Thursday, December 25, 2014

The Holey Trinity - Holy Spirit: Person or Personified?

In order for there to be a triune God, the doctrine claims that 3 persons make up one God. The Father and Son are both persons, Trinitarians try to then force Holy Spirit to be a person. A simple read through of the Bible would not give a person the impression that Holy Spirit was a person. Just like there would be absolutely no idea of a Trinity. The formulation of Holy Spirit into a person needed to be forced into scripture. However it is well known this is not what the Bible teaches. The apostles certainly did not look speak of Holy Spirit as a person:

"It is important to realize that for the first Christians the Spirit was thought of in terms of divine power." - New Bible Dictionary

"It is important to realize that for Paul too the Spirit is a divine power whose impact upon or entrance into a life is discernible by its effects." - The Spirit in the Pauline Letters

Holy Spirit was spoken of in many places in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) also. It is not spoken of as a person in those instances either:

"The OT clearly does not envisage God's spirit as a person...God's spirit is simply God's power...The majority of NT texts reveal God's spirit as something, not someone; this is especially seen in the parallelism between the spirit and the power of God." - The Catholic Ency 
So where does this belief come from? How is it reasoned and justified? Like with all Trinitarian beliefs, faulty and unsound logic. They believe that since there are personal traits given to the Holy Spirit that it then must be a person. If this logic were sound then it must apply to all cases in which personal traits were given to something. For example:

The Holy Spirit is said to "call", "speak", "testify", and "search". Logically then when saying those things about anything it must mean those other things are also people. Such as at Joshua 24:27 the Bible says that a stone is a "witness" and it "heard". Hebrews 12:24 says that blood "speaks". Genesis 4:10 says the same thing. James 5:4 says that wages "cry out". Using Trinitarian logic, since these things are given personal traits, as the Holy Spirit is, and these personal traits mean the Holy Spirit is a person then then the stone, blood, and wages must also be persons.

Or, that Trinitarian logic is proven once again to be completely erroneous. In reality, the Bible often uses an idiom called "personification". Anyone who graduated from 5th grade is probably familiar with the term. Giving personal traits to impersonal things. It would be both unreasonable and ignorant to think that because something is given personal traits that it must be human. Yet, this is what the Trinitarians believe and teach regarding the Holy Spirit.

Just as an example, read how the literal city of Jerusalem is described in the Bible:

 
 "1 How she now sits all alone, the city that was full of people!
How she has become like a widow, she who was populous among the nations!
How she who was a princess among the provinces has been put to forced labor!


2 She weeps profusely during the night, and her tears cover her cheeks.
Not one of all her lovers is there to comfort her.

All her own companions have betrayed her; they have become her enemies.

3 Judah has gone into exile under affliction and harsh slavery.
She must dwell among the nations; she finds no resting-place.
All her persecutors have overtaken her in her distress.


4 The roads to Zion are mourning, because no one is coming to the festival.
All her gates are desolate; her priests are sighing.
Her virgins are grieving, and she is in bitter anguish.


5 Her adversaries are now her master; her enemies are carefree.
For Jehovah has brought grief to her because of her many transgressions.
Her children have gone into captivity before the adversary." - Lamentations 1:1-5 (NWT)


Everything underlined are normally things that can only be said of a person. Inanimate objects cannot be a widow, or a princess, or be put into forced labor, can't weep, doesn't have cheeks that her tears can cover, etc. Yet, I never seem to hear the argument that Jerusalem is a person. Most likely because it is known that it is not. Just like the Apostles and Bible writers knew the Holy Spirit is not a person. Its equally ridiculous to make that leap to personage.

On the other hand, the Holy Spirit is given many descriptions that can only be given to inanimate objects:

"And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit..." - Acts 2:4 (ASV)
 
"God, who giveth his Holy Spirit unto you." - 1 Thessalonians 4:8 (ASV)

"...he shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire" - Matthew 3:11 (ASV)
 
 "...God anointed him with the Holy Spirit..." - Acts 10:38 (ASV)

"...your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them..." - Luke 11:13 (ASV)

"...for he giveth not the Spirit by measure." - John 3:34 (ASV)

"...I will pour forth of my Spirit upon all flesh..." - Acts 2:17 (ASV)

"...poured out the gift of the Holy Spirit..." - Acts 10:45 (ASV)

People cannot be filled with a person, a person cannot be baptized in a person, can't be anointed with a person, can't be measured out, or poured out. How is this reasoned? Do Trinitarians just twist, mold, and manipulate it to be whatever it is that it needs to be to fit their doctrine? I don't get it.

Many Trinitarians also point to the fact that, when talking about the Holy Spirit, the Bible and it's writers use masculine prounouns and refer to it as a "he" or "him".

"In Greek pronouns referring to a noun have the same gender as the noun. In Jn 16 the holy spirit is personalized as a "helper" (which is the masculine PARAKLETOS). So John uses the masculine personal pronoun ‘him' simply because of grammatical rules.

In Gen.1:2, we find the Hebrew word translated "holy spirit" is in the *feminine* gender. So then, do we conclude the holy spirit is a woman?

On the other hand, in the same context when the neuter Greek word PNEUMA is used John employs a neuter pronoun, IT, to refer to the holy spirit. So in Jn. 14:17 the H.S. is twice called an "it." This is also true at Rm.8:16 & 26 (Rotherham's, Wilson's polyglot, Goodspeed's.)

The Catholic NAB footnote admits: "The Greek word for 'Spirit' is neuter, and while we use personal pronouns in English ('he,' 'his,' 'him'), most Greek manuscripts employ 'it.'" (See also the UBS interlinear on Rm.8:16).

Hence, we have in John's use of the masculine personal pronoun (him) an example of conformity to grammatical rules, not an expression of doctrine. I would have to be ignorant of Greek grammar to claim that simply because the Holy Spirit is called an "it" in the Bible that it must be an impersonal force. The same is true if anyone were to claim that the HS were a personal because of being called 'he/him.'
" - BARS-ANERGES


Simply reading through the Bible, in the instances in which Holy Spirit is spoken of, one does not naturally come up with the idea that it is a person. This idea only takes form through eisegesis. As those reference works cited, the Bible does not organically portray the Holy Spirit as a person - rather an impersonal force or divine energy. The reason this topic is important is because the trinity doctrine teaches of 3 persons. We now know through scriptures and many reputable resources that the Holy Spirit is not a person. Many of these sources, such as the Catholic Encyclopedia and the New Bible Dictionary, are often used as trinitarian resources! These resources admit the fallacy of the holy spirit's personage. Since the Holy Spirt is not a person than the trinity is, indeed, a holey doctrine and proven to be completely false.

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Is there a specific scripture in the Bible that you are confused about? That you think proves the trinity to be true and would like it clarified? Any questions about the trinity at all, let me know. I would be more than willing to provide the information for you, or the place where you find the information.