What Is the Holy Spirit - Essay Example

THE HOLY SPIRIT by The of the The of the School The and where it is locatedThe Date The Holy Spirit One would make no mistake pointing out that there is a considerable number of differences between the human civilization and groups which are formed by the living organisms. Indeed, the concept of religion is not found anywhere beyond the boundaries of the human society. However, it happens so that there are also may be differences between what people believe within the framework of one religion. This paper will utilize the data which was obtained from the interviews of three ministers which belong to different churches, representing the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Pentecostal church. The leaders were asked to dwell on the role of the Holy Spirit, its characteristics as well overall significance. In order to protect privacy, the names have been changed. The first interview was conducted with a representative of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The first question was a rather straightforward one: What is the Holy Spirit?. Father John simply replied: “He is God”. Having seen the surprise on my face, he decided to dwell on the concept of Trinity: “You see, we, Christians believe that Jesus Christ was a Son of God. This is true. This makes Him God Son. It is quite obvious that there is also God Father. You may wonder about the relationship between them. Well, the latter give birth to the former. But there is also the Holy Spirit. We believe that he is emanated from God Father as well”. As one can easily see, the minister who belongs to the Eastern Orthodox Church sees a great difference between the two actions: being generated from God Father and being emanated from Him. Afterwards I asked a rather logical question: “Should not people worship God Father then, instead of God Son and the Holy Spirit”. It is obvious that the priest answered in the following way: “No, of course they should not. God Father, just like God Son and the Holy Spirit are the three Persons of Holy Trinity”. Indeed, this connection between one being three and three being one is rather difficult to grasp for ordinary people, but Father John did not seem to have a problem with that. The later questions were focused on the function of the Holy Spirit. According to Father John, this Person of Trinity was responsible for many different miracles, like giving a person supernatural powers. However, it would not be wise to think of the Holy Spirit as some kind of a special force that provides people with something extraordinary. It is more advisable to consider it the manifestation of Trinity which is focused on the performance of the active change of the reality. Finally, I could not resist asking Father John about the differences of his Church and Roman Catholic. He noted that it would be quite wrong to make a close connection between nature of the Holy Spirit and God Son, as it distorts the perfect balance in the Trinity. In other words, the principle which is believed to be correct by the Roman Catholic Church makes the Holy Spirit somewhat inferior to the other Persons of the Trinity. Moreover, the very beginning of it, namely the development of the filioque is regarded as a nonsense by him: how could people simply add a word to the Creed, ultimately changing the role of the Holy Spirit? The next person whom I interviewed was a minister who represented the Roman Catholic Church. At first I did not want to tell him about the other interview, so I started with the basic question about the Holy Spirit. Father Benedict replied in a manner similar to Father John: “The Holy Spirit is a manifestation of God that we all believe in”. However, in the way he put it there was something that gave away the difference: it was like there was something that he wanted to add. I tried to encourage him to dwell on the topic: “So, Trinity is three different Persons?”. “Not quite” - was the reply. “You see, God Father gave birth to God Son, but there was another Person in the Trinity – the Holy Spirit. The latter was created by God Father with the help, or as we say through, God Son”. These words presented the biggest difference between the East Orthodox and Roman Catholic Church. I later asked him to explain if this means that the Holy Spirit was in any kind more inferior to the other Persons of the Trinity. Father Benedict said: “You can say that: in spite of the fact that it is emanated through God Son, it does not make it inferior in that sense that angels are inferior to God”. I have understood the idea of the relationship between the three Persons so I asked the minister to explain the role of the Holy Spirit. It seemed that in many examples the functions were somewhat similar. For example, the Holy Spirit is thought to protect the Pope from making errors while leading the congregation. This is similar to the Orthodox approach in that the Holy Spirit allows people to perform extraordinary actions. Finally, I decided to ask Father Benedict about the controversy over filioque principle. This minister was quite confident about his position. “It is clear that throughout the Bible it is said that the Holy Spirit is connected to God Father. However, there is no explicit indication that the emergence of the Holy Spirit is connected to God Father only. That is why the allegations in that we, the Catholics, believe in heresy are nonsense”. It is quite clear that none of the ministers would want to acknowledge the validity of the opposite point of view. One should point out that the question about the Holy Spirit is one of the most fundamental ones as it is able to have influence on many other significant aspects of faith. That is the reason why the ministers who belong to the two quite opposite confessions of the Christianity adhere to the traditional understanding of this Person of the Trinity. Finally, the last interview that I had was with a minister who belonged to a Pentecostal Church. Father James was welcoming and eager to answer any questions that I had about his faith. Thus, just like with the previous spiritual leaders I started with a simple question What is the Holy Spirit? Father James was rather surprised with this kind of an opening question and replied swiftly: “It is one of the manifestations of God with the help of which a person is able to be blessed”. This answer was rather a surprising one since from the very beginning the minister put emphasis on the function that is performed by this Person. Later, I asked Father James about the relationship to God Father or God Son and he replied the following: “These are very difficult matters, you see. A lot of scholars were not able to come to the unified vision. However, we believe that the Holy Spirit is emanated by Father through Son”. I could see that in this particular aspect the Roman Catholic minister and the Pentecostal minister might agree which may be easily explained by the history of the development of the two churches. So, just like Father Benedict, Father James pointed out that there is no lack of balance between the Persons in the Holy Trinity, but one should note that the Holy Spirit is emanated from God Father through God Son. Later in the discussion Father James suggested that the role of the Holy Spirit is particularly important for the modern believers as they are able to feel the grace of it in case they open up their heart. He pointed out that God Father was active primarily in the times of the Old Testament, God Son was active as Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit is active at the present day through genuine believers. Finally, when I asked him about the controversy over the origin of the Holy Spirit, he noted that these are difficult theological matter that do not allow the mind of a person to focus on what is really important. Having interviewed three ministers I was able to see the three approaches to the idea of the Holy Spirit which was advocated by Eastern Orthodox Church, Roman Catholic Church and Pentecostal Church. Thus, the former argues that the Holy Spirit should be considered to separate Person in the Holy Trinity which is equal to the Other Two and that is emanated for God Father only. Contrary to that the Roman Catholic Church teaches that the Holy Spirit is a part of the Holy Trinity, but it features a closer connection with God Son which emphasizes the role of the latter. In addition to that Pentecostal Church agrees with the Catholic Church, but argues that the role of the Holy Spirit should not be diminished as the present time is when this Person is the most active. Thus, this confession of Christianity pays great attention to the baptism with the Holy Spirit and preaches that every person who is able to open one’s heart is able to achieve this grace. Read More