Holy “Spirit”? Wrong. That’s Not His Name.

[Santiago M Anaya]

Hello There.. Peace of Christ..

John 15:26 The Holy Spirit comes in the Name of Jesus..

John 4:24 God is Spirit = 2 Cor. 3:`17 The Lord is the Spirit = The Lord is Jesus, Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God..

God Bless..........Brother James

 

[iluvtheSims]

No. Breathe is what we do... Breathe is wind, its not a being or a person. The Holy Spirit is a true being, a person like Jesus and The Father God... The Holy Spirit is more than gas LOL

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Or we just can't be bothered.

This ^^^^^^^^^^ might be best, but still ....
Such terribly wrong errors posted, wrong unScriptural God, for so long ... and apparently still not corrected ....

Anything that possibly reveals God as physical has potentially monumental implications for our understanding of what it means to walk with God. It potentially redefines divine-human fellowship/intimacy, Christian maturity, and sanctification. It potentially alters what we ask for in prayer when seeking God's face. Take me for example. I never had any DISTINCT experience with God back when my approach to prayer was based on the tutoring of nonexperientialist teachers. It is almost as though God's attitude was, "If you're going to arrogantly presume me to be something you can't feel or touch, then that's about as far as your prayer life is ever going to take you with me."

A change in my belief, oddly enough, altered my prayer life and, in so doing, elicited some very tangible (as well as emotional) experiences with God. This continues to this day.

 

[rockytopva]

—-

 

[JAL]

This ^^^^^^^^^^ might be best, but still ....
Such terribly wrong errors posted, wrong unScriptural God, for so long ... and apparently still not corrected ....

But this conclusion isn't based on exegesis but on blind faith in the conclusions of men. The commentators and lexicons have been pushing 'Spirit' as the best translation of the Greek and Hebrew whereas the context regularly favors Breath/Wind. There is clear contextual evidence for THAT reading, no clear evidence for Spirit.

 

[1213]

“...Significant because the whole case for the claim that God is a nonphysical substance called spirit rests about 99% on the (mis)translation ‘Holy Spirit’. When we translate the term properly as the Holy Breath/Wind, it becomes apparent that 99% of the biblical data refers to God using physical language. ..

Interesting post. What do you say about this:

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
John 4:24

In that God is called the “spirit”. And the word is also “pneuma”. So, if “pneuma” is wrongly translated “spirit” and should actually be “wind”, then there are two “winds”?

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Interesting post. What do you say about this:

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
John 4:24

In that God is called the “spirit”. And the word is also “pneuma”. So, if “pneuma” is wrongly translated “spirit” and should actually be “wind”, then there are two “winds”?

Note (frequent error).
YHWH (God) is Spirit, NOT "a" spirit... I see though you can say "the" Spirit of YHWH <moved upon them> and so forth.... .
Likewise in Harmony with ALL Scripture.
He has no parts. Simple and True.

 

[JAL]

Interesting post. What do you say about this:

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
John 4:24

In that God is called the “spirit”. And the word is also “pneuma”. So, if “pneuma” is wrongly translated “spirit” and should actually be “wind”, then there are two “winds”?

"A breeze is wind" - characterizes the breeze as an instance of wind.
"God is wind" - characterizes God as an instance of wind.
"God is fire" - classifies God as an instance of fire.
"God is water" - classifies God as an instance of water.

Any of these statements are valid.

You have to put your mind into the biblical mindset of the authors. They were aware of one invisible material substance - wind. And since they knew:
(1) God is material
(2) God is (typically) invisible
(3) Therefore God is wind.

I don't see the problem and don't understand your objection.

God is wind, and those who worship him must worship in wind and truth.
John 4:24

 

[JAL]

Note (frequent error).
YHWH (God) is Spirit, NOT "a" spirit... I see though you can say "the" Spirit of YHWH <moved upon them> and so forth.... .
Likewise in Harmony with ALL Scripture.
He has no parts. Simple and True.

That's 100% Plato. Everything in Scripture militates against those kinds of philosphical statements. You can hold that view if you want to but don't pretend it came from Scripture. EVERYTHING in Scrpture points to a God with parts, specifically a material God.

