Point 4: Who or What is the Holy spirit?
Readers, the best part about having an imaginary friend is the fact that no matter what questions are asked about your friend, you always know the answer. When people ask you questions about your imaginary friend, you can't find the answers in a book, you can't find the answers by asking other people, you can't dig them up with archaeology, or prove them with objective evidence. The only place you can find the answer is in your own head. Why? Because you made up your original friend. He's a product of your imagination.
What we have here in this debate is the exact same situation. For example, I point out that Jesus says that the Father is greater than himself, and my opponent claims that Jesus was functionally equal to the Father, but subordinate to the Father as a son.
Where did my opponent get this information from? Not from the Bible, because it makes no such distinction anywhere, and nor does Jesus in the passage I presented, in which he says very simply and plainly that his Father is greater than him. Like the person describing an imaginary friend, my opponent took his claim straight out of his own imagination.
Defenders of the trinity are forced to continue making things up in order to try and support it. When challenged with the Scriptures, they make something up.
They can’t show you where the Bible says that only Jesus’ body died, because the Bible doesn’t say that. They can’t show you where the Bible says Jesus is only functionally subordinate to God, because the Bible doesn’t say that. They can’t show you where the Bible says that Jesus’ human nature was added to his Divine nature in the ‘hypostatic union’, because the Bible doesn’t say that.
Where did they get all these ideas? Like the person with an imaginary friend, they just made them up. That’s why they can talk about the ‘hypostatic union’ in all kinds of intricate detail, even though there isn’t a word of this detail in the entire Bible. When you made up the idea yourself, you can add all these details, because it’s your imaginary friend.
My opponent didn’t understand that David and Paul were figuratively poured out, not literally poured out in the sense of being ‘distributed’. People can be figuratively poured out in the sense of being exhausted (David), or offering themselves to God (Paul), but not literally poured out in the sense of being distributed. Yet the Holy Spirit was literally poured out in the sense of being distributed, and it was even visibly seen to be so, proving the Holy Spirit is not a person.
I am familiar with Wisdom Christology, especially with the fact that it is not taught in the Bible. Held by a number of the Early Christian Fathers’ from the 2nd century AD onwards, it was later rejected by 4th century Trinitarians due to a number of problems. One of these was that the wisdom of Proverbs 8 (to which my opponent has appealed), is specifically a woman, and not a man (thus clearly not speaking of Jesus Christ), and another was the fact that the wisdom of Proverbs 8 is specifically said to have been a creation of God. This fact was the reason why, by the 4th century, it was the Arians who were arguing Wisdom Christology, whereas the Trinitarians rejected it.
On the issue of equality, my opponent falsely claims agreement with the Bible and creeds. Do they describe Christ as ‘functionally subordinate’ or not? You judge.
It was claimed that ‘definitions do not always bring out the full meaning of a word—context and usage do’, which is a misunderstanding of lexicons. Lexical definitions do always bring out the full meaning of a word. What they do not do is inform the reader of which specific meaning of a word is intended in any given text. My opponent has attributed to the Greek and Hebrew words for ‘spirit’ a meaning it simply does not have. It is used of angels and evil spirits, but my opponent can hardly claim that the Holy Spirit is an angel or an evil spirit. Further, when it is used of an angel or an evil spirit, the words used are ‘a spirit’, whereas the Holy Spirit is never described as ‘a spirit’.
It was claimed falsely that I was representing my opponent as saying that the Greek and Hebrew words for ‘spirit’ actually mean ‘person’. I actually pointed out that he was treating the nouns as if they have this meaning, though he acknowledged they do not have this meaning.
My opponent changed his original argument from EKEINOS, now claiming that it is not the gender of the word which is relevant here (which was his previous argument), but the fact that the personal pronoun is used. He seems to have thought that personal pronouns necessarily indicate personhood, but of course the word ‘it’ is a personal pronoun, and no one would describe a rock as a person, though it uses a personal pronoun (‘it’).
My opponent failed to address my identification of his use of the fallacy of the undistributed middle, and then presented several examples of the logical fallacy of begging the question.
Contrary to my opponent’s claims, the Holy Spirit and God are described as separate entities. In numerous passages of Scripture we have God and the Holy Spirit distinguished from each other (see here). They are not distinguished as separate persons, but as separate entities. Note that to the Trinitarian, the word God includes persons, so if you have a passage speaking of God and the Holy Spirit, then you have a passage distinguishing the Holy Spirit from the persons of God.
My opponent helpfully reminds us that his argument has not been based on the semantic domain of the noun. I agree! This is a fundamental flaw in his argument. What argument for the meaning of a word takes no notice whatever of the actual semantic domain of the word? My opponent is once more making things up as he goes along, without even checking the meaning of the word.
