Christian Pneumatology as Public Theology:
The Work of the Spirit of God in the World
Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen
Introduction: In Search of a “World-Embracing” Spirit[ual] Experience[1]
One of the most exciting recent developments in ecumenical and international theology is an unprecedented rise of interest in the Holy Spirit. This renewed interest is visible on many arenas, from academic theology, to pastoral work, to personal search among the Christians.[2] And it is not only about the need to know more about the Spirit. In the words, of the Roman Catholic Elizabeth A. Dreyer, “[m]any Christians desire to encounter a Holy Spirit who brings new life to their spirits in the concrete circumstances of their lives and who renews the face of the earth as we enter the third millennium.” [3]
This deeper experience of the Spirit I am talking about here, however, is neither Classical Liberalism’s turn to subjective experience, nor Pietism’s desire for a inner spiritual experience in the soul of the believer. Instead, I wish to highlight the need and significance of an authentic, theologically sound experience of the Divine Spirit which leads us into a fuller and more comprehensive vision of the width and breath of the work of the Spirit of God in the world. As the late great German Reformed Jürgen Moltmann aptly put it: “By experience of the Spirit I mean an awareness of God in, with and beneath the experience of life, which gives us assurance of God’s fellowship, friendship and love.”[4] In fact, this kind of spiritual awareness can fittingly be named as a “world-embracing” experience of the Spirit of God. It aims at empowerment, energizing, and endowment for the work towards alleviating problems and challenges of our fractured world.
This world-embracing experience of the Spirit pushes us towards building bridges between those who believe differently, healing wounds between separated communities, and taking care of our environment. In Moltmann’s terminology, it is an experience of the Spirit of Life. Everything that promotes and facilitates life and opportunities and stand in resistance to all forces seeking to defeat life and potentialities is from the Spirit of Life.
The world-embracing experience of the Spirit takes its biblical cue from passages such as Psalm 139:7–12:[5]
7Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Can you see in this passage how boundless and “universal” the presence of the Spirit of God is in the world? There is no place where the Spirit cannot be found, no dimension of the universe absent the Spirit’s presence. The Holy Spirit is active and present everywhere—not only in spiritual life and church community but everywhere, literally everywhere! Modifying the immortal dictum of the nineteenth century Dutch Neo- Reformed theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper, the Spirit of God leaves “not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence” untouched.[6]
With this in mind, let me suggest for your consideration the proposal of this essay: Alongside personal Christian faith journey and the life of the church, the Spirit of God is actively at work in creation and workings of this immensely huge cosmos as well as in society and culture, including sciences, politics, economy, the arts, friendship, and more. Furthermore, the same Spirit dwells among spiritual powers and beings (such as angels and demons), and is not absent even among religions and their visions of the spirit(s). This essay’s main focus is the work of the Spirit of God in the society and its many platforms and processes.
The Public Spirit and Multilayered Pneumatology
Following the late German Reformed theologian Michael Welker, we may name the Holy Spirit as the “Public Spirit.” His God the Spirit presents a unique approach to the doctrine of the Spirit. On the basis of biblical materials he critiques “metaphysical,” “speculative,” or “abstract” pneumatologies in favor of a “concrete” and “realistic” view. God’s Spirit makes it possible to know the creative power of God, which brings the diversity of all that is creaturely into rich, fruitful, life-sustaining relations. For Welker, one of the main forms of the ministry of the Spirit is to work for liberation, whether of minorities, women, or the poor. [7]
While not using the same nomenclature or vocabulary, the late Lutheran Paul Tillich’s progressive pneumatology in his third volume of his Systematic Theology, programmatically titled as “Life and the Spirit” represents the same kind of world-embracing pneumatology. Therein, the Spirit’s role is remarkably wide and comprehensive. Differently from tradition, for Tillich pneumatology was not part of the doctrine of grace or ecclesiology but, rather, it occupied an important, separate place in dogmatics. Even the title itself, “Life and the Spirit”[8] gives a clue about the underlying vision. The Spirit of God is the life-giving principle that makes human life and the life of the whole creation meaningful and specific. His profound discussion expands and widens the Spirit’s horizon from an inorganic to organic to personal to ecclesiastical to all the dimensions of society—arts, culture, or politics.[9] In all of this, Tillich considers the meaning of “The Spiritual Presence” in human spirit, religion, culture, and morality, not to ignore Christology and the church!
Not only that! There is more to the story. Let me introduce another concept alongside the term world-embracing, namely “multilayered” pneumatology. These two concepts combined seek to paint the kind of “big” vision of the work of the Spirit of God that I am seeking for the sake of the religiously pluralistic and secular world of the third millennium. We are talking about the world-embracing and multilayered pneumatology!
Traditional Christian pneumatology limited itself mainly to topics such as the Trinity, revelation, salvation, spirituality, and some aspects of the church. That said, of course, it never totally ignored the Spirit’s many roles and energies in the world—just recall the many references to the Spirit’s work in creation in Luther’s exposition of the Book of Genesis or Jean Calvin’s similarly pneumatologically oriented account of the origins and workings of the world in his Institutes. But what I am saying is that the focus of the ministry of the Spirit was put on inner spirituality of the Christians and its manifestations in the church. The cosmic, societal, and other wider spheres of the influence of the Spirit were invoked only occasionally and only seldom made programmatic to the theological vision.
Now, without any way undermining the significance of this traditional approach, the reimagined pneumatology enables us to discern the presence and work of the Spirit of God beyond my own spirituality and the ministry of the church: Spirit in creation, the cosmos, the secular and religiously pluralistic world and society. While building on the rich and variegated pneumatological traditions in Christian history, this new account also sympathetically critiques, challenges, and expands the traditional understandings.
