Romancing the Trinity: A Mystical Approach to the Equality of the Spirit

An influential contemporary trend in pneumatology, pioneered by Thomas Weinandy and Sarah Coakley, uses resources from traditions of prayer to explain how the Spirit is equal to the Father and Son. Several thinkers who participate in what Coakley calls “incorporative” pneumatology draw on figures like John of the Cross to argue specifically that the Spirit’s activity in originating other divine persons is equal to that of the Father and Son. Despite the promising novelty of this approach, some have criticized these thinkers for attenuating trinitarian distinction without overcoming trinitarian inequalities. My paper contributes to incorporative pneumatology by supplying two new insights that I take from John of the Cross: his iterative theory of apophatic language and his nuptial framework for examining active trinitarian love. I argue that the combination of these two insights accounts for the equality of trinitarian activity in terms of nuptial love without jeopardizing trinitarian distinction.