Filioque and Eastern Christian Trinitarian understanding

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Fr Ambrose:
This is sheer wishful thinking on the part of the Latins. Where is the Eastern conciliar definition to support this quite astounding assertion that this is the confession of the Orthodox?
So you deny that the HS doesn’t even come through the Son?
 
steve b:
So you deny that the HS doesn’t even come through the Son?
That depends on what you mean by “through”. If you mean within the Trinity Godself, no. The Holy Spirit originates only in the Father. If you mean into the world, then Yes the Spirit flows through the Son.

Am I correct in this thinking Prejean and Fr.?
 
Fr Ambrose:
Of course you did. False charges were thrown at the Eastern Church that they had ommited the filioque from the Creed and that they had married clergy - and this was the basis which justified Rome breaking communion with the Church.
Uh, not so fast. The mutual excommunications between pope and patriarch covered only those hierarchs, not their followers. In any case, these were lifted in 1964, when Paul VI met Athenagoras II

How about this. Muslim Sultans, appointed all the Patriarchs in Constantinople from 1456 until 1922. Holy cow!!! For 466 years, Muslims put the patriarch’s of Constantinople in office. Sheesh! Then you look at Russia and the fact the Patriarch of Russia was a KGB agent. Between communism and Islam, we can see how the patriarchate system went into serious decline. Personally, I don’t think this seperation between East and West, is a rank and file issue. Joe-six-pack-Orthodox in the street, and joe-six-pack Catholic aren’t figuring out how to pick a fight with each other. It’s the clerics in Orthodoxy doing this and keeping the pot stirred. IMHO, this is gonna backfire on you. When JPII visited Greece, it wasn’t the rank and file in the street who’s shorts were in a knot, it was the clerics.
Fr Ambrose:
Talking also about the Eastern Catholic difficulties. It is their quiet determination not to accept as binding the Councils held by Rome post 1054 which gives rise to their refusal to accept the (Roman) conciliar definitions of such things as purgatory
you Orthodox priests say there is no such place as Purgatory, yet you pray for the dead. Why? If there is no Purgatory, who are you praying for? The saints in Heaven? They don’t need prayers! The damned in Hell? Prayers do no good for them. So who are you praying for?"
fr ambrose:
and even of the filioque (see the document of the Union of Brest where the Uniates (their term for themselves) state their refusal to accept the Roman teaching on this point. It’s phrased very politely but it boils down to a refusal.)
Those in union with the Catholic Church in the East migh be excused from saying the filioque, just as long as they don’t deny the filioque. If they deny it, they are no longer in union with the Church.
 
Michael_Thoma:
That depends on what you mean by “through”. If you mean within the Trinity Godself, no. The Holy Spirit originates only in the Father. If you mean into the world, then Yes the Spirit flows through the Son.

Am I correct in this thinking Prejean and Fr.?
So the Spirit of the Son is not the same as the Spirit of the Father?
 
steve b:
Those in union with the Catholic Church in the East migh be excused from saying the filioque, just as long as they don’t deny the filioque. If they deny it, they are no longer in union with the Church.
I don’t take the filioque, I don’t understand it to be true.

I don’t believe the filioque and I don’t know anyone in my parish who does! I don’t think my priest believes it, and my bishop has said that “we have our own theology, and make no excuses for it”.

If what you say is true there has got to be a problem in the Catholic communion because there are literally *thousands *of us who don’t believe the filioque.

I am willing to let you believe it however, we won’t excommunicate you, let’s just not discuss it when you come around!
 
Michael_Thoma:
That depends on what you mean by “through”. If you mean within the Trinity Godself, no. The Holy Spirit originates only in the Father. If you mean into the world, then Yes the Spirit flows through the Son.

Am I correct in this thinking Prejean and Fr.?
Yes. There is also a third sense in which the Holy Spirit proceeds, which is with respect to the flow of divine substance from one Person of the Trinity to another. In that sense, the Holy Spirit also proceeds from the Father through the Son.
steve b:
So the Spirit of the Son is not the same as the Spirit of the Father?
It is more accurate to say that the Spirit is not the Spirit of the Son in the same way that He is the Spirit of the Father.
 
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JPrejean:
Yes. There is also a third sense in which the Holy Spirit proceeds, which is with respect to the flow of divine substance from one Person of the Trinity to another. In that sense, the Holy Spirit also proceeds from the Father through the Son.

It is more accurate to say that the Spirit is not the Spirit of the Son in the same way that He is the Spirit of the Father.
So in otherwords the Spirit of the Father is not the same as the Spirit of the Son? They are different Spirits?
 
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Hesychios:
I don’t take the filioque, I don’t understand it to be true.

