Ship of Fools: Purgatory: Filioque - thoughts on validity?

Thread: Purgatory: Filioque - thoughts on validity? Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Manx Taffy (# 301) on :

This has probably been done to death but I am interested in real thoughts on whether people think it is more accurate for this to be in the creed or not.

From my point of view it makes sense for the wording to say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father AND the Son. I think this for two reasons;

1. It is in line with how I understand the trinity as three persons in one,in some way equal and indivisible.To think of the Holy Spirit proceeding from only the Father means that the trinity does not posess those characteristics - it makes it too complicated for me to understand (this doesn't mean its not right though.)
2. I am convinced by the arguement, put forward by the Roman Catholic Church that there is sufficient instances in scripture refering to the Holy Spirit as being the "spirit of Christ" or something similar to add weight to the arguments that this what the Apostles would have thought.

I am interested in what conclusions other people have on this matter (if any) and the reasons for their conclusions, other than just "its what my Church believes".

This is not intended to an East v West battle or an arguement about whether historically the filioque was added or removed sometime after the Council of Nicea!

Thoughts?

[fixed typo in thread title]

[ 06. April 2006, 09:21: Message edited by: Duo Seraphim ]

Posted by josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Manx Taffy:
This is not intended to an East v West battle or an arguement about whether historically the filioque was added or removed sometime after the Council of Nicea!

It is unfortunately impossible to discuss the validity of the Filioque without talking about when and why it was added.

The Nicene Creed was an ecumenical council. Therefore, according to the Eastern understanding of authority within the Church, it could only be altered by another ecumenical council. According to the Western understanding of authority within the Church, it could be altered by, or with the consent of, the Patriarch of Rome.

Whether the filioque is valid, then, depends on whose ecclesiology is correct. If the Pope could legitimately authorize the change, then we Orthodox are in schism, need to repent, and need to catch up on all the stuff we've missed over the last thousand years or so. If only another ecumenical council could authorize the change, then the Catholics are in schism, they need to repent, etc.

Naturally, I believe the Pope was wrong, the change was invalid, and it represents an incorrect understanding of the Holy Trinity. But then, I would say that, since I'm Orthodox.

Posted by Foaming Draught (# 9134) on :

I've not been around long enough to know whether this is a Dead Horse or not.
John's gospel chapter 14 is quite clear. Anyone who has Tallis' beautiful anthem for Whitsunday going round in their head as I do now will know that Jesus asked the Father (verse 16) to send the Counsellor, and that Jesus believed (verse 26) that the Father would respond to the Son's prayer by sending the Spirit.
So it's "Proceedeth from the Father" for me.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
Whether the filioque is valid, then, depends on whose ecclesiology is correct. If the Pope could legitimately authorize the change, then we Orthodox are in schism, need to repent, and need to catch up on all the stuff we've missed over the last thousand years or so. If only another ecumenical council could authorize the change, then the Catholics are in schism, they need to repent, etc.

All this is unfortunately wrong. The schism of the Orthodox consists in disobeying the pope. If one is so inclined, one could consider this itself as heretical (denying the doctrine of the primacy of the pope). The filioque has contributed to that disobedience, sure, and was long trumped up as a heresy. But only the fanatics on both sides still regard the persisting difference in theological opinion on the filioque itself as outright heresy. That the Orthodox should catch up with lots of stuff that has happened in the Western Church is hence related to the papal power schism, not to the filioque per se. As for the filioque itself, its "validity" has utterly nothing to do with ecclesiology. Rather, the filioque's "liceity" is decided by that. Depending on who got the ecclesiology right, it was either "licit" or not to add the filioque to the creed. But whether it is "valid" simply depends on whether it is a Divine Truth.

And so the important question here is not at all whether the pope was allowed to add this or not. The important question is whether it is true. For let's say the filioque is true, but it was not licit for the pope to add it to the creed. What then? Well, clearly it would be in both sides' best interest to rapidly find ways to make the addition licit - who would want to deny such an important doctrine if it is true? But what if the filioque is wrong, but it was licit for the pope to add it to the creed (licit only in the sense that he indeed has on his own the ecclesiastical power to change the creed)? Clearly it would be in the best interest of both sides to remove such an important error as quickly as possible.

I'm not saying, of course, that the question of the powers of the pope is unimportant. To the contrary, I'm saying that this is the issue in this schism. Whereas the filioque is not. The filioque is a doctrine which is either true or not. If it is true, it should be in the creed. If not, it shouldn't be. If it's true, but could be better expressed, it should be in there modified (my favorite compromise option). If it is true, but not deemed important enough to impede communion, it should be optional (a more likely compromise). Whatever may be the case concerning that, as soon as the schism concerning papal power is removed, the filioque can be dealt with accordingly. But agreement on the filioque, even if obtained, would only remove an obstacle but not heal the schism.

Posted by Jonathan the Free (# 10612) on :

An excellent response, IngoB.

Very helpful to me as an onlooker.

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :

Please read this ...

Filioque

Who is it exactly that has marginalised the Holy Spirit and Trinitarian doctrine ... the west or the east?

[ 04. February 2006, 08:13: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]

Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on :

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
It is unfortunately impossible to discuss the validity of the Filioque without talking about when and why it was added.

Unfortunately, this is true. Though there is plenty of room to discuss our understanding of the Holy Spirit and his relationship with the rest of the Godhead, putting that discussion within the context of the filioque brings in an awful lot of unhelpful historical baggage. In an ideal world, one in which the Church hadn't parted company I expect that at some point after 381 an Ecumenical Council would have debated the nature of the Spirit in more detail, and probably significantly expanded the relevant section of the Creed to include that better shared understanding - including, perhaps, more on the relationship between the Spirit and the Church which is pretty much absent from the Creed. Who's to know whether, at that point, such a Council would have concluded that the Spirit proceeds from both Father and Son? Personally, I can see value in the arguments from both sides.

As I see it, the Nicene Creed (the original one, without the filioque) doesn't rule out the Spirit proceeding from Father and Son. Whereas the filioque does rule out the Spirit proceeding from just the Father. That, in itself is enough for me to wish to omit the phrase from the Creed - it divides Christians over an issue that the Church hasn't reached a consensus.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

The council of Nicea defined the cause of the Spirit's existence accurately.

I would like to point you to the Pope's praying the Creed in ancient Greek, when he omits the filioque clause, and to the papal document where it is written that in Greek, the verb apostle John uses (the one you translate as proceed), the same verb the Creed of Nicea uses, cannot be used for two sources, but only for one. The Pope has already admitted that the Spirit ekporevetai from the father alone, i.e. He has His being from the Father alone.

So, we have the Pope saying that his "proceed" is different from the Greek ekporevetai. Now, whether this is historically consistent, i.e. if the Roman Church at the time She fell in heresy believed the same thing the Pope now days accepts as true, remains to be seen.

Alan, the Church made most of Her councils after the date you talk about. Plus, the very verb used makes it impossible for a "filioque" to be added in the original Creed.

[ 04. February 2006, 09:28: Message edited by: andreas1984 ]

Posted by Custard. (# 5402) on :

I also tend to avoid the filioque, preferring "who proceeds from the Father through the Son".

Oh, and I'm quite happy to declare that

quote:
The visible church of Christ is a congregation of believers in which the pure Word of God is preached and in which the sacraments are rightly administered according to Christ's command in all those matters that are necessary for proper administration. As the churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred, so also the church of Rome has erred, not only in their practice and forms of worship but also in matters of faith.

[ 04. February 2006, 09:29: Message edited by: Custard. ]

Posted by Real Ale Methodist (# 7390) on :

Can I ask a genuine question? I know very little about this issue but would like to know how our understanding of the Holy Spirit effects our relationship with it and with God-as-a-whole. Please stamp on me if this is likely to be too much of a tangent.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

The way I see it all divine teachings have implications for the Christian's life. The things we call "dogmas" are expressions of the experience of the Church throughout the centuries. Therefore it has implications.

Now, on the implications of the filioque. I have not thought about it in depth, but I think it is important for us being monotheists. There can be no monotheism if there are two causes in the Trinity.

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Manx Taffy:
2. I am convinced by the arguement, put forward by the Roman Catholic Church that there is sufficient instances in scripture refering to the Holy Spirit as being the "spirit of Christ" or something similar to add weight to the arguments that this what the Apostles would have thought.

To me, this is the only issue. What are those passages?

It seems that there are quite a few instances in Scripture that raise these kinds of questions.

For example the Holy Spirit is said to be sent in the name of Jesus:

quote:
John 14.25 “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you."

To be sent "in Jesus' name" means that He speaks what Jesus speaks, or even that He is Jesus.

Other places clarify that the Holy Spirit speaks what He hears from Jesus:

quote:
John 16.13 When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.

It seems as though the Father gives it to the Son and the Son gives it to the Holy Spirit.

Other places seem to say that Jesus sends the Holy Spirit from the Father:

quote:
John 15.26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.

John 16.7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.

John 20.21 So Jesus said to them again, “Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” 22 And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

After His resurrection, especially, Jesus seems to be the one giving the Holy Spirit. This would fit with John 7

quote:
John 7.37 “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” 39 But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

The Holy Spirit was in some sense dependent on Jesus' glorification.

Both Jesus and the Holy Spirit “abide with us forever” or “to the end of the age.”

quote:
John 14.16 I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.

Matthew 28.20 “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

The sense in which Jesus is "with us always" is apparently similar to the sense in which the Holy Spirit "dwells with" and "in" us.

These passages seem to me to justify the Filioque. It seems to me that they do more than this, since they closely identify Jesus and the Holy Spirit. In any case they don't leave much room for the idea that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father only, with the Son being uninvolved.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Freddy, neither the Orthodox nor the Roman Catholics think that the term "proceed" has anything to do with "being sent"! No more than "begotten of the Father" implies Jesus's human birth.

[ 04. February 2006, 10:37: Message edited by: andreas1984 ]

Posted by daisymay (# 1480) on :

I understand the Trinity as wholly, totally, interactive, and equal, and therefore it would be inaccurate to imply that One was sent only by Another...

... but in the Bible there are bits telling us what Individuals within the Trinity did and so it makes sense that some theologians go for "Filioque" and others don't.

But it doesn't really seem to be a vitally essential doctrine to fight each other over....

Posted by Freddy (# 365) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
Freddy, neither the Orthodox nor the Roman Catholics think that the term "proceed" has anything to do with "being sent"! No more than "begotten of the Father" implies Jesus's human birth.

So then the two relevant passages are these?

quote:
John 8:42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me."

John 15:26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me."

Both Jesus and the Holy Spirit "proceed" from the Father.

What is the relevance, then, of who "sends" the Holy Spirit? Or, for that matter, of whether Jesus *is* the Holy Spirit?

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

"ενεργεί", "αυτουργεί", "συνεργεί" are the three verbs used in ancient Orthodoxy. When Jesus became man, God acted, Christ acted Himself and about Himself, God's Spirit co-acted. I'm not sure if I communicate the Orthodox experience in a right way. Perhaps a native English speaker can be of more help. The Spirit is sent by the Father, the Spirit is sent also by the Son, the Spirit is sent by Himself also. I hope this helps.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Both Jesus and the Holy Spirit "proceed" from the Father.

What is the relevance, then, of who "sends" the Holy Spirit? Or, for that matter, of whether Jesus *is* the Holy Spirit?

No, this is not accurate. The original ancient Greek text does not use the same word for the Spirit proceeding from the father alone and the Spirit and Jesus being sent by God. In the text you quote the verb "sent" is used, not "ekporevetai"!

All three of them send the Spirit to mankind. But only the Father gives existence to the Spirit, which is what "ekporevetai" means.

Posted by Manx Taffy (# 301) on :

Freddy I agree, though in some of those passages I can see how it could be said that the Spirit is proceeding from Father at the will of the Son. Then you're into semantics as tohow you interpret those.

Other texts that add weight to the validity of the filioque are;

Romans 8:9 where the "Spirit of God" and the "Spirit of the Son" appear tomeanone and the same thing.
Galatians 4:6 which seems to describe the Spirit as "the Spirit of His Son"

I did say I wanted to avoid the historic arguements about how the filioque got there, but I also understand how to a certain extent to both Orthodox and Roman Catholics the authority behind why it is there defines in some way the truth of it.

But I am trying to understand other reason why people think it is true or not.

WHile there isnot consensus on the matter I can see the mileage in saying the exact relationship of the persons of the trinity is a mystery on is currently no consensus andlooking to heal wounds on the matter. But then perhaps the real underlying issue of authority would quickly arise in other areas unless a consensus, yes even a compromise, on that can be reached.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

I think that many people confuse economy (i.e. the way God acts in human history) and the cause of each of the Trinity's persons (i.e. something that is outside history and does not have to do with the way the Trinity interacts with man, although it has to do with the fact that the Trinity interacts with man).

So, the Spirit inside history is sent by the Son (to be more accurate, He is sent by all three of them, the Father, the Son and Himself) and points to the Son, who, in turn, is sent by the Father (again: by all three of them) and points to the Father.

Therefore we talk about the Son's Spirit, but we never say that the Spirit ekporevetai from the Son.

The Father exists with no cause for His existence, and He gives existence to His Son and His Spirit. This is why we call Him Father and Lamp. The Son exists because of the Father. The same applies for the Spirit. If we can say that the Spirit exists because of both the Father and the Son, why not say that the Son exists because of both the Lamp aka Father and the Spirit?

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

The truth of the filioque is arrived at with ease, both from a philosophical and a spiritual point of view. The philosophical argument simply points out that a triangle requires three sides between its three corners. If two of the points are instead "on top of each other", i.e., indistinguishable, then there's only one side between two points. Since the Trinity is built up only by relations of origin, we need a relation of origin from the Son to the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, the Son and the Holy Spirit become indistinguishable and the Trinity collapses into a Duality. The Orthodox never seem to get this argument, and typically respond with a "distinction by jobs". But of course we know that this doesn't even work in our world: my gardner can also be my driver, without thereby becoming two distinct persons.

But the spiritual argument is even more compelling. Since the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God - Love Personified - to state that the Holy Spirit is exclusively from the Father means plain and simply that in all eternity only the Father loves the Son, but the Son does not love the Father. Which is crazy. Or at least one would have to assert that only the love of the Father personifies as Holy Spirit, whereas the love of the Son does not. That means the Son is a lesser God, which is plainly heretic. Or finally one may attempt to say that the Son does love the Father, but only as a sort of entirely passive relay station for the Father's own Holy Spirit. In this case the Holy Spirit is reduced to mere narcissistic self-love of the Father. Which is sick. Only by assuming that the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father, and their unitive mutual love is the Holy Spirit, do we arrive at an idea of a self-sufficient Trinity as eternal communion of love.

So all there really is to be done is to check that our easy to follow logic is compatible with scripture and the teaching of the Early Fathers. Of course it is. Now, there are ecumenical reasons why the RCC is currently bending over backwards to accomodate the Orthodox. If the only effect appears to be that the Orthodox intepret this as a sign of weakness to be exploited by ramping up the apologetics, then this will cease eventually.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

IngoB, stop talking about what the Orthodox think. We do not talk about a distinction of jobs. We are talking about a distinction in the way the three persons of the trinity exist.

Also, stop talking about what the Eastern Fathers thought. You have nothing to do with them. I think that their original texts speak for themselves.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

As for the Spirit's being Love personified, this introduces polytheism. If the Spirit is Love personified, then the Father is not Love. But this is against what is written that God is love. If the Father is also love, then there is no need to talk about the Spirit the way you do.

It is ignorant to speak of the Spirit as "Love personified" and it misses the point entirely. Love is essential to all three divine persons and it is not the idiom of the Spirit.

[ 04. February 2006, 12:00: Message edited by: andreas1984 ]

Posted by St. Sebastian (# 312) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Only by assuming that the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father, and their unitive mutual love is the Holy Spirit, do we arrive at an idea of a self-sufficient Trinity as eternal communion of love.

IngoB, doesn't that kind of make the Holy Spirit a bit . . . "less-than" the other Two? I'm probably misunderstanding you, but it seems to me to that your explanation lessens the Personhood of the Holy Spirit.

Posted by josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
Whether the filioque is valid, then, depends on whose ecclesiology is correct. If the Pope could legitimately authorize the change, then we Orthodox are in schism, need to repent, and need to catch up on all the stuff we've missed over the last thousand years or so. If only another ecumenical council could authorize the change, then the Catholics are in schism, they need to repent, etc.
All this is unfortunately wrong. The schism of the Orthodox consists in disobeying the pope. <snip> That the Orthodox should catch up with lots of stuff that has happened in the Western Church is hence related to the papal power schism, not to the filioque per se.

I think that's what I said. If the pope has the authority that he claimed for himself, then we are in schism because of our disobedience, and the filioque is simply one example of that disobedience. If that were the case, we would need to repent of the disobedience, and we would be missing out on important changes subsequent to the schism, changes we'd need to catch up on.

And the same situation would exist, in reverse, if the pope is wrong. Which, of course, I believe he is.

quote:
And so the important question here is not at all whether the pope was allowed to add this or not. The important question is whether it is true.

And that leads us, of course, to the question of how one determines truth in the Church. It's not like chemistry, where you can set up an experiment in a lab and develop an experiment that has an objective result that can be replicated and peer-reviewed.

In the Church, truth is inevitably tied up with authority. If the pope has the authority, given to him by the Most High God, to say, "This is most certainly true," then I would trust that the Holy Spirit would ensure that what he said was most certainly true. If he does not have that authority, then there is no reason to give what he says any particular credence.

[quote]I'm not saying, of course, that the question of the powers of the pope is unimportant. To the contrary, I'm saying that this is the issue in this schism. Whereas the filioque is not. <snip> agreement on the filioque, even if obtained, would only remove an obstacle but not heal the schism. [/qb]

I agree with this entirely, IngoB. I'm sorry if what I said earlier was not clear.

Posted by josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Since the Trinity is built up only by relations of origin, we need a relation of origin from the Son to the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, the Son and the Holy Spirit become indistinguishable and the Trinity collapses into a Duality. The Orthodox never seem to get this argument, and typically respond with a "distinction by jobs".

If that's what you think, IngoB, then you've misunderstood us. The Son and the Spirit are distinguished in that the Son is begotten of the Father and the Spirit proceeds. That distinction has nothing at all to do with their actions, their "jobs," but in their relationships.

quote:
But the spiritual argument is even more compelling. Since the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God - Love Personified - to state that the Holy Spirit is exclusively from the Father means plain and simply that in all eternity only the Father loves the Son, but the Son does not love the Father. Which is crazy.

Certainly. Which is why we don't believe that.

quote:
Only by assuming that the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father, and their unitive mutual love is the Holy Spirit, do we arrive at an idea of a self-sufficient Trinity as eternal communion of love.

This is, from our POV, utter nonsense. It makes the Holy Spirit into nothing more than one of the energies of God, resulting in your having a Duality and not a Trinity.

quote:
So all there really is to be done is to check that our easy to follow logic is compatible with scripture and the teaching of the Early Fathers.

As if easy-to-follow logic and a bit of proof-texting is going to allow you to define the Godhead.

Good luck.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Since the Trinity is built up only by relations of origin, we need a relation of origin from the Son to the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, the Son and the Holy Spirit become indistinguishable and the Trinity collapses into a Duality.

ISTM that rather depends on the principle that there can only be one kind of relation of origin, ie that the Father can't cause the Spirit in a different way from the way in which He causes the Son.

Intuitively this seems sound to me, and I say Filioque, but I'm not convinced it necessarily follows.

[ 04. February 2006, 15:02: Message edited by: Ricardus ]

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
ISTM that rather depends on the principle that there can only be one kind of relation of origin, ie that the Father can't cause the Spirit in a different way from the way in which He causes the Son.

Intuitively this seems sound to me, and I say Filioque, but I'm not convinced it necessarily follows.

The church has taught otherwise. Read Damascene's "exact exposition of the orthodox faith" where he teaches that there is such a difference and that while we cannot comprehend the origination itself, we are to safeguard the distinction. Damascene's work is accepted as authoritative by both the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Church and is an exposition of the faith of the entire church at the time he lived.

Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
ISTM that rather depends on the principle that there can only be one kind of relation of origin, ie that the Father can't cause the Spirit in a different way from the way in which He causes the Son.

This doesn't even work for people. The way I originated my daughter is quite different from the way I originate, say, a work of art. If humans can have (at least) two modes of generating, why can't GOd?

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

Andreas,

I think the Roman Catholic view is that

begetting = Son is caused by Father
proceeding = Spirit is caused by Father AND Spirit is caused by Son

which means that begetting and proceeding are different, but only because one is unilateral and the other bilateral. But the word "cause" in both equations refers to the same sort of event.

Whereas the Orthodox view is - correct me if I'm wrong -

begetting = Son is caused by Father
proceeding = Spirit is caused by Father
BUT the word "cause" refers to a different kind of event in the two equations.

Mousethief,

Yes, but the work of art and your daughter have different attributes, so you have to do different things to give them those attributes.

As I say, though, my feeling is only intuitive. I don't really trust it.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Ricardus, Damascene says that difference exists but we do not know what the difference is. It is written: "tell me what begotten means, and I will tell you what proceed means". Just like we don't know how he begets him, we also don't know how he proceeds from him.

"For the Father alone is ingenerate, no other subsistence having given Him being. And the Son alone is generate, for He was begotten of the Father's essence without beginning and without time. And only the Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father's essence, not having been generated but simply proceeding. For this is the doctrine of Holy Scripture. But the nature of the generation and the procession is quite beyond comprehension."

and

"But the Son is derived from the Father after the manner of generation, and the Holy Spirit likewise is derived from the Father, yet not after the manner of generation, but after that of procession. And we have learned that there is a difference between generation and procession, but the nature of that difference we in no wise understand. Further, the generation of the Son from the Father and the procession of the Holy Spirit are simultaneous."(book I)

[ 04. February 2006, 15:36: Message edited by: andreas1984 ]

Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :

The son and the spirit have different attribute also. For one thing the son became incarnate and the spirit never did.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Mousethief, you confuse the way they act in history with the way they are. The Incarnation is not an attribute of the Son. It is something that happened.

Like Damascene teaches: "All then that the Son and the Spirit have is from the Father, even their very being: and unless the Father is, neither the Son nor the Spirit is. And unless the Father possesses a certain attribute, neither the Son nor the Spirit possesses it: and through the Father, that is, because of the Father's existence, the Son and the Spirit exist, and through the Father, that is, because of the Father having the qualities, the Son and the Spirit have all their qualities, those of being unbegotten, and of birth and of procession being excepted. For in these hypostatic or personal properties alone do the three holy subsistences differ from each other, being indivisibly divided not by essence but by the distinguishing mark of their proper and peculiar subsistence."

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Ricardus, one last quote (I promise! People please don't hate me for quoting) from Damascene.

quote:
The Holy Spirit is one Spirit, going forth from the Father, not in the manner of Sonship but of procession; so that neither has the Father lost His property of being unbegotten because He hath begotten, nor has the Son lost His property of being begotten because He was begotten of that which was unbegotten (for how could that be so?), nor does the Spirit change either into the Father or into the Son because He hath proceeded and is God. For a property is quite constant. For how could a property persist if it were variable, moveable, and could change into something else? For if the Father is the Son, He is not strictly the Father: for there is strictly one Father. And if the Son is the Father, He is not strictly the Son: for there is strictly one Son and one Holy Spirit.

Further, it should be understood that we do not speak of the Father as derived from any one, but we speak of Him as the Father of the Son. And we do not speak of the Son as Cause or Father, but we speak of Him both as from the Father, and as the Son of the Father. And we speak likewise of the Holy Spirit as from the Father, and call Him the Spirit of the Father. And we do not speak of the Spirit as from the Son: s but yet we call Him the Spirit of the Son. For if any one hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His, saith the divine apostle. And we confess that He is manifested and imparted to us through the Son. For He breathed upon His Disciples, says he, and said, Receive ye the Holy Spirit. It is just the same as in the case of the sun from which come both the ray and the radiance (for the sun itself is the source of both the ray and the radiance), and it is through the ray that the radiance is imparted to us, and it is the radiance itself by which we are lightened and in which we participate. Further we do not speak of the Son of the Spirit, or of the Son as derived from the Spirit.

[ 04. February 2006, 15:55: Message edited by: andreas1984 ]

Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :

andreas, i disagree. I think the incarnation is an essential part of who the Son is. God doesn't do things by accident.

Posted by Fauja (# 2054) on :

Why not just stick to what the Bible says instead of re-packaging the word of God with creeds and the like?

If the Holy Spirit is in essence, God the Spirit then why quibble about whether the Spirit proceeds from Jesus?

Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Fauja:
Why not just stick to what the Bible says instead of re-packaging the word of God with creeds and the like?

Because no two people can agree on what the Bible says to stick to it?

Posted by Fauja (# 2054) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by Fauja:
Why not just stick to what the Bible says instead of re-packaging the word of God with creeds and the like?
Because no two people can agree on what the Bible says to stick to it?

I'm sure we can agree on plenty of what the Bible says. We might vary more in our interpretation of it.

Take John 14:26 (NIV) for example:

quote:

But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

It is straightfoward enough for me.

Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :

The original creed was developed to answer the question: is Jesus a creature, or God? If he's God, how can he be God if there's only one God?

If that's not an important question to answer to you, that's swell, I suppose. It was to the early church; it was tearing the church apart.

We can't just say, "Well I'll believe what the Scriptures teach." Both the Arians and the Trinitarians had their pet passages that "proved" their point of view. The creed answers the question, "which of these two interpretations is the correct one?"

Posted by Back-to-Front (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Fauja:
Why not just stick to what the Bible says instead of re-packaging the word of God with creeds and the like?

Cos that isn't how the Holy Spirit has led Christianity to work. As I said on another thread, the Spirit of Truth was promised to the Church, not to a collection nof writings, however important that collection of writings may be.

quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
andreas, i disagree. I think the incarnation is an essential part of who the Son is. God doesn't do things by accident.

Just wanted to respectfully say that I agree with Andreas on this one. I think there's an important distinction between the eternal natures/hypostases of the Persons of the Trinity and the temporal acts of the Persons in relation to creation.

For example, Jesus breathed on the Apostles and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit'. This was a temporal act in relation to creation and is not evidence that the eternal nature of the Holy Spirit is in procession from the Son.

I'd say the same about the Incarnation - that it was a temporal act in creation and not to be taken as evidence that the quality of being incarnate is part of the eternal nature of the Son.

Just my own thoughts, though.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
We do not talk about a distinction of jobs. We are talking about a distinction in the way the three persons of the trinity exist.

Yep, that's what I meant.

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
Also, stop talking about what the Eastern Fathers thought. You have nothing to do with them. I think that their original texts speak for themselves.

I'm sorry andreas1984, as much as you would like to own the Eastern tradition exclusively, you don't, and as much as you would like your own voice to be the infallible intepretation of their writings, it isn't. And, by the way, you are simply in no position to shut me up. Thank God.

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
As for the Spirit's being Love personified, this introduces polytheism. If the Spirit is Love personified, then the Father is not Love. But this is against what is written that God is love. If the Father is also love, then there is no need to talk about the Spirit the way you do.

And calling the Father the "creative source" is also polytheism? You are of course correct that all God is Love. But from ancient times on it has been custom to attribute features predominantly to one Person of the Trinity, to talk about "a distinction in the way the three persons of the trinity exist." (Now, who said that? Oh yes, you.) That's more an aid to our understanding than reality, but it does indeed aid our understanding. What would you characterise God's Spirit as, hate?

But if you don't like all that in-spir(it)-ing talk about love, I can rephrase all that simply in terms of relations: Given that the begetting of the Son is logically prior to the breathing of the Spirit, how come that the Son - true God from God - is not involved in the breathing? What's the Son doing, twiddling His thumbs waiting for the Father to get on with it? He's true God, not a lesser god. He is logically already begotten. Of course He has an equal share in the breathing, anything else diminishes Him.

quote:
Originally posted by St. Sebastian:
IngoB, doesn't that kind of make the Holy Spirit a bit . . . "less-than" the other Two? I'm probably misunderstanding you, but it seems to me to that your explanation lessens the Personhood of the Holy Spirit.

In what way? In particular, in what way which would not also declare the Son to be "less-than" just because He is the begotten Word? I certainly don't see any "less-than".

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
If that's what you think, IngoB, then you've misunderstood us. The Son and the Spirit are distinguished in that the Son is begotten of the Father and the Spirit proceeds. That distinction has nothing at all to do with their actions, their "jobs," but in their relationships.

No, Josephine. If it was truly "pure relation of origin" in Orthodoxy, then it would be game over for you and you would have to say the filioque. For immediately my "triangle" argument holds. Your only chance is to "color" the relations of origin, to make those relations themselves different. That's precisely what you are doing by saying that one is "begotten" and the other "proceeds". By using different words, you are attaching a distinction here. But of course it doesn't work. For the Holy Spirit is true God from God, not god created by God. However, the very reason why we say "begotten" for the Son is simply that the Son is true God from God, not god created by God. "Begotten" is used as analogy for true man from man in procreation. Thus your "proceeds" must mean "begotten", thus your Son and your Holy Spirit collapse into one person, thus you believe in a Duality. I know that you don't, but your reasoning is simply faulty.

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
This is, from our POV, utter nonsense. It makes the Holy Spirit into nothing more than one of the energies of God, resulting in your having a Duality and not a Trinity.

See above. Again I ask, what would you instead "attribute" to the Holy Spirit? What did Jesus give to His disciples, the Spirit of ...?

quote:
Originally posted by Back-to-Front:
For example, Jesus breathed on the Apostles and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit'. This was a temporal act in relation to creation and is not evidence that the eternal nature of the Holy Spirit is in procession from the Son.

Oh, good. Glad we can put John 14:26 to rest as mere temporal act in relation to creation then as well... [Big Grin]

(In other words, bovine excrement.)

Posted by josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Given that the begetting of the Son is logically prior to the breathing of the Spirit, how come that the Son - true God from God - is not involved in the breathing?

What? Why is the begetting logically prior to the procession? I don't see any logical necessity for one to be before the other; in fact, I think it's absurd to speak of one being before the other, or at the same time, or anything of the sort, since time has no bearing on the Godhead.

quote:
He is logically already begotten. Of course He has an equal share in the breathing, anything else diminishes Him.

Again, this logic of which you speak doesn't seem logical to me.

quote:
Your only chance is to "color" the relations of origin, to make those relations themselves different. That's precisely what you are doing by saying that one is "begotten" and the other "proceeds". By using different words, you are attaching a distinction here.

Yes, in much the same way that I use different words for black and white. As I'm sure you know, using different words to convey different ideas is a fairly normal practice.

quote:
Thus your "proceeds" must mean "begotten", thus your Son and your Holy Spirit collapse into one person, thus you believe in a Duality. I know that you don't, but your reasoning is simply faulty.

No, proceeds doesn't mean begotten. The procession is not the same thing as the begetting. Your saying they are synonymous does not make them so.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
This is, from our POV, utter nonsense. It makes the Holy Spirit into nothing more than one of the energies of God, resulting in your having a Duality and not a Trinity.
See above. Again I ask, what would you instead "attribute" to the Holy Spirit? What did Jesus give to His disciples, the Spirit of ...?

You're not making sense here, IngoB. The Holy Spirit is certainly the Spirit of Love. But that attribute is not unique to the Spirit. I'm afraid I don't understand your point here at all.

[ 04. February 2006, 22:25: Message edited by: josephine ]

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :

If the 'filioque' is so wonderful why do we have Spirit renewal movements in the western Church throughout the Second Millennium? All these movements speak of putting something back that was missing. Doesn't that tell you something? Moreover why is it that western trinitarian doctrine so often comes over as binitarian with a glancing impersonal reference to the Spirit bonding the Big Two? IngoB, why are you so enamoured with the apologetic that sustains your loyalty?

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
What? Why is the begetting logically prior to the procession? I don't see any logical necessity for one to be before the other; in fact, I think it's absurd to speak of one being before the other, or at the same time, or anything of the sort, since time has no bearing on the Godhead.

It's logically prior, not temporally prior. In the same way as the Father is logically prior to the Son, since He is the one who begets the Son, but not temporally prior, since both are eternal. Plenty of Eastern Fathers say that the Spirit comes from the Father through the Son. Obviously, that is impossible if the Son isn't there. He's there prior to the Spirit, not in the temporal sense, but in a logical sense (e.g., if I say A->B->C, then B is logically prior to C, but there need not be time involved).

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
Again, this logic of which you speak doesn't seem logical to me.

Since the Father is logically prior to the Son, and the Son is logically prior to the Spirit, the Spirit can have two sources: Father and Son. To say it's only one diminishes the other's Divine activity. Since both are true God, they must collaborate equally in this.

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
Yes, in much the same way that I use different words for black and white. As I'm sure you know, using different words to convey different ideas is a fairly normal practice.

Except that in this case we are talking about God, one in essence, distict as three Persons only due to relations of origin. Hence the only distinction your word labels can possibly carry is one concerning the relation of origin. Thus you must say with the Westerners that the origin of the Spirit is distinct from that of the Son, or you end up collapsing the Spirit and the Son. Simply put, the only meaningful difference between "begetting" and "proceeding" (in the narrow sense of "breathing forth") is precisely that suggested by the filioque: whereas "begetting" means "originates from the Father", "proceeding" means "originates from the Father and the Son".

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
No, proceeds doesn't mean begotten. The procession is not the same thing as the begetting. Your saying they are synonymous does not make them so.

Indeed, they are not synonyms. But only one way is available for guaranteeing that, if you will maintain the unity in essence and avoid Tritheism.

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
You're not making sense here, IngoB. The Holy Spirit is certainly the Spirit of Love. But that attribute is not unique to the Spirit. I'm afraid I don't understand your point here at all.

The point was simply that understanding the nature of love means supporting the filioque. That the projection of separate attributes onto the Trinity is not really correct does not really subtract from this spiritual insight. Just as one can usefully argue with the Father as "creative source" in spite of the fact that the Trinity cannot be so split. Under intense scrutiny one can always go back to the defense by philosophical argument, but I thought it important to point out that the filioque can inspire more than just philospophy.

quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
If the 'filioque' is so wonderful why do we have Spirit renewal movements in the western Church throughout the Second Millennium? All these movements speak of putting something back that was missing. Doesn't that tell you something?

Uhh, yeah, that the Holy Spirit is still alive and well and active in His church, which continues to be made up by fallible humans. Your point is?

quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Moreover why is it that western trinitarian doctrine so often comes over as binitarian with a glancing impersonal reference to the Spirit bonding the Big Two?

Your personal judgement of Western spirituality luckily is not normative. Anyway, this is entirely pointless, mere emotional argueing about individual or even corporate spiritual failures. It cannot in any way touch a discussion of the truth of the doctrine.

quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
IngoB, why are you so enamoured with the apologetic that sustains your loyalty?

Thanks for that question. There I was, happily cruising along, just saying that the filioque isn't the problem anyway. But somebody Orthodox just had to post the usual Orthodox apologetics, which only seeks to separate and exalt itself, never tries to build bridges. And right after, somebody else Orthodox just had to interpret the diplomatic and ecumenical efforts of the Vatican towards the Eastern churches as admission of fault. I should indeed know better than to react to such nonsense...

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

IngoB said that generation is logical prior to spiration. I think that we cannot compare spiration with generation, but if we could, then the opposite of what IngoB said would be correct. Because we cannot think of one having a son without having breathed in his life. First we breathe, and we breathe for many years before we have a son. So, aspiration, or breath, is logically prior to giving birth to a son.

But I say that we cannot compare breath with generation. We can only compare the Word with the Spirit. When the Father speaks, His Word and His Spirit come forth. The Word is not prior to the Spirit. The Spirit does not proceed from the Word; the Breath proceeds from Him that breaths and the Word comes from Him that breaths.

Thus, it is shown that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone.

Posted by josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
In the same way as the Father is logically prior to the Son, since He is the one who begets the Son, but not temporally prior, since both are eternal. Plenty of Eastern Fathers say that the Spirit comes from the Father through the Son. Obviously, that is impossible if the Son isn't there. He's there prior to the Spirit, not in the temporal sense, but in a logical sense (e.g., if I say A->B->C, then B is logically prior to C, but there need not be time involved).

I see. Thanks for clarifying. But you're begging the question. The Son is only logically prior to the Spirit if the filioque is true, and that is precisely the assertion that is in question.

quote:
Simply put, the only meaningful difference between "begetting" and "proceeding" (in the narrow sense of "breathing forth") is precisely that suggested by the filioque: whereas "begetting" means "originates from the Father", "proceeding" means "originates from the Father and the Son".

