I am nearing the end of my series of posts on the theology of Colin Gunton. Gunton's doctrine of the Holy Spirit is perhaps one of the most distinctive features of his theology and is Colin at his best. Certainly his later work is heavily shaped by a strong doctrine of the Spirit. This was one of the areas, he felt Western theology, from Augustince to Karl Barth, was not properly weighted. In a number of essays Gunton's pneumatology provides a more complete trinitarian theology, which recognises both the unity of the divine Persons and their particularity. Two essays in Theology through the Theologians, demonstrate the importance of the Spirit to Gunton. In the first, he begins by stating that a 'theology of the Holy Spirit is by no means easy to define' (105). This is because, to quote from elsewhere, 'the Spirit is the self-effacing person of the Trinity: the one whose function is to point away from himself to Jesus' (A Brief Theology of Revelation, 1995, 121). However, this does not mean we can say nothing about the person and work of the Holy Spirit. According to Gunton,
'Against the widespread assumption that Holy Spirit is to be understood as the immanence of God - in the believer, the creation or the human being in general - it must be argued that the Spirit is better identified in terms of transcedence than of immanence. The Spirit may be active within the world, but he does not become identical with any part of the world' ('God the Holy Spirit', 1996, 108)
Gunton contrasts his doctrine of the Spirit with that often found in traditional Western theology and in the more recent charismatic movement and the kind of theology which identifies the Spirit as some being or force in the world (as found most plainly in the Star Wars films). Against this, Gunton argues the Spirit is present and active as the transcendent Lord within the world: 'the Spirit is neither an individual power nor a subjective feeling, but a person sent by the Father through his ascended Son' (Act and Being, 2002, 144) For Gunton the main roots of the problem lie with Augustine (see also his early important essay reprinted in The Promise of Trinitarian Theology referenced below), whose doctrine of Spirit is not properly controlled by the economic work of the Spirit in creation and salvation. Gunton, then, seeks to establish a doctrine of the Spirit that 'is not separable from [God's] action in Christ, but not reducible to it either', what amounts to, a'more comprehensive articulation of the Spirit's action than has been customary in the tradition' (112).
Gunton begins with the incarnation and concludes that 'it is in the incarnation and particularity in relation to the humanity of Christ in general that we can discern the activity of the Spirit as the life-giving power of God in and towards his creation.' For Gunton, when we do christology we quickly find we need to do pneumatology as well - 'the Spirit is ... not so much an endowment as the one sent from the Father who ... enables the incarnate Son to be himself' (116). Elsewhere he writes, 'we may explore the theology of the Spirit only through the lens provided by Jesus Christ' (2003, 113). Both the Son and the Spirit are dependent on the other. From this, we are able to say that the Spirit is the Lord and Giver of life, who is 'the Father's agent enabling the created order in all its material concreteness to be and do that for which it was created' (118).
Gunton also argues that we see the Spirit as the 'perfecting cause of the whole creation' (120) and so also 'the eschatological person of the Trinity: the one who directs the creatures to where the creator wishes them to go, to their destiny as creatures' (2003, 81). It is the role of the Spirit - his agency - to bring all things into relation to the Father through Christ.
The second, and not unrelated essay in Theology through the Theologians is Gunton at his very best. (The essay is a reprint of his 1988 Congregational Lecture: 'The Transcendent Lord. The Spirit and the Church in Calvinist and Cappadocian'.) The essay opens with: 'It would be possible, as an exercise in cynicism, to write a history of the Church as the story of the misappropriation of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit' (187). The essay seeks to articulate 'how we may conceive the action of the Spirit ... in relation to the Church' (190) in conversation with the work of John Owen (a Gunton favourite) and John Zizioulas (another Gunton favourite). Like the other essay, Gunton is clear that "the Spirit is not some inner fuel, compulsion or qualification - in fact he is nothing impersonal at all - but the free Lord who as our other liberates us for community' (197).
'The Spirit, then, liberates by calling us into relation with Christ through the medium of the community of his body. He liberates us, that is to say, by bringing us into community: by enabling us to be with and for the brothers and sisters whom we ourselves did not choose' (201).
