The Filioque

[JM]

A Pastoral Case for the Filioque Clause | TGC | The Gospel Coalition

The Bible trumps tradition.

 

[JM]

The Filioque Clause: It’s Importance for Theology and Life – Samuel Johnson | Christ Theological Seminary

 

[stenerson]

Interesting, never heard of it.

 

[JM]

Interesting, never heard of it.

It seems to be a political dispute that morphed into a theological reason to separate. No one reads the Creed "and from the Son" with the idea of "eternally proceeding from" or "temporally proceeding from" the Son. Heck, most Eastern Orthodox I have use to attend St. Nektarios with describe Eastern Orthodoxy as "Roman Catholic without the Pope."

 

[hedrick]

I’m not the best to speak for the Eastern Orthodox, but in their view filioque implies a misunderstanding of the Trinity. The Father is the source. The Son is begotten by him. The Spirit proceeds from him. If the Spirit proceeds from both Father and Son, there are two sources of the Trinity, which is a problem for its unity.

The arguments given for the filioque here seem to be speaking of Jesus as sending the Holy Spirit. That is certainly the case. But that’s not what “proceeds” in the Nicene Creed means.

For a brief review of the issue see NPNF2-14. The Seven Ecumenical Councils - Christian Classics Ethereal Library. It appears that this is a fairly late addition even in the West.

 

[JM]

The EO have no trouble claiming the Son sends the Spirit in a temporal sense or that the Spirit is sent through the Son. It's a political argue between the East and West as they wrestled for power. The West, following Augustine's lead, defended "and the Son."

Again, who reads or recites this creed and asks, "is that temporal or eternally sending?"

 

[JM]

John Frame on the Filioque

June 11, 2014

in Filioque, Issues Involved, Reformed View

(Taken from Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief)

The Nicene Creed as formulated at the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381 confesses faith “in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver, Who proceeds from the Father.” John Leith notes:
In the West the original text “who proceeds from the Father” was altered to read “from the Father and the Son” [filioque]. This alteration is rooted in the theology of the Western Church, in particular the theology of Augustine. The procession from the Son was vigorously affirmed by the Council at Toledo in 589 and gradually was added to the creed, though it was not accepted as part of the creed at Rome until a number of centuries had passed. (John Leith, Creeds of the Churches, 32)
The Eastern church did not look with favor upon this change and thought it arrogant of the Western churches to alter an ecumenical statement of faith without consulting their Eastern brothers. This doctrinal issue was one of the main causes of the schism between Eastern and Western churches that began in A.D. 1054 and continues to the present.

I am inclined to agree with the Eastern Christians that the Westerners should not have modified the creed without the consent of the whole church. But in this book I am, of course, concerned with the doctrinal issues rather than the issues of church polity. So I will consider the question whether the Spirit proceeds from the Father only, or from the Father and the Son.

I will say more later about the relative differences in focus between Eastern and Western theologies in this area. The East, following the lead of the Cappadocian fathers, focuses on the Father as the “fountain of deity” and then asks how the other persons are related to him. The Western thinkers, following Augustine, focus more attention on the whole Godhead, the simple divine nature, and then ask how within that simple nature there can be three persons and how those persons may be related to one another. As we have seen, the Western tradition has been tempted in a Sabellian direction, to reduce the concrete persons to “relations.” But the Westerners have sometimes charged the Easterners with subordinationism (as in Calvin’s critique of the notion of “derived deity”).

So the Western thinkers have wanted to see everything in God in relation to everything else, emphasizing the circumincessio (which, to be sure, is also affirmed in the East). So for them, at least as the Easterners see it, the existence of the Son and the Spirit is due primarily to their necessary existence as God, not to a particular act of the Father, although the Westerners also frequently affirm that the Father is the “fountain of deity.”

So the Eastern theologians tend to see the Western position as compromising the concreteness and integrity of the persons—as if the Spirit’s existence comes not from the Father or Son or both as concrete persons, but from the divine nature generally.

