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Pneumatology: Edward Schillebeeckx's Recent Theology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Extract
The Christian theological tradition has always found discussion of the Holy Spirit difficult. In early patristic writings, for example, the Holy Spirit was often treated as an adjunct to discussions about the relationship between Jesus and God. For both Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, the Spirit was ‘love” or “gift”—designations which are indeed real, but also to a certain extent elusive. Today, some contemporary theologians find the task of describing the Holy Spirit no less difficult. William Hill and Colin Gunton both speak of the “self-effacing” Spirit; Leonardo Boff speaks of the Spirit who “cannot be imagined” while Paul Evdokimov speaks of the “mysterious face” of the Spirit. Other contemporary theologians speak of the Holy Spirit in relation to the Spirit’s function of making connections. Some time ago, John Taylor called the Holy Spirit The Go-Between God. Latterly, Mary Grey and Elizabeth Johnson have been exploring the Spirit’s function as that of bringing different entities into relationship. Kilian McDonnell suggests that the Holy Spirit is the “horizon” in which believers pray and reflect, but the Spirit is never an “object.” Such comments about the Holy Spirit from believers prior to and contemporary with Edward Schillebeeckx provide a background for discussing and assessing his treatment of the Holy Spirit.
This discussion has three parts. I will first describe the theology of the Holy Spirit presented in the theological writings of Edward Schillebeeckx between 1974 and 1994; second, I will offer some critique on his treatment of the Holy Spirit; third, I will draw on Schillebeeckx’s theology to suggest future directions for pneumatology.
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- Copyright © 1999 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 Edmund J Dobbin, “References to the Spirit became notoriously sparse in the writings of the apologists, and the references when explicit, are often vaguely related to the Word.” See “Trinity” in The New Dictionary of Theology, ed. Komonchak, J., Collins, M., Lane, D. (Delaware: Michael Glazier, 3rd Printing, 1989)Google Scholar, 1053.
2 Hill, William J., The Three‐Personed God: The Trinity as a Mystery of Salvation (Washington DC: CUA Press, 1982), 302Google Scholar: Gunton, Colin, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology(Edinburgh, T&T Clark, 1991), 168Google Scholar.
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6 See Mary Grey “Where does the Wild Goose Fly to? Seeking a New Theology of Spirit for Feminist Theology,”New Blackfriars, Feb. 1991:89–96; Johnson, Elizabeth Women, Earth, and Creator Spirit (New York: Paulist Press, 1993), 57Google Scholar and She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Discourse (New York: Crossroad, 1992)Google Scholar, esp. ch.7. See too Harris, Maria, Proclaim Jubilee: A Spirituality for the 21st Century (Louisville Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996)Google Scholar,7. Feminist theologians and eco‐theologians are presently offering significant insights about the functions and nature of the Holy Spirit.
7 McDonnell, Kilian, “The Determinative Doctrine of the Holy Spirit,”ThT 39 (1982–3): 145Google Scholar.
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10 Schillebeeckx, Edward, Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord, trans. John Bowden (London: SCM, 1980)Google Scholar. Orig. pub. 1977. Hereafter cited as Christ.
11 Schillebeeckx, Edward, I am a Happy Theologian, trans. Bowden, John (London: SCM Press Ltd., 1994)Google Scholar. Orig. pub. 1993.
12 See Jesus, 646; Christ, 339; Interim Report on the Books “Jesus” and “Christ”, trans. Bowden, John (New York: Crossroad, 1987), 135Google Scholar. Orig. pub. 1978. Hereafter cited as Interim Report. This view is also constant in earlier theology.
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24 In fact, so committed is Schillebeeckx to this interpretation for Jesus that he says: To put it baldly: it the model had not already existed, the impression that Jesus had made on them in his whole ministry would have obliged them to invent it.”Jesus, 473. In 1977, Schillebeeckx reaffirms this position when be argues against critics who claim that the ‘eschatological prophet’ is of minor significance. See “Jésus de Nazareth: Le Récit ḑaron;un Vivant,” 21.
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37 Church, 158.
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44 Jesus, 153.
45 See references to Paul's identification of being “in Christ” and being “in the Spirit” in Dobbin, “The Trinity,” 1050.
46 Church, 109.
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48 Schillebeeckx used the word “trilogy” to refer to his works Jesus, Christ and Church. See Interim Report, 95.
49 Schillebeeckx suggests that many of the works done by Jesus, such as sanctifying, making disciples, forgiving sins, were transferred after his death to the Spirit. In Christ, 534–5, Schillebeeckx speaks of the Spirit being given to the community and to all individual believers. McDonnell credits Schillebeeckx with having brought a pneumatological dimension to the sacraments in his early work, Christ the Sacrament. See “The Determinative Doctrine,” 159, n.95. This was truer, however, of Schillebeeckx's earlier rather than later works.
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55 See Dobbin, “The Trinity,” 1051.
56 Moltmann, Jü;rgen, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 157Google Scholar.
57 Catherine LaCugna with McDonnell, K., ‘“Returning from the Far Country’: Theses for a Contemporary Trinitarian Theology,”SJTh 41 (1988): 197Google Scholar.
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64 See, too example, O'Donnell, John J., “In Him and Over Him: The Holy Spirit in the Life of Jesus,”Greg, 70, Vol. 1 (1989)Google Scholar. See LaCugna and McDonnell, “Returning from” The Far Country',” 200, 215.
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66 Interim Report, 102.
67 See She Who Is, Part Three.
68 Walter Kasper says, “A more profound pneumatology can help fill in the gaps of traditional Christology.” See“Esprit‐Christ‐Eglise”Mélanges Edward Schillebeeckx: ĽExperience de ľEsprit: (Paris: Editions Beauchesne, 1976), 63Google Scholar.
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70 See section in Christ 804–810, “Political and mystical activity.”
71 “Ľavenir de ľÉglise est fondamentalement liéà la présence de ľÉglise àľavenir du monde et à sa présence aux grands problèmes et souffrances de ľhumanité dans ce monde”. Conference de Presse, unpublished manuscript, Rome, 1993,1.
72 See Church 257.
73 “The Johannine Easter,”70.