On the Holy Spirit: Basil

The work by Basil is considerably different than that of Cyril. Basil is fighting the group which stated that the Holy Spirit was fundamentally different than God. While Basil never calls the Holy Spirit “God” he makes it clear throughout his work that this is what he believes, and the lack of a direct statement is theologically astute because it protects Basil from modalism. The specific issue Basil is discussing is the use of prepositions in doxological statements. Basil bases his argument upon extensive discussion of these prepositions as they are used in Scripture as well as a broad array of Scriptural arguments for the Trinity as he understands it. His argument is quite logical and progresses step by step through all the evidence he presents. While he does spend an excessive amount of time on prepositions, this is no grammatical text, but a pastoral desire to see follow people God in a better fashion.

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