The person of the Holy Spirit: personal pronouns and neuter gender?

The Holy Spirit and words in the neuter

Something I deal with briefly in my book on the Trinity is a rather strange objection to the Christian belief that the Holy Spirit is personal (to the point of being referred to as a person). I make the point in the book that God doesn't have an impersonal side. So what's the issue here?

This objection runs like this: "The word for 'spirit' in Greek - the word 'pneuma' - is neuter, it's not masculine or feminine, it's neuter, like an 'it,' and therefore the Holy Spirit cannot be a person."

As objections go, that is not a very good one. In New Testament Greek, there are lots of instances where words for human beings are in the neuter gender. (Greek is one of those languages where words have genders.) So neuter doesn't automatically mean non-person. Here are some Greek neuter nouns used for people, and where you can find them in the New Testament:

- gunaicharion = small woman (in 2 Timothy 3:6 referring to women old enough to be burdened with sins and led away by passions)

- brephos = baby (in Luke 1:41 - referring to John the Baptist; see also Luke 2:12 for brephos referring to Jesus; and 1 Peter 2:2 for brephos as an analogy for new Christians who are presumably adults)

- teknon = child (in Mark 2:5 applied to someone old enough to need forgiveness of his sins; and see similar in Galatians 4:19 referring to believers)

- teknion = little child (referring to the disciples in John 13:33; and used for believers in 1 John frequently)

- paidarion = small child (referring to the child with loaves and fishes in John 6:9)

- paidion = little child (referring to the disciples in John 21:5; to those sanctified as brothers in Christ in Hebrews 2:13) (also used to refer to Jesus, e.g. "the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favour of God was upon him [him = auto = neuter pronoun]" in Luke 2:40)

The pattern there is that those words all refer to people who are small in size. That's why these words are called diminutives. (Diminutives are not exclusive to people. For instance, in later Greek, deltidion is a shorter piece of writing or a small book. And kunidion is a small dog or puppy. And ostarion is a small piece of bone. I could give more examples but you get that idea. So that was diminutives.)

So, those are all neuter nouns used for people. And Jesus and John the Baptist, like the Holy Spirit, are referred to with neuter nouns. That's why, for example, in Luke 2:40, Jesus is referred to with the neuter pronoun 'auto,' having been referred to as 'paidion' (neuter noun), no doubt because he was small. This is where it says Jesus grew in wisdom. In a more figurative sense, at the last supper and after the resurrection. Jesus addresses his adult disciples with neuter nouns in John 13:33 (teknia) and John 21:5 (paidia), language reinforcing a teacher-pipil dynamic rather than size!

All of this blows out of the water the mistaken idea that a neuter noun can't refer to a person.

So the word for 'spirit' being a neuter word is neither here nor there. It can be added to many neuter words where a personal meaning is attached. It's quite obvious in these instances that gender is a grammatical matter rather than a sexing matter. This is more than enough to caution against rushing to conclusions. 

So from the neuter gender, you could try to argue that the Holy Spirit is of unknown gender if you like, but you can't argue from it that the Holy Spirit is impersonal. Basically, the word pneuma existed before the church, was neuter in gender, and nothing could be done about that. It was literally the word for spirit. The likes of Paul could not very well change the national language of Greece, so neuter it was. (Whereas the word for spirit is feminine in Hebrew. Hebrew only has two genders. But Greek does not assume greater importance than Hebrew just because it has the extra grammatical gender.) 

The evidence doesn't stop there. There's more on people being referred to with words in the neuter grammatical gender. Neuter adjectives and participles refer to people here too:

- ta mora = the foolish ones (1 Cor 1:27-28)

- ta asthene = the weak (ditto)

- ta ischura = the strong

- to elatton = 'the lesser one' (Hebrews 7:7)

- ta loipa = 'the remnant', may also be a reference to people (Rev 3:2)

These are not all diminutives, not based on the size of the people.

So, those are all neuter words used for people. So the idea that you can treat the neuter Greek word for 'spirit' as proof that the Holy Spirit is impersonal is baseless. One wonders why anyone would persist with this weak line of argument at all when there are obvious contra-indicators, which I come to below under 'The Holy Spirit speaks!' If someone wanted to hold the balance of argument in favour of an impersonal, non-personal, spirit, it would have to be on other grounds, rather than on grammatical gender. (And it wouldn't do to look to the Hebrew Scriptures for grammatical support for the idea, because there the corresponding word for spirit - ruach - is grammatically of the feminine gender!)

