Talk:Pneumatology

Description based on Johannine Christology
I've written a description from by knowledge primarily of Johannine Christology. If anyone is keen on adding textual references, I urge you to do so. Otherwise, the article would also benefit from a section on concepts of the spirit from other religions and branches of philosophy.

Henry —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.252.64.10 (talk) 19:53, August 26, 2003 (UTC)


 * Hi Henry. Pneumatology is an appropriate topic for the encyclopedia.  Thank you for starting the article.  As you see, I've made a lot of changes; but don't let this discourage you (I say this only because of past experience with some people taking massive revisions as general disapproval).  As you probably want to revert a few things that have been lost in the process, I only ask that you take a minute to consider the guidelines of wikipedia, which encourage us to aim at a scholarly and verifiable approach (as opposed to idiosyncratic, or emotive).  Thanks again for the start.  Mkmcconn 20:10, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Overlapping Holy Spirit article
Much of this article overlapped the Holy Spirit (Christianity) article. Some of that overlap has been removed. However, if this article is not to be a copy of the Holy spirit article (which is already getting in good shape), then what is it about? Perhaps this article should describe how early Christians, and later Catholic Christians, Orthodox Chrisitians and Protestant Chrisitians, understood pneumatology as a discipline. Who were the major philosophers of religion in this field, in the the major branches of Christianity? What were their views? All that seems valid; let us just avoid makin this a duplicate of the Holy Spirit article. RK 21:00, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * You are correct, the page should aviod over lapping the "Holy Spirit" page. I think that the "Holy Spirit" page should be used to describe things relating to trinity doctrine after it was codified (3rd, 4th Century?), whilst the pneumatlogy page can describe early christian thought where they often did not use the term Holy spirit, and had different ideas concerning its meaning. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.252.64.5 (talk) 21:32, August 26, 2003 (UTC)


 * Exactly right, RK. I think that in its finished form, an article with this title should describe what pneumatology is, rather than attempt to do pneumatology. Mkmcconn 21:34, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * RK and Mkm, I don't think that works. As the article still says, pneumatology refers to something wider than the "holy spirit" as viewed by mainstream christianity. I'm fine with what has been moved to the "holy spirit" page, but no need to stick to a narrow disciplinary view of what the pneumatology page can contain. M-Henry 22:02, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * On the contrary, nothing but a narrow disciplinary view really works. There is room for gnostic and other heretical views of spirituality, as much as for the "mainstream" focus on the Holy Spirit. However, these should be discussed in terms of the field of study (the "ology" part), rather than in terms of the product (the "Holy Spirit" part). Mkmcconn 22:25, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)~

I read somewhere that the Pneuma is not the same as the Holy Spirit but is the Holy Soul, although it has been conflated as the Holy Spirit over the years because the Holy Soul was more similar to the Sophia as a concept ie it was linked to the Divine Feminine. As Christianity pushed femininity out the Pneuma becamed defined in a different way. I will find the link & post it here. It might explain why we need two separate articles.

Is there any link between the Pneuma & Prana? ThePeg 00:35, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Moved stuff here from Holy Spirit
I moved the stuff from here to Holy Spirit, because Holy Spirit was looking a little thin, but now I'm not so sure. Maybe Holy Spirit should have generally accepted stuff, and Pneumatology the changes in understanding. DJ Clayworth 22:12, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Does the Philo section belong in this article?
Is the section about Philo and his ideas about the Logos really connected with pneumatology? I don't see any mention of what he thought of the pneumos; in Johannine Christology, the Logos is identified with Jesus Christ rather than with the Holy Spirit. Don't get me wrong, it's great stuff, I just wonder if it wouldn't belong somwhere else... maybe Logos?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wesley (talk • contribs) 17:35, December 5, 2003


 * I think you're right, Wesley. It's an awkward fit, here. Mkmcconn 19:27, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Pneumatology--The study of the Spirit.
By the way, I "coined" the word, pneumatology, in the early 1960s, not realizing that it was already in the dictionary.

Later, I did coin a new word, 'pneumatherapy'--the spiritual use of hypnotic technique to treat self inflicted diseases. Pneumatherapy, I found, can be used to help people who are "spiritually sick". That is, people who have made themselves ill, by conscious choice.