And by material I don't mean matter necessarily arranged as protons,neutrons, electrons - that design is specific to how God designed our universe. I just mean that God is tangible, and can arrange His own matter any way He chooses.

 

[JAL]

God is wind, and those who worship him must worship in wind and truth.
John 4:24

 

[JAL]

Note (frequent error).
YHWH (God) is Spirit, NOT "a" spirit... I see though you can say "the" Spirit of YHWH <moved upon them> and so forth.... .
Likewise in Harmony with ALL Scripture.
He has no parts. Simple and True.

No parts? The ISBE (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia) is a standard evangelical reference work, composed by 200 evangelical theologians. Remember when God walked by Moses? Here's what the ISBE says about that:

The glory of Yahweh is clearly a physical manifestation, a form with hands and rear parts, of which Moses is permitted to catch only a passing glimpse, but the implication is clear that he actually does see Yahweh with his physical eyes. (The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia on "glory")

And there are dozens of Scriptures to back that up - not to mention numerous logical problems facing the notion of immaterial spirit.

Take for Example Ex 24:10 when the 70 elders climbed up Mt Sainai to see the Lord who had descended there:

[They] saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky (Ex 24:10).

EVERYWHERE in Scripture, God is depicted as a human-shaped form, sometimes attended by volumes of His material glory in the form of pillars of fire and cloud, with (demonstrably physical) radiance (Light-particles).

Man is fashioned in the image of God - literally in His physical shape.

 

[JAL]

Ok that's about 4 posts I made in a row. Feel free to respond.

 

[fwGod]

The Holy Trinity can easily be explained to others that way as being One made up of the same substance but in different forms.
the Son is the living water,
the Father is the solid substance (ice)
and the Spirit is the vapored cloud.

The scripture states that the Father is the fountain/spring of living water (Jer.2:13; Ps.36:8). Jesus gives it to those who thirst (Jn.4:14).
The Son would be the solid substance because he's the Word that became flesh (Jn.1:14). And the express image of God (Heb.1:3).
The Holy Spirit is the breathe, the inspirer (Job 32:8).
In Jn.20:22, Jesus breathed upon the disciples- The knowledge of the Holy One is understanding (Prov.9:10). In this next one Jesus and the Holy Spirit work together- The entrance of God's Word gives understanding to the simple (Ps.119:130).

 

[fwGod]

“Holy Spirit” is a mistranslation of the Greek phrase in question. The first word “Holy” is correct. The second word “Spirit” is obviously incorrect. Here’s a simple way to demonstrate the point.


Suppose I were describing to you a particular family consisting of husband, wife, and child. But instead of using the terms ‘husband, wife, and child’ – or even father, son, and mother – I used the following terms: “The father, the son, and the HUMAN BEING.”


This kind of language DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE. Neither you nor anyone else would ever make such a ridiculous statement - ridiculous because ALL THREE OF THEM are human beings. To refer to ONE of the three members as ‘the human being’ would - if anything at all – cast doubt as to whether the first two are human. Secondly, one of the main functions of a title is to provide some kind of conceptual distinction between various members. If the Bible’s language fails to provide distinctions between the three members, it thereby undermines the biblical basis for Trinitarianism. I'm a Trinitarian myself.


So here’s the problem. Mainstream Christianity regards ALL THREE members as ‘spirit’ (and holy). Thus the term ‘Holy Spirit’ applies to all three of them. Hence the phrase Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is just as ridiculous as saying of a human family, “The Father, the Son, and the Human Being.” The only way to solve this is to acknowledge that "Spirit" is a mistranslation of the Third Person's title.

The Greek term (pneuma) - traditionally mistranslated ‘Spirit’ - has one other possible meaning – breath/wind. (The Greeks conflated breath/wind into one word ‘pneuma’ even though they are two separate words in English). No theologian would deny that the Greek OT uses that term at least 100 times to denote breath/wind, and ditto of ‘ruach’ (the Hebrew version of the Greek term pneuma).

