The Parallels Between Acts 10 And Galatians 3

When Cornelius' justification apart from baptism in Acts 10 is discussed, the focus tends to be on verses 44-48 and the timing of the reception of the Holy Spirit. But we should also include verse 43 and notice some other issues in verses 44-48.

Verse 43 refers to how "everybody" is justified by "believing". Peter isn't anticipating that his audience will be some kind of exception to the rule ("everybody"), and he mentions faith without saying anything about baptism. What happens in verse 44 seems to be what Peter was anticipating and what's normative, not exceptional.

In verse 44, we're told that Cornelius and those with him received the Spirit while "listening". That should sound familiar. Paul refers to how the Galatians were justified through "hearing with faith" in Galatians 3:2. That's further evidence that what happened to Cornelius, in terms of being justified and receiving the Spirit before baptism, is normative. The "listening" and "hearing" in Acts 10 and Galatians 3 are references to a prebaptismal context. You hear the gospel message being proclaimed, and you believe while hearing it. Baptism doesn't occur until later. And that helps explain why Paul distinguishes between preaching and baptizing (1 Corinthians 1:17). He was the spiritual father of the Corinthians through the proclamation of the gospel to them (1 Corinthians 4:15), even though he didn't baptize many of them. The preaching context of justification is another among many lines of evidence against baptismal regeneration, and it's another way in which Cornelius' justification is normal rather than exceptional.

Why is there prebaptismal justification in Acts 10?

An explanation often put forward for why Cornelius and those with him were justified prior to baptism in Acts 10:43-48 is that the prebaptismal reception of the Holy Spirit was offered as proof of God's acceptance of Gentiles. But that acceptance had already been revealed to Cornelius by an angel and to Peter in his vision. And a reception of the Spirit at the time of baptism would also have been proof of the acceptance of Gentiles. Changing the timing of the reception of the Spirit wasn't needed. The best explanation for the prebaptismal timing of the reception of the Spirit is that that's the normal scenario. Its normativity is further evidenced by how Cornelius and those with him are cited as being justified in the same way as others in Acts 11:17-18 and 15:7-11.

The Deity Of The Holy Spirit, Especially In The Old Testament

Than Christopoulos just posted a good video on the subject.

"One way to tell the NT is true"

Stand to Reason has a brief clip on the historical reliability of the Gospel of Luke as well as the NT in general:

This in turn inspired some impromptu thoughts about the Bible:

1. However, though the Bible is historically reliable, it does not necessarily follow from this that the Bible is God's word. What's needed is something additional to move us from "the Bible is historically reliable" to "therefore the Bible is God's word".

2. Granted, if the Bible is even approximately true, this could be sufficient to prove Christian theism.

3. There are many reasonable arguments that may help move a person from historical reliability to God's word. Each argument isn't necessarily entirely persuasive on its own, though the cumulative effect of all these arguments could be greater than the sum of their parts. And different arguments may be more convincing to some people than to others.

I'm thinking of arguments such as:

Sola Fide In Acts 19

Acts 19:1-7 is a neglected passage in discussions of justification. And there's a neglect of the evidence for sola fide in the narrative portions of scripture in general. I want to post something I recently wrote in an email exchange, summing up the significance of the passage:

The reception of the Holy Spirit is associated with justification elsewhere, and Paul expects the Holy Spirit to be received at the time of coming to faith in Acts 19:2. The people he was addressing turned out to be in an exceptional situation, but Paul's question reflects what he considered normative.

I've discussed the passage further in previous threads, like here and here.

The inner testimony of the Spirit

1. Appeal to the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit (hereafter the "witness of the Spirit," to simplify) figures in some apologetic encounters or schools of thought. It was important in early Protestant theology. It's a fixture of Reformed theology. It's clearly a big deal in charismatic theology. It's an element of folk theology, often abused, but there are philosophical theologians like Alvin Plantinga and William Lane Craig who also champion the principle. 

For Catholic theologians, this might seem to be an ad hoc appeal, concocted out of thin air to short-circuit debate. However, the principle has some basis in Scripture. The classic passages are Rom 8:16 & Gal 4:6. At least the wording of the phrase is based on the Pauline prooftexts. And these have a counterpart in Jn 10:27 & 1 Jn 2:20,27.

2. The witness of the Spirit is an aspect of defensive apologetics rather than offensive apologetics. It appeals to the experience of insiders, Christians, rather than outsiders, unbelievers. In my observation, the witness of the Spirit is invoked in three or four distinct, but related contexts, to prove:

• Christianity

• the Bible

• the canon

• salvation

3. In terms of the Pauline prooftexts, these have immediate reference to personal consciousness of salvation. A supernatural self-awareness that the individual is saved. As such, the claim is narrower than the truth of Christianity in general, or the Bible in general.

At this same time, it has logical implications for larger claims. Christian salvation is only meaningful in a larger Christian paradigm of sin, the condition of the lost, damnation, forgiveness, and redemption. So the witness of the Spirit does have implications for the truth of the Gospel and Christianity in general. But can that be extended to adjudicate every theological dispute? No.

