Abstract
Matthew Levering’s study is a carefully crafted account of pneumatology that aims to show the value of the divine names ‘Love’ and ‘Gift’ for illuminating the Holy Spirit’s eternal procession and temporal mission.
The book’s argument can be laid out simply. After an introductory sketch of various aspects of approaching pneumatology, chapter 1 surveys Augustine’s naming of the Spirit in order to note the ‘web of scriptural texts’ that witness to the Spirit’s coming with ‘Love’ and ‘Gift’ (p. 69). Next, Levering offers a presentation of the pneumatological thought of ancient and modern theologians. But it is Levering’s sustained interaction with Aquinas’s teaching on the Spirit in the Summa theologiae that bears much fruit in chapter 2, particularly in his insistence that Aquinas’s approach to the Spirit as ‘Love’ and ‘Gift’ has seminally influenced the West. Continuing this theme in chapter 3, Levering explores the filioque within Aquinas’s treatment in the Summa. This is further clarified in engaging the criticisms of Aquinas by the Russian orthodox theologians, Lossky and Bulgakov. Chapter 4 turns to more exegetical matters as Levering highlights James Dunn’s notion of ‘Jesus’s awareness of the eschatological Spirit’ (p. 187). Staying with this theme, chapter 5 treats the current debates of several contemporary NT scholars regarding the immanent/imminent arrival of the kingdom. Such scholarship, Levering argues, misjudges the fact that if ‘the Spirit was truly poured out upon the early Christians, then the vision of Jesus the eschatological prophet has indeed come to pass’ (p. 264). The final two chapters find Levering remaining with Aquinas regarding questions of the church’s unity and holiness. To the former, Levering states that the Spirit’s unifying work in the church ‘does not undermine an appreciation for multiplicity’ (p. 283). In the latter sense, concerning the holiness of the church, Levering incorporates several Reformed views and ancient views and concludes that the church is ‘truly holy’ as it is a ‘testimony to the ongoing outpouring of the eschatological Spirit of Christ in his body’ (p. 357).
This is a book thoroughly conversant with its topic. Unlike many approaches to the subject of the divine names, Levering does not outpace the necessary dogmatic particulars of the argument. Indeed, the reader gets the sense that Levering, guided by Aquinas, seeks to respect the profound mystery of the Spirit, while at the same time noting that the names ‘Love’ and ‘Gift’ offer ‘fruitful insight into the distinctiveness’ of the third person of the Trinity (pp. 110–1). The study might have been improved by standing back from the theological detail and displaying the author’s wider understanding of the use of analogies in describing the trinitarian persons. On the whole, however, this is a worthy addition to works on pneumatology that merits diligent reading.