More on Pneumatology

emphasis and approach they are all concerned with rediscovering a theological rationale for the global scope of the Spirit’s renewing works.
This pneumatological development in contemporary theology presents a tremendous challenge to historic or traditional Christian theology. It summons us to rediscover an appreciation of the world-wide scope of the Spirit’s renewing work; it calls for traditional theology to engage in critical examination of its own way of thinking about the Holy Spirit. Alongside this positive challenge, the current development also poses a serious threat to major tenets of Christian doctrine. In their attempt to construct a new model of theology which is expanded to its cosmic breadth, contemporary theologians all too often begin with certain universal frameworks which are drawn from philosophical categories that can hardly be reconciled with the biblical perspective. In their discussions of the Spirit’s work, what is most often lost in the New Testament distinctive of the Sprit’s work.
To specify this problem, which we will seek to demonstrate full in this study: 1) In their concentration on the immanence of the Spirit, the fundamental link between Christ and the Spirit is obscured, or not fully appreciated. The immanence of the Spirit is cut loose from the historical transcendence of the person Jesus, with the result that their conception of the Spirit invariably degenerates into a vague spiritual universalism which undercuts the true relevance of Jesus to the modern world. The universal immanence of the Spirit is overemphasized at the expense of the particular transcendence of Jesus. Their concentration either on god or on the Spirit who is ontologically severed from the historical Jesus revealed in Scripture ends up with a modalistic collapse of the persons in the Godhead into monotheism, which leads to a virtual denial of the traditional doctrine of the Trinity.