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When I was a lad, I distinctly pictured the Trinity. The Father was a broad and benign figure, remarkably like an elder in our church. The Son was younger and slimmer, as in familiar Western portrayals of a white Jesus. The Holy Spirit was about as slim, but older, bespectacled and very solemn. He was even more remarkably like the minister of our church (save for the spectacles), whose white hair epitomized holiness. The Spirit was undoubtedly the most distant of the three as befitted, no doubt, his holiness. I should not have been surprised to learn that he was rather particular and circumscribed in his sphere of his operations. All this is far removed from the connotations and impressions now frequently abroad in relation to the word Spirit. It conjures up breadth, expansiveness, and universality, not to mention life and warmth. Should it?
In its less cryptic form, the question goes: Are the significant operations of the Spirit actually confined to the church, where Christ is known and confessed, or are they present in the world, where he is certainly not confessed and, we may say, presumably not known? At least, that is the interrogative that should form in the honest and well-adjusted Christian mind. Another will prey equally on the mind of that dubious specimen, the theologian, namely: "How do you adumbrate a theology of the Holy Spirit?" Many theologians are in the business of doing that at the moment, as attested by the recently published works by Gary Badcock, Sinclair Ferguson, and Clark Pinnock. And, although we shall not do so, we could reach further back this decade to scrutinize other noteworthy studies.1
Theologians have long lived with a dual concentration on the subject with which they are engaged and their own engagement with that subject. That is, questions of theological method are regularly interwoven with matters of theological substance either in the writing or in the reading of theological works. Even when theologians in pursuit of the Spirit look ahead or look up instead of looking sideways to see how their companions are running the race, spectators will be struck by differences of style as they head for their goal. The imagery is soberly apt. Paul reckoned that the failure of his addressees to appropriate the Spirit aright was a sign that he might have run his race in vain and wondered whether one could begin with the Spirit but be effectively deflected from the goal (Gal. 2:2; 3:3). Theologians take on themselves as sacred a task as any when they seek anew to understand the Holy Spirit.
Badcock, Ferguson, and Pinnock are all fully aware of this, and conscientiously eager to harness reflection on the Spirit to the realities of spiritual life. But in this respect, they are not all equally successful. There is unquestioned integrity in Gary Badcock's asseverations, in the closing chapter, that "Christian theology … exists only for the sake of religious life, and in religious life, the doctrine of the Spirit is absolutely central." Indeed, he has declared this from the beginning and during the work, but his way into the subject is via engagement with the Trinitarian discussions that are the standard fare of professional theologians, and the religious point is somewhat eclipsed by the terms of this discussion. The authorial spirit may be willing, but the academic flesh is none too weak.
There was a warning issued over half a century ago by Emil Brunner, none too well heeded by theologians, about the dangers of Trinitarian speculation.2 He was accused of wavering in Trinitarian belief, perhaps to the point of denial, but his position was actually that belief in God as Trinity is more like a terminus for theological reflection than its luxuriant arena. He may have exaggerated the point, but it was well made and worth making.
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