Posted on 04/05/2005 9:11:13 PM PDT by annalex
The quotations below show that the early Church Fathers, both Latin and Greek, recognized the same thing, saying that the Spirit proceeds "from the Father and the Son" or "from the Father through the Son."
These expressions mean the same thing because everything the Son has is from the Father. The proceeding of the Spirit from the Son is something the Son himself received from the Father. The procession of the Spirit is therefore ultimately rooted in the Father but goes through the Son. However, some Eastern Orthodox insist that to equate "through the Son" with "from the Son" is a departure from the true faith.
The expression "from the Father through the Son" is accepted by many Eastern Orthodox. This, in fact, led to a reunion of the Eastern Orthodox with the Catholic Church in 1439 at the Council of Florence: "The Greek prelates believed that every saint, precisely as a saint, was inspired by the Holy Spirit and therefore could not err in faith. If they expressed themselves differently, their meanings must substantially agree. . . . Once the Greeks accepted that the Latin Fathers had really written Filioque (they could not understand Latin), the issue was settled (May 29). The Greek Fathers necessarily meant the same; the faiths of the two churches were identical; union was not only possible but obligatory (June 3); and on June 8 the Latin cedula [statements of belief] on the procession [of the Spirit] was accepted by the Greek synod" (New Catholic Encyclopedia, 5:972–3).
Unfortunately, the union did not last. In the 1450s (just decades before the Protestant Reformation), the Eastern Orthodox left the Church again under pressure from the Muslims, who had just conquered them and who insisted they renounce their union with the Western Church (lest Western Christians come to their aid militarily).
However, union is still possible on the filioque issue through the recognition that the formulas "and the Son" and "through the Son" mean the same thing. Thus the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that "This legitimate complementarity [of expressions], provided it does not become rigid, does not affect the identity of faith in the reality of the same mystery confessed" (CCC 248).
Today many Eastern Orthodox bishops are putting aside old prejudices and again acknowledging that there need be no separation between the two communions on this issue. Eastern Orthodox Bishop Kallistos Ware (formerly Timothy Ware), who once adamantly opposed the filioque doctrine, states: "The filioque controversy which has separated us for so many centuries is more than a mere technicality, but it is not insoluble. Qualifying the firm position taken when I wrote [my book] The Orthodox Church twenty years ago, I now believe, after further study, that the problem is more in the area of semantics and different emphases than in any basic doctrinal differences" (Diakonia, quoted from Elias Zoghby’s A Voice from the Byzantine East, 43).
Tertullian"I believe that the Spirit proceeds not otherwise than from the Father through the Son" (Against Praxeas 4:1 [A.D. 216]).
Origen
"We believe, however, that there are three persons: the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; and we believe none to be unbegotten except the Father. We admit, as more pious and true, that all things were produced through the Word, and that the Holy Spirit is the most excellent and the first in order of all that was produced by the Father through Christ" (Commentaries on John 2:6 [A.D. 229]).
Maximus the Confessor
"By nature the Holy Spirit in his being takes substantially his origin from the Father through the Son who is begotten (Questions to Thalassium 63 [A.D. 254]).
Gregory the Wonderworker
"[There is] one Holy Spirit, having substance from God, and who is manifested through the Son; image of the Son, perfect of the perfect; life, the cause of living; holy fountain; sanctity, the dispenser of sanctification; in whom is manifested God the Father who is above all and in all, and God the Son who is through all. Perfect Trinity, in glory and eternity and sovereignty neither divided nor estranged" (Confession of Faith [A.D. 265]).
Hilary of Poitiers
"Concerning the Holy Spirit . . . it is not necessary to speak of him who must be acknowledged, who is from the Father and the Son, his sources" (The Trinity 2:29 [A.D. 357]).
"In the fact that before times eternal your [the Father’s] only-begotten [Son] was born of you, when we put an end to every ambiguity of words and difficulty of understanding, there remains only this: he was born. So too, even if I do not grasp it in my understanding, I hold fast in my consciousness to the fact that your Holy Spirit is from you through him" (ibid., 12:56).
Didymus the Blind
"As we have understood discussions . . . about the incorporeal natures, so too it is now to be recognized that the Holy Spirit receives from the Son that which he was of his own nature. . . . So too the Son is said to receive from the Father the very things by which he subsists. For neither has the Son anything else except those things given him by the Father, nor has the Holy Spirit any other substance than that given him by the Son" (The Holy Spirit 37 [A.D. 362]).
Epiphanius of Salamis
"The Father always existed and the Son always existed, and the Spirit breathes from the Father and the Son" (The Man Well-Anchored 75 [A.D. 374]).
