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Is the Filioque an Obstacle to a Pneumatologically Robust Christology? a Response from Reformed Resources

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Journal of Reformed Theology 12 (2018) 394–412 brill.com/jrt Is the Filioque an Obstacle to a Pneumatologically Robust Christology? A Response from Reformed Resources Ty Kieser Wheaton College [email protected] Abstract This article provides examples of pneumatologically robust Reformed Christologies that are founded upon the doctrine of the filioque, as counter-evidence against the charge that the filioque prohibits the possibility of a ‘Spirit Christology.’ In order to provide this evidence, four Reformed theologians from four centuries (Calvin, Owen, Edwards, and Bavinck) are surveyed, particularly as they articulate the doctrine of the filioque and its significance for the role of the Holy Spirit in their Christologies. The arti- cle concludes that, rather than constituting an obstacle to a pneumatologically robust Christology, the filioque can positively contribute to a genuine Spirit Christology. Keywords filioque – Spirit Christology – Calvin – Owen – Edwards – Bavinck – mediator (Christ) According to standard practice, modern Western pneumatologies begin with a lament about the dry and arid theological landscape and how it lacks the life-giving rain of pneumatology.1 One of the biggest (supposed) obstacles that prevents Western theology from experiencing this Spirit-rain is the doctrine of the filioque (the belief that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son). 1 “It has become almost a convention that those who undertake to write about the Holy Spirit should begin by deploring the neglect of this doctrine in the thought and life of the Church today.” George Hendry, The Holy Spirit in Christian Theology, (Philadelphia: Westmin- ster, 1965), 11. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/15697312-01204009Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 01:53:29AM via free access filioque an obstacle to pneumatologically robust christology 395 The filioque is often considered to be something like a mountain that stands immovable, prohibiting the nourishing clouds of the Spirit to cross into our the- ological landscape, leaving Western theology in a theological rain shadow. This criticism of pneumatological dryness and the filioque as a significant cause is seen clearly and frequently in contemporary accounts of Spirit Christology.2 In this article, the label ‘Spirit Christology’ refers to a sustained account of Christ’s person and work explicated with direct reference to the Spirit and oriented toward the significance of the Spirit, often by appreciating themes and texts in Scripture regarding the Spirit.3 As a doctrine, Spirit Christology is notoriously plastic and varied, incorporat- ing several definitions and ranging from heterodox anti-Chalcedonian claims to (more recent) explicitly Chalcedonian proposals.4 Yet, there is widespread agreement among advocates of Spirit Christology that the filioque (as classi- cally understood) is an obstacle to the doctrine. Those who have registered crit- icisms (or at least suspicions) of the filioque in the service of a Spirit Christol- ogy include influential twentieth- (Pannenberg and Moltmann, for example)5 and twenty-first-century Protestant theologians (such asTanner and Coakley),6 Roman Catholics (such as Del Colle and Weinandy),7 contemporary Evangeli- cals (Pinnock and Letham, for example),8 and contemporary Reformed (and 2 For example, Gary Badcock, “The Anointing of Christ and the Filioque Doctrine,” Irish Theo- logical Quarterly 60 (1994): 241–258. 3 This definition owes much to the work of, and conversations with, Kyle Claunch, “The Son and the Spirit: The Promise of Spirit Christology in Traditional Trinitarian and Christological Perspective” (Ph.D. diss, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, 2017). 4 Roger Haight, “The Case for Spirit Christology,” Theological Studies 53 (1992): 260–262; Roger Haight, Jesus Symbol of God (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2000), 47–51; Ian A. McFarland, “Spirit and Incarnation: Toward a Pneumatic Chalcedonianism,”IJST 16 (2014): 143–158. 5 Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerd- mans, 2010), 1:317; Jürgen Moltmann,The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 9; Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, “The Spirit of Life: Molt- mann’s Pneumatology,” in Jürgen Moltmann and EvangelicalTheology: A Critical Engagement, ed. Sung Wook Chung (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2012), 136. 6 Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality and the Self: An Essay “on the Trinity” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 332–333. 