142 - The Determinative Doctrine of the Holy Spirit

The Determinative Doctrine of the Holy Spirit
By Kilian P. McDonnell

"If the Spirit is the finger of God with which divinity touches history, and if the Spirit is the reaching out of the Creator and the Son into the human community, and if the Spirit is our point of entry into the mysterious trinitarian life ... If one grants that today we await a mature theology of the Spirit, which constitutes one of systematic theology's most important tasks, then one has to face the sheer magnitude of the problem."

In both Protestantism and Catholicism, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, or pneumatology, has to do mostly with private, not public experience. In Protestantism, the interest in pneumatology has been largely in pietism where it is a function of interiority and inwardness. In Roman Catholicism, its dominant expression has been in books on spirituality or on the charismatic renewal, or when speaking of the structural elements of the church. In the West, we think essentially in Christological categories, with the Holy Spirit as an extra, an addendum, a "false" window to give symmetry and balance to theological design. We build up our large theological constructs in constitutive Christological categories, and then, in a second, non - constitutive moment, we decorate the already constructed system with pneumatological baubles, a little Spirit tinsel.

Contemporary theology has turned from a theology of the Word to a theology of the World. Given the just - mentioned interiority and externality with which we view the doctrine of the Spirit, how could pneumatology be integral to the theology of history, liberation theology, the theology of hope, political theology, and transcendental anthropology?

Kilian P. McDonnell, OSB, is President of the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research, Collegeville, Minnesota. A graduate of the University of Ottawa and of the Theological Faculty at Trier, Germany, Father McDonnell is the author of several volumes on ecumenicity and the charismatic movement, such as John Calvin, the Church, and the Eucharist (1967), The Holy Spirit and Power (1975), Charismatic Renewal and the Churches (1976), and his massive three - volume Presence, Power, Praise: Documents on the Charismatic Renewal (1980), reviewed by Vinson Synan in this same issue under "The Church in the World". This present article, which continues the THEOLOGY TODAY series on classic Christian doctrines in contemporary theology, is sure to be valued as a major critical and bibliographical resource not only for today but for tomorrow.

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One of the tasks of theology is the repossession of vast areas of culture. ¹ Does pneurnatology have anything to say at all to social justice, economic reconstruction, human development?² What about the transcendent Spirit who is manifested in culture and nature, who edifies and judges conventicles, but also builds up the civic order and pulls down what needs to be destroyed in society? Must the Spirit remain an ornament of piety? Though it was difficult to discern the religious moment in the pneumatology of much nineteenth - century liberal theology, though the Spirit became secularized in German idealism with its Geistphilosophie, impulses were there that illuminate the relation of pneumatology to culture and morality. Pneumatology, surely, must have a public face.

If the Spirit is the finger of God with which divinity touches history, and if the Spirit is the reaching out of the Creator and the Son into the human community, and if the Spirit is our point of entry into the mysterious trinitarian life, then theology must go beyond a trinitarian doctrine in which God is locked up in deity (the phrase is too strong but not without some justification).

We need to go back to a more biblical and liturgical view of the Trinity as revealed in history. Who is the Spirit we meet in history, and why specifically was the Spirit sent? Does the Spirit have any personal specificity in history, any unrepeatable role? The key to pneumatology, if there be any, is salvation history, God working through Christ in the Holy Spirit who is the point of contact with our religious, moral, political, and social life. One cannot salvage pneumatology and leave trinitarian doctrine an abstract reflection on eternal essences. When pneumatology loses the horizon and becomes decorative, it is because it has lost its trinitarian rootage. The proper study of the Holy Spirit is both the Trinity and the culture.

I

If one grants that today we await a mature theology of the Holy Spirit, which constitutes one of systematic theology's most important tasks, ³ then one has to face the sheer magnitude of the problem. First, there is in the New Testament no fully reflected theology of the Spirit. ⁴ What it attests is the Spirit as the name for the actual presence of divine reality in Christian experience and community. One would expect, therefore, that nothing would be more familiar to every Christian than

¹ Harold H. Ditmanson, "The Significance of the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit for Contemporary Theology", The Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church, ed. Paul D. Opsahl, Augsburg, Minneapolis, 1978, 206.
²" Communion", which is a pneumatological and trinitarian category, helps integrate religious, social, and political elements in Puebla: Evangelization at Present and in the Future of Latin America, National Conference of Catholic Bishops, Washington, D.C., 1979.
³ Otto Dilschneider Ich Glaube an den Heiligen Geist, Rolf Brockhaus Verlag, Wuppertal, 1969, 15.
⁴ Eduard Schweizer, The Holy Spirit, Fortress, Philadelphia, 1980, 48.

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the reality of the Spirit. "But to the contrary, there is almost no other subject in modern theology so difficult to deal with as the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.^{" 5}

Though seen as "God in act", ⁶ it is difficult to give clarity and precision to how the Spirit appeared in salvation history. In part, this accounts for the obscurity which enveloped much of early pneumatology.⁷ Possibly the impersonal category of "power" used to designate the Spirit might have contributed to the difficulty.⁸ Athanasius held an almost completely non - personal view of the Spirit. Possibly taking his cue from Mark 8:38, Justin Martyr speaks of the Father, Son, and angels, and then refers to the Spirit almost as an afterthought.⁹ And Justin does not distinguish between Word and Spirit, very likely because of the biblical unclarity on this point. In the earliest years, the Spirit was more a matter of experience and affirmation than of reflection. The concern of the earliest theologians was focused elsewhere. ¹⁰

Why the hesitancy? The Russian Pavel Florensky locates the difficulty in the difference between Logos and Spirit. The theology of the Logos is a science whose premise is relatedness, uninterruptedness, and progression. But to the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit," the idea of lawfulness in its essential form is absolutely inapplicable ... Here there is interruptedness, and the interruptedness goes beyond the boundaries of science.... It is quite evident that the holy fathers know something from their own experience; but what is even clearer is that this knowledge is so deeply hidden away, so 'unaccountable,' so unspeakable, that they lack the power to clothe it in precise language". ¹¹

To speak of pneumatology is to raise hermeneutical questions. To some, the doctrine of the Spirit is itself a protest against beginning with an anthropological, existential analysis as an approach to hermeneutical questions. And this may well be the reason why pneumatology fits in only awkwardly in certain theologies and is always slightly askew. "The hermeneutics of the Holy Spirit means that the truth intended cannot possibly fall under the general categories which are the epistemological conditions for the general definition of truth.^{" 12} The authority of the

⁵ Wolfhart Pannenberg, "The Working of the Spirit in the Creation and in the People of God", Spirit, Faith, and Church, eds. Wolfhart Parmenberg, Avery Dulles, Carl E. Braaten, Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1969, 13.
⁶ Ernst Kasemann," Geist", Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3rd edition.
⁷ Antonio Orbe, La Teologia del Espiritu Santo (Analecta Gregoriana, 158), Gregorian University, Rome, 1966, v.
⁸ Raymond E. Brown, "The Paraclete", The Gospel According to John (xiii - xxi) (The Anchor Bible), Doubleday, Garden City, 1970, 1135 - 1144; George T. Montague, The Holy Spirit: Growth of a Biblical Tradition, Paulist Press, New York, 1976,135.
⁹ First Apology Helmut Opitz, Ursprunge fruhkatholischer Pneumatologie, Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Berlin, 1960, 151.
¹⁰ Wolf - Dieter Hauschild, Gottes Geist und der Mensch: Studien zur fruhehristlichen Pneumatologie, Kaiser Verlag, Munchen, 1972, 11.
¹¹ Pavel Alexsandrovich Florensky, "On the Holy Spirit," Ultimate Questions, ed. Alexander Schmemann, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1965, 155, 156, 141.
¹² Helmut Thielicke, The Evangelical Faith, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1974, vol. I, 202,131,132.

