How do we talk about the Spirit? (Alison, 2007)
And the first point of that, is that we’re talking about God. We’re not talking about an add-on, we’re not talking about – as Brenda said, we’re not talking about something ‘tacked on’ in the wake of God – when we talk about the Holy Spirit, we are talking about God. And one of the greatest temptations for us when talking about God, which we fall into ever so easily when talking about the Holy Spirit, is talking about an ‘it’ – which is why I think sometimes, in the New Testament, and particularly in the Lucan writings, the word is not ‘the Holy Spirit’, but simply ‘Holy Spirit’. There’s no article. And it’s worth remembering how easily we are betrayed by tiny little bits of grammar; we’re not talking about an ‘it’, we’re talking about ‘I AM’ – a ‘quality’ of ‘I AM’ – and I just wanted to bring that out.