I will have something to say later about the two different Trinitarian models that here confront one another. In general, my view is that both are legitimate and that neither, as a model, resolves the specific question before us. But these models are important to the controversy, for they indicate, I think, why some of the more specific arguments weigh more heavily in the Eastern theology and others in the Western. Let us consider some of those more specific arguments:

1. The Eastern theologians claim that John 15:26 refers the Spirit’s procession (ekporeutai) exclusively to the Father. The Westerners point out that in that very verse it is Jesus who is “sending” the Spirit to the disciples. I have argued that the reference of ekporeutai to eternal procession has not been established. If my understanding is correct, then both the procession and the sending mentioned in the verse take place in history. Now, that understanding does not make the verse irrelevant to the doctrine of eternal procession, for as we have seen it is legitimate to find an analogy between the historical and the eternal relationships among the persons of the Trinity. But if both the procession and the sending of John 15:26 take place in time, that would support, by analogy, the view that the Spirit’s eternal procession is from both Father and Son.

2. Some Western theologians claim that the Eastern view separates the Spirit from Christ. If the Spirit proceeds only from the Father, rather than from Jesus, they say, then we can come to the Father by the Spirit apart from Jesus, leading to a kind of mysticism rather than a cross-centered piety. Some Eastern theologians, in turn, charge that it is the West that encourages mysticism, for Western theology ascribes eternal procession, in the end, to a vague, abstract “Godhead,” rather than to the concrete person of the Father. Yet: (a) Mysticism has arisen in both Eastern and Western churches; I have seen no evidence that views of eternal procession have had much influence in motivating or deterring mysticism. (b) Eastern Christians do make Jesus a central object of devotion. Practically speaking, there is no reason to think that they approach God apart from Christ. (c) Eastern theologians have been willing to say that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, or from the Father to rest on Christ (after the model of Jesus’ baptism).723 Both of these models, it seems to me, encourage Christ-centered piety. (d) Western theology, despite its particular concern for the unity of the Godhead, does not teach that the Spirit proceeds from the Godhead, but rather from the Father and Son.

3. Western thinkers have sometimes criticized the Eastern view as subordinationist, for in the procession of the Spirit, Father and Son are not equal. But why? Is it subordinationist to draw any distinction at all between the activities of Father and Son? Surely not. Why, then, does this particular distinction indicate subordinationism? Even on the Western view, the roles of the persons in generation and procession are not identical to one another, hence the theological distinctions between the persons by the “personal properties” of generation, filiation, and passive spiration.
4. I believe that the analogy between the eternal and temporal proceedings of the Spirit favors the Western view. As we have seen, the Son as well as the Father sends the Spirit into the world, and Scripture frequently refers to the Spirit both as the “Spirit of God” and as the “Spirit of Christ.” It refers once to the “Spirit of your Father” (Matt. 10:20). The mission of the Spirit is to testify of Christ (John 15:26).

5. But it is dangerous to develop doctrines based on analogy alone. And even if John 15:26 constitutes a proof text for one position or the other, the church has usually not seen fit to create tests of orthodoxy on the basis of one proof text. Although I somewhat prefer the Western formulation, I think both East and West were unwise to have made this a church-dividing issue. Neither view should have been made a test of orthodoxy.

6. We should remember that (a) Scripture gives us no precise definition of person or substance, (b) it gives us no precise definition of either generation or procession, or of how these two concepts differ, and (c) the best arguments for eternal generation and procession are based on analogy, rather than explicit biblical teachings or strict logical consequences of biblical teachings.

These considerations, like those in point 5, should moderate our advocacy of either position. Again, theological humility is in order. God has given us a glimpse of his inner life, not a map or a treatise.

 

[JM]

Muller On Reformed Orthodoxy On Double Procession And The Filioque

2. The demonstration of the filioque: “double procession.” The traditionally Western trinitarian concept of the double procession of the Holy Spirit was consistently upheld by the Reformers and argued with some vigor against the Greek Orthodox view. The Reformed exegetes, moreover, understood the issue to be one of exegesis, not merely an issue of the form of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, and found the biblical text to be entirely of one accord in favor of double procession. Vermigli writes, with reference to John 15:26,

Seeing the Son saith, that he will send the Spirit, and (as we said before) affirmeth him to receive of his; no man doubteth, but that he proceedeth from the Son. And now he expressly addeth; Who proceedeth from the Father.