I don’t believe the filioque and I don’t know anyone in my parish who does! I don’t think my priest believes it, and my bishop has said that “we have our own theology, and make no excuses for it”.
Your bio doesn’t identify what faith you are.
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Hesychios:
If what you say is true there has got to be a problem in the Catholic communion because there are literally *thousands *of us who don’t believe the filioque.
Thousands? Again, what faith do you profess?
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Hesychios:
I am willing to let you believe it however, we won’t excommunicate you, let’s just not discuss it when you come around!
I notice you put a tag line of "Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living." Jaroslav Pelikan

You should pick a new tag line.
 
steve b:
So in otherwords the Spirit of the Father is not the same as the Spirit of the Son? They are different Spirits?
No, there is only one Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father because He takes His hypostatic origin and His substance from the Father. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Son because He takes His substance through the Son and because He is the love of the Father for the Son, so that He rests on the Son. We call the Spirit “Spirit of the Father” for different reasons than we call Him “Spirit of the Son.”
 
Fr Ambrose:
Well, I am stuck for a reply. Maybe congratulations are in order? I think that you have created a heresy which the Church has never encountered before - the auto-generation of the Son.
:confused:
The Father grants the Son to have life in himself. The Son doesn’t grant this to himself.

Goodness! The way people accuse each other of heresy around here is truly alarming.
 
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JPrejean:
That “He has granted” part should be looming larger in your interpretation.
It does loom large in my interpretation. Why are you assuming it isn’t?
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JPrejean:
And you’re really arguing with the Catholic Church if you think that Christ was endorsing Sabellianism. It’s very important not to rely on one’s private interpretation when the Church teaching is clear.
I don’t think that Christ was endorsing Sabellianism. I don’t even understand how you derive that from what I’ve said. I’ve been talking with Father Ambrose about scriptural support for the Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son.
 
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JackQ:
I don’t think that Christ was endorsing Sabellianism. I don’t even understand how you derive that from what I’ve said. I’ve been talking with Father Ambrose about scriptural support for the Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son.
Because the Father as the originating principle is unique to the hypostasis of the Father. It cannot be shared with either of the other Persons without collapsing the distinction between the Persons of the Trinity. Only the Father is unoriginate; only the Father can be the origin of the other Persons of the Trinity. The reason that I call it Sabellian is that it removes the real metaphysical distinction between the persons of the Trinity. What the Father can (and does) share with the Son is providing the divine essence to the Holy Spirit. That is what the Scriptures relating to “the Spirit of the Son” (and similar passages) describe.
 
steve b:
Those in union with the Catholic Church in the East migh be excused from saying the filioque, just as long as they don’t deny the filioque. If they deny it, they are no longer in union with the Church.
steve b,

Please explain… is this merely your personal opinion, or can you substantiate your statement with documentation from Rome (especially the “…no longer in union with the Church” part)?

On the other side if this coin, I’d like to offer to you the following link…

ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/TREATBR.HTM

…which spells out the terms by which the Ukranian Greek Catholic Church reunited with Rome as a result of the Union of Brest in 1595. The terms of the Union of Uzhorod some 50 years later, which reunited the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church with Rome, are virtually identical to those spelled out in the attached document link. Understand that these terms were agreed to by Rome as a condition of the reunification and, to my knowledge, have not been rescinded in whole or in part to this day. Of special note is the very first item which reads…
1.—Since there is a quarrel between the Romans and Greeks about the procession of the Holy Spirit, which greatly impede unity really for no other reason than that we do not wish to understand one another—we ask that we should not be compelled to any other creed but that we should remain with that which was handed down to us in the Holy Scriptures, in the Gospel, and in the writings of the holy Greek Doctors, that is, that the Holy Spirit proceeds, not from two sources and not by a double procession, but from one origin, from the Father through the Son.
Now, since Rome has already accepted the Eastern Catholic position that “…the Holy Spirit proceeds, not from two sources and not by a double procession, but from one origin…” how is it then that she can say that those of her faithful who share this understanding of the procession of the Holy Spirit are, as you say, “…no longer in union with the Church?”

Please explain.
 
a pilgrim:
steve b,

Please explain… is this merely your personal opinion, or can you substantiate your statement with documentation from Rome (especially the “…no longer in union with the Church” part)?

On the other side if this coin, I’d like to offer to you the following link…

ewtn.com/library/COUNCILS/TREATBR.HTM

…which spells out the terms by which the Ukranian Greek Catholic Church reunited with Rome as a result of the Union of Brest in 1595. The terms of the Union of Uzhorod some 50 years later, which reunited the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church with Rome, are virtually identical to those spelled out in the attached document link. Understand that these terms were agreed to by Rome as a condition of the reunification and, to my knowledge, have not been rescinded in whole or in part to this day. Of special note is the very first item which reads…

Now, since Rome has already accepted the Eastern Catholic position that “…the Holy Spirit proceeds, not from two sources and not by a double procession, but from one origin…” how is it then that she can say that those of her faithful who share this understanding of the procession of the Holy Spirit are, as you say, “…no longer in union with the Church?”

Please explain.
Please read the agreement again. There is no assumption that the filioque can be rejected by the Eastern Catholics. The k ey phrase is “that the Holy Spirit proceeds, not from two sources and not by a double procession, but from one origin, from the Father through the Son.” This is exactly what the Western Catholics also hold.

To Jprejean, I apologise. I have given my copy of the Cathecism to a Protestant/Restoration movement pastor. I have not been able to pass by the book store to buy another one. I will give you an answer within the week.
 
