The Holy Spirit and kenotic loving power

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to offer an account of divine power in a way that emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit and simultaneously takes a feminist philosophical critique of power seriously. Inspired by relational theology and the theologies of, among others, Anna Mercedes, Jürgen Moltmann, and Thomas Jay Oord, we propose an understanding of kenosis as divine love-power for the radical Other. We understand divine power not in terms of omnipotence or unlimited might, but as kenotic, vulnerable love for the radical Other. This understanding presupposes the relational aspect of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit resides in us (1 Cor 3:16), and the Spirit does not work alone. The loving and empowering work of the Holy Spirit requires the world’s relational response. Divine power conceptualised in terms of love for the radical Other does not bear negative connotations of patriarchal power-over or power-to. Instead of negating the self, the Spirit’s kenotic loving power makes relationship possible, and thus also the self. We argue that this notion of kenotic power, seen most clearly in the Holy Spirit, suggests divine power worthy of worship also from a Christian feminist standpoint.

Introduction

How shall we conceptualise divine power? Answering this question is of the essence since that which we call “God” is supposed to be worthy of worship. That God is worthy of worship is often taken as a conceptual truth, thereby making all conceptions of God that do not describe a God worthy of worship inadequate.¹ Depending on how God’s power is understood, we will get different conceptions of “God”, and it is not evident that they are equally adequate.² The traditional omni-attributes, omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), omnipotence (perfect power), and omniscience (perfect knowledge) are generally not disputed among classical theists.³ Omnipotence is said to describe God’s perfect power. The question is how we shall understand what this means.

The debate on what omnipotence or all-power entails became a strong focus within feminist philosophy of religion and feminist theology during the twentieth century. Theologians such as Mary Daly,⁴ Daphne Hampson,⁵ Sallie McFague,⁶ and Pamela Sue Anderson⁷ have brought attention to the social and political consequences the concept of omnipotence is laden with. Feminist theories on power have emphasized that omnipotence is not a value-neutral concept, and feminist philosophers and theologians have criticized omnipotence as a divine attribute due to its patriarchal and dominant history and connotations.⁸

In this article, we focus on the Christian notion of kenosis as a way to understand the power and love of God. We propose a theological understanding of kenosis that offers a concept of divine power and takes a Christian feminist theological standpoint seriously. Thus, this article does not aim to engage in the discussion on how omnipotence ought to be conceptualized. Instead, we combine Lutheran theology with relational theology. We then apply our relational Lutheran theology to a discussion of kenosis with scholars like Anna Mercedes, Daphne Hampson, Sarah Coakley, Niels Henrik Gregersen, and Jürgen Moltmann. We propose a concept of divine power in terms of kenotic vulnerable love for the radical Other and emphasize the significance of the Holy Spirit when understanding the power of God. This kenotic power is a power-for the Other, without it entailing a self-negating aspect. This perspective is compatible with process theology, but does not presuppose it.

We argue that the philosophical-theological discussion on omnipotence and other conceptions of divine power (such as pantokrator, shaddai, almighty, and so forth) centres on God the Father, or the first person of the Trinity. When doing so, we fail to see the loving and relational potential of divine power. We argue that when trying to understand the nature of divine power, we should look more focused to the Holy Spirit.

Feminism, language, and power

The discussion on feminism, language, and power is a vast one,⁹ but we would like to make a few remarks in relation to the thesis outlined in this article. Our speech acts are never innocent, in that power – as a discursive phenomenon – always works on the subjects entailed in said discourse. Our feminist perspective aims to critique current theological understandings that lend themselves to domination. As Catherine Keller notes, we always speak of God from an anthropocentric position, and one should use the best possible images when doing so – images of God that pursue non-hierarchical and equitable views.¹⁰ However, when writing from within a theological setting, we relate to the theological discourse at large, including the common language of the Bible, where God (unfortunately) is persistently described as a man/he. With that said, God should not be gendered. Male pronouns of God affect the conception of God and have possible negative consequences as they reproduce a hierarchal division between the male and the female, where the former is linked to the divine while the latter is not.¹¹ Feminist critique of omnipotence as a divine attribute focuses on the negative implications omnipotence has on us as human beings; it contributes to a view of God as the dominant ruler. Glorification of dominant divine power inspires humans to strive for dominant power – something that often has negative effects on especially women.¹² However, God transcends any notions of gender that can be intelligible in a human setting. Moreover, to focus on the Holy Spirit and God’s kenotic love-power when conceptualizing divine power has the advantage of not connoting oppressive and dominant power. Omnipotence is ill fitted when describing the relational character of the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit

