www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Filioque clarification

True enough, but there is nothing fundamental or original about this beginning.

Water proceeds to, through, and from my garden hose, but its "principal, immediate, and proper" (words form the "Clarification") source or origin is my well.

Some criticism of the "Clarification" is linked specifically to the question of fundamental and unique origin/source. This idea is not conveyed properly in the English text.

djs

+ Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy and save us - Amen!

Bless, Reverend Father,

Ah, now you've hit on the important issue that actually led to the inclusion of the Filioque in Spain, as you mentioned.

The West felt that the parallel actions of spirating and begetting were, of themselves, insufficient to allow the Spirit to be differentiated from the Son - and so the whole thing about reducing the Persons to their internal relations, Filioque 101.

Another issue is that when St Mark of Ephesus was presented with the testimonies of the Western Fathers concerning the Filioque, he refused to acknowledge them and simply said the Latins had "corrupted them."

He said this because, I think, he wasn't sure what the use of the Filioque meant in the West and that there cannot be any contradiction between the mutually acclaimed Orthodox Catholic Fathers of East and West - since it is the same Spirit that inspires them.

Meyendorff himself felt that Mark failed intellectually in this respect . . .

One can also think of "through" as simply not having a source at all, but being a "gate" through which one goes from another, true source.

For example, one could say that, in devotional life, he or she is going to Christ. Or, they could say they are going to the Mother of God.

Both are correct and theologically defensible, since both paths lead to Christ, whether one goes to Him directly or "through" the Mother of God and her intercession and guidance.

John of Damascus' allegories in this respect show that the Son is NOT a point of Origin for the Spirit e.g. the Father is the Source (of water) the Son is the river and the Spirit is the ocean into which the water flows; The Father is the sun, the Son - the rays, the Spirit the warmth that is generated etc.

Anyway, I think we agree on the essentials and we can leave the rest to Petrus and djs.

Alex

This excerpt is from the book "The Spirit of God" (now out of print) by Fr. Thomas Hopko, 1976, Morehouse-Barlow Co.

---
According to the Orthodox faith, the Holy Spirit proceeds from God the Father alone, and not from the Father �and the Son� even as if �from one source.�

But when the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he
will bear witness to me. John 15:26

But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all the things, and bring to your
remembrance all that I have said to you. John 14:26

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. John 16:13

According to the saints, one of the truths that the Spirit of truth reveals is his own divinity and that of the Son, thus showing the proper relationship between the Persons of the Holy Trinity, and their relationship to humanity and the world. (Cf. Gregory the Theologian, Fifth Theological Oration, On the 1-loly Spirit.) What one comes to know in the Spirit is that the one true and living God is the one God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He alone is the �one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth� in whom Christians believe. (Nicene Creed)

This one, true, and living God is manifested through his Son by his Spirit as the unique source of all that exists�including the Son and the Spirit themselves, who are not �creatures,� but who, necessarily and essentially, share the same divine being and life of the Father himself. This means, according to the Orthodox faith, that God would not be God without his Son and his Spirit. He would not be perfect, complete, and divine without them. He would not be the true God.

This is a crucial revelation about God and the character of his divine reality, being, and life, because it tells us that God is not and could not be God �all by himself.� It tells us that God would not be the superabundant, supra-essential perfection of virtue and life
�that he would not be love�if he were alone in his divinity.

In the view of the Christian Scripture and saints, a monad God is not a God at all. A uni-personal deity is no deity; it is not perfect and divine. By God�s own report, a one-person God would not and could not be divine and complete. He would be absolutely alone, absolutely isolated, absolutely self-centered, absolutely locked up in the bounds of his own �perfection��which would, thereby, not be �perfection� at all.

The perfect God shows us, in his self-manifestation by his Word and Spirit, that his divine nature is essentially self-communicating, self-expressing, and self-sharing. The essential self-communication and self-expression of God results in the eternal existence of God�s divine Son�his Word and Image�and God�s Holy Spirit. Both are divinely perfect, for both are identically and exactly what God the Father is, yet are not who He is, being personally distinct. This is the meaning of the term �consubstantial� (or �of one essence��homoousios) in the church�s creedal confession about the only-begotten Son and the life creating Spirit. The Son and the Spirit are not �creatures.� They are essentially and eternally divine with the Father. They are exactly and identically what the Father is. But they are not the Father himself.