Basil The Great
"Through the Son, who is one, he [the Holy Spirit] is joined to the Father, one who is one, and by himself completes the Blessed Trinity" (The Holy Spirit 18:45 [A.D. 375]).
"[T]he goodness of [the divine] nature, the holiness of [that] nature, and the royal dignity reach from the Father through the only-begotten [Son] to the Holy Spirit. Since we confess the persons in this manner, there is no infringing upon the holy dogma of the monarchy" (ibid., 18:47).
Ambrose of Milan
"Just as the Father is the fount of life, so too, there are many who have stated that the Son is designated as the fount of life. It is said, for example that with you, Almighty God, your Son is the fount of life, that is, the fount of the Holy Spirit. For the Spirit is life, just as the Lord says: ‘The words which I have spoken to you are Spirit and life’ [John 6:63]" (The Holy Spirit 1:15:152 [A.D. 381]).
"The Holy Spirit, when he proceeds from the Father and the Son, does not separate himself from the Father and does not separate himself from the Son" (ibid., 1:2:120).
Gregory of Nyssa
"[The] Father conveys the notion of unoriginate, unbegotten, and Father always; the only-begotten Son is understood along with the Father, coming from him but inseparably joined to him. Through the Son and with the Father, immediately and before any vague and unfounded concept interposes between them, the Holy Spirit is also perceived conjointly" (Against Eunomius 1 [A.D. 382]).
The Athanasian Creed
"[W]e venerate one God in the Trinity, and the Trinity in oneness. . . . The Father was not made nor created nor begotten by anyone. The Son is from the Father alone, not made nor created, but begotten. The Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son, not made nor created nor begotten, but proceeding" (Athanasian Creed [A.D. 400]).
Augustine
"If that which is given has for its principle the one by whom it is given, because it did not receive from anywhere else that which proceeds from the giver, then it must be confessed that the Father and the Son are the principle of the Holy Spirit, not two principles, but just as the Father and the Son are one God . . . relative to the Holy Spirit, they are one principle" (The Trinity 5:14:15 [A.D. 408]).
"[The one] from whom principally the Holy Spirit proceeds is called God the Father. I have added the term ‘principally’ because the Holy Spirit is found to proceed also from the Son" (ibid., 15:17:29).
"Why, then, should we not believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds also from the Son, when he is the Spirit also of the Son? For if the Holy Spirit did not proceed from him, when he showed himself to his disciples after his resurrection he would not have breathed upon them, saying, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’ [John 20:22]. For what else did he signify by that breathing upon them except that the Holy Spirit proceeds also from him" (Homilies on John 99:8 [A.D. 416]).
Cyril of Alexandria
"Since the Holy Spirit when he is in us effects our being conformed to God, and he actually proceeds from the Father and Son, it is abundantly clear that he is of the divine essence, in it in essence and proceeding from it" (Treasury of the Holy Trinity, thesis 34 [A.D. 424]).
"[T]he Holy Spirit flows from the Father in the Son" (ibid.).
"Just as the Son says ‘All that the Father has is mine’ [John 16:15], so shall we find that through the Son it is all also in the Spirit" (Letters 3:4:33 [A.D. 433]).
Council of Toledo
"We believe in one true God, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, maker of the visible and the invisible.
. . . The Spirit is also the Paraclete, who is himself neither the Father nor the Son, but proceeding from the Father and the Son. Therefore the Father is unbegotten, the Son is begotten, the Paraclete is not begotten but proceeding from the Father and the Son" (Council of Toledo [A.D. 447]).Fulgence of Ruspe
"Hold most firmly and never doubt in the least that the only God the Son, who is one person of the Trinity, is the Son of the only God the Father; but the Holy Spirit himself also one person of the Trinity, is Spirit not of the Father only, but of Father and of Son together" (The Rule of Faith 53 [A.D. 524]).
"Hold most firmly and never doubt in the least that the same Holy Spirit who is Spirit of the Father and of the Son, proceeds from the Father and the Son" (ibid., 54).
John Damascene
"Likewise we believe also in one Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life . . . God existing and addressed along with Father and Son; uncreated, full, creative, all-ruling, all-effecting, all-powerful, of infinite power, Lord of all creation and not under any lord; deifying, not deified; filling, not filled; sharing in, not shared in; sanctifying, not sanctified; the intercessor, receiving the supplications of all; in all things like to the Father and Son; proceeding from the Father and communicated through the Son" (Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 8 [A.D. 712]).
