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

Journal of Reformed Theology 12 (2018) 394–412

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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 article 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.

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 theological 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.

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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 pneumatologically 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 continuity 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 explicitly account for the Spirit) and then address the potential objection that these pneumatic Christologies do not qualify as genuine Spirit Christologies.The article will conclude that the Christologies of these four thinkers do constitute genuine 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 the ‘theologian of the Holy Spirit,’ yet it is also said that “Christ is … at the heart of the system” of his theology.12 These two characterizations do not contradict or conflict with each other because even Calvin’s approach to the doctrine of Christ is, as David Willis claims, “in constant reference to the Spirit.”13 Calvin’s (minimally labeled) ‘pneumatic Christology’ is built upon his trinitarian doctrine of the filioque and provides him with an account of Christ that appreciates the biblical and theological significance of the Holy Spirit in Christ’s life. For Calvin, the Spirit’s procession from the Father and the Son ( filioque) is made evident by divine acts toward creation. Calvin acknowledges that the works of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit toward creation are indivisible. Calvin claims, “To the Father is attributed the beginning of activity, and the foundation and wellspring of all things; to the Son, wisdom, counsel, and the ordered disposition of all things; but to the Spirit is assigned the power and efficacy of that activity.”14 Thus, these ordered operations support the Western understanding of the divine processions whereby “the Son is said to come forth from the Father alone; [and] the Holy Spirit, from the Father and the Son [ filioque] at the same time.”15 Drawing from the economic acts of God as evidence of the

12 B.B. Warfield, “Calvin and Calvinism,” The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield (New York: Oxford University Press, 1927), V: 21; Bernard Cottret, Calvin: A Biography (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 310. 13 DavidWillis, Calvin’sCatholicChristology:TheFunctionof theSo-CalledExtraCalvinisticum in Calvin’s Theology (Leiden: Brill, 1966), 82. 14 Calvin, Institutes, I.xiii.18. 15 Calvin, Institutes, I.xiii.18. See also Brannon Ellis, Calvin, Classical Trinitarianism, and the Aseity of the Son (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 31.

Journal of Reformed Theology 12 (2018) 394–412 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 01:53:29AM via free access 398 kieser divine processions, Calvin insists that as “Christ exerted the power of his Spirit, … [he] proved himself to be the Son of God,”—the one from whom the Spirit is eternally spirated.16 From the economic order of the divine persons (which, according to Brannon Ellis, can be understood to be first, second, and third), we see evidence for the distinction of persons on the basis of their relations of procession (that is, the Son is not the Father since he is the one who is begotten of the Father).17 The processions and the filioque, then, provide the foundation upon which we understand the economic works of Christ in the history of redemption, but the economic works of God also testify to the immanent relations—particularly the filioque. The filioque is, as Gerald Bray rightly observes, fundamental to Calvin’s theology, supporting and influencing the rest of Calvin’s thought.18 This is particularly relevant in Calvin’s Christology, which is labelled a ‘Filioque-Christology’ by David Willis.19 Calvin believes that the Spirit creates, sanctifies, anoints, and empowers Christ for his work on our behalf. In developing this thought, Calvin presents the Spirit as a key player in the descent of Christ and in our ascent to the Father in Christ the mediator.20 Calvin begins by stating that Christ was without original sin because “he was sanctified in his birth by the Holy Spirit and so his generation was without blemish, even as was generation before the Fall.”21 Christ is also “given the Spirit without measure” and “an unlimited wealth of the Spirit” in his human nature.22 Calvin even claims that at his bap- tism, Christ “was clothed with a new power of the Spirit not so much for his own sake … [but] to perform the office of Redeemer for others … [H]e came from heaven as a divine man in whom the power of the Holy Spirit reigned; so even as a servant and according to his human nature here was a heavenly power.”23 Calvin, additionally, makes use of the Spirit in order to preserve the

16 John Calvin, A Harmony of the Gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke, vol. 3, ed. David W. Tor- rance and Thomas F. Torrance, trans. A.W. Morrison, Calvin’s New Testament Commen- taries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), 221. 17 Ellis, Aseity, 31; citing Calvin, Institutes, I.xiii.17–18, cf. II.xiv.7. 18 Gerald Bray, “The Filioque Clause in History and Theology,” Tyndale Bulletin, 34 (1983): 139, claims that the filioque is so “obvious and fundamental” to Calvin that it is not “worth arguing about. Without it there would have been no Evangelical faith at all.” 19 Willis, Calvin’s Catholic Christology, 82, 83. 20 Julie Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder: A Spiritual Theology of Ascent and Ascension (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 96. 21 Calvin, Institutes, II.xiii.4. 22 John Calvin, The Gospel according to St. John: Part One 1–10, ed. David W. Torrance and Thomas F. Torrance, trans. T.H.L. Parker, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959), 84. 23 Calvin, Harmony, I: 131; my emphasis.

