The Holy Spirit

[FinalEnigma]

My question here is 'what is the Holy Spirit?'

I've seen plenty of answers without having a satisfactory one. Jgh7 gave some good answers, but the thread didn't end up going anywhere.
please do not give circular or non-productive answers, but rather give a description of the Holy Spirit and what it does, and please be willing to answer lots of questions about it.

If you like Jgh7's answers in the other thread feel free to expand upon them or answer my latest questions I posed there. the thread is here. http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... php?t=9083

[1angelette]

Well, although I don't believe in the holy spirit, I have received religious education so may be able to help you.

This is approximately the image I got:

- The Blessed Trinity consists of the mystery of three-persons-one-god.
- God the Father is basically the Old Testament manifestation of God, omnipresent, giver of commandments, creator of the universe, BFF of Moses and Abraham and such, et cetera.
- God the Son is Jesus, who was essentially the Incarnation. There's some very blurry dogma about how Jesus still loves us, somehow sits at the right hand of God the Father, etc. This dogma is however more present in Protestant branches of the Church.
- Now, God the Holy Spirit, as I interpret it, supposedly does everything that the Father and the Son don't do, such as impregnating versions, summoning tongues of fire, etc. In other words, if the Bible doesn't say "And GOD said Lo! And there was Light" or "Jesus did X", but it said that something was accomplished as a miracle, I *think* that's supposed to be the Holy Spirit. In further words, it is possible that the "miracles" that some Christians say are happening to this day are the work of the Holy Spirit (if they are miracles, I mean).

Hope this helps!

[spiritletter]

I prefer a non-theological approach to the Holy Spirit. I think that when truth is animated that there is spirit present. I don't know how I know this or even if I do, but it seems futile to "define" the Holy Spirit along theological lines. Spirit does not need theology.

I guess it's something like the experience of poetry or great music or painting; we don't know exactly what is happening to us when we experience it.

Of course, what is non-rational in its value is subject to megalomania and abuse. I don't believe, for example, that the Holy Spirit has anything to do with spin or hype or powerful emotion. e.g.; that used by the Elmer Gantries of the world. It is powerful in another way. My reptile brain doesn't recognize it, but it makes my cortex hum. Or something.

Anyhow, I tried.

[McCulloch]

I prefer a non-theological approach to the Holy Spirit. I think that when truth is animated that there is spirit present. I don't know how I know this or even if I do, but it seems futile to "define" the Holy Spirit along theological lines. Spirit does not need theology.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. Theology is the study of things related to God. So, then it makes sense to take a non-theological approach to the Holy Spirit. Like taking a non-biological approach to plants, a non-musical approach to Debussy, a non-philosophical approach to existentialism and a non-political approach to democracy. Good luck with that.

[spiritletter]

I prefer a non-theological approach to the Holy Spirit. I think that when truth is animated that there is spirit present. I don't know how I know this or even if I do, but it seems futile to "define" the Holy Spirit along theological lines. Spirit does not need theology.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. Theology is the study of things related to God. So, then it makes sense to take a non-theological approach to the Holy Spirit. Like taking a non-biological approach to plants, a non-musical approach to Debussy, a non-philosophical approach to existentialism and a non-political approach to democracy. Good luck with that.

In your list of analogies, non-musical and non-philosophical are not exact. I think it would rather be a non-musicological approach to music, rather than a non-musical, a non theoretical approach to philosophy, etc.

That said, I believe there is a pre-theological approach to spirituality that is more concerned with non-ordinary experience, nuance, intuition or, if you will, poetry. I'm not sure Jesus was interested in founding a religion; I think rather that his work was intended to take people outside the box constructed by the Pharisees and scribes, who were all too confident of their grasp of religion. In the Christ of the parables, experience, or "getting it" is more important than formulating arguments to justify belief in religion, or setting up moral precepts, which really need no more after then ten commandments. I hope I'm making sense. Maybe an oversimplification, but I'm looking for a right-brain kind of spirituality.

Another way of saying this is I prefer John to Matthew.

[Cathar1950]

I prefer a non-theological approach to the Holy Spirit. I think that when truth is animated that there is spirit present. I don't know how I know this or even if I do, but it seems futile to "define" the Holy Spirit along theological lines. Spirit does not need theology.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. Theology is the study of things related to God. So, then it makes sense to take a non-theological approach to the Holy Spirit. Like taking a non-biological approach to plants, a non-musical approach to Debussy, a non-philosophical approach to existentialism and a non-political approach to democracy. Good luck with that.

In your list of analogies, non-musical and non-philosophical are not exact. I think it would rather be a non-musicological approach to music, rather than a non-musical, a non theoretical approach to philosophy, etc.

