In The Lord, the Giver of Life: Spirit in Relation to Creation , Aaron T. Smith argues that the Spirit in which God exists is not a mode of being but a pattern of relation, which enfolds the world in each moment and gives it a life coordinated with God's. "God" and "world" find mutual determination in the eschatological achievement of covenantal existence, in the triumph of love. Smith offers a new take on the biblical story of creation by bringing intricate interpretation of Genesis into productive dialogue with prominent voices of the Christian tradition as well as contributions from modern science and philosophy. The creation is not primarily a collection of discrete things, but the divinely-willed event of communion, which takes temporal shape within histories of generation, or the history of each generation. The human creature exists authentically in the time-framing of promise and fulfillment, coming to perceive the giving of life as good and right in the manner of the biblical covenant, and coming to desire it again - gladly consenting to life's interdependent generation.

Toward the end of his career, Karl Barth made the provocative statement that perhaps what Schleiermacher was up to was a "theology of the third-article" and that he anticipated in the future that a true third-article theology would appear. Many interpreters, of course, took that to indicate not only a change in Barth's perception of Schleiermacher but also as a self-referential critique. The author investigates this claim, contesting the standard interpretations, and argues for a Barthian pneumatology - a doctrine of the Holy Spirit grounded in the scriptural witness and connected to the vital Christological and dialectical theology found in Barth's project.