The Vulnerability of the Spirit in Modern Trinitarian Theology

The paper considers the Holy Spirit of Paul’s letter to the Romans, who groans in “labor pains” with those who struggle to pray in their suffering until the glory of God is revealed in the life of creation, fully adopted in Christ (Rom 8:22–26). This image of “groaning” is considered within a constructive synopsis of two of St. Irenaeus of Lyon’s most prominent theologoumena from *Adversus Haereses* IV.20: the dyad of the Son and Holy Spirit as “the Father’s Two Hands” at work in the world; and his maxim, “The glory of God is the human being fully alive, and the fullness of life is the vision of God” (IV.20.7). The question of the paper is how these mutually related principles of God’s revelatory action and humanity’s response function when the path of faith is blinded by suffering and life is experienced as tragically less-than-full. The thesis is that the Spirit freely enters into a “vulnerability” in solidarity with the world that is analogous to the suffering Christ’s, which constructively enlarges the scope of Irenaeus’ two principles. Pursuing this thesis implicates the question of the status of the vivifying and deifying “glory of God” in the Spirit’s mutual vulnerability with a suffering creation.

The significance of this Irenaean project to the field of pneumatology lies in its systematic enhancement of modern conversations about the trinitarian “place” of the Spirit within the dynamics of human interaction with the triune God. Sergei Bulgakov speaks of a “kenosis of the Holy Spirit” that consists in its “condescension or adaptation, as it were, to creaturely inertia, infirmity, and opposition to His entry into the world” (*The Comforter*, 282–83). Hans Urs von Balthasar, for his part, writes: “the Spirit transforms from within our inadequate sighing …and gives it the power to become a plea that is—christologically—sufficient” (*Theo-Logic III*, 374–75). Does not the Spring itself take on, “as it were,” our very inadequacy in order to make this prayer effective in the way Balthasar posits? Does not the Spirit also subject itself to “grief” at the side of the griever who is momentarily blind of all hope? How might these questions be considered in light of the orthodox dogmatic tradition of God’s sovereign freedom?

“Through the Cross, joy has come to the world,” proclaims the post-Gospel hymn of the Byzantine Church at Matins, echoing Jesus’ promise of joy in John 16:20–22 to his soon-to-be persecuted disciples. In the paper, I will argue that the Spirit perfects the dimensions of Christ’s suffering as an event in the history of God with God’s people, that is, within the overarching narrative of what Balthasar calls Christ’s “ontological joy” in communion with the Father and Holy Spirit. Bulgakov and Balthasar have already argued much the same thing, but I wish to explore what appears as a condition of this mediation: the “ontological,” trinitarian joy that comes into the world through the Cross of Christ is to believers by the very vulnerability of the Holy Spirit in its solidarity with the world.

Sarah Coakley’s pneumatology of prayer in *God, Sexuality, and the Self* and Shelly Rambo’s “Middle Spirit” working in the life of Jesus’ traumatized disciples in *Spirit and Trauma* have raised the pastoral and dogmatic stakes for these questions of the Spirit’s vulnerability, pushing Bulgakov and Balthasar—and indeed, Irenaeus—further than they have yet been invited to go. The ecumenical nature of this project—which includes Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, and Methodist conversation partners—is inspired by Bulgakov’s and Coakley’s acute observations regarding the problematic history and the dialectically opposed theologies of the procession of the Holy Spirit in the *filioque* controversy. While subordinationist connotations might seem to modern eyes to be unavoidable in the Irenaean image of the Father having “two hands” in the Son and Spirit, Bulgakov and Balthasar have already demonstrated that pressing the image from the pneumatological direction is promising. With my argument, I hope to advance this development a bit further.