Let me hasten to note that by radically expanding the sphere of the work of the Spirit, I neither seek nor desire to blur the distinction between the Spirit of God—the Holy Spirit—and other spirits. Nor do I aim to compromise in any way the distinctive work of the Spirit in salvation and the church. On the contrary, driven by biblical passages such as Psalm 139 quoted above, I am eager to embrace to work of the Spirit both in the more traditional sense and in the more comprehensive sense.
Now, what exactly does the term world-embracing multilayered” vision of the Spirit mean? Unlike the traditional view of the Spirit that limits the work of the Spirit to the “spiritual,” the multilayered approach critically considers a multiplicity of layers, domains, or realms in which the Spirit is at work. Alongside the traditional topics of the Trinity, revelation, salvation, spirituality, and church, the multilayered account envisions the Spirit’s work in all aspects of the cosmos, creation, society, and human life. On top of that, it also seeks to discern the Spirit’s work in the church and in personal salvation in more comprehensive terms.
For heuristic purposes, we can outline the “layers” or domains of the work of the Spirit of the Triune God in the following manner. The Spirit of God is at work
- in creation, as the Spirit of Life, bringing about, nourishing, and enlivening creation, with an invitation into a careful engagement with natural sciences as well as with green-environmental efforts;
- in cosmos, as the Divine Spirit among other S/spirit(s), spiritual powers, and spiritual energies, with a call for a faithful and wise discernment of the spirits;
- among religions, as the Spirit of the Triune God among the S/pirit(s) of other religions, with the invitation into a mutually enriching comparative theological work;
- in the society, as the Public Spirit, in politics, economics, social structures, arts, and entertainment – in fact in every aspect of the society;
- in the church, as the Ecclesial Spirit, creating the Temple of the Spirit, a charismatically empowered, guided, sanctified, renewed, and unified community in the service of the world, including spiritual, diaconic, socio-political, and environmental tasks, and
- in personal salvation, as the Salvific Spirit, in all aspects of the ordo salutis, including not only the “spiritual” domain (election, new birth, sanctification, and so forth) but also mental-physical healing and charismatic endowment and gifting.
With this reimagined pneumatological vision in mind, the second main part of the presentation will provide some case-studies zooming in into those spheres of the Spirit which are likely most relevant for Public Pneumatology. Therein, I also seek to find some important connecting points with the Spirit in the Asian, including Korean, context—although that task is left primarily for my theological colleagues from that part of our globe. But before delving into that task, let me pause to ask briefly two very important questions. They have everything to do with the need and conditions of the transformation of pneumatology.
Interlude: Two Important Questions
The first question is simply this: Why is it that it has taken so long time for this world-embracing multilayered vision of the Spirit to emerge? Or, to put it otherwise: Are there any obstacles or hindrances which had to be removed in order for theology to let the Spirit blow as it wills?
My hunch is this: While many reasons may lie behind the more limited vision of the ministry of the Spirit, I suspect that there is one dominant reason and I wish to highlight it very briefly. Let me name it as the failure to negotiate properly the dynamic of continuity versus discontinuity in the work of the Spirit. Or, to be more precise: It is a problem of juxtaposing the principle of continuity and discontinuity in the Spirit’s work. Let me briefly explain it because I believe that recognizing it may help us grasp more deeply why a wider, more comprehensive pneumatology is needed.
One of the main reasons why theology has had a hard time in negotiating the dynamic of continuity and discontinuity in the Spirit’s work is simply this: Theological tradition tended to keep separate the ministry of the Spirit of God in the world—outside the church and Christian life—and the same Spirit’s ministry within the church and in salvation. To put it otherwise: the Spirit’s work in the “spiritual” realm was often radically separated from the same Spirit’s work in the “world.”
As a corrective, a dynamic mutuality has to be established. Without conflating the Divine and the human, we have to be able to hold together the deep and complex continuity between these mutually conditioning poles: The work of the Spirit of God in creation, providence, historical occurrences, and human experiences on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the same Spirit’s presence as a special gift of salvation in believers as well as the Spirit’s work in the reception of salvation and in the worship and sacraments a of the church. Here, the late German Lutheran Wolfhart Pannenberg is our guide:
God’s Spirit is not only active in human redemption as he teaches us to know the eternal Son of the Father in Jesus of Nazareth and moves our hearts to praise of God by faith, love, and hope. The Spirit is at work already in creation as God’s breath, the origin of all movement and all life, and only against this background of his activity as the Creator of all life can we rightly understand on the one hand his work in the ecstatics of human conscious life, and on the other hand his role in the bringing forth of the new life of the resurrection of the dead.[10]
This short and compact statement crystallizes the principle of the dynamic continuity-in-discontinuity and discontinuity-in-continuity. Downplaying the special salvific work of the Holy Spirit at the expense of highlighting only his ministry outside the church would be as disastrous as containing the sovereign Spirit within the walls of the Christian community.
Now, having briefly clarified the difficulties in the emergence of the new world-embracing vision, a follow-up question can be posed like this: But is this kind of turn to the Spirit feasible and desirable in modern academic research and in a world ruled by scientific worldview? My shorthand answer is that alongside openness to the Spirit, there is also a dire need to maintain and cultivate robust critical—or, what I like to call: post-critical—attitude. Let us look closer at the implications of this claim.
