The Spirit Moved Over the Face of the Waters: The Holy Spirit and the Created Order

2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 190-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Gunton
Keyword(s):  
2008 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-72
Author(s):  
Philip Knights

AbstractThis paper proposes a sacramental vision of the world as both an expression of and an impetus for Christian mission in the face of the current ecological crisis. This is an outworking of Panentheist turns in recent theology and spirituality, although there is much variety in forms of Panetheism and also such emphases have a long Christian history. The paper examines a particular form of sacramental Panentheism as found in two pieces of writing by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: e Priest and e Mass on the World. In both of these Teilhard de Chardin considers the world around him through the lens of the pattern of the eucharistic liturgy and the role of the priest. The world is offered; the Holy Spirit is invoked; and divine transformation is celebrated. These almost poetic meditations stress the divine compassion for and connection with the material world. Teilhard de Chardin's "eucharistic extensions" suggest seeing the cosmos as both a signifier of the Divine and a location of divine action and energy. Christian mission in this perspective demands: that we discover the truth of where we are; that we experience our location in nature deeply, even spiritually; that we seek the advancement of the world; in particular that it may be fashioned according to its destiny in God. The frame of the Eucharist shapes our perception of the world and utilises the worldly as a vehicle of divine transformation. Our attitudes to the world must be the inspiration for our activity in the world. The sacramental vision demands missional and ecological action. Cet article propose une vision sacramentelle du monde à la fois comme une expression de la mission chrétienne face à la crise écologique actuelle, et un élan de cette même mission pour y répondre. Ceci est une retombée des tournants panenthéistes dans la théologie et la spiritualité récentes, même s'il y a beaucoup de variétés dans les formes de panenthéisme et si de tels accents ont déjà une longue histoire chrétienne. L'article examine une forme particulière de panenthéisme sacramentel rencontré dans deux écrits de Pierre Teilhard de Chardin : Le Prêtre et La messe sur le monde. Dans ces deux textes, Teilhard de Chardin regarde le monde qui l'entoure à travers la lunette du schéma de la liturgie eucharistique et du rôle du prêtre. Le monde est offert ; le Saint Esprit est invoqué ; et la transformation divine est célébrée. Ces méditations quasi poétiques soulignent la compassion divine pour le monde matériel et le lien entre les deux. Les « extensions eucharistiques » de Teilhard de Chardin poussent à considérer le Cosmos comme un signe du Divin et un lieu de l'action et de l'énergie divine. Der Artikel trägt eine sakramentale Weltsicht vor, die sowohl Ausdruck als auch Impuls für die christliche Mission angesichts der gegenwärtigen ökologischen Krise ist. Sie ist eine Anwendung panentheistischer Entwicklungen in der neueren Theologie und Spiritualität, obwohl es eine große Vielfalt an Panentheismusformen gibt und solche Akzentsetzungen eine lange christliche Geschichte haben. Der Artikel untersucht eine besondere Form des sakramentalen Panentheismus, wie er sich in zwei Schriften von Pierre Teilhard de Chardin zeigt: Der Priester und Die Messe der Welt. In diesen beiden Schriften versteht Teilhard de Chardin die Welt um ihn im Sinne einer eucharistischen Liturgie und der Rolle des Priesters. Die Welt wird geopfert; der Heilige Geist wird angerufen; und die göttliche Wandlung wird gefeiert. Diese fast poetischen Meditationen betonen das göttliche Erbarmen und die Verbindung mit der materiellen Welt. Teilhard de Chardins "eucharistische Ausweitungen" schlagen vor, den Kosmos sowohl als Zeichen als auch als Ort göttlichen Handelns und göttlicher Energie zu verstehen. Este texto propone una visión sacramental del mundo como una expresión y un impulso para la misión cristiana de cara a la actual crisis ecológica. Se trata de una elaboración de giros panenteístas en la teología y espiritualidad recientes, aunque exista una gran variedad en las formas de panenteísmo y estos énfasis tengan una larga historia cristiana. El artículo analiza una forma particular de panenteísmo sacramental como se lo encuentra en dos escritos de Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: El Sacerdote y La Misa sobre el Mundo. En ambos, Teilhard de Chardin considera el mundo a su alrededor a través del lente de la estructura de una liturgia eucarística y el papel del sacerdote. Se ofrece el mundo; se invoca al Espíritu Santo; y se celebra la transformación divina. Estas meditaciones casi poéticas enfatizan la compasión divina por y la conexión con el mundo material. Las "extensiones eucarísticas" de Teilhard de Chardin proponen mirar el universo tanto como el significante de lo Divino como la ubicación de la acción y energía divinas.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Marit Flinn