Personal pronouns and the Holy Spirit

The most obvious use of personal pronouns for the Holy Spirit is in the words 'me' and 'I', as spoken by the Holy Spirit in Acts 13. (See 'The Holy Spirit speaks!' at the bottom of this post.) But what else is going on?

Well, believe it or not, I've seen another objection to the personhood of the Holy Spirit, that the KJV translation says things such as "the Holy Spirit which..." and "the Holy Spirit that..." The objection runs like this: the KJV treats the spirit as a thing. not a person, saying 'which' and 'that' with it. 

But that objection is not well-informed. The words 'that' and 'which' are part of the antiquated English grammar that the KJV uses in relation to persons. Famously: "Our Father which art in heaven." One could also point to the personal use of 'which' in Genesis 13:5 or Galatians 6:1; and 'that' in Romans 3:12. 

I've also seen hot debate about the use of the English personal pronoun 'whom' in John 15:26: "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, WHOM the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things" (NASB). Believe it or not, I've seen an objection that this is making the Holy Spirit a person by the back door, with a cunning use of a personal pronoun with a neuter noun. However, compare a similar use by translators of a personal pronoun with a neuter word making perfect sense: "Behold! I and the children WHOM God has given me" (Hebrews 2:13, NASB) There is nothing wrong with this. 

The rather frustrating thing about this kind of discussion about pronouns is that it can obscure the subject at hand, the subject being what Jesus is telling us about the work of the Holy Spirit, not about mere pronouns. Indeed, what I'm talking about in this post is not whether the Holy Spirit is gendered, but whether the Holy Spirit is personal.

We can say more on John 15:26, but again with the caution that the purpose of the passage is about something much more amazing than pronouns. There, the word 'counsellor' (Greek 'parakletos') is a masculine noun, and the translators are justified, if they so which, in capturing that gender if it makes sense. The Greek pronoun 'ekeinos' is correspondingly masculine with 'counsellor.' Therefore eikenos can be translated ‘he,’ permitting the 'counsellor' to be a 'he.' This is not unreasonable. It shouldn't be ruled out on theological grounds just because we're talking about the Holy Spirit and some unorthodox groups ascribe a non-person status to the Holy Spirit. That sort of artificial theological rule shouldn't be allowed to automatically turn a 'counsellor' into an 'it.'

'Counsellor' and 'Spirit' are both important nouns here, referring to one and the same person. The less important thing is that they happen to have different grammatical genders. The more important thing is Jesus' revelation that the Spirit is a comforter, a counsellor, like himself. He is giving important information to improve his disciples' understanding of the interpersonal qualities of the Spirit. He is not trying to regress their understanding of the Spirit into a vague force, he is trying to progress their understanding of the Spirit as being a counsellor. If our two nouns give the translator a choice, and one grammatical gender - masculine or neuter - has to take precedence over the other for a translation, how do you decide which one has priority? 'He' or 'it'? Given how Jesus is improving their understanding of the interpersonal Spirit, this is much better conveyed by letting the more personal-sounding noun take precedence. That is, the gender of comforter (masculine) is more informative than the gender of spirit (neuter) in relation to Jesus' message. It would be strange, at the exact moment where Jesus is revealing how interpersonal the Spirit is, to insist on a more impersonal-sounding word to convey the moment. He is trying to advance our understanding of the Holy Spirit, not set it back.

A translator could render eikenos as 'that one' but not making such good English. And English translators should aim at good English as far as is reasonable. This choice of English affects how the rest of the sentence is translated. I don’t expect good translators to flit between ‘he’ (counsellor) and ‘it’ (Spirit) when speaking of the same subject in the same sentence. The genders of the words are functions of a language with gender specific nouns and pronouns. This has to make readable sense in translation in English. The sentence subject, ‘counsellor’, is busy, and both ‘teaches’ and ‘reminds’. It’s all very personal sounding stuff. Taken together the translator has enough to make a judgment that the text merits retaining the masculine sense provided by the masculine ‘counsellor’ here. And so harmonising the grammar of the sentence in English makes sense, rather than flitting between 'he' and 'it.' Remember that in Greek gender is a thing of the grammatical form of a word, not the sex of a thing represented by that word. Thus, in John 15:26: "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, WHOM the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things" (NASB). Whether a translator thinks a personal pronoun is or isn't the better choice, the main thing to remember is that the passage does not exist to teach pronouns! It exists to tell us about the counsellor.