Throughout church history—and going back to biblical times and much before—the reality of the spirit-talk was taken seriously and as something factual. Not only that but it was also enthusiastically embraced in the society and culture even beyond the church and other religious institutions. But things changed dramatically following the 18th century Enlightenment and the rise of scientific worldview, particularly in the Global North but thereafter also elsewhere. The talk about the spiritual reality soon lost its credibility. The spirit-talk was made a mere function of imagination, and thus something fancy. Like speaking of a ghost! It can be called “natural cosmology” because all that there is, is nature and its physical, materialist causes.
Academic world, including also much of the theological academia, soon followed the suit. Not much room was left for talking about the reality of the Spirit or spirits. Beyond the physical, material, there is nothing real, nothing causal. And while things are more complicated than that in World Christianity—particularly in the Global South—the hegemony of this allegedly critical, “de-spirited,” approach is still dominant.
A question arises, then: is there any room for a newly conceived Public Pneumatology, a talk about the Spirit which has some real meaning to our lives and happenings in the world. My suggestion is: yes, there is. This proposed world-embracing, multilayered pneumatology is open to considering critically the reality of the various aspects of the spirit-world, as already detailed. It resists the “flattening of cosmology” to merely physical, material causes.
At the same time, I hasten to say loudly that by critiquing the Enlightenment-driven “secular” world-view, I am neither calling for a return to the pre-Enlightenment “non-critical” thinking nor am I undermining the immense benefits of the critical principle of modernity. We are deeply indebted to all benefits of Enlightenment’s critical thinking. Just think of medicine, science, and other spheres of modern life.
I am simply suggesting that we critique the premises of modernity, in this case the natural cosmology and its uncritical abandoning of all notions of the spiritual realities. I call it a post-critical approach. In other words: While embracing critical thinking, the theology of the Holy Spirit should not simply capitulate under the power of secular influence. This new constructive pneumatology should rather engage critically and sympathetically scientific, secular, and religiously pluralistic culture.
The Spirit in the Public Sphere
Now to some case-studies focused on the Spirit’s work in the world, particularly in the society, but also beyond. And while I am not competent to give any specific guidance to Asian theologians,[11] I can confidently affirm the applicability to most locations in Asia of the following statement concerning the role of the spirit(s) and spiritual sensibilities in the Chinese world
China is a religious state and Chinese society is a religious society. The religious dimension of Chinese society and the Chinese state being inseparable from each other, not taking that dimension into account makes it impossible to make sense of anything Chinese; the state, local society, history.[12]
My recent Fuller Seminary PhD graduate, now colleague, Dr. Chengwei (Jacob) Feng has explored the deep and multilayered spiritual, spirit(s)-driven cosmology, religiosity, and cultures in his native China throughout history in his monograph titled Spirit(s) and Chinese Religiosity: Retelling the History of Chinese Christianity from a Pentecost Perspective (2026).[13] Note that it is not a study of the Chinese Pentecostal movement—a topic worthy of investigation in its own right—but rather from the perspective of the Pentecost, the openness to, and experiences, of the spiritual dimensions of the world and life. With that in mind, I wonder why the Chinese-American Alexander Chow’s recent monograph titled, Chinese Public Theology: Generational Shifts and Confucian Imagination in Chinese Christianity (2018) does not have the “Holy Spirit” found even as an item in the index!
Yet, the spirit(s)-world is alive and well throughout Asia. Just think of other contexts beyond the diverse Chinese “worlds” such as Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, India, and many others: with the highest level of technological, scientific, and other intellectual achievements, the spiritual world is alive and well everywhere! If there ever was the European (and later: American) type of the Enlightenment, it never pushed out deep and wide embeddedness of the whole life of the society in religiosity, spirits, and spiritual experiences.[14]
With this spirit-sensitivity in mind, let us now offer some case-studies about the Divine Spirit’s work in the public sphere, beginning from the society at large and then more briefly zooming in on some specific topics, including creation and religions.
Spirit(s) in the Society
Recall the laments above concerning the restricting of the sphere of the Holy Spirit merely to the areas of personal spirituality and some aspects of church life. Over a decade ago, with a group of colleagues from Fuller Seminary and various glob/cal contexts, we initiated an exciting study and publication project about the Spirit’s role in the Public space. The project’s title was somewhat cumbersome: Interdisciplinary and Religio-Cultural Discourses on a Spirit-Filled World: Loosing the Spirits.[15] We wanted to know more and highlight testimonies about this exciting rediscovery about the widening scope of the Spirit’s ministry in the society. We investigated the Spirit’s work among others in
- arts and entertainment
- sciences
- ecology
- socio-political arena
- economy
- work and
- religions and secular ideologies.
In those reflections, we kept in mind the wise counsel and insights from Moltmann. Fittingly his groundbreaking pneumatology, a truly Public pneumatology, The Spirit of Life, has a subtitle (in original German): “A Holistic [or: Comprehensive] Pneumatology.” Moltmann sees the Spirit of God at work everywhere where there is promotion of life, growth, relationships, inclusivity, and reaching for one’s potential. Conversely, whatever destroys, eliminates, frustrates, and violates life is not from the Spirit of God. With Moltmann, we lamented the somewhat limited conception of the Spirit even in contemporary theologies. On the one hand, there is a tendency to relegate the Spirit’s movements within the walls of the church structures and, on the other hand, to limit the Spirit’s sphere of operation to the work of redemption alone. As important as those tasks are, they do no register all of the Almighty Divine Spirit’s ministry.