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 399 genuine humanity of Christ. As Julie Canlis says, because “Calvin is profoundly convinced that it is only if Jesus is thoroughly human that we (as human) can participate in him,” and this too is possible only by the Holy Spirit.24 This indicates Calvin’s ‘mediator theology,’25 whereby the focus is on Christ’s work to reconcile “the alienation between God and humanity; to span in Christ’s one person the chasm that sin has introduced between God and human beings.”26 Each and every aspect of salvation is drawn from Christ our mediator and “there is no drop of vigor in us, save what the Holy Spirit instills. For the spirit has cho- sen Christ as his seat, that from him might abundantly flow the heavenly riches of which we are in such need.”27 As the mediator between God and humanity Christ is made like us by the Spirit so that Christ may be the source for us of the Spirit and life. This good news of God’s grace toward us in the economy is based on and demonstrated by the order of divine relations in the immanent life of God, whereby the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

2 John Owen (1616–1683)

John Owen was an English Puritan of Reformed High Orthodoxy.28 Considered the “Calvin of England,” he has been influential in the church and academy, theology and spirituality.29 Here we will see that Owen builds a pneumatic Christology upon the doctrine of the triune God and the filioque.30

24 Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder, 98. 25 Heiko Oberman, “The Extra Dimension in the Theology of Calvin,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 21 (1970): 60. 26 Philip Walker Butin, Revelation, Redemption, and Response: Calvin’s Trinitarian Under- standing of the Divine-Human Relationship (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 65. 27 Calvin, Institutes, II.xv.5. cf. “You see that our righteousness is not in us but in Christ, that we possess it only because we are partakers in Christ: indeed, with him we possess all its riches.”Institutes, III.i.1; see also Stephen Edmondson, Calvin’s Christology (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 128. 28 See the description of this historical period in Richard Muller, After Calvin: Studies in the Development of a Theological Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 4–7. 29 Owen’s nicknames as the “Calvin of England,” W.H.D. Longstaff, ed. Memoirs of Ambrose Barnes (Durham, UK: Andrews & Co., 1867), 16, and the “Prince of divines,” Charles Spur- geon, Commenting and Commentaries (New York: Sheldon and Company, 1876), 151, dem- onstrate his significance in his day and in the history of the Reformed tradition. Cf. Dewey D. Wallace, Shapers of English Calvinism, 1660–1714: Variety, Persistence, and Transforma- tion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 5. 30 For the triune shape of Owen’s theology see Carl R. Trueman, The Claims of Truth: John Owen’s Trinitarian Theology (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998), esp. 24.

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In order to distinguish the divine persons from one another, Owen claims that as the Son receives his life and essence from the Father, the Holy Spirit also receives “his substance and personality” from both the Father and the Son since the Spirit eternally proceeds from both ( filioque).31 Owen insists that the Holy Spirit’s procession from the Father and the Son indicates “his being of them” and distinguishes the Spirit “from them.”32 On his account, if the Spirit proceeded only from the Father there would be nothing (that is, no personal property or relation of origin) that would distinguish the Spirit from the Son (who also proceeds only from the Father). Biblically, Owen sees Christ’s sending of the Spirit adextra (for example, John 5:25; 6:63) as an indication of the Son’s participation in the spiration of the Spirit ad intra.33 After a discussion on the topic through John 14–15, Owen believes that “the sending [of] the Holy Ghost by Christ … argues his [i.e., the Spirit’s] personal procession also from him [i.e., Christ]” in eternity.34 Like Calvin, Owen bases several of his pneumatological claims on texts such as Romans 8:9 and Galatians 4:6, where the Spirit is called the Spirit of the Son/Christ, Owen asserts that this title (Spirit of Christ) is primarily due to the Spirit’s procession from the Son in the immanent life of God and only secondarily because Christ sends the Spirit to make effectual his work in the economy.35 From the filioque, and the processions more generally, Owen (like theologians in the Reformed and Scholastic traditions) develops his strong adherence to the doctrine of indivisible operations—that is, every action of God toward creation being indivisibly an act of all three divine persons.36 The work of redemption, then, as with all works of the triune God, flows from the Father by way of “original authority,” in the Son, who “puts the whole authority, love, and power of the Father in execution,” and finally, by the Holy Spirit, who provides a “perfecting application of the whole unto all its proper ends.”37 He applies this

31 John Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed., William H. Goold, 24 vols (Edinburgh & London: Johnstone & Hunter, 1850–1855), 2:227; cf. 3:91. Hereafter WJO followed by the volume and page number. 32 Owen, WJO 12:74. 33 Owen, WJO 2:175. 34 Owen, WJO 2:226. 35 Owen claims that the Sprit would not be called the Spirit of the Son unless he “had antecedently been the Spirit of the Son by his proceeding from him also [i.e., in the immanent life of God as well as in the economy]”; Owen, WJO 3:61. 36 See Richard Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms: Drawn Principally from Protestant Scholastic Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1985), 213. 37 Owen, WJO 1:219; cf. 3:94. Contrary to Habets’s suggestion that Owen does not allow his pneumatic Christology to inform his trinitarian theology because of his “overriding con-