How should we understand the role of the Spirit in Creation?¹³ We want to emphasize the role of the Holy Spirit when trying to understand the power of God since we claim that we cannot understand God’s power and action in the world without the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God’s active power, and it is always and only a loving and empowering force. By nature, the Spirit empowers and gives life and energy. It sustains us and the rest of creation. God’s creative power as the loving essence of the Spirit gives us creative and loving energy. It always seeks the good since it, by nature, is love.¹⁴

What does the Bible say of the Spirit? The Bible tells us that The Holy Spirit is God’s creative action. When God acts in the world, it is through the Holy Spirit.¹⁵ The Spirit gives life, and without it, there is no life (Gen 1:2, Ezek 37:7-14):¹⁶ “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.” (Ezek 37:14) When the world was formed, we read that “a wind¹⁷ from God swept over the face of the waters” (Gen 1:2) and God breathed “the breath of life” into humans (Gen 2:7). The Spirit is “the source of life, creation, and creativity.”¹⁸ God’s sustaining and creative activity is through the life-giving and sustaining acts of the Spirit. The Spirit is the source and ground for all life, and the presence of the Spirit is God’s love poured on us and the whole of creation.¹⁹ Psalm 104:29-30 reads, “When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground.” In short, the Holy Spirit is God’s love, actively working in creation; “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Rom 5:5).

So how do humans then perceive the Spirit in creation? A person full of the Holy Spirit is, in the words of the theologian and priest Anthony Thiselton, never dull.²⁰ A spirited person is full of life and energy, both in the literal and ordinary sense. We sense the presence, but also the lack of the presence, of the Spirit in everyday situations and persons. A room or a person with “good energy” signifies the presence of the Spirit. It is the Spirit that gives life and creative energy. When the Holy Spirit works, good things happen because the Spirit works for “the common good” (1 Cor 12:7-11). The good and creative effects of the Spirit at work in creation are seen every day. We notice when the Spirit is present in a person or situation. We also notice when the Spirit is absent. The manifestation of the Spirit, expressed as different human abilities, “[…] are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.” (1 Cor 12:11). When the Spirit takes refuge in a person, it never limits or restricts them – it always empowers and infuses them with life-giving energy.

Thiselton describes one of the characteristics of the Holy Spirit as the otherness of the Spirit. The Spirit is transcendent and other than the world, but works in the world by bestowing it with life. The Spirit is transcendent in terms of the otherness but immanent in humankind and creation in terms of the Spirit’s indwelling and life-giving nature. Thiselton comments that “[…] the indwelling of the Spirit is possible only because he [it] comes from God. In crude terms, he [it] first comes from outside humankind.”²¹ The Holy Spirit is God’s loving power.²² The role and purpose of the Holy Spirit as the loving power of God is to promote the “common good” (1 Cor 12:7).

What are the social implications of the power of the Spirit? Theologian John Carroll finds in 1 Cor 8, 12, and 13, Gal 5, and Rom 8:1-17, the importance and role of the community. The Spirit of God does not work alone. The Spirit is God’s love and love is relational. “The Spirit and its gifts are not a private matter for individuals but a communal, relational affair. Also, and more extensively, Romans 8 pictures the Holy Spirit residing within the community and its members as the divine empowerment of ethical living – of faithful response to the gracious initiative of God (Rom 8:1-17).”²³

African theologies scholar Mutale Mulenga-Kanuda also emphasizes the role of the community. She argues that we need to see the works of the Spirit not as work done for the individual, but for the whole community.²⁴ The Spirit does not work in you or me for the individual sake of you or me. God’s loving breath of life is not breathed into us so that we can live as individuals in solitude. The breath of life is given to us as a community – as God’s extension in the world – so that we can act and live in it with love. Mulenga-Kanuda writes that “We have to reclaim the Holy Spirit as liberating agency for the suffering and marginalized, especially women. […] This means we must move from individualistic understanding of the transformation and empowerment of the Holy Spirit to a more communal and partnership orientation between women and men.”²⁵

The Holy Spirit is God’s creativity at work in the creation God recognized as good (Gen 1). That creativity always works for the common good, for love, and for relationships. God loves the world, in fact, God loves the world so much that God let Godself be incarnated, sacrificed, and killed for creation’s sake (John 3:16).²⁶ In light of the presented perspective, new light can be shed on kenosis in a way that does not promote the domination of others – this is genuine love.

