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mardukm
Guest
Dear brother Steve,
I hope I have misread you. An assumption by a Latin that the Easterns are denying the teaching on consubstantiality because of that misunderstanding is, frankly, just as bad as brother Mickey’s own pretensions of “heresy!” against the Westerns.
Blessings,
Marduk
I cannot agree with the portion highlighted in red. Their denial of filioque, even with the misunderstanding, does not constitute a denial of the teaching behind it. It is simply their lack of acceptance of the peculiar Latin formulation that is at issue.
I hope I have misread you. An assumption by a Latin that the Easterns are denying the teaching on consubstantiality because of that misunderstanding is, frankly, just as bad as brother Mickey’s own pretensions of “heresy!” against the Westerns.
Blessings,
Marduk
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kotim
Guest
The Eastern Orthodox can not and never will accept the filoque or more to the point our western expression of its meaning, BECAUSE that issue alone is the principal cause of disunity between us.
The Popes role amonst other things are all seperate issues, but the primary one is this filoque and its meaning. For the East to accept that our western understanding of the meaning of the filoque is perfectly acceptable theologically puts them on the canvas and out for the count.
If they were tomorrow to admit that the Wests understanding of the filque as being theologically acceptable then what would happen to peoples belief on their understanding about all sorts of other issues that have kept us divided. Without doubt their would be a relatively quick crumbling of the Easts positions on many things.
When I returned to Catholicism, as I was when a child, before I wondered off for years, it was with a significant amount of investigative study that I made my return to catholicism and admitted the errors of my ways.
It was clear that the only real alternatives in Christianity was either Catholicism or Othodoxy, in terms of the ancient faiths. Upon further study it was clear the the WEST had a far superior position of correctness probability than the East.
As an imperfect human I loved the idea of Orthodoxy, but in terms of searching for TRUTH I had to accept the reality of Catholicism.
Sure I was looking through some biased glasses of all sorts of things, but I did my best to put those things aside.
We are all hyprocrites to varying degrees, my problem with Eastern theology and its proponents is the lack of objectivity.
The East effectively denies development of doctrine, but looking at history there IS NO DOUBT that the East has developed doctrin substantially, but rather than admit it, they attempt to make themselves look as old as possible as if they alone posses the ancient faith of the Apostles.
At the end of the day Philosophically speaking, It is the East who will have to make more concessions than Catholics for their to be uniformity again, yet the East will never do such things. Strange isn’t it, the East acuses Catholics of being to dogmatic yet the East has far more requirments from Catholicism to be one again.
I hold no bones against my fellow Eastern Christians as at the end of the day all our journeys are individual journeys that we undertake with God to achieve salvation. I have no problems stepping into an orthodox Church etc, irespective of whether or not Eucharist is shared.
In Christ
Tim
The Popes role amonst other things are all seperate issues, but the primary one is this filoque and its meaning. For the East to accept that our western understanding of the meaning of the filoque is perfectly acceptable theologically puts them on the canvas and out for the count.
If they were tomorrow to admit that the Wests understanding of the filque as being theologically acceptable then what would happen to peoples belief on their understanding about all sorts of other issues that have kept us divided. Without doubt their would be a relatively quick crumbling of the Easts positions on many things.
When I returned to Catholicism, as I was when a child, before I wondered off for years, it was with a significant amount of investigative study that I made my return to catholicism and admitted the errors of my ways.
It was clear that the only real alternatives in Christianity was either Catholicism or Othodoxy, in terms of the ancient faiths. Upon further study it was clear the the WEST had a far superior position of correctness probability than the East.
As an imperfect human I loved the idea of Orthodoxy, but in terms of searching for TRUTH I had to accept the reality of Catholicism.
Sure I was looking through some biased glasses of all sorts of things, but I did my best to put those things aside.
We are all hyprocrites to varying degrees, my problem with Eastern theology and its proponents is the lack of objectivity.
The East effectively denies development of doctrine, but looking at history there IS NO DOUBT that the East has developed doctrin substantially, but rather than admit it, they attempt to make themselves look as old as possible as if they alone posses the ancient faith of the Apostles.
At the end of the day Philosophically speaking, It is the East who will have to make more concessions than Catholics for their to be uniformity again, yet the East will never do such things. Strange isn’t it, the East acuses Catholics of being to dogmatic yet the East has far more requirments from Catholicism to be one again.
I hold no bones against my fellow Eastern Christians as at the end of the day all our journeys are individual journeys that we undertake with God to achieve salvation. I have no problems stepping into an orthodox Church etc, irespective of whether or not Eucharist is shared.