NEUROLINGUISTIC PROGRAMMING. See: http://www.ronaldtrobinson.com/the_technology.htm   The work of a friend and an NLP programmer. He tells me--and I tend to agree with him--that this "technology" could make all others expensive, slow and drug-dependent psychotherapies obsolete.

Interestingly, one of the originators of NLP was the late Dr.Milton Erickson--an MD and psychiatrist. He pioneered a very different kind of hypnotherapy, which is based on the power of the human spirit and on our capacity to have faith and to use the imagination. Most people are trapped in hypnotic-like trances. NLP helps them to see this and to extricate themselves. As a minister of the United Church of Canada, and, since I was a student, in the 40's and 50's, I have been interested in the role of the spirit in healing. This spiritual component, this, what I call pneuma factor, is what grabbed my interest in the 1960's.

It is not unlike neurolinguistic programming--NLP. Which, by the way, I believe is not not unlike what Jesus was asking us to do when he said, "Preach, teach and heal..."

Pneumatology and unitheism. Join in the discussion.
Unitheism is similar to the panentheism advocated by Professor Marcus Borg in his book, The God We Never Knew. Google will take you right to him and his work.

self-promotion needing to be deleted?
the final section, starting:

PNEUMATOLOGY--the science much needed for the 21 Century.

reads like ad copy, and the link for the external site looks like a faith-healing practice, charges for programs (I think), and asks for donations. I say remove it. --Andymussell 22:02, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

i'm answering my own question; that section was added anonymously, although I think by the website operator mentioned within (and who posted the last two sections in the discussion above this one). Bang it goes.--Andymussell 22:10, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

"Christian theology" category?
Should this article really be in the "Christian theology" category? The text of this article doesn't deal with Pneumatology in the sense of "theology relating to the Holy Spirit." The bulk of the article is about Philo, and there's only one sentence about Pneumatology in mainstream Christian theology--either a great deal more needs to be added on this, or it should be reclassified.Makrina 05:25, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

"World Book Dictionary defines it as a branch of metaphysics commonly studied in the sixteenth century. Before psychology was called psychology, it was called pneumatolgy."

THE SPIRIT AS THE ABSOLUTE, THE RELATIVE AND THE PERSONAL Who can deny the ABSOLUTE? Or the RELATIVE? And the PERSONAL? I, along with ALL that IS, live in the ABSOLUTE; I experience the RELATIVE, and I AM the PERSONAL. In my opinion, all of this comes under the category pneumatology--the study of that which is spiritual. It is about all forms of spirituality, including Christianity.

In my opinion, pneumatology is a science. It needs to be persued, like all the sciences, with vigour and respect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.196.12.11 (talk) 01:15, July 4, 2006 (UTC)

Opening definitions needs expanding
The opening definition seems weak and incomplete:


 * "the study of spiritual beings and phenomena, especially the interactions between humans and God."

and has a striking resemblence to the Dictionary's definition:


 * "The doctrine or study of spiritual beings and phenomena, especially the belief in spirits intervening between humans and God."

Actually, I like the Dictionary definition better. Is there any way to use it--or just quote it--without getting into trouble? As in: The Dictionary defines Pneumatology as, "..."

Alternately, one could do a longer definition, maybe without relying on the word "spirit" or "spiritual", but essentially saying the same thing as the Dictionary definition.

Len  -WikiLen 02:45, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Removed irrelevant ramblings. This is not a personal blog. (The Boomer 00:17, 14 May 2007 (UTC))

Enoch and Pneumatology
I think that special time needs to be devoted on the relationship between pneumatology and Enoch. For instance, Hermes Trismegistus was said to be an incarnation of Enoch, and called himself the Logos/Pneuma. This ancient reference on pneumatology among the Ancient Greeks is striking enough to make links between Hebraic representations of Enoch and modern Christian representations of the Holy Spirit. ADM (talk) 20:40, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

4. Contemporary era.
I'd like a reliable source on this- as I find it hard to swallow that the contemporary church agrees on much of anything. My church as far as I know doesn't give governance to the Holy Ghost. We really don't split up powers and jobs that way, nor do we separate God. Nitpyck (talk) 01:18, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Need for either a New Pneumatology (Christianity) article or moving whatever it is not Christian into the disambiguation Page
The title says it all.

