Holy Spirit: Encyclopedia II - Holy Spirit - Non-Trinitarian Christian views

Holy Spirit - Non-Trinitarian Christian views

In the belief of many nontrinitarian religions — Unitarians and Jehovah's Witnesses, for instance — the Holy Spirit is God's spirit or God's active force, and not an actual person. In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the Holy Spirit is considered a third and individual member of the Godhead, a different being from the Father and the Son, having a body of spirit (whereas the Father and the Son are believed to be resurrected individuals having immortalized bodies of flesh and bone).

Jehovah's Witnesses point out [3] that personification in the Bible occurs often, including terms such as wisdom, sin and death, water and blood, and does not indicate that the subject is a person. The fact that the Holy Spirit is referred to impersonally several times is used to assert that references of this manner would not occur in such frequency if this was a divine member of God, just as it does not occur with the Father or the Son. Additionally, at Jesus' baptism in Matthew 3:16, Jesus received God's spirit at that time, which Witnesses say conflicts with the idea that the Son was always one with the Holy Spirit. Jesus relates in Mark 13:32 "But of that day and [that] hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." The Witnesses note that the Holy Spirit is conspicuously missing from this statement, just as it is missing from Stephen's vision in Acts 7:55, 56 where he sees only the Son and God in heaven.

Also noted, in regards to the mentions of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit together (as in 2 Cor 13:14; 1 Cor 12:4-6; Matt 28:19), nontrinitarians bring out that none of these verses offer any evidence of the equality of nature or authority among them, just as the numerous simultaneous references to "Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" or "Peter, James and John", or "Tom, Dick and Harry" do not infer an equality in any manner. Alvan Lamson says in The Church of the First Three Centuries: "The modern popular doctrine of the Trinity . . . derives no support from the language of Justin [Martyr]: and this observation may be extended to all the ante-Nicene Fathers; that is, to all Christian writers for three centuries after the birth of Christ. It is true, they speak of the Father, Son, and . . . holy Spirit, but not as co-equal, not as one numerical essence, not as Three in One, in any sense now admitted by Trinitarians. The very reverse is the fact."

There are many Roman Catholic writings that support the idea of the Holy Spirit not being an actual person. One, the New Catholic Encyclopedia states: "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. ... 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." (New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967, Vol. 14, pp. 574, 575)

According to those who hold the minority view of Binitarianism, the Holy Spirit is not a separate being, but the Father and the Son are. One such group, the Living Church of God teaches this about the Holy Spirit, "The Holy Spirit is the very essence, the mind, life and power of God. It is not a Being. The Spirit is inherent in the Father and the Son, and emanates from Them throughout the entire universe (1 Kings 8:27; Psalm 139:7; Jeremiah 23:24). It was through the Spirit that God created all things (Genesis 1:1-2; Revelation 4:11). It is the power by which Christ maintains the universe (Hebrews 1:2-3). It is given to all who repent of their sins and are baptized (Acts 2:38-39) and is the power (Acts 1:8; 2 Timothy 1:6-7) by which all believers may be "overcomers" (Romans 8:37, KJV; Revelation 2:26-27) and will be led to eternal life" (Official Statement of Fundamental Beliefs).

The view that the Holy Spirit is not a separate person has been considered to be heretical by mainstream Christianity. For example, Epiphanius of Salamis referred to some of those as Semi-Arians and Pneumatomachi ("spirit-fighters") and called them, "A sort of monstrous, half-formed people of two natures...Semi-Arians...hold the truly orthodox view of the Son, that he was forever with the Father...but has been begotten without beginning and not in time...But all of these blaspheme the Holy Spirit, and do not count him in the Godhead with the Father and the Son" (Epiphanius. The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, Books II and III (Sects 47-80), De Fide). Section VI, Verses 1,1 and 1,3. Translated by Frank Williams. EJ Brill, New York, 1994, pp.471-472)

Hence, nontrinitarians have long been subject to criticism by those who accepted the Nicene and later Councils.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Non-Trinitarian Christian views", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki