Humanity with Spirit

Paul W. Newman

doi:10.1017/S0036930600055289

Humanity with Spirit

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009

Paul W. Newman

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Paul W. Newman: Affiliation:
St. Andrew's College1121 College Drive Saskatoon Sask. S7N 0W3 Canada

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In the Christian literature about spirit one of the decisive questions that influences the interpretation of spirit at many points is whether all spirit is conceived to be divine or whether there are basically two kinds of spirit, human and divine. In Buber's understanding the spirit of love exists in the sphere ‘between’ and is participated in by humans rather than being produced by human will alone. Buber would thus come into the class of persons advocating that there is basically One Spirit.1 Human spirit is seen to be in some way a response to or a sharing in the reality of the One Spirit. Paul Tillich, one of the greatest Christian students of Spirit, is somewhat unclear as to whether there are basically one or two kinds of spirit. On the one hand, he consistently uses two terms, ‘human spirit’ and ‘Spiritual Presence’, by which he means divine Spirit.2 The use of these two terms would seem to indicate two kinds of spirit. Tillich describes at length these two kinds of spirit and speaks of their relationship as that of ‘mutual immanence’.3 On the other hand, in his view of reality in the broadest perspective all spirit is an ontological reality that has its source in the trinitarian life of God.4 This suggests that there is only one Spirit after all.

Type: Articles
Information: Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 34 , Issue 5 , October 1981 , pp. 415 - 426

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0036930600055289 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1981

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^{page 415 note 1} See Buber, , I and Thou (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1970), p. 89Google Scholar; ‘Spirit is not in the I but between I and You. It is not like the blood that circulates in you but like the air in which you breathe. Man lives in the spirit when he is able to respond to his You.’

^{page 415 note 2} Tillich, , Systematic Theology (3 vols., New York: Harper & Row, 1967), III, p. 21Google Scholar.

^{page 415 note 3} ibid., p. 114.

^{page 415 note 4} Tillich, , ST, 1, pp. 250–251Google Scholar.

^{page 416 note 5} Ferré, Nels F. S., The Universal Word (London: Collins, 1970)Google Scholar.

^{page 416 note 6} ibid., p. 9.

^{page 416 note 7} Ferré, Nels F. S., Christ and the Christian (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958)Google Scholar.

^{page 416 note 8} Ferré, Nels F. S., The Christian Understanding of God (London: SCM Press, 1952)Google Scholar.

^{page 416 note 9} Ferré, , The Universal Word, p. 133Google Scholar.

^{page 416 note 10} For example: ‘There is no incoming of what is outgoing apart from an outgoing of what is outgoing.’ (p. 175.)

^{page 416 note 11} For example: ‘He (God) can be present and absent in the same man at the same time, … without any contradiction in terms.’ (p. 133.)

^{page 417 note 12} Ferré's articles on Tillich's thought were sharply critical, claiming that Tillich's theology was fundamentally incompatible with genuine Christian faith. In one article Ferré passionately wrote: ‘how I worked on that man (Tillich) and how I prayed for his being changed toward a fuller Christian message!’ See ‘Tillich and the Nature of Transcendence’ in Paul Tillich: Retrospect and Future (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1966), p. 10.

^{page 417 note 13} Ferré, , The Universal Word, p. 124Google Scholar.

^{page 417 note 14} ibid., p. 121.

^{page 417 note 15} ibid., p. 123.

^{page 417 note 16} ibid.

^{page 417 note 17} ibid., p. 124.

^{page 418 note 18} ibid., p. 128.

^{page 418 note 19} ibid., p. 131.

^{page 418 note 20} Gal. 5:22–23.

^{page 419 note 21} Ferré, , The Universal Word, p. 175Google Scholar.

^{page 419 note 22} See Metz, Johannes B., ‘Foreword’ in Rahner, Karl, Spirit in the World, trans. Dyck, William, S.J., (New York; Herder and Herder, 1968), p. xviGoogle Scholar.

^{page 419 note 23} ibid., pp. xvi-xvii.

^{page 420 note 24} Rahner holds that ‘the ontological constitution of man was disclosed in certain characteristics of human knowledge …. From the insight into the possibility of a judgmental, universal knowledge attaining to the in-itself (Ansich) of the object differentiated from the subject, we arrived at the essence of thought, and thereby, at the essence of man as spirit: excessus to esse absolutely; a form subsisting in itself.’ (P. 239.)

^{page 420 note 25} ibid., p. 283.

^{page 420 note 26} Barth, , Church Dogmatics (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1960), III, pt. 2, p. 356Google Scholar.

^{page 420 note 27} ibid., p. 358.

^{page 420 note 28} ibid., pp. 344–66.

^{page 420 note 29} ibid., p. 348.

^{page 421 note 30} ibid., p. 344.

^{page 421 note 31} ibid., p. 363.

^{page 421 note 32} ibid., p. 364.

^{page 421 note 33} Tillich, , ST. III, p. 421Google Scholar.

^{page 421 note 34} Ferré, , The Universal Word, p. 140Google Scholar.

^{page 422 note 35} The chief theological weakness in panentheism is confusion of the distinction between creature and Creator. On the one hand, the creature is divinised, and on the other hand, God is so much identified with the creation that his freedom as God becomes questionable.

^{page 422 note 36} Barth, , CD, III, pt. 2, p. 352Google Scholar.

^{page 422 note 37} ibid., p. 327.

^{page 422 note 38} ibid., p. 365.

^{page 423 note 39} Aquinas, Thomas said, ‘Man knows through the soul.’ (Quoted by Rahner in Spirit in the World, p. 212Google Scholar.)

^{page 423 note 40} Barth, , CD, III, pt. 2, p. 390Google Scholar.

^{page 423 note 41} Cf. Gen. 2:7.

^{page 425 note 42} Brunner, Emil, Man in Revolt (London: Lutterworth Press, 1942), p. 90Google Scholar.

^{page 426 note 43} Eduard Schweizer comments on the understanding of Spirit in the Old Testament: ‘Man is subject to this power (Spirit), but he is not identified with it; he is “flesh” and not “spirit.”’ See Schweizer, Eduard and others, Spirit of God (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1960), p. 2Google Scholar.

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