Premium
Rethinking ‘Enthusiasm’: Christoph Blumhardt on the Discernment of the Spirit
Author(s) -
ZAHL SIMEON
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
international journal of systematic theology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.149
H-Index - 13
eISSN - 1468-2400
pISSN - 1463-1652
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2400.2010.00504.x
Subject(s) - enthusiasm , discernment , pneumatology , conviction , philosophy , judgement , theology , epistemology , sign (mathematics) , flourishing , human spirit , psychology , social psychology , law , mathematical analysis , mathematics , political science
This article uses resources from the theology of Christoph Blumhardt to argue that Luther was mistaken in identifying a necessary theological connection between ‘enthusiastic’ views of the Spirit and naive anthropology. It demonstrates that Blumhardt successfully combined an abiding concern over the problem of spiritual self‐deception together with a pneumatology that affirmed the importance of affective experience of the Spirit not mediated exclusively by the proclaimed Word of Scripture, through a conviction that the most reliable sign of the Spirit's activity is ‘negative’, in suffering and visceral encounter with divine judgement, in the first instance. This critical ‘enthusiasm’ helps explain Blumhardt's singular critique of the nationalistic ‘Spirit of August’ from the start of World War I.