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Nils said:
That is not how the Church Fathers argued, and it is not what the Creed says. This way, the Father would no longer be Father and the Son no longer Son. The relationship between the Three Persons are important.
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Well I don’t know how the Church Fathers argued. They shouldn’t
really you know. But people will do that. I understand that.

But it seems if we wish to state: True God from True God, light
from light, begotten not made, con substantial with the
Father,
And God the Holy Spirit, who proceedeth from (in this case
the Father and the Son) and together with the Father and the Son
is worshipped and glorified…

Well some say He proceeds from the Father. And some say
from the Son. And some say the Father and the Son.

It makes more sense to back up to true God from true God,
light from light etc.
For all three are truly God and yet God from God
light from light just doesn’t tell us which true God proceedeth
from which true God, and which light came from which light.

So I don’t really see the point of fighting about it. He/they
are God and it’s really no one’s business ( pardon me including the
Church Fathers) to tell God whether He/they can go first
or second or right to left or left to right.

So I profess this creed because God the Father or God the
Son or God the Holy Spirit. I don’t know which or all
decided I should be baptized in the RC and this was
the Creed I was given to pray.

But quite frankly it’s fine with me whatever order God
wants to go in. I won’t argue it and
I doubt that God was particularly impressed by any
Church Fathers getting in a fight over it either. What
a peculiar waste of time for a priest when they COULD have
been baptizing a baby or hearing confessions instead…

Like I said my understanding of the Trinity is very
inadequate. And to me all three seem to be Father or
Son or Holy Spirit.
It’s like another question on the forum- does your priest
call you my child? Well no most of the time the
Fathers just call me Mary. Our new Father calls me sister and
I know he’s my brother but I call him Father and sometimes
Joshy. It’s all good in the Trinity. We don’t fight about it.
 
marywarfield said:
Well I don’t know how the Church Fathers argued. They shouldn’t
really you know. But people will do that. I understand that.

But it seems if we wish to state: True God from True God, light
from light, begotten not made, con substantial with the
Father,
And God the Holy Spirit, who proceedeth from (in this case
the Father and the Son) and together with the Father and the Son
is worshipped and glorified…

Well some say He proceeds from the Father. And some say
from the Son. And some say the Father and the Son.

It makes more sense to back up to true God from true God,
light from light etc.
For all three are truly God and yet God from God
light from light just doesn’t tell us which true God proceedeth
from which true God, and which light came from which light.

So I don’t really see the point of fighting about it. He/they
are God and it’s really no one’s business ( pardon me including the
Church Fathers) to tell God whether He/they can go first
or second or right to left or left to right.

So I profess this creed because God the Father or God the
Son or God the Holy Spirit. I don’t know which or all
decided I should be baptized in the RC and this was
the Creed I was given to pray.

But quite frankly it’s fine with me whatever order God
wants to go in. I won’t argue it and
I doubt that God was particularly impressed by any
Church Fathers getting in a fight over it either. What
a peculiar waste of time for a priest when they COULD have
been baptizing a baby or hearing confessions instead…
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It says that the Son is begotten of the Father (=born of the Father!).

You do realize that our Creed and our Sacred Councils are all the result of the arguing of the Fathers, right? They were defending the Holy Orthodox and Catholic Faith, and they were ready to die for it. When you recite the Creed every Sunday, you repeat their arguments against people who wanted to introduce a different faith.
 
marywarfield said:
I’m good with that.
As far as I am concerned
the Holy Spirit can proceed from the Father or the Son,
the Son AND the Father, or the Father from the Son
or the Son from the Spirit, or the Father from the Spirit-
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Well, I’m relieved that you said “proceeds” and not “proceeds eternally”.

Nevertheless, your profile says that you’re Catholic, and yet you show extremely little respect for church tradition and the fathers (see your last post)? I find that scandalous.
 
Peter_J said:
Well, I’m relieved that you said “proceeds” and not “proceeds eternally”.

Nevertheless, your profile says that you’re Catholic, and yet you show extremely little respect for church tradition and the fathers (see your last post)? I find that scandalous.
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I agree that the procession is wildly important… However, as Mary points out, it shouldn’t be enough of a disagreement to be in disunity. Marriages don’t end over discussions, nor should they.
 
Peter_J said:
Well, I’m relieved that you said “proceeds” and not “proceeds eternally”.

