Traditional And Modern Pneumatological Research

The Christian theological tradition has always found discussion of the Holy Spirit difficult. In early patristic writings, for example, the Holy Spirit was often treated as an adjunct to discussions about the relationship between Jesus and God. For both Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, the Spirit was ‘love” or “gift”—designations which are indeed real, but also to a certain extent elusive. Today, some contemporary theologians find the task of describing the Holy Spirit no less difficult. William Hill and Colin Gunton both speak of the “self-effacing” Spirit; Leonardo Boff speaks of the Spirit who “cannot be imagined” while Paul Evdokimov speaks of the “mysterious face” of the Spirit. Other contemporary theologians speak of the Holy Spirit in relation to the Spirit’s function of making connections. Some time ago, John Taylor called the Holy Spirit The Go-Between God. Latterly, Mary Grey and Elizabeth Johnson have been exploring the Spirit’s function as that of bringing different entities into relationship. Kilian McDonnell suggests that the Holy Spirit is the “horizon” in which believers pray and reflect, but the Spirit is never an “object.” Such comments about the Holy Spirit from believers prior to and contemporary with Edward Schillebeeckx provide a background for discussing and assessing his treatment of the Holy Spirit.This discussion has three parts. I will first describe the theology of the Holy Spirit presented in the theological writings of Edward Schillebeeckx between 1974 and 1994; second, I will offer some critique on his treatment of the Holy Spirit; third, I will draw on Schillebeeckx’s theology to suggest future directions for pneumatology.

The twelfth century was a time of rejuvenated interest in the Holy Spirit in western Christendom. Two German theologians, Rupert of Deutz and Anselm of Havelberg, in particular offered new interpretations of the Holy Spirit that have generally been neglected by previous scholarship. Both of them showed a unique interest in salvation history and the renewal of the Church as shaped by the work of the Holy Spirit. This thesis provides a detailed study of the both writers’ works, placing them in a wider historical and theological context. Rupert of Deutz (ca 1075-1129), a Benedictine monk, provided a ground-breaking contribution to the theology of history in the twelfth century through an original conception of the role of the Holy Spirit in Church history. Through a close reading of Rupert’s De operibus Spiritus sancti (1113-1117), this thesis analyses Rupert’s innovative Trinitarian scheme of salvation history, based around the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is also argued that Rupert’s work on salvation history and the Holy Spirit reveals his original (though so far unnoticed) reflections on the changes of the contemporary Church. Anselm of Havelberg (ca 1095-1158), a regular canon, carried on the new direction of salvation history and interpretation of the Holy Spirit as the driving force of the Church as proposed by Rupert. However, in sharp contrast with Rupert, Anselm emphasized the ideas of diversity and development in his major work, Anticimenon (1149). In addition to examining Anselm’s interpretations of the seven seals in the Apocalypse, my work also illuminates how Anselm applied his original understanding of the Holy Spirit’s work within Church history to his debates with the Greeks in terms of Filioque and papal primacy. The thesis closes with a comparison between Rupert and Anselm, in particular focusing on their respective ideas of the Holy Spirit, salvation history and the renewal of the Church. This research not only constitutes the first detailed study on Rupert and Anselm’s understandings of the Holy Spirit in a broad comparative perspective, but also sheds light on important intellectual, theological and ecclesiastical developments in the first half of the twelfth century.