Calvin took the point with equal seriousness, noting in his commentary on the same text,

When he says that he will send him from the Father, and, again, that he proceedeth from the Father, he does so in order to increase the weight of his authority; for the testimony of the Spirit would not be sufficient against attacks so powerful, and against efforts so numerous and fierce, if we were not convinced that he proceedeth from God. So then it is Christ who sends the Spirit, but it is from the heavenly glory, that we may know that it is not a gift of men, but a sure pledge of Divine grace. Hence it appears how idle was the subtlety of the Greeks, when they argued, on the ground of these words, that the Spirit does not proceed from the Son; for here Christ, according to his custom, mentions the Father in order to raise our eyes to the contemplation of his Divinity.

As in Vermigli’s comment, Calvin’s analysis of the text assumes the sending of the Spirit by Christ and therefore the procession of the Spirit from the Son and views the further statement of the Gospel that the Spirit proceeds from the Father not restrictively but as an expansion of the meaning to include the Father.

Calvin rather emphatically takes the words “he proceeds from the Father” as an indication of the authority of the Spirit, not of the sole origin of his eternal procession: Christ here sends the Spirit, but manifests the Spirit as a “sure pledge of divine grace.” It is, he concludes, an “idle subtlety of the Greeks” to claim this text as warrant for their denial of double procession. Calvin points out in his comment on Romans 8:9,

But let readers observe here, that the Spirit is, without any distinction, called sometimes the Spirit of God the Father, and sometimes the Spirit of Christ; and thus called, not only because his whole fulness was poured on Christ as our Mediator and head, so that from him a portion might descend on each of us, but also because he is equally the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, who have one essence, and the same eternal divinity.

The orthodox follow the Reformers in upholding the Western doctrine of the filioque. The orthodox Reformed writers not only argue the Augustinian doctrine of double procession they insist on it as a biblical point held over against the teachings of the Greek Orthodox:

The property of the Son in respect of the Holy Ghost is to send him out, John 15:26. Hence arose the Schism between the Western and the Eastern Churches, they affirming the procession from the Father and the Son, these from the Father alone (Edward Leigh, Treatise; Downame, Summe)

Among the Reformed orthodox theologians, Pictet notes the clear distinction of persons in John 15:26:

Here the Comforter, or Spirit, is plainly distinct from the Father and the Son. Again, they are so distinguished, that some things are said of the Father which cannot be said of the Son, and some things of the Son which are no where said of the Spirit. The Father is said to have begotten the Son … the Spirit is said to proceed from the Father, and to be sent by the Son; but nowhere is the Father said to proceed from nor the Son to be sent by the Spirit. Yet are these persons distinct in such a manner, that they are not three Gods but one God; for the scripture everywhere proves and reason confirms, the unity of the Godhead.

Similar statements are found among the Reformed exegetes of the era. Poole notes that the text has been read variously: some exegetes understand the Spirit’s procession from the Father merely as his coming forth or being poured out at Pentecost, whereas others—“the generality of the best interpreters”—understand the text as a reference to “the Holy Spirit’s eternal proceeding.” Owen, by way of contrast, argues the primary meaning of the text to be that the Spirit “goeth forth or proceedeth” in order to “put into execution” the salvific counsel of God in the application of grace and views the immanent procession of the Spirit as a secondary meaning, a conclusion to be drawn from the text.

As Pictet notes, the Reformed orthodox uniformly follow the Western doctrine:

That the Spirit proceeds from the Son, is proved by those passages in which he is represented as being sent no less by the Son than by the Father; nor is he any less the Spirit of the Son than of the Father: Rom. 8:9, “any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ …; Gal. 4:6, “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts”; John 16:7, “If I do not go away, Comforter will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you.”

Nor is this a minor point in theology that can be dismissed:

To deny the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, is a grievous error of Divinity, and would have grated the foundation, if the Greek Church had so denied the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, as that they had made an inequality between the Persons. But since their form of speech is, that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father by the Son, and is the Spirit of the Son, without making any difference in the consubstantiality of the Persons it is a true though erroneous Church in this particular; divers learned men think that à Filio & per Filium in the sense of the Greek Church, was but a question in modo loquendi, in manner of speech, and not fundamental.

