V
Vico
Guest
For “Where did I ever say that”: I misunderstood you, I think.
There are two commentaries that I find very interesting, by Vladimir Lossky.
For hypostatis vs essence “causality”:Here it may be stated that the relations only serve to express the hypostatic diversity of the Three; they are not the basis of it. It is the absolute diversity of the three hypostases which determines their differing relations to one another, not vice versa. Here thought stands still, confronted by the impossibility of defining a personal existence in its absolute difference from any other, and must adopt a negative approach to proclaim that the Father – He who is without beginning (anarchos) – is not the Son or the Holy Spirit, that the begotten Son is neither the Holy Spirit nor the Father, that the Holy Spirit, “who proceeds from the Father,” is neither the Father nor the Son. 14 Here we cannot speak of relations of opposition but only of relations of diversity. 15 To follow here the positive approach, and to envisage the relations of origin otherwise than as signs of the inexpressible diversity of the persons, is to suppress the absolute quality of this personal diversity, i.e. to relativize the Trinity and in some sense to depersonalize it. The positive approach employed by Filioquist triadology brings about a certain rationalization of the dogma of the Trinity, insofar as it suppresses the fundamental antinomy between the essence and the hypostases.
- “To be unbegotten, to be begotten, to proceed– these are the features which characterize the Father, the Son, and Him whom we call the Holy Spirit, in such a way as to safeguard the distinction of the three hypostases in the one nature and majesty of the Divinity; for the Son is not the Father, because there is only one Father, but He is what the Father is; the Holy Spirit, although He proceeds from God, is not the Son, because there is only one Only Begotten Son, but He is what the Son is. The Three are One in divinity and the One is Three in persons. Thus we avoid the unity of Sabellius and the triplicity of the odious present-day heresy.” St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 30, 9; P.G. 36, col. 14113-144A.
- In his polemic against the Latins, St. Mark of Ephesus, in affirming the principle of the diversity of the persons, criticizes the Thomist principle of opposition of the persons. Capita syllogistica contra Latinos 24; P.G. 161, cols. 189.193.
Because cause must be understood correctly.It may be asked whether, in seeking to avoid the semi-Sabellianism of the Latins, their Greek adversaries did not fall into subordinationism because of their emphasis on the monarchy of the Father. This might perhaps seem all the more likely to happen, because in Greek patristic literature one often finds the idea of causality applied to the person of the Father. The Father is called the cause (aitia) of the hypostases of the Son and the Holy Spirit, or even the “Godhead-source” (pegaia Theotes). Sometimes He is designated simply as “God,” with the definite article ho Theos, or even as autotheos. It is worthwhile to recall here what we have said before about the negative approach characteristic of Orthodox thought – an approach which radically changes the value of philosophical terms applied to God. Not only the image of – cause," but also such terms as “production,” “procession,” and “origin” ought to be seen as inadequate expressions of a reality which is foreign to all becoming, to all process, to all beginning. just as relations of origin mean something different from relations of opposition, so causality is nothing but a somewhat defective image, which tries to express the personal unity which determines the origins of the Son and the Holy Spirit. This unique cause is not prior to his effects, for in the Trinity there is no priority and posteriority. He is not superior to his effects, for the perfect cause cannot produce inferior effects. He is thus the cause of their equality with himself. 20 The causality ascribed to the person of the Father, who eternally begets the Son and eternally causes the Holy Spirit to proceed, expresses the same idea as the monarchy of the Father: that the Father is the personal principle of unity of the Three, the source of their common possession of the same content, of the same essence.
- “For He would be the origin (arche) of petty and unworthy things, or rather the term ‘origin’ would be used in a petty and unworthy sense, if He were not the origin of the Godhead (tes Theotetos arche) and of the goodness contemplated in the Son and in the Spirit: in the former as Son and Word, in the latter as Spirit which proceeds without separation.” St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 2, 38; P.G. 35, col. 445.
