Theological Term of the Week: Procession of the Holy Spirit

 

procession of the Holy Spirit
The way the Spirit relates to the Father and Son in eternity; “[t]hat eternal and necessary act of the first and second persons in the Trinity whereby they, within the divine Being become the ground of the personal subsistence of the Holy Spirit, and put the third person in possession of the whole divine essence, without any division, alienation or change.1 Also called spiration.

• From the Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter II:

III. In the unity of the Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost: the Father is of none, neither begotten, nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.

• From Systematic Theology, by Louis Berkhof. 

The early trinitarian controversies led to the conclusion that the Holy Spirit, as well as the Son, is of the same essence as the Father, and is therefore consubstantial with Him. And the long drawn dispute about the question, whether the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father alone or also from the Son, was finally settled by the Synod of Toledo in 589 by adding the word “Filioque” to the Latin version of the Constantinopolitan Creed: “Credimus in Spiritum Sanctum qui a Patre Filioque procedit” (“We believe in the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son”). This procession of the Holy Spirit, briefly called spiration, is his personal property… .

The doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son is based on John 15:26, and on the fact that the Spirit is also called the Spirit of Christ and of the Son, Rom. 8:9; Gal. 4:6, and is sent by Christ into the world. 

Learn more:

1. Louis Berkhof: The Holy Trinity
2. Ligonier Ministries: Divine Begottenness and Procession
3. George Smeaton: The Personality and Procession of the Holy Spirit

Related terms:

• economic Trinity
• eternal generation of the Son
• eternal relations of origen
• ontological Trinity
• Trinity

Filed under Trinity

1From Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof, page 97.

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