is the Spirit who quickens the heart to see the truth of God in the pages of the New Testament.165
While the Spirit’s veracious authority is primarily witnessed through inspiration and illumination, the Spirit may also grant secondary authority to theologians, Churches, persons, creeds, symbols, councils and treatises—but only for the purpose of Christ’s ministry and government. The quality of their work or words must be judged by its adherence to the pattern of authority. The Spirit, however, always retains primary veracious authority that cannot be equated with any of these mediums.
Postmodern and Contemporary Theology
Our study of the first four periods of theological history has allowed us to discern provisional definitions of the Spirit’s authority in relation to the Triune God (an authority over the world), to Christ (an authority to execute Christ’s will), and to the Scriptures (an authority to inspire and illuminate them). We have seen in Church history initial argumentation for the Spirit’s place in the “principle” and “pattern” of authority.
Now, as we survey postmodern and contemporary theology, we find that the concern in pneumatology shifts to the relation between the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and the doctrine of the Church. In searching for a renewal of the Spirit’s power in the Church, we find postmodern theology often proceeding from a different starting point than previous theologies. According to Bloesch, “Many theologies today encourage us to seek a doctrine of the Spirit ‘from below’—beginning with the impact of the Spirit in human life—rather than one ‘from above,’ in which we begin with the doctrine of the immanent Trinity.”166 Contemporary theology does not usually begin with transcendent ideas that the Church should adopt but with ideas that stem from the various needs of the Church. The question in this section is therefore, “Does the Holy Spirit possess authority in or over the Church?” In other words, does the Spirit function as governing authority within the Church, and if so, what is the nature of such an authority?
Perhaps the simplest definition of postmodernism is that philosophy which comes after modernism, usually as a response to the deficiencies of modernism. Postmodernists, of course, would remind us that there is no single postmodern philosophy or theology and that postmodernism is as varied as the responses themselves. What are some of the contemporary responses being given to “modern” understandings of pneumatology? To answer this, a brief survey and comparison of five “postmodern” theologians will be conducted in order to initially discern various contemporary understandings of the relationship between the Spirit and the Church. In doing so, however, we must keep a larger goal in mind. Since the ultimate goal of this entire work has to do with the recovery of a biblical conception of the Holy Spirit’s authority in and over the Church—one that might confront contemporary misconceptions of “Spirit”)—these five theologians should also be investigated for the purpose of further dialogue (and indeed will serve as such in chapters three and four)
Evangelical “Postmodern” Theologies of the Spirit
According to Veith, “One response to the end of modernism is to recover what was of value in the premodern era and to apply old worldviews in new creative ways to our contemporary times.”167 This seems to be the response of a few evangelical and Catholic theologians. A recent Catholic/Methodist joint summit, for example, observed that, “encouraging signs of the activity of the Holy Spirit” in the Church today include “a growing hunger for truth now clearly unsatisfied by the achievements and claims of science and technology.”168 They also see a revitalization of the Spirit’s role in the mediation of authority in the Church to be based on Scripture and Church history:
Christ’s authority is mediated through the Spirit, who is Love, and hence all authority that flows from this source is part of God’s good gift. . . . But this mediation is not static; it is not a matter of endless repetition or formulae. The Spirit moves the Church to constant reflection on the Scriptures which he himself inspired and on their traditional interpretation.169
This “postmodern” approach recognizes once again the essential community basis for the discovery of truth and spiritual life, but seems to retain the Spirit’s place in the pattern of divine authority. Oden, for example, speaks of a “postmodern paleoorthodoxy” which calls theologians to assess all texts from the historic Church that allege to be consensual Christian teaching, listening continually to the centrist interpreters of the received traditions. According to Oden, we will recognize heresy not by pure rational analysis, but “only by first knowing and sharing deeply in the language, worship, ethics and ethos of the ecumenical testimony of many cross-cultural generations of apostolic testimony.”170 The result of such a “paleoorthodox” approach seems to be a renewed focus on an experience of the Spirit within the Church that coincides with a general (though perhaps not total) respect for the pattern of divine authority. Two recent whole-book treatises on the theology of the Holy Spirit that attempt such an approach from an “evangelical” perspective include Clark Pinnock’s Flame of Love and Gary Badcock’s Light of Truth and Fire of Love.
Clark Pinnock’s Flame of Love
Pinnock’s opening concern is with the work that remains to be done regarding the recovery of “a more experiential basis for the doctrine of Spirit.”171 Pinnock asks us to view the Church from the standpoint of the Spirit, rather than as an institution or sacrament, because “this is the natural way to regard a community that was created by the Spirit on the day of Pentecost.”172 The effectiveness of the Church is thus due to God’s power rather than human competence. “The Church rides the wind of God’s Spirit like a hawk endlessly and effortlessly circling and gliding in the summer sky. . . . The main rationale of the Church is to activate all the implications of the baptism of the Spirit.”173 Pinnock adds,
My concern here is to try and recover the two-dimensionality of charism and sacrament original to Christianity. . . . The Spirit comes in power through sacrament and charism to enable the Church to participate in God’s mission of mending creation and making all things new.174
While Pinnock claims to be an evangelical theologian, his focus seems to be on the experience of the Spirit rather than on any sort of authority of the Spirit. One of Pinnock’s main concerns is to clarify the nature of the relationship between Christ and the Spirit. Pinnock tends to grant the Spirit a mission that is distinct from the mission of Christ (and thereby tend toward a “universalistic” understanding of salvation). What might we conclude about his assessment of the Spirit’s authority in relation to Christ’s authority? In chapter three we will investigate this question in light of our pattern of authority.
Gary Badcock’s Light of Truth and Fire of Love
Badcock vigorously argues that the experience of God—which is for him the primary issue in all discussion regarding the Spirit—“has not always been integrated in any meaningful way into systems of theology.”175 His concern is thus with the Spirit’s role in the spiritual life as it is experienced within the Church. According to Badcock, “one of the central arguments that will be developed in what follows is that there is a more subtle, reciprocal relationship between . . . Spirit and Church, than is generally allowed.”176 Badcock hopes that
