www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West The Filioque: Dogma, Theologumenon or Error?

The Filioque: Dogma, Theologumenon or Error? [geocities.com] by Theodore Stylianopoulos on a topic that's been much debated around here lately.

Bump :p

Read in light of Whether the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father through the Son? [newadvent.org]

Great stuff

Ding ding ding! We have a winner! Good call on posting the Summa, too, Myles. To understand the filioque, it really has to be read with "Latin Eyes", and those are best supplied by Thomas Aquinas, who almost singlehandedly redefined theological thought in the West by "bringing back the Greeks".

I think that the differences between Palamite and Thomistic formulations are too often used to divide, rather than to compliment eachother. When we realize that they're really talking about two totally different things, it becomes much less of a problem. Of course, it's getting people to READ both in their proper contexts that's the problem :p

Peace and God's love!

Food for thought:

You are single, and lonely. You get a cat or dog. You become very attached to this animal. You then meet your true soul mate. Your soul mate is very allergic to dogs/cats.

What do you do? Give up the cat/dog? Break off the relationship with your true soul mate? Put the dog/cat outside and take care of it yourself, since you know being near the cat/dog will adversely affect your soul mate?

Please remember this is your one and only true soul mate. I think you can see where I am going with this. That is all. :-)

Michael

The question is not about letting go of the cat or dog, it's getting the soul-mate to realize that you don't have to kill it or hate it.

Furthermore, you can always make it an outside pet and keep both

Good for you, Ghosty! You are so right about the crucial role of St. Thomas Aquinas in recovering Greek theology for the Latin West. As M. D. Chenu once remarked, people today often forget that Aristotle and the other pagan philosophers were not the only Greeks whose work was translated into Latin during the 12th-13th c. The great transmission also included much Christian Greek theology. Thus, just as Thomas was instrumental in bringing Aristotle to bear on Christian culture, so he was important for seeing the importance of the Greek Fathers for the development of Latin theology.

In the long, sad debate over the filioque such important historical developments are often overlooked.

Dr. Michael

Agreed even when people recall the fact that St Thomas Aquinas said he'd give up Paris for a complete translation of Chrysostom's homilies on Matthew they still ignore the fact that St Thomas was on the end of a long movement including figures like William of St Thierry to revive Greek learning (both secular and religious) in the West.

Dear Myles,

Nonsense, all these polemics and intricate explanations are nonsense! Now in my opinion the Holy Spirit had to proceed from the Son, because it is the Holy Spirit working through the Son that gives us the 'Word'.

By the same account, the Holy Spirit also came from the Father. It is the Holy Spirit coming through the Father that gives us the ability to comprehend the 'Word'.

Saint Gregory Palamas also said that the Holy Spirit comes from both the Father and the Son, but in different ways. I see it no differently.

My Gosh! It' so easy to understand. You know we're talking about God here. Why are we always trying to comprehend things of God by using our own faculties? All we have to do is ask God? If He wants us to understand, He'll comply.

Zenovia

The excellent and non-polemical work, "Crisis in Byzantium: the Filioque Controversy in the Patriarchate of Gregory II of Cyprus" by Aristeides Papadakis (SVS Press) gives an excellent explanation of why our Orthodox Church condemned the filioque clause at the Council of Blachernae in 1285 (which was an expounding upon the Council of St Sophia in 879 which also condemned this clause). It's not just a matter of semantics but one which touches upon our faith; semi-Arianism was opposed by the church becuase of the term homoiousios instead of homoousios--even little words matter because of the spiritual effect of heresy. We can't know God if we don't know who he is, and any incorrect notion of him detracts from our union with him. The Church has seen fit therefore to engage in such "nonsense."

The Word is the Word regardless of the Holy Spirit; the Son doesn't need the Holy Spirit to be the Word, he IS the Word. One Church father described the Word and the Spirit as the two hands of God.

The quote you attribute to St Gregory Palamas is not talking about the eternal procession of the Spirit from the hypostasis of the Father (from his person) but rather from the temporal sending forth of the Spirit which the Son initiated when he left (kind of like a divine "trade-off" so to speak so that God would always be with us in our world).

Anastasios

Anastasios has the Roman Church ever taught that the Son needs the Holy Spirit to be the Word?

Looking soberly at Dr Theodore Stylianopolous' article, which was first printed in the Orthodox Theological review almost 20 years ago, one can see there is very little difference between what the Latin Church teaches about the filioque and the Greek Church teaches about the eternal procession of the Spirit.

