Marquette University e-Publications@Marquette Dissertations, Theses, and Professional Dissertations (1934 -) Projects Creator Spirit, Spirit of Grace: Trinitarian Dimensions of a Charitological Pneumatology Wesley Scott Biddy Marquette University Follow this and additional works at: https://epublications.marquette.edu/dissertations_mu Part of the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Biddy, Wesley Scott, "Creator Spirit, Spirit of Grace: Trinitarian Dimensions of a Charitological Pneumatology" (2016). Dissertations (1934 -). 672. https://epublications.marquette.edu/dissertations_mu/672 CREATOR SPIRIT, SPIRIT OF GRACE: TRINITARIAN DIMENSIONS OF A CHARITOLOGICAL PNEUMATOLOGY by Wesley Scott Biddy, B.A, M.A., Th.M. A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School, Marquette University, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Milwaukee, Wisconsin December 2016 ABSTRACT CREATOR SPIRIT, SPIRIT OF GRACE: TRINITARIAN DIMENSIONS OF A CHARITOLOGICAL PNEUMATOLOGY Wesley Scott Biddy, B.A, M.A., Th.M. Marquette University, 2016 This dissertation takes up the question of the link between the creative and the redemptive work of the Holy Spirit. It presents creation as ordered to redemption and redemption as the completion of creation, especially for human beings. On the understanding of the relationship between the two orders of the Spirit’s activity proposed here, creation is of a piece with redemption and is therefore an operation of grace just as the latter is. I ground my depiction of the Spirit’s role in both aspects of the divine economy in an account of her role within the immanent Trinity. Indeed, this dissertation focuses primarily on the nature of the Spirit’s eternal relation to the other two persons of the Godhead, which is the foundation of her work in the world. It offers a conception of her intra-trinitarian role that can reconcile some apparently incompatible ideas suggested by the New Testament concerning the relationships between the divine persons, that accords with the principles that have regulated trinitarian theology throughout the history of the universal church, and that attempts to do justice to the concerns underlying different and long-controverted trinitarian models authoritatively supported by separated church traditions. Yet my account also challenges traditional views. Most fundamentally, I submit that the principle of the equality and inseparability of the persons in God calls for understanding the Holy Spirit as having a more active part in the eternal constitution of the Trinity than she has usually been ascribed. In dialogue with Thomas Weinandy and David Coffey, among others, I characterize her as mediating the exchange of love between the Father and the Son in a way that illuminates why she is essential to making them the particular persons they are. I then argue that her work in creating and redeeming humanity stems from this intra-trinitarian activity, drawing on the thought of Gerard Manley Hopkins to illustrate how grace as a theological concept can clarify the link between creation and redemption. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Wesley Scott Biddy, B.A, M.A., Th.M. I wish to thank the members of my committee, Dr. Ed Block, Fr. Robert Doran, Dr. Robert Masson, and especially my director, Dr. Lyle Dabney, for their aid in bringing this dissertation and my doctoral studies to completion. They are titans of patience and of generosity of spirit, two things that I required in large measure. My first director, Dr. Ralph Del Colle, passed away rather soon after I began writing. In him I lost a mentor and a friend. However, I was able to continue moving forward with the dissertation because Dr. Dabney graciously took over his duties and Dr. Masson kindly joined the committee. Fr. Doran agreed to serve on it despite being obligated to a number of dissertating students already, and Dr. Block has done me the enormous favor of staying on after his retirement. Drs. Dabney and Block have provided invaluable commentary on portions of my argument during the writing process; without their insights, this would be a work of significantly lesser quality. I would also like to thank the rest of the Theology Department faculty who have helped me to become a better scholar, both by the example they set in their own scholarship and by their skill in classroom teaching, and who foster the collegiality that makes studying at Marquette a genuine pleasure. I am grateful, as well, to the many friends who over the years have encouraged me and occasionally talked me out of a full-tilt panic. A number of my former professors from Lee University, especially Dr. Donna Summerlin, Dr. Andrew Lee, and Dr. Bob Barnett, have been tireless cheerleaders and have provided me with much-needed perspective on what it takes to survive a