www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Question Concerning Fillioque's Dogmatic Status

Mileage may vary!!


Ahhhh....The road not taken That would have truly been a challenging vocation!

Mary

Dear Mary,



Alex

Indeed.

My only problem is that if I ever personally met such a woman with a theological bent, in good conscience I'd have to steer her towards the religious life rather than propose

I've joked that my ideal woman is a Dominican nun

Peace and God bless!

Dear Ghosty,

I agree - there is nothing like a deeply spiritual and pious woman . . .

Relationships with such feel almost . . . naughty . . . which can be a good thing!

Where's my psalter . . .?

Alex

Florence is considered ecumenical by Rome.

Polish Pierogie knows better!

Mary,

I apologize, I assumed that you were familiar with the doctrine of energies, and I should not have. That said, energies are always both essential and enhypostatic (personal), since they do not subsist in themselves, but only in a person, because as Thomas L. Anastos explained in an article that he wrote for the Greek Orthodox Theological Review, "The deifying energy is a function of the superessential essence of the Holy Spirit. It is enhypostatic, meaning that as an energy having no hypostatic independent existence of its own, it exists as a function of the three divine hypostaseis insofar as they enact the divine essence, and it exists gratiutously in created hypostaseis which are given the privilege of 'acting' the divine essence [through the process of theosis]," in other words, "The divine energies dynamically act through the uncreated deified subject making him, by adoption, all that God is by nature." [Thomas L. Anastos, "Essence, Energies, and Hypostasis Model of God," GOTR, volume 38, nos. 1-4, 1993, page 343] Thus, the energies of the Trinity are the personalized and essential manifestation of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but are not themselves hypostaseis, nor are they identical with the divine essence.

Now, in answer to your second question, the energies are described by the Fathers of the East (i.e., the Cappadocians, St. Maximos, St. John Damascene, et al.) as the "things around God", e.g., the love of God, His simplicity, mercy, providence, His creative power, His life, His glory, etc., which are all uncreated personalized manifestation of the three divine persons [cf. the articles on Dr. Bradshaws homepage [uky.edu] for more information on this topic].

Finally, it must be borne in mind that in Eastern theology essences cannot act, only persons can act. The energies of a being are natural to it, i.e., they are of the essence, but since an essence cannot act, it follows that the energies are the enactments of the natural powers of the essence by the person. Moreover, the theology of energies is intimately bound up with the Triadological and Christological doctrine of the ecumenical councils.

Take for example the divine will in connection with the triad of divine hypostaseis: the divine will must be a common and essential energy (i.e. a capacity) of the divine nature, because if it is connected to the hypostateis instead of the divine nature, it follows that God would have three wills since He is three persons. Thus, the will as a capacity of nature is an essential energy, but the enactment of the will is a hypostatic reality, because only persons can will to do anything.

That said, if one looks at the will as a capacity of nature in connection with the incarnation, it is clear that the incarnate Logos has two natural wills corresponding to His two natures, but that He enacts His wills (both divine and human) as a single divine person.

Thus, the will is an essential energy, because it is a capacity of nature, but it is also an enhypostatic energy, because it is enacted (i.e., made manifest) only by a person.

I hope this helps you to understand better the doctrine of energies.

God bless,
Todd

Exactly. I guess some people are not familiar with the use of scare quotes.

God bless,
Todd

I remain Catholic because I do not equate the Latin Church with the Catholic Church, nor do I equate Latin doctrine or theology with Catholic theology.

I believe that it is possible to be an Eastern Christian, which involves accepting all of the doctrines of the Byzantine Church (including the dogma of energies), and remain Catholic at the same time. Now, if this eventually proves to be impossible, then, and only then, I will have no other option but to convert to Eastern Orthodoxy.

God bless,
Todd

I do not believe that the Scholastic philosophical theology of the medieval Latin Church is "the Faith."

To get back to the topic of this thread: I, as an Eastern Catholic, do not believe in the filioque, because it is not a part of the doctrinal tradition of the Eastern Churches.

God bless,
Todd

I can understand how my question might have given you that impression, but I wanted a little more from you on the subject of how the Holy Spirit comes into the world. If you remember, you had said earlier that the energies of the Holy Spirit were breathed into the world by the Incarnation. That the procession of the Holy Spirit into the world was strictly energetic and not at all personal.

So what I was really after from you in my questioning was the following statement which is the answer to whether or not the Holy Spirit comes into the world as the third person of the Holy Trinity.


So thank you for this correction and clarification on how the Holy Spirit comes into the world. It fits well with Orthodox theology of iconographic depictions of the two persons of the Trinity who come into the world personally and can be represented in their earthly images.

Mary

I did not make any "corrections" to my original post; instead, I simply restated what I originally said in a different manner.

That said, I agree with your comments, but only if when you say that the persons of the Trinity "come into the world personally," you mean energetically (i.e., through their enhypostatic energies), bearing in mind that it is impossible for a man to receive the person (hypostasis) of the Holy Spirit, since that would destroy his own created hypostasis. As I said in an earlier post, hypostatic existence, like essence, is not communicable, while energy can be participated in. Thus, the uncreated energies of the Spirit are the personal gifts of God to man, which impart to the human person a real and intimate (i.e., personal = enhypostatic) communion with the tri-hypostatic God, and this communion is nothing else than the uncreated and enhypostatic gift of theosis [cf. St. Gregory Palamas, The Triads, III, 1:28].

God bless,
Todd

My question Todd does not concern how we receive the Holy Spirit, or any of the graces of God.

My question concerns how the Holy Spirit is spirated into the world by the second person of the Holy Trinity.

There is no question that according to Orthodox teaching the Holy Spirit must be in the world personally. By your own words:



So that Jesus, who promised to send to us a Paraclete, a Counselor, sent the third person of the Holy Spirit into the world. He did not simply spirate the enhypostatic energies into the world because:

When Jesus left the world, he sent the person of the Holy Spirit, so that he might act in the world, once Jesus is Ascended.

To say, as you seem to be repeating here, again, that the personalized energies remain in the world but not the person of the Holy Spirit is to contradict the true assertion that it is the essential divine person who acts, because it is the essential divine person who wills.

And as you have also confirmed, the person is not the equivalent of the energies.

And so, by necessity of definition, we must conclude that the essential divine person of the Holy Spirit, and not just his enhypostatic energies, was sent into the world by the Son of God.

How we receive the actions of the third person of the Holy Trinity is another question.

Mary

since this is off topic, I don't know where to ask the question, but why remain in communion with a Church whose teachings you disagree with (the Latin Church) when you can be in communion with the Eastern Orthodox Church, whose teachings you agree with?

I don't usually respond to my own posts but this happened to strike a chord.

From the Word According to Hambone:

Jesus said, Whom do men say that I am?

And his disciples answered and said, Some say you are John the Baptist returned from the dead; others say Elias, or other of the old prophets.

And Jesus answered and said, But whom do you say that I am?

Peter answered and said, "Thou art the Logos, existing in the Father as His rationality and then, by an act of His will, being generated, in consideration of the various energies by which God is related to his creation, but only on the fact that Scripture speaks of a Father, and a Son, and a Holy Spirit, each member of the Trinity being coequal with every other member, and each acting inseparably with and interpenetrating every other member, with only an economic subordination within God, but causing no division which would make the substance no longer simple."

And Jesus answering, said, "Huh!?!"