The Filioque

[John Reece]

The distinction between papal primacy vs. papal supremacy I understand.

What I do not understand is the dispute — between Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians — regarding the Filioque.

I wish to have someone explain to me briefly and simply (my aged brain is no longer able to process complex thoughts) just what's at issue in this dispute.

[Jawa Man]

I think one reason is because the Catholics added this to the Creed in violation of a canon from an Ecumenical Council preventing the alteration of the Nicene Creed. I'm not sure why, but I think because they consider the dictate of the Pope as important as an Ecumenical Council they could nullify that canon. So a main issue is "Where did the Pope get the authority to change the Creed despite the canons?"

Another has to do with saying the Spirit finds His source in the Son and Father. This takes away the Orthodox understanding of the Father as the kind of "monarch" of the Trinity. To say there is more than One Source for the Trinity is to lessen the Father's position.

[Jezz]

The distinction between papal primacy vs. papal supremacy I understand.

What I do not understand is the dispute — between Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians — regarding the Filioque.

I wish to have someone explain to me briefly and simply (my aged brain is no longer able to process complex thoughts) just what's at issue in this dispute.
:lol: I'd wager that your "aged brain" is still able to process thoughts more complex than the average person. :wink:

For an excellent discussion of this issue from an Orthodox perspective, please see if you can read "The Truth: What Every Roman Catholic Should Know about Orthodoxy", by Clark Carlton.

Here is a summary of what I see as the root of the issue: the marginalisation of the Holy Spirit.

Originally, the filioque was introduced to help fight the Arian heresy. The West had fallen to Barbarians, who were Arian. To the Spirit was declared to proceed from the Son as well as the Father in order to safeguard the divinity of the Son and His equality with the Father. The problem here is obvious: what about the Holy Spirit? If it is necessary that the Spirit proceed from a person in order to safeguard the divinity of that person, then wouldn't that mean that the Holy Spirit is less divine than the other two persons?

St Photius noted that there are two different types of attributes in the Trinity:

1. Divine attributes. These are attributes that are common to all three persons in the Trinity. Omnipotence, omnipresences, etc...
2. Personal attributes. These are attributes that uniquely distinguish one person in the godhead from the other two. The begetting of the Son is an example - it is what makes the Son the Son.

What this means is that any attribute must apply to one person, or to all three - it cannot apply to only two of them, because that would make the third person inferior.

The filioque makes both the Father and the Son a source of the Holy Spirit - an attribute of two of the persons, instead of just one.

It's a little more complicated than that because the filioque has been "reinterpreted" since it was first introduced. But the above is a good introduction. Most Orthodox would agree that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, through the Son (or "rests in the Son"), but the wording "and from the Son" distinctly implies a symmetry between the procession from the Father and procession from the Son.

[George Blaisdell]

The distinction between papal primacy vs. papal supremacy I understand.

What I do not understand is the dispute — between Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians — regarding the Filioque.

I wish to have someone explain to me briefly and simply (my aged brain is no longer able to process complex thoughts) just what's at issue in this dispute.

Hello, Friend John...

At issue is the Trinity. We all confess: "I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible..." And this is the Father, the eternal source of the other co-eternal Hypostases of the co-eternal Trinity. The Son is begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is processed by the Father - That is their relationship - They have all things in common, for they are one God in three persons, the hypostatic unity that IS the one God of the Trinity.

God the Father is primary, and begets the Son, and processes the Holy Spirit. To say that the Holy Spirit is processed ALSO by the Son, is to place in the Trinity a different hierarchy, wherein the Father is primary, the Son is secondary, and the Holy Spirit is tertiary... And it makes the the Holy Spirit dependent in its being upon BOTH the Father AND the Son, yet this is not the understanding of the Church of the first thousand years. The first formulation is.

Some [indeed many] latter day Roman Catholics have argure that the Holy Spirit is the LOVE of the Father for the Son, and vice versa, as another explanation to their error... And the Roman Church insisted on its right and its power to force the rest of the Church to change the Creed, adding words to it, outside an ecumenical council's ruling and acceptance by the whole Church, and that action split the Church into two communions, the Roman, and the entire rest of the Church, virtually ALL the other apostolic sees...

And of course, the Church Herself, is never split...

The problem with the Roman understanding is that the Holy Spirit is denigrated and lowered in His personhood [hypostasis] to being subordinated in His very being to both the Father and the Son, yet the Son is not subordinate to the Holy Spirit, unless you are going to add that as well to the creed - And indeed I have heard this argued as well. Yet the Orthodox understanding of the first thousand years of the Church is that both the Son and the Holy Spirit are directly subordinate ONLY to the Father in terms of their origin and being...