Peter D. Neumann, Pentecostal Experience: An Ecumenical Encounter. Princeton Theological Monograph Series 187. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2012. Pp. 373. $42.00, paper. Amos Yong, Pneumatology and the Christian-Buddhist Dialogue: Does the Spirit Blow through the Middle Way? Studies in Systematic Theology 11. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2012. Pp. 301. $182.00. Koo Dong Yun, The Holy Spirit and Ch'i (Qi): A Chiological Approach to Pneumatology. Princeton Theological Monograph Series 180. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications (Wipf & Stock), 2012. Pp. 169. $22.00, paper. The recent renaissance in pneumatology alongside a rapidly growing interest in interreligious dialogue in Christian theology has presented a genuine opportunity for Pentecostal and Charismatic theologians who are eager to contribute to a discipline that has long been suspicious of non-Catholic and non-Mainline Protestant theologians. These books by Neumann, Yong, and Yun are best understood in this contextual situation, as all three aspire to demonstrate the distinct value that Pentecostal and Charismatic voices can contribute to the wider field of Christian theology via potential intersections between pneumatology and the theological issues surrounding religious diversity. While there are many differences among these texts, they share a common general entry point into this theological conversation. With varying emphases, all three authors argue that the delicate balancing act between absolute exclusivism and erasing the differences of others has typically led to a deadend for much of contemporary Christian theology and that this balance can be perfected by grounding any Christian theology of religious diversity upon an understanding of the Holy Spirit. While Neumann briefly touches on the topic of religious diversity beyond Christianity, his scope is the narrowest of the three texts. He seeks primarily to demonstrate the value of Pentecostal theology in the Christian ecumenical conversation--no small undertaking, as Pentecostal thought has long been pushed to the periphery of Christian discussions on ecumenicity. Relying on the metaphor of aging, Neumann argues that, while earlier Pentecostal theological models of God, scripture, and experience reflected an adolescent state of mind, more recent theologians in the traditions have helped Pentecostal thought mature to fit better the norms of modern rationality. He makes his case by constructively surveying three contemporary Pentecostal theologians--Frank D. Macchia, Simon K. H. Chan, and Amos Yong--to demonstrate that the leaders in Pentecostal theology have moderated earlier, more radical Pentecostal views of the believer's relationship with God. They have reconceptualized this Pentecostal view by emphasizing that, while believers' experiences with the Holy Spirit are direct, they are also still mediated through contextual interpretation through reason, tradition, culture, and scripture. The astute reader will notice the mainline Protestant influence (the Wesleyan Quadrilateral) on this reconstruction, and Neumann devotes a significant portion of the text to comparing Macchia, Chan, and Yong to Mainline Protestant and Catholic theologians from Jurgen Moltmann to Yves Congar. He does an excellent job of demonstrating that this conversation can and should go both ways and that Pentecostal theologians have a great deal to contribute to Christian thought on the Holy Spirit and beyond. The Holy Spirit and Ch'i (Qi) is Yun's first book since his important 2003 comparative survey, Baptism in the Holy Spirit. These texts share much in common, both methodologically and topically. Trying to avoid the pitfalls of both exclusivism and inclusivism, Yun searches for a theological alternative to the question of religious diversity by reinterpreting pneumatology through the Eastern conceptions of ch'i (spirit). Within these conceptions, Yun discovers a useful distinction between the formal presence of the spirit (sangjeok), which is universally present in all cultures, and the material aspect of the spirit (muljeok), which is revealed in particular people, events, and features. …

This qualitative study investigates the cult(ural) and intellectual history of Western Christianity to address a significant gap in the literature pertaining to the origins of whiteness/antiblackness in the West and its subsequent socialization worldwide. Western Christianity’s seminal role in the social construction of the whiteness/antiblackness dichotomy has been undertheorized, neglected, and ignored. This study finds early Christian theologians categorically imposed conceptual metaphors about Blackness on African people that depicted them as the exemplars of evil to teach Christian doctrine about sin and salvation. It connects these original antiblack discourses directly to the theo-political arguments Western European Christians used centuries later to justify African hereditary enslavement, western colonialism, and the ethos and polity of white supremacy. It contends this identical rhetoric currently facilitates the relegation and confinement of African Americans post-emancipation to a permanent racial underclass that constitutes an afterlife of slavery in its perpetuation of colonial-era structures of exploitation and oppression. It concludes by finding whiteness/antiblackness, i.e., white supremacy, is a form of religion, the belief system of a cult based on White Christian animus to symbolic blackness that literally is directed at real Africans and their descendants worldwide. In closing, it recommends re-envisioning the global “Black” struggle as a struggle for re-existence It thus calls for Africana peoples to reject Western Christianity’s symbolic blackness and re-imagine Africana identities with a self-awareness and social consciousness able to defeat the gravitational pull of the massive “white” hole of White Christian Supremacy and the negative valence of whiteness/antiblackness it manifests and maintains.