3. Then we have the related, but somewhat enigmatic passages in Jn 10:27 & 1 Jn 2:20,27. The scope of these passages seems to be broader than the Pauline prooftexts. 

How do the sheep recognize the voice of Jesus? It doesn't say. 

1 Jn 2:20,27 posit an anointing. Anointing with olive oil was a religious rite that became a picturesque metaphor for a "charism" of the Holy Spirit. In 1 John, the point of contrast are heretic who rebel against John's apostolic teaching and disfellowship the churches he pastored or supervised. 

The anointing is not an alternative to apostolic teaching. To treat the anointing as a substitute for apostolic teaching would moot John writing in the first place! Rather, John seems to attribute to the anointing a supernatural ability to discern the truth of apostolic teaching, in contrast to the heretics. Not a revelation in terms of propositional information, but a revelation in the sense of the spiritual perception that apostolic teaching is true. And related to that, an ability to discriminate between the truth of apostolic teaching and the false teaching of the heretics. 

The heretics may well have included false prophets who said the Spirit spoke to them and gave them the true message. If so, John is countering that. 

It's unclear how far we can take this appeal because these are tersely worded promises. I think these are open to different models. So we might explore different models, consistent with, but underdetermined by the text. 

4. Apropos (3), the witness of the Spirit might be classified under the argument from religious experience. Most Christians lack the aptitude and training to make a philosophically rigorous case for Christianity. In addition, you have Christians in closed countries where Christianity is illegal, who lack access to the apologetic resources available to American Christians. They do well just to have a Bible. So if Christianity is true, God must have a way of making known to garden-variety Christians that this is something they are supposed to believe. And this typically involves certain kinds of religious experience. That can takes many forms. A recognizable answer to prayer. An arresting special providence. A miracle. 

Those are external signs. But Paul and John are referring to a psychological experience. Let's approach this from the opposite end of the spectrum. Suppose God tells me to lay hands on someone in a wheelchair and pray for their healing. I hear an audible voice. Sentences. And this message carries with it the conviction that if I do so, God will hear my prayer. I do so and the invalid is miraculously healed. 

That scenario involves private revelation in the form of explicit information in addition to conviction. Let's vary the hypothetical. Suppose I see someone in a wheelchair. I suddenly feel that I should go over and pray for them. An overwhelming sense that I'm supposed to do this. And it carries the conviction that if I do so, they will be healed. 

Not just the sense that I should go over and introduce myself and ask permission to pray for them, as a matter of Christian charity. But a sense of compulsion, as if God is commanding me to do it, even though there is no audible verbal command. I do it, and they are miraculously healed. 

In that scenario, I wasn't given any information. It wasn't a propositional revelation. I felt compelled to do it. Something I was supposed to do. I was convinced that if I did so, the invalid would be miraculously healed. And that's what happened.

So my conviction turned out to be true. And not accidentally true. Not a stroke of luck. Rather, God impelled me to take that action. 

Did my conviction amount to knowledge? Did I know the invalid was going to be healed? It was a nonpropositional revelation. There was no promise or prediction. Yet the outcome corresponded to the conviction. And did so by divine design.

So that might be analogous to supernatural discernment that Christianity is true, even though it doesn't involve any new or additional information. Rather, a supernatural recognition that the information you already have is true.

Take another illustration. I'm booked to fly out of town tomorrow. The night before, God tells me not to board that plane. An audible voice. A verbal prohibition. So I cancel my flight and reschedule.

Now let's vary the illustration. I have a very vivid dream the night before that after I'm aboard and the plane takes off, it catches fire in midair. 

After I wake up I ponder whether that's a premonition. Maybe it's just a dream. Maybe I should take my chances. I shrug it off. But the next day, as I'm walking through the terminal to my gate, it looks exactly like my dream, even though I've never been to this airport before. So I skip my flight. And the plane explodes in midair. 

Now that's revelatory, but it's a visionary rather than a verbal revelation. I don't receive any information in the propositional sense. There's no explicit warning or prohibition. But it does provide evidence about the future. And the revelation corresponds to what happens. So there's a match between my conviction and reality. Moreover, that's not just a coincidence. 

Let's vary the illustration one more time. I have the dream. This time I don't see the airport terminal in my dream. I just see myself inside the plane when it catches on fire, passengers screaming. 

I go to the airport, but change my mind at the last minute. I'm spooked by the dream. I have nothing of consequence to lose if I miss my flight but everything to lose if it's a premonition. I take this to be a possible divine warning. And, in fact, the plane explodes. 

This is a case of something I was shown rather than told. And it didn't rise to the level of a strong conviction. Instead, it gave me a sense of foreboding. And as I got closer to the gate, the sense of dread intensified. As it turned out, my apprehension was justified. A divine-induced, future-oriented attitude. 

Now the prooftexts suggest certitude or something close to certitude. This example is weaker. It is, however, a hypothetical example of nonpropositional revelatory discernment. A mental state warranted both by the supernatural cause and the corresponding circumstances.  

Why is the Spirit the "Spirit"?