We also listened carefully to calls by some leading Asian female theologians such as the Korean-born Grace Ji-Sun Kim. She invited fellow theologians to consider current issues such as immigration and racism in terms of “get[ting] a glimpse of how a new pneumatology can emerge and address the issues of domination and imperialism in our context.”[16] According to Kim, we also need assistance and guidance from the Spirit of God in helping overcome societal, cultural, and religious misgivings and prejudices:
The Spirit is the heart and soul of Christian theology. While we are living in a period of great division and conflict, God’s Spirit can bring healing and hope. While we often make people who are different from us the Other, the scriptural vision calls us not to ignore and neglect the Other, but rather to embrace the Other. It is the power of the Spirit that opens our hearts to cross borders and embrace the Other.[17]
Related, as the American activist and public theologian, Prof. Peter Hetzel, a great advocate resisting racism, violence, and anti-immigration sentiment, put it succinctly: “Emerging holistic pneumatology understands the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of justice–making that energizes Christian missional movements to actively proclaim and embody Christ’s peaceable kingdom.”[18] This is in keeping with the keen observation of Michael Welker based on the Old Testament testimonies:
…the Spirit causes the people of Israel to come out of a situation of insecurity, fear, paralysis, and mere complaint. This happens by means of the persons upon whom the Spirit has come, and in concentration on these persons. In a situation of powerlessness, in a situation where it is to be expected that each individual person seek his or her welfare in flight, in a situation of perplexity and helplessness, the bearer of the Spirit—more precisely, God through the bearer of the Spirit—restores loyalty and a capacity for action among the people. This can, but it need not, move or even inspire people “to voluntary collaboration.”[19] .
And that is not all. Welker continues that “In all the early attestations to the experience of God’s Spirit, what is initially and immediately at issue is the restoration of an internal order, at least of new commitment, solidarity, and loyalty. The direct result of the descent of God’s Spirit is the gathering, the joining together of people who find themselves in distress.”[20]
From the so-called liberation theologians, we learned the importance for the church to boldly and prayerfully listen to the Spirit’s invitation to tackle the issues of poverty, marginalization, and other structural societal issues. We were taught that “earthly” liberation is not exclusive of “spiritual” transformation; the two belong together.[21] Rather than juxtaposing the divine and human dimensions, both are part of the Spirit’s domain. Theology and praxis, doctrine and practicing virtues belong together. The public role of the Spirit in liberation reminds us of the tight link between belief and action, doctrine and praxis — too often ignored in contemporary theology.[22]
The same Holy Spirit also works for peace and reconciliation. As the recent World Council of Churches International Ecumenical Peace Convention stated it programmatically: “We understand peace and peacemaking as an indispensable part of our common faith. Peace is inextricably related to the love, justice and freedom that God has granted to all human beings through Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit as a gift and vocation. It constitutes a pattern of life that reflects human participation in God’s love for the world.”[23]
This call for churches to participate in peace building is heightened by the sad observation that so far “Christianity has not been distinguished by its nonviolence for most of Christian history. Indeed, so-called Christian nations have gone to war readily over the centuries, more often than not with the blessing of their chaplains and archbishops.”[24] Highlighting the Spirit’s ministry in peace-building and reconciliation may be one of the biggest challenges—and opportunities—for the church global and church in Asia to give Christian testimony. This is a huge challenge as it relates not only to relations between adherents of different ethnic and tribal members but also to relations among churches.
As said, this turn to the socio-political aspects of the Spirit’s work, is not about leaving behind spirituality and the cultivation of Christian life. Not at all. It is rather, to cite an important book title by the South-American Catholic Liberationist, Jon Sobrino, living out a Spirituality of Liberation, which as the subtitle puts it, leads Toward Political Holiness.[25]
The cultivation of “political holiness” of the Spirit is even more important in the beginning of the third millennium’s tumultuous world with unending conflicts and tensions. Observes the Yale University theologian Miroslav Volf: “Fear, more than hope, is characteristic of our time. In the late 1960s, we were optimistic about the century’s hopes for the triumph of justice and something like universal peace, but that has given way to increasing pessimism. ‘No future’ scenarios have become plausible to us.” Coming from the war-stricken Croatia in former Yugoslavia, writing in 2020 during the beginning of the global pandemic, Volf hastened to remind us that uncertainty is far more than a function of a sudden global crisis:
But even before the pandemic, we feared more than we hoped. We feared and continue to fear falling behind as the gap widens between the ultra-rich and the rest who are condemned to run frantically just to stay in the same place yet often cannot prevent falling behind. We fear the collapse of the ecosystem straining under the burden of our ambitions, the revenge of nature for violence we perpetrate against it. We fear loss of cultural identities as the globe shrinks, and people, driven by war, ecological devastation, and deprivation, migrate to where they can survive and thrive.[26]
Facing these radical challenges, many Christians are asking whether the Christian church should attempt to be political or not? The answer to this legitimate question is simple: the “church is political by default even if it is not political on purpose”![27] There is no neutral place. For example, when the church remains silent about rampant injustice whether in the wider society or, as it also happens, within its own walls among various tribes or fractions, it is a political statement. Silent as it may be, it is heard over all. Or, when the church aligns itself with the rich and the powerful in order to gain merely earthly benefit is similarly a political move.
All that said, the church should exercise careful judgment in not being perceived as a representative of “party-politics,” that is, a naïve advocate of a particular political party. The church speaks from the platform of the Gospel, justice and fairness to all, rather than from short-sighted power dynamics. Just a quick look at the Christian Right’s alignment with conservative politics in the USA and many other global locations, provides a sorrowful and deplorable picture of what I am talking about. I dare not to say anything about the Asian context.
Now, what would be the implications and tasks to Korean and other South Asian contexts? What might be the “public space” in those particular contexts? What would “political holiness” mean in Asia? These are vital questions from theologians from diverse contexts of the greatest segment of World Christianity.