Ph.D. program. Merinda Simmons delivered me iv from more than one fit of anxiety. Had it not been for Coral Norwood, I might be in an institution somewhere eating crayons right now. Thanks are also due to Hannah Matis and Michelle Álvarez, who helped me check the accuracy of some of my translations, and to Melissa Casserly, who helped me across the finish line in multiple ways. My greatest debt of gratitude is to my parents, Dana and Judy Biddy, who made tremendous personal sacrifices to ensure that I could finish my educational journey after I suffered a permanently disabling accident at age 20. Without their help, virtually nothing I have done since then—above all completing a doctoral program—would have been possible. They have never failed to give liberally of their love and support, and I will be thankful for that as long as I live. This dissertation is dedicated to them. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... i A NOTE ON THE USE OF PRONOUNS FOR THE HOLY SPIRIT …………………..1 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………8 Prospect ………………………………………………………………………….. 8 Framing the Problem: Who Is the Holy Spirit? Aspects of a Perennial Answer… 9 The Contemporary Theological Scene and the Present Study …………………. 32 CHAPTER TWO: THE IMMANENT AND THE ECONOMIC TRINITY …………... 54 The Question of Knowing and Speaking about the Trinity ……………………. 54 Setting the Agenda: Karl Barth and Karl Rahner ……………………………… 55 The Radical Turn to the Economy ……………………………………………... 68 The Concern to Preserve the Immanent-Economic Distinction ……………….. 97 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………. 117 CHAPTER THREE: THE SPIRIT OF THE FATHER AND OF THE SON, PART ONE ………….………………………………………… 125 Constructing a Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity: The Problem of Economic Diversity and the Church’s Trinitarian Tradition …………………………….. 125 “Opening a New Debate on the Procession of the Spirit:” The Klingenthal Proposals ……………………………………………………………………… 132 The Vatican Clarification of the Filioque …………………………………….. 180 Summary and Prospect ……………………………………………………….. 200 CHAPTER FOUR: THE SPIRIT OF THE FATHER AND OF THE SON, PART TWO ……………………………………………………. 206 Thomas Weinandy: “Begotten in the Spirit” ………………………………….. 206 David Coffey: The “Procession” and “Return” Models of the Trinity ……….. 227 vi Striving for Convergence ……………………………………………………... 240 Perichoresis …………………………………………………………………… 251 Mediating between Old and New Understandings: A Speculative Proposal …. 262 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………. 289 CHAPTER FIVE: GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS: INCORPORATING IDEAS FOR SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY ………………………………………………………… 292 The Purpose of the Present Chapter …………………………………………... 292 “On Creation and Redemption” and the Absolute Primacy of Christ ………… 293 Creation in Christ and Christ in Creation …………………………………….. 308 The Redemption of Creation ………………………………………………….. 318 Appropriating Hopkins for the Present Theological Study …………………… 327 CHAPTER SIX: THE SPIRIT’S MISSION IN CREATION AND REDEMPTION … 333 Pneumatological Dimensions of the Absolute Primacy of Christ …………….. 333 Identifying the Spirit’s Work in Relation to the Son’s: A Recently Developed Paradigm ……………………………………………………………………… 338 Colin Gunton: Perichoresis and Particularity ………………………………… 351 Filiological and Pneumatological Aspects of Inscape and Instress …………... 368 The Holy Spirit’s Proper Mission in Redemption …………………………….. 378 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………. 390 CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………………………. 396 BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………………………………. 405 1 A NOTE ON THE USE OF PRONOUNS FOR THE HOLY SPIRIT The reader will notice that I frequently employ feminine pronouns for the Holy Spirit. A number of theologians do this, but as the practice is disputed, my use of it calls for some explanation. I offer that here in order to avoid interrupting or delaying the argument of the first chapter or creating an overburdened footnote upon the first appearance of the word “she.” The use of gendered pronouns for persons of the Trinity is a problem for which there is currently no generally acceptable solution. 1 The names Father and Son, of course, are male and call for masculine pronouns. “The Holy Spirit” (τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον) is neuter in the Greek from which we have this name for the third person of the Godhead— a name that, unlike Father and Son, does not of itself immediately betoken a personal entity analogous to human persons. Yet since the Spirit is recognized as a person, the pronoun “it” seems quite inappropriate to use of the Spirit; we never refer to persons, but only to non-personal things, as “it.” One could avoid pronomial references