Nevertheless, your profile says that you’re Catholic, and yet you show extremely little respect for church tradition and the fathers (see your last post)? I find that scandalous.
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I’m sorry. Like I said I see no good to come of arguing
over who proceeds from what in that which hey, those same
Church Fathers told us all was an “ineffable mystery” they
themselves could not fathom.
I’m with them- I don’t fathom the ineffable mystery
either so I won’t presume to tell that Mystery how
to function.

Now this is not meant as disrespect of those Fathers
but where did the arguing get them? Well a split
Church that argues it to this day.

And the point is?

I’m sorry you are scandalized. What’s even worse
is that anyone had to die for that which NO ONE
understands. We knew all we had to know.
The Father, Son and Holy Spirit were all God.
Period.

At some point after all these centuries we must be
realistic. The Trinity is not ours TO understand, dissect and codify.
If it was God would not have made it impossible for our
intelligence.

We most certainly will never to either side’s satisfaction
prove the unprovable.

The better way, more pleasing to Christ, is if you are
RC be that the best you can and if Orthodox
be that, recite your respective creeds with as much
faith as possible , but be prepared for Christ to ultimately
tell us all we missed the point and mind our own business.
And to tell us there is no excuse for the division.

Seek peace- not the answers to that which is beyond us.
 
Nils said:
That is not how the Church Fathers argued, and it is not what the Creed says. This way, the Father would no longer be Father and the Son no longer Son. The relationship between the Three Persons are important.
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They are, and I cannot agree with the previous poster. That being said, the ECFs have spoken to the procession of the Holy Spirit, including the Cappadocians:
  1. For we do not count by way of addition, gradually making increase from unity to multitude, and saying one, two, and three—nor yet first, second, and third. For I, God, am the first, and I am the last. Isaiah 44:6 And hitherto we have never, even at the present time, heard of a second God. Worshipping as we do God of God, we both confess the distinction of the Persons, and at the same time abide by the Monarchy. We do not fritter away the theology in a divided plurality, because one Form, so to say, united in the invariableness of the Godhead, is beheld in God the Father, and in God the Only begotten. For the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son; since such as is the latter, such is the former, and such as is the former, such is the latter; and herein is the Unity. So that according to the distinction of Persons, both are one and one, and according to the community of Nature, one. How, then, if one and one, are there not two Gods? Because we speak of a king, and of the king’s image, and not of two kings. The majesty is not cloven in two, nor the glory divided. The sovereignty and authority over us is one, and so the doxology ascribed by us is not plural but one; because the honour paid to the image passes on to the prototype. Now what in the one case the image is by reason of imitation, that in the other case the Son is by nature; and as in works of art the likeness is dependent on the form, so in the case of the divine and uncompounded nature the union consists in the communion of the Godhead. One, moreover, is the Holy Spirit, and we speak of Him singly, conjoined as He is to the one Father through the one Son, and through Himself completing the adorable and blessed Trinity. St. Basil.
For there, with the Father, unoriginate, ungenerate, always Father, the idea of the Son as coming from Him yet side by side with Him is inseparably joined; and through the Son and yet with Him, before any vague and unsubstantial conception comes in between, the Holy Spirit is found at once in closest union; not subsequent in existence to the Son, as if the Son could be thought of as ever having been without the Spirit; but Himself also owning the same cause of His being, i.e. the God over all, as the Only-begotten Light, and having shone forth in that very Light, being divisible neither by duration nor by an alien nature from the Father or from the Only-begotten. There are no intervals in that pre-temporal world: and difference on the score of being there is none. It is not even possible, comparing the uncreate with the uncreated, to see differences; and the Holy Ghost is uncreate, as we have before shown. St. Gregory of Nyssa.
 
