Clark Pinnock's Flame of Love

Book Review: Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit

Alejandro Gonzaga

April 21, 2018

THEO 546

Clark Pinnock (February 3, 1937—August 15, 2010) was Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology at McMaster Divinity College and explored varying schools of theological thought before his death. He tackles the difficult subject of pneumatology in The Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit. From his introduction, Pinnock reveals his bias against a purely-scriptural theology, and instead declares that he will “provide the full perspective required by the church” by moving “beyond exegesis”[1]. Pinnock attempts to reconstruct the Gospel in order to make it more attractive to men, but only succeeds in diminishing the glory of God.

Pinnock begins his introduction with a prayer that asks, “Help us to overcome our forgetfulness of Spirit” [2]. Pinnock distinguishes between three different theological traditions and says that “in both Catholic and Protestant theology the place of the Spirit has surely been diminished”[3]. He says this because Western traditions neglect the experiential side of the Spirit. This point cannot be overstated. In his introduction, Pinnock states repeatedly that his book will forego a scriptural basis for pneumatology and strive to discover what other avenues have to say about the Holy Spirit. Pinnock alludes to finding a “more experiential basis for the doctrine of the Spirit”[4]. He wants to not only use Scripture, but “insights from the ecumenical church”. He says that we have to be “sensitive to things that are only spiritually discerned” as opposed to scripturally discerned[5]. He believes that “knowing the Spirit is experiential”[6]. Finally, as to drive the point home that Scripture is insufficient for his task, Pinnock says, “Exegesis alone cannot provide the full perspective required by the church. There has to be a wider sweep of investigation that takes into account other dimensions—historical, theological, philosophical, cultural, and mystical.”[7]

Pinnock aims to examine “the Christian vision from the vantage point of the Spirit”[8]. His book explores this through seven chapters:

• 1.       Spirit and Trinity
• 2.       Spirit in Creation
• 3.       Spirit and Christology
• 4.       Spirit and Church
• 5.       Spirit and Union
• 6.       Spirit and Universality
• 7.       Spirit and Truth

Chapter 1 covers the Holy Spirit in his relationship with God and Christ in the Trinity. Chapter 2 covers the Holy Spirit as Lord and Giver of Life. Chapter 3 explores how the Holy Spirit “anointed Jesus of Nazareth to heal human brokenness”. Chapter 4 dives into the presence and activities of the Spirit in the Church. Chapter 5 examines the goal of salvation, living in union with God through the Holy Spirit. Chapter 6 explains how God desires all men to be saved and the Holy Spirit is “present with every person in every place”[9]. Finally, in chapter 7, Pinnock explains how the Spirit leads the church in its mission to spread the Gospel.

If the Gospel tells us that God sent his Son to earth to save us from his wrath, then Pinnock has written this book to rewrite this Gospel. Pinnock consciously moves the focus of the Gospel away from God’s glory and directly towards man’s dignity. God’s love for man, and not God’s glory, is the central theme of Pinnock’s Gospel. In Chapter 2, instead of acknowledging God’s power to create conscious, living, thinking humans, Pinnock attributes the existence of humanity to evolution. He says, “The orderliness of the world is amazing—especially the capacity of nature [emphasis added] to produce living, conscious, personal beings.”[10] While the psalmist believes that the purpose of creation is to “declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19.1), Pinnock says that “theology declares that humanity is the goal of creation”[11]. In Chapter 3, Pinnock attempts to remove God’s wrath from the Gospel. He claims that the satisfaction of God’s wrath on the cross is “strange” and that God does not actually hate sinners and is not humanity’s enemy[12], but we know this is false (Prov 6.16-19; Romans 5.10). In attempting to state that the Gospel does not preach individual guilt under God’s law, Pinnock uses Philippians 3.6 to say that “Paul did not have a guilty conscience”[13]. This is a blatant distortion. Paul intends to say that if he were to be judged superficially by the Old Testament law, he would be guiltless, but regardless, his so-called perfection under the law does not matter in view of living for Christ. Pinnock often takes scripture intended only for believers and applies it to everyone. He says that “humanity is not destined for wrath, but for salvation”[14] (1 Thess 5.9). Chapter 6 is dedicated completely to asserting that the Holy Spirit is present everywhere, working salvation in men who do not hear and do not respond to the Gospel. He says, God “is the reconciler of the whole world” and “there is no general revelation or natural knowledge of God that is not at the same time gracious revelation and a potentially saving knowledge.”[15] Despite appearing to avoid claims of universalism, Pinnock plainly states that “Spirit works everywhere in advance of the church’s mission,”[16] and that even if someone is not a Christian, they are saved.[17] Pinnock’s aims to preach universalism and declare that everyone will eventually be saved.