 

So that's enough for that. The real question as far as I can see, when I see 'anti-personal' straws being clutched, is why are some people so eager for the Holy Spirit not to be personal? It seems rather odd. The Holy Spirit is intrinsic to God, and God doesn't have an impersonal side. (More on that in my book as I say.)

Personification

The evidence is strong. But people can be rather fixed in their views. So... against the evidence, I've heard this objection: 'When the holy spirit does or says something, that is just poetic personification, not an actual person.' That theory needs more unpicking. 

Let me explain what we mean by 'personification' for those who may be unfamiliar with the term. An example will help. Let's say I write: "The little girl on her birthday got on the ferry boat. It danced out of the harbour, skipping on the waves and tooting merrily."

Boats don't really dance and skip or do anything 'merrily'. There is personification going on here of an impersonal boat. What does it stand in for? The things attributed to the boat actually stand in for the happy emotions of the little girl on her birthday. What does it mean? The meaning is simply that the girl is excited. (But the poetry helps give this simple meaning more vitality.)

It's hard to see how mention of the Holy Spirit is an example of mere 'personification' in the following verse (and there are many such verses), This is where the Holy Spirit intercedes in Romans 8:26: 'In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.'

There, the Holy Spirit 'pleads' for us, or 'intercedes' for us. In an unforced reading, the Holy Spirit is plainly personal to be doing this.

Can any claim that this is merely 'personification' of the Holy Spirit be sustained? The requirement upon such a claim is to demonstrate persuasively what reality such 'personification' meaningfully stands in for. That's a hard test for the theory to pass.

Similarly, in Acts 13:2, the Holy Spirit says: "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” The Holy Spirit, the one saying 'me' and 'I,' is making a statement about what he really does in the real world. A person speaks like that. Again, you can't abandon that merely by tossing in the word 'personification,' without explaining what reality such 'personification' meaningfully stands in for. Another hard test for the theory to pass.

Can a force be a person?

Another (!) objection to the personhood of the Holy Spirit is rather trite. It goes like this: 'the Bible describes the holy spirit as power which is a force, so it is not a person.' Needless to say, one could make the same empty argument against the personhood of the Father and the Son. For instance:

Jesus is:

 

True Light (John 1:9)

Power of God (1 Cor. 1:24)

Rock (1 Cor. 10:4)

True Bread (John 6:32)

Gate (John 10:9)

Capstone (Acts 4:11; 1 Pet. 2:7)

 

God is:

 

Light (Psalm 27:1)

A Consuming Fire (Hebrews 12:29)

Fortress (Psalm 91:2)

Shield (Psalm 18:30)

Cornerstone (Psalm 118:22)

My Cup (Psalm 16:5)

Is that grounds to claim that the Father is not a person, or Jesus is not a person. Simply not. So the argument is groundless, and the complaints against the Holy Spirit's personhood become even weaker, and one wonders what the purpose of them is. 

Articles and the anarthrous Holy Spirit

Yes, there's more. Another objection to the personhood of the Holy Spirit I've seen goes like this: 'Translators themselves struggle: in John 20:22, there is no Greek article (thus, it's anarthrous) in front of 'holy spirit' so it should be translated as 'a holy spirit,' and translators are wrong to add 'the,' making 'the Holy Spirit.'

Again, that objection is a bit poor. The grammar of John 20:22 in regard to ‘holy spirit’ works the same way as the grammar of John 1:18 in regard to ‘god’.  In Greek, neither has the definite article, and neither is treated as an indefinite noun. In English idiom, they are ‘God’ and ‘the Holy Spirit’. The translations flow accordingly. Translators typically add ‘the’ for the benefit of the English reader: ‘receive the Holy Spirit’. This aids understanding. John 20:22 like Acts 2 shows us the same Holy Spirit being poured out into the church through Jesus, and that is compelling. It's not just any old holy spirit - it's that Holy Spirit, the one in that story. It is perfectly reasonable for translators to draw this out in the translation of John 20:22 for the reader as 'the Holy Spirit'. 

