Habets and Liston provide a clear and accessible introduction to Third Article Theology (TAT), a movement within systematic theology developed in the last forty years. The authors succinctly characterize TAT as a theology that starts with the Holy Spirit, is explicitly Trinitarian, and is comprehensive, providing “architectonic structure for the task of theology as a whole” (24). It seeks to complement theologies that begin with the first or second article of the creed, not replace them. The authors demonstrate convincingly that their approach has much to contribute to theological discourse. They survey a wide, ecumenical range of authors and ideas, and discussion is necessarily brief in many places, but an ample bibliography invites readers to further exploration. This book is accessible for undergraduate theology majors and graduate students.
Starting with the Spirit is impeccably organized; part 1 explains the “why?” of TAT, arguing for its value and appropriateness in the present moment (chapter 1). It gives examples of this value from the most developed area of TAT, “Spirit Christology” (chapter 2), and outlines key characteristics of its methodology (chapter 3). It then addresses critiques of TAT (chapter 4), mainly defending its adherence to the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian definition. Chapter 5 aims to show how TAT enriches practical theology, but this quick sketch remains dissatisfyingly abstract.
The most informative chapter may be chapter 3, which lays out ten methodological criteria for TAT. Here, the most essential characteristic of TAT is revealed: it “looks through the Spirit rather than looking at the Spirit, thus it is a ‘Third Article Theology’ and not a ‘theology of the Third Article’ (which would simply be pneumatology)” (47). In other words, it considers all aspects of Christian doctrine, with explicit reference to the person and work of the Holy Spirit as a constant thread. It emulates Nicholas Wolterstorff’s epistemological approach of triangulating data, viewing each area of theological inquiry in light of other areas, moving toward synthesis and integration. In doing so, it surfaces new theological connections, emphases, and insights that other theologies have missed.
The second half of the book illustrates these new insights by delving into major dogmatic topoi. For example, chapter 7 (ecclesiology) uses Trinitarian theology to articulate a pneumatological ecclesiology. It clarifies the ways in which the church participates in Trinitarian life while avoiding the twin errors of either over-identifying the church with the Trinity or of reducing the Trinity to a social group.
There is a terminological quirk in one of the later chapters that requires close reading to clarify: in chapter 8 (soteriology), “atonement” is used to mean Christ’s action to effect salvation, as if all soteriologies were atonement soteriologies. If “atonement” is understood in Anselmian fashion to mean payment or offering for sin, that is not the focus of this chapter. The actual discussion sounds more like the classic soteriological paradigm of Christ as conqueror of sin and death, as well as head of a restored humanity. It is compatible with the authors’ account of sanctification as theosis and should be distinguished from atonement theory.
Chapter 9 (anthropology) contains a welcome discussion of human sanctification as theosis by the power of the Holy Spirit. This Roman Catholic reviewer sees potential for a TAT account of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit in Christian anthropology. But this chapter ends with a curious example of applied anthropology, given that TAT aspires to be “a thoroughly ecumenical theology” that lends itself to Christian unity (54). In a discussion of human development and holiness, the authors present a questionable account of LGBTQ+ identity as opposed to Christian identity (164–65). Christian denominations take a wide array of positions on this topic, often depending on their biblical hermeneutics, and it does not serve TAT to use such a divisive example. Instructors considering this text for classroom use should be prepared to unpack this section with students.
The main lacuna in this volume is the almost complete absence of theologies with a pneumatalogical lens from the Global South. In their opening chapter, Habets and Liston acknowledge the compatibility of TAT with global and contextualized theologies (19); it would be better if they demonstrated it.
