberation, The Other, and Hegel in
Recent Pneumatologies,” Religious Studies Review 22 (1996): 28-33, Jürgen
Moltmann, God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God,
trans. Margaret Kohl (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), Moltmann, The
Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1992), Moltmann, The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology
of Life, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), Geiko Müller-
Fahrenholz, God’s Spirit: Transforming a World in Crisis, trans. John Cumming
(New York: Continuum, 1995), Mark I. Wallace, Fragments of the Spirit: Nature,
Violence, and the Renewal of Creation (New York: Continuum, 1996), and
Michael Welker, God the Spirit, trans. John F. Hoffmeyer (Minneapolis: For-
tress, 1994); in philosophy, see Jacques Derrida, Of Spirit: Heidegger and the
Question, trans. Geoffrey Bennington and Rachel Bowlby (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1989), Derrida, Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work
of Mourning, and the New International, trans. Peggy Kampf (New York:
Routledge, 1994), and Steven G. Smith, The Concept of the Spiritual: An Essay in
First Philosophy (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988); and in cultural
studies, see Joel Kovel, History and Spirit: An Inquiry into the Philosophy of
Liberation (Boston: Beacon, 1991).
12
Hodgson, Winds of the Spirit, 276.
13
A note on some issues of style. I have capitalized “Spirit” throughout in order to
distinguish the divine personality (Holy Spirit or Spirit of the Lord) from other
similar spirit-term significations (spirit of the times, public spirit, and so forth).
I also use the female pronoun for the Spirit in order rhetorically to realize aspects
of the transgressive freedom the Spirit promises, including the freedom to
complicate and confuse her/his/its gender. This complication is not original to
me: grammatically speaking, the term for Spirit in Hebrew is feminine (rûah),
neuter in Greek (pneuma), and masculine in Latin (spiritus) and its derivative
Romance languages. On the history of woman-identified language for the Spirit,
see Gary Steven Kinkel, Our Dear Mother the Spirit: An Investigation of Count
Zinzendorf’s Theology and Praxis (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America,
1990), and Johnson, She Who Is, 128-31. Finally, I refer to divine, human, and
nonhuman realities simultaneously as “life-forms” or “natural beings” in order to
signal the value of construing all entities as interdependent members of a
common biotic community.
14
Basil of Caesarea De Spiritu Sancto 16.
15
Augustine De Trinitate 15.
16
There are notable exceptions to this general orientation (for example, Hyun-
Kyung, Johnson, Moltmann, Müller-Fahrenholz, Welker), but most other
contemporary theologies of the Holy Spirit generally deemphasize, or ignore
altogether, the model of the Spirit as God’s mode of ecological renewal and
healing within the cosmos. This shortcoming applies to a number of otherwise
invaluable books in pneumatology, including Hendrikus Berkhof, Theologie des
Heiligen Geistes (2d ed.; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1988), Yves M. J.
Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, trans. Geoffrey Chapman, 3 vols. (New York:
Seabury, 1983), George S. Hendry, The Holy Spirit in Christian Theology
462 Mark I. Wallace
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1965), Alasdair I. C. Heron, The Holy Spirit: The
Holy Spirit in the Bible, the History of Christian Thought, and Recent Theology
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983), G. W. H. Lampe, God as Spirit (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1977), and John V. Taylor, The Go-Between God: The Holy Spirit and
the Christian Mission (London: SCM, 1972). As well, the writings on the Spirit
in the important systematic theologies of authors such as Barth, Rahner, and
Tillich reflect a similar lacuna, though this oversight is understandable given the
general lack of cultural awareness of the ecocrisis at the time these authors were
writing. (This anachronistic qualification applies to some of the other writers
listed above as well.)
17
My basic source for a life-centered portrait of the Spirit is the Bible. I use the
scriptures to craft a postmetaphysical model of the Spirit in the struggle for
ecological renewal. In Fragments of the Spirit I note, however, that since the Bible
is in travail over its depictions of the Spirit—the Spirit is alternately portrayed as
healing and life-giving, on the one hand, and as capricious and judgmental, on
the other—a biblically-informed pneumatology must guard against an overly
positive and one-sided view of the Spirit’s ministry of renewal and reconciliation.
Throughout the scriptures the Spirit is generally figured as empowering persons
and communities to live in solidarity with the poor and oppressed. But this is not
the whole story when it comes to the Spirit in the Bible. In Judges, for example,
the Spirit is presented as a vengeful power who inspires Israel’s wars against its
aggressors (pace Welker, God the Spirit, 56 passim). And in Acts the Spirit is
similarly portrayed as a terrifying judge who condemns to death two renegade
disciples, Ananias and Sapphira, for their lying and disobedience. A well-rounded
understanding of the Spirit for our time must account for the Spirit’s Janus-faced
role as both healing, and exacerbating, the plight of victims within the stories of
the Bible. Unfortunately, however, the virtual absence of discussion about this
double-edged portrait of the Holy Spirit in the current literature is symptomatic,
I fear, of a studied ignorance concerning the “dark side” of the Spirit within
contemporary theology.
18
My understanding of the union of Spirit and earth follows the dialectical logic of
Christ’s two natures reciprocally indwelling one another—without confusion or
division—formulated in the Creed of Chalcedon (451 C.E.). This logic became
the basis of the scholastic doctrine of perichoresis, the mutual interrelationship of
each member of the Trinity in one another. My suggestion is that we consider
expanding the Chalcedonian formula classically applied to Christ’s two natures
and the mutual, inner life of the three members of the Godhead to the wider
economic relationship between the Spirit and the earth: even as the one person
of Christ possesses two natures, divine and human, and the three persons of the
Trinity are united in perichoretic harmony, so also do the two realities of Spirit
and earth reciprocally interpenetrate one another and continually share one
common life together. Perichoresis, therefore, not only explains the intrinsic
relationships within the Godhead but also the broader economic relationship of
God as Spirit to the whole biosphere.
19
See Jürgen Moltmann’s The Spirit of Life, 274-89, and his model of the Spirit as
the vita vivificans who sustains all creation, and James E. Lovelock’s Gaia: A New
Look at Life on Earth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979) in defense of the
model of the earth as a single living organism which supports all life-forms within
a common ecosystem. Regarding the problems with Moltmann’s nature theol-
ogy, see my “The Wild Bird Who Heals: Recovering the Spirit in Nature,”
Theology Today 50 (1993): 13-28.
20
See McFague’s case that traditional theology has been dominated by a dualistic and
monarchical model of God in which God was seen as both in control of, and
unrelated to, the world in a manner similar to a medieval king’s relationship to
his feudal possessions, and her corollary argument that an organic or bodily
understanding of God is a much needed counterpoint to the regnant monarchical
model, in The Body of God.
21
See inter alia Edward Farley, Divine Empathy: A Theology of God (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1996), Joseph Halloran, The Descent of God: Divine Suffering in History
and Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), and Grace Jantzen, God’s World and
God’s Body (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984).
22
Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God, trans. R. A. Wilson and John Bowden (New
York: Harper & Row, 1974), 244.
23
Bob Edwards, “With Liberty and Environmental Justice For All: The Emergence
and Challenge of Grassroots Environmentalism in the United States,” in Ecologi-
cal Resistance Movements: The Global Emergence of Radical and Popular Envi-
ronmentalism, ed. Bron Raymond Taylor (Albany: SUNY, 1995), 37. On the
challenge of urban environmentalism also see Robert Gottlieb, Forcing the Spring:
The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement (Washington:
Island, 1993), and Carolyn Merchant, Radical Ecology: The Search for a Livable
World (New York: Routledge, 1992).
24
I have drawn this information from “Chester Decides It’s Tired of Being a
Wasteland,” Philadelphia Inquirer 26 (July, 1994); and Chester Residents
Concerned for Quality Living, “Environmental Justice Fact Sheet” and “Pollu-
tion and Industry in Chester’s ‘West End,’” pamphlets. I am grateful to
Swarthmore College students Laird Hedlund and Ryan Peterson for making
available to me their expertise and research concerning the Chester waste
facilities.
25
Maryanne Voller, “Everyone Has Got to Breathe,” Audubon (March-April, 1995).
26
Editorial, “Chester a Proving Ground,” Delaware County Daily Times 8 (Decem-
ber, 1994), and “EPA Cites Lead in City Kids, Bad Fish,” Delaware County Daily
Times 2 (December, 1994).
27
Maryanne Voller, “Everyone Has Got to Breathe,” Audubon (March-April, 1995),
and Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living, “Environmental Justice
Fact Sheet,” pamphlet.
28
Voller, Delaware County Times, 1 August 1995.
29
Howard Goodman, “Politically Incorrect,” The Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine,
11 February 1996.
30
The phrase belongs to Carolyn Merchant, Radical Ecology, 163.
31
Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living, “Pollution and Industry in
Chester’s ‘West End,’” pamphlet.
32
Barbara Bohannan-Sheppard, “Remarks” (Department of Environmental Re-
sources Public Hearing, 17 February 1994, transcript).
33
Bill Clinton, Executive Order Number 12898, February 1995; cf. Gretchen Leslie
and Colleen Casper, “Environmental Equity: An Issue for the 90s?” Environmen-
tal Insight, 1995.
464 Mark I. Wallace
34
“Minority Areas Gain in Suit on Waste Sites,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 1 January
1998.
35
For further development on this point see my “Environmental Justice,
Neopreservationism, and Sustainable Spirituality,” in The Ecological Commu-
nity: Environmental Challenges for Philosophy, Politics, and Morality, ed. Roger S.
Gottlieb (New York: Routledge, 1997), 292-310.
36
The First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, “Prin-
ciples of Environmental Justice,” in This Sacred Earth: Religion, Nature, Environ-
ment, ed. Roger S. Gottlieb (New York: Routledge, 1996), 634.
Spirit and the

