Abscondita In Deo

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Raphael' post='1887051' date='Jun 9 2009, 08:15 AM']From my understanding of Trinitarian theology, Apo is correct in the above statement (I'm not endorsing the paper because I haven't read it). The Holy Spirit is poured out from the Father to the Son and back from the Son to the Father (as well as from the Son to the Church). The meaning of the Filioque, as I've understood it, is that while the origin of the Holy Spirit is in the Father, the Filioque is not a statement of origin so much as a statement of the "dynamic" or "movement" (for lack of a better term) of the Holy Spirit within the Trinity, in which sense, we can say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father (in origin), but also from the Son (in returning to the Father and in going out to the Church). For this reason, Pope John Paul II is said to have left out the Filioque on occasion.[/quote]
To understand the Eastern position one must keep in mind the distinction that exists between the Greek words [i]ekporeusis[/i] and [i]proienai[/i]. The former word ([i]ekporeusis[/i], i.e., procession properly so-called), concerns the origin of the Holy Spirit as person, which comes only from the Father; while the latter word ([i]proienai[/i], i.e., progression or energetic movement), concerns the Holy Spirit's temporal and eternal manifestation as grace, but not as person, which comes from the Father through the Son, and which is poured out in the Holy Spirit to the world as a gift of tri-personal communion between the Trinity and mankind.

Sadly, the Scholastics (and the Western Church in general after the time of St. Augustine) translated these two Greek words by a single Latin word [i]procedere[/i], which caused a false equivalence between these two distinct divine realities, i.e., the hypostatic origin of the Holy Spirit, and the manifestation of the common divine energy that flows out from the Father, through the Son, and in the Holy Spirit, as the eternal and uncreated light and glory of the Trinity.

Ultimately, from an Eastern Christian perspective, a hypostatic [i]filioque[/i], i.e., a theory of the [i]filioque[/i] in which the Son is made a cause of the Spirit's person, is heretical, because it either promotes the sin of ditheism or the heresy of Sabellianism Modalism. While, on the other hand, a [i]per filium[/i] in relation to the manifestation ([i]phanerosis[/i]) of the uncreated and eternal divine energy is acceptable because it is supported by both scripture and the teaching of the Greek Fathers.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Raphael' post='1887051' date='Jun 9 2009, 08:15 AM']. . . The Holy Spirit is poured out from the Father to the Son and back from the Son to the Father (as well as from the Son to the Church). . . .[/quote]
Basically I agree with this statement, but I would add to it slightly by saying that: The common uncreated and eternal energy of the Trinity, which is called the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit by the Holy Fathers of the East, moves out from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit to the world, and then back in the Spirit through the Son to the Father.

It is the outpouring of the Spirit as energy which deifies the saints, for by participating in the uncreated energies of the tri-hypostatic God the saints become living icons of Christ.

Edited June 10, 2009 by Apotheoun

[Nihil Obstat]

I don't want to derail an extremely interesting discussion, but can you clear up one thing for a non theologian?
How does the Holy Spirit, being uncreated and eternal energy, 'proceed from' anything? How do we understand the term 'proceed'?

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='Apotheoun' post='1886888' date='Jun 8 2009, 11:36 PM']The Holy Spirit as person proceeds ([i]ekporeusis[/i]) only from the Father, i.e., the Spirit takes His origin from the Father alone, for the Father alone is the font of divinity, the sole source and cause of the other two persons of the Trinity; and to say that this is not the case is to openly contradict the teaching of sacred scripture, and the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed as it was set forth by the God-inspired Fathers of the Second Ecumenical Council.

I've posted a paper on my website that deals with this topic:

[url="http://sites.google.com/site/thetaboriclight/filioque"][u][b]The Filioque Controversy: The Councils of Florence and Blachernae[/b][/u][/url][/quote]



That's not what the Council Florence says, but since you have said in that past that you deny this Council's ecumenicity, it's no wonder that what you say doesn't match up with what it says.

