This is the last installment of a theology paper I did for THEO 500, at the Vancouver School of Theology. The assignment was to write one’s own understand of some of the basic principals of Christianity. I chose, the Trinity, Salvation, Christ and the Holy Spirit. My “personal creed” skews mystical and tries to straddle both East and Western Churches.
Holy Spirit: Regeneration, Resurrection, and Revelation
How then does Soteria show up in our daily lives? How do we continue the Way to healing ourselves and others in relationship with God? According to St. Seraphim of Sarov, the “…aim of our Christian life consists of the acquisition of the Holy Spirit…” The Spirit and Christ have been described as the “left and right hands of the Father,” and it is through the Spirit we are accompanied in our journey.
The Spirit (Pnuema) initiates us into a Life in Christ and the Church through baptism. “…unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” [John 3:5]In the East, it is through chrismation (anointing with oil), that we are baptized in the Spirit. Her divine work is regeneration, resurrection, and revelation. [The reasons why we might gender the Spirit as her deserves its own paper]. The Spirit continues the work of Christ, through her presence in our daily lives, where she convicts us (presents the case) of our debts/sins, does the work of building the Church, comforting believers, leading us to the truth, and bringing light to our reading of Scriptures.
The Spirit “confronts us with God’s story, makes it alive in us, capable of renewing our hearts and minds, able to conceive of the meaning of life in ways past our understanging.”16 The Pnuema brings peace and illumination to the nous, which is a kind of purified intuitive intellect that resides in the heart, rather than the head. This nous is our organ of spiritual perception. And through this perception and her indwelling, the Spirit guides us in our Salvation.
The Spirit brings the gift of Zoe (aliveness) and invites us to seek out “whatever is life-giving”17 in all things we encounter. She is seen in the life-creating flow of our existence. In this way, God shows the acquisition of the Spirit by the bestowing gifts and fruits (qualities). Her gifts are wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, and understanding languages. Her fruits are “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” [Galatians 5:22-23]
It is this Pnuema that guides us to the mystical ascent of Theosis, up to the Light of Mount Tabor18 (the energies of God), as we are “called into union with God, called to realize by grace the perfect assimilation of its nature to the divine nature.”19
But as Father Nicholas of the Church of Annunciation tells his newly baptized catechumens, the Spirit can withdraw without warning. For all experience St. John of the Cross’s”dark night of the soul” in some way or another. “For the Pnuema (wind) blows where it wishes.” [John 3:8] And just as we are prone to err and sin, the grace of the Pneuma comes and goes.
The Spirit seeks those who in faith, find a Life in Christ and the Church. The Church or ecclesia (assembly) is called the Body of Christ, for He says, “where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them,” [Matthew 18:20]. And the Church is where the Spirit and Christ descend upon us like the right and left hand of the Father. And the Spirit comes to us through the Mysteries (sacraments) of the Church, its prayer, spiritual training (asceticism), and liturgy (work of the people) that are done for Christ’s sake. For these are efforts canonized in the Scripture, by the saints, and mothers and fathers of the Church as worthy of the Spirit. God will do as God will do. We lift hearts up to the Lord, and the Holy Spirit is thus acquired, if she should make the sovereign choice to fly to our waiting embrace. In this way, God brings to our hearts, the realization that we have been made by the Father, met by the Savior and claimed by the Holy Spirit.
Methods, Sources, and Vocations
A theology of verbs embraces a movement between knowing God through experience (Gnosis) and accepting things on faith (Pistis). This allows the wisdom (Sophia) of discernment to emerge.
Faith might be defined as simply accepting what is presented to you. And in this sense, all faith is reasoned; based on arguments, evidence, and logic. The fruits of reasonable faith are so central to the Christian life; they need no defense. Protestant theology attests to the primacy of Pistis, Scripture, and God’s favor over everything else in the tradition. The results have been a tremendously flexible, expansive, and creative wing of the Church, through which the Holy Spirit has operated.
