www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Divine Essence/Energies

The fact that East and West formulate the doctrine of the Trinity differently -- and even sometimes in a contradictory fashion -- does not mean that the reality of the mystery itself is different. The modes of expression are clearly different, but that in itself does not necessitate the idea that the object of reflection is different.

I readily admit that the East approaches the Trinity normally by looking at the hypostases first, while the West normally looks at the unity of essence first, and of course I favor the former approach over the latter, but that doesn't mean that the Western way of reflecting upon the mystery of the Trinity is wrong. I think a certain plurality of expression in relation to the mystery is going to have to be allowed, because the Eastern and Western doctrinal traditions appear to be self-contained wholes. More importantly, we are dealing with the incomprehensible God, and so diversity of expression may be the only possible course of action when confronted with the revelation of this mystery.

As far as the divine energies are concerned, they are uncreated, because they are God as He exists outside of His ineffable and incomprehensible essence.

Todd (Apotheoun),

First, we are blissfully in agreement regarding the divine energies.

We are also -- and let me shout this from the rooftops for everyone to see -- blissfully in agreement when you say:

Indeed, it does not necessitate any such thing. My most recent point was only that it also does not necessitate that the object of reflection is the same (and I think you'd agree with me there). I also agree that the Eastern and Western approaches begin from different starting points. I also agree that we are dealing with the incomprehensible God and that our expressions will always, by necessity, fall short of expressing the fullness of the mystery. That said...

I'm not sure I agree that the East and the West are "self-contained wholes," at least in the strongest sense. Why? Well, because of the very possibility of translation, and also because of the historical facts that the traditions met at councils (such as Florence) and actually discussed these things, that Maximus the Confessor was able to explain the Western understanding of the filioque at his time to the Greeks, that Photius and the Carolingians could debate these issues and presumably weren't always talking completely past eachother, etc. One noteable thing that the Council of Florence even does is expound both the Greek and the Latin understanding, and it explains why the Greeks supposedly had a problem with the Latin understanding, and it also explains how the Latin tradition attempts to meet that problem, and then, in its definition, it actually uses the phrasing "according to the Greeks" and "according to the Latins." So, there seems to be a possibility of at least communicating across traditions. Indeed, I think if we say wholesale that the two traditions are "self-contained," its almost as if we divorce the Western and Eastern fathers from one another even when they were in communion within the early Church, and it also seems to do a bit of damage to historical fact.

That said, my problem still arises from the fact that Florence, even after all that discussion, says that the Holy Spirit proceeds also from the son, "according to the Greeks, as cause." So apparently the Greeks said this at the council... Not the Latins. That's why I have such a problem with it. That's why I'm asking what we do about it. And, if the West explicitly says that we know the divine essence, and the East explicitly says we don't know the divine essence, I also have a hard time just saying, "Oh, they must be talking about different things." I don't mean to be glib; these are truly where my problems arise.

Thanks,
Jason

First let me be clear about this, because I am not saying that it is impossible to translate texts from one language to another; instead, I hold that the presuppositions underlying the two traditions are different, sometimes because of linguistic differences, but mainly because the metaphysical approaches are different.

The essentialist focus of Western Trinitarian theology cannot be taken over into the East without doing violence to the very structure of the theology of the East. The East holds that the unity of the God is founded upon the Father, because He is the sole divine cause, while the West focuses the unity of God upon the divine essence, and not upon the hypostasis of the Father. Now, I am not saying that the two expressions of this mystery never come into contact with each other, because that would be ludicrous to propose, but what I am saying is that particular elements of the two traditions cannot be simply transposed. In other words, a theologian cannot take the Florentine understanding of the "filioque" and put it into the Byzantine doctrine of God without doing extreme violence to Byzantine Triadology. For example, it is not possible in Byzantine theology to say that the Son is a cause (passive or active) of the origin of the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit, because this would be to ascribe a hypostatic property that belongs to the Father alone to the Son, thus confounding the persons, and either leading to Sabellianism or ditheism. In addition, any attempt to make the Son a "co-principle" of the spiration of the Spirit's hypostasis will inevitably lead to modalism, because it will reduce the spiration of the hypostasis of the Spirit to the common divine essence. Moreover, this "co-principle" idea, which is based on an essentialist understanding of the unity within the Trinity, also has the added problem of making the Spirit the principle of His own procession, because He, along with the Father and the Son, possesses the divine essence as a whole (i.e., through perichoresis).

Thus, the two Triadologies cannot be combined in their particular expressions without doing harm to each other, but that does not mean that they are referring to a different reality. The expression of the mystery cannot exhaust the mystery itself. In fact, the dogmatic pronouncements of the Magisterium in connection with the three divine hypostases are apophatic, and that is why Damascene said that the Son and Spirit are differentiated by the origins from the Father, i.e., the former by generation and the latter by procession, but as to how generation and procession are different, Damascene said it is not possible to know ("The Orthodox Faith," Book 1, Chapter 8).

That being said, St. Maximos the Confessor (in the 7th century) did defend the Latin Church's doctrine of the "filioque," and held that it in no way harmed the sole causality of the Father, but that does not mean that St. Maximos would have accepted the Florentine definition of the "filioque." In fact I believe that Maximos would have had problems with the Florentine definition, because it appears to be contrary to what he said the Latin's meant by the "filioque."

Here is what St. Maximos said on this issue, "With regard to the first matter, they (the Romans) have produced the unanimous evidence of the Latin Fathers, and also of Cyril of Alexandria, from the study he made of the gospel of St. John. On the basis of these texts, they have shown that they have not made the Son the cause of the Spirit--they know in fact that the Father is the only cause of the Son and the Spirit, the one by begetting and the other by procession--but that they have manifested the procession through him and have thus shown the unity and identity of the essence."

St. Maximos\' Letter on the Filioque [geocities.com]

Now of course it appears that by the 15th century the Latins had forgotten this important point, and that is why the Council of Florence went so far as to say that ". . . the Holy Spirit is eternally from the Father and the Son, and has His essence and His subsistent being from the Father together with the Son, and proceeds from both eternally as from one principle and a single spiration. We declare that when holy doctors and fathers say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, this bears the sense that thereby also the Son should be signified, according to the Greeks indeed as cause, and according to the Latins as principle of the subsistence of the Holy Spirit, just like the Father."

As a Byzantine I cannot say, in any sense, that the Son is a cause, or source, or principle, of the spiration of the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit, for to do that would involve falling into various heresies.

God bless,
Todd

I would take with a grain of salt what the "Greeks" said at the Council of Florence, because, like the Second Council of Lyons, it was utterly rejected by the Eastern Churches. Neither Florence nor Lyons will be the basis of any future restoration of communion between the Roman Church and the Churches of the East.

Todd,

I stand in agreement with you, once again, on a good number of points. Speaking of which, I agree that Maximos would not have accepted the Florentine filioque; I didn't mean to suggest that, so forgive me if I did. My point was only that, at one point, the doctrines did have contact with one another, i.e., they didn't develop in a vacuum, so I don't know how legitimate it is to really say that they are two self-contained wholes that cannot be conclusively critiqued from either position. Certainly, attempting to insert Latin theology into Byzantine theology, or Byzantine theology into Latin theology, would nowadays be a complete disaster. However, while they were developing, they were also responding to one another, and so it isn't as if their development was completely divorced and self-contained.

In any case, it once again comes down to my most difficult area of understanding with you: the dogmatic status of the Council of Florence. That council says in its very definition that the Greeks pronounce the Son as cause. It also says that these truths need to be believed by all Christians. The Greeks at Florence did say this, although there is of course the possibility that they were coerced in some way. In any event, the Orthodox Church certainly did not end up accepting this council. Rome, however, did. So my real point, I suppose, is this: if one is in union with Rome, and Rome holds as one of its councils that the Greeks say that the Son is a cause and, indeed, must believe this (even if not reciting it in their creed, and even if the "filioque clarification" does say certain qualified things like that the Father is the sole Trinitarian cause or the sole immediate cause), then it seems that the implication is that the Catholic doctrine, East and West, is that the Son is in some sense cause. I don't see the filioque clarification denying this. I don't see Florence or Lyons denying this. I have a hard time seeing, therefore, how an Eastern Catholic can deny this (particularly when this is considered in the larger light of the fact that Rome seems to be requiring that the Orthodox, for union to occur, must accept the papacy as it has developed even up to this day; in other words, they don't seem to be willing to go back on any of their councils -- see the "How Catholic? How Orthodox?" thread I started).

Forgive me a hundred times over, seriously, for pushing this point so hard, but it is just one that I truly do not understand.

Thanks, and God bless,
Jason

I do not believe that the Council of Florence represents the Byzantine doctrine at all; rather, it is a Latin council (binding on Latins) that promoted the Latin doctrine, and the Easterners that where there assented under pressure from the Emperor, who wanted union in order to gain Western military assistance in the war with the Muslims. Thus, the Council of Florence does not reflect Eastern doctrine at all. Within the Byzantine theological tradition to hold that the Son is a cause of the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit is heretical, and was condemned at the Council of Blachernae. The original Latin doctrine of the "filioque" can be conformed to Byzantine Triadology, but it is not possible to conform the teaching of Florence in the same manner, because is not the same as the teaching of the West at the time of St. Maximos.

Florence is a dead issue, and as such, it can never be the basis for a restoration of communion between the Roman Church and the Eastern Orthodox. The Roman Church implicitly accepts this, since it has entered into dialogue with the Orthodox, unless of course you think that Rome is acting duplicitously in its dealings with the East, i.e., pretending that dialogue is possible when in fact Rome intends to force Florence down the throats of the Orthodox. As far as I can tell, Rome has realized that Lyons and Florence are not acceptable to the East, and so it is willing to start afresh, as we all should be.