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Bible, whether it is inspired or not, is not a thing to be taken for granted. It has always to be shown and identified. But how does that happen? Only as the Holy Spirit proves the worth and meaning of the Scriptures and brings us into the truth. ¹³ One cannot know God unless somehow God is actually present within the knower. And this happens through the Spirit ¹⁴ This is the prolegomenon to hermeneutics and does not rule out an epistemological analysis. But pneumatology determines theological method because it determines rules for speaking about the Presence. The Holy Spirit, however, can never become the "object" of theological reflection because the Spirit is the horizon within which any theological reflection is possible. ¹⁵ We can never adequately reflect on and objectify the point of view from which we speak; rather, we express it in everything we say. In a word, we can never make the Spirit into an object. The Spirit is the presence in whom Christ is among us as the Other. In philosophical categories one would say that the formal principle of understanding does not allow itself to be adequately reflected upon.

II

Does this mean then that theology is reduced to a preconceptual discernment? Not even the strong apophatic tradition of the East did that, though it was concerned with the negative meaning of dogmas, forbidding one to follow natural ways of thought which would usurp the place of spiritual realities, warning that every concept relative to God was a false likeness or idol. Theology does not see God, but through purification it leads to where God is. ¹⁶ Contrary to appearances this did not impose a ban on all metaphysical analysis. In a specifically pneumatological context, Basil, who had some real competence in philosophical matters, considered philosophy an intruder to be kept in its place. Philosophers are "outsiders" who might corrupt "the simple and 'untechnological' doctrine of the Spirit", making the human mind the measure of the heavenly mysteries. ¹⁷

Yet the only way to defend the doctrine of the Spirit, especially against heretics who employ philosophical categories and a dialectical method, is to use the same weapons they do. Nonetheless it was a sacrilege to reduce to a few syllogisms the way that leads to salvation. ¹⁸

¹³ Klauspeter Blaser, Verstoss zur Pneurnatologie (Theologische Studien, 121), Theologischer Verlag, Zurich 1977, 11.
¹⁴ Roberta C. Chesnut, Three Monophysite Christologies: Severs of Antioch, Philoxenus of Mabbug, and Jacob of Sarug, Oxford University Press, 1976, 95.
¹⁵ Heribert Muhlen," Das Christusereignis als Tat des Heiligen Geistes", Mysteriurn Salutis, eds. Johannes Feiner and Magnus Lohrer, Benziger Verlag, Einsiedeln, 1969, vol. 3/2, 514. Jean - Pierre Jossua," From Theology to the Theologian", Catholic Mind, 68, no. 1248 (1970), 5 - 10.
¹⁶ Vladimir Lossky, "The Divine Darkness", The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, James Clarke, London, 1957, 23 - 43.
¹⁷ Treatise on the Holy Spirit, 3; Sources Chretiennes (henceforth SC), 76a, 76c on pages 113, 115.
¹⁸ Cyril Karam, "Saint Basil on the Holy Spirit- Some Aspects of His Theology", Word and Spirit, 1 (1979), 146, 147.

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Somewhere in this broad tradition, Karl Barth also finds his place. The trinitarian pneumatology of the Church Dogmatics results in a pneumatic hermeneutic, which is a reaction against an excessive use of philosophy and anthropology. ¹⁹ The Spirit is God's own self - communicating and self - interpreting activity for humanity in history.

It was Origen who first called attention to what might be called "a perpetual Pentecost", when he wrote that "it is always the days (note the plural] of Pentecost." ²⁰ After Pentecost, one cannot do theology as though Pentecost has no theological meaning. Cross and resurrection are way - stations on the way to the presence of the Spirit, who proclaims the Christ. We remain in a Good Friday and Easter church and have not yet reached the Pentecost church. ²¹ Using a Lutheran framework, the suggestion has been made that a truly contemporary theology must correct a theologia crucis with a theologia spiritist ²² Within Catholicism, it was Pope Paul VI who called for a new theology of the Spirit as a logical consequence of Vatican II: To the Christology and especially to the ecclesiology of the Council there ought to follow a new study, a new cult of the Holy Spirit, precisely as the indispensable complement of the teaching of the Council. ²³ This appeal has to do not just with a theology of the third person of the Trinity, much less with a theology restricted to the charisms.

What is of importance here is a vision of what the church and her task is. Such a study would also extend to the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the human spirit, which is one of the more important areas still to be developed. ²⁴ To carry out a study of this nature, one will have to move beyond the functional pneumatology, which has dominated the field up until now. Pneumatological functionalism is preoccupied with what the Spirit effects and does. A more phenomonological pneumatology looks at the works of the Spirit in order to speak about who the Spirit is. A study along these lines would develop, in one direction, into an examination of ecclesiology and history, and, in the other direction, into Christology and the Trinity.

Ultimately the testing of pneumatology is done in trinitarian doctrine. In the eighth century, John of Damascus was saying that "the Son is the

¹⁹ Karl Barth, Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century: Its Background and History, Judson Press, Valley Forge, 1973, 463; Barth, Rudolf Bultmann: Ein Versuch Ihn zu Verstehen, Evangelischer Verlag, Zurich, 1952, 48, 52 See also Philip J. Rosato, The Spirit as Lord: The Pneumatology of Karl Barth, T & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 198 1, 7 - 9.
²⁰ Contra Celsum, 8; SC 150:224.
²¹ Dilschneider, Ich Glaube an den Heiligen Geist, 333, 334.
²² Walter Brocker and Heinrich Buhr, Zur Theologie des Geistes, Gunter Neske Verlag, Pfullingen, 1960,5.
²³ General audience of 6 June 1973 as given in Documentation Catholique, no. 1635, 1 July 1973, 601.
²⁴ George S. Hendry, "The Holy Spirit and the Human Spirit", The Holy Spirit in Christian Theology, Westminster, Philadelphia, 1956, 96 - 117; Arnold B. Come, Human Spirit and Holy Spirit, Westminster Press, Philadelphia, 1959; William Barclay, Flesh and Spirit, Abingdon, Nashville, 1962, 13 - 16; Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1979, 60, 61.

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image of the Father, and the Spirit the image of the Son,^{" 25} but of what person in the Trinity is the Spirit the image? The Spirit is the only one not having an image in another divine person. Since persons do not assert themselves but bear witness to another, pneumatology pushes one back to trinitarian doctrine for answers in a way that is not true of the other two persons. A hermeneutic premise is to be found in the third article of the creed.

The sequence of the creed contains a logic of verification which is not accidental: "I believe: in one God, in Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit". What is manifested in the third article can only be understood as an interpretation of unfolding of what is said in the second and first. Revelation itself is an inchoative pneumatology which later develops into the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. ²⁶ If one is forced to move from pneumatology to the Trinity, then the treatise of the triune God will have to speak with some force and concreteness. Clearly this is not the case. Much of trinitarian doctrine is excessively abstract (which is not an attack on the philosophical dimensions of the treatises), and this takes its toll in pneumatology. Partly because of an over - extended use of appropriation (works external to the life of the triune God, though common to all three persons, are attributed to one) the scriptural teaching on the Spirit of grace, the Spirit of the church, the Spirit of future resurrection are attenuated and are lacking in immediacy. Where is the luminosity of the biblical witness in these areas?

