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Eastern Triadology does not subscribe to the Scholastic theory that reduces the persons (hypostaseis) of the Trinity to "relations of opposition"; in fact, there can be absolutely no opposition within the Trinity, because God is beyond the human category of dialectical reasoning.

That being said, the persons (hypostaseis) of the Trinity are distinct by their manner of origin (i.e., by their tropos hyparxeos); thus, the Father is uncaused, the Son is generated, and the Spirit is processed, and both generation and procession are proper hypostatic characteristics of the Father alone, and so they cannot be shared with any other person (hypostasis) of the Trinity. The Father alone is the cause of the other two hypostaseis.

Thus, there is no room in Eastern theology for the Scholastic theory of the filioque, and to try and insert that Scholastic notion into Eastern Triadology ultimately, depending upon the case, leads to Sabellian Modalism or Ditheism. It leads to Sabellianism if one posits the false notion that the Father and the Son spirate the Spirit as a "single principle," which was the teaching put forward at Lyons II and Florence, because this false teaching leads to a confusion of the persons of the Father and the Son. While on the other hand, the filioque leads to Ditheism if one holds that there are two principles in the divinity (i.e., the Father and the Son), which is nothing else but a form of polytheism. Finally, it is important to remember that the procession (ekporeusis) of the Holy Spirit from the Father is a proper characteristic of His hypostasis, which rules out any participation in the procession of origin of the Holy Spirit by the Son, for as St. John Damascene said, ". . . we speak likewise of the Holy Spirit as from the Father, and call Him the Spirit of the Father, but we do not speak of the Spirit as from the Son, yet we call Him the Spirit of the Son." [St. John Damascene, De Fide Orthodoxa, Book I, Ch. 8]

Agreed. In English, however, we do use the word proceed which is from the Latin root procedere. Should we have said who "originates' from the Father? I know I have thought about this before and that did not seem acceptable, but now I don't know why I thought that. I wonder why the Orthodox don't even use "originates" in their translation of the Creed into English.

Here is the "Athanasian Creed" on the procession which scholars say came from Gaul around 500 A.D.

Spiritus Sanctus a Patre et filio: non factus, nec creatus, nec genitus: sed procedens.

The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son: neither made, nor created, nor begotten: but proceeding.

Here is the link to THE GREEK AND LATIN TRADITIONS REGARDING THE PROCESSION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/PCCUFILQ.HTM

No, those paragraphs are not compatible with Eastern Christian Triadology. The Father and the Son do not act as a "single principle" in spirating the Holy Spirit, because the procession (ekporeusis) of the Spirit is an act proper to the Father's hypostasis. Thus, to assert that the Father and the Son are a "single principle" is a form of the error of Sabellius. This assertion also implies an essential distinction between the Father / Son and the Holy Spirit, which is the heresy of essential subordinationism and Ditheism.

Moreover, it is a principle of Eastern (Cappadocian) Triadology that any characteristic shared in common by two of the persons (hypostaseis) of the Trinity must be shared by all three, because common properties of the Godhead are essential (i.e., they pertain to the divine ousia), and are not hypostatic. In other words, hypostatic properties are unique to each person (hypostasis), while those things that are common to the persons (hypostaseis) of the Trinity are essential to the Godhead as a whole.

And yet the Word [logos] was made flesh. He was Word before time, before he was made flesh. While I or you will not be able to fully comprehend him, he still is Logos--comprehensible at least to Himself and to his Father. And we do say Father, and Son and Spirit. We are not muslims! Given that we say these things about God, we signify real relations in Him, which are persons.

You just said that God is beyond human category and yet you maintain that the Trinity are distinct by their manner of origin. How can yo say that and have it really mean anything?

If the generating is other than the proceeding, then the origin must distinguish the persons.

I agree with you that Thomas and Augustine do not agree with Damascene on the procession.

I agree. The Spirit proceeds (ekporeusis) as person (hypostasis) from the Father alone, and receives the divine essence (ousia) from Him only, but He (i.e., the Spirit) is made manifest through the Son as divine energy in the economy of salvation. Moreover, it can even be said that the Son eternally manifests the Spirit as energy, and that the Holy Spirit eternally glorifies the Son, but the manifestation of the Spirit by the Son and the glorification of the Son by the Spirit do not concern the hypostatic origination of either of these two persons (hypostaseis), which is proper only to the Father.

