The doctrine of the Holy Spirit (in contrast
to the dazzling manifestation of the Son which the Church proclaims to the
farthest confines of the universe), has the character of a sacred, a partially
revealed tradition. St. Gregory Nazianzen points to a mysterious economy in our
knowledge of the truths which concern the person of the Holy Spirit: ‘The Old Testament,’
he says, ‘manifested the Father plainly, the Son obscurely. The New Testament
revealed the Son and hinted at the divinity of the Holy Spirit. Today the
Spirit dwells among us and makes Himself more clearly known. For it was not
safe, when the Godhead of the Father was not yet acknowledged, plainly to
proclaim the Son; nor when that of the Son was not yet received to burden us
further (if I may use so bold an expression) with the Holy Spirit . . . but
rather that by gradual additions, and, as David says, goings up and advances
and progress from glory to glory, the light of the Trinity might shine upon the
more illuminated. . . . You see lights breaking upon us gradually; and the
order of Theology, which it is better for us to keep, neither proclaiming
things too suddenly, nor yet keeping them hidden to the end. For the former
course would be unreasonable; the latter impious; and the former would be
calculated to startle outsiders, the latter to alienate our own people. . . .
Our Saviour had some things which, He said, could not be borne at that time by His
disciples (though they were filled with many teachings) . . . and again He said
that all things should be taught us by the Spirit when He should come to dwell among
us. Of these things, one, I take, it, was the Deity of the Spirit Himself, made
clear later on when such knowledge should be opportune and capable of being
received after our Saviour’s restoration when the knowledge of His own Deity
should be established.’ The Godhead of the Son is established by the Church and
preached throughout the whole universe. We confess, too, the Deity of the Holy Spirit
in common with that of the Father and that of the Son: we confess the Holy
Trinity. But the very Person of the Holy Spirit who reveals these truths to us
and who renders them inwardly luminous, manifest, almost tangible to us,
nevertheless remains Himself undisclosed and hidden, concealed by the deity
which He reveals to us, by the gift which He imparts. (Vladimir Lossky, The
Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church [Crestwood, N. Y.: St. Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, 1976], 161-62)
To
Support this Blog:
Email for Amazon Gift
card: ScripturalMormonism@gmail.com
Email for Logos.com
Gift Card: IrishLDS87@gmail.com