This abstractness can be seen again in the doctrine of the missions, of which there are two, that of the Son and of the Spirit. A general notion of mission is elaborated in the treatise on the Trinity, which then is applied without distinction to the Son and the Spirit. In the case of the Son, one sees in history the specificity of who is sent and why. The invisible mission of the Spirit is realized in justification, but this mission lacks any special character because, it is said, it does not produce any specific personal presence of the Spirit. The human person cannot have a special relationship with a divine person since all external works of the Trinity are common to the three persons. One ends up with a mission in which the one sent never arrives. ²⁷

Recent biblical and patristic studies have helped overcome this phantom quality of trinitarian doctrine and of pneumatology, but not without also posing a threat to traditional positions, for instance concerning the Spirit as person. Nowhere in the New Testament does Scripture attribute personality to the Spirit. ²⁸ Part of the obscurity is the

²⁵ The Orthodox Faith, 1, 13. Saint John of Damascus: Writings (The Fathers of the Church, 37), Fathers of the Church, Inc., New York, 1958, 200; PG 94:855.
²⁶ Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, Scribner's, New York, 1955,I/1, 342, 382,383, 551. Nikos Nissiotis, "The Importance of the Doctrine of the Trinity for Church Life and Theology", The Orthodox Ethos (Studies in Orthodoxy, 1), ed. A. J. Philippou, Holywell Press, Oxford, 1964, 39, 40.
²⁷ Wilhelm Breuning," Pneumatologie", Bilan de la theologie du xxe siecle eds. Robert Vander Gucht and Herbert Vorgrimler, Casterman, Paris, 1970, vol. 2, 345.
²⁸ Ernst Kasemann," Geist", Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3rd edition.

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acknowledged pre - reflective character of the biblical doctrine of the Spirit, but this must not be absolutized to the point where one neglects the authentic and rich doctrine of the Spirit found in the New Testament. One is already on a false road searching for a "doctrine" of the Spirit in the New Testament. Rather, there one finds the witness to the very Son, sent by the Father, who lived among us as one endowed with the Spirit, who as the risen Lord sends the Spirit to us. ²⁹

The intent of the New Testament is not to give a developed doctrine, but to proclaim the mysterious life of God and to effect a meeting. This makes it all important that supplementary to metaphysical reflection one seeks personal categories for ecclesiology, pneumatology, Christology, and trinitarian doctrine. Much of contemporary pneumatology has been taken up with precisely such a quest. ³⁰ Because pneurnatology has a two - directioned hermeneuticai function, the return to personal categories affects other theological areas. The Spirit is the universal point of contact between God and history. Pneumatology, therefore, determines the rules for speaking about ecclesiology. The Spirit as experienced in history is the point of entry into the Christological and trinitarian mystery. Pneumatology is therefore the universal horizon determining the interpretation of Christ and the Trinity. In a diagram, this hermeneutic would look like this:

Ecclesiology - Pneumatology - Christology - Trinity

In keeping with this two - directioned hermeneutical function of pneumatology, one finds a thin but constant tradition about the Spirit as the sole source of human relationship with God. Paul saw the whole of the Christian life as an effect of the Spirit. ³¹ Athanasius said that "God took flesh so that he might bring men the Spirit."³² Irenaeus teaches that the whole economy of salvation is given over to the Spirit. ³³ For Nicholas Cabasilas the whole work and teaching of Christ has no other result than that the Holy Spirit descends upon the church, ³⁴ a teaching reflecte

²⁹ Franz J. Schierse," Die Selbsterschliessung des dreifaltigen Gottes, Die neutestamentliche Trinitatsoffenbarung", Mysterium Salutis, vol. 2, 85 - 13 1.
³⁰ Heribert Mühlen, Der Heilige Geist als Person in der Trinit; it, bei der Inkarnation Und im Gnadenbund: Ich - Du - Wir, Aschendorff Verlag, Münster/Westfalen, 1966, 52. See also Mülen, Una Mystica Persona, Ferdinand Schoningh Verlag, Paderborn, 1968. Muhlen's major works have not been translated into English. Some access to his thought can be found in Robert T. Sears, Spirit: Divine and Human. The Theology of the Holy Spirit of Heribert Muhlen and Its Relevance for Evaluating the Data of Psychotherapy, doctoral thesis, Fordham University, 1974. See also Francis Colborn, The Theology of Grace: Present Trends and Future Directions, Theological Studies, 31 (1970), 692 - 711.
³¹ Neill Q. Hamilton, The Holy Spirit and Eschatology (Scottish Journal of Theology Occasional Papers, 6), Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh, 1957, 29.
³² De Incarnatione et Contra Arianos, VIII; PG 26:996c.
³³ Proof of the Apostolic Preaching, nos. 5, 42, 49; SC 62:34 - 38; 98; 99; 109; 110. See also Paul Galtier, Le Saint Esprit en nous d'apres le Peres Grecs (Analecta Gregoriana, Series Theologica 35; Section A, no. 4), Gregorian, Rome, 1946, 42.
³⁴ A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy, 37:3, translated by J. M. Hussey and P. A. McNulty, SPCK, London, 1960, 90; John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, Mowbrays, London, 1974,171.

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also in the Russian mystical tradition where the goal of the Christian life is seen as the acquisition of the Holy Spirit. ³⁵ Cast in ecclesiological terms, the ultimate mystery of the church consists in knowing the Holy Spirit. ³⁶ In no way does this represent an inflated pneumatology, nor does it threaten the centrality of Christ.

Barth, who will hardly be accused of promoting an over - blown pneumatology, repeatedly returns to the Spirit as the sole source and possibility of human relationship with God. This he bases on the incarnational analogy in "which conceived of the Holy Spirit" is seen as defining the role of the Spirit in uniting the Word to the human nature of Jesus, but at the same time determining the Spirit's subsequent and parallel role in taking all human nature into the unity with the Son of God. The Spirit makes real in us what was and is real in Jesus Christ. The sole possibility of a human being hearing and believing the word of God is rooted in faith which is effected by the Spirit alone. ³⁷

III

Language about the Spirit being the sole possibility of any relationship with God is rooted in the contact function of the Spirit. As the "finger of God" by which the divine touches history, the Spirit is the meeting place of a double movement. In one direction, the self - giving unfolding of the Father through the Son in the Spirit which initiates "the trinitarian history of God's dealings with the world", ³⁸ puts in motion the other direction, that the world being gathered in the Spirit through the Son be led back to the Father. If the whole of the Christian life is caught up in the movement "from the Father, to the Father", ³⁹ then the Spirit is the end point in the Trinity of the movement of God toward humanity but is at the same time the beginning, the turning around point. ⁴⁰ As the" last" person of the processions in God, the Spirit is the" first" and "closest" in our life of grace. Being divine nearness, the Spirit is the indispensable point of contact. No one can see the Word without the Spirit, and without the Son one does not arrive at the Father. Or in Basil's graphic image of the chain (the Spirit) which is pulled and draws the Son and the Father:" just as he who has grasped one end of the chain also draws along with him the other end, so he who draws the Spirit, as the prophet says, through Him draws along both the Son an

³⁵ Paul Evdokimov, L'orthodoxie, Delachaux et Niestle, Neuchatel, 1959, 147; Sergius Bolshakoff, Russian Mystics (Cistercian Studies Series, 26), Kalamazoo, 1977, 130, 131.
³⁶ Alexander Schmemann, Of Water and the Spirit, SPCK, London, 1974, 104.
³⁷ Church Dogmatics, I/2, 198, 199, 209, 349.
³⁸ Jurgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, SCM Press, London, 1977, 64.
³⁹ Hans - Jochen Jaschke, Der Heilige Geist im Bekenntnis der Kirche (Münsterische Beitrage zur Theologie, 40), Aschendorff, Munster, 1976, 331.
⁴⁰ Cyprian Vagaggini," From the Father, Through Christ, in the Holy Spirit, To the Father: The Liturgy and the Christological - Trinitarian Activity in the Divine Plan," Theological Dimensions in the Liturgy, Liturgical Press, Collegeville, 1976, 171 - 246.

