Original Research
Pastoral caregiving as life science: Towards an existential hermeneutics of life within the interplay between pastoral healing (cura vitae) and spiritual wholeness
In die Skriflig/In Luce Verbi | Vol 51, No 1 | a2183 |
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/ids.v51i1.2183
| © 2017 Daniël J. Louw
| This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 31 August 2016 | Published: 12 June 2017
Submitted: 31 August 2016 | Published: 12 June 2017
About the author(s)
Daniël J. Louw, Faculty of Theology, North-West University, South AfricaAbstract
Currently, the media is creating an illusion of youthful wellbeing: ‘healthism’. But is life merely about physical health? What is meant by spiritual healing in pastoral caregiving? By means of the ontology of life and an existential analysis of the structure of being, a grid is developed in order to make a pastoral diagnosis regarding the interplay between different aspects and dimensions of the category life. It is argued that, seeing the bigger picture in a pastoral hermeneutics of life, contributes to spiritual healing (cura vitae). The basic assumption is that cura animarum should be designed in theory formation in pastoral caregiving as follows: faith care as life care. It is, in this respect, that the Christian spiritual categories of anastrephō, peripateō and hodos can be used in practical theological reflection to describe praxis in practical theology as fides quaerens vivendi [faith seeking lifestyles]. A spirituality of lifestyles points to habitus [human soulfulness] as new modes of ‘walking with God’ and ‘living with God’ (pneumatological praxis of God). Fides quaerens viviendi should be exemplified by a taxonomy of virtues.
Keywords
Pastoral caregiving; spiritual wholeness; fides quaerens vivendi; existential hermeneutics; spiritual networking
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