Introduction
Opera Trinitatis ad extra indivisa sunt. A natural reaction to the Arian heresy of the fourth and fifth centuries was to so affirm the equality of the persons of the Trinity as to see the only distinction between the persons in the relationships between them. The distinctiveness of the Father is then only his Fatherhood, and likewise for the others. Yet it is clear that this is not adequate, as only the second person was incarnate. He is distinct in that only he became human, and only he enacted salvation by dying for us. In keeping with this, it has been common to distinguish between the activities of the persons; commonly the Father has been seen as the creator, the Son as redeemer and the Spirit as sanctifier. Yet the persons are equal, and so it has been realised that just as the persons are rendered totally equal in their distinction by their perichōrēsis, or interpenetration, so the three persons are involved in every activity of God. While the Son died, the Father and Spirit were intimately involved in atonement; indeed, the Father also suffered to redeem.
Thus, while it has been common to attribute creation to the Father, this was not in the passivity of the other persons. Indeed, the New Testament clearly portrays the second person as the actual creator, the agent of the Father (1 Cor 8:6). BulgakovFootnote 1 says that the Father only gave the will to create, maintaining his transcendence. This is quite compatible with the Genesis account, where God spoke in the act of creation; John's prologue, reflecting Genesis 1, makes the identification quite explicit.
Elsewhere, there is affirmation that both the Spirit and the Word were involved in creation (e.g. Ps 33:6). Yet, while the role of the Spirit in creation has necessarily been affirmed, what he did has not been clear. While the Spirit brooded over the primeval chaos (Gen 1:2), was his action limited to being passively present? SproulFootnote 2 quotes the medieval hymn Veni Creator Spiritus, which implies more than this; incidentally, it gave the title to Moule's work on the Spirit (1889). Surely he is not just associated with salvation in re-creation, or with sanctification?
Spiritus vitae
Although the role of the Spirit in creation is not explicit in Genesis 1, the second account of creation in the next chapter does suggest an action in the creation of humanity. While the clay figure of the first man was inert when formed from the dust of the ground, it was enlivened when God breathes into it. The word 
is not present in the Genesis 2 story, but it is implied by the breathing of God.
In this case it is the Spirit which gives life, an affirmation certainly repeated later in the Bible. This involves the active interrelating of the substance of the figure. Before the breathing, the matter did interrelate, but in a static sense; afterwards, there was also a dynamic interaction. Later, in the account of the raising of the slain host (Ezek 37), the breathed into the reassembled corpses to enliven them. So in both Genesis 2 and Ezekiel 37, a clear distinction is drawn between the creation of matter and its enlivening. It is only the second aspect which is specifically related to the Spirit; it was when the ‘breath’ entered the lifeless bodies that they lived. In Psalm 104:29–30, even if the same word is used, the Psalmist carefully distinguishes the creative Spirit of God from the breath of life; it is likewise in Job 33:4.Footnote 3 Enlivening is characteristic of the work of the Spirit insofar as he gives the interrelating which is characteristic of life. The life in both accounts is human life, which does imply a particular role of the Spirit in humanity. It is then common to believe that the work of the Spirit is not coupled with the material creation, observing that the Old Testament texts are rather connected to the giving of life.Footnote 4 Indeed, even the early church did not make the connection.Footnote 5
Nevertheless, this does not mean that other forms of life are spirit-less; Ecclesiastes 3:19–20 in fact identifies people with the animals, ‘all have the same ’, which leaves on death. Psalm 104:29 refers to the return to dust of living things when the leaves, a reference which is not restricted to people. This implies a similarity in the creation of all life, a two-stage creation of matter and its enlivening. Genesis 1 makes no distinction between people and other forms of life; it does not mention the Spirit as enlivening. However, it affirms the difference in that people are in the image of God, which implies a reflection of the Spirit.
While seeing the activity of the Spirit in giving the interaction of life may well indicate that it is limited to that, it may well suggest a role in the inanimate as well. The same Augustine who saw the distinction of the trinitarian persons in the distinct relationships of each also saw the role of the Spirit as bonding, as the vinculum amoris, or ‘bond of love’. His action in the Trinity may then be seen as extended into the creation. This action is essential to salvation, ‘spiritual life’ which is through the relationship which he gives with God.