"The Father alone begot the Son of His own substance; the Son alone was begotten of the Father alone; the Holy Spirit alone proceeds at the same time from the Father and Son." (Denzinger-Schonmetzer 1330)

"Whatever the Son is or has, He has from the Father, and is the principle from a principle. Whatever the Holy Spirit is or has, He has simultaneously from the Father and the Son. But the Father and the Son are not two principles of the Holy Spirit, but one principle, just as the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are not three principles of the creature, but one principle." (Denzinger-Schonmetzer 1331)

Edited June 10, 2009 by Resurrexi

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Resurrexi' post='1887466' date='Jun 9 2009, 08:11 PM']"Whatever the Son is or has, He has from the Father, and is the principle from a principle. Whatever the Holy Spirit is or has, He has simultaneously from the Father and the Son. But the Father and the Son are not two principles of the Holy Spirit, but one principle, just as the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are not three principles of the creature, but one principle." (Denzinger-Schonmetzer 1331)[/quote]


Whatever the Father has, which is not peculiar to the Father as Father, the Son shares, but the hypostatic property of being the font of divinity is solely a personal characteristic of the Father, and as a consequence it cannot be shared with the Son without falling into Sabellianism. Again, the West must learn the difference between [i]ekporeusis[/i] and [i]proienai[/i] or they will forever misunderstand what Christ has revealed in the New Testament.

Edited June 10, 2009 by Apotheoun

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' post='1887460' date='Jun 9 2009, 07:48 PM']How does the Holy Spirit, being uncreated and eternal energy, 'proceed from' anything? How do we understand the term 'proceed'?[/quote]
The Greek term [i]ekporeusis[/i] is probably best rendered into English as proceed, and the Greek word means a procession of origin from a source ([i]arche[/i]), i.e., it means to come out of something that is a true cause in the existential order. In the Greek scriptures this word [i]ekporeusis[/i] expresses the truth that the Father alone is the source of the hypostatic existence of the Holy Spirit, for the Father alone is the font of divinity, i.e., the sole principle of origin of the Son and the Spirit, for the former by generation ([i]gennesin[/i]), and the latter by procession ([i]ekporeusin[/i]). Now to say that the Son is a cause of the Spirit's procession ([i]ekporeusis[/i]) of origin involves either committing the sin of ditheism by positing two principles of origin within the Godhead, or it involves falling into the heresy of Sabellian Modalism by saying that the Father and the Son are a single principle, which ultimately confounds the real distinction that exists between the Father and the Son.

The error of the Scholastic West involves the failure to distinguish between [i]ekporeusis[/i] (procession) and [i]proienai[/i] (progression).

Now the thing to remember in all of this is that the [i]ekporeusis[/i] of the Spirit concerns His origin as person ([i]hypostasis[/i]), while the [i]proienai[/i] of the common energy of the Trinity, which the Eastern Fathers often call "spirit", is a work of all three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Moreover, in the Triadological doctrine decreed at Nicaea I and Constantinople I, and which was defended and clarified further by the God-inspired Cappadocian Fathers, neither person ([i]hypostasis[/i]) nor essence ([i]ousia[/i]) are communicable realities, because the divine persons of the Trinity are always and absolutely unique subsistences, and the divine essence is not divisible into parts and so to participate in the essence of God would involve the annihilation of man's own essence as the divine essence "overpowers" it, for lack of a better word. While, on the other hand, the energies of God are participable, for they are the personal properties of the divinity (e.g., God's love, His life, His glory, etc.) that manifest His presence both making it known and communicating it to man, who is deified in the process.

The divine energy, which is often called the energies of the Spirit and even sometimes "spirit" by the God-inspired Fathers, progresses ([i]proienai[/i]) out from the Father through the Son in the Spirit to mankind, and then flows back in the Spirit through the Son to the Father, thus completing a cycle of [i]kenosis[/i] (self-emptying) and [i]theosis[/i] (divinization), which is the very gift of salvation to mankind. For man is made God in God, but not by participating in the distinct subsistence of any one of the three divine persons, or by participating in the divine essence, which is and always will be unknown to man and the angels, but by participating in the deifying energies (grace) of God, which are poured out upon mankind as a fruit of the incarnation, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ.

That said, the teaching espoused by Resurrexi, which fails to grasp the true nature of the real distinction between the Spirit's procession of origin ([i]ekporeusis[/i]) as person from the Father alone, and the manifestation of the Spirit's energies as they progress ([i]proienai[/i]) from the Father through the Son in the Spirit to mankind, and which are the source of man's divinization, was condemned long ago as unorthodox by the Eastern Fathers and by the [url="http://sites.google.com/site/thetaboriclight/synodikon"][u][b]Synodikon of Orthodoxy[/b][/u][/url] (a dogmatic / liturgical document that is chanted on the Sunday of Orthodoxy in the Eastern Churches, and which signifies the triumph of Orthodoxy over every heresy).

