The Spirit, the Scriptures and the Creeds
The Holy Spirit
The third Person of the Trinity - who He is, what He does, and why He is not an impersonal force.
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The Holy Spirit is God - the third Person of the Trinity, not a force, an influence, or a way of talking about God's activity. The Nicene Creed calls Him the Lord, the giver of life, and says He is worshipped and glorified together with the Father and the Son, which is a claim no creature could support.
He is a who, not a what. He can be lied to, grieved, resisted and blasphemed - none of which can be done to electricity. He teaches, intercedes, distributes gifts as He wills, and speaks in the first person: separate me Barnabas and Saul.
What He does:
- He gives life. Present at creation, hovering over the waters. Every living thing holds its being from Him.
- He makes Christ present. His work is not to draw attention to Himself. He takes what is Christ's and gives it to us.
- He applies salvation. What Christ accomplished once, the Spirit works into particular people: through baptism, through the word, through the sacraments.
- He makes us holy. Sanctification is His proper work, and it is gradual, which is why patience is required.
- He builds the Church. At Pentecost He constitutes her; He gives gifts for her building up and guards her in the truth.
- He prays in us. When we do not know what to pray, He intercedes with groanings too deep for words.
The one substantial disagreement among the four traditions concerns the filioque - whether He proceeds from the Father alone or from the Father and the Son. The West says the latter; the East objects both to the doctrine and to the unilateral alteration of a creed belonging to the whole Church.
The forgotten Person
The Spirit is the Person of the Trinity most often reduced to an abstraction. Partly this is the vocabulary: spirit in English suggests a mood or a force, and the older Ghost has drifted out of usable language. Partly it is that the Spirit's own work is to point away from Himself.
But the Church has been careful here, and the carefulness is instructive. When the Nicene Creed was expanded at Constantinople in 381, the article on the Spirit grew from four words to a paragraph. The reason was a party called the Pneumatomachi - literally the Spirit-fighters - who accepted the full divinity of the Son but held that the Spirit was a creature, the highest of the ministering angels.
Basil of Caesarea answered them in On the Holy Spirit, and his argument is worth knowing because it is an argument from practice rather than from a proof text. The Church baptises into the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, on equal terms; she gives the Spirit glory in her doxologies; she prays to Him. If He is a creature, the Church has been worshipping a creature since the beginning. The liturgy is the evidence, and the doctrine is its explanation.
The Creed's language reflects that. He is the Lord - the title reserved for God. He is the giver of life - and no creature gives life. And He is worshipped and glorified together with the Father and the Son - which is either true or idolatry, with nothing in between.
Pause and thinkPause: name three things done to or by the Holy Spirit in the New Testament that could not be done to or by an impersonal force.
Plenty to choose from. The clearest:
- He can be lied to. Peter tells Ananias he has lied to the Holy Spirit, and then, in the next breath, that he has not lied to men but to God (Acts 5:3-4). Nobody lies to gravity - and notice the identification made in passing.
- He can be grieved. Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God (Ephesians 4:30). Grief requires someone who cares.
- He speaks in the first person. The Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them (Acts 13:2). Me. I.
- He decides. He distributes gifts severally as he will (1 Corinthians 12:11) - a will of His own, not a distribution mechanism.
- He intercedes. He prays to the Father on our behalf (Romans 8:26-27), which a force cannot do and a mere attribute of God could not do coherently.
What the Spirit does
He gives life
He is there in the second verse of the Bible, moving over the face of the waters. In Hebrew, ruach is breath, wind and spirit at once, and Genesis has God breathe into the man's nostrils. Job says the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. This is not a poetic flourish laid on top of biology; the Church means that all created life is held in being by God, and that this holding is appropriated to the Spirit.
He makes Christ present
This is the Spirit's characteristic reticence. He shall not speak of himself... He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you (John 16:13-14). The Spirit's work is to make Christ real to us and us real to Christ.
A useful rule follows, and it is one the Church has used for centuries to test claimed movements of the Spirit: a work that draws attention to the Spirit rather than to Christ is suspect. The Spirit is like light in a gallery - you do not look at it; you see by it.
He applies what Christ accomplished
Christ's work was done once, outside us, two thousand years ago. The Spirit's work is to bring it inside particular people now. In baptism, where we are born of water and the Spirit. In the word preached, which is not mere information. In the Eucharist, where the Eastern liturgies call explicitly on the Spirit to make the gifts what they are. In absolution, in confirmation or chrismation, in ordination.