That said, I believe there is a pre-theological approach to spirituality that is more concerned with non-ordinary experience, nuance, intuition or, if you will, poetry. I'm not sure Jesus was interested in founding a religion; I think rather that his work was intended to take people outside the box constructed by the Pharisees and scribes, who were all too confident of their grasp of religion. In the Christ of the parables, experience, or "getting it" is more important than formulating arguments to justify belief in religion, or setting up moral precepts, which really need no more after then ten commandments. I hope I'm making sense. Maybe an oversimplification, but I'm looking for a right-brain kind of spirituality.

Another way of saying this is I prefer John to Matthew.

Most post modern bible believing Christians do.
Most Christians read the other gospels through the lens of the Gospel of John. The gospels have different messages and saw Jesus differently.
Most read John through Paul.
You are looking for an existential or phenomenological approach that is pre-theological or experimental.

It reminds me of the Myth of Christian Beginnings a book on early Christian experiments and their results.
Unfortunately for you to recreate such a environment you would be stuck with the LXX. But you can never go back and especially to a beginning that never happened but was developed over centuries including the writings.
Even Paul with his talk about the Law in later letters felt they had taken their experiments to far in some communities that were formed.
In early pre-NT Christianity there were Jesus schools, Jesus Cults, Jesus followers, Jesus prophets and the like including followers of followers.
The diverse ideas found their way into the NT in all kinds of way a generation later of ways.
Of course letting the spirit lead you all over the place has its own set of problems and there seems to be no agreement on where the spirit goes.
But despite the formation of the Biblical cannons there are still those that claim to be prophets and those that claim to be lead in the spirit.

My question is how do you have pre-theological approach of something that has already been shaped by theology?
t looks more like a lens then an approach.


.

[spiritletter]

I prefer a non-theological approach to the Holy Spirit. I think that when truth is animated that there is spirit present. I don't know how I know this or even if I do, but it seems futile to "define" the Holy Spirit along theological lines. Spirit does not need theology.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. Theology is the study of things related to God. So, then it makes sense to take a non-theological approach to the Holy Spirit. Like taking a non-biological approach to plants, a non-musical approach to Debussy, a non-philosophical approach to existentialism and a non-political approach to democracy. Good luck with that.

In your list of analogies, non-musical and non-philosophical are not exact. I think it would rather be a non-musicological approach to music, rather than a non-musical, a non theoretical approach to philosophy, etc.

That said, I believe there is a pre-theological approach to spirituality that is more concerned with non-ordinary experience, nuance, intuition or, if you will, poetry. I'm not sure Jesus was interested in founding a religion; I think rather that his work was intended to take people outside the box constructed by the Pharisees and scribes, who were all too confident of their grasp of religion. In the Christ of the parables, experience, or "getting it" is more important than formulating arguments to justify belief in religion, or setting up moral precepts, which really need no more after then ten commandments. I hope I'm making sense. Maybe an oversimplification, but I'm looking for a right-brain kind of spirituality.

Another way of saying this is I prefer John to Matthew.

Most post modern bible believing Christians do.
Most Christians read the other gospels through the lens of the Gospel of John. The gospels have different messages and saw Jesus differently.
Most read John through Paul.
You are looking for an existential or phenomenological approach that is pre-theological or experimental.

It reminds me of the Myth of Christian Beginnings a book on early Christian experiments and their results.
Unfortunately for you to recreate such a environment you would be stuck with the LXX. But you can never go back and especially to a beginning that never happened but was developed over centuries including the writings.
Even Paul with his talk about the Law in later letters felt they had taken their experiments to far in some communities that were formed.
In early pre-NT Christianity there were Jesus schools, Jesus Cults, Jesus followers, Jesus prophets and the like including followers of followers.
The diverse ideas found their way into the NT in all kinds of way a generation later of ways.
Of course letting the spirit lead you all over the place has its own set of problems and there seems to be no agreement on where the spirit goes.
But despite the formation of the Biblical cannons there are still those that claim to be prophets and those that claim to be lead in the spirit.

My question is how do you have pre-theological approach of something that has already been shaped by theology?
t looks more like a lens then an approach.


.

Cathar: thank you for your thoughtful response. I'm also interested in the sources for your arguments: I would like to read them. I may be struggling for the right word when I used "theological." In my limited understanding, theology seems to be something that came later in order to help the church to standardize Christianity and control it. Christ had no Nicene creed, nor any of the other dogmas that helped organize Christianity.

When I say pre-theological, I mean a world view in which the ideas did not precede the experience provided by the parables or other teaching tools employed by Christ. The parables creatively unhinge the mind so that it can see the whole, shift conventional thinking into something more powerful.

I agree when you say that this method poses its own set of problems, because someone who claims privileged knowledge of the irrational can do a lot of social damage. To proceed intuitively requires a systems of checks and balances, perhaps by a teacher or intelligent community in order to prevent fanaticism and snake oil. Nevertheless, a tightly controlled theological reading of scripture seems to me to have no breath in it, no opportunity for the mind to find new ground.