"And the Holy Spirit is the power of the Father revealing the hidden mysteries of his divinity, proceeding from the Father through the Son in a manner known to himself, but different from that of generation" (ibid., 12).
"I say that God is always Father since he has always his Word [the Son] coming from himself and, through his Word, the Spirit issuing from him" (Dialogue Against the Manicheans 5 [A.D. 728]).
Council of Nicaea II
"We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, proceeding from the Father through the Son" (Profession of Faith [A.D. 787]).
Good graphic. It was always the position of the Orthodox Church that Catholic teaching on Trinity made the Holy Ghost "lesser" or "secondary" which your graphic aptly reveals. The orthodox graphic shows that the Father is the first cause and source without confusion or any need to explain further. The Catholic graphic shows what most Catholics believe but deny -- that the Father begts the Son and the Two then begt the Ghost.
Off to presanctified this evening..you are in my prayers.
Why "beget"? The Catholics do not insist on blurring the distinction between proceeding and begetting and my graphic says "proceeds". So does the Latin Creed.
The graphic says nothing about persons being secondary. You wish to see it as dropping the Holy Ghost down. I see it as elevating the Son, in comparison with the Orthodox. Either view is incorrect because it sees the "up" and the "down" of the picture are meaningful. In fact only the relations are meaningful.
The Catholic dogma is that all three persons are consubstantial. There are no lesser persons.
Then stop drawing horizontal and vertical lines for that which cannot be portrayed.
"Elevating" the Son implies that somehow the Creed diminishes Him! So, the true reasons come out of you little by little: first you blurt out that the Vatican doors are 'wide open' so we can come to you, then you say that we somehow diminish the Son.
Obviously, given the Uniates, it doesn't matter to the Catholics because they will take anyone and everyone, regardless of theology or rite, who will recognize the Pope as the absolute ruler of the Church, which is the only condition for "Catholicism" it appears.
You have closed this thread as you have closed the last: the Church teaches that Wisdom (the Father) is the only source and cause; that Word (Son) is eternally begotten by the Father and that the Spirit eternally wells up and proceeds from the Father.
There is nothing to add or subtract from that. The Cause is the Father. The Source is the Father. The Wisdom has never been without the Word or without the Spirit. The Word reflects the Spirit of the Father and in that the Spirit is an "image" of the Son. The Divine Economy is not a two or a three way street -- the Father begets (generates) the Son, the Wisdom begets the Word, the "Sonship" is eternally inherent in that immutable one-way relationship. The Spirit wells up and proceeds from the Wisdom, not the other way around. The procession is unidirectional, from the Source outward.
Your mind generates words. Your words reflect the spirit of your mind, but not the origin of it. It's a one-way relationship. Whatever character you have is in your mind, the way you think, understand and express yourself. Together, the Wisdom, the Word and the Spirit make up what we call God, just as the mind, words and our own spirit make us because we are, made that way, in His image. Without those Three there is no God just as without those three there is neither annalex nor Kosta.
The portrayal of the Trinity in HTML is just as good as portrayal of the Trinity in words. Both methods have limitations.
"Elevating" the Son implies that somehow the Creed diminishes Him!
It doesn't. You interpreted the Catholic graphic as diminishing in #41, and I point out that the Orthodox graphic does the same thing to different persons.
You have closed this thread as you have closed the last: the Church teaches that Wisdom (the Father) is the only source and cause; that Word (Son) is eternally begotten by the Father and that the Spirit eternally wells up and proceeds from the Father.
The Father is the cause, the Son is begotten and the Spirit proceeds from both. That is why the Son is begotten and the spirit is not. Case closed, door open.
May I ignore the rest? It's late and you are agitated, and I was reminded that I must not occasion that.
The overall position of the Church is that even cultures ignorant of Christ have a correct religious instinct written in their heart. We should not be surprised if we find elements of revealed wisdom discovered independently by cultures otherwise unenlightened.
The overall position of the Church is that even cultures ignorant of Christ have a correct religious instinct written in their heart. We should not be surprised if we find elements of revealed wisdom discovered independently by cultures otherwise unenlightened.
The pagan neo-Platonists, through their study of the pagan Plato, arrived at some very high-level abstractions; the Church fathers took those abstractions and personalized them (using the context of the Bible). I'm not sure who's enlightened there and who's not.
The light is that of Christ. High-level abstractions are an impressive thing but light it ain't.
I saw this comment of yours on this thread, and was wondering if you can elaborate. I think, the dual procession of the Holy Ghost is a real difference, as much as I would like this not to be the case.
Would it not be correct to say that The Father and the Holy Ghost co-beget the Son? This is what the Creed seems to say in "by the power of the Holy Spirit He was born of the Virgin Mary".