Kenotic love

So, how should we understand kenosis? The concept of kenosis (κένωσις) is ambiguous within theology and philosophy of religion. In Philippians 2:7-8, it says that Jesus “emptied himself” and that “taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself.” Kenosis is the theology of God’s self-emptying or self-withdrawal. What kenosis means and whether it is interpreted literally or metaphorically has long been debated. In the seventeenth century, the two theological schools Giessen and Tübingen argued over the nature of Christ and the kenosis. The first claimed that Christ renounced the divine power while being incarnate as a human, while the latter thought that the divine power only was concealed while Christ was incarnate as Jesus the human being.²⁷

There are, thus, different ways to understand kenosis. Niels Henrik Gregersen lists four more recent meanings of kenosis where Simone Weil holds God’s creative act (when creating the cosmos) to be a voluntary abdication of God’s all-power (a clear connection to the Giessen school), Gianni Vattimo and Thomas Altizer argue that kenosis indicates that God has gone from being transcendent to be immanent in the world, Jürgen Moltmann and Arthur Peacocke regard the creation to be the kenotic voluntary self-restriction made out of love, and Gregersen himself holds kenosis to be self-realization rather than self-restriction.²⁸ Anna Mercedes understands kenosis in a Lutheran way, where kenotic power is a complete power for the other, with no need for a response in return.²⁹ We will return to this.

However, for Daphne Hampson, kenosis as voluntary powerlessness is part of a male paradigm of servitude, selflessness, and powerlessness. Ethics of kenosis that glorify self-sacrifice and self-abnegation is not what we need in order to promote human flourishing.³⁰ According to Hampson, we need a concept of God that helps empower women as human beings, and not only men. “[…] God must be seen as one with us, as enabling us to be ourselves, as empowering us.”³¹ Where, then, can we find such a concept of God?

Theologian Thomas Jay Oord argues that the primary and most essential attribute of God is love. Love is the logically primary divine attribute, and we must understand all the other attributes in light of this most primary one.³² Like Oord, we believe in the primacy of love doctrine and that the primacy of love plays an essential role when conceptualizing God’s loving power. 1 John 4:16 reads, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” Only when love is put first can we begin to understand the width of God’s loving power.

We agree with Hampson that an ideal of self-humiliation, servitude, submission, and subordination is counterproductive for human flourishing. It is not a good ideal when working towards equality and a society where “human” is not primarily and immediately thought of as a man. Philosophy of religion and theology needs a conception of God and divine power that helps stress the love for the Other, where the Other is understood inclusively, and where this love and power do not come at the expense of the self. If God is love, as 1 John 4:8 says, we need to re-conceptualize our understanding of God’s power in a way that aligns with God’s essence as love. Omnipotent power to control and do anything is an unrelational conception of power that does not bear the signs of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is creative relationality. The Spirit is God’s loving and empowering activity. And the Spirit never works alone.

With a Lutheran understanding of kenosis and a relational theology of love, we find a theologically adequate conception of divine power as kenosis. The conception of kenosis we suggest involves neither dominant power-over, power-to, nor even power-with others. It is a power-for the other, but not at the expense of the self. In this sense, the Holy Spirit and Creation are co-dependent in their relationality.

Relational and Lutheran theology

How can we conceive of relational theology? As mentioned, Oord argues in favour of the primacy of love. God is love (1 John 4:16), and love is the primary attribute by which we should understand all the other divine attributes. He therefore suggests the term amipotence to describe God’s power.³³ When God acts, it is always lovingly. God’s power is always and only loving. Oord subscribes to a relational and open theology and rejects the traditional notions of God as unaffected and unchangeable. An essentially loving God cannot be essentially independent and unaffected since love is essentially relational. To love is to be in relation. Therefore, an essentially loving God is essentially relational.³⁴ In the words of Oord, love is always “others-empowering”. Divine love promotes agency and activity. Divine love promotes freedom and infuses creation with life.³⁵

