www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West "East vs. West" is Inaccurate

I don't yet see how that addresses my objection. Something that the Father and Son have in common is that they are not the Holy Spirit. This is included in your still unqualified "anything". This aspect is clearly not, however, shared by all three, nor does it appear to be "founded on the unity of essence". Perhaps the idea is: those shared aspects that are founded on the unity of essense must be common to the three?

Two terms (hypostasis and prosopon) were used by the Cappadocian Fathers in order to designate what is particular in God, i.e., in order to distinguish the triad of divine persons by the unique characteristics (idioma) of their mode of origin (tropos hyparxeos); while two other terms (ousia and koinonia) were used in order to safeguard what is common within God, and in the process avoid polytheism. Thus, the divine names (titles), which are not hypostatic properties (idioma) unique to one person, are common within the divinity, and this shows forth the reality that God is one.

The Cappadocian maxim is this: if two of the divine hypostases have a property in common, all three must possess it, because otherwise a man falls into an essential subordinationism and polytheism, by dividing the divine being itself.

In other words, if the Father and the Son share a common property (idoma), which the Holy Spirit does not share, it follows that the Spirit would be essentially other than the Father and the Son, because only the divine essence is common within the Godhead; which, ironically enough, is to affirm the very heresy that St. Basil is writing against in "On the Holy Spirit," i.e., the heresy of the Pneumatomachoi.

Todd, that comment remains unresponsive. There must be some qualification on the concept of "property" that eliminates the objection I raised. And btw this objection applies to every property unique to one person, as the logical complement applies, in common, to the other two. This of course implies nothing of "subordinationism and polytheism", it's just a matter of complementarity.

Well, you actually have not presented a coherent objection; instead, you have simply asserted a teaching that has been condemned by the Eastern Fathers as form of modalism. The hypostases are not relations of opposition; instead, they are modes of origin, with the Father as cause, the Son being generated by the Father alone, and the Spirit processed from the Father, receiving His existence from the Father alone as the font of divinity. This is the received teaching of the Eastern Church.

Unlike the rationalist system of the Western Church, which relies upon Aristotelian metaphysics to try and "solve" the mystery of the Trinity by positing a second cause, i.e., the Son, which would be the equivalent to a second God in the Cappadocian teaching, with the mistaken idea of expressing a relation between the Son and Spirit other than their origin from the Father, because the hypostases have been reduced to "relations." The Son and Spirit, are true subsistences, i.e., they really exist, and not through some mental relation of opposition in a simple essence, but through their mode of origin from the Father as sole cause of divinity.

Moreover, distinctions in God are hypostatic only if they are unique to one hypostasis. If they are common, they are not hypostatic, and if they are common to two persons, they must be common to all three. Any other position leads to either polytheism or Sabellianism. Now, this way of describing the indescribable God is the cornerstone of Cappadocian Triadology, and alas, I cannot explain it to you in any other way, because it is quite simply a revealed doctrine, and not something discovered through the light of natural reason.

The shared titles are the divine names, the divine energies, and they are common to the divine hypostases, because the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one in essence, and that is why St. Basil said, "The Spirit shares titles held in common by the Father and the Son." Thus, truth, wisdom, goodness, and any other title given to the Father and the Son is common to the Spirit as well, and to deny this is to deny the doctrine of the Trinity as it is understood by the Eastern Fathers. Thus, if the Father and the Son share the title of spirator of the Holy Spirit, it follows that the Spirit too must have this title, and that is nonsense.

The opening parts of Fr. Michael Azkoul's article linked below highlights some the differences between the Eastern and Western views on the Trinity:

The Filioque [energeticprocession.com]

The only way in which the hypostases are distinct is in what they possess uniquely through their origin. What is common is common to all three, or it is not truly common. If the Father and the Son share a property, then there would be three persons, plus a fourth quasi-hypostatic conglomeration of Father / Son, who would be distinct from both the Father and the Son as hypostases, while also being distinct from the Spirit. All of this has been dealt with by St. Photios in his Mystagogy, in which he reiterated and applied the principles established by the Cappadocians centuries earlier in order to show the nonsensical nature of the Western filioque. Moreover, as I have indicated before, anything that is common in God is essential and not hypostatic; as a consequence, positing a common property which is shared only by the Father and the Son makes the Spirit essentially different than them, because He lacks a common essential title possessed by the other two hypostases.