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 401 to the conception of Christ, whereby the act belonged to the Father in “author- itative designation,” the Spirit in the formation of the human nature, and to the Son in the actual assumption of the human nature.38 In Owen’s theology, the Spirit also sanctified and filled the human nature with grace at the moment of conception.39 Thus, the human nature of Christ is not only sinless—by virtue of the Spirit’s forming—but also grace filled—by virtue of the Spirit’s filling. Owen’s most explicit section on Spirit Christology—Pneumatologia book 2, chapters 3 and 4—is driven by a polemic on this issue of indivisible operations: that is if the Spirit is divine and the divine acts are indivisible, then where is the Spirit in the incarnation of the Son? Owen responds by noting ten works of the Spirit in the life and person of Christ: The Spirit (1) forms the human nature of Christ in the womb of Mary and (2) fills him with grace. After the conception, (3) the Spirit continually makes effective the works of the Son upon the human nature and (4) works miracles that witness to the glory of Christ. He also (5) prepares and (6) supports Christ in his ministry as the prophet, priest, and king of the church. Then, (7) Christ offers himself up through the Spirit. After Christ’s death, (8) the Spirit sustains his body and soul and (9) reunites them in the resurrection. Finally, (10) in the ascension the Spirit glorifies Christ’s human nature.40 For Owen the filioque radically shapes how he understands the work of Christ the mediator. Owen claims, “None … could be the prophet of the church, but he who had the power to send the Holy Spirit … And this alone he could do, whose Spirit he is, proceeding from him; whom he [Christ] therefore frequently promised so to send.”41 Drawing from Jesus breathing on the disciples in John 20, Owen suspects that the human breath may serve as a “weak and imperfect” analogy to the procession of the Holy Spirit. He suggests, “for as the vital breath of a man hath a continual emanation from him, and yet is never separated utterly from his person or forsaketh him, so doth the Spirit of the Father and the Son proceed from them by a continual divine emanation, still abiding one with them.”42

cern for the basis of the assurance of salvation,” Habets, Anointed, 211–212, I think it is precisely because of his trinitarian theology that Owen develops a pneumatic Christology. 38 See Owen, WJO 1:225. 39 For Owen’s development up to this position see Trueman, Claims of Truth, 178; cf. Alan J. Spence, Incarnation and Inspiration: John Owen and the Coherence of Christology (New York: T&T Clark, 2007), 56. 40 Owen, WJO 3:162–183. 41 Owen, WJO 1:95. 42 Owen, WJO 3:55.

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Tying together the filioque, his Christology, and Christ’s mediatorial activity, Owen firmly concludes, “for the order of the dispensation of the divine persons toward us ariseth from the order of their own subsistence in the same divine essence; and if the Spirit did proceed only from the person of the Father, he could not be promised, sent, or given by the Son.”43 That is, apart from the filioque, his pneumatic Christology would be emptied of its theological significance. Owen, therefore, provides us with an account of the divine processions that allows him to produce a “filioque–shaped” pneumatic Christology that accentuates Christ’s activity for us and our salvation.44

3 Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758)

Jonathan Edwards was a New England Puritan pastor and theologian whose impact upon American thought, philosophy, and (particularly, evangelical) theology can hardly be stated more strongly (or more accurately) than Douglas Sweeney’s claim that Edwards is “the most influential thinker in all of evangelical history.”45 Here, we will briefly set up Edwards’s mature trinitarian thought in order to explicate his view of the filioque and then present his pneumatic Christology. Edwards defines a person (divine or human) as “that which hath understanding and will.”46 Therefore, for Edwards, if God understands himself (or has an idea of himself) perfectly, and if all that is in God is God,47 then God’s understanding (or the perfect idea of himself) must also be God—that is, God the Son. Additionally, if God is perfectly loving and wills to love his image (the Son) perfectly, then his will must also be God—that is, the Holy Spirit (cf. 1John

43 Owen, WJO 3:61. 44 Suzanne McDonald, Re-Imaging Election: Divine Election as Representing God to Others and Others to God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 8, applies this label to Owen’s understanding of “all of God’s dealings with the created order,” which would certainly include christological dealings. 45 Douglas Sweeney, Jonathan Edwards and the Ministry of the Word (Downers Grove: IVP, 2009), 17. 46 Jonathan Edwards, Writings on the Trinity, Grace, and Faith, ed. Sang Hyun Lee, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 21 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 133; hereafter WJE 21. 47 This move is founded on Edwards’s doctrine of divine simplicity. See Kyle Strobel, “The Doctrine of Simplicity,” in A Jonathan Edwards Encyclopedia, ed. Harry S. Stout, Kenneth P. Minkema, and Adriaan C. Neele (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017), 153–155. For an earlier summary and (critical) evaluation of Edwards on Simplicity see Oliver Crisp, “Jonathan Edwards on Divine Simplicity,”Religious Studies 39 (2003): 23–41.

