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Todd Miles: He Will Glorify Me: Evaluating the current turn to pneumatology by inclusivists and pluralists

Earlier this week we highlighted Nathan Finn’s ETS paper. The rest of this week we would like to highlight Todd Miles’ paper, “He Will Glorify Me: Evaluating the current turn to pneumatology by inclusivists and pluralists.” Next week we will highlight other papers as well.

First, a little about Todd Miles. Todd Miles (B.S., M.S. in Nuclear Engineering at Oregon State University; M.Div., Western Seminary; PhD in Systematic Theology, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is Associate Professor of Theology at Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon. Before his doctoral studies Miles was a Research Engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory for ten years. Now Miles teaches Systematic Theology, Hermeneutics, and Ethics at Western Seminary. Miles is married to Camille and they have six children, Natalie, Ethan, Levi, Julius, Vicente, and Marcos. Miles serves as an elder at Hinson Memorial Baptist Church in Portland. Miles is the author of A God of Many Understandings? The Gospel and Theology of Religions (Nashville: B&H, 2010). He is also a weekly contributor to the Credo blog and in January he will be contributing a feature article to Credo Magazine! We are very honored to have Todd join us at Credo and appreciate his fine scholarship and pastoral emphasis.

Todd’s paper summarizes many of the explanations and critiques covered in A God of Many Understandings? The Gospel and Theology of Religions (Nashville: B&H, 2010), chapters 5-8. The title of Todd’s ETS paper is: “He Will Glorify Me: Evaluating the current turn to pneumatology by inclusivists and pluralists.” First, we would like to provide you with the outline of Todd Miles’ paper Second, we would like to make available Todd’s entire ETS paper.

Here is the abstract of Todd’s paper:

Contemporary soteriological models proposed by both inclusivists and pluralists are increasingly based upon the work of the Holy Spirit to justify the hope that some can be saved apart from conscious faith in Christ. But are such proposals consistent with the Bible’s own presentation of the work and ministry of the Spirit? This paper will evaluate, according to biblical-theological criteria, the current proposals of inclusivists and pluralists who are turning to pneumatology to find a “wider hope.” A biblical theology of the Spirit demonstrates that the Spirit’s work is Christocentric and supports Christ’s exclusive claims and his call to believe in him.

And here is the Introduction to Todd’s ETS paper, which should wet your appetite for more.

In Acts 4, Peter and John were summoned before the rulers, elders, and scribes in Jerusalem to explain how they had healed a man lame from birth. They responded, “Let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead-by him this man is standing before you well. This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”  This conviction motivated Peter and John, and the rest of the apostles, to endure persecution for the sake of Christ and relentlessly proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to the nations.

That simple statement of the uniqueness of Jesus did not preach well to the sensibilities of Peter and John’s audience. Nor does it preach well in our current postmodern context. To suggest that there is only one way to be reconciled to God is seen as offensive, intolerant, and just plain rude. Nevertheless, Peter and John were correct. Based upon the biblical evidence, I am convinced that one must hear and believe the gospel in order to be saved and that the biblical response to the question of “What about those who have never heard” is “Go tell them!” This conviction is not universally held among evangelicals. For reasons of their own, many are uncomfortable with the narrow exclusivity described above and are proposing different ways of interpreting the text of Acts 4:12 and others like them, to allow for a wider hope and a less restrictive stance. Further, many are turning to pneumatology as the starting point for their proposals. Believing that the church has illegitimately circumscribed the mission of the Spirit by the mission of the Son, some inclusivists and pluralists are suggesting that maintaining a relative independence of the Spirit from the Son will create the theological space necessary to justify their inclusivist and pluralist proposals. The purpose of this paper is to describe those proposals and then to demonstrate that a turn to pneumatology to create theological space for a “wider hope” fails on biblical theological grounds. That is, the Bible’s presentation of the person and work of the Holy Spirit, is self-consciously Christocentric. The Holy Spirit works to bring glory to the Son.

Read the outline of Todd Miles’ paper or his entire ETS paper.

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