God Without a Face?: On the Personal Individuation of the Holy Spirit (Dogmatik in Der Moderne)

Najeeb Awad aims at defending the personhood of the Holy Spirit by proposing answers to these questions: What is the Holy Spirit in relation to God? Is He a spirit-like presence of a monistic deity; is He merely a charismatic, supernatural power bestowed upon Jesus; or is He rather the third divine person in the Trinity, who is co-influential in and co-constitutive of the Godhead? The author re-examines the validity of both Western and Eastern trinitarian theologies and corrects their reduction of the Spirit either to a mere relationship or mode of presence , or to a semi-subordinate hypostasis in a hierarchical divine Godhead that exists by virtue of the Father alone . He argues that viewing the Godhead as a reciprocal koinonia offers a balanced attention to the Spirit s person and actions. He then shows that the claim of the Holy Spirit s particular personhood provides new dimensions for understanding God s unfathomable and mysterious personal being.



Dogmatik in der Moderne No. 2