Pentecaustic theology revolves around the concept of a perpetually corroding Spirit which has a negative movement into the world. The Spirit finds it’s identity in neither the established church or the believer, but rather reality itself. It is in the arena of the moment before us, that we have to find the actual presence of Spirit. The negation of eternity into time is only possible when God is known as a perpetually moving and active divinity that continuously negates eternity. Pentecaustic theology, then, is the negation of transcendence of eternity.

Identity

The primary problem of theology is the problem of identity.Thomas Altizer writes that Spirit,”will negate its inherited categories insofar as these are given an unchanging identity,”(Gospel of Christian Atheism) and thus, theology is about going beyond inherited categories. These corroded identities are then to be discarded. The obvious example is in the Bible when Christ died on the Cross. Here God is revealed to be the Suffering Servant and his death is the negation of his identity as Lawmaker and Creator. The negation of identities is also paramount to Christian identity – a paradox. The paradox is that while Christian identity itself is an identity, Christianity calls for the negation of being a Male or Female, Jew or Gentile, or Free or Slave(Galatians 3:26-29). Christian identity means that one has become “baptized in the Holy Spirit”

Presence and Time

Presence is the appearance of Spirit, and the shell in which Spirit is known. Presence is mostly a product of silence. The current form of the Spirit is that of the silent Word and yet, through that silence, it is possible to apprehend the form of Spirit that is on our historical horizon. No longer can we imagine Spirit as an immutable and absent force. Spirit is manifest in the broken and fallen flesh of humanity and only present in fleeting moments. It is always in the dead silence that we come to know the meaning of Spirit’s presence. We can say with Camus that the Last Judgment takes place everyday. Presence is only presence when eternity and transcendence have been negated. It’s in this negation that Spirit becomes present as Spirit. This negativity makes real the very actualization of pain and suffering and makes possible the resurrection of the body.

Presence as Action

As we have seen presence is only possible in negation, yet it is negation that leads to creative destruction and destructive creation. An action is a presence exerted, it can be an act of love to a violent act. In spaces of absences, presence and the Spirit are made possible in the negation of absence. Real presence makes an impact and is always real in protest and in love. The biblical account of the Cleansing of the Temple is the primary example.( Mark 11:15–19, Matthew 21:12–17, and Luke 19:45–48) and near the start in the Gospel of John (at John 2:13–16) Christ expels the money changers for exploiting poor widows and makes incarnate his presence in an act of justice.