The Latins added the Filioque without having a doctrine that distinguishes essence from energy (distinguishing essence from energy is generally an Eastern thing).
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mardukm
Guest
That particular line in the Creed - “The Holy Spirit ekporeusai from the Father” or “The Holy Spirit procedit from the Father and the Son” - has never been taken by any Christian to refer to the economic activity of God, but refers rather to the internal/eternal relationship within the Godhead. You would be the first person I have ever heard of who claims that this particular line in the Creed refers to the Economy.
So, to repeat, the particular issue of this thread has never been dogmatized AFAIK.
Blessings,
Marduk
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mardukm
Guest
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ConstantineTG
Guest
In Byzantine thought, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father is as much a defining character of the Holy Spirit as the Son being begotten of the Father. The balance of the Trinity is that an attribute either belongs to one or to all three, but never to two. Otherwise it will upset the balance and insinuate an unequality between the Three Persons.That particular line in the Creed - “The Holy Spirit ekporeusai from the Father” or “The Holy Spirit procedit from the Father and the Son” - has never been taken by any Christian to refer to the economic activity of God, but refers rather to the internal/eternal relationship within the Godhead. You would be the first person I have ever heard of who claims that this particular line in the Creed refers to the Economy.
So, to repeat, the particular issue of this thread has never been dogmatized AFAIK.
Blessings,
Marduk
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ConstantineTG
Guest
Essence and Energies are not dogmas in the East neither. It is the most popular way of explaining the belief in God which distinguishes God being unknowable and at the same time knowable. We don’t have to believe or understand essence and energies itself to be faithful to the orthodox faith. As long as you believe that God is infinite and cannot be known fully, but can be known in a degree where he interacts with us or by our experience of Him, then you believe in the truth.
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mardukm
Guest
What has this got to do with the thread? Either you interpret the relevant credal line as a reference to the Economy or you do not. If you do not, just admit it.Blessings,
Marduk
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mardukm
Guest
Well said, but I’ve met a good number of EO (especially on the I-net) who don’t share this pov, and account Latin Catholics as heretics because of it.
Blessings,
Marduk
This is a problem due to ekporeyomenon and procedit both being translated as “processes” in English. The Holy Spirit ekporeyomenon from the Father is as much a defining character of the Holy Spirit as the Son being begotten of the Father. The Holy Spirit procedit from the Father is a different matter. The word, processes, is a very murky and unclear word.
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ConstantineTG
Guest
No, the heresy that is claimed against the Latin Catholics is not the lack of use of the concept of Essence and Energies, but rather the Augustinian-Platonic argument of how we can get to know God. Which by any stretch is not compatible to the Essense/Energies distinction.
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Aramis
Guest
No, not really. “I’m not sure” implies the distinction is meaningful to one’s spiritual life.There’s an option for “I’m not sure” which would cover it.
Blessings,
Marduk
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Cavaradossi
Guest
How silly. Both of these are wrong. But for the sake of the entertainment of those who love absurdity, let us hear how the non-spatial and omnipresent essence of God is subject to change and motion in the economy, as if it were merely a species or genus.
Pope St Gregory the Great, Letter XV (To Turribius, Bishop of Asturia, upon the errors of the Priscillianists.)
And so under the first head is shown what unholy views they hold about the Divine Trinity: they affirm that the person of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost is one and the same, as if the same God were named now Father, now Son, and now Holy Ghost: and as if He who begot were not one, He who was begotten, another, and He who proceeded from both, yet another; but an undivided unity must be understood, spoken of under three names, indeed, but not consisting of three persons.
Source: ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf212.ii.iv.xv.html
**St Maximus’ Letter to Marinus as found in Migne, PG 91:136:
**
Those of the Queen of Cities [Constantinople] have attacked the synodal letter of the present very holy Pope, not in the case of all the chapters that he has written in it, but only in the case of two of them. One relates to the theology [of the Trinity] and according to this, says ‘the Holy Spirit also has his ekporeusis from the Son.’
The other deals with the divine incarnation. With regard to the first matter, they [the Romans] have produced the unanimous evidence of the Latin Fathers, and also of Cyril of Alexandria, from the study he made of 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 that they have manifested the procession through him and have thus shown the unity and identity of the essence.
They [the Romans] have therefore been accused of precisely those things of which it would be wrong the accuse them, whereas the former [the Byzantines] have been accused of those things it has been quite correct to accuse them [Monothelitism].
In accordance with your request I have asked the Romans to translate what is peculiar to them (the ‘also from the Son’) 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. It is true, of course, that they cannot reproduce their idea in a language and in words that are foreign to them as they can in their mother-tongue, just as we too cannot do.