Edited June 10, 2009 by Apotheoun

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='Apotheoun' post='1887379' date='Jun 9 2009, 07:26 PM']Ultimately, from an Eastern Christian perspective, a hypostatic [i]filioque[/i], i.e., a theory of the [i]filioque[/i] in which the Son is made a cause of the Spirit's person, is heretical, because it either promotes the sin of ditheism or the heresy of Sabellianism Modalism.[/quote]

Are you calling the Ecumenical Council of Florence heretical?

"In the name of the Holy Trinity, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, with the approbation of this holy general Council of Florence we define that this truth of faith be believed and accepted by all Christians, and that all likewise profess that the Holy Spirit is eternally from the Father and the Son and has His essence and His subsistent being both from the Father and the Son, and proceeds from both eternally as from one principle and one spiration; we declare that what the holy Doctors and Fathers say, namely, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, tends to this meaning, that by this it is signified that [b]the Son also is the cause[/b], according to the Greeks, and according to the Latins, the principle of the subsistence of the Holy Spirit, as is the Father also." (Denzinger-Schonmetzer 1300-1301, emphasis added)

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Resurrexi' post='1887666' date='Jun 10 2009, 05:45 AM']Are you calling the Ecumenical Council of Florence heretical?[/quote]
No, I am saying that the local Latin Church Council of Florence taught error, and because I have seen the Greek text that was issued by that synod I would even say heresy, on the issue of the procession of the Holy Spirit, since it says that the [i]ekporeusis[/i] of the Spirit comes also from the Son. Now the fact that it (i.e. the synod) confused [i]ekporeusis[/i] with [i]proienai[/i] is proof enough for me that it is not truly ecumenical, and of course Rome itself -- as of the 1990s -- now says that there is a distinction to be made between [i]ekporeusis[/i] and [i]proienai[/i], which is inconsistent with the erroneous teaching of Florence.

P.S. - Clearly you have not read the paper I wrote on this issue, because in it I state quite clearly that the teaching of Florence is contrary to scripture and the patristical tradition.

Edited June 11, 2009 by Apotheoun

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Resurrexi' post='1887666' date='Jun 10 2009, 05:45 AM']Are you calling the Ecumenical Council of Florence heretical?

"In the name of the Holy Trinity, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, with the approbation of this holy general Council of Florence we define that this truth of faith be believed and accepted by all Christians, and that all likewise profess that the Holy Spirit is eternally from the Father and the Son and has His essence and His subsistent being both from the Father and the Son, and proceeds from both eternally as from one principle and one spiration; we declare that what the holy Doctors and Fathers say, namely, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, tends to this meaning, that by this it is signified that [b]the Son also is the cause[/b], according to the Greeks, and according to the Latins, the principle of the subsistence of the Holy Spirit, as is the Father also." (Denzinger-Schonmetzer 1300-1301, emphasis added)[/quote]
St. Maximos the Confessor, who defended the Western Church's teaching in his own day, went out of his way to say that the West was [b]not making[/b] the Son a [b]cause[/b] of the Spirit, and he also clearly distinguished between [i]ekporeusis[/i] and [i]proienai[/i], but alas 800 years later his teaching was not only forgotten by the West, but was openly contradicted by the Western Council of Florence, which no longer understood the difference between procession ([i]ekporeusis[/i]) and progression ([i]proienai[/i]).

Here is what St. Maximos said:

[size=3]"[The Romans] have shown that they have [b][i]not made the Son the cause (αἰτίαν) of the Spirit[/i][/b] — they know in fact that [b][i]the Father is the only cause [/i](αἰτίαν) [i]of the Son and the Spirit[/i][/b], the one by generation (γέννησιν) and the other by [b][i]procession[/i] (ἐκπόρευσιν)[/b] — but that they have manifested the [b][i]progression[/i] (προϊέναι)[/b] through Him [i.e., the Son] and have thus shown the unity and identity of the essence (οὐσίας)."[/size]

Edited June 11, 2009 by Apotheoun

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='Apotheoun' post='1888022' date='Jun 10 2009, 08:27 PM']No, I am saying that the local Latin Church Council of Florence taught error, and because I have seen the Greek text that was issued by that synod I would even say heresy, on the issue of the procession of the Holy Spirit, since it says that the [i]ekporeusis[/i] of the Spirit comes also from the Son. Now the fact that it (i.e. the synod) confused [i]ekporeusis[/i] with [i]proienai[/i] is proof enough for me that it is not truly ecumenical, and of course Rome itself -- as of the 1990s -- now says that there is a distinction to be made between [i]ekporeusis[/i] and [i]proienai[/i], which is inconsistent with the erroneous teaching of Florence.

