Divinity Of The Holy Spirit

[Fr. Antony Maria OSB]

I'm writing a paper on the Creed of Constantinople and specifically which heresies it responded to and how it did so. I don't have to go through the whole thing in a very broad manner, but instead focus on one or two main points, and I decided to focus on the lines about the Holy Spirit:

"And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceeds from the father (and the Son), who together with the Father and the Son is to be adored and glorified, who spoke by the prophets."

I've tried to do some research into this, but am having trouble finding an answer to this: why must the Holy Spirit be divine? I am not doubting His divinity, by no means, but am simply trying to come to a better understanding of it for my paper and for personal knowledge. I have some excerpts from the Cappodocian Fathers on this topic, but I am trying to understand what the problem would be if the Holy Spirit was not God. Are there any reasons why? For example, all the controversies about Christ being both fully God and fully man, if He was not both then our salvation would be nothing, hence it is necessary that Christ is both God and man. But what of the Holy Spirit? Is the basis of our understanding of Him as divine simply from Scripture, or is there any logical argument for His divinity? Thank you very much for your help!

May God bless and protect you always in all of your endeavors!

Sincerely,

Joe

[Thy Geekdom Come]

I'm not an expert in Macedonianism (one of the names for this heresy), but a brief survey of its [url="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12174a.htm"]entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia[/url] seems to indicate that the thinking behind the heresy was the same as the thinking behind Arianism. The Macedonians fought the belief that the Holy Spirit was God because they were incapable of understanding a Triune God and were attempting in a misguided way to defend the Father, although it appears that Athanasius had heard of them and that they were known for accepting Nicaea, so they accepted that the Son was divine, but evidently were still holding out on the Holy Spirit's divinity. Nevertheless, St. Athanasius said that Macedonianism was Arian in reality, even though orthodox with regard to the Son in words.

Other attacks on the divinity of the Holy Spirit include Sabellianism (Patripassionism, Monarchial Modalism), but these attack the Holy Spirit as well as the entire Holy Trinity by stating that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are really just three different modes of the same person. These are less direct attacks on the Holy Spirit specifically.

If the Holy Spirit is not God, then the whole Trinity is compromised. The Holy Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and the Son, in whom they give themselves to one another (you'll have to do your own research for citing that part of theology, I don't have it on hand). If He is not divine, then He is not capable of "transmitting" the love of the infinite God. If the Holy Spirit is not divine, then the Father and Son do not love one another with their whole being. If the Holy Spirit is not divine, the self-knowledge of God is expressed perfectly in the Son, but the love of God is not perfectly expressed in God, but imperfectly expressed in the Holy Spirit, a creature.

Macedonianism may be difficult to research. Wikipedia says all original sources have been lost except brief mentions of it from Church Fathers.

A couple resources I found (if you haven't yet):

The Tome of St. Athanasius to the Antiochenes (para. 3 is most important here):
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/fathers/view.cfm?recnum=3087

Frank Sheed's Theology and Sanity (the section on the Holy Spirit is a good, clear summary):
http://www.katapi.org.uk/TandS/Ch7.html#II

St. Thomas Aquinas on the Holy Spirit:
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1036.htm#article4

I know this isn't a complete response, but I hope it helps.

God bless,

Micah