If the term is used for a very important topic for which there is a lot of content/to-be-said and as well to refer to other topics of minimum importance of usage, then either: 1. The main article focuses on the main usage and the secondary usages are moved to disambiguation or 2. A brand new article is edited focusing on the main usage of the term alone.

In this case it means:

option 1. The article on Pneumatology should contain only the Christian Theology of the Holy Spirit (There's a lot to say about it more than there's currently on the article) and any secondary methaphysics and general spiritual study moved out to disambiguation. option 2. a new Pneumatology (Christianity) article is edited and the other Methaphysics concepts or references are left here alongside with a brief Christian theology introduction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.251.22.164 (talk) 04:23, 29 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually the term is mostly a Christian term. Other religions have similar concepts, but the Christian term is prevalent. However, to avoid future debate I made a Christian page, keeping this talk page and left a brief mention on the general article. History2007 (talk) 15:07, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Unreferenced for five years?
Should it not be deleted if it remains unreferenced for so long? Sahuagin (talk) 03:38, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Excellent example of badly hijacked article
Much of the Ancient Greek and German in this article is plain wrong, seemingly based on uninformed direct translation. To illustrate, the word "poises" doesn't exist in Ancient Greek, and the German Einatmung refers specifically to the literal act of breathing in. The majority of the article consists of personally informed musings on the nature of psychology. This all seems like original, and rather flawed, research. Delete? Fast? 83.248.106.112 (talk) 22:06, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

'poises,' actually 'poiesis' in both ancient Greek and classical Latin is literally 'to make' (chiefly literary, esp. as in a work of art). Whereas 'poesis' is the root of poetry, poem, poesy etc (see OED, or, etymonline.com.) For example Haematopoiesis is the formation of blood cells. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.166.241.214 (talk) 02:11, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Disputed text
IP Address 216.15.80.170 wrote "[PSYCHOLOGY IS NOT THE STUDY OF THE SOUL; IT IS THE STUDY OF THE MIND AND THE SUBSEQUENT DEMONSTRATIONS OF BEHAVIOR ARISING FROM THE MIND'S DELIBERATION]" regarding the section that says "Pneumatology as the study of the spirit is to be distinguished from psychology, the study of the soul". I removed the content he wrote but do think that he might have a point about it.   Nik ol ai Ho   17:46, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 6 May 2018

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: moved as requested per the discussion below. Dekimasu よ! 19:02, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

Pneumatology (Christianity) → Pneumatology – Unnecessary disambiguation of primary topic per WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 21:10, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 22:20, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Many people would think that "pneumatology" would mean a study of air under pressure and its uses, or similar. That it is about the Holy Spirit, is unexpected. Keep the disambiguater. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 22:23, 6 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Why would people think that? Everything I see in a a quick search on pneumatology links it to the study of the holy spirit. For something this specific I think people will absolutely be expecting to see information about the holy spirit since I don't think the term pneumatology is used as a reference to the study of pressurized air. Support move. S EMMENDINGER  ( talk ) 00:32, 7 May 2018 (UTC)


 * If I see/read a word starting "pneumat-", I tend to think first of pneumatic drills (USA: jackhammer), or pneumatic tyres, or similar, since I am not familiar with theology or with the Greek words for Christian concepts. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 04:15, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. Not "what first comes to (your) mind", really. No such user (talk) 15:36, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Support. At present, Pneumatology redirects to Pneumatology (Christianity), which doesn't make any sort of sense at all. Bnng (talk) 18:02, 7 May 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Bad move: 'pneuma' being Greek for spirit in pagan religion/philosophy/metaphysics before Christianity, and whichever the word originated from, is more than only Christian at least in recent decades/centuries and has pre-Christian retroactive meaning/usage (same as worldwide metaphysics before Aristotle who coined the term)... it was probably bad to remove non-Christian sections also (rather than find citations)--dchmelik (t|c) 07:14, 13 August 2022 (UTC)