In Christ
Tim
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Mickey
Guest
Yeah, I figured you would attempt to discredit him since he does not agree with you… The fact remains that many Latins (including theologians) do not have the same understanding as the East (as you insist). If this was so, there would be no problem in removing the Filioque.
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Mickey
Guest
Heretic has become a word that carries much negative connotation. Some people use heterodox to explain that a position is not Orthodox. This statement (#2) applies to both sides—so I do not understanding what you are talking about. Furthermore, I have not called anyone on this forum a heretic, and if that is what you are implying, then shame on you.
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Mickey
Guest
Amen.
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Mickey
Guest
The key word here is “variant”—just like the Latin use of Filioque.
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Mickey
Guest
You are joking, right?
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Alexander_Roman
Guest
Dear Ghosty,
You (and I) are simply wrong about the Armenian Creed which is not the Nicene Creed but that of Epiphanius. At issue was (as I understand it) whether someone can add to a Creed establishd by the universal Church at an Ecumenical Council. The Armenian creed does not apply (and if the Armenians say they use the Nicene Creed, then they are in error too). The Nicene creed used Epiphanius to be sure.
I don’t argue about the theology of the Filioque and never have. We agree it is a Latin theological expression which, to the East, confuses the spiration of the Holy Spirit from the Father as the only Source of Origin of Divinity in the Holy Trinity. But that can be overcome.
Our point of disagreement is about whether local Churches can adapt the Nicene Creed for this or that reason. By way of principle, the Nicene Creed should stay as it is and as declared by an Ecumenical Council (ratified by all the centres of Christianity at the time, including the Pope of Rome). And this because it expresses the unity of the Church in its Trinitarian confession separartely from what valid, legitimate Particular theological traditions will do to explain the procession of the Holy Spirit from their vantage points.
To include the Filioque in the Creed can be said to deform it as we are putting a (completely orthodox) but Local, Latin theological tradition into it.
The idea that Roman Catholics would confess the Creed with the Filioque and others without it is simply not the intention of the Fathers of the Ecumenical Councils. Their intention was that all Christians of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church would confess the same Nicene Creed, while allowing for local variation by way of Triadology.
Other creeds don’t have that “universal” intent, including the Creed of Epiphanius used by the Armenians.
Alex
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Alexander_Roman
Guest
Dear Tim,
Our conclusions about things are certainly our own and what you’ve outlined is the opposite of my experience with respect to Latin vs Eastern theology.
Both sides are guilty of hard and fast condemnations. As for “development of doctrine,” one can push this only so far. Doctrine doesn’t change, but succeeding generations strive to understand the faith once delivered to the Apostles to better clarify things. As for what is ancient, Orthodoxy tends to be very conservative and to leave things defined by the Councils of the first millennium alone.
The West has a tendency to rationalize faith matters while the East takes on a more mystical approach to theology.
Ultimately, this is a separate discussion. Both East and West in the first millennium proclaimed the Nicene Creed as the Creed of the universal Church’s understanding of Trinitarian theology, taking its sentences from Scripture.
This does not prevent Local Churches, such as the Latin Church, from developing its own theology in this and other areas. But a creed meant to express the universal faith of the entire Church should be left as such. While Orthodox do consider that the Filioque means, in essence, what it says i.e. that the Spirit has two Origins - they do condemn it as heresy. At best from an irenical Eastern POV, the Filioque confuses the procession of the Spirit from the Father as the only Source of Divine Origin in the Trinity (which the RC Church confesses as well).
Eastern theology also tends to express its “propositions” through its worship rather than through pronouncements. To each their own.
I am sorry that the position that the Nicene Creed should be kept by all Churches in its original form has been taken to mean, by a number of posters here, as a denigration of Latin Trinitarian theology.
That is the furthest thing from my heart as someone who has grown up with the Filioque and whose parish church, in which I was baptized, continues to use it.
I have no authority to remove the Filioque from the Creed, wherever it is used (and the idea that the EC Churches are all united in not using it is simply wishful thinking).
On this forum, we are talking about propositions and ideas. There are many things RC’s say here which EC’s see as imposing Latin traditions on the Eastern Churches as a pre-condition for unity. EC’s have always had to deal with that kind of issue.
In terms of RC biases against the East and Eastern biases against RCism, we all have a lot of work to do to undo them.
