Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 16:4 (Winter 2012)
Article: “We Believe In The Holy Spirit”: Revisiting The Deity Of The Spirit
Author: Matthew Barrett

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SBJT 16:4 (Winter 2012) p. 32

“We Believe In The Holy Spirit”: Revisiting The Deity Of The Spirit

Matthew Barrett

Matthew Barrett is Assistant Professor of Christian Studies at California Baptist University.

He received the Ph.D. from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In addition, he is the co-author, with Gregg Allison, of the forthcoming book 40 Questions About Salvation (Kregel), and the author of the forthcoming Reclaiming Monergism (P&R, 2013).

Introduction

“We believe in the Holy Spirit.” This short, succinct affirmation of the Spirit in the Nicene Creed leaves the reader wanting much more. While the creed clearly and specifically confessed the deity of the Son against the onslaught of Arianism, nevertheless, a more extensive confessional statement on the deity of the Spirit awaited. Athanasius, so famously known for his defense of Christ’s divinity and equality with the Father, is less recognized for his defense of the Holy Spirit.

But without question Athanasius affirmed the deity of the Spirit as well, arguing that the Spirit is “one with the Godhead which is in the unoriginated Triad.”1 The Spirit, said Athanasius, “has the same oneness with the Son as the Son has with the Father.”2 Therefore, contra Arianism, the Spirit does not have a beginning nor is he created at some point in time. Rather, he is consubstantial (i.e., homoousios) with the Father and the Son. And yet, at the same time, the Spirit is distinct from the Father and the Son. As Gregg Allison explains, “Although eternal and equal, the three are eternally and immutably distinct.”3 Athanasius’s contribution was pivotal. His Letters to Serapion on the Holy Spirit (355-360) sought to refute the Tropici who affirmed the Son’s divinity while rejecting the Spirit’s divine equality, claiming instead that he is a created being. 4

But Athanasius would not be alone in his affirmation of the Spirit’s deity. The Cappadocian fathers—Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus—would likewise defend the Spirit’s divinity. The Pneumatomachi (fighters against the Spirit; also called Macedonians) refused to worship the Spirit, arguing that the Spirit was not equal in deity to God. But in 376 Basil the Great (330-379) refuted the Pneumatomachians with On the Holy Spirit, where he argued for the full deity of the Spirit, and at the same time was clear that the Spirit is not to be confused with the Father and the Son but is a

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