The Logos of God is not a human word; and so, there is no place for dialectic in theology. God is essentially beyond the categories of human thought and predication. Even when we speak of the revealed doctrine of the Trinity, we do not claim to "comprehend" what God is. Moreover, the manner of origin of the three persons is not reducible to the Aristotelian / Scholastic notion of "relations." Also, when I speak of the manner of origin (i.e., the tropos hyparxeos) of the persons of the Trinity, I do not come to this reality through human logic and intellection; instead, the manner of origin of the persons is a revealed dogma. It cannot be know, nor can it be understood through the power of human reasoning. Thus, the distinct manner of origin of each of the persons is a mystery beyond human understanding (cf. St. Gregory Nazianzen's, "Fifth Theological Oration").

As an Eastern Christians I do not (in fact, I cannot) subscribe to the Scholastic theory of the Trinity, which includes the filioque. I am, and I always shall be, a Byzantine Christian.

God bless,
Todd

I think I would add that using "proceeds", actually demands the filioque!

No, the Spirit does not proceed from the Son, and to assert that is to fall into Sabellian Modalism.

God bless,
Todd

The Logos of God is not a human word. It is Divine. But insofar as it, ie the word by which the Word is signified is in St. John's Gospel, it's human. And it means something. And we can understand, not fully comprehend, that meaning and it is a real meaning.

I would recommend Benedict's Regensburg lecture for further thoughts on the Logos and logos.

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/b...e_20060912_university-regensburg_en.html

No, that assertion involves a confusion of human language with the eternal Logos. God is adiastemic, i.e., He is utterly beyond human language.

With all due respect to the Pope, he, like all Westerners, holds a philosophical notion of divine simplicity that is incompatible with the doctrinal tradition of the Byzantine Church.

"No, the Spirit does not proceed from the Son, and to assert that is to fall into Sabellian Modalism."

Not in translating procedere.

St Maximos Confessor to Marinus on the Filioque

Those of the Queen of cities (Constantinople) have attacked the synodal letter of the present very holy Pope, not in the case of all the chapters that he has written in it, but only in the case of two of them. One relates to the theology (of the Trinity) and according to this, says 'the Holy Spirit also has his ekporeusis from the Son.'

The other deals with the divine incarnation. With regard to the first matter, they (the Romans) have produced the unanimous evidence of the Latin Fathers, and also of Cyril of Alexandria, from the study he made of the gospel of St. John. On the basis of these texts, they have shown that they have not made the Son the cause of the Spirit--they know in fact that the Father is the only cause of the Son and the Spirit, the one by begetting and the other by procession--but that they have manifested the procession through him and have thus shown the unity and identity of the essence.

They (the Romans) have therefore been accused of precisely those things of which it would be wrong the accuse them, whereas the former (the Byzantines) have been accused of those things it has been quite correct to accuse them (Monothelitism).

In accordance with your request I have asked the Romans to translate what is peculiar to them (the 'also from the Son') in such a way that any obscurities that may result from it will be avoided. But since the practice of writing and sending (the synodal letters) has been observed, I wonder whether they will possibly agree to doing this. It is true, of course, that they cannot reproduce their idea in a language and in words that are foreign to them as they can in their mother-tongue, just as we too cannot do.

"No, that assertion involves a confusion of human language with the eternal Logos. God is adiastemic, i.e., He is utterly beyond human language."

If He is as you say, you cannot even say what you have said about Him because you can neither assert or deny anything using human words, which are the only ones we have used.

Pax.

St. Maximos in his letter to Marinus does not support the Scholastic understanding of the filioque. St. Maximos, like all the Eastern Fathers, distinguishes between the hypostatic origination of the person of the Son and the person of the Spirit, which comes from the Father alone, and the manifestation of the Spirit as energy through the Son.

God bless,
Todd

P.S. - Dr. A. Edward Siecienski's dissertation entitled, The Use of Maximus the Confessor's Writing on the Filioque at the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438-1439), provides information that shows that the theology of St. Maximos the Confessor is incompatible with the Western understanding of the filioque as it was put forward by the Scholastics and the pseudo-council of Florence.

I do not try to "speculate" as Westerners do about what procession or generation means, because these terms are apophatic and come to us solely by divine revelation. That is why I reject the entire Scholastic theological framework in connection with the Trinity. In other words, I do not see the generation of the Son as a procession of intellect, and I do not see the spiration of the Spirit as a procession of will (or love), because the divine intellect, will, and love are absolutely common to the three divine persons. As a Byzantine Christian I see the Scholastic theory of the Trinity as a confused form of Sabellianism.

God bless,
Todd

P.S. - As St. Gregory Nazianzen pointed out in his "Oration" on the Holy Spirit, it is not possible to delve into the mysteries of generation and procession, the most that we can know is that they are distinct, but we can only know this much because it is revealed to us in Scripture.