Again, you're begging the question.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
No, proceeds doesn't mean begotten. The procession is not the same thing as the begetting. Your saying they are synonymous does not make them so.
Indeed, they are not synonyms. But only one way is available for guaranteeing that, if you will maintain the unity in essence and avoid Tritheism.

Red and green are not synonyms, but some people, because of a lack of appropriate receptors in their eyes, can't distinguish them directly. Let's say a man learns by rote that the top light on a traffic signal is what is called red, and the bottom one is what is called green. That's good so far. But what of this difference between red and green that he keeps hearing about? Is he to insist that the difference he knows is the only way the two can be distinguished? That if you put them in some other position, the distinction would collapse and they'd be a single color? He can do that, or he can accept on faith that they are, in fact, different, even if he doesn't quite see how.

You might say that we're colorblind, with respect to the Persons of the Godhead. Because we are finite, we can't distinguish them directly. But we have learned, by revelation, that the processing and the begetting are entirely different things, and they describe different relationships, even if we don't quite see how.

The fact that we don't see how doesn't bother me. It apparently bothers you tremendously. But that doesn't change the fact that your stuffing your finger in your ears and saying "they're the same thing if you don't accept the filioque" doesn't make them the same thing.

Posted by Back-to-Front (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:
Originally posted by Back-to-Front:
For example, Jesus breathed on the Apostles and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit'. This was a temporal act in relation to creation and is not evidence that the eternal nature of the Holy Spirit is in procession from the Son.
Oh, good. Glad we can put John 14:26 to rest as mere temporal act in relation to creation then as well...

IngoB, I never claimed that the actions of the Persons in relation to creation were merely anything. I was drawing a distinction between the two - temporal acts and eternal nature - not saying that either one of them is of little value. Please don't infuse my words with ideas that just aren't there.

quote:
(In other words, bovine excrement.)

I knew there was a reason I wans't posting to this thread. I suppose it took posting to make me realise what it was.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
Because we cannot think of one having a son without having breathed in his life.

Indeed. But we are not talking about a son, a creature, who needs God's breath to animate it. We are talking about the Son, true God from God. Clearly, the Son does not need to be "animated", or he would be a godlet, a creature.

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
The Son is only logically prior to the Spirit if the filioque is true, and that is precisely the assertion that is in question.

The Son is logically prior according to the universal witness of the Eastern Fathers. Check all those nice quotations in the Orthodox apologetics Father Gregory posted above, just one example: By nature the Holy Spirit in his being takes substantially his origin from the Father through the Son who is begotten. (Saint Maximus the Confessor, Questions to Thalassium, 63) The Holy Spirit takes his origin from the Father (who obviously then is logically prior) through the Son (who obviously then also is logically prior). We can track this opinion back to scripture, of course, if you wish.

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
The fact that we don't see how doesn't bother me. It apparently bothers you tremendously. But that doesn't change the fact that your stuffing your finger in your ears and saying "they're the same thing if you don't accept the filioque" doesn't make them the same thing.

No, josephine. We also know that there is only one God. That tremendously restricts our options. If we allow any sort of "accidents" in the Persons, and the "red" and "green" of your traffics lights are just that, then immediately we would have three gods. Only distinctions that do not lead to tritheism are allowable. So the point is not at all whether we can see "red" and "green", that's totally irrelevant. The point is that we know that there cannot be any "color".

quote:
Originally posted by Back-to-Front:
IngoB, I never claimed that the actions of the Persons in relation to creation were merely anything. I was drawing a distinction between the two - temporal acts and eternal nature - not saying that either one of them is of little value. Please don't infuse my words with ideas that just aren't there.

That was hardly my point. My point is that we do not have any clear and direct information about the "eternal nature" of the Trinity in scripture, and that therefore doctrines are invariably based precisely on the evidence of temporal acts. So if temporal acts cannot count as evidence, as you say, then both Orthodox and RC doctrines lose any scriptural justification... I think the Trinity instead demonstrates that evidence for the eternal nature can be abstracted from temporal acts to some extent. But then we must be allowed to look at all scripture for such evidence, including the passage where you say we shouldn't, in which case the filioque is in pretty good shape.

Posted by josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
If we allow any sort of "accidents" in the Persons, and the "red" and "green" of your traffics lights are just that, then immediately we would have three gods. Only distinctions that do not lead to tritheism are allowable. So the point is not at all whether we can see "red" and "green", that's totally irrelevant. The point is that we know that there cannot be any "color".

Once again, you missed the point of what I was saying. I'm not sure what the problem is. I don't know if you're having trouble reading for comprehension, or if my writing has somehow become incomprehensible.

Whichever it is, at the moment, I find that I'm tired of beating my head against this particular wall.

[ 06. February 2006, 04:19: Message edited by: josephine ]

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
Because we cannot think of one having a son without having breathed in his life.
Indeed. But we are not talking about a son, a creature, who needs God's breath to animate it. We are talking about the Son, true God from God. Clearly, the Son does not need to be "animated", or he would be a godlet, a creature.

You didn't understand what I was saying. I said that in order for one to become at some point of his life a father, one has to live first up to that point, and in order to live, one has to breathe. The baby breathes, the kid breathes, the teen breathes but the man has a son. So, breathing is logically prior to begetting for the father.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
So, breathing is logically prior to begetting for the father.

I understood you perfectly well. You are right for human fathers, wrong for our heavenly Father. This is attested by multiple Eastern sources talking about spiration "through the Son", which is clearly impossible unless the Son is logically prior to the Holy Spirit. That you got messed up just goes to show that an analogy is just an analogy, and should not be treated as an identity - in particular not if it's an analogy from the human to the Divine...

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
Once again, you missed the point of what I was saying. I'm not sure what the problem is. I don't know if you're having trouble reading for comprehension, or if my writing has somehow become incomprehensible.

I think IngoB's point is something like this. The Orthodox doctrine can be characterised (very crudely) as "the Father does something, and produces the Son; He does something else, and produces the Spirit". The problem is that the Son and the Spirit are identical. As a general principle, to produce identical results, you must necessarily do the same thing, and hence the difference (on your view) between begetting and proceeding is not just inconceivable (like colour to a colourblind person) but actually a logical impossibility.

As I say, this sounds reasonable to me, but I am by no means rationally convinced that the part in italics is a necessary principle. It is (I think) our experience that it is the case, in which case I suppose the Filioque is a more parsimonious doctrine.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
I think IngoB's point is something like this. The Orthodox doctrine can be characterised (very crudely) as "the Father does something, and produces the Son; He does something else, and produces the Spirit". The problem is that the Son and the Spirit are identical. As a general principle, to produce identical results, you must necessarily do the same thing, and hence the difference (on your view) between begetting and proceeding is not just inconceivable (like colour to a colourblind person) but actually a logical impossibility.

If that was true then the father should have came to existence with the same "procedure". But the father is identical with the son and the spirit without having been "generated" from anyone. Hence what you said is wrong.

Now, IngoB says that the eastern fathers use the word "through". He thinks that this supports his case of begetting being logically prior to proceeding. He does not explain why this is so, but he says that the fathers thought so too.

Let him learn that when the fathers do so, they speak in a twoforld manner: a) in a manner appropriate to economy. Because truly, the Spirit comes to mankind through the Son, just like the Son came to mankind from the Spirit. b) in a manner appropriate to God uttering the Word. When we speak our words, we breathe. Just like that, the Spirit is closely connected to the Word, without getting his being from the son.

But since IngoB talks about the fathers, they also said that we do not know what the difference between begetting and proceeding is. So, why is IngoB saying that the difference lies in the filioque?

[ 06. February 2006, 08:04: Message edited by: andreas1984 ]

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

Not quite, Ricardus. Since God is One, we must avoid any accident or activity in God which would split the Trinity into three gods, so to speak. Since God is Three Person, we nevertheless must find some real distinction. The only thing that is available for this - as seen already by the Early Fathers, including the Eastern ones, but with particular clarity expounded by Aquinas - are relations. And it is revealed that in the Trinity we have relations of origin. So not only is the "result" of the distinction identical according to essence, there's only one means of distinction available. But if so, then the distinction between Son and Spirit must be made by it - that means the filioque. The Eastern "answer" is instead to declare that something distinguishes the relations of origin themselves other than merely different origins. Given that nothing else is revealed and that the "One God" constraint is severe, what that could be is truly a "mystery". The Orthodox would like to claim it's a Divine mystery. I would say it's unnecessary (and unscriptural) obfuscation.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Thinking that Jesus's using two different words, i.e. "begetting" and "proceeding", does not imply difference in the way the Son exists from the way the Spirit exists is itself contrary to the scriptures.

The very names "Son" and "Spirit" reveal that the two persons exist in a different way. The fact that there is difference between proceeding and begetting and that we do not know what this difference is, is taught by the ancient fathers. If you choose to say differently then you do not share the same faith with them. You are using the fathers when it suits you; you do not learn from them. Your entire theology is dependent on what Augustine and Aquinas said. I guess the need to find "Popes" is inherent in Roman Catholicism.

Posted by CDLauffer (# 10983) on :

The answers have probably all been given but the summary of why I believe strongly that the "filioque" does not belong in the creed in the place it is situated is as follows:

1. It confuses what it clearly taught in Scripture. John 14 has been mentioned already but even more to the point is Jesus' insistence in John 15:26 that "the Spirit of truth...proceeds from the Father" ought to be enough to settle the question.

2. The creed does not include it and no council has reversed the decisions of Nicaea and Constantinople.

3. The Pope himself approves of the creed without the "filioque".

I should think that if Western Churches wish to continue to use the "filioque" they ought to consider adding the word "through" and they should leave the Eastern Churches to follow the Creed as it was written.

BTW I'm new here and am a member of the Byzantine Catholic Church.

CDL

Posted by St. Sebastian (# 312) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:
Originally posted by St. Sebastian:
IngoB, doesn't that kind of make the Holy Spirit a bit . . . "less-than" the other Two? I'm probably misunderstanding you, but it seems to me to that your explanation lessens the Personhood of the Holy Spirit.
In what way? In particular, in what way which would not also declare the Son to be "less-than" just because He is the begotten Word? I certainly don't see any "less-than".

Because to say the Son is the begotten Word seems, to me, qualitatively different than saying the Holy Spirit is their unitive mutual love . I have a hard time seeing "unitive mutual love" as a Person instead of a thing/event/energy/adjective. Quite possibly this is a failure of the intellect on my part, I realize, but it still seems to make the Holy Spirit less . . . real than the other Two.

Posted by Back-to-Front (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by CDLauffer:
BTW I'm new here and am a member of the Byzantine Catholic Church.

Wow! We've had the discussions about WRite Orthodoxy. Maybe we can persuade you, in time, to tell us a bit more about ERite Catholicism.

Welcome!

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Not quite, Ricardus. Since God is One, we must avoid any accident or activity in God which would split the Trinity into three gods, so to speak. Since God is Three Person, we nevertheless must find some real distinction.

OK, I see. Sort of. But...

"Begetting" can't be part of the essence of the Father, because otherwise all the Persons, being consubstantial, would be begetting Sons of Their Own, and you would end up with an infinity of Persons. But it can't be an activity or accident either, because that would imply tritheism.

So what's left? Or is that the point?

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
Let him learn that when the fathers do so, they speak in a twoforld manner: a) in a manner appropriate to economy. Because truly, the Spirit comes to mankind through the Son, just like the Son came to mankind from the Spirit. b) in a manner appropriate to God uttering the Word. When we speak our words, we breathe. Just like that, the Spirit is closely connected to the Word, without getting his being from the son.

First, it is ridiculous that you criticize me for projecting economy into eternity and then you proceed to claim that the Holy Spirit is logically before the Son because the Father must breathe in order to say a word. This is silly literalism and of course nails down the eternal configuration of the Trinity as much as the filoque does, just without any good justification. And for saying something about the eternal Trinity you criticize me for going beyond John of Damascus' "I have no idea." Well, criticize yourself!

Second, it seems to me from the context of all those quotes from Eastern fathers in Fr Gregory's Orthodox apologetics that one can hardly claim that it is obvious that the "through the Son" only refers to the economy. Most of the fathers instead are in full swing talking about the eternal Trinity when they say that. Indeed, I find it telling that the text of Saint Gregory the Wonderworker apparently was later fudged - quite clearly contrary to the run of the text - to make it appear as if he was talking about the economy only. I bet a good apologetic case could be made that the Orthodox here read back into the early fathers a distinction which is simply not there.

Third, as I mentioned to Back-to-Front, this is at any rate pointless. What can we say about the Trinity which is not based on what is revealed through the economy? Basically nothing! Jesus never gave a lecture on the Trinity in eternity. All we have here then is the Orthodox picking and choosing which parts of scripture they wish to abstract to eternity, and which ones not.

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
But since IngoB talks about the fathers, they also said that we do not know what the difference between begetting and proceeding is. So, why is IngoB saying that the difference lies in the filioque?

Let's be perfectly clear that the early father's are simply not in agreement on the structure of the Trinity. In cases where they are not in overwhelming agreement, we are not bound to their insights. By the way, Fr Gregory's apologetics link is a real riot on that one. First it asserts precisely what I've just said, that universal consensus is what counts. Next it excludes all the Latin fathers plus any "problematic" eastern fathers from consideration concerning that consensus. [Killing me]

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
Thinking that Jesus's using two different words, i.e. "begetting" and "proceeding", does not imply difference in the way the Son exists from the way the Spirit exists is itself contrary to the scriptures.

Indeed. "Begetting" mean "from the Father", "proceeding" (in the narrow sense) means "from Father and Son". The difference is clearly seen.

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
The fact that there is difference between proceeding and begetting and that we do not know what this difference is, is taught by the ancient fathers. If you choose to say differently then you do not share the same faith with them.

This is taught by some early fathers, hence it is in no way binding. But anyway, I'm not disagreeing with John of Damascus et al. They indeed did not understand the difference and were prudent to say so rather than teaching error. Luckily now we do understand the difference better.

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
You are using the fathers when it suits you; you do not learn from them. Your entire theology is dependent on what Augustine and Aquinas said.

Well, maybe you should learn from Saint Augustine, one of the greatest early fathers of the Church? A bit of Saint Thomas Aquinas wouldn't hurt either.

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
I guess the need to find "Popes" is inherent in Roman Catholicism.

In Catholicism, full stop. Indeed. Without St Peter in the long run no unity and no prevailing against the gates of hell for the Church.

To return to my first post, I think CDLauffer's post shows quite clearly how diplomatic and accomodating the Vatican is willing to be to those who are ... reluctant about the filioque but nevertheless wish to be in full *cough* communion with Rome. His take can be distinguished from the ... reluctance of the Orthodox on this thread concerning only one thing - that he "allows" the Western Church to keep its filoque if they absolutely must. One wonders if the Orthodox can come to a similar position.

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
So what's left? Or is that the point?

That is the point indeed.

Posted by Jonathan the Free (# 10612) on :

So this is not really an argument about the filioque at all. That is not the cause of the continuing schism. The question of Papal authority is.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Jonathan, maybe it's so from the Roman point of view, but it is not so for the Orthodox. Power is one thing; heresy is another.

By the way, here's something St. Gregory the Theologian says on the Spirit, in his fifth theological oration:

quote:
What was Adam? A creature of God. What then was Eve? A fragment of the creature. And what was Seth? The begotten of both. Does it then seem to you that Creature and Fragment and Begotten are the same thing? Of course it does not. But were not these persons consubstantial? Of course they were. Well then, here it is an acknowledged fact that different persons may have the same substance. I say this, not that I would attribute creation or fraction or any property of body to the Godhead (let none of your contenders for a word be down upon me again), but that I may contemplate in these, as on a stage, things which are objects of thought alone. For it is not possible to trace out any image exactly to the whole extent of the truth. But, they say, what is the meaning of all this? For is not the one an offspring, and the other a something else of the One? Did not both Eve and Seth come from the one Adam? And were they both begotten by him? No; but the one was a fragment of him, and the other was begotten by him. And yet the two were one and the same thing; both were human beings; no one will deny that. Will you then give up your contention against the Spirit, that He must be either altogether begotten, or else cannot be consubstantial, or be God; and admit from human examples the possibility of our position? I think it will be well for you, unless you are determined to be very quarrelsome, and to fight against what is proved to demonstration.

Do you think that the ancient church believed in the same things IngoB says, that to proceed means to be from the father and the son while to be begotten means to be from the father only?

Posted by GreyFace (# 4682) on :

Andreas, why is St Gregory's opinion to be preferred over that of St Augustine?

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Dear GreyFace

I have not read St. Augustine's work on the trinity. I have read however the eastern fathers' work on the trinity and St. Ambrose's works.

I have found that the eastern father (along with St. Ambrose) agree totally when they say that we speak of one God not numerically but as far as the divine nature is concerned. They also agree totally when they say that to proceed is not the same as to be begotten. Again, they agree that the Father is the cause of the Trinity.

Now, you seem to imply that St. Augustine says something different than St. Gregory.

Let me remind the readers that St. Gregory the Nazianzen was called "Theologian" by the Church, a title given only to three persons (apostle John, Gregory and Symeon).

If such a difference exists, and I say if, because I have not read St. Augustine's works on the trinity, then either Augustine or the eastern fathers plus Ambrose are wrong. I understand that much of the western understanding is based on Augustine (and Boethius and Aquinas), but if a difference exists then the truth lies in the majority, not in the one voice that says different.

This does not mean that the church is a democratic institution and we let majorities decide. This means that we get our faith from what the Lord and His apostles taught (aka tradition), not by what any individual might come up with.

As far as St. Augustine is concerned, I have read some works of him and I find them in total agreement with the other ancient fathers and with the faith I hold long after they lived. So, I would be surprised if he has reached to different conclusions on the trinitarian issue.

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Well,

It has been quite some time since I have posted on this board, but I couldn't resist having a quick peek to see what people are discussing these days. And what comfort to see that it is the same old set of things!

And the same old people! I have to say, Andreas, that as well as disagreeing profoundly with some of your points, I find your latest post on this board to be highly contradictory.

Firstly, the fact that Augustine mentions the filioque idea suggests that it was common currency, in the time he is writing. I think that is the point that is being made.

Secondly, you are, of course, correct to name the three saints officialy having received the title "theologian". But do you really expect to contend seriously that these are the only three theologians in the history of the Church thus far? Can we really NOT trust the works of any others? If not, what is the point you are making?

Next, perhaps you haven't read the bit of Augustine which says

quote:
so He who is the Father is not the Son; and the Son is begotten by the Father, and so He who is the Son is not the Father; and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but only the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, Himself also co-equal with the Father and the Son, and pertaining to the unity of the Trinity.
De Trinitate

On your post:

quote:
...but if a difference exists then the truth lies in the majority, not in the one voice that says different.

...This means that we get our faith from what the Lord and His apostles taught (aka tradition), not by what any individual might come up with.

This is an interesting viewpoint, but not one which I could subscribe to. What about St. Mark of Ephesus? As I understand it, during this "difference", all of the Greek bishops except for him signed the final document of the Council of Florence. (Incidentally, for those (like my good self) who have a thing for manuscripts, we can see the signatures here: http://asv.vatican.va/en/doc/1439.htm ... one of the vast advantages of having a central library which keeps EVERYTHING!!).

So, where is the evidence here of the truth lying in the majority? Isn't St. Mark of Ephesus just an individual coming up with something that the majority (in time of difference) do not subscibe to?

It seems to me that there is an inherent paradox in two Orthodox ideas; firstly that if only two people hold the faith of the Church, then the Church subsists in those two people. And secondly, that in order for a doctrine to be the doctrine of the Church, it has to be received by ALL of the faithful. How can this be resolved? How can the true view of the Church's Magisterium be discerned from these two, apparently contradictory, assertions?

And a (belated) happy new year to all of you. Sorry if this has repeated anything earlier in the post!

Best wishes,

Pontifical.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

I think that you don't understand what I am saying

I said that the "one is not used numerically but with regards to the divine nature" is something revealed by the Lord and taught by the Apostles. I don't think it's a development, something the Church came up with by reading the gospels.

I also said that this faith has been handed down by the apostles to the bishops they ordained and so on. Therefore, because it is a matter of the revealed faith, the majority must hold the same opinions on the matter; else the very menaing of tradition is void and the protestants are right in accepting nothing but the bible.

Of course, Christians can build upon what was given. But if the development is at odds with the faith given, then it is wrong.

By the way, the text you quoted does not show that the Spirit proceed from the Son also. I don't know why you thought that it has to do with that.

We have had the conversation on St. Markos again.

You say that my argument is contradictory because the bishops signed. In my argument I said nothing about signatures. I spoke of faith. The bishops you quoted the moment they reached their homeland they declared that their signatures are void and that their faith is contrary to what they have signed while in Italy.

Now, as far as I am concerned, I would sign whatever document you gave me, if the population of a small country was to be spared, let alone for the population of an entire empire.

[ 07. February 2006, 18:48: Message edited by: andreas1984 ]

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Thank you for your reply, Andreas.

quote:
I think that you don't understand what I am saying.

This is curiously often the case, Andreas; when people disagree with your opinions, you firstly fail to answer the substance of THEIR points and assume that because they don't assent to yours, they clearly can't understand what you are saying!

However, to make a more constructive set of points:

quote:
You say that my argument is contradictory because the bishops signed. In my argument I said nothing about signatures. I spoke of faith. The bishops you quoted the moment they reached their homeland they declared that their signatures are void and that their faith is contrary to what they have signed while in Italy.

Do you REALLY believe this??? Do you REALLY believe that at an Ecumenical Council the Orthodox Fathers committed so grievous a sin against Truth as to falsely sign an article pertaining to FAITH to which they did not assent? I'm sorry, Andreas, but whatever the cause, I'm not sure that to do so can ever be warranted in the Christian life. After all, as Christians, we are all called, like Christ, to be obedient to the Faith "unto death, even death on the Cross." How easy it would have been for those early Roman Martyrs to spare even a few lives by saying a prayer (which, of course they wouldn't believe in) to the Roman Gods. No, I'm sorry Andreas. I just don't buy your argument about the Greek Bishops. After all, Mark of Ephesus did NOT sign the document, and it would have been perfectly possible for the others not to do so either, had they not believed in it. Such things had, believe it or not, happened at reunification councils in the past. And besides which, I happen to believe that the Greek bishops had a great deal more integrity than that. No, here we have a key case of the majority being usurped by a delicate political situation, and, it must be conceded, by the minority.

And as for saving the empire, how could this be so if they all unanimously refuted the document when they got home? And if they all universally refuted it, why was only Markos recognised in such a way?

In the Orthodox model of the Trinity, what has the Holy Spirit to do with Christ? What is the relation between them? How is it that the bible (see Freddy's posts above) and such eminent fathers as St Cyril of Alexandria:

quote:
All of us who have received one and the same Spirit, that is, the Holy Spirit, are in a sense blended together with one another and with God. For if Christ, together with the Father's and his own Spirit, comes to dwell in each of us, though we are many, still the Spirit is one and undivided.

can maintain that the Spirit is of Christ as well?

Lastly, two things:

quote:
I said that the "one is not used numerically but with regards to the divine nature" is something revealed by the Lord and taught by the Apostles. I don't think it's a development, something the Church came up with by reading the gospels.

I'm glad to know what you think, but what is your basis for this? I also don't think that, since the Church wrote the Gospels, anything which is written in the Gospels can be fundamentally described as a non-Apostolic development...

Last of all:

quote:
I also said that this faith has been handed down by the apostles to the bishops they ordained and so on. Therefore, because it is a matter of the revealed faith, the majority must hold the same opinions on the matter; else the very menaing of tradition is void and the protestants are right in accepting nothing but the bible.

I'm sorry, but is Truth decided by Majority vote, or not? This, I think, is the same issue as for St. Mark of Ephesus.

quote:
It seems to me that there is an inherent paradox in two Orthodox ideas; firstly that if only two people hold the faith of the Church, then the Church subsists in those two people. And secondly, that in order for a doctrine to be the doctrine of the Church, it has to be received by ALL of the faithful. How can this be resolved?

This sort of intellectual pincer movement is a neat way of confirming that Orthodoxy is always correct... but it's not really helpful in trying to dissect the relationship between Orthodoxy and orthodoxy.

Pontifical.

Posted by Back-to-Front (# 5638) on :

I'd also be grateful should somebody be able to provide a (brief) exposition of the Orthodox perspective of the relationship between the Second and Third Persons of the Trinity, for my own understanding.

Thanks muchly. [Smile]

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
This is curiously often the case, Andreas; when people disagree with your opinions, you firstly fail to answer the substance of THEIR points and assume that because they don't assent to yours, they clearly can't understand what you are saying!

Dear man, I wrote a post and then you made a post saying that I have said things that I do not recognise as mine. If I am not to judge whether something represents what I have said, then who is?

I am not answering to your points? Show me the points I have not addressed. I think I have addressed them all. But if I didn't then quote the points from your post that I did not address. In all cases don't accuse me of not answering the substance of your points.

quote:
Do you REALLY believe this??? Do you REALLY believe that at an Ecumenical Council the Orthodox Fathers committed so grievous a sin against Truth as to falsely sign an article pertaining to FAITH to which they did not assent? I'm sorry, Andreas, but whatever the cause, I'm not sure that to do so can ever be warranted in the Christian life. After all, as Christians, we are all called, like Christ, to be obedient to the Faith "unto death, even death on the Cross." How easy it would have been for those early Roman Martyrs to spare even a few lives by saying a prayer (which, of course they wouldn't believe in) to the Roman Gods. No, I'm sorry Andreas. I just don't buy your argument about the Greek Bishops.

The martyrs were dealing with their lives. The bishops were dealing with the flock's lives.

Even the people that denied the faith in order to save their lives were forgiven by the church. How much more forgiveness is to be given for them, putting themselves in danger to save their flock.

You are lying when you say that this was an ecumenical council. This is not the way ecumenical councils are done. You are the first person I ever meet saying it was an "ecumenical" council.

Perhaps you are forgetting that the eastern bishops never presented their theses to the latins. Perhaps you forget that the bishops attending were not chosen following the rules that must be obeyed for an ecumenical council.

quote:
And besides which, I happen to believe that the Greek bishops had a great deal more integrity than that.

Indeed they had; giving their lives for their flock.

quote:
No, here we have a key case of the majority being usurped by a delicate political situation, and, it must be conceded, by the minority.

The situation was bad for them; they were to fall to the Turks. Their only way out was the union. Your above statement is incorrect.

quote:
And as for saving the empire, how could this be so if they all unanimously refuted the document when they got home?

The people did not accept the union. They preffered to fall in turkish occupation than be united with the latins on these conditions.

quote:
And if they all universally refuted it, why was only Markos recognised in such a way?

They refuted it after they have signed it.

quote:
In the Orthodox model of the Trinity, what has the Holy Spirit to do with Christ? What is the relation between them?

We do not think that "begetting" and "proceeding" have anything to do with relations. They denote the cause of their existence, not their relations. Do you think that God is like man to be related to God?

quote:
All of us who have received one and the same Spirit, that is, the Holy Spirit, are in a sense blended together with one another and with God. For if Christ, together with the Father's and his own Spirit, comes to dwell in each of us, though we are many, still the Spirit is one and undivided.

Christ sent the Spirit. Economy has nothing to do with the cause for the Spirit's existence.

quote:
I'm glad to know what you think, but what is your basis for this? I also don't think that, since the Church wrote the Gospels, anything which is written in the Gospels can be fundamentally described as a non-Apostolic development...

This is the definition of Tradition. "What was given" by the Lord and the Apostles. The fact that the church decided to put in writing some of these things does not mean that there are not other things as well that have not been written.

quote:
I'm sorry, but is Truth decided by Majority vote, or not? This, I think, is the same issue as for St. Mark of Ephesus.

This Truth is proved by historical consistence. Not by majorities. Both Mark and the other bishops knew what the easterns always believed.

Use Arius as an example. He didn't say "I read the bible and conclude thus; you read the bible and conclude thus. Your arguments are illogical; mine are logical; therefore I am right". It was more like this: "You are saying this and you are teaching this, and thus have I been taught too, but I don't think that this is right".

quote:
This sort of intellectual pincer movement is a neat way of confirming that Orthodoxy is always correct... but it's not really helpful in trying to dissect the relationship between Orthodoxy and orthodoxy.

Historical consistence is the answer to the "problem" you see.

Pontifical, I do not want to continue discussing things with you, seeing that communication can be painful.

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :

Dear Back to Front

We know nothing of intra-trinitarian relations. What we know qua creation is that both Word and Spirit create at the Father's behest. The Spirit moves over the face of chaos and by the Word all comes to be where naught was before.

Interestingly St. Irenaeus in anthropomorphic mode refers to the Word and the Spirit as the "two hands of the Father." This is also the case in the Eucharist. The Word speaks and the Spirit effects the spoken transformation. It is also true of our sanctification ... Christ calls, the Spirit enflames.

Both Christ and the Spirit are mutually related in the sense that the Spirit brings us to the full stature of Christ and Christ prays the Father to send the Spirit being conferred through him, (that is through Christ).

I don't see how any of this can apply as to the distinct hypostasis of the Spirit if He is simply (to use Augustine's phrase) the "bond of love" between the Father and the Son. The FRUIT of the Spirit's WORK is Love.

[ 07. February 2006, 21:55: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]

Posted by GreyFace (# 4682) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I don't see how any of this can apply as to the distinct hypostasis of the Spirit if He is simply (to use Augustine's phrase) the "bond of love" between the Father and the Son. The FRUIT of the Spirit's WORK is Love.

Then God is not Love, Father?

I'm getting more and more confused at the Orthodox position as presented by Andreas here. It looks to me like he's saying there are three gods, God the Father, the Son and the Spirit and they're different entities with different identities, but we can speak of one God because they share divine attributes just as there's only one Man because humans are consubstantial.

Surely this is tritheism? The common substance in such a model of the trinity doesn't look to me like Divinity but rather divine capabilities if you will, three divine gods, not one Divine Triune God.

Perhaps I've misunderstood you, Andreas.

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Well, Andreas,

Irini soi en to kurio iesou Christo!

Many thanks for your post.

quote:
Pontifical, I do not want to continue discussing things with you, seeing that communication can be painful.

I'm very sorry to read this, Andreas; I hope you did not take me to be intending to cause offence either to you personally, or to the Orthodox Church; I happen to hold both in some respect. And so if any offence was caused, then please accept my sincerest apologies.

However, I'm afraid I am still a little confused on various points.

Firstly, as we know, the Council of Basle, the 17th Ecumenical Council, was moved first to Ferrara and then to Florence (hence 'COuncil of Florence'), where it is had as Ecumenical by the West until its 25th Session. So I hope that that answers your queries about the Ecumenicity point.

quote:
The martyrs were dealing with their lives. The bishops were dealing with the flock's lives.

Even the people that denied the faith in order to save their lives were forgiven by the church. How much more forgiveness is to be given for them, putting themselves in danger to save their flock.

Now, you insist that the bishops were in the right to sign the document 'falsely' to save the lives of their flock. I take your point about the martyrs, but still think it is stretching somwhat what the role of an apostle should be. But bizarrely, this indicates that St Markos, the only bishop (1) not to sign the document and (2) to be canonised as a direct result of (1) above, must have been gloriously in the wrong, then, and presumably very careless with the lives of his flock?

I know this sounds as if this thread is diverting towards one on the Council of Basle, but my point is this: in sincerest terms, I have (with St. Anselm, I might add) always regarded the filioque dispute to be somewhat political; I do however believe that the signatures of the Greek bishops were indicative of the fact that they accepted the document and the Council as valid. (I am only sorry that the ensuing (military) campaign of the Turks meant that a real period of Unity could not ensue. And this Council reaffirms the filioque, which is my point. I don't understand how (1) the rest of the Bishops can be right to sign and (2) Markos (the Canonised one, after all) can be right not to sign, and thus (presumably) be right "in the Faith" at the expense of the lives of his flock? And, come to think of it, I'm not sure that the day-to-day people of Constantinople were sitting in their taverns debating the finer points of Trinitarian philosophy...

And finally, to my mind at least, you have not demonstrated adequately that the mind of the early Church was anti-filioque.

With best wishes,

Ian.

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :

Dear Greyface

St. Gregory the Theologian was arguing analogically as if to say it was not inconsistent to assert that 3 different things could share the same nature ... but that was but one part of his argument for in other places he specifically refers to "3" not being a mathematical summation of individual parts.

Love.

God is Love. The Father, the Son and the Spirit is Love in that God loves in and through each hypostasis. To reduce the third to relation between the other two is, however, to disturb the harmony engendered by the equality of the hypostases in loving as being Love each and all. The unity of the Trinity is in the essence and dynamically from the Father. The Spirit is not a relational entity of the other two but rather is a hypostasis in eactly the same way as the other two are.

Following St. Gregory's admonition, "one" "two" and "three" here are not mathematical whole numbers, ie., individuals. Neither are they simply relations qua Augustine and his successors. Pry too far and you go mad (to paraphrase St. Gregory).

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

You will recall, Fr Gregory, that St Augustine was saying that we can only talk in analogies when it comes to God. The love analogy was one among many he used. He found each of them wanting and so tried to find other ways of discussing the Trinity. It is unfair on him to suggest the love analogy was his answer - he himself found it lacking.

You must know the story - he became very frustrated and went for a walk on the beach where he saw a kid digging a hole in the ground and running to the sea, bringing back buckets of water, which he emptied into his hole. "What are you doing?" the bishop asked. "You see that sea?" he was told "I am going to put it all into my hole". Augustine knew he was trying to do the same with God. Ultimately God is mystery and our analogies are always lacking.

Having read his Treatise on the Trinity I can see why he got a headache from it all - it gave me one too!

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
I'm getting more and more confused at the Orthodox position as presented by Andreas here. It looks to me like he's saying there are three gods, God the Father, the Son and the Spirit and they're different entities with different identities, but we can speak of one God because they share divine attributes just as there's only one Man because humans are consubstantial.

Surely this is tritheism? The common substance in such a model of the trinity doesn't look to me like Divinity but rather divine capabilities if you will, three divine gods, not one Divine Triune God.

Perhaps I've misunderstood you, Andreas.

Dear GreyFace

the fathers used many ways to solve the issue. One of them, is to affirm that God's unity lies in the one divine nature. They said that the term one is not used numerically but with regards to the divine nature. This is why I am saying that modern West might be unitarian. Because, from what I see here, I get the impression that people think that God has "something" and this "something" is shared by all three divine persons, as if my body could be shared by three persons. But God does not have a material something to be shared. There is not one "thing" in which the three persons live.

Another explanation used by the fathers is that we say we are monotheists to show our opposition to those called polytheists (you know, the ones who had idols etc).

Another explanation given by father Gregory (not the Shipmate; the ancient one) is that the term God does not denote nature but the beholding. He went on explaining how the beholding is one.

What all these explanations had in common is that they attribute the name God to the Father mainly, and because the Son and the Spirit are from God, they are also divine.

This is what I think about the problem: The Easterns defined the monarchy in two meanings. In one of the meanings, all three divine persons interact with the world with one action, will, power etc (hint: these words are not used in the meanings the last few ecumenical councils used them). This is because they are immaterial and we are material. So, the Trinity operates in unity as far as the world is concerned. This means that God is one.

The Westerns, seeing the monarchy of the Trinity, for it is too obvious to miss, they tend to assume that this extends to the three persons themselves. An average Shipmate has not heard of what the fathers meant by "one will in God" and "one essence in God", so, confused by the manarchy, he attributes this to the three persons, forgetting the fact that we have kept from the Jews the unity of the nature and from the Gentiles the plurality of the persons (to quote the ancient fathers).

What do you think now?

Pontifical, you are a nice person, and your post makes things OK. I'm sorry for getting upset.

Allow me to address what you said on the people of the East and their theological concerns. Did you know that when a few Orthodox came to celebrate the eucharist with a few latins in Constantinople, thinking that a union was achieved, the people stoned them and expelled them from the city?

[ 08. February 2006, 07:30: Message edited by: andreas1984 ]

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Good day, Andreas,

Thank you for your message.

It's a side point, but...

quote:
Allow me to address what you said on the people of the East and their theological concerns. Did you know that when a few Orthodox came to celebrate the eucharist with a few latins in Constantinople, thinking that a union was achieved, the people stoned them and expelled them from the city?