Cunning of Diversity:
A Response to Anselm Min and
Mark Wallace
Nancy M. Victorin-Vangerud
We come to the final response and discussion of our Spirit-sympo-
sium. But I want to suggest that from another perspective, we’re only
just beginning. Mark Wallace and Anselm Min challenge us to reframe
our entire pneumatological work within two inter-related contexts
for not only Christian practices, but Christian theology as a whole.
Whatever we say about “The Advent of the Spirit” in our day, it
must be accountable to the critical contexts of ecocide and economic
deprivation. Min and Wallace both make clear the interdependent
relation between ecological integrity and social justice. The issues are
complex and we would advance a variety of political positions. But
our pneumatologies, if they are to meet global spiritual yearnings at
their deepest levels, must address these contexts.
The papers challenge modern conceptions of the autonomous,
authentic human. Wallace’s biocentric focus repositions humanity
within the kinship of interdependent living beings. Min’s liberation
focus repositions human beings within the concrete totality of eco-
nomic, political, and social relations. Both theologians take seriously
the postmodern ‘turn to others’—the others of what Wallace names,
“the sacrificial zones.” With Wallace, we meet the wounded Green
Face of God in the toxic dumps of Chester, Pennsylvania. With Min,
we meet the multi-colored faces of human hunger, indignity, tor-
ment, and militarism. Their pneumatologies immediately situate us
within a “groaning world” (Romans 8).
But though they share a common vision of solidarity of others,
their pneumatological strategies differ. Wallace’s interests are trans-
gressive, aimed toward destabilizing acceptable conventions of humans
as separate and superior to nature. Min’s interests are progressive, aimed
toward stabilizing Spirit’s work through ordinary structures of insti-
tutions, vocation and families—a new order. The choice I believe is
466 Nancy M. Victorin-Vangerud
not an either/or, but a both/and. Both transgressive and progressive

strategies are needed to effect what I term “the cunning of diversity.”1
Transformation of our global crises will require multiple strategies of
praxis and diverse pneumatologies of imagination and witness. I think
we need to affirm with Michael Welker that the tongues of the Spirit
are many.
A second area of comparison relates to the Imago Dei. Wallace claims
that theological anthropocentrism is a contributing factor to the eco-
logical crisis. His “wild bird that heals” challenges humanity’s privi-
leged status as the only species created in the Image of God and in-
vested as God’s proxies over the natural realm. Wallace’s ecological
pneumatology rejects even the ‘kinder, gentler’ dominion of humans
as stewards and caretakers. Instead, humans must cultivate the hu-
mility necessary to see God’s Image gloriously embodied in other-
kind’s rich diversity.
Min though, reaffirms an anthropocentric Imago Dei, first and fore-
most in Jesus as the Christ—the primordial Image, the exemplary
model and Archetype of all creation. Through divine filiation with
him, humans are conformed to his Image and reborn as children of
God. While Min’s conformitas Christology norms the exclusive lan-
guage of Sonship, the praxis of his Christ-Image is not dominion as
domination or power-over, but the kenotic “solidarity of others.”
Where Wallace calls attention to the Many in the breadth of particu-
lar embodiments of God the Spirit, Min focuses on the universal
personhood of Jesus and the Spirit’s incorporating work of the Many
into the One Body. Can we reconcile a conformitas Christology with
deep ecology? Ecological pneumatology challenges human exclusiv-
ity and the solidarity of others refigures human identity. But I think
the two views of Imago Dei are incompatible in the end.
Let me now raise some concerns specifically for Wallace. In Wallace’s
ecological pneumatology, I hear a tension in his rhetoric between the
Spirit as a “natural living being” and the Spirit as “God’s indwelling
presence.” He is critical of Sallie McFague’s pan-en-theistic model as
“wanting it both ways”—both an immanent God-at-risk, but in the
end, a transcendent God who survives suffering and loss.2 But his
rhetorical tension gives evidence for the same charge. How can the
vinculum caritatis, the third person of the Trinity, be a natural living
form as well? Is the Spirit a being amongst other beings? Does this
lead Wallace into questions about the possible status of the Spirit as a
creature? Does he move beyond metaphysical concerns or only post-
Response to Min and Wallace 467
pone them? His rhetorical strategy challenges sedimented, rigid no-