The PROPER translation of the relevant passages, then, is Father, Son, and the Holy Breath/Wind. You can picture the Trinity as three physical Persons – the Father seated on a throne, the Son seated at His right hand, and the Holy Wind/Breath continually exuding as smoke, wind, and Fire from their nostrils and mouth toward the earth as portrayed clearly in Psalm 18 (traditionally known as the PROCESSION of the Third Person from the Father and the Son to the earth). “And they saw what seemed like tongues of fire descending from heaven…”

Several biblical contexts CLEARLY AND BLATANTLY confirm the translation Holy Wind. Let’s consider just one example for now. “On the Day of Pentecost…they heard the sound of a mighty rushing wind. And they were all filled with the Holy Wind.” Here the CONTEXT confirms what we already should have known - we should have known it from the father-son-wife analogy I gave you above - that Holy ‘Spirit’ is an obviously, blatantly incorrect translation of this passage.

Significant because the whole case for the claim that God is a nonphysical substance called spirit rests about 99% on the (mis)translation ‘Holy Spirit’. When we translate the term properly as the Holy Breath/Wind, it becomes apparent that 99% of the biblical data refers to God using physical language.

I’ll end with this. As early as 200 A.D. the church father Tertullian – the man credited with inventing the word Trinity – insisted that God is a physical being biblically entitled the Holy Wind/Breath – and he insisted that the term ‘Spirit’ was born of Plato’s philosophy, not of Scripture. Cheers.

Has Tertullian said that God is a physical being? In contradiction to what the apostle John wrote in Jn.4:24 "God is Spirit, and those who worship God must be led by the Spirit to worship him according to the truth."

Tertullian being wrong in describing God, doesn't make him very much of an authority of what substance God is. At most.. according to you.. he should have argued in favor of God being breath or wind.

Not that I agree with him or you. I'm just making a point.

But as to the rest.. Your arguments do not take context into account.

To say that the verse should not have been translated "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" but rather Father, Son and Holy wind or Holy breath.

Both breath and wind are not concrete, they are not physical. The are invisible, yet effect the physical.

When the Bible talks about demons, the word sometimes used is "spirits". They are not wind or breath. They are invisible beings that effect nature and people.

Just as the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit is a spiritual being that comes from God, Who effects nature and people.
Likewise is the Word of God intended to do.

Then there is the matter of human beings who are made of up of "spirit, soul, and body"
If what you propose is correct.. there would have to also be the change over of one's inner being not be called "spirit man" but "breath man" or "wind man".

It would then read from Heb.12:23 "the breathes or winds of just men made perfect"..
And from 1 Thes.5:23 "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and [I pray God] your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Would have to be changed to "your breath or wind, and soul and body be preserved.."

It doesn't work concerning humans, it doesn't work concerning angels or demons. And most of all it doesn't work concerning the Spirit of God.

I believe that the translators did the right thing in using Pneuma the right way, according to context. Where wind, and breath is appropriate. And where spirit/Spirit is appropriate.

 

[JAL]

Has Tertullian said that God is a physical being? In contradiction to what the apostle John wrote in Jn.4:24 "God is Spirit, and those who worship God must be led by the Spirit to worship him according to the truth."

See post 248. That verse lends zero ground for 'Spirit'.

Tertullian being wrong in describing God, doesn't make him very much of an authority of what substance God is.

Actually he was correct.

At most.. according to you.. he should have argued in favor of God being breath or wind.

Regardless of whether he wrote much about wind or breath, he was a staunch materialist, and the first church father known to have used the term Trinity.

Not that I agree with him or you. I'm just making a point.

Not much of a point, from what I can see.

But as to the rest.. Your arguments do not take context into account.

Ok I guffawed on that one. Anyone who disagrees with me is blatantly disregarding the breath-wind references EXPLICITLY made in those verses I cited. For example, "By the [spoken/exhaled ] word of the Lord were the heavens made, the starry host by the breath of His mouth" (Psalm 33:6). We speak by exhaling material breath. Immaterial speech is a logically incoherent contradiction in terms. God speaks. He is therefore material. Speech is the issuing of matter/energy sound vibrations. Referring to how Mt Sinai trembled when God spoke, Hebrews says, "His voice shook the earth".