God bless,
Todd

Dear Ray,

I must say, in all humility and without intending any offense, that, in all seriousness, these (seemingly ad hominem) notions as that these sort of disagreements are for the most part about pride, or that what we really ought to do is just agree to disagree because we're all "made differently," ultimately end up being somewhat dangerous. I agree that they sound good, and I join in the prayer that all will open their hearts to one another and attempt to genuinely understand. However, it seems to me that one part of genuine understanding involves acknowledging what real differences there may be, talking them out, seeing how they can work together, and so on. Genuine understanding involves dialogue, sometimes about very difficult and complex issues, and sometimes about issues where there seems to be entrenched disagreement. We must not rule out from the beginning that there might possibly be irreconcilable differences, because to do so is to treat the differences as, in some sense, a priori settled from the outset, and so it is to treat them without the requisite seriousness and sincerity. In my opinion, we have to allow them full expression and then get down to the hard work of working them out, if they can be worked out. Some of this involves pressing and difficult dialogue, including a development of arguments (in the non-aggressive meaning of the word) in order to convey one's position and in order to understand what the dialogue-partner is thinking and why. I do not believe we should be dismissive about this. Forgive me if I have misunderstood you.

That said, I believe that Todd and I have been doing just fine having these sorts of dialogues without letting pride get in the way. As far as I know, he holds no animosity toward me; and, of course, I hold none toward him. You will see, I hope, my reluctance to sometimes push a point that I don't understand, and you will see me ask for forgiveness before I ask what I think may be either an incessant question that I repeatedly ask or (what seems to me) a particularly difficult question that strikes at the heart of what my dialogue partner is saying. Please take my word for it when I say that I am doing this all in an attempt to better understand, and to hopefully work these issues out in whatever way I may humbly be able to do so.

God bless,
Jason

Todd,

In line with my most recent comment to Ray, I want to thank you again for your response and say that I think that I finally understand your position. Hopefully this means I can stop bringing up Florence whenever I talk to you.

That said, I must admit to still having some difficulty. No, I do not think that Rome intends to "force Florence down the throats of the Orthodox." Their "Filioque Clarification" certainly was helpful (particularly when it stated that the Creed of 381 is the normative creed), but in my opinion (and the opinion of most Orthodox I know) it was unfortunately ambiguous. This ambiguity allows it to be interpreted consistently with Florence and yet at the same time to appear (and possibly be interpreted as) completely Orthodox. I only wish there would be a more clear statement on this issue. Furthermore, I do not really know of any evidence that Rome has realized that Florence and Lyons are not acceptable to the East -- well, let me qualify that. Certainly Rome has recognized that they were not successful union councils and that they do not adequately express the Eastern doctrine. Even so, it seems to me that they still recognize Lyons (and probably Florence) as binding and correct when truly understood, at least when it comes to the dogmatic portions of those councils. Sure, they may believe that the councils are unacceptable to the Orthodox because they were expressed in typically Latin language, the Easterners were coerced and pressured, and so on. They may acknowledge that they may not serve as ground for union. But this does not thereby imply that they will not still view them as ultimately in some way necessary once union has been achieved. The fact that the Filiioque Clarification cites the Council of Lyons as its evidence for "the Catholic doctrine" (emphasis added) is perhaps the most clear suggestion that there is still something to these councils, even when it comes to discussions involving the Orthodox.

Thoughts?

All the best,
Jason

My position is slightly more nuanced than it may have appeared from my previous post. I hold that Florence and Lyons are binding on Latins, but not on the East, because the definitions are formulated in a Latin way and reflect only the Latin understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity.

The West is going to have to accept that the East formulates and expresses the mystery of the Trinity differently, and the East must accept that the West has its own way of expressing the doctrine.

That being said, any restoration of communion in the future will have to allow for the distinctive modes of expression of both traditions.

God bless,
Todd

Todd,

Your recent clarification is nice, particularly in that it's a position I'm very sympathetic toward. That said, right now I don't have much more to add. However, I think I'll be sending a private message your way in a moment, because I have a question or two that are slightly more personal and at least less related to this discussion here. Thanks!

All the best,
Jason

Dear Jason...

A well done reply!

I do not have the time to read it well tonight - but I look forward to a good read of it tomorrow.

May I say that, you are the spirit of discussion. And I am joyed - to grasp your meaning better. You seem to have a mind suited to this stuff - so it will be a pleasure.

At first reading - I think I understand your focus better now.

It will be a pleasure to sharpen our terms together.

We will take it slow because these discussions always are so tied to agreements of terms.

-ray

Ray,

Thank you much for the kind words. I will be glad to discuss whatever you'd like!

Speaking of my first response to you, I admit that I do worry that I might have come across a bit abrasively. I hope that I was not too flippant in my response. I didn't intend to be, in any case! Forgive me if I did in fact come across that way at all.

God bless,
Jason

Oh no... no problem. I can tell that you like to wrap your mind around this stuff. In fact - I invite you to be a bit flippant is you think it will help. Be blunt and bold.

Now - I shall re-read you - and form a continuation.

-ray