spirit and healing in africa - University of the Free State

This thesis centralizes the proper, specific personhood and function of the Holy Spirit in relation
to healing. The motivation is to explore and intimate new avenues for Reformed language about
God and healing, and the assumption is that a pneumatological perspective provides an important
key in this exploration. A pneumatological understanding of health and healing, as proposed in
this thesis, is explicitly not meant as substitution of what already has been said about God’s
healing work from a Christological perspective. Christological language on healing has been
generated, which is obviously prompted by the healing miracles of Jesus’ earthly ministry as
recorded in the New Testament. Pneumatological language on healing is to be seen as an
expansion of language about the healing work of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in this
world.
A straightforward pneumatological focus runs the risk of creating the impression that the link
with the Father and the Son is overlooked. It is thus of utmost importance to safeguard the unity
of the persons of the Trinity, and to account for a Trinitarian identification of the Holy Spirit 4 . In
this thesis, the identity and the agency of the Spirit is approached in Trinitarian light by focusing
on the relational and communal being of the Triune God in relation to healing (chapter 7). In
addition, the focus on the expanded identity of God’s Spirit, that is on the Spirit’s agency in
creation with its vulnerability, its quality and beauty, shows that the work of the Spirit cannot be
separated from the love of the Father and the frailty of the Son (chapter 9). And when in the
discussion on healing as transformation the redemptive work of the Spirit is addressed, this is
done in the understanding that the believer’s identity is molded by the pattern of Christ through
the Spirit (chapter 8). The Trinitarian identity of the Spirit is maintained in the underlying
principle that the Spirit always refers to Jesus Christ. The exploration of the link between Spirit,
power and healing will show that the mission of the Spirit is defined by the Trinity’s allencompassing
love for life. The creative power of the Spirit is rooted in the Trinitarian event of
the cross, which opens the avenue for language about resurrection, healing and justice (chapter
10). In short, this thesis is a pneumatological exploration of healing, an exploration done in the
understanding that “the Spirit is always the Spirit of the Father and the Son” (McDonnell
1985:214).
4. Rian Venter (2012b:10) mentions five critical insights generated by a Trinitarian identification of the Spirit: (1)
the Spirit is co-constitutive of the very life of God; (2) God’s triune identity is construed in terms of relationality; (3)
the Spirit’s identity is not restricted to Christ’s redemptive work, but is expanded in the relationship to both Father
and Son, to both creation and redemption; (4) the Trinity provides a decisive hermeneutical lens, for an entire
theological vision as well as for pneumatology in particular; (5) the Spirit is the exuberant agency of the Father and
the Son.
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