The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation.

The original German subtitle of Jurgen Moltmann's book promises "A Holistic Pneumatology," that is, a comprehensive theology of the Holy Spirit that overcomes the difficulties and deficiencies of earlier treatments of the doctrine. The brief introduction encourages those expectations by sketching the origins of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the early church and presenting the major points of controversy it has engendered in its long history. In particular, Moltmann stresses the filioque (the addition by the Western church of the phrase "and the Son" to the Nicene Creed's affirmation that the Spirit "proceeds from the Father"), which provided the official rationale for the separation of Eastern Orthodox Christians from the West. The introduction also comments critically on the work of several twentieth-century theologians, including Karl Barth and Hendrik Berkhof on the Protestant side, and Karl Rahner and Heribert Muhlen among Roman Catholics.

The promise of the introduction "to develop a trinitarian pneumatology out of the experience and theology of the Holy Spirit" is fulfilled only partially and haphazardly. Having identified major shortcomings in earlier theologians, Moltmann fails to follow through with careful analysis and criticism of their work. The omission is particularly egregious in the case of Barth, Moltmann's own teacher and the twentieth-century theologian who has done the most to revive theological interest in the Holy Spirit.

Moltmann's cavil at Barth--that he sets up an "antithesis between revelation and experience," thereby replacing "the theological immanentism which he complained about by a theological transcendentalism"--contains a clue to the central motivation, and the central shortcoming, of The Spirit of Life. Moltmann wants to recover the immediate experience of the Spirit, including its relation to the body and to nature, which has been obscured by the "continuing Platonization of Christianity." His attempt to establish a theology of experience in explicit contrast to a theology of revelation falls into the very errors that Barth argued so persuasively against in the theological liberalism of an earlier generation. Not only does he offer no answer to Barth, but he also ignores George Lindbeck's more recent critique of "experiential expressivism" in theology, and Wayne Proudfoot's penetrating philosophical demonstration of the problematic nature of all appeals to "experience" as evidence for truth claims (Religious Experience, 1985). Proceeding in a manner reminiscent of Paul Tillich, or of the early work of David Tracy (whom he does not mention), Moltmann looks to various "dimensions of experience" for signs of God. He discovers that it is "still possible to talk about the experience of God...in the nonobjective context of human experience of the self," the same ground so amply, and I think fruitlessly, plowed by theologians from Schleiermacher to Bultmann.

His discussion of biblical experience of the Spirit yields richer results, especially concerning the relations between the Spirit and the Son in trinitarian theology. The relation of biblical experience to the preceding argument from general experience is, however, never clarified. Moltmann's desire to do cultural theology based on certain liberal premises about the nature of reliable knowledge competes awkwardly with the biblical theology he learned from Barth. The result is an unsatisfactory juxtaposition of apparently incompatible theological methods. In short, if common human experience gives access to God, why should we look to the Bible? But if the Bible does indeed witness to the unique self-revelation of God, what reason could we have for turning to a general experience unformed by Scripture?

Despite the uneven nature of the book as a whole, The Spirit of Life contains some ideas that deserve a heating. At several points, especially in the final chapter, Moltmann contributes to ecumenical discussion through a careful analysis of thefilioque both in historical terms and in relation to contemporary discussions with Eastern Orthodoxy. Even readers who are not convinced by his argument that the filioque "is superfluous, not required, and...can consequently be struck out" will profit from his discussion of the issues. It is no coincidence that Moltmann holds the ecumenical movement to be "without doubt the most important Christian event of the twentieth century."

Also interesting and valuable is another of Moltmann's long-standing theological concems: mystical theology, including the issues of action, meditation, and contemplation. Though it lacks integration into the larger task of the book, Moltmann's appreciative consideration of mystics such as Meister Eckhart and John of the Cross contains useful insights. In a theologian so prominently identified with political and liberation theology, this attention to the mystics is noteworthy. Moltmann clearly finds them compatible, as evidenced by his striking aside that "today prison is a very special place for the Christian experience of God."

One of the unfortunate by-products of the German university system is the endless stream of books by senior professors who rush the manuscripts of their lectures into print, often without the requisite deliberation, revision, and condensation. The result is all too often repetitive and loosely written books like this one. Readers with sufficient patience will nevertheless discover some gold among the dross: one finds passages in The Spirit of Life worthy of the early Moltmann, who so greatly influenced theological discussion a generation ago with such exemplary books as Theology of Hope (1967) and The Crucified God (1974).