results.139
Following in the steps of Schleiermacher, nineteenth-century liberal theologians portray the Christian faith, and particularly Jesus’ life and teaching, as the fulfillment of humanity’s highest religious or moral aspirations. Such aspirations are thought to be embryonically implanted in universal human nature. Sabatier, for example, interprets Schleiermacher psychologically, and holds his “feeling of absolute dependency” to be an “emotional experience” that is prompted by the internal testimonium Spiritus Sancti and that becomes the sole authority over Christian theology. The Bible and the Church are historical and experiential “consequences and effects” of such an authority, and since neither is a “first cause,” neither can play a role in the theological discremin.140
Carl Henry
Carl Henry’s pneumatology has attempted to combat liberal and neo-orthodox notions of “authority” and in doing so has served to define the Spirit’s role in the inspiration and illumination of authoritative Scripture more precisely. For Henry, the Spirit’s establishment of biblical authority must precede the Spirit’s own interpretive activity. This was one of the main points established in his classic work God, Revelation, and Authority. Henry’s key hermeneutical principle is that the Spirit’s work in the inspiration of biblical propositions must be distinguished “from the Spirit’s present function as authoritative interpreter in the believer’s comprehension of the scripturally given revelation.”141 Henry is concerned that the Holy Spirit is given a rightful place in the transference of authority from Christ to Scriptures, thus avoiding the development of the sort of “dualism” between Christ and Scripture that we see in Barth, liberal theologians, and others. Henry explains how this duality develops:
Because the prophetic witness anticipates Christ as its climax and the apostolic testimony exalts Jesus as the promised son of God to whom all authority is given, Scripture has sometimes been adversely contrasted with Jesus Christ or with the Spirit of God as the sovereign authority. This contrast has been prompted during the past two centuries by champions of higher critical views of Christ. But the critical assumptions governing negative theory of Scripture inevitably carry over also into other spheres, such as Christology and pneumatology, so that any attempt to seal off the authority of Christ or of the Spirit from the fate of Scripture is vain.142
Henry posits that the Holy Spirit stands between Christ and Scripture and thereby confers to the Scripture a corresponding authority.143 Though he is concerned that evangelicals have forgotten the Spirit’s role in conferring such an authority, Henry refuses the corrections offered by many “neo-Barthians” (i.e., Leowen, Pinnock, Kelsey),144 arguing that they always move toward communal or functional hermeneutics. Instead, Henry asserts that “the Spirit of God—not any private interpreter (2 Pet. 1:20), evangelical or nonevangelical—is the authoritative illuminator of the scripturally given Word.”145 Henry’s pneumatology is best expressed by Leonard Champion: “The testimony of Scripture possesses the authority of the Spirit and every believer, guided by what Calvin calls ‘the testimony of the Spirit within,’ will recognize and respond to its truth.”146
Henry’s evangelical approach, however, does tend to incorporate a classic scholastic approach to theology, as witnessed in his assertion that the sole foundation of theology rests on the presupposition that the Bible, as God’s self-disclosure, presents the truth of God in propositional form, and that the theological task is simply “to exhibit the content of biblical revelation as an orderly whole.”147 Such an approach to doctrinal development adopts a modern or scientific hermeneutic in that it excludes the possibility of any interference from (or need to reference) tradition or culture. Indeed the theologian can interpret Scripture and develop a doctrinal system in isolation from such influences. Henry’s thinking, in a real sense, mirrors that of modern philosophers Descartes and Kant with respect to their confidence in the mind’s ability to know truth and to make rational decisions without needing to recognize the influence of tradition. The Spirit, as a result, can aid the systematic theologian in the correct interpretation of Scripture through the use of rational exegetical methods alone.
Other Contributors
Karl Barth’s view of the Spirit departs from many of the evangelical theologians of his day, particularly those who attempt to precisely define the Spirit’s nature. According to Barth,
Spirit . . . is neither a divine nor a created something, but an action and attitude of the Creator in relation to his Creation. We cannot say what Spirit is, but that he takes place as the divine basis of this relation and fellowship. Spirit is thus the powerful and exclusive meeting initiated by God between Creator and creature.148
Barth’s “relational” pneumatology is essentially a response to attacks from “liberals” on the Spirit’s divine sovereignty. Barth viewed the Spirit as having a sovereignty of action that, once encountered, makes us “free for God.”149 Barth’s pneumatology does not limit the Spirit’s function in divine revelation to the giving and recording of the Word of God, but instead reasserts the Spirit’s lordship in the event of revelation.150 According to Barth,
The Holy Spirit is the Lord (acting upon us in revelation as the Redeemer) who makes us really free, really children of God, who really gives His Church utterance to speak the Word of God. . . . [the Spirit] is really the hidden essence of God Himself, and therefore the Lord in the most unrestricted sense of the concept, who—in His utter unsearchableness—becomes manifest in revelation in this respect also.151
Barth’s pneumatology also seems to be a reaction against modern conceptions of truth, particularly against the modern idea that the human subject may determine truth through rational or experimental methodologies. According to Rosato, “The strict Christological framework in which Barth situates his pneumatology in the Church Dogmatics is proof enough the he is struggling against subjectivism with as much force as he can assemble.”152
Barth’s theological method presents Jesus Christ as the “objective” executor of revelation and the Holy Spirit as the “subjective” executor, though it is this subjective aspect that becomes the primary determinate. God’s grace is manifested both in the objective revelation of God in Christ and man’s subjective appropriation of this revelation through the Spirit.153 For Barth, the Spirit as revealer always remains the Lord and interpreter of the truth of God as well. Scripture is the “Word of God” because by the Holy Spirit it became and will become to the church a “witness” to divine reveltion. This witness is not identical to the revelation; rather, God’s revelation occurs in our encounter with the Spirit and enlightenment by the Spirit to a knowledge of God’s Word. Thus, the outpouring of the Spirit is God’s revelation, and in this reality we are free to be God’s children and to know, love, and praise him in his revelation.154
Barth says that the verification of God’s truth is provided by the Holy Spirit alone (not by reason, the individual, or the Church itself). Thus, interpretation
