Filioque - Distinguishing the Essence and Person of the Holy Spirit

[Mickey]

It is in the Creed. The Creed was based upon baptismal affirmations, the kind of things adult converts would say when they are being brought into the church from outside, it had to be unambiguous. Their eternal life in Christ was at stake.

People say this Creed (Credo = I believe) in worship before God as a testimonial of what they actually believe. Is this concept so hard to comprehend?

They say, all together before God, I BELIEVE. Don’t you think it should be something they understand, if they are going to swear before God and one another that they believe it? If they misunderstand, and swear before God that they believe something which is in fact wrong, don’t you think that is a problem?

Otherwise, what in blue blazes is it doing in the Creed? They might as well say ‘Yadda- yadda-ya’ for as much it means to them.

:sad_yes:

 

[Vico]

What troubles me about this discussion is the almost total lack of scriptural and patristic argumentation in favor of philosophical speculation about the inner working of the Holy Trinity. A summary of such quotations in context would be far more helpful. Unfortunately I’m not a scholar so I couldn’t provide that, but I would welcome anyone more capable to attempt such an effort. In the meantime, I think we can hardly understand the matter better than St. Maximos the Confessor, a saint who is recognized by both the east and west as orthodox, and who understood both Greek and Latin, and live in both the east and the west when the controversy was first flaring. He wrote:

"With regard to the first matter, they (the Romans) have produced the unanimous documentary evidence of the Latin fathers, and also of Cyril of Alexandria, from the sacred commentary he composed on the gospel of St. John. On the basis of these texts, they have shown that they have not made the Son the cause of the Spirit — they know in fact that the Father is the only cause of the Son and the Spirit, the one by begetting and the other by procession; but [they use this expression] in order to manifest the Spirit’s coming-forth (προϊέναι) through him and, in this way, to make clear the unity and identity of the essence….

The Romans have therefore been accused of things of which it is wrong to accuse them, whereas of the things of which the Byzantines have quite rightly been accused (viz., Monothelitism), they have, to date, made no self-defense, because neither have they gotten rid of the things introduced by them.

“But, in accordance with your request, I have asked the Romans to translate what is peculiar to them in such a way that any obscurities that may result from it will be avoided. But since the practice of writing and sending (the synodal letters) has been observed, I wonder whether they will possibly agree to doing this. One should also keep in mind that they cannot express their meaning in a language and idiom that are foreign to them as precisely as they can in their own mother-tongue, any more than we can do.”

God help us to follow this saint’s example and end this division once and for all.

It would be possible to limit the discussion to the Patristic period. That would mean excluding Photius, Lyons II, Florence, Trent, Palams, Synod of Blachernae, Synod of Jerusalem, since the Patristic Period (the broad one, now the narrow) ends with the Council of Nicea 787 (and excluding Trullo). Using the following instead:

Saint Irenaeus of Lyons
Saint Clement of Alexandria
Some works of Origen of Alexandria
Saint Athanasius of AlexandriaSaint Basil the Great
Saint Gregory of Nyssa
Saint Gretory of Nanzianzus
Saint Cyril of Alexandria
Saint John Chrysostom
Saint Maximus the Confessor of Constantinople
Saint John of Damascus

Saint Ignatius of Antioch
Saint Clement of Rome
Saint Polycarp of Snyrna
Saint Anthony
Saint Pakhom
Saint Ambrose
Tertulian
Saint Cyprian
Saint Hilary
Saint Jerome
Saint Augustine
Saint Gregory the Great