Both breath and wind are not concrete, they are not physical. The are invisible, yet effect the physical.

Breath is not physical? This is absolute nonsense. This kind of desperate defense establishes that the opposition is absolutely devoid of any supportive logic or evidence.

When the Bible talks about demons, the word sometimes used is "spirits". They are not wind or breath. They are invisible beings that effect nature and people.

Tell it to Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer, founder and president of Dallas Theological Seminary, who argued that angels are 100% material because "the term spirit…in both Hebrew and Greek is primarily a material term, indicating wind, air, or breath" (Lewis Sperry Chafer, "Angelology Part 1", Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol 98:392 (1941), p. 401)

In that article he named several church fathers who viewed angels as physical: Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, Origen, and Caesarius. Chafer himself, in that article, insinuates that God is physical.

Just as the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit is a spiritual being that comes from God.

Platonic dogma. No basis in Scripture.

Then there is the matter of human beings who are made of up of "spirit, soul, and body" If what you propose is correct.. there would have to also be the change over of one's inner being not be called "spirit man" but "breath man" or "wind man".

Trichotomy is nonsense. Don't even get me started on that.

It would then read from Heb.12:23 "the breathes or winds of just men made perfect". And from 1 Thes.5:23 "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and [I pray God] your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Would have to be changed to "your breath or wind, and soul and body be preserved.."

There is nothing wrong with those kinds of statements if you put yourself in the biblical mindset as described at post 248.

I believe that the translators did the right thing in using Pneuma the right way, according to context. Where wind, and breath is appropriate. And where spirit/Spirit is appropriate.

No sir. The Title of God won't change.
For example where Scripture says, 'The Father', don't change it to 'brother in law'.
Thus once we have at least one passage where the title (per the context) is 'The Holy Breath/Wind', don 't change it to Spirit. That doesn't make sense -it's nothing more than a determination to shove Plato's philosophy down the throats of the biblical writers, with zero contextual/exegetical support..

 

[JAL]

According to you..[Tertullian] should have argued in favor of God being breath or wind.

Don't read too much into Tertullian's usage of the word Spirit. He wrote in Latin, and the Latin term spiritus is etymologically based on wind/breath. In fact 'soul' is also based etymologically on wind/breath. As Wikipedia states:

"The modern English word "spirit" comes from the Latin spiritus, but also "spirit, soul, courage, vigor", ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European *(s)peis. It is distinguished from Latin anima, "soul" (which nonetheless also derives from an Indo-European root meaning "to breathe").

Let's look at what Tertullian, back in 200 A.D, had to say about the human spirit which, in the Greek, was pneuma. But it's a lot of reading, so I'll first summarize:
(1) He confirms the argument I made at post 248, that the soul should be CLASSIFIED as wind/breath because it falls into the category of invisible matter.
(2) He alleges that Gen 2:7 has God using His own breath to insufflate Adam's soul into his body. (This logically implies that both are material, because an immaterial substance cannot push, or be pushed by, a material substance).
(3) He alleges that this material soul is fused to the entire human body, spreding from head to toe, which is precisely my position (and that of my mentor Andrew Murray).

Ok so if you still want to read his long statement, here it is (I emboldened a a few words that confirm he regarded this 'pneuma' as physical substance).

"Since, however, everything which is very attenuated and transparent bears a strong resemblance to the air, such would be the case with the soul, since in its material nature it is wind and breath, (or spirit); whence it is that the belief of its corporeal quality is endangered, in consequence of the extreme tenuity and subtlety of its essence. Likewise, as regards the figure of the human soul from your own conception, you can well imagine that it is none other than the human form; indeed, none other than the shape of that body which each individual soul animates and moves about. This we may at once be induced to admit from contemplating man's original formation. For only carefully consider, after God has breathed upon the face of man the breath of life, and man had consequently become a living soul, surely that breath must have passed through the face at once into the interior structure, and have spread itself throughout all the spaces of the body; and as soon as by the divine inspiration it had become condensed, it must have impressed itself on each internal feature, which the condensation had filled in, and so have been, as it were, congealed in shape, (or stereotyped). Hence, by this densifying process, there arose a fixing of the soul's corporeity; and by the impression its figure was formed and moulded. This is the inner man, different from the outer, but yet one in the twofold condition. It, too, has eyes and ears of its own, by means of which Paul must have heard and seen the Lord; 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 it has, moreover all the other members of the body by the help of which it effects all processes of thinking and all activity in dreams..."