Pinnock slants this book heavily toward a glossy view of humanity, and for this reason and others, I cannot in any way recommend it. Humanity is infected with sin and that to the core. We are dead in it and enemies of God. God’s is rightfully angry with us. Scripture teaches that we are sinners by nature and not by a conscious and completely “free” choice. If anyone is to be saved, God must save them, yet he does not save everyone. God remains perfectly justified in saving some but not all, for grace is elective, but wrath is obligatory. Pinnock desperately strives to rebuild the dignity and freedom that Adam and Eve had before the Fall, but he must completely shipwreck scriptural teaching in order to do so. Pinnock is not committed to scripture, but to his opinion, and for this reason, his book fails as theology.

---

[1] Clark Pinnock, Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Downers Grove, IL: Zondervan, 1996), page 17.

[2] Ibid, 9.

[3] Ibid, 10.

[4] Ibid, 10.

[5] Ibid, 13.

[6] Ibid, 15.

[7] Ibid, 17.

[8] Ibid, 18.

[9] Ibid, 18.

[10] Ibid, 67.

[11] Ibid, 71.

[12] Ibid, 107.

[13] Ibid, 156.

[14] Ibid, 109

[15] Ibid, 187.

[16] Ibid, 192.

[17] Ibid, 194.

more about you know what

the catholic church claims that truth lies in itself. truth is not in scripture, not in God's revelation, not from the holy spirit, but primarily from the church. they first of all claim that scripture is a creation of the church. therefore they change scripture, rewrite it, add or remove from it whenever and however they like. scripture is not the only means of God's revelation. it is written by men.
the church does this because they desire to centralize power, like any human institution. why do you think God has allowed the protestant church to splinter into a thousand different denominations? because a single denomination has power, and power desires to maintain and increase power. centralization brings wealth and unity, but in the case of the catholic church, the unity is not created nor maintained by the spirit, but by the organization itself. think about the world religions. is any so fractured as the protestant church? God allows this for a reason

Arminianism

Pride sits as the core of the Arminian gospel. Pride is the desire to understand God, his ways, his purposes, and his desires in spite of what scripture reveals. Whatever we comprehend we have power over. This is what their false gospel seeks: power over the almighty.
"I will send a deceiving influence." Does God lie? Does he deceive? No. He sends judgment. He removes the possibility of repentance. How fits this into "free will"? It does not. God judges now and he  judges before all creation. He determines or fate because he is God.  This arbitrary consignment to one side of eternity or that other baffles us. He is not comprehended by us. Would you remove scripture? Would you say it does not mean what it clearly declares? Feel free, but do not claim to minister the gospel of Christ.

The Fear of God

Fear is fear. The word means fear. We know what fear is. Yes, fear is reverence. That's the easy part. Let's talk about the hard part.
"It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Why would the author of Hebrews say this? Fear is reverence but it is also terror.
Terror is what is unknown, inconceivable, unnatural. The incomprehensible terrifies us. God is incomprehensible. He is far beyond anything and everything that we conceive or create. Terror also threatens us, not with mere harm or common peril or even death. Terror threatens us with uncommon destruction. Terror threatens us with a lasting trauma that affects us deeply and to our core. It causes us to question everything that we have built our identity on. Terror exposes us for the conceited, egotistical cowards that we are. Terror burns us down to ash. God is terrifying, for he passionately hates the sinner.  Outside of Christ, God threatens us with eternal, agonizing, burning destruction. Do not merely revere him. Fear him.

