So much for the Son. In this way He has passed through the midst of those who would stone Him and escaped their hands. The Word is not struck down by stones; rather, when He wills, He casts stones Himself—true words hurled against the wild beasts that approach the mountain irreverently.
But our opponents continue: “What will you say about the Holy Spirit? From where are you bringing in this strange God, about whom Scripture is silent?”
Even some who speak more cautiously about the Son say this.
As roads and rivers sometimes divide and later meet again, so here excessive impiety produces strange agreements. People who differ sharply in other matters converge at this point, so that one can hardly tell where they agree and where they oppose one another.
The subject of the Holy Spirit presents a special difficulty.
Our opponents, exhausted by their disputes about the Son, attack the Spirit with still greater heat—as though they must always have some object against which to vent their irreverence or else life would not be worth living.
And we ourselves, worn down by the multitude of their questions, are like people who have lost their appetite: after becoming sick of one kind of food, they recoil from food altogether. In the same way, repeated controversy makes us weary of discussion itself.
Still, may the Spirit grant us strength, and the discourse will go forward and God will be glorified.
Others have already labored carefully on this subject for us as well as for themselves, just as we have labored for them. We will leave to them the task of distinguishing the many senses in which Scripture uses “spirit” and “holy,” providing the appropriate texts, and of showing how the combined expression “Holy Spirit” has its own distinctive use.
We will address what remains.
Those who are angry with us because they think we introduce a strange or interpolated God—the Holy Spirit—and who fight so fiercely for the bare letter should understand that they are afraid where there is no reason for fear.
They should also recognize that their devotion to the letter is a cloak for irreverence, as will become clear later when, as far as we can, we answer their objections.
We have such confidence in the divinity of the Spirit whom we worship that we will begin our teaching about Him by applying to Him the very names that belong to the Trinity, even if some think us overly bold.
The Father is the true Light that enlightens every human being coming into the world.
The Son is the true Light that enlightens every human being coming into the world.
The other Comforter is the true Light that enlightens every human being coming into the world.
Was, and Was, and Was—yet one reality.
Light, and Light, and Light—yet one Light, one God.
Long before, David contemplated something of this when he said, “In Your light we shall see light.”
And now we have seen and proclaim in a concise and simple way the doctrine of God the Trinity: from Light—the Father—we receive Light—the Son—in Light—the Holy Spirit.
Let whoever rejects it reject it; let whoever persists in wrongdoing persist. We proclaim what we have understood.
We will climb a high mountain and cry aloud if those below will not hear us. We will exalt the Spirit. We will not be afraid—or if we are afraid, it will be fear of silence, not fear of proclamation.
If there was ever a time when the Father was not, then there was a time when the Son was not.
If there was ever a time when the Son was not, then there was a time when the Spirit was not.
If the One was from the beginning, then the Three were from the beginning.
If you overthrow one, I boldly tell you that you do not securely establish the other two.
What profit is there in an incomplete Godhead? Or rather, how can there be Godhead at all if it is not perfect? And how can it be perfect if it lacks something necessary to perfection?
Surely it lacks something if it does not possess holiness. And how would it possess holiness without the Spirit?
Either holiness is something different from the Spirit—in which case let someone tell me what it is—or holiness is identified with Him. If so, how could the Spirit not be from the beginning? Are we to imagine that God was once imperfect and without the Spirit, and only later became perfect?
If the Spirit is not from the beginning, then He is on my own level, even if He existed a little before me, because both He and I would be separated from Godhead by time.
And if He is on my level, how can He make me god or unite me to the Godhead?
Let me begin the argument about the Spirit from a slightly earlier point, since we have already spoken about the Trinity.
The Sadducees denied the Holy Spirit altogether, just as they denied angels and the resurrection, though I do not know on what grounds they rejected the important testimonies about the Spirit in the Old Testament.
Among the Greeks, those who came nearest to speaking worthily about God seem to me to have had some dim conception of the Spirit, though they differed about the name. They spoke of a “mind of the world,” an external mind, or something similar.
Among those considered wise within the Church, some have thought of the Spirit as an activity, some as a creature, some as God. Others have hesitated between these positions, claiming reverence for Scripture because, as they say, Scripture does not decide the matter plainly. So they neither worship the Spirit nor openly dishonor Him; they take a middle position—or rather, a very miserable one.
Among those who confess the Spirit to be God, some are orthodox only in thought, while others dare to confess it openly with their lips.