tdgesq said:
They are, and I cannot agree with the previous poster. That being said, the ECFs have spoken to the procession of the Holy Spirit, including the Cappadocians:
  1. For we do not count by way of addition, gradually making increase from unity to multitude, and saying one, two, and three—nor yet first, second, and third. For I, God, am the first, and I am the last. Isaiah 44:6 And hitherto we have never, even at the present time, heard of a second God. Worshipping as we do God of God, we both confess the distinction of the Persons, and at the same time abide by the Monarchy. We do not fritter away the theology in a divided plurality, because one Form, so to say, united in the invariableness of the Godhead, is beheld in God the Father, and in God the Only begotten. For the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son; since such as is the latter, such is the former, and such as is the former, such is the latter; and herein is the Unity. So that according to the distinction of Persons, both are one and one, and according to the community of Nature, one. How, then, if one and one, are there not two Gods? Because we speak of a king, and of the king’s image, and not of two kings. The majesty is not cloven in two, nor the glory divided. The sovereignty and authority over us is one, and so the doxology ascribed by us is not plural but one; because the honour paid to the image passes on to the prototype. Now what in the one case the image is by reason of imitation, that in the other case the Son is by nature; and as in works of art the likeness is dependent on the form, so in the case of the divine and uncompounded nature the union consists in the communion of the Godhead. One, moreover, is the Holy Spirit, and we speak of Him singly, conjoined as He is to the one Father through the one Son, and through Himself completing the adorable and blessed Trinity. St. Basil.
For there, with the Father, unoriginate, ungenerate, always Father, the idea of the Son as coming from Him yet side by side with Him is inseparably joined; and through the Son and yet with Him, before any vague and unsubstantial conception comes in between, the Holy Spirit is found at once in closest union; not subsequent in existence to the Son, as if the Son could be thought of as ever having been without the Spirit; but Himself also owning the same cause of His being, i.e. the God over all, as the Only-begotten Light, and having shone forth in that very Light, being divisible neither by duration nor by an alien nature from the Father or from the Only-begotten. There are no intervals in that pre-temporal world: and difference on the score of being there is none. It is not even possible, comparing the uncreate with the uncreated, to see differences; and the Holy Ghost is uncreate, as we have before shown. St. Gregory of Nyssa.
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Totally and exactly. I couldn’t have and did not say it
better myself.
 
UbiCaritas15 said:
I agree that the procession is wildly important… However, as Mary points out, it shouldn’t be enough of a disagreement to be in disunity. Marriages don’t end over discussions, nor should they.
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Please explain how the procession is “wildly important”.
Isn’t it enough that it does actually proceed?
And to have a procession one must have something
of a an origin and God is His own origin so I can’t
really see why procession is wildly important, necessary to
know?
 
A side note: last week I was at an ecumenical service. (I couldn’t say all the denominations represented, but I know most were Catholic or Lutheran.) The thing is, the creed said was the Apostles’ Creed. Do I have a problem with that? Absolutely not because the minister didn’t preface it with negative comments about the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed and the debates that led up to it.
 
And oh my. People died over this question. People died
over a question within the Church given absolutely
everything it ever needed from God to evangelize
the world and instead killed each other over how
God transferred the gift.
And you call ME scandalous! Really?

Shocking it really is.
What’s worse is there are those to day willing
to kill over the question of HOW they received that gift.

Which is why when the subject comes up
like I said originally I close my eyes and breath
deep.
 
Peter_J said:
A side note: last week I was at an ecumenical service. (I couldn’t say all the denominations represented, but I know most were Catholic or Lutheran.) The thing is, the creed said was the Apostles’ Creed. Do I have a problem with that? Absolutely not because the minister didn’t preface it with negative comments about the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed and the debates that led up to it.
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Yeah don’t you wish we had just stick with the Apostles
Creed? Who fights over that one?
 
Peter_J said:
I would not object if more Catholic churches started using the Apostles’ Creed.
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Well we do. About half the time. And at children’s Masses.
And the Rosary.
But then we also must have the Nicene which most
people really have no idea on the history of it and
could care less.
The Apostles Creed really is ALL that is necessary.
I forget if it was Augustine or who he recommended
the Apostles Creed as a fast track to God so to speak
if recited properly and meditated upon.
Quite frankly I know of NO Church Father who
said the same thing about the Nicene…maybe there
is one- anybody know?
 
The Problem with the Apostles Creed is that it is a Latin creed and was never used by the Eastern/Oriental churches. Additionally, the creed in its current form is less ancient than the creed of Constantinople, even with “Filioque.”
 
I think both are good points, Apostles Creed is less certain in its origin than the Nicene Creed also. Its suggested early existence isn’t collaborated with evidence until around Augustine’s period. The Nicene Creed existed in the Church by then. The Divinity of a Triune God as one is further elaborated on also.

I do believe its use in prayer recitation and meditation as mentioned also has much value.
 
