Who is the Holy Spirit?

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marco
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Who is the Holy Spirit?

Post #1

Post by marco »

The Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit inspires folk. The Muses had that role too.

Is the Spirit a reality outside of our reality, one who can - like Proteus - appear in different forms as the notion takes him? Divinities in Classical mythology had their functions: they oversaw the arts, or healing or war. What would be the point of the Holy Spirit? If God wished to inspire fisher folk he could do it instantaneously by a moment's thought; instead we have a curious waiting period, then comes the Spirit into a room and literally inspires. Are we not just a little suspicious that this is a borrowing from an existing mythology, a dramatic explanation of Christ's propaganda?


Is there sense in the Holy Spirit being some divinity? Or is he a personification of inspiration? How do we view him?

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Post #2

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The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. That's how he's presented in the Bible and that's how the apostles understood him.

For example, look at the account of Ananias and Sapphira found in Acts 5. Peter says to Ananias that he has lied to the Holy Spirit (v. 3) and then says that he lied to God (v.4) In other words, he is equating the Holy Spirit with God. And you lie to a person, not to mere energy.

Then there’s Paul. Bible scholar Gordon Fee wrote a book entitled God’s Empowering Presence which deals entirely with the apostle Paul and the Holy Spirit. He writes, “personhood is confirmed by the fact that the Spirit is the subject of a large number of verbs that demand a personal agent� (p. 830).

He lists many examples including the Spirit searching all things (1 Cor. 2:10). He knows the mind of God (1 Cor. 2:11). He teaches the gospel to believers (1 Cor. 13). He raises Jesus from the dead (Rom. 1:11). He bears witness (Rom. 8:16). He intercedes on our behalf (Rom. 8:26-27). In fact, in that last passage, it states that God knows the mind of the Spirit. Mere energy does NOT have a mind. But Paul states that the Holy Spirit has one, making him a person.

Then there's the fact that Jesus equated the Holy Spirit with himself. In John 14, 16, when Jesus introduces the Holy Spirit, he doesn’t refer to him as “a� helper, but as “another� helper. The word “another� is key. There are two Greek words that can be translated as “another�. “Heteros� means another of a different kind. “Allos� means another of the same kind. It is the latter that appears in this verse. So Jesus says that he is going to send another helper who is the same kind of being as himself. And the Greek word for “helper� is used primarily of people, and never of mere energy. So it speaks to the personhood of the Holy Spirit. And given that Jesus is God, that makes the Holy Spirit God as well.

Also note that John uses “�κεινος� to refer to Holy Spirit in John 16:13. That is the masculine form of the pronoun. He did NOT use “�κεινο� which is the neuter form of the pronoun and would be translated as “it�. In other words, he broke the rule of grammar that says we are to use a neuter pronoun for a neuter noun. Why would he do that if not to point out that the Holy Spirit is a person? In fact, the word is used of people, NOT energy, as we read here:

b. of noted persons (as in classic Greek): in a bad sense, that notorious man, John 7:11; John 9:28; in a good sense, of the Lord Jesus, 1 John 2:6; 1 John 3:3, 5, 7, 16; 1 John 4:17; of the Holy Spirit, with an apposition added, �κεῖνος, τό πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας, John 16:13.

From: http://biblehub.com/greek/1565.htm

Here are a couple of articles about the Holy Spirit which provide additional information about his personhood/deity:

https://www.compellingtruth.org/Holy-Spirit-person.html

http://bib.irr.org/biblical-basis-of-do ... spirit-god

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Post #3

Post by marco »

Overcomer wrote:
The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. That's how he's presented in the Bible and that's how the apostles understood him.
I don't think the apostles had any concept of a Trinity and I would struggle to find in the Bible a reference to the Holy Spirit as a person of the Trinity.
Overcomer wrote:
He writes, “personhood is confirmed by the fact that the Spirit is the subject of a large number of verbs that demand a personal agent� (p. 830).

This doesn't make much sense to me. The subject of a verb can be anything, even an abstract noun.

Overcomer wrote:

Also note that John uses “�κεινος� to refer to Holy Spirit in John 16:13. That is the masculine form of the pronoun. He did NOT use “�κεινο� which is the neuter form of the pronoun and would be translated as “it�. In other words, he broke the rule of grammar that says we are to use a neuter pronoun for a neuter noun. Why would he do that if not to point out that the Holy Spirit is a person?

I find these justifications from simple gramamr to be invalid. Personification allows us to do what you consider a grammatical infringement.


The word "person" is given a special meaning in the Church's definition of the Trinity.
It is impossible to prove the Holy Spirit is a person, in any sense. Accepting he's a part of the Trinity is an act of faith. He's not craftily uncovered as the subject of some verb.