Since he classified the human pneuma as wind/breath, it stands to reason he classified the divine Pneuma as such. Thus, as one scholar remarked, Tertullian's "wind/breath and soul/consciousness, not only apply to the human spirit, they also apply to the divine" (page 51).

 

[fwGod]

See post 248. That verse lends zero ground for 'Spirit'.

That opinion has zero Biblical weight to it.
You are insisting that we should ignore context and think that we are worshiping the Holy wind, the Holy breath. .. That is making a personal supernatural being into a non-being. And so impersonal.

Actually he was correct.

I'm unchangeably disagreeing on that.

Regardless of whether he wrote much about wind or breath, he was a staunch materialist,

So he injected his own materialistic "private interpretation" into the Biblical text.
That reduces his "authority" tremendously.

..and the first church father known to have used the term Trinity.

That is merely a term, a word to describe the Tri-unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Tertullian's using the word and it being accepted from his day onward is hardly a reason to ignore the use of hermeneutics and exegesis and just ignore all Biblical scholars and translators.. in order to blindly go along with every thing he says instead.

Not much of a point, from what I can see.

I would say the same concerning your stance.

Ok I guffawed on that one.

Oh.. okay, then I'll admit the number of times that I found your statements amusing as well.

Anyone who disagrees with me is blatantly disregarding the breath-wind references EXPLICITLY made in those verses I cited.

Go tell that to the very many Bible teachers and Bible scholars who would soundly refute you.

It's convenient so I'll use your phrase, you are blatantly disregarding context. The verses are not EXPLICITLY indicating that "breath or wind" should be there. You are working very hard to force it to be so.

If what you've said was inspired of God then it would be recognizable by every Bible teacher and Bible scholar.

But you and your small number of mistaken teachers or preachers are doing all the work, not God.

For example, "By the [spoken/exhaled ] word of the Lord were the heavens made, the starry host by the breath of His mouth" (Psalm 33:6).

That is in accordance with "And God said" (Gen.1) But that in no way indicates that God is nothing more than breath or wind.. but rather it indicates that breath and wind is coming out of His mouth in speaking.
Not a physical mouth but the text makes use of anthropomorphic terms due to the truth that God is Spirit and therefore not flesh as we are. The topic is discussed on any Bible tool website. It's validity can be proven by many Bible teachers and Bible scholars in many places on the internet.

Your use of the verse has not made any point that you may have intended.

We speak by exhaling material breath. Immaterial speech is a logically incoherent contradiction in terms. God speaks. He is therefore material.

Not so.

It seems that you are struggling with the truth that a s/Spirit being can speak. You perhaps compare spirit with ghost and ghost with cloud. Therefore I would conclude that you say that it's illogical for God to speak even as it would be illogical for a cloud to speak.

However, it is equally illogical to say that breath or wind has knowledge, wisdom and understanding. Equally illogical to say that breath or wind has created the universe.

There is more in existence than material beings.. God, angels, demons, the human inner being.

Speech is the issuing of matter/energy sound vibrations. Referring to how Mt Sinai trembled when God spoke, Hebrews says, "His voice shook the earth".

Even as thunders not material, shakes the earth. It's not the clouds, it's the sound that vibrates. It's still so that God is Spirit, not impersonal non intelligent breath or wind.

Your use of the verse has not made any point that you may have intended.

Breath is not physical? This is absolute nonsense.

No it isn't. No one can pinch breath and put it in a material box and imprison it there till the material cows come home.

I refer you to your own words in regard to your attempts to prove your case.

This kind of desperate defense establishes that the opposition is absolutely devoid of any supportive logic or evidence.

