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 (possessing the same nature or substance) with the Father and Son without losing his distinction in hypostasis. Gregory of Nyssa held to the conviction of the monarchy of the Father, which is illustrated by several metaphors—a lamp, for example, which communicates its light to another lamp and through that lamp to a third lamp. The Spirit alone shone in this way, he taught, eternally through the Son.34 The result of this argument was a “new” view of the Spirit as deifier or sanctifier, the one who transforms various common or material elements through his sanctifying power. In turn, humans are transformed by partaking in the sacramental provision of the Spirit. It is “the visitation of the Spirit that comes sacramentally to set us free.”35
Gregory of Nazianzus (ca. 330—ca. 385) is often called “the theologian” by the Eastern Church, and was the first of the Cappadocian Fathers to declare that the Spirit is “God.” He proclaimed, “Each [of the three persons] is God by reason of ‘consubstantiality,’ the three are God by reason of monarchy.”36 He was called in 380 by the emperor to clarify the doctrine of the deity of the Spirit (which was considered the key debate of the day). Gregory’s Fifth Theological Oration was as much of an attack upon the Orthodox Church (which seemed ambivalent on this issue) as it was upon the Arians. He argued, somewhat like Gregory of Nyssa, that there is one light that comes to us from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit:
Light, and light, and light, but one light, and one God. David anticipated this when he said, “In your light shall we see light.” But now we have seen and we preach, receiving the light of the Son from the light of the Father, in the light of the Holy Spirit.37
For Gregory of Nazianzus, this divine outreach cannot be divided up between creature and Creator. The light that is received by the creature must be true God in itself—for if the Spirit in whom the light comes to us is not God, how can we be saved? “If he is ranked with me, how can he divinise me?”38 he asks. Then he poses the rhetorical question, “Is the Spirit God?” to which Gregory answers, “Most certainly,” and adds, “Is he homoousios ? Yes, if he is God!”39 Whereas the Arians objected that the plurality of the Father, Son, and Spirit is on the same level as the plurality of “three crabs,” Gregory rebuts that consubstantiality makes such a ridiculous comparison impossible because “the fact that the three are consubstantial is affirmation enough of the divine unity, while also making simply numeration along creaturely lines logically and metaphysically inappropriate.”40
One would think that the council of Constantinople (ca. 381) would recognize the impenetrable logic of Gregory’s argument. However, because of the fear of a tumultuous reaction from the