(NIV), Luke 10: 21At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Indeed throughout this whole subject we are hampered by the imperfection of human language as an instrument wherewith to express verities higher than the facts of the world. "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.". https://www.learnreligions.com/who-is-the-holy-spirit-701504 (accessed June 27, 2023). Learn Religions, Apr. He expressly asserts that the very purpose of his Gospel is to establish the Divinity of Jesus Christ (John 20:31). Besides these passages there are many others in the Gospels which refer to one or other of the Three Persons in particular and clearly express the separate personality and Divinity of each. Most Western theologians base their theory on the name, Logos, given by St. John to the Second Person. We should not think of God as like a pie cut into three pieces, each piece representing a Person. As the passage was understood as having reference to the Son, it gave rise to the question how it could be said that Wisdom was created (Origen, De Principiis I.2.3). Helping students know Jesus, grow in their faith and go to the world to tell others. In addition to these texts, the others we mentioned above make clear that the Personhood of the Holy Spirit is distinct from the Personhood of the Son and the Father. . Thus Athanasius, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, and the Fathers of the Council of Sardica, in their synodical letter, all treat our Lord's words, teaches "The Father is greater than I" as having reference to His Godhead (cf. It is rooted in the fact that God came to meet Christians in a threefold figure: (1) as Creator, Lord of the history of salvation, Father, and Judge, as revealed in the Old Testament; (2) as the Lord who, in the incarnated figure of Jesus Christ, lived among human beings and was present in their midst as the "Resurrected One"; and (3) as the Hol. All rights reserved. Neither the word Trinity nor the explicit doctrine appears in the New Testament, nor did Jesus and his followers intend to contradict the Shema in the Hebrew Scriptures: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord (Deuteronomy 6:4). That the Holy Spirit who dwells within us is God Himself points to the awesome privilege we have as the people of God, but it also points to a solemn responsibi In verse 4, the person of the Holy Spirit, to whom Ananias lied, is called Theos ("God"). This conclusion is held as absolutely certain by all theologians. So many things clamor to define you. According to Western doctrine, God bestows on man sanctifying grace, and consequent on that gift the Three Persons come to his soul. Until a few decades ago, both Catholic and Protestant churches used the title Holy Ghost. Sometimes the Personhood of the Father and Son is appreciated, but the Personhood of the Holy Spirit is neglected. Answer. If Jesus is God, why do the Gospels record instances where He prayed to God? The Personality is treated as logically prior to the Nature. Rationalist critics lay great stress upon the text: "The Father is greater than I" (14:28). The controversy with the Sabellians in the third century proves conclusively that she would tolerate no deviation from Trinitarian doctrine. ad. The Catholic Encyclopedia. Generation is essentially the production of like by like. Get the answers to frequently asked questions on Christian beliefs and practices. The Holy Spirit caused the Virgin Mary to conceive (Matthew 1:20), and at the baptism of Jesus, he descended on Jesus like a dove. "Expressions such as these are undoubtedly the score that it violates the laws of thought is invalid. But the Holy Spirit is not an it, but a He (see John 14:26; 16:7-15; Acts 8:16). But more than this must not be claimed. The term may, of course, have been in use before his time. The Spirit does not possess a different omnipotence, for example, than the Father and the Son do. Is The Trinity In The Bible? (15 EPIC Reasons To Believe It) The Holy Spirit is often called the third Person of the Trinity because, in this "Trinitarian formula," He is listed third. in the presence of the angels. The Greek Fathers approached the problem of Trinitarian doctrine in a way which differs in an important particular from that which, since the days of St. Augustine, has become traditional in Latin theology. It answers numerous important questions about the Holy Spirit: But neither reason nor revelation suggests it in the case of the Second and Third Persons (I:34:1, ad 3). October 1, 1912. Hence we have not separate existence, but Circuminsession (perichoresis) (Of the Orthodox Faith I.8). The Greek Fathers regarded the Son as the Wisdom and power of the Father (1 Corinthians 1:24) in a formal sense, and in like manner, the Spirit as His Sanctity. He thinks (Acts 15:28), speaks (Acts 1:16), leads (Romans 8:14), and can be grieved (Ephesians 4:30). Having seen that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinct Persons, that they are each fully God, and that there is nonetheless only one God, we must conclude that all three Persons are the same God. Had there ever been a time, as the Macedonians dared to say, when the Holy Spirit was not, then at that time God would have not been holy (St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 31.4). They all have the same omnipotence. All Western theologians teach that creation, like all God's external works, proceeds from Him as One: the separate Personalities do not enter into consideration. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can be distinguished, but they cannot be pulled apart. (Cf. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. To them perfection must be sought in dynamic activity. Learn Religions. Neither should we think of the Persons as being defined by attributes added on to the being of God. How can God be both one and three? "), Hugo of St. Victor ("De sacram." It shows us that she was firm in rejecting on the one hand any confusion of the Persons and on the other hand any denial of their consubstantiality. Yet in later Judaism this exalted doctrine suffered eclipse, and seems to have passed into oblivion. Only after the Aristotelean system had obtained recognition from theologians was this question thoroughly treated. Today, R.C. In Genesis 1 is the first mention of the Holy Spirit. It is evident that these apologists were seeking to explain the Christian Faith to their pagan readers in terms with which the latter were familiar. The doctrine of the Trinity means that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct Persons the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Petav., "De Trin", V, viii). Amongst polemical writers we may refer to Irenaeus (Against Heresies I.22 and IV.20.1-6). Awareness of the distinct role that each Person of the Trinity has in our salvation can especially serve to give us greater comfort and appreciation for God in our prayers, as well as helping us to be specific in directing our prayers. When the global church comes together then powerful things can happen. For I am God, and there is no other (Isaiah 45:21-22; see also 44:6-8; Exodus 15:11; Deuteronomy 4:35; 6:4-5; 32:39; 1 Samuel 2:2; 1 Kings 8:60). For example, since the Father sent the Son into the world (John 3:16), He cannot be the same person as the Son. It is implied in the comparisons employed both by him (Ad Serap. The earliest Christians, however, had to cope with the implications of the coming of Jesus Christ and of the presumed presence and power of God among themi.e., the Holy Spirit, whose coming was connected with the celebration of Pentecost. It has already been shown that the words as prescribed by Christ (Matthew 28:19) clearly express the Godhead of the Three Persons as well as their distinction, but another consideration may here be added. Holy Trinity - CATHOLIC APOLOGETICS Domenic Marbaniang 2021, Revive The phrase "third person of the Holy Trinity" is not from the Bible, but is a theological formulation that took shape as the doctrine of Trinity developed in the third and fourth centuries in response to various heretical and unorthodox teachings. They were expressly condemned by Gregory XI in 1376. On the other hand, their orthodoxy was vigorously defended by the Anglican divine Dr. George Bull ("Defensio Fidei Nicaean", Oxford, 1685) and subsequently by Bossuet, Thomassinus, and other Catholic theologians. Sancto; ST. HILARY OF POITIERS, Libri XII de Trinitate; ST. AUGUSTINE, Libri XV de Trinitate; ST. JOHN DAMASCENE, Liber de Trinitate; IDEM, De fide orthodoxa, I. Bessarion rightly observes that the Fathers who used these expressions conceived the Divine Procession as taking place, so to speak, along a straight line (P.G., CLXI, 224). Summary Application What Does it Mean That God is a Trinity? Here, however, it is necessary to safeguard a point of revealed doctrine. The three persons subsist within the one divine beingThey each have Their own particular existence and identity but Their essence is one and the same. We have in these chapters the necessary preparation for the baptismal commission. And Origen (Against Celsus VIII.15) says: "We declare that the Son is not mightier than the Father, but inferior to Him. Indeed, of all revealed truths this is the most impenetrable to reason. Who Is the Third Person of the Trinity? - Christian Healing Ministries By this is signified the reciprocal inexistence and compenetration of the Three Persons. Who Is The Third Person Of The Holy Trinity - whof . Augustine insists that of the ten Aristotelean categories two, stance and relation, are found in God (On the Trinity V.5). ET on EWTN: Holy Mass and Rosary on Thursday, June 22, 2023 [Saint Paulinus of Nola, Bishop; Saints John Fisher, Bishop, and Thomas. This doctrine supposes a point of view very different from that with which we are now familiar. It is easy to see that the Greek system was less well adapted to meet the cavils of the Arian and Macedonian heretics than was that subsequently developed by St. Augustine. The immense majority of the Greek Fathers, as we have already noticed, interpret logos of the spoken word, and consider the significance of the name to lie not in any teaching as to intellectual procession, but in the fact that it implies a mode of generation devoid of all passion. Similar teaching occurs in Ecclesiasticus 24, in a discourse which Wisdom is declared to utter in "the assembly of the Most High", i.e. According to his psychology the formation of a concept is not essential to thought as such, though absolutely requisite to all natural human knowledge. Petavius, who was at that period engaged on his great theological work, was convinced by their arguments, and allowed that at least some of these Fathers had fallen into grave errors. 