is the Holy Spirit a person

well you should realize that God had not sent the Holy Spirit (our comforter) until after Jesus....

The Holy Spirit had not yet been manifest in our realm. Jesus was praying directly to the Father. That still does NOT negate the fact that they were one triune being... our separate parts speak to each other as well.... for example, when we are hungry, our bodies tell our minds so. When we have FAITH our minds tell our eternal spirit how to line up. It just so happens that each part of the GodHead is far more aware of their role than we are aware of how our 'selves' work together. I guess that's the benefit of being omnicient.

 

Oh, for pity's sake.

The hoops one has to jump through to justify this view of God are fascinating.

 

Well I know what (and typically why) I believe... the issue is I don't know what you believe or why you believe it. Tell me again which "view of God" we are jumping through hoops to justify? I am confused.

For example -

I believe "God" is loose term used for the 3 persons of the Trinity. Each person is a full individual being. Together, they are God. I believe the Father is God. I believe Jesus is fully God. I believe the Holy Spirit is fully God.

I do not think that we can comprehend the idea of them being separate and united at once... but that is how I see God.

Yet... I believe they are separate enough to be addressed differently, and have different functions. They are separate enough to be individuals.... yet they are all the one God.

God never addresses himself as "we"... leading me to believe that the connection between the Father, Son, HS is not so tight that it is a 'we'. (it's not a borg collective, for example... heh). Yet, if we look at ourselves (made in God's image) for example - if we are hungry... we might say "my stomach is growling". Our stomach is still part of us (part of our triune being). Although our stomach doesn't have any of the self awareness that the HS and Jesus have... God does refer to Jesus as "my son". So we can see... then ... the relationship between God and Jesus. It's more of a Father Son than a self-stomach relationship. The way most 'offspring' on the planet function is to divide a portion of itself to create a new replicant. People take small copies of themselves and make a new child based on a PART of them - their bodies (part of the triune). The child is a new person... with the 'same body' (aka genetics) or at least a very near approximation.

God is a term then like Human... or like MANKIND. Where the Whole can be listed yet separate parts exist. However, the link between the parts is more like the link we see between our body, soul, and spirit in a human.

Excuse my rambling on... I've never thought long and hard about this subject, and this post is almost a 'thinking out loud'. I hope this inspires commentary and refinement.

 

I took your first post as kind of trying to go "Oneness" on me, sorry for the confusion. God does refer to Himself in the plural in Genesis 1, by the way.