7 Ralph Del Colle, “Reflections on the Filioque,” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 34 (1997): 202– 217; Ralph Del Colle, Christ and the Spirit: Spirit-Christology in Trinitarian Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 12. Del Colle does not deny the filioque in its entirety but expresses concerns and reworks the doctrine. Thomas Weinandy, The Father’s Spirit of Sonship: Reconceiving the Trinity (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2011), 8, 14–15. 8 Clark H. Pinnock, Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Downers Grove: IVP, 1996), 80. Robert Letham, The Holy Trinity: In Scripture, History, Theology, and Worship (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2004), 201–220, 377–406. Journal of Reformed Theology 12 (2018) 394–412 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 01:53:29AM via free access 396 kieser Reformed Baptist) theologians (such as Habets and van der Kooi).9 This trend may be illustrated through an appeal to The Cambridge Companion to the Trin- ity and The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity, each of which provides a chapter on Spirit Christology in which the filioque is seen (at best) as less than helpful for the appreciation of the Holy Spirit in the person and work of Christ.10 Contrary to the majority claim, this article will argue that the filioque need not be an obstacle to a pneumatologically robust Christology (that is, a Spirit Christology) by presenting the Christologies of four Reformed theologians from four centuries (Calvin, Owen, Edwards, and Bavinck) as examples of pneu- matologically robust Christologies built on the filioque and, thus, as counter- examples to the majority claim.11 Moving beyond mere historical description into theological prescription, my claim is similar to a favorite phrase of my grandfather’s while working on the farm: “We did not do it then; we need not do it now.” That is, these four Reformed theologians did not deny the filioque and yet were able to provide pneumatologically robust accounts of Christol- ogy; therefore, we need not deny the filioque in our christological construction today. The argument against the majority view proceeds by examining the way in which the filioque founds pneumatologically robust Christologies in each of our Reformed thinkers (Calvin, Owen, Edwards, and Bavinck). In order to avoid 9 See Myk Habets, “Filioque? Nein: A Proposal for Coherent Coinherence,” in Trinitarian Theology After Barth, ed. Myk Habets and Phillip Tolliday (Eugene: Pickwick, 2011), 161– 202; C. Van der Kooi and G. Van den Brink, Christian Dogmatics: An Introduction (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017), 100–103. 10 Thomas Weinandy, “Trinitarian Christology: The Eternal Son,” in Oxford Handbook of the Trinity, ed. Gilles Emery and Matthew Levering (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 389. Anne Hunt, “Trinity, Christology, and Pneumatology,” in The Cambridge Compan- ion to the Trinity, ed. Peter C. Phan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Hunt nowhere makes an explicit denial of the filioque, but she lauds Pannenberg (378) and Social Trinitarianism (375), rejects Augustinian Trinitarianism (372), and advocates for a theology from below (in which she documents the Son’s submission and obedience to the Spirit)—all positions that lean away from a traditional understanding of the filioque. 11 Employing four theologians (and these four specifically) evidences the historical continu- ity and consistency within the Reformed tradition. One theologian may be an aberration or an exception from the norm, yet four major theologians from four centuries shows the likelihood of such a position being a theological impulse native to the tradition. Secon- darily, it may also cast doubt on Spirit Christology’s narrative of neglect (whereby the Holy Spirit was putatively ignored until the 1970s) and the critical narrative of hetero- doxy (whereby Spirit Christology is inherently unorthodox). For this narrative of the Holy Spirit see Robert W. Jenson, “You Wonder Where the Spirit Went,” Pro Ecclesia 2 (1993): 296–304; Myk Habets, “Veni Cinderella Spiritus!” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 10 (2001): 65–80. Journal of Reformed TheologyDownloaded 12from (2018) Brill.com09/30/2021 394–412 01:53:29AM via free access filioque an obstacle to pneumatologically robust christology 397 begging the question by presupposing that these four accounts of Christology are ‘Spirit Christologies,’ as the survey progresses we will minimally describe these accounts as ‘pneumatic Christologies’ (that is, Christologies that explic- itly account for the Spirit) and then address the potential objection that these pneumatic Christologies do not qualify as genuine Spirit Christologies.The arti- cle will conclude that the Christologies of these four thinkers do constitute gen- uine Spirit Christologies and, therefore, represent formative counter-examples to the suggestion that the filioque is an obstacle to constructing a Spirit Chris- tology. 1 John Calvin (1509–1564) We begin with the French Reformer, pastor, and theologian John Calvin. Calvin has been called
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