I have even heard of still subtler people who measure divinity itself. They agree with us that there are three realities, but separate them so completely that one is infinite in both essence and power, the second infinite in power but not in essence, and the third limited in both.
In another form they imitate those who call the three Creator, Co-worker, and Minister, and then imagine that the difference of rank suggested by these names describes the actual dignity of the three.
We have nothing to discuss with those who do not even believe that the Spirit exists, nor with pagan babblers; we will not enrich our argument with the oil of sinners.
With the others we reason as follows.
The Holy Spirit must belong either to the order of what exists in itself or to the order of what exists in another. Philosophers call the first substance and the second accident.
If the Spirit were an accident, He would be an activity of God. What else could He be an activity of, and what better avoids introducing composition into God?
But if He is merely an activity, He is something produced, not one who produces; and when the activity is completed it ceases, for that is the character of an action.
How, then, does the Spirit act, speak, determine, grieve, become angry, and display all the characteristics belonging to an acting subject rather than to an action?
If, therefore, He is substance rather than an accidental property of substance, He must be either a creature of God or God. No middle nature—sharing nothing with either, or compounded out of both—could be imagined even by those who invented the mythical goat-stag.
If He is a creature, how do we believe in Him? How are we perfected in Him?
It is one thing to believe in someone and another merely to believe something about someone. Faith “in” belongs properly to divinity; belief “about” may concern any created thing.
But if He is God, then He is not a creature, not something made, not a fellow servant, and not any of the lowly things our opponents call Him.
There. The argument is now yours. Release your slings and weave your syllogism.
You say: the Spirit must be either completely unbegotten or begotten.
If unbegotten, then there are two unoriginate beings.
If begotten, divide again: either He is begotten by the Father or by the Son.
If by the Father, there are two Sons and therefore brothers. Make them twins if you like, or one older and one younger, since you are so fond of bodily images.
If by the Son, then—so your argument goes—we have a “grandson God,” an absurdity beyond measure.
For my part, if such a division were actually necessary, I would acknowledge the realities without being frightened by the names.
The fact that the Son is called Son in a transcendent relation—because no other language available to us so clearly shows that He is from God and one in essence with God—does not require us to transfer every bodily family term from our world into the Godhead.
Otherwise, by the same logic, you might say that God is male because He is called God and Father, that divinity is female because of the grammatical gender of the word, and that Spirit is neuter because the noun happens to be neuter.
And if, following old myths, you say that God begot the Son through marriage with His own will, you will have introduced the bizarre androgynous divinities imagined by the Gnostics.
Such reasoning tells us more about bodily imagination than about God.
But we reject your first division, which claims there is nothing between “begotten” and “unbegotten.” Once that false division falls, your magnificent brothers and grandsons fall with it, like an elaborate chain collapsing when its first link breaks.
Tell me, then: where in your division will you place “proceeds”?
This term stands between your alternatives and comes from a better theologian than you—the Savior Himself.
Or perhaps, for the sake of your third testament, you have removed from your Gospel the words: “The Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father.”
Because the Spirit proceeds from the Father, He is not a creature.
Because He is not begotten, He is not the Son.
Because He is distinct from both the Unbegotten and the Begotten while being from God, He is God.
Thus He escapes the nets of your syllogisms and manifests Himself as God, stronger than your divisions.
“What, then, is procession?”
Tell me first what the Father's unbegottenness is, and then I will explain the physiology of the Son's generation and the Spirit's procession. Then both of us will be driven mad by prying into the mysteries of God.
Who are we to attempt this? We cannot see clearly what lies at our feet, count the sand of the sea, number the drops of rain, or measure the days of eternity. Much less can we enter the depths of God and give a scientific account of a nature that is ineffable and beyond every word.
They ask: “What does the Spirit lack that prevents Him from being a Son? If nothing were lacking, He would be a Son.”
We answer that nothing is lacking, because God has no deficiency.
The difference lies not in deficiency but in the mode of manifestation—or, better, in the mutual relations of the persons—and this difference gives rise to the different names.
The Son does not fail to be Father because of some deficiency. Sonship is not a defect. Yet He is not Father.
By the same argument one would have to say that the Father lacks something because He is not Son. But the Father's not being Son is not a deficiency or an inferiority of essence.
Rather, the properties themselves—being unbegotten, being begotten, and proceeding—give the names Father to the first, Son to the second, and Holy Spirit to the third, of whom we are speaking.
Thus the distinction of the three persons is preserved within the one nature and equal dignity of the Godhead.
The Son is not Father, because there is one Father; yet the Son is what the Father is in nature.
The Spirit is not Son, though He is from God, because there is one Only-begotten; yet the Spirit is what the Son is in nature.
The Three are one in Godhead, and the One is three in personal properties.
Thus the unity is not a Sabellian confusion, nor does the Trinity support the present impious division.
“Then is the Spirit God?”
Certainly.
“Then is He consubstantial with the Father and the Son?”
Yes—if He is God.
My opponent says: “Grant me that from the same source there come one who is Son and another who is not Son, both of one essence with their source, and I will admit your God and God.”
I reply: grant me another Godhead and another divine nature, and I will give you the same sort of “trinity” you are imagining. But since God is one and the supreme nature is one, how can I provide an exact created analogy for what is unique?
Will you insist on looking again among lower things and within your own surroundings? It is shameful—and more than shameful, foolish—to infer things above from things below, the unchanging from a nature that is always changing, and, as Isaiah says, to seek the Living among the dead.
Still, for your sake I will try to give some help even from that direction.
I could bring forward many examples from animal life—some widely known, others obscure—in which nature shows remarkable variety in generation. Like can beget like; unlike can beget unlike; like can arise from unlike and unlike from like. If certain reports are believed, some animals even seem to perish and arise again from themselves.
There are also creatures that depart from their original condition and undergo transformation from one form to another by nature's astonishing power.
And sometimes within a single species some individuals arise through one mode and some through another, yet all share one nature. That comes closer to our subject.
I will mention only one familiar example from human nature and then move on.
What was Adam? A creature of God.
What was Eve? A portion taken from the creature.
What was Seth? The offspring of both.
Are “created,” “taken from,” and “begotten” the same relation? Of course not.
Yet were Adam, Eve, and Seth not of one human nature? Certainly they were.
Here, then, we have different modes of origin among persons who share one substance.
I am not saying that creation, division, or any bodily process belongs to the Godhead—let no one eager for verbal combat pounce on me again. I use these examples only as a stage on which the mind may glimpse realities that are themselves intelligible. No created image reproduces the truth in every respect.
“But what does this prove?” they ask. “Did not Eve and Seth both come from Adam? Was not one his offspring and the other something different?”
Exactly. Both came from the one Adam, but not in the same way. Eve was taken from him; Seth was begotten from him. Yet both were fully human and shared the same human nature. No one denies this.
Will you therefore stop insisting that the Spirit must either be begotten in exactly the Son's way or else cannot be consubstantial with God?
Human examples already show that distinction of origin does not necessarily imply distinction of nature.
It would be well for you to admit this, unless you are determined to quarrel even against what has been demonstrated.
But they ask: “Who in ancient or recent times ever worshiped the Spirit? Who prayed to Him? Where is it written that we must worship or pray to Him? From where did you obtain this teaching?”
We will give the fuller answer later when we discuss the question of unwritten tradition.
For now it is enough to say that it is in the Spirit that we worship and in the Spirit that we pray.
Scripture says, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and truth.”
Again: “We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”
And: “I will pray with the Spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also”—that is, with mind and Spirit.
To worship or pray in the Spirit, then, is not to treat Him as a creature standing outside the act of worship. The Spirit Himself is the divine sphere and giver of worship.
What devout or learned person would object? The worship of one divine person is the worship of the Three because the Three possess equal honor and one Godhead.
Nor am I frightened by the statement that all things were made through the Son, as though this must include the Holy Spirit among created things.
Scripture says all things “that were made,” not simply “all realities whatsoever.” The Father was not made; neither are we to number among made things any reality that is uncreated.
Prove that the Spirit was made, and then assign Him to the class of things made through Christ. Until then, the universal language about creation gives you no help.
If He were made, certainly He would be made through Christ; I would not deny it. But if He is not made, how can He belong to the “all things” that were made, or be numbered as a creature through Christ?
Stop dishonoring the Father in your attack on the Only-begotten. You do not honor the Father by presenting Him with a creature while robbing Him of something far more precious, a true Son.
And stop dishonoring the Son in your attack on the Spirit. The Son is not Maker of a fellow servant; He is glorified together with One equal in honor.
Do not rank any member of the Trinity with yourself, lest you fall away from the Trinity.
Do not cut away from either of the divine persons the one equally majestic nature. If you overthrow one of the Three, you overthrow the whole.
Better to understand the unity inadequately than to rush into complete impiety.
Our argument has now reached its central point.
