Spirited Feelings & Affected Actions in the Age of Climate Crisis : A study of how affect theory read through a pneumatological lens can inspire action to combat climate change

Abstract: The aim of this thesis is to explore how affect theory can contribute to pneumatology in a way that illuminates how it might inspire action regarding the current climate crisis. To do this, this thesis analyses and discusses how feelings could relate to (human) action to combat climate change. This is done through a discussion of how different pneumatologies that describe the Holy Spirit as acting, and as inspiring action in the world, can be further developed through affect theory. The main material used are Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More Than Human Worlds (2017) by philosopher of science Maria Puig de la Bellacasa and Grave Attending: A Political Theology for the Unredeemed (2020) by theologian Karen Bray. Several different pneumatological voices, representing the variety of pneumatologies present within the Christian tradition, are used to analyse the main material pneumatologically. The conclusions drawn suggest that the combining of affect theory and pneumatology not only points out the similarity of the traits with which they are commonly associated, but they also suggest that it might be possible – and even necessary – to talk of the Spirit as present also in “negative” feelings such as anger or depression. The Spirit can be understood as present in all affects (even if they appear within capitalist contexts), and also as a rewiring of our relationship to become more attuned to how others (human and non-human alike) actually feel. Care, this thesis suggests, is as a very concrete example of how the Spirit can be seen as materialising through affected actions. The Spirit understood as present through affect could also provide a way of speaking of the Spirit as present in the world, in creation, without making it what gives nature its worth and meaning.