The Hate of God

"God loves everyone"
Think about it. God loves Jesus and Abraham and Paul and you and me. God also loves Satan and Hitler and murderers and child molesters and rapists and so on and so on.
What kind of weak, two-dimensional, loser, no-standard-of-right-or-wrong coward loves everyone the same?
"Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
"For forty years I loathed that generation"
God is not holy if God does not hate, not merely the sin,  but the sinner. Sin is an abstract; it is a phantom that deserves contempt and scorn. It does not warrant our slightest attention. It is corruption and decay and death. However the sinner... The sinner gives himself to this corruption. He willfully surrenders to the destruction and death that sin brings. He celebrates it. He promotes it and he delights in it. He happily takes what has been given for his and for others' benefit and he uses it to kill, to maim, to poison, to molest and to destroy.
Yes. God hates the sinner or he is not God.

an essay on theodicy

Atheist William Rowe presents his evidence for not believing in God in “The Evidential Argument from Evil,” yet in doing so simultaneously defeats his own argument. Rowe believes that God cannot exist if evil exists such that there is no discernible nor imaginable good that can come from such evil. If God is omniscient, omnipotent, and wholly good, then God would necessarily prevent this kind of evil from occurring. Rowe argues theoretically and practically, and in both he makes arrogant assumptions that destroy his argument.

Rowe begins with the proposition that God is wholly good, omnipotent, and omniscient. Rowe’s argument against God’s existence adds another oft-used proposition, that an entity such as God, good, omnipotent, and omniscient, will necessarily prevent every kind of unnecessary evil that occurs in the world. Rowe conveniently tosses out man-made evil, for this kind of evil does not help his argument, and man-made evil does not account for all evil in the world. He also ignores the kind of evil (or suffering) that aids men in producing strength of character. Again, this kind of evil does not help his argument, and as he says, “it’s reasonably clear that suffering often occurs in a degree far beyond what is required for character development” (Rowe, 368). Rowe limits his evil to that which, in his estimation, “could have been prevented without thereby losing some greater good or permitting some evil equally bad or worse” (Rowe, 366).

Rowe first argues theoretically. There must be some evil, somewhere in creation, that does not bring with it some sort of good. There must exist some evil completely disconnected from any good consequence. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, then he knows about it and can prevent it. Since he does not prevent this disconnected and fruitless evil, he is not good. Rowe claims that God does not exist because he allows evil to exist, the particular evil that has no purpose.

This theoretical argument appears damning on the surface, but at the surface is where it remains. Philosophers have long created word games that mean nothing in reality: Can God make a rock that he cannot move? The words contain meaning, but when placed together and examined in the context of reality, the actual statement means nothing. The problem of God creating a rock that he cannot move is not a theist problem, but a semantic problem. God “cannot” do many things, including commit sin, for example. In a sense, he is “limited” by his nature. In this rock problem, he is “limited” by the meaning of the words, “cannot” and “move”, but not by any actual limit of his power. Rowe can argue about unnecessary suffering, and he can throw around words like “God”, “omniscient,” “omnipotent,” and “good,” but he has no true idea what they mean, particularly in the biblical context. The God that he refutes does not exist in the first place. Rowe assumes he understands what “good” means, and he assumes that “good,” when applied to men, applies equally and identically in every situation to God, but God is not a man.

God commands men to be good, and yes, he commands men to shun sin (evil) and pursue the welfare of others. God commands men to trust in him and do good (Psalm 37.3, 4), for God created man to glorify him. God’s purpose, however, is not to pursue the good of mankind, but to glorify himself[1]. God uses evil and he uses it frequently[2]. God does not sin, but he uses sin and he uses the destructive forces of nature to accomplish his purpose. Rowe misunderstands both the purpose of men and the purpose of God. God created man to show his glory (Romans 9), and not to bestow temporal and material blessings upon him. Rowe’s argument against God betrays a simplistic and ignorant view of God that many atheists possess.

We see further evidence of Rowe’s overly simplistic caricature of God in the practical illustration of the fawn. If a forest fire catches a fawn, and the fawn is badly injured and dies, no good can possibly come from this. To Rowe, this is “reasonably clear” (Rowe, 368). This example raises many questions about the nature of a universe that Rowe would create if he were omnipotent. Are forest animals never to suffer? Do forest fires not exist in Rowe’s world? Do animals not burn? Does wood not burn? Does fire exist? Does heat not exist? Do we eat raw meat? Do we even eat meat at all in Rowe’s world? If Rowe were God, would he defy the natural laws that he created to run the world and work miracles every time a fawn was threatened with unnecessary and preventable suffering? What kind of nonsense universe does Rowe want to live in? With this meaningless example, Rowe has eliminated a number of basic necessities (fire, meat, heat) that men have used for millennia, simply because he cannot imagine how the death of a forest fawn can have any good connected to it. These necessities provide good for men and women that Rowe’s superficial understanding of the world and God cannot imagine.