<p>Mary Ursula Bethell's poems are almost exclusively celebrations of natural beauty. What, then, is the significance of the beauty within the world to the poet? This question is central to Bethell's poetry and this thesis attempts to answer it. Beauty, for Bethell, is the invisible shining through the visible. It is the glory of God shown in the physical world. As Bethell searches for and celebrates beauty, she is in fact searching for and celebrating the face of God.  Bethell's first collection, From a Garden in the Antipodes, introduces the role of beauty in the poet's life: a role of revealing the world as a point of connection between herself and her God. Time and Place continues with this theme. Here the focus is on Christ as the ultimate Being - the foundation of all things, who is revealed most perfectly through the beauty of the world. Day and Night holds the climax of the revelation of God. It unveils the Holy Spirit as the 'Spirit of Beauty', so creating a direct link between the poet and her God - a link which is made evident by the beauty of the world.</p>


Perichoresis ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-49
Author(s):  
Rudolph P. Almasy

ABSTRACT Focusing on two of Richard Hooker’s sermons, “Certaintie and Perpetuitie of Faith in the Elect” and “Learned Sermon of the Nature of Pride”, this essay explores Hooker’s worries about how the mind reacts to matters of religious doubt, curiosity, arrogance, and mental confusions. These worries of what enters the mind influence the search for what Hooker calls the certainty of adherence (faith) and the certainty of evidence (knowledge). Such worries, prompted by what Hooker sees as the mind’s frag- ileness in the face of religious experience and religious truth, lead Hooker in the sermons, as well as in his Ecclesiasticall Lawes, to a certain religious and rhetorical position which emphasizes the notion of approaching faith and knowledge in terms of simplicity or singleness. This approach, Hooker counsels, should lead the potentially confused mind, regardless of the certainty it seeks and of the influence of the Holy Spirit, toward the notion of surrender-to God or to the rhetor.


Author(s):  
Peter van Inwagen

The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is a central and essential element of Christian theology. The part of the doctrine that is of special concern in the present entry may be stated in these words: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are each God; they are distinct from one another; and yet (in the words of the Athanasian Creed), ‘they are not three Gods, but there is one God’. This is not to be explained by saying that ‘the Father’, ‘the Son’ and ‘the Holy Spirit’ are three names that are applied to the one God in various circumstances; nor is it to be explained by saying that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are parts or aspects of God (like the leaves of a shamrock or the faces of a cube). In the words of St Augustine: Thus there are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and each is God and at the same time all are one God; and each of them is a full substance, and at the same time all are one substance. The Father is neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit; the Son is neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son. But the Father is the Father uniquely; the Son is the Son uniquely; and the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit uniquely. (De doctrina christiana I, 5, 5) The doctrine of the Trinity seems on the face of it to be logically incoherent. It seems to imply that identity is not transitive – for the Father is identical with God, the Son is identical with God, and the Father is not identical with the Son. There have been two recent attempts by philosophers to defend the logical coherency of the doctrine. Richard Swinburne has suggested that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be thought of as numerically distinct Gods, and he has argued that, properly understood, this suggestion is consistent with historical orthodoxy. Peter Geach and various others have suggested that a coherent statement of the doctrine is possible on the assumption that identity is ‘always relative to a sortal term’. Swinburne’s formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity is certainly free from logical incoherency, but it is debatable whether it is consistent with historical orthodoxy. As to ‘relative identity’ formulations of the doctrine, not all philosophers would agree that the idea that identity is always relative to a sortal term is even intelligible.