... without meaning any offence whatsoever to those people, sadly, I don't see how this shows that they were being concerned about the hyperstases of the Trinity, and not just expelling them on political grounds beause they had dealings with the 'evil' Latins (and I accept that, frankly, at that time in particular, some of them certainly were very bad)... and could stoning ever be the just, Christian response to even a debate on the Faith? Sadly, political motivation is something which, I'm afraid, has tragically motivated both sides of the debate since the Great Schism, and even before... let us hope that this is something which will pass away in the current age.

Pontifical.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

I agree that when politics influences the Christians the result is bad and contrary to Christ's teachings and will.

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :

Dear Triple Tiara

You are of course correct and St. Augustine is of course commemorated in the Greek calendar even if some Slavs insist on calling him "Blessed" instead. However I do think that the following matters are a great pity ...

(1) That the west should rely so much on St. Augustine ... it distorts the theology.
(2) When St. Augustine tried other analogies they nearly all fell into the One-Oh-Dear-How-Can-He-Be-Three? variety. So, for example, the psychological analogy (memory, intellect, will) doesn't come anywhere near doing justice to the hypostatic differentiations in Christian experience. You do get the feeling that this father started from a rather abstract philosophical notion of the divine unity and then tried to "fit" the Trinity into that.

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

Aymen brother! I agree on that one - I wish St Irenaeus was more influential: a good alternative to many Augustinian contentions.

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

quote:
I agree that when politics influences the Christians the result is bad and contrary to Christ's teachings and will.

I'm glad, Andreas: I think that this is almost what the RC/Orthodox Church should sort out before even looking at the theology. It really is SO important, and can get in the way of any fruitful dialogue.

On a personal level, what is your experience of reactions to reunion from within Orthodoxy? Do you think Orthodox people actively desire it? If so, why/how? If not, hot/why not? Is there any difference between the views of the laity/hierarchy?

I ask this, because I would say that from our end there are probably (1) a very, very few Super-ultra-neo-con types who would say that the Church is sullied by doing anything, and ecumenism is dialoguing with the heretics (I certainly do not subscribe to these views, and neither does the RC Church). (2) A lot of laity, who probably don't think about it a great deal (even if Roman documents about Orthodoxy are not as difficult to dig up as all that) (3) Many laity who actively desire reunion, and pray for it regularly, and with a special effort during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and (4) The hierarchy who, together with the Pope, appear to desire it quite strongly.

And how much do you think that the view of the average Orthodox parishioner today is based on politics/theology? I ask this without any prejudice, but just with an acute knowledge that politics, as in the 15th century, still plays an influential role (sadly) in Ecclesial relations. I think, for instance, that (admittedly among other things) John Paul's Polish nationality hampered Orthodox-relations because of the sensibilities of the Russians, for example. (Admittedly, erecting those dioceses may have been a mistake...). From the Roman end, in the past it has often been the case that people (avid readers of the 'Penny' Catechism, no doubt) could readily quote theological problems of other denominations to their hearts' content, but without necessarily any real understanding of their import. A friend of mine tells me for instance that in S Africa, to quote another example, one finds Dutch Reformed people clearly getting to the point where what they want is the sacramental side of the Faith, which they feel, that particular brand of protestantism doesn't provide. They predominantly end up joining the Orthodox Church (rather than the RC Church), perhaps not only for doctrinal reasons, but sometimes predominantly for reasons of the typical anti-Catholic prejudice, which means any idea of entertaining becoming a Roman Catholic is just hopeless. Politics in action again.

Finally, I'm not convinced that we really think that Orthodox are WRONG; after all, we have our own Eastern Rites, which I know prove controversial in Orthodox Circles, and I can obviously understand the sensitivity. But their influence on Catholic theology and spirituality is concrete and significant. On the subject of the Holy Spirit, one only need look at the Catechism to see many of the teachings underlined by quotations from the Byzantine liturgy. The Pope, it seems, has been eager to include the Byzantine end of things at the very High Liturgies in Rome. A reminder, I think, that whether we like it or not (and I have to say, I hope that we LIKE it), the Church is, and was, forever Latin and Greek, and we can't really expect to be effective without 'completing' each other, as it were.

Anyway, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

Best wishes,

Pontifical.

[ 08. February 2006, 10:24: Message edited by: Pontifical ]

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
On a personal level, what is your experience of reactions to reunion from within Orthodoxy? Do you think Orthodox people actively desire it? If so, why/how? If not, hot/why not? Is there any difference between the views of the laity/hierarchy?

Dear Pontifical, the way I see it no reunion is possible in the near future. What I mean is that I don't think that a reunion will ever be made, but I leave some room for God to act or people to change their minds.

The vast majority of the laity in Greece are rather indifferent. They are not interested in the Church, let alone being interested in the Roman Church. However, I think they would see a reunion as something positive (you know, we are all Christians and Christ taught love).

Now, from those interested in the Church, there are many ultra-conservatives that would never agree with a reunion.

As far as the hierarchs are concerned, I think that the situation is strange: When the Pope invited the Archbishop of Athens to Rome, the synod decided that he won't go. I think that this shows their opposition to ideas of re-union.

However, when the Pope said in Athens that he was sorry for what the latins did in Constantinople in 1054, the Archbishop (and I think some synodics) clapped their hands enthousiastically.

Some have been influenced by the Romans when they were studying in countries like France or Italy.

quote:
And, of course, I'm not convinced that we really think that Orthodox are WRONG;

The official thesis, the way I understand it, is that you see us as schismatics but not heretics and that we see you as heretics.

quote:
after all, we have our own Eastern Rites, which I know prove controversial in Orthodox Circles, and I can obviously understand the sensitivity.

I think that the sensitivity does not arise from a theological point of view; you are free to have whatever rite you want. It comes from a practical point of view: there are Eastern Rite priests that have kicked Orthodox priests out of the Orthodox churches while they were in the middle of administering the sacrament of communion. Orthodox churches have been destroyed. Help has been given to Orthodox people provided they joined the Eastern Rite Catholics. And so on. All these terrible things have been made known and the Orthodox blame the Roman Church for endorsing those that commit such crimes.

quote:
And how much do you think that the view of the average Orthodox parishioner today is based on politics/theology?

I think that the average parishioner has forgoten all about politics and will follow the Church if agreement will be reached.

[ 08. February 2006, 10:46: Message edited by: andreas1984 ]

Posted by GreyFace (# 4682) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
What do you think now?

I think I don't understand the subtle difference between attribute, essence and nature.

I can conceive of one humanity possessed wholly by each human person. By analogy I can conceive of one divinity possessed wholly by each person of the Holy Trinity.

But I can't see how that is not polytheistic, since anyone who believes in more than one god presumably thinks that each of the gods is divine and can thus claim monotheism on the grounds of consubstantiality. Incidentally I would have a hard time arguing against certain universalism on the grounds of consubstantiality of each human person with Christ - but I don't want to get into Cappadocian thought just now. Or is that the point?

This is, it seems to me, the weakness of a substance/accident philosophy. You can identify similarities as essential in order to categorise something as the same, or you can identify differences as essential in order to categorise them as different. Look at the arguments of transubstantiation vs consubstantiation, for instance.

In this case, what is the nature that is common amongst the persons of the Trinity such that we can say there is one God? Filioquists will of course say that God's nature is his entire being and the only distinction left is relational.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Dear GreyFace, polytheism does not mean what you seem to imply. It is a historical term and its meaning has been shaped because of the practices of many ancient peoples believing in deities that differ in nature. For example, a god that resembles a cow has a different nature from a god resembling a man and a god resembling an apocalyptic monster. But the ancient peoples believed that they were gods. We say that the deity has nothing to do with these things. It neither resembles man, nor does it lust; it neither has a horrible form, nor has it legs, and so on. We say that the deity is immaterial, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving etc. It has nothing to do with what the polytheists believed. These are not deities. There is only one deity.

Now, if this is not enough for you, then you can understand that the Word and the Spirit are not the causes of their existence; that they exist only because of the Father. So, there is one God, the Father. It depends on what you mean by "one God".

I want to ask you, in what way do you reject the unitarian approach to God?

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Hello again,

quote:
Dear Pontifical, the way I see it no reunion is possible in the near future. What I mean is that I don't think that a reunion will ever be made, but I leave some room for God to act or people to change their minds.

This is disappointing, Andreas. Primarily becuase it is a betrayal of that founding Christian principle of hope, and can only indicate that the reasons for reunification not applying are principally because Christians do not want it, or pray for it hard enough. We know, after all, that God wants it: "hina pantes en osin" - "ut unum sint". But there we go.

quote:
The official thesis, the way I understand it, is that you see us as schismatics but not heretics and that we see you as heretics.

I think that you are correct to suggest that this is the official position on how each Church views the other.

Is it not the case, however, that the great problem with the Filioque, as with the monophysites, is that a thousand years later, we have realised that the so-called disputes over this clause are syntactical in nature, and not theological? But the (forgotten) politics of the situation have thus far prevented us from making any progress ecumenically speaking...

quote:
I think that the sensitivity does not arise from a theological point of view; you are free to have whatever rite you want. It comes from a practical point of view: there are Eastern Rite priests that have kicked Orthodox priests out of the Orthodox churches while they were in the middle of administering the sacrament of communion. Orthodox churches have been destroyed. Help has been given to Orthodox people provided they joined the Eastern Rite Catholics. And so on.

I have to say that I have never heard/read abot the violence of which you speak, but in any case I'm not entirely in agreement; there is, we know, the pejoritive use of the word Uniates, and the branding of such Eastern Rite Catholics as traitors to orthodoxy. This, I think is both political and theological in genesis, since there is the political aspect of "caving in to Rome" and the Theological aspect of not seing unity with the Successor of Peter as an essential part of ecclesiology. Further, such violence is never one-sided. There is, for example, the extremely violent protesting in the Ukraine last year, where Eastern Rite Catholics were attacked and prevented from attending the Divine Liturgy on a Sunday, for example. I don't think that it is balanced to suggest that those nasty Catholics are always destroying our Churches (again, I have to say I have never read of this) since violence is, and always has been a two-way street. I neither think it beneficial to ascribe this to the Churches; these are individuals acting, sadly, vastly outside the boundaries of Christian Charity (agape). I'm sure you agree that this (not being beneficial to ecumenism) is true, as you rightly say:

quote:
All these terrible things have been made known and the Orthodox blame the Roman Church for endorsing those that commit such crimes.

I hope without claiming that the Roman Church does actually endorse them. I certainly don't believe, for example, that the Orthodox Church endorses the behaviour of some Orthodox in the Ukraine.

Pontifical.

Posted by GreyFace (# 4682) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
Dear GreyFace, polytheism does not mean what you seem to imply. It is a historical term and its meaning has been shaped because of the practices of many ancient peoples believing in deities that differ in nature. For example, a god that resembles a cow has a different nature from a god resembling a man and a god resembling an apocalyptic monster. But the ancient peoples believed that they were gods. We say that the deity has nothing to do with these things. It neither resembles man, nor does it lust; it neither has a horrible form, nor has it legs, and so on.

Isn't this just to say, there are no divine persons with these attributes? You seem to be arguing that polytheism is not wrong because there is one God but rather that polytheism is wrong because although there are many (three) gods, none of them have such attributes.

quote:
We say that the deity is immaterial, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving etc. It has nothing to do with what the polytheists believed. These are not deities. There is only one deity.

In order for this to make sense, you must be using 'deity' to mean 'characteristics of a divine person'.

quote:
Now, if this is not enough for you, then you can understand that the Word and the Spirit are not the causes of their existence; that they exist only because of the Father. So, there is one God, the Father. It depends on what you mean by "one God".

Okay, thanks, I think I'm following your arguments at last. However, you've switched now from defining divinity to showing how there can be more than one divine person, which I admit was going to be my next question.

Just to be clear, is it your belief (as it is mine) that everything about God must be divine - otherwise God is not God but merely an entity that shares some Godlike characteristics with the true God, and therefore a divine person must have all divine characteristics?

If so then if three divine persons exist, there must be a way to distinguish them that does not involved their nature. At this point my alleged reasoning and philosophical skills fail me, because I cannot see how begetting versus processing is a distinction that does not affect nature other than playing the substance/accident game. The same applies to the filioque at first glance.

Yet it seems that IngoB's earlier argument has some merit in this sense at least - if you cannot say what processing is, you equally cannot say what it is not and so you cannot argue that (processing == generation from the Father through the Son) is definitely wrong.

quote:
I want to ask you, in what way do you reject the unitarian approach to God?

I don't quite know what you mean by the unitarian approach, but if you mean modalism...
I reject it for a variety of scriptural, experiential and traditional reasons. The most blindingly obvious one to me is that the Father is not the Son.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
We know, after all, that God wants it: "hina pantes en osin" - "ut unum sint". But there we go.

From the Orthodox point of view, the hierarchical prayer of Christ is fulfilled inside the Orthodox Church.

quote:
Is it not the case, however, that the great problem with the Filioque, as with the monophysites, is that a thousand years later, we have realised that the so-called disputes over this clause are syntactical in nature, and not theological?

For me the issue of filioque is not the most important difference. I think that we have spent centuries talking about it because it is easy to define this issue. There are other issues, issues that have to do with the way we experience God's grace, issues that are hard to get defined. For example, when I read the desert fathers, I think to myself "this is what I too experience, this is too the conclusion I have reached, this is the Church I know and have faith in". I mean, that even if they have written their texts back in the fourth century, they are as if written by me in modern era. They reflect a continuity in understanding and life. Now, I don't know about Roman Catholics, but I want to ask you, is this the way you understand things also? Is the ancient fathers' way your way too?

My understanding is this: When the barbarians conquered the West, the Roman Church gave a great fight. It is not easy for the conqueror to get taught by the one he conquered. The Church in the West eventually turned them from Arians to Trinitarians, but She lost the game as far as the everyday practices of the new peoples were concerned. The new peoples influenced the West with a way of life contrary to the gospel. The entire Western civilization is based on anti-Christian premises. So, the only bearer of the "kaino" Christ brought remained the East.

To your next point: I don't know enough about what happens in Eastern Europe, so I can't speak about it.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
You seem to be arguing that polytheism is not wrong because there is one God but rather that polytheism is wrong because although there are many (three) gods, none of them have such attributes.

I am saying that there is one God because the three divine persons are of the same nature. I do not recognise any other nature as divine. There is only one divine nature. This I worship. (worship in Greek means to acknowledge someone as God).

quote:
In order for this to make sense, you must be using 'deity' to mean 'characteristics of a divine person'.

Exactly. This is what the term means, i.e divine nature. At least, this is the way we traditionally understood the term in the East from the first centuries. What's your understanding of the term "deity"?

quote:
]Okay, thanks, I think I'm following your arguments at last. However, you've switched now from defining divinity to showing how there can be more than one divine person, which I admit was going to be my next question.

Yep.

quote:
Just to be clear, is it your belief (as it is mine) that everything about God must be divine - otherwise God is not God but merely an entity that shares some Godlike characteristics with the true God, and therefore a divine person must have all divine characteristics?

I don't really understand what you mean. Experience tells me that the computer I have in front of me at the moment exists and operates not by itself. The same applies to all the things I see and interact with. I understand and know that what-cannot-be-named-or-described wills for everything to exist and operate. I am amazed by the power. Imagine: everything that is exists and moves because the Ineffable wills.

Now, from human history I learnt that Him whom the Hebrews called God has a Son and a Spirit. When I try to approach them, I understand and know that they are Ineffable.

quote:
If so then if three divine persons exist, there must be a way to distinguish them that does not involved their nature.

Well, inside history I distinguish between them this way: I pray to God, because the Son has taught me to do so and because the Spirit empowers me to do so.

When I approach Christ I understand that He is not the Father. When I approach the Father, I understand that He is not the Spirit. And so on.

quote:
Yet it seems that IngoB's earlier argument has some merit in this sense at least - if you cannot say what processing is, you equally cannot say what it is not and so you cannot argue that (processing == generation from the Father through the Son) is definitely wrong.

I can say that IngoB is wrong from experience, just like I can say from experience that "proceeding" is different from "frog". I am beholding what I am talking about. I do not argue; I describe what I experience. (well, some times that is [Yipee]

)

quote:
I don't quite know what you mean by the unitarian approach, but if you mean modalism...
I reject it for a variety of scriptural, experiential and traditional reasons. The most blindingly obvious one to me is that the Father is not the Son.

There are two kinds of unitarianism, the "masks" things being one of them. But if you say that the Father is not the Son, then how do you confess "One God"?

Posted by GreyFace (# 4682) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
What's your understanding of the term "deity"?

In English, the focus of the word deity is not the divinity of a divine person but the entity that is divine, thus you are using the language correctly when you say "Loki, Set, Jupiter, Christ and Allah are deities".

Theologically speaking of course you wouldn't want to let the statement stand, but the most common use of the word deity is to refer to the entity rather than their nature.

quote:

quote:
Just to be clear, is it your belief (as it is mine) that everything about God must be divine - otherwise God is not God but merely an entity that shares some Godlike characteristics with the true God, and therefore a divine person must have all divine characteristics?
I don't really understand what you mean.

What I mean is this - you seem to use essence and characteristic interchangeably, so if you're presenting a list of characteristics that are divine, any characteristic of a divine person must be on that list or the person possesses characteristics that are not divine.

Otherwise, I could claim to be a divine person by virtue of the fact that I am, that I reason, that I love (however imperfectly), and so on. I am not divine, because I lack whatever it is that makes a person divine, and I have things about me that a divine person does not.

Is it not the case then that a divine person cannot have a characteristic/nature that another divine person does not have? I don't know but it seems that this is one of the arguments behind filioque.

quote:

quote:
If so then if three divine persons exist, there must be a way to distinguish them that does not involved their nature.
Well, inside history I distinguish between them this way: I pray to God, because the Son has taught me to do so and because the Spirit empowers me to do so.

Temporal economy? Then the Son sending the Spirit confirms filioque. As you think this is not the case, how can you distinguish between them in eternity? The Orthodox do so by claiming a distinction between modes of generation, well and good - but how do you arrive at the conclusion that they have different modes of generation if not by extrapolation from temporal events?

quote:
I can say that IngoB is wrong from experience

How? Explain to me the difference between eternal procession and eternally begetting and then you can definitely deny that generation from the Father through the Son is not procession.

quote:
There are two kinds of unitarianism, the "masks" things being one of them. But if you say that the Father is not the Son, then how do you confess "One God"?

Because of what I understand (however little I understand it, and believe me it is little) about the nature of divinity.

You see, I think you could hypothetically consider a model of divinity in which the only thing common between divine persons was eternal existence. I would argue that this is polytheistic unless there only happened to be one divine person. As more and more of the characteristics of divinity come to be seen to be part of the common divine essence, the distinction between persons in their attributes yet not in their personhood becomes less and less visible and in Christian theology I find that the divine persons are so united that my admittedly limited perception of divinity is a unity of three - so the consubstantiality leads me to be able to think of the Trinity as One as well as Three.

Make any sense?

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Andreas,

Firstly, let me deal with the...

quote:
...the way we experience God's grace, issues that are hard to get defined. For example, when I read the desert fathers, I think to myself "this is what I too experience, this is too the conclusion I have reached, this is the Church I know and have faith in". I mean, that even if they have written their texts back in the fourth century, they are as if written by me in modern era. They reflect a continuity in understanding and life. Now, I don't know about Roman Catholics, but I want to ask you, is this the way you understand things also? Is the ancient fathers' way your way too?

I am in complete agreement with you. I too am a particular devotee of the Desert Fathers; their practices and principles have inspired generations of Christians from then to the present day. Indeed, you are also right to emphasise continuity. Continuity with Apostolic Tradition and Faith is, as you rightly suggest, the one guarantee of Doctine. The Roman Catholic Church is entirely in agreement with this and, I would venture, upholds this entirely. Even, it has to be said, in circumstances when, in human terms, it might be desirable not to. For example, questions relating to divorce and remarriage for us are difficult indeed; pastorally one would like to arrive at a solution, but sadly we feel bound by the Gospel texts on divorce and past practice. And there are many other issues which in disputes, not with the Orthodox but with others, the RC Church has not been able to concede on, not due to some slavish obstinance, but to continuity with the Apostles, such as the Real Presence, for example. And society usually agrees with the point you make conerning time, but conversely by saying "this is as if this document were written in the Fourth Century", which is, in Christian terms, saying the same thing, I suppose; we don't care whether it is Antiquity that seems Modern or Modernity that seems Antique, as long as they are the same in substance.

What is, however, important, I think, is to distinguish legitimate continuity with the Apostles and a different way of living out that continuity. Not everyone is called to the Desert Fathers' severe asceticism and the hermit lifestyle. Christ was, for example, not a hermit. He did not live in a remote place, where people came to receive instruction. He actively instructed people, although it is true that he did go through a desert phase. I think there are many Christian callings, ways of living out God's Will for us, all based on the various stages and facets of Christ's Life and Ministry. It would not, for example, be possible for any one Order within the RC Church to criticise the legitimacy of the others in terms of a way of life, thinking that only theirs conforms to the lifestyle of the Apostles. After all, I don't make tents and I go to Church in a Church, not in somebody's house!

My point is that with you, I (and the RC Church in general) can read the Desert Fathers and say:

quote:
"this is what I too experience, this is too the conclusion I have reached, this is the Church I know and have faith in."

But we can, for instance say the same if we consider St. John Bosco, and his extremely moving care for the education of the poor, young boys he encountered, mirroring beautifully the Lord's concern for the Poor and the little Children; or in St. Thomas More, a secular, married man, dying like Sts. Peter and Paul, for the Faith of the Early Church; and so on. The Faith in these cases is the same, though the way of living out that Faith is extremely rich, and no one strand (in Ecclesial terms) is, on its own, sufficient:

quote:
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one.
1Cor12:4-6

We need the varieties of gifts, service and works. So, I agree. To turn to another point:

quote:
For me the issue of filioque is not the most important difference. I think that we have spent centuries talking about it because it is easy to define this issue.

Once again, "Pontifical has spoken through the mouth of Andreas!" we could cry out! I agree entirely. Does this mean that you concede that the Roman and Byzantine traditions on the Procession (ekporeusis) of the Holy Spirit are equal? With the Holy Spirit by both being said to proceed (ekporeusthai) 'ek tou pater (i.e. arche anarche) dia tou huiou?'

Best wishes,

Pontifical.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
In English, the focus of the word deity is not the divinity of a divine person but the entity that is divine, thus you are using the language correctly when you say "Loki, Set, Jupiter, Christ and Allah are deities".

I understand now. In Greek, Jupiter and Christ would be two deities because their nature is different, but the Father and Christ are one and the same deity because they have ona nature.

This is what I realise: you (plural you) are using patristic terms, but with different meanings! All the ancient fathers I have read difine the term "deity" as "divine nature". You are using the term, but with a different meaning!

The same happens with will. Maximos died for the "one will of God", but meant that the Father, the Son and the Spirit will with the same way, just like all people will with the same human way. I.e. Maximos's will is not what you would descibe as "will" in modern English! It's "to will" rather than "will". Just like "being" is "to be", and "one operation" is "one way of operating" etc.

GreyFace, let me ask you this: Maximos's confessed two essences in Christ. Do you make the same confession?

Because from what you said above on "entities" it would seem that you don't! Also, the fathers taught that we don't speak of one God numerically, but you seem to imply that we do speak of one God numerically. Is this the case?

quote:
What I mean is this - you seem to use essence and characteristic interchangeably, so if you're presenting a list of characteristics that are divine, any characteristic of a divine person must be on that list or the person possesses characteristics that are not divine.

Maximos's says: "person, that is hypostases, and essence, that is nature." This expresses what all the ancient fathers thought, that essence and nature is the same thing.

Think about what you said in the quotation above using "man" as an example. What is it that makes us all men? You cannot arbitrarily say that e.g. "all that lives is man", although "to live" is part of human nature.

Yet, eventhough we all have the same characteristics, and we are men, there are characteristics each individual has, that other men do not have.

The same applies with the Trinity. The way the threee divine persons exist is their individual characteristic.

quote:
Is it not the case then that a divine person cannot have a characteristic/nature that another divine person does not have? I don't know but it seems that this is one of the arguments behind filioque.

Nature is the set of characteristics things of the same order share; not one single characteristic.

quote:
Temporal economy? Then the Son sending the Spirit confirms filioque. As you think this is not the case, how can you distinguish between them in eternity? The Orthodox do so by claiming a distinction between modes of generation, well and good - but how do you arrive at the conclusion that they have different modes of generation if not by extrapolation from temporal events?

Revelation. We know that this difference exists because Jesus revealed so. The gospel itself is clear. The Spirit ekporevetai from the Father.

quote:
How? Explain to me the difference between eternal procession and eternally begetting and then you can definitely deny that generation from the Father through the Son is not procession.

A similar question has been asked during the many controversies of the early church. The reply has been: "explain to me what unbegotten means, and I will explain what begotten means". We deny generation for the Spirit. That would make the Spirit a Son, and God would have two Sons instead of one. But we confess Christ to be "only-begotten". God is both called the Father (because of the Son) and the Emitter (because of the Spirit).

quote:
Make any sense?

It's hard to understand, but we will pursue the issue further. I hope everything will be clear eventually [Yipee]

Posted by Jonathan the Free (# 10612) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
...I hope everything will be clear eventually

I hope so too. I am really struggling to follow this thread.

I know I am a neutral onlooker rather than a direct participant so I don't expect to understand it all. I have an open mind on the filioque question itself.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Dear Pontifical,

if you experience the faith in the same way, then I reckon that a reunion is not only possible but also desirable.

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
Does this mean that you concede that the Roman and Byzantine traditions on the Procession (ekporeusis) of the Holy Spirit are equal? With the Holy Spirit by both being said to proceed (ekporeusthai) 'ek tou pater (i.e. arche anarche) dia tou huiou?'

I don't think so. Let me explain why. I read the document the Pope wrote on the issue, and eventhough I am used to reading texts, I wasn't able to understand what he is saying. He says that he agrees with us. OK, so the Orthodox do not have a problem in their theology of the procession. That's good.

Then he goes on quoting something Maximos wrote. Now, the text is disputed, because it quotes more ecumenical councils than the ones that actually have taken place before Maximos died, but let's assume that the text is authentic. It says that the latins do not mean with the verb "proceed" what we mean by "ekporevetai", that they only mean that the Spirit is cosubstantial with the Father and the Son. But if this is the case, then why shouldn't use an equivalent expression for the Son?

His document seems to be self-contradictory, and frankly, I cannot understand it.

But, I know this. The word used in the gospel for the Spirit "ekporevetai" can only be used for one source. If you say that the Spirit ekporevetai from the Father and the Son then you are really saying that the Father and the Son are one and the same person, and this is heresy.

You propose a different formula. "through the Son". Well, what do you mean by through? If you mean that the Son sends the Spirit to the Christians, then I agree with the meaning. But if you mean something else, then you have to explain what you mean in great detail, before I can tell you whether I agree or not. However, note that if you mean that the Son sends the Spirit, then you have to remove it from the Creed, because, in that place, the Creed is talking about the cause for the Spirit's existence, and not about economy.

[ 08. February 2006, 13:44: Message edited by: andreas1984 ]

Posted by GreyFace (# 4682) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
This is what I realise: you (plural you) are using patristic terms, but with different meanings!

Not quite, we're using English terms. Deity is an English word. Confusion arises when it is assumed that words are directly transliterable.

For example, it has been argued with considerably merit to my mind, that compatibility between the "filioqued" and original versions of the Creed may be possible because the Latin used for "proceeds" is not the same as the Greek used for "proceeds", and different again from the English "proceeds" of course.

quote:
All the ancient fathers I have read difine the term "deity" as "divine nature". You are using the term, but with a different meaning!

My guess is that divinity is a better translation for the concept than deity.

quote:
GreyFace, let me ask you this: Maximos's confessed two essences in Christ. Do you make the same confession?

I'm too lazy to look it up and I don't remember what he said. If it's humanity and divinity, human nature and divine nature united in Christ, then yes.

quote:
Because from what you said above on "entities" it would seem that you don't! Also, the fathers taught that we don't speak of one God numerically, but you seem to imply that we do speak of one God numerically. Is this the case?

I would have to ponder this a fair bit, but yes, I think it is the case but I'd want to emphasise that in my thought it is inadequate.

The One God is the Holy Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I do not confess One God because I believe the three persons share a few characteristics but are mostly thoroughly different, but rather because I believe the nature they have is such as to be able to say they are united.

quote:
The same applies with the Trinity. The way the threee divine persons exist is their individual characteristic.

Ah, but there's a difference in degree here, I think, which is what I'm trying to get at. The way in which the persons exist, or if you prefer to phrase it in a Western manner their relation to each other, is their eternally distinguishing characteristic. But there are not, as far as I can tell, a multitude of others. I'm suggesting that the divine persons, as a consequence of the divine nature, are united to a degree that humans are currently not, and that a Trinity is not a group of three with some similarities but a Three-In-One.

It seems to me that I can then legitimately speak of what God does, what God is like, meaning the Trinity and discussing the divine nature, without confounding the persons.

quote:
Revelation. We know that this difference exists because Jesus revealed so. The gospel itself is clear. The Spirit ekporevetai from the Father.

If the meaning of this as precluding filioque was so clear I suspect the Catholic Church would agree. I am not sufficiently skilled in koine Greek to judge.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Dear GreyFace,

before the latins added "filioque" in the creed, no one confessed that.

The faith we received can be summed up to what Justin the martyr said: "Just like the Son is from the Father, the Spirit is from the Father, except for the way of existence; for the One was from Light begotten, the Other from Light also, not begotten though, but proceeding."

Now, if the apostles have taught differently, Justin would have confessed differently also.

The faith has been kept pure from Justin's times to Basil's times, when St. Basil the Great said: "The fact that the Spirit is from God, the apostle has clearly taught saying 'we received the Spirit of God'. The fact that the Spirit was revealed to mankind through Jesus, the apostle has clearly taught calling the Spirit the Son's, by calling Him 'the mind of Christ'."

We have learnt that the only way to distinguish between the persons is their idioms. But if the Father and the Son have in common the emission of the Spirit, then the emission becomes of the nature. So, either the Spirit is not God, or the Spirit causes another divine person to exist.

To the father belongs procession and generation, to the Son generation and to the Spirit procession. If we apply procession to the Son also, then we cannot distinguish between the Father and the Son.

The ancients are clear on that:

St. Cyrill taught thus: "we believe and worship three persons in Father who Himself is of no source, and in Son who is beloved, and in Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father, not being begotten, like the Son, but proceeding just like it is said from only the Father, as from a mouth, being revealed through the Son and spoken in all the holy prophets and apostles" and again "not like the Son is begotten from the Father, also the Spirit proceeds from the Son; take away that blasphemy and polytheism from me, because, for us, one is the cause and the bond of both persons, the Father."

I think that this addresses the points you made on polytheism and monotheism.

So, to sum up, like John the Damascene said: "We call the Spirit 'the Son's Spirit', we don't say that He is from the Son, because it is through the Son that the Spirit has been revealed and has been given to us."

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Let me make a proper reply to your post:

quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
Not quite, we're using English terms. Deity is an English word. Confusion arises when it is assumed that words are directly transliterable.

You do realise that this makes it very difficult to find out if we have the same religion or not.

quote:
For example, it has been argued with considerably merit to my mind, that compatibility between the "filioqued" and original versions of the Creed may be possible because the Latin used for "proceeds" is not the same as the Greek used for "proceeds", and different again from the English "proceeds" of course.

First of all, the creed has been written in Greek. Additions to the Creed are not permitted. If the word "proceed" has a different meaning from the word "ekporevomai", then why are you using it as a translation of the word "ekporevetai" Jesus uses in the gospel for the Spirit?

quote:
My guess is that divinity is a better translation for the concept than deity.

Are you using the plural form of the word divinity?

quote:
I'm too lazy to look it up and I don't remember what he said. If it's humanity and divinity, human nature and divine nature united in Christ, then yes.

My point is that you took the ancient "God is one because there is one divine essence" but changed the meaning of the ancient "essence". Christ has two essences; God has one essence. These statements are orthodox.

quote:
I would have to ponder this a fair bit, but yes, I think it is the case but I'd want to emphasise that in my thought it is inadequate.

If one uses "one" numerically, then the ancient faith has not been held.

quote:
The One God is the Holy Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I do not confess One God because I believe the three persons share a few characteristics but are mostly thoroughly different, but rather because I believe the nature they have is such as to be able to say they are united.

Dear GreyFace, the Lord tells us that we will be united in God too. Does this mean that we will have the divine nature? Is union what makes one divine?

quote:
Ah, but there's a difference in degree here, I think, which is what I'm trying to get at. The way in which the persons exist, or if you prefer to phrase it in a Western manner their relation to each other, is their eternally distinguishing characteristic. But there are not, as far as I can tell, a multitude of others. I'm suggesting that the divine persons, as a consequence of the divine nature, are united to a degree that humans are currently not, and that a Trinity is not a group of three with some similarities but a Three-In-One.

I think you are using the term "relations" in a different meaning from the patristic one. When the Orthodox speak of "relations" we do so in the Aristotelian approach that accepts essence, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action and passion. We do not mean "relationship". Begetting is the idiom of the Son and Proceeding is the idiom of the Spirit, while begetting and emitting is the idiom of the father. If you apply emitting to the Son also, then the Father is shown to be the Son.

quote:
It seems to me that I can then legitimately speak of what God does, what God is like, meaning the Trinity and discussing the divine nature, without confounding the persons.

I will not judge your approach, but it seems strange to me because I'm not used to approaching natures in everyday life. I find Paul's and John's approaches better.

quote:
If the meaning of this as precluding filioque was so clear I suspect the Catholic Church would agree. I am not sufficiently skilled in koine Greek to judge.

Actually, this argument is not used by the Greeks. But I did found it in the document the Roman Catholic Church made. The Romans say that in Greek it makes no sense at all to say "ekporevetai" from two sources. This is why the Pope himself does not recite the filioque in Greek. I think that the same approach is used by the Eastern Rite Catholics. I have read that they are forbidden from saying filioque in the Greek Creed.

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Well, Andreas,

Many thanks for a somewhat surprising post!

You state:

quote:
You propose a different formula. "through the Son". Well, what do you mean by through? If you mean that the Son sends the Spirit to the Christians, then I agree with the meaning. But if you mean something else, then you have to explain what you mean in great detail, before I can tell you whether I agree or not.

Well, I'm sorry to report that it is not I who propose this, but St. Tarasius, as I'm sure you're aware, the Patriarch of Constantinople at the 7th Ecumenical Council, who says:

quote:
to Pneuma to agion, to kurion kai zoopoion (sorry - omegas are impossible on this board), to ek tou Patros dia tou Huiou ekporeuomenon

.. the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life creator, the one proceeding (having-his-being - ekporeuoMENON) from the Father, through the Son.

So you see, we agree that this is the Faith. The problem creeps in because the whole proced- verb in Latin languages does not have only ekporeusthai connotations, but also has connotations of actual movement, simple movement. If I say in (admittedly rather stilted English) "Let us proceed to the cinema" I am in no way connecting the ideas of my being coming from the Father and the new film I want to see; and in the common (Anglican) verset of "Let us proceed in peace/in the Name of Christ, Amen." those who recite it are not saying "let us have-our-being-from-the-Father in Peace"; I think all Christians can relax on the subject of where our being comes from: it's something of a done deal.

As I understand it, this can be communicated in Greek by the idea "proeisi", proceeds (in the sense of simple movement, like your "Holy Spirit sent from the Son" idea. And thus, we can follow (among other, venerable Eastern Fathers) St. Cyril of Alexandria in using this term to describe the relationship of the Holy Spirit and the Son:

quote:
The Spirit proceeds (proeisi) from the Father and the Son; clearly, he is of the divine substance, proceeding (proion) substantially (ousiodos - again, sorry about the omegas) in it and from it"

So to recap: the Latin processio is NOT always equivalent to the Greek ekporeusis. If this were true, then the LATIN (language) creed saying "qui ex Patre Filioque procedit" would indeed be false, by claiming that Christ is a second Cause (aitia). This is why the Catholic Church has refused the addition of kai tou Huiou to the formula ek tou Patros ekporeuomenon of the Symbol of Nicaea-Constantinople in the Churches, even of Latin rite, which use it in Greek.

As you see, even the Greek-language, Latin-rite Churches would have to use it without "kai tou Huiou"; so this is not just some flaccid concession to those Catholic Churches of Greek Rite.

So the confusion arises from the Latin procedere having both Greek meanings. In the West, all Trinitarian theology confesses the Father to be the only aitia. This is how, with Augustine (who you say you have not read, I think) says:

quote:
and God the Father alone is He from whom the Word is born, and from whom the Holy Spirit principally proceeds.

