THE ECO-PNEUMATOLOGY OF RAIMON PANIKKAR
Spiritual Life in the Suburbs
Keywords:
Raimon Panikkar, Eco-Pneumatology, Ecosophy, Ecumenic Moment, Ecological InterludeAbstract
Throughout the centuries, Christian theologians have been simultaneously perplexed and inspired by the doctrine of the Trinity. Countless philosophical attempts have tried to balance the Trinity in a complex metaphysics that is static enough to provide meaning but fluid enough to maintain at least an appearance of monotheism. Unfortunately, nearly all of these formulations leave us with an attenuated Spirit and many of them seem to forget the Spirit altogether. Raimon Panikkar, however, has introduced a uniquely advaitin Christian perspective to the Trinitarian enigma which takes the role of the Spirit seriously. In the context of a diversified discussion on religion and ecology, this article turns our attention to the role of the Holy Spirit in Panikkar’s theology and the promise that such a pneumatology holds regarding ecology.
References
Raimon Panikkar, The Cosmotheandric Experience: Emerging Religious Consciousness, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1993.
Rene Descartes, Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason in the Search for Truth in the Sciences, trans. E. S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross, cited in Jürgen Moltmann, Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992, 28-29.
Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion. New York: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 2006.
Raimon Panikkar, Christophany: The Fullness of Man, trans. Alfred DiLascia, Milan: Jaca Books, 1999 (also, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004), 147.
Raimon Panikkar, Myth, Faith, and Hermeneutics, New York: Paulist Press, 1978, 4.
Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith, New York: Harper & Row, 1957, 58.
