The Filioque

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Aloysius' post='1846557' date='Apr 24 2009, 09:47 PM']yes, that'd be a good discussion topic... it's something I always get confused on the terminology about. I always want to go into intelligent discussions about the Trinity and talk about the "economy" and "oikonomos" of God but I always get confused as to which is which (and as to whether or not I just posted an English and Greek word that mean the same thing asking which is which, I feel like there's one word often said in Greek and the other one is usually just said as "economy" and I thought I remembered them being similar, but in any event, I'm thinking of the two terms that mean the inner workings of the Trinity and then the Trinity's relation to humanity..)[/quote]
The Greek Fathers use the word "theology" ([i]theologia[/i]) to refer to the inner life of the Trinity, while using the term "economy" ([i]oikonomia[/i]) to refer to God's manifesting and saving activity ([i]energeia[/i]) in the world.

Edited April 25, 2009 by Apotheoun

[Aloysius]

[quote name='Resurrexi' post='1846668' date='Apr 25 2009, 01:30 AM']I just love the way "Filioque" sounds when chanted in the Creed [/quote]
that explains everything! καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ doesn't sound nearly as cool as "Filioque"... it's been a question of auditory aesthetics all this time!

[kafka]

the truth of the Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son as One absolutely simple and undivided-Divine Eternal Act and not from two causes or in two acts or
is truly exciting and wonderful.

All we must do is accept it in Faith and then necessarily reflect upon it and try to explain it in our own limited way.

Everything that God is and everything that God does is One Divine Eternal Act. In God being is doing and doing is being. In God, the Son proceeding from the Father, and the Spirit proceeding first from the Father and second from the Son, is One and the same Act as existance, love, mercy, justice or anything God is/does. Procession and Existance in God is One and the Same thing.

The truth of the Son proceeding solely from the Father and the Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son is essential.

And insofar as it is essential in God it is mysterious and incomprehensible and ineffable forever even to those who experience the immediate beautific vision of God in Heaven.

And insofar as it is mysterious and incomprehensible and ineffable, we must bow down and accept it in faith, and when we do this, it truly becomes wonderful and exciting and beautiful through the eyes of faith.

And we can rest in the truth that all of our theologizing as good and as necessary as it might be will one day be subsumed by Eternity.

Edited April 25, 2009 by kafka

[Slappo]

"Filioque, Filioque, Filioque"

Has a nice roll off the tongue . [b]I[/b] think doctrine should be determined by aesthetics. Then we can all just join along and say, "Sounds good to me!."

[Ziggamafu]

[quote name='Apotheoun' post='1847080' date='Apr 25 2009, 07:42 AM']This would be unacceptable to the East, because it turns the Son into a cause within the Trinity, albeit a secondary cause, but a cause nonetheless, and that idea leads to the heresy ditheism (i.e., positing two causal principles in the Trinity).

The Father alone is cause within the Godhead ([i]monarchia[/i]), and that is why there is only one God. Moreover, the Western attempt to avoid the problem of ditheism by speaking of the Father and the Son as a "single cause" is unacceptable because it confounds the hypostatic distinction that necessarily exists between the Father and the Son, which involves the heresy of Sabellianism.


Love is a common divine energy of the Holy Trinity, i.e., it is common to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Therefore, one cannot refer to the Holy Spirit as the love between the Father and the Son without confusing the real distinction between person ([i]hypostasis[/i]) and energy ([i]energeia[/i]) within the Godhead.


No, procession ([i]ekporeusis[/i]) is not an eternal [i]act[/i] of the Father and the Son, and this is so for two reasons: (1) this idea makes both the Father and the Son causes or it turns them into a single co-cause within the Godhead, and this false notion ultimately leads to the heresy of ditheism or to the heresy of Sabellianism – depending upon which causal terminology is used; and (2) it reduces the person ([i]hypostasis[/i]) of the Spirit to a common divine energy of the Father and the Son. Now, of course, it is important to remember that the energies of the Trinity, which are both natural and enhypostatic, are common to all three persons of the Trinity, and so this theory would involve positing the strange notion that the Spirit as person ([i]hypostasis[/i]) proceeds from Himself, which is nonsense.

Finally, the doctrine of the Eastern Fathers holds that: (1) the Holy Spirit as person ([i]hypostasis[/i]) takes His origin ([i]ekporeusis[/i]) solely from the Father, who alone is the font of Godhead; while (2) the Holy Spirit as energy (and here the Eastern Fathers are using the term Holy Spirit equivocally to stand for the enhypostatic energy that is common within the Godhead, and not hypostatically which is unique to the person of the Spirit) progresses ([i]proienai[/i]) from the Father through the Son, and this manifestation ([i]phanerosis[/i]) of the Spirit has nothing to do with His personal origin, but concerns only the movement of God's common energies within the world, which sustain the world, while also making His (i.e., the Triune God's) presence experientially known.[/quote]

Surely the Western perspective took these red flags into consideration and found a way around them?

[AccountDeleted]

[quote name='Slappo' post='1848604' date='Apr 25 2009, 11:12 PM']"Filioque, Filioque, Filioque"

Has a nice roll off the tongue . [b]I[/b] think doctrine should be determined by aesthetics. Then we can all just join along and say, "Sounds good to me!." [/quote]

Personally, I love reading all the debates - they make me think. But in the end, since I am not able to to debate these points intelligently myself (no theological background - or Greek or Latin!), I prefer this approach -- what are the aesthetics of the debate or "does it sound good?" Thanks for clearing everything up for me!!!

[kafka]

'Filioque' does roll off the tongue quite well, especially when one is renewing one's baptismal vows today (not that I did them in Latin but I thought of Filioque when we said proceeds from the Father and the Son).


Anyhow, this thread made me think of an interesting passage in St. Faustina's diary which I am reading now. Granted it is a mystical experience, a private revelation, yet I thought it was interesting nonetheless:

"On one occasion I was reflecting on the Holy Trinity, on the essence of God. I absolutely wanted to know and fathom who God is. ... In an instant my spirit was caught up into what seemed to be the next world. I saw an inaccessible light, and in this light what appeared like three sources of light which I could not understand. And out of that light came words in the form of lightning which encircled heaven and earth. Not understanding anything, I was very sad. Suddenly, from this sea of inaccessible light came our dearly beloved Savior, unutterably beautiful with His shining Wounds. And from this light came a voice which said: 'Who God is in His Essence, no one will fathom, neither the mind of Angels nor of man.' Jesus said to me: 'Get to know God by contemplating His attributes.' A moment later, He traced the sign of the cross with His hand and vanished."

[Aloysius]

that quote resonates very well with Eastern theology which emphasizes God's essence as completely and totally unknowable... ie you cannot even partially know it... you experience His energies rather than understand His essence.

[Apotheoun]

'Who God is in His Essence, no one will fathom, neither the mind of Angels nor of man.' Jesus said to me: 'Get to know God by contemplating His attributes.' A moment later, He traced the sign of the cross with His hand and vanished."

St. Faustina's comment quoted above sounds very Eastern indeed. In the doctrinal tradition of the Eastern Church the essence of God is beyond any type of participation by created beings, which is why the Eastern Fathers insist that it is impossible to ever see or know the divine essence.

[Aloysius]

hey, didn't I just say that same thing (four years ago)?  :P

[Apotheoun]

hey, didn't I just say that same thing (four years ago)?   :P

You said it, but you didn't "just" say it. Four years is a long time.