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4:18, 13).48 This psychological analogy and the concept of mutual love play a significant role in his support of the filioque as the bond of union and love between the Father and the Son.49 Edwards claims that the Spirit is “the divine essence being wholly poured and flowing out in that infinitely intense, holy and pure love and delight that continually and unchangeably breathes forth from the Father and the Son.”50 In his sermon “Heaven is a World of Love,” Edwards argues that all love originates in and with God as it proceeds from the Father and the Son. He proclaims that “the Son of God is not only the infinite object of love, but he is also an infinite subject of it.”51 That is, the Son both receives love from the Father and actively loves the Father. This means that the love of God (that is, the Holy Spirit) is “an infinite and eternal mutual holy energy between the Father and the Son, a pure, holy act whereby the Deity becomes nothing but an infinite and unchangeable act of love, which proceeds from both the Father and the Son.”52 Elsewhere, he summarily claims, “the Spirit that proceeds from the Father and the Son is the bond of this union.”53 Yet, the Spirit’s character as the bond of love extends beyond the immanent life of God into God’s acts in the economy. As the divine missions echo the processions in Edwards, the Spirit is the bond of all holy unions: “between the Father and the Son, and [also] between God and the creature, and between the creatures among themselves.”54 This character of the Spirit as the bond of union and love is seen clearly in Edwards’s pneumatically robust Christology.55 As the Spirit is the bond of

48 Edwards, WJE 21:131, 135. 49 The filioque is, unlike most trinitarian doctrines in Edwards, received without much con- tention among Edwards scholars. For example, it is affirmed without much argumentation in Kyle Strobel, Jonathan Edwards’s Theology: A Reinterpretation, T & T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology (London: Bloomsbury T & T Clark, 2014), 57; Steven M. Studebaker and Robert W. Caldwell III, The Trinitarian Theology of Jonathan Edwards: Text, Context, and Application (Burlington: Ashgate, 2012), 72; Seng-Kong Tan, Fullness Received and Returned: Trinity and Participation in Jonathan Edwards, Emerging Scholars (Minneapo- lis: Fortress, 2014), 14–15. 50 Edwards, WJE 21:185–186. 51 Jonathan Edwards, Ethical Writings, ed. Paul Ramsey, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 8 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 373. Hereafter WJE 8. 52 Edwards, WJE 8:373. 53 Edwards, WJE 21:186. 54 Edwards, WJE 21:186. For the principle of the missions following the order of the processions, see WJE 23:153. Cf. Robert W. Caldwell III, Communion in the Spirit: The Holy Spirit as the Bond of Union in the Theology of Jonathan Edwards, Studies in Evangelical History and Thought (Eugene: Paternoster, 2006). 55 For Edwards’s Christology in general, and his Spirit Christology in particular, see Stephen R. Holmes, God of Grace and God of Glory: An Account of the Theology of Jonathan Edwards

Journal of Reformed Theology 12 (2018) 394–412 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 01:53:29AM via free access 404 kieser union between the three divine persons, so too does the Spirit bind and unite the Son to his human nature, sustaining him along the way.56 While the relationship between Edwards and Owen on this topic is debated, Edwards, like Owen, states that the Holy Spirit creates and sanctifies the human nature assumed by the Logos.57 And it is the Logos who sends his Holy Spirit “to form, sanctify, and unite the human nature to himself.”58 Therefore, Jesus was con- ceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and is called “the anointed” in the sense that he was “united to the divine” nature at his conception “by the communica- tion of the Spirit of God, the true oil, which was poured upon him without measure.”59 The Spirit (the bond of love) unites the humanity and divinity in Christ such that Edwards claims that “this man hath communion with the Logos, in the love which the Father hath to him as his only begotten Son,” and he adds, “now the love of God is the Holy Ghost.”60 Therefore, for Edwards the Logos is united to the human nature in the intimate Love which the Father has for the Son (who is the Holy Spirit). The bestowal of the Holy Spirit (love) upon Christ is the anointing that equips him for his mediatorial service. Edwards states, “Christ’s anointing don’t only mark out Christ as being our mediator, but ‘tis his anointing that qualifies and fits him for the work of mediator … If he had not been anointed, they [Christians] would not have availed; because if it had not been for this anointing with the Holy Ghost, he would not have been united to the divine nature. ’Tis by the Holy Spirit that Christ is the Son of God.”61 As it is by means of the uniting Spirit that the humanity of Christ is united to the Son (who is united to the Father by the Spirit), so too it is by the Spirit that believers are united to the humanity of Christ. Edwards (almost wonder- ing aloud) muses, “All divine communion, or communion of the creatures with