tion of creation, humans and God, but in the end, his strategy seems
to blur talk about divinity and creatureliness. Is this exactly the point
for Wallace, the only point where we can wake up from our toxic
praxis? Or does the strategy blur our God-talk to the point of mean-
inglessness? Actually, I find a luring beauty in the Green Face of God.
Wallace’s work will find affinity within movements in Australian con-
textual theology, particularly Australian Aboriginal Christian and non-
Christian efforts to speak of Spirit and the land.3
I am concerned that in his efforts to correlate ecocide and deicide,
Wallace reduces his Spirit to a mere geocentric model. But destroy-
ing the conditions for most forms of life on our planet does not fin-
ish the possibilities for life in the cosmos. From a cosmocentric per-
spective, Spirit would be grievously wounded without earth-kind,
but would continue to nourish and heal life wherever life’s possibili-
ties are manifest. From a different angle, is this now the time to cor-
relate ecocide and eschatology?
Now I’d like to lift up several questions for Min. His paper closes
with reflections on another important postmodern context—religious
pluralism. Min argues that liberation in the Spirit involves people
beyond the baptized community. He also recognizes the rampant
xenophobia between peoples of different religious traditions. A
pneumatological solidarity of others must incorporate those who are
economically, politically and socially marginalized, irregardless of re-
ligious identity. I would like to hear more about how he envisions
this communio. Is he envisioning a radical reformulation of
ecclesiology, or redirecting the mission of the church? Is it precisely
at this point that Min’s philosophical rationality sublates his theo-
logical rationality? And in the end, does his conformitas Christology
help or hinder his efforts for concrete global totality?
Now let me raise several concerns applicable to both papers. In our
constructive pneumatologies, we eagerly turn to the doctrine of the
Trinity for envisioning relational ideals of mutuality, communion,
and harmony. We draw on the ontological concept of perichoresis,
meaning the mutual interpenetration, flowing or coinherence of the
Triune members. The image of a dance or passionate embrace is
moving and inviting. But I wonder if we are in danger of nostalgia or
romantization of our familal Triune economy. As I show in my dis-
sertation, the beautiful perichoretic image became prominent within
a church that neglected its responsibilities to the diversity of gifts.4
Only certain leaders were invited to the dance in full equality. So,
how do we characterize the ‘bond of love’ between the Father and the
Son? Mutuality between parents and children, and between parents
themselves, is not forged by obedience to the will of authority, nor by
extending the selfhood of the One to the selves of the others. I have
two sons and the most important thing I am learning is that I can’t
expect them to mirror my own glorious selfhood! Relations of mutu-
ality and equality require differentiation, usually accomplished with
conflict, recognition of otherness and negotiation of boundaries.
Wallace uses the Rothschild Canticles to characterize perichoretic
harmony as “ludic celebration,” “a blur of erotic passion,” and “amo-
rous permutations.” I worry that we are mixing the triune metaphors
of sexual ecstasy and family intimacy in a confusing way. Today,
Christian practices call attention to incest and sexual abuse within
families and church. Are there other models of perichoretic relations
that are less exclusive and more applicable to the diversity of rela-
tions we have with other beings in the world? But there is also the
danger of naiveté. I can see my husband dancing with our one year
old son, Will, in joyous sensuous spirit, but what will their relation
be like when Will is a man? What difficult journey of differentiation
and recognition will need to occur on both sides so that they may
stand together, father and son, who have given of themselves to an-
other but also claimed distinction over against one another, in mu-
tual embrace? You can hear my interest in social analysis, in looking
at our models of personhood today as we engage the models of our
traditions. Our turn to perichoresis affirms relations as internal to
being, but we need to recognize the inherent struggle for mutuality
within relations. The bonds of love incorporate self, others and the
We in dialectical tension.5
Part of the problem is that we assume a level dancing floor when
we adopt the ideal image of mutuality. This is not to say that ideals
are unimportant for sustaining hope, but we also need models or
images of how to struggle toward the goal of mutuality. If we only
draw from the ideal, we presume that persons or beings are free to
enter the dance without threat or fear of domination. We presume
that relations are safe and our own interests will be respected. But
what about relations embedded within power dynamics? What about
relations based on privileged access, propriety, force and violence?
The dancing floor is not level for the poorest beings of Chester. They
live within layers and layers of power relations, which shape their
identities, access to resources and access to the future. How can the
struggle be undertaken toward mutuality when an imbalance of power
exists? If God the Spirit is understood solely in terms of empowering
unity between ideal partners (bonds of love), then how can ecologi-
cal integrity in Chester be forged?
I suggest that our pneumatological models call for the develop-
ment and maintenance of boundaries as strongly as the call for mu-
tuality. Images such as the dance of life, the web of life or social
solidarity invite us to reject models of individualistic rationality, but
we do a further injustice when we neglect or trivialize the need for
differentiated boundaries. In fact, boundaries are necessary to healthy
relations of mutuality. We may long for relations in which bound-
aries are blurred or overcome, but boundedness enables a sense of
relation with other. Perhaps it has to do with what side of the power
dynamic one is on. Michael Welker prioritizes “self-withdrawal” to
make room for the other as the measure of life in the Spirit.6 But in
relations of Christian practice where there has been abuse, the survi-
vors discover the practice of self-assertion. Forging the We requires
the interplay of self-assertion and recognition of otherness.7 There
are times of saying “no” to the dance. “No. You will no longer have
access to my body and emotional personhood. No longer will you
have access to our land for your toxins. No longer will you have ac-
cess to our cheap labor. No longer will you have boundary trans-
gressing power.”
At this point, I need to say a few words about my own
pneumatological context for this response. Prior to lecturing in West-
ern Australia at Murdoch University, I was finishing my dissertation
in a large Protestant church in Minnesota. Those four years were also
spent ministering as an “after-pastor” in the devastating wake of clergy
sexual misconduct.8 I learned though, that God’s Spirit could be un-
derstood as active in the midst of a diverse community through a
multitude of healing ways. But the crucial force-field of the Spirit
was generated by one woman who “retrieved” her humanity and seven
other women (including myself ) who in solidarity, walked with her
through the personal, ecclesiastical and legal confrontation at great
sacrifice.9 In this situation, resistance was not enough. Differentia-
tion, opposition and defiance were necessary to bring forth justice.
While I think that the language of God as Spirit is appropriate to the
transformed unity arising out of the congregational healing process,
I also claim that Spirit is the energy for life that called forth the op-
Spirit who is a person only in her self-effacement, who doesn’t call

attention to herself but projects all her passion and desire into her
spouse (the Father) and child (the Son), reifies a norm many of us
know all too well. I think of my Australian women students who
struggle against social norms that prescribe domesticity for women
while the men engage in collaborative ‘mateship’ at the ‘perichoretic’
pub. I think of self-effacing women silenced by the fear of shaking
up a pleasant church ‘economy’ with their accounts of spiritual viola-
tion. In my dissertation, I name this legacy of subordination, domes-
tication and self-effacement, a “poisonous pneumatology.”13 Let us
not turn women into a sacrificial zone by making patriarchal use of
female pronouns for Spirit.
But from my perspective, the issue of whether we speak of Spirit as
she or he falls short of recognizing what I hear us saying is most
valuable and revelatory in the pneumatological dimension of
perichoresis. If the heart of divine and creaturely existence is essen-
tially relational, and if ‘Spirit’ is the theological category we use to
refer to this reality then Spirit is neither a “he who is” nor a “she who
is,” but a “we who are,” a multi-face(te)d lifeform, with a myriad of
green faces, a solidarity of oppressed, an intersubjectivity of subjects.14
In our day of atomistic individuality, where the One strives to con-
sume all others in annihilating hunger, it may be very difficult to
conceive of a multi-faced being. But I think at least we should say
that the Spirit’s personhood is not in her self-effacement, but in her
absolute differentiatedness, her ability to truly love all others in free-
dom. I would like to close with Joeseph Bracken’s words from last
night, that in regard to the Spirit, a person-making activity would
have to be personal.15
Endnotes
1
This phrase plays with the Hegelian notion of “the cunning of reason.” I have been
inspired by the correlation of Spirit and diversity in the work of Michael Welker,
God the Spirit (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1994).
2
Mark I. Wallace, Fragments of the Spirit: Nature, Violence and the Renewal of
Creation (New York: Continuum, 1996), 139-144.
3
Rainbow Spirit Elders, Rainbow Spirit Theology: Toward an Australian Aboriginal
Theology (Blackburn, Victoria: HarperCollins, 1997).
4
Nancy M. Victorin-Vangerud, From Economies of Domination to Economies of
Recognition: A Feminist Pneumatology (Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI, 1996), and also
see my book, The Raging Hearth: Spirit in the Household of God (St. Louis: Chalice
Press, 2000).
5
A collection of works are important to this analysis: Kristine M. Baber and
Katherine R. Allen, Women and Families: Feminist Reconstructions (New York:
Guilford, 1992); Jessica Benjamin, The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism,
and the Problem of Domination (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988); Rita
Nakashim Brock, Journeys by Heart: An Christology of Erotic Power (New York:
Crossroad, 1988); Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge,
Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (London: Routledge, 1991); Bell
Hooks, Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black (Boston: South End,
1989); Alice Miller, For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the
Roots of Violence (New York: Noonday, 1983); Bonnie Miller-McLemore, And
Also a Mother: Work and Family as Theological Dilemma (Nashville: Abingdon,
1994); and Sara Ruddick, Maternal Thinking: Towards a Politics of Peace (New
York: Ballantine Books, 1989).
6
7
For a philosophical account of mutual recognition, see Robert R. Williams,
Recognition: Fichte and Hegel and the Other (Albany: SUNY, 1992).
8
Marie Fortune, Is Nothing Sacred? When Sex Invades the Pastoral Relationship (San
Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989).
9
Jóse Comblin, Retrieving the Human: A Christian Anthropology (Maryknoll, N.Y.:
Orbis, 1990).
10
William H. Shepherd Jr., The Narrative Function of the Holy Spirit as a Character
in Luke-Acts (Atlanta: Scholars, 1994), 94-96.
11
On a theology of struggle, in contrast to a theology of liberation, see Eleazar S.
Fernandez, Toward a Theology of Struggle (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1994).
12
Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1994).
13
Alice Miller’s work (cited above) has become well-known for her analysis of
“poisonous pedagogy.” I draw from with her work toward my own pneumatological
analysis.
14
I am playing with the metaphor from Elizabeth A. Johnson’s work, She Who Is: The
Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: Crossroad, 1992).
15
For Bracken’s work see Joseph A. Bracken, Society and Spirit: A Trinitarian
Cosmology (London: Associated University Presses, 1991).
position to any unity based on injustice. The challenge for construc-

