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

Arbanon,

Quotes from the book would be more than welcome, if you'd like to cite them. However, I reiterate my caution again about going too far with these things. Sherrard does indeed make some great points, but any claim that the filioque doctrine leads necessarily to materialistic atheism is, quite frankly, absurd. Pope St. Leo the Great, whom we all venerate as a saint, quite clearly declared the filioque as early as 447 AD, in his "Quam laudabiliter," where he says (against the heretics): It is clear that St. Leo is talking about the personal, inter-Trinitarian existence of the Divine Persons, and he affirms that the Spirit "proceeds from both." There are, of course, precedents for this in Augustine, and there were also councils in the early Western church (in Spain) that declared the filioque as well (in the 6th or 7th centuries). Of course, none of these declarations were dogmatically binding on the Church, but that is beside the point. The point is that "atheistic materialism" did not become a real, pervasive phenomenon until some time in the 19th century or so. Any claim that such materialism was a consequence of the filioque is just ridiculous. Now, if one wants to claim that a particular type of philosophy, say the extreme Scholastic philosophy of interpreters of Thomas Aquinas (such as Cajetan), eventually led to the philosophy of atheistic materialism, I would be more open to that thesis. However, this brings up my point about Sherrard "misinterpreting texts" again, because I would want to point out that what Cajetan and other interpreters of Aquinas say is Thomism is not clearly Thomas' doctrine at all... And in any case, this is all far from saying that such is a necessary consequence of the filioque.

By the way, since Augustine of Hippo is typically a whipping boy for all of these issues, you may be interested to know that recent scholarship is beginning to vindicate him against typical charges made against him (particularly by Orthodox polemicists, though I mean no offense in saying that). This article [findarticles.com] , for example, demonstrates Augustine's compatibility with both the Cappadocian and Western Fathers of the Church. Note particularly some of the points made in the bibliography of that article, as well. Research is now demonstrating that Augustine's ideas about the perichoresis between the Divine Persons in the Trinity was actually very similar to notions in the East, and that the claims that are typically made against him -- and which, as far as I am aware, are made by Sherrard as well -- such as that he overemphasizes the Divine Essence and neglects the Divine Persons are being shown to be false. Sherrard's book comes prior to some of this research.

Thanks, and God bless,
Jason

Interesting that you should say that Jason because this because a couple of weeks ago in Oxford the Arcbishop of Granada, His Grace Javier Martinez, was here and said much the same at a conference on the New Evangelisation. Only he attributed the growth of modern secularism to Suarez.

You can read a short synopsis of the conference here [secondspring.co.uk]

Myles,

Actually, your note is a good corrective. I should have said Suarez rather than Cajetan, as Suarez was significantly more influential regarding Aquinas, and his interpretations of Thomas were pretty much accepted uncritically for quite a while.

Thanks, and God bless,
Jason

In defense of Dr. Sherrard -- having read his book ("The Greek East and the Latin West") some time ago -- I do not see what he said as polemical, and so I disagree with A. N. Williams. Moreover, she does not really engage the arguments in Sherrard's book, but merely asserts that his writing is polemical without proving her point. Now clearly Sherrard and Williams read St. Thomas differently, but this does not mean that Dr. Sherrard's reading is "polemical," any more than Dr. Williams' reading of Palamas in her book "Ground of Union," in which, at least in my opinion, she favors reducing the distinction between essence and energy to a merely epistemic one, is polemical. People can disagree on the meaning of a given text without that disagreement necessarily involving polemics.

In Dr. Sherrard's defense, I don't believe that he is saying that the "filioque" itself is what leads to atheistic materialism; rather, his argument is far more subtle and complex, because he is actually saying that the reassertion of Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy in the West led to a view of the nature of "essence" which involves the reduction of essence to a category of thought. Moreover, the emphasis upon the philosophical conception of essence (ousia), which is not a part of the Cappadocian understanding of the term, and which promotes the idea that essence (ousia) is a definable underlying substrate that is comprehensible and that determines what a thing is, is what leads to the problems in Western metaphysics and theology. It is this essentialist approach that leads to the necessity of a "filioque," and it is this essentialist approach that he argues leads to the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and ultimately to philosophical materialism. Thus, the "filioque" is a symptom of a larger problem in Western philosophy and theology, and so it is not the cause of that problem.

Moreover, that is why a type of "filioque," i.e., one does not either make a single principle out of the Father and the Son, or which does not posit the Son as a cause of the hypostatic being of the Holy Spirit, is, and always will be, acceptable in Eastern theology.