Relation and bonding are not just essential for life, but for all things. While a mechanical understanding of existence sees the priority of matter, MoltmannFootnote 6 affirms relationships; material and interrelation complement, as wave and particle in light. Just as the role of the Spirit in Genesis 2 is the production of the dynamic interrelating of the matter of the clay figure, so giving it life, the Spirit may be understood to give the relationship between the elements of matter, so giving form and therefore existence. Although the Spirit is only referred to once in Genesis 1, this does suggest a role for the Spirit in creation. The Spirit is then present at the very start of creation, as this aspect is essential for the existence of anything at all; the Spirit provides the interaction necessary for existence and the life of plants and animals.
This then demands that the Spirit is indeed God and not a created entity, specifically a wind. Although can mean either ‘spirit or ‘wind’, a duality paralleled in many other languages, certainly in Genesis 1:2 it was the Spirit and not simply a mighty wind. NeveFootnote 7 points out that all the texts from the same period as the writing of Genesis 1 describe as creative power, not a wind (Is 40:13, Ps 33:6, Job 26:13); he observes that ‘wind of God’ would be unique in the Old Testament. BlocherFootnote 8 agrees, and adds that the verb is associated with a bird, not a storm. When is wind, it is always destructive, but when beneficent, as in Genesis 1, it is ‘spirit’.Footnote 9
Without form and void
In the first reference to the earth, it is described as being ‘without form and void’; it is the situation prior to specific creation,Footnote 10 ‘undifferentiated, unorganised, confused and lifeless agglomeration’.Footnote 11 This is not just a poetic term, but the two terms reflect the two aspects necessary for existence, the matter itself but also the form without which the matter is simply chaos. In later affirmation, creation was ‘out of formless matter’ (Wisd 11:17), ‘out of things that did not exist’ (2 Macc 7:28). The ‘earth’ (Gen 1:2) is not precreated matter, as distinct from the ancient Near East view,Footnote 12 or a relic of a disaster, but simply a term for everything under the heavens, including the sea.Footnote 13 Reference to the waters also indicates disorder.Footnote 14
Existence does not just need matter, but also the form which is produced by the way in which the elements of matter relate together; this is then a result of the action of the Spirit which relates, and it is the relating which gives form. CalvinFootnote 15 comments that, ‘Before God had perfected the world it was an undigested mass . . . the power of the Spirit was necessary to sustain it. This mass was rendered stable for the time, by the secret efficacy of the Spirit.’ Likewise, ‘the Spirit is present as the Go-Between who confronts each isolated spontaneous particle with the beckoning reality of the larger whole and so compels it to relate to others in a particular way’.Footnote 16
The Spirit prepared the earth for the creative Word,Footnote 17 such as by giving the laws and systems. For Philo, and much later Christian thought, following Plato, forms preceded the creation of the material.Footnote 18 First was the action of the Spirit, then that of the Word.Footnote 19 This is totally essential for any existence; ‘the cosmos stands permanently in need of this supporting Creator's will’;Footnote 20 the reference to ‘will’ also suggests the Spirit. The Spirit is creative power, bearing and articulating the Word, while the Word communicates the Spirit, making it specific and concrete. MoltmannFootnote 21 can affirm that creation is by God, through the Son, in the Spirit. Irenaeus is well-known for his view that God acts by his ‘two hands’, Son and Spirit (Adv. Haer. 4.20.1); while the former executed creation, the Spirit nourishes and increases it.Footnote 22 PannenbergFootnote 23 affirms that the Son acts in the power of the Spirit, while the Spirit mediates the working of the Logos.
BlocherFootnote 24 feels that Genesis 1 is interested in form not being. Genesis 1 is not so much about nothingness and creation, but chaos into cosmos; its concern is to give prominence, form and order to the creation out of chaos.Footnote 25 Thus, far from being absent from the creative process, the Spirit is totally fundamental to it. GuntonFootnote 26 comments that there is a long Christian tradition of seeing the Spirit giving direction to the created order.
