Setting aside for others to debate, whether or not Rome's understanding of the filioque is heretical or not, I will simply restate what i have said many times. Irrespective of whether or not the Roman Catholic Church's current understanding of the filioque is Orthodox the term is NOT. Neither in Latin nor in its English translation is Orthodox. Its plain meaning in both languages expressly affirms a double procession.
Even granting ad argumentem that Rome rejects this, the average Catholic in the pew who does not have Mike's extraordinary command of theology is not going to grasp this. They read "who proceeds from the Father & the Son..." and foolishly assume that what it says is what it means.
The filioque as it is written is heretical. In other words, res ipsa loquitur. Its presence creates mass confusion in the Western Church and lends itself to heretical interpretations. Lex Orandi Lex Credendi . Thus it is a nonstarter with us and should remain so.
ICXC
John
Ad Orientem,
Can't what you've stated be said about many different teachings of the Church? For instance, doesn't the use of the words "cause" or "origin" with regard to the Persons of the Holy Trinity run the risk of being taken in a subordinationist sense. Or, when the Orthodox Liturgy calls on the Mother of God to save us, does it not run the risk of a false interpretation by the faithful. In short, doctrine needs to be explained properly.
More than this,however, I would argue that the doctrine of the filioque, precisely as stated, implies and affirms the monarchy of the Father. If C comes from A and B and there is no essential relation of priority between A and B, then one would be justified in assuming that C has a double origin of some sort. But if there is an essential relation of priority, then either A or B is first in that order and everything is referred back to one. The latter is the case with regard to the filioque. Remember that it is not simply "filioque", but "ex Patre Filioque." And since Father and Son are related by way of origin, with the Father generating the Son, everything must be referred back to the Father as the one Beginning in the Holy Trinity.
Ed
Language itself gets in our way. How does one articulate the mystery of the Divine Trinity, undivided and consubstantial? Is it even possible by intellectual disection?
When we approach the Creed we should imagine ourselves in prayer, the Spirit groaning intercessions within us, that we might inwardly glimpse what is hidden in Light.
As important to us as our dogmatic commitments may be, the question of procession is still less important than the impliations of Oneness for the Church and the Kingdom.
I was very delighted to read this post this morning. I will post more when I get the chance.
Photios
My humble contribution: it's ex PatrE Filioque (ablative, not dative "Patri").
"Language itself gets in our way. How does one articulate the mystery of the Divine Trinity, undivided and consubstantial? Is it even possible by intellectual disection?"
Unfortuneatly, Ms. Linsey, such senitments don't get much play around here, though I heartily agree with them. People will read what they like, and will continue to read what they like, into this question until we are all thrown into concentration camps because we all confess a sincere faith in Christ. Then, maybe, some real theological talk can begin, and real ecumenical goals will be met. (As an aside, this was a really good discussion on this question. It was written by an Orthodox scholar who I once met when he visited the *gasp!* "Uniate" monastery I was a member of. Some Orthodox see the issue differently.)
Thanks for this reflection and site.
I cannot see how to email you.
Please visit Liturgy
And consider linking as “Liturgy” or “Liturgy (ecumenical).
Mike L.,
Could you create a separate label for the filioque posts so that I can easily browse through them?
Mike L.,
"JUST AS the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love." (John 15:9)
"... the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us [AS ENERGY] ." (Rom. 5:5)
"Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world." (John 17:24)
If I follow Catholic dogmatic theology correctly, then the glory of the Son given to Him from the Father prior to creation & the love between them must be identical, but if this divine glory is seen by men & this same love of God is poured into our hearts, then it cannot be the hypostatic procession of the Spirit from the Father.
Also, whatever reason(s) I have to take the relation of love between the Father & Son as a Person must also explain why I do not take the relation between each of the Divine Persons as another hypostasis.
Thank you, Arturo Vasquez, for the link. I remember reading that, but would never have been able to find it again. That is worth a second reading.
