Third Article Theology : a Pneumatiological Dogmatics.

605 Pages·2016·2.56 MB·English

by  Habets

THIRD ARTICLE THEOLOGY
A PNEUMATOLOGICAL DOGMATICS
EDITED BY MYK HABETS
Fortress Press
Minneapolis
THIRD ARTICLE THEOLOGY
A Pneumatological Dogmatics

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Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440.

Cover image: Gian Lorenzo Bernini – Dove of the Holy Spirit (ca. 1660, stained glass, Throne of St. Peter,
St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican) by Dnalor 01
Cover design: Joe Reinke
Interior design and typesetting: PerfecType, Nashville, TN

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Print ISBN: 978-1-4514-8886-9
eBook ISBN: 978-1-50641691-5
Dedication
This volume is dedicated to Professor D. Lyle Dabney,
for his theological guidance and for allowing the rest of us in on what
God is up to at the moment. Lyle and Janet, this one is for you.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword: Kirsteen Kim
List of Contributors
Abbreviations
1. Prolegomenon: On Starting with the Spirit
Myk Habets
2. The Method of Third Article Theology
David Coffey
PART 1: THEOLOGY PROPER
3. Pneumatological Insights for the Attributes of the Divine Loving
Andrew K. Gabriel
4. Theology Proper: The Lordship of the Holy Spirit
John A. Studebaker Jr.
5. Pneumatology from the Perspective of the Spirit: A Historical and Theological
Assessment
Wolfgang Vondey
6. A “Third Article” Proposal about the Third Person of the Trinity
Scott Harrower
7. Spirit Christology: The Future of Christology?
Myk Habets
PART 2: HOLY SCRIPTURE
8. Scripture: A Pneumatological Retrieval of Neglected Dimensions of the
Doctrine of Scripture
Keith A. Quan
9. Spiritual Hermeneutics
Joel B. Green
Joel B. Green
PART 3: CHRISTOLOGY
10. The Incarnation and the Mystery of the Anointing: Christology and
Pneumatology in the Early Centuries of the Church
Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap
11. On the Identity of Jesus Christ: Spirit Christology and Logos Christology in
Converse
Cornelis van der Kooi
12. Spirit Christology: The Future of Christology?
Myk Habets
13. Soteriology: A Story of the Spirit
Steven M. Studebaker
14. The Fire in the Wine: How Does the Blood of Christ Carry the Holy Spirit?
Eugene F. Rogers Jr.
PART 4: ANTHROPOLOGY
15. Idols, Images, and a Spirit-ed Anthropology:A Pneumatological Account of
the Imago Dei
Marc Cortez
16. Formed by the Spirit: A Third Article Theology of Christian Spirituality
Joseph McGarry
17. Sculpting Christ in Us: Public Faces of the Spirit in God’s World
Leopoldo A. Sánchez M.
PART 5: ECCLESIOLOGY
18. Where the Love of Christ is Found: Toward a Third Article Ecclesiology
Gregory J. Liston
19. Communio Ecclesiology: The Spirit’s Work of Salvation in the Life of the
Church
Tom Greggs
20. Proclamation and the Third Article: Towards a Pneumatology of Preaching
Amos Yong
Amos Yong
21. “In Him We Live and Move and Have Our Being”: A Theotic Account of
Ethics
Myk Habets
PART 6: PUBLIC THEOLOGY
22. Public Theology: The Spirit Sent to Bring Good News
Jason S. Sexton
23. Divine Action in the World in a Trinitarian-Pneumatological Framework
Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen
24. “In the Unity of the Holy Spirit”: A Third Article Theology of Receptive
Ecumenism
Kirsten Laurel Guidero
Select Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
Originality is an ability reserved for children and geniuses. I am no longer a
child and have never been a genius, and so I make no claims to originality. This
volume on Third Article Theology is no exception. A series of seminal essays
delivered by a then little-known Methodist theologian (and genius) to a small
audience of Australian scholars contained the genesis of what today is known as
Third Article Theology. Professor D. Lyle Dabney, from Marquette University,
delivered the annual Theology Today Lectures (which were subsequently
published in 2001, where I read them for the first time) in which he issued a
prophetic plea for the church to grow up and act its age, the hallmark of which is
to start with the Spirit. I have taken his call to heart and have developed this way
of thinking after God and of doing theology over a number of works, but most
comprehensively here in this volume, assisted by many friends. The volume is
dedicated to Lyle for this reason. (Lyle also generously examined a thesis of
mine and in so doing, saved me from a multitude of errors. The thesis
subsequently went on to become a book, The Anointed Son.)
Editorial work is no walk in the park and no scholar I know does it for fun
(and if they do then they need to get a life). I edit works for a number of reasons,
most important of which is that many of the projects I work on seek to draw
together scholars from across a range of contexts and speak to a doctrine (the
filioque, for example), or one of the loci of theology (the Spirit, for example), or
an issue of enduring significance (gender, for example), where I believe new
insights are required that can encourage the church to think differently and act
more faithfully. With this volume I wanted to go beyond a partial approach and
develop a way of doing theology that was orthodox and yet distinctive, biblical
and yet constructive, traditional and yet contemporary. Having been turned to a
Third Article Theology, I have wanted to work on a wholesale pneumatological
dogmatics. Yet, I knew the time was not right for me to complete this task alone;
I needed help. Drawing up a wish list of contributors, I have managed to get
most of them to commit to this project, and their essays await your careful
consideration. While you cannot adjudicate the worth of their proposals, not
having read them yet, I can, and they are outstanding. I want to thank each
contributor for bringing their considerable expertise to this task and for
delivering brilliant essays. They were a joy to read and work on.
I would next like to thank Michael Gibson and the team at Fortress Press
for once again doing an outstanding job of publishing seminal works in
theology. My thanks also go to my now long-term formatter and subeditor, Sarah
Snell, for fast, efficient, and cheerful service.
My thanks also go to Carey Baptist College, its staff, and the principal—
Charles Hewlett—for making our workplace a deeply Christian and stimulating
environment in which to teach, write, and play. It was a research study leave to
Fuller Theological Seminary that allowed me to complete the editing of this
volume.
Finally, as always, my family are a constant source of deep encouragement
and love. Thank you Odele, Sydney, and Liam, for your love of the author, even
if you don’t really read his books.