`

Tell it to Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer, founder and president of Dallas Theological Seminary, who argued that angels are 100% material because "the term spirit…in both Hebrew and Greek is primarily a material term, indicating wind, air, or breath" (Lewis Sperry Chafer, "Angelology Part 1", Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol 98:392 (1941), p. 401)

In that article he named several church fathers who viewed angels as physical: Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, Origen, and Caesarius. Chafer himself, in that article, insinuates that God is physical.

Those are only people who don't pay attention to context. Their ability to impress would be a monumental task.

I could name Bible scholars that pay attention to context and therefore do not agree with them.

Platonic dogma. No basis in Scripture.

It appears then that you use Plato and Tertullian's use of Trinity.. where it seems to advantage you.. and dismiss Plato where it seems to advantage you.

Even more reason why it's best not to accept what you say.. I'd end up with your waffling mindset. No thanks.

Trichotomy is nonsense. Don't even get me started on that.

You mistake what I posted.

To use water, ice and vapor to describe God is trichotomy. I do not do such a thing because it gets away from what the Bible says. I use scripture.

The word Tri-unity is merely putting greater clarity on what the word Trinity means.

Tri refers to three. Unity refers to being one.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Spirit of God was said to come upon Jesus like a dove. The Spirit of God in that case is neither "breath or wind". The Spirit of God did not give breath or wind to Jesus. Because he wasn't dead at that time. The Spirit of God came upon Him in the same way that Jesus said to us that "His yoke is easy and His burden is light."

There is nothing wrong with those kinds of statements if you put yourself in the biblical mindset as described at post 248.

Unfortunately it's not a Biblical mindset. Or every Biblically minded Christian would believe your nonsense.

No sir. The Title of God won't change.

Yet you are insisting that God is not Spirit but only "breath or wind". Thus you are changing God's essence of being.

For example where Scripture says, 'The Father', don't change it to 'brother in law'.

The same as changing Spirit to breath or wind. Breath or wind are neither of intelligence or being.
Breath is no more than an inhale and an exhale to make sounds. It indicates nothing of it coming from a living being.

Thus once we have at least one passage where the title (per the context) is 'The Holy Breath/Wind', don 't change it to Spirit. That doesn't make sense.

It doesn't make sense to materialistic based thinkers. But Paul says of such to be speaking the wisdom of men which has no inspiration or insight from God.

..it's nothing more than a determination to shove Plato's philosophy down the throats of the biblical writers, with zero contextual/exegetical support..

You are the one who first mentioned Plato.. I could speak of the topic without Plato at all. But obviously you couldn't.

So.. your use of Plato is nothing more than a determination to shove his philosophy down the throats of the biblical writers, with zero contextual/exegetical support.
Yes, your words properly applied to you is far more accurate when used on you than you using them on me..
because you are accusing someone who hasn't studied or read anything of him. I read only God's Word and consult only those Bible scholars who pay attention to context to thereby translate Hebrew "Ruach" and Greek "Pneuma" correctly where it is appropriate.

You've not addressed anything concerning what I wrote of the angelic and demonic spirits.. nor what I wrote concerning the inner being.. the spirits of humans.

I'll assume that you can't refute them.

 

[JAL]

When John says "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14), that means that the Word was not flesh before the Incarnation. Also, the Incarnation applies only to the Word, not to the Father or the Holy Spirit.

Actually I was pretty lazy on this thread. There are several easily refuted arguments that I didn't bother to address, like this one.

Suppose I feed you a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. Guess what happens? Your
metabolism somehow manages to transform it into human protoplasm - human flesh. Looking back, you can honestly, say it became flesh.

"The Word became flesh" (John 1:14).

Now, what do you suppose would happen if I tried to feed you a spirit-sandwich (essentially an immaterial nothingness, or a ghost of some kind). Would it become flesh? To so prognosticate is logically incoherent.

Thus when Scripture tells us, "The Word became flesh", this obviously proves that the divine Word is material, much like the peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. I don't understand why people expect me to throw common-sense out the window in favor of some Platonic gibberish that, by all accounts, is incoherent/incomprehensible to every human mind.

 

[JAL]

You are insisting that we should ignore context and think that we are worshiping the Holy wind, the Holy breath.

LOL. What context am I ignoring? Your shoving a Platonic bias INTO the context and berating me for ignoring it! The only CLEAR thing mentioned in those contexts is breath/wind !!!