Hope this helps,

Pontifical.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
to Pneuma to agion, to kurion kai zoopoion (sorry - omegas are impossible on this board), to ek tou Patros dia tou Huiou ekporeuomenon

This is what I think: nobody argues about whether the Son sends the Spirit to mankind, just like nobody argues about whether the Spirit sent the Son to earth.

A problem arises when some want to say something more than economy.

I have thought about it, and the only non-economical "through" I can understand is the analogy between someone uttering a word. When we speak a word, at the same time we breath. The breath comes through the word, and the word through the breath; they are inter-connected, and they come from the one who utters the word.

So, what do you mean by "through"?

Posted by GreyFace (# 4682) on :

Andreas, if you'll forgive me I'm only going to answer the first part of your post, because I think you've missed something that makes the rest of the discussion very difficult.

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:

quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
Not quite, we're using English terms. Deity is an English word. Confusion arises when it is assumed that words are directly transliterable.
You do realise that this makes it very difficult to find out if we have the same religion or not.

This is something that can't be helped - it's one of the limitations of language. We could say a million words to each other in the same language and never be certain that we meant precisely the same thing, and we have far less certainty in using different languages. But we can't step out of the use of language to converse.

quote:

quote:
For example, it has been argued with considerably merit to my mind, that compatibility between the "filioqued" and original versions of the Creed may be possible because the Latin used for "proceeds" is not the same as the Greek used for "proceeds", and different again from the English "proceeds" of course.
First of all, the creed has been written in Greek.

This is precisely the point. It was written in early-Church Greek yet it is being applied and used in cultures that are not early-Church Greek - including incidentally, modern Greece.

quote:
If the word "proceed" has a different meaning from the word "ekporevomai", then why are you using it as a translation of the word "ekporevetai" Jesus uses in the gospel for the Spirit?

Is this not obvious? Because words in different languages have subtly different meanings. From my reading I can get a general sense that in English, one might say something like "has his being from the Father as ultimate source by a mode of generation that is not begetting but might analogically be loosely described as like spiration, but we don't actually know what that means in any way" but that is not adequate, and there is no adequate English word to describe it. Traditionally we use the word "proceeds". Now, that word carries additional connotations - as does its Latin predecessor as Pontifical has tried to explain.

Now, in considering filioque or more precisely "proceeds... from the Son" you are translating that into "ekporevomai" and saying it's bollocks, but the mistake you're making is that proceeds is a perfect precise one-to-one mapping of ekporevomai. Languages don't work that way.

As a native English speaker I can say that the nature of the word "proceeds" is such that "proceeds from the Father and the Son", "proceeds from the Father through the Son" and "has Father as ultimate principal source yet comes through the Son" and so on, would all be compatible at the language level. In order to refute "proceeds... from the Son" you have to refute what is meant by it, and you can't tell us what it means by translating it into Greek first. You have to find out what it means before you can translate.

Now, unless Greek is the language of the angels [Biased]

I would ask you to open your mind to the possibility that the use of Greek to convey truths about God with utter precision might be suspect.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

The first time I read that "proceed" is not a translation for "ekporevomai" was from the document the pope composed a few years ago.

I think that if this was the case, then the Romans and the Greeks would have solved the matter when it arose.

The document gave me the impression that in retrospect they want to change their position in a way so that they don't appear to change their position, something like "look, we always believed that, it was all a misunderstanding."

Posted by GreyFace (# 4682) on :

Perhaps, Andreas, perhaps.

But the political and physical separation of East and West may have been a fair bit harder to overcome in the last years of the first millennium than they are now.

If I wanted to know what the Greek Orthodox thought of something in 980AD I'd have to go to Greece. If I want to know now, I can ask several Orthodoxen without leaving the room.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
If I wanted to know what the Greek Orthodox thought of something in 980AD I'd have to go to Greece.

This is what happened. There have been councils in Greece, where latins presented their case, people who knew both Greek and Latin, and they had their case refuted. The written accounts we have from these councils is that the latins knew exactly what they were talking about. They were speaking of a double ekporefsis.

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Hello, Andreas,

quote:
I think that if this was the case, then the Romans and the Greeks would have solved the matter when it arose.

The document gave me the impression that in retrospect they want to change their position in a way so that they don't appear to change their position, something like "look, we always believed that, it was all a misunderstanding."

I'm afraid you can't really say this, Andreas; if you want to argue with what the Roman position on this issue is, then I'm afraid that's PRECISELY what you must do: argue with the ROMAN position! You can't dispair if you suddenly realise that the position is actually the same as the Orthodox position, and insist therefore that that can't possibly be the case! To do so would be something akin to tilting at windmills...

My point all along has been that 99% of the Filioque debate has been pure politics. And I don't only mean from the Orthodox side, either. The Latins are just as bad; politics can be a very powerful and entrenched thing.

But you seem to have determined that the Latin position is NOT and CAN not be the same as the Orthodox, and therefore my reasoning must be wrong, because it seems to suggest that this discrepancy is due to a simple misunderstanding? Politically speaking, I'm not sure that the Greeks were in any mood to be considering union with the Latins in the difficult situation of that time, and who can blame them? But I'm NOT convinced that this was down to the filioque.

quote:
The first time I read that "proceed" is not a translation for "ekporevomai" was from the document the pope composed a few years ago.

But the Nicean Creed in Greek reads:

quote:
kai eis to pneuma to hagion, to kurion, (kai) to zoopion, to ek tou patros ekporeuomenon...

Which, as we know and agree, is talking about procession in the ontological sense of having-ones-being (literally "the-one-coming-out from the Father). We are NOT saying or suggesting that ekporeusthai CANNOT be translated as "procedere" in Latin; we are simply saying that, as has undoubtably always been the case (dare I suggest that this has been believed in at all times in all places and by all of the Faithful?! [Biased]

) proeinai (which, as we know CAN be said of the Holy Spirit from the Son) can ALSO be translated as procedere! Given that the word in the Latin creed can be translated as both ekporeusthai AND proeinai, this seems to explain the whole controversy to me. And the rest, as they say, is politics...

I hope you don't want it to be otherwise... The West has never claimed that Christ is a second principle (aitia) in the Trinity... As I quoted from St. Augustine:

quote:
and God the Father alone is He from whom the Word is born, and from whom the Holy Spirit principally proceeds.

I hope this goes some way to resolving the issue.

Best wishes,

Ian.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
proeinai (which, as we know CAN be said of the Holy Spirit from the Son) can ALSO be translated as procedere! Given that the word in the Latin creed can be translated as both ekporeusthai AND proeinai, this seems to explain the whole controversy to me.

Again, the first time I came upon the word "proeinai" is when I read that document by the pope. I have not found it in the ancient documents, and I want you to exaplain what you mean by that word.

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Thank you once again, Andreas:

quote:
Again, the first time I came upon the word "proeinai" is when I read that document by the pope. I have not found it in the ancient documents, and I want you to exaplain what you mean by that word.

Well, I should like to tell you that it is infact used in the ancient texts, even (I would venture to add) those specifically relating to this topic; so much so, that I am surprised that you have not read them?

For example, St. Cyril of Alexandria, writing in his Thesaurus says:

quote:
"The Spirit proceeds (proeisi) from the Father and the Son; clearly, he is of the divine substance, proceeding (proion) substantially in it and from it"

St Cyril of Alexandria, Thesaurus

Now the "proeinai" verb is clearly used here in this EXPLICIT context, so I hope that satisfies you as to its use in the old texts.

As to its meaning, proeinai was always used to suggest, well I suspect that "sending of the Holy Spirit from Christ" which you spoke of in an earlier post. I think Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon puts it better than I do(understandably - that's why he's a Metropolitan!) when he says:

quote:
It is historically true that in the Greek tradition a clear distinction was always made between ekporeuesthai and proeinai, the first of these two terms denoting exclusively the Spirit's derivation from the Father alone, whereas proeinai was used to denote the Holy Spirit's dependence on the Son owing to the common substance or ousia which the Spirit in deriving from the Father alone as Person or hypostasis receives from the Son, too, as ousiwdws that is, with regard to the one ousia common to all three persons (Cyril of Alexandria, Maximus the Confessor et al). On the basis of this distinction one might argue that there is a kind of Filioque on the level of ousia, but not of hypostasis.

Which seems to me to have expressed my sentiments in a somewhat more polished fashion. I hope this explains things. This is, as we know, the position of the Latin Church (from this document you keep mentionning, and also from Maximus the COnfessor). It was also the position of the Alexandrian Church from Athanasius, and it is the position (iuxta John of Pergamon) of the Orthodox Church.

I hope this clarifies things.

Pontifical.

Posted by Back-to-Front (# 5638) on :

Thank you all for this thread. I have been following with interest and am very interested (and satisfied) by the ekporeuesthai/proeinai distinction.

I believe it was Trisagion (apologies for possible misattribution) who highlighted this on an earlier thread about the same subject, and this was very helpful to me then.

The question, then, is one of authority. If "and the Son" is added in Latin to the Creed and understood in the proeinai sense, then the question would be on what authority is the sense of procedere as used in that phrase of the Creed changed from its original ekporeuesthai sense, which, I suppose is a whole different thread about authority.

Is that a fair summary or have I misunderstood?

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Dear Ian, Metropolitan John, influenced by Heidegger, has developed a theology of the person which is the issue of a debate.

You say that you want to show the unity in essence. I ask you this: in this meaning, would you say also that the Son proceeds from the Spirit? Why / why not?

Now, I have not read Cyril's document, so I have to read it first before I tell you my opinion on it. Also, because I know that many documents have been forged, especially for controversies like the isssue of filioque, I will have to depend on sources from the Patriarchate where St. Cyril taught and lived. If they assure me that the reference you make is in their copies of the book as well, then I will read the context to understand what he means.

Let me repeat, that the theology in that document says two things: Christ sent the Spirit (nobody disputes that!) and the Spirit takes his being from the Father and the Son because there is one essence. This is why I want an answer in this question: From what you have written it seems to me that one could speak also of the Son proceeding (proeinai) from the Spirit. Is this what you are saying?

[ 09. February 2006, 12:24: Message edited by: andreas1984 ]

Posted by GreyFace (# 4682) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Back-to-Front:
If "and the Son" is added in Latin to the Creed and understood in the proeinai sense, then the question would be on what authority is the sense of procedere as used in that phrase of the Creed changed from its original ekporeuesthai sense, which, I suppose is a whole different thread about authority.

Is that a fair summary or have I misunderstood?

I don't know. Do we need the authority of a Council to translate the Creed?

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

quote:
The question, then, is one of authority. If "and the Son" is added in Latin to the Creed and understood in the proeinai sense, then the question would be on what authority is the sense of procedere as used in that phrase of the Creed changed from its original ekporeuesthai sense, which, I suppose is a whole different thread about authority.

Well, yes and no, in my opinion; question of authority in terms of adding filioque, yes. As to "changing the sense." The sens was not changed actively. It's just that I think it fair to say that in exclusively Latin lands, centuries after the original council, it is fair to say that most Latins probably were unaware that their "procedere" had been rendered by ekporeusthai in the original Greek. And since proeinai in the greek would equally transmit a Truth - albeit quite different - about the Holy Spirit (one true of the Father and the Son, as St Cyril says), this is why they added it.

Pontifical.

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Dear Andreas,

Thank you for your message. Again, we are at odds!

quote:
Let me repeat, that the theology in that document says two things: Christ sent the Spirit (nobody disputes that!) and the Spirit takes his being from the Father and the Son because there is one essence. This is why I want an answer in this question: From what you have written it seems to me that one could speak also of the Son proceeding (proeinai) from the Spirit. Is this what you are saying?

I am saying nothing. I am simply stating what the Roman Church says, following St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Augustine, St. Athanasius, St. Hilary of Poitiers, the 2nd Council of Lyons, the 4th Lateran Council, St. Tarasius, the 2nd Council of Constantinople, St. Ambrose, St. Leo the Great, the modern Catechism of the Catholic Church, not to mention that document you keep mentionning; now, finally: we do not, have not and will not state that the Son is a second aitia in the Trinity; this is false.

You once said to me:

quote:
If I am not to judge whether something represents what I have said, then who is

I agree; but I think that this is your problem. You seem to have decided that it is true that the Roman Church's view, whatever it is, is wrong with respect to the Orthodox Church's position. So consequently, you won't accept my arguments (based, I add, on writings of Latin Fathers, Greek Fathers, the Patriarch of Constantinople (St. Tarasius) and the 7th Ecumenical Council). And you won't accept that the Latin argument is not what you say it is, to the extent that you accuse the Latins of having forged documents to support their 'heretical' position:

quote:
Also, because I know that many documents have been forged, especially for controversies like the isssue of filioque, I will have to depend on sources from the Patriarchate where St. Cyril taught and lived.

I find this incredible. These documents were written centuries before the so-called filioque crisis arose. A bit of forward planning on the Latins' part, I'd say, if it were true!

The Latins (beginning with St. Augustine) concretely state that the Father is the only principle in the Trinity. Correct me if I am wrong, but this should satisfy you that whatever we mean(t), it cannot have been that the Son is a second principle. Therefore the re-translation of procedit (well, procedentem, actually) in the Latin translation of the Creed into ekporeuomenon is logically impossible, since this is PRECISELY what this would imply. Sadly, this is what you keep saying that we meant! I am lost here. There is a certain circular motion going on!

Well, I fear I shall stop posting here: I have learned what I can from this discussion, and valuable it is too.

Best wishes to all,

Pontifical.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Dear Ian

Is Maximos's document authentic? It is said to be forged.

You are saying that I should accept it because you confess only one source. I ask you what you mean by it and you don't explain the meaning.

Moreover, I think that the entire theology of the divine energies which are uncreated and in which man can share, is a more important issue of difference.

Good luck!

Andreas

Posted by Back-to-Front (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:

quote:
Originally posted by Back-to-Front:
If "and the Son" is added in Latin to the Creed and understood in the proeinai sense, then the question would be on what authority is the sense of procedere as used in that phrase of the Creed changed from its original ekporeuesthai sense, which, I suppose is a whole different thread about authority.

Is that a fair summary or have I misunderstood?
I don't know. Do we need the authority of a Council to translate the Creed?

No, GreyFace. That isn't what I meant.

It seems, from what has been said above (and I agree entirely with what you have said about language), that the verb procedere is entirely correct as far as translation goes. However, it carries a secondary sense which the verb it is translated from does not carry. That's just the nature of language, and is fine, so long as it is understood in the sense of the original.

My question is whether any additions made to the Creed based on this second sense of the word, which, in the Creed, is an accidental by-product of the translation, have any authority, and if so, how?

I realise this doesn't necessarily fall within the scope of this thread, as it has the potential to branch into wider issues of authority.

Posted by GreyFace (# 4682) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Back-to-Front:
It seems, from what has been said above (and I agree entirely with what you have said about language), that the verb procedere is entirely correct as far as translation goes. However, it carries a secondary sense which the verb it is translated from does not carry. That's just the nature of language, and is fine, so long as it is understood in the sense of the original.

Not quite.

The point is that using procedere is not precisely correct. It is just the best that can be done in a world in which Latin does not transliterate precisely from Greek, and the word carries additional meaning whether we want it to or not.

Not having filioque in the Latin version can be and I assume was, seen to those unaware of the Greek nuance to mean that the Son categorically does not proceed (in the second sense) from the Father, so neither filioque nor filioque-less translations in the West translate the Creed adequately. It has been suggested that under the threat of a resurgence of a form of Arianism, the additional meaning that is carried by filioque was worth it in order to avoid the denial of second-sense filioque that leaving it out implies.

quote:
My question is whether any additions made to the Creed based on this second sense of the word, which, in the Creed, is an accidental by-product of the translation, have any authority, and if so, how?

Hmmm. I see what you mean. Does it matter? What we're really concerned about here is, is it true? Does the Spirit proceed (second sense) from the Son or not? Then if we're agreed that he does, can we express this in a form that does not cause translation difficulties?

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:
Hmmm. I see what you mean. Does it matter? What we're really concerned about here is, is it true? Does the Spirit proceed (second sense) from the Son or not? Then if we're agreed that he does, can we express this in a form that does not cause translation difficulties?

Well, is He? To say if He really is, you have first to explain what this second meaning of the verb proceed you are talking about is!

Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :

I've been trying to follow this but I think I got lost somewhere. We now seem to have a proceed-1 and a proceed-2; the former being the idea given by the original Greek word in the creed, the latter by a different (and shorter) Greek word which is not in the creed. We are saying that the Latin word used to translate proceed-1 in the creed can also carry the meaning of proceed-2, although the original greek of proceed-1 cannot.

But what does proceed-2 mean? Is this referring to action in history? People seem to want to argue that because Jesus "sent" the Spirit (e.g. in John where he breathes on the disciples and says "receive the HS") therefore the Spirit proceeds (proceed-2) from the Son. Is that correct?

Doesn't the Holy Spirit also "send" the Son? The blessed Virgin becomes pregnant with our Lord when the SPirit "overshadows" her; in the creed we say that "she became incarnate of the Holy Spirit". If proceed-2 refers to action in time, then clearly the Son "proceeds" from the Holy Spirit every bit as much as the Holy Spirit "proceeds" from the Son.

Awaiting correction by wiser heads....

Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :

oops [Hot and Hormonal]

"HE became incarnate of the Holy Spirit" not SHE. [Hot and Hormonal]

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Mousethief, the document the pope composed seems to imply that this is not what "proceed" in the creed means! Can you read the document, English being your mother tongue, and tell me what you understand?

http://agrino.org/cyberdesert/statement.htm

Posted by Back-to-Front (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by GreyFace:

quote:
Originally posted by Back-to-Front:
It seems, from what has been said above (and I agree entirely with what you have said about language), that the verb procedere is entirely correct as far as translation goes. However, it carries a secondary sense which the verb it is translated from does not carry. That's just the nature of language, and is fine, so long as it is understood in the sense of the original.
Not quite.

The point is that using procedere is not precisely correct. It is just the best that can be done in a world in which Latin does not transliterate precisely from Greek, and the word carries additional meaning whether we want it to or not.

Yes. My bad. I ought to have said that, in translating, procedere was found to be the verb "of best fit", and which carried the sense of the Greek as accurately as was possible.

quote:
Not having filioque in the Latin version can be and I assume was, seen to those unaware of the Greek nuance to mean that the Son categorically does not proceed (in the second sense) from the Father, so neither filioque nor filioque-less translations in the West translate the Creed adequately. It has been suggested that under the threat of a resurgence of a form of Arianism, the additional meaning that is carried by filioque was worth it in order to avoid the denial of second-sense filioque that leaving it out implies.

quote:
[QUOTE][qb]My question is whether any additions made to the Creed based on this second sense of the word, which, in the Creed, is an accidental by-product of the translation, have any authority, and if so, how?
Hmmm. I see what you mean. Does it matter?

In tems of the doctrine of the Trinity, no, and I'm very grateful for the clarity brough by this discussion about that. However, in relation to how Christians arrive at and set down what they believe, I think so.

quote:
What we're really concerned about here is, is it true? Does the Spirit proceed (second sense) from the Son or not? Then if we're agreed that he does, can we express this in a form that does not cause translation difficulties?

It appears that we can agree that Holy Spirit does indeed proceed (proeinai) from both Father and Son, but is this what the Creed is talking about? I would say no.

I can see how this understanding was indeed locally useful at one time so as to combat the resurgence of a particular heresy rearing its ugly head again, but I'm not sure that this alone warrants a permanent change in the Creed so that it no longer refers to the eternal origin of the Spirit. You and Pontifical have bth sugested that those who introduced the change may not have been consciously aware of the difference in Greek verbs - a fair point, and I'm sure that the concept of economy could even be extended to make a temporary acceptance of filioque under those particular circumstances acceptable, (in light of Arianism and all), but for there to be a permanent change in the Creed of the verb ekporeuesthai to proeinai would require the necessary authority.

AIUI, the question, therefore, is one of whether or not Rome has this authority, and I think we know what the answers are from different sides of the fence, so there isn't much point going over that one. [Biased]

Posted by Back-to-Front (# 5638) on :

Apologies for my crap typing which resulted in the numerous spelling errors in the above post. [Hot and Hormonal]

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

from the document:

quote:
"The eternal order of the divine persons in their consubstantial communion implies that the Father, as the 'principle without principle,' is the first origin of the Spirit, but also that as Father of the only Son, he is, with the Son, the single principle from which the Spirit proceeds" (Council of Lyons II, DS 850)."

The Greeks do not accept a second origin. I think that the Roman Catholic document implies a second origin, and this is not the Orthodox faith

quote:
The Western tradition expresses first the consubstantial communion between Father and Son, by saying that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (Filioque). "This legitimate complementarity, provided it does not become rigid, does not affect the identity of faith in the reality of the same mystery confessed." (Catechism of the Catholic Church no.248).

Why not express first the consubstantial communion between Emitter and Spirit, by saying that the Son is born from the Father through the Spirit?

Also:

quote:
If it is correctly situated, the Filioque of the Latin tradition must not lead to subordination of the Holy Spirit in the Trinity. Even if the Catholic doctrine affirms that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son in the communication of their consubstantial communion, it nonetheless recognises the reality of the original relationship of the Holy Spirit as person with the Father, a relationship that the Greek Fathers express by the term ekporeusis.

The Greek fathers never expressed a relationship by the term ekporevomai. They expressed the origin and source.

[ 09. February 2006, 15:14: Message edited by: andreas1984 ]

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Oh well,

"Never say never again," the film producers said to Sean Connery that time.

I'm sorry, Andreas, but I find you irresistably provocative. Here are my answers to your points:

quote:
Is Maximos's document authentic? It is said to be forged.

I can't argue with a moving target; if all you are going to do is dicredit my sources, then there's not much more to say. No surprises there.

quote:
You are saying that I should accept it because you confess only one source. I ask you what you mean by it and you don't explain the meaning.

In all charity, I do not understand the first sentence. As to the second sentence, I have explained it at least twice; perhaps my English was a little dodgy. Let me try again... I mean exactly what you meant earlier when you were discussing the active part that Christ plays in the "sending" of the Spirit, and in the Spirit being the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of the Father. As when Christ himself says:

quote:
And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said: "Receive the Holy Spirit!" John 20:22

I think we can say here that the Holy Spirit proceeds (proeisi) from the Son. This (proeinai) is what St. Cyril of Alexandria (and others - Augustine, Leo the Great, Hilary of Poitiers - I'm not going to quote them all here, but I can if requested) mean by proeinai when they confess that the Holy Spirit proceeds (proeisi) from the Father and the Son, but that the Father is the only cause (aitia) in the Trinity, arche anarche; and so that the Holy Spirit proceeds (ekporeusthai) from the Father alone. Can you not see that these people make both claims?????? How can it be that they are suggesting that the Holy Spirit proceeds (ekporeusthai) from both Father and Son?

quote:
Moreover, I think that the entire theology of the divine energies which are uncreated and in which man can share, is a more important issue of difference.

Difference between what? Before you said to me:

quote:
For me the issue of filioque is not the most important difference. I think that we have spent centuries talking about it because it is easy to define this issue.

And what's more, I have spent hours of muscle power explaining to you why the Ortiental Orthodox and Latin ideas on the procession (ekporeusis) of the Holy Spirit are the same.

Now, to move to your last post:

quote:
The Greeks do not accept a second origin. I think that the Roman Catholic document implies a second origin, and this is not the Orthodox faith

I think that what you think the RC document implies and what the RC document actually implies are rather different. The RC document I can see bends over backwards to say that the Monarchical structure of the Trinitarian theology must be maintained, which to my mind leaves absolutely, categorically and definitely no room for the sort of implication you imply.

The Latins do not accept a second origin; to do so would be to say that the Son were aitia, and another arche anarche. The document expressly condemns this, and to proove yet again that this is a linguistical problem, not a theological one, Latin Rite but Greek Language churches would have to use the Creed without any "kai tou uiou" additions, becuase this would precisely implicate Christ as aitia, which is forbidden:

quote:
Being aware of this, the Catholic Church has refused the addition of kai tou Uiou to the formula ek tou Patros ekporeuomenon of the Symbol of Nicaea-Constantinople in the Churches, even of Latin rite, which use it in Greek.

As we have discussed ad nauseam, this limitation is not there if I want to add "filioque" to "qui ex patre procedit", because this would work using proeinai. If I wanted to translate "ex patre filioque procedit" into Greek, I'd actually have two options:

...ek tou patros kai tou uiou ekporeuomenon (which would be heretical, as we have AMPLY stated above).

...ek tou patros kai tou uiou proeisi (which would be perfectly valid, as we see from the writings of the Greek/Latin Fathers.

Finally:

quote:
The Greek fathers never expressed a relationship by the term ekporevomai. They expressed the origin and source.

Here I'm afraid you're just being syntactically fussy, this time in English. This is all a bit much, really. Of course, in laymen's terms (which is what most of us are, after all) it is possible in English to say that the Greek Fathers expressed a relationship by this term; the relationship between Father and Holy Spirit expressed by the verb ekporeusthai is one precisely of source and origin. Nothing more. And, before you interject, no the Latins are not saying this about the Son. And no, this is not the same idea as proeinai would convey. And no, I don't know what the Koine Greek is for relationship, and frankly, I don't think it matters IN ENGLISH.

To respond to general points:

(1) No, the Latins were not intending ekporeusthai when they added filioque to the Creed. They were intending proeinai.

(2) Yes, this does mean that, the Latins' perception of what the Creed meant had changed compared to what it had originally meant. This is, however, a practical consequence of the existence of a text in translation, in a rather large empire, most of which does not speak Greek, or have any need to. It could and should have been sorted out by an Ecumenical Council. Here's hoping...

(3) This means that when the Latins added filioque, they were adding it to a Creed, which when back-translated into Greek, would have had to be translated as proeinai: NOT ekporeusthai. We know this since elsewhere they are adamant that this claim cannot and must not be asserted. This is the case because it is not possible, by using the one word procedit in Latin, to differentiate between the two translations in Greek.

With abundant apologies for the length of this post; I have a big chest, with much to get off it!

Blessings,

Pontifical.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Dear Ian

Thank you very much for your reply. It is very clear.

This is the first time I read a Roman Catholic saying that the filioque refers to the Spirit being sent to the people of Christ, in a way similar to Christ being sent in the Virgin's womb.

I will ask Trisagion and Triple Tiara if they see things the same way you do.

If this is the case, then the entire issue is well, a non-issue. It's resolved.

Now, I want to ask you about this, since in my opinion it is much more important than the filioque issue. Easterns confess that God's Grace is uncreated; the He imparts His uncreated energies in us. For example, the sight the Apostles saw during the Transfiguration, was a light uncreated, a vision which God reveals to His people, in a way, it is God Himself. This light (to speak for one of the uncreated energies of God), is the same light Moses saw in Horeb, and it has been seen by Orthodox people throughout the centuries. What's your take on that? Can we know God through his uncreated energies?

(a bad summary, I know, but maybe you know the issue and no summary is needed)

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
I will ask Trisagion and Triple Tiara if they see things the same way you do.

I want to thank Trisagion and Triple Tiara for their replies.

They said that they have the same understanding, i.e. that the answer to the question "because of Whom does the Spirit exist?" is "because of the Father alone" and that their use of the "filioque" is about the sending of the Holy Spirit to the people of Christ by Christ, just like the Holy Spirit sent Christ in the Virgin's womb.

Their understanding that the filioque refers to the economy and not to the eternal relations of origin in the Trinity is welcome.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
Their understanding that the filioque refers to the economy and not to the eternal relations of origin in the Trinity is welcome.

I'm sure it is welcome to you. It is however not the Roman Catholic point of view. I have no way of judging what Trisaigon and Triple Tiara communicated privately to you. But if they indeed stated that the filioque only refers to the economy, but not to the eternal relations of origin in the Trinity, then they are simply in error as far as RC doctrine is concerned. Further, I'm losing track of what precisely Pontifical is saying concerning the eternal relations. But if he is saying that the filioque is not about eternal relations at all, then I'm sad. For the last thing the RCC needs is highly erudite misinformation spoken in her defense...

The official position is clearly laid out in the

quote:
Catechism of the Catholic Church:
The Father and the Son revealed by the Spirit

243 Before his Passover, Jesus announced the sending of "another Paraclete" (Advocate), the Holy Spirit. At work since creation, having previously "spoken through the prophets", the Spirit will now be with and in the disciples, to teach them and guide them "into all the truth".68 The Holy Spirit is thus revealed as another divine person with Jesus and the Father.

244 The eternal origin of the Holy Spirit is revealed in his mission in time. The Spirit is sent to the apostles and to the Church both by the Father in the name of the Son, and by the Son in person, once he had returned to the Father.69 The sending of the person of the Spirit after Jesus' glorification70 reveals in its fullness the mystery of the Holy Trinity.

245 The apostolic faith concerning the Spirit was confessed by the second ecumenical council at Constantinople (381): "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father."71 By this confession, the Church recognizes the Father as "the source and origin of the whole divinity".72 But the eternal origin of the Spirit is not unconnected with the Son's origin: "The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is God, one and equal with the Father and the Son, of the same substance and also of the same nature. . . Yet he is not called the Spirit of the Father alone,. . . but the Spirit of both the Father and the Son."73 The Creed of the Church from the Council of Constantinople confesses: "With the Father and the Son, he is worshipped and glorified."74

246 The Latin tradition of the Creed confesses that the Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque)". The Council of Florence in 1438 explains: "The Holy Spirit is eternally from Father and Son; He has his nature and subsistence at once (simul) from the Father and the Son. He proceeds eternally from both as from one principle and through one spiration. . . . And, since the Father has through generation given to the only-begotten Son everything that belongs to the Father, except being Father, the Son has also eternally from the Father, from whom he is eternally born, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son."75

247 The affirmation of the filioque does not appear in the Creed confessed in 381 at Constantinople. But Pope St. Leo I, following an ancient Latin and Alexandrian tradition, had already confessed it dogmatically in 447,76 even before Rome, in 451 at the Council of Chalcedon, came to recognize and receive the Symbol of 381. The use of this formula in the Creed was gradually admitted into the Latin liturgy (between the eighth and eleventh centuries). The introduction of the filioque into the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed by the Latin liturgy constitutes moreover, even today, a point of disagreement with the Orthodox Churches.

248 At the outset the Eastern tradition expresses the Father's character as first origin of the Spirit. By confessing the Spirit as he "who proceeds from the Father", it affirms that he comes from the Father through the Son.77 The Western tradition expresses first the consubstantial communion between Father and Son, by saying that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque). It says this, "legitimately and with good reason",78 for the eternal order of the divine persons in their consubstantial communion implies that the Father, as "the principle without principle",79 is the first origin of the Spirit, but also that as Father of the only Son, he is, with the Son, the single principle from which the Holy Spirit proceeds.80 This legitimate complementarity, provided it does not become rigid, does not affect the identity of faith in the reality of the same mystery confessed.
---
68 Cf. Gen 1:2; Nicene Creed (DS 150); Jn 14:17, 26; 16:13.
69 Cf. Jn 14:26; 15:26; 16:14.
70 Cf. Jn 7:39.
71 Nicene Creed; cf. DS 150.
72 Council of Toledo VI (638): DS 490.
73 Council of Toledo XI (675): DS 527.
74 Nicene Creed; cf. DS 150.
75 Council of Florence (1439): DS 1300-1301.
76 Cf. Leo I, Quam laudabiliter (447): DS 284.
77 Jn 15:26; cf. AG 2.
78 Council of Florence (1439): DS 1302.
79 Council of Florence (1442): DS 1331.
80 Cf. Council of Lyons II (1274): DS 850.

Let's be clear then that the tension between the Father's monarchy and the filioque is not resolved by escaping into economy. The economy precisely reveals the eternal relations for the Latins. Rather the tension is resolved in that the Son has all He is from the Father, hence the Son has also the "proceeding of the Holy Spirit" from the Father. In that sense then it is equivalent to say that the Holy Spirit comes "through" the Son from the Father, or that He comes from Father and Son as one principle. But it is the Holy Trinity in eternity we are talking about!

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Dear IngoB

I'm sure Trisagion and father Triple Tiara will speak for themselves. Perhaps sending them a private message first would be a good thing to do.

Like Pontifical said, the term proceed can be read with two ways. You quote what the council of Florence said, but you forget that this quotation has been authoritatively explained by the Papal document mentioned in one of the above posts.

In the quotes you make, it is written that the economy reveals us the Trinity. Like Father Triple Tiara said, it has been revealed that the Spirit is sent by the Son to mankind, just like the Son is sent by the Spirit in the Virgin's womb. You seem to miss the Spirit's sending the SOn and stress the Son's sending the Spirit. You also seem to make assumptions about what this means, assumptions which the quotation from the Catechism made does not seem to share. Because it is written that the Son's sending the Spirit shows the consubstantiality of the three divine persons, just like the Spirit's sending the Son can be said to show the same thing.

I must confess that before hearing to what Pontifical, Triple Tiara and Trisagion had to say, I was under the same impression you are right now. But after listening to what they believe in, I confess that I do not share that impression any more.

Besides, what you seem to propose is not a monarchy, but a duarchy (two sources in the Trinity) which is already rejected by the Pope.

I guess our discussion can develop through a dialogue between your ideas and the idea expressed by Pontifical, father Triple Tiara and Trisagion.

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

Okay, since I am the father in the trinity that andreas refers to ( [Big Grin]

) I shall respond first.

First off, I am SO delighted to be at one with andreas. Thank you for your courtesy andreas, and for taking on board what has been said to you.

Secondly, I have not usually spoken about monarchy and economy, but I am happy to be informed and to learn about these concepts as inherent in the debate.

My understanding, as borne out I believe by the quotations from the CCC above, is as follows. This is substantially what I wrote to andreas.

The definitive version of creeds, encyclicals, documents, liturgy etc in the Roman Catholic Church is usually the latin text. The debate on the translation of the liturgy, and thus the Creed, into the English language has at times tried to highlight the subtlety of saying "filioque procedit" by suggesting translating that as "proceeds from the Father through the Son". However, that has not happened and the debate still continues. I think this is because of the Western desire to indicate some relationship between the Son and the sending of the Spirit at Pentecost, following the promise of Jesus that the Spirit would be sent. Bear in mind that this also immediately preceeds the affirmation of belief in the Church and one can see how there is an attempt to emphasise the relationships between all these entities in which we express belief. Since the Spirit is referred to in our profession of belief in the Son, so there is a necessity to see some relationship between the Son and the Spirit when it comes to the Spirit. That is the origin of simply adding -que to filio , which I personally think is too crude as it stands. I believe our Orthodox brethren have been right in pointing that out to us. I believe it needs correcting. However, being a Western Catholic, I think simply to assert that the Spirit proceeds from the Father is too stark and misses an important element of the relationship between the sending of the Spirit at Pentecost and the role of the Son in breathing that Spirit upon the Church. The Son is not the origin of the Spirit, but he does have some role in the procession of the Spirit.

What will the CDF have to say to me? I believe the document to which andreas refers as a papal document is one from the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, where similar points were made. Such documents are never issued before passing through the CDF. Pope John Paul II referred to the document in a homily at which the ecumenical patriarch was present, saying that the Father is the sole origin and one source of the Trinity and that that was substantially what the Latin version of the Creed also intended.

So IngoB, I think your own words should be heard by you: For the last thing the RCC needs is highly erudite misinformation spoken in her defense...

Posted by IconiumBound (# 754) on :

I am sorry to have to say that this is close to the argument about the origin of the chicken or the egg. How can we, who can't adequately explain the Trinity, presume to know who came/ whom from whom?

My real question is does it really matter?

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

It matters so much that the Church split right down the middle 1000 years ago, and has never recovered.

It's not quite chicken and egg, more like dove and egg, don't you think? [Big Grin]

[ 11. February 2006, 13:37: Message edited by: Triple Tiara ]

Posted by Back-to-Front (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IconiumBound:
I am sorry to have to say that this is close to the argument about the origin of the chicken or the egg. How can we, who can't adequately explain the Trinity, presume to know who came/ whom from whom?

The Christian Faith is based on divine revelation. Of course we aren't going to understand every detail of God, but when something is revealed by God, it seems rather inconsistent with the nature of Christianity to then ask how we can presume to know it.

How can we presume to know about the Incarnation, Resurrection, Sacraments, salvation in Christ? We know it by faith in God's revelation.

quote:
My real question is does it really matter?