If you opened the link from the Summa you would have seen that what the West means by filioque is no different than what St Basil the Great asserts in his work 'On the Holy Spirit' 18:45, 18:47 (particularly) and what his brother, Gregory of Nyssa, writes 'Against Eunomius' 1 and in his 'Letter to Ablabius'.

Moreover, many Greeks understood this in times past. St Maximus the Confessor being the most noteable. However, there were many others too e.g. Patriarch Peter III of Antioch (1052-6) who wrote to Patriarch Cerularius telling him not to divide the Church over issues that do not touch the 'fundamental doctrines of faith'. St Anselm of Canterbury told Pope Urban II as much when he came to Rome to explain the filioque in discussions with Greek theologians.

Tragically, it wasn't until the 1204 Sack of Constantinople that people began grasping at every single difference between East and West and using them to substantiate the hatred both the Latins and Greeks felt for one another. Indeed, part of the reason why Pope Urban chose to send the first Crusade East (he could've urged more military action in Spain against the Almohads) was because Basileus Alexios I assured him there was no schism this was in 1099. For centuries Photius' Mystagogia was just lying around and nobody addressed it. Indeed, Photius himself was accused of duplicity by many Greeks because he did not address the issue at Council with Latins in 879AD--that Council merely condemned adding to the Creed but the canon was deliberately framed to allow various interpretations--when Pope John VIII who Photius called 'My John' recognised his legitimacy as Patriarch. Indeed, Photius even celebrated communion with these heretical Latins and feeling such a sense of goodwill towards the West stopped sending Bishops into Bulgaria too.

Apart from Anastasius the Roman Librarian c.10th century who argued (correctly) that the Mystagogia of Photius misrepresented the Latin teaching on the filioque nobody in East or West cared to make an issue of this teaching. Even Cerularius' objection to it had no impact in his own era since he did not have the support of the other Eastern Patriarch's who continued to commemorate the Pope's in their diptychs. Peter III of Antioch actually recieved a confession of faith from Pope Leo IX (with whom he enjoyed cordial relations) stating Leo's IX acceptance of the teaching of the 7 Ecumenical Councils and the filioque and Peter III accepted it.

I agree with Zenovia that the filioque just doesn't matter. Sts Hiliary of Poitiers and Ambrose and Augustine all taught the filioque yet remained on good terms with the East. Ambrose was indeed an intimate acquaintance of the Cappodacians and Augustine was invited to the 3rd Ecumenical Council where Cyril of Alexandria whose writings are laced with the filioque was president. How is it then that the Fathers did not find cause for contention on this issue and we do?

Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Cyril of Alexandria do not give much support to the filioque doctrine as it is expressed by the Latins at Lyons or Florence. I'm not intending to enter this debate again -- I've been through it so many times now that it makes me almost nauseous to think of it -- but for reading I would suggest: Photius and the Carolingians by Richard Haugh, Aristotle East and West by David Bradshaw, and (as Anastasios mentioned) Crisis in Byzantium by Aristeides Papadakis. The first examines the patristic testimony (including some of the Latins that have been suggested), including St. Cyril, and finds that there seems to be nothing near real support for the later understanding of the filioque there (except in Augustine). The second explicitly addresses Gregory of Nyssa and Basil the Great and expounds upon what they were really saying, explaining why it is not equivalent to the later filioque. The third then gives the Orthodox doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit.

To put it very simply, there are three distinctions in Orthodox thought: (1) the Spirit's procession in time (the temporal procession or manifestation), (2) the Spirit's eternal procession in the divine energies, outside of the intra-Trinitarian being (the energetic procession or eternal manifestation), and (3) the Spirit's hypostatic procession as Person sharing the intra-Trinitarian being (the hypostatic procession). They allow that there is a filioque, in some sense, for both (1) and (2) -- and they also allow something like a filioque on the level of the shared divine essence (ousia), which is what Cyril and Maximos tend to be talking about: i.e., the Father and the Son share the same essence, so the essence of the Spirit is the essence of the Father and the Son -- but they do not allow a filioque when it comes to (3). In the cited text of the Summa, however, particularly "Reply to Objection 3," Aquinas seems to be talking about the hypostatic procession (since he mentions the begetting of the Son, which is the mode of his hypostatic, Personal origin), so he seems to be applying the filioque to the level of hypostatic, Personal existence. This is a no-no for the Orthodox.

Further, this section of the Summa does not capture Aquinas' full doctrine of the procession; as Roman Catholic theologian Cardinal Yves Congar notes, the Latin filioque is about "the hypostases of the Son and the Spirit, since in the most common Latin interpretation [and here in the book he cites Thomas Aquinas with a footnote], the persons are in reality distinguished only by an opposition of relationship, and that exists only through the processions" (Diversity and Communion, p. 101). This is the other part of Aquinas' doctrine. According to Aquinas, the only distinguishing property of each Person in the Trinity is His relationship of opposition to some other Person: the Son comes from the Father alone, but if the Spirit comes from the Father alone as well, according to the common Latin doctrine, there will be nothing to distinguish the Spirit from the Son -- so, the patch-up is that the Spirit comes from the Father and the Son. This is a property of the Spirit's hypostasis or Person, on Aquinas' view. This is exactly what the Orthodox will not allow.

Now, whether this is all Catholic dogma is a different question, and whether there is some underlying compatibility that might be worked out between the two traditions is also different. However, I think the above is worth saying, as things are much less cut-and-dry than they usually appear.

I'll likely leave it at that and say, "Read the books," if you want more info. It really isn't my interest to hash this out again right now. (One additional book that I might suggest, which I haven't yet read, is Trinitarian Theology East and West by Michael Fahey, SJ, and John Meyendorff; it's a Catholic-Orthodox ecumenical book wherein they apparently try to work out the similarities and differences).

Thanks, and God bless,
Jason

I do not fully agree with this comment, because God the Father is the pegaia theotes, the source of the divine essence itself, "for the Son and the Spirit receive the divine essence from Him." [M. Edmund Hussey, "The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Theology of Gregory Palamas," page 29] The divine essence is common to all three hypostases, but it is common to the Son and the Spirit in a derivative sense, i.e., in the sense that they are homoousios with the Father, receiving their eternal being from Him. Nevertheless, it is not proper to say that the Father is homoousios with the Son and the Spirit, because the term homoousios is in fact a relational term of dependency, i.e., it indicates derived origin. Thus, the Father is the sole source, cause, and principle of the hypostasis of the Son, and He is the sole source, cause, and principle of the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit; and as a consequence, both the Son and the Spirit receive their participation in the divine essence from their derived existential origin from the hypostasis of the Father, who is the sole source and font of divinity. The consubstantial communion of the hypostases involves a flowing of the divine essence from the Father to the Son, and through the Son to the Spirit, but the divine essence, as with all divinity, has its origin in the Father alone, and so neither the Son nor the Spirit is a cause within life of the immanent Trinity.

*sigh*

The Latin filioque, and the theology behind it, expresses only the eternal aspects of the Trinitarian relationship, which includes both Energetic and Immanent. This has been explained ad nauseam by the Latins, since the time of Maximus the Confessor.

Latins do not speak with the terms of Engergies and Immanence, although these distinctions are, and always have been, recognized in Latin theology. All polemics by Eastern Orthodox about Latin beliefs in "created graces" are non-sense at best, and based on dangerously faulty reading of Scholastic theology at worst.

These facts have been recognized and affirmed by Thomas Aquinas, the Council of Florence, Yves Cardinal Congar, and recent Joint Conferences between the Orthodox and Catholics on the subject.

Like Ecce Jason, however, I have no desire to re-hash the whole debate. I'll just say that the fact that this issue, which came up and was resolved by theologians centuries before any Schism between the Byzantines and Latins, while the Christological misunderstanding that arose from the Council of Chalcedon and resulted in immediate Schism was resolved almost providentially and without hardly any debate after 1600 years of seperation is, frankly, disgusting.

Just my thoughts. Any clarification requests can be sent to my PM box

Friends,

There is an interesting article on the website of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Winnepeg on the filioque. It is in PDF format and it is the second like on the right on the home page.

http://archeparchy.ca/

-uc

I dont wish to debate this either but I will say that St Thomas' Trinitarian theology should be distinguished from a simple relation of opposition. His Triadology is about relations of origin. What you've quoted from Congar is absolutely correct Jason. The difference is the processions Thomas speaks of are not in terms of relations to the other persons but in relation to their mode of being from the Father. In my opinion he expresses himself more clearly in his letter the Cantor of Antioch than in the Summa. For St Thomas the key distinction is that the Son's procession is a procession of intellect and the Spirit's is one of love:

St Thomas' Triadology cannot simply be reduced to a relation of opposition. Yes, he does distinguish by relation but relations of origin from the Father. Because the Son is originated by intellectual procession and the Spirit is originated by procession of love there isn't need for St Thomas to include the filioque in his Triadology for the reasons you say Jason. Indeed, the reason he does include it in his Trinitarian Theology is for a completely different reason than the one you have attributed to him as is clear from his own writing.