Why is the Spirit of God called the "Spirit"? I've discussed this before, but I'd like to be a bit more discriminating this time. Seems to me that "ruach/pneuma" trades on several connotations, all of which are germane to this member of the Trinity:

1. In Biblical usage, a spirit is:

i) A personal agent

ii) A discarnate agent

So one reason for the designation is to indicate both the personality and incorporeity of the Spirit. The Spirit is not a power or force. And the Spirit is not a physical being like the humanoid gods of the heathen pantheon. Put another way, Yahweh is incorporeal. 

In this regard, the designation connotes the essential identity Spirit. The name has a metaphysical or ontological connotation. 

2. It has life-giving connotations. The breath of life. So the name indicates that the Spirit is the source of biological life.

3. Apropos (2), by extension, it also connotes the Spirit as the source of inner renewal or regeneration. Figurative life as well as  biological life.

4. Finally, it has connotations of divine speech. The spoken word is breath. So it signifies the role of the Spirit as the source of inspiration, revelation, and agency of Scripture. 

In that regard, the designation connotes the economic identity of the Spirit. The name connotes his creative and recreative activity in the world, as well as his revelatory role. 

The Trinity in the OT

There are different views regarding the revelation of the Trinity in the OT:

1. At one extreme are Catholics and unitarians who don't think the Trinity is in the OT because they don't think the Trinity is NT. If it's not even in the NT, it can hardly be in the OT! Rather, they think the Nicene Fathers and Nicene/post-Nicene councils invented the Trinity.

2. At the other end of the spectrum are Christians who suppose you can directly prooftext the Trinity from passages like Gen 1:26 and Isa 6:3. I think traditional prooftexts like that should be retired. On the other hand, some traditional prooftexts are strong, as far as they go. 

3. Retiring a few traditional prooftexts doesn't mean we have less to work with. A problem with bad prooftexts is how they get in the way of developing better exegetical arguments. Some Christians just park on those prooftexts. That's where they stop.

Retiring a few traditional prooftexts frees up room to bring in neglected lines of evidence. The traditional methodology appealed to pinpoint prooftexts. While some individual texts are strong, modern evangelical scholars often take a diachronic approach where they trace messianic motifs as they unfold through a series of OT books. 

Other important developments involve the two-Yahweh doctrine in Second Temple Judaism and the phenomenon  of illeism in the OT and its NT counterparts. 

4. There's also some ambiguity in what it means to say we can find the Trinity in the OT. Does that mean we can find individual texts where it's all put together? Or does that mean the OT has the parts without the instruction sheet, and the NT provides the instructions on how to assemble the parts?

5. To take another example, some Christians think the Angel of the Lord is a theophany while others think that's a Christophany. Those aren't mutually exclusive interpretations: it could be a theophanic Christophany. The point, though, is that the Christophanic identification is more specific than the merely theophanic identification. 

5. Another issue is whether it's illicit to interpret OT statements in light of NT revelation. Here's another way to frame the issue? Is the Trinity recognizable in the OT if that's all you have to go by? Or does the NT create the shock of recognition? 

6. Apropos (5), let's take a comparison: 

i) In many stories (plays, novels, movies, TV dramas), some characters are related to each other while others are not. In some of these stories, the related characters are explicitly identified, viz. mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters. 

ii) In real life, there are certain clues that people are related, even if the relationship isn't explicitly identified. That includes visual clues. The most obvious is family resemblance in the case of close blood relatives. Or there can be subtler clues, like having the same idiosyncratic accent. 

Or, when you see two people together, there's a particular dynamic if they're related. That's not something you could discern in isolation.

iii) But in plays, movies, and TV dramas, actors who play blood relatives are usually unrelated in real life. Yet the audience is expected to suspend disbelief. It's a necessary convention. 

iv) In some cases the relationships are explicitly stated. It is, however, possible to have a story in which their identity is left unstated. Where it's up to the reader or audience to tease that out.

And that's more dramatically interesting. You start out knowing nothing about the characters. But as the story unfolds, especially in extended narratives like novels and TV dramas, the attentive viewer or reader will pick up on certain suggestive clues that particular characters are relatives, even if they're never explicitly identified as such. They behave around each other in ways typical of family members. They take certain liberties with each other, freely entering one another's personal space. 

That may be inconclusive, but there's a sorting process where it dawns on the audience that the characters interact with each other in ways that make a lot of sense if they belong to the same family, but make less sense if they're unrelated. 

And if, as the story progresses, the relationships are made explicit, that confirms what the audience suspected. The characters were recognizably related to each other, and when the relationships are named, everything falls into place. The story began as a riddle in that regard, but a telltale pattern emerges as the narration continues. 

The power of the word

Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me all that I ever did." So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world." (John 4:39-42)

1. I suppose this is the difference between a friend telling you about Jesus vs. you coming to know Jesus yourself. Roughly speaking, this seems to illustrate knowledge by description vs. knowledge by acquaintance.