Yes, my opponent has certainly been consistent in arguing for personality simply from the three attributes of intelligence, rationality, and consciousness, but I have already pointed out that this is an entirely false argument, since you cannot ascribe literal intelligence, rationality, or consciousness to a word which speaks of an impersonal entity such as the Greek and Hebrew words used for ‘spirit’ describe. You might as well ascribe them to an orange, as I already pointed out.
My opponent claims that I acknowledged that the Holy Spirit is consistently personified in the Bible. I acknowledged no such thing, and in fact denied it. The Holy Spirit is not personified anywhere in the entire Old Testament, and is personified in only a handful of passages in the New (my opponent was able to find about half a dozen).
My opponent asks me how I determine the personality of the Father, and my answer is simply that the Father is described explicitly as the only true God. A god, by definition, is a person. I don’t have to try and define the Father as a person based on His attributes, the fact that He is God means that He is necessarily a person, because a god is, by definition, a person. This is an argument which my opponent simply cannot make for the Holy Spirit, because as he has acknowledged, the ‘spirit’ is not, by definition, a person.
Readers, how do we know that the president of the United States is a person? Do we check to see if he has intelligence, rationality, and consciousness? How absurd, of course we don’t. We know that he is a person because the president of the United States is, by definition, a person. We know also that the president of the United States is a human being, and a human being is, by definition, a person. My opponent is using a totally alien means of determining personhood.
My opponent misrepresented me as faulting him for not presenting evidence that the Holy Spirit is not a person. In fact, I faulted him for looking for evidence to support his presupposition, and not checking to see if there existed any evidence contradicting his presupposition. He didn’t even check the semantic domain of the relevant Greek and Hebrew words, which is the very first thing he should have done.
My opponent falsely claims that the Holy Spirit is always personified, and never described in impersonal terms. The Greek and Hebrew words used for the Holy Spirit never mean ‘person’. The Holy Spirit is described consistently as an attribute of God (referred to consistently 'the Spirit of God'), and explicitly the agent by which He works (Job 26:13 'by His spirit', Zechariah 4:6 'by My spirit', 1 Corinthians 2:10 'by His spirit', Ephesians 3:16 'by His spirit'). An attribute is of course not a person, an attribute is, by definition, impersonal.
Readers, the best part about having an imaginary friend is the fact that no matter what questions are asked about your friend, you always know the answer. When people ask you questions about your imaginary friend, you can't find the answers in a book, you can't find the answers by asking other people, you can't dig them up with archaeology, or prove them with objective evidence. The only place you can find the answer is in your own head. Why? Because you made up your original friend. He's a product of your imagination.
What we have here in this debate is the exact same situation. For example, I point out that Jesus says that the Father is greater than himself, and my opponent claims that Jesus was functionally equal to the Father, but subordinate to the Father as a son.
Where did my opponent get this information from? Not from the Bible, because it makes no such distinction anywhere, and nor does Jesus in the passage I presented, in which he says very simply and plainly that his Father is greater than him. Like the person describing an imaginary friend, my opponent took his claim straight out of his own imagination.
Defenders of the trinity are forced to continue making things up in order to try and support it. When challenged with the Scriptures, they make something up.
They can’t show you where the Bible says that only Jesus’ body died, because the Bible doesn’t say that. They can’t show you where the Bible says Jesus is only functionally subordinate to God, because the Bible doesn’t say that. They can’t show you where the Bible says that Jesus’ human nature was added to his Divine nature in the ‘hypostatic union’, because the Bible doesn’t say that.
Where did they get all these ideas? Like the person with an imaginary friend, they just made them up. That’s why they can talk about the ‘hypostatic union’ in all kinds of intricate detail, even though there isn’t a word of this detail in the entire Bible. When you made up the idea yourself, you can add all these details, because it’s your imaginary friend.
My opponent didn’t understand that David and Paul were figuratively poured out, not literally poured out in the sense of being ‘distributed’. People can be figuratively poured out in the sense of being exhausted (David), or offering themselves to God (Paul), but not literally poured out in the sense of being distributed. Yet the Holy Spirit was literally poured out in the sense of being distributed, and it was even visibly seen to be so, proving the Holy Spirit is not a person.
I am familiar with Wisdom Christology, especially with the fact that it is not taught in the Bible. Held by a number of the Early Christian Fathers’ from the 2nd century AD onwards, it was later rejected by 4th century Trinitarians due to a number of problems. One of these was that the wisdom of Proverbs 8 (to which my opponent has appealed), is specifically a woman, and not a man (thus clearly not speaking of Jesus Christ), and another was the fact that the wisdom of Proverbs 8 is specifically said to have been a creation of God. This fact was the reason why, by the 4th century, it was the Arians who were arguing Wisdom Christology, whereas the Trinitarians rejected it.
