The Source of the Trinity

[Look Up]

"Generation" and "spiritation" are just different terms for engendering, the former used for the Son, the latter for the Spirit. That was the case in the Middle Ages and applies to this day in the Catholic Catechism. Similar to the distinction between "begotten" and "proceeds".

Historically ironic Pope Leo III paragraph aside (for which, thank you), does the above quote from your wording imply that (cf. my post # 122) Berkhof's (or the Catholic Catechism's) distinction between "generation" and "spiration" (this latter presumably a variant of your "spiritation")--or between (canonical Johannine-derived?) "begotten" and "proceeds"--is insubstantial in nature even if there is a "logical order" to the two? The distinction in nature was an unstated question I had from my quotation of him. If the two terms "are just different terms for engendering," do you intend to say they are interchangeable (from a Berkhof or RC position); e.g. that the Holy Spirit is eternally generated by Father and Son and the Son eternally proceeds from the Father?

My guess is not, though then I am not sure of your intent to the phrase "just different terms for engendering" (unless somehow as a category [which seems reasonable]? Then what?). If the terms are different, in particular, could their difference allow for a Holy Spirit procession of agency with respect to the Son and source with respect to the Father? Procession from the Father, through the Son? This returns to "Philip_B's wine bottle and cup analogy (post # 20)" as I mentioned above. But then Holy Spirit procession from the Father, but not Son, would presumably be equivalent to generation. Any elucidation?

I realize I am asking you as a "not procession from the Son" theologian to represent a "procession from the Son" perspective, yet wonder if you as a competent "talmid" think the two positions may be conceived as relatively similar, as similar as "not proceeding from the Son" to "the agency of the Son in procession from the Father." Or have I missed something fundamental?

 

[Philip_B]

John 14:26
When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf.​

Sorry to do the Bible verse thing people, however to make sense of the text, you have to conclude that the Spirit comes from the Father (and I will take that as proceeding from the Father) for the purpose of this discussion. Yet it is clear here that the Son (only begotten of the Father) is instrumental in the sending, if not indeed the sender. This does not suggest that the Holy Spirit has a begotten relationship and indeed I think, to use one of Constantine the Sinners favourite words, that would be heresy, because of the only begotten relationship between the Father and the Son which we all affirm (It is in the Nicene Symbol).

Augustine concluded that the Holy Spirit, when proceeding from the Son had already proceeded from the Father, and that I believe make perfect sense of the verse, and a theology of double procession in keeping with the Gospel.

The miss take on Augustine that some make is that the Son is the point of origin which is clearly not in keeping with the Gospel text above. One of the problems with inserting the Filioque into the Nicene Symbol (apart from it being ultra vires and bringing down anathemas upon oneself) is that it is a very inelegant expression of the theology and far more likely to misinform than to inform correct belief.

My view is that the Cappadocian Fathers had already considered a theology of double procession, and for the pressing matters of the time (most especially the heresy of the pneumatomachi) they did not give it expression. The Heresy here was that the Holy Spirit was not divine, but rather a creature, the creation of the Son. It was in response to this heresy that we find the definitive declaration of the Divinity of the Holy Spirit in the Creed of Constantinople who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified.

 

[Graham Dull]

The Divinity of the Holy Spirit in the Creed of Constantinople who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified.

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The Divinity of the Holy Spirit... who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified.

How does statement this accord with Revelation 22:3, where just God and the Lamb are mentioned?

Revelation 22:3
The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him.

Where is the Holy Spirit when God and the Lamb are on the throne?
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[Philip_B]

Revelation 22:17
The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.​

Is this what you were looking for? The Holy Spirit is undoubtedly the agent of mission and the energy of invitation. This is the same Spirit who moved on the waters at creation before the word was uttered 'let their be light'. And there was light. I believe the divinity of the Holy Spirit is retained in the official position of the Seventh day Adventist Church, though I know little of it and am relying on Professor Google for that information.

 

[Graham Dull]

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I believe the divinity of the Holy Spirit is retained in the official position of the Seventh day Adventist Church

This is absolutely true. I have earlier posted my 100% acceptance of the 'divinity of the Holy Spirit.'

MY QUESTION

Where is the Holy Spirit when God and the Lamb are on the throne?

Is this what you were looking for? The Holy Spirit is...

Not exactly.

God, the Lamb, and the Spirit are actively involved throughout the narrative of Revelation. There is no question of this.

But why (in the context of worship) is the Spirit apparently omitted in Revelation 22:3?

See also Revelation 5:13
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honour and glory and power, for ever and ever!”

Where is the Holy Spirit, and why does He appear to be absent when worship and praise are given?
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[Philip_B]

Where is the Holy Spirit, and why does He appear to be absent when worship and praise are given?