2. A person can see all the facts and evidences for Christianity and even intellectually assent to belief in Christianity. Take many people who grew up in Christian households. However that's not the same as a person coming to trust and commit themselves to the one, true, and living God, who is the God of the Bible. Consider Bethan Lloyd-Jones' testimony:

[Martyn Lloyd-Jones'] own wife had come into a state of concern and conviction. Having attended church and prayer meetings from childhood, Bethan Lloyd-Jones had always believed that she was a Christian. Not until she heard Martyn preach for the first time (on his second visit to Sandfields in December 1926) was she confronted, in his sermon on Zacchaeus, with an insistence that all men are equally in need of salvation from sin. The message shook her, even frightened her, and she almost resented the teaching which appeared to place her in the same condition as those who had no religion at all. In a sense she had always feared God; her life was upright, and yet she knew that she had no personal consciousness of the forgiveness of sins, no sense of inward joyful communion with Christ. In Mrs Lloyd-Jones' own words:

I was for two years under Martyn's ministry before I really understood what the gospel was. I used to listen to him on Sunday morning and I used to feel, Well, if this is Christianity I don't really know anything about it. On Sunday night I used to pray that somebody would be converted; I thought you had to be a drunkard or a prostitute to be converted. I remember how I used to rejoice to see drunkards become Christians and envy them with all my heart, because there they were full of joy and free, and here I was in such a different condition.

I recall sitting in the study at 57 Victoria Road and I was unhappy. I suppose it was conviction. I felt a burden of sin, and I shall always remember Martyn saying, as he looked through his books, 'Read this!' He gave me John Angell James' The Anxious Enquirer Directed. I have never forgotten what I read in that book. It showed me how wrong was the idea that my sin could be greater than the merit of the blood of Christ - his death was well able to clear all my sins away. There, at last, I found release and I was so happy.

(Iain Murray. The Life of Martyn Lloyd-Jones: 1899-1981, p 110.)

3. Many people read the Bible but the Bible is a dead book to them. It's no different than reading other ancient texts like Homer, Thucydides, Virgil, Suetonius, the Bhagavad Gita, Norse mythology, the Quran, etc. They might believe in its general historical reliability, that it teaches good morals like loving our neighbors, and so on, but ultimately the Bible isn't any different from other books.

However, on Christianity, the Bible is not a dead book, but a living book: "For the word of God is living and active..." (Heb 4:12). The problem isn't the Bible, but the problem is the person. Their spiritual dullness or deadness: stony hearts. Their spiritual blindness: they see but do not truly see. Their spiritual deafness: they have no ears to hear.

Were OT Jews indwelt by the Spirit?

This is a hard question to answer. Different theological traditions give different answers. It raises trickily questions of theological method. Why is it hard to answer? 

1. There's the issue of how the jargon of systematic theology maps back onto biblical usage. In systematic theology, the designations are technical terms with a uniform meaning whereas biblical usage isn't standardized.

2. Scripture often uses metaphors to depict the work of the Spirit, viz. filling, indwelling, falling upon, new birth, new creation. In order to know what that means, we must be able to translate the metaphor into a literal concept. 

3. There's also the question of whether the Bible sometimes uses different picturesque metaphors to describe the same experience. 

4. Regeneration is an essentially Johannine category. 1 Pet 1:23 and James 1:18 are apparently exceptions, but not really. In those passages, the word of God is instrumental to rebirth whereas in Johannine usage, the Spirit is instrumental in rebirth. Likewise, in Titus 3:5, rebirth is connected with the metaphor of water. 

John speaks of "purification" (1:9; cf. 3:3), but in context, that seems to be about the remission of sin rather than spiritual renewal. 

5. Conversely, sanctification is more of a Pauline category (in NT theology). In addition, Paul uses related metaphors (new creation, new man/Adam) for spiritual renewal (2 Cor 5:17; Eph 2:5,10; 4:24; Col 2:13).

Although John uses "sanctification" terminology (Jn 17:17, 19), in context it denotes something like consecration rather than sanctification in the sense of spiritual renewal. 

So this raises the question of how to collate Johannine regeneration with Pauline sanctification.  If they were both Johannine categories or Pauline categories, they might represent distinct stages, so that we could arrange them sequentially, where regeneration precedes sanctification, but since regeneration is John's preferred category for spiritual renewal while sanctification is Paul's preferred category, they may be overlapping categories. Two different metaphors that coincide or cover much of the same ground. 

6. In OT usage, "sanctity" typically denotes cultic holiness or ritual purity rather than spiritual renewal. And that carries over into the usage of Hebrews. 

7. However, the OT also refers to circumcision of the heart (Deut 30:6; Jer 6:10), which seems to be a metaphor for spiritual renewal, equivalent to Johannine regeneration and Pauline sanctification. 

8. We need to distinguish between OT Jews generally and the remnant in particular.

9. In the OT, the action of the Spirit in relation to human agents usually concerns supernatural enablement. Conferring supernatural foresight, insight, skill, or even physical strength–rather than spiritual rebirth. 

And that's paralleled in Acts, where the agency of the Spirit has reference to the charismata (e.g. revelatory dreams and visions, xenoglossy, exorcism, miraculous healing or hexing) rather than spiritual rebirth. The main difference between that kind of empowerment and OT counterparts is that it's more widely experienced among Christians than OT Jews. 

10 Finally, there's the argument from analogy. If, in the NT, certain virtues are the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23), and OT saints exhibit the same virtues, then by parity of argument, the same effect implies the same cause. The Spirit is the source or agent of both. That seems to be equivalent to "circumcision of the heart". 

