Pneumatology in Contemporary Perspective

This work is prompted by the challenges and problems raised by the recent pneumatological orientation in contemporary theology. In their attempt to develop a new pneumatological paradigm which corresponds to emerging global issues, contemporary theologians all too often begin with a universal framework which is extraneous to Scripture. It is mainly due to this departure from the biblical foundation that contemporary pneumatology is plagued with a sterile antithesis between immanence and transcendence, objectivity and subjectivity, the church-centered and the world-centered, the anthropocentric and the cosmocentric, and the past-centered and the future-centered.
Against such pneumatological trends, this study attempts to underscore the biblical distinctive of the Spirit’s renewing work. What I propose to do is to demonstrate to excessive tendencies in contemporary thoughts on the Sprit, and offers the possibility of developing an effective pneumatological model in which various problems of polarities and ambiguities are overcome and a sound theological rationale is provided for the Spirit’s renewing work in the world. A viable pneumatological option, which this study envisages in reaction to contemporary pneumatic trends, is biblically-grounded, Christ-centered, church-based, world-transforming, and eschatological. In order to achieve this goal, the Spirit’s renewing work will be discussed in light of the basic structures of biblical pneumatology; the Christological-pneumatological foundation, ecclesiastical context, cosmic scope, and eschatological character. A selective survey of the distinctive features of the approaches to pneumatology in contemporary theology will be provided in order to identify the current flow and direction of contemporary pneumatology and to set the state for further discussion of a biblical option.
This study will commence with a reflection on the relationship between the Christological and pneumatological which is fundamental for understanding the Spirit’s renewing work in the individual, the church, and the world. We will then apply this reflection to a discussion of the Spirit’s renewing work in the church and in the believer. The Christological and pneumatological foundation of the church and sanctifying grace will be considered, and sanctification will be discussed within its ecclesiastical context. The following chapters will discuss the cosmic scope and eschatological thrust of the Sprit’s renewing work.
To indicate briefly the results of the study, the biblical perspective on the integral but distinct relationship between Christology and pneumatology provides the key to solving the perennial problem of tension between transcendence and immanence, objectivity and subjectivity, and preserves biblical trinitarianism from both extremes of christocentrism and pneumatocentrism. This perspective not only enriches our understanding of the nature of sanctification and the church, but also offers the possibility of explains the universal seep of the Spirit’s work without discounting the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. By welding the missiology of the church with the work of the Spirit, biblical pneumatology sets Christ into a framework which is cosmological and eschatological. So, the eschatological missions of the son and the Spirit are viewed s focally located in the church, but are also seen as operative in every phase of the new creation in which the whole course of nature and human history is taken up into the divine plan of cosmic renovation. Finally, these objectives can be properly understood only within the already – not yet structure of New Testament eschatology which decisively corrects the theological imbalance as triumphalism and pessimism.