On the issue of equality, my opponent falsely claims agreement with the Bible and creeds. Do they describe Christ as ‘functionally subordinate’ or not? You judge.
It was claimed that ‘definitions do not always bring out the full meaning of a word—context and usage do’, which is a misunderstanding of lexicons. Lexical definitions do always bring out the full meaning of a word. What they do not do is inform the reader of which specific meaning of a word is intended in any given text. My opponent has attributed to the Greek and Hebrew words for ‘spirit’ a meaning it simply does not have. It is used of angels and evil spirits, but my opponent can hardly claim that the Holy Spirit is an angel or an evil spirit. Further, when it is used of an angel or an evil spirit, the words used are ‘a spirit’, whereas the Holy Spirit is never described as ‘a spirit’.
It was claimed falsely that I was representing my opponent as saying that the Greek and Hebrew words for ‘spirit’ actually mean ‘person’. I actually pointed out that he was treating the nouns as if they have this meaning, though he acknowledged they do not have this meaning.
My opponent changed his original argument from EKEINOS, now claiming that it is not the gender of the word which is relevant here (which was his previous argument), but the fact that the personal pronoun is used. He seems to have thought that personal pronouns necessarily indicate personhood, but of course the word ‘it’ is a personal pronoun, and no one would describe a rock as a person, though it uses a personal pronoun (‘it’).
My opponent failed to address my identification of his use of the fallacy of the undistributed middle, and then presented several examples of the logical fallacy of begging the question.
Contrary to my opponent’s claims, the Holy Spirit and God are described as separate entities. In numerous passages of Scripture we have God and the Holy Spirit distinguished from each other (see here). They are not distinguished as separate persons, but as separate entities. Note that to the Trinitarian, the word God includes persons, so if you have a passage speaking of God and the Holy Spirit, then you have a passage distinguishing the Holy Spirit from the persons of God.
My opponent helpfully reminds us that his argument has not been based on the semantic domain of the noun. I agree! This is a fundamental flaw in his argument. What argument for the meaning of a word takes no notice whatever of the actual semantic domain of the word? My opponent is once more making things up as he goes along, without even checking the meaning of the word.
Yes, my opponent has certainly been consistent in arguing for personality simply from the three attributes of intelligence, rationality, and consciousness, but I have already pointed out that this is an entirely false argument, since you cannot ascribe literal intelligence, rationality, or consciousness to a word which speaks of an impersonal entity such as the Greek and Hebrew words used for ‘spirit’ describe. You might as well ascribe them to an orange, as I already pointed out.
My opponent claims that I acknowledged that the Holy Spirit is consistently personified in the Bible. I acknowledged no such thing, and in fact denied it. The Holy Spirit is not personified anywhere in the entire Old Testament, and is personified in only a handful of passages in the New (my opponent was able to find about half a dozen).
My opponent asks me how I determine the personality of the Father, and my answer is simply that the Father is described explicitly as the only true God. A god, by definition, is a person. I don’t have to try and define the Father as a person based on His attributes, the fact that He is God means that He is necessarily a person, because a god is, by definition, a person. This is an argument which my opponent simply cannot make for the Holy Spirit, because as he has acknowledged, the ‘spirit’ is not, by definition, a person.
Readers, how do we know that the president of the United States is a person? Do we check to see if he has intelligence, rationality, and consciousness? How absurd, of course we don’t. We know that he is a person because the president of the United States is, by definition, a person. We know also that the president of the United States is a human being, and a human being is, by definition, a person. My opponent is using a totally alien means of determining personhood.
My opponent misrepresented me as faulting him for not presenting evidence that the Holy Spirit is not a person. In fact, I faulted him for looking for evidence to support his presupposition, and not checking to see if there existed any evidence contradicting his presupposition. He didn’t even check the semantic domain of the relevant Greek and Hebrew words, which is the very first thing he should have done.
My opponent falsely claims that the Holy Spirit is always personified, and never described in impersonal terms. The Greek and Hebrew words used for the Holy Spirit never mean ‘person’. The Holy Spirit is described consistently as an attribute of God (referred to consistently 'the Spirit of God'), and explicitly the agent by which He works (Job 26:13 'by His spirit', Zechariah 4:6 'by My spirit', 1 Corinthians 2:10 'by His spirit', Ephesians 3:16 'by His spirit'). An attribute is of course not a person, an attribute is, by definition, impersonal.
