Other Contributors
Karl Barth’s view of the Spirit departs from many of the evangelical theologians of his day, particularly those who attempt to precisely define the Spirit’s nature. According to Barth,
Spirit . . . is neither a divine nor a created something, but an action and attitude of the Creator in relation to his Creation. We cannot say what Spirit is, but that he takes place as the divine basis of this relation and fellowship. Spirit is thus the powerful and exclusive meeting initiated by God between Creator and creature.148
Barth’s “relational” pneumatology is essentially a response to attacks from “liberals” on the Spirit’s divine sovereignty. Barth viewed the Spirit as having a sovereignty of action that, once encountered, makes us “free for God.”149 Barth’s pneumatology does not limit the Spirit’s function in divine revelation to the giving and recording of the Word of God, but instead reasserts the Spirit’s lordship in the event of revelation.150 According to Barth,
The Holy Spirit is the Lord (acting upon us in revelation as the Redeemer) who makes us really free, really children of God, who really gives His Church utterance to speak the Word of God. . . . [the Spirit] is really the hidden essence of God Himself, and therefore the Lord in the most unrestricted sense of the concept, who—in His utter unsearchableness—becomes manifest in revelation in this respect also.151
Barth’s pneumatology also seems to be a reaction against modern conceptions of truth, particularly against the modern idea that the human subject may determine truth through rational or experimental methodologies. According to Rosato, “The strict Christological framework in which Barth situates his pneumatology in the Church Dogmatics is proof enough the he is struggling against subjectivism with as much force as he can assemble.”152
Barth’s theological method presents Jesus Christ as the “objective” executor of revelation and the Holy Spirit as the “subjective” executor, though it is this subjective aspect that becomes the primary determinate. God’s grace is manifested both in the objective revelation of God in Christ and man’s subjective appropriation of this revelation through the Spirit.153 For Barth, the Spirit as revealer always remains the Lord and interpreter of the truth of God as well. Scripture is the “Word of God” because by the Holy Spirit it became and will become to the church a “witness” to divine reveltion. This witness is not identical to the revelation; rather, God’s revelation occurs in our encounter with the Spirit and enlightenment by the Spirit to a knowledge of God’s Word. Thus, the outpouring of the Spirit is God’s revelation, and in this reality we are free to be God’s children and to know, love, and praise him in his revelation.154
Barth says that the verification of God’s truth is provided by the Holy Spirit alone (not by reason, the individual, or the Church itself). Thus, interpretation of Scripture is a function of the Spirit’s work in shaping the Church, and is a very practical endeavor.
With his insistence on the concept of theopneustia Barth nullifies any purely philosophical hermeneutics. Pneumatology is from now on to afford him a specifically Christian tool of interpretation which corresponds to his trinitarian teaching and to his Christology.155
The Veracious Authority of the Spirit—Definition and Storyline
In response to enlightenment humanism, which granted supreme authority to the human intellect and moral conscience, modern theologians began searching for ways to define and establish a Christian understanding of authority, to establish that Christianity was indeed the highest form of rationality or the most rational system, and to determine the ultimate methodology in the determination of truth. Though many theologians attempted to employ the doctrine of the Spirit in their methodologies, they often became victims of “modern” reductionism. In particular, the Spirit’s veracious authority—his work with respect to the determination of truth—seems to be essentially reduced to a work of humanization (Schleiermacher), human or enlightened rationality (Henry), or personal encounter (Barth). Borrowing from Kantian philosophy—which divides the “noumenal” realm of spiritual knowledge from the “phenomenal” realm of experiential knowledge—Schleiermacher reduces the Spirit’s work to religious experiences, and particularly to the role of interpreter of religious experiences within the Christian community. The Spirit has authority only in that he helps the interpreter to get behind the printed words to the author’s wider social context, and then relate to that context as a manifestation of universal life. The Spirit’s veracious authority to inspire the written Word of God as a historical document, however, begins to be questioned. Schleiermacher’s “liberal” followers reduced the Spirit to humanity’s highest religious or moral aspirations and the Spirit’s authority to a moral authority that allows believers to enter the Church community and function as moral beings.
Barth is certainly to be complimented on his fresh attempt to portray the Spirit’s transcendence in the midst of modern reductionism. It is questionable, however, that this authority is indeed immanent, in that Barth seems to reduce the Spirit’s work to a merely noetic function, “pointing back to its role in the Trinity rather than forward to its work in the world.”156 Barth, as a result, seems reluctant to grant the Spirit a firm place in the “pattern of authority.” His tendency to blur the distinction between Spirit and Word makes the truth of the Bible seem dependent on encountering or hearing the Spirit’s voice speaking through it, and makes the Word seem as transcendent as Barth’s portrayal of the Spirit.157 The Spirit is granted a functional authority (to cause the Word to function as revelation for today) rather than a veracious authority (to inspire an historical, authoritative Word).
Unlike Barth, Henry refuses to make the authority and infallibility of Scripture conditioned on human response. Though Barth denounced bibliolatry and professed to exalt the Spirit, Henry accuses Barth’s “functional reinterpretation of inspiration” of promoting a “broken biblicism” in that Barth wants to “detach discussion of the doctrine [of inspiration] from any correlation of it with a cognitively valid and infallible text.”158 While Henry coincides closely with Barth’s emphasis on the Spirit’s sovereignty in relation to the Word of God, Henry also finds in the Spirit a veracious authority to inspire the historical Word.
The transcendent Spirit of God therefore remains no less active in the relation to the authority and the interpretation of Scripture than in its original inspiration. Prophetic-apostolic inspiration stands in the larger context of the whole process of divine relation involving the communication activity of the Spirit of God.159