5. Substantive Existence of the Holy Ghost: Upon this line of thought, that is, as to immateriality of spirit, the late Elder Orson Pratt has a most enlightening passage, which I here give at length:
"Some have supposed the Holy Spirit to be merely a power or influence, and not a substance; these are the views of Unitarians: they do not believe that there is a substantive Holy Spirit, but that the Holy Spirit is only a quality or attribute of the Father's substance. We shall first show that the Holy Spirit can have no existence as a mere attribute, or quality, without some substance to which such quality appertains. It is an admitted principle in all sound philosophy, that all qualities or powers must be the qualities or powers of something. Abstract qualities or powers are inconceivable. Motion implies a substance capable of moving or being moved. Force implies a substance capable of exerting a power on itself, or on something external to itself. The various colors of the prism imply a substance capable of producing the sensations of color upon the optic nerve. Sound implies a substance in a certain state or condition, affecting the organ of hearing. Taste implies a substance, exciting its appropriate sensation. As all these qualities and properties imply substance to which they belong, so do wisdom, knowledge, power, goodness, love, and such like qualities, imply substances to which they adhere. And as we cannot conceive of motion, force, color, or sound existing without a substrate, so we cannot conceive of wisdom, knowledge, goodness, or virtue subsisting without a substantive being to which these qualities belong.
"Some writers who have obtained a degree of celebrity among the speculative philosophers of modern times, have advocated a theory (if indeed, it may be called a theory), that power, forces, etc., in the abstract constitute the whole universe. Boscovich and his disciples maintained this idea, and contended that there was no such thing as substance in existence—that the universe was made up, not of substance, but of an infinitude of mathematical points, attracting, repelling, and combining with each other according to certain laws. According to this theory it is assumed that repulsions of a certain degree of intensity produce solidity—that those of less intensity produce liquidity, and that the various degrees of rarity or density depend, not upon substance, but upon the attractions and repulsions of points in different degrees of proximity. A celebrated writer of our own day—Isaac Taylor—is inclined to this theory. After suggesting the idea that substance was not necessary in the constitution of the universe, he says, 'The visible and palpable world then, according to this theory, is motion, constant and uniform, emanating from infinite centres, and springing, during every instant of its continuance from the Creative Energy.' (Isaac Taylor's Physical Theory of Another Life, p. 238.)
"According to this theory, attractions and repulsions must exist without anything to be attracted or rexpelled—motion must exist without anything being moved—there must be 'a springing' from 'infinite centres' continuing 'every instant' without anything to be sprung. Here are energies, forces, and motion, ascribed not to a substance, but to empty space, or nothing. The latter writer, it is true, admits a 'Creative Energy.' What he means by this is, that all those varieties of motions were created. But if there is no substance, there can be nothing but empty space; but space is not capable of motion, therefore, 'Creative Energy' could not create a motion, until there was something in space to be moved. Therefore, to speak of motion where nothing exists is an absurdity, only equaled by the absurdity of the notion of a 'God without body or parts.'
"As it is impossible for motion to exist without a substance, so it is equally impossible and absurd for wisdom, knowledge, goodness, love, power, will, or any other similar attribute or quality to exist separate and apart from substance; hence the 'Creative Energy' itself could not exist unless a substance existed to which it appertained. The most eminent philosophers of modern times, with very few exceptions, have considered substance necessary to the existence of every quality. These were the views of that great master spirit—the renowned Sir Isaac Newton. In the Scholium, at the end of the 'Principia,' when speaking of God, he says, 'He is omnipresent, not by means of his virtue alone, but also by his substance, for virtue cannot subsist without substance.' The Holy Spirit, therefore, is a substance, and must, like all other substances, have parts, bearing relation to space and duration."[A]
[Footnote A: Millennial Star, Vol. XII, No. 20.]
Then as to "personage:" The Prophet used this term always in the sense of meaning an individual, including bodily form, with all that belongs to it; never in the subtle and vague sense of the philosophers or school men, mediaeval or modern.[A] This is evident from use of the term in describing his first vision: "I saw two personages whose brightness and glory defy all description."[B] These two "personages" were the Father and the Son, of the holy Trinity, and whom in later years, as already seen, the Prophet declares to possess bodies of flesh and bone as tangible as man's, and in form like man's. It follows, then, that describing the Holy Ghost as a "personage of Spirit," means only that the Holy Ghost differs from the other glorious personages of the Godhead in the nature of the substance of which, for want of a better term, we may say he subsists, but not necessarily different in form; and of which we can only say—that is, of his substance—he is not flesh and bone as are the tabernacles of the Father and the Son.
[Footnote A: Never, for example, as Calvin uses it: "What I denominate a person is a subsistence of the divine essence which is related to the others and yet is distinguished from them by an incommunicable property." Calvin's Institutes i:13; or as the philosophers use it, where consciousness, thought and will seem to be the essentials of "personality," without any reference to form. (See Evolution in Relation to Religious Thought, Dr. Jos. Le Conte, p. 339.)]
[Footnote B: Pearl of Great Price, Writings of Joseph Smith, ch. ii.]