The Experience of Abandonment by God in Syriac Christian Ascetical Theology Elizabeth Anderson (bio) In his classic work The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, the Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky criticizes Western ascetical theology for its teachings on the Christian experience of feeling abandoned by God. Targeting Western writers on the spiritual life such as John of the Cross, Lossky insists that feelings of abandonment by God are “never thought of by the mystical and ascetical writers of the Eastern tradition as a necessary or normal stage” of the spiritual life, and he alleges that this teaching is the result of “generally distorted dogmatic vision” in the Christian West, particularly an erroneous Christian theological anthropology.1 Yet despite Lossky’s polemic, there is also a significant strain of spirituality in the Christian East that speaks of the experience of abandonment by God. Indeed, some Eastern Christian writers take this theme much further than John of the Cross, insisting that this is not merely a subjective experience, but rather that the indwelling Holy Spirit truly departs from the Christian at certain times during one’s spiritual life, and that this abandonment is a normal part of spiritual growth. The recovery of such writings could therefore play an important role in the spiritual direction of Christians, especially those from Eastern Christian churches. It can be important for Christians who feel that they have been abandoned by God to know that this experience is normal, and that it is far from being an aberrant development of the early modern West, having been attested to by writers in a diversity of Christian traditions from very early in Christian history. The different interpretations of this experience that are articulated by various Eastern Christian authors can also be a resource for Western Christians who are searching for a greater diversity of understandings about what this experience is, why it happens, and what the appropriate response to it should be. This essay will explore the theme of abandonment by God as it was discussed by several Eastern Christian writers of late antiquity. While the primary focus will be on writers from the traditions of East and West Syriac Christianity, given the interrelationship of Greek and Syriac Christianity in late antiquity, those Greek writers who seem to have influenced the development of Syriac thought will also be considered. These authors give different accounts [End Page 79] of this experience, and many of them also emphasize that there are several different kinds of abandonment by God that Christians may experience. It is therefore important for those who find themselves in such a situation to discern which kind of divine abandonment is being experienced, and thus what the appropriate response to it should be. Very often in contemporary Western Christianity, the phrase “dark night of the soul” is tossed around uncritically to cover any and all experiences of spiritual dryness, depression, emptiness, or despair, stretching the term far beyond what John of the Cross ever intended it to encompass. In addition, therefore, to showing that the experience of abandonment by God is also to be found within the Christian East, this essay hopes to demonstrate to both Eastern and Western Christians that there may be a variety of different experiences of abandonment by God, which have different causes and which therefore demand different responses from the person who experiences them. DIVINE INDWELLING AND DIVINE ABANDONMENT It is important to clarify at the outset that none of these authors claimed that God ever ceases to care providentially for the Christian, even during those times of perceived “abandonment by God.” Indeed, for most of these writers, the experience of abandonment is precisely intended by God as a way to bring Christians to spiritual maturity, and is therefore a form of God’s pedagogical care. When these authors speak of divine abandonment, therefore, what they actually mean is something far more specific, which is the departure, or in some cases the concealment, of the Holy Spirit, who dwells within each baptized person. The belief that each Christian is a temple of the Holy Spirit is drawn from 1 Corinthians, where Paul informs the Christians of Corinth that their bodies are temples of...

'Christian theology', Vladimir Lossky observes, 'does not know of an abstract divinity'. By this one can read 'no doctrine of God abstracted from the rich sets of traditions that provide a context for the form of such a confession', traditions that shape reason doxologically to witness to the incomprehensible 'plentitude of being'. Sounding like Pascal he declares that 'the God of the philosophers and savants is introduced into the heart of the Living God, taking the place of the Deus absconditus, qui posuit tenebras labitulum suum'. Consequently, what Christian dogmatics speaks of as the 'Holy Spirit' cannot be conceived as the Spirit of such an abstracted God, but of the God who 'descends' in 'the divine person of Christ [who] makes human persons capable of an ascent in the Holy Spirit'.

Hesychasm is a Christian Orthodox mystical and ascetic tradition that has its roots in the monastic life of early Byzantium. It denotes a method of prayer and a way of life in monastic community, and it describes the overall process of orienting a person's entire being towards an experience of the Divine.1 Asceticism and experiences of self- transcendence are phenomena we encounter in every religion; suffice to think about Sufi Islam, Zen Buddhism or Yoga. Orthodoxy knows the practice of hesychasm, and what is indeed noteworthy about this is that Orthodoxy preserves a Christian ascetic and mystical tradition throughout history, whereas in Western Christianity forms of spiritual exercises and mysticism come to play a minor role. The twentieth century brings about a revival of interest in hesychasm both in Eastern as well as Western Christian theology, a revival that Sergej Khoruzij describes as "anthropological turn in Christian theology" and connects with the names of Georgij Florovskij, Sergej Bulgakov and John Meyendorff on the part of Orthodoxy, Hans Urs von Balthasar and Yves Congar on the part of Catholicism.2 From this theological perspective, hesychasm stands for a form of religious experience and becomes indicative of an anthropological discourse that preserves a sensibility for experiences of self-transcendence.3 If this is the theological and practical meaning of hesychasm, what is political hesychasm? I first encountered the term in the title of the book Politiceskij isikhazm i ego tradicii v social' noj koncepcii Moskovskogo Patriarkha, published by the Aleteija publishing house in Saint Petersburg in 2009 in the series Library of

