The
Holy Spirit and Theology
Revd. Canon Tudor
Griffiths
On the wall in front of my desk
there are two symbols of the Trinity. One is an abstract on slate of three
interlocking ovals, an ancient Celtic symbol. The other is from the eastern
church and is an icon representing two figures enthroned side by side and above
them is the figure of a dove. Both of these are entirely orthodox and at the
same time, they represent two different approaches to the difficult question of
God as Trinity. The interlocking symbol represents a typical approach of the
western church (the traditions of both Catholic and Protestant). Here we tend to
begin with the fact that God is One and ask – how then can he be Three? The
Eastern (Orthodox) churches tend to start from the opposite corner – we know
that God is Three Persons; how then can he be One? The two different approaches
are neatly represented in the Celtic symbol and the icon in front of me.
This
may seem rather dry and academic but for the fact that in recent years a number
of key leaders in Renewal in the British Isles, for instance Michael Harper and
Tom Smail, have found themselves drawn to Orthodoxy and away from their roots in
the Anglican Church. Additionally a number of theologians who have written about
the Holy Spirit have looked seriously at the theological traditions of the
eastern church. Jurgen Moltmann, Yves Congar and Miroslav Volf are only three
examples of this.
To
help us understand this we need to go back deep into Christian history. In the
early years after the New Testament the key question in the growing church was
– who is Jesus Christ? As Christians grappled with this question and argued
endlessly about the most appropriate language to express themselves, they wanted
to hold together two things they believed absolutely – Jesus was fully human
and he was fully divine. The years of controversy showed them clearly that if
they allowed compromise on either one or the other, they ended up in huge
trouble.
In
the meantime, while Christians argued over terminology, we must not forget that
they continued to pray and worship; they continued to share the good news and
plant churches; they continued to heal and demonstrate Jesus’ Lordship over
evil spirits. They knew that since Jesus returned to heaven at the Ascension and
since the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, they knew God as their Father in a
unique and new way. They experienced God in worship and mission – this was
nothing less than Jesus had promised. So when questions about who is Jesus were
becoming clarified with statements like those leading up to the Nicene Creed,
Christians were able to think more about who is the Holy Spirit? Is he the most
superior angel or is he also divine – as Jesus is divine?
The
one thing that no one could – or wanted to – deny was that the experience of
God in the church was no less than that – an experience of GOD.
Who could deny that in terms
of transformed lives and the power to withstand persecution?
In worship people knew they were meeting with a living Lord.
So – if this experience is really one of God himself, who is it
revealing God? The Scriptures
themselves teach us that it is only God who can reveal God. Others may talk
about God, but only the Spirit makes God himself known to us – I Corinthians
2: 9-12 unpacks this for us. So if our experience of God truly is one of God,
and if it is the Spirit who enables us to experience God, then the Spirit
himself must be divine – the Holy Spirit of God.
But
a rather more engaging question that is still in many ways with us today is that
about how the Holy Spirit works. There have always been those on the fringe of
the Church who have looked to justify all kinds of weird and wonderful beliefs
and behaviour, in terms that this was what the Spirit revealed to them. This is
what people mean rather unflatteringly when they speak of a hot-line to God.
Theologians from early times have been at pains to stress that although the
Spirit does speak to, inspire and work through individuals, none has a monopoly
on the Spirit and that there are ways in which we can discern whether some
particular belief or mode of behaviour is inspired by the Spirit or just the
reflection of someone’s imagination or wishful thinking.
It was the great Western theologian, Augustine of Hippo, who emphasised
that the Spirit works through the Church. For
instance he wrote, It is in the Holy
Spirit that we are reconciled with God and that we have our delight… It is
through the Holy Spirit that the people of God are gathered together in unity…
Since the remission of sins can only be given in the Holy Spirit, it can only be
given in that Church which has the Holy Spirit. It was this kind of
identifying the Spirit with the work of the church that led over time in
medieval Catholicism in the West to a neglect of the work and person of the Holy
Spirit. The legacy is still with us in many ways when some people are reluctant
to speak of the work of the Spirit but are much happier to think about the
institutional church.
The
hegemony of the Catholic Church came under sustained attack in the western world
at the time of the Reformation. The attack came not from one direction but from
two – there were the Reformers like Luther and Calvin who looked to reform the
church on the basis of the Word, the Bible.
The other attack came from those of the so-called Radical Reformation who
were looking to a new Age of the Spirit.
Such people were opposed by both Protestants and Catholics.
But their presence shows us something rather interesting. At the time of
the Reformation there were three authorities recognised by Catholics,
Protestants and Radicals – Church, Word and Spirit. The dispute between them
had to do with the question of which of them has the priority. For
the Catholics it was the Church.
For the Protestants it was the Word.
It was only the minority Radicals who prioritised the Spirit, and they
were undermined by not being able to agree among themselves about the leading of
the Spirit. The legacy of this Radical approach is seen most clearly today among
the Quakers or Society of Friends, who emphasise the importance of the inner
light within the believer.
The
upshot of all this among the Protestant churches was the assumption that the
Spirit worked through the preaching and teaching of the Word. In effect this
meant that explicit discussion about the Spirit was not considered a major
priority. Concentration was on Biblical preaching and application. The advent of
rationalism in the 18th century simply reinforced the relative
neglect of the Spirit.
This
was in turn challenged with the rise of Methodism. John Wesley placed a great
emphasis on Christian experience, which got him into trouble with those who
accused him of playing to the emotions. But Wesley taught clearly that the
experience of salvation is the work of the Holy Spirit. But it was the amazing
growth of Pentecostalism in the twentieth century, which in global terms is
still proceeding, that has brought the Holy Spirit into sharper focus, as it
were. Although at first many of the mainstream churches were (and
some sadly, still are) rather snobbish towards our Pentecostal brothers and
sisters, charismatic renewal has brought a breath of very fresh air into
churches both Catholic and Protestant. This has mostly been felt in the area of
worship. Songs from Renewal traditions are now mainstream. But it has also been
felt in areas of theological scholarship. So men like Tom Smail and Jurgen
Moltmann have examined various aspects of the theology of the Holy Spirit.
One
of the very first questions that they have had to address is whether the great
western traditions of seeing the Holy Spirit working through the institutions of
the Church and seeing the Spirit solely in the text of Scripture, were adequate.
In fact Scripture itself points to the work of the Spirit in creation – Gen
1:2. Exodus 31: 3f relates human craftsmanship to the work of the Spirit of God.
In the New Testament the Holy Spirit preceded Jesus and again filled and
empowered Jesus. In Jesus’ own teaching the Spirit is at work before a person
becomes a Christian believer – John 16: 8-11. It seems that the Spirit has a
wider brief than being confined within the church. It is a very short step from
here to wonder whether the eastern Orthodox traditions might have something
creative to teach us. The reason for this is that the experience of Renewal and
the renewed reading of Scripture with the insights of the Spirit’s work beyond
the parameters of individual believers and the Church, indicates that perhaps
traditional thinking about the Spirit in the western church needs some
reassessment. But the history of the church and theology both suggest that once
the bonds between the Spirit and the institution of the church and the Biblical
text are loosened, there is a danger of rampant subjectivity when it comes to
thinking about the Spirit. Could it be that there is another way in listening to
the eastern Orthodox Church? I don’t want to go further at this point, but it
is interesting that men like Michael Harper and Tom Smail, have thought this
very point one worth pursuing.