The Son does manifest the Holy Spirit, both temporally and eternally in the divine energy, but He does not cause the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit.

The focus on the "filioque" as if it is the sole point of difference between East and West is ultimately unhealthy, because there are many things that divide East and West theologically at the present moment, e.g., the understanding of the divine simplicity, the nature of the hypostases in the Godhead, the Monarchy of the Father, the nature of grace as uncreated energy, the permanent diastemic nature of created reality, etc., and so we must not take a stance that holds that any disagreement over these issues necessarily involves polemics. Dr. Sherrard's book is no more polemical than Dr. Bradshaw's book ("Aristotle East and West"), or Dr. Pentecost's dissertation ("Quest for Divine Presence"), or Dr. Williams' book ("Ground of Union"), or Christopher Hughes' book ("On a Complex Theory of a Simple God"), et al.; instead, these books are simply pointing out the different ways in which people can interpret the texts of Palamas, Aquinas, and the Fathers of the Church in general.

Todd,

A few comments.

You say: This is not quite true, as far as I can tell. For example, I have Williams' book before me as I write this, and while it is true that she merely asserts that Sherrard is polemical and incorrect on page 14 (which I cited above), she does go on to substantiate her claims on pages 24-26. She explicitly cites a number of his statements regarding Thomistic epistemology, points out how they appear to be inconsistent with his other comments on Thomas, notes that he fails to explain or even to notice the inconsistency, and she then remarks that it ignores the relevant portions of the Summa Theologiae. The rest of her book (at least the portions about Aquinas) goes on to reference precisely those "relevant portions" in order to explicate Aquinas' doctrine on the knowledge of God.

Also, to continue in Williams' defense, she is equally critical of Western scholars (such as Martin Jugie and Thomas Tyn) who have failed to really attempt to understand Gregory Palamas.

This is precisely what a lot of recent work is calling into question. Certainly, as I noted above, it ends up being true of many of Aquinas' interpreters (such as Suarez, mentioned in a previous note), but that doesn't mean that any of this is intrinsic to Western theology in and of itself. In fact, the article I cited above about Augustine (and the work which that article cites in its bibliography) sharply calls into question the notion that Augustine and the West following him overemphasized the essence against the Persons or sharply turned away from the theology of the East. Furthermore, you might be interested to know that the very debate you suggest (about reducing essence to a category of thought, or being) arose recently regarding Thomas Aquinas, and the result was that a very prominent Catholic theologian/philosopher was forced to admit that Aquinas does not actually reduce the essence in the way he had thought (and in the way that many people suggest). The philosopher's name is Jean Luc-Marion (author of God Without Being); see this article [thomist.org] . As that article notes, Marion had argued that Aquinas "had moved fatally away from the God of revelation and faith . . . towards the construction of the metaphysical idol of 'God' who would come to dominate modern thought . . . [According to Marion, Aquinas] accorded primacy to a human concept of being (allegedly tainted with the representational limitations of the imagination) as the horizon that dominates and determines the way in which God can appear . . . God is thus objectified and subordinated to human conceptualization, the beginning of the development that would flower into modern onto-theology." This is the standard critique, and something very much like it seems to be the one made by Sherrard and suggested here by you. In that article, however, Marion is forced to retract that view after a closer reading of Thomas Aquinas; in fact, he is forced to concede exactly what I have suggested above: namely, that this view of Aquinas comes from his interpreters, like Cajetan and Suarez, rather than Aquinas himself. In any case, there is much to suggest that this is not a fair reading of the Western position.

I believe this answers your concerns, then. The notion that the West is too "essentialist" is addressed in recent work on Augustine, some of which is cited above. The notion that Western theology necessarily reduces the essence of God to a category of thought is now being actively and forcefully questioned, even regarding Thomas Aquinas (the monument of Western Scholastic theology). Furthermore, it seems disingenuous to suggest that the filioque is a "symptom" of any of this Western theology, as it is professed so early by acknowledged saints (like St. Leo the Great) and its existence is even attested to by St. Hilary of Poitiers (in De Trinitate XII) before Augustine even existed.

In general, then, my concern has increasingly become that we are being unfair to the West in our critiques. All that I've said above suggests why I think so, and why my next phase of personal research intends to focus more on Western theology than I have been.

