www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Joint Declaration - JPII and Bartholomew I about the Filioque?

Dear ones,

Ned is not correct and neither is Todd.

Again the problem is laid out by the Greeks in Greek with no quarter given to the differences between the Latin and the Greek. All done in hindsight all done with the desire to make differences where only distinctions apply.

Also the Cappadocians never limited the origins of the Spirit from the Father alone as strictly as did Photius.

The eastern position today is much more rigid than the Fathers insisted on, prior to Photius. If anyone would like to press that I can come back fully loaded. ...Mary

The Spirit as energy shines forth as the uncreated grace and glory of the Blessed Trinity. St. Gregory Palamas, following the teaching of St. Maximos the Confessor, speaks about this in the Capita Physica (no. 95). When a man is made a son of God by adoption, he receives the Spirit, not as person, because that would involve a confusion of man created hypostatis with the uncreated hypostasis of the Spirit. Now, just as it is impossible for a man (a creature) to participate in the unknowable and incommunicable divine essence, so too it is impossible for a man to participate in any one of the three divine hypostaseis, because that would actually entail the annihilation of man's hypostasis. Man can only participate in the divine energy, and the Holy Spirit has a special role in communicating God's energy (i.e., uncreated grace) to man, because the divine energy flows out to man from the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. Now as St. Gregory Palamas explains, there are times with the word "spirit" is used in order to refer to the Holy Spirit as person, while at other times it is used in order to refer to the common energy of the Tri-hypostatic God. The association of the term "spirit" with the energy is connected to the close association of the "charismata" (i.e., the gifts of the Spirit) with the Holy Spirit's person, although the reception of those gifts is not a hypostatic reality, but is an energetic reality. If it were a hypostatic reality it would involve a confusion of man with God, and would imply a quasi-incarnation of the Spirit in every human being, which is clearly false.

I hope this helps.

God bless,
Todd

P.S. - Think of it this way: the process of divinization involves a participation only in the energy of God, because to participate in God's essence or any one of the three divine hypostasies would involve man's annihilation, and not his salvation. Essence and hypostasis by their very nature are incommunicable realities (both in God and man). Only energy can be shared.

The following information can be found on my website:

Theosis Involves No Essential Change in either God or Man

The Fathers of the Church are insistent that deified man's participation in the divine nature does not mean that he participates in either the divine essence (ousia), which is and remains wholly incommunicable and incomprehensible, nor in the personal (hypostatic) reality of any one of the three divine persons, because personality is not something that can be communicated or imparted from one person to another. The divine essence, and the personal subsistent (hypostatic) reality of the three divine persons, are utterly transcendent and incommunicable properties of God. So man is not absorbed by an essential participation in the divine nature, nor are human persons added to the Trinity; instead, through the process of deification (theosis) man participates in the uncreated divine energies (energia) which flow out from the divine essence as a gift to man from the three divine persons. In other words, by a completely unmerited gift of grace, man is elevated to a participation in the divine nature through the uncreated divine energies (energia), and this involves no essential change, nor personal (hypostatic) addition, to either God or man; instead, it entails an abiding communion (koinonia) of life and love between the Trinity and humanity.

Theosis [geocities.com]

The text I have here is from Father Leonard Foley and is not designed to address the concerns of Greek Orthodoxy or to engage the teachings of St. Gregory in any kind of debate.

They are simple teaching texts that are designed to help the faithful understand what the Church means when she speaks of a life of grace.

It is pretty plain and simple language indicating that the Catholic Church also teaches that Theosis or Union, Divinization, involves no essential change in either God or Man.

It is flatly stated that "created" grace, which Ghosty has already adequately explained is really what is otherwise known as sanctifying grace or habitual grace. These graces named essentially by their function, rather than in terms of their divine source, are ways of understanding Uncreated Grace and refer specifically to the idea that uncreated grace is received in the mode of the receiver, meaning that creatures do not become more or less creaturely in the presence of the Indwelling Trinity, and the divine does not become more or less divine in offering this holy share in divine life to us, as adopted sons and daughters.

All efforts to make this kind of simple teaching more complicated or to try to automatically or necessarily paint it as oppositional to the eastern teachings of St. Gregory are primarily neo-scholastic efforts and do not really touch the lived experiences of those of us who live lives consecrated to prayer and seeking the face of God, in which I include St. Gregory and myself, in fact.

