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Towards a Contemporary Theology of the Holy Spirit

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Wesley Carr
Wesley Carr
Affiliation:
The Cathedral Office, Guy Harlings, New Street, Chelmsford CM1 1NG
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Extract

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’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 28 , Issue 6 , December 1975 , pp. 501 - 516
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1975

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References

page 503 note 1 Toynbee, Philip, Towards the Holy Spirit (London, 1973)Google Scholar; Taylor, J. V., The Go-Belween God (London, 1973)Google Scholar; Pittenger, N., God in Process (London, 1967), pp. 40ff.Google Scholar

page 504 note 1 Neill, S., The Church and Christian Union (Oxford, 1968), chap. 7.Google Scholar

page 504 note 2 Ramsey, I. T., Models for Divine Activity (London, 1973), esp. chap. 4Google Scholar. Ramsey goes too far in implying that ontological questions were of little significance for the Fathers.

page 505 note 1 E. Schweizer, art. πνɛ⋯μα, T.D.N.T., VI, p. 396. Dunn moves in this direction in his Baptism in the Holy Spirit (London, 1970)Google Scholar, and finally reaches this conclusion in his article in the Moule Festschrift, Christ and the Spirit in the New Testament (Cambridge, 1973).Google Scholar

page 506 note 1 This view rejects any Christ-mysticism in the ‘in Christ’ formula. See, e.g., Bouttier, M., Christianity according to St. Paul (E.T. London, 1966).Google Scholar

page 507 note 2 See Pannenberg, W., Jesus—God and Man (E.T. London, 1968), pp. 16gff.Google Scholar

page 510 note 1 For a recent example see Lampe, G. W. H., ‘The Holy Spirit and the Person of Christ’, in Christ, Faith and History (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 111ff.Google Scholar

page 511 note 1 See Küng, H., ‘The Charismatic Structure of the Church’, Concilium, 4.1 (April, 1965), pp. 23ff.Google Scholar