I don't think think the absence of the reference to the Holy Spirit in this context necessarily should be seen as an absence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit as such is the least anthropomorphised persons of the Holy Trinity. I don't see the idea of the invisible breath of God seated on a throne as being a requirement for the authenticity of the vision of the New Jerusalem being expounded here, which I would conclude is neither complete nor incomplete in all manner of details nor a photograph.

I know there are those who see the Holy Spirit in the river of life flowing from the throne, however I an not sufficient to declare whether this is truly exegesis or simply eisegesis.

I am inclined to give greater weight to the authority of the 4th Gospel on this matter, as indeed it would see were the Fathers of Constantinople.

 

[Graham Dull]

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Revelation 5:13
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honour and glory and power, for ever and ever!”

I fully acknowledge that the Holy Spirit is divine. But where is the Holy Spirit, and why does He appear to be absent when worship and praise are given to God and the Lamb?

I am inclined to give greater weight to the authority of the 4th Gospel on this matter

Where in John's gospel is it stated that the Holy Spirit receives worship?

Note again -- The Father is divine, Jesus is divine, the Holy Spirit is divine.
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[Paul Yohannan]

The Holy Spirit is SELF-EXISTENT being God the Holy Spirit.

Note that the apostolic churches (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrians) and the magisterial Protestant reformers (Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, Wesley) always agreed that while all persons of the Trinity are uncreated, only the Father is unoriginate. The Orthodox further maintained that He is the sole source of the Godhood.

But this is not Arianism, because we hold that Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are also God, uncreated, coeternal wirh and sharing the divine essence of the Father, and thus being His equal in terms of honour and glory, and that the three prosopa of the Trinity alone are due all honour, glory and worship.

This is instead the doctrine of those who opposed Arius.

I do not see how one can rationally claim the Holy Spirit or our Lord is unoriginate without implicit recourse to Sabellianism (modalism). It would also seem to be unscriptural in that the verses which describe the procession of the Spirit and generation of the Son ("On this day I have begotten Thee") make no sense, if the prosopa are all unoriginate.

Furthermore, such a view destroys the rationale for God having multiple persons, because the Trinity is the template for how humans should interact, and without a Father, Son or Spirit differentiated in a meaningful way by virtue of origination, they become only nominally distinct, and the iconographic relationship between humanity and the Godhood becomes obscured given that human beings are generative, like the Father; if the Father did not begat our Lord, and if the Spirit does not proceed from Him, it is difficult to articulate rationally how humans exist in the image of God (as opposed to merely sharing some qualities, like the capability for cognition and communication, with God).

 

[Paul Yohannan]

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The Divinity of the Holy Spirit... who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified.

How does statement this accord with Revelation 22:3, where just God and the Lamb are mentioned?

Revelation 22:3
The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him.

Where is the Holy Spirit when God and the Lamb are on the throne?
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Because Baptism is an act of Worship, indeed, it is the initiation of the Christian into the Worship of God through His Church, and Matthew 28:19 commands us to baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Also, the Nicene Creed is infallible and binding on all Christians, just like the Athanasian canon of the 27 book NT. Neither originated with the Apostles, but they became established by the Church as of equal importance to the Apostolic corpus we call the New Testament (which by the way did not exist throughout most of the first century, so your argument for example, prior to St. John writing the Apocalypse, would have been simply answered by the holy Apostles "Because we said so."

And they did indeed say so, in Matthew 28:19.

 

[Paul Yohannan]

Revelation 22:17
The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.​

Is this what you were looking for? The Holy Spirit is undoubtedly the agent of mission and the energy of invitation. This is the same Spirit who moved on the waters at creation before the word was uttered 'let their be light'. And there was light. I believe the divinity of the Holy Spirit is retained in the official position of the Seventh day Adventist Church, though I know little of it and am relying on Professor Google for that information.

Nominally, the Adventists are Trinitarians, but in fact, they were historically Arian prior to Ellen G. White, and despite assigning her writings a status of infallibility equal to Scripture, several Adventists on CF.com and elsewhere on the Net have denied the divinity of Jesus Christ, and thus re-embraced non-Trinitarianism; I believe that the neo-Arian faction is the fastest growing segment of the "traditionalist Adventist" movement, and certainly one of the most vocal.

So I am not shocked to see Adventists articulating neo-Macedonian or crypto-Pneumatomacchian dogmas; this may not be the formal view of their Church, but it is a popular view among individual Adventists, and I believe it will continue to gain acceptance as we see more Adventists reject Christmas, the celebration of the Resurrection, and other facets of traditional Christianity which most Adventist churches historically held in common with other Protestant denominations.

 

[Graham Dull]

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The Father is divine, Jesus is divine, the Holy Spirit is divine.