Vinculum amoris
A clear feature of the Genesis 1 passage is the fact that creation proceeds by separation. This is related to the nature of the ‘word’, as words define entities and actions, and distinguish them from others. But at the same time, simply separating does not create; there needs to be a relationship between what has been separated, or reality will simply disintegrate. The Spirit balances the principle of separation,Footnote 27 providing the underlying structures in which things relate. Existence, life, warp and weft of interrelationships subsist in the Spirit (Acts 17:28).Footnote 28 In the case of a living being, especially of a higher order, the various parts or organs are distinct with specialised functions, and the interaction between them is their life. In the case of a human being, this is commonly called a ‘soul’. The interaction is not just random, but functions in terms of underlying norms or laws; it is this which can be called the ‘spirit’. It is not an accident that the locus of much of this control lies in the brain, which is also the focus of will and motive, which is often seen in terms of the ‘spirit’ of a person.
God's action was that of filling the created order with a diversity of life;Footnote 29 this reflects his theistic nature, giving both the diversity reflecting transcendence and order reflecting immanence. Both aspects are essential; creation is through separation, without which nothing can exist,Footnote 30 but then also relating what is separated. The same is true of all creation, but especially of people in the imago Dei; they transcend the material by being alive, they are immanent to it as material, but are also transcendent from other material things as occupying a different space.
It is a commonplace today to observe the interrelationship between the various forms of life. There is deep interaction for mutual benefit. What must be noted here is that the interaction is not just between forms of life but includes the inanimate. It is obvious that biological life can only exist in relating to it; after all, we all depend on somewhere to stand or perhaps float; biological entities are not only made of what is essentially inanimate material, but are dependent for their well-being on the input not only of basic foods but on many other things such as minerals. In particular, a feature of every living being is respiration, which is an interaction with inanimate gases. This interaction is aptly pictured by the Spirit; indeed, in many languages the words for ‘breath’ and ‘spirit’ are the same. Breathing is the most conspicuous sign of life. In this case, the action of the Spirit in underlying relationships can hardly exclude the inanimate with which the animate interrelates! The current tragedy is the breakdown in harmony at all levels, between God, people, other forms of life and the inanimate environment, to the detriment of all.
Spiritus creator
It is then the Spirit who performs the first creative act. For Bulgakov,Footnote 31 this gives ‘proto-reality’. Buber says that in the beginning was relationship.Footnote 32 The traditional view is that Genesis 1:1 is the first act of creation, the remaining verses describing subsequent actions.Footnote 33 However, it is more likely that the majestic introduction to the book of Genesis, the Old Testament, and indeed the Bible, is a word of introduction. Genesis 1:1 is an introductory verse.Footnote 34 It is likely that the authors of P thought that the first act of creation was light, so read ‘in the beginning when . . .’Footnote 35 Prior to this, however, in Genesis 1:2, the Spirit provided the essential forming for the existence of anything. It is thereafter that creation of material can start.
Before this there was nothing at all. The suggestion is sometimes made that Genesis 1:2 is the start of a re-creation, the first having been destroyed in some catastrophe. This could imply that the action of the Spirit is not totally fundamental, unless, as must be unlikely, very order also collapsed. However, for von Rad,Footnote 36 the idea of a re-creation is ‘quite impossible’.
The action of the Spirit then underlies especially the first three days. He is the one who gives energy, manifested initially as light. Energy is basic to the bonding of material, so its form; in the Old Testament always speaks of power.Footnote 37 Von RadFootnote 38 comments that, in darkness, everything loses its appearance of form and shape. The Spirit gives form, seen in the second day in the separation of the waters, which strongly suggest chaos. Then the third day reflects the emergence of life, active interaction.
