The Filioque Addition; its Consequences and
Influence in the Early Church.
By Petros Presbeftes
Copyright 1989
All Rights Reserved
The filioque addition to the Nicene Creed was the decisive dividing factor
over which the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church parted
company and which led to the Great Schism of 1054.
The filioque addition, having had such dire effects upon the Early
Christian Church, still evokes feelings that the matter is only a trivial
Theological concern and holds little or no meaning to the Faith of the
individual Christian Believer. An attempt in writing this paper, will be
to show how there is every reason to be concerned over this important
issue.
Many find this issue to be so technical and obscure that they are tempted
to dismiss it as utterly trivial. But succombing to this temptation, as
inviting as it is, would be a dis-service to our beloved fellow brothers
and sisters in the Faith, because it is certainly not a trivial issue being
a Trinitarian theological question. The outcome of this issue is certainly
going to affect how we perceive God, since a tiny difference in Trinitarian
theology is bound to have repercussions touching every aspect of Christian
life and thought. Let us try then to understand the issues involved in the
filioque addition.
The filioque addition makes the statement that 'the Holy Spirit proceeds
eternally from the Father and the Son', whereas the Nicene Creed in its
unaltered form states that 'the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the
Father.'
To help us grasp the axioms of the pros and cons of the filioque addition,
let us investigate the attributes of the Holy Trinity:
1. One essence in three persons.
God is one and God is three: The Holy Trinity is a profound mystery of
unity in diversity, and of diversity in unity. Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit are 'one in essence' (Homoousios), yet each is distinguished from
the other two by personal characteristics.
'The Divine is indivisible in its divisions' - Gregory of Nazianzus
for the persons are
'United yet not confused, distinct yet not divided' - John of Damascus
'Both the distinction and the union alike
are paradoxical' - Gregory of Nazianzus
But if each of the persons of the Holy Trinity are distinct, what is the
holding bond or force? Here the Holy Orthodox Church, following the
Cappadocian Fathers, answers that there is one God because there is one
Father. In the language of theology, the Father is the 'cause' or 'source'
of Godhead, He is the principal (arche) of unity among the three; and it is
from this principle that Orthodox Theologians talk about the 'monarchy' of
the Father. The other two persons of the Godhead trace their origin to the
Father and are defined in terms of their relation to Him. Therefore, as it
was decided in the Ecumenical Council at Nicea in 325 AD,
The Father is the source of Godhead, born of none and proceeding from
none; the Son is born of the Father from all eternity ('before all
ages', as the Creed says); the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father
from all eternity.
However, a quite different view is presented to us with the filioque
addition, which states that 'the Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father
AND the Son'. Under this statement, the Father ceases to be the unique
source of Godhead, since the Son is also a source. Since the principle of
unity in the Godhead is no longer the person of the Father, Rome through
the filioque addition finds its principle of unity in the substance or
essence which all three persons of the Holy Trinity share.
In order to push on to the core of the issue and the merits of each side,
the term 'proceed' needs to be understood, otherwise nothing is understood.
The Church believes that Christ underwent two births: one eternal, and the
other at a specific point in time. He was born of the Father 'before all
ages', and born of the Virgin Mary in the days of Herod, King of Judea, and
of Augustus, Emperor of Rome. In like manner the Holy Spirit proceeded
eternally, plus in the temporal mission, He was sent to the world by the
Father and the Son. Two unifying factors concern both the Father and the
Son. The first factor concerns the relations existing from all eternity
within the Godhead, and the other concerns the relation of God to His
creation. Thus when Rome and the West says that the Spirit proceeds from
the Father and the Son, and when Constantinople and the East says that He
proceeds from the Father alone, both sides are referring not to the outward
action of the Trinity towards creation, but to certain eternal relations
within the Godhead.