Or am I confusing the incarnation and the trinitarian generation to an intolerable level again?
Yes! Who is God? And What is God? God is the eternal Father. But to be a Father means to be in relationship. With Whom? With His Son Whom He eternally begets. Scripture says “the only-begotten Son” . In fact, there can be only one begotten Son of the Father because this begetting is Absolute and Perfect generation.
Think of it this way, in spiritual life in nature we see that there are two “activities” of our faculties: intellect and will. Because nature images God Who is it’s author, we weakly deduce that God Who is pure Spirit and infinite Substance fulfills both these activities in Infinite Eternity.
The only begotten Son is proceeds eternally form the Divine Intellect. But the Divine Intellect knows all Eternity which is none other than God Himself. Therefore, throughout Eternity the Son is generated by the Father whereby the Father communicates His entire, identical substance to the Son.
Speaking about the natural order, if through intellectual operations a concept is begotten which is the image of the object understood, then in volitional activities an act of love causes an inclination towards the loved one.
Apply the Divine Will to the relationship of the Father and the Son, Who both share completely and identically one and the same substance, but have only different relations towards each other. The “spiration” between them as an act of Love in the Divine Will, complete and Absolute, causes the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit.
Confusing enough? That’s why it is THE mystery of the Catholic Faith, Divinely revealed by Christ.
The line in the Creed concerning the birth of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit refers to the Uncreated Eternal Son’s conception in His Created order (the world) by Mary as His true mother within context of His Incarnation (i.e. His becoming truly a unique human, without changing His Eternal Origin or Substance from His Father – the 2nd great mystery of the Catholic Faith) into His Creation.
Um, I’ll send this now and see how it does;)
whereby the Father communicates His entire being
The only begotten Son is proceeds (The procession here is called "begetting". I didn't mean to confuse it with the procession of the Holy Spirit in the Blessed Trinity.)
This can be deduced from Scripture. The Eastern Church has never really paid historical attention to the fact that the "filioque" was added to combat a heresy that the Western Church was having some troubles with. It had little or nothing to do about trying to redefine an Ecumenical Council, only to clarify the teaching.
I've just pissed off a bunch of the Orthodox;)
ping for later
Thank you for both posts.
The "through the Son" formula does not alter the fact that the Orthodox, -- at least today, -- deny any relation between the Son and the Holy Ghost. This is the weakness Aquinas leverages in his discourse: if the Son is not related to the Ghost, do we still have monotheism? and if He is, then what is it if not begetting?
So, I used to see unity in the "through the Son" language, but these days my Orthodox friends convinced me that the schism is deeper.
I'll do some Orthodox bumps after the Orthodox lent is over.
Or am I confusing the incarnation and the trinitarian generation to an intolerable level again?
I think so. The Incarnation comes after the Trinity. The relation between the Father and Son is generation, or paternity and filiation. The relation between the Father and Son, and the Holy Spirit is procession or spiration.
The More Than Three Persons discourse does not answer the co-paternity of the Holy Ghost quandary directly. Reply to Objection 4 says that since there is a relation of proceeding between Father and the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost cannot be in relation of principle even as parent. But Aquinas did not apply the same logic when the Son, though in relation of begetting with respect to the Father, is in relation of principle as spirer.
Moreover, if we know that the Father and the Holy Ghost have one and the same goodness, then it would follow that the fruit of the goodness, the Son, would be co-begotten by them.
The reply to Objection 4 would still stand, because of the fact that the infinite loop purported in Objection 4 would have to alternate between procession and filiation and therefore break, leaving the number of Divine Persons at 3.
The only part of "Reply to Objection 4" that I understand is that goodness is of the essence of God and is shared by all three Persons.
I don't understand the rest of it. I have to do more studying 8-)
But Aquinas did not apply the same logic when the Son, though in relation of begetting with respect to the Father, is in relation of principle as spirer.
Moreover, if we know that the Father and the Holy Ghost have one and the same goodness, then it would follow that the fruit of the goodness, the Son, would be co-begotten by them.
I think this is addressed in post #14.
The reply to Objection 4 would still stand, because of the fact that the infinite loop purported in Objection 4 would have to alternate between procession and filiation and therefore break, leaving the number of Divine Persons at 3.
This part I think I understand, in that goodness belongs to the essence of God. As St. Thomas says in post #14, there is no absolute difference between Persons, but only differences of relation.
Sorry that I can't be of any more help. This is a subject worth studying.
Christ is risen! ;)
Indeed He's risen.
I need to understand this a bit more, particularly the Orthodox side.
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