Johannes Baptist Metz - Poverty of Spirit (pdf) torrent

Johannes Baptist Metz - Poverty of Spirit (Newman, 1968). 53 pages.

New scan. Searchable pdf (clearscan) with contents in bookmarks, accurate pagination and metadata, etc.



Book review (borrowed from the web):

Johannes Metz’s Poverty of Spirit, published in 1968, develops a rich portrait of the contingent human condition as most fully revealed in Jesus. In striking contrast to some contemporary theological anthropologies that seem founded primarily on human sinfulness, Metz roots his approach in incarnation. This Christocentrism constitutes the greatest strength of Metz’s presentation. According to Metz, in Christ we see the fullest expression of human existence. As the prototype human, Jesus manifests equally the heights and depths of human nature: "Christ, the sinless one, experienced the poverty of human existence more deeply and more excruciatingly than any other person could" (13). Metz finds in the temptation scene a witness to the fidelity of Christ to the limitations of human existence. In refusing Satan’s offer of inhuman "strength, security and spiritual abundance" Jesus refuses to grasp for equality with God (11). This willing submission to weakness, vulnerability and spiritual hunger is prescriptive.