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I'd like to see you prove that he makes such a distinction.

Peace and God bless!

Read Dr. Siecienski's dissertation.

P.S. - It's available through Amazon.

Not all of us have the money to purchase books just to find a single assertion. Is there any way you can cite from it?

That is too bad, because I have no intention of transcribing quotations in order to try and convince you of something that you will no doubt reject anyway.

I have given you the source to prove what I am saying, if you decide not to read it, that is not my concern.

God bless,
Todd

P.S. - You may not like it, but St. Maximos has a theology of energy, and in fact, it was from St. Maximos (and the Cappadocians) in particular that St. Gregory Palamas got his theology of energy. St. Gregory paid less attention to St. John Damascene, who also has a theology of energy, because St. Maximos was seen as a "greater" Father.

Oh, come on, Todd,

What's the fun of a forum like this if we're just going to cite other people's dissertations?

You'd see that I'm right about everything if only you will read the dissertations I've read, but I'm not going to reproduce the arguments. Take it or leave it!

Pseudo-Athanasius,

Because I don't want to sit for hours and transcribe the quotations from St. Maximos' works when they are available in print.

You are more than welcome to do that if you have the time.

God bless,
Todd

P.S. - You do not have a two year history of "chatting" with Ghosty on two different fora, I do. I give him information on primary and secondary sources and leave it at that.

Well, the fact remains that I'm a poor boy who doesn't have income beyond the week to week. If you have this information it's for the best of all of us to see it. All I'm asking is for St. Maximos' writings, or the writings of those who taught him.

Peace and God bless!

Well then, anything you have said about Him is meaningless, which of course means that you cannot assert the truth (or falsity) of what you say above. So of course, we cannot really have a conversation about Him, except to asserting meaningless words about Him. Get thee to a monastery!

The thing is, it's not a two-way incommensurability. Human language is not capable of ascending to God, but God is capable of descending to human language. Thus, through the creation he has made, we can see the vestiges (footsteps) of the creator. Through man, whom we are told is in the image and likeness of God, we have another avenue. There is a point of contact. Further, God chooses to become a part of his own creation, the Word becoming flesh, which gives us the avenue of avenues.

If God were utterly beyond human language in the strict sense, then we couldn't hear his words, we couldn't paint icons, and we couldn't celebrate his liturgy.

lm says "Get thee to a monastery," but even that would be pointess, if God were utterly beyond human language. No relationship with God at all would be possible.

God is utterly beyond human language in His essence (ousia), but He does comes down to us, as St. Basil the Great said, through His energies (energeiai).

The West does not understand the procession of the Holy Spirit correctly, because the West fails to make this important distinction.

God bless,
Todd

No. That doesn't work. If God is utterly beyond human language, we can't even make a distinction between energy and essence. It doesn't work. Either God is beyond our language, utterly, as you said, or he isn't. If his energies are not beyond language, then God isn't utterly beyond our language, unless you want to say that the energies of God are not really God.

As for claims that "The West" does not understand something, I find those to be facile, on the level of ethnic stereotyping. You might say "Augustine doesn't understand it" or "Aquinas doesn't understand it", or even "lm doesn't understand it" and that would be better, although I would suggest on a closer reading of Aquinas, you would find that in large part the same things are being described in different languages. If you want primary sources, begin with ST I.I.13 on analogical predication about God, or if you want a secondary source, read Ann Williams' _The Ground of Union_.

Actually the west distinguishes our mode of receiving grace and the divine mode of giving grace. And there's never been anything in your discussions that has substantially overturned that distinction. God's gifts are like the sun and we receive God's gifts as we receive the rays of the sun, so as not to be burned to near complete extinction.

But that's not really important here.

You've offered a third or fourth hand reference to a dissertation that you say proports to comprehend St. Maximos in a new way. I'd like some reference from you, since that should be possible and not too taxing, identifying the texts of St. Maximos that are employed in the construction of this startling and latter day revelation.

I pray that you are felling a little better and that your mother is well.