Internal testimony of the Holy Spirit

https://www.equip.org/pmr-podcast/episode-106-internal-testimony-of-the-holy-spirit/

Like a dove

The accounts of Christ's baptism, reported in all four Gospels (Mt 3:13–17; Mk 1:9–11; Lk 3:21–23; Jn 1:29-33), record how the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus like a dove. If you were there, what would you see?

Perhaps that's the Shekinah. In Scripture, the Shekinah seems to be protean. Sometimes resembling a dust devil or fire devil (the "pillar of cloud/fire"). Sometimes more like a wall of fire (Exod 14:19-20). Sometimes like an electrical storm (Ezk 1). 

Maybe in this case the Shekinah assumes an avian shape, but still clearly supernatural. Incandescent or translucent. 

Is the Holy Spirit a personification?

http://www.equip.org/article/is-the-holy-spirit-a-personification/

https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/spiritot.html

The Spirit says

I'm going to comment on some related passages of Scripture, then consider their implications:

But the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, and he spoke with me and said to me, “Go, shut yourself within your house (Ezk 3:24; cf. 2:1-3).

Syntactically, the speaker seems to be the Spirit of God. God's Spirit enters Ezekiel and then proceeds to speak to him. 

However, I suppose it's possible that the speaker is the glory of Yahweh, in the preceding verse. 

Strictly speaking, the "Spirit" in v24 (cf. 2:2) isn't identified as God's Spirit. However, it can't be Ezekiel's own spirit that enters him, since Ezekiel's own spirit is always present in Ezekiel. In context, it can't be an evil spirit. 

No indication of an angelic spirit. Moreover, angelic spirits are never said to enter people, although there's a sense in which an angel appearing to someone in a dream might qualify, but that's not the context.   

And the Spirit of the Lord fell upon me, and he said to me, “Say, Thus says the Lord: So you think, O house of Israel. For I know the things that come into your mind (Ezk 11:5).

This is more explicit. The speaker is the Spirit of God. This is direct speech. The Spirit addressing Ezekiel, like an audible voice. And this verse might help to clarify the referent in Ezk 2:2 & 3:24. 

In principle, the Spirit could inspire a prophet at a subliminal level, so that what the prophet things and says is the result of inspiration, even though he doesn't hear a voice speaking words to him. But that's not what this verse says.

And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot” (Acts 8:29).

Another example of the Spirit speaking directly to someone.

And while Peter was pondering the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are looking for you (Acts 10:19).

Yet another example of the Spirit speaking directly to someone.

While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2).

This might be direct speech, or it might be shorthand for Christian prophets who convey a revelation to Saul and Barnabas. 

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons (1 Tim 4:1).

Paul seems to be alluding to a message by Christian prophets. If so, that's indirect speech. The Spirit speaking through a second party. 

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice (Heb 3:7; cf. 10:15-17).

In context, this is indirect speech. The Spirit as the source of Scripture. 

That involves a dialectical interplay. For a reader, the Spirit's message is mediated by Scripture. But for a prophet, Scripture is mediated by the Spirit. The Spirit's message becomes inscripturated. 

This is a common Biblical theme. The Spirit inspires prophets to speak the words of God. In addition, the Spirit inspires revelatory dreams and visions, which may include auditions. 

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches (Rev 2:7).

Here we have two speakers: Jesus and the Spirit. The Spirit inspires John to convey what Jesus says.

Now let's take stock:

1. In some cases the Spirit speaks directly to somebody, in an audible voice. That's something only a personal, external agent can do. Moreover, that requires intelligence.

That's true even if the voice is telepathic. For the prophet hears a voice that's not a figment of his own imagination. It's not like interior monologue, where he wills himself to hear a mental voice. Rather, this is one mind interacting with another mind. Temporary possession. 

And it's not interior monologue as a rhetorical device (e.g. Ps 42). These are prosaic rather than poetic descriptions. Nothing like the genre of Ps 42. 

2. In other cases, the Spirit speaks indirectly by inspiring prophets to speak the words of God. Once again, that requires the Spirit to be a rational agent. To convey a message requires an intelligent messenger. Informing the prophet.

In addition, it requires a divine agent to inspire divine words. The product of the Spirit's agency is the very word of God. 

3. In these passages, is the Spirit just a synonym for God? Could you substitute "God" for "Spirit"? 

That depends on what you mean by "God". If by "God", you mean the Father or the Trinity, then the Spirit isn't God in that respect. But the Spirit is "God" in the sense of fully divine, just like the Father.

If the Spirit is just a synonym for God, why does Scripture so often attribute actions to the Spirit rather than God? That implies some sort of internal duality within the Deity.

4. Does Scripture represent the Spirit as a personal agent due to personification? But what would the Spirit personify? If the Spirit is a personification, then it personifies something impersonal. Yet the actions and properties in view are inherently rational. It's not like ascribing intelligence or intentionality to inanimate objects (e.g. "The moon methinks looks with a watery eye; And when she weeps, weeps every little flower"). 

