Sigurd Bergmann, Creation Set Free: The Spirit as Liberator of Nature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), xvii + 388 Pps., $38.00
Sigurd Bergmann is Professor of Religious Studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway. He is also an ordained minister within the Church of Sweden. Within this text, Bergmann creatively dialogs with Gregory of Nazianzus, ecological theologies, and liberation theologies, in order to reaffirm the notion that the cosmos is involved in redemption rather than merely a stage for the consumption of humans. Within this text, Bergmann dialogs and relies heavily upon the primal teaching of Gregory of Nazianzus, and this fact is evidenced throughout.
Indeed, Bergmann asserts that with Gregory, Trinitarian thinking essentially had its origination (221). Bergmann’s book consistently asserts that it is the Spirit of God which is the power behind creation, as well as the organizational factor of creation. So then, the Spirit of God is the source of life, as is apparent that God is in all things thereby, and all things are therefore in God. I greatly appreciated Bergmann consistently employing and explaining Moltmann’s conception of the Spirit’s activity in & through creation. Moreover, Bergmann approves Moltmann’s posit that “God’s Spirit is the principle of evolution” (223). In a sense, then, this ‘principle of evolution’ could be correlated with a sort of ‘creatio continua’ (217). One of, if not the, the most valuable insights found within this book is that the Spirit vivifies (foundationally), permeates (ontologically), indwells (incarnationally), and consummates (liberationally) creation (170). Moreover, the Spirit [of God] searches, hastens, watches, and abides in all creation (167).
Life, then, is a manifestation of the Spirit of God, which presupposes the Spirit’s activity within the world as the Agent of life itself. Christ creates the Cosmos, whereas the Spirit maintains the same. The most interesting aspect, I found, of Gregory’s theology, as presented by Bergmann, is that within the Trinity, each member of the Godhead maintains and retains its separate identity in complete community (148). I found Gregory’s ‘quasi’ & Moltmann’s ‘outright’ rejection of an immutable God comforting, to be sure, for ‘God cannot heal what He has not assumed’ (cf. 239). I inherently thank God that he has assumed pain, for that directly means that he can heal humanity’s pain, if not now, then at the eschaton. Bergmann’s approval of the statement that the ‘open Trinity… [is] a unity that both invites and unites’ stimulates my frontal cortex, and arouses much thought within me (185). Unity, then, finds it rest in Trinity (cf. 117).
The idea that the entire Trinity is at work in the Spirit’s activity is befuddling and confounding, yet is interesting nonetheless. Moreover, the depiction of the Trinity in terms of the God that conceives (i.e. the Father), the God that creates (i.e. the Son), and the God who consummates (i.e. the Spirit) is an intellectually immense insight. As an aside, I found Gregory’s discussions, as characterized by Bergmann, regarding pain and its accompanying suffering to be refreshing to my proverbially tortured mind, and ravished body, for Gregory essentially avers that pain is that which ultimately sets us free. So then, suffering is the pain that sets us free (cf. 147). One may infer, then, that suffering inaugurates salvation! Gloriously, God takes suffering upon Himself in order to free us from the same suffering (cf. 136) – which in essence effects (i.e. enacts) salvation. So then, humans are to be marked by service, subordination, submission, and sanctification (cf. 11).
Gregory’s notion, as reported by Bergmann, that humans are ‘the link’ between the Spiritual and Physical realms is informative to me while extending my thinking simultaneously (92). I had a problem with Gregory’s thinking regarding the analogy of Adam, Eve, and Seth being a symbolic representation of the Trinity, however (84– 85). Indeed, if Adam is the Father (masculine) and Eve is the Spirit/mother (feminine), then Seth is the Son (masculine). However, this construction would essentially make the Son to be begotten by both the Father AND the Spirit, which is seemingly contrary to the West’s filoque, as well as the East’s per fillium. I thus reject this analogy of Gregory’s, as communicated by Bergmann. This criticism aside, I affirm this text as being highly worthwhile and profitable for graduate students involved in philosophy, theology and science, and ecological studies.
Bradford McCall, Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA