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

DJS,

As I have already explained, anything that is common in God is founded upon the unity of the divine essence. So, if something is common to two of the hypostases it must be common to all three, or one divides the divine essence, and that is heretical.

As Dimitru Staniloae, quoting St. Dionysios, explained: "The unified names apply to the entire Godhead. . . . Hence, titles such as the following -- the transcendently good, the transcendently divine, the transcendently existing, the transcendently living, the transcendently wise. These and similar terms concern a denial in the sense of superabundance. . . . Then there are the names expressing distinctions, the transcendent name and proper activity of the Father, of the Son, and of the Spirit. Here the titles cannot be interchanged, nor can they be held in common." [Dimitru Staniloae, The Experience of God, 1:247]

Thus, anything that is common to the triad of divine hypostases is common only because of the unity of the divine essence, and so if two hypostases possess something together, it follows that the third must also possess it or one introduces division in the divine essence. In other words, if the Father and the Son act as a single principle, i.e., if they possess a common power, in spirating the Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit must also possess this power, and if He does not possess it, He is essentially distinct from them. That being said, any man who posits this idea has divided the divine essence itself, and has fallen into polytheism. Moreover, by doing this, i.e., by giving a common power to the Father and the Son, but not to the Spirit, he has also confounded the persons (hypostases) of the Father and the Son, and in the process has become a Sabellian.

Blessings to you,
Todd

Todd,
Curiously, you are not explaining at all, but are just making rote repetition of teachings that you have already posted several times. You haven't confronted my question at all - apart from trying to denigrate it as somehow Western.

If you actually feel that the only response to the assertion that the Father and Son have in common not being the Holy Spirit - a statement which seems to be unassailable logically - is just to say that it is heretical, then fine, have it your way. I will then on your prompting assert the complementary proposition - they don't have this in common. The problem with this idea is clear: one is forced to assert that either the Father or the Son is - or both are - in fact are the Holy Spirit. I feel confident that you will find the conclusion forced by the only idea that you have offered to be completely unacceptable.

I think that there is another solution to this seeming paradox, and am suprised that you are so resolute in not advancing it.

Be my guest, falsify it.

Essence and energy are common to the three divine hypostases, while distinctions are proper to each hypostasis individually.

You would make an excellent Scholastic, but you are not a very Eastern. If you read Damascene, and other Eastern Fathers, you will see that they speak of the hypostatic properties of causation, begottenness, and procession, they do not then speculate on the application of these, but affirm that the Father is cause, the Son is begotton, and the Spirit is processed. These qualities are the distinguishing marks of the hypostases.

The persons (hypostases) are not distinct by oppositional relations in Eastern theology, that is a Scholastic viewpoint. They are distinct by what St. John Damascene calls, ". . . the distinguishing mark of their proper and peculiar subsistence." They are distinct by their mode of origin, not by some type of Aristotelian concept of relation. Thus, the Father and the Son do not share a common characteristic of not being the Holy Spirit, because there is no such characteristic in the Godhead. Do the Father and the Spirit share a common characteristic of not being the Son? No, because there is no proper characteristic like that. If you are correct, the Father and the Spirit, because neither is the Son, would share the power of generation, which even the West does not admit to be true. If you are correct the Father and the Spirit generate the Son together, and the Spirit has now become the Father. This is the problem with applying the Aristotelian categories of relation to the revealed theology of the Church.

Blessings to you,
Todd

Clearly, based upon some of the conversations in this thread, the de-Latinzation of the Eastern Catholic Churches becomes all the more important, but I am beginning to see that that task may be nearly impossible. The blending of Scholastic theology into the tradition of the Eastern Churches in communion with Rome may be irreversible, but I still have some hope, at least for the moment, that de-Latinization can work.

How kind of you.

Aha! So, as I suspected, there is a delimitation of "proper characteristics". Excellent: it is not a matter of "anything", as you had said eariler, but specifically of proper characteristics.

The problem was not my introducing Aristotelian categories, btw, the problem was your unqualfied "anything", which simple logic - with no theological frameworks or categories - shows to be inadequate. That is why I asked for you to refine your statement in the first place: it was inherently contradictory as you gave it.

Are there other proper characteristics? Or is the basic idea that since these are sufficient it is not worthwhile to speculate on others?

Clearly, you are unfamiliar with the writings of the Eastern Fathers, there is no characteristic of not being the Spirit. You have fallen into the error of reducing the persons to oppositional relations. This heresy was rejected by the Eastern Churches at the Council of Blachernae, and the Palamite Councils of the 14th century.

No, you are overlaying a pagan philosophical framework on the revealed dogma of the Trinity.

DJS,

Where does our knowledge of God as Trinity come from? Philosphy? Or revelation?

DJS,

Do the Father and the Spirit together generate the Son? In your philosophical system neither the Father nor the Spirit are generated, so they share this "hypostatic" characertistic.

Have you read St. John Damascene? The Father as cause generates Son, and the Father as cause processes the Spirit, causal power is peculiar to His hypostasis as the font of divinity. The Son is generated, and this is His hypostatic characteristic, while the Spirit is processed, and to be processed is peculiar to Him. But the Eastern Fathers say that it is impossible to know how generation and procession differ, because that is an ineffable mystery (cf. John Damascene, The Orthodox Faith, Book I, Chap. VIII).

DJS,

What you want to do is to speculate on the mystery, and that is a Scholastic error not shared by the Eastern Fathers.

What framework: "proper characteristics"? That was your framework?

I like this question. I will certainly opt for revelation rather than theologians.

No. Apart from the fact that I have no system, let me remind you that the problem was your "anything" goes formulation. I simply have been pointing out the problem with that formulation of yours. Once that has been abandoned in favor of "proper characteristics", it is easy, in answer to your comment, by simply saying that not being generated is not a proper characteristic.

It would be nice if you would give some criteria of proper and improper charactersitics.

Interesting, yet irrelevant. Since I have nowhere claimed that "theologians" are the source of the Trinity.

And I hold to what I said, anything that is common in God is common because of the unity of essence, and anything that is distinct is individually proper to one hypostasis and cannot be shared.

If we were talking about a philosophical speculation then your position would have merit, but we are not; instead, we are talking about a revealed truth.

One thing our conversation has shown is that when one begins to speculate beyond revelation, one ends up in error, just as the Scholastics did.

I take this as a "no" to the quesiton about the existence of other proper characteristics.

But you are incorrect about my interest in theological speculation; I am no theologian, have little interest in academic theology, and have no career plans in that area. At same the time, when theological statements are on this forum, I have an interest is probing and and refining them - so that I can learn, reliably, from them.

DJS,

Since you hold that the Father and the Spirit are not the Son, and that this is a proper "hypostatic" property of their being, i.e., that it is shared by them as a "characteristic", and that they hold this power together, I want to know if you believe that they generate the Son together?

If you are correct in your speculations on this matter, it follows logically that the Father and the Spirit together beget the Son.