Rowe’s fawn illustration contains yet another good that destroys his argument. Rowe fails to see any good that can come from the prolonged agony of a fawn that burns to death in a forest fire. Rowe, however, has taken great pains to craft an argument against the existence of a God that he believes does not exist, and he uses the suffering of the fawn to do this. Rowe’s argument “proves” that God does not exist, therefore removing the lie of this eternal deity, freeing men from the chains of religion, and setting them on a path to truth. Good has come from suffering, and therefore Rowe’s argument is false. The “good” of Rowe’s argument disproves the argument itself, and one more atheistic argument collapses in on itself in a colossal display of irony. Rowe’s failure lies not in his logic, but in his hubris. Rowe fails as has every philosopher since Job.

Rowe and the biblical patriarch Job ask the same question of God: Why is there suffering if you are good? God denies them any sort of justification of his actions. Instead, he questions the audacity that any man would ask the question at all. “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” he demands. God silences the question by revealing its arrogance and its assumption of knowledge that only deity can possess. While Job humbly submits to God’s wisdom, Rowe questions the Almighty. Rowe assumes that he understands every possible good that can come from a given situation. Rowe believes that he knows what only God can know. Rowe categorically declares that God does not exist because Rowe cannot see any good that can come from suffering. In order for Rowe to declare that no good can possibly come from suffering of which he cannot imagine or observe any connected good, Rowe must possess exhaustive knowledge of every good connected to every instance of suffering. Rowe must be omniscient. In order for Rowe to question God, he must assume the role of God, yet in doing so, abolishes his own argument.

We naturally question God. In our curiosity, we wonder how God’s goodness can be reconciled with the suffering in creation. In our pride, we disagree with God’s governance of creation and we believe that we could do better. God’s word to Job demonstrates that we have no idea of the magnitude regarding God’s work, his wisdom, and his goodness in managing what he has created. Many philosophers before and since William Rowe have asked the same question of God. Many will continue to ask, but the truly wise, however, will acknowledge their limitations as Job did, and trust in him who created the universe and say,

I know that You can do all things,

And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.

‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’

Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand,

Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.”

‘Hear, now, and I will speak;

I will ask You, and You instruct me.’

“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear;

But now my eye sees You;

Therefore I retract,

And I repent in dust and ashes.

William Rowe, “The Evidential Argument from Evil” in Philosophy of Religion, editors Michael Peterson, William Hasker, Bruce Reichenbach, and David Basinger (New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2014)

---

[1] See Ezekiel 20, where God acts on the behalf of the Israelites not for their sake, but for the sake of “My name”. This theme of God acting so his name will be known and known correctly appears throughout the prophetical books and also in Romans 9.

[2] In the book of Job, which I will discuss later, God assumes full responsibility for the acts of Satan. God allowed Satan to destroy Job’s family and wealth, but he says, “he still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to ruin him” [Job 2.3, emphasis added]. Though Job and his friends blame God repeatedly for Job’s destruction, at no point does God mention Satan or blame chance for what he allowed.

men suck but we should all be men

why does feminism exist? why do women feel "powerless"? women have plenty of power. while men possess physical power, the emotional separation that leadership often requires, the ability and will to earn money much easier than women, women have sexual and emotional power. women, with their beauty and their charm, easily gain the upper hand in any relationship whenever they please. why do women need more power?

obviously, sin. whoever wants power necessarily wants more. there is nothing new here. i also believe men, specifically fathers, carry the blame here. of course, they always do. we always do.

imagine a young girl, desperate for her father's affection. her father may be preoccupied with the War, or with providing a living for his family. he may be an alcoholic, or a serial cheater. he may simply find it difficult to express the affection he feels for his daughter. he does not validate her "girl-ness" or show her how special she is just because. is she special because she can do what only a woman can? care for a family? bear children? support a husband, strong in certain ways, physically, economically, but patently weak emotionally? because her father has not shown her what is important about being a woman, she cannot do these things. she only believes in what has been revealed to her. strength and fulfillment can only be found in what men have: leadership, money, physical power. what is a young girl to do? turn to Christ? ideally, but God does not gift grace to everyone. she will turn elsewhere for what she needs.

political power. economic power. the power to destroy life.

eventually she realizes she can literally "become" a man. what could be more "empowering"? what can possibly be more powerful than becoming your father, doing everything he can, being as strong as him, as neglecting, as empty, as desperate...