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the Father." ⁴¹ Whatever experience we have of God, it is not first of all of the Father (who remains in inapproachable light), nor of the Son (who is at the right hand of the Father), but of the Spirit. In the Spirit, one gets access through the Son to the inaccessible God ⁴². The Spirit is that convergence point between the innermost self of God (the Latin view), and the most exterior self (Greek view). The Spirit alone makes clear how Christ is entirely turned toward the Father, how Christ is the face of the Father turned entirely toward the world, how Christ exists entirely for all humanity, who opens the doors to all pagan peoples. ⁴³ Whether one looks back to creation or forward to the resurrection, the Spirit through Christ becomes the principle of universal salvation. The Spirit is the sole possibility of salvation.

IV

At least for Paul, the Spirit is the very antithesis of pure spirituality and inwardness, but is tied to corporeality and thence to the whole of nature. ⁴⁴ Athanasius and Basil emphasized the collaboration of the Spirit in the work of creation as a way of assuring the Spirit's full divinity. The theme of Spirit as creator was never taken in full seriousness by the Latin church, but was retained in vigor in Eastern Orthodoxy and in the Syriac tradition. In the West, the Spirit was seen as active after the incarnation and Pentecost, especially in relation to charity and grace. But if one loses sight of the relation of the Spirit to creation and to the whole cosmic dimension, then there is no recourse to the Spirit to explain the character and quality of created reality. Then it is difficult to relate the Spirit to nature, to moral, cultural, and political life. Spirit becomes too sacralized, too tied to holy objects and events.

In recovering the biblical roots of theology, Luther ⁴⁵ and Calvin ⁴⁶ both returned to the creative function of the Spirit, but neither of them developed the consequences of this insight for an understanding of created reality. Protestant theology fell back to a predominantly soteriological conception of the Spirit. In pietism, the Spirit was bound to

⁴¹ Letter 38. Saint Basil., Letters, trans. Agnes Clare Way (The Fathers of the Church, 13), The Fathers of the Church, Inc., New York, 1951, 89, 90. PG 32:332c.
⁴² Martien Parmentier," St. Gregory of Nyssa's Doctrine of the Holy Spirit," Ekklesiastikos Pharos, 59(1977), 414.
⁴³ Hans Urs von Balthasar, Spiritus Creator: Skizzen zur Theologie III, Johannes Verlag, Einsiedeln, 1967, 102.
⁴⁴ Ernst Kasemann," Ministry and Community in the New Testament", Essays on New Testament Themes (Studies in Biblical Theology, 41), SCM Press, London, 68.
⁴⁵ Regin Prenter, Spiritus Creator: Luther's Concept of the Holy Spirit, translated by John M. Jensen, Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1953, 192 - 202.
⁴⁶ Werner Krusche, "Der Heilige Geist und der Kosmos", Das Wirken des Heiligen Geistes nach Calvin, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Gottingen, 1957, 15 - 32. Alexandre Ganoczy," Word and Spirit in the Catholic Tradition", Conflicts About the Holy Spirit, eds. Hans Küng and Jurgen Moltmann, Seabury, New York, 1979, 48 - 59. For the Anabaptist view, see John H. Yoder, "The Enthusiasts and the Reformation", Conflicts About the Holy Spirit, 41 - 47. For a perspective on the Spirit in a major figure in the Great Awakening see Patricia Wilson - Kastner, Coherence in a Fragmented World: Jonathan Edwards' Theology of the Holy Spirit, University Press of America, Washington, D.C., 1978.

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subjective experience. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Johann Arndt was silent concerning the role of the Spirit in creation, Jean de Labadie explicitly denied it, and, later on, Philipp Jakob Spener mentioned it but treated it as a relic he did not know what to do with. "Thus the Spirit became a factor in subjective experience rather than a principle in explanation of nature."47

In the nineteenth century, the subjectivism of pietism, where the inner light gave radiance to the human mind, was replaced with the new form of subjectivism in idealism, where spirit was identified with mind. Hegel spoke of the universe as created by spirit, which was an absolutizing self - projection of the human mind, a view which eventually rendered the doctrine of the divine Spirit meaningless.

What needs to be retained is the cosmic dimension of the Creator Spirit, whose creative act embraces the whole of creation which is destined for redemption. This universalist perspective, encompassing the whole of bodily and spiritual creation, precedes the individual and personal function. Though undeveloped, there are traces of this universalist theme in the documents of Vatican II48 and in the major document to come out of Puebla.49 By restoring the Holy Spirit to creation, one can both overcome the subjectivistic privatizing view of the Spirit in pietism while evaluating the experiential dimensions of pneumatology positively, and at the same time be on track to theologize meaningfully about the Spirit of Christ in relation to resurrection and cosmic redemption.50

V

To speak of the Spirit in relation to creation is to speak of anthropology. At this point, the Judeo - Christian (here the term means non - Greek) and Syriac tradition has a contribution to make. One can ask whether a genuinely Semitic form of the Gospel is attained by exclusive dependence on the New Testament written in Greek. Aramaic was one of the eminent languages of the civilized East from the sixth to the third century B.C. Even after the conquest of Alexander the Great, Aramaic, in one of its main dialects, Syriac, remained the chief spoken and written language of the people. So there is, alongside Greek and Latin Christianity, a Semitic form, which in its earliest expressions was independent of Paul's theology and Hellenic culture. Greek culture helped introduce non - Semitic elements into the New Testament.

What makes the Syriac so intriguing is the biblical rather than philosophical tradition which speaks not in concepts but in images and

⁴⁷ Wolfhart Pannenberg, "The Doctrine of the Spirit and the Task of a Theology of Nature", Theology, 75 (1972), 12. See also C. K. Barrett, The Holy Spirit and the Gospel Tradition, SPCK, London, 1970, 23, 24, 45.
⁴⁸ Church in the Modern World, 22 and 26; Ministry and Life of Priests, 26.
⁴⁹ Puebla: Evangelization at Present and in the Future of Latin America, articles 199 and 200.
⁵⁰ John Macquarrie, Principles of Christian Theology, Charles Scribner, New York, 1962, second edition, 331, 332.