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Aris:
Please read the agreement again. There is no assumption that the filioque can be rejected by the Eastern Catholics. The key phrase is “that the Holy Spirit proceeds, not from two sources and not by a double procession, but from one origin, from the Father through the Son.” This is exactly what the Western Catholics also hold.
Hi, Aris,

Thanks for your response! The Creed, as taken in the West, refers to the procession of the Holy Spirit as being “…from the Father and the Son…” and not “… through the Son…” This wording clearly implies the belief in a double procession, a theological construct that is foreign to Eastern theological thought. The terms of the reunification, as agreed to by Rome some 400+ years ago, granted those of the Catholic East the “freedom,” if you will, to express our belief regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit in the original, unaltered format as handed down to us by the Fathers and, in fact, by Our Lord Himself. It did not merely “excuse” those of the Catholic East from “saying the words,” as was indicated in an earlier post - it indicated the Church’s willingness to accept the fact that the Trinity is, indeed, a mystery, as so aptly put by St. Gregory in Hesychios’ original post in this thread. Nor does it imply that the belief in one interpretation over the other is grounds for dissolution of the union, as was also implied. Quite the contrary, in fact!

As Catholics, neither of us, East or West, has the right to deny the other’s theological expression. Our Holy Mother Church has spoken. She has agreed, no doubt through the intercession of the very Spirit who’s procession we continue to question, that both are valid interpretations of the same mystery

…yet we continue to argue about which is “right” and which is “wrong,” as though we somehow expect to “know” the deep mystery that is the Trinity within our feeble lifetimes.

I believe that it is far better for us as Catholics to rejoice in the fact that we are members of a Church that, in Her divinely-inspired wisdom, can accept the fact that perhaps our feeble human intellects are not meant to fully know the mysteries of our Creator, but to believe nonetheless.
 
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JPrejean:
Because the Father as the originating principle is unique to the hypostasis of the Father. It cannot be shared with either of the other Persons without collapsing the distinction between the Persons of the Trinity. Only the Father is unoriginate; only the Father can be the origin of the other Persons of the Trinity. The reason that I call it Sabellian is that it removes the real metaphysical distinction between the persons of the Trinity. What the Father can (and does) share with the Son is providing the divine essence to the Holy Spirit. That is what the Scriptures relating to “the Spirit of the Son” (and similar passages) describe.
That’s why the Father grants the Son have life in himself. The Son doesn’t grant it to the Father.

I don’t want you to understand me as being irritable, but this is a good place to point out something that concerns me about a lot of religious dialog down through history, and is a major source of the divisions among Christians. You accused me of Sabellianism when nothing could be further from the truth. You took me out of context from a discussion that I was having with someone else. Accusing someone of heresy is very serious, because you are, in essence, accusing someone of breaking the first commandment. When you do it you should make sure that you’re right.
 
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JackQ:
That’s why the Father grants the Son have life in himself. The Son doesn’t grant it to the Father.
We agree on that. But in the same way, neither does the Son grant it to the Holy Spirit.
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JackQ:
I don’t want you to understand me as being irritable, but this is a good place to point out something that concerns me about a lot of religious dialog down through history, and is a major source of the divisions among Christians. You accused me of Sabellianism when nothing could be further from the truth. You took me out of context from a discussion that I was having with someone else. Accusing someone of heresy is very serious, because you are, in essence, accusing someone of breaking the first commandment. When you do it you should make sure that you’re right.
I’d say the same thing about the “You’re arguing with Jesus” line that provoked this entire line of discussion. And for the record, I didn’t accuse you of Sabellianism. I have no reason to believe that you would ever knowingly endorse Sabellianism. My point (and Fr. Ambrose’s point) was that your reasoning would lead to Sabellianism if you followed it to its logical conclusion. You are arguing that the Son is given everything from the Father including the hypostatic generation of the Holy Spirit. If it were true that “everything” included hypostatic generation, then that would include generation of the Son as well, which would mean that the Son would be generating Himself. The point isn’t to accuse you personally of heresy, but to show that your interpretation would necessarily lead to an absurd conclusion (auto-generation of the Son). Therefore, your reasoning must be wrong. Surely accusing someone of incorrect reasoning is not the same as accusing someone of heresy.
 
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Aris:
There is no assumption that the filioque can be rejected by the Eastern Catholics. The k ey phrase is “that the Holy Spirit proceeds, not from two sources and not by a double procession, but from one origin, from the Father through the Son.” This is exactly what the Western Catholics also hold.
.
What I don’t quite understand is if Western Catholics hold exactly that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, why then does the Western creed read that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son?
 
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stanley123:
What I don’t quite understand is if Western Catholics hold exactly that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, why then does the Western creed read that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son?
That is because the RCC believes the words Though means the same as And. Imagine Webster trying to understand this.
A-N-D = T-H-R-O-U-G-H Hmmmm, so much for 12 years of parochial education.

Seriously though, IF the RCC really believes that the word and means that same thing as through, then why hasnt this been changed in all the issues of the western form of the Nicean Creed?

StMarkEofE
 
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