Holy Spirit
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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In Christianity, the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost is the spirit of God. The term Christ (literally, Anointed), is also used to refer to this presence. That is, the Spirit is considered to act in concert with and share an essential nature with God the Father and God the Son (Jesus Christ). The Christian theology of the Holy Spirit, or pneumatology, was the last piece of Trinitarian theology to be fully explored and developed. For this reason, there is greater theological diversity among Christian understandings of the Spirit than there is among understandings of the Son (Christology) and of the Father. Within Trinitarian theology, the Holy Spirit is sometimes referred to as the "Third Person" of the Triune God - with the Father being the First Person and the Son the Second Person. There are also distinct understandings of the Holy Spirit by non-Trinitarian groups and some non-Christian groups that also use the term. In the Gospel of John, Jesus said, "I am going to sit at the right hand of my father and when I do I will send a helper to you." Most Christians believe that the "helper" Jesus was referring to was the Holy Spirit.