The Holy Spirit: Person or "Force" - Introduction

The Holy Spirit: Person of "Force"

Introduction
Part 1: Personal Attributes
Part 2: Historical Evidence
Part 3: "Impersonal" Attributes
Conclusion

Introduction

The question of the personality of the Holy Spirit is a litmus test that determines the legitimacy of the doctrine of the Trinity, as opposed to the idea that a "great apostasy" corrupted and subsumed the church of God immediately upon the passing of the first generation of Christians. So let's take a look at the evidence of the personhood of the Holy Spirit, both Biblical and, using the record of the earliest Church Fathers, his­tori­cal. Then we'll examine the soundness the idea, held by Jehovah's Witnesses, that the Holy Spirit is a mere "force," however "holy."

A major objection to the character of the Holy Spirit, posed in the form of the question: "Is it reason­able?" Those who use this objection to the Trinitarian doctrine of the Holy Spirit make the assumption that God must be comprehendible. We must understand God, or He cannot be God; if we cannot understand an idea, it is not from God - such is the presumption. Comforting though such a God might (or might not) be, it cannot refer to the God of the Bible. God doesn't need our permission, nor require our agreement, nor demand our understanding - He commands our obedience, whether we under­stand or not. “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children for­ever. . .” (Deut 29:29) “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways My ways,’ says the LORD. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.’” (Is 55:8,9) “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways.” (Rom 11:33) “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compas­sion on whom I will have compas­sion.”(Ex 33:19)

Paul quotes this last verse, and goes on to say:

“So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. For the Scripture says of Pharaoh, ‘Even for this same purpose I have raise you up, that I might show My power in you, and that My name might be de­clared in all the earth.’ Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens (Rom 9:16-18).”

Is it reason­able that God should use a man merely to demonstrate His power? Is it fair? Does it make sense that a man was born blind just to demonstrate the works of God (Jn 9:3)? Such questions are ir­re­le­vant; the stated facts are that God does do this - we can argue or dis­agree, but we disagree with God. Job finally says, after forty chapters of complaining about God's unfairness and incomprehensibility: “Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonder­ful for me, which I did not know.... I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes (Job 42:3-6).”

Anyone who argues that God is comprehensible, is simply making an un­biblical argument. What is true is that what God has revealed is apprehensible -- we may not know it fully, but we know it, we grasp it. And we are not excused from faith be­cause we do not understand. We are saved by grace through faith (Eph 2:8); we are not saved by works through under­standing. God wants us to reason together, but He wants us to reason using the pre­cepts and axioms of His logic, not our own. Our “heart is deceitful above all else and is despe­rately sick.” (Jer 17:9.) God is not a God of confusion, but if one is confused about God's truth, that confusion does not prove His truth is not true, but rather that we are finite and flawed. Since God Himself says He is beyond our under­stan­ding, the question, Is it reasonable, does it make sense, that the Spirit is a person ... that question is simply irrelevant to whether or not the Spirit actually is a person.

So we'll consider the Holy Spirit, biblically, historically, and through the eyes of JWs.
----------

JH