Thanks, and God bless,
Jason

I've never read Suarez, so I can't judge his interpretations of Aquinas, and although I have read a few things by Cajetan, the texts that I have read did not deal with philosophy. Nevertheless, Thomas' triadology is not acceptable from a Cappadocian standpoint, and in fact it can be held to fall under the direct condemnation of St. Basil in his letter 236. That being said, I don't think that Sherrard was "polemical" in his treatment of Thomas or of scholasticism generally. That at least is my take on his book.

I do not hold that either St. Hilary or St. Leo taught a "filioque" that involves the error of positing the Son as a "cause" of the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit. The Florentine decree is far removed from their teaching, and also from the teaching of St. Maximos, who defended a type of "filioque." As an Eastern Christian I do not accept Florence as an Ecumenical Council.

Moreover, I reject the Augustinian teaching on the Trinity because Augustine's views on the divine simplicity are irreconcilable with the teaching of St. Athanasios and the Cappadocians.

Yes, I have read her book, but again I do not think that she has proven that Dr. Sherrard is a polemicist. I simply think that they disagree on how to interpret Aquinas, and clearly such disagreements are possible without falling into the dismissive rhetorical device of calling your opponents viewpoint "polemical."

Ecce Jason,

if St. Leo preached filioque that only proves that pope can err... :rolleyes:


However, as Apotheon remarked, not simply Filioque, but, as i put it somewhere above, "the mentality employed in understanding Filoque", which part of a greater system of thought, when brings dogmatic deviations, may lead to even materialism. There is nothing strange in here.


Thanks Apotheon for saving me time in citing directly from Sherrard's book.

Dear Arbanon,

Actually, no.

If it can be shown that St Leo, recognized by Orthodoxy as a saint, preached the Filioque as the Latin Church understands it, then this really is a problem.

At Florence, both sides quoted their respective Fathers to prove themselves "correct."

Both sides accepted that their Fathers were inspired by the same Spirit and thus, although using different means of expression, could ONLY teach the same doctrine on the procession of the Holy Spirit.

This is why St Mark of Ephesus, when hard-pressed by the Latins on this issue, asserted that the texts of the Latin Fathers the Latin Church was advancing to "prove" the Filioque were "corrupted" by the Latins themselves. In no wise would he accept that the Latin Fathers, that Orthodoxy also venerated as Saints, could teach otherwise than against the Filioque.

In Orthodoxy, those Fathers who seem to have erred are often given the title of "Blessed" rather than "Saint."

Alex

Dear Arbanon,

Actually, no.

If it can be shown that St Leo, recognized by Orthodoxy as a saint, preached the Filioque as the Latin Church understands it, then this really is a problem (for Orthodoxy).

At Florence, both sides quoted their respective Fathers to prove themselves "correct."

Both sides accepted that their Fathers were inspired by the same Spirit and thus, although using different means of expression, could ONLY teach the same doctrine on the procession of the Holy Spirit.

This is why St Mark of Ephesus, when hard-pressed by the Latins on this issue, asserted that the texts of the Latin Fathers the Latin Church was advancing to "prove" the Filioque were "corrupted" by the Latins themselves. In no wise would he accept that the Latin Fathers, that Orthodoxy also venerated as Saints, could teach otherwise than against the Filioque.

In Orthodoxy, those Fathers who seem to have erred are often given the title of "Blessed" rather than "Saint."

You, as an Orthodox, could privately believe in the Filioque or the Immaculate Conception for that matter - that would not get you excommunicated.

Alex

I humbly accept your naswers, among Ecce Jason, Apotheon.


However, so far, I completely agree with the way Philip Sherrard (I think even Ecce Jason has pointed to this somewhere in his enlightened posts) has explained that there is no possibility for the Church of Christ to become dualistic in doctrine given the differences in language or mentality. There can be diversity but not adversity.


Individually and privately, I, as an orthodox, or you as a catholic, could be even a atheist, and still not be excomunicated, but be an integral part of the outward part of the church. And actually, that happens alot in Orthodox and Catholic countries.


P.S, today I realized, when I saw your name in there, I have come across of your website (unicorne) long time ago. Congratulations for your work.

A nice article from the Pontificator on Absolute Divine Simplicity [catholica.pontifications.net]

Myles,

Did you read the comments after the article? Especially David Bradshaw and Perry Robinson's replies? I thought one good point Bradshaw made was the unavailability of good translations of the greek fathers in the middle ages. I had heard that before and there may be some truth to it.

I havent read the replies actually Matt. What do they pertain to?