Also there is no teaching in the Catholic Church about a grace that is made out of something and delivered in packets to the deserving. That is just plain nonsense and really ought to stop by now, at least in public forums where the topic has been discussed over and over...not that there is anything at all wrong with repetitions of the truth. Let's just be sure that we are presenting something real and not something convenient or made up.

There is certainly more to say, but sometimes one needs to be sure that they begin on as firm a foundation as possible, and do so in plain speech whenever possible.

Mary

Mary,

I am sympathetic to your attempts at reconciliation but I'm not convinced everything can be. I mean either the beatific vision is true or it's not, either God is (at least in some way) knowable in his essence or He is not.

I believe in reconciling the two when possible but I also think it's fine to live with some degree of disagreement. So what if the West and East have some different ideas in eschatology. Should we break communion over this? I don't agree with indulgences/treasury of merits, should I break communion over that? And if your answer is "Yes" then why not break communion over the West not communing infants (as was the practice historically)? Where are you going to draw the line?

Eastern Catholics have to ask themselves what level of disagreement they are willing to live with. The Pope has said that outside of the Petrine ministry and divorce the Orthodox have preserved the faith. I agree with the Pope. I think that makes me a very good Catholic

The first is a matter of interpretation, but I hope you're not serious about the latter.

AMM,

I'm not sure what you mean. Read Principles of Catholic Theology to get Benedict's view. The Orthodox view on divorce troubles me as well because in the gospels Jesus seems to forbid divorce. I tend to take Jesus seriously Having said that, I am open to an Orthodox defending their position. For that matter, I try to stay open on complicated and controversial issues generally.

I would imagine I could come up with a list of quotes from the Gospels and Epistles of things both churches allow, though there are clear injunctions against them.

Annulments are divorce by another name. It's a fudge.

Seems to me that this is not in the spirit of this Forum. It is one thing to express an opinion. It is quite another to make a Declaration of Fudge.

An annulment is not "a fudge." And it is more than an exercise of economy. Also, it is taken so seriously and the Latin rite in particular has come to see just how many marriages were invalid that they are doing much more now in their preparation classes and retreats than ever was done before.

So to just, how do you boys say it?...blow it off as a fudge? That is not at all respectful or accurate nor does it show any real knowledge or understanding of the practices of the papal Church.

Mary

I disagree quite formally on this for good reasons, I would add.

You might expect that I would add that.

The two expression, east and west, are two related truths about our understanding of the meaning of Trinity and that which has been revealed to us.

They are not separate truths, nor are they conflicting truths.

The more it is discussed the more clear that becomes.

It is interesting that the Joint Consultation recommended that the filioque could remain a curiosity of theology but had to be done away with as a credal truth. So far that has not happened.

Apparently the papal Church agrees with me. And she expresses that agreement in the reality of reciting the Greek Creed with its emphasis on the causal act of the Father, without the filioque, and the Latin Creed with its emphasis on procession, as in sending, with the filioque.

Same Tinity, different emphases.

Show me THE Creed that has been recited by all Christians for all time without ANY change.

Good. I agree. There isn't one. And the history of the one in question is not all that straightforward either. The Latins never did recite the Creed with the same emphasis as the Greeks.

Mary

Matt,

I suppose to get too much into divorce would be to get off topic, so a separate thread would be better. In brief, however, I'll just mention a few things that make the Orthodox position on marriage more coherent.

The first is that while it is true, according to biblical scholars, that Jesus' teaching on divorce was absolute, it is also the case that, at least in Matthew, an exception clause is added. The meaning of "unless it is for 'porneia'" is up for debate of course. But it should be said that nothing in the text indicates that it is talking about "invalid" marriages.

The second thing to point is that St. Paul does, in fact, give at least one ground for divorce and remarriage. If two unbelievers are married and one does not stay with the other (after the other becomes a Christian), then the believer is free to remarry. St. Paul never says that the marriage was not valid. Also, I would point out that the Roman Church holds that marriages between non-christians are valid. Yet, the Roman Church gives annulments to people all the time who were non-Christians when married, or who were protestant. If Jesus' teaching applies to all people at all times and if it is absolute, then St. Paul is disobeying Jesus by granting an exception.

