Some of the most exciting advances in theology, starting in the mid-twentieth century, have been in the area of pneumatology. One thinks of Yves Congar and Jürgen Moltmann but also forays by Ephraim Radner and Matthew Levering. Ham-fisted claims about the West's anaemic teaching on the third person of the Trinity are unsustainable. Closer to the ground, charismatic movements, across old confessional dividing lines, have bloomed, especially but not exclusively in the developing world. Simeon Zahl's work, then, is a welcome addition to the conversation. In sum, this book has two primary goals, the one building on the other: contending for the role of experience in theological reflection, and producing a Protestant soteriology that both appreciates the work of the Spirit and upholds a forensic doctrine of justification.

Zahl first argues that theology has always operated within (and cannot escape) lived experience. But can Christians trust experience as a theological category? Protestant theologians ranging from Luther to Barth have challenged the pitfall of subjectivism and Zahl certainly does not propose a return to feelings as a starting point for theology (e.g. Schleiermacher). Rather he highlights the need to be clear-eyed about the way theological reflection actually happens in the world, among bodies. Zahl raises up material from recognisable sources within historical theology, most notably from Melanchthon, Luther and Augustine, to be read along the lines of experience, specifically the affections and desires of the heart.

This reassessment of experience is the major task of the first two of five tightly written chapters. The succeeding three address how to articulate a soteriology that retains traditional Protestant notions about grace, and which can grapple with both the reality of moral non-transformation and the saving work of the Spirit as embodied experience. Zahl sets for himself no small task and it is here that he raises criticisms of what has become a mainstay among many Christian theologians: a view of salvation that focuses on participation in Christ, i.e. theosis. Zahl questions the widely held sense that participatory models of salvation are successful in integrating embodiment and experience and, parallel thereto, the equally common assessment that forensic justification is a cold ‘legal fiction’, which has little to do with real experience in one's life (e.g. John Millbank's judgement that it is a ‘mere calculus’, reducing salvation to an intellectual assent to propositions). Zahl questions the work of T. F. Torrance and latterly Kathryn Tanner (who raise the same issue against forensic justification), asking where experience is in participatory models of salvation. Here Zahl challenges whether Tanner's presentation, for example, really offers the Holy Spirit as the one who actualises the work of the Father and the Son in the subjective experience of the Christian. Zahl also tends to the articulations of the Neo-Thomists, raising the critique that they are overly optimistic about moral transformation. Here and elsewhere in the book, Zahl casts doubt on the now popular turn to habituation as a mechanism for moral transformation. Across the board, then, his claim is that participation is not the ‘silver bullet’ for solving the problems facing Protestant soteriology.

The task, Zahl writes, is fourfold: to affirm, with attention to the work of the Spirit, that salvation is not a propositional abstraction; to acknowledge the unconditional character of saving grace and the reality of ongoing sin in the Christian life (or put differently, the challenge of moral non-transformation); to recognise the participatory language of the New Testament; and finally, in light of the foregoing concerns, to be able to resource Christian ministry in emotionally compelling ways. In crafting a soteriology that will achieve these goals for Protestant theology, Zahl draws on Melanchthon, Luther and Augustine. The work of the Holy Spirit is convicting and regenerating: one faces the law, the Spirit is a source of saving faith, the sinner experiences grace, a terrified heart is consoled with the free gift of divine love and this in turn kindles a genuine and transformative love for God and neighbour, and a delight in the things of God. Sin persists, but grace is an affective pedagogy of desire. And Zahl contends that cognitive frameworks are an irreducible component of human affective processes.

This is a well-argued book, wide in its engagements, generous in its challenges and savvy in its constructive efforts. A few critiques, however, may be raised. First, while Zahl is certainly not polemical about his ‘Protestant’ purpose and audience, one is left wondering about how to leverage his insights in a way that can be ecumenically fruitful, given that the global theological scene is increasingly fluid. Second, somewhat remote from the conversation is the concern raised in most other perceptibly pneumatological projects: ecclesiology. Radner, to give only one example, is consistently concerned with claims about the way the church is constituted or sustained by the Holy Spirit. Zahl's book is ultimately a soteriological project. And finally, as bodily experience is so central to Zahl's concerns, one wonders if he could have wrestled more with the materiality of the incarnation, the bodily resurrection and experience of the sacraments. These critiques do not, however, detract from a rich study and challenge.