Citation: Feng, Jacob Chengwei. 2023. Pneumasis/pneumafication Based on Romans 8:1–17: Highlighting the Spirit’s Role in Deification. Religions 14: 1210. https://doi.org/10.3390/ rel14091210 Academic Editor: Greg Peters Received: 29 July 2023 Revised: 7 September 2023 Accepted: 8 September 2023 Published: 20 September 2023 Copyright: © 2023 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). religions Article Pneumasis/pneumafication Based on Romans 8:1–17: Highlighting the Spirit’s Role in Deification Jacob Chengwei Feng School of Mission and Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA 91182, USA; chengweifeng@fuller.edu Abstract: In view of the two key themes found in Romans: pneumatology and deification, some pressing questions can be asked. One of these is, what is the role of the Holy Spirit in deification? This essay identifies one area of the work of the Holy Spirit presented in Romans that is often neglected in New Testament (NT) pneumatology, soteriology, and anthropology. This paper argues that, in Romans 8:1–17, the crucial role of the Spirit, as an active person in the triune Godhead, in possessing and being possessed by believers and facilitating the mutual indwelling of Christ and his co-sufferers, is best captured by a new term, namely, pneumasis or pneumafication. In other words, theosis/deification and Christosis/Christification are made possible by pneumasis/pneumafication. Keywords: pneumasis; pneumafication; theosis; deification; Christosis; Christification; Romans 8; Holy Spirit 1. Introduction The role of the Holy Spirit in Romans has been widely recognized in biblical studies. As Gordon Fee observes, “It is fair to say that Paul’s entire theology without the supporting pinion of the Spirit would crumble into ruins” (Fee 1996, p. 7). A parallel development in recent Pauline studies is the increased attention given to the Pauline theology of deification (or theosis) as revealed in Romans. 1 For example, Michael Gorman detects a renewal of interest in participation, 2 with a family of words including theosis, deification, diviniza- tion, Christosis, and Christification, within various theological subdisciplines, including biblical studies, theological ethics, spirituality, and others. Furthermore, he observes that “participation has been proposed as an essential aspect ... of Pauline theology and spir- ituality in particular” (Gorman 2019, p. xv). Among the many key themes that scholars such as Gorman and M. David Litwa find in Romans are these two: pneumatology and theosis/deification. 3 Consequently, some stimulating questions can be asked: What is the relationship between the Spirit and deification? What is the role of the Holy Spirit in deification? In his magisterial God’s Empowering Presence, Fee laments: “By and large the crucial role of the Spirit in Paul’s life and thought—as the dynamic, experienced reality of Christian life—is often either overlooked or given mere lip service” (Fee 1994, p. xxi). For Susan Eastman, the Holy Spirit as God’s presence is elusive—at least for Pauline scholars, with only a few exceptions. She observes “the relative paucity of scholarly work on the Spirit” regarding the importance of the Spirit at certain key junctions in Paul’s letters (Eastman 2018, p. 103). She suspects that the experiential aspect of Paul’s language regarding the Spirit may be partly to blame. Moreover, modern tendencies in the Global North have exacerbated the difficulty of talking about experience due to their inclination to think of “spiritual experience” as individual, private, and esoteric (ibid., pp. 103–4). This essay identifies one area of the work of the Holy Spirit presented in Romans that is often neglected in NT pneumatology, soteriology, and anthropology. 4 Constantine Campbell summarizes the sixteen scholars 5 who have made “significant academic contributions Religions 2023, 14, 1210. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14091210 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/religions