The Lord Is the Spirit. John A. Studebaker

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The Lord Is the Spirit - John A. Studebaker


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the Church came to be seen less as the communion of saints in heaven and more as the community of sinners on earth. Rationalism itself was an expression of the believing in the incarnation of divine mysteries in human concepts and theories. God was seen to be not only transcendent but also immanent. . . . It was not transcendence as such, and not immanence as such, that was linked with the rationalization and systematization of law and legality in the West, but rather incarnation, which was understood as the process by which the transcendent becomes immanent. It is no accident that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, all three of which postulate both a radical separation and a radical interconnection between God and man, also postulate that God is a judge and lawgiver and that man is governed by divine laws. Nevertheless, the distinctive features of the Western concepts of human law that emerged in the eleventh and twelfth centuries—as contrasted not only with Judaic and Islamic concepts but also with those of Eastern Christianity—are related to the greater Western emphasis on incarnation as the central reality of the universe. This released an enormous energy for the redemption of the world; yet it split the legal from the spiritual, the political from the ideological.88

      Though the data provided by cultural and legal improvements as witnessed in the West do not provide conclusive evidence with respect to the Filioque debate, we may safely infer from Berman’s analysis that such improvements may well be linked to the Spirit’s unique role in Western theology—not as one that places a specific focus upon the Spirit himself, but because in the Filioque the Spirit has been recognized as one who possesses “executorial authority” to magnify Christ and to dispense Christ’s salvation. The Spirit is seen as the one who executes Christ’s authority (including Christ’s legal authority) in time and space in order to bring glory to Christ. Filioque Christology thus displays the heart of medieval theology—that Christ is to be honored in all respects: theology, law, culture, art, politics, et cetera. Berman’s argument is that almost all modern liberties, as promoted through the legal and civic institutions of the West, and our modern understanding of “local autonomy” are related to what happened during this time (though many of its benefits will not be completely seen until the Protestant Reformation and after). From this we can safely infer that, because of the imperial authority possessed by the State, such liberties could not have developed in the East.

      In evaluating the theological strengths and weaknesses of these two positions, it seems that the logic of Augustinian thought regarding procession (and particularly with respect to Augustine’s conception of “relational opposition”) is fairly convincing. Applying such logic to the doctrine of the Spirit’s authority with respect to the divine economy in the Church age, we can deduce that the authority of the Son and the authority of the Spirit can only be distinguished (and understood to be non-conflictory) if the Spirit is “under” the authority of Christ.

      Protestant Theology


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