The problem of the filioque was, therefore, not something that the Reformed orthodox could ignore: they refused to go so far as to claim that the Greek church was a false church, but they still insisted that it ensconced an error in its doctrinal explanations of the creed.

From the Reformed perspective, moreover, the Greek critique of the filioque, that it implied two ultimate principia or archai in the Godhead, did not hold—for there could only be two archai if the Father and the Son separately and equally were the sources of the Spirit’s procession. The orthodox conception of the filioque, however, insisted on the unity of the act of the Father and the Son, so that the Holy Spirit proceeds from Father and Son by “one and the same breathing” and does so from both equally, the Father and the Son acting in communion with one another. Thus, the Holy Ghost, the third person, proceeds from the Father and the Son: “and albeit the Father and the Son are distinct persons, yet they are both but one beginning of the holy Ghost.” At the same time, following the Western pattern, the Reformed orthodox insisted on the begetting of the Son as placing the Son second in order, thus maintaining the Father as ultimate source of the personal distinctions and the Father and the Son together as the source of the Spirit.

—Richard Muller, Post Reformation Reformed Dogmatics 4.373–76 (via Logos edition)

 

[AMR]

Think of the phrase, "In the unity of the Godhead."

Western theology begins at this point. One God possessing full Godhead.

I think using the word "source" opens up too many distractions based upon modern notions that require much qualifications to prevent misunderstandings. The Father is unbegotten. As such God the Father is the ever-flowing fountain of the divine essence. He communicates this essence to the Son. He with the Son communicates this essence to the Spirit. The communication is eternal. It did not happen one time and then stop.

The first communication is called begetting; the second communication is called procession. Call the communication whatever one pleases, it is the communication itself which is important. So we say the Father begets the Son, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from Father and the Son.

The begetting is also often termed generation. The procession is also sometimes called spiration.

Berkhof writes:

This procession of the Holy Spirit, briefly called spiration, is his personal property. Much of what was said respecting the generation of the Son also applies to the spiration of the Holy Spirit, and need not be repeated. The following points of distinction between the two may be noted, however:

(1) Generation is the work of the Father only; spiration is the work of both the Father and the Son.
(2) By generation the Son is enabled to take part in the work of spiration, but the Holy Spirit acquires no such power.
(3) In logical order generation precedes spiration.

It should be remembered, however, that all this implies no essential subordination of the Holy Spirit to the Son.

In spiration as well as in generation there is a communication of the whole of the divine essence, so that the Holy Spirit is on an equality with the Father and the Son.

The doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son is based on John 15:26, and on the fact that the Spirit is also called the Spirit of Christ and of the Son, Rom. 8:9; Gal. 4:6, and is sent by Christ into the world. Spiration may be defined as that eternal and necessary act of the first and second persons in the Trinity whereby they, within the divine Being, become the ground of the personal subsistence of the Holy Spirit, and put the third person in possession of the whole divine essence, without any division, alienation or change.

When one begins with the unity of God these personal properties are the means by which Godhead is understood to belong to a distinct mode of subsistence within the undivided substance.
​

Altering the personal properties so as to deny the filioque (fill-ee-oh-qwee) serves to create a new "stream" (using the above analogy of "fountain").

Once the filioque is denied, there is now no longer one stream
— > Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

A second stream has been created
—> Father, Son; Father, Holy Spirit.

There is no longer a unity of three but two unities of two.

Accordingly, the unity of God is maintained in the western theological tradition by what is called the communication of Godhead—begetting and procession. "Person" or "subsistence" depends on personal properties, i.e., properties which are unique to a person in relation to other persons. In the words of our Larger Catechism, there is something "proper" in these relations, that is, "divinely proper."

To detract from any property of the Son in relation to the Holy Spirit is to make Him inferior to the Father.

The EO objection in relation to the Holy Spirit is removed by a simple acknowledgement that the unique person of the Holy Spirit also consists in a unique property, and that property is to proceed from the Father and the Son from all eternity.

