Abstract
The modern, broadly conservative articulation of the distinct personality and deity of the Holy Spirit has often included in its arsenal a point or two from the realm of philology. The Fourth Gospel has especially been mined for such grammatical nuggets, though Ephesians, 1 John, and sometimes even 2 Thessalonians have been claimed as yielding syntactical evidence in defense of the Spirit's personality. Two kinds of texts have been put forth in support of this supposition: passages involving grammatical gender and passages involving notions of agency. Those involving grammatical gender are used as an apologetic defense of a high pneumatology; those involving agency are simply assumed to prove the point. I believe that this grammatical defense for the Spirit's personality has a poor foundation. If it is indeed invalid, then to use it in defense of a high pneumatology not only damages Trinitarian apologetics but also may well mask an emerging pneumatology within the NT.