[czollers]

a less existential explanation would be to think of god as being three people (possibly more, i guess, but current theology only finds three in scripture) living in community. the paradox is that the three distinct parts of god that we find are all part of the same one god.

in any case, each part plays their role perfectly, and the holy spirit is one of them. she has also been referred to as the great counselor. perhaps that gives some meaning to her purpose. i once heard someone refer to her as a "spiritual spell checker" i thought that did a nice job of explaining her role.

all that not withstanding, who can claim to understand god? this is as much as our limited little brains can understand the nature of the one who dreamed up the idea of a universe in the first place.

[asp59]

My question here is 'what is the Holy Spirit?'

I've seen plenty of answers without having a satisfactory one. Jgh7 gave some good answers, but the thread didn't end up going anywhere.
please do not give circular or non-productive answers, but rather give a description of the Holy Spirit and what it does, and please be willing to answer lots of questions about it.

If you like Jgh7's answers in the other thread feel free to expand upon them or answer my latest questions I posed there. the thread is here. http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... php?t=9083

The Holy Spirit—God's Active Force

ACCORDING to the Trinity doctrine, the holy spirit is the third person of a Godhead, equal to the Father and to the Son. As the book Our Orthodox Christian Faith says: "The Holy Spirit is totally God."

In the Hebrew Scriptures, the word most frequently used for "spirit" is ru'ach, meaning "breath; wind; spirit." In the Greek Scriptures, the word is pneu'ma, having a similar meaning. Do these words indicate that the holy spirit is part of a Trinity?
An Active Force

THE Bible's use of "holy spirit" indicates that it is a controlled force that Jehovah God uses to accomplish a variety of his purposes. To a certain extent, it can be likened to electricity, a force that can be adapted to perform a great variety of operations.

At Genesis 1:2 the Bible states that "God's active force ["spirit" (Hebrew, ru'ach)] was moving to and fro over the surface of the waters." Here, God's spirit was his active force working to shape the earth.

God uses his spirit to enlighten those who serve him. David prayed: "Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Your spirit [ru'ach] is good; may it lead me in the land of uprightness." (Psalm 143:10) When 70 capable men were appointed to help Moses, God said to him: "I shall have to take away some of the spirit [ru'ach] that is upon you and place it upon them."—Numbers 11:17.

Bible prophecy was recorded when men of God were "borne along by holy spirit [Greek, from pneu'ma]." (2 Peter 1:20, 21) In this way the Bible was "inspired of God," the Greek word for which is The·o'pneu·stos, meaning "God-breathed." (2 Timothy 3:16) And holy spirit guided certain people to see visions or to have prophetic dreams.—2 Samuel 23:2; Joel 2:28, 29; Luke 1:67; Acts 1:16; 2:32, 33.

The holy spirit impelled Jesus to go into the wilderness after his baptism. (Mark 1:12) The spirit was like a fire within God's servants, causing them to be energized by that force. And it enabled them to speak out boldly and courageously.—Micah 3:8; Acts 7:55-60; 18:25; Romans 12:11; 1 Thessalonians 5:19.

By his spirit, God carries out his judgments on men and nations. (Isaiah 30:27, 28; 59:18, 19) And God's spirit can reach everywhere, acting for people or against them.—Psalm 139:7-12.
'Power Beyond Normal'

GOD'S spirit can also supply "power beyond what is normal" to those who serve him. (2 Corinthians 4:7) This enables them to endure trials of faith or to do things they could not otherwise do.

For example, regarding Samson, Judges 14:6 relates: "The spirit of Yahweh seized on him, and though he had no weapon in his hand he tore the lion in pieces." (JB) Did a divine person actually enter or seize Samson, manipulating his body to do what he did? No, it was really "the power of the LORD [that] made Samson strong."—TEV.

"On the whole, the New Testament, like the Old, speaks of the spirit as a divine energy or power." —A Catholic Dictionary

The Bible says that when Jesus was baptized, holy spirit came down upon him appearing like a dove, not like a human form. (Mark 1:10) This active force of God enabled Jesus to heal the sick and raise the dead. As Luke 5:17 says: "The Power of the Lord [God] was behind his [Jesus'] works of healing."—JB.

God's spirit also empowered the disciples of Jesus to do miraculous things. Acts 2:1-4 relates that the disciples were assembled together at Pentecost when "suddenly there occurred from heaven a noise just like that of a rushing stiff breeze, . . . and they all became filled with holy spirit and started to speak with different tongues, just as the spirit was granting them to make utterance."