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pictures. The original Semitic and Aramaic shape of the gospel message as expressed by Jesus in the language he most probably spoke, is available to us in a non - Pauline form in Judeo - Christian writings such as Aphraates and Ephrem. Indeed, early Syriac literature (before the fifth century) is the sole surviving representative of a genuinely Semitic Christianity in general, and of an authentic Semitic pneumatology in particular. ⁵¹

Judeo - Christian writers express their anthropology in the context of their Christology which is cast in the form of Adam mysticism. The first Adam (not the second) is Christ who possesses the Spirit in fullness. The Adam of Genesis, who is the second Adam (not the first), was created by God according to the image of Christ, the first Adam. What distinguishes a human being from the rest of creation is the Spirit whom God imparted to it, and thus raised it above the rest of creation. Therefore the breathing in of the Spirit belongs to a human being in a constitutive way and is not added as an ornament, or as an addendum.

This blending of the physical and the spiritual is genuinely Semitic as seen in Genesis 3 where the consequences of the fall touch both areas. Likewise in Isaiah 32:15, 16 where the spirit of God as the giver of life brings physical and spiritual renewal in harmony. ⁵² But in Aphraates, the descendants of the Second Adam have lost the Spirit. At birth, a person is only a torso, and the full humanity is restored when the Spirit is given at baptism. ⁵³ The Gospel of Thomas, of Syriac provenance, sees the Holy Spirit as the "great wealth" which comes from God and is bestowed upon the poverty of the body - soul unity, thus raising the person to the fullness of humanity. This "great wealth" gives immortality, which was lost when the Spirit departed. ⁵⁴ Tatian, who was Greek educated (though later on he attacked Greek culture as corrupting), believed that the divine Spirit who belonged to the original condition of humanity, departed from the body - soul unity. The return to the fullness of humanity is only possible through the initiative of the divine Spirit. ⁵⁵

VI

Perhaps better than any other systematic area, Christology demonstrates the hermeneutic function of pneumatology, the doctrine of the Spirit as horizon, because it determines the rules for speaking about the Christ who is the Present One. In Christology, one is speaking about the what which in the classical Chalcedonian formulation is the two-

⁵¹ Winfred Cramer, Der Geist Gottes und des Menschen in frusyricher Theologie, Aschendorff, Munster 1979. See also Emmanuel - Pataq Siman, L'experience de l'esprit par l'eglise d'apres la tradition syrienne d'Antioche (Theologie Historique 15), Beauchesne, Paris, 1971; S. P. Brock, Holy Spirit in the Syrian Baptismal Tradition (The Syrian Churches Series, 9), ed. J. Vellian, Poona, 1979.
⁵² Lloyd Neve, The Spirit of God in the Old Testament, Augsburg, Minneapolis, 1972, 75, 76. See also Daniel Lys, Ruach, Le souffle dans IAncien Testament, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1962.
⁵³ Cramer, Der Geist Gottes und des Menschen, 73 - 76, 78.
⁵⁴ Ibid., 25, 26.
⁵⁵ Ibid., 25, 26, 58.

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nature doctrine. One is also speaking of the "why", or the purpose of the Son's coming: salvation. But this is not yet a full reflection of the biblical doctrine because one neglects the element of "how" God and the human person met in Jesus the Present One ⁵⁶. And the Spirit is the "how".

There can never be a balanced doctrine of Christ without the recognition that pneumatology is the point of entry into Christology and ultimately into the Trinity. A truly Christo - centric approach is without validity unless it is thought out in relation to the Spirit. This is not a plea for fat tomes on the Holy Spirit, or an exaggerated pneumatology. Being the point of entry into Christology and the doctrine of the Trinity, and the point of contact between God and history, the Spirit is the horizon where the meaning of Christ and history are made manifest. One respects this horizon not necessarily by making the Spirit the specific object of theological reflection, or by continual talk about the Spirit, but by recognizing this role of point of entry and contact and its consequences for the whole theological process. This is not accomplished by sprinkling references to the Spirit throughout a preconceived theological formulation.

One is somewhat taken aback to read in someone as distinguished as Emil Brunner that the work of the Spirit is as important as that of the Son. ⁵⁷ That astonishment is the measure of our theological malaise. Brunner is, of course, right. The mystery of salvation is Christo - centric, but it is not pan - Christological or Christo - monistic. If one looks to the trinitarian controls, one sees that the Spirit is not inferior to the Son in the inner - trinitarian life, and therefore the external mission of the Spirit cannot be inferior to that of the Son. The economic Trinity (as manifested in the history of salvation) is a reflection of the immanent Trinity (as it is in itself). ⁵⁸

The relationship between Christology and pneurnatology is measured by both the identity and non - identity between Christ and the Spirit, a matter of great theological delicacy which has caused more than a little confusion. ⁵⁹ As early as Ignatius of Antioch, there was the recognition that every Christological statement had its pneumatological counterpart. ⁶⁰ This is an expression of that mutuality which is not complete identification. In spite of the Veni Creator Spiritus and the Spirit's creative function, there is a tendency to make pneumatology subject to

⁵⁶ Nikos A. Nissiotis," Pneumatological Cbristology as a Presupposition of Ecclesiology", Oecumenica 1967, Augsburg, Minneapolis, 1967, 240.
⁵⁷ Vom Werk des heiligen Geistes, J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tubingen, 1935, 1.
⁵⁸ Karl Ralmer, The Trinity, Seabury, New York, 1974, 21 - 24,
⁵⁹ Edward Schillebeeckx, God of grace, Jesus Christ and the Spirit, Christ, Seabury, New York, 534 - 538; James D. G. Dunn, "Spirit or Angel?" Christology in the Making, Westminster, Philadelphia, 1980,129 - 162; Felix Porsch, Pneuma und Wort (Frankfurter theologische Studien, 16), J. Knecht, Frankfurt am Main, 1974; Ingo Hermann, Kyrios und Pneuma (Studien zum Alten und Neuen Testament, 2), Kosel Verlag, München, 1961,4347.
⁶⁰ Theodor Rusch Die Entstehung der Lehre Vom Heiligen Geist bei Ignatius von Antiochia, Theophilus von Antiochia und Irenaus von Lyon, Zwingli Verlag, Zürich, 1952, 123.

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Christology in an unacceptably subordinationist manner, or to make pneurnatology only an extension of Christology in an unhealthy modalist sense (there is a healthy kind of modalism), as though the Spirit were essentially inferior to Christ, and therefore not as important as Christ. If trinitarian doctrine is normative, one cannot say that, because in the inner - trinitarian life the spiration of the Spirit is not less than the procession of the Son. Nor can the Spirit's mission in history be less. Even so, the Spirit reveals the true reality of Jesus (John 14:26), and in no sense does this imply a subordinationist diminishing of the Spirit.

There is a persistent fear, not without some foundation, that the Spirit will become independent over against the Christ, and then one has to deal with what is perceived as fanaticism (Schwärmerei). Or there is the fear that pneumatology will detract from Christo - centrism. No reason exists why a pneumato - centric theology has. to cancel out a Christo - centric one, any more than the mission of the Spirit cancels out that of the Son. In the history of salvation, there are two constitutive moments, one Christological, and other pneumatological. Though they are equally important, they are not conceived as two centralities. There is only one centrality, Jesus Christ. Every dogmatic tract is materially about Jesus Christ, but the point of contact of Christ with history at every point of the divine initiative is the Spirit. The whole and only horizon in which one can speak of Christ theologically is the Spirit: through Christ in the Spirit. This may sound threatening only if one thinks that what one "gives" to the Spirit one "takes away" from Christ, so that a developed pneumatology necessarily destroys a sound Christocentrism. One does not steal from Christ to enrich the Spirit. It was no accident that Barth, who had not arrived at a major systematic treatment of the Spirit after many volumes of the Church Dogmatics, ⁶¹ could, shortly before his death in 1969, say that he could begin all over again and take pneumatology as his point of departure. ⁶² To do so would not have meant giving up his Christo - centrism.

