Quote:
Originally Posted by awareness
And yeah, where's InChristAlone? Swinburne is a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church. And that should ring ICA's bell ... again.
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Awareness, it's all beyond my understanding. Besides, I have never read Swinburne's books, therefore I can't say if his ideas and descriptions are Orthodox. Even if he is a member of the EOC, some of his views can be his personal opinion. I'd stick to Vladimir Lossky's theology. It doesn't mean that he is always right, but at least his books, like 'The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church', became classic. However, there is a chance that Swinburne and Lossky had the same understanding of spirit.
Unfortunately, I can't find Lossky's clear definition of the word "spirit", but I hope you will get some glimpses from these articles:
The Holy Spirit himself being light, life, animation and the source of the uncreated light photomos, enlightenment and/or illumination, who proceeds or is manifest by procession from God the Father as another Hypostasis of God.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lossky
While Western thought tends towards being so highly Christological that the Holy Spirit is oftentimes added more as an appendix of thought than a crucial part, Eastern thinking discusses the Spirit in terms as being an equal in both role and personhood with Christ. The Holy Spirit in the Eastern conception, however, is truly equal, and truly consubstantial with the Father and the Son...
http://www.dualravens.com/fullerlife/Lossky.htm
Vladimir Lossky on the Essence and Energies of God: “The theology of the Eastern Church distinguishes in God the three hypostases, the nature or essence, and the energies. The Son and the Holy Spirit are, so to say, personal processions, the energies natural processions. The energies are inseparable from the nature, and the nature is inseparable from the three Persons. These distinctions are of great importance for the Eastern Church’s conception of mystical life:
1. The doctrine of the energies, ineffably distinct from the essence, is the dogmatic basis of the real character of all mystical experience...
http://orthodoxword.wordpress.com/20...ergies-of-god/
PS One of the posters mentioned that WL did not teach that the Son was the Holy Spirit. I got this quote:
“The Son is the Father, and the Son is also the Spirit ... and the Lord Jesus who is the Son is also the Eternal Father. Our Lord is the Son, and He is also the Father” - Witness Lee, Concerning the Triune God, pp. 18-19 (1973)
http://www.billionbibles.org/china/shouters.html