Other spirits and the Holy Spirit

Some groups, such as Jehovah's Witnesses have argued that neuter words are for impersonal things in Greek. But notably, there are other beings called spirits which are in the neuter gender. Therefore, if the Holy Spirit had to be in an inanimate/impersonal force, so would those other spirits. For example, the 'unclean spirit' of Mark 1:26 is of course referred to with the neuter word pneuma. This is where groups such as the Jehovah's Witnesses become obviously inconsistent, as these call such beings 'spirit creatures.' In other words, Jehovah's Witnesses don't apply the supposed grammatical principle to evil spirits (neuter), only to the Holy Spirit (neuter). The inconsistency is surely problematic.

The Holy Spirit speaks!

The fact is that there are parts of the Bible that don't even make sense unless we accept the Holy Spirit is personal. In Acts 8:29, the Spirit sending Philip uses these words: "Approach and join this chariot.". A person speaks like that.

In Acts 19:19, The Spirit speaks to Peter with these words: "Simon, three men are looking for you. So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them." A person speaks like that.

 

In that quote, the Holy Spirit used the personal pronoun 'I' to refer to himself. 

As mentioned already, in the next quote, the Holy Spirit refers to himself with two personal pronouns, 'me' and 'I'. It's in Acts 13:2: "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 

The Holy Spirit there is making a statement about what he really does in the real world. A person speaks like that. If these are not the words of a person, then the book of Acts is highly misleading at these points!

One could add how Hebrews 3:7-9 has the Holy Spirit as the user of personal pronouns found in Psalm 95: 

'So, as the Holy Spirit says:  '... your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years.' (The quote is from Psalm 95:7-11 where YHWH is the one specified as speaking, so Hebrews is equating the Holy Spirit with YHWH.)

There are a few places where the Holy Spirit is said to be the one speaking YHWH's words in the OT, such as Acts 28:25 referring back to Isaiah 6:9-10; and Hebrews 10:15-17 referring back to Jeremiah 31:33-34. 

The Holy Spirit dwells in a temple!

This post has been about pronouns and gender. But there are other reasons for recognising the Holy Spirit as personal too. Not least, we have compelling evidence where Paul speaks of a temple of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has a temple. An impersonal force does not have a temple. A god has a temple. A temple is a god's house on earth. That's what a temple is for. The Holy Spirit has a temple, and dwells in it as God of that temple. If anyone thinks the Holy Spirit is impersonal, this is the strongest of contra-indicators.

This article has backed up my assertion that God does not have an impersonal side. In Scripture the Holy Spirit is demonstrably not impersonal. .The arguments for the Spirit being non-personal are nothing like as strong as the contra-indicators. The amount of slings and arrows aimed at the personhood of the Holy Spirit by some religious objectors is slightly bizarre. 

What kind of temptations did Jesus experience?

In Christian belief, Jesus could be tested. But he could not be enticed into sin, because nothing in him was susceptible to that. He could not be tempted in the way of anyone else by their own lusts. He could only be tested but not enticed. Here's the thing for this post: in English, it used to be the case that the ideas of both enticed and tested could be expressed along with the same English word 'tempted.' And Bible translation can become a bit traditional - some translators can be a bit slow to change things to keep up with how language develops. So over the centuries, Christians who were reading that Jesus was 'tempted' have got into confusion about what kind of tempting this is, thinking it means Jesus was being enticed when it means he was being tested. Let's do a short bible study to see what I mean. 

The eagle-eyed among you - depending what translation you read - may have noticed that the Letter of James has the two different uses of the English word 'tempt' in verses 1:2 with 1:13-14. Here, that old English word 'tempt' lends to the confusion. That is, as said, it had a wider range of meaning including 'to test' and to be tempted in the sense of being 'enticed' which helped to make 'tempt' a useful word for English Bible translation, even if it's become a bit confusing to us now. It uses the Greek word epeirasan (in various forms) which had more or less the same range of meanings, so 'tempt' could be used with the idea of trials and the idea of enticements which are two quite different ideas!

In James 1:2, the Greek word peirasmois is translated as 'temptations' in the old KJV but as 'trials' in the modern NRSV in the same place. (And peirasmon is used in James 1:12 in the same way, saying that one who has been in trials has been tested.)

The old KJV puts James 1:12-14 like this: 

"12 Blessed is the man that endureth temptation [peirasmon]: for when he is tried [Greek word dokimos], he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. 13 Let no man say when he is tempted [Greek word peirazomenos], I am tempted [peirazomai] of God: for God cannot be tempted [apeirastos] with evil, neither tempteth [peirazei] he any man: 14 But every man is tempted [Greek word peirazetai] when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed [Greek word deleazomenos]."

