Yoder on the Holy Spirit

It’s not uncommon to hear Yoder critiqued for giving too little attention to the Holy Spirit, to the Trinity itself really; for being somewhat “Christomonist” (I think that’s Zizioulas’s slam, not applied to anyone in particular). So it was interesting to find this little passage in one of Yoder’s earliest “professional” essays, “Reinhold Niebuhr and Christian Pacifism” (paper given 1953, published in the Mennonite Quarterly Review in 1955). He names three doctrines Niebuhr underplays, and then says this:

The common denominator of the above-mentioned doctrines of resurrection, the church, and regeneration is that all are works of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is likewise neglected in Niebuhr’s ethics. In the New Testament the coming of the Spirit means the imparting of power, and that power is not a mythological symbol for the infinite perfectibility of human rationality but rather a working reality within history and especially within the church. This power opens a brand-new realm of historic possibilities; not “simple possibilities,” but crucial possibilities.

I don’t think it would be hard to make the case that Yoder carries through on this, stressing throughout his life the “brand-new realm of historic possibilities” opened up by the Spirit, and maintaining that without the Spirit, those possibilities are not possible. But if not, at least there’s an early indication that Yoder at one point thought he should have said so.

Kathryn Tanner’s Christ the Key, Synopsis – Part 2

Chapter 4: Trinitarian life

In her longest chapter, Tanner reflects upon the Trinity using the following principle:  “Because he is the Word, Jesus Christ displays in his human life the relationships that the Word has to the other members of the Trinity” (140). She argues for a general two-fold movement in the economy: 1) The Word and Spirit are sent out by the Father for our benefit; they descend into the world of sin and death.  2) having accomplished their mission, they ascend to the Father with us.    Within this movement, the Son and Spirit are interdependent.  The Son sends the Spirit to us.  Yet, the Spirit prepares the way for the incarnation, dwells in and guides Jesus, and is the transformative power at the Eucharist.  This interdependence is seen with us as well:  “The Son brings the Spirit to us as a power of new life; the Spirit conforms us to the shape or pattern of the Son” (161).  Tanner then moves from this analysis to the inner life of God: the Son and Spirit are interdependent in their emergence from the Father.  “The Son is responsible simply for giving shape to the Spirit as it emerges from the Father…the Spirit is the love or power of the Father by which the Son is drawn out of the Father to be the perfect manifestation of all that the Father is” (192-193).  Other arguments in the chapter are important (i.e. her reading of Jesus’ obedience; our entrance into the Trinitarian relations through the Son; sacraments; our mission in Christ) but the economic and imminent interdependence of Word and Spirit is most central.

Chapter 5: Politics

Tanner argues strongly against various political readings of the Trinity.  First, monotheism does not necessarily lead to authoritarian politics (see her The Politics of God). Second, trinitarian thinking does not necessarily lead to egalitarian politics.  Finally, appeals to the Trinity for structuring human communities (Zizioulas, Boff, LaCugna) do not take the radical difference between God and us seriously enough (see Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity, p.82f for this argument in brief).  They also often appeal to images (perfect reciprocity) which are not exhibited in the economy (where two are sent and one is not) and can emphasize the communion of persons to an extent that verges on tri-theism.  What we have here is the project of one’s politics onto the Trinity.  Tanner counters that we are to be incorporated into the Trinity rather than model it.  We enter into the divine life in the place of the Son.  United to the Son, we are to relate to the Father and Spirit as Jesus did.  In terms of politics, we are to relate to others as Jesus related to others: “Jesus’ way of life toward other people as we share in it is the trinitarian form of human social life” (237). At various points in the chapter she also engages questions of Trinity and gender.

 Chapter 6: Death and Sacrifice

This chapter is Tanner’s theology of the cross.  Here she develops her critique of atonement theologies of satisfaction, sacrifice, and substitution made very briefly in Jesus, Humanity, and the Trinity p. 29.  In the earlier work her appeal to feminist and womanist theologies is quite jarring.  Here she gives this appeal greater context and defends it more thoroughly.  The center of ch. 6 is an argument for an incarnational model of the atonement. Salvation comes primarily through the very assumption of our humanity by the Word of God.  In virtue of the Word’s union with the humanity of Jesus, humanity is renewed.  Thus, she argues that the primary meaning of “atonement” is “at-one-ment,” undercutting various legal or contractual models for the cross (256).  The meaning of the cross is found within the overall meaning of incarnation.  The Word assumes fallen humanity and “if the powers of the Word are to reach humanity suffering under the forces of sin and death,” the incarnation will include at-one-ment on the cross (257).  We are saved by the union of the Word with the humanity of Jesus which reworks humanity over the process of his life, including his death on the cross.

Chapter 7: The Working of the Spirit

In the final chapter Tanner contrasts two understandings of the working of the Spirit in modern Christianity: 1) the Spirit works immediately, directly, and exceptionally, often in the interior depths of the human person, and ensuring infallible certainty of religious insight; 2) the Spirit works gradually, through fallible human beings, without final resolution, and within the messy processes of ordinary life.  Although she does highlight certain benefits of the first view (it can be subversive to entrenched, oppressive authorities), she argues strongly for the second.  She builds upon her view of a “non-constrastive” divine/human relation in God and Creation : “there is no reason to think that God is working more the less we are” (280; 296). God works within our finitude and within contextual, fallible truths; divine agency does not remove the finite character of our acts.  This also has a progressive political potential: it would “loosen up” religious authority by bringing greater flexibility and openness to change (291 – the first view may be prophetic but is entirely inflexible). Consistent with the entire book, the Spirit works within us to reshape, reform, and empower our whole existence, not to override it in moments of miraculous revelation.