Breathe Again

My husband has been in Melbourne most of the time because of his job and comes back to Sydney on alternating weekends. I sometimes attended Hillsong Macquarie during the alternating weeks when he’s not in Sydney.

I’ve been feeling quite suffocated and fatigued over the past few months. The air had been very bad during the months when the bushfires got really bad, which made my eyes, nose and throat very uncomfortable. Then came the coronavirus. I work in a location with a high percentage of Chinese Australians, and all the staff in the clinic started wearing surgical masks since late January. I never had to wear face masks all day for work in the past and this is making me feel very suffocated and deoxygenated. It’s been a month since I’ve been wearing masks at work and it’s starting to drive me nuts.

The theme of Hillsong Conference 2020 will be “Breathe Again,” which is really referring to Wind of the Spirit. The recent sermons I’ve listened to are particularly focused on the Holy Spirit. They also mentioned that they are preparing to get a church building for Hillsong Macquarie.

https://youtu.be/JdTyVysHjBg

Recently I’ve just spoken to someone from Taiwan who’s working in ministry, and she raised a few points about the churches of Australia:

·       Although there had been many bush fires burning physically in Australia, the spiritual situation of the churches of Australia is lacking in the fire of the Spirit. It is in a lukewarm situation.

·       There is a lack of unity amongst the churches of this land. Churches of different ethnicities operate independently, and churches don’t seem to be coming together/ networking together to intercede for the nation (which the churches of Taiwan is doing a lot of these days). When she asked for information from the Chinese churches in Australia about updates on intercession requests for the Bushfires in Australia so she can send the information to the prayer network in Taiwan for intercession, there seems to be a lack of such information.

·       There is a lack of “career missions,” or ministry in the workplace. People tend to be “Sunday Christians” here.

·       There needs to be a strong desire for the presence of God. We should remember to pray for the presence of God, God’s protection, and revelations from God.

·       Keep praising God in all circumstances. (Which, by the way, seems to be a recurrent messages that I kept hearing lately from various different sermons and exhortations from brothers and sisters. I think God is reminding me not to grumble too much, as I am starting to become quite grumpy about some of the bad things that’s been happening recently nationally and globally.)

The road to holy ghost power (Hillsong 12Jan 2020 https://youtu.be/I1tk99fWNak)

Jesus: Isaiah 11 says holy spirit will rest upon him (the Messiah)... descending, filled and lead by the power of the spirit etc

Resurrection

Gushing wind

Unity, in one accord

1) The hand of God is on your life: If you know that, spend a season of your life to go deeper into the word of God in bible college

2) Descended: when Jesus was being baptised. The heavens open over you, the holy spirit descends on you, you know something big is about to happen. Pray for the open heaven, over our lives and over our church.

3) Filled with the spirit and lead to the wilderness. Why does Jesus need to be filled with the Spirit? God in the flesh can be tempted and persecuted. If God in the flesh needs the Spirit, how much more do we need it? To be filled is a radical transformation. There's that power which comes from the Spirit when you are living in the fullness of the Spirit.

4) A demonstration of the Spirit of the Lord in our lives. Why lead us into a dessert? When God leads you, he never leads you away from God's best for your lives. The Spirit saves us from ourselves. The Spirit of God in you leads you. God leads you both from the outside and inside.

5) Returned in the power of the Spirit. Back to Galilee where the huge majority of Jesus' miracles happened. The Holy Spirit is not whimpy. There is power in the name of God.

6) Ascending into heaven: a new era where the Spirit of God has been unleashed, poured out, and the birth of the church happened at that time. Acts 2:16. This is what the prophet Joel said.

Losing momentum like an old dog would be awful.

Don't Trip the Switch (Hillsong 23Feb 2020 https://youtu.be/1HgXJ4smOfs)

Ezekiel 37:9-10

“Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.”

Wind of the Spirit.

East wind: Seems to bring problems, famine, locusts, etc.

West wind: Brings deliverance.

North wind: God's majesty and splendour.

Can you read the winds? On what God is doing in your life?

Song of Solomon 4:16

“Awake, north wind, and come, south wind! Blow on my garden, that its fragrance may spread everywhere. Let my beloved come into his garden and taste its choice fruits.”

The garden represents life.

South wind: Fragrances and spices. A spiritual awakening: God's majesty awakes. Heaven's fragrance.

If we are rightly positioned, it doesn’t matter where the wind blows.

Everything changes with the awakening. The awakening comes from heaven. The north wind first then the south wind.

Fragrance of fruitfulness in spring time. Roses, jasmine, etc. God's majesty breathes fragrance of the garden of our lives.

Song of Solomon 1:2-4

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth— for your love is more delightful than wine. Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes; your name is like perfume poured out. No wonder the young women love you! Take me away with you—let us hurry! Let the king bring me into his chambers.

Friends: We rejoice and delight in you; we will praise your love more than wine.

She: How right they are to adore you!”

The kiss of heaven. God's favour brings blossom. It's His name that's the power behind the fragrance and favour. God's majesty in the north breathes life to the south.

Ecclesiastes 1:6

“The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.”

For the circuit to continue, it needs to turn to the north, to heaven. The wind comes again on a circuit.

Psalms 142:7

“Set me free from my prison, that I may praise your name. Then the righteous will gather about me because of your goodness to me.”

Don't break the circuit.

There are circuit breakers, that breaks the circuit when there is a fault. Don't flick the switch.

Trust in God, whatever He brings. You wouldn't even have breath if it wasn't for God.

It all started with the Garden of Eden. It was always His garden.

Genesis 2:9

“The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

Central in the garden: tree of life.

Genesis 2:15-17

“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.””

Keep Him central.

Acts 27:7-15

Our lives can be slow sailing and there can be shipwrecks. In those sailors' experience, they believe a good harbour has a southwest and northwest exposure.

They tripped the switch, trusted their own experience, and didn't listen to Paul or to God.

A northeaster brought about a shipwreck.

Ecclesiastes 10:1

“As dead flies give perfume a bad smell, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.”

Dead flies putrefy perfumed ointments.

Song of Solomon 2:10-13

“My beloved spoke and said to me,

    “Arise, my darling,

    my beautiful one, come with me.

See! The winter is past;

    the rains are over and gone.

Flowers appear on the earth;

    the season of singing has come,

the cooing of doves

    is heard in our land.

The fig tree forms its early fruit;

    the blossoming vines spread their fragrance.

Arise, come, my darling;

    my beautiful one, come with me.””

A declaration: Let's not turn a good smell into something putrid. It's a declaration from the bride in the Song of Solomon. Use me, and do something significant through me.

Transformation and the Holy Spirit

View from the Mount of Beatitudes

Transformation:

l   God not only saves us but also invites us and enables us to become new people in Him.[1]

l   While we are in this body, we will experience the pull of the old beliefs, attitudes, and dispositions, but we must see ourselves as new people, adopted into God's family, who need not yield to the lures of the flesh (Romans 8:12-17).

l   Exchanged life spirituality stresses the in-Christ relationship and the importance of experiencing and expressing his life in us.

l   Scripture declares that in Christ, we have already become saints, children of light, and citizens of heaven (1 Corinthians 1:2; Ephesians 5:8; Philippians 3:20). We must know these truths, acknowledge them by faith to be true regardless of feelings to the contrary.

l   Just as we were justified by grace through faith, so we are sanctified by grace through faith. Good works are not attained by dependence on our own fleshly efforts, achievements, or merits; instead, they flow from the power of the Spirit of Christ who indwells us (Galatians 5:16-25).

l   Brokenness, or realizing the bankruptcy of our own resources and efforts, and unconditional surrender are part of the process of appropriating Christ as life (Romans 7:14-25; 12:1-2; 2 Corinthians 12:9-10; Galatians 5:24).

l   Only Christ himself can live the Christian life, and he does this in us and through us (John 15:1-8; cf. 2 Corinthians 2:14). As branches of the true vine, we do not create life, but we receive it through our connection with the vine.

l   It requires "a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him" for us to move from a cognitive to a personal and experiential knowledge of these spiritual truths (Ephesians 1:17-19; Colossians 1:9).[2]

Ministry of the Holy Spirit:[3]

l   Convicting: The Spirit convicts unbelievers of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8-11). Apart from this ministry, people would never realize their sinful condition and desperate need for the saving grace of God.

l   Regenerating: The Spirit imparts eternal life through the new birth, and this in turn implants the divine nature in the child of God (Titus 3:5; 2 Peter 1:4). We who were formerly dead (Ephesians 2:1-3) have become new creatures who are alive to God (2 Corinthians 5:17; Romans 6:3-11; Ephesians 2:4-6).

l   Baptizing: By the Spirit, all believers in Christ have been "baptized into one body" (1 Corinthians 12:13), and in this way we have been adopted by the Holy Spirit into the family of God (Romans 8:9, 15; Ephesians 1:5).

l   Sealing: The Holy Spirit of promise is the pledge of our inheritance, and he seals all who trust in Christ for the day of redemption (Ephesians 1:13-14; 4:30; 2 Corinthians 1:22). The Father gives us the Spirit as a pledge or a down payment that guarantees the fulfilment of his promises.

l   Indwelling: The Spirit of God permanently indwells all believers in Christ (John 14:16-17; Romans 8:9), so that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit who is in us (1 Corinthians 6:19).

l   Filling: When we are filled by the Holy Spirit, we are under his control (Ephesians 5:18). The filling of the Spirit produces the fruit of Christian character and maturity (Acts 6:3, 5; Galatians 5:22-23).

l   Empowering: This is another aspect of the filling of the Spirit, and it relates to his sovereign and surprising power for ministry in word and deed (Acts 4:8, 31; 13:9-10).

l   Assuring: The Spirit testifies to the truth of our life in Christ and bears witness with our spirits that we are children of God (Romans 8:16; 1 John 3:24; 5:7-8).

