Flame of Love (Second Edition)

A Theology of the Holy Spirit

By: Clark H. Pinnock, Daniel Costelo - foreword, Daniel Costelo - commentaries

Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain

In what may be regarded as his magnum opus, Clark Pinnock explores the vital Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

Writing out of wide learning and deep personal passion, he points the way to restoring the oft-neglected Spirit to centrality in the life and witness of the church. Pinnock's book is both Catholic—respecting the beliefs and worship of the historic church—and evangelical—drawing particularly on the heritage of the Reformation. Always in sight is the mission of the church, because "people want to meet the real and living God and will not be satisfied with a religion that only preaches and moralizes."

For this second edition, theologian Daniel Castelo draws from his experience using Flame of Love in the classroom to add notes with helpful commentary and brief reflections on each chapter's main themes and contributions. In doing so, the book becomes even more accessible to contemporary audiences.

©1996 Clark H. Pinnock; second edition copyright 2022 by Clark H. Pinnock (P)2022 eChristian

A great book

I read this in print about 13 years ago. I have been meaning to re-read Flame of Love nearly since I first read it, but it has taken me almost 13 years to get around to it. First, I was waiting until I could pick it up on kindle. And then, once I picked it up on Kindle, it sat on my bookshelf until I saw that a new edition was coming out. But again, the audiobook and some driving led me to pick it up.

I find Flame of Love helpful because Pinnock highlights how the Holy Spirit is present in ways that Evangelicals tend to miss. There are seven chapters. The Spirit and Trinity, the Spirit in Creation, the Spirit and Christology, the Spirit and Church, the Spirit and Union, the Spirit and Universality, and the Spirit and Truth. Each chapter examines where the Spirt, who Pinnock sometimes talks about as "The Hidden God" instead of Chan's "Forgotten God," plays a prominent role.

Amos Yong's commentary on the book of Acts is framed as the church, through the power of the Holy Spirit, doing the work that Christ had done in the book of Luke. And that framing, I think, makes a lot of sense of the type of work Pinnock suggests is common to the Spirit. It is not that the church does the work on its own in Acts. The church is being acted on by the Spirit and becomes the public face of God, but only because of the empowerment of the Spirit.

Similarly, Pinnock brings out how the Spirit has played a role in creation and in Christ's work on earth, and in how we as Christians are brought into union with God. This overly simplifies (and may distort), but I think the first four chapters are more about exploring historical theology and making connections that may have been lost. The last three chapters are more about the theory around the Holy Spirit and can be a bit more abstract theologically. Where I appreciate Pinnock is his limiting of his argument. The sixth chapter about the tension theologically between universalism and exclusivism and the role of the Holy Spirit in drawing people to God nicely bounds what Pinnock thinks can be said biblically with what he would like to be able to say theologically.

I intend to read real theology more than I actually read real theology, but Pinnock is drawing the reader's attention not just to abstractions of how theological reasoning works but to how theological reasoning can impact our devotional and relational lives as Christians. Particularly with the subject of the Holy Spirit, reading theology about the Holy Spirit isn't just about ideas but how we as Christians relate to the person of the Holy Spirit.

Overall, I am a more mature reader on this second reading than I was on the first, which causes me to have different questions. I don't think Pinnock got it all right, and I think the commentary by Daniel Costelo is helpful in both pointing out the strengths and weaknesses of Pinnock's work. I also listened to this on audio. The narration was fine. But a weakness of audio is the inability to quickly re-read sections, make highlights, and flip around the book. Flame of Love has clear, readable prose, but it is prose that I wanted to re-read often. Now that I have listened to the second edition (which I recommend if you are buying new), I will reread my first edition book.

If you find a used or cheap copy of the first edition, go ahead and buy it. The second edition adds an introduction and a response at the end of each chapter. This is not a significant addition to the book regarding page length, but it is helpful.