Spirit of Life and Death: Modern Pneumatology and the Struggle against Mortality

“Pneumatology,” as a distinct area of theological study about the Holy Spirit, does not come into being until the later twentieth century. Before that “pneumatology” referred to a general study of “spirit,” which might or might not include God’s Holy Spirit. The rise of pneumatology was in part motivated by modern moral concerns about the character of the created world, especially physical suffering. Radner traces some of this development and considers how modern pneumatology has obscured central Christian claims about mortality and about the divine grace of embodied human limitations.

Biography

Ephraim Radner (PhD Yale University) is Professor of Historical Theology at Wycliffe College, University of Toronto and a priest in the Episcopal Church. He is the author of numerous books, including A Time to Keep (Baylor University Press, 2016), Time and the Word (Eerdmans, 2016), and Church (Cascade, 2017).