Theological Stances on Pneumatology & Missio Dei

Ecclesiastical traditions are not the only classifications for a systematic survey of pneumatology. Another set of categories is found in the way various theologians of these traditions have handled the pneumatological question. John Zizoulas, Karl Rahner, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jurgen Moltmann, Michael Welker and Clark Pinnock each represent unique positions on the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church especially as it relates to missions. Sometimes these theologians represent the traditions from which they come, but at other times they represent an individualized perspective. Although individual theological elements might differ, there is an amazing commonality in acceptance of the Holy Spirit’s active role in Missio Dei. Next week, I'll try to deal with how all this really has an impact on the way we do missions today.

Communion Pneumatology – John Zizioulas

John Zizioulas was a student of the Eastern Orthodox theologian Georges Florovsky. He clearly represents the Orthodox tradition, but he does so in a critical way that places a huge emphasis on the communion aspect of the Holy Spirit’s work. He often speaks of the Holy Spirit’s role as that of facilitating koinonia that connects believers with God and with each other, but he would reject the term facilitator in that the Holy Spirit “is not one who aids us in bridging the distance between Christ and ourselves.”[1] Instead, the very aspect of the Holy Spirit’s presence is what defines Christ and the church.

            Zizioulas talks at times about the giving aspect of the Holy Spirit’s work, but his greater emphasis is not on active verbs like give or direct but on conceptual nominalizations like communion and being. He does admit that the Holy Spirit fills the church, only not in a way that brings life to the church. Because in his mind the church is already alive, the Holy Spirit’s role is to constitute the church from an ontological perspective. In this way, his pneumatology and his Christology are almost one and the same.

Transcendental Pneumatology – Karl Rahner

Karl Rahner is a Roman Catholic and what some have labeled a “transcendental Thomist” or a “proponent of transcendental theology.”[2] As such a proponent, he adheres to a belief that the Holy Spirit is working in ways that go beyond human experience. However, he employs experiential even existential terminology to describe his pneumatology.

The Spirit guides church leaders with a wisdom capable of overcoming their occasional foolishness in matters ecclesiastical and a strength that is their fortitude in weakness. Because of this aspect of the Spirit’s presence, Rahner sees ecclesiastical office and ministry as essentially charismatic and not merely institutional.[3]

He speaks of the charismata as gifts by the Spirit, so there is a giving role. He speaks of the saving action of the Holy Spirit, but it is more of a realization that salvation already exists within everyone and needs activation by supernatural revelation. The Holy Spirit prompts and guides in Rahner’s theology as well.

Universal Pneumatology – Wolfhart Pannenberg

Wolfhart Pannenberg is an Evangelical Lutheran theologian who has been strongly influenced by both Karl Barth and Frederich Hegel. Accordingly, his theology is often times an attempt to reconcile scientific naturalism with biblical philosophy. Furthermore, Pannenberg’s pneumatological views reflect an attempt to respond to modern biology by describing God’s work as natural and universal.

            Pannenberg sees a difference between the Holy Spirit as the third Person of the trinity and God’s spirit which flows throughout all of creation. This position has led him to identify God’s spirit as a force field or energy field that worked throughout the evolution process to raise mankind from a lower existence to what he is today. Even though this divine pulse beats through all creation, Pannenberg still places the Holy Spirit in another category.

            Pannenberg describes the Holy Spirit’s ecclesiological work as that of mediation, glorification, institution, unification and edification. Although he is not a modalist, Pannenberg believes the Holy Spirit actively mediates with the Father in Jesus Christ. He glorifies the Son in the expression of church life. Pannenberg believes the Holy Spirit’s power is what instituted the church at Pentecost.[4] But he also uses verb phrases like “binds believers together” and “lift them up” to describe the Holy Spirit’s work in the church.[5]

Holistic Pneumatology – Jurgen Moltmann

Jurgen Moltmann is a German Protestant theologian heavily influenced by Barth’s dialectical theology, by Bonheiffer’s social ethics and by Pentecostalism. Carrying overtones of eschatology and liberation, his pneumatology promotes a friendship with God the Spirit in a way that few theologians have. Somewhat reminiscent of Pannenberg’s life force concept, Moltmann also believes in the Holy Spirit’s work in life. But his pneumatology requires a more holistic approach in its applications. 