Mary

There are two distinct realities being discuessed in this thread: (1) the procession (ekporeusis) or origin of the Holy Spirit as person (hypostasis), which comes only from the Father; and (2) the manifestation (proienai) or emanation (prodos) of the Holy Spirit from the Father through the Son, not as person (hypostasis), but as energy. Now, this discussion cannot really advance as long as the Western participants in this thread fail to take this distinction into account.

Thus, as I have said before (in this thread and others), the Eastern patristic tradition in Triadology, unlike the Scholastic tradition of the West, is focused first and foremost upon the monarchy of the Father, Who is seen as the sole principle, source, and cause of divinity. Now, it follows from the doctrine of the monarchy of the Father that both the Son and the Holy Spirit receive their existential being (i.e., their hypostaseis) solely from Him; and so, they are -- as a consequence -- homoousios with Him. Moreover, it is important to remember that the word homoousios itself, which was used by the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in order to describe the eternal communication of being from the Father to the Son, is a term that indicates the dependence of one subsistence (i.e., the Son) upon another subsistence as a cause (i.e., the Father). In other words, the term homoousios involves recognition of the fact that the Son receives His existence as person (hypostasis) from the Father alone by generation, and that He is dependent upon the Father for His co-essential nature. That being said, it follows that the Son comes forth from the Father's person (hypostasis), and not from the divine essence (ousia), which is always absolutely common to the three divine persons (hypostaseis). The same also holds with the personal (hypostatic) procession (ekporeusis) of origin of the Holy Spirit, because He also receives His existence from the Father alone, i.e., from the Father's person (hypostasis), and not from the divine essence (ousia), which -- as I already indicated -- is absolutely common to the three divine persons (hypostaseis). Thus, it is from the Father Himself personally (hypostatically) that the other two persons (hypostaseis) of the Holy Trinity derive their eternal existence and their co-essential nature, and this is confirmed by what St. Gregory Palamas said in his treatise entitled Logos Apodeiktikos:

Now, with the foregoing information in mind, it is clear that the Eastern Churches must reject any theological system or theory that tries to elevate the Son to a co-principle of origin in connection with the existential procession (ekporeusis) of the Holy Spirit as person (hypostasis), because within Byzantine Triadology a theological proposition of that kind entails either the sin of Ditheism, which involves positing the false idea that there are two principles or causes of divinity (i.e., the Father and the Son), or the heresy of Sabellian Modalism, which involves proposing the false notion that the Father and the Son act together as "a single principle" in spirating the Spirit as person (hypostasis), and thus causing an unintentional blending of the persons (hypostaseis) of the Father and the Son, by giving the Son a characteristic (i.e., the power to process the Spirit) that is proper to the Father specifically as person (hypostasis).

Finally, as I indicated at the beginning of my post, in Byzantine Triadology a distinction is made between the Holy Spirit's procession (ekporeusis) of origin as person (hypostasis), which comes only from the Father, and His manifestation (proienai) as energy (i.e., as uncreated grace), which comes from the Father through the Son. Sadly, the Scholastics of the medieval West have confused these two distinct realities, and that is why the Eastern Churches refuse to accept as legitimate the Western alteration of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.

This "distinction" is insufficient, because it centers the distinction in man, not in God. The essence /energy distinction is not an epistemic distinction; instead, it is a distinction within God's own being.

God bless,
Todd

For the sake of this discussion, it might be worthwhile to go back to sources. I provide for the edification of all a short bit from the declaration concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit at the council of Lyons:

"In faithful and devout profession we declare that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son, not as from two beginnings, but from one beginning, not from two breathings, but from one breathing. . . . we. . . condemn and reject (those) who presume to deny that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son; as well as (those) who with rash boldness presume to declare that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from two beginnings, and not as from one."

==Denz 460


So, it certainly is _not_ ditheism, as Apotheoun proposes. But to make the accusation of Sabellian modalism stick, one would have to look closer at the way the distinction between Father and Son are made in the sources. Does the Roman Church teach that Father and Son are identical? Certainly they do not. Now, either they were idiots to say "proceeds from the Father and the Son", since that would necessitate a union of Father and Son that they don't otherwise teach, or they don't teach Sabellian modalism.

Perhaps the filioque doesn't mean what the polemical arguments have said that it means?