He makes us holy
Sanctification is the Spirit's proper work, and Scripture describes it as growth rather than an event. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance - a list of character, not of abilities, and grown rather than switched on.
Note what this implies pastorally. If holiness is fruit, then it takes seasons. The Christian who is disappointed not to be transformed by Thursday has misunderstood the metaphor.
He gives gifts to the Church
There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. Paul's lists differ from each other and none is exhaustive - teaching, service, administration, mercy, healing, tongues, prophecy, discernment. His controlling principle is clear: the gifts are given to profit withal, for the common good, not for the recipient's status. And he places the chapter on love in the middle of the discussion for a reason.
The filioque
The one article of the Creed the four do not say identically.
The original Greek text of 381 reads: the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father. Western churches say who proceeds from the Father and the Son - in Latin, Filioque.
The clause appears in Spain in the sixth century, probably to guard against lingering Arianism by tying the Son more closely to the Spirit's origin. It spread through the Frankish church under Charlemagne, and Rome accepted it late - it was not used in the papal liturgy until 1014. It became a formal grievance in the ninth century under Photios and a permanent one after 1054.
Pause and thinkBefore reading on - the Orthodox objection has two parts, and only one is theological. Can you separate them? Which do you think is harder for the West to answer?
The theological objection. Within the Trinity, the Father alone is the source
- the monarchia of the Father. To say the Spirit proceeds from the Son as well
either introduces two sources into God, or, if Father and Son are one source, blurs precisely what distinguishes them. Photios pressed this hard.
The procedural objection. The Creed was settled by an ecumenical council and belongs to the whole Church. The Council of Ephesus in 431 forbade the composition of another creed. No local church, Rome included, has the authority to add a word to it on its own initiative.
Most people find the second harder to answer, and many Western theologians now concede it. The Catholic Church has acknowledged that the Greek text of the Creed is normative, and the Creed is recited without the clause when the Pope celebrates with the East; several Anglican provinces have dropped it. The theological question remains genuinely open. The procedural one is close to settled - which is why the 1995 Roman clarification and a good deal of recent dialogue has focused on the difference between the Greek ekporeuesthai, which names origin from the Father alone, and the broader Latin procedere.
Where the four traditions stand
Catholic
The Catechism teaches that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from one principle, and that this expresses the Son's eternal relation to the Spirit which Scripture indicates by calling Him the Spirit of the Son (Galatians 4:6) and by Christ's breathing on the apostles (John 20:22). Rome has become markedly more careful about the clause: the 1995 clarification from the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity acknowledged that the Greek ekporeusis refers to origin from the Father as sole source, that the Latin processio is broader, and that the Greek text without the addition remains normative for the Creed. The Spirit's work is set out at length in the Catechism's treatment of the sacraments and the Church; every sacrament includes an epiclesis, a calling-down of the Spirit. Catholic theology follows Augustine in describing the Spirit as the mutual love of Father and Son, which is also the ground of the Western psychological analogy for the Trinity.
Orthodox
Orthodoxy confesses the Creed as promulgated in 381, without addition, and regards the filioque as both a theological error and an ecclesiological one. The theological objection is that the Father alone is the cause within the Trinity - His monarchia is what secures the unity of God - and that the addition compromises the personal distinctiveness of the Father. The ecclesiological objection is that a creed defined by an ecumenical council cannot be altered by a part of the Church. Orthodoxy also holds a strong doctrine of the Spirit's role in the sacraments: the epiclesis at the Divine Liturgy, in which the priest calls on the Father to send down the Holy Spirit upon the gifts, is understood as the moment of consecration, in contrast to the Western emphasis on the words of institution. Chrismation immediately follows baptism, including for infants - the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit. And Seraphim of Sarov's formulation is widely quoted: the aim of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit.
Lutheran
Lutherans confess the filioque with the Western Church. The Spirit's work is described with a characteristic emphasis on the means of grace: the Spirit does not work immediately or directly in the soul apart from the external word and the sacraments, and the Augsburg Confession Article 5 condemns those who teach that the Spirit comes without the outward word. This was aimed at the radical reformers of Luther's day and it remains the Lutheran test of claimed spiritual experience: the Spirit is found where God has promised to be, in word, water, bread and wine. Luther's explanation of the Third Article in the Small Catechism is the tradition's best-known statement: I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. Note the direction of travel - the Spirit acts, and I am the object.
