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We may summarize the preceding discussion and prepare ourselves for the final point of this section by identifying the Spirit as teacher in relation to three moments of divine self-knowledge and self-manifestation: (1) With the Father and the Son, the Spirit is the ontological principle (principium essendi) of theology. The deep source of the church’s theology is the Spirit’s unique and unfathomable divine self-knowledge: “The Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:10–11). The divine self-knowledge of the Spirit unfolds itself, by God’s free grace, in two moments of divine self-manifestation. (2) By his work of inspiration, the Spirit produces Holy Scripture, the external cognitive principle of the church’s theology (principium cognoscendi externum). The Spirit causes the prophets and apostles first to “understand” and then to “impart” the “secret and hidden wisdom of God” in “words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:7, 12–13) with the result that, in hearing the prophetic and apostolic writings, we hear “what the Spirit says to the churches” (Rev. 3:6).41 (3) By his work of illumination, the Spirit completes the movement of divine self-manifestation by causing the divine wisdom published in the prophetic and apostolic writings to be received and confessed by the church. In his illuminating activity, the Spirit is the internal cognitive principle of the church’s theology (principium cognoscendi internum). The Spirit causes the church to “accept the things of the Spirit of God”—things “decreed before the ages for our glory” concerning the crucifixion of “the Lord of glory”—by enabling the church spiritually to discern those things (1 Cor. 2:7–8, 14).