tive pneumatology is providing models of relation that promote unity
in differentiation.
Wallace’s wounded Green Spirit and Min’s Spirit of solidarity of
others provide visions of interconnection and care necessary for trans-
formed praxis. But is suffering-with enough in our work of
pneumatological reimagining? Is Welker’s praxis of self-withdrawal
and making room enough? In his recent book, William H. Shepherd
portrays the Spirit as a “character” who empowers Jesus and the dis-
ciples in situations of conflict within the Luke-Acts narrative.10 As
Jesus is led decisively by the Spirit into conflict with demonic pow-
ers, his hometown folk, religious leaders and political authorities, so
the early missionary movement is led by the Spirit into conflictual
contexts. Shepherd emphasizes the Spirit’s Jewish legacy of prophetic
activity, confrontation and judgment. I suggest that we expand Min’s
and Wallace’s work by the Lukan image of the Spirit of conflict. The
wounds of the Spirit are borne out not only by suffering-with, but in
confrontation with powers of violence. The Green Spirit of Solidar-
ity not only empowers life to endure but to struggle against horren-
dous odds.11 While the Spirit seeks the transformation of the whole,
the Spirit energizes an oppositional community that confronts and
renegotiates relations of mutual recognition. The image comes to
mind of Nelson Mandela, who struggled for 28 years in prison in
opposition to the apartheid government, refusing nothing less than
mutual recognition.12 Perhaps we can think of the prophet’s wounded
mother bear who becomes angry, volatile, and defiant in protection
of her cubs.
This brings me to the concern of Spirit and gender. One way we
have incorporated difference into our Trinitarian language is to speak
of the Spirit in female terms. We speak of Spirit as ‘she’ not only in
recognition of the diversity of biblical terms, but to correlate our
God-talk with Christian practices of inclusiveness. Yet, in appropri-
ating female language, we must be careful that we don’t inadvertently
reify female stereotypes. Wallace’s ecological pneumatology links fe-
male Spirit-references with nature, woundedness and the inter-relat-
edness of all life-forms. While he underwrites the transgressive char-
acter of Spirit, he also runs the risk of reinforcing women’s tradi-
tional associations with body, matter and suffering. Women have been
the primary ones historically to invest themselves in keeping the fa-
milial bonds of love warm and connected. Min’s image of a female
Contents 473
Contributors
Philip Clayton, California State University, Sonoma
David Coffey, Marquette University
D. Lyle Dabney, Marquette University
Elizabeth A. Dreyer, Fairfield University
Ralph Del Colle, Marquette University
Michael Fahey, S.J., Marquette University
Bernd Jochen Hilberath, Univesity of Tübingen,
Bradford E. Hinze, Marquette University
Maurice Lee, Doctoral Student, Yale University
John R. Levison, Duke University
Steven G. Smith, Millsaps College
Kilian McDonnell, O.S.B., Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural

Research, Collegeville, Minnesota
Anselm Kyongsuk Min, Claremont Graduate University
Jürgen Moltmann, University of Tübingen
George T. Montague, St. Mary’s University
Philip Rossi, S.J., Marquette University
Carol Stockhausen, Marquette University
William Tabbernee, Phillips Theological Seminary

Nancy M. Victorin-Vangerud, Murdoch University, Australia
Miroslav Volf, Yale University
Mark Wallace, Swarthmore College