The Spirit of God, in his own unique and personal �mode of existence� (St. Basil�s expression), is distinct from God the Father and the Son in that the Spirit is the divine person who �proceeds from the Father,� in a manner similar to the �eternal generation!� of the Son from the Father, but not the same, because he is God�s Spirit and not God�s Son. St. Gregory the Theologian makes this point quite clearly. The person of the Son is uniquely the �express image� of the Father�s hypostasis (his divine person), (Cf. Hebrews 1:3). And the person of the Holy Spirit is the one whose divine �mode of existence� is to be God�s living and personal Spirit�and not his Son. The Spirit of God exists eternally as the the divine person, one of the Holy Trinity, to be the hypostatic realization of the living character of God the Father, the One who personally expresses and communicates the infinite and innumerable multiplicity of divine activities and energies which belong to God�s supra-essential, superabundantly inexhaustible pleroma of being and life, which is wholly and perfectly �imaged� and �contained� in the person of the Son. The Holy Spirit, therefore, does not and cannot possibly proceed from the Father �and the Son.� He must proceed from the Father alone as the Scripture says, the Father who is alone the unique �source of divinity� (principium divinitatis) of both the Son and the Holy Spirit.

It is important for us to see this and to confess it plainly. Man�s proper vision of the triune God demands it. For as St. Athanasius has said, the true and living God is the Father alone. The personal divine realization of the Father is the Son�the truth and the life, �who for us men and for our salvation. . . was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, And was made man.� (Nicene Creed) And the Holy Spirit is the personal Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of Life, the �Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father� (Nicene Creed) and who, through Christ, fills all creation with all the fulness of God. It is exactly about this that the faithful sing on the great and final feast of Pentecost in the church; the day when the Spirit of God comes to make all people children of God the Father through His Son Jesus
Christ:

The Holy Spirit has ever been,
Is and always will be.
ForHe is wholly without beginning and end.
Yet He is in union with the Father and the Son.
Life and Life-Giver,
Light and Light-Giver.
Good by nature and the Fountain of Goodness.
Through Whom the Father is known and the Son is glorified.
And by all it is understood that One Power, One Rank,
One Worship are of the Holy Trinity.

Light, Life and A Living Supersensible Fountain is the Holy Spirit. Good, Upright, Supersensible Spirit of Understanding.

Presiding and Purifying.
Divine and Deifying.
Fire projecting from Fire.
Speaking, Active, Distributor of Gifts.
Through Whom all of the prophets, apostles and martyrs are
crowned.
A Strange Report:
A Strange Sight:
A Fire divided for the distribution of gifts.
[Vesper Hymns of Pentecost]

Sometimes, it is said that God is the Father, God is the Son, and God is the Holy Spirit. Wrongly understood�as it often is�this is misleading and inaccurate. It gives the impression that there is one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, either at one and the same time; or even worse, successively and at different times; or worse yet, merely in appearance in his action toward men and the world. The impression is that there is but one God who somehow expresses himself in three different forms, but who �in himself� is one. It is an attempt to save the divine unity, while being faithful to the �revelation� of the Trinity. (Cf. St. Augustine, On The Trinity) This well-meant attempt is fundamentally wrong and has caused great damage to man�s vision of God and all reality in him, not to mention great division among Christians.

The one God of faith is God the Father. There is one God because there is one Father, says St. Gregory the Theologian. And this one God is perfect and divine, true and living, Love itself, because he has with him by nature his only-begotten Son and his most Holy Spirit. Through the Son (begotten of the Father) and the Spirit (proceeding from the Father) the one true God is shown to be and becomes the Father of men, who address him as Abba!

.... we were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe. But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of
woman. . . .so that we might be made sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'" [Gal 4:3-6]

So God is not a sterile monad, an abstract essence, an impersonal absolute, a unipersonal substance, a chief spirit among many spirits, a supreme being in a long chain of beings, He is not �one God manifested as Trinity.� He is�supra-essentially and superabundantly, beyond human comprehension�God the Father who is love, who through the �Son of his love� (Colossians 1:13) pours his love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans5:5)
This is what the Spirit himself manifests to us in the life of the church. It is the knowledge of God for which we were created. For to refer to St. Athanasius once more:

For what profit is it to creatures if they did not know their Creator? Or how could they be rational without knowing the Father�s Word in Whom they received their very being? For there would be nothing to distinguish them from brute creatures if they had knowledge of
nothing but earthly things.. No, why did God make them at all if He did not wish to be known by them ?For this, lest it should be so, being good, He gives them a share in His own Image, our Lord Jesus Christ, and makes them after His likeness, so that by grace, f the Spirit], perceivingthe Image, that is, the Word of theFather, they may be able through Him to know the Father, and knowing their Maker, live the happy and truly blessed life.

So it is that we have the knowledge of God, whom no one has ever seen, or can see, shining from the face of Christ in the Holy Spirit.

And we all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into His likeness from one degree of glory to another' for this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

For it is God who said, "let light shine out of the darkness," Who has sone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. [1 Cor 3:18; 4:6]

It is in the person of Christ, the incarnate Son of God, that the Spirit of God who proceeds from the Father is most fully revealed.
--

Yes, but in the case of the Father, in relation to the Son and the Spirit, there most certainly is. Sorry about the poor analogy.

Priest Thomas

+ Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us - Amen!

Bless, Father,

Yes, thank you for that beautiful passage!

You will be happy to know that we Orthodox in communion with Rome concur wholeheartedly!

