Not only is it impossible to completly understand the Holy Spirit but might I venture to say that we are going against Mrs. White for continuing this discussion? She says on the issue that "silence is golden". We're delving deep into speculation here. Mrs. White says He is a person but we cannot understand His nature, and yet we are trying to do the impossible. Just my $0.02 worth.

Redfog

I think you're bringing up an important concern, Redfog. However, I don't think our conversations have been aline the lines of what sort of substance is the Holy Spirit, or dwelling on obscure subjects, but have been addressing whether the Holy Spirit is a person with an independent will. What we're getting act is if there are three divine beings, or two, which seems to me to a fundamental issue, not a perpheral one.

Is it not quite clear from the SOP that there are 3 distinct persons in the Godhead? Either we believe in her writings or we do not. Lets not complicate a clear issue. Now the nature of His form maybe we can have no idea of but as to if there is 2 or 3 it is very clear. Call me a simpilton if you wish I just don't see any reason to complicate the clear word of God.

Redfog

Tom, while "being" is your own preference, it doesn't help me to understand the Spirit's personality, since the Spirit's personhood aint conventional. We shouldn't be using the normal sense of person for the Spirit, since its individuality is mysterious to his personality as Jesus rep., due to its divinity as God's Spirit. Our pioneers were careful to avoid the noun "being", while they described the unusual personality of the Spirit.

The Spirit's mind itself isn't revealed in any detail in the Bible, is it? Personal activity is obvious, but what sort of mind was involved isn't clear. You wrote

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An independent will? At least during the history of salvation, we cannot know, can we?

Why not? If God reveals it to us, we can know.

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So we'll have to disagree: God hasn't revealed it! The Spirit implements God's will in our lives while also leading us into more truth. Its operations are in harmony with divine nature. There isn't anything else revealed of the Spirit than it fulfilling the will of God during creation and salvation, as well as bringing God's own presence to us which is the Spirit's personality.

The Spirit's individuality isn't reduceable to having or not having a mind, in as much as Scripture teaches the Spirit leading and instructing the church's believers in the truths of Christ, but our connection with God is more than simple communication - we sense the very presence of God while communing with him personally through his Spirit. That presence is the Spirit's personality: that's why we can't place the Spirit's mind. The Holy Spirit dwells in us as the mind of Christ - similarly filling our mind with God's will, but we experience the Spirit of Jesus' divinity, not his actual mind (of course).

Since the Spirit is pointedly not a conventional person, his personality doesn't require normal persoanlity traits. Forcing that into the picture for the sake of a normal person's make up is going beyond Scriptural illumination on the Spirit, which is God's divine Spirit with mysterious personality. Even its divinity as the Spirit proceeding from God depends on it having unconventional personality as a person. Hence this debate in the context of our trinity doctrine, which verily can threaten that divinity of the Spirit, with no processing from God - thus: How is the Spirit divine?

God's presence in us through his Spirit is divine presence, and nothing ethereal or mystical: We commune spiritually with God by the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit just does his thing. The Spirit has personality as much as God has personality, but isn't a person just like God is. That's the line our church took during Ellen White's lifetime, so pinning down the Spirit's mental rights and freedoms isn't for our study, is it.

I'll look into it a bit more and get back to you shortly.

Phil 2:5 is better translated "attitude of Christ", as I'll concede to the NIV for once: Christ's mind was pioneering the residence of the Holy Spirit, and so the same for us.

As for the Spirit having his own will to assert: it is not revealed, as his person is different to Father and Son, as is his individuality - and, unless you allow for that difference, do you agree with our pioneers that the Spirit of God is as much a person as God is, but is not a person like God is.

I recognise that the Spirit proceeds from God, so is his divine Spirit, thus disagreeing with our trinity teaching, but that's just what the Bible says, and there's no other conceivable basis for the Spirit's divinity.

There are still three persons in the heavenly trio: is your logic correct in this context?

I'm just after safeguarding a Biblical understanding of the Spirit's divinity.

I don't discern a difference between us on the point of 'thought' or 'attitude' for the mind of Christ.

The Spirit indwelling us shouldn't lead to pantheism as understood by natural activities - like breathing in air or drinking water: that was always a false illustration. The Spirit deals only in divine reality, and as Christ's representative makes Christ's presence real to our minds and consciousness, which is creating in us the "mind of Christ", and should fill our whole life & experience. There's no mystical presence of natural phenomenon, here, since this is the divine Spirit making manifest divine grace in us with the presence of Christ, and all his righteousness.

We are infilled with Christ's presence through the Spirit, until Christ's righteousness expells all our sinful traits of character: having the Spirit of Jesus filling our lives with Jesus' righteousness isn't pantheistic, but it is having God's own presence in us and in our lives by his Spirit. That is very similar to pantheism, granted, but God's living presence is only found in his people, us believers, not throughout the rest of nature, where his power is evident - in sustaining nature; God's people are destined to experience, know and testify of God's presence living in them.

The salvivic issue regarding the Spirit of God for us is making known to us the will of God in Christ for us.

The "mind of Christ" we are to study, but the notion of the mind of the Spirit isn't revealed in Scripture, while his personal instruction of us in Christ's truths, including 'Christ's mind' place its own mind in the realm of golden silence on our part.