Lecture 3 - Pneumatology

Question 1

Pneumatology

Answer 1

The study of the Holy Spirit.

Question 2

Ontological Pneumatology

Answer 2

Discusses the person of the Spirit: his divinity, personhood, and procession

Question 3

Seven Arguments for the Divinity of the Holy Spirit

Answer 3

Explicit passages, baptism of Jesus, baptismal formula, apostolic benedictions, attributes of the Spirit, possibility of blaspheming the Spirit, and the works of the Spirit

Question 4

Personhood of the Spirit

Answer 4

The Spirit is not a force or power. He is a person of the Godhead, capable of relationship.

Question 5

Pneumatomachians

Answer 5

Say the Spirit is a force, not a person. The Spirit is a tool and doesn’t have the power to do anything.

Question 6

Socinianism

Answer 6

Deny the Trinity by denying the Spirit. Said he was an instrument of the first two persons.

Question 7

Jehovah’s Witness

Answer 7

The Spirit is a force emanating from God rather than a person.

Question 8

Eternal Procession

Answer 8

The Spirit’s eternal relation of origin, eternally proceeding from the Father and Son.

Question 9

Biblical Case for the Spirit’s Personhood

Answer 9

Scripture discusses the Spirit in a personal way: grief, will, insulted, testifies, teaches, leads, prays.

Question 10

Filioque Controversy

Answer 10

“And the Son.” The discussion of whether the Spirit proceeds from only the Father or the Father and the Son. A leading cause in the great schism (aligning with the question of inspiration).

Question 11

Modern Social Trinitarianism

Answer 11

The economy constitutes the immanent

Question 12

Eternal Functional Subordination

Answer 12

The economy is projected onto the immanent.

Question 13

Orthodox View of Trinity

Answer 13

The economy reflects and reveals the immanent. The work of each person is fitting to their relation of origin.

Question 14

Functional Pneumatology

Answer 14

The work of the Spirit

Question 15

Inseparable Operations

Answer 15

There is one essence and one will in the Trinity, so there is not separation of the work or operations of the Trinity.

Question 16

Appropriation

Answer 16

Certain acts in the operation are appropriated to one person.

Question 17

The Spirit in Creation

Answer 17

We don’t understand, but work of ordering, and breathing out creation (Ruach word for breath and spirit)

Question 18

The Spirit in Scripture

Answer 18

The Spirit is responsible for inspiring and illuminating Scripture. The Spirit received the Word from the Father and Son, passed it onto the human authors, and teaches readers what it means.

Question 19

Inspiration

Answer 19

Father to Son to Spirit to Prophets and Apostles who wrote it for readers.

Question 20

Illumination

Answer 20

The Spirit reveals the meaning of the Scripture in the reading of Scripture.

Question 21

The Spirit in Salvation

Answer 21

All members of the Trinity are involved in salvation.

Question 22

Accomplishment

Answer 22

Historical events that Jesus went through that made salvation possible.

Question 23

Application

Answer 23

Salvation being applied to a person’s account; the implications of the accomplishment

Question 24

The Spirit’s Economic Role in Salvation

Answer 24

The Spirit is primarily involved in the application of salvation. In the accomplishment, he is the one who makes sense of how there is no communicatio idiomatum, empowering Christ’s ministry.

Question 25

The Spirit and the Church

Answer 25

We do not have the church without the Spirit. The Spirit shows up and so does the church. The Spirit converts and then keeps believers.