Fragments of the Spirit Nature, Violence, and the Renewal of Creation

by Wallace, Mark I.

• ISBN13: 9781563383823
• ISBN10: 1563383829
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-01-01
• Publisher: Bloomsbury T&T Clark

Summary

Arguing that the Holy Spirit is best understood not as a metaphysical entity but as a healing life-force, Mark Wallace offers a powerful vision of the Spirit as an agent of transformation in a world racked by interhuman violence and ecological abuse.

Author Biography

Mark I. Wallace is Associate Professor of Religion at Swarthmore College

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Introduction	1	(1)
Ecological Pneumatology	2	(6)
Outline of the Project	8	(7)
Part One: Methodological Overtures
Theology, Rhetoric, and Postmodernism	15	(21)
Writing the Spirit	15	(5)
Postmodern Presuppositions	20	(14)
Erasure of Self	22	(3)
Deprivileging of Metaphysics	25	(2)
Breakdown of Metanarratives	27	(3)
Revalorization of Nature	30	(2)
Failure of Theodicy	32	(2)
Conclusion	34	(2)
Metaphysics, Neoempiricism, and the Possibility of Religious Belief	36	(27)
Should Theology Seek to Overcome Its Affinities with Metaphysics?	40	(3)
Transcendental Theology and the Quest for Certainty: Schubert Ogden	43	(5)
A Rhetorical Response	48	(6)
Private Truth and Strong Poets	54	(4)
Richard Rorty
A False Alternative	58	(4)
Conclusion	62	(1)
Performative Truth and the Witness of the Spirit	63	(28)
The Spirit Is the Lamp of the Truth: I	66	(2)
Wittgenstein and Basic Beliefs	68	(8)
The Face in Levinas	76	(4)
The Spirit Is the Lamp of the Truth: II	80	(2)
A Kierkegaardian Caveat	82	(4)
Conclusion	86	(5)
Part Two: Toward a Life-Centered Theology of the Spirit
The Spirit and Desire: Sacrificial Violence and Moral Insurgency	91	(42)
The Servile Will	92	(3)
Mimesis, Difference, Violence: Rene Girard's Analysis of Desire	95	(13)
Mediated Desire	96	(1)
Loss of Differences	97	(2)
Scapegoats, Racism, and AIDS	99	(5)
Double Valence of the Victim	104	(4)
Questions Concerning the Victimage Hypothesis	108	(3)
Alternative Theories of Interpretation	111	(7)
Paul Ricoeur
Jacques Derrida
Traces of the Spirit	118	(11)
A Corollary Notion of Difference: Michel Foucault's Analysis of Power	129	(2)
Conclusion	131	(2)
The Spirit and Nature: The Wild Bird Who Heals	133	(38)
The Spirit as Life-Form	134	(5)
Sallie McFague and Christian Paganism	139	(5)
The Vinculum Caritatis in Creation	144	(4)
Composting Religion	148	(6)
Jusia Kristeva
Mary Douglas
``Spirit Is But Thinly and Plainly Clothed'': John Muir's Wilderness Pneumatology	154	(4)
Job, Genesis, and the Promise of Biocentrism	158	(4)
Pilgrims or Stewards	162	(6)
Conclusion	168	(3)
The Spirit and Evil: Eyeless in Gaza (Again)	171	(38)
Three Genres: Speculation, Narrative, Wisdom	173	(3)
Richard Swinburne and the Value of Moral Responsibility	176	(3)
The Problem of Gratuitous Evil	179	(3)
Ronald Thiemann and the God of Promise	182	(5)
The Other Face of God	187	(2)
Paul Ricoeur's Theodicy in a Practical Register	189	(9)
Is the Spirit Friend or Enemy?	198	(8)
Conclusion	206	(3)
Prospects for Renewal	209	(20)
Biblical Portraiture	211	(2)
Final Suggestions	213	(12)
Truth as Inner Testimony	213	(1)
The Spirit and Boundary Crossing	214	(6)
Sojourner Ethic	220	(3)
Aporia of Biblical Faith	223	(2)
The Green Face of God	225	(4)
Index	229