www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Please demonstrate the theological correctness of filioque.

Here is the Challenge:

Everything in the Trinity is either Three, or one. That which is common to the essence is one, such as love, mercy, goodness, compassion, omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence. That which is three is particular to the Persons: The Father unbegotten, the Son Begotten, the Spirit Proceeding.

THerefore, if the filioque means the Spirit proceeding forth from the father and the son simultaneously in eternity in the unity of a single spirating principle, a question must be asked: Is the Son's ability to Spirate and breathe forth the Holy Spirit Hypostatically and from all eternity a quality that belongs to his Person, or to his natured?

If it belongs to his Person, how is he distinguished from the father? If it belongs to his nature, then that which is common to the Divine nature is common to the Spirit as well and he should breathe forth a 5th, a 6th, an infinite number of persons.

Furthermore, if the Holy Spirit is the "Love" of the Father and the Son for one another, firstly how do you not reduce the Hypostasis of the Spirit to a mere energy? Love being an action of Godhead, not a hypostasis, and second, what about the Love of the Spirit for the Son and the Son for the Spirit? Is this love of an inferior quality than the love of the father for the son? Why then does it not spirate again an infinite procession of interacting loves?

Therefore, the Filioque is theologically erroneous, for either it must lead to Polytheism simply and intrinsically if considered in itself, or according to the explanation of St. Augustine, OR it must consist in The Son possessing the personal attributes of the father, namely sharing in his causation, but how are they then distinguished?

Further, if the Son has the spiration of the Spirit from the father, then HOW does he posses it? As an hypostatic or a substantial quality? If the trinity is equal, then what is this ontological primacy of dyad?

GO!

Roman Catholic Trinitarian theology with respect to the Filioque affirms this distinction, namely, that the Holy Spirit is spirated ACTIVELY from the Father, but PASSIVELY from the Son.

Thus, Aquinas could maintain the correctness of both the Western formulation re: the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son and the Eastern formulation that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son.

Eastern Orthodox theologians would argue that "through the Son" in the Western theological praxis isn't the same as what the Orthodox Church means by this. There are Eastern Orthodox theologians, however, mentions by Met. Kallistos Ware who today say there is no longer any problem in this regard (apart from the placement of the Filioque in the Western version of the Nicene Creed).

It seems, however, that when we consider the Damascene's understanding of the procession of the Holy Spirit (even though St John of Damascus denies that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son in the sense given by Mar Babai in terms of the Son being the "Cause" of the Spirit as the Father certainly is - this is noted by Aquinas also), we see what appears to be a very close approximation of what the Latin view of "Through the Son" means. So the Damascene makes analogies comparing the Father to, for example, the roots of a plant, the Son to the plant's stem and the Holy Spirit the flower. And he gives others.

Fr. Prof. John Meyendorff (+memory eternal!) himself wrote that, for example, the Council of Florence could have come to a mutually agreeable union on the basis of Trinitarian theology IF both sides agreed to the original Creed without the Filioque AND to the extraneous theological formulation of "Through the Son."

Etc.

But the Filioque as the Latin Church understands it today is nothing more than a version of "Through the Son" because the Son only spirates the Spirit "passively."

Ultimately, the Latin Church could keep its Filioque tradition (the Orthodox Church has her own Filioque tradition in terms of both the Father and the Son sending the Spirit re: temporal mission) within a reunified Church, East and West, if the Latin Church officially affirmed the original Nicene Creed (without the Filioque) as being the only binding creedal expression for the Universal Church (with the Filioque remaining as a theologoumenon of the West).

RC theologians in dialogue with the Orthodox Church have called for the dropping of the Filioque from the Nicene Creed which is recited in its original form at the Vatican whenever the Mass is celebrated in Greek anyway.

Rome might be afraid of doing this as a sign that it has somehow "made a mistake" in this regard and so isn't as infallible as it has affirmed.

But it shouldn't be afraid of moving ahead with this (and with restoring the Photian Council as the true 8th Ecumenical Council acknowledged by Rome originally) since it has always affirmed the original Creed to be a valid and full expression of the fullness of Catholic Trinitarian faith.

So the East sees the Filioque as "clumsy Triadology" at best and "heresy" at worst (since it makes the Creed open to "double Causality of the Holy Spirit). While Rome should heed Eastern calls for a greater understanding of the Eastern Church's patrisstic-based Triadology - the East could also be more appreciative of what the Latin West really believes about the Filioque within the context of "Through the Son."

Alex