if Satan expels Satan, he has become divided against himself.
Is Satan a spirit divided against himself or a force divided against itself?
How can a force, which has no thought of itself, be dividing itself against itself?
Jesus calls the holy spirit, not God, but "God's finger", that means it is that which is an extension of him, emanating from him as his active or life force.
There is no such thing as a 'life' force. You are entering into idolatry of old, to personify nature, or give to nature things that only living beings can do.
Jesus commanded the Spirit, who then did the work, as in creation.
Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts. (Zech 4)
Not by force.
Once again simple Scripture to rebuke carnal minded teachings, no matter how well constructed in scholastic argument.
A force of nature only has power to affect nature, but that is not the Spirit of God, who has power to both create and to destroy according to the commandment of both the Father and the Son.
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In the Old Testament (OT) it is clear that the inspired Bible writers intended holy spirit to be understood as an invisible, powerful
force from God. Even many trinitarian scholars will admit that.
(We can even see the same understanding when the word “spirit” is used for the activating power or force used by other creatures. For example, Ezekiel 1:19, 20, speaking about the angels or cherubim who control the movement of God’s chariot, says literally, “and when the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them; and when the living creatures rose from the earth, the wheels rose .... for the
spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.” -
RSV. It is clear that this means the controlling
power of the cherubim moved the wheels. In fact the very trinitarian
Good News Bible (
GNB) paraphrases this to read: “the wheels did exactly what the creatures did, because the creatures
controlled them.”)
For example, p. 269,
The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1976, admits: “In the OT the Holy Spirit means
a divine active power ...”
And the
New Bible Dictionary, Tyndale House Publishers, 1984, pp. 1136, 1137, says:
“Spirit, Holy Spirit. OT, Heb.
ruah 378 times...; NT, Gk.
pneuma 379 times.” And “Divine
power, where
ruah is used to describe...a supernatural
force....” And “At its [the Old Testament’s concept of God’s spirit] heart is the experience of a mysterious, awesome
power - the mighty invisible force of the wind, the mystery of vitality, the otherly power that transforms - all
ruah, all manifestations of divine
energy.” And “at this early stage [pre-Christian] of understanding, God’s
ruah was thought of simply as a supernatural
power (under God’s authority) exerting force in some direction.”
The
Encyclopedia Americana tells us:
“The doctrine of the Holy Spirit [as a
person who is
God] is a distinctly Christian one.... the Spirit of Jehovah [in the OT] is the
active divine principle in nature. .... But it is in the New Testament [NT] that we find the
bases of the doctrine of the Spirit’s personality.” And “Yet the early Church did not forthwith attain to a complete doctrine; nor was it, in fact, until after the essential divinity of Jesus had received full ecclesiastical sanction [in 325 A.D. at the Council of Nicea] that the
personality of the Spirit was explicitly recognized, and the doctrine of the Trinity formulated [381 A.D.].” Also, “It is better to regard the Spirit as the
agency which, proceeding from the Father and the Son, dwells in the church as the witness and
power of the life therein.” - v. 14, p. 326, 1957.
And
Britannica agrees:
“The Hebrew word
ruah (usually translated ‘spirit’) is often found in texts referring to the free and unhindered
activity of God, .... There was, however, no explicit belief in a separate divine person in Biblical Judaism; in fact, the New Testament itself is not entirely clear in this regard....“The definition that the Holy Spirit was a distinct divine
Person equal in substance to the Father and the Son and not subordinate to them came at the Council of Constantinople in AD
381....” -
Encyclopedia Britannica Micropaedia, 1985, v. 6, p. 22.
Yes, not only did God’s people, as described in the OT, believe the holy spirit was an active force and not a person, but that same belief prevailed from the time of the NT writers up until at least 325 A. D. when the Roman Church officially accepted and began promoting its new doctrine. To bolster this NEW doctrine they went to the NT to find “proof.” That vague, ambiguous “proof” is what we will investigate in this study.
Many historians and Bible scholars (many of them trinitarians) freely admit the above truth. For example:
“On the whole, the New Testament, like the Old, speaks of the Spirit as a divine
energy or
power.” -
A Catholic Dictionary.
“The majority of NT texts reveal God’s spirit as some
thing, not someone” -
New Catholic Encyclopedia, p. 575, Vol. 13, 1967.
“It is important to realize that for the first Christians the Spirit was thought of in terms of divine
power.” -
New Bible Dictionary, p. 1139, Tyndale House Publishers, 1984.
“The emergence of Trinitarian
speculations in early church theology led to great difficulties in the article about the Holy Spirit. For the being-as-person of the Holy Spirit, which is evident in the New Testament as divine
power...could not be clearly grasped.... The Holy Spirit was viewed
not as a personal figure but rather as a power” -
The New Encyclopedia Britannica.
“The true divinity of the third person [the holy spirit] was asserted...finally by the Council of Constantinople of
381 A. D.” -
A Catholic Dictionary.
Yes, the Council of Constantinople (381 A. D.)
first officially decreed “the personality of the Holy Spirit”. - Cairns, pp. 142, 145; also see
Encyclopedia Britannica, v. 6, p. 22, 1985 ed.
Famed trinitarian Church historian Neander notes in
History of Christian Dogma:
“Though Basil of Caesarea wished to teach the divinity [deity] of the holy spirit in his church,
he only ventured to introduce it gradually.”
[Basil of Caesarea was a famed late 4th century trinitarian bishop - one of the ‘Three Cappadocians’ who were instrumental in further
developing the trinity doctrine to the final form adopted at the council of Constantinople in 381 A. D. -
An Encyclopedia of Religion, p. 794; and p. 237,
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 1990 printing
]
There was a very good reason for the reluctance of the early Christians to accept this new doctrine of the Spirit:
“In the N[ew] T[estament] there is no direct suggestion of a doctrine of the Trinity.
The spirit is conceived as an IMPERSONAL POWER by which God effects his will through Christ.” -
An Encyclopedia of Religion, Ferm (ed.), 1945, p. 344.
In fact, Gregory of Nazianzus (another of the ‘Three Cappadocians’ whom trinitarian historian Lohse praises as being essential to the final defeat of the Arians at the Council of Constantinople),
“declared that it was the destiny of his time [
381 A. D.] to bring to full clarity the mystery
which in the New Testament was only dimly intimated.” - p. 64,
A Short History of Christian Doctrine, Bernard Lohse, Fortress Press, 1985.
But there's more: