The main issue theologically would seem to be whether we can recognise a universal presence and activity of the Spirit with redemptive promise. Based on the truth that the Spirit blows where it wills, it seems both biblical and logical to conclude that God’s Spirit is not limited to the Christian sphere. That it would not be a mere ornament of piety but the Lord and giver of life, the very principle to whom all creatures owe their very existence and activity. This is the insight one finds in the universal pneumatology of Wolfhart Pannenberg and in the holistic pneumatology of Jurgen Moltmann, of whom the latter writes: In both Protestant and Catholic theology, there is a tendency to view the Holy Spirit solely as the Spirit of redemption. Its place is in the church and it gives men and women the assurance of eternal blessedness. Thus the redemptive Spirit is cut off both from bodily life and the life of nature. It makes people turn away from this world and hope for a better world beyond. They then seek and experience in the Spirit a power that is different from the divine energy of life which according to the Old Testament interpenetrates all the living.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 10:18:32 +0000