Anglican
Article 5 states that the Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty and glory with the Father and the Son, very and eternal God. The Prayer Book gives the Spirit a large practical role: the Veni Creator at ordinations, the invocation at confirmation, the Whitsunday collect asking that by the same Spirit we may have a right judgement in all things. Anglicanism has periodically been the place where the filioque question is reopened; the Lambeth Conferences of 1978 and 1988 recommended that provinces consider printing the Creed in its original form, and several have done so, though the Church of England retains the clause in its authorised liturgies. Anglican pneumatology has also been marked by the charismatic renewal of the 1960s onwards, which affected the Communion earlier and more deeply than it affected Catholic, Orthodox or Lutheran churches, and which sits alongside a strong tradition of Spirit-led sober churchmanship that regards enthusiasm with suspicion.
Work with it
Check yourself
Which of these is the strongest evidence that the Holy Spirit is a Person rather than a force?
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Correct. Acts 5:3-4, Ephesians 4:30 and Acts 13:2 between them are decisive. None of these is possible with an impersonal power.
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So is gravity. Invisibility settles nothing either way.
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These are images for His action. Taken alone they would suggest the opposite of personality.
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Being mentioned is not an argument. What the Creed says - Lord, giver of life, worshipped and glorified - is the argument.
Check yourself
What are the two distinct Orthodox objections to the filioque?
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Right, and they need separating. Many Western theologians now concede the procedural point while continuing to defend the theology.
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Orthodoxy confesses the Spirit's full divinity as firmly as the West.
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The language is not the issue; the content and the authority to add it are.
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No tradition teaches this.
Check yourself
According to John 16, what is the characteristic mark of the Holy Spirit's work?
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Yes, and it gives the Church a practical test: a movement that draws attention to the Spirit rather than to Christ is suspect.
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The text says the opposite.
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He makes Christ present, which is nearly the reverse.
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He leads into all truth, but Christ says He will take of mine - guarding the deposit, not supplementing it.
Objection drill
Pentecostals have the New Testament on their side. In Acts, people believe and are baptised, and then the Spirit falls on them separately, with tongues. Your churches have replaced that with a ceremony and a certificate. If your people had what the apostles had, it would look like it.
A model answer
The last sentence deserves a straight answer before the argument: sometimes the criticism lands. A church can go through the motions of confirmation or chrismation with no expectation that anything happens, and a tradition that talks constantly about the Spirit's work in the sacraments while displaying none of His fruit has given the objection its force. That should be conceded rather than argued away.
Now the exegesis. The book of Acts does describe the Spirit coming in ways that are visible and sometimes subsequent - Samaria in chapter 8, Cornelius in chapter 10, the Ephesian disciples in chapter 19. But look at the pattern across the episodes, because it does not repeat.
At Pentecost the Spirit comes on those already following Jesus. At Samaria, the Spirit comes later, through apostolic hands - and Luke's point is a church-political one: the Samaritan believers are visibly joined to the apostolic Church rather than starting a rival movement. At Caesarea the order reverses entirely: the Spirit falls on Cornelius and his household before they are baptised, mid-sermon, which is exactly the wrong order for a doctrine of subsequence. At Ephesus the men had received only John's baptism and had not heard of the Spirit at all.
So Acts gives at least three sequences. What it does not give is a single normative one, and a doctrine that requires order cannot be built on a narrative that varies it. Acts is describing the gospel crossing boundaries - Jewish, Samaritan, Gentile, and the disciples of John - with God confirming each crossing publicly.
Then there is Paul, who is writing doctrine rather than narrative. By one Spirit are we all baptised into one body (1 Corinthians 12:13) - all, not an advanced class. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his (Romans 8:9), which makes possession of the Spirit the definition of a Christian, not a later upgrade. And when Paul runs through the gifts and asks do all speak with tongues? (1 Corinthians 12:30), the Greek expects the answer no. If tongues were the evidence of Spirit baptism, Paul would have to expect yes.
What the four traditions hold is that the Spirit is given in baptism and sealed in confirmation or chrismation, and that He continues to give gifts as He wills. None of them teaches cessationism; the East has its charismatic elders, the West its mystics and healings, and Anglicanism has had a large charismatic renewal. So the disagreement is narrower than it looks. It is not whether the Spirit acts powerfully now. It is whether tongues is the required receipt, and whether the Church has two tiers of membership.
And the pastoral cost of the two-tier view is the strongest argument against it. It teaches the quiet, faithful, undramatic Christian that what God has given him is not the real thing - which is precisely the opposite of what Paul is doing in 1 Corinthians 12, where the argument exists to stop the spectacular members despising the rest.
Memory work
Turn each card over, then say honestly whether you knew it. Cards you miss come back sooner.