The “Divine Authority” of the Spirit—Definition and Storyline
Is there a provisional definition of the Holy Spirit’s authority that we are able to infer from these defenses of the Spirit’s divinity? If so, how might this definition: (1) correlate with our principle and pattern of divine authority? (2) provide a beginning or basis for the “storyline” of the Spirit’s authority in theological history?
In order to assess these questions, we will need to borrow a bit of logic regarding authority from some contemporary theologians. Frame, for example, defines divine Lordship as “covenant headship.”42
[All created things] are appointed to be covenant servants, to obey God’s law, and to be instruments of His gracious purpose. If God is covenant head, then He is exalted above His people; He is transcendent. If He is covenant head, then He is deeply involved with them; He is immanent. Note how beautifully these two concepts fit together when understood biblically.43
Divine Lordship thereby provides a key window into our understanding of divine authority and Personhood. According to Frame, Lordship involves control, authority, and presence.44
Control is evident in that the covenant is brought about by God’s sovereign power. . . Authority is God’s right to be obeyed, and since God has both control and authority, He embodies both might and right. To say that God’s authority is absolute means that His commands may not be questioned (Job 40:11ff.; Rom 4:18–20; 9:20; Heb. 11:4, 7, 8, 17, passim), that divine authority transcends all other loyalties (Exod 20:3; Deut. 6:4f.; Matt. 8:19–22; 10:34–38; Phil. 3:8), and that this authority extends to all areas of human life (Exod.; Lev.; Num.; Deut.; Rom 14:32; 1 Cor 10:31; 2 Cor 10:5; Col. 3:17–23). Control and authority—these are the concepts that come to the fore when the Lord is present to us as exalted above creation and they are as far removed as possible from any notion of God as “wholly other” or as “infinitely distant.”45
Several arguments in patristic pneumatology clearly allow us to infer the Spirit’s “divine authority” as a Divine Person. Each looks to the Spirit as one whose supreme right with respect to the world can be described in both transcendent and immanent terms. Athanasius’ argument from Gen 1:1–23 and 1 Cor 2:11–12 allows us to infer his belief in the Spirit as a first cause. Classical theology recognizes God to be the principium essendi (“first cause”), the foundation that underlies all activity. This attribute displays divine transcendence and yet is centered in immanence (as the divine causation of all creation). God is the beginning and the end, the “author” of all things and all authority. However, “this metaphysical absoluteness does not (as in non-Christian thought) force God in to the role of an abstract principle.”46 Athanasius’ “absolute” language regarding the Spirit’s divine immutability and divine supremacy over all things provides valuable contributions as well to our understanding of the Spirit’s divine Personhood.
Basil’s inductive reasoning (from the Spirit’s activity as the breath of God and sanctifier to the Spirit’s infinite power, eternality, and moral supremacy) employs similar logic. Basil’s insistence on the Spirit’s equality (with the Father and the Son), dignity, and demonstration of divine goodness also confirms the Spirit’s authority as a divine Person. Here Basil does expose his platonic leanings, pointing to his preference for transcendence in theology. Nevertheless, Basil’s thought did serve to pave the way for the popular notion of divine ousia and accounted for the “oneness” of the three “hypostases.” The implication of a shared divinity is the sharing of divine authority amongst the three hypostases.
Gregory of Nyssa’s theological anthropology demonstrates the Spirit’s divine Personhood as well. Gregory’s understanding of the Spirit’s sanctification is described as an internal process within us arising from an external source that descends upon us. Forsythe clarifies this key distinction:
An authority must be external, in some real sense, or it is none. It must be external to us. It must be something not ourselves, descending on us in a grand paradox. . . . [It] must reveal itself in a way of miracle. It does not arise out of human nature by any development, but descends upon it with an intervention, a revelation, a redemption.47
Such an authority, according to Forsythe, is not foreign or alien—it is “other.” It represents a kind of pressure upon our souls. Gregory’s transcendent understanding of the Spirit certainly drives a premeditated stake through the heart of the “modern soul”—that “transcendent ego” or individuality that refuses the sanctifying wisdom which comes “from above” (James 3:15, 17). According to Forsythe, such wisdom is dispensed by the “Grand State Secretary of heaven on earth, the Holy Spirit.”48
In speaking of the Father and Son as being “consubstantial,” Gregory of Nazianzen recognizes that the light of the Spirit must also be “true God in itself” in order to save us. While Athanasius argues for the Spirit’s divinity from the Spirit’s participation in the divine act of creation, Gregory argues from soteriology. Forsythe tightens this crucial link between divine authority and soteriology:
If there is any authority over the natural man, it must be that of its Creator; and, if the New Humanity has any authority above it, that authority must be found in the act of its creation, which act is the Cross of Christ.49
This is where our “story” begins—the story of the progressive unveiling the Spirit’s authority in theological Church history. This first substantial “unveiling” emerges through a heated debate regarding the Spirit’s essential nature—the idea that the Spirit, as a divine Person, possesses divine authority. The Spirit retains authority over the world while revealing God’s authority to us. The Patristic arguments for the Spirit’s equality and shared divinity with the other Trinitarian Persons point toward his authority as a divine Person. Their arguments for the Spirit’s divine transcendence, divine “absoluteness,” and involvement in certain activities (i.e., creation, salvation, and sanctification) confirm this authority.50
As seen in the previous chapter, the “principle of authority” in Christianity grants the Spirit “divine authority” as a divine Person. This lies at the foundation of pattern of divine authority. The Church Fathers seem to claim that the Spirit, as a member of the Trinity, reveals himself to all humanity by demonstrating his authority over all humanity. This seems to become the first parameter within which a case for the Spirit’s authority can be developed.51 Any attempt to portray the Spirit’s nature as subordinate, “creaturely,” or in purely “anthropomorphic” terms will only run against these theological conclusions in that they only serve to reduce the Spirit to something less than a fully divine Person (and thus not able to possess divine authority at all).
Historians will rightly point out that the Nicene and Constantinople Creeds are ambiguous regarding the divinity of the Spirit. The reason for this, however, is well-known—namely, the Church rightly saw the need for clarification of Christology before pneumatology.52 Yet, interestingly, the word choice given in the Constantinople Creed in describing the Spirit as “the Lord, the Life-giver” represents the Spirit’s authority more so than his divinity.53