I posted Peter Gilbert's poem on Bekkos here:
http://teachgoodwriting.blogspot...duces-
poem.html
If I follow Catholic dogmatic theology correctly, then the glory of the Son given to Him from the Father prior to creation & the love between them must be identical, but if this divine glory is seen by men & this same love of God is poured into our hearts, then it cannot be the hypostatic procession of the Spirit from the Father.
I'm not quite sure I fully understood the argument here, but as stated it seems to overlook the doctrine of appropriation and thus, from a Catholic dogmatic perspective, to mix together illicitly divine being and divine Person.
bedwere:
Thanks, you are quite right. Also, the Florentine definition reads tanquam ex uno principio rather than quasi... etc.
Best,
Mike
Alice:
I agree with you on each of the points you make. That is why I described my aim as not, risibly, to increase insight into the inner life of the Trinity but to harmonize ways of speaking thereof. My ultimate aim is to make a small contribution to Christian unity.
Best,
Mike
Arturo:
I have read before the post you recommend, and I thank you for reminding me of it. I believe it supports my efforts. Yet I avoided citing Bekkos and Bessarion because bringing in such inflammatory (for the Orthodox) figures would have distracted attention from the specifics of my own proposal.
It seems to me unwise to give up on theologizing about this topic until all our backs have been put against the wall. These discussions are more a matter of seeding the ground so that something good can sprout when the time is ripe.
Best,
Mike
William:
If I understand you correctly, you think the Latin doctrine is that the Holy Spirit as hyspostasis just is the love or mutual indwelling of the Father and the Son ad intra. But I don't believe that is the doctrine, and I don't believe it precisely because such a doctrine would make no sense.
Best,
Mike
John:
I must strenuously disagree that the phrase filioque is heretical. The mere phrase can mean any number of things to any number of minds, as do most important phrases in theology. (Remember what happened to homousios between Antioch 268 and Nicaea 325.) Long ago I knew a kid who thought that the doctrine of the filioque meant that the Father and the Son got together and blew forth the Holy Spirit just to have something to do.
The only sense of the phrase relevant to this discussion, or indeed to any formal discussion of its truth, is that conveyed by the dogmatic definition of the doctrine expressed by the phrase. That definition clearly denies that there are "two spirations." There is only one spiration, as from one principle. Hence, if there is a so-called "double procession," that can only mean that the Son has something-or-other to do with the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father. It does not mean that the Son's contribution to the procession is the same as the Father's save for being an addition to the Father's.
Look, ordinary Catholics often get things mixed up. For over a thousand years, most Catholics believed that EENS meant that you had to be a formal member of the Church in order to be saved. They forgot that, though we are bound by the sacraments, God is not. It took the discovery of the "New World" to remember that, and even then it took centuries for the lesson to sink in fully.
Most ordinary, Latin-Rite Catholics give little or no thought to the filioque. Among the relatively few who are able and willing to give clear thought to it, most do not want the phrase interpreted in a way that would be incompatible with MF. Given the tragedies of history, much work remains to be done. I'm doing a bit of it.
Best,
Mike
Mike wrote, "though we are bound by the sacraments, God is not."
Very true, and I guess the same can be said about human proclamations that we may regard as binding. I am reminded of what Jesus said to the Pharisees: "The Sabbath was made for Man, not Man for the Sabbath." We do tend to mix things up!
Mike:
I believe this footnote to your post will helpfully confirm your thesis.
Mike,
I have responded here:
http://energeticprocession.wordp...ctrineorthodox/
Photios
http://energeticprocession.wordp...ctrineorthodox/
Ms. Alice Linsley:
Very true, and I guess the same can be said about human proclamations that we may regard as binding.
Are you implying that infallible proclamations made by the Church are, really, not infallible proclamations that can be overturned?
Further, I hardly think that we can render null such doctrines as that of the Trinity or that Jesus Christ was "Man Made Flesh".
Your comment here seems to imply that the New Testament, which, really, are to those of the modern liberal mind, are but human proclamations (just ask zealots of the Jesus Seminar variety), is arbitrarily subject to change.