Alex
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Alexander_Roman
Guest
There is no real way that the Creed of Epiphanius is a variant of the Nicene Creed in the strict sense. The Creed(s) of Epiphanius preceded the Nicene Creed and so the text of the Nicene Creed is, whatever other creedal texts say or are, the normative one as declared by the Ecumenical Councils.The key word here is “variant”—just like the Latin use of Filioque.
So the argument that the Armenians use a “variant” of the Nicene Creed is simply an erroneous conclusion. This case cannot be used to somehow illustrate how the Creed was “adapted” by another Church much in the same manner as the later Latin Church introduced the Filioque. The two are not a comparison of apples to apples.
Alex
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Mickey
Guest
My bad. You are correct. It is another Creed.
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Alexander_Roman
Guest
If Ghosty can make that mistake, anyone can! 
But he is not happy with me . . .
I think I’ll go on that promised sabbatical from the forum . . ;
Alex
But he is not happy with me . . .
I think I’ll go on that promised sabbatical from the forum . . ;
Alex
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Mickey
Guest
NO, NO, NO! Don’t do it! :nope:I think I’ll go on that promised sabbatical from the forum . . ;
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Ghosty
Guest
Alex:
Regardless, the Latins still confess the unmodified Nicene Creed, as can be seen from Dominus Iesus, so your argument doesn’t really hold water. They merely use a local variant in their Liturgy, just as the Armenians, with elements taken from other theologians just as the Armenians took elements from St. Epiphanius and inserted them into the Nicene Creed.
Peace and God bless!
It is not the Creed of Epiphanius, but a variant of the Nicene Creed with elements from the Creed of Epiphanius inserted. Here is the Creed of Epiphanius, and here is the Armenian Nicene Creed; you will see that they are not at all the same. It is simply an error to say that the Armenian Nicene Creed is the Creed of Epiphanius, and I’m not sure where this idea got started. Mickey simply posted it without any documentation, yet the documentation shows that it is not the case.
Regardless, the Latins still confess the unmodified Nicene Creed, as can be seen from Dominus Iesus, so your argument doesn’t really hold water. They merely use a local variant in their Liturgy, just as the Armenians, with elements taken from other theologians just as the Armenians took elements from St. Epiphanius and inserted them into the Nicene Creed.
Peace and God bless!
G
Ghosty
Guest
Actually I said he seems to agree with me, and I asked that you point out where he and I differ. I also asked for the name of the article you’re refering to.Yeah, I figured you would attempt to discredit him since he does not agree with you… The fact remains that many Latins (including theologians) do not have the same understanding as the East (as you insist). If this was so, there would be no problem in removing the Filioque.
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steve_b
Guest
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Mickey
Guest
So then you blasted him–not having read the article (just in case he didn’t agree with you). I see.
The “Roman” calrification of the doctrine of the Filioque–I don’t know if it is on the internet.
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dzheremi
Guest
The thing that gets me about the Filioque is that it doesn’t really matter all that much if it can be argued for using some standard, because it’s confusing anyway (in English, and I would suspect in most other languages in which it is recited) since it doesn’t say what it supposedly means. I know, I know, in “Latin theological language” (as Ghosty has put it in the past) “and the Son” means “through the Son”, but NO ROMAN CATHOLIC ANYWHERE speaks “Latin Theological Language” as a native language. 
And so, people are put in a position where they are forced to affirm something that just feels wrong. And when you ask why they can’t just change “and” to “through”, you get some lame explanation about the kind of translation preferred by Rome! I don’t get it. If it is not a problem for those who speak Latin Theological Language, but Vatican City is the only place in the world where it is more or less intuitively understood properly, then why on earth is such a tiny minority of scholars and officials allowed to preserve what they are comfortable with at the expense of the majority who are less comfortable with it? I am aware of and respect the fact that the Church is not a democracy (and nor should it be), but it seems like this one has a really easy fix, and is being prevented from being righted out of sheer pedantry. I don’t like that.
And so, people are put in a position where they are forced to affirm something that just feels wrong. And when you ask why they can’t just change “and” to “through”, you get some lame explanation about the kind of translation preferred by Rome! I don’t get it. If it is not a problem for those who speak Latin Theological Language, but Vatican City is the only place in the world where it is more or less intuitively understood properly, then why on earth is such a tiny minority of scholars and officials allowed to preserve what they are comfortable with at the expense of the majority who are less comfortable with it? I am aware of and respect the fact that the Church is not a democracy (and nor should it be), but it seems like this one has a really easy fix, and is being prevented from being righted out of sheer pedantry. I don’t like that.
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dcointin
Guest
Thank you for linking this, I’m at work so I have to read it here and there but it looks like a good article!
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