l   Illuminating: The Spirit of God who inspired the Scriptures (2 Peter 1:21) also illuminates the Scriptures "so that we may know the things freely given to us by God" (1 Corinthians 2:10-16). Because the things of the Spirit are spiritually discerned, the Spirit gives believers insight into the meaning and application of God's Word.

l   Teaching: Jesus promised his disciples that the Spirit of truth would "guide you into all the truth" and "disclose to you what is to come" (John 16:13). The divine anointing teaches us (1 John 2:27), and the Spirit glorifies the Son by making Jesus' words known to us (John 16:14).

l   Praying: Because we do not know how to pray as we should, "the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words" (Romans 8:26). The Holy Spirit searches our hearts and speaks to the Father through us (Romans 8:2). When we pray in the Spirit (Ephesians 6:18), we have access through Christ to the Father (Ephesians 2:18).

l   Gifting: The manifold gifts of the Holy Spirit are given to the community of faith for the mutual edification of all the members of the body. The gifts are energized and directed by the Spirit as they are exercised in other-centred love (1 Corinthians 13).

An important reminder for seminary students:[4]

An important aspect of your College experience should be an intentional seeking for God, through the Holy Spirit, to transform your life and character. Throughout your studies and in ministry situations you will have a choice to make – are you going to just gain information and knowledge (as good as they are) or will you allow God to shape your attitudes and behaviours to better reflect Himself? Be aware, that God will often use hard times, times when we are tempted to fall back into past unhelpful patterns, to build our character! Building character takes discipline, accountability and encouragement from our Christian brothers and sisters.

Transformation through prayer:

l   Prayer catapults us onto the frontier of spiritual life. It is original research in unexplored territory. Real prayer is life creating and life changing.

l   Prayer is the central avenue God uses to transform us. If we are unwilling to change, we will abandon prayer as a noticeable characteristic of our lives. The closer we come to the heart-beat of God the more we see our need and the more we desire to be conformed to Christ.[5]

l   For Jesus, and for us, prayer provides the insight and affirmation that if we do anything that is worthwhile-teaching, healing, organizing, reforming, working for good-we can never claim it as our own achievement. Rather, we can acknowledge it as a gift of God, the result of which is in God's hands. Prayer is the experience of knowing that God is the source of everything we claim as our own. To pray is to say with Jesus, "Not my will, but yours. Not my words, but yours. Not my worth, but yours. Not my glory, but yours. Not in my name, but in yours."[6]

---

[1] “Transformational Discipleship Program Foundation Module 1”, 15.

[2] Kenneth Boa, Conformed to His Image: Biblical and Practical Approaches to Spiritual Formation (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2001), 102-04.  

[3] Boa, Conformed to His Image, 293-294.  

[4] “Transformational Discipleship Program Foundation Module 1”, 19.

[5] Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, Study Guide Edition ed. (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1999), 42.  

[6] Henri J. M. Nouwen, Michael J. Christensen, and Rebecca Laird, Spiritual Formation : Following the Movements of the Spirit, 1st ed. (London: SPCK, 2011), 21.  

The Trinity: the Holy Spirit as the ‘bond of love’

Abstract:

Augustine speaks of the Holy Spirit as the ‘bond of love’ within the Trinity. First I evaluated the biblical and theological legitimacy of this approach. Augustine argues from the filioque rather than from Scripture. Coffey successfully demonstrates the biblical legitimacy of Augustine’s approach using a systemic theological methodology. Critics accuses Augustine of a tendency towards modalism and Platonism, and the term ‘bond of love’ depersonalises the Holy Spirit. Barth’s theology is essentially ‘Augustinian’, with an unhelpful change in terminology from ‘Person’ to ‘mode of being’, attracting further criticisms. Here we see that the human language is too limited to describe God. Then I examined the implications of Augustine’s approach on our doctrine of the Trinity. While God’s love becomes a self-love in modalism, social Trinitarians may lose sight of the ontological distinction between God and humans. Heresies can easily develop if we do not have clear definitions. How we view this ‘bond’ also influences our views of ecclesiology and missiology.

Augustine speaks of the Holy Spirit as the ‘bond of love’ within the Trinity. In this essay, I will first examine what Augustine has said, look at evaluations by various theologians on the Biblical and theological legitimacy Augustine’s approach to the Holy Spirit, especially Barth’s appraisal, then make my own appraisal and discuss the implications of my answer for our doctrine of the Trinity.

