The Holy Spirit is God!

[catholicxjw]

A discussion about the Holy Spirit and how the Jehovah’s Witnesses misunderstand who and what the Holy Spirit is. Also, a discussion on why The Trinity Doctrine is so important to Christians. Contemporary Christian Music is "Kol Yisrael" by Jeremy Gimbel, I Testify of Him by Feat Jenee and Steven Steward, and Lift Up Your Eyes by Eddie Ramirez.

catholicxjw.blogspot.com/

www.catholicxjw.com/catholicxjwpodcast.html

[anne]

The Holy Spirit to them is like electricity.................and 'it' a 'power force' very new age or is it old age dressed up? or is it Hinduism?
Many Evangelical crazies like Kenneth Copeland believe the same.

But an 'it' cannot speak,teach,guide etc: can IT.

[onpatmos]

and 'it' a 'power force' very new age or is it old age dressed up?

Anne - funny, I was thinking the same thing recently with regard to each individual's "spirit". The Witness leadership talks about each individual's "spirit" being his "life force" - but "life force" is a phrase that is used in some definitions of the Eastern concept of "chi", or "qi".

Here is a page that shows the difficulties the Witness leadership has in explaining how an archangel's "life force" was transferred from heaven to the womb of Mary. Scroll down to the part that says "Michael's Life-force Transferrred to Mary", and forward. (not saying I agree with everything at this site...)
mmoutreachinc.com/jehovahs_witnesses/michael_archangel2.html

[shiner]

Give this a lookover:
"I myself have made the earth, Mankind and the Beasts that are upon the surface of the earth by MY GREAT POWER and by my out-stretched - Arm and I have given it to whom it has proved righteous in my eyes." {Jeremiah 27:5} "Now the earth proved to be formless and waste and there was darkness upon the surface of the Watery- deep and God's ACTIVE FORCE was moving to and fro over the surface of the Waters." {Genesis 1:2} I'm thinking if we really wish to know what the Holy Spirit is, we should ask the one who is in possession of it! Great idea what? Shiner

[gkchesterton]

Dec 17, 2009 16:08:32 GMT -5 shiner said:

Give this a lookover:
"I myself have made the earth, Mankind and the Beasts that are upon the surface of the earth by MY GREAT POWER and by my out-stretched - Arm and I have given it to whom it has proved righteous in my eyes." {Jeremiah 27:5}

If we take this as literally as you want to read it, that is that none other than God was involved in creation, then you must accept that Jesus is also God. I'm fine with that, but it doesn't go where you want to go and Arius would have been careful not to make such a serious mistake.

"Now the earth proved to be formless and waste and there was darkness upon the surface of the Watery- deep and God's ACTIVE FORCE was moving to and fro over the surface of the Waters." {Genesis 1:2} I'm thinking if we really wish to know what the Holy Spirit is, we should ask the one who is in possession of it! Great idea what? Shiner

Active force is a bad translation. "Spirit" or "breath" is much better. Even then the same commentary holds, we know that the Father was not the only one involved, so if we hold to your reading then all three are one in at least some strange way.

At this point you have to deal with that trickiest of versus. That is v 27. Here God says, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness"

"Our" is critical here as it is one of the few times that God is self-referentially plural. Now the Witnesses argue that he is referring to the angels, but as you yourself have shown, the NT makes it clear that only one other person has claimed the "likeness" of God.

Then we have to deal with those other odd situations for Witness theology on the Holy Spirit.

Acts 16:6 - "And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia."

A "power" acts. It does not forbid. To forbid it has to communicate, as a person would.

1 Cor 6:19 - "Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?"

You don't have a temple to an attribute of a thing/god, you have a temple to the thing itself.

Acts 8:29 - "And the Spirit said to Philip, "Go over and join this chariot.""

Persons talk, things without personalities don't.

And of course...

Matthew 28:19 - "baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, "

Now it is true that things have names, but why include an attribute amongst a list of persons?