Another document that might be helpful in understanding Eastern Triadology is the Blachernae Council's Tomus (A.D. 1285), it can be read by clicking the link provided below:

Blachernae Tomus of 1285 [geocities.com]

This Tomus was issued by the Eastern Church as an official rejection of the teaching presented at the Western Church's Second Council of Lyons (A.D. 1274). The Tomus anathematizes the Western teaching on the filioque, because it is held to be incompatible with the Orthodox faith.

Having argued this before I do not seek to do so again. However, I would simply argue that when the West proffesses the filioque she does not mean to introduce another originate cause. Her intention is merely this: to say that when the Father generates the Son by the same movement the Spirit comes forth, which it must to agree with the logic of the procession of intellect and love. There is logical priority in God knowing Himself before loving Himself but not temporal prority. Hence, we say the Father and the Son are one principle in our Triadology. This is not to posit a characteristic of the nature of God nor even of the hypostasis themselves only to serve as a description of how logical succession does not equate to temporal succession. God knows Himself instanteously in His Word and having known Himself instanteously loves Himself in His Spirit, hence the Father and the Son are called one principle but the Father alone is the acting person.

Myles,

The Eastern Fathers do not see the generation of the Son and the procession of the Spirit as corresponding to the movement of "intellect" and "love" in the psyche. That theory is a rationalist theory founded upon the psychological metaphysics of the Aristotelian / Thomistic categories of relation. Moreover, Byzantine theology does not try to explain what generation and procession are, or how they operate, for that is to transgress the ineffable mystery of God. Thus, as Dimitru Staniloae has said, the East avoids ". . . the psychologizing explanations of Catholic theology which has recourse to these only from its desire to find human arguments in favor of the Filioque, the doctrine that the Holy Spirit proceeds also from the Son." [Dimitru Staniloae, The Experience of God, 1:248]

Blessings to you,
Todd

Dear Todd

Indeed, as you know, I'm aware of what Byzantine Theology says on the matter and that the East generally regards the West's approach as over systematic. It was not my intention to argue about differing approaches towards the Trinity as I said. I merely wished to illustrate that when the West uses the language of 'one principle' she does not intend to speak of some essential property. Rather, she merely wishes to describe .

I know you believe that the description is out of place but that is not the issue herein. The issue is whether or not the Western view is incohrent, that is, that the West maintains there's an essential property not shared by the Triad. As I've displayed that is not the West's view at all which makes your mention of St Photius' work curious.

The critique of psychological analogy from a Cappodacian stance is to expected, understood, and appreciated. Nonetheless, that is your patristic tradition whereas ours is Augustinian. Given their proximity of provenance in terms of years and the mixed bag of Triadologies from the time of Tertullian and Origen I dont think you can say one is more patristic than the other. We follow the Latin tradition--as you'd expect because we're Latins--and you the Greek--which is likewise to be expected cos your Greeks--to me thats all good. The basic schema of Latin Triadology was hammered out by Tertullian and yours by Origen (ironically two condemned men, lol) and our theologians remain interpreters of both schools.

Todd, You again provide a nice expression of the Byzantine theology, but remain unresponsive to my question.

Speaking frankly, your "question" does not make sense to me, because it is framed along Western theological lines. None of the Eastern Fathers that I have read would accept the idea that the hypostases are relations of opposition in the Thomistic (or general Western) sense, nor would they accept that the Son participates in the existential origin of the Spirit.

The unique hypostatic properties are just that, unique, belonging to only one hypostasis, and as such they are not, nor can they ever be, common to two hypostases, unless one wishes to be a Sabellian. The only thing common in God is the divine essence and the essential (enhypostatic) energies which flow from the three divine hypostases.

Perhaps if you could rephrase your question in within an Eastern theological context it would help me to respond to your concerns.

Blessings to you,
Todd

Myles,

I understand what you intended, and I was simply pointing out the completely foreign nature of the Western approach within the doctrinal patrimony of the Eastern Churches.

I was a Westerner for nearly 17 years, so I am familiar with the Augustinian and Scholastic views on the Trinity.

The Eastern and Western approaches to the doctrine of the Trinity are substantially different.

Blessings to you,
Todd

Nonsense. It is a simple question and has no theological framework at all. And it hasn't the vaguest thing to do with Sabellianism. It is simply a very obvious question that logically probes your unqualified "anything". It probably has a simple answer.

I certainly hope y'all are good swimmers cause I think we're out way over our heads.