Contents 475
Index of Names
Abelard, P., 24, 168-169, 172 Boyle, J., 373
Adler, M., 459 Bracken, J. A. , 206-207, 471-472
Adler, N., 63 Brock, R N., 472
Allen, K. R., 472 Brown, R. E., 43, 62, 155, 205, 300, 472
Apollonius, 100-101 Buber, M., 230
Aquinas, T., 13, 61, 124, 239, 257, 259- Buckley, M., 152, 162, 235, 239, 297,
260, 306, 314, 319, 326-327, 331, 300
334, 355, 376, 431, 442 Bultmann, R., 11, 16, 33-34, 85, 296,
Aristotle, 61, 181, 293 300
Arseniew, N. von., 376 Buonaiutti, E., 117
Ashley, J. M., 154 Burgess, S. M., 155
Athanasius, 299, 308, 328, 347 Burnaby, J. 251, 261
Augustine, 13, 24-25, 27, 32-33, 53, 60, Burr, D., 158
101, 124, 126-127, 129-131, 137, Busch, E., 459
144, 152, 154-156, 163-165, 170,
210, 230, 249-250, 256-257, 260- Cabasilas, N., 299
261, 265-266, 292, 305, 313, 319, Calvin, J., 250, 257, 260, 347, 382, 405
322-324, 326, 329, 332, 335, 355, Cantalamessa, R., 263-264, 390, 407
365, 375, 380, 447, 461 Carnley, P., 328, 337
Cavadini, J. C., 124, 154-155
Baber, K. M., 472 Cerfaux, L., 47, 62
Balthasar, H. U. von., 16, 20, 293, 358, Charry, E.T., 154
363-367, 369, 377, 379-380, 411 Clayton, P., 25, 173-174, 176, 178, 180,
Barbour, I., 206 182, 184, 186, 188, 190, 192, 194,
Barnes, M. R., 126, 155 196, 198, 200, 202, 204-206, 233,
Barrett, C. K., 300 235-239, 336
Basil, 106, 113-114, 159, 259, 264, 296, Clifford, A. M., 154, 381
314, 447, 461 Clinton, W. J., 457, 463
Begley, J., 381 Cobb, J. 232
Bellarmine, R., 356, 377 Coffey, D., 6, 27-28, 32, 143, 160, 162,
Bender, W., 296, 300 232, 262, 292, 295, 314-316, 318,
Benjamin, W., 472 320, 322, 324, 326, 328, 330, 332,
Berkhof, H., 240, 258, 461 334, 336-343, 345-347, 366, 374,
Bernard of Clairvaux, 24, 34, 129, 135- 376-377, 380, 412, 442
139, 156-159, 162-163, 167, 205, Cohen, H., 231
252, 261, 337, 376, 379, 411 Collins, P.H., 381, 472
Betz, J., 300, 411 Comblin, J., 364, 378, 460, 472
Blank, J., 170, 292 Congar, Y.M.J., 28, 123, 154, 263, 314,
Blaser, K., 297, 300 337, 345, 353-355, 358-363, 367,
Blenkinsopp, J., 297, 300 369, 373, 375-377, 379, 411, 461
Bloch, E., 364 Connor, S., 259, 381
Bobrinskoy, B., 326, 337 Cyprian, 101, 112, 316
Boff, L., 314, 342, 361, 378-380, 411
Bohannan-Sheppard, B, 457, 463 Dabney, D.L., 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22,
Bonaventure, 24, 129, 140-143, 158- 24-26, 28, 30, 32, 34, 240, 242, 244,
160, 163, 170, 365, 380 246, 248, 250, 252, 254, 256, 258-
260, 262-263, 266-267, 292, 313, Fortman, E., 337
460, 472 Fortune, M., 472
Dalmais, I.H., 333, 338 Francis, H., 63, 140, 158-159, 373
D’Angelo, M.R., 378 Freud, S., 189, 206
Davies, B., 259 Froelich, K., 162
Davies, O., 160 Froget, B., 373
Davies, W.D., 406 Frohlich, M., 162
De Certeau, M., 364 Fuchs, J., 381
Del Colle, R., 28, 162, 295, 336, 339-
340, 342, 344, 346 Garrigues, J.-M., 329, 338
de Lubac, H., 28, 307, 363-365, 379- Gertel, E.B., 55, 61-64
380, 411 Gilkey, L., 125, 155, 189, 205
de Regnon, T., 154 Goodman, H., 463
Derrida, J., 461 Gottlieb, R., 463-464
Descartes, R., 13, 182, 236 Greenwood, D., 64
Deshman, R., 171-172 Gregory of Nazianzus, 305, 314, 408
Didymus, 106-107, 112 Gregory of Nyssa, 264, 297, 299, 321,
Dreyer, E., 24, 123-124, 126, 128, 130, 330, 338, 408
132, 134, 136, 138, 140, 142, 144, Griffin, D., 154
146, 148, 150, 152, 154-156, 158, Groh, D.E., 116
160, 162-165, 167, 169-171, 382 Groppe, E., 373, 375-376
Duffey, M.K.,155 Gundry, R. H., 63
Dulles, A., 252, 261, 378, 381, 411 Gunton, C. 155, 261
Dunn, J.D.E., 45, 62, 64, 405, 442
Dupré, 154, 197, 206, 235, 239 Hafemann, S.J., 64
Dutton, M.L., 157 Haight, R., 162, 336
Halloran, J., 463
Eckhart, M., 258 Hanson, B., 162
Edwards, B., 463 Harvey, S.A., 172
Endean, P.126, 154-155 Harvey, V.A., 206
Eusebius, 98, 100, 104-105, 117, 121- Harvey, D., 459
122 Hassan, I., 444, 459
Evans, G.R., 157 Hayes, Z., 159
Hegel, G.W., F., 16, 181, 185, 189-190,
Fahey, M.A., 28, 410, 412, 414 195, 199, 204-205, 230-231, 234,
Famer}e, J., 376 241-242, 258, 262, 293, 302, 365,
Farley, E., 463 442, 446, 461, 472
Fee, G.D., 65, 442 Heidegger, M., 314, 460-461
Fernandez, E.S., 472 Heine, R. E., 116-117, 119, 121-122
Feuerbach, L., 199-201, 206 Hendry, G. S., 461
Fichte, J.G., 185, 189, 198, 231, 258, Hengel, M. 62
472 Herder, J. G., 62-63, 116, 300, 314,
Finan, B.A., 377-378 337, 364, 373-374, 377-379, 406
Fischer, J.A. 118 Heron, A.I.C., 293, 429, 442, 462
Fitzmyer, J.A., 56, 64 Hick, J., 30, 34
Fletcher, J.F., 204 Hilberath, B.J., 6, 26, 32, 265-266, 268,
Flood, M.W., 38, 42, 144, 159-160, 240 270, 272, 274, 276, 278, 280, 282,
Forte, B., 314, 380
Index 477
284, 286, 288, 290, 292-293, 295- Kilmartin, E.J., 380, 411
301, 373 Kinkel, G.S., 461
Hildegard of Bingen, 24-25, 129, 131- Koenker, E.B., 260
135, 156-157, 163-166, 170 Komjakov, A.S., 354
Hill, W., 80, 160, 444, 472 Kopf, U., 157
Himes, M.J., 373 Kovel, J., 461
Hinze, B.E., 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, Kretschmar, G., 300
26, 28, 30, 32, 34, 347-348, 350, Küng, H., 378
352, 354, 356, 358, 360, 362, 364, Kuss, O., 296, 300
366, 368, 370, 372-374, 376, 378,
380, 410-413, 415, 472 Laarson, E., 64
Hodgson, P.C., 189, 460-461 LaCugna, C.M., 23, 143, 154-155, 160,
Holden, G.F., 374 262, 381
Hooks, B., 472 Lambert, M., 159
Hugh of St. Victor, 24, 122, 169-170, Lambrecht, J., 64
172, 373 Lampe, G.W.H., 30, 34, 276, 293, 336,
Hunter, H.D., 336 462
Huyssteen, J.W. van, 204 Lane, B.C., 162
Lee, M., 28, 382, 384, 386, 388, 390,
Ignatius of Antioch, 316, 319, 377, 379, 392, 394, 396, 398, 400, 402, 404,
383 406, 408, 410
Irenaeus, 264 Leen, E., 374
Isaacs, M.E., 44, 62 Lennan, R., 378
Leo XIII, 295, 300, 351, 375
Jensen, A., 116-117 Lessing, E.G., 34, 183, 204, 293, 364
Jerome, 101, 456 Levinas, E., 194, 196-198, 203, 206,
Joachim of Fiore, 140, 158-159, 166, 229, 234, 241, 258, 442
258, 306-307, 310, 314, 348, 364- Lies, L., 293, 412,
365, 379-380, 444, 459 Lodahl, M.E., 293
John of Damascus, 311, 397 Lohfink, G., 386, 406
John Paul, 364, 367 Lonergan, B.J.F., 252, 261, 323, 337
Johnson, E,154-155, 362, 379, 405, 459- Lossky, V., 300, 319, 337
461, 472 Lovelock, J.E., 462
Johnson, Luke T., 16, 61, 405, 408 Luther, M., 250, 257, 260, 347, 402
Johnston, G., 62
Josephus, 24, 61, 66, 71-73, 84, 92-93 MacCormack, S., 129, 156
Journet, C, 352, 373-374 Mandela, N., 470, 472
Jung, C. G., 302 Manning, H.E., 351, 411
Jüngel, E., 293-294, 367 Marion, J.L., 160, 207
Jungmann, J., 411 Markschies, C., 116
Martinez, L.M., 374
Kant, I., 14, 182, 184-185, 190, 204, Marx, K., 189, 206, 364-365, 436, 461
221, 223-224, 231, 234, 236 Massa, J., 379
Käsemann, E., 264 McClain-Taylor, M., 460
Kasper, W., 205 McDade, 336
Keane, P.S., 377 McDonnell, K., 26, 34, 59, 62-64, 157,
Kehl, M., 380, 411 162, 262, 264, 294-296, 298, 300,
Kierkegaard, S., 310, 314 407
McFague, S., 154, 179, 204, 460, 463, Origen, 60, 117, 120, 122, 210, 230,
466 319
McGinn, B., 34, 158-159, 162, 379
McIntosh, M., 154 Parfit, D., 205
McKibben, B., 459 Pelikan, J., 12, 34, 117, 121, 260
Mechthild of Magdeburg, 141, 159-160, Pelz, K., 356
163 Perry, J., 205
Meier, J., 296, 300 Philo, 24, 66, 68-72, 75, 78-79, 82, 84,
Merchant, C., 463 92-93, 210, 230
Merleau-Ponty, M., 231 Pius XII, 352, 359
Mersch, E., 352, 374, 411 Placher, W.C., 180, 189, 204
Messmer, M.W., 259 Plato, 24, 68-69, 93, 212, 310
Meyendorff, J., 264 Pottmeyer, H.J., 376, 380, 406, 411
Meyer, H.B., 412 Power, D., 411
Milbank, J., 235, 239, 405 Principe, W., 162
Miller, A., 258, 472
Miller-McLemore, B., 472 Rahner, K., 20, 28, 154, 276-277, 292-
Min, A.K., 29, 416, 418, 420, 422, 424, 293, 303-305, 314, 318, 327, 337,
426, 428, 430, 432, 434, 436, 438, 340, 353, 358-361, 363, 367, 369,
440, 442, 461, 465-467, 469-471 377-378, 411, 462
Miquel, D.B.,157 Ratzinger, J., 158, 260, 363, 365, 367,
Möhler, J.A., 16, 28, 347-350, 353-357, 371, 378-380, 411
364, 372-373, 375-377, 379, 410 Reeves, M., 158
Moltmann, J., 20, 26, 28, 32, 34, 128, Reid, D., 314
155-156, 261, 263, 293, 295, 302, Ricoeur, P.,155
304, 306, 308, 310, 312, 314, 339- Rifkin, J., 459
347, 364, 367, 407-408, 412, 441- Robinson, J.A.T., 47, 62, 460
442, 452, 461-463 Rorty, R., 205-206, 259
Montague, G.T., 23, 35-36, 38, 40, 42, Rossi, P. 25, 233-234, 236, 238
44, 46, 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60, 62- Rovane, C., 205
64, 86-93, 95-96, 128, 156, 292 Rublev, A., 302
Mühlen, 20, 28, 34, 353-360, 363, 367, Ruddick, S., 472
376-377, 379-380, 384, 390, 405, Ruether, R.R., 361, 378
411 Rupert of Deutz, 24, 134, 165-169, 171-
Müller-Fahrenholz, G., 461 172, 300
Nagel, T., 186, 205 Sachs, J.R., 377