Reviewed by: God’s Love through the Spirit: The Holy Spirit in Thomas Aquinas and John Wesley by Kenneth M. Loyer Justus H. Hunter God’s Love through the Spirit: The Holy Spirit in Thomas Aquinas and John Wesley by Kenneth M. Loyer (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2014), 295 pp. “DISTINCTIVE YET COMPLEMENTARY” is how Kenneth Loyer, in his learned study God’s Love Through the Spirit, characterizes the theologies of Thomas Aquinas and John Wesley. Distinctive, in so far as Wesley’s “practical theology” foregoes the gilding of scholastic Trinitarian theology. He does not consider the distinction between persons, processions, and relations, or essential, notional, and personal concepts, as does Aquinas. Yet, Loyer contends, Wesley’s soteriology complements Aquinas’s Trinitarian theology. God’s Love Through the Spirit is a work of Methodist theology. It is a retrieval of John and Charles Wesley’s doctrine of sanctification, enhanced by Thomas Aquinas’s teaching on the Holy Spirit. That is, it is a Methodist reception of St. Thomas. But it is also an offering of Methodism, and the Wesleys, to contemporary followers of the Angelic Doctor. As Loyer puts it, his Methodist soteriology “appropriates and amplifies” St. Thomas. The text has three phases. First, two chapters outline challenges internal to Methodist theology, centering around the Wesleyan doctrine of sanctification. Next, Loyer gives a detailed systematic analysis of Aquinas’s pneumatology focused around the concept of love. Finally, Loyer constructs a way forward for Methodist soteriology by appropriating Thomas’s teaching on the Spirit and love. The result is a rigorously constructed Wesleyan soteriology and pneumatology in dialogue with Thomas Aquinas that should garner interest from both Catholic and Methodist theologians. The provocation of God’s Love Through the Spirit is a deficiency in Methodist pneumatology. Loyer discerns a twofold problem descending from the lack of a developed doctrine of the Holy Spirit in Methodist theology. First, while Methodists have long emphasized their doctrine of grace, in particular sanctifying grace, they have failed to connect that doctrine to the Holy Spirit. As a result, Loyer contends, Methodist language of grace has become generic and Methodist theology “tends to end up reflecting the human spirit and its multifaceted quest for liberation more than it reflects the Spirit of God, who as the source of all life actually gives the human spirit its true freedom” (3). This dilemma he refers to as the “secularization” of sanctification, which is attended by a reduction of pneumatology to politics. [End Page 958] The question, of course, is what to do. The dilemma derives, in part, from a related problem in the reception of John Wesley. Wesley left the theological “foundation” of his teaching on sanctification implicit or undeveloped. Thus, the reception of his teaching has been prone to several misreadings, which Loyer calls variously “perfectionist,” “static,” “anthropocentric,” or “individualist.” Whatever misreadings exist, Loyer finds a single solution: to render explicit the implicit theological foundation of Wesley’s soteriology. That is, he seeks to connect Wesley’s teaching on sanctification to Trinitarian theology: “Viewing (sanctification) through the lens of trinitarian theology clarifies its appropriately theological content and orientation while illuminating Wesley’s emphasis on the immediate and ongoing work of the Holy Spirit sanctifying those in Christ so that the image of God is more fully restored in their lives” (18). Loyer ties this proposal to a broader concern in Wesley and Methodist studies for a recovery of Wesley’s teaching on holiness and perfection, most notably by William Abraham and Theodore Runyon. He therefore begins with a return to teaching of the Wesleys on sanctification and perfection. Weaving together the sermons of John and the hymns of Charles, in keeping with the best practices of Wesley studies, he shows an implicit trinitarianism. Loyer contends that making explicit, and augmenting, that Trinitarian theology promises to correct the misreadings he presents in chapter 2 and prevent the pneumatological deficiencies outlined in chapter 1. In order to express and augment the implicit trinitarianism of John and Charles Wesley, Loyer turns to Thomas Aquinas. Chapters 3 and 4 follow the sequence of articles in Summa theologiae I, question 37. Loyer first considers Aquinas’s position in article...

Incarnate De Spiritu Sancto: Aquinas on the Holy Spirit and Christ’s Conception Dominic Legge O.P “She was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.” (Matt 1:18) “And the angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.’” (Luke 1:35) THE GOSPELS OF Matthew and Luke connect the conception of Christ to the Holy Spirit. Likewise, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed professes that “by the Holy Spirit,” the only-begotten Son of God was “incarnate of the Virgin Mary.” But what, precisely, does this mean? Some scholars have recently found important clues in other allusive passages of sacred Scripture to the conception of Christ.1 In Exodus, the cloud “abode upon” the tent of meeting, “and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle (Exod 40:35).”2 Might the words of the angel Gabriel allude to that mysterious cloud associated with the Holy Spirit, the descent of which accompanies the presence of the Lord (the child who is God and man) [End Page 173] in his tabernacle, the womb of the blessed Virgin?3 One might think of the opening lines of Genesis, with their references to “the Spirit of God” who “was moving over the face of the waters” (Gen 1:2), and to the breath of God that brought the clay of Adam’s nature to life. Might Gabriel’s words refer to this life-giving Spirit, active in the first creation of Adam, now also active in the first moment of the new creation in Christ?4 Indeed, one might rightly wonder whether Gabriel’s message—“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,” and “the power of the Most High will overshadow you”—makes reference to all three persons of the Trinity, for St. Paul tell us that the Christ the Son is the Power of God (1 Cor. 1:24), and the Father is the Most High.5 Saint Thomas Aquinas was highly interested in these sorts of references to the persons of the Holy Trinity. He regards the conception of Christ not only as a Christological mystery, but as a Trinitarian one as well, where the Holy Spirit’s action is at center stage. Unfortunately, his account of the Holy Spirit’s place in Christology is seriously underappreciated, leading to a common critique that Aquinas does not say enough about the Holy Spirit.6 Some contemporary exegetes and theologians approach [End Page 174] this mystery as if Aquinas’s traditional claims about Christ’s supernaturally elevated human knowledge and power leave little place for the Holy Spirit’s role in Christology.7 Rightly understood, however, Aquinas offers a scripturally and dogmatically satisfying and coherent solution: a rich Spirit-Christology.8 The Holy Spirit’s role is absolutely indispensable in the mystery of Christ in general, and, as this article will show, of his conception in particular. Yet Aquinas accounts for this without compromising the central place of Christ’s identity as the Word, or endangering the consubstantial unity of the triune God. In examining Christ’s conception, we will see this Spirit-Christology at work and will discern some of its features. This article has four sections: a preface, followed by a three-part analysis of Christ’s conception de Spiritu Sancto. The preface identifies the theological frame within which Aquinas sets this subject. From there, the first main part discusses the preparation of the Blessed Virgin Mary for this wondrous conception. The second part then examines Aquinas’s account of the Spirit’s presence and activity in Mary at Christ’s conception. Finally, the third part outlines the Holy Spirit’s role (and those of the other divine persons) in bringing about the conception of Christ, [End Page 175] understood as the first moment of the visible mission of the Word. Taken together, these sections will enable us to answer the question: What does this mystery of Christ reveal about the Holy Spirit and, indeed, about all of the persons of the Holy Trinity? I. A Preface: The Theological...

