143 - The Holy Spirit in the Theology of Karl Barth

The Holy Spirit in the Theology of Karl Barth
By John Thompson
Allison Park, Pa., Pickwick Publications. 1991 211 pp. $24.00.

John Thompson, Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological College in Belfast, Northern Ireland, provides a general introduction to Barth's theology that focuses on his distinctive interpretation of the Holy Spirit.

According to Thompson, while pneurnatology is very important for Barth, it must be seen in conjunction with his doctrines of the trinity, election, and christology rather than being treated as an independent theme. He defends Barth against the charges that his pneumatology subordinates the Spirit to Christ, gives insufficient scope to human freedom, and is primarily backward- rather than forward-looking. For Barth, the Holy Spirit as the uniting power of

144 - The Holy Spirit in the Theology of Karl Barth

love between the Father and the Son in the life of the trinity effects the union between God and humanity in Christ and binds believers together in Christ. A distinctive feature of Barth's pneumatology is, thus, the analogy he finds between the activity of the Spirit in God's own triune being and the Spirit's activity ad extra in creation, incarnation, and redemption.

Mostly expository, Thompson's book briefly raises a few questions about Barth's positions on infant baptism, the high priestly work of Christ, and the issue of mission to the Jews. What remains basically unclarified, however, is the sense in which Barth is able to speak of the relationship of God and believers as a relationship of genuinely free subjects such that those who live by the grace of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit may properly be called "partners" and "co-workers" with God.

Daniel L. Migliore
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, N.J.