Neunheuser, B., 63 Scheeben, M., 325, 337, 351-352, 355,
Nhat Hahn, Thich, 55 360, 374, 411
Nicholas of Cusa, 202, 206, 299 Scheffczyk, L., 295, 300
Nietzsche, F., 189, 198, 206 Schelling, F.W.J. von, 185, 189-190,
Nissiotis, N., 405 205, 207, 347
Noffke, S., 152, 160-162 Schierse, F.J., 296, 300
Noonan, H., 205 Schillebeeckx, E., 361, 378
Schleiermacher, F,D.E., 14, 16, 20, 183,
O’Driscoll, M.T., 146, 161 187-190, 203, 205, 218, 221, 223,
O’Keefe, M., 155 231, 234, 236, 347-348
Olson, A.M., 230, 258 Schmitals, W., 62
Index 479
Schnackenburg, R., 62 Turner, N. 74, 85
Schneider, S., 64
Schneiders, S., 162 Unger, P., 205
Schoonenberg, P., 277, 293, 336
Schüngel-Straumann, H., 292 Van Engen, J., 156, 171
Schüssler-Fiorenza, E., 156 Van Vliet, C.Th.M., 376
Schweizer, E., 74, 441-442 Verhees, J., 322-323, 337
Sheldrake, P.F., 162 Victorin-Vangerud, N.M., 465-466,
Shepherd, W.H. Jr., 470, 472 468, 470-471
Shoemaker, S., 205 Vischer, L., 314, 337-338
Sicously, P., 375 Volf, M., 28, 260-261, 373, 382, 384,
Smith, S.G., 25, 208, 231 233-238, 241- 386, 388, 390, 392, 394, 396, 398,
243, 245-246, 254, 258, 262, 461 400, 402, 404, 406-415
Sorc, C., 314 Voller, M., 463
Spitta, F., 74, 85 Vorgrimler, H., 294, 337, 373
Spinoza, B., 181-184, 198, 204, 206
Spohn, W.C., 155 Wainwright, G., 411
Standaert, B., 62 Wallace, M., 29, 155, 444, 446, 448,
Staniloae, D., 314, 337, 405 450, 452, 454, 456, 458, 460-462,
Stanley, D.M., 62, 155 464-471
Stock, A., 41, 62 Walsh, C.J., 379-380
Stockhausen, C., 24, 64, 86, 88, 90, 92, Weinandy, T. 328, 334-335, 337-338,
94, 96 342
Strawson, P.F., 186, 205 Welker, M., 20, 25, 83, 85, 127-128,
Strobel, A., 116 156, 243-246, 255, 258-259, 284,
Sullivan, F.A., 63 293, 295, 297, 300, 406, 442, 461-
462, 466, 469-472
Tabbernee, W., 24, 97-98, 100, 102, Werbick, J., 293
104, 106, 108, 110, 112, 114, 116- Wesley, J., 18, 256-257, 261
119, 121-123, 164 Wikenhauser, A., 62
Taft, R., 411 Williams, B., 205
Tanquerey, A., 373 Williams, R., 231, 472
Tavard, G., H., 380, 411, 459 Williams, R., 162
Taylor, C., 235, 238-9 Winkler, G., 411
Taylor, J. 462 Wolff, H.W., 441
Tertullian, 59, 100-103, 108-110, 116, Wood, S., 77, 147, 379
119-120, 122, 296, 300, 316 Wright, N.T., 16, 386, 405-406
Theissen, G., 293
Thoreau, H.D., 459 Yarnold, E., 335, 338
Tillard, J.-M.R., 371, 381 Yovel, Y., 199, 206
Tillich, P. 207, 231, 252, 260-261, 270,
462 Zinzendorf, M.L. von, 461
Tossou, K.K.J., 379 Zizioulas, J., 262, 382, 405, 412, 429,
Toulmin, S., 125, 246, 259 442
Tracy, D., 126, 155
Trevett, C., 116-118
Tromp, S., 352, 374, 411
Turner, M., 43, 53, 63-4, 89, 406
Index of Subjects
Apostolic (Note of the Church), 353, 395, 398-405, 413-414, 417, 423-
364, 366, 368 424, 427-429, 440-441, 449, 453,
Anthropology, 32, 144, 198, 200, 206, 462
214, 255, 360, 472 Church, 12-13, 15, 17-20, 22-24, 27-
Anthropological, 67, 199-200, 236-237, 29, 35-36, 45, 47-49, 58-60, 62-63,
268-269, 277, 282-284, 327, 350, 86-87, 94-95, 97-98, 100-104, 108-
368 109, 112-113, 115, 120-125, 127,
129, 131-133, 135, 138, 142, 145-
Baptism, 18, 40-42, 47-53, 57-59, 62- 147, 149-151, 154, 161-164, 166,
64, 74, 88, 91, 112-114, 167, 273- 169, 188, 203, 226, 247-249, 253,
275, 296, 367, 382, 390, 396, 401, 256-257, 262-263, 265-267, 287-
407, 427, 429 290, 297-300, 302, 305, 317, 327,
Body (of Christ), 46-47, 51, 58, 62-63, 336, 339, 345, 347-387, 389-405,
145, 288, 348, 350-353, 355-356, 410-411, 413-414, 424, 427, 434-
359, 362, 374-376, 383, 395, 413, 435, 467-469
427-429, 434-435, 466 Cloud (Spirit as), 24, 35, 41
Body (Human; see also Sarx, Flesh), 68, Communication, 28, 89, 280-281, 304,
95, 136, 173, 182, 190-192, 194, 311, 343, 346, 349, 369-370, 372,
447, 451, 453, 459, 466 432
Bodies, 45-46, 73, 136, 271, 387, 389, Communion (see also Koinonia), 27-29,
402-403 123, 148, 150-151, 271-272, 274-
Breath, 29, 36-40, 55, 68-69, 73, 90, 275, 280-281, 287, 289, 321, 349,
138, 177, 208, 219, 256, 263, 268- 353, 355, 360, 363, 367-372, 375,
269, 271, 283, 292, 383, 390, 434, 381, 393, 397, 401, 413, 417-418,
445-446, 449-451 421-423, 426, 428-430, 432, 435,
447, 452, 467
Catholic (Note of the Church), 353, Community, Communities, 16, 19, 33,
369-370, 373, 393, 394-398 43, 53, 63, 82, 90, 102, 123, 125,
Catholicity, 28, 349, 368-370, 372, 397, 127, 135, 141, 148-150, 153, 164,
410 166, 169, 200, 202-203, 207, 209,
Charism, 31, 122, 289-290, 350, 373, 214, 216-217, 219-220, 226, 230,
378, 380 235-236, 254, 273, 280, 289-290,
Charismatic, 17-19, 24, 34, 36, 39, 53, 296, 303, 311-312, 328, 344, 347,
57-58, 94, 116, 155, 266-267, 289, 351, 363, 368-369, 385-387, 389,
359-360, 365-367, 378 392-395, 397-398, 401, 403, 414,
Christ (see also Jesus, Messiah, Logos, 423-424, 433, 447, 452-454, 461,
Son, Word), 11, 16, 18-22, 27-28, 467, 469-470
41, 45-47, 51, 54, 57-58, 62, 90, Cosmos, 29, 73, 403, 445, 449, 461
130-131, 135, 144-147, 149, 152, Creation, 19-20, 31, 36-39, 42, 55, 61,
164, 171, 201, 227, 246-257, 262- 72, 160, 168-170, 173, 177, 196,
264, 273, 278-280, 284, 288-289, 249-251, 254-256, 264, 267-271,
299, 306-308, 316-318, 321-325, 274-275, 286, 290-291, 295, 297-
327-328, 339, 341, 344-345, 348- 299, 305-308, 319-321, 400, 403,
353, 356-357, 360-362, 364, 367- 412, 423-424, 426-428, 430, 442,
370, 374-380, 383-385, 389-393, 446, 448-453, 458-462
Index 481
Cross, 18, 26, 141, 147-149, 159, 250- Evil, 43, 48, 130, 219, 229, 250, 281,
251, 255-256, 262-263, 390, 399- 387, 396, 400
402, 448-449, 452-453 Experience, 18, 32, 53-55, 57-59, 69-
Crucified, 254, 256, 288, 302, 392, 435, 70, 77, 81, 87, 124-129, 133, 136-
437, 452-453 137, 139-140, 146, 152, 154, 161,
165-166, 171, 181, 184, 187, 191,
Death, 13, 47-50, 52, 62, 67, 108, 187, 193-194, 199-200, 208, 214-215,
251, 254-255, 262, 271, 273, 302, 225, 266-269, 272, 276-282, 284-
315-316, 325, 328, 388, 424, 426- 285, 292, 296-297, 302, 305, 307-
429, 448, 452-453, 458 309, 423, 439, 460
Dialogue, 11, 19, 55, 63-64, 175, 232,
360, 369, 371-372, 420-422, 440 Faith, 17, 27-28, 33, 41, 52-53, 57-58,
Discernment (of Spirits), 61, 278, 368, 60, 94, 103, 126-127, 133, 136, 151-
437-438 152, 158, 171, 203, 223, 225, 230,
Diversity, 22, 25, 28, 30-31, 58, 66-68, 248-254, 257, 273-275, 278, 280,
74, 92, 151, 171, 347, 350, 353, 360- 291, 297, 308-309, 330, 344, 364-
361, 363, 366-367, 369, 375, 392, 365, 370-371, 382, 392-395, 399,
394-395, 427, 465-468, 471 401, 413, 424
Dove (Spirit as), 24, 35, 42, 50, 171, Father (God the,), 13-14, 27, 29, 31-32,
302, 446-447, 449-450 42, 44-46, 49-51, 54, 59, 89, 104-
109, 112-114, 134, 137-139, 142,
Earth, 29, 123, 132, 134, 154, 157, 166- 144-147, 165-167, 169, 201-202,
167, 256, 269, 362, 379, 402, 428, 219, 249, 251, 256, 263-264, 266-
444-445, 447-453, 458-460, 462, 464 268, 279-280, 282-287, 289, 291,
Ecclesiology, Ecclesiologies, 15, 28, 32, 299, 302-314, 318, 320-338, 341,
86, 90, 260, 266, 268, 287, 298, 317, 343-346, 355, 365-367, 374, 376-
347-357, 360-361, 364-369, 371- 377, 389-390, 404, 413-414, 416-
372, 375-384, 390, 394, 410-413, 418, 424-437, 439, 442, 446-448,
467 450, 468, 471
Economic (Trinity), 29, 266, 284, 310, Fellowship, 19, 26, 218-219, 265, 267,
319, 323-324, 326-327, 332, 340- 278-279, 281, 310, 387-388, 405,
342, 345, 358, 366, 392, 441, 462 417-418, 423, 425-428, 430, 435,
Economy (of Salvation), 19, 50, 194, 441
266, 277, 307, 327, 343, 345, 349, Filioque, Filioquism, 15, 27-28, 32, 144,
357-358, 434, 467 170, 266, 313, 324, 328-331, 333,
Empowering, 24, 36, 57, 418, 423-424, 335-336, 340, 342-344, 367, 412
426, 429, 442, 458, 462, 469 Fire (Spirit as), 24, 35, 40, 48, 61, 73,
Equality, 266, 310, 312, 342, 396-397, 75-76, 79, 82-83, 96, 132-133, 141-
421-422, 427, 432, 436, 468, 484 142, 145-149, 153, 157, 163, 165,
Eschatology, Eschatological, 24, 27, 35, 171, 446, 449-450
40, 43, 50, 61, 67, 81-83, 85, 91, Flesh (see also Body, Sarx), 16, 52, 55,
131, 159, 255, 263, 274, 278, 280, 57, 144-145, 315-316, 345, 416, 424
289, 291, 298, 303, 305-310, 385- Forgiveness, 151, 171, 275, 388, 400,
386, 389, 393-394, 400, 403, 423- 402
424, 427, 434, 439, 467 Freedom (Spirit-informed), 46, 83, 173,
Eucharist, Eucharistic, 16, 47, 146-147, 178-179, 185-186, 196, 209, 220-
275, 291, 302-303, 307-308, 310, 221, 243, 264, 270, 273, 281, 285-
341, 371, 411-414, 453
287, 289, 291, 293-294, 298, 387, Jesus (see also Christ, Logos, Messiah,
395-396, 436, 447, 461 Son, Word), 11, 19-22, 24, 28, 35-