Myk Habets
Doctor Serviens Ecclesiae
Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, 2015
Foreword
KIRSTEEN KIM
Third Article Theology is a new, exciting, and ambitious project. It attempts
nothing more and nothing less than to reflect upon the whole of Christian
theology from the perspective of pneumatology. We have become accustomed to
theologies of the Holy Spirit—although just fifty years ago these were novel and
somewhat daring. The Third Article has been scrutinized in various ways for
what it reveals about the Spirit: the Spirit’s co-equality with the Father and the
Son, salvific authority, life-giving quality, prophetic voice, manifestation in the
church, and forgiving, restoring, and divinizing power. We have used biblical
sources to discuss the baptism in/of or fullness of the Spirit; the Spirit’s gifts and
fruit; empowerment and liberation by the Spirit; the Spirit of reconciliation,
truth, accompaniment, and unity; Spirit in creation; and so on. We have mined
the church fathers and the mystics for insight and we have examined
contemporary manifestations of the Spirit, especially in Renewal movements.
We have explored the meaning of “spirit,” the quality of holiness, the role of the
Spirit in the Trinity, the most appropriate gender terms to use for the Spirit, the
relationship of the Holy Spirit to other spirits, and the Spirit’s relation to culture,
religion, and nature.
There is plenty more pneumatology to be explored, but Third Article
Theology is not only pneumatology. It is an attempt to redo the whole of
theology, beginning with what we understand about the Holy Spirit. Instead of
starting with God the Father, Third Article Theology will cover the Creed
backwards. In the economy of God, we do in any case begin that way. Since the
Spirit is life itself, we living beings are bound to start there. Moreover, the
incarnation itself began with the Spirit’s overshadowing Mary. In our Christian
experience, we are moved by the Spirit, who leads us to Christ, who reveals the