Here is a link to KJV chapter 1 with original spellings. 

Meanwhile, the NRSV here stops using trials (verse 2) and starts using temptations like the KJV (verses 12-14), so the NRSV says:

"12 Blessed is anyone who endures temptation. Such a one has stood the test and will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. 13 No one, when tempted, should say, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one. 14 But one is tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it."

So, unlike the consistent KJV, the NRSV translating the same root word for epeirasan has switched from saying 'trials' (v.2) to 'temptations' (v. 12-14). Confused? Well, again, in the days of the KJV translators (and in the Grrek),  'tempt' could be used with the idea of trials and the idea of enticements. The NRSV is trying to tease that apart by using the different words 'trials' and 'temptations.'

Unfortunately, when tempt lost the meaning of 'to test' in the English language, confusion did ensue, especially for those still reading the old KJV Bible. For instance, the KJV of Psalm 106:14 reads that Israel had “tempted God in the desert”. This is pretty much what James means in one place! Israel tested God's patience. God can be tested by any of us, and that is why people have to be told not to tempt God by the Bible. If it couldn't be done, then there would be no need to instruct us to desist from tempting God in the first place. You can see why something here has needed clearing up. 

Some writers snip James' message that 'God cannot be tempted' out of context. We're putting it back into context. This is what the Letter of James says when he means 'enticed':

 

"Let no one say when he is tempted, 'I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted [Greek word peirazetai] when he is carried away and enticed [Greek word deleazomenos] by his own lust." James 1:13ff

James is making a distinction between one who can't possibly be "carried away and enticed by his own lust" and one who can. God is never carried away and enticed by his own lust, so James' argument, because God doesn't do lust. So God isn't tempted in that way. 

Jesus too is never carried away and enticed by his own lust, because Jesus doesn't do lust. 

On the basis that God could not be tempted (in the sense that goes with enticed), so too Jesus could not be tempted (enticed). And that's in the framework of James' working definition of temptation. What James says for God clearly goes for Jesus there: such lusts could not be attributed to either God the Father or Jesus, so neither could be enticed according to how James uses the word 'tempt' here. 

 

That then is where we arrive, when we follow the evidence of the Bible texts wherever they lead.

 

Jesus said in John 5:19, “The son can do nothing by himself; he can only do what he sees his Father doing.” So we must be circumspect in making the Son radically different from the Father in regard to temptation, because the Son could do only what he saw the Father do. The Son is inextricably bound in with the life of the Father.

 

What about the temptations of Jesus in the gospels? Satan may have been wasting his own time testing one who had no inner lust for power. But it was part of Jesus' redemptive purpose that he go through testing like us. But he could do only what he saw the Father doing. We must be clear about Jesus "who knew no sin" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Indeed "in him there is no sin." (1 John 3:3-5).

 

The Book of Hebrews operates that other working definition of 'tempt' which has nothing to do with being "carried away and enticed by his own lust." Hebrews says Jesus "in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15). We know that Jesus could not be led astray "by his own lust." Hebrews is applying the word tempt to one who had no inner lust to entice him - unlike any of us. Clearly, Hebrews' definition of 'tempt' must mean temptations that have nothing to do with an inner lust, another kind of 'temptations' that are common to Jesus and us: that is, 'trials.' That is, here we have the meaning "to test." What Jesus experienced was every kind of testing, not enticement.

 

Jesus could be tempted in the sense of 'trials', the sense of the word used by Hebrews, in the sense in which God himself is tempted, according to the Bible, tested by his wayward subjects. Thus:

 

"Moses said to them, ‘Why do you contend with me? Why do you tempt the LORD?’" Exodus 17:2"

 

Clearly, Moses was operating a meaning of 'tempt' different from 'enticed.' This is about being tested.

 

Now. if Jesus was tested by the promptings of his flesh, this is still not being 'enticed' if there was no lust to carry him along. Only by taking on flesh can God experience the test of handling the promptings of the flesh. He has passed the test victoriously because the promptings of the flesh did not get mixed up with the catalyst of lust.

 

Summary: Jesus could not be enticed, because nothing in him was susceptible to that. He could only be tested - as with God the Father. Jesus had as much choice to sin as God the Father.