So how does a Lutheran perspective add to the concept of relational theology? When a relational theology of love is combined with a Lutheran understanding of human sinfulness and divine grace, we see that humans constantly fall in a never-ending process and simultaneously receive divine grace and forgiveness in a never-ending process. Luther understood sin as relational since sin is unbelief, the falling away from a loving relationship with God.³⁶ The fact that we sin explains something of what it means to be human – we are relational beings. Sin, and the constant falling of human beings, and the unceasing receiving of grace is a continual process. We keep falling, and since we are part of a global community, we inevitably take part in structural sin.³⁷ Luther and Lutheran theology stress justification by grace alone.³⁸ God demands nothing of us in return, although God wants us to work together with God. We do not earn justification and salvation; we receive it by grace alone. Lutheran theology tells us we cannot deserve God’s grace and love. There is nothing that we can do to make God love us. God always loves us! The God of essential love does not withdraw love and grace from the beloved. God cannot but love.

Mercedes writes that,

Luther’s theology can undoubtedly be misused to argue that suffering is necessary in order to encounter God. But those familiar with Luther’s thought will quickly realize that Luther could not have argued that any human act was necessary for a relationship with God without undermining his whole argument for salvation by grace alone.³⁹

According to Martin Luther, we are genuinely sinful, and therefore, we need the Spirit.⁴⁰ The doctrine of simul iustus et peccator states we are always and irredeemably fallen.⁴¹ There is nothing we can do to deserve redemption and salvation. Humankind is fallen. And yet! That is why we need God to breathe the Holy Spirit into us – to give us life. This work of God is not due to our good deeds. It is not a reward for good behaviour. It is done because God is essentially loving and full of grace. God cannot but love us, which is why God lets the Holy Spirit work in the world. The essentially loving God loves unconditionally despite our actions and sins. Simul iustus et peccator – we are always sinners, always fallen, yet always blessed and loved by the God of essential, relational love.

Since the Holy Spirit is God creatively working in the world, it is essential to recognize the Spirit when trying to understand the power of God. God wants the creation to respond to God’s love and offer. God desires relations with us, but does not coerce us. God hopes for and loves us, no matter what our response is. In process terms, we say that God “lures”, but never forces a loving response from us. Our view is compatible with the process theological perspective of the lure as non-domination, but does not presuppose it. We acknowledge that other forms of relational theology are well in line with our suggestion of how to conceptualize the relation between God and the creation. Key to our argument is the necessity of a relationality that is open-ended.

However, when the Spirit succeeds and takes hold of someone, things can really change. 1 Cor 6:19 tells us that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God lives and works in actual bodies. A person full of the Spirit is a powerful force because they allow God to work creatively in the world. In other words, the Spirit needs the relationship with the Other, with creation, to act and together with us realize the loving Kingdom of God. Humans need God, and God the Holy Spirit needs us.

The kenotic loving power of God the Holy Spirit is, in this understanding, not a patriarchal power-over nor an empowering of the other in concert that suggests mutual recognition. “Still, [Mercedes says] I find that the language of ‘with’ too overtly suggests that the other is with you: on board, joining in, recognizing.”⁴² We understand and experience God’s power in terms of kenosis, a love-power for others without negating the self. The Holy Spirit needs us, and we need the Holy Spirit. With process theology, it becomes clear that the Other – that which is not the self – can only exist if the self does too. We cannot have power-for the other if the self is negated. God’s relationship with creation is loving and mutual. It is a giving of oneself, but neither God nor beings in creation give up the self, but together become more.⁴³

We – the creation – are God’s Other, and we make possible the Spirit’s active, creative, love-power because the Spirit is essentially relational and resides in us.⁴⁴ A person in which the Spirit lives works together with God. According to this narrative, the creative power of God is kenotic power. Relationality is part of the very nature of God. According to this model, God must wait for the free response of the world’s creatures because the Spirit does not act alone. God cannot compel us to love, but loves us unconditionally. Moltmann writes that “God is nowhere greater than in his humiliation. God is nowhere more glorious than in his impotence. God is nowhere more divine than when he becomes [hu]man.”⁴⁵ To this, we add, God is nowhere more worthy than when God patiently awaits our response to God’s love.

There is an ethical dimension to this that cannot be overstated. God as relentless love is always with us, despite our flaws. God loves and offers relationship also in our deepest humiliation, our deepest self-hate, and in our most horrible un-loving moments. God is everywhere in love, but most of all with those needing it the most.