Spirit(s) in Creation and Among Sciences
Another widely and deeply public issue facing the Global Church in general and particularly the Asian Church is the relation to science and the scientific worldview. I fear that even today the great masses of Christians, and perhaps even some church ministers, in the diverse (South) Asian contexts live under the suspicion that religion and science are incompatible, even hostile, to each other. It is widely assumed that evolution and science speak totally different language. In case I am wrong about my assumption, I would be the first one to correct my false assumption. Sadly, my observation relates to too many global locations, astonishingly even to many contexts in the highly educated USA!
But, for the sake of this presentation, what on earth (pun intended!) does the Spirit of God have to do with the coming into existence and maintenance of this almost infinitely vast universe? God the Father as the Creator—Yes! God the Son, as the mediator of creation—Yes, likewise! But the Spirit? Very much indeed! Listen to what the theologian-philosopher Philip Clayton has to say about this: “Suppose for a moment that, as theists believe, an eternal divine Spirit really did create this cosmos. Suppose that it was God’s intent to produce beings capable of knowing God and working in harmony with the Spirit.”[28] Wouldn’t that be an invitation for a theological reflection on the role and work of the Spirit with regard to everything having to do with creation?
Happily, in recent times, we have come to a more robust appreciation of the Spirit’s creative role in the biblical record: The spirit is the life-bringing and life-sustaining energy of the Spirit of God in all creation (Gen. 1:2; Ps. 104:29, 30; etc.).[29] As Roman Catholic feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson notes, “of all the activities that theology attributes to the Spirit, the most significant is this: the Spirit is the creative origin of all life.”[30] Not that this is a novel theological insight. Just recall the delightful trinitarian testimony of Martin Luther in his exposition of the creation narrative in Genesis (1.2):
The Father creates heaven and earth out of nothing through the Son…Over these [created things] the Holy Spirit broods. As a hen broods her eggs, keeping them warm in order to hatch her chicks, and, as it were, to bring them to life through heat, so Scripture says that the Holy Spirit brooded, as it were, on the waters to bring to life those substances which were to be quickened and adorned. For it is the office of the Holy Spirit to make alive.[31]
In this light, it is understandable that the Spirit of God, the Creational Spirit, is also the life-spirit of all animal life, not only that of humanity. Although an ancient Judeo-Christian idea firmly anchored in the biblical witness, it has also been rediscovered in a new way in contemporary theolog. Just consider the title of a forthcoming book by an Australian Pentecostal theologian Daniela Rizzo, Animal Pneumatology. A Systematic Theological Inquiry into the Spirit’s Work in Non-Human Creatures.[32]
What makes the current rediscovery of the Spirit’s creative agency so significant in all of God’s creation is that it puts the whole ministry, role, and work of the Spirit in a robust cosmic, evolutionary, and scientific context. And at the same time, puts theology of creation into an integral dialogue with natural sciences—a distinctively public ministry of the Spirit! Just recall the passage from Psalm 139 quoted above!
Somewhat surprisingly, the biblical account of the Divine Spirit’s role as the one who brings about, enlivens, and maintains the life of this vast cosmos has helped theology connect the Spirit with current scientific accounts of evolution and life. The German Pentecostal theologian Wolfgang Vondey observes: “Post-Newtonian physics speaks of the physical universe in terms of such concepts as energy, radiation, magnetism, waves, and field theories. Recent theological investigations speak of the Holy Spirit in surprisingly similar terms, among them the notions of energy, radiation, space, force, field, and light.”[33] While the differences between scientific and religious explanations are radical and, in many ways, incommensurate, there might be an opening here for the expansion of pneumatological explorations.
Let me give you a well-known example from the Lutheran Pannenberg, who knew quite well what the difference between the biological-scientific and biblical-theological explanation of life is, also made every effort to find some correlation between the two. He famously argued that the biblical notion of “God as spirit” might have consonance with the current scientific view of life as the function of “spirit/energy/movement”; this is expressed in science with the concept of the (force) field.[34] In other words, he intuited the presence of God’s Spirit in terms of “a field of creative presence.”[35] That Pannenberg’s attempt has also been seriously critiqued by some scholars with degrees in both natural sciences and theology, in no way disqualifies his efforts.[36] By calling the Spirit “field,” he was employing a metaphor or analogy; it is not to be taken “literally.”
Alongside the engagement between science and religion, a holistic, multi-layered account of the creative Spirit also invites theologians to consider carefully environmental or “green” issues—another robustly public task. While hardly foreign to Christian tradition, neither have environmental issues been at the center of our theologies. In fact, among too many Christian communities, this common sense call for “green values” has rather resulted in endless political and ideological fights!