That said, even Martin Luther found a “reliance on reason was particularly problematic,” for reason “was never an adequate and independent source for theological work and ethics.”20 Such reductions in practice, however, may have limited the range and ways in which Christians might encounter Christ and know him through experience, or Gnosis. For Wesley, “both spiritual and physical senses are modes of God’s revelation to humanity.” And no theological concept has any reality unless it can be anchored to experience. CS Lewis argued that Adam and Eve’s knowledge of punishment, “Don’t eat the fruit!” did not mean anything until they had an experience of punishment itself.21
To this end, an education in the saints and mystics is required for a theology of verbs. For these are not philosophers but witnesses. They are not mapmakers but explorers who have come back from the “undiscovered country” and attempted to approximate to us, “through a glass darkly” of language, what they have encountered. That said, their theophanies and ecstasies must be tempered by the scholars, Scriptures, and communities of reasonable faith, before experience “reduces all religion to the outward expression of inner feeling.”22
Sophia (wisdom) is a discernment that emerges from the collision of Pistis and Gnosis. Ultimately, it is a sovereign (from above) gift of the Holy Spirit. We are to follow the will of God and his commandments, not our taste or judgment. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” [Proverbs 9:10]. That said, wise discernment is done in dialog with one’s community, informed by Scripture, and in council with elders. However, wise decisions ultimately arise through inner Spirit-led conviction. To that end, Sophia emerges in the dance of paradox. For the wise do not hold polarized positions, but embrace opposites and holds them gently, like a pair of male and female creatures, and waits to see what spirit is begotten from the congress.
The method of journalism is at play in the theology of verbs. Journalist takes a story and deconstructs it down to primary sources. The source objects, events, and witness accounts are then thrice verified. From there, the story is confirmed, dismissed, or reconstructed. In that regard, I am obviously no respecter of theological persons. But the mystical tradition of the Hesychasts is a central source. This tradition provides the most depth and perspective on other forms of Christian doctrine and theology, because it is anchored in the primary sources of the Patristics, and is propelled by witness accounts of the primary source of all things, God itself. That said, Christian doctrines that might seem opposed, that reject traditionalism or mysticism, are not irreconcilable, so long as the proper dance of opposites can provide space for the spirit of the whole to emerge.
So, what actions come from a theology of verbs and this Personal Creed? God calls his people to share their life-giving gifts with the rest of the world through their God-given vocation (calling). Acts of charity, comfort, and the righting of wrongs, are central to the way God sends Christian into the world.” What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” [Micah 6:8] But the history of Christian conquests, crusades, and human rights abuses by missionaries reminds us that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, especially for Christians. St. Seraphim of Sarov warns against those who do good deeds for virtue’s sake. For “these ways of life, based merely on doing good, without carefully testing whether they bring the grace of the Holy Spirit,” 23 lead to folly and harm.
For good works, ministry and acts of charity must be done for Christ’s sake. For “…he who does not gather up with me, scatters.” [Luke 11:23] So, our outward mission in the world needs to collide with an inner struggle for the blessing of the Holy Spirit. This turning is how we share the life-giving of the Holy Spirit, as we heal ourselves and one another. For we know we have been made, met and claimed by a God in action.
May Christ heal us all.
16 McIntosh, Mark, “Mysteries of Faith,” page 11
17 Rigby, Cynthia, “Holding Faith: A Practical Instruction to Christian Doctrine,” page 23
18 Strezova, Anita, “Byzantine Hesychasm in the 14th and 15 Centuries” discourse on the “Taboric Light” and the light, energies and glory of God experienced in Theosis, “Hesychasm and Art”
19 Lossky, Vladmir, “The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church,” page 125
20 Fennell, Rob, “The Rule of Faith and Biblical Interpretation,” page 21 (on PDF)
21 Taylor, Barbara, “Sin as Our Only Hope.” page 46, “Speaking of Sin: The Lost Language of Salvation”
22 Topping, Richard, “Theological Study: Keeping it Odd,” page 2, “Scottish Journal of Evangelical Study”
23 Sarov, St. Seraphim, “The Acquisition of the Holy Spirit,” page 15
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