Immanent Spirit
The Spirit is then concerned not only with things of God, and with people, but also with other forms of life, and even with other forms of existence. Nevertheless, this action of the Spirit has rarely been acknowledged. Christianity has usually strongly denied the action of the third person in the world as a whole. The Greek worldview, which has been so influential in Western thought and in Christian theology, has made a strong separation between spirit and matter. The world, being material, is seen as ‘spirit’-less. In his very influential article, Lynn WhiteFootnote 39 has accused Christianity of being the most materialistic of religions, so that the world is Godless, a view exacerbated by Christianity's monotheism. Aquinas taught that nature is the world of ‘irrational things’.Footnote 40 The earlier Augustine said, in his Soliloquies, ‘I desire to have knowledge of God and the soul. Of nothing else? No, of nothing else whatsoever.’Footnote 41
More than this, it is commonly believed that the action of the Spirit in the Old Testament is intermittent, in contrast to a more constant presence in the New.Footnote 42 Nehemiah 9:20 speaks of God's giving his Spirit in the same terms as that of the manna, a gift specific to Israel, and also of temporary duration.
Then, even though he came in fullness on the church at Pentecost, Jesus affirmed that the world could not receive him (John 14:17). The natural person does not receive the gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor 2:14). Indeed, the very point of Pentecost was that the Spirit came only onto the cChurch. Thus he is the agent of new life, of redemption, although it is noteworthy that this is seen in terms of creation (e.g. 2 Cor 5:17). Then, if he was not in non-Christian people, he was surely not in animals, and even more surely not in the non-living. Ferguson says that the New Testament puts the Spirit and the world in antithesis.Footnote 43 Thomas says that, in contrast to the Old Testament, there is an absence of ‘cosmical relations of the Holy Spirit’ in the New;Footnote 44 God relates to the world by the second Person.
A medieval affirmation, going back to Augustine, but cited by Leo XIII and Pius XII in particular, is that the Spirit is the ‘soul of the Church’, and therefore its ‘unifying principle’.Footnote 45 Irenaeus had said that ‘they have no share in this Spirit who do not join in the activity of the Church . . . where the church is, there is the Spirit of God; and where the Spirit is, there is the church and every kind of grace’.Footnote 46 A Reformation perspective is that, because the Spirit is absent from those who are not Christian, they are ‘totally depraved’, for it is only as obedient to the Spirit that people can please God, so not sin. Heron,Footnote 47 however, alerts us to the danger of seeing the Spirit necessarily present in the organised church, or even identifying the two.
The same emphasis is found in the Lukan writings; the disciples were told to wait for the ‘promise of the Father . . . until you are clothed with power from on high’ (Luke 24:49, also Acts 1:4). Then the filling of the Spirit at Pentecost was subsequent to the resurrection, so glorification of Christ (cf. John 7:39). Likewise in Paul, the presence of the Spirit is not in all, seeing that he is given as an earnest, or as first-fruits of a fuller reality later (2 Cor 1:22, 5:5, Eph 1:14). He can also appeal to the Galatians on the evidence of the receipt of the Spirit (Gal 3:2). Indeed, the action of the Spirit, as in glossolalia, can be such as emphasises the distinction from the world (1 Cor 14:21).Footnote 48
While it may well be valid to see that the Spirit's direct action is limited, especially in the Old Testament situation, this does not preclude activity in other ways. The Nicene creed does confess the Spirit as ‘Lord and giver of life’, even if this need not necessarily demand universal activity. It is true that ‘in him we live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17:28), and that the Spirit, as God, is omnipresent (Ps 139:7). Calvin then, although he does see some general action of the Spirit in providence,Footnote 49 distinguishes between the general and special action of the Spirit; it is the latter which is confined to Christians, and includes sanctification.Footnote 50 So while he may rarely act in a transcendent sense, his presence as immanent may be accepted as essential to very existence.
