spirit and healing in africa - University of the Free State

e considered a key representative of modern Reformed theology in the second half of the
twentieth century. His pneumatology permeates his overall theology, but is also specifically
addressed in God in Creation (1985) and The Spirit of Life (1992).
Moltmann’s ideas about the Holy Spirit have been developed against the backdrop of the
ecological crisis, the negligence of humans in relation to the natural environment. The natural
world is in danger, because humans have prioritized their own interests, and disregarded their
responsibility for other forms of life. Moltmann is driven by the idea that it is the task of
(Protestant) theology to address the theme of nature and creation. His theological approach of
countering the indifference towards ecological life is to reunite the doctrine of God and the
doctrine of creation. Under the influence of secularization, industrial exploitation and
progressing insights of the natural sciences, God and creation have become separate entities, but
now theology faces the challenge to re-connect them, and to emphasize that God is involved in
creation. Moltmann understands creation as the purpose to become God’s home (oikos), where
God’s indwelling does not only involve human life, but all of creation (1992:31-38). The
implication is that in Moltmann’s theology God’s immanence receives more attention than God’s
transcendence.
The Creator God, who is involved in creation and desires to inhabit this world, is the Holy Spirit
(Moltmann 1985:113; 1992:8). The Spirit dwells in creation (in its totality as well as in
individual creatures) with the power of life. With his rediscovery of the cosmic breadth of the
Spirit, Moltmann departs from conventional Trinitarian thinking about God and creation because
he prioritizes the work of the Holy Spirit in the process of creating, while other Trinitarian
approaches understand the role of the Spirit mainly as sustenance of creation (after the
reconciling and saving work of Christ). By emphasizing the meaning of the creative work of the
Spirit, Moltmann offers a Trinitarian doctrine of creation: creation and re-creation do not only
require the work of the Father and the Son, but imply also the full involvement of the Holy
Spirit.
Thus, Moltmann develops a (social) Trinitarian pneumatology in his attempt to link God and the
world. God’s panentheistic involvement in creation transpires in human experiences of the
creative work of the Spirit (1992:289-309). Through the renewing, reconciling and transforming
work of the Spirit, God and human beings are brought closer to each other. This is what the work
of the Spirit is about: the final purpose of creation is God’s indwelling and homecoming in
creation (Moltmann 1985:64). This eschatological condition of creation is the hope that inspires
the current condition of creation: in the cross of Christ, the Spirit has committed herself to the
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