Yes. Yes, it does.

If the Truth God reveals to his Church doesn't matter, (and it is the place of no human to state that it doesn't), especially where the nature of the God we claim to worship is concerned, then Christianity rather loses any sort of meaning and we may as well give up now.

Posted by IconiumBound (# 754) on :

I am not proposing to ignore the elements of Christian faith; the Incarnation, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus. They have been attested to in Scripture and experienced by believers for two centuries. Likewise the Holy Spirit has been experienced over the same time in various ways. And He will continue regardless of what we think about His source.

But does it really matter to argue about the source, method, orimportance of His coming? Aren't we engaging in the endless "futile and silly speculations, understanding that they only give rise to quarrels" (2Tim:2:23).

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

IconiumBound, from the eastern point of view, Christianity's being a monotheistic religion depends upon an orthodox understanding of who the source in the Trinity is.

Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Let's be clear then that the tension between the Father's monarchy and the filioque is not resolved by escaping into economy. The economy precisely reveals the eternal relations for the Latins. Rather the tension is resolved in that the Son has all He is from the Father, hence the Son has also the "proceeding of the Holy Spirit" from the Father.

You're arguing in a circle. One could go on to say: the Holy Spirit has all He is from the Father and the Son, hence the Holy Spirit also has "proceeding of the Holy Spirit" from the Father, hence the Holy Spirit proceeds from Himself.

Just because the Son has all He is from the Father, doesn't mean the Son has all the Father is. That's a very simple logical error.

Posted by Back-to-Front (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IconiumBound:
I am not proposing to ignore the elements of Christian faith; the Incarnation, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus. They have been attested to in Scripture and experienced by believers for two centuries. Likewise the Holy Spirit has been experienced over the same time in various ways. And He will continue regardless of what we think about His source.

The nature of God is itself an element of the Christian Faith, and it is this that gives birth to the possibility of the Incarnation, Resurrection, &c. The nature of the Holy Trinity, so far as it has been revealed, is as much a part of Holy Tradition and revealed Christian Truth as are the other doctrines mentioned - and they found their foundation in it.

To be respectfully frank, I'm not sure I see the merit of posting to a thread to question whether the discussion being engaged in there is of significance. If I were to see a thread that I thought wasn't particularly worthwhile, (and I've seen a few), I would just ignore it.

Posted by Trisagion (# 5235) on :

What Triple Tiara said.

Posted by Back-to-Front (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Back-to-Front:
...and they found their foundation in it.

find, even.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Back-to-Front:
To be respectfully frank, I'm not sure I see the merit of posting to a thread to question whether the discussion being engaged in there is of significance.

Yes, but through dialogue new understandings can emerge.

Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:

quote:
Originally posted by Back-to-Front:
To be respectfully frank, I'm not sure I see the merit of posting to a thread to question whether the discussion being engaged in there is of significance.
Yes, but through dialogue new understandings can emerge.

True but "this isn't important" isn't very conducive to dialogue.

Posted by Back-to-Front (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:

quote:
Originally posted by Back-to-Front:
To be respectfully frank, I'm not sure I see the merit of posting to a thread to question whether the discussion being engaged in there is of significance.
Yes, but through dialogue new understandings can emerge.

That's precisely my point!

What IconiumBound seems to be saying (and I offer my apologies if I have misunderstood) is that this particular dialogue in which we are engaging is not worth having.

[Mousethief beat me to it. [Smile]

]

[ 11. February 2006, 16:01: Message edited by: Back-to-Front ]

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jonathan the Free:

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
...I hope everything will be clear eventually
I hope so too. I am really struggling to follow this thread.

It seems that with Pontifical's help we made things clear in the end. I want to thank Ian, father Triple Tiara and Trisagion for their contribution.

Jonathan, GreyFace, and everybody else, what do you think as far as the outcome of this thread is concerned?

[ 11. February 2006, 16:04: Message edited by: andreas1984 ]

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Back-to-Front:
What IconiumBound seems to be saying (and I offer my apologies if I have misunderstood) is that this particular dialogue in which we are engaging is not worth having.

In my opinion IconiumBound says that as far as he is concerned, the issue does not have important implications for his faith. We can discuss upon the implications the issue has for our faith, so we can shed some light and discuss with him about it. The way I see it, every contribution, even the absence of contribution is an invitation to dialogue.

Posted by Back-to-Front (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:

quote:
Originally posted by Back-to-Front:
What IconiumBound seems to be saying (and I offer my apologies if I have misunderstood) is that this particular dialogue in which we are engaging is not worth having.
In my opinion IconiumBound says that as far as he is concerned, the issue does not have important implications for his faith. We can discuss upon the implications the issue has for our faith, so we can shed some light and discuss with him about it. The way I see it, every contribution, even the absence of contribution is an invitation to dialogue.

Fair enough. If that's your reading of things, then you're more charitable than I am. It came across to me as, "Why are you wasting time even bothering to discuss this?", especially so at this point:

quote:
Originally posted by IconiumBound:
Aren't we engaging in the endless "futile and silly speculations, understanding that they only give rise to quarrels" (2Tim:2:23).

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Yes, this is my reading of things, especially because he used "we" in the quote you made.

Posted by Back-to-Front (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
What will the CDF have to say to me? I believe the document to which andreas refers as a papal document is one from the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, where similar points were made. Such documents are never issued before passing through the CDF. Pope John Paul II referred to the document in a homily at which the ecumenical patriarch was present, saying that the Father is the sole origin and one source of the Trinity and that that was substantially what the Latin version of the Creed also intended.

Thank you for this, TT.

This blows many of the anti-RCists out of the water in certain factions at our end.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
So IngoB, I think your own words should be heard by you: For the last thing the RCC needs is highly erudite misinformation spoken in her defense...

Yes, and would you like to say this as well to John Paul II?

quote:
John Paul II "The Holy Spirit Proceeds from the Father and the Son, November 20, 1985 – General Audience:
The Holy Spirit is "sent" by the Father and Son, as he also "proceeds" from them. For this reason he is called "the Spirit of the Father" (e.g., Mt. 10:20; 1 Cor 2:11; also Jn 15:26), but also "the Spirit of the Son" (Gal 4:6), or "the Spirit of Jesus" (Acts 16:7), since it is Jesus himself that sends him (cf. Jn 15:26). Therefore the Latin Church professes that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (qui a Patre Filioque procedit) while the Orthodox Churches profess from the Father through the Son. He proceeds "by way of will," "in the manner of love" (per modum amoris). This is a sententia certa, that is, a theological doctrine commonly accepted in the Church's teaching and therefore sure and binding.

This conviction is confirmed by the etymology of the name "Holy Spirit," to which I alluded in the previous catechesis—Spirit, spiritus, pneuma, ruah. Starting from this etymology "the procession" of the Spirit from the Father and the Son is described as "spiration"—spiramen—a breath of Love. <...>

Therefore, by means of generation, in the absolute unity of the divinity, God is eternally Father and Son. The Father who begets loves the Son who is begotten. The Son loves the Father with a love which is identical with that of the Father. In the unity of the divinity, love is on one side paternal and on the other, filial. At the same time the Father and the Son are not only united by that mutual love as two Persons infinitely perfect. But their mutual gratification, their reciprocal love, proceeds in them and from them as a person. The Father and the Son "spirate" the Spirit of Love consubstantial with them. In this way God, in the absolute unity of the divinity, is from all eternity Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

John Paul II "The Spirit and the Filioque Debate, November 7, 1990 – General Audience":
At this last Council we find a statement which has the value of a historical clarification and at the same time of a doctrinal declaration: "The Latins state that by saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son they do not mean to exclude that the Father is the source and the principle of all divinity, that is, of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Nor do they wish to deny that the Son learned from the Father that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son; nor do they hold that there are two principles or two spirations. Rather they assert that one only is the principle and one only the spiration of the Holy Spirit, as they have asserted up to now" (cf. Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta, Bologna 1973, p. 526).

That was an echo of the Latin tradition which St. Thomas had well defined theologically [3] by referring to a text of St. Augustine, according to which " Pater et Filius sunt unum principium Spiritus Sancti " [4] .

The problems on the order of terminology seem thus to be resolved and the intentions clarified, to the extent that each party, the Greeks and the Latins, during the sixth session (July 6, 1439) were able to sign this common definition: "In the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with the approval of this sacred and universal Council of Florence, we establish that this truth of faith must be believed and accepted by all Christians: and thus all must profess that the Holy Spirit is eternally of the Father and the Son, that he has his existence and his subsistent being from the Father and the Son together, and that he proceeds eternally from the one and from the other as from a single principle and from a single spiration" (DS 1300).
---
[3] cf. Summa Theol., I, q. 36, a. 3

[4] De Trinitate, V, 14: PL 42, 921

John Paul II "The Spirit Is Source of Communion, July 29, 1998, General Audience":
In particular, on the specific problem of the Filioque concerning the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the Word who proceed from the Father, it is possible to maintain that the difference between the Latin and Eastern traditions does not affect the identity of the faith "in the reality of the same mystery confessed" but its expression, constituting a "legitimate complementarity" which does not jeopardize but indeed can enrich communion in the one faith (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 248; Apostolic Letter Orientale lumen, 2 May 1995, n. 5; Note of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, 29 June 1995: The Greek and Latin Traditions Regarding the Procession of the Holy Spirit, L'Osservatore Romano English edition, 20 September 1995, p. 3).

Oh dear, JP the Great even uses the "Holy Spirit as Personified Divine love" argument.

But let's turn the that Note written by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, what sensational novelties does it contain?

quote:
Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity "The Father as the Source of the Whole Trinity: The Procession of the Holy Spirit in Greek and Latin Traditions":
The doctrine of the Filioque must be understood and presented by the Catholic Church in such a way that it cannot appear to contradict the Monarchy of the Father nor the fact that he is the sole origin (arche, aitia) of the ekporeusis of the Spirit. <...>

We are presenting here the authentic doctrinal meaning of the Filioque on the basis of the Trinitarian faith of the Symbol professed by the second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople. We are giving this authoritative interpretation, while being aware of how inadequate human language is to express the ineffable mystery of the Holy Trinity, one God, a mystery which is beyond our words and our thoughts. <...>

The fact that in Latin and Alexandrian theology the Holy Spirit proceeds (proeisi) from the Father and the Son in their consubstantial communion does not mean that it is the divine essence or substance that proceed in him, but that it is communicated from the Father and the Son who have it in common. <...>

In the same way, if in the Trinitarian order the Holy Spirit is consecutive to the relation between the Father and the Son, since he takes his origin from the Father as Father of the only Son,6 it is in the Spirit that this relationship between the Father and the Son itself attains its Trinitarian perfection. Just as the Father is characterised as Father by the Son he generates, so does the Spirit, by taking his origin from the Father, characterise the Father in the manner of the Trinity in relation to the Son and characterises the Son in the manner of the Trinity in his relation to the Father: in the fullness of the Trinitarian mystery they are Father and Son in the Holy Spirit.7

The Father only generates the Son by breathing (proballein in Greek) through him the Holy Spirit and the Son is only begotten by the Father insofar as the spiration (probole in Greek) passes through him. The Father is Father of the One Son only by being for him and through him the origin of the Holy Spirit.8

The Spirit does not precede the Son, since the Son characterises as Father the Father from whom the Spirit takes his origin, according to the Trinitarian order.9 But the spiration of the Spirit from the Father takes place by and through (the two senses of dia in Greek) the generation of the Son, to which it gives its Trinitarian character. It is in this sense that St. John Damascene says: "The Holy Spirit is a substantial power contemplated in his own distinct hypostasis, who proceeds from the Father and reposes in the Word" (De Fide Orthodoxa I, 7, PG 94, 805 B, ed. B. Kotter, Berlin 1973, p.16; Dialogus contra Manichaeos 5, PG 94. 1512 B, ed. B. Kotter, Berlin 1981, p. 354).10

What is this Trinitarian character that the person of the Holy Spirit brings to the very relationship between the Father and the Son? It is the original role of the Spirit in the economy with regard to the mission and work of the Son. The Father is love in is source (2 Cor 13:13; 1 Jn 4:8.16), the Son is "the Son that he loves" (Col 1:14). So a tradition dating back to St Augustine has seen in the Holy Spirit, through whom "God's love has been poured into our hearts" (Rom 5:5), love as the eternal Gift of the Father to his "beloved Son" (Mk 1:11, 9:7; Lk 20:13; Eph 1:6).11

The divine love which has its origin in the Father reposes in "the Son of his love" in order to exist consubstantially through the Son in the person of the Spirit, the Gift of love. This takes into account the fact that, through love, the Holy Spirit orients the whole life of Jesus towards the Father in the fulfilment of his will.
---
[6] Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no.248.

[7] St. Gregory of Nazianzus says that "the Spirit is a middle term (meson) between the Unbegotten and the Begotten" (Discourse 31, 8, Sources Chrétiennes, no.250, p.290). Cf. also, in a Thomistic perspective, G Leblond, "Point of view on the procession of the Holy Spirit," in Revue Thomiste, LXXXVI, t.78, 1978, pp.293-302.

[8] St. Cyril of Alexandria says that "the Holy Spirit flows from the Father into the Son (en to Uiou)," (Thesaurus, XXXIV, PG 75, 577A).

[9] St. Gregory of Nyssa writes: "The Holy Spirit is said to be of the Father and it is attested that he is of the Son. St. Paul says: 'Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him' (Rom 8:9). So the Spirit who is of God (the Father) is also the Spirit of Christ. However, the Son who is of God (the Father) is not said to be of the Spirit: the consecutive order of the relationship cannot be reversed" (Fragment In orationem dominicam, quoted by St. John Damascene, PG 46. 1109 BC). And St. Maximus affirms in the same way the Trinitarian order when he writes: "Just as the Thought (the Father) is principle of the Word, so is he also of the Spirit through the Word. And, just as one cannot say that the Word is of the voice (of the Breath), so one cannot say that the Word is of the Spirit" (Quaestiones et dubia, PG 90, 813 B).

[10] St. Thomas Aquinas, who knew the De Fide Orthodoxa, sees no opposition between the Filioque and this expression of St. John Damascene: "To say that the Holy Spirit reposes or dwells in the Son does not exclude his proceeding from the Son; for we say also that the Son dwells in the Father, although he proceeds from the Father (Summa Theologica, Ia, q.36, a.2, 4um).

[11] St. Thomas Aquinas, following St. Augustine, writes: "If we say of the Holy Spirit that he dwells in the Son, it is in the way that the love of one who loves reposes in the loved one" (Summa Theologica Ia, q.36, a.2, 4um). This doctrine of the Holy Spirit as love has been harmoniously assumed by St. Gregory Palamas into the Greek theology of the ekporeusis from the Father alone: "The Spirit of the most high Word is like an ineffable love of the Father for this Word ineffably generated. A love which this same Word and beloved Son of the Father entertains (chretai) towards the Father: but insofar as he has the Spirit coming with him (sunproelthonta) from the Father and reposing connaturally in him" (Capita physica XXXVI, PG 150, 1144, D-1145 A).

Now, I'm sure we can play endless games with words here. But the Latin doctrine is that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son in eternity. Full bloody stop. No official document says otherwise, plenty say so. That this is not at odds with the Father's monarchy and that it can be harmonized with Eastern teachings (in the opinion of the Vatican, not necessarily of the Orthodox) is great. That this teaching should be expounded so that this becomes clear is prudent. But interpreting the exact opposite of what is said into words is just not on. What, pray, is ambiguous in the words: "The Holy Spirit is eternally from Father and Son; He has his nature and subsistence at once (simul) from the Father and the Son. He proceeds eternally from both as from one principle and through one spiration."?

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

You miss the point that eternity is something created. Therefore, the statements you quote can be seen as applying to economy and not the origin for the Spirit. Besides, the very documents you quote say clearly that the Father is the only cause for the Spirit. You seem to be saying that the Son is a cause also for the Spirit. But this interpretation is rejected clearly by the texts you quote. I think that the latin/enlgish language having no word (As far as I know) for God's αϊδιότητα, makes it difficult for you to understand that eternity is something created. The Holy Spirit created eternity and acts within eternity. Eternity does not bind the Holy Trinity.

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Good Evening,

And a very blessed 6th Sunday of the Year to you all.

Well, I think that, finally, this topic has come up with quite a useful thread, instead of the usual backbiting and sniping; I'm pleased to concur with Andreas that this has been quite an eye-opener for me. I always thought that the two ideas were extremely close, and that it was mis-understanding that had resulted in schism - now I think I understand why.

I'm afraid, IngoB, that the Doctrinal Note on the Holy Spirit, as it is called (the "Papal" document you refer to is sadly not papal, Andreas! We don't need Papal documents for EVERYTHING, you know!! [Biased]

) is the most current piece of specific teaching that we possess on the topic NOT of the Holy Spirit in general, but particularly of the Filioque clause, and (perhaps more relevantly) the furore that it has caused - in my view, unnecessarily:

quote:
We are presenting here the authentic doctrinal meaning of the Filioque on the basis of the Trinitarian faith of the Symbol professed by the second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople.

I confess that I haven't had the chance to read all of your posts, but I hope that you (IngoB) are not suggesting that the Holy Spirit takes his being from the Son? I think this is what both East (judging by Andreas' comments, reading of the Eastern Father's quotes on the subject and 1,000 years of Schism) and West (judging on the specific document quoted above, and a correct reading of the catechism) would condemn as heresy. Heresy because, as Andreas rightly says, it is not possible to make a "cause" (aitia) out of Christ in the Trinity.

Now, you (IngoB) are right to suggest that the Catholic church's idea of processio is more than just economy: there is too an eternal point of view to it. But this is not, and CAN not be that "Christ is too a co-cause" of the Holy Spirit. As far as I read the document this is as follows:

(1) The Father is the eternal arche anarchos (uncaused cause, literally 'beginning without a beginning') of the Trinity.

(2) The Son is eternally generated from the Father by filiation - that is, He has His very Being from the Father - the Greeks occasionally even term this "ekporeusis", emphasising that the Son is, indeed, taking His Being from His Father.

(3) The Holy Spirit is eternally generated (ekporeuetai, same root as ekporeusis) from the Father by Spiration (probale, in Greek).

As far as having having Their Being is concerned (ekporeusis), this is the sum total of what we can validly say about the Son and the Spirit - even if we say that eternally speaking the Son proceeds from the Holy Spirit, we CANNOT and MUST not say that this is by ekporeusis; this is why the RC Church says:

quote:
Being aware of this, the Catholic Church has refused the addition of kai tou Uiou (and the Son) to the formula ek tou Patros ekporeuomenon (the-One-having-His-Being from the Father) of the Symbol of Nicaea-Constantinople in the Churches, even of Latin rite, which use it in Greek. The liturgical use of this original text remains always legitimate in the Catholic Church.

Doctrinal Note on the Holy Spirit, my emphasis

SO: what precisely is the nature of the eternal processio of the Holy Spirit from the Son?

There is one sense in which the ekporeusthai sence of processio connects the Spirit and the Son: the 7th Council of the Church affirms that:

quote:
"to Pneuma to agion, to kurion kai zwopoion, to ek tou Patros dia tou Uiou ekporeuomenon”

... the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Life-maker, the One-having-His-Being from the Father through the Son.

So we see that eternally speaking, although the Holy Spirit takes His Being entirely from the Father, this is through the Son. How? Well, because if the Son is generated from the Father, begotten from the Father, then this is by the breathing of the Holy Spirit from Him. And if the Holy Spirit is spirated by the Father, this is by His being breathed through the Son. So, if it were not an inopportune term - which sadly it is -, we would say that the generation of the Son and the Spiration of the SPirit are sort-of "cotemporaneous" - but this is happening out of time, so never mind!

quote:
The Spirit does not precede the Son, since the Son characterizes as Father the Father from whom the Spirit takes his origin, according to the Trinitarian order.9 But the spiration of the Spirit from the Father takes place by and through (the two senses of dia in Greek) the generation of the Son, to which it gives its Trinitarian character.

Doctrinal Note on the Holy Spirit, my emphasis

The up-shot is, that just as there has never been a time when the Son was "to be begotten", so there has never been a time when the Holy Spirit was "to be Spirated". So even in eternity, the Holy Spirit only is as One Spirated, breathed through the Son. In this sense it can be said that even eternally speaking, the Holy Spirit proceeds (ekporeuetai) from the Father alone, and that he proceeds (proeisi) from the Father and the Son. In this way, we see that although the Spirit takes His Being from the Father alone - and NOT from the Son - so he proceeds (in the sense of proeisi) from the Father and the Son. This is the Faith of the Latins, as far as I can tell. This is also backed up by the Conciliar documents quoted above in various places:

e.g.

quote:
the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son, not as from two principles but as from one single principle(tamquam ex uno principio); not by two spirations, but by one single spiration."

Second Council of Lyons, Canon 1

Now, the proceeds here is clearly proeisi, since if it were ekporeuetai, then it would have to be "as from two principles", which is explicitly not. Now, that the Father and the Son are half-a-principle each is something I sincerely doubt. Likewise, half a spiration each is not a likely prospect either, is it? The only logical conclusion is that the Holy Spirit is Spirated and so has his being (ekpoeruetai) from the Father, so the Father is Spirating, the Son is being breathed through and so the Holy Spirit is proceeding (proeisi) from both, all the while proceeding (ekporeuetai - I wish Western languages had two words too) from the Father alone.

I hope this is clear.

I have to say, Andreas, that I am beginning to see a certain, Eastern point of view:

quote:
You ask what is the procession of the Holy Spirit? Do you tell me first what is the unbegottenness of the Father, and I will then explain to you the physiology of the generation of the Son, and the procession of the Spirit, and we shall both of us be stricken with madness for prying into the mystery of God. (St Gregory the Theologian: Oration 32:8)

Finally:

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

For the last thing the RCC needs is highly erudite misinformation spoken in her defense...

I hardly dare differ...

With apologies for (1) a lengthy post this time; (2) a stroppy post last time (I hope you haven't got any scratches, Andreas! [Yipee]

) and (3) anywhere I have been unclear.

And so to bed.

With blessings to you all,

Pontifical.

Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :

Pontifical, you've done something that I didn't think anybody would ever do: you've explained the filioque in a way that makes it make sense, AND, that doesn't conflict with (at least my own understanding of) Orthodox dogma.

Thank you! [Overused]

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

Pontifical

Write to:

S.E. il Prefetto
C.D.F.
Piazza sant Uffizio
Roma

or alternatively:

The Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity
via dell'Erba
Roma

They may have a job for you!!!! [Big Grin]

[ 13. February 2006, 00:16: Message edited by: Triple Tiara ]

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
You miss the point that eternity is something created.

It isn't. The eternity I'm referring to is not some infinite stretch of time, but rather the life of the Trinity itself, which is obviously uncreated.

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
You seem to be saying that the Son is a cause also for the Spirit.

Where? I'm saying that the Son is also the origin of the Holy Spirit, which is what "proceeds" asserts, and that eternally not just temporally. As the Council of Florence normatively states "thus all must profess that the Holy Spirit is eternally of the Father and the Son, that he has his existence and his subsistent being from the Father and the Son together, and that he proceeds eternally from the one and from the other as from a single principle and from a single spiration." The "cause" of the single spiration is the Father, according to his monarchy, but the existence and subsistent being of the Holy Spirit then proceeds from both.

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
I confess that I haven't had the chance to read all of your posts, but I hope that you (IngoB) are not suggesting that the Holy Spirit takes his being from the Son? I think this is what both East (judging by Andreas' comments, reading of the Eastern Father's quotes on the subject and 1,000 years of Schism) and West (judging on the specific document quoted above, and a correct reading of the catechism) would condemn as heresy.

Let me then repeat the (heretical?) words of the Council of Florence again, normative for the Latins, signed by the Greeks: "the Holy Spirit <...> has his existence and his subsistent being from the Father and the Son together". What makes this statement compatible with the monarchy of the Father is "that <the Holy Spirit> proceeds eternally from the one and from the other as from a single principle and from a single spiration", which allows for the Father being the "principal cause" of the spiration. However, we cannot simply say that "the Holy Spirit has His being from the Father". The correct statement is rather "the Holy Spirit has His being from the Father and Son", precisely as the Council says. The apparent tension here is precisely resolved by the reciprocity of love, as John Paul II says "The Son loves the Father with a love which is identical with that of the Father. In the unity of the divinity, love is on one side paternal and on the other, filial." The Holy Spirit has His being from Father and Son because their perfect love must be mutual, they are Father and Son only in the Holy Spirit. The being of the Holy
Spirit is mutual love, not one-directional love, since it's perfect. Hence it cannot be otherwise than that the Holy Spirit indeed is from both Father and Son. This does not take away from the Father begetting the Son and thereby making possible, causing, this unitive love. If there were no Son, there could not be a Holy Spirit uniting Father and Son. Hence the Father is the principle, cause, source, etc. of the Holy Spirit. This does not diminish the Son's love for the Father, which gives being to the Holy Spirit (only) together with the Father's love.

Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :

You're not going to make a lot of Orthodox friends, quoting Florence. [Disappointed]

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

IngoB, I'm not really sure where you are going, other than from one corner of a triangle to the next and then back again, all the while protesting that you are not.

You are saying you are not saying what Pontifical is saying, and that neither is the Church. Is this just to make the point your own way? Because from what you write you are saying pretty much the same thing as Pontifical, as is the Council of Florence. Except you want to bang a few Greek heads in the process.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
You're not going to make a lot of Orthodox friends, quoting Florence.

I'm apparently not making many RC friends (here...) with that either. Frankly, I couldn't care less. RCs are bound by this Council, and the very words I cited also are quoted in the Catechism (CCC 246, see my post above).

I agree completely with John Paul II: 'it is possible to maintain that the difference between the Latin and Eastern traditions does not affect the identity of the faith "in the reality of the same mystery confessed" but its expression, constituting a "legitimate complementarity" which does not jeopardize but indeed can enrich communion in the one faith', as cited above. But to pretend that the differences just aren't there in order to make everybody feel happy is a bad idea. True unity cannot be based on falsehoods.

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

Pope John Paul, whom you are so enjoying quoting, had this to say. He too would obviously be an RC friend you did not care to make.

quote:
The Holy Father, in the homily he gave in St Peter Basilica on 29 June in the presence of the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, expressed a desire that "the traditional doctrine of the Filioque, present in the liturgical version of the Latin Credo, [be clarified] in order to highlight its full harmony with what the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople of 381 confesses in its creed: the Father as the source of the whole Trinity, the one origin both of the Son and of the Holy Spirit".

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

And, furthermore, I think you will find that there has been very little fudging of truth by me, or by Pontifical. Cheap shot, if I may say so.

We have been at pains to explain why the West felt the need to refer to the Son in the Procession of the Spirit - rather than simply removing the filioque. There IS some relationship. But it is not as crude as you are attempting to make it sound. It's precisely the nuance which causes the difficulty.

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

IngoB,

The Council of Basel (as it is correctly termed) has the following to say, which you helpfully miss out:

quote:
Texts were produced from divine scriptures and many authorities of eastern and western holy doctors, some saying the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, others saying the procession is from the Father through the Son. All were aiming at the same meaning in different words. The Greeks asserted that when they claim that the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, they do not intend to exclude the Son; but because it seemed to them that the Latins assert that the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from two principles and two spirations, they refrained from saying that the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. The Latins asserted that they say the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son not with the intention of excluding the Father from being the source and principle of all deity, that is of the Son and of the holy Spirit, nor to imply that the Son does not receive from the Father, because the holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, nor that they posit two principles or two spirations; but they assert that there is only one principle and a single spiration of the holy Spirit, as they have asserted hitherto. Since, then, one and the same meaning resulted from all this, they unanimously agreed and consented to the following holy and God-pleasing union, in the same sense and with one mind.

In the name of the holy Trinity, Father, Son and holy Spirit, we define, with the approval of this holy universal council of Florence, that the following truth of faith shall be believed and accepted by all Christians and thus shall all profess it: that the holy Spirit is eternally from the Father and the Son, and has his essence and his subsistent being from the Father together with the Son, and proceeds from both eternally as from one principle and a single spiration. We declare that when holy doctors and fathers say that the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, this bears the sense that thereby also the Son should be signified, according to the Greeks indeed as cause, and according to the Latins as principle of the subsistence of the holy Spirit, just like the Father.

Fine: Good. Now what does it mean that:

quote:
[he] has his essence and his subsistent being from the Father together with the Son, and proceeds from both eternally as from one principle and a single spiration.

???

I think you should understand that "has his essence and his subsistent being from the Father together with the Son" and "has his essence and his subsistent being from the Father , AND (what's more) has his essence and his subsistent being from the Son" are simply not the same thing.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but has his essence and his subsistent being, in the case of the Holy Spirit, means "is Spirated". Now "is spirated" means "is breathed through the Son". So of course, the Holy Spirit "has his essence and his subsistent being from the Father together with the Son"; if it weren't "from the Father together with the Son" how could the Spirit be being breathed through the Son?????

Where is the novelty there? Where is that inconsistent with the argument I presented above? Where is that inconsistent with what the Roman Catholic Church presents in the CDF-approved document produced at the Pope's behest, when it says:

quote:
The Father only generates the Son by breathing (proballein in Greek) through him the Holy Spirit and the Son is only begotten by the Father insofar as the spiration (probole in Greek) passes through him. The Father is Father of the One Son only by being for him and through him the origin of the Holy Spirit.8

and again:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church interprets this formula in n. 248 as follows: "The eternal order of the divine persons in their consubstantial communion implies that the Father, as the 'principle without principle' (DS 1331), is the first origin of the Spirit, but also that as Father of the only Son, he is, with the Son, the single principle from which the Spirit proceeds (Second Council of Lyons, DS 850)".

Well, I'm not convinced it does; without the Son, the Holy Spirit cannot be spirated, so it follows:

quote:
has his essence and his subsistent being from the Father together with the Son, and proceeds from both eternally as from one principle and a single spiration.

Once again, the Council of Florence condemns the idea of two Spirations, two Principles. So, what are you suggesting? What is the Son's contribution to the Spiration, if not what I suggest above?

When YOU say "proceeds" (IngoB), do you mean ekporeuetai or proeisi? Know that the difference is important! (I think the Magisterium backs me up on this one...)

Blessings,

Pontifical.

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

Pontifical - we should meet! There is a lot you could teach me! Thank you for all that.

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

IngoB,

In my busily replying to your previous post, I missed this last little gem. Some thoughts:

quote:
I'm apparently not making many RC friends (here...) with that either.

You're not having any effect on RC Friends, you're just successfully creating difficulties with non-RCs! I'm at a loss to understand whether this is intentional or not, perhaps you could enlighten us.

quote:
Frankly, I couldn't care less.

Well, apparently not, which is a shame; this is precisely the attitude that has perpetuated events like the Great Schism through centuries. To dispense with this is simply not fudging, or dispensing with the Truth: on this of ALL subjects it is to offend the Truth:

quote:
To be learned and able to discuss the Trinity will get you nowhere if you lack humility, and so displease the Holy Trinity.

Imitatio Christi, 1.3

quote:
RCs are bound by this Council, and the very words I cited also are quoted in the Catechism (CCC 246, see my post above).

Perhaps, but in all charity, I wonder: do you UNDERSTAND what you are bound by? You simply never explain what the Council means by it's one Spiration, one Principle rule. Sorry.

quote:
But to pretend that the differences just aren't there in order to make everybody feel happy is a bad idea. True unity cannot be based on falsehoods.

To recognise a mistake, even 1000 years on is not to "pretend that the differences just aren't there..." That is an absolute CARICATURE of what it is: a patient searching for the Truth. Sadly, you seem to be at odds with the latest document, which bends over backwards to stress the absolute Monarchy of the Father, which, admittedly you say you are not saying anything against. Which begs the $64,000 question: what exactly are you saying? If you are saying the same thing, then why, pray tell, does it have to sound so oppressive and hostile?

No, True Unity is certainly NOT found by sweeping obstacles under the carpet, but then neither is it found by tilting at windmills.

Blessings,

Pontifical.

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

[Overused]

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
You are saying you are not saying what Pontifical is saying, and that neither is the Church. Is this just to make the point your own way? Because from what you write you are saying pretty much the same thing as Pontifical, as is the Council of Florence. Except you want to bang a few Greek heads in the process.

OK, Triple Tiara, let me run Pontifical by you again (snipped, full words above):

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
I hope that you (IngoB) are not suggesting that the Holy Spirit takes his being from the Son? I think this is what both East <...> and West <...> would condemn as heresy.

Thus Pontifical thinks that it would be heretical (Western and Eastern heretical, that is) of me to assert the very words of the Council of Florence and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

quote:
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
Pope John Paul, whom you are so enjoying quoting, had this to say. He too would obviously be an RC friend you did not care to make.

Clearly the late pope is talking about the Father's monarchy here and I have no problem with what he says at all. I also just said that I agree with JPII that there's no real contradiction to the Eastern point of view. However, are you claiming that JPII contradicted himself there? He did also write the other things cited above, and signed off the Catechism.

Are you, or are you not, agreeing with that key sentence from the Council of Florence, which gets repeated in the Catechism? Yes or no - it is really that simple! JPII clearly said "yes" by citing it verbatim himself...

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

It seems to me you need to go back to the Catechism, para 248, on this. The last line:

quote:
This legitimate complementarity, provided it does not become rigid, does not affect the identity of faith in the reality of the same mystery confessed.

That bit about provided it does not become rigid is where I think you are running into trouble. I affirm, absolutely, what you are asking me to affirm. As does the Holy Father, as does the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, as does Pontifical above. I think what you are doing is different from all of these in that you are taking, as you insist, that one sentence (Vide: Are you, or are you not, agreeing with that key sentence from the Council of Florence, which gets repeated in the Catechism? Yes or no - it is really that simple!) and making it rigid. The nuance of language and of the rest of the painstaking deliberations of the Council is therefore lost on you. It's really that simple.

Where the Magisterium is saying we do NOT say something different from the Eastern Church, you say we DO.

Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :

It's not that quoting Florence to solve an issue between two Catholics is bad; of course y'all accept that council. But saying "which the Greeks signed off on" is rubbing it in our face. We know they did; we are still ashamed of them for doing so. That you think that the fact they signed it shows ANYTHING proves you know nothing about how we understand the magesterium in the Eastern Church.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but has his essence and his subsistent being, in the case of the Holy Spirit, means "is Spirated". Now "is spirated" means "is breathed through the Son". So of course, the Holy Spirit "has his essence and his subsistent being from the Father together with the Son"; if it weren't "from the Father together with the Son" how could the Spirit be being breathed through the Son?????

"Is spirated" clearly does not on its own mean "is breathed through the Son", but simply "is breathed". The early fathers did not unanimously use that expression "through the Son", it was (more or less) unanimous only in the East. That the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, in bending over backwards to accomodate Eastern sensibilities, uses this expression does not unsay all that ever has been said (officially!) in the West, including what JPII himself said. Rather it simply tells us that the the Eastern expression is valid complementarily, the different expressions in East and West capture different aspects of the same truth. Personally, I much prefer the "unitive love" perspective of the West, but without saying that it denies the Eastern way.

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
Once again, the Council of Florence condemns the idea of two Spirations, two Principles. So, what are you suggesting? What is the Son's contribution to the Spiration, if not what I suggest above?

The Son loves the Father, as the Father loves the Son. One cannot separate out a "contribution" of the Son there, it is precisely their mutual love which is the Holy Spirit. This perspective may have the weakness of not explicitly making clear the monarchy of the Father, one needs to refer back to the fact that the Father begets the Son to derive that. But it does correct the weakness of the East's perspective, which tends to reduce the Son's role unduly. For I can say that I breathe my breath through my mouth, without in any way implying that my mouth is an equal to me. The Son in not a mere subordinate instrument, as my mouth is to me, He is true God from God.

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
When YOU say "proceeds" (IngoB), do you mean ekporeuetai or proeisi?

I do not know Greek myself. With that disclaimer and going by what has been said here: "proeisi".

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
You're not having any effect on RC Friends, you're just successfully creating difficulties with non-RCs! I'm at a loss to understand whether this is intentional or not, perhaps you could enlighten us.

No, it's unintentional. I'm not ticked off by the Orthodox at all. The worst I could say about them is that I have not seen much bending over backwards from their side which would accomodate the RCC position. What really freaks me out are RCs who happily chuck their entire tradition out of the window and replace it by "whatever the Orthodox say". That may get some cheap cheers from Orthodoxy, but not from me. Complementarity is the key word, not resignation. So, if I go on your and Triple Tiara's nerves, then that is sort of intentional. I note in passing that the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity happily cites St Thomas Aquinas.

