Spirit and Salvation

A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World, volume 4

Veli-Matti Karkkainen

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780802868565
• eBook ISBN: 9781467445306
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

The fourth installment in a wide and deep constructive theology for our time This fourth volume in Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen's ambitious five-volume systematic theology develops a constructive Christian pneumatology and soteriology in dialogue with the diverse global Christian tradition and with other major living faiths — Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

I. SPIRIT

1. Introduction: In Search of a Plural, Holistic Pneumatology

How to Speak of the Spirit in the Contemporary World — or Whether to Speak at All!

Although the secular West has lost touch with religious and pneumatological sensibilities, in the long history of religions — and even in human history at large — spirit-talk has been familiar and intimate. Usually the Spirit is first experienced and lived out and only subsequently reflected on conceptually. Unlike modern theology, particularly the university-based European theology that often looks at experience with suspicion, a constructive holistic pneumatology should not eschew the experiences of men and women but rather incorporate them in theological reflection.¹ Although it is true that to “begin with experience may sound subjective, arbitrary and fortuitous,” it does not have to be so. To have an experience of the Spirit may also be a gateway to having communion with the triune God. As Moltmann puts it, “[b]y experience of the Spirit I mean an awareness of God in, with and beneath the experience of life, which gives us assurance of God’s fellowship, friendship and love.”² This kind of deep and robust experience is not unknown in the contemporary world. Just think of the experience of many Africans, whether Christian or not: “The most vital aspect of the African experience of the Spirit is implied in their knowledge of God as Source-Being, which implies his immanence as well as his control and maintenance of the universe.”³

What the Asian American (Malaysian Chinese) Pentecostal theologian Amos Yong names the “cosmology of personal agency” has a long and lasting legacy in human history and is by no means a matter only of a bygone era. In such cosmology, beyond the physical causes are spirits, even divine spirits. In contrast to this spirit sensitivity, most people in the post-Enlightenment West live under “natural cosmologies”⁴ that are essentially monist (materialist). There are of course variations to this dual theme, such as the continuing attempts toward “reenchantment without supernaturalism,” to cite the title of a book by process philosopher David Ray Griffin.⁵ Yet a “foundational” difference exists between these two kinds of experiences of the Spirit’s presence or absence. Whereas for many people the Spirit experience is the most intimate and familiar part of life, for others it is virtually unknown and abstract.

The acknowledgment of this divide is the starting point for the constructive pneumatological proposal of the Reformed German Michael Welker and his God the Spirit (ET 1994). The problem of “the modern consciousness of the distance of God”⁶ has to do with the total alienation from God of most modern (Western) people. In contrast, Welker observes, among Pentecostals/charismatics and some other Christians there is a vivid, almost childlike enthusiasm about God’s presence here and now. Whereas for Pentecostals and charismatics God seems to be near, for many Christians the talk about the Spirit of God makes no sense. The secular common sense intuits God’s Spirit as “ghost” (pp. 1-13).

Theological tradition must bear some blame for this. Welker blames theology for modernity’s captivity to three forms of Western thought, none of which allows for the “reality of the Spirit.” The first is “old European metaphysics,” which assumes one universal system of reference established by religion. In this scheme, the Spirit is conceived as ubiquitous, a totalizing universal force or structure. Second is “dialogical personalism,” which builds on an I-Thou encounter (of Martin Buber and his followers, including Barth). In this the Spirit is that which creates and sustains divine-human (and human-human) relationship. In the third form, “social moralism,” the Kantian dream of religion as the source of progress is in the forefront; in it the human participates in God’s work in the world. The first version does not allow for specific, “charismatic” or otherwise extraordinary works of the Spirit. Although the second form is not without biblical support, in that the Spirit is the “Go-Between,” it also limits the Spirit’s role to the personal, social, and pious spheres. While the last form is not without its merits, it also may at its worst reduce the Spirit to a principle of moral and common human good (pp. 40-49).

