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Lect 4 - Personality
Lect 4 - Personality
Preliminary
Note: The depersonalizing of the Holy Spirit is almost an essential feature of anti-Trinitarians…
Point: Once the personality of the HS is granted, His deity becomes a matter of logical assumption…
[ Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: God and Creation, vol. 2: 311 ] – “With reference to the second person, the
crux of controversy was almost always his deity—generally speaking, his personhood was not in dispute—in the
case of the Holy Spirit it was his personhood that primarily sparked the polemics. If his personality was
acknowledged, his deity followed naturally.”
Objection Answered:
Objection: There are biblical assertions and suggestions of the Spirit’s subordination to the Father/Son
Answer: Subordination is covenantal and official, and not essential – subordination in function, not inferiority of attributes
Implication: The subjective is subordinate to the objective [ cf. John Murray’s Redemption, Accomplished and Applied ]
The subjective experience of the Spirit must always have its base on the objective work of the Son