The theme of this research is the vision of original sin held in Eastern and Western Christianity, in the light of the works of Dostoevsky and in the context of Russian religious philosophy (including writers such as Vladimir Solovyov, Vlyacheslav Ivanov, Shestov, Berdyaev, Fedotov, N Fedorov, V Ern, P Evdokimov, S Bulgakov, Florenski, Bakhtin, and Florovsky). In the tradition of Eastern Christianity, I refer to Origen, Maximus the Confessor and Dionysius the Areopagite, and in particular to the following works: Adversus haereses of Irenaeus, Hexaemeron by Basil the Great, De opificio hominis and Oratio catechetica magna by Gregory of Nyssa, and De fide ortodoxa by John of Damascus. Regarding Western Christianity, this paper makes reference to: The treatise on grace and free will by Bernard of Clairvaux, The Summa contra gentiles (Lib. III, caput CXLIII-CLXIII) by Thomas Aquinas, and Libri sententiarum (Lib. II, Distinctiones XXV-XXVII) by Peter Lombard. Particular attention is paid to the theology of the John Duns Scotus regarding the incarnation of God as a possible key concept with which to analyze the relationship between the themes of mortality and transfiguration. Dostoyevsky expresses, at the same time, the dramatic aspect of duality and the possibility of deification of human nature: the intersection between Western and Eastern Christianity in the context of anthropology across Russian-Christian culture This paper takes these matters into consideration, in connection with the biblical exegesis of the twentieth century. To conclude, Dostoyevsky and Italian writer, Alessandro Manzoni, are considered in relation to the above-mentioned topic.

Divine Spiration in the Theology of Ss. Gregory Nazianzen and Thomas Aquinas John Baptist Ku O.P. GREAT SORROW and anger have afflicted the Church at times on account of disputes over the procession of the Holy Spirit—namely, how he is or is not from the Son. It is salubrious, therefore, to take note of the agreement on this point between theologians of the East and the West and of different epochs, provided that we do not impose a harmony alien to an author's thought so as to quench our personal anxieties. This article will briefly compare St. Gregory of Nazianzus's understanding of the procession of the Holy Spirit with that of St. Thomas Aquinas.1 We will verify a profound basic agreement between these two saints but also clear differences. For instance, Nazianzen and Aquinas agree on the formulation that the Holy [End Page 373] Spirit comes forth from the Father not by generation but by way of procession (ἐκπόρευσις, processio). However, unlike Aquinas, Nazianzen does not pursue a systematic and synthetic exposition of the Holy Spirit's procession; his argumentation is instead defensive in nature.2 Also, whereas Nazianzen innovatively appeals to ἐκπόρευσις to name the Holy Spirit's coming forth in contradistinction to the Son's coming forth by way of generation, Aquinas's processio has both a generic and a specific sense. It can refer generally to any coming forth—namely, either to the Son's coming forth or to the the Spirit's coming forth—or properly and exclusively to the Spirit's coming forth; the Son's procession is named generation, and Holy Spirit's procession is named "procession." Thus, ἐκπόρευσις and processio are not simple equivalents.3 Although, as A. Edward Siecienski observes, there is no indication in John 5:264 that ἐκπορεύεσθαι is intended to distinguish the Spirit's manner of coming forth from the Son's manner of coming forth, after Nazianzen, ἐκπόρευσις comes to include not only the notion of coming forth, but the Spirit's coming forth from an unoriginate principle.5 With this definition established, a different verb—like προϊέναι—would be necessary [End Page 374] for later authors, such as Cyril of Alexandria, to speak of the Spirit's coming forth from or through the Son.6 Now, the idea of a unique unoriginate principle of the Holy Spirit is not absent from the Angelic Doctor's account. Aquinas's term for the unoriginate principle in the Trinity is auctor: "But the word author [auctor] adds to the meaning of a principle that it is not from another; and therefore the Father alone is said to be an author, although the Son too is called a principle notionally."7 Aquinas does allow that the Son has authority with respect to the Holy Spirit, but the Son is not an auctor in the Trinity.8 Unfortunately, Aquinas's careful distinction here is passed over by much recent Trinitarian theology.9 [End Page 375] In addition to agreeing that the Holy Spirit comes forth from the Father not by generation but by way of procession, both Nazianzen and Aquinas recognize that there is some kind of order between the Son and the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, whereas Aquinas expounds in detail how the Spirit is from the Father and the Son as from a single principle, principally from the Father, proceeding as Love and as a bond between the Father and the Son, Nazianzen refrains from saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from or through the Son.10 Moreover, Aquinas names the Father "Spirator," a word Nazianzen does not use. While there is a danger of overinterpreting Nazianzen to find in him an early Thomist, it is also mistake to make a precommitment to bifurcate the East and the West, or the ancient and the medieval. An anxiety to show that the whole Church should embrace the Filioque must absolutely not be allowed to distort our interpretation of ancient Eastern theologians. Such a distortion would only undermine the effort to achieve ecumenical unity. As Aquinas has remarked, one of the worst things one can do for the truth is to support it with poor reasoning, for then skeptics might well dismiss the...