This is true.

I recognize the Divinity of the Father, the Divinity of Christ, the Divinity of the Holy Spirit.

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[Graham Dull]

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[Paul Yohannan]

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This is true.

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I recognize that, but in questioning the worship of the Holy Spirit, you are denying His coequality and teaching a semi-Macedonian perspective, because if the Holy Spirit is not to be worshipped then the Spirit is not truly God but merely an individual attribute or posession of God, since being worthy of worship is an integral and essential characteristic of the divine nature.

 

[david.d]

I recognize that, but in questioning the worship of the Holy Spirit, you are denying His coequality and teaching a semi-Macedonian perspective, because if the Holy Spirit is not to be worshipped then the Spirit is not truly God but merely an individual attribute or posession of God, since being worthy of worship is an integral and essential characteristic of the divine nature.

The Holy Spirit dwells within us. Therefore when God is on the throne and the Lamb with Him, the Holy Spirit is within those worshipping, in my view.

 

[Philip_B]

The Holy Spirit dwells within us. Therefore when God is on the throne and the Lamb with Him, the Holy Spirit is within those worshipping, in my view.

Ansel Adams, renown American landscape photographer in reply to someone complaining that there were no people in his photographs said 'there are two people in each photograph, the one behind the camera and the one gazing at the image'

 

[Daniel Marsh]

testing

 

[Graham Dull]

This is true.

I recognize that

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I do not have any issue with anyone worshiping the Holy Spirit. My personal worship is to God -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit -- complete and undivided.

My comment has been taken as being controversial. (In the context, I can understand why.)

My intent is to draw out positive comment in support of worship of the Holy Spirit. (Especially in quoting clear Biblical texts which mention 'worship of the Holy Spirit.')

See #163, #167
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[Constantine the Sinner]

I never said any of these things, so you misunderstood my point. My only point was that the incorporeal has a form, even if it is the essence of God and invisible. Of course, man has no form of God. I did use the word image and likeness, not form in reference to man's relationship to God's form.

God does not have any "form" in the sense of interior vs. exterior. God is in everything and everything is in God. When the term "form" is applied to God, it means his essence.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

At what point does (or did) this discussion become one of human philosophy?

There are things revealed to us by God. There is also much speculation about 'things which God hasn't revealed' to mankind.

The debate on this site now has 150 responses. The actual debate has been going for centuries.

Are we actually asking a crucial question which God intends, or a philosophical question to stimulate human reasoning, all the while causing division in the church, and playing into the hands of Satan.

I recognize the Divinity of the Father, the Divinity of Christ, the Divinity of the Holy Spirit. Do I need to speculate further?

We're talking about the truths Christ revealed about the Trinity.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

The bolded part is Gnosticism, and Origen did not teach that. Where are you getting this misinformation?

Also, while I too reject the idea of doctrinal development as a Roman Catholic error, it is a fact that when Arius spewed his venomous error on the Church, he was anathematized immediately by his bishop, and then by an ecumenical council.

In the case of Origen, there was not a consensus on anathematizing him until the sixth century; in the fourth century, his opponents, such as St. Epiphanius and St. Jerome, were in the minority, the Cappadocian Fathers, who were rather more important, compiled an anthology of his writings, which is still extant, and one of them, St. Gregory of Nyassa, publically agreed with Origen on apokatastasis.

Furthermore, some saints were on record as defending Origen, such as St. Lucifer of Cagliari, who is to this day venerated on the island of Sardinia as that land's principle spiritual father and instructor. He is not universallly venerated in the Roman church, but he is locally venerated and has been since before the Great Schism. One could probably find Byzantine icon of him.

I get my information from Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, which cites De Principiis as the main source of Origen's heretical stances. Here are some quotes from De Principiis:

"If it is true that this corruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality, and that death is swallowed up at the end; this shows that nothing else than a material nature is to be destroyed, on which death could operate, while the mental acumen of those who are in the body seems to be blunted by the nature of corporeal matter. If, however, they are out of the body, then they will altogether escape the annoyance arising from a disturbance of that kind. But as they will not be able immediately to escape all bodily clothing, they are just to be considered as inhabiting more refined and purer bodies, which possess the property of being no longer overcome by death, or of being wounded by its sting; so that at last, by the gradual disappearance of the material nature, death is both swallowed up, and even at the end exterminated, and all its sting completely blunted by the divine grace which the soul has been rendered capable of receiving, and has thus deserved to obtain incorruptibility and immortality."

"Whence we are of opinion that, seeing the soul, as we have frequently said, is immortal and eternal, it is possible that, in the many and endless periods of duration in the immeasurable and different worlds, it may descend from the highest good to the lowest evil, or be restored from the lowest evil to the highest good."