The Holy Spirit....

[White Knight]

I have a question about how certian denomonations (Protestant) and for (Catholic); points of view.


Okay [b]"Catholics & Protestants" [/b] can all agree that the Holy Spirit is God the third member of the Holy Trinity.. but technically what exactly is the Holy Spirit's Form? Mormons and Jevohah's Witness's believe differently from the True Christian Point of view on what the Holy Spirit is.


But I was wanting to know, How do Catholics see the Holy Spirit? Is he a Person? the left hand of God (Yet God at the same time); A Force, or Other?

Ive heard so many Pastors, Ministers, Reverens, Preists, etc etc, say what the Holy Spirit is, yet, alot of denominations can't seem to agree on what exactly the Holy Spirit Is, except the fact that hes the Third Member of the Holy Trinity, who is God.

So how do Catholics view the Holy Spirit?

[God Conquers]

How do Catholics see the Holy Spirit?

From the Nicene Creed:

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, with the Father and the Son He is worshipped and glorified.

The Holy spirit's iconography is that of a dove, tongue of fire, wind... etc.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

The Holy Spirit is the Person who proceeds from Father and Son. The Holy Spirit is that which the Father pours out to the Son and that which the Son pours out to the Father. It's interesting then that the Holy Spirit is particularly characterized in iconography and metaphor as a Person who moves, i.e. a dove.

The Holy Spirit is not a force, as I believe was condemned as a heresy.

[Quietfire]

Ok buddy, you asked for it....

Our Lord tells of a third [i]person[/i]. There is a Spirit, to whom Our Lord will entrust his followers when he himself shall have ascended to the Father. " I will ask the Father and he will give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you". (Jn 14;16).

The Spirit, like the Word, is a person-he, not it. "But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things" (Jn 14;26)

There is one HUGE difference between God's idea and any idea we may form. His is [i]someone[/i], ours is only [i]something[/i]. With an idea which is only something, there can be no mutuality. The thinker can know it, it cannot know him; he can admire its beauty, it cannot admire his; he can love it, it cannot return his love. But God's idea is someone, and an infinite someone; between thinker and idea there is an infinite dialogue, an infinite interflow. Father and Son love each other, with infinite intensity. What we could not know, if it were not revealed to us, is that they unite to express their love and that the expression is a third divine person.

In the Son, the Father utters his self-knowledge; in the Holy Spirit, Father and Son utter their mutual love. Their love is infinite; its expression cannot be less. Infinite love does not express it very self finitely; it can no more produce an inadequate idea. Each gives himself wholly to the outpouring of his love for the other, holding nothing back-indeed the very thought of holding back is ridiculous; if they give themselves at all, the can give themselves only totally-they possess nothing but their totality! The uttered love of Father and Son in infinite, lacks no perfection that they have, is God, a person, someone.

As the one great operation of Spirit, knowing, produces the second person, so the other, loving, produces the third. But be careful on this..
The second proceeds from, is produced by, the first alone; but the third, the Holy Spirit, proceeds from the Father and Son, as they combine to express their love. Thus in the Nicene Creed we say of him [i]qui ex patre filioque procedit[/i]-who proceeds from the Father and the Son; and in the [i]Tantum Ergo[/i] we sing [i]procedenti ab utroque[/i]-to him who proceeds from both.

That is Our Lord's chosen name for him, and it is more than a name used merely because he has to be called something. There is some deep meaning in it. For Christ breathes upon the Apostles and he says, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit"; when the Holy Spirit descends upon them at Pentecost, there is at first the rushing of a mighty wind.

Observe that the third person is never spoken of as a Son, never said to have been begotten or generated. Theologians use the word "spirated" which is simply "breathed". We may wonder why the third person who is the utterance of the love of Father and Son should be called their Breath.

Note two things. It is of universal experience that love has an effect upon the breathing; it is a simple fact that the lover's breath comes faster. And there is a close connection between breath and life-when we stop breathing, we stop living. In the Nicene Creed the Holy Spirit is called "the Lord and giver of life" The link between life and love is not hard to see, for love is a total self-giving, and so a giving of life.

One final reminder.. We know that the second person is within the same nature, as an idea is always within the thinker's mind. So with the third person. The utterance of Love by Father and Son fills the whole of their nature, producing another person, but still within the same identical divine nature. Try to see the nature of God wholly expressed as thinker, wholly expressed as idea, wholly expressed as lovingness.

F.J.Sheed.

Pax.

Edited November 5, 2004 by Quietfire