(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 134–142; Robert Jenson, “Christology,” in The Princeton Companion to Jonathan Edwards, ed. Sang Hyun Lee (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 72–86; Oliver Crisp and Kyle Strobel, Jonathan Edwards: An Introduction to His Thought (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018), 154–159. 56 Likewise, see Steven M. Studebaker, The Trinitarian Vision of Jonathan Edwards and David Coffey (Amherst: Cambria, 2011), 90. 57 Jonathan Edwards, The ‘Miscellanies’: Entry Nos. 501–832, ed. Ava Chamberlain, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 18 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 334; hereafter WJE 18. The debate on Edwards’s relationship to Owen can be seen in Brandon Withrow, Becoming Divine: Jonathan Edwards’s Incarnational Spirituality within the Christian Tradi- tion (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2011), 128–131; Holmes, God of Grace, 136–141. 58 Edwards, WJE 18:336. 59 Jonathan Edwards,The‘Miscellanies’:Entry Nos.1–500, ed.Thomas A. Schafer,TheWorks of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 13 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 530; Hereafter WJE 13. 60 Edwards, WJE 13:529; cf. Withrow, Becoming Divine, 127. 61 Edwards, WJE 13:530–531.

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God or with one another in God, seems to be by the Holy Ghost,” for “perhaps there is no other way of God’s dwelling in creatures but by his Spirit.”62 Edwards emphasizes this soteriological union in the bond of the Spirit so strongly that Hastings observes that the hypostatic union of Christ “is [itself] patterned after the union of saints, by the Spirit, with Christ.”63 For Edwards, we see the Spirit as the bond of unity between the Father and the Son, between the divinity and humanity of Christ, and between Christ and his people. The Spirit proceeds from the Son in order to sustain the union of the mediator’s two natures and enable him to complete his mediatorial task.

4 Herman Bavinck (1854–1921)

Herman Bavinck has been described as a Dutch “Pastor, Churchman, States- man, and Theologian.”64 With Bavinck’s self-admitted dependence on “previous generations” from “the whole church of Christ”, it is no surprise that he developed a pneumatic Christology within the “clear-cut boundaries” of the Definition of Chalcedon and a doctrine of the filioque within classical Western standards.65 Bavinck’s pneumatic Christology is based upon the “centerpiece of [his] theology”—the triune God66 and, in particular, the filioque shape of his trinitarian theology. The Spirit neither proceeds exclusively from the Father (for then he would be indistinguishable from the Son), nor are the Father and the Son as “two principia” (for then the Spirit would be the grandson of the Father).67 Instead, the Spirit is distinguished from the Son by virtue of his pro-

62 Edwards, WJE 13:529; 528. 63 Ross W. Hastings, “Giving Honour to the Spirit: Analysis and Evaluation of Jonathan Edwards’ Pneumatological Doctrine of the Incarnation,”IJST 7, no. 3 (2005): 284; Edwards, WJE 13:528; Withrow, Becoming Divine, 188. 64 Ron Gleason, Herman Bavinck: Pastor, Churchman, Statesman, and Theologian (Phillips- burg: P&R, 2010). 65 Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), 1:86; 3:255. Hereafter RD. As Mattson says, Bavinck saw Reformed Christology as “the most consistent expression of Chalcedonian orthodoxy.” Brian G. Mattson, Restored to Our Destiny: Escha- tology & the Image of God in Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics, Studies in Reformed Theology (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 185. 66 James Eglinton,Trinity and Organism:Towards a New Reading of Herman Bavinck’s Organic Motif (New York: T&T Clark, 2012), 96. Bolt claims that “The Trinity is the heart of the Reformed vision”; John Bolt, “The Trinity as a Unifying Theme in Reformed Thought: A Response to Dr. George Vandervelde” Calvin Theological Journal 22 (1987): 101. 67 Bavinck, RD 2:316; 213.

Journal of Reformed Theology 12 (2018) 394–412 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 01:53:29AM via free access 406 kieser cession from the Father and the Son together as a single originating cause (prin- cipium).68 The doctrine of the filioque is also employed to affirm the Son as the image of the Father and the exact imprint of his nature. That is, the filioque testifies to the connection of the Father and Son, since “the Son also received from the Father the role of causing the Spirit to proceed from him along with the Father; for the Son cannot differ in any way from the Father other than in his being the Son.”69 This unity of being and immanent relations “manifest themselves outward- ly” in God’s external acts, while the “order and distinction of the persons is preserved” such that Bavinck observes that the “‘ontological’Trinity is mirrored in the ‘economic’ Trinity.”70 Bavinck claims that the divine ordering means that the incarnation, specifically, was “peculiar only to the Son”—since the Son “in the divine being … occupies the place between the Father and the Spirit … [he] could [therefore] restore us to our position as children of God”—yet, “with respect to its origin, beginning and effectiveness, it [the incarnation] is a work of the whole Trinity.”71 Therefore, as Bavinck claims, the “Trinity makes hypostatic union possible.”72 As with Calvin, Owen, and Edwards, Bavinck starts his exposition of the Spirit’s explicit work in the incarnation with an explanation of the Holy Spirit’s work in the conception of Christ. He contends, “What is begotten in Mary is of the Holy Spirit as efficient cause, has its cause in the activity of the Holy Spirit, and not in the will of a man or of the flesh.”73 And “aside from Mary’s impreg-

68 Herman Bavinck, Our Reasonable Faith, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), 157. 69 Bavinck, RD 2:316. Augustine says something very similar, “If the Son has everything that he has from the Father, he clearly has from the Father that the Holy Spirit should proceed from him.” Augustine, The Trinity, trans. Edmund Hill, OP, (Hyde Park: New City, 1991), 15.6.47. 70 Bavinck, RD 2:318. Bavinck applies this to the missions of the Son and Spirit as well, “But this ‘being sent’ in time is a reflection of the immanent relations of the three persons in the divine being and is grounded in generation and spiration.The incarnation of theWord has its eternal archetype in the generation of the Son, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is a weak analogy of the procession from the Father and the Son.” Bavinck, RD 2:320–321. 71 Bavinck, RD 3:276. 72 Mattson, Restored, 180. 73 Bavinck, RD 3:292. Bavinck has a tremendously high view of the supernatural conception of Christ, saying that it “is not a matter of indifference and without value. It is most inti- mately tied to the deity of Christ, to his eternal preexistence, his absolute sinlessness, and is therefore of great importance for the faith of the church” and “of supreme importance of the person of Christ.”RD 3:290, 291. This is because “conception by the Holy Spirit … was the only way in which he who already existed and was appointed head of a new covenant could now also in a human way—in the flesh—be and remain who he was: the Christ, Son of God the Most High.”RD 3:294–295.

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 407 nation, the Holy Spirit also brought about the sanctification of the child that would be born of her.”74 Bavinck goes on to affirm that “this activity of the Holy Spirit with respect to Christ’s human nature absolutely does not stand by itself. Though it began with the conception … it continued throughout his entire life, even right into the state of exaltation.”75 He observes that while Christ was incarnate, “the Spirit of God dwelt in [him] as the dominantpowerof hislife … so that Christ always followed the guidanceof that Spirit and remained obedient to the Father unto death.”76 He also specifically notes the resurrection, whereby the Father “by his Spirit … raised him [Christ] from the dead in order that he would no longer live in the weakness of the flesh but in the power of the Spirit.”77 While Bavinck’s pneumatic Christology is drawn principally from scripture, which “expressly teaches it,”78 he claims that we can also infer the work of the Spirit in the work of Christ’s mediation for us in two ways: (1) For Bavinck, to be truly human is to be fully imaging God, and to be in the image is to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit.79 (2) Bavinck argues that since communion with God comes only by the Spirit of God and Christ’s humanity is united to the Son, “This special union … makes a priori probable and even necessary a very special activity on the part of the Holy Spirit.”80 Bavinck contrasts the way in which a Reformed pneumatic Christology can preserve the genuine humanity of Christ with Lutheran and Catholic Christologies, which, he believes, con- tain “within them a docetic element” that “fails to do justice to the human nature of Christ.”81 Mattson summarizes: “Just where Lutheranism runs into insoluble problems, not knowing how to account for the anointing of the Holy Spirit, Bavinck impressively ties together Christology with Pneumatology.”82 Here we have seen Bavinck’s constructions of the filioque undergird his pneumatic Christology within which Christ reveals to us the nature of true humanity by the Spirit.83

74 Bavinck, RD 3:292, citing Luke 1:35. 75 Bavinck, RD 3:292. 76 Bavinck, RD 3:436, emphasis mine. 77 Bavinck, RD 3:345. 78 Bavinck, RD 3:292 introduces a paragraph in which Bavinck quotes fifteen biblical passages and summarizes the Holy Spirit’s work in and through the person of Christ. 79 Bavinck, RD 3:292. 80 Bavinck, RD 3:292.This closely resembles Edward’s question: Perhaps there is no other way of God’s dwelling in a creature but by his Spirit, WJE 13:528. 81 Bavinck, RD 3:309. 82 Mattson, Restored, 199. 83 Bavinck, RD 3:368.

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5 Evaluation

We have seen four Reformed figures from four centuries of the church’s history present four accounts of pneumatic Christology upon the foundation of the doctrine of the filioque. Summarizing each in turn: in Calvin, we saw that the filioque rests at the heart of his theology. From this foundation, Calvin employed his doctrine of the Holy Spirit to articulate a pneumatic Christology in which the Spirit empowered a genuinely human Christ in order that Christ may, by the Spirit, become for us the mediating source of the Spirit. In Owen, we saw the filioque, rather than minimizing the personhood of the Spirit, distinguish the personhood of the Spirit ad intra and demarcate the appropriated acts of the Spirit ad extra. On the basis of this trinitarian ordering, Owen provides a pneumatic Christology that accounts for the work of the Spirit at every stage in the life and work of Christ. In Edwards, the Spirit binds the Father and the Son in God, as the Spirit binds the divine and human natures in Christ, and as the Spirit binds the believer to Christ the mediator. This Spirit that unites comes from the Father and the Son and makes possible all union of creatures (such as Christ’s human nature) with God. In Bavinck, the Spirit’s procession from the Father and the Son manifests the divinity and distinction of the Holy Spirit as well as the nature of the Son, who is the exact imprint of the Father. Bavinck then establishes his pneumatology on the basis of the filioque in order to affirm the genuine humanity of Christ. These four thinkers have provided us with four accounts of pneumatic Chris- tology founded upon the filioque. As a theological foundation, the filioque in each of these figures bears out pneumatologically robust results in their Chris- tologies and plays an integral part in their conceptions of Christ’s person and work. As the reflections of these four thinkers hang together in agreement and, thereby, constitute a consistent testimony through the centuries from within the Reformed tradition, they provide consistent and coherent counter- examples against the contemporary prevailing opinion on the filioque and pneumatologically robust Christologies.

6 Do These ‘Reformed Pneumatic Christologies’ Qualify as Bona Fide ‘Spirit Christologies?’

Someone who holds the contemporary position might object that these accounts of pneumatologically robust Christologies do not constitute genuine ‘Spirit Christologies’ and, therefore, do not qualify as counter-examples. In order to respond to this objection, I will defend the authenticity of such

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Reformed accounts as ‘Spirit Christologies’ by means of (1) defining Spirit Christology more precisely, (2) identifying references to their Christologies in contemporary literature, and (3) articulating their historical reliance upon their predecessors. First, when clarifying the definition of Spirit Christology, I see three means by which a definition might be established. The first option is to define Spirit Christology in historical contrast to the Logos Christology. The second is to define Spirit Christology on account of its methodological priorities—in which the Spirit is the first principle of knowing. The third is to define Spirit Christol- ogy according to orientation or emphasis. The first two ways seem to be less than ideal means of defining Spirit Christology. The first option inherently rejects the commitments of classical Reformed theology to the tradition of the councils and creeds—and, thereby, is unavailable to those with such a commit- ment.84 Likewise, if the definition of Spirit Christology necessarily excludes the majority of the tradition a priori, then how can the tradition be justifiably cri- tiqued for not upholding a Spirit Christology?85 The second, which starts with the Spirit, also seems to exclude most of the church’s history, throughout which the church has been far less interested in theological method than are modern theologians. It is also difficult to maintain such a definition if we acknowledge that the Spirit is the “other directed” Spirit of the Son.86 If, however, we take the third option and define the term according to orientation or emphasis, or, as I am suggesting, as 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 explicit texts in Scripture, then the tradition is both potentially culpable and contributive, and we can maintain the Spirit’s intimate relationship to Christ. As support of this way of defining the term, we might note the way the characteristics of this definition parallel the primary characteristics of accounts in which are attached other descriptive adjectives are attached to the locus of Christology (such as liberation Chris-

84 Trueman, “Scripture and Exegesis in Early Modern Reformed Theology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theology, 1600–1800, ed. Ulrich L. Lehner, Richard A. Muller, and A.G. Roeber (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016), 188. 85 Additionally, others (even those who are less sympathetic to the tradition) have argued for the compatibility of Logos Christology and Spirit Christology. For example, Moltmann, Way of Jesus Christ, 74; Gary Badcock succinctly claims, “Spirit Christology and Logos Christology are surely no more incompatible than Spirit and Logos themselves.” Gary D. Badcock, Light of Truth and Fire of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 161. 86 Christopher R.J. Holmes, The Holy Spirit, New Studies in Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Zon- dervan, 2015), 129–130.

Journal of Reformed Theology 12 (2018) 394–412 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 01:53:29AM via free access 410 kieser tology, wisdom Christology, and so forth).87 That is, the adjective often indicates the discipline’s reference, orientation, significance, and thematic/textual appreciation. Therefore, this definition of Spirit Christology, in which the Spirit is a key reference, orientation, and thematically/textually appreciated, seems to be consistent with the conventions of the broader discipline of Christology.88 Second, we might permit these accounts to constitute genuine Spirit Chris- tologies since various contemporary studies of these theologians have described their work as Spirit Christology. Calvin’s understanding of Christ is called a Spirit Christology by one of the preeminent interpreters of his Christol- ogy, David Willis.89 Owen and Edwards are understood to uphold Spirit Chris- tologies by specialists in the study of each of them as seen above, but also by contemporary theological advocates for Spirit Christology.90 Finally, while

