The Holy Spirit and Ch'i (Qi)

A Chiological Approach to Pneumatology

Koo Dong Yun

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9781610971812
  9781498259446
• eBook ISBN:
  9781630876135
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

This book articulates a contextual pneumatology from a perspective of the Eastern idea of ch'i (ki in Korean). Rather than understanding the Spirit from a Westernized philosophical perspective, this book utilizes East Asian categories rooted in the I Ching and Asian religions in dialogue with such prominent Western theologians as Barth, Pannenberg, Moltmann and Harvey Cox. The result is an exciting interaction between the Bible, traditions of the West, and experiences of the Spirit rooted in East Asia. Yun argues that the formal dimension of the Spirit (sangjeok) is present and active in all cultures and religions while the material dimension of the Spirit (muljeok) is categorically revealed and embodied through the life of Jesus Christ, the event of Pentecost, and Charisms given to the church. In making his case, he mediates a creative balance between countercultural and exclusivist models on the one hand, and pluralistic and anthropocentric models on the other.

1

The Chiological Approach to the Holy Spirit

Every theology is a contextual theology that stems from a particular culture and horizon. To suggest some examples, there are black theology, German theology, Korean theology, minjung theology, feminist theology, and liberation theology. Whenever my family gathers together for a special occasion, theological debates take place. My father, an ordained Presbyterian minister, often inculcates that the most foundational doctrine of Christianity is hyo (K. 효 hyo, C. 孝 hsiao)1 by quoting the fifth commandment of the Decalogue. For him, Jesus Christ is the ultimate embodiment of hyo who obeyed His Father (God the Creator) and volunteered to die on the Cross for His Father. The central point of Christianity is to obey the Heavenly Father (God) and the earthly father (human father). In the face of this, I accuse him of being a “Confucianized Christian.” He often reminds me of being an “Americanized” and “individualistic” Christian because I overemphasize individual salvation. Then, I realize that although we worship the same Christian God, my father and I focus on different aspects of God in dissimilar contexts.

In this book, I strive to construct a contextual pneumatology that is congenial to East Asian soil, although part of me has already been Americanized having lived many years in the United States. To write a contextual pneumatology with a distinctively Asian flavor necessitates a sound theological methodology relevant to the East Asian context. After only a few days of research, it did not take me long to realize that the best Chinese translation of the biblical term “Spirit/spirit”2 (ruach and pneuma) ought to be ch’i (C. 氣), a term which encompasses such a variety of meanings as spirit, force, material force, energy, vital energy, vapor, breath, and air. Accordingly, I have endeavored to understand the Spirit from this ch’i perspective, and called this the “chiological approach.” Thus, chapter 1 is an expatiation of the chiological approach utilizing four foundational categories: 1) ch’i, 2) synthesis, 3) (w)holism, 4) postcolonialism.

The Essence of Reality as Ch’i

The Ultimate Reality

What is the Ultimate Reality beyond which there is nothing? By “the Ultimate Reality” I mean the Source or the Creator of all things and beings. All things come from this Ultimate Reality, and all things including human beings return to this. This Ultimate Reality is the One who is behind and within all religions,3 albeit our human concepts or notions of this may have been limited, tainted and infected. The Ultimate Reality remains both transcendent and immanent. As the transcendent Reality, it cannot be contained in any human systems and any human languages that are culturally and socially constructed. Taoists call this “the unnamable, eternal Tao.”4 Many human symbols are used to describe the transcendent Ultimate Reality as the Mystery, the Divine, the Void, and the Ultimateless. John Hick calls this the Real and the Divine that is the center, source, or goal of all religions. Although no human has direct, immediate access to the Real, many religious persons experience the Real with their particular historical and cultural categories. Moreover, no human can fully understand the Real-in-itself—the noumenon in the Kantian sense, so one can only understand the phenomenon of the Real.5 Humans can only describe the Real in symbols, metaphors, and myths. In this regard, humans can only experience the Real “as” something. We portray the Real as Father, Mother, Spirit, Way, Force, and so forth. Furthermore, the Real (or the Ultimate Reality) is symbolized both as personal beings (e.g., Father, Mother, Shiva, or Krishna), and as impersonal beings (e.g., Force, Way, Emptiness, Void, or Heaven).6 The other side of the Ultimate Reality stays immanent insofar as it is present in our universe and nature. It is present in all things and all beings. This Ultimate Reality resides not only in living beings such as humans and animals but also inanimate beings such as trees, rocks, and even in soil and air.

Yahweh and Theos (God) are the two main Judeo-Christian names (or symbols) of this one Ultimate Reality. Both Judaism and Christianity practice monotheism. The Shema teaches, “The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut 6:4). This one God created the universe (Gen 1:1) and all people (Gen 1:27). Furthermore, this one God is the Father of all people that include American, Chinese, Korean, and even nonbelievers.7 Hence, Ephesians 4:6 states, “One God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” Although some conservative scholars argued that the phrase “Father of all” applies only to Christian believers,8 I think a more sound interpretation of the phrase refers to all creatures that include all peoples and animals. Ernest Best argues that the phrase “of all” (Greek pantōn) can be either neuter or masculine. When it is the masculine, it speaks of believers in the church. When neuter, it stands for the cosmos. Best, however, favors the neuter: “In the end it is probably better to give ‘all’ a neuter meaning throughout with the sense, ‘one creator God and Father who governs the cosmos, works through it and present in it.”9 First Corinthians 8:6 also supports the view that this one God is the Father of the cosmos that incorporates such beings as all humans and animals. It says, “Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live;10 and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.” It is clear that this verse endorses the view that this one God is the Father of all things in the cosmos. Moreover, when Jesus spoke of God’s Fatherhood in the Gospels, it meant the Fatherhood of all humanity, all peoples.11

As the Father of all humanity, both believers and nonbelievers, this one God (or the Ultimate Reality) has spoken and communicated not only with Jews and Christians but also with the “other” children such as native East Asians and Africans, for whom Jesus Christ also died for their salvation and loved them unconditionally despite their utmost rebellion (John 3:16; Rom 3:22–24). This one God does not show favoritism (Rom 2:11), and this is the God of both Jews and Gentiles, as well as both believers and nonbelievers (Rom 3:29). Since this one God has spoken to these other children, naturally there has been revelation of God in other people’s cultures. This God’s communication with all of God’s children can be labeled as “General Revelation” (Rom 1:19–20). Moreover, since this God is also “in all” as the Spirit, careful human eyes will detect the pneumatological works and presence in nature and human cultures (Eph 4:6).

In the traditional Western world, they often use the word God (theos) to describe this. In the pluralistic East Asian context, the Ultimate Reality is translated with numerous words, such as T’ai-chi (the Great Ultimate), Wu-chi (the Ultimateless), Shang-ti (the Lord on High), T’ien-chu (the Lord of Heaven), and Ha-na-nim or Ha-neu-nim (the Lord of Heaven in Korean). In the I...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Chiological Approach to the Holy Spirit
• Chapter 2: The I Ching and Ch’i (Qi)
• Chapter 3: The Historical Development of Ch’i (Qi) in East Asia
• Chapter 4: Pneumatologies of Pannenberg and Barth with a Chiological Response
• Chapter 5: From Pneumatological to Chiological Approach to World Religions
• Bibliography