Did I manage to keep it all simple enough for you, you old fuddy-dud?? I don't believe for one minute that you are as fuzzy-headed as you would have us all believe. Jezz has got your number too, you old fox!

You take good care, my friend...

Arsenios

[GrayPilgrim]

Hello, Friend John...

At issue is the Trinity. We all confess: "I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible..." And this is the Father, the eternal source of the other co-eternal Hypostases of the co-eternal Trinity. The Son is begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is processed by the Father - That is their relationship - They have all things in common, for they are one God in three persons, the hypostatic unity that IS the one God of the Trinity.

God the Father is primary, and begets the Son, and processes the Holy Spirit. To say that the Holy Spirit is processed ALSO by the Son, is to place in the Trinity a different hierarchy, wherein the Father is primary, the Son is secondary, and the Holy Spirit is tertiary... And it makes the the Holy Spirit dependent in its being upon BOTH the Father AND the Son, yet this is not the understanding of the Church of the first thousand years. The first formulation is.

Some [indeed many] latter day Roman Catholics have argure that the Holy Spirit is the LOVE of the Father for the Son, and vice versa, as another explanation to their error... And the Roman Church insisted on its right and its power to force the rest of the Church to change the Creed, adding words to it, outside an ecumenical council's ruling and acceptance by the whole Church, and that action split the Church into two communions, the Roman, and the entire rest of the Church, virtually ALL the other apostolic sees...

And of course, the Church Herself, is never split...

The problem with the Roman understanding is that the Holy Spirit is denigrated and lowered in His personhood [hypostasis] to being subordinated in His very being to both the Father and the Son, yet the Son is not subordinate to the Holy Spirit, unless you are going to add that as well to the creed - And indeed I have heard this argued as well. Yet the Orthodox understanding of the first thousand years of the Church is that both the Son and the Holy Spirit are directly subordinate ONLY to the Father in terms of their origin and being...

Did I manage to keep it all simple enough for you, you old fuddy-dud?? I don't believe for one minute that you are as fuzzy-headed as you would have us all believe. Jezz has got your number too, you old fox!

You take good care, my friend...

Arsenios
Two things that I seem to recall in my reading on this issue (it has been a few years {hey I'm an OT guy schools are happy of I can spell theology let a lone if I have one j/K}). Part of the difficulty in east-west discussions on this issue is terminological for instance the use of propopon verses hypostasis take on different connotation in Eastern Theology than in Western Theology and vice verse.

Second and this is the point I am sure of concerning George's remark that some in the West teach that the Holy Spirit is the Love shared between the Father and the Son, teh originator of the idea is Augustine of Hippo, who of course predates the filioque clause.


On another hand, the repurcussions in the theology of the East and West are Copernican, and it is not as I have seen in other threads just a minor thing that could easily be removed by the Catholics (not being one but one who is more in line with them as Protestant than the Eastern Church). It would have huge ramifications on their identity. While it's roots may have been less than Theologically driven in some analyses (i.e. show of power), it has led to a much more strong emphasis on the intelect in the Western Church as the Spirit is mediated by the Logos.

GP

[Jezz]

Two things that I seem to recall in my reading on this issue (it has been a few years {hey I'm an OT guy schools are happy of I can spell theology let a lone if I have one j/K}). Part of the difficulty in east-west discussions on this issue is terminological for instance the use of propopon verses hypostasis take on different connotation in Eastern Theology than in Western Theology and vice verse.
The prosopon/hypostasis/ousia (Greek) and substantia/persona (Latin)terminology issue was indeed an issue in East-West relations, but not one that impacted directly on the filioque issue.

The main terminological issue in the filioque controversy was the weight accorded to the preposition "ek" in Greek, and its counterpart in Latin. Also the difference between "and" and "through" (sort-of interchangable in Latin, not so in Greek).

Second and this is the point I am sure of concerning George's remark that some in the West teach that the Holy Spirit is the Love shared between the Father and the Son, teh originator of the idea is Augustine of Hippo, who of course predates the filioque clause.
It is true that St Augustine originated that idea (whose theology was heavily influenced by neo-Platonistism). I would argue the claim that he predates the filioque clause, though - most would see him as the originator of the clause. Though he didn't put it into the Creed himself (so far as we know), it was almost certainly because of his theological works that later Latins did.

On another hand, the repurcussions in the theology of the East and West are Copernican, and it is not as I have seen in other threads just a minor thing that could easily be removed by the Catholics (not being one but one who is more in line with them as Protestant than the Eastern Church). It would have huge ramifications on their identity. While it's roots may have been less than Theologically driven in some analyses (i.e. show of power), it has led to a much more strong emphasis on the intelect in the Western Church as the Spirit is mediated by the Logos.
You've hit the nail on the head there, GP. This is precisely the issue that the Orthodox have with the filioque - it minimises the role of the Spirit at the expense of intellectualism. Christ promised that the Spirit would guide His Church into all truth, not our intellect, or a dictator. It fundamentally changes the way that theology is done.