So the holy spirit gave Jesus and other servants of God the power to do what humans ordinarily could not do.
Not a Person

ARE there not, however, Bible verses that speak of the holy spirit in personal terms? Yes, but note what Catholic theologian Edmund Fortman says about this in The Triune God: "Although this spirit is often described in personal terms, it seems quite clear that the sacred writers [of the Hebrew Scriptures] never conceived or presented this spirit as a distinct person."

Dove
Holy spirit as tongues of fire
On one occasion the holy spirit appeared as a dove. On another occasion it appeared as tongues of fire—never as a person

In the Scriptures it is not unusual for something to be personified. Wisdom is said to have children. (Luke 7:35) Sin and death are called kings. (Romans 5:14, 21) At Genesis 4:7 The New English Bible (NE) says: "Sin is a demon crouching at the door," personifying sin as a wicked spirit crouching at Cain's door. But, of course, sin is not a spirit person; nor does personifying the holy spirit make it a spirit person.

Similarly, at 1 John 5:6-8 (NE) not only the spirit but also "the water, and the blood" are said to be "witnesses." But water and blood are obviously not persons, and neither is the holy spirit a person.

In harmony with this is the Bible's general usage of "holy spirit" in an impersonal way, such as paralleling it with water and fire. (Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:8) People are urged to become filled with holy spirit instead of with wine. (Ephesians 5:18) They are spoken of as being filled with holy spirit in the same way they are filled with such qualities as wisdom, faith, and joy. (Acts 6:3; 11:24; 13:52) And at 2 Corinthians 6:6 holy spirit is included among a number of qualities. Such expressions would not be so common if the holy spirit were actually a person.

Then, too, while some Bible texts say that the spirit speaks, other texts show that this was actually done through humans or angels. (Matthew 10:19, 20; Acts 4:24, 25; 28:25; Hebrews 2:2) The action of the spirit in such instances is like that of radio waves transmitting messages from one person to another far away.

At Matthew 28:19 reference is made to "the name . . . of the holy spirit." But the word "name" does not always mean a personal name, either in Greek or in English. When we say "in the name of the law," we are not referring to a person. We mean that which the law stands for, its authority. Robertson's Word Pictures in the New Testament says: "The use of name (onoma) here is a common one in the Septuagint and the papyri for power or authority." So baptism 'in the name of the holy spirit' recognizes the authority of the spirit, that it is from God and functions by divine will.
The "Helper"

JESUS spoke of the holy spirit as a "helper," and he said it would teach, guide, and speak. (John 14:16, 26; 16:13) The Greek word he used for helper (pa·ra'kle·tos) is in the masculine gender. So when Jesus referred to what the helper would do, he used masculine personal pronouns. (John 16:7, 8) On the other hand, when the neuter Greek word for spirit (pneu'ma) is used, the neuter pronoun "it" is properly employed.

Most Trinitarian translators hide this fact, as the Catholic New American Bible admits regarding John 14:17: "The Greek word for 'Spirit' is neuter, and while we use personal pronouns in English ('he,' 'his,' 'him'), most Greek MSS [manuscripts] employ 'it.'"

So when the Bible uses masculine personal pronouns in connection with pa·ra'kle·tos at John 16:7, 8, it is conforming to rules of grammar, not expressing a doctrine.
No Part of a Trinity

VARIOUS sources acknowledge that the Bible does not support the idea that the holy spirit is the third person of a Trinity. For example:

The Catholic Encyclopedia: "Nowhere in the Old Testament do we find any clear indication of a Third Person."

Catholic theologian Fortman: "The Jews never regarded the spirit as a person; nor is there any solid evidence that any Old Testament writer held this view. . . . The Holy Spirit is usually presented in the Synoptics [Gospels] and in Acts as a divine force or power."

The New Catholic Encyclopedia: "The O[ld] T[estament] clearly does not envisage God's spirit as a person . . . God's spirit is simply God's power. If it is sometimes represented as being distinct from God, it is because the breath of Yahweh acts exteriorly." It also says: "The majority of N[ew] T[estament] texts reveal God's spirit as something, not someone; this is especially seen in the parallelism between the spirit and the power of God."—Italics ours.

A Catholic Dictionary: "On the whole, the New Testament, like the Old, speaks of the spirit as a divine energy or power."

Hence, neither the Jews nor the early Christians viewed the holy spirit as part of a Trinity. That teaching came centuries later. As A Catholic Dictionary notes: "The third Person was asserted at a Council of Alexandria in 362 . . . and finally by the Council of Constantinople of 381"—some three and a half centuries after holy spirit filled the disciples at Pentecost!

No, the holy spirit is not a person and it is not part of a Trinity. The holy spirit is God's active force that he uses to accomplish his will. It is not equal to God but is always at his disposition and subordinate to him.

information taken from WWW.WATCHTOWER.ORG

[scottlittlefield17]

The Holy Spirit is the comforter. He is our consiense. Jesus sent him to help us give us guidance and to comfort us. I welcome any questions.