If the Spirit belongs to Jesus constitutively and not merely in a second moment, and if the risen Lord sends the Spirit, then every Christology must be given a kind of precision by pneumatology, and vice versa. This is especially true if one conceives of Christology not as academic speculation on who the dead Jesus was. Christology has to do with who Jesus is, the Christ who lives and is present. ⁶³ It is the Spirit who realizes in us the Christ - Presence. The Spirit renders the Christ a living reality that would otherwise remain historical speculation.

⁶¹ S. Daecke," Neue Konjunktur Fur den Geist", Evangelische Kommentare, 9(1975), 520.
⁶² The treatment of pneumatology is in the fourth volume, and this mainly in an ecclesiological context. Was he influenced here by Schleiermacher, with whom Barth had a love - hate relationship? There are passages on the Spirit in Barth's other three volumes which should not be neglected.
⁶³ John C. Haughey, The Conspiracy of God: The Holy Spirit in Men, Doubleday, Garden City, 1973, 40 - 68.

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VII

Paul Tillich's pneumatology stands in stark contrast to Barth's. Only in his latter work, more precisely in the third volume of his Systematic Theology, did Tillich develop his pneurnatology ⁶⁴. Tillich is one of the few Protestant (or Catholic) theologians who has handled the doctrine of the Spirit in its proper section instead of seeing it as part of ecclesiology, as Schleiermacher did, or as part of the doctrine of grace. Tillich attempted to do what Schleiermacher, Hegel, and nineteenth century liberalism tried to do and never accomplished, that is, close the dangerous gap between culture and religion. His specific intent was to correlate culture, religion, philosophy, and theology, His whole systematic is conceived of as a theology of the third article. ⁶⁵ Here, too, this was not a denial of the centrality of Christology to his theological conception. Tillich sees the Spirit present in all history but as fully present only in Jesus. Jesus the Christ is the creation of the Holy Spirit, who is the actuality of the New Being. ⁶⁶

Tillich himself characterizes his doctrine of Christ as "Spirit - Christology", ⁶⁷ and conceives of his Christology as a specification of his pneumatology. The synthesis is especially concerned with binding together God and the world, or more precisely, God as Spirit and the human person as spirit. Ecstasy occurs when the human being as spirit is grasped by the divine Spirit. For Tillich "human spirit" means more than human nature and embraces the whole human reality: morality, culture, and religion. The role of the Spirit in Tillich's theology is neither the churchy Spirit of ecclesiastical piety, nor the experiential Spirit of pietism, but the universalist Spirit who bridges all the gaps. And that is Tillich's strength.

Others have turned to a Spirit Christology but there have been few defenders, partly because it harbors the possibility of a false adoptionism and of "fanaticism" (Schwümerei). Wolfhart Pannenberg does not seem unduly impressed with the possibilities of Spirit Christology. ⁶⁸ The uniqueness of Jesus, he believes, is better safeguarded and adoptionism avoided if one starts with the historical facts of Jesus' existence or from the claims of Jesus expressed in Scripture, than with the person of the Spirit. ⁶⁹ Though there is some historical ground for this shyness ⁷⁰ there is no essential reason why pneumatic Cbristology need necessarily be adoptionist. Logos Christology is also biblical, but one could ask whether

⁶⁴ University of Chicago Press, 1963.
⁶⁵ Sturm Wittschier, Paul Tillich: Seine Pneuma - Theologie, Glock und Lutz, Nurnberg 1975, 10, 105.
⁶⁶ Systematic Theology, vol. 2, 180; vol. 3, 144.
⁶⁷ Ibid., vol. 3, 144.
⁶⁸ Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus - God and Man, Westminster, Philadelphia, 1968, 135 - 137.
⁶⁹ Ibid.
⁷⁰ C. F. D. Moule, The Holy Spirit, Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, 1979, 59, 60.

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a return to a more pneumatic Christology would not do greater justice to the larger patterns of New Testament thought.

Heribert Mühlen has helped Spirit Christology by creating a trinitarian vocabulary called" personology", ⁷¹ with emphasis on persons rather than on nature. In the inner - trinitarian life the Father is the "I", the Son the "Thou", and the Spirit the "We" or the "We act", or "one person in two persons". The Spirit has the same unitive we function in the history of salvation as in the inner - trinitarian life. As the same person in Christ and in us, the Spirit is one "person in many persons". For Mühlen, the church is the continuation of the anointing of Jesus by the Spirit at the Jordan. ⁷²

Yves Congar proposes a Christology which takes the baptism of Jesus with greater seriousness. ⁷³ For Congar, the baptism is constitutive (not just declarative) of the Messiah - Savior - Lord, but he would add the resurrection - exaltation as a successive stage in the history of salvation, a second new actuation of the power of the Spirit, also constitutive and not just declarative.

It was especially Mühlen's work, as well as that of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger, which gave impetus to Walter Kasper's attempt at a modern version of Spirit Christology. Why is Jesus the Son of God? Because from the beginning he is from the Spirit ⁷⁴. Jesus is the bearer of the Spirit; beyond that he is begotten, indeed created by the Spirit, and Jesus himself becomes life - giving Spirit. The identity of the risen and glorified Jesus and his cosmic significance is defined in relation to the Spirit. Kasper is convinced that the essential biblical framework in which Christ is presented is pneumatological and at the same time "trinitarian." Such a Christology will best safeguard both the uniqueness and universality of Jesus. ⁷⁵ "The rediscovery of the pneumatic dimension is therefore the most important and far - reaching reorientation in Christology." ⁷⁶

James D. G. Dunn has elaborated the biblical basis for a Spirit Christology. As the effective power of God, the Spirit ⁷⁷ was experienced in a unique measure during Jesus' life. Some would say that where Jesus is, there is the kingdom. But the kingdom is present in Jesus only because he has the Spirit. Since the resurrection, a transformation has taken place in the relationship between Jesus and the Spirit. As the last Adam

⁷¹ Der Heilige Geist als Person, 5 2.
⁷² On an exegetical basis see the important qualifications which Igance de la Potterie would make in "Anointing of the Christian by Faith", The Christian Lives by the Spirit, Alba, New York, 1971, 79 - 135.
⁷³" Pour une christologie pneumatologique", Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Theologiques, 63 (1979), 435 - 442.
⁷⁴" Die Kirche als Sakrament des Geistes", Kirche: Ort des Geistes, eds. Walter Kasper and Gerhard Sauter, Herder, Freibourg, 1976, 30, 31.
⁷⁵ Jesus the Christ, Paulist Press, New York, 1976, 266 - 268.
⁷⁶ "Aufgaben der Christologie heute", Christologie im Prasens, eds. Arno Schilson and Walter Kasper, Herder, Freibourg, 1977, 146.
⁷⁷" Rediscovering the Spirit", The Expository Times, 84 (1972 - 1973), 10.

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Jesus is not just living spirit, but life - giving Spirit. ⁷⁸ As the Spirit is the divinity of Jesus, so Jesus is the personality of the Spirit.

