Posted on 04/05/2005 9:11:13 PM PDT by annalex
You and me both.
That aside, I am convinced that our differences on this issue [and others] are more about perspective than reality. This is further aggrevated by our propensity to miscommunicate. Add to that certain emotional investments made by the various parties involved and what you have is "Schism Maintenance 101".
Not to change the subject, but I have an off topic question:
Is a zebra a black animal with white stripes or a white animal with black stripes?
The issues that are not clear to me are:
As far as I know, the Summa is simply St. Thomas' personal "basic introduction" to theology.
The teachings of the Summa have no doctrinal standing per se, but the Summa carries considerable weight since St. Thomas is regarded as the preeminent Doctor of the Church.
That is because after 450 AD, there was almost no communication between the East and the West, each exisiting almost autonomosly. The West was the domain of the Pope, the East under other Patriarchs. Very few spoke each other's language.
The trouble errupted specifically over the filioque under Pope Nicholas I, in the 9th century, and Bulgarian Khan Boris who was "shopping" for the best deal and German clergy arrived there and started to teach something other than what the Church taught in the east in compliance with the Ecumenical Council definitions of faith. It was at this time that the Pope saw an opportunity to extend his rule beyond the domains of the Western Patriarchate.
But the ground was made plenty fertile for the tear in Christendom by events prior to that. I would recommend reading this lenghty but well worthhwile summary of what took place leading to the Great Schism.
That being said, the fact that filioque was added to combat heresy is not the issue. The issue is that a German king in his own semi-iconoclast beliefs and faulty translations accused the Greek side of heresy for omitting the filioque. For centuries the East did not mention the insertion as long as it was understood that it was done to combat heresy. The issue became the issue when it was made into that by someone who wasn't even a theologian.
I think you are confused. This is not the Orthodox model. The "model" of the Church, east and west, was and to this day is (as inscribed in the Vatican) that the Son is begotten of the Father and that the Holy Spirit/Ghost proceeds from the Father. I am not sure where you are getting your "models."
The Father is the cause and source of everything and all. The Trinity is in an eternal relationship. The Holy Spirit is not a "product" of the Father and the Son, eternally and transcendentally speaking. This does not mean that, while in Flesh, the Spirit could not be sent -- from the Father -- through the Son, but that does not, and I repeat does not describe the ternal relationship of the Triune God. The Creed -- as formulated by the Ecumenical Council -- does.
I would like to remind everyone here that the addition of "filioque" was done to combat heresy and not to change the Creed. It acquired a life of its own and was perverted into something that it never was by the Franks who, in ignorance and arrogance, accused the Greeks of committing "heresy" for omitting the "filioque"!
Perhaps you should revist your old Church and learn more about it annalex. What I gather from your comments is that you left it without ever having known it.
Of course I meant "proceeds from the Father alone" as the Orthodox model. Sorry.
Not to enter into a discussion of personalities, indeed I was evangelized by the Roman Catholic Church (though baptized by the Orthodox in infancy), and this is why I ask the Orthodox these questions.
I would also like to avoid the discussion of the procedure by which Filioque was added, not because it is inimportant, or because the Orthodox do not have a point on that, but because I want to focus on the comparative trinitarian theology on this particular thread.
The Creed cannot be altered by anyone in particular, regardless what other theological interpretations exist. Which part of this do you not understand?
That is not the Orthodox model, annalex. That is the Church "model". The undivided Church defined it and used it as such officially before it was ever Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox.
The purpose is for me to understand the Trinity. The opinions of fathers and doctors of the Church is very important, regardless of their dogmatic status. We just clarified that the Summa does not have such status either. I am, repeat, interested in opinions, not in conciliar process of altering the Creed.
I refer to the "Orthodox" whenever it is necessary to distinguish between them and the Catholic, and vice versa for "the Catholic". I understand that each side might have a larger claim, but my purpose is clarity of expression (even if on occasion I use one word while meaning the other). I apologize in advance, and I will stick to the labels that seem most clear for the context.
Zoologists say that a zebra is a white animal with black stripes. Why?
I would highly recommend St. Photius' "Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit." Joseph Farrell's translation (published by Holy Cross -- the Greek Orthodox publishing house in Boston) is excellent and has a first-rate introductory essay regarding the theology of the filioque. It can be obtained through many different book sources. He has another book, "God, History, and Dialectic" that has even more highly detailed and developed analyses of this, but copies of it are hard to find, since it was privately published.
I would also recommend reading the second answer (and the first part of the third answer) of Patriach Jeremiah to the Tuebingen Lutheran theologians. The best source of these exchanges is the volume published by Holy Cross Press, but there is a reasonable excerpting on-line to be found here:
The Three Answers of Patriarch Jeremiah III
Not everyone likes the late Greek Orthodox theologian, Fr. John Romanides (I have tended to deeply respect his works, for the most part), but I think that this work is also valuable:
bump for later reading
Because I'm not a zoologist and I wanted to know.
I need to understand this a bit more, particularly the Orthodox side.
You may be interested in this, which is a record of the debate between the Greeks and the Latins over the "filioque" at the Council of Florence.
That's a good enough reason for me... I was just trying to connect it somehow with the filioque! :-)
This is an important point. Individual fathers do not represent the Church, but rather the "consensus patrum" does. The Ecumenical Councils are a formal expression of this consensus of the Fathers, and there are other, informal expressions of the consensus of the Fathers that are also authoritative.
Individual Fathers can (and do) err or are unclear on this or that point -- that is why the Orthodox Church has never lifted one Father's teachings above those of the rest.
And the consensus view of the Fathers of the Orthodox Church has not only been that the filioque was improperly added in the West, but also that it is incorrect theology, with attendant implications and practical consequences for the spiritual life.
There are of course many modern Orthodox theologians who wish very much to finesse and avoid this issue, but that is because they wish to be nice, and because there are adverse consequences in the modern age to state that one doctrine is correct and that another one is incorrect. It just isn't nice.
But your title says Filioque. Certainly, Trinity is part of it, but to understand what caused all this, one must take into account the history, the politicis and the cultures involved in shaping the Filioque issue, and not just the Trinity.
Read this well-written summary and you will have a much better idea.
Relativism can be made to equate everything and all.
It was the opinion of the fathers gathered at Ecumenical Synods who uninaimously declared that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, as it is stated by our Lord Jesus Christ, verbatim.
I think Patriarch Jeremiah III made it very clear that pcorceeding and sending are two distinct concepts that seem to be intermingled (if not confused) in the West.
The summary you have linked to, kosta, is a very good one.
A book that both gives a detailed history of the Council of Florence from the Orthodox perspective is "The History of the Council of Florence," by Ivan N. Ostroumoff. It was written in the mid 1800's in Russia, and translated and published in England a few decades later.
It is currently most readily available in a photo-reprint of the original British publication that was published by Holy Transfiguration Monastery in 1971. Used copies can be found very inexpensively through any online booksearch engine such as www.abebooks.com and new copies be found through any number of Orthodox on-line booksellers.
There is additional material added to the HTM edition that deals with more modern issues of ecumenism, some of which I agree with, some of which I don't. But the reprint of the original core text remains an invaluable resource for anyone who wants genuinely to understand the deliberations and events that took place in Florence from an Orthodox perspective. It is not ponderous reading at all -- it is a fascinating story.
Finally, I made a typo in my post above -- it was Patriarch Jeremiah II, not Jeremiah III who wrote the answers to the Tuebingen theologians.
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