ABSTRACT: French Catholic theologian Yves Congar (1904–1984) is associated with major renewals of the Catholic church in the twentieth century. His theology is deeply and consistently conscious of the internal and external struggles of the church in the world. My thesis proposes that development of the theology of the Holy Spirit in his later work and these early sensitivities are directly connected. This implicit relation of the Holy Spirit and the world, my argument goes, is essential to understanding Congar’s work as a whole, but is not so far explored by Congar scholars. Set vis-à-vis concerns and sensitivities, this growing appreciation of the role of the Holy Spirit, I contend, allows to better understand and give space to the world and humanity in the tripartite dialogue God-world-humanity. To achieve this, I provide a historical-theological reading, which shows this dialogue as continuing in the whole of Congar’s work and I focus on three major stages of his work. The accumulation, maturation and rifts in his work on the reform in the church, tradition and the Holy Spirit are analysed. Following Congar and key to my argument, history is viewed as a locus of theology, and milieu (the ecclesial life), method (the theology of tradition) and theological themes (incarnation and the Holy Spirit) are shown as interweaving. Gradually Congar’s implicit sapiential view of the relation God-world-humanity, sustained by a Trinitarian theology of two divine missions, emerges. The development of the theology of the Spirit beside that of the Son leads to a conclusion that, thanks to the activity of the Spirit, human and free activity in the world might be viewed at the same time as the activity of God. Congar’s attempts to achieve greater intimacy and integrity, and more intimately reconnect God and the world, do not lose their pertinence. However, a more pronounced and affirmed view of the Spirit’s activity in the world as such would be necessary to better address contemporary concerns.