In De Trinitate BookV, Augustine writes, “According to the Holy Scriptures this Holy Spirit is not just the Father’s alone nor the Son’s alone, but the Spirit of them both, thus he suggests to us the common charity by which the Father and the Son love each other…”[1] He further warns that the Trinity should not be read “in such a way that the Father is taken as the memory of all three, and the Son as the understanding of all three, and the Holy Spirit as the charity of all three; as though the Father did not do his own understanding or loving, but the Son did his understanding for him and the Holy Spirit his loving, while he only did the remembering for himself and for them…The Father is God and the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God and they are all together one God.”[2] We see Augustine knew what he was looking for because he formulated his doctrine of the Trinity from his understanding of the Catholic faith in such a way that both the unity of God and the distinction of the persons would be preserved. Furthermore, he believes that since the Trinity is a doctrine of the Catholic faith, believing in it is more important than understanding it.[3] Up until the 20^th century, the writings of Augustine dominated the Western Catholic tradition, withstanding the arguments of every opponent.[4]

In De Trinitate, Augustine names the Holy Spirit as ‘love’ and ‘gift’ but also points out that Scripture did not say “The Holy Spirit is charity”.[5] Levering[6] also observes that the Scripture does not explicitly name the Holy Spirit ‘love’ or ‘gift’, and the Holy Spirit does not seem to have any closer associations with ‘love’ than the Father or Son.[7] Levering goes on to explain that Augustine does not interpret each text of the Scripture individually, but instead believes that God inspired Scripture to teach us about himself.[8] However, the central Scriptural verses Augustine uses for the name ‘love’ (1John4 and Romans5:5)[9] are concerned with economic Trinity, as they speak of God’s love for us, and not the mutual love of the Father and the Son.[10] The same holds for the Holy Spirit as ‘gift’. This leads him to conclude that the Holy Spirit is given, as the greatest gift, love.[11] Ayers[12] observes that Augustine does not indicate how the title of ‘love’ helps us understand the Spirit’s relationship to the Father and Son.

Coffey[13] believes Augustine argues from the filioque[14] rather than from Scripture and was unable to demonstrate successfully that the Holy Spirit is divine love from the Scriptures. Coffey attempts to show the Holy Spirit is the ‘bond of love’ through a more systemic theological methodology.[15] As previously noted, Augustine shows awareness of the economic Trinity[16] because he understands that the Holy Spirit is the common gift of the Father and the Son to humanity in the economy of salvation[17]. Coffey believes that from this, we can infer that in the immanent Trinity, the Holy Spirit must proceed from them both, justifying Augustine's conclusion that the Holy Spirit is the communion of the Father and the Son.[18] However, Coffey observes that Augustine uses the terms ‘communion’ and ‘mutual love’ interchangeably and sees no great difference between them.[19]

Coffey explains the difference between the mutual-love theory and the filioque[20], and that identifying the Holy Spirit as the communion between the Father and the Son still does not tell us the nature of the interpersonal relationship between the Father and Son. So he proceeds to demonstrate how the Holy Spirit is both the Father's love for Jesus and Jesus' answering love for the Father.[21] Firstly, regarding the Father’s love for Jesus, both the Son of the New Testament and the Servant of the Old Testament are endowed with the Spirit and loved by God.[22] God had given the Holy Spirit to many others, such as the prophets, but Jesus was given the Spirit in a unique way. From the baptismal text we see only Jesus was made God's ‘beloved’ Son[23], and only he could impart the Spirit to others.[24] Christians also ‘receive’ the Holy Spirit and ‘sonship’, but are only by ‘adoption’ (Romans8:15, Galatians4:5).[25]

Secondly, Coffey proposes that Christ's love of God is the missing link between God's love of his people and Christ's love for them. Giving of oneself to others is love[26], and Romans5:5 demonstrates how God’s love for us is given to us through the Holy Spirit.[27] We could see Jesus’ love for God through the events of his life where in an utmost act of obedience and love he surrendered his life to the Father on the cross[28] so we get the economy of salvation for the whole humanity. Jesus' loving self-giving to the Church also illuminates his self-giving to God[29] because we know from Matthew22:37-39; 25:40 the inseparability of loving God and loving our neighbours.[30] I am in agreement with Coffey’s methodology for coming at the conclusion that the Holy Spirit is a mutual love between the Father and the Son. While Augustine’s conclusion is correct, he did not come to this conclusion by correct methodology.[31]

There are many critics of Augustine in the 20^th century, with Gunton being the most representative.[32] And on the “hot topic” of substance and persons in Trinitarian theology[33], many criticise that Augustine emphasised the Father-Son relationship at the expense of the personhood of the Spirit, who appears as depersonalised or subordinated[34], and the term ‘bond of love’ creates the impression of a binity.[35] The Western Trinitarian theology begins with the unity and moves to Trinity while the East does the opposite.[36] So tritheism tends to be the danger in Eastern theology while modalism[37] tends to the danger in Western theology.[38] Gunton accuses Augustine of prioritising a unity of substance over divine persons[39], with a “tendency toward modalism” because “the persons in Augustine’s approach lack distinguishable identity”[40]

However, equality of substance does not conflict with distinction of roles. For instance, parental authority does not make parents superior to their children because both parents and children are human, made in the image of God, all deserving to be treated with the same dignity.[41] Likewise, the submission required of wives is itself reflective of the submission eternally given by the Son to his Father, and by the Spirit to the Father and the Son[42], where the differences in roles does not imply subordination or lack of identity. But we also need to take note that Augustine himself was quite cautious in speculating about the immanent Trinity[43]^,[44]. In De Trinitate, Augustine attempts to tell us that what is meant by ‘Person’ with reference to three divine persons means something very different from that of three human persons, and that no human tongue can ever describe God properly[45]^,[46],[47] as “like a puzzling reflection in a mirror… no words of ours are capable of expressing him.”[48]