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
Perhaps, but in all charity, I wonder: do you UNDERSTAND what you are bound by? You simply never explain what the Council means by it's one Spiration, one Principle rule. Sorry.

Failure to read my explanation does not make it non-existent: last paragraph.

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
To recognise a mistake, even 1000 years on is not to "pretend that the differences just aren't there..."

Who made a mistake about what? If you mean the "translation issues", granted.

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
If you are saying the same thing, then why, pray tell, does it have to sound so oppressive and hostile?

Because I don't think that the harmonization of two traditions can ever consist in the elimination of one for the other. I think the RCC has extended itself as much as possible towards the Eastern Churches. Now it is their turn. The only further thing the RCC can do is to discontinue its own tradition. That IMHO would be fatal.

quote:
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
Where the Magisterium is saying we do NOT say something different from the Eastern Church, you say we DO.

Can we sort of stick to what the magisterium and I actually say, respectively? It would really be helpful. I will cite myself from above and add helpful bold:

quote:
I agree completely with John Paul II: 'it is possible to maintain that the difference between the Latin and Eastern traditions does not affect the identity of the faith "in the reality of the same mystery confessed" but its expression, constituting a "legitimate complementarity" which does not jeopardize but indeed can enrich communion in the one faith'

Posted by josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The Son loves the Father, as the Father loves the Son. One cannot separate out a "contribution" of the Son there, it is precisely their mutual love which is the Holy Spirit.

That statement about the Holy Spirit denies the Personhood of the Holy Spirit, making him, not God of God, but simply one of the energies of God. And while it's true that the energies are uncreated, that they are, in a manner of speaking, God Himself, they are God revealed, not God-in-His-Essence, not Who-He-Is.

Furthermore, love is not unique to the Holy Spirit. God is Love -- that statement is true of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Spirit. Love is not a product of the love of the mutual love between the Father and the Son -- that statement simply makes no sense at all. Any attempt to make sense of it depersonalizes the Spirit, makes him "The Force," not the third Person of the Godhead.

If that is the position to which the filioque, however it is understood, inevitably leads, then I'm afraid I can't go there.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
If that is the position to which the filioque, however it is understood, inevitably leads, then I'm afraid I can't go there.

Precisely my point, josephine. The RCC has bent over backwards to see that the Eastern point of view is not actually incompatible with the doctrines it holds. Now it is your turn, and I mean that both concerning Orthodoxy and yourself, to bend over backwards to see that what John Paul II is saying here

quote:
Therefore, by means of generation, in the absolute unity of the divinity, God is eternally Father and Son. The Father who begets loves the Son who is begotten. The Son loves the Father with a love which is identical with that of the Father. In the unity of the divinity, love is on one side paternal and on the other, filial. At the same time the Father and the Son are not only united by that mutual love as two Persons infinitely perfect. But their mutual gratification, their reciprocal love, proceeds in them and from them as a person. The Father and the Son "spirate" the Spirit of Love consubstantial with them. In this way God, in the absolute unity of the divinity, is from all eternity Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

is not actually at odds with your position. In short, you will have to realize that the "energy" analysis you've just provided is wrong. (Note: I did not say that Orthodox doctrine as a whole is wrong...) That is the back-bending you will have to do. If you can do it - without breaking your back, I'm not asking for that - then the filioque controversy will have ended. If not, then unfortunately not. However, it will not be as simple as the RCC simply abandoning all it has ever said for the sake of unity with Orthodoxy.

The RC part of the bridge over the filioque chasm basically has been built already. The bridge will not get completed if the Orthodox just stubbornly sit there and do not start any work on their side.

Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :

<sits back, sips M cooler>

Posted by josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Now it is your turn, and I mean that both concerning Orthodoxy and yourself, to bend over backwards to see that what John Paul II is saying here <quote omitted ... read above if you need it> is not actually at odds with your position.

I'm sorry, IngoB, I've bent backwards until I feel as if I'm tied in a knot, and I don't see how that statement is compatible with what the Orthodox Church believes about the Holy Spirit.

I'm not simply refusing to think about it; I'm not being stubborn. I simply can't reconcile the quotation you've provided with an understanding of the Holy Trinity in which the Spirit is a Person, consubstantial and coeternal with the Father and the Son.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
I simply can't reconcile the quotation you've provided with an understanding of the Holy Trinity in which the Spirit is a Person, consubstantial and coeternal with the Father and the Son.

Well, let's hope that some Orthodox theologians - whom you trust - show more back-flexibility and provide a set of appropriate exercises which you can use to limber up as well. After all, that's the sort of job theologians should be doing...

[ 13. February 2006, 04:29: Message edited by: IngoB ]

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
(the "Papal" document you refer to is sadly not papal, Andreas! We don't need Papal documents for EVERYTHING, you know!! )

"papal" in the sense that Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was the head of the body that composed the document!

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Oh my, oh my!

IngoB, you say:

quote:
Thus Pontifical thinks that it would be heretical (Western and Eastern heretical, that is) of me to assert the very words of the Council of Florence and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Well, unforuntally you are not correctly asserting the words of the Council of Florence; to say that the Holy Spirit has His Being from the Father together with the Son is simply NOT the same thing as saying that the Holy Spirit has His Being from the Father AND has His Being from the Son. The latter would be by two Spirations from two Principles. If you are NOT saying this, I ask you to clarify what you are saying? I don't think your interepretation of that Canon is correct, or authoritative.

quote:
"Is spirated" clearly does not on its own mean "is breathed through the Son", but simply "is breathed". The early fathers did not unanimously use that expression "through the Son", it was (more or less) unanimous only in the East.

Oh dear. Fortunately, the Second Council of Constantinople affirms that:

quote:
This aspect of the Trinitarian mystery was confessed at the seventh Ecumenical council, meeting at Nicaea in 787, by the Patriarch of Constantinople, St Tarasius, who developed the Symbol as follows: "to Pneuma to agion, to kurion kai zwopoion, to ek tou Patros dia tou Uiou ekporeuomenon” (Mansi, XII, 1122 D).

Dia tou Uiou, i.e. through the Son. Now we know that:

(1) The Holy Spirit is generated by Spiration and that
(2) The Holy Spirit is generated through the Son.

Now, seing is there hasn't been much other spiration going on in all of eternity, forgive me for believing that Spiration has the necessary condition of being through the Son. Is the Son breathing the Holy Spirit through Himself, perhaps? I have difficulties with this, so does the Magisterium.

quote:
Personally, I much prefer the "unitive love" perspective of the West, but without saying that it denies the Eastern way.

Surely the point of this is that nobody understands what exactly this is saying in a precise sense; the form preferred by the document by the PCPCU is a much more precise explanation and exploration of the facts, and to be favoured in my opinion, treating precisely, as it does, of this very problem: not of the Holy Spirit in general.

quote:
The worst I could say about them is that I have not seen much bending over backwards from their side which would accomodate the RCC position.

Sorry, mate: you ain't doing much bending either from this perspective!

quote:
What really freaks me out are RCs who happily chuck their entire tradition out of the window and replace it by "whatever the Orthodox say".

Do please forgive me, but I still think the Tradition (please remember the capital T) is still there, alive and well. This strikes me as slightly paranoid... Rome is not known for its careless flinging around of Doctrine.

quote:
Failure to read my explanation does not make it non-existent: last paragraph.

Well, what goes around comes around, I fear. Now tell me: whose is this one Spiration, then? I read your interpretaion of the Council of Basel above; I consider it to be incorrect. I assure you I have read it, though.

quote:
Who made a mistake about what? If you mean the "translation issues", granted.

Well, I think that 10-odd posts says I do. Thank you! Thanks also on behalf of the Magisterium, which has said the same thing in that Document.

quote:
Because I don't think that the harmonization of two traditions can ever consist in the elimination of one for the other.

I don't see how showing precisely what the RCC means by processio ex Patre Filioque is quite elimination? Perhaps I'm missing something...

quote:
Can we sort of stick to what the magisterium and I actually say, respectively? It would really be helpful. I will cite myself from above and add helpful bold:

quote:

I agree completely with John Paul II: 'it is possible to maintain that the difference between the Latin and Eastern traditions does not affect the identity of the faith "in the reality of the same mystery confessed" but its expression, constituting a "legitimate complementarity" which does not jeopardize but indeed can enrich communion in the one faith'

Erm, but you SAY this, and then say something which is neither complementary to the Easterns, nor the Magisterium, nor again to Pope John-Paul. (And please don't assume that I haven't read your posts now: I have. I just find them to be out of sync with the very Catechism, Pope and Council that you quote.)

quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
When YOU say "proceeds" (IngoB), do you mean ekporeuetai or proeisi?

I do not know Greek myself. With that disclaimer and going by what has been said here: "proeisi".

Well, forgive me, but in all due respect this does rather set you back in your understanding of this topic, considering that the Magisterium is suggesting that the whole problem stems from a misunderstanding: namely because the Latin concept of processio and the Greek concept of ekporeusis are not the same. It also states that ex Patre Filioque procedit can never be meant in the context of ekporeusis:

quote:
Being aware of this, the Catholic Church has refused the addition of kai tou Uiou to the formula ek tou Patros ekporeuomenon of the Symbol of Nicaea-Constantinople in the Churches, even of Latin rite, which use it in Greek.

Now this idea, stated as it is by the Magisterium, cannot be contrary to the Councils, but you seem to be stating that it is. My idea, however, is contrary neither to the Councils (Basel included) or to the Magisterium in the famous document, nor (as far as I can tell) to the Trinity as understood by the Easterns. Having said all of that: I graciously admit that your choice of "proeisi" is correct. But now you should perhaps reflect on what that MEANS.

Well, I think that's everything.

quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
(the "Papal" document you refer to is sadly not papal, Andreas! We don't need Papal documents for EVERYTHING, you know!! )

"papal" in the sense that Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger was the head of the body that composed the document!

Sadly, Andreas, I think the Orthodox might have over-egged our Doctrine of Papal Infallibility: it is not back-datable! For the record, even if IngoB becomes Pope, I will still think he was slightly wrong on this issue on this occasion! [Big Grin]

Blessings,

Pontifical.

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

I am sure, IngoB, that you know that the idea of the Holy Spirit as the love between the Father and the Son is an idea of St Augustine, with the Father as the lover and the Son as the beloved. John Paul II was catechising on this specific analogy. But St Augustine himself admitted the limitations of this imagery, and used several others as well, all in the end limited. Fr Gregory, several pages above, points out this cannot be the only basis for understanding the Holy Spirit. Josephine points out that it turns the Spirit into an energy rather than a person. It is a more or less useful image - but it is NOT the sum total of who the Spirit is. You seem to want to use it as the ONLY way of speaking about the Spirit. It is a concept of Augustine. It is not the divine revelation of who the Spirit is. Advocate, Paraclete, Comforter etc are other images. If you are only prepared to use Augustine's image to describe the Spirit, you have painted yourself into a corner from which there is no way out.

Much as Pontifical and I are trying to point out why the West believes that there MUST BE some recognition of the Son when it comes to the procession of the Holy Spirit, so you keep insisting that we simply want to chuck it in. Why is this?

Clearly this is at the heart of the complexity of this issue. Failure to understand is what leads to rigidity and an inability to see why the harmony in fact exists.

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Triple Tiara,

Many thanks for your comments - I have to say I agree entirely. I certainly don't feel as though I am abandonning any RC Tradition - I just don't see how the position I am advocating differs from (a) the Church's position now; (b) the Church's position then; (c) specifically the Eastern view.

So thank you.

Pontifical.

Posted by josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
I am sure, IngoB, that you know that the idea of the Holy Spirit as the love between the Father and the Son is an idea of St Augustine, with the Father as the lover and the Son as the beloved.

I didn't realize that this came from St. Augustine. Am I correct in understanding you to say that it's not an authoritative teaching regarding the Spirit, not intended to tell us who the Spirit is, not an explanation of dogma, but merely an analogy that St. Augustine found helpful, much like St. Patrick's found the shamrock helpful to explain the Holy Trinity? If that's the case, I can live with it, I think. It's wrong in a lot of ways -- but so is the shamrock analogy. Or any other analogy about the Most High God. And that's okay, as long as you take them with a hefty dose of apophaticism and don't push them past what they're intended to explain.

If I've understood you right, then perhaps we're not so far apart as I have sometimes feared. Thanks to you and Pontifical both, for taking the time to listen, and understand, and explain in a way that makes sense.

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Hello, Josephine!

Many thanks for your messages too; well, have you seen the Document we are all talking about from the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity? If not, it is here . It is interesting reading. Admittedly, it does refer to the Augustinian "mutual love" thing; but I don't think (in my view) it is saying "this is the Filioque; this and only this..." but as an analogy, a help for those who find it helpful. The servant is no better than the master in this case: what St Augustine himself regarded as a vastly insufficient analogy cannot be regarded as cold-blooded Theology by his admirers... So no. But that document does make the same interesting points we have all (well, most of us, anyhow) been making about ekporeuetai and proeisi.

I think that Trinitarian philosophy and theology is fine (though I want to make concretely here the point that I am a novice, no philosopher or theologian! But I can understand what my Church is telling me; none of my views are my own, but only those of the RC Church, whose position I am explaining), but we should be aware of its limits.

Blessings,

Pontifical.

[ 13. February 2006, 14:33: Message edited by: Pontifical ]

Posted by Leetle Masha (# 8209) on :

Adding my thanks to the chorus,

Leetle M.

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:

I didn't realize that this came from St. Augustine. Am I correct in understanding you to say that it's not an authoritative teaching regarding the Spirit, not intended to tell us who the Spirit is, not an explanation of dogma, but merely an analogy that St. Augustine found helpful, much like St. Patrick's found the shamrock helpful to explain the Holy Trinity? If that's the case, I can live with it, I think. It's wrong in a lot of ways -- but so is the shamrock analogy. Or any other analogy about the Most High God. And that's okay, as long as you take them with a hefty dose of apophaticism and don't push them past what they're intended to explain.

If I've understood you right, then perhaps we're not so far apart as I have sometimes feared. Thanks to you and Pontifical both, for taking the time to listen, and understand, and explain in a way that makes sense.

I last read St Augustine's De Trinitate 20 years ago. It gave me a headache then, and it gives me a headache trying to read it now! I must not therefore speak as an expert, but I think you have a correct summary of what I am trying to suggest. De Trinitate is a very,very lengthy perambulation through the idea of Trinity, mostly arguing about the divinity and equality of the Son, and trying to establish a trinitarian principle, to be discerned by human experience. In the last part, Book 15, Augustine recapitulates what he has been arguing. This summarises how one should understand the idea of love, lover and beloved - a kind of natural trinity that exists, which may be helpful to understand that a trinity can exist. But notice the other examples he uses as well.

quote:
Next, I have pointed out, that by means of the truth, which is beheld by the understanding, and by means of the highest good, from which is all good, and by means of the righteousness for which a righteous mind is loved even by a mind not yet righteous, we might understand, so far as it is possible to understand, that not only incorporeal but also unchangeable nature which is God; and by means, too, of love, which in the Holy Scriptures is called God, by which, first of all, those who have understanding begin also, however feebly, to discern the Trinity, to wit, one that loves, and that which is loved, and love. In the ninth, the argument advances as far as to the image of God, viz. man in respect to his mind; and in this we found a kind of trinity, i.e. the mind, and the knowledge whereby the mind knows itself, and the love whereby it loves both itself and its knowledge of itself; and these three are shown to be mutually equal, and of one essence. In the tenth, the same subject is more carefully and subtly handled, and is brought to this point, that we found in the mind a still more manifest trinity of the mind, viz. in memory, and understanding, and will. But since it turned out also, that the mind could never be in such a case as not to remember, understand, and love itself, although it did not always think of itself; but that when it did think of itself, it did not in the same act of thought distinguish itself from things corporeal; the argument respecting the Trinity, of which this is an image, was deferred, in order to find a trinity also in the things themselves that are seen with the body, and to exercise the reader's attention more distinctly in that. Accordingly, in the eleventh, we chose the sense of sight, wherein that which should have been there found to hold good might be recognized also in the other four bodily senses. although not expressly mentioned; and so a trinity of the outer man first showed itself in those things which are discerned from without, to wit, from the bodily object which is seen, and from the form which is thence impressed upon the eye of the beholder, and from the purpose of the will combining the two. But these three things, as was patent, were not mutually equal and of one substance.

Next, we found yet another trinity in the mind itself, introduced into it, as it were, by the things perceived from without; wherein the same three things, as it appeared, were of one substance: the image of the bodily object which is in the memory, and the form thence impressed when the mind's eye of the thinker is turned to it, and the purpose of the will combining the two. But we found this trinity to pertain to the outer man, on this account, that it was introduced into the mind from bodily objects which are perceived from without.

In the twelfth, we thought good to distinguish wisdom from knowledge, and to seek first, as being the lower of the two, a kind of appropriate and special trinity in that which is specially called knowledge; but that although we have got now in this to something pertaining to the inner man, yet it is not yet to be either called or thought an image of God. And this is discussed in the thirteenth book by the commendation of Christian faith. In the fourteenth we discuss the true wisdom of man, viz. that which is granted him by God's gift in the partaking of that very God Himself, which is distinct from knowledge; and the discussion reached this point, that a trinity is discovered in the image of God, which is man in respect to his mind, which mind is "renewed in the knowledge" of God," after the image of Him that created" man; "after His own image;" and so obtains wisdom, wherein is the contemplation of things eternal.

You see what I mean?

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Thanks TT,

I'm afraid I can't claim to have read the whole shebang, but what you have quoted is certainly more in the "shamrock" vein than in the "dogmatic definition" vein.

Pontifical.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
Well, unforuntally you are not correctly asserting the words of the Council of Florence; to say that the Holy Spirit has His Being from the Father together with the Son is simply NOT the same thing as saying that the Holy Spirit has His Being from the Father AND has His Being from the Son.

No thanks for continuing endlessly to put words in my mouth. I've stated multiple times that I'm talking about one spiration and one principle indeed. Not that I'm particularly fond of your redefinition of the word "and" which somehow does not imply "together with"...

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
Now, seing is there hasn't been much other spiration going on in all of eternity, forgive me for believing that Spiration has the necessary condition of being through the Son. Is the Son breathing the Holy Spirit through Himself, perhaps? I have difficulties with this, so does the Magisterium.

Just by virtue of your name you do not have claim to the authority of the Magisterium... First, I have not denied "spiration through the Son", so your arguments are entirely pointless from the beginning. Second, the limitations of this analogical picture (and what else may it be?) are quite easy to see. Is the Son a flute? For I cannot picture any "breathing through" in a literal sense other than that. Since the Son is not a flute, but true God from God, clearly a literal sense of the "through" is not warranted. The temporal revelation shows us Jesus breathing the Holy Spirit onto the apostles, so our best guess is clearly that eternally the Son breathes forth the Holy Spirit from His own being. (And please don't bore me to tears by saying that this contradicts the one spiration, it doesn't. Remember two natures in one person?) Now then it would be up to the Orthodox (and you, since you are such a fan...) to explain what precisely is signified by the "through" which does not reduce the Son to a subordinate instrument (like a flute) and which takes into account the temporal revelation. But you are probably to Orthodox already to be bothered by any of that...

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
the form preferred by the document by the PCPCU is a much more precise explanation and exploration of the facts, and to be favoured in my opinion

The PCPCU document reaffirms the "unitive love" analogy right in the same breath (maybe one analogy is given "through" the other...), and your opinion is not binding on me.

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
Sorry, mate: you ain't doing much bending either from this perspective!

I agree with the PCPCU document, which stops just short of not mentioning the Western tradition at all. While we tie ourselves into a bretzel, the Orthodox are happily doing - nothing, nada, zip, zilch. And why should they? Apparently all they have to do is to wait and they will get RCs denouncing ever more of their own tradition.

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
Rome is not known for its careless flinging around of Doctrine.

Indeed, I'm banking heavily on Rome. Ten years down the track, you know what will have happened? Nothing. Because Rome isn't going to go further than this, and the Orthodox are most likely going to continue their waiting tactics, resulting in a stalemate. But here's the rub - if you and Triple Tiara had their way, Rome and Orthodoxy could just re-unify now (at least as far as the filioque is concerned). So I'm afraid time will tell that you misrepresent both the RC position and the Orthodox position (for of course you can find Orthodox critiques of the PCPCU document aplenty...).

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
I don't see how showing precisely what the RCC means by processio ex Patre Filioque is quite elimination? Perhaps I'm missing something...

Let's see the Orthodox praising St Thomas Aquinas analysis of the structure of the Trinity in terms of relations of origin (which is what we can say by reason from revelation). Let's see them accept the Augustinian analogy of "unitive love" on the same footing as their "breathing through" (for what please can the latter be if not an analogy, God does not have lungs and the Holy Spirit is not a puff of air...). Etc. In fact, let's hear a single appreciative word about anything ever written in the West about the Trinity.

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
Having said all of that: I graciously admit that your choice of "proeisi" is correct. But now you should perhaps reflect on what that MEANS.

How gracious indeed. [Roll Eyes]

I'm not Orthodox, you know, neither am I Greek. I don't have to understand "proeisi" and ancient translation issues at all. I can leave historical translation apologetics to those who are experts. I have to understand the theological content of the English words monarchy, proceeding, etc.

quote:
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
But St Augustine himself admitted the limitations of this imagery, and used several others as well, all in the end limited. Fr Gregory, several pages above, points out this cannot be the only basis for understanding the Holy Spirit. Josephine points out that it turns the Spirit into an energy rather than a person. It is a more or less useful image - but it is NOT the sum total of who the Spirit is.

Well, Josephine is simply wrong and that's all there is to that. Other than that I'm quite happy with all that you say. Except that you seem to think that the Orthodox statement about "breathing through" is more than that, perhaps even the "sum total of who the Spirit is". Which is just not the case. It's one particular valid way of looking at the Trinity, it's clearly an analogy, which captures certain aspects well (in particular the Father's monarchy) and others not so well (the Son's part). Personally, I prefer Augustine's unitive love. And as a matter of fact, the PCPCU document does mention it just as prominently.

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
I'm afraid I can't claim to have read the whole shebang, but what you have quoted is certainly more in the "shamrock" vein than in the "dogmatic definition" vein.

I'm sorry, but the PCPCU document does not allow you to pick and choose like that. If it is indeed declaring dogma, then it has dogmatized both the "breathing through" and the "unitive love". If not, then it hasn't dogmatized either. Clearly, it's not considering either expression to be merely on "shamrock" level though.

Posted by josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Well, Josephine is simply wrong and that's all there is to that.

I think this is why conversations with you don't tend to be particularly constructive, IngoB. You seem to have an awful lot invested in proving yourself right, and in proving others wrong. In my experience, as limited as it may be, I've rarely found that to be a productive way to clarify a misunderstanding, much less to heal a broken relationship.

It may be that, to your ears, describing the Godhead in terms of essence and energies sounds as bizarre as describing the Holy Spirit in terms of unitive love sounds to my ears. And it may be that you think the analogy of unitive love is absolutely crucial to the correct understanding of the Holy Spirit, in the same way that I think that the description of the Godhead in terms of essence and energies is absolutely crucial. It may be that Catholics like Triple Tiara and Pontifical are wishy washy ecumenists who don't really care about their own faith or their own Church, and that I'm a rigid sectarian who can't be bothered to understand anyone else's position and who thinks anyone who disagrees with me is simply wrong, and that's all there is to it.

I dunno, IngoB. If that's all true, this conversation is pointless. But it seems to me that, with a bit of humility and a bit of charity, it might be worth having. Not that we're going to end the schism, here and now, amongst ourselves. We can't do that. But if I leave the conversation understanding just a bit more about how RCs see the filioque, and why, and if you can leave it understanding just a bit more about how Orthodox see it, and why, then I think the conversation is worth having.

But I'm not really interested in scoring points in a debate.

Posted by Ian Climacus (# 944) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
While we tie ourselves into a bretzel, the Orthodox are happily doing - nothing, nada, zip, zilch. And why should they? Apparently all they have to do is to wait and they will get RCs denouncing ever more of their own tradition.

Evidence of this?

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
In fact, let's hear a single appreciative word about anything ever written in the West about the Trinity.

Try reading some Orthodox theologians: I can't recall exact locations at the moment but I've read plenty of compliments towards explanations of the Trinity from Western theologians.

The Orthodox appears to have some difficulties with St Augustine's model. Roman Catholics apear to be a bit concerned by the energy/essence distinction. As Josephine said, we need dialogue.

Posted by Leetle Masha (# 8209) on :

I ain't sayin' nuttin'.

Leetle M. [Biased]

Posted by Ian Climacus (# 944) on :

Oh: I forgot the main reason I posted.

Thanks to all here. I don't deny it's been a hard slog for my poor brain at times, but I've come to understand not only the Orthodox position much better, but that of our dear beloved Roman Catholic brothers and sisters as well. Thank you.

Now I need a good strong drink: if only I weren't at work! [Biased]

Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :

I'm confused. If IngoB represents the RC position, then reunion seems doomed. If TT and Pontifical represent the RC position, reunion seems more possible than I ever imagined.

Posted by Leetle Masha (# 8209) on :

MT, can I please have one of your coolers? Ta!

Someone rang for a Western Father that the Orthodox accept. How 'bout St. Ambrose of Milan, who spake thus in his first book on the Holy Spirit:

quote:
25. But lest the objectors should think that the Apostle was in error, let them learn whom he followed as his authority for his belief. The Lord said in the Gospel: "When the Paraclete is come, Whom I will send to you from My Father, even the Spirit of Truth which proceedeth from the Father, He shall bear witness of Me." So the Holy Spirit both proceeds from the Father, and bears witness of the Son. For the witness Who is both faithful and true bears witness of the Father, than which witness nothing is more full for the expression of the Divine Majesty, nothing more clear as to the Unity of the Divine Power, since the Spirit has the same knowledge as the Son, Who is the witness and inseparable sharer of the Father's secrets.

Source: Church Fathers, New Advent

What's not to like?

Best wishes,

Leetle M.

Posted by Leetle Masha (# 8209) on :

Many apologies, that link doesn't go to Book 1 on the Holy Spirit. It did when I copied it. Bleeep.

Leetle M.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

josephine, you misunderstand. You claim that what St Augustine is saying is wrong (actually, that it is heretic...). Hence I know what you are saying is almost certainly wrong. Not because I have some deep insight into Orthodox theology, not because I think that energies or whatever are bizarre, simply because Augustine is a great Saint, Doctor of the Church, one of the foremost Early Fathers - and you are not. And also because Augustine's statement has been used by any number of great theologians from time past to JPII, so the weight of tradition is very much behind it. Now, I'm not saying that St Augustine was infallible in everything he says. But this analogy is not something that has been opposed and argued against (in the West), quite to the contrary. And in the very Vatican document that does its best to accomodate the Orthodox - it gets repeated again. So I'm sorry, but for me if you disagree then you must be simply wrong. I have that on damned good authority...

What would you say if I claimed that statement XYZ by John of Damascus, widely used throughout the Orthodox tradition, and repeated by Orthodox theologians precisely in the context of a dialogue with the RCs, was wrong, nay, heretic, according to my understanding of RC doctrine? Wouldn't you conclude that whatever else one may say, that I'm almost certainly wrong? I'm pretty sure you would say that, and rightly so.

Maybe it would be humble to assume that St Augustine generally knows his stuff, and charitable to try to find the truth in what he says? Anyway, I can hardly be accused of generally not engaging in lengthy discussions. I just happen to not be able to help you here. I would have to study Orthodox theology much more than I'm inclined to in order to show how St Augustine is compatible with it. At most I can offer this general scholastic principle: in case of difficulty, make a distinction. If your "love as energy" cannot be the Augustinian "love as Person", then hey, maybe it isn't.

Posted by Leetle Masha (# 8209) on :

Correct link

Preview post is my friend.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ian Climacus:
Evidence of this?

Evidence for something that doesn't exist is hard to come by... [Biased]

Anyway, fair enough. I have not enough knowledge of Orthodox sources to really make that claim. It's just that whenever this sort of stuff is discussed nobody ever links to any Orthodox source saying anything positive, in particular not to anything official. I'm happy to be convinced otherwise though, bring it on!

quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
I'm confused. If IngoB represents the RC position, then reunion seems doomed. If TT and Pontifical represent the RC position, reunion seems more possible than I ever imagined.

I don't know about doomed. All that would be required now is considerable effort on the Orthodox side to appreciate the Western tradition as complimentarily valid. But if you prefer to sit back and sip your coolers, doomed indeed.

But this is precisely the point I was trying to make above. If Triple Tiara and Pontifical are right, then a final agreement on at least the filioque, if not on unity, must be imminent. If I'm right, then it's not going to happen (unless something major happens in Orthodox circles first). Let time be the judge. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong, and that's all there is to that. (I do advise though to start breathing again once you turn blue in the face... [Biased]

)

Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :

The problem with your theory, IngoB, is that there are plenty of other reasons why reunion might be scuttled, other than disagreements on the filioque. So lack of reunion does not prove you right; only actual reunion would prove you wrong.

Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Maybe it would be humble to assume that St Augustine generally knows his stuff,

You really don't understand the East, do you?

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
The problem with your theory, IngoB, is that there are plenty of other reasons why reunion might be scuttled, other than disagreements on the filioque. So lack of reunion does not prove you right; only actual reunion would prove you wrong.

Actual reading of my post just above reveals: "If Triple Tiara and Pontifical are right, then a final agreement on at least the filioque, if not on unity, must be imminent." [Roll Eyes]

There's an agreement with the Lutherans on Justification, let's wait and see if there's going to be one with the Orthodox on the filioque...

And no, I don't understand what's so funny about my comment on St Augustine. Do I want to know?

Posted by josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
josephine, you misunderstand. You claim that what St Augustine is saying is wrong (actually, that it is heretic...).

No, that is not what I said. I said it doesn't work for me. I said it seems bizarre to me, and that it seems just plain wrong to me. But I also said it was an acceptable analogy or illustration, potenially useful in the same way that St. Patrick's use of the shamrock to illustrate the Trinity is useful. I have not accused St. Patrick of heresy. Nor have I accused St. Augustine of heresy -- and if I were going to do so, it wouldn't be on this point. There are plenty of other places to disagree with St. Augustine.

quote:
Maybe it would be humble to assume that St Augustine generally knows his stuff, and charitable to try to find the truth in what he says?

You know, IngoB, you'd get further in conversations with Orthodoxen if you cited sources other than Florence and Augustine. Those are not sources that we tend to be impressed with. We count Augustine as a saint, yes, but we're not particularly impressed with much that he had to say.

Posted by Ian Climacus (# 944) on :

No.

Let's just say St Augustine is not the favourite saint of some Orthodoxen. I quite like him. Perhaps I'm a closet Roman. [Biased]

Posted by Ian Climacus (# 944) on :

[that was directed at Ingo's last question BTW]

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
We count Augustine as a saint, yes, but we're not particularly impressed with much that he had to say.

Given that probably no other Saint has shaped the RCC as much (hmm, perhaps St Thomas Aquinas? oh dear, oh dear, ...) and given that the current pope is a declared Augustinian, then maybe it is time to change your collective Orthodox mind on that just a little bit? If you give a damn about re-union, that is. I continue to not hold my breath. [Biased]

Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :

Reunion at what price? Augustine is mistaken on so much, maybe reunion is doomed, if y'all are so wedded to him.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

IngoB starts from Jesus breathing the Spirit to the disciples and assumes that a special relationship exists between the Son and the Spirit. He is right. However, he does not stress equally that the Spirit gives birth to the Son in the Virgin's womb, which means that the Spirit has a special relationship with the Son also. If IngoB would apply his throughts on the Incarnation, he would come to the conclusion that the Son of God is begotten from the Father and the Spirit, but the birth, IngoB would have to say, is one as from one principle.

I'm using this example to show that although Trisagion, Pontifical and Triple Tiara are right to understand that a special relationship exists between the Son and the Spirit, IngoB is wrong to assume that this relationship exists because the Son gives the Spirit's being. If IngoB's arguments were true in their fullness, then he would have to insert a "spiritoque" in his Creed, where it is written that "begotten from the Father".

Now, on reunion. I think that the differences between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church can be overcome. I think that shedding light in the relation between the Pope of Rome and the other bishops throughout the first few centuries would be an important step towards reunion. I also think that the East has a lot to offer to the West, especially as far as the uncreated energies of God are concerned and the way man shares in God's Grace.

On Augustine I have to say that I have not found errors, like Mousethief says he has. I think that questioning the Saint's orthodoxy is a bad thing, and that the difference in the expression of faith between the East and the West is due to an underlying difference in the experiences the peoples had and not due to a difference in theology. I sincerely believe that two churches that share in the same gospel must be in union and not in schism.

[ 14. February 2006, 07:48: Message edited by: andreas1984 ]

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
If IngoB's arguments were true in their fullness, then he would have to insert a "spiritoque" in his Creed, where it is written that "begotten from the Father".

Hardly. All this tells us is that temporal events cannot unthinkingly and singly be projected into eternity. Rather, one has to carefully discern the entirety of revelation in its interconnectedness. But, andreas1984, it remains fact that there is nothing in scripture which directly treats the eternal configuration of the Trinity. It is all derived from the temporal revelation (and no doubt, to some extent from oral teachings among early Christians - which however clearly did not leave anything approaching a normative picture). So your critique could be just as easily aimed at the Orthodox teaching: where does it say that eternally the Spirit is breathed by the Father through the Son? Nowhere. I do not doubt the veracity of the claim, I doubt that your critique of "my" methodology can be maintained. For nothing would be left of Trinitarian doctrine but the bapitsmal formula.

That said, I thoroughly appreciate your sentiments on unity and St Augustine in particular. If and when your attitude becomes the majority opinion among Orthodox, I see unity on the horizon. Frankly, no unity without mutual respect and appreciation of the full glory of both traditions. Without that, there's just assimilation by conversion, never unity.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
But, andreas1984, it remains fact that there is nothing in scripture which directly treats the eternal configuration of the Trinity. It is all derived from the temporal revelation

You are wrong on this. The way the Church always understood the reference in John on "ekporevetai" is that it has to do with the origin of the Holy Spirit only, and that it's not about economy. "sent" has to do with economy, not "ekporevetai". You are wrong and this is the way the church traditionally understood that verse.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
You are wrong on this. The way the Church always understood the reference in John on "ekporevetai" is that it has to do with the origin of the Holy Spirit only, and that it's not about economy. "sent" has to do with economy, not "ekporevetai". You are wrong and this is the way the church traditionally understood that verse.

I should correct myself insofar as that John's Prologue, Genesis, etc. of course tell us something beyond mere temporal affairs. As for the "Trinitarian structure", my comment stands. As is evident from your own words "this is the way the church traditionally understood that verse". This is interpretation, rather than simple statement. Normative traditional interpretation perhaps, but certainly still interpretation. It's not actually hard to write statements that explicitly and unambiguously talk about the Trinity in eternity. We all have written examples of such statements on this thread many times. But we don't have anyhting so straightforward in scripture...

Posted by josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Frankly, no unity without mutual respect

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Oh dear... Well, I've just about had it in some respects.

IngoB:

quote:
No thanks for continuing endlessly to put words in my mouth. I've stated multiple times that I'm talking about one spiration and one principle indeed. Not that I'm particularly fond of your redefinition of the word "and" which somehow does not imply "together with"...

In all charity, just becuase people disagree with you and find your opinions on doctrine to be erroneous does not mean that they are necessarily putting words into your mouth: I am unable, in my reply above, to find these pesky "words" I am accused of giving you.

As for the "together with" point; I'm sorry, but this simply does not mean the same thing as and. Intriguingly, if this point is just me being picky with syntax, why is it that at a Council (Basel) when a controversy over the addition of "Filioque" (and the Son) to the Creed is being resolved, the Canon in question, instead of itself using Filioque to describe the procession, uses "simul cum Filio" (together with the Son?)

quote:
Just by virtue of your name you do not have claim to the authority of the Magisterium...

No, but then neither do you! [Biased]

All of my opinions stem from the PCPCU document, the Councils, and the Catechism. To my mind, these are in unanimity. I don't see how my view differs from them.

quote:
The temporal revelation shows us Jesus breathing the Holy Spirit onto the apostles, so our best guess is clearly that eternally the Son breathes forth the Holy Spirit from His own being.

Well, this is economy, not eternity. Rahner's rule does have some inherent limitations, you know?

quote:
(And please don't bore me to tears by saying that this contradicts the one spiration, it doesn't. Remember two natures in one person?)