36, 39-43, 45-52, 54-58, 74, 86, 89-
Gift, 24, 35-36, 45, 49-55, 58-59, 61- 90, 94, 144, 152, 201, 227, 254-257,
63, 81-83, 91, 134, 138-139, 141, 262-264, 279-280, 284, 297, 321-
160, 166, 171, 211, 272-274, 278- 323, 325, 328, 340, 349-351, 355-
279, 281, 287, 290-291, 304, 322- 357, 360-363, 369-370, 384-392,
323, 325, 327, 342-346, 373, 380, 398, 407, 424, 427, 470
385, 408, 430-431, 448 Judgment (Spirit-informed), 40, 48, 61,
Gifts, 28, 58-60, 94, 104, 110, 131, 135, 137, 143, 470
138, 141, 147, 155, 157, 288, 290, Justice (see also Injustice), 20, 29, 40,
351, 353, 360, 363, 366, 394-395, 57, 70, 77, 80, 133, 388, 401-402,
397, 405, 424, 427, 431, 467 421-423, 426, 438, 458, 465
Grace, 15, 18, 46, 52-53, 57-59, 63-64,
130-131, 135, 137-138, 144, 147, Kingdom (see also Reign), 51, 57, 171,
157-158, 165, 167, 249-251, 253, 225-226, 274, 291, 306, 308-309,
262, 279, 287-288, 298, 307, 318, 385, 387-388, 424, 428, 434
322-323, 327, 346, 350, 352, 355, Kiss, 24, 129, 135, 137-139, 167-168
358-360, 370, 374, 377, 387-392, Koinonia (see also Communion), 54, 279-
394, 400-402, 404 280, 370, 428
Heal, Healing, 40, 48, 57, 60, 81, 94, Life (of the Spirit), 26, 29, 355
120-121, 269, 282, 291, 298, 320, Life (New Life in the Spirit), 19, 53, 57,
351, 387, 424, 428, 446-447, 450, 123-124, 134-137, 139, 150, 194,
461-462, 467, 469 219-221, 264, 267-275, 278-281,
Heart, 79, 130, 133, 135-136, 157, 162, 285-291, 299, 358, 370, 387, 392-
208, 212, 214-215, 220-224, 226, 398, 425
229, 272, 274, 288, 369, 388, 423 Life (Spirit as Giver of Life), 36, 40, 45-
Holy, Holiness (Note of the Church), 46, 49-50, 67, 89-91, 128, 167-171,
145, 226, 353, 359, 370, 373, 382 173, 177, 208-212, 255, 307, 346,
383, 430, 445, 448-453, 458-460
Immanent Trinity, 195, 266, 276, 303- Logos (see also Christ, Jesus, Son, Word),
305, 309-311, 323-325, 327, 334- 43, 89, 277, 288-289, 317-320, 323,
335, 340-341, 344, 392, 429, 441 336-337, 352, 414
Incarnation, Incarnational, 144, 149, Logos Christology, 27-28, 316-319, 322-
153, 168, 227, 288-289, 299-300, 325, 327, 336, 339
316-321, 323, 325, 327, 336, 344- Love, 27, 29, 32, 36, 39, 46, 57, 96, 134,
345, 348-359, 363-364, 366, 372, 137-139, 141, 143-146, 148, 157,
375, 384, 426, 430, 449, 451 167, 202, 267, 279, 281-287, 291,
Initiation, 35-36, 41, 50-53, 57-60, 91 311-313, 326-328, 330-334, 336-
Injustice (see also Justice), 362-363, 458, 338, 341, 343, 345, 380, 395-400,
470 416-418, 427-436, 442, 447-448,
Inspiration, 30, 69-71, 74, 77-78, 82, 458, 468-471
84, 132-134, 161, 208, 211-214, 219,
222, 224, 226, 228-230, 289, 297, Mercy, 40, 144-145, 148-149, 161, 302,
339, 368, 373 437
Index 483
Messiah (see Christ, Jesus, Lord, Son, Pluralism, Plurality, 30, 83, 175, 178-
Word), 24, 44, 48, 60, 273, 384, 389, 179, 183, 186, 229, 239, 244-246,
392, 426 248, 359-360, 366, 369, 371, 419-
Mind (Spirit-informed), 12, 68-71, 93, 420, 430, 440, 467
95, 147, 197, 425 Power, 12, 29, 41, 57, 59, 67-69, 77,
Mission, 11-12, 18, 28, 33, 142, 151, 129, 144-145, 157, 168-169, 210,
167, 254-255, 327-328, 335, 344, 212, 243-245, 267, 269, 278, 280-
349-352, 358-363, 366-370, 382- 281, 288, 296, 315, 325-326, 351,
392, 398-399, 401-404, 411, 467 359, 363, 383, 385, 387, 392, 399,
401, 408, 418, 423-429, 439, 445-
Office, 31, 266, 290, 357, 359, 371, 449, 462, 468-469
373, 395 Presence (of the Spirit), 28, 41, 67, 70-
One (Note of the Church), 27, 46, 51, 71, 74, 79, 85-87, 115, 124, 131-
58, 336, 353, 359, 382, 394-395, 132, 134-136, 139, 149, 153,
417, 466 177-178, 201, 231, 269, 271, 276,
Openness, 28, 224, 226, 229, 249, 270, 281, 304, 321, 339, 344, 347, 358,
360, 369, 403-404 368, 370, 374, 377, 382, 387, 391-
Other (Divine), 198, 206-207, 219, 223, 392, 396, 424-425, 442, 445, 451,
252 453, 459-460, 466
Other (Human), 181, 187, 193, 195, Prophecy, 49, 58, 60, 93, 95-96, 102,
202, 209, 213-214, 227, 267, 282, 155, 230, 296-297, 424
285, 291, 298, 331, 345, 417, 419- Prophets, 39-40, 77, 79, 104 151, 212,
422, 429- 431, 436, 440, 462, 466 272, 321, 385, 423
Paraclete, 24, 35, 42-44, 62, 89, 97, 99- Reason (Spirit-informed), 84, 139, 158,
100, 102-111, 115, 117, 168-169, 182-184, 209, 241
228, 274, 280, 296 Rebirth, 28, 52, 274, 399, 403
Pentecost, 48-49, 51, 63, 66, 74, 82-83, Reconciliation, 28, 151, 271, 276, 305-
90, 93, 103, 115, 127, 129, 133, 141- 306, 308, 401-403, 408, 423, 427-
143, 151, 158, 166-169, 171, 344, 428, 462
348, 370, 374, 382, 413 Redemption, 15, 18, 57, 145, 173, 196,
Pentecostal, 58, 344-345 250-251, 254, 308, 403, 449
Perichoresis, 284, 310-312, 326, 342- Reign (see also Kingdom), 131, 363-
343, 355, 357, 431-433, 442, 449, 364, 370, 385-394, 398-399, 403-
462, 467-468, 471 405, 424, 427
Person (Spirit as), 26, 29-30, 42, 74, Resurrection, 45-50, 52, 64, 90, 254-
135, 160, 163, 186, 190-191, 202, 255, 328, 344, 389-392, 414, 440
217, 225, 228, 232, 265-268, 276- Ruach, Ruah, 36-39, 55, 61, 77, 177,
278, 281-287, 292, 295-299, 302, 210, 268-271, 292, 423, 425, 445,
311-313, 328, 333, 339, 343-345, 449, 451, 461
355, 357, 366-367, 418, 425, 432-
434, 471 Salvation, 19, 40, 124, 144-145, 147-
Personhood (of the Spirit), 26-27, 29, 149, 256, 263, 272, 277, 279, 286-
32, 35-36, 41-42, 44, 124, 173, 191- 290, 298-299, 343, 357-358, 365,
192, 204, 225, 227, 265, 278, 282- 434, 449-450
286, 302-304, 313, 316, 340, Sanctification, 15, 55, 173, 279, 306-
342-343, 345, 355, 416, 418, 423, 307, 327, 359, 370, 413, 450
425-426, 429, 432-433, 466, 471
Sanctifying, 24, 36, 52, 55, 57, 273, Trinity, 13-14, 26-29, 32-33, 106, 109,
291, 327, 413 112, 133-134, 137-141, 144-146,
Sarx (see also Body, Flesh), 191, 274- 160, 169, 195, 227-228, 263, 265-
275 266, 268, 276, 296, 299, 302-313,
Sin, 43, 52, 77, 145, 158, 167, 201, 250- 315, 318, 323-336, 339-344, 349,
251, 253, 255, 260, 323, 399-400, 355, 357-358, 360, 362, 365-367,
424, 429 392, 396-398, 413-414, 417-418,
Solidarity, 29, 363, 416, 418, 421-423, 429-430, 433, 441, 447-449, 467
426, 428-430, 434-441, 447-448, Trinitarian, 20, 26-28, 30, 32-33, 44,
453, 462, 465-467, 469-471 54, 86, 117, 123-124, 126, 131, 143-
Son (see also Christ, Jesus, Logos, Mes- 144, 152-153, 160, 166, 192, 202,
siah, Word), 27-29, 32, 36, 44, 46, 207, 228, 240, 254-255, 262-263,
50, 54, 106-109, 112, 134, 137-139, 266, 276-277, 279, 282-286, 295,
142, 144-147, 167, 255-256, 263- 298-299, 302-305, 307, 309-312,
264, 267, 278-280, 282-286, 299, 325, 328, 336, 339-343, 347-349,
302-313, 320-335, 343-345, 362, 355-368, 371-372, 396, 398, 431,
365-366, 374, 396, 413, 417, 425- 448-449
426, 428-433, 468, 471 Triune (God) 12, 30, 151, 277, 286,
Sophia (Spirit of/as Sofia, Giver of Sophia; 289, 309-310, 340, 342, 396, 414,
see also Wisdom), 278 416, 431, 467
Spirit Christology, 27-28, 314-319, 322-
325, 334-335, 339-340, 344, 352, Understanding (Spirit-informed), 44, 55,
367 71, 78-79, 132, 138-139, 144, 165,
Spirit of Christ, 46, 344, 356-357, 385, 173, 202, 281-282, 367, 419-421,
391, 393, 395, 403, 428, 440-441 431, 445
Spirit of God, 36-37, 39-40, 42-44, 46, Unity (Note of the Church), 36, 54, 95,
48-51, 66, 70, 76, 90, 94, 102, 167, 141, 280, 347, 365, 367, 371, 424,
178, 192, 198, 240-241, 254-256, 458
267, 270, 275, 278, 280-281, 289, Universal (Note of the Church), 366,
291, 299, 322, 359, 369, 382, 396, 369-372, 393, 397, 400, 407, 428
429, 444, 449
Spirit of Jesus, 19, 21, 46, 328, 435 Water (Spirit as), 24, 35, 38, 40, 49, 55,
Spirit of Truth, 201, 274, 279, 400 79, 81, 90-91, 134, 142-143, 163,
Spirits (Good or Evil), 43, 48, 71, 104, 169, 202, 272, 288, 446, 449-450
117, 222, 273, 281, 365 Will (Spirit-informed), 137, 139, 145,
Suffering, 13, 139, 148, 255, 298, 308, 151, 185, 196, 250, 451
388, 398, 421-422, 438, 452-453, Wind (Spirit as), 24, 35, 37-40, 133,
458, 466, 470 208, 211, 219, 268-269, 434, 446-
447, 449-450
Taxis, 303, 307, 324-325, 327, 330- Wisdom (see also Sophia), 43-44, 64,
332, 335, 340, 342-343 76-79, 85, 136, 138, 143-145, 166-
taxeis, 324, 326, 344-345 167, 359, 386, 425
Transformation, Transforming (Spirit as Word (see also Christ, Jesus, Logos,
Agent of,), 18, 24, 36, 55-56, 64, 91, Messiah, Son), 16, 18, 35, 49, 61,
152, 194, 225, 230, 254-255, 272, 139, 145, 147, 152, 166, 168, 219,
298, 398, 400, 423, 435, 438-439, 251, 254, 277, 305, 312, 316, 322-
466, 470 323, 340, 344-345, 355, 358, 365,
368-369, 374, 377, 397, 416, 430-
431, 441