BOOK REVIEWS 493 Yves Congar, Theologian of the Church. Edited by GABRIEL FLYNN. Louvain Theological and Pastoral Monographs 32. Louvain: Peters, 2005. Pp. 503. $45.00 (paper). ISBN 90-429-1668-0. ThoughYves Congar was widely read, especially in Europe, "Congar studies" hardly existed before 8 December 1994, when Pope John Paul II made him a cardinal. Since then, interest has grown steadily in the French Dominican's writings. Gabriel Flynn presents a commemorative volume, derived from a symposium in Dublin, Ireland in 2004, to mark the centenary of Congar's birth. Contributors span the political and ecclesial spectrum of Continental and North American Catholic theology, non-Catholic Eastern and Western Christianity, and the allied disciplines of history and philosophy. Although papers from similar symposia in Rome and Toulouse have been published, this is the first volume in English to analyze Congar's thought from so many disparate perspectives. Flynn deserves commendation for meticulously presenting a highly useful text with notes to spur on more Congar studies. The same passionate spirit that drove Congar to write voluminously inspires Flynn in his "Introduction," situated within the new evangelization. Likewise, Flynn's "Epilogue" pleads for a "new reception" of Congar's writings and Vatican II's texts. His extremely useful bibliography and index will greatly assist this new reception. Between the introduction and epilogue, twenty scholars in four prefaces and seventeen chapters assess Congar's work. The chapters are divided into four parts: Yves Congar: Theologian; Yves Congar: Ecumenist; Yves Congar: Historian of Ecclesiology; and Yves Congar and the Theology of Interreligious Dialogue. Among these Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant bishops, cardinals, laity, ministers, and priests, one finds the extremes of hagiography, on the one hand, and critical dismissivness, on the other. Flynn contributes two chapters himself. In "Yves Congar and Catholic Church Reform: A Renewal ofthe Spirit," the Irish theologian gives a favorable exposition of Congar's possibly most original, important, and, thus, influential work, Vraie et fausse reforme dans l'Eglise. Flynn finds Congar's ideas of Church reform as relevant today as ever, and an evident line of continuity exists from Congar's ideas through Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II via Vatican IL In "Cardinal Congar's Ecumenism: An 'Ecumenical Ethics' for Reconciliation?" Flynn argues quite convincingly one main point. "[T]he acceptance of ecumenism as an ethical imperative for the Churches would give new impetus to ecumenical endeavors." While Flynn evidences the dramatic change in the moral landscape since Congar received his ecumenical vocation in 1930, his thesis, as well as certain ecumenical endeavors, is mortally threatened by what Pope Ratzinger calls "the dictatorship of relativism." Still, Flynn shows his faithful discipleship to Congar by organizing, executing, and publishing the papers of this landmark symposium. Four prefaces crown this volume in a nod of acknowledgment and gratitude to Congar's ecumenical vocation. Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., leads off these personal reminiscences, including his now famous appraisal that Vatican II 494 BOOK REVIEWS "could almost be called Congar's council" (27). Kallistos Ware, distinguished Oxford don and Orthodox Bishop of Diokleia, never met Congar face to face, but became so completely captivated one day by reading his Lay People in the Church, that Ware forgot lunch, tea, and supper. Kenneth Stevenson, Anglican Bishop of Portsmouth, also encountered Congar through books and the spilling over of new ideas from the Catholic Church into other Churches while traveling in France during Vatican II. Finally, Marc Leinhard, Honorary Dean of the Protestant Faculty of Theology of Strasbourg and Formerly President of the Directoire of the Church of the Confession ofAugsburg of Alsace and Lorraine, details his personal collaboration with Congar, including Vocabulaire oecumenique. Although not included as a preface, Karl Cardinal Lehmann's short chapter in part 2, "Cardinal Yves Congar: A Man of the Church," easily fits the same personal style, affirming that "far too much of his work has already gone unnoticed" (164). One of Congar's monumental works, Tradition and Traditions: An Historical and Theological Essay, has enticed well-known American Evangelical theologians, like Scott Hahn, to enter the Catholic Church. Interestingly, the first chapter after the prefaces is an article by an Evangelical...

Saint Thomas Aquinas's Biblical Exegesis:Hebrews 2:9 as a Case Study Jörgen Vijgen "Biblical Thomism," a term coined by the American theologian Matthew Levering, constitutes, together with the emphasis on the patristic sources of Saint Thomas and the renewed discovery of the commentatorial tradition of Thomism, one of the most vibrant features of contemporary Thomism. Its dynamic is rooted in its twofold aim.1 Historically, biblical Thomism aims at uncovering the methods and sources of Saint Thomas's the principal task as magister in sacra pagina, which consisted in reading and commenting on the Holy Scriptures. This approach should not be limited to his biblical commentaries or the scriptural references in his systematical works but can also include a reconstruction of the central ideas of Saint Thomas's commentary on a book of the Bible for which we do not have a commentary, as has been demonstrated recently by Serge-Thomas Bonino in his book St. Thomas Aquinas: Reader of the Song of Songs.2 In doing so, biblical Thomism further aims at contributing to overcoming the typically modern gap between exegesis and speculative theology or to contribute to what Joseph Ratzinger in his famous 1988 lecture "Biblical Interpretation in Conflict" has called the "Method C" within biblical exegesis, that is to say, a perspective on Scripture which takes advantage of the strengths of "Method A" (the patristic-medieval exegetical approach) and "Method B" (The historical-critical [End Page 269] approach), while being cognizant of the shortcomings of both.3 In this contribution I would like to draw attention to his Super Epistolam ad Hebraeos, his commentary on the Letter to the Hebrews, which still remains somewhat overlooked, by way of an analysis of Saint Thomas's reflections on Hebrews 2:9. For in these reflections he offers the contemporary reader an overview of his exegetical methods and as such his analysis can function as a case study for his biblical exegesis and an introduction to the way he reads the Scriptures. First, however, I present Saint Thomas's arguments for why one should not separate the three features mentioned above. Next, I briefly introduce his Super Epistolam ad Hebraeos before offering in the final part a detailed analysis of Hebrews 2:9. Distinguish to Unite Although for practical purposes a division of labor is often necessary, it would be contrary to both the mind of Saint Thomas, as well as his explicit teaching, were one to separate these three features (the Scriptures, Church Fathers, and the commentators) so that his thought becomes detached from the tradition that formed his work and subsequently brought his work to us. Rather, due to the role of the Holy Spirit in history, there exists for Saint Thomas a profound unity between the reading of Scripture and its transmission and interpretation throughout the ages. Saint Thomas argues, often with reference to Ambrosiaster's phrase Omne verum, a quocumque dicatur, a Spiritu Sancto est ("All truth, by whomever it is spoken, is from the Holy Spirit"), in favor of God's causal action with regard to the formal, efficient and exemplary role of the Holy Spirit in the constitution and recognition of any truth whatsoever.4 In particular regarding the truth of Scripture, Saint Thomas emphatically rejects an absolute separation between the inspired nature of the Scriptures and their subsequent interpretation. On the contrary, as he explains in one of his quodlibetal questions, the interpretation is itself a gift of the Holy Spirit so that at any given time in history the Holy Spirit is both the author and the interpreter of the Scriptures in so far as the "spiritual man" (1 Cor 2: 15) possesses the Holy Spirit and judges accordingly.5 The sed contra of [End Page 270] the same article expresses this even more clearly: To the contrary: It belongs to one and the same person to do something for the sake of a goal and to lead to that goal. But the goal of the Scriptures, which stems from the Holy Spirit, is the erudition of man. This erudition of man from the Scriptures, however, cannot exist unless by way of the expositions of the saints...