That is making a personal supernatural being into a non-being. And so impersonal.

Do you not realize you've been deceived? Personal? Is thought a material process - or an immaterial process? Let me rephrase the question. Do you have a physical brain, or NOT? There is no notion of personality aside from the physical because thought is a process and thus involves motion/energy. I'm sorry that Plato fooled you into thinking otherwise.

Again, ALL the evidence points to physical souls. Your soul is demonstrably physical. Are you not aware that the mind-body argument - levied by Tertullian for example - HAS NEVER BEEN REFUTED? Even Charles Hodge admitted he had no solution. Here's the argument.

(1) The mind moves the body. (An intangible mind couldn't push/pull a material body). For example, suppose your bladder is full. Your mind constricts the bladder, by the power of free will, until it finds a bathroom. In fact everything your body does (I mean everywhere it goes) is decision-based in your mind.
(2) The body impacts the mind. I can make your mind fail a math-test. How so? Simple. I just have to physically spike your food with drugs or alcohol. Or consider puberty. Your mind isn't preoccupied with the opposite sex until hormones kick in at puberty.

I could give dozens more examples. Suppose I wanted to disable your mind completely. How to do it? Physically. Just have to find a way to damage your brain enough to make you a vegetable.

To summarize: Mind and Body mutually impact. That makes ZERO SENSE if either of them is intangible.

 

[JAL]

So he injected his own materialistic "private interpretation" into the Biblical text.

Look, the word pneuma lends itself to either immaterial spirit or material wind/breath. The context, not Plato, should determine which. Don't fault Tertullian for being a responsible exegete, don't fault him for preferring Scripture to Plato.

You are so blinded by indoctrination into the term Spirit that you really cannot understand my position. EVERY objection of yours is based on the following misunderstanding, which I forthwith will refer to as The fwGod-Assumption:

The fwGod-Assmumption: Personhood must be defined as 'Spirit' because cognitive experience clearly isn't a material substance.

Let's discuss that, shall we? Because you read that assumption INTO EVERY VERSE OF THE BIBLE and thus you 'think' I'm ignoring Scripture. And yet I'm a Trinitarian! Every kind of cognitive attribute that you ascribe to God - so do I! So let's discuss the fwGod-Assumption.


I agree that cognitive experience isn't a material substance - nor is it an immaterial substance - it is rather an experience (let's call it a feeling to momentarily simplify). I can't pour you a glass of joy because experience isn't a substance.

The QUESTION is whether the moral agent (the substance) who is EXPERIENCING those feelings happens to be material substance or immaterial substance. You can't just ASSUME what is to be proven. Your assumption has caused you to jump to two conclusions:
(1) Material substance cannot possibly be the moral agent who has cognitive experience.
(2) Immaterial substance is therefore the nature of all moral agents.

To prematurely ASSUME 1 and 2 is a Platonic bias. Tell me, for example, where Scripture states either 1 or 2. It doesn't. That's why when you accuse me of ignoring the biblical context, I'm utterly bewildered. Where does it state 1 or 2? Scripture has no hard evidence for 1 or 2.

It has PLENTY of hard evidence for the notion that God, as a moral agent, is a physical substance. I've cited some examples but there's plenty more.

I'll have to dismiss the following statments because they are all based on The fwGod-Assmumption as defined above:

However, it is equally illogical to say that breath or wind has knowledge, wisdom and understanding. Equally illogical to say that breath or wind has created the universe....Yet you are insisting that God is not Spirit but only "breath or wind". Thus you are changing God's essence of being. The same as changing Spirit to breath or wind. Breath or wind are neither of intelligence or being. Breath is no more than an inhale and an exhale to make sounds. It indicates nothing of it coming from a living being.

Every word just cited - not just the words in bold - is an example of assuming what is to be proven. Your entire argument is - an assumption!

And it's contrary to fact! The FACTS point to a physical human soul for example. For instance if I want to get my thoughts into your mind, how do I accomplish it? Physically! I blow air at you (I speak to you) to let you know what I'm thinking. This kind of dynamic would be impossible if the mind were intangible.