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ADVENTS

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data

All rights reserved. Published 2001.

Marquette University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Biblical Perspectives on Pneumatology

3. The Pluriform Foundation of Pneumatology .......................... 66

4. A Response to George T. Montague and John R. Levison ....... 86

Historical Perspectives on Pneumatology

6. “Montanists” Then and Now:

7. An Advent of the Spirit: Medieval Mystics and Saints ........... 121

8. The Holy Spirit in Medieval Thought:

Contemporary Philosophical Resources

10. Topics in Philosophical Pneumatology:

11. The Idiom of Spirit: Discourse, Human Nature, and Otherness.

The Shape of Pneumatology: Issues and Debates

12. Why Should the Last Be First? The Priority of Pneumatology in

13. A Response to D. Lyle Dabney ........................................... 260

14. Identity through Self-Transcendence:

15. A Response to Bernd Jochen b?lberath ............................... 293

Spirit Christology and Trinity

16. The Trinitarian Personhood of the Holy Spirit .................... 300

17. Spirit Christology and the Trinity ....................................... 313

18. A Response to Jürgen Moltmann and David Coffey ........... 337

The Spirit and the Church

20. The Spirit and the Church .................................................. 380

21. A Response to Miroslav Volf and Bradford Hinze ............... 408

The Power of the Spirit in Christian Practices

23. The Green Face of God:

24. Spirit and the Cunning of Diversity:

Contributors ............................................................................. 471

Index of Names ........................................................................ 473

Index of Subjects ...................................................................... 493

The Season of Pentecost

A New Advent of the Spirit

characterized by the depiction of the divine as an eternal and imper-

source of all the perfections and the transcendentals—the true, the

the Tübingen School, the Oxford movement, and the Neo-Scholas-

In the twentieth century, however, when everyone would have pre-

theology of nature fulfilled by grace. Nor is it the kind of Protestant-

the second half of the twentieth century from a christocentric ap-

For all these reasons and more we have witnessed a turn to

The Scope of This Project

undergraduate students, and specialists across the theological disci-

The Areas and Contributions

section is devoted to biblical images of the Spirit: life-breath, wind,

balanced development of doctrine that should act as a binding force

response highlights three issues that merit greater attention. First, he

plurality. She concludes by exploring the demands of taking a

Diverse Styles, Disputed Questions

which philosophy or philosophies are most appropriate and useful

The Unfinished Agenda and The Common Hope

The Fire in the Word: The Holy

leading to ministry in the church. We will touch briefly on how this

Toward the Personhood of the Holy Spirit