I am grieved that a question long dead and overcome by faith has been stirred up again. Yet we must stand against these talkers and not allow judgment to go against the truth by default when we have the Word on our side and are defending the Spirit.
They say: “If there is God and God and God, why are there not three Gods? Why is what is glorified not a plurality of principles?”
Who says this? Some who have advanced farther into impiety, and some who take what they imagine to be a more moderate position—those who speak more cautiously about the Son while rejecting the Spirit.
My answer partly addresses both groups and partly the latter in particular.
You who worship the Son, even if you have revolted from the Spirit: what right have you to call us tritheists? Are you not, by your own reasoning, ditheists?
If you also deny worship to the Only-begotten, then you have clearly joined our open adversaries, and there is no reason to treat you as though you were only partly diseased.
But if you worship the Son and are at least this far on the road to salvation, tell us how you answer if someone accuses you of believing in two Gods.
If you possess a word of wisdom, give the answer and open a path for us as well.
The very reasoning by which you repel the charge of ditheism will be enough for us to repel the charge of tritheism.
Thus we will win by turning our accusers into our advocates. Nothing could be more generous.
What, then, is our answer to both accusations?
For us there is one God because the Godhead is one. All who are from the One are referred back to the One, although we believe in three persons.
One is not more God and another less.
One is not earlier and another later.
They are not divided in will or separated in power.
Nothing found in divisible created things applies here.
To speak concisely: the Godhead is undivided in the persons who are distinguished.
It is like a single mingling of light from three suns joined to one another.
When we look toward the Godhead, the first cause, the monarchy, what we conceive is one.
When we look toward the persons in whom the Godhead is, and toward those who timelessly and with equal glory are from the first cause, there are Three whom we worship.
Perhaps they will say: “Do not the Greeks also speak of one divinity, at least their more philosophical thinkers? And do we not say that humanity is one, meaning the whole human race? Yet the Greeks have many gods, just as there are many human beings.”
But this comparison fails.
Among human beings the common nature is one only as an abstraction grasped by the mind. The individual persons are separated from one another very widely by time, dispositions, and power.
We are not only composite beings but beings often in conflict—both with one another and within ourselves. We do not remain entirely the same even for a single day, much less throughout a lifetime. Body and soul are continually flowing and changing.
Perhaps something similar may be said, though to a lesser degree, of angels and the whole higher created nature second only to the Trinity. They are simpler and more firmly established in the good because of their nearness to the highest Good, yet they remain created individuals.
The divine unity is not of this kind.
Nor do the beings worshiped by the Greeks as gods and demons need us as accusers. Their own theologians convict them.
Some are described as enslaved to passions; some as quarrelsome; many are full of countless evils and changes, opposed not only to one another but even to those they call their first causes—Oceanus, Tethys, Phanes, and other such names.
Finally they tell of a god who, driven by lust for rule, hated his children and swallowed them so that he might become father of all gods and human beings—only to vomit out those he had miserably devoured.
If they retreat from the shamefulness of these stories by calling them myths and allegories, what will they say about the teaching that the universe is divided into three portions, each assigned to a different god with a distinct territory and rank?
Our faith is not like this. “This is not Jacob's portion,” as my theologian says.
Each of the divine persons possesses unity with the others no less than with Himself because of identity of essence and power.
This is our account of the divine unity, as far as we have been able to grasp it.
If it is true, let us thank God for the glimpse He has given us. If it is inadequate, let us seek a better expression while holding fast to the truth it is trying to confess.
As for the arguments by which you try to overthrow the unity we confess, I hardly know whether you are joking or serious.
Your argument goes like this: “Things of one essence are counted together”—by which you mean gathered under one number—“while things not of one essence are counted separately. Therefore, if you say Father, Son, and Spirit are counted together, you are forced to speak of three Gods. We avoid that danger because we deny that they are one in essence.”
So with one word you think you have escaped the difficulty and won a victory. But it is a destructive victory. You have done something like a person who hangs himself because he is afraid of dying.
In trying to defend the monarchy without effort, you have denied the Godhead and surrendered the whole matter to your opponents.
For my part, even if labor is required, I will not abandon the One I worship.
And in truth I do not see why this question is difficult at all.
You say that things of one essence are counted together, while things not of one essence are reckoned separately.
Where did you learn this? From which teacher of doctrine or mythology?
Do you not know that number expresses the quantity of things counted, not their nature?
I am old-fashioned enough—or perhaps merely unlearned enough—to say “three” of three things even when they differ in nature, and “one, one, one” of three individuals even when they share the same essence. In counting, I look at how many things there are, not at what their nature is.
