The Unseen

in the world of the Seen

Christian Spirituality > Theology > Seen and Unseen

The Spirit Is Undefined, Yet Known

Doctrine on the Holy Spirit is difficult to speak about, because it defies normal theo-logical definition. All activity of God in earthly or churchly life is by the Spirit. Without the Spirit, the Bible would be a closed book to us, the sacraments would be mere ritual, our lives would not be inspired to change and redirection and growth in Christ, our churches would fail to be a fellowship and would not be knit together as a body. In a sense, we talk around the Spirit rather than on the Spirit; we describe the effects but not the nature. Yet, since we can't comprehend any of God's work on earth without the Spirit, we cannot engage in theo-logy without talking theo-illogically about the Spirit.

The Spirit does not bear witness of itself but of Christ - which of course makes the Spirit even harder to understand. The Spirit does not physically do anything. All action happens through the physical world's beings and activities. So it's easy to mistake the Spirit's work for our own work, or that of other people or of nature or science or society -- and vice versa. Easy, but crucially wrong. Barth described the Spirit as "the subjective reality of revelation".

The early Eastern Orthodox teachers put it this way: the 'face' of the Father is revealed by the Son; the 'face' of the Son is revealed by the Spirit. Notice: there is no Person who reveals to us the 'face' of the Spirit. The shape of the Spirit's 'face' is recognizable only by way of the unseen Spirit itself, working through the Scriptures in revealing Jesus. Even the Scriptural witness to a vigorous and powerful entity is not direct, visible, or clear. The Spirit, after all, is who makes the Bible so useful in revealing faith matters. The Scriptural witness is to the presence, activity, and effect of the Spirit -- a second-hand report of the 'face' as seen in a fog bank. If we are to look in Scripture for the Spirit's 'face', it's best found in the same source that best reveals the Father -- Jesus. For it is Jesus who is God-with-us, God at His most tangible and most detailed. Even that, however, is indirect, for Jesus is not the same Person as the Spirit. This leaves the followers, the 'church', or 'Body', of Christ, formed by the Spirit -- but that comes in countless shapes, and is often far from living in a way that reflects the Triune God. Thus, the mist remains. We are left to probe, try, test, ponder, and ultimately just live in the mystery of the Spirit.

Bible Imagery of the Unseen Spirit

In the Bible, the main image used of the Spirit is that of wind or breath (Heb. ruach; Gk. pneuma; -> Latin spiritus).

Wind

We can know when the wind is there, for it blows against us, chills the skin, leaves windburn, or blasts us with desert sand. We do not see it, yet we can feel its direct action, its unseen force on us, as we lean against it or move with its help. We can see the wind's effects on the sands that it blows into dunes, or snow that it piles up as drifts, or sailing ships it makes to glide over the sea. Wind can act with terrible force concentrated in a moment, such as with a hurricane or tornado, and then be gone in the next moment.

Breath

Breath moves in and out of the lungs through the mouth and nose; its moisture is seen vaguely in cold weather, just as the Spirit is often most visible when things are spiritually cold and we most need to see some sign of life. Our breath operates all the time, so steadily that we don't normally even notice it. Breath brings the oxygen we need, and sends out the carbon dioxide that would kill us if we didn't get rid of it. When breath is no more, so are we. Thus each breath is an unseen grace, bearing the unseen power of visible life.

the Nicene Creed

The Nicene Creed speaks of God the Father as "maker of all that is, seen and unseen". The unseen Spirit is the God of the unseen at work in the seen, using the unseen to cause change and direction within the realm of the seen, ever at work for the unseen world of the Kingdom. And in the end, the unseen and the seen will be brought together in a healed realm where the Spirit can at last be seen. Till then, it takes the eyes of faith to see the unseen. The creed's speaking of the unseen is not a 'God-of-the-gaps' thing; it is rather a statement that there is more to existence than we can sense, and that the same Lord who rules what we know of also rules what we don't. Thus there's no need to fear the unknown.

Unseen Beings, Unseen Worlds

The Holy Spirit isn't all there is to the unseen. The Scriptures testify to the existence of other spirit-beings, such as angels and demons. They live in the unseen realms usually called 'heaven' and 'hell', which are more accurately described as being "in" or "out" of God's direct presence. Christianity does not demand belief in a heaven or hell that fits the pictures portrayed by the Bible. (We could chatroom endlessly about different interpretations of these portrayals.) Christianity is about a relationship with God, and about God re-creating a single world where the unseen is finally free to be seen for what it really is. The Bible's authors are describing the indescribable, after all. But God gave them these experiences to reveal real things about the different angles of a reality that right now includes both the seen and unseen. Thus we had best pay attention.

Questions

(seen and unseen)

• When have you most sensed something mystical or unseen moving in your life? What did it move you to?
• How can you tell where the unseen Holy Spirit is taking you? What is your role in it?
• Is everything that you can't pin down with your senses the work of the Holy Spirit? What else could it be?
• Have you ever sensed unconnected things moving with each other toward the same purpose?
• How much of your sense of unseen things presents its reason or purpose to you? If not, have you ever pursued answers, or at least more information?

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