If I had to summarise the difference between Eastern and Western theology, it would be this: The (post-Orthodox) Western tendency is to start with Scriptural (and for the more catholic churches, Patristic) tradition, and to work from that to figure out how we should worship/live our lives. The Orthodox tradition, on the other hand, is to start from the way that the Church lives her life in worship, and to understand Scripture/Tradition in that light.

Or put another way: The West won't consider it to be true until they've explained it. The East start with what they know to be true from their worshipping tradition, and then try and put it into words (but only if challenged).

The best example I can think of this is the Arian debate. Ultimately, the Orthodox won the battle of Nicea, not because they had better scriptural arguments (I believe that they did, but the Arians could counter them) - but instead, by a reference to the worshipping tradition of the Church. In the divine worship, Christ was worshipped as God everywhere. (We see this testified as early as the Pliny-Trajan correspondence.) If the Arian party was right, it would mean that the entire Church had been committing idolatory by worshipping a creature.

Again, from the Orthodox POV, this reflects the loss of faith in the West in the guidance of the Holy Spirit - that they have to rely on the intellect instead. And this loss of faith in the Holy Spirit comes from the fact that the Holy Spirit is subordinated by the filioque.

[John Reece]

To all,

Your responses have been informative and edifying, for which I'm grateful.

Blessings,

John

[scholasticus]

Mr B,

Let me just take that idea on a purely logical level (I know I'm a big sinner but let's leave that to one side!):

The problem with the Roman understanding is that the Holy Spirit is denigrated and lowered in His personhood [hypostasis] to being subordinated in His very being to both the Father and the Son

Why? I don't see any denigration. God from God is still... God.

yet the Son is not subordinate to the Holy Spirit, unless you are going to add that as well to the creed - And indeed I have heard this argued as well.

It is already in the earlier Creeds - but in economy NOT ontology: "conceived by the Holy Spirit" shows that Christ the Incarnate Son does actually "depend" in an economic sense on the Holy Spirit. But that's just an interesting aside and doesn't affect Theology.

Ahem...

Yet the Orthodox understanding of the first thousand years of the Church is that both the Son and the Holy Spirit are directly subordinate ONLY to the Father in terms of their origin and being...

OK. If you add the word "explicitly Christian" there instead of "Orthodox", it goes in just fine with the Catholic understanding.

I noted you very carefully put in the word "directly" - because of course if the Word depends on the Father, and the Spirit on the Word, then the Spirit "really" also depends entirely on the Father.

So it is just that little "directly" that is at stake.

If you just allow for the **development** of doctrine (and that is how the 7 Councils came about anyhow - the entire Nicence Creed was not explicit Church doctrine before the end of them) then we just need to make that clear and the whole problem is solved.

[The Curtmudgeon]

St Photius noted that there are two different types of attributes in the Trinity:

1. Divine attributes. These are attributes that are common to all three persons in the Trinity. Omnipotence, omnipresences, etc...
2. Personal attributes. These are attributes that uniquely distinguish one person in the godhead from the other two. The begetting of the Son is an example - it is what makes the Son the Son.

What this means is that any attribute must apply to one person, or to all three - it cannot apply to only two of them, because that would make the third person inferior.

The filioque makes both the Father and the Son a source of the Holy Spirit - an attribute of two of the persons, instead of just one.

I certainly don't have the theological credentials that many in this discussion have, including JR for one, so please forgive me if I seem to picking on a side issue. But, Jezz, there's a logical problem (not that that implies a theological problem, of course) with your St. Photius.

Given a Trinity, he says that an attibute must be of one Person, or all three, but not of two. But that's impossible, because any attribute of two Persons can be logically equated to an opposite attribute that applies only to the one. To give a simplistic analogy, if you have two squares and a circle, you can either say that 'squareness' is an attribute of two of the three, or you can say that 'roundness' is an attribute of one of the three, but they both come down to the same thing.

That the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and Son is an attribute that distinguishes the Spirit from the other two, in the same manner that saying that the Son was incarnated distinguishes Him. It is an attribute that applies only to one Person in the Godhead, despite St. Photius. You might as well claim that being immaterial makes the Father and the Spirit superior to the Son, who was restricted to a human body.

Of course, this doesn't address other arguments pro or con for the dispute over the Filioque. But St. Photius' reasoning is simply wrong, because he's only choosing to look at things from one point of view (two over the one) without seeing that it's the same thing as distinguishing one from the others.

The (there are those who might object to using logic in a religious debate) Curtmudgeon