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Hello everyone, its me again. I have finished going through all of the posts, and there were certain key posts that I wanted to respond to or that caused me to want to ask some more questions. Rather than make a whole bunch of separate posts, I have just copied and pasted the parts of the various posts that I wanted to respond to, into this one post. My response or question will immediately follow the quote.

<<Is this simply western opinion or truth? If it is truth, is there a line dividing east and west over which this truth becomes only suspect opinion. Perhaps it's my Latin mindset, but, the thought that a truth in the west is not a truth in the east is troublesome. If there is no agreement on the level of doctrine is there really true unity? Any help here would be most gratefully appreciated.>>

I have to agree with this. How can something be true in the East but not in the West? To my line of thinking, that means two different Christian realities existing at the same time, and such a thing is impossible. I also agree that unity seems rather difficult if there isn't some sort of agreement on doctrine, doesn't St. Paul teach us in Sacred Scripture that we must all be in agreement? It seems that a lack of agreement can very easily translate into a lack of unity.

<<Question 2: I am uncomfortable with this formulation because it seems to make Christ's coming as the Savior unnecessary.>>

This is also the way I feel. Many of the Eastern opinions on even WHAT Original Sin is in the West do not match with what I have been taught as a Latin Catholic and almost seem to stem from a misunderstanding of words like "Stain" and "Guilt" concerning Original Sin. To me, Original Sin is not about something we are born WITH (i.e. "guilt"), but it is about something we are born WITHOUT, and that would be the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the gift of Grace and friendship with God. Such a shadowy absence or void could be seen as a "stain" in a negative sense, not a positive sense.

<<So from the Eastern perspective, Baptism is about restoring life to the dead.>>

This is exactly how I was taught as a Western Christian. Hmmm.

<<What Orthodox don't like is the idea that Mary's sinlessness was not the product of this kind of synergy, but was as a result of her having a different quality of nature -- born immortal, not subject to the same tendency to sin as the rest of us are. >>

I think Eastern and Western views on immortality must be greatly different, because I am taught that every single human creature has an immortal soul, and that true death is damnation or separation from God OF that soul. Latin Catholics believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary was created in the same state of Grace that Adam and Eve were created, that Adam and Eve were "immaculate conceptions", if you will, but that Christ and His Mother Mary alone were Immaculately Conceived since the Fall (although St. John the Baptist might have been rendered immaculate while in his Mother's womb sometime after his conception), and that in Mary's case, it was the anticipated merits of her Son's death on the Cross that resulted in her immaculate conception (and John's possible cleansing in his mother's womb). As I understand it, being conceived Immaculate certainly did NOT hinder Mary's ability to commit actual sin, just like it did NOT hinder Adam and Eve's ability to commit the Original Sin, but that it sure did aid her, as she was full of Grace to over flowing, and Mary was called, by the Angel, "Full of Grace" BEFORE the Incarnation of Our Lord and BEFORE the Spirit overshadowed her, so that she must have been filled with grace to overflowing before those events took place. Why not at her conception?

<<What we've been a bit reticent in affirming for fear of somehow doing damage to the Eastern tradition (!) is that the Most Holy Theotokos was not only born with an absence of the "stain" of any sin and all that that implies as Lance said, but that She was sanctified from Her very beginning while in the womb of Her mother St Anne.

We know this because of the Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos, that She was born sanctified since only the feasts of Saints may be celebrated. (This is also why the Nativity of John the Baptist is celebrated too since He was sanctified in the womb of His mother at the Visitation, by tradition).>>

I did not know that Eastern Christians held such a view, thanks for sharing it (Western Catholics also believe that St. John was most likely sanctified in his mother's womb, but sometime after his conception). I will have to share this bit of information with a certain friend of mine. God bless you!

Your brother in Christ,
Rick Okarski, Jr.

Ahh... but you did so well.


I did not come to understand the trinity well at all, until I thought of it in terms of species. There are many humans but there is only one human nature.

There is only one God nature - and it is expressed in three persons (personalities).

The term �person� meaning personalities - is a word only valid for human experience. What God thinks of himself - is beyond or outside of our limited human words. The term �person� only has meaning as a human experience.

The �begetting� of the Son, only has meaning in the sphere of human experience (history) and this begetting is time bound (as we are). In eternity this begetting takes place always and never. It already took place and yet will take place. In other words - the term simply does not really apply except to point toward something which words alone can not relay.

In time experience, Christ was begotten when the Holy Spirit cast its shadow upon Mary (a Hebrew way of saying God�s image and likeness was cast upon Mary).

So the one nature of God (that unspeakable and unknowable nature as far as our sense perception is concerned) is expressed to us within time by three personalities. The Father (creator), the Son, and the spiritual experience of the presence of God within us (the Holy Spirit). These are -our- experiences of the one God nature.

I am just sharing a view that has helped me.

Brendan and Alex,
Thank you for replying to my questions; any theology, but esp. Eastern Theology, is hard to grasp without people with whom to discuss it.

Rick, thank you for your patience--I know I got a little off the topic of this thread, but, like yourself, I find all of these elements very interesting.