Since you cling so closely to the letter, though you are fighting against the letter, take your demonstrations from Scripture.
Proverbs lists three things that move well: a lion, a goat, and a rooster—and then adds a fourth, a king addressing his people. The book gives other numbered lists of things that differ widely in nature.
Moses also speaks of two cherubim, counting each as one.
According to your technical rule, could the first group be called “three” when their natures differ so greatly? And could the two cherubim be counted as separate units when they share the same nature?
If I speak of God and Mammon as “two masters,” counting under one number realities so utterly unlike, will you laugh still more at such counting?
Your principle simply does not describe how number works.
My opponent answers: “Things are counted together as one kind when their common name also agrees—for example, three human beings or three gods—but not when one must say this and that.”
What does this concession prove? It sounds like legislation about vocabulary, not an argument about reality.
By the same rule I could say that Peter, James, and John are not three or consubstantial so long as I cannot call them “three Peters,” “three Jameses,” or “three Johns.” If you reserve your counting rule for common nouns, then by your own arrangement I may demand the same treatment for proper names—or else you are granting yourself a privilege you deny to others.
What, then, will you say about John's statement that “there are three that bear witness”—the Spirit, the water, and the blood?
First, he dares to place under one number things that are not of one substance, though you say such counting belongs only to things of one substance.
Second, his grammatical form does not conform neatly to the rules on which you rely. Scripture is not bound by the artificial restrictions you are inventing.
Consider also words such as “crab,” which may name an animal, an instrument, or a constellation, and “dog,” which can refer to an animal on land, a sea creature, or a constellation. We can speak of three “dogs” without imagining that all three have one essence.
So your entire argument from counting collapses.
Things of one essence are not always expressed under one numeral in the way you demand, and things of different essence can certainly be counted together. Since the same common word may also be used across unlike realities, what doctrinal advantage have you gained from grammar?
Consider one further point.
One and one added together make two; two divided again become one and one.
If, as your theory says, things added together must be of one essence while things counted separately must be of different essences, then the very same realities become both consubstantial and heterogeneous depending on whether we add or separate the numbers.
I laugh at your “counting before” and “counting after,” as though realities themselves depended on the order in which names are spoken.
If that were true, then because Scripture sometimes places the same divine persons earlier and sometimes later in its enumerations, the equality of their nature would make them at once more honorable and less honorable than themselves.
The same applies to the names “God” and “Lord,” and to the prepositions “from whom,” “through whom,” and “in whom.” You use these as though technical grammar assigned “from whom” exclusively to the Father, “through whom” to the Son, and “in whom” to the Holy Spirit, and from that you build differences of nature and dignity.
But Scripture uses such expressions of all three persons, as anyone who studies the matter can see.
If each expression belonged rigidly to one person, your argument would at least have a starting point. But even when Scripture interchanges them, you still try to manufacture inequality.
This should be enough for anyone not entirely lacking understanding.
Yet once you have charged against the Spirit, you seem unable to stop—like a furious boar that keeps rushing forward until it drives itself onto the hunter's blade.
So let us see what argument you have left.
Again and again you appeal to Scripture's supposed silence.
But the teaching about the Spirit is neither strange nor a late invention. Many before us and in our own day have already shown this. They did not handle Scripture carelessly or as entertainment. They passed beneath the letter into its inner meaning, were judged worthy to behold the hidden beauty, and were illuminated by the light of knowledge.
Still, we too will offer a brief demonstration as far as we can, so that we are not thought overcurious or improperly ambitious in building only on another person's foundation.
The fact that Scripture does not as frequently or as explicitly write the word “God” of the Spirit—as it first does of the Father and then of the Son—has become for you an occasion for blasphemy, excessive argument, and irreverence.
We will therefore free you from this supposed difficulty by considering briefly the relation between realities and names, especially the way Scripture itself uses language.
Some things do not exist but are spoken of. Some things exist but are not spoken of explicitly. Some neither exist nor are spoken of. And some both exist and are spoken of.
Do you want proof?
Scripture says that God sleeps and wakes, becomes angry, walks, and sits enthroned upon the cherubim.
Yet when did God become subject to passion? And have you ever heard that God possesses a body?
These expressions are not literal descriptions of bodily facts. They are figures drawn from our own experience and applied to God's actions according to our capacity.
When God remains silent toward us and appears not to act for reasons known to Himself, we call this “sleep,” because sleep in us is a state of inactivity.
