The term ekporeusis when used in that manner, like its use in the Book of Revelations for example, refers to the out-flowing of the energies (activities) of God, and not to the person of the Spirit. The Eastern Church has never accepted the notion that the Son mediates the existence or essence of the Spirit, because there can be no mediation between co-eternal realities in relation to their cause. As St. Gregory of Nyssa explained in his treatise “To the Greeks concerning the Commonality of Concepts” there is only one cause, i.e., the Father, within the Godhead and there can be no gaps (diastema) between Him and the two eternally caused realities (i.e., the Son and Spirit), which receive their hypostatic existence and essence directly from Him. And so as he puts it, unlike with men who “. . . do not directly possess their being from the same person, but some from this one and some from that one, so that with respect to the individuals caused there are also many and diverse causes. . . . with regard to the Holy Trinity, such is not the case, for there is one and the same Person, that of the Father, from whom the Son is begotten and the Holy Spirit proceeds. Wherefore indeed, rightly so and boldly do we proclaim one God, one Cause together with its Caused Realities, since it co-exists with Them.”
That is an interesting quotation from St. Thomas Aquinas, but I say that mainly because it is in open disagreement with the explicit teaching of St. John Damascene who said:
No. One must be careful in how one terms this. The way you phrase it reminds me of a Matyushka doll
From the Eastern perspective, the energetic manifestation is an eternal relationship.
This is imprecise and consequently misleading. That the Son’s generation and the Spirit’s procession are co-eternal realities is clearly a part of the Church’s tradition, but the Eastern Fathers insist that these realities come forth only from the Father as personal source, cause, and origin within the Godhead.
The Eastern Fathers do not attest to the Son being a cause of the Spirit, and the texts often used by Westerners to try and say that they do normally confuse economic utterances with ontological ones.
For all your talk, you keep failing to address what I wrote (why do you always do that?). I said you are not taking into account the flame analogy. St. Gregory clearly speaks of three things in his analogy - the torches, the common flame of the torches, and the common properties of the flames. The torches are the Hypostasis, the common flame is the ousia (the common Essence/Nature/Substance), and the properties of the flame are energeia. Let go of your mental gymnastics and you will see what is obvious.
I don’t need to reed the Byzantine medieval Fathers to understand the Essence/Energy distinction. Our common Fathers of the early centuries are sufficient for me. I’ve read some of Palamas and I think he is OK. You’ve quoted some things from Gregory of Cyprus earlier (I think), and I did not understand him to be saying (as you and a lot of modern EO do) that the distinction of Essence and Energy exists within the Godhead. In our comprehension it exists - that is the most I got out of it. But that is far from saying that the Essence/Energy distinction is an actual ontological distinction within the Godhead. The latter idea is a modern EO invention as far as I know, which I think is an overreaction to the Latin doctrine of filioque.
Well, that’s not what I said. I specifically said the documents were done in Latin FOR the Latins - why shouldn’t it?
It was done in Greek FOR the Greeks, but it was a common work of both the Latins and the Greeks. However, whenever the Latins used the term procedit, it would be translated as ekporeusai in Greeks.Yes, that is what it means. But I don’t believe that the MEANING of those terms was ever discussed at Florence. The Fathers of Florence were more concerned about the doctrine being taught than with the specific terminologies being used. I think there was a simple (and wrong) Traditional assumption that the two terms were perfectly equivalent.
No, where did I say that? I just said that he’s not talking about essence in the sense of what essence meant to later fathers like Pseudo-Dionysus and Gregory Palamas (just as Thomas Aquinas does not mean by essence what Basil the Great did).
So basically you accuse the Orthodox of departing from the tradition of Blachernae and Palamas, but you haven’t even read them in any sort of detail. That’s preposterous.
That’s rather illogical and laughable. It is you who keep separating the Essence and Energy within the Godhead, where you deny the “throughness” of the Son as regards the Essence, but admitting his “throughness” as regards the Energy. That ontological distinction of Essence and Energy within the Godhead is unknown to the early Fathers and (from what I’ve read) the later medieval Byzantine Fathers. It is only a certain popular segment of modern EO’xy that has made such a claim as an unpatristic overreaction to the Latin doctrine of filioque. If anything, I admit that I don’t understand the MODERN EO claims that make an ontological distinction of Essence/Energy within the Godhead.
What I don’t understand nor appreciate is the modern EO novelty that is a development of doctrine as an overreaction to the Latin doctrine of filioque. I don’t mind development of doctrine. I think it is a necessary feature of a living organism such as the Church, but when you use it to sow disunity in the Church, then there’s a HUGE problem with it.
That’s right. That you assume it is “separate” means you misunderstand the doctrine of perichoresis.
Nah. You’ve already done that all by yourself (along with the other modern EO who use your rhetoric) by imposing the Essence/Energy distinction within the Godhead.
MODERN Eastern Orthdox thinking, to be sure. I don’t believe Eastern Byzantine Catholics view the matter as a dogmatic source of disunity like the EO do.
