www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West ST JOHN DAMASCENE AND ST THOMAS AQUINAS ON THE ETERNAL PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Myles,

I think that what Augustini is concerned about is the identification of God's essence and His energies.

Now since Aquinas does not make a distinction between essence and energy in God, there is no difference between God's generation of the Son and His creation of the world. This either turns the Son into a creature, and one falls into Arianism, or it makes the world eternal, and one falls into pantheism.

Yes, the Vatican's clarification on the 'filioque' concerned the distinction between 'ekporeusis' and 'proienai', but I think that further clarification will be necessary. An energetic procession or manifestation of the Spirit from the Son makes sense to me, but I do not know if the Scholastic philosophical tradition the West can accept such a thing.

Ok let me try and wrap my head around this one...
I'm sleepy too so dont hit me. Still, I am eager to find out how St Aquinas' tridaology can be considered either Arian or pantheistic? The Doctor of Schools by no means makes the Son a creature nor does he make the world God. The Son's generation is proper to the internal relations within God's essence. Unlike the creation of the world which is external to that essence and not of neccessity. St Thomas argues that the only neccessity in God is for God to seek after Himself, since the neccesity in God is for good to seek for goodness. Why does God's simplicity make God a creator by neccessity?

Myles,

Thomas affirms the right view as a matter of faith that God has libertarian free-will with respect to creation. I am well aware of Thomas's ways of trying to deal with the problem as well with contemporary literature on the topic (Stump, Leftow, Kretzmann, et al). You can see Thomas really struggle with this issue on the Disputed Questions on Truth 6 & 7, he just doesn't have another metaphysical category to articulate the contingent character of creation. Potency won't do, since God is pure act for Thomas. This is where his metaphysics runs out of gas in my opinion. This whole problem has traction of its own in Philosophy of Religion in the past 25 years, and they aren't reading Romanides, Lossky, Zizoulas, et al. A good critigue of Aquinas's view of simplicity is A Complex Theory of a Simple God by Christopher Hughes, Cornell University. Hughes doesn't have a solution to the problem that is adequate (He probably isn't aware that the East has a different idea about simplicity).

I'm not saying Thomas is a heretic at all, because he'll stand with the truth before ever conceeding to the logical implications of his system. I just happen to think Maximus the Confessor gets around alot of these issues in his view of simplicity. Simplicity is a Christian doctrine, but I think there are better ways to handle it. Thanks for the dialogue though.

Christ is Risen!

Daniel

Palamas makes a distinction between essence and energy in God, while Aquinas holds that essence and energy are identical. For Palamas, following in the Athanasian and Maximian tradition, generation is a natural act of the Father, while creation is an energetic act of the three divine hypostases. To say that God's will and His essence are identical, as Aquinas asserts (Prima Pars, Q. 3, art. 4 & Q. 19, art. 1), is to confuse essence and energy, and that leads to either Arianism or pantheism, depending upon the case. The generation of the Son is not an act of the Father's will, rather it is a natural act of the Father whereby He generates the Son from His own essence, while creation is not an act of nature, but of divine will (i.e., divine energy), which is distinct from the divine essence. Palamas deals with this distinction in the "One-Hundred and Fifty Chapters," but sadly I do not have my copy on hand, because I'm getting ready to head back to California for summer break. I can post more on this topic when I get back home early next week.

Apotheon stated:
An energetic procession or manifestation of the Spirit from the Son makes sense to me, but I do not know if the Scholastic philosophical tradition the West can accept such a thing.

Actually I think that is exactly what you get, that is, in the Latin metaphysic all you get is a eternal manifestation or perichoresis. I think that was the main thrust of the post I did a while back.

On the level of substance the filioque is not heretical, and in fact quite necessary. As long as this is what is understood, I don't think there is a problem. It just needs to be balanced out with the Greek Triadological Model. I think the latest clarification goes to much length to try and have this understanding.

Regards,
Daniel

Perhaps I misunderstood your comments. I thought that by the word 'substance' you meant 'ousia' (essence), and I do not think that that is reconcilable with Palamism, but if by 'substance' you mean 'energy', then I can agree. I hold that essence, energy, and hypostasis, are distinct without ever being separated, but that the distinction is a real one, and not merely a logical or nominal one.

Apotheon,

When I say on the level of substance, I DID mean ousia. What this denotes is that this an act of the whole Trinity, whereby the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son back up through the Son to the Father: eternal manifestation or ETERNAL energetic procession. When I say 'on the level of ousia' this does NOT mean it's an act of the essence of the Father. That is on the 'level of hypostasis' and is a necessary act, i.e., the Holy Spirit is not contingent.

Here's what I stated in that post:

#2) ETERNAL energetic procession (also called eternal manifestation): from the Father through the Son. This is an act that is proper to all 3 persons. It is the common love expressed between the persons (energy): interpenetration and perechoresis. The best way to think of it is from the stand-point of God choosing not to create. Their would still be a manifestation of the Spirit through the Son that has an ontological and eternal aspect. This is an act of will (of love between the persons), so it is an act participated by all 3 persons.

Metropolitan John Zizoulas sums it up as follows in his critique of the Filioque Clarification: Another important point in the Vatican document is the emphasis it lays on the distinction between επόρευσις (ekporeusis)and processio. It is historically true that in the Greek tradition a clear distinction was always made between εκπορεύεσθαι (ekporeuesthai) and προείναι (proeinai), the first of these two terms denoting exclusively the Spirit's derivation from the Father alone, whereas προείναι (proienai) was used to denote the Holy Spirit's dependence on the Son owing to the common substance or ουσία (ousia) which the Spirit in deriving from the Father alone as Person or υπόστασις (hypostasis) receives from the Son, too, as ουσιωδώς (ousiwdws) that is, with regard to the one ουσία (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 ουσία (ousia), but not of υπόστασις (hypostasis).

and later...