This is the key argument, that the Spirit is 'the electing God', who enables us personally and freely to be joined to the community of God. To say we are 'in Christ' is to say that the Spirit has united us with Christ. So Gunton states:
'The Spirit is not some force or possession operating causally within the believer or the institution, although sometimes our language suggests that way of thinking. As the Spirit of the Father who comes to us through the Son and lifts us up into the life of God, he is a person, and so acts personally, both respecting and granting freedom by his very otherness' (203-204).
Further Reading
'Augustine, the Trinity and the Theological Crisis of the West' in The Promise of Trinitarian Theology (1991, 1997)
The One, the Three and the Many. God, Creation, and the Culture of Modernity (1993)
'God the Holy Spirit: Augustine and his successors'; 'The Church: John Owen and John Zizoulas on the Church' in Theology through the Theologians (1996)
The Christian Faith, chapters 7, 8 & 9 (2002)
'The Holy Spirit who with the Father and the Son together is Worshipped and Glorified'; 'Creation: The Spirit Moved Over the Face of the Waters. The Holy Spirit and the Created Order'; 'The Spirit and Jesus (1) Martin Kahler revisited. Variatians on Hebrews 4.15'; 'The Spirit and Jesus (2) 'One Mediator ... the Man Jesus Christ.' Reconciliation, Mediation and Life in the Community' in Father, Son & Holy Spirit (2003)
Hi Andy,
Mark Greer pointed me to your blog, I have to say I'm very impressed, especially as you're about the only blogger I've come across who has read Gunton :)
Sven
Posted by: Sven | May 26, 2005 at 06:26 PM
Thanks Sven. Having studied under Colin for my BA theology, i found it hard to be shaped by his theology. It still strange to think he won't write anything more. He is definitely worth reading.
Posted by: andy goodliff | May 26, 2005 at 07:47 PM
Yeah he was a top writer. I read 'Actuality of the Atonement' a while back, it's a great book and I intend to re-read it once I've finished what I'm doing now.
Posted by: Sven | May 26, 2005 at 08:09 PM
To touch on one aspect of this theology, the point of maintaining the Holy Spirit as being within yet distinct from the world seems pretty clearly for the purpose of maintaining the basic theistic premise that God is an Entity existing in ontological distinction from the rest of reality.
Haven't read Augustine for a long time, but seems to me he's one of those Christians that tend toward the contemplative/experiential rather than doctrinal end of the spectrum. Their descriptions of experiences of unity with God I think have always made most Christians, and most Christian theologians, uncomfortable, mainly because they are misunderstood.
Frankly I usually find theology tendentious, pretending to arrive at its conclusions dispassionately when they are generally foregone.
Posted by: Paul M. Martin | May 29, 2005 at 02:37 AM
I disagree with you on Augustine. Yes, his Confessions is as the title suggests confessional and contemplative, but his other works like De Trinitate are more dogmatic and theological.
The kind of attitude you take towards theology is widely held view, but I think completely mistaken and any good theologian I don't think pretends to arrive at its conclusions - many good theologians wrestle with the difficulties of christian doctrine, and the likes of karl barth have been very creative in their theology. To ignore theology I think often can leave us with worshipping a god made in our own image.
Posted by: andy goodliff | May 31, 2005 at 02:41 PM
Oh, come on. It can't be that widely held. Most people don't even know how to spell tendentious.
I may have simply overdosed on theology in div school. A. North Whitehead... AUGH... To me, it just seemed that he never examined his premises, then took off for hundreds and hundreds of pages of metaphysical minutia that made God, and for that matter, every nook and cranny of all reality, into an image of his overheated brain. (Sorry to Whitehead fans. Again, I was being force fed theology faster than God ever intended.)
Actually, I have read a bit of theology that I liked. I'm thinking of Paul Tillich's, The Courage To Be - and much less his Systematics. What I think impressed me about Courage is that is stuck closer to real human experience rather than going off on long speculative metaphysical limbs that, to my mind, tend to grow weaker and less compelling the further they stray from direct experience and become exercises in logic and word play.
Posted by: Paul M. Martin | June 03, 2005 at 12:31 AM