G. W. H. Lampe discards Logos Christology as a threat to the full humanity of Jesus, but sees him as possessing the Spirit. Jesus is neither substantively, nor qualitatively, nor adjectivally God, but, through the Spirit, is God "adverbially", which is to say that Jesus acted divinely. ⁷⁹ The Trinity is set aside as "a theological construction", ⁸⁰ and incarnation, pre - existence, and post - resurectional existence are excluded.

Piet Schoonenberg has similar problems with Logos Christology and asks whether the Spirit Christology of Paul and Luke (and parts of John) should not also be heard. Competitiveness between the divine and the human in Logos Christology is something Schoonenberg would like to eliminate. ⁸¹ The Spirit, he maintains, is active in the person of Jesus as an "extension of God." ⁸² The Spirit is constitutive of Jesus ontologically: "The Spirit does not influence Jesus' human reality alongside the Logos, but as the overflowing fullness of the Logos' self - communication, overflowing in Jesus during his earthly life, overflowing from Jesus since his glorification." ⁸³

Philip J. Rosato would begin his Spirit Christology not with the descent of the Spirit at Jesus' baptism but with his resurrection and glorification, which would guarantee the unique ontological character of Jesus ⁸⁴ which historically has been a weakness in Spirit Christology. By binding the Spirit to resurrection, Rosato makes it possible to move from resurrection back to cosmic beginnings, and forward to cosmic fulfillment. For Olaf Hansen, the biblical evidence pointing to a Spirit Christology has the advantage of using categories of action rather than of being. ⁸⁵ Paul's enigmatic "The Lord is Spirit", says Hansen, is a functional, not an ontological identification, that is, identification not in the divine substance but in Christian experience. At the resurrection, Jesus ceased to be a man dependent on the Spirit and became Lord of the Spirit.

VIII

Any reevaluation of Spirit Christology will have to look at the Judeo - Christian evidence in Syrian and Armenian patristic and liturgical

⁷⁸ Christology in the Making, Westminster, Philadelphia, 1980, 129 - 149; Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit (Studies in Biblical Theory, 15), A. R. Allenson, Naperville, 1970.
⁷⁹ "The Holy Spirit and the Person of Christ," Christ, Faith, and History, eds. J. P. Clayton and S. W. Sykes, Cambridge University Press, 1972, 124.
⁸⁰ God as Spirit, Clarendon, Oxford, 1977, 140.
⁸¹ "God or Man: A False Dilemma," The Christ, Seabury, New York, 1971, 13 - 49.
⁸²" Spirit Christology and Logos Christology", Bijdragen, 38 (1977), 367.
⁸³ Ibid. 374. See also Schoonenberg," Trinity - The Consummated Covenant: Theses on the Doctrine of the Trinitarian God", Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, 5 (1975), 111 - 116.
⁸⁴" Spirit Christology: Ambiguity and Promise", Theological Studies, 38 (1977), 444 - 449. See also Rosato," The Advantages of a Revitalized Spirit Christology", The Spirit as Lord, 173 - 180.
⁸⁵ "Spirit Christology: A Way Out of the Dilemma?" The Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church, ed. Paul D. Opsahl, Augsburg, Minneapolis, 1978, 172 - 203.

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sources, which have not received due attention. For instance, all the Armenian creeds even today, be it in the baptismal rite or in the eucharistic liturgy or in other ceremonies, mention the descent of the Spirit upon Jesus at his baptism: "We believe also in the Holy Spirit. . who descended on the Jordan and proclaimed the Sent One [that is, Jesus the Messiah]" ⁸⁶ The role of the Spirit in proclaiming Jesus as the One who is sent is corroborated by early Greek texts from Syro - Palestine. This evidence would indicate that the baptism at the Jordan where the Spirit proclaimed Jesus as Messiah was perceived as the manifestation of the Spirit par excellence, and from this event all other divine manifestations of the Spirit take their beginning. ⁸⁷

Moltmann contends that a "pneumatological Christology leads to a charismatic ecclesiology". ⁸⁸ If the Spirit plays a more constitutive role in Christology, what significance does this have for ecclesiology? Especially when the Christian East looks at Western ecclesiology, and more particularly Roman Catholic teaching, it perceives" the lack of a theology of the Holy Spirit, as the actual Founder of the historical church, on the basis of the redemptive work of Jesus, on the day of Pentecost." ⁸⁹ One might want to reformulate this, but the constitutive role of the Spirit in the church should be retained. This, Eastern theologians hold, is the great theological question facing all of the churches.

On the day of Pentecost, the Spirit does not come to infuse with power the already existing church structure; the coming belongs to the first, to the constitutive moment. This is not to claim a special economy of the Spirit, which would be dangerous. The church is the body of Christ, not of the Spirit. The point of departure for ecclesiology is still Christology, as a doctrine of Christ which takes into account the biblical teaching that Christ was born of the Spirit, anointed by the Spirit at his baptism. He ministered in the power of the Spirit, and his identity is determined in relation to the Spirit. ⁹⁰ Here, too, there should be no working supposition that what is given to the Spirit is taken away from Christ

⁸⁶ Gabriele Winkler, A Remarkable Shift in the 4th Century Creeds: An Analysis of the Armenian, Syriac, and Greek Evidence, to appear in Studia Patristica. See also Winkler, "Eine bernerkenswerte Stelle im armenischen Glaubensbekenntnis: Credimus et in Sanctum Spiritum qui descendit in Jordanem proclamavit missum", Oriens Christianus, 63 (1979), 130 - 162.
⁸⁷ Winkler, "A Remarkable Shift in the 4th Century Creeds".
⁸⁸ The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 36.
⁸⁹ Nikos A. Nissiotis, "The Main Ecclesiological Problem of the Second Vatican Council", Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 2(1965), 49. Nissiotis claims that the Constitution on the Church of Vatican 11 has an unacceptable consequent pneumatology. Yves Congar refutes the charge in - "Pneumatologie ou 'Christomonisme' dans la tradition latine? "Ecclesia a Spiritu Sancto edocta (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 27), Melanges Theologiques; Homage A Mgr. Gerard Philips, J. Duculot, Gembloux, Belgium, 1970, 41 - 63. Cf. also Nissiotis, "Is the Vatican Council Really Ecumenical?" Ecumenical Review, 16 (1964), 365.
⁹⁰ J. D. Zizioulas, Die pneumatologische Dimension der Kirche, Internationale Katholische Zeitschrift, 2 (1973), 134, 135.

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of both in source and life, the church is rooted in two divine missions, that of the Son and the Spirit, and both are constitutive of the church.

Without suggesting that the mission of the Spirit is of less importance than that of the Son, one can speak of a subordination of the work of the Spirit to that of Christ: It is from me that he [the Spirit] receives what - he will declare to you (John 16:15). Nor is this constitutive role of the Spirit in the church exclusively Eastern. Contemporary exegetes, Protestant and Catholic, have called attention to this constitutive role of the Spirit. ⁹¹ And it stands in the Western patristic tradition also. Augustine saw the church as the specific work of the Spirit, but in a profoundly trinitarian sense: "The society of the one Church of God ... is, as it were, the proper work of the Holy Spirit, the Father and Son cooperating of course, since the Holy Spirit in a certain sense is the society himself of Father and Son (Societas est quodammodo Patris et Filii ipse Spiritus Sanctus] ... the Holy Spirit is conjointly had by Father and Son since he is the one Spirit of both". ⁹²

Again there is a hermeneutical control: Ecclesiology - Pneumatology - Christology - Trinity. Pneumatology is the point where ecclesiology has contact with Christology and finally, entry into the trinitarian life. ⁹³ Using the Matthean perspective, the Apostles' Creed has the same hermeneutic process, but beginning with the Father. Each article norms the subsequent one. In the third article of the Creed, pneumatology determines and is the point of contact with ecclesiology, soteriology, and eschatology: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting."