Gunton[49] further criticises that Augustine is more interested in the divinity of Jesus than his humanity and suspects an ‘anti-incarnational Platonism’. However, anyone who has read Confessions Book7 will be aware of the central place of the incarnation in Augustine’s thought.[50] Gunton also criticises Augustine’s use of ‘psychological’ analogy[51] as being neo-Platonic because this ontological foundation is based on a knowledge derived from the structures of the human mind rather than from the economy of salvation.[52] But Augustine repeatedly stress that our knowledge of the Trinity is derived solely from Scripture and mediated through Church tradition.[53] So we see that there are many factors for contemporary misreadings of Augustine, such as a tendency to read Augustine’s theology in isolated pieces, a failure to contextualise his thought, and a failure to distinguish between the teachings of Augustine and later developments.[54] I believe the Gunton had misread Augustine. Augustine himself thought that his teachings would only be “understood by a few”.[55]

Barth, one of the greatest theologians of the 20^th century, believes the economic and immanent Trinity are inseparable as history is part of God's self-revelation. Since church tradition is part of God's self-revelation, Barth uses the filioque as the starting point of his theological exposition the Trinity.[56] Numerous theologians suggests that Barth’s theology is ‘Augustinian’[57]^,[58],[59] in that Barth holds to the filioque, to the Sprit as the ‘bond of love’, to unity of operation, and to the terminological misgivings Augustine voices over ‘Person’. Barth argues in favour of the filioque because it recognises “the communion between the Father and the Son.”[60] Eastern denials of the filioque represent for Barth a speculative method[61] “which interprets individual verses of the Bible in isolation, because it bears no relation to the reality of God in revelation and faith.”[62] He further warns that rejecting the filioque will endanger “the unity of the Trinity”, as “Tritheism was always the special danger in Eastern theology.”[63]

However, Ovey[64] believes the simple label ‘Augustinian’ is inadequate, because while Augustine finally retained the term ‘Person’, Barth substitutes for it ‘mode of being’[65]. Barth[66] describes his rationale as follows: “the so-called ‘persons’ in God are in no sense three gods… ‘Person’ as used in the Church doctrine of the Trinity bears no direct relation to personality. The meaning of the doctrine is not, then, that there are three personalities in God. This would be the worst and most extreme expression of tritheism.” Barth finds it “a relief that a man of Augustine’s standing openly declared that to call what is meant ‘Person’ is very different from a juxtaposition like that have three human persons”.[67]

However, this change in terminology attracted many criticisms, especially from the social Trinitarians, who accuse Barth of being a modalist.[68] The central idea of “Social Trinity” is that there are three Persons who are subjects of the divine experiences, with the emphasis that God is an inherently social being.[69] Social theologians such as Volf appeals to Gregory in support of social Trinitarianism, “Gregory of Nyssa is well-known for employing social images for the Trinity.”[70] However, Husbands[71] asserts that neither is Gregory responsible for the social analogy of the Trinity, or does he propose that we adopt its use, and that some theologians such as Grenz and Franke misinterpret the Cappadocian understanding of hypostases as being that which denotes three “independent realities.”[72]

In fact, Barth[73] draws a correspondence between the Latin term subsistentia and the Greek term hypostasis employed by the Cappadocians in order to convey the notion of three “modes of being”. Husbands[74] points out Barth’s language is entirely consistent with the Trinitarian theology of the Cappadocians while standing in quite profound opposition to the Sabellian claim that Father, Son and Spirit are three modes of appearance. I agree with Husbands that Barth’s Trinitarian theology has a closer resemblance to the Cappadocians than the social Trinitarians do.[75] However, I think Barth’s wording does not really add that much more information to Augustine’s wording because, as previously noted, God cannot be described by any human wording.

Next, I will examine the implications of the discussion above for our doctrine of the Trinity. First is on the linkage between immanent Trinity and economic Trinity. Johnson[76] points out that in De Trinitate BookIV, Augustine explains the goal of the “sendings” of the Son and Spirit is to restore fallen humans into a relationship of communion with God. Johnson proposes that missions is the central link between the divine persons (immanent Trinity) and the economy of salvation (economic Trinity). Franke[77] refers to Richard of St. Victor’s discussion of the necessary plurality of persons in the Godhead: “Because self-love cannot be true charity, supreme love requires another, equal to the lover, who is the recipient of that love. In addition, because supreme love is received as well as given, such love must be a shared love, one in which each person loves and is loved by the other.” Ovey warns that if one tends toward the modalist extreme, God’s intra-trinitarian life is reflexive, rather than being reciprocal and mutual as between three correlative subjects[78], and God’s love becomes a ‘private love of himself’.[79]

