Power and the Spirit of God Toward an Experience-Based Pneumatology [Hardcover]

In this book the distinguished Roman Catholic theologian Bernard Cooke reassesses the long-standing Christian description of divine power. The word power evokes the spheres of economic, political, and social life. Cooke suggests, however, that the deepest questions about conflicting powers are theological and concern what Christians have traditionally referred to as the Holy Spirit and salvation.

Power and the Spirit of Godis an important and challenging word in what should be an ongoing converstaion. Some of the book's imaginative content may very well be the work of the Spirit who is creative power. --PNEUMA: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies

The intellectual acumen of C.'s theology of the Spirit does not mask the prayerful reflection pervading the text--a quality that places the work in line with previous generations of Christian theological scholarship. Rather than merely pointing a direction for Pneumatology, C. has, in my estimation, fully developed one by initially arguing for the equation of Spirit=power=truth (the dispelling of lies), and then executing a prophetic effort at such truth-telling throughout and confronting serious challenges with hope. --Theological Studies

Cooke has provided us with a highly readable and original addition to the contemporary discussion of pneumatology. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in that discussion for years to come. --Anglican Theological Review

Bernard Cooke has a reputation for writing elegant theology that combines deep learning and wisdom about western history and culture with keen pastoral and practical sensibilities. Here he develops a genuinely fresh experience-based approach to pneumatology, which ponders, with great care and insight, a wide range of manifestations of power-in nature and in history, personal, social, and institutional, political, economic, aesthetic, and religious. These arlC&