The Holy Spirit as the Universal Touch and Goal

If the Spirit is not equal to the Father and the Son, can the Trinity survive? Is the role of the Spirit in salvation as important as that of the Son? Why was the divinity of the Spirit problematic in the early Church? If the Son, Jesus Christ, is "the way the truth and the life," what role does the Spirit have in God's reaching out to touch the Church and the world? Is there any contact with, any experience of God, apart from the Spirit? In what sense is the Spirit the goal of the Christian life? The Other Hand of God addresses these theological queries.

Chapters are "To Do Pneumatology is to Do Trinity," "Struggling with Ambiguity," "The Way of Doxology," "To Do Pneumatology is to Do Eschatology," "Movement Toward Fixity: Holy Spirit in Patristic Eschatology," "To Do Pneumatology Is to Start at the Beginning," "No Unified Vision in the New Testament," "Losing the Battle to Stay with the Imprecision of the Scriptures," "The Mission of the Spirit: Junior Grade?" "God Beyond the Self of God," "The Return: The Highway Back to the Father," "The Spirit Is the Touch of God," "The Tradition of Subordinationism," "Basil: Not Subordination but Communion of Life with the Father and the Son," "Gregory Nazianzus: The Divine Pedagogy in Steps," "The Council of Constantinople: The Triumph of Discretion," "To Do Pneumatology is to Start with Experience," "Experience of the Spirit in the Early Church," "William of St. Thierry: 'So I May Know by experience,' " "Bernard of Clairvaux: 'Today We Read in the Book of Experience,' " "The Role of Pneumatology in an Integral Theology," "The Continuing Quest for a Theology of the Holy Spirit," and "Toward a Theology in the Holy Spirit"

Kilian McDonnell, OSB, STD, a monk and priest of St. John's Abbey, Collegeville, Minnesota, is the founder and the president of the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research in Collegeville. For years he was a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Unity in Rome. He has been involved both nationally and internationally in dialogues with the Lutherans, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, and Disciples of Christ. He has published on John Calvin, Christian initiation, and on the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, as well as collections of poetry. The Catholic Theological Society of America has honored him for his contributions to theology.