As a corrective to these reductionist and limited pneumatological gateways, Welker “seeks first to articulate the broad spectrum of experiences of God’s Spirit, searches and quests for the Spirit, and skepticism toward the Spirit that define the contemporary world” (p. ix). Instead of abstract and numinous accounts of the Spirit, “pneumatologies of the beyond,” which associate the Spirit with strange and obscure actions and experiences removed from real life, Welker seeks to speak of the Spirit and experiences of the Spirit in specific, concrete, earthly terms; this is “realistic” pneumatology (pp. 46-49; see also pp. 338-39). Instead of highlighting the few biblical passages that depict the Spirit as an incomprehensible, numinous power, he advises us to major in the majority of references that speak about the Spirit in concrete, understandable terms (pp. 50-51 especially). That paradigm funds a “pluralistic” (see pp. 21-27) approach that is in keeping with the diversity and complexity of the contemporary world and the celebration of plurality in various postmodern visions (pp. xii, 28-40). Commensurate with his pluralistic approach, Welker criticizes traditional approaches in which the Spirit’s function is merely to create union and unity. Instead, he argues, the Spirit also champions diversity and plurality: “The action of God’s Spirit is pluralistic for the sake of God’s righteousness, for the sake of God’s mercy, and for the sake of the full testimony to God’s plenitude and glory” (p. 25). Pentecost is a grand example of this kind of diversity in that, “[t]hrough the pouring out of the Spirit, God effects a world-encompassing, multilingual, polyindividual testimony to Godself” (p. 235). Plurality in itself cannot be celebrated without reservation, because there is also a form of “individually disintegrative pluralism.” What is worth advocating is “the life-enhancing, invigorating pluralism of the Spirit” (pp. 25-27).

My pneumatological proposal in this volume reflects some of the key themes Welker presents. Yet it is also radically different in that its vision of a proper pneumatological paradigm goes way beyond what the German Reformed theologian envisioned. I propose that a definite shift from a “unitive” to a “plural” paradigm of pneumatology is needed. That will challenge, critique, and correct all systematic/constructive proposals set forth so far.⁷ Particularly unique in my proposal is the relating of the Spirit of God to other spirits and powers, including the spirits of other religions — themes that are totally lacking in all previous systematic pneumatologies.

From a “Unitive” to a “Plural” Paradigm of Pneumatology

In the introduction to his acclaimed pneumatological volume The Spirit of Life (ET 1992), Moltmann laments that “a new paradigm in pneumatology has not yet emerged.”⁸ While his own proposal breaks new ground on more than one count, particularly in its vision of a “holistic pneumatology,”⁹ the process of paradigm change is still to be completed. I would like to suggest a shift from what I call a “unitive” paradigm in which only one Spirit (of God) is considered, while the rest of the spiritual realities are being dismissed, to a “plural” paradigm. The latter accounts for the Spirit of God in a highly pluralistic cosmology with many spirits, powers, and spiritual realities.¹⁰ In the plural cosmology, the Spirit of God is also related to the (great and smaller) spirits of other religions. Why is this shift needed? Because of cultural and religious plurality, the rise of postmodern philosophies, as well as transformations in scientific paradigms, among other reasons.

Even when critiquing traditional and contemporary pneumatologies for their limitations and reductionism, this proposal is also deeply indebted to them. It seems like many aspects of the paradigm change already loom on the horizon; they just need to be identified and theologically defined. Indeed, there are exciting and exhilarating developments under way that point to the transformation of Christian pneumatology. This promise lies in the robust and intentional desire to widen and make more inclusive the theological understanding of the ministry of the Spirit. In that wider and more inclusive outlook (which will be carefully noted and documented in the ensuing discussion) — while not leaving behind traditional topics such as the Trinity, Scripture, and salvation — the Spirit is also connected with topics such as creation, humanity, and eschatology, as well as political, social, environmental, and other “public” issues. This is a great corrective to tradition.

Although one must resist the temptation to describe the pneumatological tradition in terms that are too uniform and homogenous — for the simple reason that there are already in the history of pneumatology dramatic differences, divergences, and surprises — it is also the case that by and large pneumatology was too often bound within certain theological, ecclesiastical, and cultural strictures. Those strictures were more often than not European (later, European American), male-driven, ecclesiastical-sacramental, and individualistically oriented “spiritualist” orientations. In the past the doctrine of the Spirit was mainly — but not exclusively — connected with topics such as the doctrine of salvation, the inspiration of Scripture, some issues of ecclesiology, and individual piety. In the doctrine of salvation, the Spirit represented the “subjective” side of the reception of salvation, whereas Christology formed the objective basis. In the doctrine of Scripture, the Spirit played a crucial role in both inspiration and illumination of the Word of God. In various Christian traditions, from mysticism to pietism to classical liberalism and beyond, the Spirit’s...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Abbreviations
• Preface
• Introduction: In Search of a New Methodological Vision for Constructive Theology
• PART I: SPIRIT
• PART II: SALVATION
• Bibliography
• Index of Authors
• Index of Subjects