Jean-Baptiste LECUIT, Quand Dieu habite en l’homme. Pour une approche dialogale de l’inhabitation trinitaire, «Cogitatio Fidei»,Cerf, 2010 (214 pages)
At the heart of the Christian faith lies the mystery of how God lives within man, a deep concern to all believers. Yet real experience seems rare and inaccessible. This book aims to provide a new approach, capable of enlightening this paradox through the fruits of the last few decades’ research on the act of speech and the dialogual nature of life, and of Trinitarian self-giving. Classic approaches take into account the personal dimension of God’s inhabiting man, as well as the priority self-giving wields over all other gifts. But those approaches employ devices that do not always evoke certain essential aspects explicitly. The solution is to trace a path more directly linked to biblical formulations, capable of operating in a dialogue with contemporary culture as well as with anterior theological reflections, and involving – as much as possible – the experience of faith.
Part One reveals the challenges raised, explores biblical testimony and synthesizes the essential theories proposed up to the 20th century. Part two shows how and why the need for a personalist conception became manifest in the sixties, and lays the theological and philosophical foundations of a dialogual approach to the Trinitarian inhabitation. Part three presents the dialogual structure, shows how the Trinitarian inhabitation can be thought as an act of speech and identifies the principle existential implications of personal participation in Trinitarian life.