Gregersen agrees with Moltmann concerning God’s power as kenotic love. However, Gregersen opposes the notion of self-humiliation and self-restriction used by Moltmann and the doctrine of zimzum.⁴⁶ According to Gregersen, God does not give up power when creating and does not withdraw from the world. Instead, God realizes the divine nature as love. Kenosis, for Gregersen, is the self-realization of God, not the self-restriction. If we understand God’s power in terms of God’s eternal and essential love, then creation can be understood neither as a demonstration of power nor as a limitation of God’s power.⁴⁷

The difference is in the terminology, where Moltmann describes kenosis as a limiting of power, and Gregersen describes it as the self-realization of God’s nature. However, this difference is rather vast because we can tie this difference back to Hampson’s feminist critique of kenosis as self-abnegation. Is kenosis a giving-up-the-self, or is it a giving-to-others? We have shown that we can understand it as a relational love-power for the beloved Other.

Moreover, such power can never include a negation of the self. Love is relational, and relations demand at least two parties. An essentially loving God is essentially relational. An essentially loving God is never indifferent or independent, but constantly in an active relationship with the creation.

We have based the analysis on a Lutheran theology and the relational theology of process theism, saying that God essentially needs to love that which is not God. The Holy Spirit is God’s creative power, and the Spirit acts together with creation. We also believe that kenosis, understood as a powerful love of and for the Other, is theologically fruitful. “The Other” must be understood radically – as that which is not oneself, but is different. At the same time, we do not exist without the other. No subject exists in isolation. There is no cogito ergo sum without the Other. And there is no Holy Spirit at work in the world without our cooperation.

Conclusion

To answer the initial question of how to conceptualize divine power, we propose a view that the Spirit is God’s creative power in creation. The Spirit of God needs us, and we need the Spirit. When the Spirit lives in us, it can work in the world. A loving relationship cannot exist if there is self-abnegation involved. It takes at least two to love, and love promotes flourishing, never humiliation of the Other or of the self. Divine power conceptualized in terms of love for the radical Other does not bear the negative connotations of patriarchal power-over or power-to. Instead of negating the self, it enhances it. Lutheran theology stresses God’s unconditional love, despite our sins and shortcomings. God is relentless love, and this love is always with the weak, oppressed, and poor, as well as with the more fortunate. But God does not demand anything in return, except the possibility of relationship. God the Holy Spirit wants a relationship with us and the rest of creation in order to act. God the Holy Spirit is a team player.

Acknowledgements

We greatly appreciate the anonymous reviewer’s encouragement and critique used to improve this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Cobb and Pinnock, Adequate God; Bayne and Nagasawa, “The Grounds of Worship”; Bayne and Nagasawa, “Grounds of Worship Again”; Langby, “En Gud Värdig Tillbedjan.”

2 Process theism is often rejected as inadequate for this reason. See e.g., Roth, “Critique by Roth.” Others argue that only a God who is not omnipotent is worthy of worship. See Oord, The Death of Omnipotence.

3 Williams, “Introduction to Classical Theism”; Rogers, Perfect Being Theology.

4 Daly, The Church; Daly, Beyond God the Father.

5 Hampson, “On Power and Gender”; Hampson, “On Autonomy and Heteronomy.”

6 McFague, Models of God.

7 Anderson, Feminist Philosophy of Religion; Anderson, “Feminist Challenges.”

8 With that said, omnipotence is also defended as an adequate conception of God’s power by both men and women. See Rogers, Perfect Being Theology; Rogers, “Anselm’s Perfect God”; Zagzebski, “Omnisubjectivity.”

9 For an in-depth discussion of feminist perspectives on God-talk, see Langby, God and the World, 13–19.

10 Keller, Face of the Deep, 98.

11 See Langby, God and the World, 13–19, 211–3.

12 Jantzen, Becoming Divine, 88; Allen, “Feminist Perspectives on Power.”

13 In this context, we understand Creation to include human creatures, non-human creatures, and other entities. The God-Creation relationship is more than anthropocentric. In this article, we affirm and discuss foremost the God-human relationship. However, we do not deny the immense importance of all other parts of the Creation. In line with the concept Theocosmocentrism, we affirm “an epistemological commitment that both God (theo) and creation (cosmos) are central to understanding reality.” Oord and Schwartz, “Panentheism and Panexperientialism.”