This leads me to my third point. While it is true that Jesus states the ideal, that from the beginning God never intended people to divorce, it is still a fact that God gave Moses permission (in the Torah, God's law) to permit divorce and remarriage because of the hardening of men's hearts. Can God ever give permission to sin? So, if God's teaching on the indisolubility of marriage is absolute, then God actually gave explicit permission, in His Law, to sin. This is absurd, of course.

Historically, there never has been consensus on the issue of divorce and remarriage. That is just an empirical fact. And here is another problem. To declare one's marriage null and void is basically to say that one was living in sin for years and having children out of wedlock. Frankly, I think it is insulting.

Finally, I will tell you that annulments are not difficult to get. Several years ago, I was in the hospital for severe depression. The Catholic priest told my wife that if she wanted to leave me, she could get an annulment no problem, and he would help her. After all, how did she know when we were first married that I was, arguably, a mentally incompetent human being.

People like the Kennedy's get as many annulments as they want. All they have to say is, "When I look deep down inside my heart, I realize that I never intended to be faithful, hence, I never intended to have a sacramental marriage." The Kennedy gets the annulment and his former spouse gets insulted.

Frankly, I think that the western teaching on divorce and marriage is self-contradictory and incoherent and, at times, cruel. Forgive me for sounding so harsh. I am not saying anything that his grace, Archbishop Elias Zoghby has said on numerous occasions.

Joe

I am just not convinced that East and West do mean the same things and understand scripture in very close or identical ways and that this whole thing is down to how Greeks use Greek and how Latins use Latin; I have had much the same thing said about monophytism; that actually the Armenian and Ethipoians meant the same thing as us, we just misunderstood etc. As in that case, it is more than just misunderstanding, there actiually are real differences; I wonder if the understanding of procession from Christ in the west does not have a real input into the "persona Christi" concept of priest as sacramental minister, for example.

I don't believe these differences are sufficient for me to break communion, and only by acknowledging them do we truly apprecaite the different and united traditions in the early church and find a path to unity. What has been much more harmful to the path to reunion is the way in which the clause was introduced into the creed in the western church, which can be read in some ways a precursor to other changes in the Roman church were introduced over time.

Ned

Dear Ned,

After all these centuries and what we've been taught about one another over the time we've been separated, it is no wonder you are sceptical. But if you examine your note here, you'll see that it is 9/10s attitude and the rest speculation about what is what. There's really nothing in it that I can grab on to and try to work with in real substantive terms.

I'd be happy if people on both sides would slow down a bit, be more open and actually look at what is there, rather than what we are certain is there, or have been told is there, or would prefer to be there, or don't want to see.

I am not accusing you of being thoughtless here but it does look as though you just walked up to an open door, said "No thanks" and shut it.

That is not going to get at the truth by any means.

Mary

Mary,

A couple of points:

First, it is the Greek text of the New Testament that is inspired, and the Greek text uses different words, with different meanings, when speaking about the procession of origin of the Holy Spirit, which is from the Father alone, and His sending by the Son.

Second, as far as grace is concerned, I reject the concept of "created" grace as contrary to the Gospel. Sanctifying (i.e., deifying) grace is an uncreated reality, and in fact it must be uncreated, because no created reality can deify a man. In fact, as both St. Gregory Palamas and St. Maximos taught, each and every man's theosis is an uncreated and eternal enhypostatic energy, and by receiving this gift of uncreated grace the divinized human being becomes uncreated by it. Now, I have no intention of having another drawn out discussion on the Eastern rejection of "created" grace, because those discussions ultimately go nowhere, since the Westerners who participate in them have no interest in trying to understand the theology of the East. That said, as a Byzantine Christian I reject, as utterly repugnant to the Christian faith, the idea that grace, which is God Himself given as energy, can be a "created" habitus.

Finally, it is clear that we will have to agree to disagree, both on the nature of grace and on the doctrine of the Trinity.

God bless,
Todd

I agree...to disagree! And I think that unity is not full agreement, but unity is understandind, which allows room for the diversity; there is diversity in union; in a horticultural analogy it is genetic diversity which is the best protection against disease, pest and threat for ecosystems; it's an analogy with some extensions to the situation of Christianity in the Western word at the present time.

Ned