I agree with the Fathers (!) that the Father is the Origin of the Son and the Spirit and that Begetting and Proceeding are distinct from each other and are more than sufficient to distinguish the Son from the Spirit.

When the Romans say they see the Spirit being passively emanated from the Son - coming from the Father through Him, - I take them at their word.

While the Filioque does not belong in the Creed, perhaps Orthodoxy could appreciate other theological traditions and see there is more than one way to express the Orthodox Faith?

Just thinking out loud . . .

Alex

To me, the Hopko passage (who is a dogmatic theologian) shows that there is no room for the filioque in any understanding of it. The very crucial point he is trying to make, and it shouldn't be missed, is encapsulated in the statements that he quoted: "The true and living God is the Father alone." (St. Athanasius); "The one God of faith is God the Father." (Hopko); "There is one God because there is one Father." (Gregory the Theologian).

Everything that the Spirit and the Son is comes from the Father. Yes, there is a relationship between the Spirit and the Son. The Spirit "testifies" of the Son, the Son "sends" the Spirit. But in relation to the source of both the Son begotten and the Spirit proceeding, the Father alone has this relationship with them. This is why they are the "hands of the Father."

And so I would even be as bold as to answer one of your previous questions and say, no, an Orthodox Christian may not believe the filioque privately. It is a dogmatic issue. The dogmatic faith of an Orthodox Christian must be the faith of the Church.

I know that a tremendous attempt has been made to "clarify" the Catholic understanding of the filioque. The best clarification would be to remove it from the creed, if they truly to not believe it in the way it reads. Many will scoff at that, and I applaud at least the action of Eastern Catholics to remove it. However, there is clearly a disconnect between not saying it in the creed, but still defeding it with "clarifications."

Priest Thomas

Thank you Father for the lovely passage.

One point that I would quibble with is this:
I don't think that either the scripture or the early Fathers "say" that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone. This extrapolation is too reminiscent of the "justified by faith alone" addition to go without comment.

More importantly, this article does not address the equivocal meaning of "proceed". So let me quote from St. Maximus the COnfessor on precisely this point in his defence of Pope Martin's teaching on the Filioque:

While awareness of this semantical problem goes back to St Maximus, apparently the assumption that "proceed" necessarily implicates fundamental origin (aitian) like "ekporeusis" - rather than also entailing action beginning at or continuing from some selected point (proienai) - proceeds unabated. I think that the "Clarification" is clear on this point of origin, but...?

Overall, I think the best statement on this problem is from first article proposed and accedpted at the Union of Brest:

Bless me a sinner, Father!

I do agree, as does the Pope (I asked him privately) that the Filioque should be removed from the Creed.

But until an official statement from the Orthodox whomever comes out that the Filioque as a theologoumenon is a heresy, like Arianism and Nestorianism, and cannot be held privately by any Orthodox Christian . . .

I'll continue to insist the Filioque be removed from the Creed . . .

Have a nice day!

(You are a feisty one! I'd love to hear one of your sermons. Next time I'm in town, I'll look you up!).

Alex

Dear Father Thomas:

Now you throw me for a loop:

First, the Hopko passage simply does not address "any understanding of it", in particular, it skips right over the understanding of it made by St. Maximos the Confessor.

Second, I thought that the crucial point was this:

djs

Alex, you are welcome to visit anytime. I hope that you do not think that I am being argumentative with you or anyone on the board in anyway - I am not. I'm simply stating the Orthodox position. I hope that you find me to be reasonable and even handed.

Regarding my sermons, no need to wait. You can hear them now at the sermons page on our Church\'s website [stnicholas-oca.org] . [/shameless plug off]

Priest Thomas

Well, first he dismisses the filioque outright by saying that the the procession is "not from the Father 'and the Son.'" Later, he also dismisses the doctrine of the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son "as from one source." Is this not the Catholic understanding? If so, then he dismisses any understanding of it. Are there more?

God the Father is God alone "as the Source." However, the Son and the Spirit are from Him, the come from Him, eternally speaking.

Priest Thomas

Bless, Father Thomas!

Yo da Man!

I like your style!

If everyone "argued" like you do here, the Administrator would only have to worry about avatars!

Which would you choose for yourself, by the way?

Alex

OK, I chose St. Nicholas. Even more than for the obvious reason that he's the patron of our beloved parish, he reminds me that sometimes, the only way to settle a theological argument is, well... OK, I won't go there.

Priest Thomas

Yes I agree. He "dimisses" it. Unlike St. Maximos, he does not in any way undertake to understand or address the language or the theological perspectives. On this level, his statement can thus be included as another example of how "we do not wish to understand one another". Too bad.

Bless, Reverend Father,

Well, in that case, I'll hold djs if you'll hit him!

A uniate joining with an Orthodox priest to beat up another uniate.

That's where TRUE ecumenism begins, I would say!

God bless, djs!

And bless me a sinner, Reverend Father - I'm about to drink a lot of beer with my colleagues at work!!

Alex