THE ‘SPIRIT’ AND THE ‘GROANING OF CREATION’ IN ROMANS 8 SEEN AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF MODERN SCIENCE
Keywords
Ecology and EschatologyFlesh and Spirit
Spirit and Eschatology
Science and Faith
Entropy and the ‘Age to Come’
Full record
Show full item recordOnline Access
http://scriptura.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/124Abstract
Romans 8:19-22 is unique in its concern for the natural world. This is theologically significant at a time when ecological concerns have become inescapable and urgent. But this concern is packaged in an ‘apocalyptic’ eschatology that no longer seems plausible in modern times. This essay places the theology of Paul into the context of the Israelite-Jewish traditions, on which it draws, and Romans 8:19-22 into the context of Paul’s theology of the ‘Spirit’ as opposed to the ‘flesh’. Then it confronts Paul’s eschatology with modern scientific insight, and tries to reconceptualise its essential message in a way that could make sense to our scientifically informed contemporaries. The ‘age to come’ is a vision of comprehensive optimal well-being that orients the human ‘spirit’, that is, the structure of human consciousness, towards God’s benevolent intentionality. The divine ‘Spirit’ is the empowerment to participate in God’s creative and redemptive agency.Date
2013-06-13Type
info:eu-repo/semantics/articleIdentifier
oai:scriptura.journals.ac.za/oai:article/124http://scriptura.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/124
10.7833/109-0-124