When He suddenly turns to help us, we call it “waking,” because waking ends sleep, just as divine visitation ends apparent withdrawal.
When He punishes, we say He is angry, because among us punishment often follows anger.
When His activity appears now here and now there, we call it walking, because walking is movement from place to place.
When He rests among the holy powers and delights, so to speak, to dwell among them, we call it sitting and being enthroned. Again, the image is taken from us, for God rests nowhere as He does among the saints.
His swiftness of action is called flying.
His watchful providence is called His face.
His giving and bestowing are called His hand.
In short, each divine power or activity is pictured for us through some bodily image drawn from human life.
Now answer this.
Where do you get your cherished terms “unbegotten” and “without origin”? And where do we get the word “immortal”?
Show me those exact words in Scripture—or else, by your principle, we must either abandon them or erase them as unscriptural. In that case the very terms on which your position depends fall, and with them the wall in which you trusted.
Is it not obvious that such names come from passages that imply the realities even when the exact word is absent?
What passages?
“I am the first and I am the last,” and, “Before Me no God was formed, nor shall there be after Me.”
Everything contained in “I am” supports our confession: God's being has neither beginning nor end.
When you admit that nothing is before God and that He has no prior cause, you have already given Him in meaning the names “unbegotten” and “without origin.”
When you confess that His being has no end, you have called Him immortal and indestructible.
So much for things that exist but whose exact technical names need not appear in Scripture.
What are things that neither exist nor are said? That God is evil; that a sphere is square; that the past is present; that a human being is not composite. Have you ever met anyone foolish enough either to think or to say such things?
What remains are things that both exist and are spoken of: God, human being, angel, judgment—and vanity too, such as arguments like yours, together with the overthrowing of faith and the emptying of the mystery.
Since words and realities relate to one another in so many different ways, why are you such a slave to the bare letter—so committed to syllables at the expense of realities?
If you said “twice five” or “twice seven” and I concluded that you meant ten or fourteen, would you accuse me of inventing something? If you spoke of “a rational mortal animal” and I said you meant a human being, would I be talking nonsense?
Of course not. I would simply be stating the meaning already contained in your words. Meaning does not belong less to the hearer who understands than to the speaker who expresses it.
In those cases I would look not merely at the individual terms but at the thought they communicate.
Why, then, should I refuse to state a truth contained in Scripture's meaning merely because the exact term is absent or not stated with the explicitness you demand? I will not surrender reality out of fear of your sophistical games with vocabulary.
This is enough against those who are only partly orthodox—among whom I can hardly count you.
For you deny even the titles of the Son, though they are many and clear. It is obvious that even if you were taught still more titles, and clearer ones, you would not be moved to reverence.
But let me go back a little farther and show you, clever as you are, why Scripture followed this whole pattern of gradual disclosure.
Throughout the course of the world there have been two great changes in human life, also called two Testaments—or, because of the magnitude of the events, two earthquakes.
The first was the change from idols to the Law.
The second was from the Law to the Gospel.
The Gospel also teaches us to expect a third earthquake: the change from this present world to what cannot be shaken or moved.
The first two Testaments have something in common. Neither change was imposed all at once or at the first movement.
Why not? This is worth understanding.
God did not want to do violence to us, but to move us by persuasion. What is forced does not endure, like a stream or a tree held unnaturally in place. What is embraced willingly is more lasting and secure. Force belongs to the one who constrains; willing obedience belongs to us. The first is the method of tyranny; the second displays the gentleness of God.
Therefore God did not judge it fitting to benefit people against their will, but to do good to those being led willingly.
Like a tutor or physician, He removed some ancestral customs and temporarily tolerated others, allowing a little of what gave pleasure, just as physicians mix medicine with something agreeable so that the patient will accept it.
It is not easy to change habits that long custom has made honorable.
The first covenant abolished idols but allowed sacrifices.
The second abolished sacrifices but did not immediately forbid circumcision.
Then, after people had accepted the first restriction, they surrendered what had temporarily been permitted: first sacrifices, then circumcision.
So Gentiles became Jews, and Jews became Christians, gently led into the Gospel through gradual changes.
Paul himself is evidence. At one stage he administered circumcision and submitted to legal purification. Later he could say, “If I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted?”
His earlier conduct belonged to a temporary economy; his later teaching belonged to maturity.
The history of theology may be compared with this, though the movement is reversed.
In the covenants just described, progress came through successive removals.
In theology, perfection has come through successive additions.
The Old Testament proclaimed the Father openly and the Son more obscurely.