Perichoresis ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 27-40
Author(s):  
Brian J. Arnold

Abstract The aim of this essay is to give a high-level overview of Irenaeus’s beatific vision, and to suggest that for him, the beatific vision has a temporal dimension (now and future) and a dimension of degree (lesser now, greater in the future). His beatific vision is witnessed as it intersects with at least four main ideas in his writing—the Trinity, anthropology, resurrection, and his eschatology. Irenaeus famously held that ‘the glory of God is living man, and the life of man is the vision of God’ (AH 4.20.7), which speaks to the reality of seeing God in the present, but he could also look forward in anticipation to beholding the face of God in the resurrected body in the new creation. What made the latter possible is the gradual beholding of God in the present that makes one prepared to see God’s glory in the future. Additionally, the visio Dei is Trinitarian. We behold God in Christ, since God the Father is invisible, and it is the Holy Spirit who prepares us incrementally to see God.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Marit Flinn

<p>Mary Ursula Bethell's poems are almost exclusively celebrations of natural beauty. What, then, is the significance of the beauty within the world to the poet? This question is central to Bethell's poetry and this thesis attempts to answer it. Beauty, for Bethell, is the invisible shining through the visible. It is the glory of God shown in the physical world. As Bethell searches for and celebrates beauty, she is in fact searching for and celebrating the face of God.  Bethell's first collection, From a Garden in the Antipodes, introduces the role of beauty in the poet's life: a role of revealing the world as a point of connection between herself and her God. Time and Place continues with this theme. Here the focus is on Christ as the ultimate Being - the foundation of all things, who is revealed most perfectly through the beauty of the world. Day and Night holds the climax of the revelation of God. It unveils the Holy Spirit as the 'Spirit of Beauty', so creating a direct link between the poet and her God - a link which is made evident by the beauty of the world.</p>


Author(s):  
Hendarto Supatra

The author gives enough introduction of the development of the Pentecostal movement in the history of the Christian Church. The movement of the Pentecostalism was an unique development because the Holy Spirit is believed as the inisiator of the movement. Therefore, the Pentecostal churches really depends on the work of the Holy Spirit (without separated from the work of the work of God the Father and Jesus Christ). Furthermore, this article describes the development of the Pentacostal movement, especially in Indonesian context and observes the unique and positive things of the Pentacostalism, its doctrine and dangerous teachings, especially in Indonesian context. The author believes that Pentecostalism will be the face of Christianity in the future.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 9-23
Author(s):  
Marek Jagodziński ◽  

John D. Zizioulas’ publications do not include a special study of his Pneumatology, but his lectures on dogmatic theology contain a lot of material on the pneumatological vision of the Church. The foundation of the Church’s faith is the revealed and communicated truth of God, the preservation of which is a special task of the Holy Spirit. He is always active in community and creates communion, and all His gifts are for unity. The truth is revealed and secured only in the communion of the Holy Spirit in the Church. Zizioulas writes that it is the Holy Spirit who constitutes the true “essence of the Church”. Hence, Orthodox theologians often conceive of the Church as “an everlasting Pentecost event”. Thanks to the Son, we can get to know God, while the Holy Spirit reveals that God is communion. The great mistake of generations of dogmatists was to separate Christology from the science of God – and therefore from pneumatology. Salvation is realized in the Church, which is after all God’s people united in Christ and in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of communion, and it is no exaggeration to identify the Kingdom of God with Himself. The Eucharist is communion and participation in the Blood of Christ, which is “full of the Holy Spirit” and shares in Christ – and at the same time “in the communion of the Holy Spirit”. In the face of christomonistic or charismatic constraints, Zizioulas reminds us that Christ does not build the Church without the Holy Spirit, and He does not come to the Church only when he is completely formed. The institution of the Church was established at a specifi c point in history, but is constantly constituted and renewed by the Holy Spirit. The Church receives everything from God through Christ in the Holy Spirit, but it is necessary to receive His gifts in the event of communion – and it is in the Holy Spirit that everything what happens is an event of communion.


1975 ◽  
Vol 28 (6) ◽  
pp. 501-516 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wesley Carr
Keyword(s):  

Discussion about the Holy Spirit is at present in a state of almost total confusion. A renewed interest is being shown in the Spirit and in the process the term ‘Holy Spirit’ is tending to become a rag-bag into which are relegated all those aspects of aeligion and life which we are unhappy simply to assign to the working of God. It has become a cover for our deficiencies, so that the Spirit is whatever we like to make it. Phrases are created on analogy with ‘The Spirit of Truth’ to associate with the Spirit whichever particular aspect of life a writer wishes to dignify. Alternatively, in the face of unresolvable complexities the phrase is invoked as a pious aphorism to which there can be no retort—‘Leave it to the Spirit’.


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