Mike,
It seems there is a problem with having the filioque Creed with the bear fact that the Nicene-Constantinople Creed uses the term ekpouremenon. If the Latins deny that the Son is an ekpouremenon of the Spirit, then the interpolationt can't logically, linguistically, or theologically be inserted into the Creed. To confess that the "filioque" is dropped where the Greek creed is used in a Latin Church presents another problem, that the Interpolated Creed is "another" Creed from the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.
I think this is what John is trying to say.
Photios
Photios:
The term 'another Creed' is ambiguous—as are, unfortunately, some of the key terms in this very old discussion.
By 'another Creed' one might mean a creed which is heretical: i.e., either logically incompatible with or otherwise discontinuous with the faith symbolized by the Creed of 381. As a Catholic, of course, I deny that interpolating the filioque, as defined by the Catholic Church, makes the result another creed in that sense. I hold with the Catholic Church that the Catholic dogma expressed by the phrase filioque is materally contained in the faith-once-delivered, even though the phrase itself does not occur formally in the Creed of 381.
Even so, all one might mean by 'another Creed' is that the Latin creed, with the phrase filioque interpolated, is eo ipso formally distinct from the Creed of 381. That of course is true—indeed, almost trivially so. But that in turn raises the question whether the papacy was justified in confessing a formally distinct creed without the consent of the Eastern patriarchates. I happen to believe that it was not justified in doing so. But I believe that because I believe it was pastorally destructive for the papacy to do so, not because I believe the phrase or doctrine of the filioque to be heretical. Properly understood, it isn't.
Best,
Mike
Mike,
Laying aside the question of "another" meaning heresy, let me phrase it this way. If some Hierarch in the Orthodox Church were to use a formula of Gregory of Cyprus II that the "Holy Spirit the Lord the Giver of Life Who procheisthai (flows forth) from the Father and the Son" as an interpolation in the Creed it would be "another" Creed because it goes against the intentions of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed even though an Orthodox expression. It would be reflecting something else than what the original text established and breaking the bond of love in the Church as she professes Her faith. Of course, I think you already know this, but it is on that basis that the "filioque" should be dropped so we can profess the original intention of our Fathers as Pope Leo III engraved on those two silver shields. I know you don't have any control of such things, but one can only hope.
Photios
Alice, beware, beware! If you persist in such open-minded, irenic, reasonable common sense, you may be accused of crypto-Romanism or even of being on the road to Rome. Which would be an entirely good thing, as far as I'm concerned, but some folks might regard it as the fate worse than death. 
e, I don't think that was what Alice was saying at all, at all. But I will let her answer for herself.
Are you implying that infallible proclamations made by the Church are, really, not infallible proclamations that can be overturned?
Infallible means infallible. The true Church must be at least that, by virtue of Jesus Christ, by whom and through whom the Church has its being.
Further, I hardly think that we can render null such doctrines as that of the Trinity or that Jesus Christ was "Man Made Flesh".
We can try. Humans do it every day, but since these are not doctrines, but Reality, we only make a mockery of ourselves.
"Jesus Christ was "Man Made Flesh""
What does this even mean?!
Bosco+
http://www.liturgy.co.nz
What does this even mean?!
It means there was a typographical error in the original. I can't recall the last time I saw someone get that excited over a typo. 
LOL, Jonathan, I had the same reaction. Anyone who knows Alice (even via cyberspace) can readily appreciate that she meant to type "God Made Flesh." It was simply a slip of the fingers--and, as most of us type pretty fast as we post these comments. it's a wonder we don't commit even more glaring and confusing bloopers.
Ms. Alice,
Thanks for the clarification; however, as I am usually faced with an opposition whose arguments are typically of the "well,all these infallible proclamations of the Church are mere human proclamations subject to amendment"-kind; I become especially sensitive to anything that may even superficially invoke such a notion.
"Man Made Flesh" was a copy and paste from e's comment. See above: e. | 06.23.08 - 1:18 pm |
Yes, that typo was originally mine.
Are we to spend for the entire length of this thread talking about a mere typo? Sheesh.
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