Letters Concerning the Holy Spirit and Letters to Serapion present perhaps the best defense of the Spirit’s divinity in the first millennium of the Church. As the chief elaborator and defender of the Nicene Creed after 325, Athanasius suffered considerable persecution from Arian politicians. When Athanasius turned his attention to the doctrine of the Spirit he gained many converts from Arianism, such as the followers of Serapion, who had accepted the homoousios of the Son with the Father but continued to view the Spirit as a creature. In his Letters to Serapion, Athanasius uses divine attributes such as immutability and supremacy to convincingly demonstrate the Spirit’s divinity. First, the Spirit’s divinity is witnessed in His immutability.
That the Spirit is above the creation, distinct in nature from things originated, and proper to the Godhead, can be seen from the following considerations also. The Holy Spirit is incapable of change and alteration. For it says, “The Holy Spirit of discipline will flee deceit and will start away from thoughts that are without understanding.” (Wis. 1:5). And Peter said, “In the incorruptibility of the meek and quiet Spirit” (1 Pet 3:4). . . . The Holy Spirit, being in God, must be incapable of change, variation, and corruption.23
Second, the Spirit’s divinity emerges from His supremacy over all things.
Again, the Spirit of the Lord fills the universe. Thus David sings, “Whither shall I go from your Spirit?” (Psalm 139:7) Again, in Wisdom it is written, “Your incorruptible Spirit is in all things.” (Wis. 12:1) . . . But if the Spirit fills all things, and if the angels, being his inferiors, are circumscribed, and where they are sent forth, there are they present; it is not to be doubted that the Spirit does not belong to things originated, nor is he an angel at all, as you say, but by nature is above the angels.24
While Origen took a “spiritualizing” approach to the exegesis of Scriptures, Athanasius emphasized the use of a “grammatical-historical” interpretive scheme.25 Well known for his knowledge of Scripture, Athanasius actually moved beyond the letter of Scripture and theological tradition in order to confront sects that denied the deity of the Spirit. Perhaps his most famous argument lies in the contrast he drew between the nature of creatures and the nature of the Spirit. He employed Gen 1:1–23 to demonstrate that creatures are created from nothing and come into being at a particular time, and 1 Cor 2:11–12 to show that the Spirit is not created but emerges directly from God.26 Athanasius backed this contrast with persuasive logic:
They say also in their hearts “there is no God” (Ps. 14:1). For if, as no one knows the thoughts of a man save the spirit who is in him (en autw): would it not be evil speech to call the Spirit who is in God (en tw Qew) a creature, him who searches even the depths of God? For from this the speaker will learn to say that the spirit of man is outside himself, and that the Word of God, who is in the Father (en tw patri) is a creature.27
Athanasius also applies the logic of Nicean Christology and the concept of homoousios to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, demonstrating that the Spirit bears the same rank and relative function to the Son as the Son does to the Father.
And if the Son, because he is of the Father, is proper to his essence, it must be that the Spirit, who is said to be from God, is in essence proper to the Son. And so, as the Lord is Son, the Spirit is called Spirit of sonship. Again, as the Son is Wisdom and Truth, the Spirit is described as the Spirit of Wisdom and Truth. Again, the Son is the Power of God and Lord of Glory, and the Spirit is called Spirit of Power and of Glory. So Scripture refers to each of them. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:8). . . . Peter wrote, “If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you; because the Spirit of glory and of power rests upon you” (1 Pet. 4:14). The Lord is called the Spirit, “Spirit of truth” and “Paraclete;” whence he shows that the Triad is in him complete.28
Thus, for Athanasius, the Spirit’s attributes of divine power and divine glory seem to be “lordship” attributes. Athanasius cites the baptismal formula, “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” maintaining that since we now know that the Son is God along with the Father, it makes no sense to introduce a creature (i.e., the Arian Holy Spirit) into the Trinity.29 The Spirit must therefore be a procession of the Father and not a mere creation of the Father (Athanasius cites John 15:26, “the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father”).
Even more central to Athanasius’ argument, however, is his association of the Spirit with our sanctification (which is indeed a vital part of our salvation), concluding that the Spirit must therefore be our savior, together with the Father and the Son. The argument is inductive, beginning with the work of the Spirit and moving to the person of the Spirit. Since sanctification is a divine activity, the Spirit must be divine. Athanasius provided this argument at a synod in Alexandria in 362, at which the full divinity of the Spirit was clearly acknowledged.
Other Contributors
Eunomius (ca. 335–393), a relatively late Arian, regarded the Son as a creature of the Father and the Spirit as a creature of the Son (as the first and greatest work of the Son). Since “the Son is inferior to the Father, but superior to the Spirit,”30 the Spirit is third not only in rank and dignity but also in nature. Such pneumatomachi (those who “fight against the Spirit”) based their teaching on the notion that the Spirit is not specifically referred to as “God” in Scripture, but rather as a power that seems subordinate to God or placed between God and the creatures.31
The Cappadocian Fathers (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus) developed some of the most penetrating rebukes to such Arian theology. Their strategy, essentially, was to distinguish between ousia and hypostases (i.e., between divine oneness and the distinctiveness of the three Persons). Writing around the time of the Iconium Council (375), Basil continued in the logic of Athanasius (in his On the Holy Spirit), countering Arian assertions that the Spirit is a creature by insisting that the Spirit’s equality and dignity qualifies the Spirit as a member of the Trinity. Basil’s most penetrating questions to Eunomius are: “Why should ‘third in order’ necessarily mean ‘third in nature’?” and “How could the name of a created being have found place in the baptismal formula together with the Father and the Son?”32 Arguing from the Spirit’s work to his divinity, Basil essentially asked: “If the Spirit is the breath of God and has the power to sanctify, how can he be a mere creature? If the Spirit is an intelligent substance (ousia) of infinite power, unlimited by time, and naturally sought by all those seeking holiness and virtue, does this not establish his divinity?”
[Basil] is describing the Spirit as the divine goodness that permeates the world and that the world somehow shares in; the Platonic philosophical basis of his thought, together with his Christian faith, certainly makes him inclined to see goodness in such metaphysical and indeed specifically theological terms.33
Gregory of Nyssa also used the baptismal formula in his defense of the Spirit’s divinity. He went further than Athanasius, however, by developing this classical argument into a theological anthropology, which is witnessed in the Spirit’s formation (morphosis) and perfection of the Christian. Gregory argued at Constantinople (ca. 381) that this action requires the Spirit to be God and to receive the same honor as the Father and the Son. The sanctifying Spirit is to be considered consubstantial
