Abstract
Since the early centuries of the Church it has been common to link holiness and sanctification particularly with the Holy Spirit. St Basil, for instance, describes the Holy Spirit as ‘a living substance, having the power of sanctification’, for whom ‘holiness is the complement of His nature’.1 Such an association had already been made in the New Testament (e.g. Rom. xv.1 6, i Pet. i.2); and one of the few references in the Old Testament to the holy spirit of God associates it with a clean heart (Ps li.10f). My purpose in this chapter is to discuss the nature of sanctity and its religious significance, and then to consider certain philosophical problems which it raises, especially with regard to its causes. I shall argue that there are some similarities between religious explanations of sanctification and scientific explanations (as well as some dissimilarities), and that the phenomenon of sanctity has an evidential value.
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Notes
F. von Hügel, The Mystical Element of Religion (London, 1923), Vol. i, p.107.
Aelred Squire, Asking the Fathers (London, 1973), p.179.
Henri de Lubac, The Church, Paradox and Mystery, trans. James R. Dunne, ( Shannon, 1969 ), p. 126.
F. von Hügel, Selected Letters 1896–1924 B. Holland (ed.) (London, 1927), pp.266, 301.
See further Lawrence Cunningham, The Meaning of Saints (San Francisco, 1980), pp.73–5.
Richard Swinburne, Faith and Reason (Oxford, 1981), pp.59f.
Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations Vol. in (London, 1967), p.94.
See Peter Geach, ‘An Irrelevance of Omnipotence’, Philosophy, 48, no. 186 (Oct. 1973) 333.
See William James, Varieties of Religious Experience ( Fontana edn, London, 1960 ), pp. 323f.
Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island (London, 1955), pp.198, 225.
Fr A. Yelchaninov, Fragments of a Diary (London, 1967), p.111.
K. Leech, Soul Friend (London, 1977), p.64, paraphrasing Augustine Baker.
William James, Varieties of Religious Experience pp.486–94.
Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Bounds of Reason Alone Bk. Iv, Pt.ii; trans. T. M. Greene and H. T. Hudson (New York, 1960), pp.162, 179f.
F. von Hügel, Essays and Addresses in the Philosophy of Religion, Vol. II (London, 1926 ), p. 22.
Grover Maxwell, ‘The Ontological Status of Theoretical Entities’ in Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science Vol. m (Minneapolis, 1962), pp.3–27.
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© 1984 Patrick Sherry
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Sherry, P. (1984). Saints. In: Spirit, Saints and Immortality. Library of Philosophy and Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06835-7_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06835-7_3
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