against the dichotomies or dyads present in the proposals Dabney ini-
tially surveys. Rather than a theology “from above” (Barth) or “from
below” (Schleiermacher), pneumatology helps stress that God is in a sense
both and neither because God is a relational God who is beyond and in
the midst of creation. Dabney helpfully summarizes the point this way:
“Indeed, rather than sub jective or ob jective, the Spirit is better conceived
as trans jective.” 5 In this light, one could say that there is probably no
greater dogmatic resource for overcoming the dyads bequeathed by the
Western intellectual and theological traditions to its contemporary pur-
veyors than pneumatology, for the Spirit both inhabits and defi es the limits
and constraints of various forms of categorizations, including theological
ones. 6 Rather than a disadvantage, this prospect seems promising given
the many stalemates one fi nds in theological discourse.
A second way pneumatology as a “fi rst theology” is helpful is its stress
upon a web of relatedness that precisely recalls the issue of contextualiza-
tion. God as a relational God creates a space of relatedness through the act
of creation; that space is compromised by sin and death, yet these threats
are further addressed and healed by this relational God through the rela-
tional acts of salvation and healing. When this picture is taken as a whole,
the entire theological enterprise is cast relationally (including specifi c con-
cerns related to metaphysics, epistemology, speech, and so on). The meta-
narrative of Scripture as well as the Christian way of life or worldview can
be similarly framed. As such, the Christian life is a call to consider oneself
as “otherwise engaged in the Spirit.” Dabney helpfully relates the claim in
the following way:
Indeed, according to the biblical testimony, from the very inception of our
lives we live ‘out of ’ the presence of God’s spiritual breath, borne away from
ourselves on the winds of the Spirit to the ‘other’ of our neighbor and to the
‘Wholly Other’ of our Creator. 7
The implications for theological refl ection are simply staggering as a
result of this shift. Now, rather than an “either/or” framework, one can
conceptually consider “both-and” dynamics without resulting in theologi-
cal incoherence. The possibilities are quite endless because the orienting
context is not simply conceptual. A framework of relatedness means that
real people in real circumstances can and should infl ect the way theology
is pursued. Therefore, binaries such as “faith/reason,” “nature/grace,”
“above/below,” “free will/election,” and a host of others can be reca-
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