14 See Oord, Pluriform Love.

15 Thiselton, Holy Spirit, 10.

16 Throughout this article, we use the NRSV Bible translation.

17 The Hebrew word רוּחַ (ruach) is translated as “wind”, “breath”, or “Spirit”, depending on the Bible translation.

18 Thiselton, Holy Spirit, 11.

19 Carroll, Holy Spirit, 112.

20 Thiselton, Holy Spirit, 33.

21 Thiselton, 10. We note that Thiselton uses the word “he” when naming the Spirit. The Greek word for "Spirit" is πνϵῦμα, a neuter noun. The NRSV Bible translation does not gender the Spirit, in line with Greek grammar. We note that it is possible to gender the Spirit, but in line with our aim in this article, just as in the NRSV Bible translation, we prefer the pronoun “it” to forfeit any unnecessary gendering. We thank the Bible scholar Cecilia Wassén for clarifications regarding Bible translations.

22 Thiselton, 35.

23 Carroll, Holy Spirit, 113.

24 Mulenga-Kaunda, “Transformed and Freed?”, 43.

25 Ibid.

26 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him [God] may not perish but may have eternal life.” Although this is often interpreted to concern atonement and salvation, we adhere to the view of F. F. Bruce that the source of this stems from God’s universal and limitless love for all of humankind. Love, so to speak, comes first. Bruce, The Gospel of John, 89–90.

27 Mercedes, Power For, 26ff.

28 Gregersen, “Deep Incarnation and Kenosis,” 257.

29 Mercedes, Power For, 41–61.

30 Hampson, “On Power and Gender,” 238–40.

31 Ibid., 248.

32 Oord, Pluriform Love, 1–25.

33 Ibid., 172; Oord, The Death of Omnipotence. Amipotence is coined from the Latin words ami and potens. Related words are “amity”; “amigo”, “amicable”, “amiable”, and “omnipotence”.

34 Oord, Pluriform Love, 34. Whether God can be essentially loving and relational within the Trinity, without relating to an actual world is a debate into which we shall not dig since it does not matter to the purpose of this article. For arguments in favour of the essentially loving God who is not essentially Creator, see Pinnock, The Openness of God; Pinnock, Most Moved Mover.

35 Oord, God Can’t, 27–8, 96.

36 As Luther stated “In short, all evils result from unbelief or doubt of the Word and of God.” Pelikan, Lectures on Genesis, 147–8.

37 See e.g., Brian Hamilton, “It’s in You”; Finn, “Sinful Social Structure”; Ryan Darr, “Social Sin.”

38 As Luther writes in “The Freedom of a Christian (1520)” “Therefore, whoever does not wish to fall into the same error as these blind people must look beyond actions, laws, and teachings about works. One must look away from works and focus rather on the person and ask how one is justified. For the person is justified and saved by faith, not by works or laws but by the word of God (that is, the promise of grace). In this way the glory remains God’s alone, who saves us not by deeds of righteousness that we have done but according to his mercy, which was given to us by grace when we trusted God’s word.” Russell and Lull, Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, 417.

39 Mercedes, Power For, 48.

40 Peterson and Rimmer, We Believe, 21.

41 The central theme of, e.g., “Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans (1522, Revised 1546)” and “The Bondage of the Will—Introduction, Part vi, and Conclusion (1525),” Russell and Lull, Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, 76–85, 138–70.

42 Mercedes, Power For, 122.

43 As Luther writes in “Confession concerning Christ’s Supper—Part III (1528)” “[…] I believe in the Holy Spirit, who with the Father and the Son is one true God and proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son, yet is a distinct person in the one divine essence and nature. […] These are the three persons and one God, who has given himself to us all wholly and completely, with all that he is and has. The Father gives himself to us […] the Son himself subsequently gave himself and bestowed all his works, sufferings, wisdom, and righteousness, and reconciled us to the Father […] the Holy Spirit comes and gives himself to us also, wholly and completely.” Russell and Lull, Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, 29. We thank the anonymous reviewer who suggested we make clear the difference between giving oneself and giving up oneself.

44 This does not answer whether God’s loving essence is satisfied by the internal relationship of the Trinity. It only tells us that God needs the response, the relationship, with the creation once God actually is Creator.

45 Moltmann, The Trinity, 119. In the original German text, Moltmann writes “Mensch,” as in “human”, but the English translation use “man” which is unfortunate. We thank the anonymous reviewer who commented on this detail.

46 Gregersen, “Deep Incarnation and Kenosis,” 257–8.

47 Ibid., 258.