Referring back to our discussion about the need to properly negotiate the dynamic of continuity and discontinuity in pneumatology, it is understandable that theological tradition has often ended up divorcing the Divine from the earthly realities; if not for other reasons, then to protect the absolute transcendence of God. In the witty expression of the American religion scholar, Eugene F. Rogers Jr., “The Spirit, who in classical Christian discourse ‘pours out on all flesh,’ ha[d], in modern Christian discourse, floated free of bodies altogether.”[37] As a result,”the Spirit has grown dull because [it is] unembodied.”[38]
Such a removal of the S/spirit from the “earthly” is neither necessary nor useful. The most profound theological statement against divorcing the divine Spirit from creation and the physical is the Incarnation, a profound event of divine embodiment in earthly realities! We need to set aside for a moment our Western understanding of the term “spirit” as referring to something nonmaterial, the spirit(ual) in opposition to the material.[39] This echoes what Rogers means when he says that “the Spirit befriends matter.”[40] The biblical metaphors of the Spirit taken from nature gain a new meaning in this regard. Just consider breath, wind, water, fire, and so forth.[41] To speak of the ‘earthen spirit’[42] is not to undermine the divine uniqueness of the Spirit. Recall what the Church Father St. Athanasius said: “For no part of Creation is left void of Him: He has filled all things everywhere, remaining present with His own Father.”[43]
Dr. Chengwei Feng whose other work I mentioned above, titled his brilliant multidisciplinary dissertation as Science, Religion(s), and Spirit(s) in China: A Constructive Chinese Theology of Creation Based on Jingjiao’s ‘Qitological’ Theology.[44] Taking a lesson from the history of the entrance of Christianity to China, the book highlights the progressive engagement of the then China’s high-level scientific and philosophical work by the missionaries of the (Assyrian) Church of the East. It helped present Christian faith in a credible manner. The study “seeks to investigate the intertwined relationship between the earliest Chinese theology, science, and Daojiao 道教 (Religion of the Way, or religious Daoism) and to explore the role of the Holy Spirit in its theology of creation and its engagement with the ancient, scientific-techno and pluralistic China.” While blamed for Nestorianism—a mistaken charge in light of the most recent research—these 7th-9th century Jingjiao 景教 (Luminous Teaching, or Luminous Religion) Christian monks were fully versed in sciences, religions, and philosophy of the times. What an example of the significance of public pneumatology centuries before the nomenclature was invented!
So, I wonder what is the role of science-religion engagement in the theological education in various Asian contexts? How well are the ministers of the church equipped to prepare high school and university students to engage scientific challenges and opportunities in a constructive manner? Speaking more widely about World Christianity, I fear that the church’s incapacity to deal constructively with science-religion questions might be one of the leading reasons for losing the best minds among the youth and young adults particularly.
With these question in mind, let me again invoke late Pannenberg’s legacy. As traditional as he was in many ways in his theological work sharply focusing on precision, accuracy, and the command of the whole history of Christian tradition, in fact, he also turned out to be a public theologian. Why? Because of his insistence on the public nature of Christian truth, meaning that Christian claims to the truthfulness had to be tested in the area of public criticism and scrutiny. Therefore, he tirelessly urged the churches and theologians to for example engage science-religion dialogue, a major public issue all over the world.
Next, what about the role of the Holy Spirit among other religions, another pertinent public issue overall in Asia.
Spirit(s) Among Religions
As the Indian theologian Joseph Pathrapankal states, “Spirit (pneuma) is the basic datum of religious experience in all religions…Spirit is also one of the fundamental concepts in the history of philosophy.” Even more, the Spirit is “the foundational reality which makes possible for the humans to exercise their religious sense and elevate their self to the realm of the divine.”[45] That said, the Spirit’s role among religions, in other words, the relationship between Christian pneumatology and religions’ conceptions of the spirit-world has been wildly ignored theme in theology. Yet, it would be so important a topic for all Christians relating to people of other faiths. Almost without exception, living faiths, even in locations highly developed technologically and scientifically all over Asia, acknowledge the reality of Spirit(s), powers, and spiritual energies.[46]
The Korean-American theologian Koo D. Yun has discerned some interesting connections between the key Confucian concept of ch’i and the Holy Spirit.[47] The Chinese-Malaysian Amos Yong’s comparative work between the Mahayana Buddhist notion of Sunyata and the Christian concept of the Holy Spirit belongs to the same comparative genre.[48] Similarly, my former Japanese student, Dr. Naoki Inoue has highlighted both similarities and differences between the Shintoist and Buddhist pantheistic traditions of his homeland and some panentheistic Christian pneumatologies.[49] This means that there is a slowly growing tradition of exchanges between Christian and other pneumatologies.
Hence, the inclusion of the topic of pneumatology for interfaith encounter in the pluralistic world requires no justification. But how to proceed in this comparative work demands some methodological reflection. In fact, in the encounter with Asian traditions the first major task is to inquire whether the talk about the Divine Spirit even makes sense! Be that as it may, comparative theology has to tend to particularities and details. Hence, each particular encounter—say between Christians and Confucians or Christians and Buddhists in China—has to be conducted as much as possible according to the unique features of the parties involved. Highlighting differences is as important as potential convergences.
My current Chinese doctoral student Xiaowen (Joy) Jiang is digging into this question with her dissertation. It is titled as “Chinese Qi and Christian Trinity: A Comparative Study of Zhang Zai’s Qi Theory and Jürgen Moltmann’s Concept of Perichoresis.” The study seeks to compare and contrast Moltmann’s understanding of God as Triune, particularly with regard to the Holy Spirit, and the foundational neo-Confucian theory of qi from the Northern Song Dynasty. Departing from Confucianism’s traditional focus on ethics as well as rejecting Buddhism’s emphasis on emptiness and Daoism’s focus on the formless Dao, Zhang Zai founded the neo-Confucian Qi theory. He proposed that the universe originates from Qi through the aggregation and dispersion. This is encapsulated in his doctrine “The Great Void is Qi,” the vital force constituting all existence.
These are but a few examples of need and promise of widening the domain of pneumatology to embrace the public sphere. While other areas—in fact, as the previous discussion has indicated, many more areas—could be added to the list of case-studies. Enough said for the purposes of this essay.
An Epilogue
Over against suspicions about the private and merely “spiritual” nature of Christian pneumatology, the discussion has established also the public sphere of the work of the Spirit of God. While in no way undermining—let alone competing with—the more traditional approach in which the spiritual experience is conceived of in more pietistic and personalist terms, Public Pneumatology seeks to offer a robust surplus in highlighting the many other arenas of Spirit’s ministry.