The New Testament revealed the Son and indicated the divinity of the Spirit.
Now the Spirit Himself dwells among us and gives a clearer manifestation of Himself.
It was not safe, while the Father's Godhead was not yet acknowledged, to proclaim the Son openly in all fullness. Nor, while the Son's Godhead had not yet been received, was it wise—if I may speak so boldly—to load us immediately with the fuller revelation of the Holy Spirit.
Otherwise people might have suffered like those given more food than they can bear, or like weak eyes forced to stare directly into sunlight, and might have lost even the truth they were capable of receiving.
Instead, through gradual additions, ascents, and progress from glory to glory, the light of the Trinity was to shine more fully upon those being illuminated.
This, I think, is why the Spirit came gradually to dwell among the disciples, measuring the manifestation according to their capacity.
At the beginning of the Gospel;
after the Passion;
after the Ascension;
perfecting their powers;
breathed upon them;
appearing in tongues of fire.
Jesus Himself reveals the Spirit little by little, as you will see if you read carefully.
“I will ask the Father, and He will send you another Comforter, the Spirit of truth.” He says this so that the Spirit may not appear as a rival deity acting from an independent source against the Father.
Then: “He will send Him in My name.” Here the words “I will ask” fall away, while “He will send” remains.
Then again: “I will send Him”—revealing the Son's own dignity.
And finally: “When He comes”—showing the Spirit's own authority.
You see how light breaks upon us gradually.
This is the order of theology, and we should preserve it: neither proclaiming everything prematurely nor hiding everything forever.
The first would be unwise and disorderly; the second would be impious.
Premature disclosure would startle those outside; permanent concealment would estrange those within.
I will add another thought, one that may have occurred to others but that I believe I have reached for myself.
Our Savior said that there were things His disciples could not yet bear, although He had already taught them much. Perhaps the reason was what I have just explained. Those things were therefore kept hidden for a time.
He also said that when the Spirit came to dwell among them, the Spirit would teach them all things.
I take one of those truths to be the Spirit's own divinity, revealed more clearly later when the proper time had come and when the disciples could receive such knowledge after the Savior's glorification without rejecting it simply because of its greatness.
What greater truth could Christ have promised or the Spirit have taught, if anything worthy of divine majesty was still to be promised and taught?
This, then, is my position, and I pray that it will always remain mine and the confession of everyone dear to me:
to worship God the Father,
God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit—
three persons,
one Godhead,
undivided in honor, glory, essence, and kingdom.
One of our own inspired teachers, not long departed, confessed the same.
Let the person who thinks otherwise, or who follows the fashion of the moment—believing one thing today and another tomorrow, unsound in the highest matters—not behold the rising of the morning star or the glory of its brightness, as Scripture says.
For if the Spirit is not to be worshiped, how does He make me god through baptism?
And if He is to be worshiped, then He is worthy of adoration.
If worthy of adoration, then He is God.
Each truth is linked to the next—a truly golden and saving chain.
From the Spirit comes our new birth.
From new birth comes new creation.
From new creation comes deeper knowledge of the dignity of the One from whom these gifts come.
This much could be said even if one granted your claim that Scripture is silent.
But now a swarm of scriptural testimonies will rush upon you, making the divinity of the Holy Spirit plain to everyone who is not extraordinarily dull or deliberately hostile to the Spirit.
Consider the pattern.
Christ is born: the Spirit goes before Him.
Christ is baptized: the Spirit bears witness.
Christ is tempted: the Spirit leads Him.
Christ works miracles: the Spirit accompanies the works.
Christ ascends: the Spirit succeeds His visible presence.
What great divine reality lies outside the Spirit's power?
What name belonging to God is not used of Him, except “Unbegotten” and “Begotten”? Those properties must remain proper to Father and Son so that the distinct persons are not confused within the Godhead that brings even disorder into order.
I tremble when I consider the abundance of the Spirit's titles and the number of divine names insulted by those who attack Him.
He is called:
the Spirit of God,
the Spirit of Christ,
the Mind of Christ,
the Spirit of the Lord,
and Himself Lord;
the Spirit of adoption,
of truth,
of freedom;
the Spirit of wisdom,
understanding,
counsel,
might,
knowledge,
godliness,
and fear of God.
For He is the source and maker of all these gifts.
He fills all things in His essence, contains all things, fills the world by His presence, yet cannot be comprehended by the world in His power.
He is good, upright, ruling by nature and not by adoption.
He sanctifies and is not sanctified.
He measures and is not measured.
