Theo 351 - Reading Reflection 3 - Kärkkäinen - Chapter 5

The following post is a reading reflection on chapter 5 of Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen’s Pneumatology: The Holy Spirit in Ecumenical, International, and Contextual Perspective.

In chapter five of the above mentioned book, Kärkkäinen surveys the pneumatology of individual theologians. His goal is to survey theologians whose pneumatology is formed by the greater Christian traditions surveyed in chapter four, but whose theology progresses beyond the bounds of those systems. He believes that each of these theologians illustrates “the richness and variety of perspectives” in contemporary pneumatology, and that both their perspectives, as well as that of the major Christian traditions from which they come are helpful.[1] John Zizioulas represents the Eastern Orthodox, Karl Rhaner the Roman Catholic, Wolfhart Pannenberg the Lutheran, Jürgen Moltmann and Michael Welker the Reformed, and Clark Pinnock the charismatic Baptist/evangelical.

In an interesting First Things article critiquing the theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg, Michael Root, professor of theology at the Catholic University of America, offers a critique of what he calls “the virtuoso theologian.” He writes:

“A curse of recent theology has been the cult of the virtuoso theologian, the creative mind who recasts the field, the Schleiermachers and Barths of the discipline, Promethean figures who blaze the path others are to follow. Much academic work in modern theology seems less the study of God or of the Christian message about God, and more the study of the creativity of great theologians.”[2]

Whether the so called “virtuoso theologian” is truly a curse, and whether this only a recent phenomenon unique to Protestantism is debatable; however, Kärkkäinen does note that the pneumatology of the theologians that he surveys could never be understood apart from the rest of their own unique theological systems.[3] For Root this is not necessarily a positive thing. Quoting a friend, he notes:

“What Pannenberg will not do is outline the tradition on a theological topic and then simply conclude that the tradition got it right and move on. The subject needs to be reshaped by the unique perspective of the system, like the pianist who insists that somehow, somewhere, her own unique interpretation must shine through.”[4]

Although brief, Kärkkäinen’s surveys of Zizioulas, Rhaner, Pannenberg, Moltmann, Welker, and Pinnock do appear to fit this criticism. They all seem discontent with the traditional dogmatic treatment of the Holy Spirit, especially as expressed in the Western church, and seek to make major changes that have wide spread implications. They all seem to have their own unique focuses and concerns that appear to characterize their broader treatment of theology.

Now, it is not that there is no place for individual theologians to re-evaluate past accepted doctrines of the church and attempt to correct them where necessary. In fact, the early 20th century confessional Lutheran theologian A.G. Voigt wrote that this is precisely part of the job of the individual theologian. He wrote that,

 

"Confessionalism does not mean that it is the office of dogmatics simply to reproduce and defend the accepted doctrines of the Church," but that "it is the function of theology to develop further the known doctrines . . . . Christians must ever search the Scriptures to obtain fuller, purer and better views of the truth."[5]

Although I am certain that  all of the theologians surveyed by Kärkkäinen have at heart to do exactly what Voigt says, I am uncomfortable with the degree to which some of these theologians recast ecclesiology and theology through their proposed pneumatological focuses. To this I will turn in my next post.

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[1] Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Pneumatology: The Holy Spirit in Ecumenical, International, and Contextual Perspective (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002), 105.

[2] Michael Root, “The Achievement of Wolfhart Pannenberg,” First Things, accessed 12 June 2016, http://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/03/the-achievement-of-wolfhart-pannenberg.

[3] Kärkkäinen, Pneumatology, 106.
 

[4] Root, “The Achievement of Wolfhart Pannenberg.”

[5] A.G. Voigt, Biblical Dogmatics, American Lutheran Classics Volume 3, ed. Jordan Cooper (Fairfield, IA: Just and Sinner Publications, 2013), 21-22.