While still an emerging paradigm, Christian Pneumatology as Public Theology, is also stirring up enthusiastic investigation and exploration. In fact, seeking to discern what the Spirit of God is doing in the world sets theology and the church at the beginning of an exciting path. New discoveries, new challenges, new potentialities await.
While not explicitly discussed in this essay, the continuing search for Public Pneumatology needs healthy trinitarian controls in order to be fully rooted in Christian foundations. Namely, not every spirit is necessary from God and not every work attributed to the S/spirit(s) derives from the Triune God. Hence, a burning task for contemporary is also the discernment of the spirit(s), ancient task but now in a changed pluralistic and diverse world.
All that said, the Spirit, the infinite God, is not an object to be studied as much the Spirit is also the One studying us, as it were. As the great Roman Catholic pneumatologist of a former generation Hans Urs von Balthasar reminded us, “The Spirit is breath, not a full outline, and therefore he wishes only to breathe through us, not to present himself to us as an object; he does not wish to be seen but to be the seeing eye of grace in us…He is the light that cannot be seen except upon the object that is lit up.”[50]
[1] The outline and main content of the essay is based on my recent presentation: “The Spirit of God in the Public Space: Christian Pneumatology as Public Theology,” Annual Lecture at the Lutheran Theological Seminary, Hong Kong, Oct 17, 2025. I have kept references to a minimum because meticulous documentation can be found in the following publications: Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, “Spirit(s) in Contemporary Christian Theology: An Interim Report of the Unbinding of Pneumatology,” in Interdisciplinary and Religio-Cultural Discourses on a Spirit-Filled World, ed. Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Kirsteen Kim, and Amos Yong (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 29–40; Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, “Part I: Spirit,” in Spirit and Salvation: A Constructive Christian Theology for the Pluralistic World, vol. 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2016); Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, “Discerning the Holy Spirit in the World of Religious Pluralism(s), Secularism(s), and Science(s): A Multilayered Constructive Christian Vision of Pneumatology for the Third Millennium,” Journal of World Christianity 14:1 (2024): 1–24.
[2] As surveyed and documented in Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Pneumatology. The Holy Spirit in Ecumenical, International, and Contextual Perspectives, 2nd rev. ed.(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic Books, 2018), chap. 1.
[3]Elizabeth A. Dreyer, “An Advent of the Spirit: Medieval Mystics and Saints,” in Advents of the Spirit: An Introduction to the Current Study of Pneumatology, ed. Bradford E. Hinze and D. Lyle Dabney (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2001), 123.
[4]. Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, trans. Margaret Kohl(Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001 [1993]), 17.
[5] Unless otherwise noted, biblical citations come from the New International Version (NIV).
[6] Abraham Kuyper, Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, ed. James D. Bratt (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 488.
[7] Michael Welker, God the Spirit, trans. John F. Hoffmeyer (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994)
[8] Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 3 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 11–294.
[9] Tillich, Systematic Theology, 3:14–15.
[10] Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, vol. 3, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 1.
[11] I am not totally stranger to one Asian context, namely Thailand, the heart of South East Asia, having taught theology and lived with my family in Bangkok, including acquiring proficiency in Thai language to the point of using it as my primary work language. That said, even regarding that specific context of the huge and unbelievably diverse Asian context, my observations are that of an outsider and “student” of culture, religions, and society.
[12] John Lagerwey, Le continent des esprits: la Chine dans le miroir du Taoisme (Brussels: La Renaissance du Livre, 2010, 1); translation from French in Jacob Chengwei Feng, Spirit(s) and Chinese Religiosity: Retelling the History of Chinese Christianity from a Pentecost Perspective (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2025 forthcoming), 18.
[13] Jacob Chengwei Feng, Spirit(S) and Chinese Religiosity: Retelling the History of Chinese Christianity from a Pentecost Perspective. Christianity and Renewal – Interdisciplinary Studies, ed. Wolfgang Vondey and Amos Yong (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2026).
[14] A brilliant recent study focused on the Thai context is Sven Trakulhun, Confronting Christianity: The Protestant Mission and the Buddhist Reform Movement in Nineteenth-Century Thailand (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2024).
[15] Interdisciplinary and Religio-Cultural Discourses on a Spirit-Filled World: Loosing the Spirits, eds., Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Kirsteen Kim, & Amos Yong (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
[16] Grace Ji-Sun Kim, The Holy Spirit, Chi, and the Other: A Model of Global and Intercultural Pneumatology (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 2.
[17] Grace Ji-Sun Kim, Embracing the Other: The Transformative Spirit of Love (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015).
[18] Peter Goodwin Heltzel, “The Holy Spirit of Justice,” in The Justice Project, ed. Brian McLaren et al. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009), pp. 44-50.
[19] Welker, God the Spirit, 56.
[20] Welker, God the Spirit, 57. Known for his untiring call for public nature of pneumatology over against its privatization, even Pannenberg—in many ways traditional theologian slow to endorse the church’s role in public sphere, however, turned out to represent public pneumatology of a sort. See the recent study by my former Korean-American student, now Dr. Jae Yang, Christianity Outside the Church: Pannenberg’s Public Theology in Dialogue with Max Stackhouse (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2024).
[21]. Jose Comblin, Holy Spirit and Liberation, trans. Paul Burns (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 198931.
[22]. See Reinhard Hütter, Suffering the Divine Things. Theology as Church Practice, no trans. (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2000).
