On the Holy Spirit

I respect St. Basil personally and as a major figure in the Christian Tradition, but reading this book made me wish our Fathers spent as much time demonstrating a compassionate attitude toward their opponents as they did demolishing their arguments. Yes, I understand the role of dogma in the Christian Faith, I really do. But at this stage in my life, I look around and think that if we had laid foundations of “Compassion at any cost!” rather than “Correctness at any cost!” we could still have developed correct theology and also prevented much of the Us vs Them mentality that infects the Church today.

So – bravo to St. Basil and thank God for using Basil's intellect to guide the Church into the understanding of God that we have been given. I love the book for that reason. But it makes me a bit sad at times.