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Re: Who is the Holy Spirit?

Post #4

Post by William »

[Replying to post 1 by marco]
Is there sense in the Holy Spirit being some divinity? Or is he a personification of inspiration? How do we view him?
Define 'Ghost' and 'Holy' and grasp how humans used to understand their universe and we can get some gist.

In the story, Jesus say's that he must depart but will send 'The Comforter'.

In the book of Acts we have an account of the HG being the cause of instant death and great fear. Hardly acts one should be looking for in regards to comfort.

Also the association then and even now is in crowds stirred up by emotion and claiming this to being an 'outpouring of the HS.'

I tend to look at the idea of the HS (as per Jesus' descriptions) as being an attitude of truthfulness which keeps one steadfast in the face of falseness, not triggered by emotional-based hysteria etc, but rather a consistent/perpetual internal calmness, no matter the situation.

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Re: Who is the Holy Spirit?

Post #5

Post by JehovahsWitness »

[Replying to post 1 by marco]

QUESTION What is God's spirit?

God's spirit in the bible is God's active force or God's power; the power by which God achieves things. The Hebrew word translated into the English "spirit" is ruach and stems from the word "wind". Thus it depicts an unseen or invisible force that can have visible effects.
So for example if God wants to move a rock from point A to point B He doesn't have to literally leave the location of heaven and come down to earth to lift it up to move it, but can use his active force, or power in motion to do this.
The bible refers to this spirit as being "holy" when it is used for specific purposes to further His will and purpose, for example tsending forth this force/power to make a tired believer feel energized, miraculously move a bible writer to remember or record certain information, or in the case of Moses engrave the Ten Commandments on stone. It is this force that enabled Jesus and other faithful Prophets to perform miracles.
  • NOTE: The word "spirit" is not to be confused with the word "soul", "soul" and "spirit" are not the same words. The word "soul" is not interchangable with "spirit". In scripture a SOUL referes to a flesh and blood, physical breathing living person or animal or the life they enjoy as such. (The expression "immortal soul" never appears anywhere in the bible and biblically is a fictional concept that stems from ancient pagans.)
QUESTION: Doesn't the bible present the holy spirit as a person?
  • No, the bible speaks of God's spirit as "filling" a person (for example 120 disciples at the same time at Pentecost) and compares it to water and faith and knowledge, presenting it as an impersonal force that moves people to action. However on occassion the bible "personifies" qualities or inanimate objects to highlight certain aspects of these things. For example the Bible also personifies wisdom, death, and sin. (Proverbs 1:20; Romans 5:17, 21). Wisdom is said to have “children,â€� and sin is depicted as seducing, killing, and working out covetousness (compare Matthew 11:19; Luke 7:35; Romans 7:8, 11). So just as wisdom is spoken of on one occassion as "a woman" doesn't mean that a wise person has a woman living inside them, the fact that God's spirit is spoken of as "teaching" doesn't mean that it is a Professor that will be inserted in the bodies of believers. The bible uses these and other word pictures that should not be taken literally as a literary devices. For example God is spoken of as "a rock" but this doesn't mean God two persons in one (God the Father, God the Rock). That we can "grieve" the holy spirit, lose it or request simply reflects it is an extension of the person of God, which never acts independently as a separate person but is rather directed or withdrawn as God directs.
CONCLUSION An unbias reading of scripture has lead many reasonable people to conclude that the holy spirit is not an independent intelligent individual (such as Jesus or Gabriel) living seperate from God sent to earth on specific mission but rather is simply God's active force that he sends or withdraws according to his will to achieve his purpose




JEHOVAH'S WITNESS






FURTHER READING
https://www.jw.org/en/bible-teachings/q ... ly-spirit/



ps: The above represents the my personal beliefs as one of Jehovah's Witnesses.
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http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 81#p826681


"For if we live, we live to Jehovah, and if we die, we die to Jehovah. So both if we live and if we die, we belong to Jehovah" -
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Re: Who is the Holy Spirit?

Post #6

Post by 1213 »

marco wrote: ...Is there sense in the Holy Spirit being some divinity? Or is he a personification of inspiration? How do we view him?
Bible tells Holy spirit is the spirit of truth:

But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I said to you.

John 14:26

When the Counselor [Greek Parakletos: Counselor, Helper, Advocate, Intercessor, and Comfortor.] has come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me.

John 15:26

On basis of those, I think Holy Spirit is like conscience.

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Re: Who is the Holy Spirit?