[23]. World Council of Churches, “Glory to God and Peace on Earth.” The Message of the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation (2011) at http://www.overcomingviolence.org/en/resources-dov/wcc-resources/documents/presentations-speeches-messages/iepc-message.html (accessed 9/24/2025)
[24]. Ross Langmead, “Transformed Relationships: Reconciliation as the Central Model for Mission,” Mission Studies 25 (2008): 12.
[25] Jon Sobrino, Spirituality of Liberation: Toward Political Holiness (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1988), 49.
[26] Miroslav Volf, “Theologies of Hope,” Reflections (Fall 2020), Yale Divinity School at https://reflections.yale.edu/article/seeking-light-notes-hope/theologies-hope (accessed 1/17/2025)
[27]. Catherine Keller, Michael Nausner, amd Mayra Rivera, “Introduction,” p. 5 in Postcolonial Theologies. Empire and Divine, eds. Keller, Nausner, and Rivera (St. Louis, MS: Chalice Press, 2004).
[28] Philip C. Clayton, “The Spirit in Evolution and in Nature,” in Interdisciplinary and Religio-Cultural Discourses on a Spirit-Filled World, ed. Kärkkäinen et al., 187. For highly innovative contributions to what might be called “creational pneumatology,” see Amos Yong, The Spirit of Creation: Modern Science and Divine Action in the Pentecostal-Charismatic Imagination (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011); Science and the Spirit: A Pentecostal Engagement with the Sciences, ed. James K. Smith and Amos Yong (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010).
[29] Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God, trans. Margaret Kohl (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1993), 9–13 (9).
[30] Elizabeth A. Johnson, Women, Earth and Creator Spirit (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1993), 42.
[31] Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis 1–5, vol. 1 of Luther’s Works, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2002), 9.
[32] Daniela Rizzo, Animal Pneumatology. A Systematic Theological Inquiry into the Spirit’s Work in Non-Human Creatures (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2026 forthcoming).
[33] Wolfgang Vondey, “The Holy Spirit and the Physical Universe: The Impact of Scientific Paradigm Shifts on Contemporary Pneumatology,” Theological Studies 70 (2009): 4.
[34] Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, vol. 2, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994), 79–84.
[35] Wolfhart Pannenberg, An Introduction to Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), 49.
[36] The typical concerns among scientists and theologians have to do with the wisdom of using the pre-Einsteinian and pre-quantum theory of Faraday rather than any of the contemporary ones; the failure to identify which of the many existing field theories Pannenberg invokes; and, most importantly, the ambiguity about whether he uses them analogically or as a way of (virtual) identification of field and Spirit of God (as seems to be the case at least in his pneumatologically-driven theology of angels). See, for example, John Polkinghorne, “Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Engagement with the Natural Sciences,” Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 34, no. 1 (1999): 151–158.
[37] Eugene F. Rogers Jr., After the Spirit: A Constructive Pneumatology from Resources Outside the Modern West (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), 1.
[38] Rogers, After the Spirit, 3. See also my former Korean student, now Dr. Jongseock (James) Shin’s, Natural and Cosmic Theodicy:A Trinitarian Panentheistic Vision (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2022). It “presents a third way to envision the Creatorship of the Triune God who is both compassionate and eschatologically redemptive in providential presence, rather than biasedly gravitating toward the openness of a self-limiting God or God’s all-determining sovereignty. Not only is God in, with, and under creation, God’s kenotic presence invites creatures to participate in the self-giving love of God through both general and special divine action in a top-down-through-bottom-up mode.” (From the back cover)
[39] Moltmann, Spirit of Life, 40.
[40] Rogers, After the Spirit, 55.
[41] See Mark I. Wallace, Fragments of the Spirit: Nature, Violence, and the Renewal of Creation (New York: Continuum, 1996), 4–5.
[42] See Mark I. Wallace, ‘Christian Animism, Green Spirit Theology, and the Global Crisis Today’, in Interdisciplinary and Religio-Cultural Discourses on a Spirit-Filled World: Loosing the Spirits, ed. Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Kirsteen Kim, and Amos Yong (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 197–212.
[43] Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word 8.1; NPNF2, vol. 4, p. 40.
[44] Jacob Chengwei Feng, Science, Religion(s), and Spirit(s) in China: A Constructive Chinese Theology of Creation Based on Jingjiao’s Qi-Tological Theology of Creation (Boston: Brill, 2025),
[45] Joseph Pathrapankal, “Editorial,” Journal of Dharma XXIII:3 (1998): 299 [299–302].
[46] Tony Richie, “Demonization, Discernment, and Deliverance in Interreligious Encounters” in Interdisciplinary and Religio-Cultural Discourses on a Spirit-Filled World, ed. Kärkkäinen et al., Chap. 12
[47] Koo D. Yun, The Holy Spirit and Ch’i (Qi): A Chiological Approach to Pneumatology, Princeton Theological Monograph Series (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2012). What is remarkable is that it seems as if Chi is a “universal concept” among cultures and religions, whether it is so called or not. See Nkem L. Emeghara, “The Igbo Concept of Chi: The Destiny Spirit,” Journal of Dharma XXIII:3 (1998): 399–405.
[48] Amos Yong, Pneumatology and the Christian-Buddhist Dialogue: Does the Spirit Blow through the Middle Way? Studies in Systematic Theology 11 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012).
[49] Naoki Inoue, “Spirit and Spirits in Pantheistic Shintoism: A Critical Dialogue with Christian Panentheism,” in Interdisciplinary and Religio-Cultural Discourses on a Spirit-Filled World,ed. Kärkkäinen and Kim & Yong, 55–70.
[50] Hans Urs von Balthasar, Explorations in Theology, vol. 3, Creator Spirit, trans. Brian McNeil, C.R.V. (1967; reprint, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993), 111.