Luther’s theology, the Spirit’s work continues in the Christo-centric theme of Western medieval theology, but takes on a new role—that of securing or mediating the incorporation of the believer into Christ through the Word of God. This Word reaches the heart and leads the believer to genuine faith through the inward work of the Spirit. As the instrument of the Spirit, the Word is connected to the Spirit through the resurrection of Christ. How does this occur? By placing the power of the resurrection into the context of the gospel, the Spirit causes the risen Christ to live His risen life in our midst through the message of the Word. Luther thereby holds that the work of the Holy Spirit is always a logical outworking of the Filioque clause, in that the Spirit serves as a mediator of the experience of Christ, and thus “reveals every relation to Christ which is not experience, which does not rest on the mediating, real and redeeming presence of Christ.”100 All other talk about the presence of Christ outside this sphere is either spiritualistic mysticism or moralistic imitation of Christ. Indeed, the only Spirit Luther knows is the Spirit of Christ. Luther tells us that the main work of the Spirit is not to authorize or justify the actions of the magisterium, but rather to create faith within those who believe—and specifically, faith in the historical Christ.
Although John Calvin is frequently acknowledged as “the theologian of the Holy Spirit” among the sixteenth century reformers, the doctrine of the Spirit’s authority may be the most overlooked aspect of Calvin’s pneumatology as well. According to John Hesselink, “an important aspect of his doctrine of the Holy Spirit has been neglected, namely, how the Holy Spirit leads, guides, governs, and rules in the life of the believers.”101 Calvin at times allows the Spirit a certain freedom over the Word and the inspiration of the Word (even more so than Luther) without ever speaking of the Spirit as disconnected from Christ. This is alluded to in his statement, “Our mind must be illuminated, and our heart established by some exterior power, in order for the Word of God to obtain full credit with us.”102 At other times, however, Calvin subordinates the Spirit to the Word of God (both the Word of God in the Person of Christ and the written Word) and in such thinking we can discern an executorial authority of the Spirit.103 This latter aspect is evident in Calvin’s criterion (German, kriterion 104), which was utilized by the reformers to designate a functional authority, and in his discremin, which is a set of related criterion. Johnson explains how such a criterion was applied to the office of the Spirit as He speaks through the Word:
The word discremin, which is used frequently, is intended to designate a configuration of criteria that are in some way organically related to one another as reciprocal coefficients. Calvin’s doctrine of the Word and Spirit may be cited as a classic example of the theological discremin. It requires the testimonium Spiritus Sancti, or that the Holy Spirit “attests” the written Word of Scripture, in order for it to be authoritative and useful for theological purposes. It also reassures that the Word of Scripture be utilized to “test” the Holy Spirit, or to “test the spirits to see whether they are of God” (1 John 4:1). Within this doctrine both the Scripture and the testimony of the Holy Spirit are criteria, but they are inseparably related as reciprocal coefficients.105
Calvin illustrates the nature of this discremin when arguing that the Spirit is only being consistent with himself when he uses that Word which he has previously revealed:
By a kind of mutual bond the Lord has joined together the certainty of his Word and of his Spirit, so that the perfect religion of the Word may abide in our minds when the Spirit, who causes us to contemplate God’s face, shines; and that we in turn may embrace the Spirit with no fear of being deceived when we recognize him in his own image, namely, in the Word.106
Oosterhaven finds Calvin’s concept of order in the background of all Calvin’s theology. Calvin was educated in Stoic philosophy, which identified God with order and held that the unity of the world was maintained by Reason.107 The Spirit is seen in this model of God as the archetype and controller of order through reason. The Spirit is to be understood as active in creation, demonstrating authority in and through his bestowal of “beauty and order.” As a result, Calvin gave Protestant theology and doctrine a hermeneutic that reflects his concept of order and that is derived from his discremin.
If we . . . look only to Calvin, we are forced to take with total seriousness his reiteration that the Word and the Spirit are inseparable in constituting the discremin that must reign over Christian doctrine. It was the development of this second noetic office of the Spirit which gave Protestantism a systematic doctrine of theological authority. . . . It was this same Calvin, who emphasized and re-emphasized, more than any of the other Reformers, that the Word becomes authoritative as, and only as, it is joined with the testimonium Spiritus Sancti.108
The Roman Catholic Magisterium
The authority of the Spirit, according to the counter-Reformation, is evident in the “infallibility” of the Roman Catholic Church. According to Congar,
The Spirit is guaranteed to pastors insofar as they are pastors of the Church, recognized by the Church as having the grace that dwells in it and as appointed or given by God Himself. This guarantee of faithfulness, of which the Spirit is the principle, is given to the Church. It is such a firm guarantee that to admit that the Church is capable of error is to impute a failure on the part of the Spirit.109
The Catholic Church’s faithfulness, according to counter-reformation Catholic theologians, was radically and yet erroneously questioned by the Reformers. John Fisher exemplifies this attitude by arguing that the promise of the Spirit was not made simply to the apostles but to the Church until the end of the age. As a result, the Spirit provides the hermeneutical principle for determining truth.
The universal Church cannot fall into error, being led by the Spirit of truth dwelling in it for ever. Christ will remain with the Church until the end of the world. . . . [The Church] is taught by the same one Spirit to determine what is required by the changing circumstances of the times.110
Such an “interpretive authority” was made an institutional standard via the Council of Trent. Catholic theologians at Trent appealed to the continual activity of the Spirit throughout the Church age as a primary justification for the handing down of the apostolic traditions and for the trust that should be placed in those traditions. This, however, is not distinguished from the trust we are to have in the canonical Scriptures. What the Reformers attributed to the Holy Spirit (that is, the authentic interpretation of the Scriptures) the theologians of Trent ascribed to “the Church,” the body of Christ where the Spirit was living in the form of a living gospel.
This lead to the doctrine of the Church’s “infallibility,”111 by which the Roman Church claims to be the authoritative interpreter of written revelation.112 Since Christ is the Head of the Church and the Church is His body, the authority of the Roman Church becomes the authority of the indwelling Christ. This is witnessed in the statement declared at the Council of Trent (Fourth Session), that all interpretation was to be in accord with the “holy mother Church—whose role is to judge the true sense and interpretation of the Holy Scriptures.” In a sense this seems to amount to an elevation of the Church’s interpretation of the Bible over the Bible itself. This is admitted openly in traditional