7; Gregory of Nyssa, "De orat. What does it take to begin a relationship with God? The Occupation of the Holy Spirit- Third person of the Trinity . The first tendency recognized the distinctness among the three, but at the cost of their equality and hence of their unity (subordinationism). Cf. Please read what Jesus told Nicodemas in John . Indeed the controversies of the fourth century brought some of the Greek Fathers notably nearer to the positions of Latin theology. Showing God in action in and through His people. The Divinity of the Three Persons is asserted or implied in passages too numerous to count. Baptism, with its formal renunciation of Satan and his works, was understood to be the rejection of the idolatry of paganism and the solemn consecration of the baptised to the one true God (Tertullian, De Spectaculis 4; Justin, First Apology 4). But here, mere specific unity is out of the question. We know by revelation that God has a Son; and various other terms besides Son employed regarding Him in Scripture, such as Word, Brightness of His glory, etc., show us that His sonship must be conceived as free from any relation. eccl. Learn the basics of what Christians believe. The two are equally Divine names (cf. Over the next half century, St. Athanasius defended and refined the Nicene formula, and, by the end of the 4th century, under the leadership of St. The whole perfection of the Godhead is contained in the one infinite Divine Essence. If the immanent act of the intellect is rightly termed generation, on what grounds can that name be denied to the act of the will? The Holy Spirit is a "who" not a "which.". This formulation can show us why there are not three Gods, and why the Trinity is not a contradiction. In Greek theology the order is reversed: the Holy Spirit does not come to us because we have received sanctifying grace; but it is through His presence we receive the gift. To the Greek Fathers, who developed the theology of the Spirit in the light of the philosophical principles which we have just noticed, the question presented no difficulty. Top 25 Bible Verses about the Trinity: Father, Son & Holy Spirit 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever. Likewise, after the Son returned to the Father (John 16:10), the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit into the world (John 14:26; Acts 2:33). ", xii, 13; Basil, Epistle 189, no. Why Is He Called the Holy Spirit? | Ligonier Ministries The substance of God is God, not a bunch of ingredients that taken together yield deity. The Third Person is the debut graphic novel and memoir of artist Emma Grove. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. Here the construction shows that the Apostle is speaking of three distinct Persons. (NIV), 1 Thessalonians 5:19Quench not the Spirit. So a closer look at the fact that God is one in essence but three in person has helped to show why the Trinity is not a contradiction. If God is three Persons, does this mean that each Person is one-third of God? So he turned and became their enemy and he himself fought against them. When we fail to do so, we are offending the Creator of all things, who is gracious indeed but who always wants us to remember the high cost for this gracethe death of the Son. Fairchild, Mary. The Third Person of the Trinity: How the Holy Spirit Facilitates Man's Third Person of the Trinity | Catholic Answers .the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God's majesty, and the image of his goodness" (Wisdom 7:25-26. as the logos endiathetos, c. x]). (On the essential difference between St. John's doctrine as to the Person of Christ and the Logos doctrine of the Alexandrine Philo, to which many Rationalists have attempted to trace it, see LOGOS.). . Is the Trinity taught in the Old Testament? He is sometimes described as the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9) or the Spirit of Jesus (Acts 16:7). (Acts 13:2). This whole objection rests on a petitio principii: for it takes for granted the identification of person and of mind with self-consciousness. The Divine Essence is not capable of numerical multiplication; it is therefore, they reasoned, identically the same nature which both possess. The Doxology, "To Him be glory for ever and ever" (cf. St. John Damascene, "De imagin. It