Agape

Hi Ray,

Ray:The &#8220;begetting&#8221; of the Son, only has meaning in the sphere of human experience (history) and this begetting is time bound (as we are). In eternity this begetting takes place always and never. It already took place and yet will take place. In other words - the term simply does not really apply except to point toward something which words alone can not relay.

In time experience, Christ was begotten when the Holy Spirit cast its shadow upon Mary (a Hebrew way of saying God's image and likeness was cast upon Mary).

Tom: You lost me here. This almost sounds like Paul of Samosata[no offense intended]speaking here.

The eternal begetting had to take place outside of time,because the Father is only Father when He begetts the Son. If there was a "time"/an eternity when [as you say "In eternity this begetting takes place always and never. It already took place and yet will take place."]the Son was not begotten and the Spirit existed then the Spirit would be "prior" to the Son, which ofcourse He can not be. For the Father is the Father only in relation to the Son, and the Spirit could not proceed from the Father if the uncreated One was not already the Father.

Care to elaborate on the unknowable?

Blessings

Tom

Hi Lance,

Could you elaborate on this quote of yours from 12-5-01 to Rick

Lance ne can say the Spirit proceeds from the Son provided one is talking about the temporal mission of the Spirit. The Spirit does proceed from the Son in the sense The Son sends Him on His temporal mission.

Tom: I'd like to open this can of worms if I may, I rarely get a chance to dialog on this point, and this is the best spot[in terms of charity shown towards one's Latin brothers]to discuss this it seems.

Do you mean this exclusively that the Spirit proceeds from the Son ONLY in His temporal mission?

Lance ne can never say the Spirit take his origin from the Son because this is both incorrect and confuses the distinctions between the Persons of the Trinity.

Tom: Agreed you stated this rather PC in a good way. It would be in fact heretical,nothing wrong with the term if it fits. Clearly the Father is the one unoriginate cause of both the Son and the Spirit. Therefore the Son's ability to spirate can not be based on the divine nature, because it would lead to subordination of the Spirit to the Son and the Father.

The Latin Tradition states that the Son's ability to spirate is personal. However it also asserts that it is a personal property not exclusive to the Son but of the Father's also.

Blessings

Tom

Anyone curious about the Orthodox Church's position on the eternal manifesting of the Holy Spirit by the Son should read the Tomus of Gregory of Cyprus, from the Council of Blachernae of 1285, which is contained in the wonderful book, _Crisis In Byzantium: The Filioque Controversy in the Patiarchate of Gregory II of Cyprus_ by Ariesteides Papadakis.

The Orthodox Church believes that the Son and Spirit come forth from the Father's hypostasis (person) eternally IN THE ESSENCE. The Sending of the Holy Spirit, however, is IN THE ENERGIES from the Father through the Son. This would include the temporal mission, but also an eternal manifestation in the energies that existed before time and will continue after time.

anastasios

Hi anastasios,

I had heard of the about Gregory of Cyprus. Are any of his writtings on the net.

Is the Spirit's shining forth from the Son an active role by the son or passive? I had heard Dumitru Staniloae's Theology and the Church referenced this type of thought also.

Blessings

Tom

Tom,

Perhaps I should have phrased that more clearly. I was refering to the semantic meaning of the word proceed as used in the Latin Creed. I think the clarification that both Catholic and Orthodox Churches have agreed on is as Dustin states. The Father is the unoriginate origin of the other two Persons. The origin of the Spirit is in the Father. Yet because the Only-begotten is everything the Father is except for being a father he has a part in the spiration (procession, sending forth, communication, whatever word you deem accurate) of the Spirit, in eternity, but only in the Energetic sense not in the Essential sense. And at this point the theology is getting past my humble abilites, but I hope this clarifies my statement. Perhaps Father Elias, who was my Trinitarian theology professor, can share some of his insight.

In Christ,
Lance, deacon candidate

In Christ

Hello:



But don't we worship The Trinity One-In-Essence? I mean if the Three Divine Persons have the same Divine Essence, are the Three still distnguished "in the Essential sense"? Am I using "Essential" in two different meanings here?

I think my question is: Since the Essence of the Father is identical to the Essence of the Son and identical to the Essence of the Holy Spirit... what makes the Father the Father and what makes the Son the Son and what makes the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit... resides in the Energies of God, or in the Essence of God?

Shalom,
Memo.

Memo,

I keep digging myself a hole don't I? Yes the Trinity is one in substance and undivided. However, each Person is not 1/3 of the Godhead, but fully God in himself. However, there are not three Gods but one God. The One is Three. There are Three Person truly distinct from one another. How are they distinct from one another? By their relationship to each other. Each Person is fully what the other Persons are except for what is distinct about each Person. This is part of the Essence of God. If we say God is only Three in His interaction with us through His Energies, we are subscribing to Modalism. The distinction among the Persons are part of the Essence without destroying the Unity.

"...I give you but one divinity and power, existing one in three, and containing the three in a distinct way. Divinity without disparity of substance or nature, without superior degree that raises up or inferior degree that casts down...the infinite co-naturality of three infinities. Each person considered inhimself is entirely God...the three considered together...I have not even begun to think of unity when the Trinity bathes me in its splendor. I have not even begun to think of the Trinity when unity grasps me..."(St. Gregory the Theologian).

In Christ,
Lance, deacon candidate