Indeed, although PinnockFootnote 51 asserts that the ‘universal divine presence’ is not often repeated, he feels that it is a weighty concept in the Bible. For Berkhof,Footnote 52 ‘God is always and everywhere actively present in his creation’; Moltmann,Footnote 53 claiming support from Psalm 104:29, asserts that, without his action, things would stop existing. Newton also had this view.Footnote 54 The last two centuries, however, have seen the action of God in more immanentist terms than in direct action.Footnote 55 Not that this is new; in his later life, Augustine spoke of God ever active, immutable yet changing all and close at hand, ‘universally immanent’.Footnote 56 Calvin indeed taught that the Spirit's being is ‘diffused over all space, sustaining, invigorating and quickening all things, both in heaven and in earth (Inst, 1.13.14). MoltmannFootnote 57 comments that the Greek πνευμα, Latin spiritus and German Geist are always in antithesis to matter and body, but the Hebrew is rather integral to matter, ‘a force in body and soul, humanity and nature’. Here the last affirmation is particularly relevant. He also cites Gunkel, who refers to the Spirit as ‘life-giving, formative divine power’.
The Orthodox Fedotov believes that Spirit is active in the dynamism of the universe and in inspiration of all who create beauty;Footnote 58 TaylorFootnote 59 notes that the Revised Version says that the Spirit ‘garnishes’ the heavens (Job 26:13); likewise he empowered Bezalel to adorn the tabernacle (Exod 31:2). The Spirit is linked with wisdom and so with Bezalel.Footnote 60 These are of course through order. As the Spirit is like wisdom, he is at work everywhere.Footnote 61 PinnockFootnote 62 writes that ‘we encounter Spirit in the life of creation itself, in the vitality, the joy, the radiance, the music, the honey, the flowers, the embrace’. Plato understood its manifestation in terms of aspiration, love of the perfect and of beauty.Footnote 63 BulgakovFootnote 64 also rejoices in the Spirit's origination of beauty.
The Holy Spirit fills the universe and holds all in unity;Footnote 65 he is the immanent and anonymous presence of God.Footnote 66 In the universe, he is its ‘total cohesion, its structure, its information, its energy’,Footnote 67 essentially a ‘panentheism’.Footnote 68 On the other hand, the affirmation of distinction avoids pantheism.Footnote 69 In no way does the Spirit eliminate the distinction from God.Footnote 70 It must be remarked here that, if the complete transcendence of the world from God is not right, neither is total identity: ThomasFootnote 71 says that the doctrine of the Spirit is a protest against any tendency to identify God with the world.
The Spirit is then immanent in all creation, upholding it ‘by his word of power’ (Heb 1:3). This of course complements the transcendence of God; difference and dominance then reinforce each other.Footnote 72 These two emphases reflect theism; ‘the Trinitarian concept of creation binds together God's transcendence and his immanence’.Footnote 73 Thus, in contrast to the near deism which has characterised Western thought, Moltmann and such as McFague affirm also God's immanence. The idea of the filling with the Spirit which flows from this then counteracts an idea of domination implied in transcendence.
Thus the Spirit need not be seen as only connected to life, but as giving the orderliness in things.Footnote 74 For Polkinghorne,Footnote 75 following Montefiore, God's preservation of regular order is an important part of his action on it; his purposive activity is hidden in the structure of scientific law. God's immanence is not simply omnipresence,Footnote 76 but is in the underlying laws and order. For Augustine, ‘he governs all the things in such a way that he allows them to function and behave in ways proper to them’; God's creative providence is present everywhere by the brooding of the Spirit.Footnote 77 Relation, caused by the Spirit, is absolutely essential for existence to occur at all; without a stable order, there is simply chaos; the current state of the world therefore reflects the self-limitation, or kenōsis of the Spirit.Footnote 78 For Basil of Caesarea, the Spirit is the ‘perfecting cause’, enabling the created order to be truly itself.Footnote 79 MoltmannFootnote 80 notes, citing von Rad, that in the Wisdom literature, the three poems of Proverbs 8, Job 28 and Ecclesiasticus 24, ‘the Wisdom of God is presented as an ordering power immanent in the world’. Wisdom 8:1 presents wisdom as ‘ordering all things’. Order is significant in the wisdom literature; it is the fundamental aspect, giving unity to the creation. The picture of the world as ‘God's body’Footnote 81 is of the world as God's self-expression, which naturally implies order. For Pannenberg, ‘the divine Spirit is the field of force through which the world becomes and is upheld as what it essentially is’.Footnote 82 For Hauerwas, the Spirit upholds the routine.Footnote 83 Moltmann feels that Wisdom is virtually interchangeable with the Spirit; likewise PinnockFootnote 84 says that wisdom is described like the Spirit. ‘It is the spirit () in a man, the breath (
) of the Almighty, that makes him understand’ (Job 32:8). When Ezekiel prophesied to the dry bones, the sending of the on them resulted first in their return to orderliness, and then a return to life. Here the original form is an aspect of the creation by the Logos, who is then immanent in creation; Irenaeus uses the word ‘inherent’.Footnote 85 Then the Spirit enhances the relation to the Logos, so increasing that order; the parallel is the relation to the cross by the Spirit, so applying salvation.