He is shared and does not receive a share.
He fills and is not filled.
He contains and is not contained.
He is inherited, glorified, numbered with the Father and Son, and invoked in solemn warning.
He is called the Finger of God and is manifested as fire, like God, showing, as I understand it, His consubstantiality.
He is the creating Spirit who makes us new through baptism and resurrection.
He knows all things.
He teaches.
He blows where and as He wills.
He guides, speaks, sends, appoints, is grieved, and is resisted.
He reveals, illuminates, gives life—or rather is Himself Light and Life.
He makes temples.
He deifies.
He perfects.
He can anticipate baptism, as in those on whom He descended before the sacrament, and after baptism He is sought as a distinct gift.
He does all that God does.
He is divided in fiery tongues without being divided in essence.
He distributes gifts.
He makes apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.
He is intelligent, manifold, clear, penetrating, undefiled, unhindered—that is, all-wise and infinitely varied in operation.
He makes all things clear and plain.
He is self-governing, unchangeable, almighty, all-seeing.
He penetrates every intelligent and pure spirit, the most subtle natures—whether angelic hosts or prophetic and apostolic spirits—even though they exist in different places and times.
By this He shows that He Himself is uncircumscribed.
Those who say and teach all these things also call the Spirit “another Comforter,” meaning another divine person.
They know that blasphemy against Him receives a uniquely fearful warning.
They know how Ananias and Sapphira were condemned for lying to the Holy Spirit.
What do you think the apostles proclaim Him to be—God, or something else?
You must be extraordinarily dull and very far from the Spirit if you still doubt and need someone to explain it.
His names are so weighty, and the testimony so vivid, that it is hardly necessary to repeat every proof-text.
As with the Son, whatever is said of the Spirit in a lower or derivative manner—“given,” “sent,” “distributed,” “gift,” “bounty,” “breath,” “promise,” “intercession for us,” and similar expressions—is referred to the first cause.
Such language shows from whom the Spirit is, so that we do not introduce three independent principles in the pagan manner.
It is equally impious to confuse the persons with Sabellius or to divide the divine natures with the Arians.
I have examined this question very carefully in my own mind and looked at it from every direction, trying to find some created image for so great a mystery.
I have found nothing on earth that can adequately represent the nature of the Godhead.
Whenever I discover a small likeness, most of it escapes me and leaves me down below with the created example.
Like others before me, I have imagined a spring, a stream, and a river, asking whether one might correspond to the Father, another to the Son, and the third to the Holy Spirit.
In such an image there is no necessary separation in time, and the three are not detached from one another even though they appear in distinct forms.
But I feared two errors.
First, that the image would suggest a flowing Godhead, unable to remain stable.
Second, that it would introduce only numerical unity: spring, stream, and river might be treated as one continuous body of water appearing in three forms rather than three real persons.
The analogy therefore fails where the mystery matters most.
Again I considered the sun, its ray, and its light.
But this comparison also creates difficulties.
First, it may suggest composition in the uncompounded divine nature, as though the Father were a material sun containing parts or properties.
Second, it may give true existence to the Father while denying real personal existence to the Son and Spirit, reducing them to powers or qualities residing in God.
A ray and light are not another sun. They are emissions and qualities of the sun. If we press the analogy, we risk saying that the Son and Spirit both are and are not fully existent divine persons—an even greater absurdity.
I have also heard another illustration.
A sunbeam strikes a wall after passing through moving moisture in the air. The reflected light trembles rapidly on the surface, constantly joining and separating in patterns so quick that the eye cannot decide whether it sees one movement or many.
The image is ingenious, but it still cannot bear the weight placed on it.
I cannot finally use even this last image.
It is obvious what causes the reflected ray to move, but nothing is prior to God that could set God in motion. He is Himself the cause of all things and has no cause before Him.
The image also introduces ideas of composition, diffusion, instability, and change—none of which can be attributed to the Godhead.
In short, whenever I contemplate these analogies, I find no created image on which the mind can securely rest while considering what I am trying to understand.
At most, we may accept one feature of an image while carefully rejecting the rest.
So in the end it seems best to let the images and shadows go. They are deceptive and fall very far short of the truth.
I will cling instead to the more reverent understanding, rest upon a few words, and take the Spirit Himself as guide.
I will preserve to the end the illumination I have received from Him, treating it as a true companion and fellow traveler through this age.
And as far as I am able, I will persuade others also to worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: the one Godhead and power.
To Him belong all glory, honor, and dominion forever and ever. Amen.