AUTHORITY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT: THE "MISSING LINK" IN OUR CONTEMPORARY UNDERSTANDING OF DIVINE AUTHORITY?, THE

Trinity Journal, Fall 2004 by Studebaker, John A Jr

A. St. Augustine vs. John of Damascus

St. Augustine (354-430) was intensely interested in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Beginning with the idea of the Trinity as "pure relation" or expressions of relationships, Augustine calls the Spirit the vinculum caritas ("bond of love") between the Father and the Son27 and a caritas ("mutual gift") primarily from the Father to the Son, but also from the Son to the Father.28 As the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, he "proceeds"29 simultaneously from both Father and Son (and thus from only one source). Holding that the Spirit receives his divinity from the Son (just as the Son receives his divinity from the Father), Augustine rules out the idea that the Son is only a medium through which the Spirit proceeds (as proposed in the Eastern view). Instead, the Spirit acts as the principle agent in the economy of Christ's salvation by bringing the sinner into the life of the Trinity, into the relationship of love provided therein. Augustine gives the following summary of the Spirit's work:

According to Holy Scripture, this Holy Spirit is neither only the Spirit of the Father nor only the Spirit of the Son, but is the Spirit of both. Because of this, he is able to teach us that charity which is common both to the Father and to the Son and through which they love each other.30

Latin tradition holds that, since the Spirit and Son proceed equally from the Father, there must be a processional relationship between Son and Spirit as well (proceeding from Son to Spirit) in order for them to be distinguished.31 Within the unity of the godhead (which is defined in the word homoousios), the Trinitarian Persons are distinguished by the way they are "relationally opposed" to each other. In De Trinitate, Augustine confirms this Latin conception by referring to the terms "Father," "Son," and "Holy Spirit" as "relative" terms -that is, expressions of relationship.32 In dealing with the question of Filioque, Augustine makes a deliberate effort to oppose the Eastern conception of the Spirit by associating divine auctoritas (i.e., authority or source or authorship) with the Father alone, rather than to all three Persons. Augustine states, "Scripture enables us to know in the Father the principle, auctoritas, in the Son being begotten and born, nativitas, and in the Spirit the union of the Father and the Son, Pain's Filioque communitas."33

John of Damascus (675-749), however, provides one of the few early documents that literally grant "authority" to the Spirit:

Likewise we become also in one Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, which proceeds from the Father and rests in the Son, the object of equal adoration and glorification with the Father and the Son, since it is con-substantial and co-eternal, the Spirit of God, direct, authoritative, the foundation of wisdom and life and holiness; God existing and addressed along with the Father and the Son; uncreated, full, creative, all-ruling, all-effecting, all-powerful, of infinite power; Lord above all creation, and not under any Lord.34