This paper examines specific language in the Christian Scriptures that identify and discuss the Holy Spirit as the key point of contact between Creator and creation. It will proceed to draw connections between this language and the pneumatology of specific theologians in the Nicene Tradition. Christian Scripture regularly connects the Spirit with English adjectives and adverbs (descriptors) that recount struggle, contention, and conflict in his dealing with creation. The Bible often describes the Holy Spirit as “groaning” in his interaction with humanity (Rom. 8:26-27) and grieving as a consequence of the actions of humanity (Isa. 63:10, Eph. 4:30). This close association is a phenomenon of scriptural revelation and “baked in” to the scriptural witness and it led some to see the Holy Spirit as the “weak link” of the Trinity. Impassibility is a divine attribute that will be forever associated with the theology of the Church Fathers and the Nicene Tradition. While the Godhead is impassible in this tradition, the Spirit who strives, groans, and grieves has suggested he must not share in that impassibility and therefore somehow be less divine. If, as this paper maintains, the Holy Spirit’s deity and impassibility are necessary to properly understand his work of healing and sanctifying the creature, then, a coherent interpretation of these passages needs to be offered. This paper addresses representative passages that deal with the Spirit’s grieving and struggling in his interaction with humanity through a lens that does not jettison the Spirit’s impassibility.
The “striving,” “grieving,” and “groaning” language used in the biblical record may appear at first to be a “stumbling block,” for classical theism. This paper, however, will affirm it as evidence of the great depth of indwelling with which the Spirit penetrates and takes up residence in believing people. Incorporation of the doctrine of impassibility in the Spirit’s work assures that the Spirit can remain and challenge humanity by his interaction and indwelling presence without risking or compromising his own integrity and nature. Impassibility allows the Spirit to maintain his divine character—his immutability, his infinity, and other attributa divina—in the mode of the Holy Spirit while interacting with creation for its benefit. Impassibility is an indispensable operative attribute of the Spirit in the interactions that occur between God and Man in the acts of the Trinity ad extra. Impassibility is the key to understanding how he is able to work and, in charity, perfect and grow the communicable attributes of the divine nature in the creature. To do this an examination of the Scriptural witness of the language of struggle is presented to set it securely in the Nicene setting. The paper concludes that the Biblical language of striving presupposes the doctrine of the impassibility of the Spirit rather than being a stumbling block to it.