87 See the stress, emphasis, and primacy that Sobrino gives to the “standpoint of liberation” through Jesus’s relation to the kingdom, the Father, and death as his explanation of the basic orientation of his liberation Christology project; Jon Sobrino, Jesus the Liber- ator: A Historical-Theological Reading of Jesus of Nazareth (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1994), 6. For ‘Wisdom Christology’ see Ben Witherington III, Jesus the Sage: The Pilgrimage of Wisdom (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 201–208; 292. Feminist Christologies, in many ways, are similar to Spirit Christologies in that they are presented across a spectrum and operate on various definitions—some of those are inherently anti-traditional (e.g., Ruether), while others operate more closely to the principles of emphasis and orientation out- lined here (e.g., Schumacher). Rosemary Radford Ruether, “Can Christology be Liberated from Patriarchy?” in Reconstructing the Christ Symbol: Essays in Feminist Christology, ed. Maryanne Stevens (New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 2004), 7–29; Michele Schumacher, “Feminist Christologies,” in The Oxford Handbook of Christology, ed. Francesca Aran Mur- phy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 408–421. 88 It may help provide greater clarity if we examine the falsifiability of such an account. For example, a more historically proximate Reformed figure, John Webster, whom very few would call insufficiently trinitarian, does not provide an account of Christology that is “sustained in reference to,” “oriented toward the significance of,” or in “appreciation of themes/texts on” the Spirit, and chooses to focus instead on such texts as John 1 and Hebrews 1. See, e.g., John Webster, Confessing God: Essays in Christian Dogmat- ics II (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), 131–152; John Webster, “One Who Is Son: Theological Reflections on the Exordium to the Epistle to the Hebrews,” in Epistle to the Hebrews and Christian Theology, ed. Richard Bauckham, Daniel R. Driver, Trevor A. Hart, and Nathan MacDonald (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 69–94. This is not to suggest that Webster’s theology is inconsistent with a Spirit Christology in this definition, but only that he did not provide one in print. One is tempted to speculate about how he would have responded to recent, more classical accounts of Spirit Christology or if he did not engage the anti- classical accounts early in his career. See John Webster, “Review of Paul W. Newman, A Spirit Christology: Recovering the Biblical Paradigm of Christian Faith,” Studies in Religion 17 (1988): 374–375. 89 Willis, Calvin’s Catholic Christology, 82. 90 Myk Habets, “The Surprising Third Article Theology of Jonathan Edwards,” in The Ecu-

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I have yet to see an interpreter of Bavinck refer to his thought as Spirit Chris- tology, Brian Mattson applauds Bavinck for the way in which he “impressively ties together Christology with Pneumatology.”91 Third, building on the previous point, these figures also have a document- able reliance upon those who have come before them—Owen draws from Calvin and, consequently, Edwards and Bavinck draw from Owen. If the literature admits that John Owen formulates a Spirit Christology (an uncontroversial claim for advocates and critics alike), this pattern of reliance implies at least an openness to the possibility of each possessing a Spirit Christology.92 So, if we can trace influence upon and from John Owen, then we can acknowledge the Christologies of those upon whom he had influence as Spirit Christologies. On the basis of an appropriate definition, affirmations of secondary literature, and evidence of influence, we can, then, acknowledge these accounts of pneumatic Christology as genuine Spirit Christologies. As such, the objection that these accounts do not qualify is overturned, and therefore they constitute counter-examples against the position that the filioque obstructs the possibility of a Spirit Christology.

7 Conclusion

To summarize, this article began by presenting the suspicion of the filioque as an obstacle to a pneumatologically robust Christology, like a mountain that casts a rain shadow on the field of Christology and has dried it out. After sur- veying these four Reformed theologians, however, all of whom employed the filioque positively in their construction of pneumatologically robust Christolo-

menical Edwards: Jonathan Edwards and the Theologians, ed. Kyle C. Strobel (Burlington: Ashgate, 2015), 202. 91 Mattson, Restored, 199. The absence of this label may also be due to the relatively small number of studies that have dealt with Bavinck’s Christology directly. 92 Calvin’s influence upon and continuity with Owen is seen in Canlis, Calvin’s Ladder, 97 n. 30. Withrow, Becoming Divine, 128, claims that Edwards depended upon yet exceeded Owen’s Spirit Christology in comprehensiveness. Bavinck’s treatment of Spirit Christol- ogy in RD 3:557–561 likely holds Owen in the background—Owen is cited directly on 2:259 n. 49, and Bavinck’s description of the actions of the Holy Spirit in 2:292 and biblical texts of RD 3:293 nearly mirrors Owen’s outline perfectly (WJO 3:159–189). Owen likewise influ- enced Bavinck’s colleague Abraham Kuyper and his tome on the Holy Spirit. In the original Dutch edition, Kuyper notes the significance and authority of Owen on the subject two centuries after Owen died. Abraham Kuyper, Het wek van den Heilgen Geest (Amsterdam: J.A. Wormser, 1888), found in Kelly M. Kapic, Communion with God: The Divine and the Human in the Theology of John Owen (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 20 n. 20.

Journal of Reformed Theology 12 (2018) 394–412 Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 01:53:29AM via free access 412 kieser gies, we have seen that the filioque may not be an obstacle after all. So, I pro- pose, rather than depicting the filioque as a mountain that obstructs the Spirit from bringing needed nourishment on an arid theological landscape, we might think of the filioque in the image of Revelation 22: the Spirit is like the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing “from the throne of God and of the Lamb.”93

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Dan Treier, Kyle Strobel, and Craig Hefner for their insightful comments.

93 See Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John: Chapters 13–21, trans. Fabian Larcher and James A. Weisheipl, Thomas Aquinas Scriptures (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2010), 126.

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