In fact, some modern Christian understandings of evolution see it proceeding in terms of the order that God laid down in the creation.Footnote 86 In this case, God's ongoing action in providence or continuing creation is that of increasing order. The Spirit gives the specific form of order.Footnote 87 Salvation parallels this, indeed described as a ‘new creation’ (2 Cor 5:17); justification is giving order, in the relation to God, sanctification is increasing orderly interaction. All of these demand the action of God, for as Charles Hartshorne pointed out,Footnote 88 the only explanation of order is an orderer. Without this, the natural progression of things is the slide to chaos in the increase of entropy, and in human life, ethical decline.
Vestigia Trinitatis
The presence of the Spirit in the creation may also be seen in the idea that the creation is vestigia Trinitatis. In this case the role of the Spirit in the Trinity is paralleled in the world. In the former, he acts in perichōrēsis, which by the full interaction of the persons enables their full equality without compromising distinction. Effectively the persons are fully transcendent and immanent to each other, expressing the nature of theism. God's relationship to the world is similarly theistic, and as reflecting the Trinity, the nature of the creation is both separation, but also interrelation. Things are distinct but not exclusively so; they interact in a perichoretic way. In particular, people transcend the material by being alive; they are immanent to it as material, but also transcendent from other material things occupying a different space. PinnockFootnote 89 writes that the self-differentiation of the Son from the Father is the basis of creation; it may well be added that the action of the Spirit in the Trinity giving differentiated fullness in perichōrēsis is the basis of re-creation.
It is not an accident that the creation is a reflection of the nature of God as Trinity. Its very fecundity is a reflection of God's creativity, but more specifically, the separation reflects the distinction between the persons, a separation which nevertheless is one in which there is interrelating. The underlying bonding on which this interrelating rests is a function of the third person.
The characteristics of the Spirit are then reflected both in the creation as a whole and specifically in humanity. Indeed, it is the action of the Spirit to repeat her nature in what is made. In the creation, the Spirit produces light, the ordering of what has been differentiated, and life. It is the same things which are produced specifically in humanity, when she fills. Incidentally these are the features which underlie the development of science and technology.
Like an eagle
One of the reasons for identifying in Genesis 1 with the Spirit rather than a wind is that the verb, 
, is not really appropriate to the latter. CassutoFootnote 90 says that it bears exactly the same sense as in Deuteronomy 32:11, of an eagle fluttering over her young. Here the picture is indeed significant for the understanding of creation. If the picture is of the female bird, it interestingly relates to the gender of . This does balance off the masculine grammar of the other persons, and is in keeping with other pictures attributing feminine characteristics to God, which all have the idea of maternal care, so appropriate for God's concern for both the creation as a whole and humanity in particular. Notably, what a mother does is to give form to matter.
But the job of the eagle does not stop with the laying of the egg, or even its hatching. It provides the environment for growth; only with the care of the adults can the young reach maturity.Footnote 91 This is the purpose of the eagle, indeed its ‘spirit’. Indeed, ‘spirit’ may be understood in terms of purpose; MoltmannFootnote 92 refers to the ‘“drive” and “instinct” awakened by God’. Surely God did not create just on a whim, but with a purpose. Indeed, when the result of his creation is repeatedly described as good, it would indicate just that. It embodied its spirit; it was right for its purpose. And what was that? Most significantly, the purpose of the eagle is to bring up its children as eagles; in effect, in its image (Gen 1:27).