The expression of the Roman Catholic church's life in sacramental worship lacked a pneumatological accent, if the Constitution on the Liturgy of Vatican II was any measure. ⁹⁴ Here the Holy Spirit did not even attain the level of an ornament. But there has been an attempt to reclaim pneumatology for sacramental theology as a way of entering into the Christological and trinitarian mystery. ⁹⁵

⁹¹ H. Windisch, "Jesus und der Geist im Johannisevangelium", Amicitiae Corolla, essays presented to J. R. Harris, ed. H. G. Wood, University of London Press, 1933, 318; Ingo Herman, Kyrios und Pneuma, 84, 85.
⁹² Sermo, 71, 20,33; PL 38:463.
⁹³ Sabbas Kilian has pointed out the ecclesiological significance of Heribert Mühlen's work in "The Holy Spirit in Christ and in Christians", American Benedictine Review, 20(1969),99 - 121.
⁹⁴ Vilmos Vajta," Renewal of Worship": De Sacra Liturgia, Dialogue on the Way, ed. George A. Lindbeck, Augsburg, Minneapolis, 1965, 107, 108.
⁹⁵ Edward Schillebeeckx, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter with God, Sheed and Ward, New York, 1963, 21 - 36; Patrick Regan, -" Pneumatological and Eschatological Aspects of Liturgical Celebration", Worship, 57(1977), 332 - 350; Jose R. Villalon, Problemes Theologiques' eclaires par une vision pneumatologique de I'histoire du salut, Sacrements dans L'Esprit (Theologique Historique 43) Beauchesne, Paris, 1977, 416434. See also John H. McKenna, Eucharist and Holy Spirit: The Eucharistic Epiclesis in the Twentieth Century Theology (1900 - 1966) (Alcuin Club Collections, 57), Great Wakering, England, 1975; Joseph M. Powers, Spirit and Sacrament, Seabury, New York,

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IX

In the past, the gifts of the Spirit have been too sacralized, too captive to a constricting inwardness, seen as the proper domain of mystical theology, privileges for the few, placed in an exaggerated supernatural framework, ephemeral manifestations of a church in her immaturity. Now charisms are being related to a wholesome secularity. ⁹⁶ Rather than peripheral and decorative, they are increasingly seen as belonging to the structure of the church, pertaining not to her extraordinary but to her ordinary life. ⁹⁷ This is a rather large step from the view of the great Pauline exegete, Ferdinand Prat, who was saying in the 1920s that the charisms "might some day disappear without depriving the church of an indispensable organ." ⁹⁸ Like the church herself, charisms are focused on and controlled by Jesus ⁹⁹ There is an experiential dimension to the charisms, which has always been suspect, as though what one granted to experience one took away from faith, or if one admitted the experiential into one's life, one was basing salvation on it and not on faith. Granting all the problems which enthusiasm has raised (and they could be considerable), it does seem evident that the experiential as an expression of life in the Spirit is constitutive of both faith and theological reflection. ¹⁰⁰

It is a misconception to think that the charismatic renewal in the churches is exclusively occupied with the charisms, or uniquely with the Holy Spirit. In sociological terms, it is a Jesus rather than a Spirit cult. Though theological reflection has not been an area of strength, it has posed a new set of questions in pneumatology, new in terms of the recent past. ¹⁰¹ With a concern to be fair, but sometimes with considerable pain,

1973; Robert Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition, Cambridge University Press; Louis Bouyer, Le Consolateur, du Cerf, Paris, 1980,339 - 354.
⁹⁶ Ernst Kasemann, "Ministry and Community in the New Testament", Essays on New Testament Themes, 63 - 94. Enrique Dussel, "The Differentiation of Charisms", Charisms in the Church, eds. Christian Duquoc and Casiano Floristan, Seabury, New York, 1978, 38 - 55.
⁹⁷ Leon Cardinal Suenens, "The Charismatic Dimension of the Church", Council Speeches of Vatican II, eds. Hans Küng, et al., Paulist Press, Glen Rock, 1964, 29 - 34; Hans Küng," The Church as the Creation of the Spirit", The Church, Sheed and Ward, New York, 1967, 150 - 203; Karl Rahner, The Dynamic Element in the Church (Quaestiones Disputatae, 12), Herder and Herder, New York, 1964; Rene Laurentin,"Charisms: Terminological Precision", 3 - 12.
⁹⁸ The Theology of St. Paul, Newman, Westminster, 1926, vol. I, 129.
⁹⁹ John Koenig, Charismata: God's Gifts for God's People, Westminster, Philadelphia, 1978,90.
¹⁰⁰ James D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit, Westminster, Philadelphia, 1975; Dunn, Spirit and Experience, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament, Westminster, Philadelphia, 1977, 174 - 202; Donatien Mollat, "The Role of Experience in the New Testament Teaching on Baptism and the Coming of the Spirit", One in Christ, 10(1974), 129 - 147.
¹⁰¹ J. Rodman Williams, The Era of the Spirit, Logos, Plainfield, 1971; Williams, The Gift of the Holy Spirit Today, Logos, Plainfield, 1980; Heribert Muhlen A Charismatic Theology, Paulist, New York, 1978; Piet Schoonenberg, "Baptism with the Holy Spirit", Experience of the Spirit, eds. Peter Huizing and William Bassett, Seabury, New York,

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of the churches have issued official and semi - official documents on the charismatic renewal. ¹⁰² Judgments vary, but there is a development, with notable exceptions, toward more acceptance of the major ideals of the renewal as consistent with, even demanded by, the normal Christian life. ¹⁰³

Pneumatology has pushed us into a more personalistic theological vocabulary. The individual elements for an understanding of the two-directional hermeneutical function (toward ecclesiology and history, in one direction, and toward Christology and the doctrine of the Trinity, on the other) are undoubtedly present in the literature. Only rarely are they brought together as a coherent whole. Because this happens so seldom, the Holy Spirit remains ornament rather than horizon. The more constitutive role of the Spirit in Christology and, therefore, in ecclesiology means that the Holy Spirit is beginning to move away from a tinsel to a substantive function, and this without threatening Christo - centrism. But here we are novices and unsure of ourselves. Fear of the Spirit persists

1974, 20 - 38; Theological and Pastoral Orientations on the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (Malines Document, 1) Word and God (now Servant Publications), Ann Arbor, 1974.
¹⁰² A collection of 104 documents, mostly from the churches, in Presence, Power, Praise: Documents on the Charismatic Renewal, ed. Kilian McDonnell, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, 3 vols., 1980,
¹⁰³ Kilian McDonnell, "Parameters, Patterns, and the Atypical", ibid., Vol. I, xix - l xix. See also Yves Congar, Le renouveau dans l'esprit: promesses et interrogations, Je Crois en I'Esprit Saint, du Cerf, Paris, 1980, Vol. 3, 187 - 289.