harmonizes, as we have said, with all the truths of faith. (2023, April 5). . The personhood of each member of the Trinity means that each Person has a distinct center of consciousness. Understanding the Trinity: How Can God Be Three Persons in One? But while in creatures the powers and faculties are mere accidental perfections, in the Godhead they are subsistent hypostases. It is based on the Platonic philosophy accepted by the Alexandrine School. It should be observed, however, that this is not the only form in which the psychological theory has been proposed. Trinity, in Christian doctrine, the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead. After Peter harshly asked . In Islam, the Holy Spirit acts as an agent of divine action or communication. What we do not mean by Person is an independent individual in the sense that both I and another human are separate, independent individuals who can exist apart from one another. In the New Testament, he is sometimes called the Spirit of Christ. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. (NIV), John 14:16And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; (KJV), Romans 8:26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. Tertullian affirms in the clearest terms that what he held as to the Trinity when a Catholic he still holds as a Montanist (Against Praxeas 2); and in the same work he explicitly teaches the Divinity of the Three Persons, their distinction, the eternity of God the Son (Against Praxeas 27). This teaching constantly recurs from the time of Origen to that of St. John Damascene (Origen apud Athanasius, De decr. We call the effecting of the change action, and its reception passion. He is autoagiotes, the hypostatic holiness of God, the holiness by which God is holy. And no process which is not essentially of that character can claim the name. This they declared the Three Persons to possess (Athanasius, "Adv. They are three real persons, not three roles God plays. Live in another country building relationships and ministries with eternal impact. Finally after His resurrection, He revealed the doctrine in explicit terms, bidding them "go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matthew 28:18). ; Cyril of Alexandria, "De Trin. These are found in Justin (Dialogue with Trypho 61), Tatian (Address to the Greeks 5), Athenagoras (A Plea for the Christians 10), Theophilus (To Autolycus II.10); Hippolytus (Against Noetus 10); Tertullian (Against Praxeas 5-7; Against Hermogenes 18). In the remaining New Testament writings numerous passages attest how clear and definite was the belief of the Apostolic Church in the three Divine Persons. He is the One who guides us into a closer walk with Christ . The writers of this school contend that the doctrine of the Trinity, as professed by the Church, is not contained in the New Testament, but that it was first formulated in the second century and received final approbation in the fourth, as the result of the Arian and Macedonian controversies. . To understand more fully what God is like is a way of honoring God. Since the Hebrew word for the Spirit in the Old Testament means "breath" or "wind," Jesus breathed on his apostles after his resurrection and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." These passages, taken in connection with Matthew 28:19, postulate the existence of such teaching as we find in the discourses in the Cenacle reported by St. John (14, 15, 16). We baptize into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity is considered to be one of the central Christian affirmations about God. cath. This, the Church teaches, is the revelation regarding God's nature which Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came upon earth to deliver to the world: and which she proposes to man as the foundation of her whole dogmatic system. Sproul cites as an example Dickens famous line, It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Obviously this is a contradiction if Dickens means that it was the best of times in the same way that it was the worst of times. The Trinity does not live in a splendid . Learn how you can know God personally. The Holy Spirit is called Theos ("God"). The Holy Spirit is not an "it"; we should never refer to the Holy Spirit as "it" because he is not an impersonal force. In February 1974, most of us came to faith in Jesus Christ. Help create welcoming spaces for diverse communities, Your Identity in Christ: How God Sees You. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? While I believe that this is a helpful definition, it should be recognized that Grudem himself is offering this as more of an explanation than definition of Person. He who had a right to use it was invested with vast authority: for he wielded the supernatural powers of Him whose name he employed. Third Person of the Trinity by Chuck Smith - Blue Letter Bible But there are many passages in the ante-Nicene Fathers which show that the form, "Glory be to the Father and to the Son, and to [with] the Holy Spirit," was also in use. The Holy Spirit is God, but He is not the Son or the Father. He proceeds from the Father through the Son. In Colossians 1:16, St. Paul says that all things were created in the Son. The Trinity is first of all important because God is important. Thus we say that a king sends a messenger, and that a tree sends forth buds. 5, 2023, learnreligions.com/who-is-the-holy-spirit-701504. Even these exalted titles did not lead the Jews to recognize that the Saviour to come was to be none other than God Himself. Reaching students and faculty in middle and high school. The Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, Who proceeds from the Father only (cf. Stated differently, God is one in essence and three in person. ., hos an eipoi tis, antembolen). Here, then, the Circuminsession has its basis in the Homosia. The Scholastics seek for Scriptural support for it in the name Holy Spirit. Any Christian might be called on to seal with his blood his belief that there is but One God. In some passages he explains it by the doctrine already mentioned, that the Son and the Spirit are dynameis of the Father (cf. Somehow Gods being is so much greater than ours that within his one undivided being there can be an unfolding into interpersonal relationships, so that there can be three distinct persons.[5]. Page not found Instagram No action, transient or immanent, can proceed from any agent unless that agent, as statically conceived, possesses whatever perfection is contained in the action. She is, moreover, described as "the worker of all things" (panton technitis, 7:21), an expression indicating that the creation is in some manner attributable to her. Now in regard to these passages it must be borne in mind that there are two ways of considering the Trinity. He is, says the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed, begotten before all worlds". He has many names in Scripture, including Advocate, Comforter, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, the . It is rooted in the fact that God came to meet Christians in a threefold figure: (1) as Creator, Lord of the history of salvation, Father, and Judge, as revealed in the Old Testament; (2) as the Lord who, in the incarnated figure of Jesus Christ, lived among human beings and was present in their midst as the Resurrected One; and (3) as the Holy Spirit, whom they experienced as the helper or intercessor in the power of the new life. There was never a time when one of the Persons of the Godhead did not exist. As regards the vindication of a mystery, the office of the natural reason is solely to show that it contains no intrinsic impossibility, that any objection urged against it on Reason. This, it seems to us, is a mistake. Indeed it would seem that the great majority of the Greek Fathers understood logos not of the mental thought; but of the uttered word (Athanasius, Dionysius of Alexandria, ibid. He is one Being in three Persons (centers of consciousness), not merely three roles. It is out of the question to suppose that men who were prepared to give their lives on behalf of this fundamental truth were in point of fact in so great confusion in regard to it that they were unaware whether their creed was monotheistic, ditheistic, or tritheistic. Moreover, the use of the singular, "name," and not the plural, shows that these Three Persons are that One Omnipotent God in whom the Apostles believed. Clement speaks of Wisdom as "created before all things" (protoktistos), and Tatian terms the Word the "first-begotten work of (ergon prototokon) the Father.". They argue that this suffices to establish that the author of the Gospel held subordinationist views, and they expound in this sense certain texts in which the Son declares His dependence on the Father (5:19; 8:28). It is in reference to this work in our regard that in the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed the Holy Spirit is termed the Giver of life (zoopoios). ", II, ii, 7, vi, 11). (3) Expressions which appear to contain the statement that the Son was created are found in Clement of Alexandria (Stromata V.14 and VI.7), Tatian (Address to the Greeks 5), Tertullian (Against Praxeas 6; Against Hermogenes 18-20), Origen (Commentary on John I.22). In defense of that oneness, he was obliged to dispute the sameness of essence of the Son and the Holy Spirit with God the Father. Justin, First Apology 60; Irenaeus, Against Heresies III.4.2). The story of the controversy is conclusive as to the doctrinal standard of the Church. This latter form is indeed perfectly consistent with Trinitarian belief: it, however, expresses not the coequality of the Three Persons, but their operation in regard to man. The Third Person of the Trinity - Acts 29 He directs the missionary journey of the Apostles: "They attempted to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not" (Acts 16:7; cf. The Fathers supply many passages in which the incomprehensibility of the Divine Nature is affirmed.
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