The Holy Spirit/Ghost is a person. What is a person? — Agent Smith

A good question. Ultimately, though,whatever a "person" is, those three persons are supposed to be in essence a single God.

The early Church faced a problem. It made claim to the God of the Old Testament. However, it wanted Jesus to be God. Since Jesus wasn't around while God was parting seas, hiding in burning bushes, talking to Moses, etc., there were those who thought, quite reasonably I think, that Jesus came into being later. But that might mean Jesus was created by God, and therefore subordinate to him in some sense, as a human or as a lesser God. That wouldn't do, since there was supposed to be only one God, and Jesus was God. So the God of the Old Testament had to be Jesus somehow. The Spirit of God is also mention with some frequency in both the Old and New Testament.

So the Church wanted one God but had to explain why Jesus showed up when he did and how that took place, and the separate references to the Spirit had to be explained as well. I think the Trinity is the rather clumsy, somewhat tortured, solution to the problem of reconciling the desire to have a single God but account for Jesus and the Spirit as described in the Scriptures without being seen to worship more than one God.

The three Persons all have the same substance, was the answer. I think of the Persons as being expressive of the different functions or purposes of the single God as interpreted through Scripture. It makes no sense to me.

I'm not interested in the Trinity. Thanks anyway.

I'm not interested in the Trinity. Thanks anyway. — Agent Smith

That's okay. I'm not interested in the Holy Ghost.

That's okay. I'm not interested in the Holy Ghost. — Ciceronianus

That explains why there are few discussions/threads on the Holy Ghost! The Holy Ghost is a minor figure in the Sancta Trinitas.

The Holy Ghost is a ghostly figure in The Holy Trinity! You have to make an effort to see it.

In case you missed it:

The Holy Ghost!

Of the Sancta Trinitas, I've seen (independent) threads and debates on the Son (Jesus) and the Father (God) but never on the Holy Ghost/Spirit. Why? — Agent Smith

Actually, the Holy Ghost is the most immediately pertinent for the people, and thus should be discussed the most, for it is the Holy Ghost that grants people faith in God (or withholds it).

For people, matters of God begin and end with the Holy Ghost.

It's a shame that so often, he gets so little credit.

he gets so little credit. — baker

The Holy Ghost = Hard-luck Scheele (moniker, kind courtesy of Isaac Asimov)

The Father = Omnibenvolent, Omniscient, Omnipotent. :ok:
The Son = Jesus (an actual person whol lived in Judea). :ok:
The Holy Ghost = ? NOT :ok:

Is this Oedipus doing time travel? The son, travels back in time, meets his wife (his mother) and has a child (himself) i.e. Jesus is his own father and his mother is his wife. :chin:

The expressions on the Holy Ghost's face :roll: :scream:

Also, why does the Sancta Trinitas collapse into the Father (God) Matryoshka doll like? :chin:

God's intermediary between him and man as he does not reveal himself directly.

Spirit was a central concept for Hegel. The aufheben of the holy spirit.

The Syrian Christians sometimes call the holy spirit a mother and yet she does not create the son with the father — Gregory

I wrote once a scathing humor-piece about the Trinity, in which the Holy Spirit was the mother. It is so wild, the short story, that it's completely unpublishable.

I got a piece of information, I don't know from where: My uncle, the devout RC could have told me, or I read it in some random place, that at one point the Vatican decreed that it was the Holy Ghost who put the whatever into Mary that gave her the immaculate conception. I am not sure how it was worded, which is unfortunate, because of the utmost importance of the wording, especially when one considers that the Vatican in general is not very big on explicit descriptions of reproductive sexuality. According to this version, all three manifestations of gods in Christianity are males.

It seems easier to believe in God if it is female. The RCC says God is without gender although they portray it as male

It seems easier to believe in God if it is female. — Gregory

Thanks, i'll try that variation a few times and see how it fits my world view.

It seems easier to believe in God if it is female. — Gregory

Heureka!! PAMELA LEE ANDERSON!!! Of course. You can believe in a god, too, if you choose the image carefully.

In the original Hebrew and Aramaic, the word for Spirit "Rhua" or Wisdom "Chakemah" is feminine.
When translated into Greek, the word for Spirit "Pneuma" is neuter.
And, lastly, when translated into Latin the word for Spirit "Spiritus" is masculine.

So, in harmony with original gender references to the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, there is good reason to believe that the Holy Spirit ought to have been characterized as feminine, rather than as neuter or masculine, by the Church Fathers when discussing the Holy Trinity.

I submit that acceptance of the feminine gender of the Holy Spirit would have had profound implications for the Church Fathers' interpretation of the Holy Trinity. For example, certain Gnostic Christians, who accepted the feminine nature of the Holy Spirit, characterized the Holy Trinity as follows:

The absolutely perfect, self-engendered source of divine life, reflecting upon itself, engenders eternally within its divine nature an absolutely perfect companion-image of itself. The latter is the eternal product of the former's thinking, its Wisdom, its perfect eternal self-knowledge, and the will of the latter is always in accord with the will of the former. The one has never been without the other.

The only difference between the two is that the former is the eternal self-engendered source of divine life, while the latter is the eternal other-engendered recipient of divine life.

Both the bestower and the recipient of divine life are unutterably perfect and exquisitely beautiful in themselves and to one another. They are eternally and irresistibly drawn to one another. For them there is no difference between love of self and love of the other. In other words, love of the other is self-love and self-love is love of the other.

An eternal, absolutely perfect divine love weds one to the other. And this reciprocal divine love between the giver and receiver of divine life is, in essence, an Eternal Spiritual Marriage (the Gnostic sacrament of the Bride Chamber).

As a result of this eternal spiritual marriage, the bestower of divine life causes the recipient of divine life to conceive a third divinity within the divine nature (the Gnostic Immaculate Conception). This third divinity is their eternal offspring. These three have never been without each other.

The divine offspring has perfect knowledge of and perfect love for both the bestower and the recipient of divine life (the Gnostic Divine Parent) and is the eternally generated perfect synthesis, embodiment, and expression of them, their divine will, and their perfect reciprocal love.

The bestower of divine life is the Person of God the Father, the male aspect of the One divine nature.

The recipient of divine life, who proceeds from the Father, is the Person of God the Mother, the female
aspect of the One divine nature, also called Wisdom, Holy Spirit, Barbelo.

And the divine offspring, who is generated by the Father and conceived by the Holy Spirit, is the Person of God the Son.

This, then, is a brief example of a Gnostic Christian interpretation of the Divine Holy Trinity or the Divine Holy Family: God the Father, God the Mother, and God the Son.

:up: How could anyone not have seen that? It's obvious now that you explained it.

The Father, The Son, Plain as the nose on your face, The (Mother) Holy Spirit!!!