The Energy is common to All also, so I don’t know why you presume to exclude Energeia when they say that “hypostasis encompasses what is common.” There is no distinction between Essence/Energy within the Godhead. Only certain MODERN EO have interpreted their statements otherwise. As stated before, the ONLY concern of the later medieval Byzantine Fathers (including Blacharnae and Palamas) regarding filioque was that it might diminish the Father’s role as SOURCE/ORIGIN. But the Latin doctrine on filioque admits this very much. The debate should be over. The problem is that MODERN EO have introduced a novel issue into the debate. MODERN EO, unlike their forbears, seek to not only exclude the Son from being ORIGIN/SOURCE (which is perfectly fine), but now they seek to exclude the Son from the EXISTENCE of the Holy Spirit whatsoever. It is ironic that EO polemicists in criticizing filioque go on and on about how the Latins don’t appreciate the doctrine of perichoresis. However, not only did Florence explicitly teach the doctrine of perichoresis, but a modicum of thinking will expose that the MODERN EO insistence of excluding the Son from the existence of the Holy Spirit actually violates the doctrine of perichoresis.
Utterly preposterous. You haven’t read Palamas and you are not familiar with the use of neoplatonic terminology within medieval theology, drawing from Pseudo-Dionysus, but you pretend to know about the essence energies distinction and their theology. This discussion is frankly a waste of time, because you are unwilling to learn the terminology they are using, but instead only try to find fault with it, the very thing you accuse the Orthodox of doing with Latin theology.
Not quite. It still sounds like you think the Son is “doing” something in the procession of the Spirit, and yet He is not. The Father is the sole cause, the sole source and principle in the generation of the Son and in the procession of the Spirit, and so the Son as person has nothing whatsoever to do with the Spirit’s eternal origin, nor does the Spirit have anything to do with the Son’s eternal origin. Both the Son and Spirit receive their hypostatic existence and being from the Father, and this causal power is a personal reality unique to the Father, and of course the Father’s peculiar hypostatic characteristics cannot be shared with the Son or the Spirit without falling into Sabellian Modalism.
On this point you and I are in agreement, but alas the Latin Church at the Council of Florence asserted the false notion that the Son “should be signified, according to the Greeks indeed as cause αἰτίαν], and according to the Latins as principle άρχήν] of the subsistence ύπἁρξεως] of the Holy Spirit, just like the Father.” This particular section of the Florentine decree is one of the main reasons why the Eastern Orthodox ultimately rejected the Council of Florence, because it clearly taught error on the procession of the Holy Spirit.
Just as you are unwilling to understand the Latins on their terms. So don’t accuse me of something you yourself are unwilling to do. I am going by our common Fathers in the first millenium. If you find anything wrong with that, that is more a reflection on you than me.
It is ridiculous to claim that bringing the doctrine of perichoresis into the picture is “presumptuous.” If the reverse implication were true as you claim, then you must simultaneously admit that the doctrine of perichoresis confuses the Father/Son/Holy Spirit as Source. You can’t consistently apply your rhetoric against filioque without confounding the whole doctrine of perichoresis. Obviously, the doctrine of the divine order of relations is not contradicted in any way by the doctrine of perichoresis. If you can affirm the Father as the Principle of being “from” despite the doctrine of perichoresis, you should likewise have no problem affirming the Son as the Principle of being “through” despite the doctrine of perichoreis. To confuse the Principle of being “through” because of the doctrine of perichoreis, while maintaining the Principle of being “from” despite the doctine of perichoresis only demonstrates an inconsistent and prejudicial bias on your part, don’t you think? The Father ever remains the principle of being “from” as the Unbegotten, the Son ever remains the principle of being “through” as the Begotten, and the Holy Spirit is the one Who proceeds (procedit) from Father and son/ proceeds (ekporeusai) from the Father through the Son.
It is in a thread where you likewise failed to respond to many of the questions I asked. Here is the link to the page on the thread. forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=8644119No, it is you who in your disdain for Eastern Orthodoxy, attack the essence-energies distinction without having read anything by Palamas. Quite frankly, that is a joke.
You must not be reading what I wrote correctly. If the filioque is true because of perichoresis, as you implied (that is, the procession of the Spirit through the Son is true as a consequence of perichoresis), then the reverse must also be true (the Son is begotten through the Spirit) or else the Spirit cleaves to the Son and the Father in an inferior manner to how the Father and the Son cleave to each other. This is obviously not what St. John of Damascus taught.
Btw, I found the catena of quotes which demonstrates the patristic belief that the Holy Spirit receives his Essence from the Son by way of mediation. Interestingly, the quotes were addressed to you originally, but you failed to respond to any of them.
Oh but Marduk, those all use some vague English term like subsistence or substance, none of them say ousia, and without seeing that, I’m afraid I can’t accept it, just as you can’t accept that hyparxis means existence.