Is there any need to be so hotile, rude and dismissive? We should at least be able to discuss this in Charity.

quote:
Now then it would be up to the Orthodox (and you, since you are such a fan...) to explain what precisely is signified by the "through" which does not reduce the Son to a subordinate instrument (like a flute) and which takes into account the temporal revelation.

The Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit because he is breathed through the Son by the Father. That is, even in all eternity, the Spirit is not, except breathed through the Son. So: even in eternity, no Son: no Spirit. Forgive me for missing the subordination there?

quote:
Let's see the Orthodox praising St Thomas Aquinas analysis of the structure of the Trinity in terms of relations of origin (which is what we can say by reason from revelation). Let's see them accept the Augustinian analogy of "unitive love" on the same footing as their "breathing through" (for what please can the latter be if not an analogy, God does not have lungs and the Holy Spirit is not a puff of air...). Etc. In fact, let's hear a single appreciative word about anything ever written in the West about the Trinity.

And what, pray tell, have YOU ever said, in an appreciative tone naturally, about the Orthodox?

quote:
How gracious indeed. I'm not Orthodox, you know, neither am I Greek. I don't have to understand "proeisi" and ancient translation issues at all. I can leave historical translation apologetics to those who are experts. I have to understand the theological content of the English words monarchy, proceeding, etc.

I'm afraid that this sort of statement betrays an ignorance that just will not do, not at all. You absolutely do have to understand the Greek to capably discuss this topic. Here's why: the whole Filioque problem arose because the Greek and Latin theologies of ekporeusis/processio are not equivalent. So, when the Latins applied Filioque to a place where (by the admission of the RC Church, no less) it would not be able to go in the Greek (original) Creed, then of course they (the Greeks) assumed that the two were equivalent, and so Rome was in heresy. This is not a surprising conclusion, since the PCPCU document states boldly and irrefutably that such an addition to the Greek Creed would be incorrect.

So in trying to sort out this dispute, we Latins are at least at pains to understand what precisely it is the Orthodox object to, and what precisely it is we are saying. Now the PCPCU argument, as far as I can tell, is saying what I am saying. Which is, as I have previously said, not difficult to imagine, since I base my thought largely upon it, with the other Conciliar/Magisterial documents. Trying to understand what the Orthodox are saying necessitates and understanding of the Greek terms. So, I fear you are wrong on this one.

With best wishes,

Pontifical.

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

A rather basic problem in all this is that, sadly, IngoB is showing a deficiency in the necessary fundamental skills required to engage in academic or intellectual debate. This is so serious as to make actual dialogue an impossibility.

Let me suggest some basic concepts and skills required for intelligent debate.

A makes a proposition. Let's put it in pictures to help you understand. A argues this way:

---------->

B engages with that proposition. Like this:

A----------> <--------------B

If what happens is this instead:

A--------->
<----------B

Then B has not engaged with A - he has simply thrown in a counter argument based on an entirely different set of premises. This is a very common mistake made by undergraduates, showing their inability to engage with the subject matter presented to them. In marking papers by students, I am very heavy handed when they do this - they are displaying a lack of acdemic maturity and so should not pass. Usually if B does this he then also turns on the emotional heat, so that a lot of dust flies around, the waters are muddied, fisticuffs ensue. B must first engage with A before he can make a counter-proposition.

IngoB, I think this whole thread demonstrates that you are employing this sort of tactic, rather than engaging with the actual points being made. You have been classically B. I would fail you in an exam.

One thing in particular strikes me as a case in point where you are getting emotional and not addressing the topic, to the point where I am getting seriously pissed off. You persist in ascribing to Pontifical and me a desire to placate the Orthodox at whatever the cost. I call andreas1984 as witness: he will be able to tell you about the very profound disagreements I have had with him - on the Petrine Primacy some months back, fo example. This current thread got very theological when Pontifical actually engaged in real debate with the points andreas1984 was making, and presented a fairly vigorous argument, which got quite heated, in defence of the Latin Church. That does not strike me as placating and simply agreeing with the Orthodox. He had some fairly sharp things to say, to the extent that andreas1984 wanted to stop the discussion! But you persist in trying to denigrate us (in an attempt I presume to raise as much steam as possible to mask your lack of understanding of the linguistic issues at the heart of much of the debate) by saying we are chucking in the Western theological insights in order to placate the Orthodox. I suggest you go and read the thread and acquaint yourself with what Pontifical and I have actually had to say. And read some of Pontifical's posts to get a basic knowledge of the language problems that contribute to the debate.

Teacher's report on the debate:

quote:
"Pontifical has demonstrated an incisive knowledge of the issues involved, and is well acquainted with both the language problems and the pertinent documents. IngoB has been unable to engage with these issues and has demonstarted severe shortcomings in knowledge and in debating skills, resorting instead to emotional blackmail and denigration.

Pontifical ..... A
IngoB ...... F

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
All of my opinions stem from the PCPCU document, the Councils, and the Catechism. To my mind, these are in unanimity. I don't see how my view differs from them.

Precisely what I would say, that's why I keep citing these documents so extensively.

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
Is there any need to be so hotile, rude and dismissive? We should at least be able to discuss this in Charity.

No, yes, sorry.

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
That is, even in all eternity, the Spirit is not, except breathed through the Son. So: even in eternity, no Son: no Spirit. Forgive me for missing the subordination there?

I could as well say: without flute no sound however much I breathe out air. You are missing the subordination simply because you are not addressing it. The question is whether the Son is simply a "passive modulating relay station" of the breath as it proceeds, as a flute is, or if He is more.

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
And what, pray tell, have YOU ever said, in an appreciative tone naturally, about the Orthodox?

Fair point. On this thread on this topic - not a lot. The opportunity wasn't really there though with plenty of Orthodox and two or three most enthusiastic RC supporters of Orthodox doctrine.

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
You absolutely do have to understand the Greek to capably discuss this topic.

I don't have to at all. Again, it's not my intention and not my job to explain all the historical and linguistical details of why things went awry way back when. Not that there's not a need for that, sure there is. And there's experts for doing that, I applaud them for their work. But apart from andreas1984 and me, this has been a discussion between native English speakers. And all of us come with the modern understanding of our respective traditions concerning the Trinity. I don't see why we can't simply communicate about that. I'm even grateful for some historical background, for it may help us to avoid certain errors. But I firmly resist any suggestion that I have to be a scholar of old Greek in order to discuss the structure of the Trinity, including the filioque. The modern English language surely has the capabilities of carrying as much meaning as necessary (and indeed possible).

Triple Tiara, that was a pure, content-free ad hominem attack. If you run out of reasonable arguments, there's always Hell.

Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
If you run out of reasonable arguments, there's always Hell.

Pot. Kettle. Wavelength.

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :

Hosting

quote:
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
A rather basic problem in all this is that, sadly, IngoB is showing a deficiency in the necessary fundamental skills required to engage in academic or intellectual debate.

Debates here don't have to be polite, but this crosses the line between attacking the argument and attacking the person.

RuthW
Purgatory host

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Well,

Thanks IngoB for your response, which is informative and welcome. To the points you raise:

quote:

quote:

Originally posted by Pontifical:
All of my opinions stem from the PCPCU document, the Councils, and the Catechism. To my mind, these are in unanimity. I don't see how my view differs from them.
Precisely what I would say, that's why I keep citing these documents so extensively.

Well, you are affirming here that you too don't see how my view differs from them??! [Yipee]

If so, then good!

quote:

quote:

Originally posted by Pontifical:
That is, even in all eternity, the Spirit is not, except breathed through the Son. So: even in eternity, no Son: no Spirit. Forgive me for missing the subordination there?
I could as well say: without flute no sound however much I breathe out air. You are missing the subordination simply because you are not addressing it. The question is whether the Son is simply a "passive modulating relay station" of the breath as it proceeds, as a flute is, or if He is more.

Well, I kind of agree with you. But I don't think this is subordination; I think that if there were subordination, I would try to address it! The Son is essential for the procession of the Holy Spirit; as I have said, if He is not there to be breathed through, then there is no procession. The Father is too essential for the procession and the being of the Holy Spirit, since if He is not there, then there is nobody to proceed. My point about there not being any subordination is that just becuase the Father and the Son are essential in different ways does not mean that one is subordinate to the other. I think it's a little dangerous to imply that this requires subordination: after all, is the Son subordinate to the Father because He Himself only has His Being because of the Father? I don't see how this is any different from the subordination you think is present in the model of procession that I explain, but I don't believe for example that this is subordination.

quote:

quote:

Originally posted by Pontifical:
And what, pray tell, have YOU ever said, in an appreciative tone naturally, about the Orthodox?
Fair point. On this thread on this topic - not a lot. The opportunity wasn't really there though with plenty of Orthodox and two or three most enthusiastic RC supporters of Orthodox doctrine.

Well, I kind of feel a bit guilty about this one; if this were a debate about the importance of Apostolic succession, then my arguments against the anglicans would be the same; as Ken, that great stalwart of the Petrine Primacy threads once remarked to RC shipmates, we are often guilty of complaining about the way the Orthodox see us (often, anyhow) and then having the same attitude to the Protestants.

However, I think you mis-read me as an enthusiastic supporter of Orthodox doctrine, whatever one of those is. Of orthodox doctrine, yes; my whole point on this thread has been that I think you are incorrect to say that presenting the view that I present is handing over to be burned several centuries of Catholic Tradition; I think, and I think that the Church thinks, that it is more a question of clarifying what that Catholic Tradition IS. I have nowhere said that the Dual Procession is not true: to do so would be to sell off Catholic Tradition, for the worse. What I have done is to try and expound what we MEAN by the Dual Procession.

quote:
I don't have to at all. Again, it's not my intention and not my job to explain all the historical and linguistical details of why things went awry way back when. Not that there's not a need for that, sure there is. And there's experts for doing that, I applaud them for their work. But apart from andreas1984 and me, this has been a discussion between native English speakers. And all of us come with the modern understanding of our respective traditions concerning the Trinity. I don't see why we can't simply communicate about that. I'm even grateful for some historical background, for it may help us to avoid certain errors. But I firmly resist any suggestion that I have to be a scholar of old Greek in order to discuss the structure of the Trinity, including the filioque. The modern English language surely has the capabilities of carrying as much meaning as necessary (and indeed possible).

Well, yes and no. OK, so I'm pleased to half agree with you. It is of course possible to discuss the Trinity in modern English perfectly well (or as well as one can hope to, anyhow), but I think that in order to engage with the Greeks on this one (and I don't mean andreas: I mean the Orthodox in general) one has to understand it from their point of view, in order to be able to see what it is that they are saying and what it is they think that we are saying. But then I guess you are saying that, too; so I agree, in short. There are two differently - but, as you say, complementary - sets of ideas on procession : the Latin processio and the Greek ekporeusis; to be able to let these ideas complement each other, one has to be able to see how and where they differ. I think this is bound up with the language, which is a great help in being able to understand the underlying theology.

Thank you for your response, which was very constructive.

Blessings,

Pontifical.

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
Hosting

quote:
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
A rather basic problem in all this is that, sadly, IngoB is showing a deficiency in the necessary fundamental skills required to engage in academic or intellectual debate.
Debates here don't have to be polite, but this crosses the line between attacking the argument and attacking the person.

RuthW
Purgatory host

Aye, that's true. I'm sorry. It's just that I found the debate being confused and muddied and stifled, not by an argument but by a person.

There was I thinking I was being polite in my attempt to help a person engage in the debate. Sorry Ruth

Posted by Scot (# 2095) on :

ADMIN MODE

Triple Tiara,

Responding to a hostly warning with this sort of smart-assed bullshit is liable to be interpreted by the admins as a violation of Ship's Commandment 6.

Scot
Member Admin

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Father Triple Tiara, dear Trisagion, Ian, could you have a look at this page from the Summa, and tell me if you understand Thomas Aquinas saying the same thing we agreed on in this thread?

I was reading that page and I am not sure what he means. I don't want to misinterpret him, so could you, sharing in his tradition, have a look and tell me what you think?

Now, I know you explained that the term "proceed" can have two meanings. Does the same apply to the term "principle" Thomas uses?

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

IngoB, I would like to point you to an agreed statement of the North American Orthodox-Catholic theological consultation where it is said that:

quote:
The Latin word procedere, on the other hand, with its related noun processio, suggests simply “movement forwards,” without the added implication of the starting-point of that movement; thus it is used to translate a number of other Greek theological terms, including proienai, and is explicitly taken by Thomas Aquinas to be a general term denoting “origin of any kind” (Summa Theologiae I, q. 36, a.2), including – in a Trinitarian context - the Son’s generation as well as the breathing-forth of the Spirit and his mission in time. As a result, both the primordial origin of the Spirit in the eternal Father and his “coming forth” from the risen Lord tend to be designated, in Latin, by the same word, procedere, while Greek theology normally uses two different terms. Although the difference between the Greek and the Latin traditions of understanding the eternal origin of the Spirit is more than simply a verbal one, much of the original concern in the Greek Church over the insertion of the word Filioque into the Latin translation of the Creed of 381 may well have been due – as Maximus the Confessor explained (Letter to Marinus: PG 91.133-136) - to a misunderstanding on both sides of the different ranges of meaning implied in the Greek and Latin terms for “procession”.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
Well, you are affirming here that you too don't see how my view differs from them??! If so, then good!

I was saying that I also think that I am in complete agreement with all those official RC documents. Clearly, if we both say that, then there must be some level of agreement between us as well. I think what you keep stressing and expounding of those documents is basically what the Vatican would like the Orthodox to assent to. It's the minimal common denominator which the Vatican thinks will be enough for achieving unity. What is missing for me in a RC (rather than Orthodox) adopting that position is 1) that this is not the be all and end all of Western Trinitarian doctrine, not even as stated in those very documents, and 2) the recognition that the Orthodox community largely refuses even this minimal common denominator (just google for the PCPCU document, most hits are Orthodox ones explaining why this is insufficient) and isn't enthusiastically engaging in a similar re-evaluation of Western Trinitarian teachings. It is in my eyes misleading to gloss over what the Orthodox will need to accept. And the constant unilateral declaration that the RCC will do whatever necessary to achieve unity must not become a motivation for the Orthodox to just wait until the West turns entirely Orthodox (rather than orthodox).

The PCPCU document is from 1995. Over a decade ago now... I don't see a "Joint Declaration on the Filioque" on the horizon. Why not? Because you need two hands seeking each other for a handshake...

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
The Son is essential for the procession of the Holy Spirit; as I have said, if He is not there to be breathed through, then there is no procession. The Father is too essential for the procession and the being of the Holy Spirit, since if He is not there, then there is nobody to proceed. My point about there not being any subordination is that just becuase the Father and the Son are essential in different ways does not mean that one is subordinate to the other. I think it's a little dangerous to imply that this requires subordination: after all, is the Son subordinate to the Father because He Himself only has His Being because of the Father?

Let me re-write what you say about the Spirit to see if you solve the issue: "The flute is essential for the procession of the sound; as I have said, if it is not there to be breathed through, then there is no procession. The musician is too essential for the procession and the being of the sound, since if he is not there, then there is nothing to proceed. My point about there not being any subordination is that just because the musician and the flute are essential in different ways does not mean that one is subordinate to the other." As you can see this doesn't work. Sure, it does not require subordination. But surely it does not either deny subordination. For the flute is most definitely subordinate to the musician. My point is not that the Orthodox doctrine requires subordination, my point is that it is a weakness of that Orthodox analogy that it does not deny subordination. Whereas the Augustinian "unitive love" does explicitly deny subordination. Its weakness is rather monarchy, which it does nor deny, but also does not affirm. In both cases one must explain something extra to make sure that one does not fall in error. That's also why these doctrines are nicely complimentary, they cancel each others weaknesses.

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
I have nowhere said that the Dual Procession is not true: to do so would be to sell off Catholic Tradition, for the worse. What I have done is to try and expound what we MEAN by the Dual Procession.

Yes, but I do not think that what the RCC means by Dual Procession is just the Orthodox "breathing through". Not that this this understanding is wrong, it is completely valid and thoroughly profound, but it is also only one of several complimentary ways of understanding the issue that the RCC holds true. For true unity it is then not only required that the Orthodox understand that we accept their favorite explanation as true. It is also required that they at least tolerate those other explanations. That's what I'm trying to point out.

andreas1984, I'm not sure what your point is?

Posted by Ian Climacus (# 944) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
Father Triple Tiara, dear Trisagion, Ian, could you have a look at this page from the Summa, and tell me if you understand Thomas Aquinas saying the same thing we agreed on in this thread?

Thanks for the vote of confidence Andreas, but I am a simple person. I too have no idea what he's saying.

Posted by josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
(just google for the PCPCU document, most hits are Orthodox ones explaining why this is insufficient)

What terms are you googling on? That's not at all what I found.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by josephine:
What terms are you googling on? That's not at all what I found.

Good question, actually. Back when I quoted the PCPCU I was trying to locate an uncommented online copy of the document without knowing the exact title. I remember that this one was the top search link I got in Google, but I can't seem to come up with search terms now that brings in plenty of other Orthodox comments (at least from "not in communion with Rome" Orthodox). I guess that makes my claim above at best accidental... [Disappointed]

Anyway, I'm more than happy to be proven wrong in my pessimism here. [Smile]

So please go ahead and link to all those favorable comments by "not in communion with Rome" Orthodox!

Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
So please go ahead and link to all those favorable comments by "not in communion with Rome" Orthodox!

That's the only kind of Orthodox there are.

Posted by Marinaki (# 343) on :

The document can be found here

as part of a collection of pages on the Filioque

Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :

MT--

Maybe Ingo is thinking of the "uniate" churches?

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

Yeah, Eastern Rite Catholics or whatever else you would like to call them... On Marinaki's site we find another "nice, but not good enough" comment by His Grace John Zizioulas, Metropolitan of Pergamon. That's the sort of stuff I remember from Google hunting.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ian Climacus:

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
Father Triple Tiara, dear Trisagion, Ian, could you have a look at this page from the Summa, and tell me if you understand Thomas Aquinas saying the same thing we agreed on in this thread?
Thanks for the vote of confidence Andreas, but I am a simple person. I too have no idea what he's saying.

Not you! The other Ian, aka Pontifical! [Yipee]

I asked the RC Shipmates, because it was about a RC Saint. (I do appreciate though the fact that you read the document. I think it's interesting that you find it confusing also!)

[ 16. February 2006, 09:37: Message edited by: andreas1984 ]

Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on :

Uniate chuches aren't Orthodox, they're Catholic. Orthodox means "in communion with one of the Orthodox patriarchs." It doesn't mean "looking like those churches that are in communion with one of the Orthodox patriarchs."

Posted by GreyFace (# 4682) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
Uniate chuches aren't Orthodox, they're Catholic. Orthodox means "in communion with one of the Orthodox patriarchs." It doesn't mean "looking like those churches that are in communion with one of the Orthodox patriarchs."

How do you decide which patriarchs are Orthodox then?

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

There is no need to decide. By deciding you make yourself a judge, rather than a member of the Orthodox Church. Like father Gregory could have said, unity exists through the communion of the bishops (you being in communion with your bishop and the bishop with the other bishops). In fact, you don't have to know who the Patriarch is (unless you are interested in administrative matters); it doesn't matter.

If a non-Orthodox would want to know who the Orthodox Patriarchs are, he could just ask an Orthodox guy to point him to them. Alternatively, he could read Church history and see for himself that the historical ecclesiastical body in the East is the Orthodox Church.

Posted by GreyFace (# 4682) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
There is no need to decide.
...
If a non-Orthodox would want to know who the Orthodox Patriarchs are, he could just ask an Orthodox guy to point him to them.

Andreas, sometimes you crack me up [Killing me]

On the off-chance that you're serious, do you have a means of defining an Orthodox guy other than one who is in communion with an Orthodox bishop, who can be determined by asking a guy who is Orthodox, who can be determined... etc?

quote:
Alternatively, he could read Church history and see for himself that the historical ecclesiastical body in the East is the Orthodox Church.

That sounds rather like me judging ecclesiastical bodies. What if I concluded that the church that was Orthodox was the West?

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Dear GreyFace

a) I wasn't talking about theology. I said that historically, the Church in the East is the Orthodox Church. Just like, historically speaking, the Roman Church is the Church in the West (at least until the Reformation). If I was to speak about theology, I would suggest alongside with church history to read theology and the documents of the ancient fathers and judge for yourself which church is historically sharing the same faith with the ancients.

b) It's like asking how I know who the real Messiah is. Well, yes, there have been other people claiming they were the Messiah. I would suggest reading history. You could see that the one man who is still seen as the Messiah is Christ.

I don't understand the premises upon which your view on Orthodoxy is based.

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Well,

These messages continue to make interesting reading. A few precise points:

quote:
Father Triple Tiara, dear Trisagion, Ian, could you have a look at this page from the Summa, and tell me if you understand Thomas Aquinas saying the same thing we agreed on in this thread?

Andreas: I am a little busy at the moment, and (believe me) I need a LOT of time to read St. Thomas Aquinas; it's not exactly the sort of thing one would read in the bath! When I have read it, I will tell you what I think.

IngoB:

quote:
The PCPCU document is from 1995. Over a decade ago now... I don't see a "Joint Declaration on the Filioque" on the horizon. Why not? Because you need two hands seeking each other for a handshake...

Well, interesting proposal, but I'm not sure I know the inner workings of the Phanar/Vatican well enough to know what the International Commission is discussing at the present. I should remind you, however, that it did begin again on the 15th December last. So let us see what comes out of it, perhaps; I think the only attitude to ecumenism is optimism. Granted, ther has to be realism as well, but pessimism will never do.

An well, 10 years is not really an age, is it? When you consider that the schism has been going on for nigh on 1000, it sort of puts things into perspective!

quote:
It's the minimal common denominator which the Vatican thinks will be enough for achieving unity.

No: Rome has constantly asserted that minimal common denominators are not enough for real, actual, visible, concrete unity. So I don't agree here. I see nothing of the sort of "sucking up to the Orthodox" that you seem to allude to in the document...

I guess what I am saying in a round about way is that you seem to have got yourself a little worked up about Rome and/or RCs lining up to "throw away" RC Tradition just for the purposes of reunion, without any thought about the long lasting effects, nor asking the Orthodox to also reach out to meet us on various issues. There has always (even, I would venture to say, in the United Church) existed a huge difference between East and West; and there would exist such a difference in any Reunified Church. But on those issues which must be resolved, the only sustainable path forward for unity is for both sides to reach a common understanding, which necessarily presupposes movement on both sides. I don't think that either Rome/Constantinople would think anything else. I'm not sure many Catholics/Orthodox do either, come to think of it...

quote:
Let me re-write what you say about the Spirit to see if you solve the issue: "The flute is essential for the procession of the sound; as I have said, if it is not there to be breathed through, then there is no procession. The musician is too essential for the procession and the being of the sound, since if he is not there, then there is nothing to proceed. My point about there not being any subordination is that just because the musician and the flute are essential in different ways does not mean that one is subordinate to the other." As you can see this doesn't work. Sure, it does not require subordination. But surely it does not either deny subordination.

But I don't see how it doesn't work? Sorry, but I don't! In any case, would the fact that it didn't deny subordination really imply that there was subordination? Absolutely not; that would be illogical to my mind, or at best a non sequitur.

quote:
Yes, but I do not think that what the RCC means by Dual Procession is just the Orthodox "breathing through". Not that this this understanding is wrong, it is completely valid and thoroughly profound, but it is also only one of several complimentary ways of understanding the issue that the RCC holds true.

Then what else does it mean? I guess you will advance the unitive love business, but I'm not sure what point you want to make with it?

Blessings,

Pontifical.

Posted by GreyFace (# 4682) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
I don't understand the premises upon which your view on Orthodoxy is based.

Sorry, I was shortcutting, taking your understanding of Orthodoxy as identical with the One Church.

Of course you can identify the Orthodox Church in the sense of the communion of the East, but Orthodox also means "right-worship" and is more than a convenient label, so I guess what I'm trying to say is that that study you suggest later is how one determines an Orthodox bishop in the latter sense.

So when Mousethief says that communion with an Orthodox bishop is the identifying mark of Orthodoxy, you would need to either reduce the name Orthodox to a denominational label, or be able to identify the Orthodox with what is (most) small-o orthodox and that surely requires judging the beliefs of the bishop.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Dear GreyFace

I am not familiar with the word "denomination". In Greek, we use the word "confessions" when we talk about different faiths. I think that the term Orthodox (capital o) applies to the confession of which I am a member, and as such, it can be defined historically.

This does not mean that I see Orthodoxy as one denomination. I see the Church of Christ as a confession of faith, and this does not mean that the Church is a denomination.

Now, if you want to discuss about Orthodoxy's orthodoxy, we could do so, from a historical (and theological) point of view. However, I don't know if it will be useful. I want to point out that the Roman Catholic Church, having done this kind of study, says officially that the Orthodox Church is orthodox in all things. (They think however that we are schismatics, but my point is that Orthodoxy is concidered in union with the ancient faith from the Romans. Do you think that your study would have led to a different conclusion?)

[ 16. February 2006, 16:05: Message edited by: andreas1984 ]

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
I am not familiar with the word "denomination".

It just means "name". So calling the Orthodox church a "denomination" just means that when we say "Orthodox church" we mean those churches that call themselves Orthodox... no big deal, nothing to get hung up on.

quote:

In Greek, we use the word "confessions" when we talk about different faiths.

The word "confession" is used in English like that, but its much rarer than "denomination".

Some people - especially what used to be called non-conformist churches in England - talk about "connexions". Independent churches, where each congregation is autonomous, are contrasted to "connexional" churches. Which would include the Orthodox, the Romans and the mainstream Reformation Protestants (Lutherans, Moravians, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Methodists etc.) Most Pentecostal and many Baptist churches are independent.

NB saying "different faiths" in English implies different religions entirely, like Hindus or Muslims or whatever. Most English speakers would say that Christianity was a "faith" and the Orthodox and the Romans and the various Protestants are included within it.

Posted by Jonathan the Free (# 10612) on :

Sometimes there is ambiguity over the level at which denomination should be applied.

In the case of the Orthodox, some people would say that "Orthodox" was a denomination, others that "Russian Orthodox" and "Greek Orthodox" were denominations which were in communion with each other.

Likewise are "the Church of England" and "ECUSA" different denominations, or is "Anglican" the denomination.

The charismatic house churches in England like "Pioneer" and "New Frontiers International" used the term 'streams' to describe themselves at one stage.

It depends on the context where the most appropriate grouping is.

Posted by Marinaki (# 343) on :

An aside: I have heard to the Orthodox Church referred to as a denomination, but I've never heard the various jurisdictions of Orthodoxy (Russian, Greek etc) referred to as denominations. I wonder where you've seen that?

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
I see nothing of the sort of "sucking up to the Orthodox" that you seem to allude to in the document... I guess what I am saying in a round about way is that you seem to have got yourself a little worked up about Rome and/or RCs lining up to "throw away" RC Tradition just for the purposes of reunion, without any thought about the long lasting effects, nor asking the Orthodox to also reach out to meet us on various issues.

I'm not worked up about Rome doing so. Rome is doing fine. I was getting worked up by my perception that RCs on this thread were doing so. Maybe that perception was wrong, but some of the arguments here sure were worrisome in my eyes.

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
But I don't see how it doesn't work? Sorry, but I don't! In any case, would the fact that it didn't deny subordination really imply that there was subordination? Absolutely not; that would be illogical to my mind, or at best a non sequitur.

To repeat: the point is not that subordination is required, implied, whatever... The point is that it is not denied, excluded, whatever. But subordination must be denied, excluded, whatever. So if you use the Orthodox picture, you must add a statement which makes clear that you exclude subordination. For the words your are saying on their own do not provide that safeguard. This is what my re-writing with "Spirit -> sound", "Son -> flute" and "Father -> musician" of your statement showed. The very same words could apply in a context in which subordination is explicit, so you must in addition say that such an interpretation is not allowed.

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
Then what else does it mean? I guess you will advance the unitive love business, but I'm not sure what point you want to make with it?

Concerning Trinitarian structure, the point is that the Orthodox picture tends to suggest to the mind a linear lineup Father->Son->Spirirt. But the Western picture provides the necessary correction that Father, Son and Spirit are actually in a triangular formation (see my current avatar). These points of view are not incompatible, one only has to "bend" the Orthodox line at the Son, to create the angle there. (Yes, I know the Trinity is not "geometric", it's just easier to picture this gemoetrically rather than using just "relation language".) Concerning spirituality, I find that the picture of the Father breathing through the Son is not so inspiring for my faith, whereas the picture of "unitive love" provides a most satisfying meditation on God. But that's just me, I'm not saying that this must apply to everybody.

Posted by Ian Climacus (# 944) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Concerning Trinitarian structure, the point is that the Orthodox picture tends to suggest to the mind a linear lineup Father->Son->Spirirt.

I'm may be completely confused, and I confess I'm probably beyond my ken, but I see it more as:

code:

   Father 
   /    \
  /      \
Son    Spirit

Am I wrong? The Father->Son->Spirit line up gets me seeing it as some form of modalism. But then I'm reading about that at the moment so perhaps my sense of it is heightened.

Though I have seen a triangle of sorts used: the one that has "Father is God", "Son is God", "Spirit is God" and "Father is not Son", "Son is not Father", "Spirit is not Father" -- usually in Latin. [Biased]

[ 16. February 2006, 23:42: Message edited by: Ian Climacus ]

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

quote:
IngoB:
Concerning spirituality, I find that the picture of the Father breathing through the Son is not so inspiring for my faith, whereas the picture of "unitive love" provides a most satisfying meditation on God. But that's just me, I'm not saying that this must apply to everybody.

Good. Because what you find spiritually helpful cannot be used to establish doctrine. Therein lies the problem. You cannot use a meditative image and then expect doctrine to be established by it.

[ 16. February 2006, 23:43: Message edited by: Triple Tiara ]

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

quote:
andreas1984:
Father Triple Tiara, dear Trisagion, Ian, could you have a look at this page from the Summa, and tell me if you understand Thomas Aquinas saying the same thing we agreed on in this thread?

andreas, I have no idea! I am not a fan of Aquinas - largely because I have not had a Thomist training. For me to comment would be way beyond my competence. Sorry!

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

Ian Climacus

Problem with your diagram is that it leaves the Son and the Spirit unrelated. This is surely not what you intend. This is sort of why the Western Church has found a simple "ex patre" clause deficient.

Posted by josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ian Climacus:

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Concerning Trinitarian structure, the point is that the Orthodox picture tends to suggest to the mind a linear lineup Father->Son->Spirirt.
I'm may be completely confused, and I confess I'm probably beyond my ken, but I see it more as:

code:
Father
/ \
/ \
Son Spirit
Am I wrong? The Father->Son->Spirit line up gets me seeing it as some form of modalism. But then I'm reading about that at the moment so perhaps my sense of it is heightened.

I don't know that the Father->Son->Spirit line up is modalistic -- I wouldn't see it that way. But neither is it particularly Orthodox. If you had to diagram the Holy Trinity, the little sketch you did would be, I think, right on target.

ETA: Ian's diagram shows the Son and the Spirit as being related, in that they are both from the Father. How is that not related?

[ 16. February 2006, 23:56: Message edited by: josephine ]

Posted by Ian Climacus (# 944) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
Problem with your diagram is that it leaves the Son and the Spirit unrelated. This is surely not what you intend. This is sort of why the Western Church has found a simple "ex patre" clause deficient.

Twasn't intentional: I just didn't want lines everywhere. I suppose I focus more on their originate source: in terms of temporal, yes the Spirit comes from the Father and Son. (I think -- don't excommunicate me Orthodoxen if I'm wrong [Smile]

).

Perhaps I mis-ready Father->Son->Spirit Josephine: to me it showed some form of linear progression or showed that the Father begat the Son who begat (sent?) the Spirit. How are the intelligent here reading it? My apologies Ingo.

[edit: misspelled names]

[ 17. February 2006, 00:02: Message edited by: Ian Climacus ]

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

Oi oi oi [Eek!]

.... I find that a very worrying statement Josephine. The Son and the Spirit only relate to each other via the Father? So they are like brothers?

Posted by Joyfulsoul (# 4652) on :

code:

Father
| \
|  \
|   >Spirit
|  /
V /
Son

Is model helpful?

[this is just what I am gathering from the conversation -- I have no clue what it looks like...but I am just trying to get a clearer picture visually of what y'all are saying]

[ 17. February 2006, 00:07: Message edited by: Joyfulsoul ]

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

oooh - the longbowman model! I like it!

Posted by Leetle Masha (# 8209) on :

Leetle Masha likes it too, TT! After all, who could possibly draw an equilateral longbow!

Welcome, JoyfulSoul! [Smile]

Leetle M.

Posted by Joyfulsoul (# 4652) on :

Thank you. I've been enjoying the whole conversation but I feel completely out of depth here... [Hot and Hormonal]

I just wanted to thank everyone who has posted here. It is so interesting (runs away and hides, now).

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

Well, Joyfulsoul, it's surprising how short the thread is considering the debate has thus far lasted more than a millennium! Complete with tugging of beards [Snigger]

And let me confess here and now - I am a Latin priest with a beard. Make of that what you will [Biased]

Posted by Ian Climacus (# 944) on :

It hasn't stopped me Joyfulsoul!

Love the longbowman name! [Biased]

And a beard, TT? We'll get you yet! [Razz]

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

Ian, Father generates Son. Father breathes Spirit through Son. That naively yields:

code:

option 1a

Father==>Son-->Spirit

Note the double line Father to Son. Now, the harmony of the Eastern and Western position follows immediately from your (crypto-RC [Biased]

) picture if one adds the "breathing through":

code:

option 2

  Father
   //\
  //  \
 //    \
`´     `´
Son-->Spirit

Note the double line again. The "filioque" is then simply refering to the fact that if you now just look at the spirit it looks like so

code:

-->Spirit<--

The issue is only what establishes option 2 over option 1a if we are not going to say more than "breathing through"? That means your righthand line gets rather re-routed as such

code:

option 1b

  Father
   //
  //  
 //    
`´     
Son-->Spirit

Which is "topologically" equivalent to option 1a, it's just "bent" at the Son. It seems somewhat difficult to see the filoque in this though. You have to argue that the "and" now refers to the fact that the breathing through connects to both, like so

code:

Father--Son-->Spirit

I'm much more comfortable with saying that generation

code:

Father-->Son

plus Orthodox "breathing through"

code:

Father--Son-->Spirit

plus Augustinian "unitive love"

code:

 Father-\
         --->Spirit 
    Son-/

considered together are the best. For taken together we have something like option 2 but in a dynamic rather than static sense, which I think is as close as we can get to the truth.

Triple Tiara, it's established doctrine enough to be consciously mentioned even in the PCPCU document. What do you reckon anyway is meant by the inevitable mention of complementarity? If there was only the Orthodox doctrine, then there would be no need for it to be complementary to anything, it would be simply all there is.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

<double post due to lots of cross posts while I was drawing diagrams>

Hi Joyfulsoul, unfortunately your "longbow" diagram is precisely the classical Western-Augustinian picture (generation plus unitive love, see my diagrams above), which the Orthodox do not particularly like. I agree though, it's very inspiring (no pun intended). [Smile]

And you even made Triple Tiara agree to it, sneaky, sneaky. [Big Grin]

Posted by Leetle Masha (# 8209) on :

Nifty Diagrams, IngoB! Thanks!

For anyone interested in St. Thomas Aquinas, may I recommend the excellent work by the late Étienne Gilson, _The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas_, published by the University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana.

Best wishes,

Leetle M.
Please stay, JoyfulSoul! [ETA: I don't much care whether Orthodoxen like the longbow (maybe we're after a crossbow [Ultra confused]

), but I delight in any attempt to express the inexpressible! I'm too "chicken" even to try! Bravo, JoyfulSoul!]

[ 17. February 2006, 00:46: Message edited by: Leetle Masha ]

Posted by josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:
Oi oi oi .... I find that a very worrying statement Josephine. The Son and the Spirit only relate to each other via the Father? So they are like brothers?

No, because that would mean that the Spirit is also begotten, that he would be another Son. But that is clearly not the case.

But the Persons of the Trinity, as I understand it, are distinguished by their relationship with the Father, not with each other. That doesn't mean that the Son and the Spirit have no relationship with each other, or that they don't relate to each other except through the Father.

I'm probably not expressing it very well. Maybe I'll go off and read a bit and try again later.

