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In this episode Pastor Sean Finnegan and I discuss biblical spirit-talk: “the Holy Spirit,” “the Spirit of the LORD,” “God’s spirit,” “the Spirit of Christ,” etc.
Sean helpfully distinguishes four types of spirit-talk in the Bible, giving many examples from both testaments.
We also discuss traditional catholic arguments for the Holy Spirit being a third divine person in addition to the Father and the Son, theologically motivated translation problems, and why, in his view, both the catholic and Jehovah’s Witness readings of spirit-texts are too simple.
In the next episode, Sean and I continue the conversation, discussing various related matters, including Matthew 28.
Links for this episode:
- Sean’s Christian Monotheism website.
- The Kingdom Ready blog.
- Sean’s Christian monotheism podcast, Truth Matters radio program, and other writings and talks.
- The church where Sean is a pastor.
- Sean’s informative 2013 presentation on the Holy Spirit and translation bias.
- The New Jerusalem Study Bible.
- My reviews of Sean’s 2008 unitarian-trinitarian debate with Brent Bosserman.
- Acts 5:32, cited by Sean towards the end of the interview.
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Hi. Perhaps the greatest issue for true Trinitarians with respect to the Holy Spirit is his personhood with respect to the Father and the Son. Generally in defense of “his” personhood we point to passages translated as “he” or to the fact that he was grieved. These occasional references to which Trinitarians point are – initially – suggestive of personhood, for sure. To my mind, there are two significant buts, and I think Pastor Finnegan touches on the first:
1. The rarity of the occurrences
2. The absence of love between the Father or Son and the (or their) Spirit.
It is on this second point that I have not yet found significant concern within the Trinitarian literature – but perhaps with good reason. Social Trinitarians in particular should have an issue here. They claim that these three literal persons are bound together in a profound and infinite love that permits a oneness appropriate to singular pronouns. There is a problem here that is properly shoved under the carpet – the love of the Father or of the Son for His (or their) Spirit.
For a Social Trinitarian, this should amount to a serious problem. They claim that Trinity is a most beautiful and delicate “dance” of humble love and collaboration. But it is not enough to point to a few potential occurrences of personhood references in the New Testament for the Holy Spirit. In order to fill a seemingly gaping hole in Social Trinitarian theology, serious evidence needs to be provided for love of the Father or of the Son for the Spirit. Where is that evidence?
Hi Dale,
I have appreciated the sincerity and research that you have put into communicating your views to the public.
However, I did want to clarify one matter that Sean addressed in his interview with you. As one of Jehovah’s Witnesses myself, I am able to say that we don’t consider the holy spirit to be “just” an impersonal force. Rather, the Witnesses most often refer to it as God’s “active force” for the reason that it frequently represents the Father’s direct activity in the world, or constitutes the explicit application of his will to some matter or cause. Now, that is not to say that it should be considered as mere abstracta, since God’s spirit would seem to be capable of standing in for him on certain matters as well (cf. Mt. 12:32). Nevertheless, I think a better analogy of the holy spirit than the one given as electricity would be that which was provided by our Lord himself, namely wind (Jn. 3:8). It seems that Jesus felt quite comfortable using the natural sense of pnuema to characterise the operation of holy spirit upon believers. Likewise, it is in this same sense that the Witnesses commonly understand the working of the spirit too.
Please do not consider my response as a criticism of your interview in any way, only a clarification. I thought the interview itself was well done and highly informative. Thank you for your efforts.
Nathan
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