However, some social Trinitarians take things too far. For instance, LaCugna says “the life of God is not something that belongs to God alone. Trinitarian life is also our lives… To conceive Trinitarian life as something belonging only to God, or belonging to God apart from the creature, is to miss the point entirely… It is the life of communion and indwelling, God in us, we in God, all of us in each other.”[80] Husbands[81] critiques that tying God this closely to the human community makes it difficult to maintain an ontological distinction between the nature of God and humans and perceive God as our Lord. Molnar[82] further warns that LaCugna’s thinking can invite pantheism and dualism, where God becomes little more than our experiences of love and communion.[83] While the social Trinitarians are correct in that “ecclesial communion should correspond to Trinitarian communion”, if we go too much on the social Trinitarian spectrum, we may lose sight of the ontological distinction between God and humans.[84]

Another implication is that depending how way we see the ‘bond of love’, substance and persons, there can be dangers of binity, quaternity or quintinity, which are heretical. As we have seen earlier, modalism, or even Augustine’s term ‘bond of love’, can create the impression of a binity where there is just the Father and Son plus a bond.[85] On the other hand, if Trinitarian unity is based on an indivisible and common essence and this divine essence is seen as a fourth ‘something’ hiding behind the three persons, this can create the impression of a quaternity. Augustine recognises this problem himself, and tries to make clear that this is not his understanding of divine unity: “the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are the Trinity, but they are only one God; not that the divinity, which they have in common, is a sort of fourth person, but that the Godhead is ineffably and inseparably a Trinity.”[86] Furthermore, the Spirit cannot be the personal object of love in order to avoid quintinity, because if Father and Son were to love the Spirit as a personal object, and if the Spirit were to act in mutuality returning this love to the Father and Son, we get two additional abiding relationships in God and, therefore, two additional persons.[87]

Finally, how we view the love relationship among the Trinitarian Persons also have important implications on our view of ecclesiology and missiology. Augustine sees an inseparability in the operations of the Trinity[88], where the Father, Son and Spirit are joined in a harmonic and inseparable unity that exhibits many of the features that we would normally attribute to a unified agent. Augustine envisages this unity of action as an ordered unity initiated by the Father.[89] So, each Person is equal in essence possessing the identical eternal divine nature, yet each Person is also a distinct expression of the one undivided divine nature[90], with different roles and positions. Nevertheless, there is full harmony in their work, with no bitterness, jealousy, or strife. We see a “unity of purpose and harmony of mission”, with “differentiation in lines of authority and submission within the Godhead”.[91]

Reinhard[92] thinks it is possible to understand the Spirit as the projection of the relationship between Father and Son in the economy of salvation because, as Augustine[93] notes, “the Holy Spirit is called the gift of God… he was God, co-eternal with the Father and the Son… He is given as God’s gift in such a way that as God he also gives himself.” Therefore, we should apply this same type of love ecclesiologically, where the harmony expressed amidst the Trinity despite differing roles and responsibilities sets example of the harmony we should seek as we acknowledge the diversity within the body of Christ.[94] Secular peacemaking commonly involves the imposition of homogeneity in order to remove friction, often done through oppression, while Christian peacemaking involves the recognition of difference, but harmony between them, enabled by the Spirit.[95] It is like a song where each “voice” sings the same song, yet each voice sings a different part of the harmony, creating a richness that no one voice alone could accomplish.[96]  

In conclusion, I agree with Augustine’s thinking that Holy Spirit is the ‘bond of love’ within the Trinity. However, while Augustine’s conclusion is correct, I do not think he came to this conclusion by correct theological methodology. I am satisfied with Coffey’s methodology for coming to the conclusion that the Holy Spirit is a mutual love between the Father and the Son. There are also many critics of Augustine in the 20^th century. Most of the criticism is centred on the topic of substance and persons in Trinitarian theology, where Augustine is accused of having a tendency towards modalism and Platonism, and the term ‘bond of love’ is criticised as making the Holy Spirit appear depersonalised or subordinated. However, a lot of criticisms are based on contemporary misreadings of Augustine. Augustine himself thought that his teachings would only be “understood by a few”, and “no words of ours are capable of expressing” God. Numerous theologians suggest that Barth’s theology is ‘Augustinian’ in that Barth holds to the filioque, to the Sprit as the ‘bond of love’, to unity of operation, and to the terminological misgivings Augustine voices over ‘Person’. The greatest difference is that while Augustine finally retained the term ‘Person’, whereas Barth substitutes for it ‘mode of being’. However, this still attracts many criticisms and I think Barth’s wording does not really add that much more information to Augustine’s wording because no human language can fully describe God.