If this were not accepted as the Holy Spirit's distinct property He would not be the third person of the Trinity but would be a second second person. This means He would be a second Son. His very name, Spirit, is suggestive of an altogether unique relation in union with Father and Son which nullifies the objection. The Holy Spirit is the person upon whom the communication of Godhead finally terminates. In this capacity the Spirit is Himself the bond of union and communion between Father and Son. Likewise, in the ad extra works (works outside the Goddhead) of the Trinity, this unique relation finds expression in His distinctive function in connection with the creation of, providence over, and redemption of, the world— He is the Spirit of life and communion.

 

[JM]

Just thinking...maybe the East's idea of the Trinity contributes to their almost non dualistic view of mystical union with God?

Gnosticism’s Influence on Early Church Monasticism and Asecticism

 

[JM]

Biblical Teaching on the Procession of the Holy Spirit.

John 14:16
John 14:26
John 15:26
John 16:13-15
John 16:7
John 10:30
John 20:22

Yours in the Lord,

jm

 

[St. Helens]

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Members who do not truly share the core beliefs and teachings of a specific congregational forum may post in fellowship or ask questions, but they may not teach or debate within the forum.
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[JM]

St. Thomas Aquinas defended the filioque.

Quote:

It must be said that the Holy Ghost is from the Son. For if He were not from Him, He could in no wise be personally distinguished from Him; as appears from what has been said above (I:28:3; I:30:2). For it cannot be said that the divine Persons are distinguished from each other in any absolute sense; for it would follow that there would not be one essence of the three persons: since everything that is spoken of God in an absolute sense, belongs to the unity of essence. Therefore it must be said that the divine persons are distinguished from each other only by the relations. Now the relations cannot distinguish the persons except forasmuch as they are opposite relations; which appears from the fact that the Father has two relations, by one of which He is related to the Son, and by the other to the Holy Ghost; but these are not opposite relations, and therefore they do not make two persons, but belong only to the one person of the Father. If therefore in the Son and the Holy Ghost there were two relations only, whereby each of them were related to the Father, these relations would not be opposite to each other, as neither would be the two relations whereby the Father is related to them. Hence, as the person of the Father is one, it would follow that the person of the Son and of the Holy Ghost would be one, having two relations opposed to the two relations of the Father. But this is heretical since it destroys the Faith in the Trinity. Therefore the Son and the Holy Ghost must be related to each other by opposite relations. Now there cannot be in God any relations opposed to each other, except relations of origin, as proved above (I:28:44). And opposite relations of origin are to be understood as of a "principle," and of what is "from the principle." Therefore we must conclude that it is necessary to say that either the Son is from the Holy Ghost; which no one says; or that the Holy Ghostis from the Son, as we confess.

Furthermore, the order of the procession of each one agrees with this conclusion. For it was said above (I:27:4; I:28:4), that the Son proceeds by the way of the intellect as Word, and the Holy Ghost by way of the will as Love. Now love must proceed from a word. For we do not love anything unless we apprehend it by a mental conception. Hence also in this way it is manifest that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son.

We derive a knowledge of the same truth from the very order of nature itself. For we nowhere find that several things proceed from one without order except in those which differ only by their matter; as for instance one smith produces many knives distinct from each other materially, with no order to each other; whereas in things in which there is not only a material distinction we always find that some order exists in the multitude produced. Hence also in the order of creatures produced, the beauty of the divine wisdom is displayed. So if from the one Person of the Father, two persons proceed, the Son and the Holy Ghost, there must be some order between them. Nor can any other be assigned except the order of their nature, whereby one is from the other. Therefore it cannot be said that the Son and the Holy Ghostproceed from the Father in such a way as that neither of them proceeds from the other, unless we admit in them a material distinction; which is impossible.

Hence also the Greeks themselves recognize that the procession of the Holy Ghost has some order to the Son. For they grant that the Holy Ghost is the Spirit "of the Son"; and that He is from the Father "through the Son." Some of them are said also to concede that "He is from the Son"; or that "He flows from the Son," but not that He proceeds; which seems to come from ignorance or obstinacy. For a just consideration of the truth will convince anyone that the word procession is the one most commonly applied to all that denotes origin of any kind. For we use the term to describe any kind of origin; as when we say that a line proceeds from a point, a ray from the sun, a stream from a source, and likewise in everything else. Hence, granted that the Holy Ghost originates in any way from the Son, we can conclude that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son.