The Orthodox position is based on John Chapter 25, Verse 26 where Christ
says: 'When the Comforter has come, whom I will send to you from the
Father - the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father - he will bear
witness to me.' Christ sends the Spirit, but the Spirit proceeds from the
Father: so the Bible teaches, and so Orthodox Christians believe. Never
at any time does the Bible or the Orthodox Church teach what Rome and the
West adopts in the filioque addition.
In looking at the Orthodox objections to the filioque addition, a question
which has far reaching consequences is posed:
If the Son as well as the Father is an arche (a principle or source
of Godhead), are there then two independent sources, two separate
principles in the Trinity?
Obviously not, since this would be tantamount to belief in two Gods. One
can see quite readily from this type of a posed question that the filioque
leads either to di-theism or to semi-Sabellian-ism. Sabellius, a heretic
of the second century, regarded Father, Son, and Holy Spirit not as three
distinct persons, but simply as varying 'modes' or 'aspects' of the deity.
In reunion councils held in Lyons (1274) and Florence (1438-9) wording was
composed carefully to state that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and
Son 'as from one principle', tanquam ex (or ab) uno principio. From the
Orthodox point of view, however, this is equally objectionable:
di-theism is avoided, but the persons of Father and Son are merged
and confused.
The Cappadocians regarded the 'monarchy' as the distinctive characteristic
of the Father: He alone is a principle or arche within the Trinity.
But Western Theology ascribes the distinctive characteristic of the Father
to the Son as well, thus fusing the two persons into one; and what else is
this but 'Sabellius reborn, or rather some semi-Sabellian monster', as
Saint Photius put it?
To Orthodox Theologians the persons are OVERSHADOWED by the common nature,
and God is thought of not so much in concrete and personal terms, but as an
essence in which various relations are distinguished. This way of thinking
about God comes to full development in Thomas Aquinas, who went so far as
to identify the persons with the relations: personae sunt ipsae
relationes. Orthodox thinkers find this a very meagre idea of personality.
The relations, they would say, are not the persons - they are the personal
characteristics of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and (as Gregory Palamas
put it) 'personal characteristics do not constitute the person, but they
characterize the person'. The relations, while designating the persons, in
no way exhaust the mystery of each.
Latin Scholastic theology, emphasizing as it does the essence at the
expense of the persons, comes near to turning God into an abstract idea.
He becomes a remote and impersonal being, whose existence has to be proved
by metaphysical arguments - a God of the philosophers, not the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Orthodoxy on the other hand, has been far less concerned than the Latin
west to find philosophical proofs of God's existence: what is important is
not that a man should argue about the deity, but that he should have a
direct and living encounter with a concrete and personal God.
In summary, Filioquism confuses the persons, and destroys the proper
balance between unity and diversity in the Godhead. The oneness of the
deity is emphasised at the expense of His threeness; God is regarded too
much in terms of abstract essence and too little in terms of concrete
personality.
Many Orthodox Christians feel that, as a result of the filioque addition,
the Holy Spirit in western thought has become subordinated to the Son - if
not in theory, then at any rate in practice. The West pays insufficient
attention to the work of the Spirit in the world, in the Church, in the
daily life of each man. Further many argue that these two consequences of
the filioque - subordination of the Holy Spirit, over-emphasis on the unity
of God - have helped to bring about a distortion in the Roman Catholic
doctrine of the Church. Because the role of the Spirit has been neglected
in the west, the Church has come to be regarded too much as an institution
of this world, governed in terms of earthly power and jurisdiction. And
just as in the western doctrine of God unity was stressed at the expense of
diversity, so in the western conception of the Church unity has triumphed
over diversity, and the result has been too great a centralization and too
great an emphasis on Papal authority.
In fact, one might readily see how Papal Authority and Papal Infallibility
could be explained away through the application of filioquism, and how they
fail to stand up under the Orthodox Theological Dogmas as clarified in the
Ecumenical Council at Nicea in 325 AD.
May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Love of the Father, and the
Good and Life-Giving Holy Spirit be with you, now and for ever, and from
all Ages to all Ages. Amen.
Love in Christ,
Petros
Sysop
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