I Believe in the Holy Spirit

Natl Book Network, November 1997. Paper Back. New. Yves Congar was a pivotal figure in twentieth-century Catholic theology. Initially influenced by Maritain and Garrigou-Lagrange and other neo-Thomists, Congar began to embrace a more historical interpretation of theology through Gilson.and especially Marie-Dominique Chenu. These multiple theological influences were paralleled by a similar breadth of ecumenical interests, ranging from Luther and Calvin and Karl Barth to an increasing concern for the theology of the Orthodox Church. Irenic yet orthodox, Congar was uniquely suited to play a crucial role in resourcement, and in the formulation of such seminal Vatican II documents as Lumen Gentium and Gaudium et Spies, and the pre-Vatican II suspicion of Congar as a modernist was transformed into the admiration and appreciation of John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II. <i>I Believe in the Holy Spirit</i> was one of Congar's most mature theological endeavors, and its re-publication in one unabridged volume from the original three must be hailed as a major event. It combines a detailed scriptural exegesis of the nature and experience of the Holy Spirit with a comprehensive historical account of the Church's development of doctrine concerning the Spirit. The entire third part of this monumental work examines crucial doctrinal divergences concerning the Holy Spirit in Greek East and Latin West, including extended excurses on the vexed issues of the Filioque and the Epiclesis, and their bearing on ecclesiology. We resonate with Congar's passionate confession expressed at the outset of this study: ''I believe intensely in the essential union of theological study and a life of praise -- the doxology and the practice of the liturgy in which, by celebrating them, we are in communion with the mysteries.