P.S. - Clearly you have not read the paper I wrote on this issue, because in it I state quite clearly that the teaching of Florence is contrary to scripture and the patristical tradition.[/quote]

All I believe about the Holy Spirit comes from what the Church teaches, and If you believe that the Church taught heretical doctrine then we have no reason to discuss any further.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Resurrexi' post='1888106' date='Jun 10 2009, 07:35 PM']All I believe about the Holy Spirit comes from what the Church teaches . . .[/quote]
I believe that as well, but where we disagree is in identifying what is the true and inspired teaching of the Holy Spirit. That said, I refuse to place the teaching of the Latin Church in her particular synods upon a pedestal by accepting them as ecumenical when they do not take into account the teaching of the East. While you — as a Latin Catholic — appear to believe that to be Catholic one must be Latin, and this is evident from the fact that you are unconcerned about what the inspired scriptures actually teach when using different terms (e.g., [i]ekporeusis[/i] and [i]proienai[/i]) to describe distinct divine realities (e.g., the procession of origin of the Spirit and His energetic manifestation).

[quote name='Resurrexi' post='1888106' date='Jun 10 2009, 07:35 PM']. . . If you believe that the Church taught heretical doctrine then we have no reason to discuss any further.[/quote]
Since I do not accept the Latin Church's particular synods as ecumenical, it follows that I do not see the things said at them as a part of the Church's inspired teaching, and therefore the most that can be said about the decrees of those councils is that they are erroneous. Now, if you claim the errors that they teach to actually be dogmas, then they would naturally fall under the censure of heresy.

Finally, as far as our not having anything further to discuss on this issue is concerned, I agree with you, because you are not even willing to try and examine the teaching of inspired scripture in the language that the Holy Spirit — for whatever divine reason — saw fit to use in setting it down for our instruction; instead, you appear to be interested only in blindly quoting Denzinger, a book that I do not recognize as a valid authority because it fails to take into account the teachings of the Eastern Church, while simultaneously promoting a Latinocentric understanding of Christian faith and practice.

The days of the Latinization of the Eastern Catholic Churches are over!!!

Edited June 11, 2009 by Apotheoun

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='Apotheoun' post='1888129' date='Jun 10 2009, 09:59 PM']I believe that as well, but where we disagree is in identifying what is the true and inspired teaching of the Holy Spirit. That said, I refuse to place the teaching of the Latin Church in her particular synods upon a pedestal by accepting them as ecumenical when they do not take into account the teaching of the East. While you — as a Latin Catholic — appear to believe that to be Catholic one must be Latin, and this is evident from the fact that you are unconcerned about what the inspired scriptures actually teach when using different terms (e.g., [i]ekporeusis[/i] and [i]proienai[/i]) to describe distinct divine realities (e.g., the procession of origin of the Spirit and His energetic manifestation).


Since I do not accept the Latin Church's particular synods as ecumenical, it follows that I do not see the things said at them as a part of the Church's inspired teaching, and therefore the most that can be said about the decrees of those councils is that they are erroneous. Now, if you claim the errors that they teach to actually be dogmas, then they would naturally fall under the censure of heresy.

Finally, as far as our not having anything further to discuss on this issue is concerned, I agree with you, because you are not even willing to try and examine the teaching of inspired scripture in the language that the Holy Spirit — for whatever divine reason — saw fit to use in setting it down for our instruction; instead, you appear to be interested only in blindly quoting Denzinger, a book that I do not recognize as a valid authority because it fails to take into account the teachings of the Eastern Church, and promotes a Latinocentric understanding of Christian faith and practice. The days of the Latinization of the Eastern Catholic Churches is over!!![/quote]

Maybe Latin Catholics should throw out the first seven Ecumenical Councils because most of the bishops present were from the East.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Resurrexi' post='1888134' date='Jun 10 2009, 08:04 PM']Maybe Latin Catholics should throw out the first seven Ecumenical Councils because most of the bishops present were from the East. [/quote]


Talk to your Church's patriarch about that, for he is the one who accepts those seven councils as ecumenical; while my Church's patriarch — on the issue of the Latin Church's particular synods — has said that:

"We must explain and clarify the topics that are obstacles to our full communion [with the Orthodox]: Primacy of the Pope of Rome, Western Councils [b]which cannot be recognized as Ecumenical Councils[/b] (as it has been admitted by highly qualified Western theologians since Pope Paul VI) . . ."

Edited June 11, 2009 by Apotheoun