How we view the ‘bond of love’ has important implications for our doctrine of the Trinity. First is on the linkage between immanent Trinity and economic Trinity. If one is too modalist then God is loving himself, intra-trinitarian life is reflexive, rather than being reciprocal and mutual as between three correlative subjects. While “ecclesial communion should correspond to Trinitarian communion”, if we go too much on the social Trinitarian spectrum, we may lose sight of the ontological distinction between God and humans. It is important to be clear about our definition the ‘bond of love’ because it is easy to fall into the trap of the heresy of binity, quaternity or quintinity. Finally, this has important implications on our view of ecclesiology and missiology, where there is recognition of difference, but also a unity of purpose and harmony of mission enabled by the Spirit.

Bibliography:

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Ayres, Lewis. Augustine and the Trinity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics I.1 The Doctrine of the Word of God sections 8-12. Edited by G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance. London: T&T Clark, 2009.

Chung, Miyon. “An Introduction to the Pneumatologies of Karl Barth and Eberhard Jungel (Part 2).” Pneumatologies of Barth and Jungel. Accessed August 26, 2016. http://www.ttgst.ac.kr/upload/ttgst_resources13/20124-197.pdf

Cole, Graham A. He Who Gives Life: The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007.

Coffey, David. “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love of the Father and the Son.” Theological Studies 51 (1990): 193-229.

Fee, Gordon D. Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1996.

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Franke, John R. “God Is Love: The Social Trinity and the Mission of God.” In Trinitarian Theology for the Church, edited by Daniel J. Treier and David Lauber, 105-119. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009.

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Gunton, Colin. The Promise of Trinitarian Theology. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997.

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Molnar, Paul D. Faith, Freedom and the Spirit. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2015.

Molnar, Paul D. Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent trinity: In Dialogue with Karl Barth and Contemporary Theology. New York: T&T Clark, 2002.

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Reinhard, Kathryn L. Somebody to Love? “The Proprium of the Holy Spirit in Augustine’s Trinity.” Augustinian Studies 41 (2010): 351–373.

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[1]Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, The Trinity, Editor John E. Rotelle, (Brooklyn: New City Press, 1991), 418.

[2]Augustine, The Trinity, 419.

[3]Kathryn L. Reinhard, “Somebody to Love? The Proprium of the Holy Spirit in Augustine’s Trinity,” Augustinian Studies 41 (2010): 372.

[4]Neil Ormerod, The Trinity: Retrieving the Western Tradition (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2007), 11.

[5]Augustine, The Trinity, 418.

[6]Matthew Levering, “The Holy Spirit in the Trinitarian Communion: 'Love' and 'Gift'?” International Journal of Systematic Theology 16 (2014): 126.

[7]Levering, “The Holy Spirit,” 127.

[8]Levering, “The Holy Spirit,” 141.

[9]Levering, “The Holy Spirit,” 140.

[10]David Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love of the Father and the Son,” Theological Studies 51 (1990): 196.

[11]Levering, “The Holy Spirit,” 142.

[12]Lewis Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 57.

[13]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 196.

[14]Graham A. Cole, He Who Gives Life: The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007), 76. Filioque is a clause added to the Western version of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed saying that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son.

[15]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 201.

[16]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 198.

[17]Reinhard, “Somebody to Love?,” 362.

[18]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 198.

[19]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 198-199. Augustine wrote, “And if the love by which the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father ineffably demonstrates the communion of both, what is more suitable than that He should properly be called love who is the Spirit common to both?”

[20]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 220. The filioque is an outward-moving model of the Trinity: the procession of the Son out of the Father, then the procession of the Holy Spirit out of the Son and the Father. The mutual-love theory is an inward-moving model, where the Son moved out of the Father and is reclaimed by the Father's love and returns to Him in that love which he has now made his own. The mutual-love theory affirms the filioque.

[21]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 201.

[22]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 204.

[23]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 204.

[24]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 212.

[25]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 213.

[26]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 214.

[27]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 215.

[28]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 208.

[29]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 218.

[30]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 217.

[31]Coffey, “The Holy Spirit as the mutual love,” 219.

[32]Keith E. Johnson, Rethinking the Trinity & Religious Pluralism (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2011), 257.

[33]John R. Franke, “God Is Love: The Social Trinity and the Mission of God,” in Trinitarian Theology for the Church, ed. Daniel J. Treier and David Lauber (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 108. The creeds did not address how the three comprise one God. The Cappadocian fathers appropriated two Greek terms, ousia and hypostasis, theorising that God is one ousia (essence) but three hypostases (independent realities) who share the one essence. This opened the door for an ensuing debate that eventually led to a schism of the Eastern and Western churches.

[34]Reinhard, “Somebody to Love?,” 351.

[35]Clark H. Pinnock, Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 40. Binity=Father and Son plus a bond

[36]John Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church (New York: T&T Clark, 2006), 157.

[37]Mark Husbands, “The Trinity is not Our Social Program: Volf, Gregory of Nyssa and Barth,” in Trinitarian Theology for the Church, ed. Daniel J. Treier and David Lauber (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 139. Modalism=the Sabellian claim that Father, Son and Spirit are three modes of appearance.

[38]Barth Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics I.1 The Doctrine of the Word of God sections 8-12, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 194. 

[39]Johnson, Rethinking the Trinity, 257.