Moltmann sees the entirety of the Christian experience as “fellowship of the Spirit, for all human communities are embedded in the ecosystems of the natural communities.”[6] Basically, “wherever there is a passion for life, there the Spirit of God is operating.”[7] This approach allows for the Spirit’s active work in the physical, sexual, ecological and political realms toward a teleological end.[8] Moltmann makes perhaps his strongest statement in saying that “the church is the eschatological creation of the Spirit.”[9] Even the Spirit’s Johannine parakletos role is one of liberation with a view toward the end. As Moltmann discusses the gifts of the Spirit, though he makes a clear distinction between supernatural and natural ones, the purpose of the gift is to serve the world. 

Realistic Pneumatology – Michael Welker

Michael Welker is also a German Protestant theologian and student of Moltmann. Both a realist and a pluralist, Welker is a champion of concrete terms to describe the Holy Spirit’s work. However, his concrete words are often skewed with mystical imagery. On the one hand, Welker speaks of the Holy Spirit as “the pluriform unity of perspectives on Jesus Christ, of relations to Christ, and of the spoken and lived testimonies to Christ.”[10] On the other, he speaks of the Spirit as “a force field that constitutes public force fields” and says that “people can enter these fields or be drawn into them as bearers and as borne.”[11]

            Welker’s concrete realistic descriptions come the closest of the aforementioned theologians to providing evidence for the Holy Spirit’s active role in Missio Dei. He says the church is “built up by the Holy Spirit” and is “defined by the power of the Spirit.”[12] As a “public person”, the Holy Spirit “strengthens, comforts, and illumines” people.[13] He readily uses active verbs to describe the interactions between man and God’s Spirit. But even so, his expressions lead him to present those interactions as with the “multicontextual and pholyphonic presence of the Spirit.”[14]

Systematic Pneumatology – Clark Pinnock

Clark Pinnock is a Free Church theologian with roots in the liberal Baptist tradition. His particular pneumatological slant is to see the Holy Spirit’s active work in an unlimited capacity and yet one that can be systematically approached. He starts chapter two of his Flame of Love with a declaration that “there is a cosmic range to the operations of the Spirit, the Lord and giver of life.”[15] While Karkkainen argues that “the Bible presents no systematized outline of the work of the Spirit, anymore than it does of any other systematic topic,”[16] Pinnock would disagree. Instead, Pinnock approaches his systematic theology by pulling from Eastern Orthodox pneumatology and thus not allowing categories to dictate experiential elements.

            Pinnock employs verbs like “guiding, luring, wooing, influencing, [and] drawing” to describe the Holy Spirit’s work.[17] He speaks of the Spirit as life-giving and having roles that fill and edify the church with his gifts. Pinnock argues though that these actions are representative of the larger activity the Spirit completes throughout life experiences.

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[1] John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood, N.Y.: St.  Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), 110, italics in the original.

[2] Karen Kilby, Karl Rahner: Theology and Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 2004), 32.

[3] Karl Rahner and Geffrey B. Kelly, Karl Rahner: Theologican of the Graced Search for Meaning (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 218.

[4] Veli-Matti Karkkainen, Pneumatology: The Holy Spirit in Ecumenical, International, and Contextual Perspective. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), 124. 

[5] Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) , 3:134

[6] Jurgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 225.

[7] Karkkainen, Pneumatology, 126. 

[8] See Karkkainen, Pneumatology, 128. 

[9] Jurgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit: A Contribution to Messianic Ecclesiology, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1993), 33.

[10] Michael Welker, God the Spirit, trans. John F. Hoffmeyer (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), 314.

[11] Welker, God the Spirit, 242. 

[12] Welker, God the Spirit, 308-309.

[13] Welker, God the Spirit, 334. 

[14] Michael Welker, ed., The Work of the Spirit: Pneumatology and Pentecostalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 229.

[15] Subtitled A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 49.

[16] Karkkainen, Pneumatology, 23.

[17] Pinnock, Flame of Love, 216, as cited in Karkkainen, Pneumatology, 142.