And the Son

[Apotheoun]

Tropos hyparxeos does not mean relation of origin; instead, it means “way” or “manner” of existence.

Nevertheless, I am glad that you reject the Scholastic reduction of the persons of the Trinity to relations within the divine essence.

 

[Apotheoun]

Apotheoun,

Can you expand on this? I have read Metr. Zizioulas say that the Father is the cause of the Godhead. What is the distinctions between the term Godhead and God? It seems like a contradiction of terms to say that the Father - who is God - is the cause of the Godhead.

Metr. Zizioulas is simply stating what the Eastern Fathers always stated, i.e., that the Father is the source of divinity (pege theotetos), the cause of the divine essence (ousia) itself; for as St. Gregory Palamas explained, “When God was speaking to Moses, He did not say, ‘I am the essence,’ but ‘I am who I am.’ It is not, therefore, He-that-is who comes from the essence, but the essence comes from He-that-is, for He-that-is embraces in Himself all being.” [St. Gregory Palamas, Triads, Part III, 2, 12]. In other words, God the Father is the Father of His own essence, while also being the sole cause of the hypostasis of the Son by generation (gennatos), and the hypostasis of the Spirit by procession (ekporeusis).

 

[Apotheoun]

I would especially like to know what he means when he says the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone as hypostasis but from the Son as well as ousia.

Metr. Zizioulas – in speaking about the proienai of the Spirit through the Son at the level of the divine ousia – is referring to what is commonly called the eternal energetic manifestation (proienai or pephenos) of the Spirit from the Father through the Son, which reveals the consubstantial communion of the three persons in the Holy Trinity.