Source: monachos.net/content/patristics/patristictexts/185-maximus-to-marinus
And so under the first head is shown what unholy views they hold about the Divine Trinity: they affirm that the person of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost is one and the same, as if the same God were named now Father, now Son, and now Holy Ghost: and as if He who begot were not one, He who was begotten, another, and He who proceeded from both, yet another; but an undivided unity must be understood, spoken of under three names, indeed, but not consisting of three persons.
Source: ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf212.ii.iv.xv.html
**St Maximus’ Letter to Marinus as found in Migne, PG 91:136:
**
Those of the Queen of Cities [Constantinople] have attacked the synodal letter of the present very holy Pope, not in the case of all the chapters that he has written in it, but only in the case of two of them. One relates to the theology [of the Trinity] and according to this, says ‘the Holy Spirit also has his ekporeusis from the Son.’
The other deals with the divine incarnation. With regard to the first matter, they [the Romans] have produced the unanimous evidence of the Latin Fathers, and also of Cyril of Alexandria, from the study he made of 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 that they have manifested the procession through him and have thus shown the unity and identity of the essence.
They [the Romans] have therefore been accused of precisely those things of which it would be wrong the accuse them, whereas the former [the Byzantines] have been accused of those things it has been quite correct to accuse them [Monothelitism].
In accordance with your request I have asked the Romans to translate what is peculiar to them (the ‘also from the Son’) 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. It is true, of course, that they cannot reproduce their idea in a language and in words that are foreign to them as they can in their mother-tongue, just as we too cannot do.
Source: monachos.net/content/patristics/patristictexts/185-maximus-to-marinus
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mardukm
Guest
Dear brother Aramis,
When I included that option, my thinking was:
“SInce the Church has not dogmatized it, I haven’t really thought about it. So I’m not sure.”
I think the latter aligns somewhat to what you are saying?
It can be taken in both senses, for the practical purposes of the poll.
Blessings,
Marduk
I can see the statement could be interpreted in various ways. I think you took it to mean: “I’m not sure and I need guidance on it.”
When I included that option, my thinking was:
“SInce the Church has not dogmatized it, I haven’t really thought about it. So I’m not sure.”
I think the latter aligns somewhat to what you are saying?
It can be taken in both senses, for the practical purposes of the poll.
Blessings,
Marduk
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mardukm
Guest
Can you explain your statement more clearly (I mean, sans the useless words that I crossed out)?
Blessings,
Marduk
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Cavaradossi
Guest
Option 1 treats the essence of God as if it were merely a genus or species, so that the Holy Spirit ‘moving’ into the economy through the Son means the same about the essence. But this thinking is unsound on account of the fact that the essence of God is omnipresent and not subject to change or motion. The question needs to be reworded.
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Cavaradossi
Guest
So let me ask, when we receive the Holy Spirit, are we receiving the Holy Spirit as hypostasis, nature and energy? And Whose energy are we receiving, the energy of the Holy Spirit?
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mardukm
Guest
Yes, the Essence of God is omnipresent and not subject to change or motion, just as the Energy of God is om(name removed by moderator)reseent and not subject to change or motion. There is already a given and orthodox premise to these words that I don’t think needs to be clarified. By the use of the word “Generation” or “Procession,” which I am sure even you would use in reference to the Godhead, do you intend to mean something tactile and bounded by time and space? Of course not. I don’t know why my words need to be construed in the strange manner proposed.
Blessings,
Marduk
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mardukm
Guest
What do the poll options indicate?
Yes, of course. The same Energy of Deity shared by all the Persons of the Trinity by virtue of their one Essence. Does that really need to be explained? I thought I was addressing orthodox Christians.
Blessings,
Marduk
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Cavaradossi
Guest
The first can be interpreted in two ways. Do we receive the essence of God without experiencing it, or do we not receive the essence of God? In other words, is our inability to experience the essence of God real or is it merely conceptual?
And so with any operation like sanctification which is shared by all three, when we are said to be sanctified by the Holy Spirit, does this mean that we are sanctified by the Holy Spirit alone, or by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit acting as one principle.Yes, of course. The same Energy of Deity shared by all the Persons of the Trinity by virtue of their one Essence. -]Does that really need to be explained? I thought I was addressing orthodox Christians.
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GaryTaylor
Guest
Real, be it one is oblivious to this is another issue.
There is no separation of the Three or Tri-Unity, but from our three dimensional world. All physical objects have a certain height, width, and depth. Or from our mathmatical understand of 1+1+1=3. But this is not the case here since 1+1+1=1.
God, however, lives without the limitations of a three-dimensional universe. He is spirit. And he is infinitely more complex than we are.
That is why Jesus the Son can be different from the Father. And, yet the same.
The Bible clearly speaks of: God the Son, God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit. But emphasizes that there is only ONE God.
“Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!” (Deut. 6:4)
“I am the LORD, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God.” (Isa. 45:5)
There is no God but one. (1Cor. 8:4)
And after being baptized, Jesus went up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” (Matt. 3:16-17)
“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” (Matt. 28:19)
Jesus said: “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30)
“He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9)
“He who beholds Me beholds the One who sent Me.” (John 12:45)
If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. (Rom. 8:9)
“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.” (Matt. 1:20)
And the angel answered and said to her [Mary], “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35)
[Jesus speaking to His disciples] “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you.” … “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him.” (John 14:16-17, 23) (everystudent.com)
Nevertheless, while mardukm used the example of the Incarnation, another area to view in particular is the Eucharist and RP.
"A real distinction between the essence (ousia) and the energies (energeia) of God is a central principle of Eastern Orthodox theology. Eastern Orthodox theology regards this distinction as more than a mere conceptual distinction.
Western theologians admit no real distinction in God other than that between the three divine Hypostases or Persons. Neither between God’s essence and the three Persons of the Trinity, nor between God’s essence and his energies, do they admit a real distinction, but only a distinction that has a basis in reality or a formal distinction." Wiki
Essence-Energy distinction is a model to understand how we as Gods creation participate in Gods Grace or transformation by transmitted Grace occurs which results in the Sonship in Communion with the Lord. Essence and Energy are identical as are the Rays from the Sun, being of the Sun. The truth that Mary received “all Grace” a complete indwelling of the HS. Doesn’t reduce the Essence/Energy imparted to a Soul through signal Grace or a single Ray of the Sun.
The difference I see perhaps wrongly is that the energy is communicable and the essence is not. But the Incarnation indicates this is incorrect. If the Energy communicates God it communicates His Essence. To what degree the Energy is communicated we cannot know, but we do know it was communicated or are in ignorance oblivious to our own reality. Baptism comes to mind with the Oblivious condition. Nevertheless it is a imposed supernatural virtue=Grace.
Frankly I agree with the Essense/Energy theology but for the above paragraph, and I understand my own own spiritual journey more clearly through it. I may be in ignorance also.
So what did Mary receive Essence, or Energy seperate from Essense?
How about this question, can God create Divinity?
Peace all.
There is no separation of the Three or Tri-Unity, but from our three dimensional world. All physical objects have a certain height, width, and depth. Or from our mathmatical understand of 1+1+1=3. But this is not the case here since 1+1+1=1.
God, however, lives without the limitations of a three-dimensional universe. He is spirit. And he is infinitely more complex than we are.
That is why Jesus the Son can be different from the Father. And, yet the same.
The Bible clearly speaks of: God the Son, God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit. But emphasizes that there is only ONE God.
“Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!” (Deut. 6:4)
“I am the LORD, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God.” (Isa. 45:5)
There is no God but one. (1Cor. 8:4)
And after being baptized, Jesus went up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” (Matt. 3:16-17)
“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” (Matt. 28:19)
Jesus said: “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30)
“He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9)
“He who beholds Me beholds the One who sent Me.” (John 12:45)
If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. (Rom. 8:9)
“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.” (Matt. 1:20)
And the angel answered and said to her [Mary], “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35)
[Jesus speaking to His disciples] “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you.” … “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him.” (John 14:16-17, 23) (everystudent.com)
Nevertheless, while mardukm used the example of the Incarnation, another area to view in particular is the Eucharist and RP.
"A real distinction between the essence (ousia) and the energies (energeia) of God is a central principle of Eastern Orthodox theology. Eastern Orthodox theology regards this distinction as more than a mere conceptual distinction.
Western theologians admit no real distinction in God other than that between the three divine Hypostases or Persons. Neither between God’s essence and the three Persons of the Trinity, nor between God’s essence and his energies, do they admit a real distinction, but only a distinction that has a basis in reality or a formal distinction." Wiki
Essence-Energy distinction is a model to understand how we as Gods creation participate in Gods Grace or transformation by transmitted Grace occurs which results in the Sonship in Communion with the Lord. Essence and Energy are identical as are the Rays from the Sun, being of the Sun. The truth that Mary received “all Grace” a complete indwelling of the HS. Doesn’t reduce the Essence/Energy imparted to a Soul through signal Grace or a single Ray of the Sun.
The difference I see perhaps wrongly is that the energy is communicable and the essence is not. But the Incarnation indicates this is incorrect. If the Energy communicates God it communicates His Essence. To what degree the Energy is communicated we cannot know, but we do know it was communicated or are in ignorance oblivious to our own reality. Baptism comes to mind with the Oblivious condition. Nevertheless it is a imposed supernatural virtue=Grace.
Frankly I agree with the Essense/Energy theology but for the above paragraph, and I understand my own own spiritual journey more clearly through it. I may be in ignorance also.
So what did Mary receive Essence, or Energy seperate from Essense?
How about this question, can God create Divinity?
Peace all.
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