Herbert W Armstrong

The United Church of God, headquartered in the USA, teaches that the Holy Spirit is an impersonal force rather than a divine Person - a belief inherited from the Armstrong parent church. Their website lists several reasons for this claim. The question is whether any of these reasons make biblical sense. In the document linked below, I examine each of their arguments to determine whether they have any scriptural warrant. In reading their material, one is struck by the insistence that the Holy Spirit must be an “it”- a non‑person, an impersonal force rather than a divine agent. The claim is repeated with such confidence that one might initially assume it rests on solid biblical foundations. In reality, closer inspection shows that it rests on selective readings and misunderstandings of Paul’s literary conventions, particularly his greeting formula, along with other arguments discussed below. Readers may consider the evidence and decide for themselves whether UCG claims have any merit. A ...