If the Spirit personifies anything, that has to be the Deity. But it's nonsensical to personify a personal agent. That's not how personification works.

If you say the Spirit personifies the wisdom of God, that's a divine attribute. A personal attribute. That's inseparable from the Deity himself.  

It's not personification like Lady Wisdom and Lady Folly in Prov 8-9, where they function as fictional characters in parabolic allegories. It's not like Cupid, which is clearly imaginary.  

5. Moreover, to say rational ascriptions to the Spirit are just personifications is a double-edged sword. An atheist will take that one step further and say the voice of God is a personification of the prophet's psychotic imagination. A deified hallucination. A self-projection. 

Bilocation

Stevie, you just need to devote some actual thought to epistemology, specifically Plantinga and Reid. If you think such appeals are facile, you just don't understand that approach to human knowledge and justification. You may disagree, which is fine, but taunting it all as facile - sorry, you're just not getting the methodology here.

Let's reviews some problems with Tuggy's breezy appeal to Reid:

Reid thinks that ordinary people don't do much reasoning–not much good reasoning, anyway.

The question is whether any of those contingent propositions also satisfy the traditional concept of the self-evident? It was traditionally assumed that the concept of a self-evidently true proposition applies only to necessary truths…Suppose that, with everything working properly, the perceptual belief is formed in me that there's something green before me. Does that contingent proposition have "its evidence in itself"? Certainly it doesn't satisfy the traditional concept of a self-evident truth: "no sooner understood than believed"…He says that the principles of Common Sense are identical with beliefs held noninferentially and justifiably. That can't be right, for an obvious reason. Whereas  the Principles of Common Sense are common, lots of such beliefs aren't common at all; they're entirely personal. 

My thesis has been that in his writings one finds two very different understandings: Principles of Common Sense are shared first principles, and principles of Common Sense are what we all do and must take for granted in our lives in the everyday. What remains to be shown is that they don't mesh.

Most people surely don't actually believe those propositions that all those of us who are normal adults take for granted in our living of life in the everyday. Most people haven't even so much as entertained them, let one believed them…One doesn't have to believe something to take it for granted. N. Wolterstorff, Thomas Reid and the Story of Epistemology (Cambridge 2009, chap. 9. 

i) The entire chapter is worth reading. I could quote more of Wolterstorff's analysis. The immediate point is that it's unclear what Tuggy's appeal to Reid actually amounts to, given the equivocations and overgeneralizations in Reid's position. Which is not to deny that Reid makes some useful points, but a lot of sifting, sorting, and reformulation is required. 

ii) Plantinga is, of course, an exponent of Reformed epistemology. I take it that Tuggy is alluding to properly basic beliefs. Yet Plantinga is a Trinitarian. He even uses the Trinity as a positive example to illustrate some points in Warranted Christian Belief. 

iii) I'd add that basic beliefs are defeasible beliefs. They can be overridden. They're hardly "self-evident" in the traditional sense. 

Not everything should be up for debate. Debates must start somewhere. As Christian philosopher Thomas Reid pointed out, humans are made such that, when we’re fully mature, and when we have certain common experiences, we will, on auto-pilot, know certain truths. He called this first principles, or principles of common sense. We can also call the self-evident truths – things that we, so long as our judgement is unhindered by various non-rational factors, can recognize as true, and even know to be true, without mounting an argument for them. Like lamps, they illuminate themselves, in addition to other things. As heard in a previous episode, Reid listed a number of self-evident truths which he had found to be contradicted by various philosophers’ speculations. But he didn’t directly apply this method to Christian theology.

I've already documented to some basic problems with Tuggy's appeal. But let's make another point. Roderick Chisholm distinguished between methodists and particularists. Methodists begin with criteria while particularists begin with evidence. It's clear that Tuggy is a methodist. Take his resort to the law of identity.

Consider the widely reported phenomenon of bilocation. I don't have a firm position on that. It's not something I've researched in detail. But using Chisholm's rubric, there are two divergent approaches you can take to such reports. On the one hand, you can be a methodist like Tuggy. You take your stand with armchair criteria like the law of identity. You therefore discount all reported bilocations in advance, no matter how well-documented. The evidence is irrelevant. You never look at the evidence because you just know it can't possibly be true, given the law of identity.

On the other hand, you can be a particularist. You're open-minded about the phenomenon because, for you, this is ultimately an evidentiary question. Is there good empirical evidence for biolocation? If the same individual can be in two different places at the same time, then we can't insist that personal identity requires numerical identity. In that event we adjust the definition of personal identity to accommodate the evidence.

Now, my point is not to take a position on bilocation. I mention this example because it's relevant to personal identity, which figures in unitarian objections to the Trinity, and it's not just hypothetical. The immediate point is that unitarians like Tuggy take a position comparable to Hume on the question of miracles: no quantity or quality of evidence can dislodge their disbelief in the Trinity, Incarnation, or miracles, because they begin with unfalsifiable "first principles, principles of common sense, and/or self-evident truths". Unitarians are to Trinitarians what methodological atheists are to supernaturalists.   

The problem with absolutizing certain criteria is that it prejudges the nature of reality, but to a great extent, reality must be discovered. We aren't born already knowing what's possible or impossible. Revelation and observation must inform our understanding of what's possible and impossible.  