Reviewed by: An Introduction to Christian Theology Matthew W.I. Dunn Richard J. Plantinga, Thomas R. Thompson, and Matthew D. Lundberg. An Introduction to Christian Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Pp. xx + 634. Paper, $29.99. ISBN 978-0-521-69037-9. The authors are religion professors at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which was formally associated with the Christian Reformed Church. They view their work as “an introduction and an invitation to Christian theology” (xiii). [End Page 333] The book’s first part (47–415) treats several key themes: revelation and “God talk,” the nature of God, creation, humankind and sin, theodicy, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, salvation, the Church and mission, and eschatology. Each chapter follows a routine course from a consideration of the biblical data to a discussion of relevant historical issues. The authors give their view of how best to actualize the doctrine for today as well as its practical relevance to contemporary problems and questions, from the world’s ecological devastation (176–179) to social justice (275–276) to Christianity’s encounter with religious plurality (361–372). The second part (417–574) offers a historical survey of Christian theology through “five significant . . . epochs”: Patristic, Medieval, “Reformational,” Modern, and Contemporary. The “big names” are present, like Augustine and Luther, as are other theologians of interest to the authors, like Richard of St. Victor and Jürgen Moltmann. Nearly every chapter ends with a brief bibliography, and very helpful tables and figures accompany every part of the text. The book also contains a theological glossary (575–604), a general bibliography (605–625), and an index (626–634). What I found surprisingly lacking, however, was a catalogue of biblical references used in the book. The authors write from the perspective—and hence the preconception—of Evangelical Protestant Christianity. As one might expect, then, Luther and Calvin are frequent theological reference points, as is Karl Barth. Still, the authors should be credited for the numerous instances in which they include the insights of other thinkers who do not fit the Evangelical mould, like Thomas Aquinas, Karl Rahner, and N.T. Wright. Even the Bible’s Deuterocanon finds a place in their discussions (e.g., see 149 and 403). As a Byzantine Catholic, I truly appreciated their nods—albeit few and far between—to Eastern Christian theology. I should also mention the creative way the authors wove into the text references to literature (Emily Dickinson’s poetry), music (Bach’s “Mass in B Minor”), and film (the humorous dialogue on the Trinity from Nuns on the Run). I felt that the authors’ historical survey was an unnecessary appendage. The authors themselves seem to admit as much when they say that their survey “can be read profit-ably and independently before, during, or after” the book’s other sections. They further explain that it is meant to reinforce—or “mother” (?)—the historical material covered in the doctrinal sections of the book (xv). Nonetheless I wondered why the historical material alone needs reinforcement, and whether or not the material could have been used to enrich the doctrinal sections. For each chapter, the authors outline “the biblical basis for the teaching” followed by the teaching’s development and their own systematic reflection (xv, emphasis in original; see also 25). However, although the authors emphasize the biblical base of their theology, I found their treatment of Scripture generally superficial and in some places almost nonexistent (e.g., see chapter 8 on theodicy). The authors display their biases significantly when they use the phrase proof text to describe their methodology (115). Finally, while the authors intend to provide an introductory text, their language is certainly not introductory. Consider, for instance, the following passage: During the intertestamental period, amid the ebb and flow of messianic expectations, there grew a nostalgia for the prophetic Spirit of Israel’s former days, an activity which now appeared quiescent. Along with the rise of apocalypticism there emerged a more detailed angelology and demonology. . . . In Hellenistic (diaspora) Judaism . . . there developed a virtual identification of God’s Spirit with the divine wisdom immanent in creation . . . [etc.] (287–288). Many college students would have difficulty understanding much of this without a...