�Constantinople accused Pope St. Martin of believing that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, a statement the Pope allegedly wrote in a synodical letter. Knowledge of this event comes from a fragment of a letter by Maximus the Confessor to the priest Marinus. If this letter is authentic, which is here assumed, it is most noteworthy. Maximus writes that the "synodical letter of the present Pope" was challenged by Constantinople on two issues, one of which concerned the Pope's statement that "the Holy Spirit proceeds also from the Son." When Maximus questioned the Latins about this, they appealed to the Latin Fathers and "even to St. Cyril of Alexandria's Commentary on the Gospel of John." Maximus, however, does his best to interpret the Latin doctrine of the Filioque along Greek patristic lines, claiming that the Latins were "far from making the Son the cause of the Spirit, for they recognize the Father as the one cause of the Son and of the Spirit; the former by generation, the latter by procession." Maximus then states that the Latin Filioque was an attempt to "express the Spirit's going forth through the Son" and thus to establish *the oneness and inseperable unity of their substance.* (PG 91, 136) Maximus also states that he admonished the Romans to be more cautious in the future.��Richard Haugh, Photius and the Carolingians, pp. 32-33.

Daniel

BTW- please forgive my use of 'participation' there, I'm using it in a very loose sense. It is a big no-no to use the word participation with respect to a divine person as it would seem to imply some kind of Arianism.

Daniel

I agree with most of what you've posted, but the thing that concerns me is the idea that the 'substance' (ousia) is manifested; my understanding of the distinction between essence and energy is that the essence is utterly transcendent, and that only the energies are manifested. Although the energies are the essential energies of the Triune God, an essence cannot manifest itself, only a person can. Thus the essential energies are enhypostatic, that is, the divine energies are the enhypostatic enactments of the divine essence by the three divine hypostases, distinct from the essence, but without ever being separated from it. But nevertheless the divine essence itself is never manifested, only the divine energy that shines forth from the three divine hypostases is manifested.

It is possible that the difference between what we are thinking and saying is only a matter of semantics.

What you say is true with respect to create being, but I don't think it is irrespective of creation and with respect to the divine persons. The persons manifest the essence through and in each other, and I think this is what the idea of interpenetration of the persons is meant to capture in the patristic doctrine of perichoresis. It is energetic because it involves power and agency: for "the natural energy is the power to manifest every essence." Triads III.ii.7

I concur with your metaphysical distinction of essence and energy. The energies are first and foremost principles and agencies. This gives God the libertarian freedom to love himself, irrespective of his choice to create, in many (infinite) ways.

I'm enjoying our gentle joust.

Best Regards,
Daniel

I think we are basically in agreement, but I don't normally think of the divine essence as 'proceeding'; instead, I think of the hypostases of the Son and Spirit as proceeding, and they do this while possessing the whole divine essence through perichoresis. As Palamas said, "When you hear it said that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both, because He proceeds essentially from the Father through the Son, you should understand the pouring out of the essential powers and energies of God, but not that the divine Spirit is imparted." [Logos Apodeiktikos II, 20] The way that I interpreted this comment was that Palamas was clarifying the comments of earlier Fathers as it concerns the procession of the Spirit. In other words, when it is said that the Spirit essentially proceeds from the Father and the Son, it actually means that there is an energetic procession from the Son, but not a hypostatic or essential one. But perhaps this text concerns the economic order and not the inner life of the Triune God.

Wow, havent you two been busy hehe. Your comments are quite interesting. I still cant understand properly why St Thomas' system would result in Arianism or pantheism. Perhaps I am a bit slow.

I thoroughly agree with you Augustini about the level of eternal procession and indeed thats what I find in Thomas in Part 1 Q36. If I understand you correctly then you are weary of St Thomas' suggestion that there is indeed neccessity in God: namely the neccessity for God to love Himself?

It sounds to me from reading you that we're pretty much on the same page. I dont actually see how the way St Thomas explains relational opposites in the Summa Theologiae is contradictory to this statement:

But if I am reading wrongly please correct me.

Thanks for your help guys
Myles

The divine persons are not simply 'relations of opposition', rather they are relations of origin, and the Son and the Spirit take their origin solely from the Father, who is the font of Godhead. Thus, I cannot agree with Aquinas when he says:

The 'property' of spiration belongs to the Father alone, for it is not a 'substantial' or 'essential' property, but is instead a hypostatic property of the Father. To say that the Son spirates the Holy Spirit is to confuse the Father and the Son, destroying their hypostatic distinction. The Father is the sole principle, source, and cause of Godhead, and as such He is the sole principle, source, and cause of the existential origin of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, using Thomas' own argument, one could argue that as the Father, Son, and Spirit are one God; by reason of the unity of the form that is signified by this word "God"; so the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one principle of the Spirit by reason of the unity of the property that is signified in this word "principle." But this is clearly non-sense, for then the Spirit would be the principle of His own spiration.

Again as far as the problem of Arianism and pantheism is concerned, because Thomas confuses essence, existence, and energies in God, saying that God's existence and His energies (i.e., operations or attributes) are identical with His essence, he makes the natural act of generation and the energetic act of creation identical, and as a consequence the Son's eternal generation is no different than the act of will whereby God creates the world. Thus, the Son either becomes a creature, and one falls into Arianism, or one must say that the world is eternally generated from God and is essentially divine. St. Gregory Palamas goes over all of this in his treatise "The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters," and if I have time I will try to copy out some of the pertinent information and post it here.