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

quote:
IngoB:
Triple Tiara, it's established doctrine enough to be consciously mentioned even in the PCPCU document. What do you reckon anyway is meant by the inevitable mention of complementarity? If there was only the Orthodox doctrine, then there would be no need for it to be complementary to anything, it would be simply all there is.

I am enjoying becoming a footnote to your posts! The contempt with which you address me just oozes off the page. [Snigger]

An image is an image. It helps to elucidate a reality. It is not the reality itself. When you overstate the image to the exclusion of other images, you detract from rather than elucidate the reality. As the catechism warns: you must not allow it to become rigid. This is what I have been saying throughout. The unitive love image may be helpful qua image. On the other hand, it may be less than helpful in some discussions. It has been extensively commented upon ever since Augustine used it - and not only in the way Augustine used it either, which was much more limited than the theology some have built upon it. But since the Holy Spirit is much more than the love that exists between the Father and the Son (gosh, can you not hear just how shocking it is to limit describing who the Holy Spirit is by referring to him simply as the "love that exists between the Father and the Son"???????) you cannot build your entire pneumatic theology upon this one image. The image may be employed to elucidate the reality, it is not the reality itself. How many other ways can I say that?

Now, I wonder which of our Orthodox participants in this discussion remember me ditching the Latin doctrine, or the necessity of the filioque or any such thing in these pages? Can you remember where it was that I said you were right and we were wrong? I cannot, which is why I need you to help me out. Because some posters (well, 1 actually) keeps alleging that I am so far up your Eastern fundaments that I have forgotten my own fundamentals. I am beginning to wonder whether that Latin I used at Mass tonight was actually Greek, I am so confused. [Ultra confused]

[ 17. February 2006, 02:04: Message edited by: Triple Tiara ]

Posted by Duo Seraphim (# 256) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Triple Tiara:

quote:
IngoB:
Triple Tiara, it's established doctrine enough to be consciously mentioned even in the PCPCU document. What do you reckon anyway is meant by the inevitable mention of complementarity? If there was only the Orthodox doctrine, then there would be no need for it to be complementary to anything, it would be simply all there is.
I am enjoying becoming a footnote to your posts! The contempt with which you address me just oozes off the page.

Take the fighting to Hell.
Duo Seraphim, Purgatory Host

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

Triple Tiara, is "breathing through" more than an image? If not, then I'm basically in agreement with your explanation concerning "mere images" of the Trinity. I would still appreciate if you could tell us what in your opinion some distinctly Western fundamentals of Trinitarian doctrine are, which the East will have to come to terms with prior to a final agreement. Are there any? Or is it all just linguistic confusion covering up exactly the same ideas?

Posted by Gort (# 6855) on :

Consciousness (God) can be defined only according to the forms it takes, in which case we are defining the forms, not consciousness. The same qualification applies to the word "force" which consciousness constrains within forms. There is a pure, indefinable state of devine being (or devine consciousness) which manifests as an interaction between force and form. These metaphors work best for me when attempting to grasp the nature of the trinity but are no more valid in themselves than any traditional symbolic structure if the structure takes on more importance than the principles they represent.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

OK, here's something I cannot but observe:

The way I see it, the western world uses all the words the ancient Christians used in their theology, because they think that the words the ancients used are orthodox. However, they use these words in ways contrary to the way the ancients used it, because they have a different theology from the ancients. Thus the confusion. The bottom line being that the ancient clarity is lost, and trinitarian monotheism is destroyed.

I am talking about the word "relation". You use it to mean modern English "relationship" while the ancients used it to mean "origin". From the ancients' point of view, the diagrams above are wrong. The only accurate diagram is Ian's (the Orthodox Ian).

Father Triple Tiara, the diagrams here show something different from what you proposed, because the arrow is towards the Spirit, and not towards both sides! Having only one arrow towards the Spirit shows what IngoB was saying, not what you said in the thread.

The joint declaration says that the verb proceed means the origin of the Spirit from the Father alone and the sending of the Spirit from the Father and the Son. It doesn't say that it refers to relationships between the divine persons!

Gort, analogies are not needed when we talk about persons and essences. Look at the Creed. We believe in one God, the Father of the Son and Emitter of the Holy Spirit. The Son, just like the Spirit, is God from God, cosubstantial to the Father. Christian monotheism in the Creed is because of the Father!

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Sometimes I can't stop thinking that it's as if we have entirely different religions.

Gort, if you want an analogy which shows that being begotten from and proceeding from are different ways of coming into existence, you can read the fifth theological oration of Gregory the Theologian:

quote:
XI. What was Adam? A creature of God. What then was Eve? A fragment of the creature. And what was Seth? The begotten of both. Does it then seem to you that Creature and Fragment and Begotten are the same thing? Of course it does not. But were not these persons consubstantial? Of course they were. Well then, here it is an acknowledged fact that different persons may have the same substance. I say this, not that I would attribute creation or fraction or any property of body to the Godhead (let none of your contenders for a word be down upon me again), but that I may contemplate in these, as on a stage, things which are objects of thought alone. For it is not possible to trace out any image exactly to the whole extent of the truth. But, they say, what is the meaning of all this? For is not the one an offspring, and the other a something else of the One? Did not both Eve and Seth come from the one Adam? And were they both begotten by him? No; but the one was a fragment of him, and the other was begotten by him. And yet the two were one and the same thing; both were human beings; no one will deny that. Will you then give up your contention against the Spirit, that He must be either altogether begotten, or else cannot be consubstantial, or be God; and admit from human examples the possibility of our position? I think it will be well for you, unless you are determined to be very quarrelsome, and to fight against what is proved to demonstration.

GreyFace, you asked why proceed is not begotten from the Father and the Son. Would this confession of faith by Gregory the Theologian be enough to give an answer to your question?

quote:
VIII. But since we do not admit your first division, which declares that there is no mean between Begotten and Unbegotten, at once, along with your magnificent division, away go your Brothers and your Grandsons, as when the first link of an intricate chain is broken they are broken with it, and disappear from your system of divinity. For, tell me, what position will you assign to that which Proceeds, which has started up between the two terms of your division, and is introduced by a better Theologian than you, our Saviour Himself? Or perhaps you have taken that word out of your Gospels for the sake of your Third Testament, The Holy Ghost, which proceedeth from the Father; Who, inasmuch as He proceedeth from That Source, is no Creature; and inasmuch as He is not Begotten is no Son; and inasmuch as He is between the Unbegotten and the Begotten is God. And thus escaping the toils of your syllogisms, He has manifested himself as God, stronger than your divisions. What then is Procession? Do you tell me what is the Unbegottenness of the Father, and I will explain to you the physiology of the Generation of the Son and the Procession of the Spirit, and we shall both of us be frenzy-stricken for prying into the mystery of God. And who are we to do these things, we who cannot even see what lies at our feet, or number the sand of the sea, or the drops of rain, or the days of Eternity, much less enter into the Depths of God, and supply an account of that Nature which is so unspeakable and transcending all words?

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :

Let's take this in a slightly different direction. (I was considering giving up Filioque threads when Lent arrives but I am weakening you see).

Observation. The west is rather attached to a Christocentric piety. (We won't go into why that might be the case just now). The Filioque asserts that the Son shares the Father's perogatives in respect of the mission of the Spirit both in the sending, the activity and the fruit of the Spirit.

There is truth in this. Salvation is to attain to the full stature of Christ after all. However, the Filioque overstates and, therefore distorts the theology. In other words the Spirit's work is exclusively Christomorphic.

I suspect that the west is suspicious of a Filioque absent creed for it redistributes the focus of piety away from Christocentrism towards Trinitarianism. I think that the intuition might be that Jesus will get lost in all of this.

We must not be too cerebral about this but rather consider what might be driving this issue, (aside from loyalty to Rome that is).

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Oh my goodness.

Well, I am NOT going to start draing all of these diagrams!

A few points:

IngoB: I deny your assertions; I simply disagree with most of the points you make. the points surround subordination I find particularly (and enduringly) opaque. When you say "this analogy showed that..." I'm afraid I have to confess that it simply didn't, at least not to my mind. Sorry.

What's more:

quote:
I would still appreciate if you could tell us what in your opinion some distinctly Western fundamentals of Trinitarian doctrine are, which the East will have to come to terms with prior to a final agreement.

I find this sort of point incredible... it's almost as if you're suggesting we should come up with some obstacles, just so the Eastern's have got some hoops to jump through! I find that an astonishing thing to say... I think we are all agreed that there are enough obstacles already, thanks.

Andreas:

quote:
The way I see it, the western world uses all the words the ancient Christians used in their theology, because they think that the words the ancients used are orthodox. However, they use these words in ways contrary to the way the ancients used it, because they have a different theology from the ancients. Thus the confusion. The bottom line being that the ancient clarity is lost, and trinitarian monotheism is destroyed.

I am talking about the word "relation". You use it to mean modern English "relationship" while the ancients used it to mean "origin". From the ancients' point of view, the diagrams above are wrong. The only accurate diagram is Ian's (the Orthodox Ian).

Well, I'm afraid I disagree; it's clear that the ancients of whatever persuasion did not use the word "relation": they used a Greek word. Now, I know that that's obvious, but what is important is that whatever word one uses in modern English to describe the Trinity, one understands what the original Greek meant, and so suitably qualifies the use of a term in modern English, by defining it as what the original Greek word meant, or by stating how it differs from the original Greek word meant. Now, the Western destruction of monotheism in the Trinity could only happen if we were saying that ekporeuetai=procedit, which (as 5 pages of posts will testify, plus the document etc.) we are in no way saying. In fact, the Church teaches that this can never be and we are flatly denying and condemning that equation. So again, I don't think it's necessary to level charges which are not grounded in the fact of the situation; there's no destruction of the monotheistic piety here, thank you! [Yipee]

Fr Gregory:

quote:
Observation. The west is rather attached to a Christocentric piety. (We won't go into why that might be the case just now). The Filioque asserts that the Son shares the Father's perogatives in respect of the mission of the Spirit both in the sending, the activity and the fruit of the Spirit.

Well... I think you over egg the pudding somewhat here! [Biased]

Of course, like the East, we at one time felt the need to stress the divinity of Christ by including the Filioque in the Creed (with the necessary meaning of proienai as opposed to ekporeuetai) to combat Arianism; but the Easterns for instance, as far as I understand it, in the same situation combatted the same heresy by referring much to Christ our God in the Liturgy. Now, don't get me wrong: I understand what you are saying by that. But I don't see how this is less of a Christocentric piety? And I don't see how it's different?

quote:
There is truth in this. Salvation is to attain to the full stature of Christ after all. However, the Filioque overstates and, therefore distorts the theology. In other words the Spirit's work is exclusively Christomorphic.

Well, I'm not sure it does distort it, actually. Not at all.

quote:
I suspect that the west is suspicious of a Filioque absent creed for it redistributes the focus of piety away from Christocentrism towards Trinitarianism. I think that the intuition might be that Jesus will get lost in all of this.

I am in plain disagreement with this! The vast majority of prayers in the Liturgy in the West are addressed to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. With a few to Christ or the Holy Spirit, in the Unity of the other two members of the Trinity. For me this is four-square (if you see what I mean... aargh!) Trinitarian piety; I don't think we have a Christocentric piety per se in this way (we certainly don't often pray to Christ our God, although we would have no problem with that). So consequently, I'm not sure that we think Jesus would be lost, or what indeed He would/could be lost from?

quote:
We must not be too cerebral about this but rather consider what might be driving this issue, (aside from loyalty to Rome that is).

I can't help feeling a little creeping suspicion and conspiracy here; after all, if I suggest that all that is driving the Orthodox position is either loyalty to Constantinople or worse still antipathy to Rome, it's not very helpful, is it?! [Biased]

quote:
Let's take this in a slightly different direction. (I was considering giving up Filioque threads when Lent arrives but I am weakening you see).

I quite agree; I AM giving it up for Lent!

Best wishes,

Pontifical.

Posted by Leetle Masha (# 8209) on :

Very interesting points, Fr. Gregory!

And Gort (Klaatu, verada, nicto! to Gort! And a hearty welcome!) made this fascinating point too:

quote:
These metaphors work best for me when attempting to grasp the nature of the trinity but are no more valid in themselves than any traditional symbolic structure if the structure takes on more importance than the principles they represent.

I remember, years ago, a book about Pope John Paul II by the late French journalist and academician André Frossard, regarding "structure". Frossard said that when anyone fixates on the Church's structure he runs the risk of slighting the Blessed Sacrament. The book, _Portrait of John Paul II_, may be out of print now, but throughout the book, Frossard, a convert to Catholicism who had been brought up as a French communist, stressed his concern about the serious inroads modernism had made through the misinterpretations of the documents of Vatican II. No church, including the Orthodox, was left untouched by modernism and modernist tendencies to water down, or put modernist interpretations onto, Creeds, Councils, sacraments, liturgy, scripture commentary--you name it!

I think, even if the emphases in Creed-structures tend to be Christocentric in Roman Catholicism (and I'm not sure that's not a result of the serious problems the West had with Arianism) or Trinitarian in Orthodoxy (where as other posters have frequently pointed out, sometimes our tendency to apophaticism makes things somewhat unclear), we all do well to think together about the Creeds and let the Creeds draw us together rather than lead us apart. As the wonderful Yogi Berra the baseball player and humorist used to say, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it!"

Best wishes,

Leetle M.
Sergianist-ecumenist heretic, First Class.

[Cross-posted with Pontifical]

[ 17. February 2006, 10:43: Message edited by: Leetle Masha ]

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :

Dear Pontifical

Having stood in both "west" and "east" I don't think that I am over-egging the pudding.

You are right about "to the Father, through the Son and in the Spirit" in western doxologies ... and that's fine, but from an Orthodox point of view it's incomplete. The overwhelming preponderance of Orthodox liturgical doxologies are TO EACH hypostasis ... which is also fine.

However, the reluctance of contemporary western liturgies to pray TO Christ and TO the Spirit might seem at first look to undermine my charge of Christocentrism (although in respect of the Spirit it could well indicate the legacy of filioquism).

My case remains nonetheless because I am basing it on observations of popular PIETY .... especially, I concede, popular Protestant rather than popular Roman Catholic piety. Western spirituality has never known quite what to do with the Spirit. It has always been much more comfortable with Jesus. This and the Filioque seem to me to go hand in hand.

[ 17. February 2006, 10:59: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]

Posted by Leetle Masha (# 8209) on :

Over here in the U.S., Fr. Gregory, the Greek Orthodox Church had a short-lived pentecostalist movement back in the 70s and early 80s. Do you, or andreas1984, think that maybe catechesis in the Greek Orthodox Church in the U.S. might have been somewhat deficient in respect to the Holy Spirit, and this short-lived pentecostalist movement that we had might have been something of an effort to compensate?

Thanks for any input,

Leetle M.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

I think this has to do with the way each religion views time. For the East, we put emphasis in now. We are called to change right now. Therefore, it is natural that we call upon the Holy Spirit, because He is acting right now. I have heard that in the Western culture, people think that the Kingdom is something that will come when Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead. Therefore, they can live in the world, putting emphasis on ethics, looking forward to the Second Coming, and not experience eternity now.

Ian: I had in mind the term "essence". Most people cannot accept that e.g. all people share in the same essence, just like the three divine persons share in the one divine essence.

LM: I don't know anything about that.

Posted by Leetle Masha (# 8209) on :

That's okay, andreas1984. I don't think such a thing could ever happen in Greece!

While I was in Greece, though, I went to church frequently and it was beautiful. I have to take just this little break to tell you a delightful story: at our church in Greece, one Sunday, we had a procession that went around the block. There were many acolytes, some of them very young boys, and the priest told the boys to each pick up an icon "or something" to carry in the procession. As we were walking behind the acolytes in the procession, I noticed two little fellows in miniature dalmatics staggering along at the end of the procession lugging the baptismal font! Somebody asked, "Why are you carrying that?" and the boys replied, "We thought we were moving!" [There was a disused old church nearby that there had been talk of restoring....]

Best wishes,

Leetle M.

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :

Dear Leetle Masha

The MacNutt, Du Plessis, Ann Arbor thing was revving up in the US in the 70's. Maybe not particularly well instructed Greeks thought that they should have a piece of the action at that time.

Marinaki has drawn my attention to this book which I have purchased and will shortly read.

Beyond Salvation - Orthodoxy and Pentecostalism (paraphrased)

Too bad they can't spell PentEcostal.

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Andreas,

Well, I'm not sure I buy your time point, or your point about the Holy Spirit acting NOW, not as you write it, anyhow.

We believe that whenever God acts, He acts as Trinity. So for instance, at Mass we certainly believe we that we are asking the Father to send the Spirit to make present again the offering of the Son.

As for the "now" point, I'm afraid I don't buy that, either. We certainly believe that the Kingdom is now, but it is not "fully" now, hence why we pray "thy Kingdom come" in the Lord's prayer, not just becuase it sounds nice! [Yipee]

This is precisely why that old evangelical business of "Are you saved?" is so meaningless to we RCs. We would say: I have been saved, I am being saved, and I hope to be saved.

But I agree with your point about the Holy Spirit: we HAVE tended to underemphasise the Holy Spirit (if that's not a little ironic in a thread about the Filioque, I don't know what is!), something John Paul tried to correct, or at least begin to correct, by the encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem, and something which the Eastern Catholics greatly help the Western Church to correct (an endorsement of complementarity, I think).

Best wishes,

Pontifical.

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :

Dear Pontifical

I think that's very useful and I certainly recognise and rejoice in this trend in the Roman Catholic Church. In my own approach to this it's the "bond of love" Augustinian formula which is the real culprit.

Posted by noneen (# 11023) on :

i found this hard to follow ... lots of detail to concentrate on !!, but its a great conversation - one i shall be re-reading!! thanks

Can i offer a relevant part of a reflection that i was given years ago (hope its not a tangent):

' ...The Father is not greater than than the Son,
The Trinity is three equal persons.
The Trinity is a communion of persons who are not a threat to one another,but it is in the Father being the Father that the Son is Son.
Free persons in communion ...
.. and so, it is only when we are living as free persons in communion, that we are living our name: children of God'

is this speaking about ecomony or essence !?!

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

The Father is greater than the Son. Jesus said "my Father is greater than I" and, in the East, this has been understood to refer to the Father's being the Cause of the other two divine persons.

[ETA] I'm thinking of making a long post, going back, but I'm not sure.

[ 17. February 2006, 15:03: Message edited by: andreas1984 ]

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Here's a very long post. I thought it was important for me to make this post, so that my previous posts would not be misunderstood.

Allow me to go back to what we have been discussing a few pages ago, because I am not satisfied with the answers given.

For me there are two issues here: What is the Roman stance on the issue of filioque now, and what was the Roman stance on the issue in the past.

Ambiguity still exists as to what the Romans think, because even if they have expressed two meanings behind the verb 'proceed', they still think that there's something more than that.

As to the meanings of the verb 'proceed', I have to say that this makes difficult to see what the RCC believed in the past, because, in every instance where the word 'proceed' is found, the Romans can argue that they don't really mean "ekporefsis".

However, I feel that this is not the case. I think that the issue is theological, not political.

I'm saying this, because there have been councils in the East, and the Romans that presented their theses, used the verb "ekporevomai" and made it clear that they were talking about "Who the Cause of the Holy Spirit is". That is, both Romans that knew Greek and Greeks that became Latins, used the verb "ekporevomai" when talking to the Greeks.

Moreover, it has been said that the Greeks were in heresy, as far as the double procession of the Spirit is concerned.

This is why I think it is important to have a clear understanding of what the Romans believe now, and make serious research as to what they believed in the past. The documents the two churches exchanged, and the documents on what took place in the synods that dealt with the matter are going to play an important role in that.

In my view, Rome realizes that things are not what She believed them to be, and tries to see what She can do, because there are differences on the issue. Yet, She cannot reject her tradition. Could Rome have been wrong on that issue for centuries? Can Rome admit She was wrong for centuries? Will Rome propose an "OK, there are historically two traditions on the issue, but this is no reason for schism" approach? Can such an approach be accepted?

The document I linked to above, a joint suggestion by bishops of both churches, writes: "It appears that the Spanish bishops and King Reccared believed at that time that the Greek equivalent of Filioque was part of the original creed of Constantinople, and apparently understood that its purpose was to oppose Arianism by affirming the intimate relationship of the Father and Son." Can this be the beginning of an error? Does the addition have to be valid, eventhough those that first made it did so on wrong assumptions?

It is also written in that document that "the belief of some Westerners that it was, in fact, part of the original creed." and "Third, however, and of particular significance for later Western theology, was the so-called Athanasian Creed (Quicunque). Thought by Westerners to be composed by Athanasius of Alexandria, this Creed probably originated in Gaul about 500," Can the issue of filioque be the result of wrong assumptions by many people in the West?

It is also written that "Within this text, the Carolingian view of the Filioque also was emphasized again. Arguing that the word Filioque was part of the Creed of 381, the Libri Carolini reaffirmed the Latin tradition that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and rejected as inadequate the teaching that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son." Can "the growing rivalry between the Carolingian and Byzantine courts" be the cause for a wrong addition in the Creed?

"While Leo III affirmed the orthodoxy of the term Filioque, and approved its use in catechesis and personal professions of faith, he explicitly disapproved its inclusion in the text of the Creed of 381, since the Fathers of that Council - who were, he observes, no less inspired by the Holy Spirit than the bishops who had gathered at Aachen - had chosen not to include it." Why did the God-bearer fathers at the second ecumenical council chose "not to include it"?

a few notes from the document: "In contrast, other Greek words, such as proienai, “go forward,” are frequently used by the Eastern Fathers to refer to the Spirit’s saving “mission” in history from the Father and the risen Lord."

"The Greek and Latin theological traditions clearly remain in some tension with each other on the fundamental issue of the Spirit’s eternal origin as a distinct divine person." and "These differences, though subtle, are substantial, and the very weight of theological tradition behind both of them makes them all the more difficult to reconcile theologically with each other."

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
But I agree with your point about the Holy Spirit: we HAVE tended to underemphasise the Holy Spirit

What were the reasons for that?

Posted by Leetle Masha (# 8209) on :

Thanks for the info, Fr. Gregory.

Now I feel like a better-instructed Greek! [Biased]

Leetle M.

Posted by Leetle Masha (# 8209) on :

Welcome, noneen! I am not sure of the distinction between essence, substance and nature...but I love what you said about the three persons in the Trinity not "threatening" one another!

If they did something like that, we'd surely have more than one God, and not my favourite kind of god either.... A god who fusses all the time is going to fuss at me. That would be extremely annoying.

Best wishes,

Leetle M.

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Andreas,

In all charity, I have to say that I'm not really going to answer your last post, for various reasons.

(1) Most of the issues you raise have already been discussed; Lent is drawing nearer in the Gregorian calendar, and I have not the energy to restate things I have said before; plus, I think most others would be bored of hearing it again.

(2) It seems to me more than a little... well, paranoid, for definite want of a weaker term to the same effect, in certain respects:

quote:
Originally posted by Andreas:

As to the meanings of the verb 'proceed', I have to say that this makes difficult to see what the RCC believed in the past, because, in every instance where the word 'proceed' is found, the Romans can argue that they don't really mean "ekporefsis".

quote:
Orinigally posted by IngoB:

I would still appreciate if you could tell us what in your opinion some distinctly Western fundamentals of Trinitarian doctrine are, which the East will have to come to terms with prior to a final agreement.

For me, these two quotes are identical in effect; i.e. neither of you will ever make any ecumenical progress since you have both decided the other to be in the wrong, come what me. You (personally - Andreas) have decided that the West is in Heresy, and no amount of arguing (and 6 pages is a mighty amount, to which you yourself only a page or so ago gave consent, and admitted that you were amazed by the results!!) will change that, perhaps. I hope not, however...

It seems me that the one thing that Ecumenism most needs, theology aside, is good faith; without that, we might as well pack up now, and go home; there's simply no point in proceeding (pardon the pun). Let us pray to God that we will be given this good faith. I think that the East needs to be open to the idea that the Latins may not be in Heresy on this issue; if you have already decided that we are, and are deaf to our explanations, or (worse still) that we are just trying to change our story to make ourselves look good or blemishless, then I'm afraid I think that betrays a certain amount of ecclesial sklerocardia (hardness of heart, even in modern-English!!) which is (a) Unchristian and (b) makes ecumenism unworkable. Sorry.

(3) I've seen no evidence of these famous councils. The only council of reunion that I can find is that of Basel (Florence) at which, Orthodox opinions aside, it can not be sustained that the Latins intended ekporeusis. In fact, the document explains the contrary.

(4)

quote:
In my view, Rome realizes that things are not what She believed them to be, and tries to see what She can do, because there are differences on the issue. Yet, She cannot reject her tradition. Could Rome have been wrong on that issue for centuries? Can Rome admit She was wrong for centuries? Will Rome propose an "OK, there are historically two traditions on the issue, but this is no reason for schism" approach? Can such an approach be accepted?

I'm afraid I put this in the same category as that quote of IngoB's I cited above: I think this betrays a certain attitude of wanting the Latins to jump through hoops, to show who's boss (or may even who's NOT boss). I think this neither helpful nor Christian.

(5) Who cares what Charlemagne thought? He's only as much a part of the Western Church as I am, with all due respect.

(6)

quote:
Why did the God-bearer fathers at the second ecumenical council chose "not to include it"?

Just because they didn't include it doesn't mean that they chose not to include it. This is like saying that the Nicean Creed is dodgy because they hadn't decided upon it at the council of Jerusalem!

(7)

quote:
"The Greek and Latin theological traditions clearly remain in some tension with each other on the fundamental issue of the Spirit’s eternal origin as a distinct divine person." and "These differences, though subtle, are substantial, and the very weight of theological tradition behind both of them makes them all the more difficult to reconcile theologically with each other."

And the novelty is? The Greek and Latin theological traditions have been in tension with each other on most issues since the very beginning, including in the united Church! So what?! Every productive aspect of the Church's life involves some tension. If there weren't tension, it wouldn't really be worth concerning oneself with.

So, after that non-reply, I bid you all good evening!

Blessings,

Pontifical.

P.S. Andreas: if you could call me Pontifical, it would avoid mistaking me with Ian Climacus. Not that I want to accuse you of using "Ian" just so that if you accidentally refer to the wrong one, you can say at the end that it was all just a mistaken word!! [Yipee]

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:
Just because they didn't include it doesn't mean that they chose not to include it.

The joint document said that they chose not to include it! It was not my opinion!

Dear Pontifical,

thanks for not replying to my post. I wrote it mainly for the readers of the thread so that my opinion would be clearer.

I said that I was impressed by the results of this thread, yes, but then, I read that joint document, and it is said that there are substantial differences between the two churches as far as the issue of filioque is concerned!

Also, I found it odd that they remove the anathema towards those that "do not accept that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son". If the meaning of the verb "proceed" was what you said, then they wouldn't need to annul that anathema.

Take care!

Andreas

Posted by Pontifical (# 9875) on :

Oh for the nth time, but who cares:

Andreas!

I don't know of any such joint document coming out of both Churches from the highest level. If you do: then good.

Secondly, if (1) your anathema is/was towards those who believe in the filioque in terms of "ekporeusis" and the Latins it seems don't believe that and (2) our anathema is/was towards those who don't believe in the filioque in terms of "proienai" and you do believe in that, then it seems perfectly logical to me that both anathemas be revoked.

I mean, we could have an anathema against those who don't believe the Bible to be inspired, but it would be a bit pointless...

Sorry. I just can't repeat the same explanations again!

Pontifical.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

I was talking about this:

http://www.usccb.org/seia/filioque.htm

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pontifical:

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I would still appreciate if you could tell us what in your opinion some distinctly Western fundamentals of Trinitarian doctrine are, which the East will have to come to terms with prior to a final agreement.
I find this sort of point incredible... it's almost as if you're suggesting we should come up with some obstacles, just so the Eastern's have got some hoops to jump through! I find that an astonishing thing to say... I think we are all agreed that there are enough obstacles already, thanks.

quote:
Originally posted by andreas1984:
As to the meanings of the verb 'proceed', I have to say that this makes difficult to see what the RCC believed in the past, because, in every instance where the word 'proceed' is found, the Romans can argue that they don't really mean "ekporefsis".
For me, these two quotes are identical in effect; i.e. neither of you will ever make any ecumenical progress since you have both decided the other to be in the wrong, come what me. You (personally - Andreas) have decided that the West is in Heresy, and no amount of arguing (and 6 pages is a mighty amount, to which you yourself only a page or so ago gave consent, and admitted that you were amazed by the results!!) will change that, perhaps. I hope not, however...

Frankly, this is ridiculous. For the umpteenth time, I'm in full agreement with all the statements from Rome, including the PCPCU document. Which means, and I have said so repeatedly, that as far as I'm concerned the Orthodox position is entirely valid. Therefore, for me the "filioque" issue is history, done, bye bye and good riddance. This is hardly andreas1984's position concerning the Latin understanding. The remaining obstacles are in my opinion all of the kind that the Orthodox won't allow for some Latin position on the Trinity. Now, if there are no such obstacles in fact, then that need be said and argued (in particular to the Orthodox, who quite definitely think otherwise). But if there are such obstacles, then they need to be named and spelled out in detail. Only then can ecumencial progress occur. Pretending that these obstacles do not exist, ignoring them, glossing over them, that's what is holding progress back. The Orthodox are not going to be sweet-talked into unity, and if they were, then yet another schism in the future would be inevitable.

Now, I still have not got the foggiest what if anything you and Triple Tiara consider as Latin heritage which could represent such an obstacle. If you don't think there are any, please simply say so. I have repeatedly pointed to Augustinian "unitive love" as a potential obstacle. I do not think that it represents just imagery of secondary importance to the West. JPII's use of it, documented by me above, is just the latest in a very long tradition. The PCPCU mentions it in the very accord-seeking document (sort of a "nudge, nudge" hint, really). On the other hand, His Grace John Zizioulas, Metropolitan of Pergamon and our very own Fr Gregory and josephine also picked on it as a "serious problem". I think it's a good candidate for actual future ecumenic progress, which will only be possible if everybody puts their cards on the table first. Pretending that we are done when we are not is not going to help one bit.

Fr Gregory, there's a very simple reason for Christocentrism: we are creatures with bodies, and Christ is the Divine Person who incarnated as a human being. Hence it's entirely natural for us to relate more strongly to Christ. I expect that this will even be the case in heaven, given the bodily resurrection.

andreas1984, this document from the USCCB is not binding for the whole RCC. It's at best a means of preparing the way for progress at higher levels. Unfortunately, I've read at least one RC critiques of this document by an RC theology expert (I don't know why, but I can't find that one either again - my Google skills seem to be sorely lacking of late...). Given the rather mixed track record of the USCCB vs. Rome, I wouldn't put too much weight on this particular document.

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

Hang on - my name crept in in the middle there somewhere, not as a footnote this time - but I didn't miss it!

What Pontifical and I started out agreeing on and pointing out to andreas1984 pages ago, IngoB, was precisely what you are now asking us to do. Namely, there is a very good reason for the West's insistence on including the Son in reference to the Spirit. You say:

quote:
that as far as I'm concerned the Orthodox position is entirely valid.

Good. We are agreed. We have been saying that there is a consistency between the East (valid) and the West (valid). That the East seem to have understood filioque in a way the West has not. In other words, let us tell you what we mean. Let us show you how our filioque is consistent with your not having a filioque. But let's go a bit further and discuss not just how we can give space to both as complementary but find one common expression.

It ain't going to happen, of course, because too much pride is at stake on both sides. But at least some of us can talk about it.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Triple Tiara, what about this statement, that the Catholic and the Orthodox bishops in America made:

quote:
The Greek and Latin theological traditions clearly remain in some tension with each other on the fundamental issue of the Spirit’s eternal origin as a distinct divine person. By the Middle Ages, as a result of the influence of Anselm and Thomas Aquinas, Western theology almost universally conceives of the identity of each divine person as defined by its “relations of opposition” – in other words, its mutually defining relations of origin - to the other two, and concludes that the Holy Spirit would not be hypostatically distinguishable from the Son if the Spirit “proceeded” from the Father alone. In the Latin understanding of processio as a general term for “origin,” after all, it can also be said that the Son “proceeds from the Father” by being generated from him. Eastern theology, drawing on the language of John 15.26 and the Creed of 381, continues to understand the language of “procession” (ekporeusis) as denoting a unique, exclusive, and distinctive causal relationship between the Spirit and the Father, and generally confines the Son’s role to the “manifestation” and “mission” of the Spirit in the divine activities of creation and redemption. These differences, though subtle, are substantial, and the very weight of theological tradition behind both of them makes them all the more difficult to reconcile theologically with each other.

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

That says pretty much what I am trying to say andreas - that there is a tension but that there is room for manouevre.

We will not simply abandon filioque, you will not simply accept it. The groundwork as to why that is is what has been going on. You see, we need to move beyond misunderstanding to understanding first. That is how this particular thread was going between you and Pontifical. He was trying to explain a deep theological perspective on why he thought the East misunderstood what the West intended. I think the West has been listening very carefully and has an acute awareness of what the East's objections are. But it has found it difficult to allay the fears of the East. This kind of dialogue here has shown, however, that conversation CAN take place!

But there is no resolution yet. If there was, would we be discussing here? We are still trying to hear what the other is saying. This is why I alluded many posts back to the idea of saying in English "proceeds from the Father through the Son" rather than just "from the Father and the Son". But that is not yet agreed upon.

ahhh, the wonderful world of theology.

Posted by andreas1984 (# 9313) on :

Father, having read the document, I think that there are two traditions inside the Roman Church on the issue. One points out the double meaning of the verb "proceed". In the Son's sending the Spirit to the people, our churches agree. If this is all you mean with "proceed", like the Spirit sends the Son in the Virgin's womb, then we already agree.

But the other tradition (if I may speak of another tradition) says that the Spirit exists because of the Father and the Son. We disagree with this interpretation. This is not because of a misunderstanding; we disagree on theological grounds.

Posted by Triple Tiara (# 9556) on :

Yes, I see your point.

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :

Dear IngoB

I take the pastoral force of your explication of Christocentrism ... but that's an accommodation ... not a good base from which to theologise on the consubstantial equality and dignity of the hypostases. Minor point though ... I'll let it ride.

Posted by Dobbo (# 5850) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
(aside from loyalty to Rome that is).

Yes that great advocate of Roman Catholicism, John Calvin in his institutes said

quote:
For this reason, the Son is said to be of the Father only; the Spirit of both the Father and the Son. This is done in many passages, but in none more clearly than in the eighth chapter to the Romans, where the same Spirit is called indiscriminately the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of him who raised up Christ from the dead. And not improperly. For Peter also testifies (1 Pet. 1:21), that it was the Spirit of Christ which inspired the prophets, though the Scriptures so often say that it was the Spirit of God the Father.

see here

What I initially thought was that people could compromise for the sake of Christian unity and either drop the filioque or change and the Son to through the Son.

But this does not resolve the east west split

quote:
(10) At the same time, Lutherans are not prepared to regard the teaching that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as a heresy—a teaching against faith in the Holy Trinity. It is part of their confessional documents, and many of the chief teachers of the Lutheran tradition, including Luther himself, taught it vigorously. Lutheran recognition that the Filioque is not part of the Nicene Creed in its original and ecumenically binding form is not, therefore, to be equated with Lutheran rejection of all theological teaching which ascribes to the Son a role in the procession of the Holy Spirit, still less with an acknowledgment that all such teaching is heretical. Nevertheless, Lutherans are open to further exploration of the relation of the Spirit to the Son in conversation with Orthodox and in careful dialogue with their concerns.

web page

So it goes beyond just the issue of whether or not the creed needs changed back to its original.

Can the church be united when it disagrees - is there some common ground that both can come to - or will this not be resolved this side of eternity.

I am looking at this as an outsider as it were because I do not truly know enough to comment personally.

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :

My comment could easily have been:-

"aside from loyality to 'X'"

... where 'X' is any church.

I am deliberately marginalising in my own thinking any theologising whih aims merely at justifying the teaching of my own church whatever that church might be. Closed mind thinking can happen anywhere; in Rome, Orthodoxy, Protestantism ... anywhere.

(I am not accusing that of anyone here ... just, for me, ruling it out on principle).

The filioque does need resolving and can be resolved in my view.

[ 20. February 2006, 06:46: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]

Posted by Jonathan the Free (# 10612) on :

Why don't we compromise instead ?

Have the creed with the filoque on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sunday mornings, and without on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sunday afternoons ?

Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on :

[Killing me]

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