The spirit of Elijah

Apostate Dale Tuggy responded to my post:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2018/04/unitarian-shortcuts.html

Steve, simplicity a desideratum - of course, not the only one - of theory-making in science, and really, just in common life. All other things being equal, we all prefer a simple explanation to a more complex one, e.g. in solving a crime. 

There are two kinds of simplicity: explanatory and ontological. 

It's a common error to confuse first principles or self-evident truths with truths known a priori (i.e. not on the basis of any experience, but only through conceptual analysis). 

The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy says "self-evident" is generally a synonym for "a priori" (p628). Philosophers like Carl Ginet and David W. Benfield operate with the same equivalence.   

The above truth is not one of those, of course, but is something an unbiased reader simply discerns in the NT texts. It's no harder than understanding that one character in a novel is supposed to be a different person (and so, being) than another character. 

But God is a very different kind of entity than finite human creatures. 

For that matter, reports of biolocation defy common sense appeals to numerical personal identity. 

As another example, Reid would say, when you are looking at apple right in front of you (in a well lit room, and your eyes are working, etc) that it is self-evident to you then that there is an apple right there. Notice the dependence on the visual experience. In my case, there is a dependence on reading, with basic comprehension.

The credibility of the first example (viewing the apple) is used to lend stolen credibility to unitarian hermeneutics, but that doesn't transfer because the two examples are so different.  

Steve, this is convoluted - you're typing too fast or something. Using "the spirit of X" to mean the power that was operative in X - that is wholly consistent with my point that the spirit of X isn't supposed to be someone in addition to X. That's just another usage, in addition to the common one I linked in the Psalms in the post, where you talk about "the spirit of X" meaning just, X himself, or inner part or aspect of him - again, not an additional self. 

That doesn't work in the passages I quoted, since you do have two different "selves": Elijah and Elisha or Elijah and John the Baptist, each of whom embodies "the spirit of Elijah". 

Yes, IF in that instance the "spirit" was meant to be a self. But often, it is a power or aspect of the one whose spirit it is. Admittedly, biblical spirit-talk is confusing to us. 

But now you're equivocating between two different definitions:

i) "spirit of X" synonymous with X himself

ii) "spirit of X" synonymous with "inner part or aspect" of X. 

And even in drawing that distinction, the Spirit is identical with the Father, or identical with the "inner part or aspect of him". On that definition, the Father and the Spirit are one and the same self. But that generates a dilemma when Dale simultaneously rejects adoration of the Spirit. But if the "Spirit of God" is synonymous with God or some aspect of God, then why isn't the Spirit a proper object of worship? 

As  unitarian, Dale wishes to deny that the Spirit of God is someone in addition to the Father/the one God, but in that event, the Spirit of God is a suitable object of worship inasmuch as the Spirit of God is interchangeable with God himself. Dale needs to pick one position and stick with it. 

Why Jesus Wouldn't Appear To Every Individual Or Christian Today

I want to add some comments of my own to Steve Hays' recent post on the subject. I don't want to repeat every point he's made, but there will be some overlap.

In my experience, skeptics don't give much consideration to the disadvantages of these alternatives to Christianity they propose, in this case an alternative version of Christianity that would have Jesus making an appearance to every individual or every Christian. They're so focused on the supposed advantages of their scenario that they give little attention to the downside.

There's no reason to think an appearance of Jesus would be necessary. Lesser evidence would be adequate. Why should we think the work of the Holy Spirit in an individual's heart, historical evidence for Jesus' life that's comparable to the evidence we commonly accept in other contexts involving historical matters, and other such means of leading a person to faith aren't enough?

God is simultaneously accomplishing multiple purposes in the world. Often, there are tradeoffs that require one thing to be gained at the expense of another.

Part of what God is doing is revealing and developing our character. For example, when an atheist doesn't have an adequate explanation for the evidence he has, yet he demands more evidence, that tells us something about his character. Similarly, there's a building of character when somebody who will eventually become a Christian has to value God enough to seek him, improves his character as he thinks through evidential issues and applies his conclusions to his life, and so on.

There are implications for God's character and how we relate to him. There's dignity in a king offering a pardon on his own terms rather than the criminal's. What if the criminal demands that the king come to him and give him the pardon in person? Whether the king accommodates that demand has implications for his character, how he's perceived, how other people looking on will behave, and so forth.

As Steve mentioned in his post, we have many extrabiblical examples of God providing people with an unusually large amount of evidence if he sees fit, and there are many Biblical examples of God doing so as well. God has sometimes answered my prayers, given me highly evidential supernatural confirmation of something in a context in which that confirmation was important to me, and acted supernaturally in my life in other ways. He doesn't always do it, and when he does it, the evidence he provides isn't maximal or even close to maximal. It doesn't have to be. (Similarly, when I'm interacting with other people, I often give them less evidence than I could, since that lesser evidence is adequate. Providing more would be inefficient, take too much time, give a false impression about what's needed in the situation, encourage false expectations in future contexts, etc.) And asking for more evidence wouldn't explain the evidence I have.