The doctrines of the Holy Spirit do not come into true focus until the Nicene and post Nicene period. The Cappadocian Fathers were prominent in their attempt to help clarify the terminology of hypostasis and ousia. The Holy Spirit is denominated the image of the Son, and Tertullian is the first to declare that he proceeds from the Father through the Son, Procession is distinguished from generation by the time of the fourth century, and the various operations of the three Persons are distinctly elaborated.
All of these various strands come together and are integrated in a complete and meaningful whole by St. Augustine whose monumental work “On The Trinity” is presented by St. John of Damascus in the East, but not until the eight century. By the end of the classical period the lines are fairly well drawn and guideposts for the future speculation firmly established.
St. Tertullian says that "the rule of faith which he professes: is he testifies: ‘That the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are inseparable from each other.’
It seems to me that since while the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are distinct, they are one. That being the case then it must be that the Holy Spirit must also come from the Son just as it does from the Father because one can not do different from the Father, nor can the Father do something different from the Son, nor can the Holy Spirit do anything different from the Father or the Son. If the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father than it is like saying that Jesus as the Son has no Spirit of truth and is separate totally from the Father as how can the Holy Spirit come only from the Father but not from the Son since the Son is one with the Father? If the Son is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit is one with the Father, then the Holy Spirit is one with the Son and the Son is one with the Holy Spirit. So, then the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son since they are One.
 
spina1953 said:
The doctrines of the Holy Spirit do not come into true focus until the Nicene and post Nicene period. The Cappadocian Fathers were prominent in their attempt to help clarify the terminology of hypostasis and ousia. The Holy Spirit is denominated the image of the Son, and Tertullian is the first to declare that he proceeds from the Father through the Son, Procession is distinguished from generation by the time of the fourth century, and the various operations of the three Persons are distinctly elaborated.
All of these various strands come together and are integrated in a complete and meaningful whole by St. Augustine whose monumental work “On The Trinity” is presented by St. John of Damascus in the East, but not until the eight century. By the end of the classical period the lines are fairly well drawn and guideposts for the future speculation firmly established.
St. Tertullian says that "the rule of faith which he professes: is he testifies: ‘That the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit are inseparable from each other.’
Code: 
It seems to me that since while the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are distinct, they are one. That being the case then it must be that the Holy Spirit must also come from the Son just as it does from the Father because one can not do different from the Father, nor can the Father do something different from the Son, nor can the Holy Spirit do anything different from the Father or the Son. If the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father than it is like saying that Jesus as the Son has no Spirit of truth and is separate totally from the Father as how can the Holy Spirit come only from the Father but not from the Son since the Son is one with the Father? If the Son is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit is one with the Father, then the Holy Spirit is one with the Son and the Son is one with the Holy Spirit. So, then the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son since they are One.
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The Father can do something different from the Son, since he is Monarch: he is “the principle without principle” the first origin of the Spirit, and the Father of the only Son.
 
spina1953 said:
Code: 
It seems to me that since while the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are distinct, they are one. That being the case then it must be that the Holy Spirit must also come from the Son just as it does from the Father because one can not do different from the Father, nor can the Father do something different from the Son, nor can the Holy Spirit do anything different from the Father or the Son. If the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father than it is like saying that Jesus as the Son has no Spirit of truth and is separate totally from the Father as how can the Holy Spirit come only from the Father but not from the Son since the Son is one with the Father? If the Son is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit is one with the Father, then the Holy Spirit is one with the Son and the Son is one with the Holy Spirit. So, then the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son since they are One.
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All the Fathers West and East, before or after the Great Schism, understand and teach that the Son can do all things as the Father except to be the Father, Only the Father can be Source or Origin of the Holy Spirit., of the Essence, the Energy, the spirative power, etc… When the Latin Church added “and the Son,” it is only in the sense of the Son being the principle of being “through.” The principle of being “from” belongs to the Father alone.

Blessings
 
Vico said:
The Father can do something different from the Son, since he is Monarch: he is “the principle without principle” the first origin of the Spirit, and the Father of the only Son.
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Except in judgement then? Is that the only thing
Jesus Christ has wholly unto Himself or does
the Father have “veto” power with that as well?
 
marywarfield said:
Except in judgement then? Is that the only thing
Jesus Christ has wholly unto Himself or does
the Father have “veto” power with that as well?
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Well the Father gave Judgment to the Son. Their will is one and perfect so the concept of needing veto power would be indicative of there being a possible difference.
 
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