Post #7

Post by William »

[Replying to post 5 by JehovahsWitness]

If the HS is NOT a personification but a power which evidences the biblical GOD, then how is it that we are informed that it has emotions?

For example, it can grieve. It can show anger.

It can harm humans. [Acts 5]

In relation to the wind, we understand the human tendency for personification and anthropomorphism of inanimate things, and thus we can understand the connection to what is behind this idea of HS and wind - how it came to be understood.
In that, a 'grieving wind' would be related to the sound the wind can make interacting with certain objects. An angry wind can be related to gales and a harmful/killing wind can be related to hurricanes.

We also understand power as something which has no personality and intelligence. We don't refer to the wind as 'he' or 'she' and we can assign the wind these attributes for causing harm or comfort, depending on the circumstance but in all cases the analogy needs to be understood as metaphor and not to be taken literally.
Even in using such metaphor, we don't normally assign gender to the wind. Even when it is done - say with naming hurricanes - we don't literally think of them as living entities.

In that, when you pointed out that the bible writers also personify wisdom, death, and sin by giving these attributes gender this could be seen by the reader that you do so to add support to your religions belief that the HS is not an individual entity but that HE is the manifested power of the biblical idea of GOD. There seems absolutely no logical reason if this is the case, to refer to it as having gender.


Obviously you are saying that biblical stories are conflating this idea of the HS as being a person rather than a thing - or rather that people are interpreting it that way when they shouldn't, but given how these things are actually presented in the biblical stories, why should people take them figuratively when they are recounted in the literal?

You make the claim that the HS miraculously moves a bible writer to remember or record certain information. Why would the process of the HS prompt the writer to write literally when figuratively would be more appropriate to the truth you are claiming here? Why would this 'power of GOD' inspire the human writer to refer to it as a Him/He?

Certainly we are biblically informed [John 16:13] that the HS will lead the individual into all truth, so explain why this isn't the case when it 'miraculously' moved a bible writer to 'remember' [or] record 'certain information' why the HS does not also move that individual to convey in metaphor (like 'the HS is like unto the wind' or 'The HS is not a literal person.') rather than in the literal.

Even in that verse there is clear indication that Jesus thinks of the HS as an entity, or we could not behold the expressions "He will not speak on His own, but He will speak what He hears, and He will declare to you what is to come."

If Jesus didn't think of the HS as an entity, wouldn't his expressions have been "It will not speak on it's own, but it will speak what it hears, and it will declare to you what is to come."

How can something which is just energy, and has no mind of its own, do these things?

Such as the HS has emotions and can do everything from comfort to kill, be kind or angry, this clearly indicates emotion and intelligence and purpose which can only come from a living entity.

You are arguing that the HS is an energetic expression of a living entity. When you display emotions - do you refer to this emotional energy as a "person"? Do you say "I let my anger show and HE hurt someone's feelings."?

Isn't it true that our emotional energy can even be something which we sometimes regard as 'not really who we are' especially when we lose control, and lash out, or otherwise act out contrary to our preferred nature?

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Re: Who is the Holy Spirit?

Post #8

Post by JehovahsWitness »

William wrote: [Replying to post 5 by JehovahsWitness]

If the HS is NOT a personification but a power which evidences the biblical GOD, then how is it that we are informed that it has emotions?

Your contrasting "personification" with "power" which is puzzling to me.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/diction ... nification

Do you mean "person" rather than "personification"?


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Re: Who is the Holy Spirit?

Post #9

Post by William »

[Replying to post 8 by JehovahsWitness]

In the context of the rest of my post, what do you think I am meaning? Did you not get the gist? Are you confused about the whole context of my post, because of that one part?

Are you going to answer my observations?

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Re: Who is the Holy Spirit?

Post #10

Post by marco »

William wrote:

In the story, Jesus says that he must depart but will send 'The Comforter'.

The muddled concept of "going to place X" and "sending" person Y" would suggest Jessus sees heaven like Olympus, populated with minor deities, one of whom he will "send." It is close to impossible that his listeners woud take a more sophisticated meaning, if indeed Jesus ever uttered the words.
William wrote:
In the book of Acts we have an account of the HG being the cause of instant death and great fear. Hardly acts one should be looking for in regards to comfort.
This silly incident causes theologians to do handstands. Mythology is filled with instances of divine retribution for some rash human act. I don't know why a fourth deity wasn't invented to account for the killing of two people. The Paraclete has many faces, it would seem. Or he is just a figurative confusion of ideas. The purpose of the story would be to frighten and illustrate God isn't "meek and mild." It would also be a deterrent against people stealing money from the angry Ghost.


If the Holy Ghost has to be, then he is best being inspiration- good or bad.

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