Life-giving Breath Ecological pneumatology in the context of fetishization

What is it about?

With regard to the fact that both the Hebrew bible, and especially John’s gospel and Paul’s letters have been so clear about the Spirit’s divinity and agency in the history of salvation, it is hard to understand the marginal role of pneumatology in the history of Christian doctrine after the first ecumenical age. Incredibly often pneumatology has been reduced and marginalised in the history of Christianity. This contribution will seek for answers on why, in what context, and how to revision Christian pneumatology today. As the biblical tradition in many ways offers a strong interconnection of the Spirit and Life the argument will emphasize the need for a deep synthesis of the doctrine of Creation and the doctrine of the Spirit. In such a way both biblical, classical and ecumenical deep dimensions of Christian faith can grow together. The article traces the roots of en ecological interpretation of the Spirit in the historically most dynamic time when Christians were seeking for a creative expression of the Trinity and the life-giving Spirit in Eastern late antiquity. Following Cappadocian theologian Gregory of Nazianz and his thoughts about the inhabitation of the Spirit as the continuation of the incarnation of the Son, it elaborates a pneumatology where the atmospheres of life-giving are at the heart of the entanglement of Creation and Salvation. And finally, it applies such a reflection to our contemporary threat of both life and belief in the God if Life in an accelerating idolization and fetishization fuelled by modern financial capitalism.

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