For some examples of the evidence we have, which critics are claiming we need to have supplemented, see here, here, and here. The presence of that evidence is far more difficult for a skeptic to explain than the absence of further evidence is for a Christian to explain. What Christianity affirms about matters like God's sovereignty and the work of the Holy Spirit make an appearance of Jesus to everybody unnecessary. God is already addressing everybody adequately. If that adequate work is supplemented by lines of evidence like the ones addressed in my three links above, there's no reason to think that more is needed.

A Whitsun Address

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2017/06/a-whitsun-address.html

God and God's Spirit

I've written a lot about the deity of Christ, but less about the personality and deity of the Spirit. That's in part because there's less material to work with. 

That's not a damaging concession. We have so much material about the Son because he became Incarnate, unlike the Father and the Spirit. The Gospels say comparatively less about the Father and the Spirit. If we only had the OT to go by, the nature of the Son would be more shadowy. In that respect, revelation about the Spirit is rather like OT revelation about the Son. Even so, it's striking that the Spirit plays a more prominent role in Acts and the Pauline epistles. That's because, in a sense, the Spirit takes over from Christ, after the Ascension. 

I think some of the traditional prooftexting for the personality and deity of the Spirit is weak and superficial, so I'd like to marshal some of the exegetical evidence differently. I'll present my material, then anticipate some objections. 

1. In Hebrews, God and the Spirit are interchangeable:

7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,

“Today, if you hear his voice, 8 do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, (Heb 3:7-8).

That's quoting Ps 95:7-8. In the original context, the speaker is Yahweh (v6) or Elohim (v7). But the author of Hebrews makes the Spirit the speaker. 

8 By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing (Heb 9:8).

In this section, the author of Hebrews is alluding to Pentateuchal instructions regarding the Mosaic cultus. In the original, these are represented as direct revelation from Yahweh. But the author of Hebrews attributes these instructions to the Spirit. 

15The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First He says: 16“This is the covenant I will make with them after those days, says the Lord (Heb 10:15-16). 

Minimally, this makes the Spirit the author of Scripture or agent of revelation. But it goes beyond that. The Spirit himself is making the new covenant. 

2. Paul says:

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law (Gal 5:22-23).

i) These virtues are dispositions. Mental properties as well as moral properties. But how can the effect be personal unless the cause is personal? How can the Spirit be the source these psychological characteristics unless the Spirit is a personal agent? 

ii) In addition, these are traits of godliness. They make Christians godlike. By the Spirit, Christians exemplify these exemplary virtues. But how can the Spirit be the source of communicable attributes unless he is divine? 

3. Paul says:

All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills (1 Cor 12:11).

This attributes intelligent agency to the Spirit. The Spirit exercises discretion in choosing who will receive which gift. 

4. Paul says:

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God (Rom 8:16).

i) If our human spirit is personal, can God's Spirit be less than personal?

ii) To be a witness is the action of a personal agent. 

5. Paul says:

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God (Rom 8:26-27).

The Spirit has a mind. The Spirit functions as a intercessor.

6. Paul says:

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption (Eph 4:30).

That attributes personality to the Spirit.

7. Paul says:

10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:10-11).

Paul's analogy involves a distinction between self-knowledge or introspection and the perspective of an outside observer. I alone know what I'm thinking. I have privileged access to my own mind. 

Or to use Paul's imagery, only my soul knows what I'm thinking. So the Holy Spirit is like the soul of God. Only God has direct knowledge of himself. 

There's a subject/object distinction in the process of introspection, where we engage in self-reflection. 

Now let's consider some objections:

1. Scripture simply uses "Spirit of God" as a stylistic variant for "God". They are one and the same thing. The distinction is rhetorical.

There are probably passages in which that explanation works. However, consider all those passages where God is in heaven while the Spirit comes down from heaven. That can't be collapsed into a stylistic variant, for it depicts two individuals in two different places. Even making allowance for the anthropomorphic use of spatial metaphors, it's not a rhetorical distinction. 

2. The "Spirit" is metaphorical language. It would be rendered "breath" or "wind".

i) Of course, Scripture uses other figurative designations for God. God is light, fire, and rock. But that hardly means God is just a metaphor for natural forces.

ii) Scripture uses the same terminology for angels. Angels are "spirits" (pneuma). That could be rendered "breath". But it hardly means that angels are just metaphors for natural forces. Not from a Biblical perspective. 

3. We could also say that when a prophet speaks, that's equivalent to God speaking. 

True, but there's a crucial difference. In their respective relationship to divine revelation, the Spirit is productive while a prophet is receptive. Prophets play an instrumental role in mediating divine revelation, while the Spirit is the originating source. Both are sources of divine revelation, but a prophet is a proximate source while the Spirit is the ultimate source. 

4. The Spirit is simply a personification for divine action in the world. 

i) Take the parallel between the Spirit coming down from heaven and angels coming down from heaven. If the Spirit is just a personified projection of divine power, then, by parity of argument, so are angels. Yet Scripture clearly presents angels as distinct individuals and agents. 

ii) In Jn 14-16, there's a symmetry between the Father, Son, and Spirit as personal agents.