Pneumatology: Tradition and Renewal Maarten Wisse & Hugo Meijer Introduction A chapter on pneumatology in a companion to Reformed Orthodoxy is in no way a given. Anyone who looks through a number of major systematic works from Reformed scholasticism will, with a quick scan through the table of contents, soon notice the absence of pneumatological language. Tur- retin’s Institutes of Elenctic Theology, for example, features only one quaestio on pneumatology, namely on the divinity of the Holy Spirit in the last part of the doctrine of God. Other Reformed scholastic works seem to witness a similar lack of pneumatological interest. Thus, Wolleb’s famous small compendium devotes no specific locus to pneumatology, and Voetius has no specific disputa- tions in his Selectae Disputationes devoted to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. This list can easily be expanded with many more examples. Karl Rahner was the first to promote the ‘ Trinitätsvergessen- heit’-thesis in the Latin West, beginning with Augustine, and there are various indications for this phenomenon in post-Reformation Reformed scholasticism. 1 A similar thesis was formulated in the twentieth century concerning the person of the Spirit in the history of Western theology. 2 Recent scholarship has shown, however, that tables of contents can easily deceive. The place- ment of predestination in the doctrine of God does not mean that every aspect of every locus in that dogmatic system is determined by it, nor does the treatment of predestination in soteriology make an author any less Reformed. 3 The same can probably be said for pneumatology. For research into the history of dogma, it is crucial to go beyond the surface. Instead of simply noting the number and location ofpassages in a dogmatic work, it is necessary to delve into the details of the way in which different authors from different periods deal with pneumatological questions in very specific con- texts. One of the first things that strikes the researcher is that, although initially many major Reformed scholastics seem to share in the Western lack of interest in pneumatological questions, a few do stand out and display a special interest in pneumatology. These figures include John Owen and Thomas Goodwin. As we will see, in this they followed the lead of the father of Reformed Protest- antism, John Calvin, although it will also become evident that they did it in their own way. It is also striking to see that these theologians are both from the Puritan Anglo-Saxon strand of Reformed scholasticism. As was noted, modern scholarship traces the idea of Geistvergessenheit in the Western theolo- gical tradition as far back as Augustine. For that reason, it will be important to prepare the ground for a fuller discussion of pneumatology in the Reformed scholastics by considering the key develop- ments in this doctrine from Augustine to the Reformation. Calvin and the confessions of the Re- formation period then function as a key turning point. Calvin is important, not in the sense that everything afterwards is fully determined by his views, but still in the sense that his work played an important role in the development of what we now call the distinctly Reformed (over against Lutheran) Protestant tradition. This makes the confessions from the Reformation period crucial doc- uments as concise formulations of a growing consensus among those adhering to the Reformed 1 Gijsbert van den Brink, “Reformed Scholasticism and the Trinitarian Renaissance,” in Scholasticism Reformed: Essays in Honour of Willem J. van Asselt , ed. Maarten Wisse, Marcel Sarot, and Willemien Otten, Star 14 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2010), 322-340. 2 See below for an extensive discussion of this notion. 3 Willem J. van Asselt et al., Introduction to Reformed Scholasticism (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2011), 2; Richard A. Muller, Christ and the Decree: Christology and Predestination in Reformed Theology from Calvin to Perkins (Durham: Labyrinth, 1986). 1