[40]Ormerod, The Trinity, 39.

[41]Bruce A. Ware, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, &Relevance (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2005), 138.

[42]Ware, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, 145.

[43]Ormerod, The Trinity, 13. Immanent Trinity is God in Godself, economic Trinity is God in relation to us.

[44]Johnson, Rethinking the Trinity, 87.

[45]Augustine, The Trinity, 196, 228. Book V &VII.

[46]Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics I.1 The Doctrine of the Word of God sections 8-12, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 61. 

[47]Kathryn L. Reinhard, “Somebody to Love? The Proprium of the Holy Spirit in Augustine’s Trinity,” Augustinian Studies 41 (2010): 352.

[48]Augustine, The Trinity, 189. “When we think about God the trinity we are aware that our thoughts are quite inadequate to their object, and incapable of grasping him as he is.” 1 Corinthians 13:12

[49]Ormerod, The Trinity, 36. Gunton thinks Augustine “found it difficult to believe that the material and sensible real could either truly real or the object or the vehicle of knowledge.”

[50]Ormerod, The Trinity, 37.

[51]Johnson, Rethinking the Trinity, 257.

[52]Ormerod, The Trinity, 43.

[53]Ormerod, The Trinity, 44.

[54]Johnson, Rethinking the Trinity, 257.

[55]Ormerod, The Trinity, 55.

[56]Miyon Chung, “An Introduction to the Pneumatologies of Karl Barth and Eberhard Jungel (Part 2),” Pneumatologies of Barth and Jungel, accessed August 26, 2016, http://www.ttgst.ac.kr/upload/ttgst_resources13/20124-197.pdf

[57]Johnson, Rethinking the Trinity, 27.

[58]Robert W. Jenson, “Karl Barth,” in The Modern Theologians: An Introduction to Christian Theology in the Twentieth Century, ed. David F. Ford (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1997), 32.

[59]Michael J. Ovey, “A private love? Karl Barth and the triune God,” in Engaging with Barth: Contemporary evangelical critiques, ed. David Gibson and Daniel Strange (Nottingham: Apollos, 2008), 213.

[60]Barth, Church Dogmatics I.1 The Doctrine of the Word of God sections 8-12, 192. 

[61]Ovey, “A private love?” 207.

[62]Barth, Church Dogmatics I.1 The Doctrine of the Word of God sections 8-12, 192. 

[63]Barth, Church Dogmatics I.1 The Doctrine of the Word of God sections 8-12, 194. 

[64]Ovey, “A private love?” 213.

[65]Barth, Church Dogmatics I.1 The Doctrine of the Word of God sections 8-12, 66.

[66]Barth, Church Dogmatics I.1 The Doctrine of the Word of God sections 8-12, 54-56.

[67]Barth, Church Dogmatics I.1 The Doctrine of the Word of God sections 8-12, 61. 

[68]Husbands, “The Trinity is not Our Social Program,” 120.

[69]Pinnock, Flame of Love, 35.

[70]Miroslav Volf, “Being as God Is: Trinity and Generosity,” in God’s Life in Trinity, edited by Miroslav Volf and Michael Welker (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 5-6.

[71]Husbands, “The Trinity is not Our Social Program,” 127.

[72]Husbands, “The Trinity is not Our Social Program,” 134.

[73]Barth, Church Dogmatics I.1 The Doctrine of the Word of God sections 8-12, 66. “Mode of being”= Seinsweise in German. 

[74]Husbands, “The Trinity is not Our Social Program,” 139.

[75]Husbands, “The Trinity is not Our Social Program,” 120.

[76]Johnson, Rethinking the Trinity, 88.

[77]Franke, “God Is Love,” 110.

[78]Ovey, “A private love?” 230.

[79]Ovey, “A private love?” 231.

[80]Catherine Mowry LaCugna, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 228.

[81]Husbands, “The Trinity is not Our Social Program,” 121.

[82]Paul D. Molnar, Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent trinity: In Dialogue with Karl Barth and Contemporary Theology (New York: T&T Clark, 2002), 128.

[83]Husbands, “The Trinity is not Our Social Program,” 121.

[84]Husbands, “The Trinity is not Our Social Program,” 140-141.

[85]Pinnock, Flame of Love, 40.

[86]Reinhard, “Somebody to Love?,” 354.

[87]Reinhard, “Somebody to Love?,” 356, 373. divine simplicity means that God’s attributes are

identical with God’s being. Augustine’s Trinitarian “grammar” for maintaining the paradox of simultaneous unity and multiplicity is that of divine simplicity.

[88]Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity, 70.

[89]Ayres, Augustine and the Trinity, 69.

[90]Ware, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, 103.

[91]Ware, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, 131.

[92]Reinhard, “Somebody to Love?,” 371.

[93]Augustine, The Trinity, 424.  

[94]Ware, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, 133.

[95]D.T. Williams, ““Bond of Love”: The Action of the Spirit,” Acta Theologica 34 (2014), 196.

[96]Ware, Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, 136.