THE ANONYMITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

(a small part of an address on "The Person of the Holy Spirit" given in Trinity College, University of Melbourne, August 24, at the Conference of the Prayer Book Society of Victoria, Australia)

Have you ever pondered why there are so few hymns and prayers addressed directly to the Holy Spirit in the Liturgy of the Orthodox Churches, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church and the Lutheran Church?

Have you ever pondered why the normal way of prayer in all the major jurisdictions and branches of the Church of God is "To the Father, through the Incarnate Son and in the Holy Spirit" ?

We recall that the Holy Spirit has a Name that can also be used of the First Person, the Father, and of the Second Person, the Son, in the Holy and Undivided Trinity. For the Father and the Son being God are truly HOLY SPIRIT and HOLY BEING and HOLY ESSENCE. Thus it is that theologians and mystics have spoken of the anonymity of the Third Person for His Name is not a Name of the same kind as the Names of the First and Second Persons. Their names are Proper Names unique to each of these Persons.

If we ponder the Revelation of the Trinity recorded in the words of the Hebrew and Greek Testaments of the one Bible, we notice the divine Order of the Trinity's self-revelation. It is FROM the Father through the Son and in/by the Holy Spirit [in creation, revelation, reconciliation, redemption etc.] and it is TO the Father through/with the Son and in/by the Holy Spirit [in sanctification, service, worship, prayer etc.].

The Holy Spirit is the PERSONAL presence and sphere IN which we are reached by the Father through the Son in order to be saved and sanctified. He is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son. And the same Spirit is also the PERSONAL presence IN whom we are united to the Incarnate Son as disciples for service and worship and final redemption. Thus we call upon the Father through the Son; and we call upon the Son and through him reach His Father; but we do not call upon the Holy Spirit (in the normal way of things) for He is the divine presence in which such relations with the Father and the Son are possible and real. Thus his anonymity is in the divine grace for us and for our salvation!

Let us ponder this anonymity further. With respect to the Person of the Holy Ghost, we note in the divine economy that his anonymity arises from the ordered relation (the taxis as the Greeks say) of the Three Persons within the Holy Trinity.

The Father, although totally unknowable to us by himself, is revealed to us by the Son, who is his perfect image and has assumed our human nature. "No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him" (John 1:18). Further, we can only recognize the deity of Jesus Christ and confess him as the Lord through the Holy Spirit, says St Paul (1 Corinthians 12:3) -- economy within the Church of the Spirit is to be the Interpreter [as Paraclete] of the Son (see John 14:26).

To quote from Gregory of Nyssa, "One does not think of the Father without the Son and one does not conceive of the Son without the Holy Spirit. For it is impossible to attain to the Father except by being raised by the Son, and it is impossible to call Jesus Lord save in the Holy Spirit" (P.G. LXIV,1316).

But there is no Fourth Person in the one Godhead to reveal and to interpret the Spirit. Thus the Holy Spirit is necessarily the Interpreter rather than the interpreted. And this is why there are so few hymns and prayers in the worship and liturgy of the Church that are directly addressed to the Person of the Holy Ghost. The Father and the Son are worshipped IN the Holy Ghost!

V.Lossky writes: "The third Hypostasis of the Trinity is the only one not having his image in another Person. The Holy Spirit as Person remains unmanifested, hidden, concealing himself in his very appearing..The doctrine of the Holy Spirit (in contrast to the dazzling manifestation of the Son, which the Church proclaims to the farthest confines of the universe) has the character of a secret, a partially revealed tradition.. We confess the Holy Trinity. But the very Person of the Holy Spirit who reveals these truths to us and who renders them inwardly luminous, manifest, almost tangible to us, neverthless remains himself undisclosed and hidden, concealed by the deity which he reveals to us, by the gift he imparts" Mystical Theology, p.160-161.

Now to practical application.

What I note in much of the modern charismatic & evangelical movement is public discourse - both addressed to humankind and to the Deity - that has two distinct tendencies (a) to exaggerate what God the Holy Spirit has done and is doing in the church and the world through stories that intend to honor God, and (b) to break out of the sacred anonymity that belongs to the Holy Spirit and to name Him and seek to identity His work in a way that is not in harmony with the divine economy of the relational order - From the Father through the Son and IN the Holy Spirit; to the Father through the Son and IN the Holy Spirit. That is, to make more of the Holy Spirit (and thus less of the Father and the Son) than does the Revelation written in Holy Scripture.

The Rev'd Dr Peter Toon, August 27, 2001