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I do not intend to transcribe information that is readily available in print, and that can be purchased individually or accessed at a college library.

The theological distinctions I am making in my posts are based upon the information found in the dissertation I referenced, along with other sources (primary and secondary) that are all readily available in print, and which can be purchased or found at a local library.

Thank you for your prayers, both for me and my mother. As far as my own health is concerned, it has not really improved so far, but the doctor has ordered a series of blood tests to determine what may be causing my fatigue and tremors.

Thank you again for your prayers, they are greatly appreciated.

Todd

I deny the teaching of Lyons II (and Florence as well) on the procession of the Holy Spirit.

The Father and the Son are not a single principle in the eternal spiration of the Holy Spirit.

God bless,
Todd

I have read A. N. William's book and she reduces the essence / energy distinction to an epistemic distinction, but this notion is contrary to the Byzantine Tradition. I recommend Joost van Rossum's response to William's book, which can be found in St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly (vol. 47, nos. 3-4, 2003). By the way, his dissertation is also a good read on this topic, because he compares Thomism to Palamism in the light of the Patristic Tradition.

God bless,
Todd

P.S. - The divine essence is utterly beyond human comprehension and vision, it is unknowable, because it is adiastemic and man's intellect cannot transcend the boundary between uncreated and created reality. God alone unidirectionally transgresses the adiastemic boundary, but He does this only through His energies.

St. Gregory of Nyssa deals with this topic in his "Commentary on Ecclesiastes" (homily seven).

Dear Todd,

I gathered that.

Nevertheless, the doctrine doesn't say they are a single principle. Here's the latin: "Spiritus sanctus aeternaliter ex Patre et Filio, non tanquam ex duobus principiis, sed tanquam ex uno principio, non duabus spirationibus, sed unica spiratione, procedit."

Note the "tanquam." It qualifies the "ex uno principio." I don't have the time to trace out the word in Latin dictionaries, but it seems in my cursory reading to have the sense of things that are like, but aren't identical. His house was tanquam my house, one source in Lewis and Short has it--his house wasn't really my house, but was as if it were my house.

Anyway, company is coming. Have a good weekend!

It still involves a confusion of the Spirit's procession of origin with the His energetic manifestation. In other words, you cannot consider the Father and the Son "as if" they are one principle in the spiration of the Spirit.

Lyons II and Florence cannot be reconciled to the Byzantine doctrinal tradition.

God bless,
Todd

Todd,

After reading through this entire discussion, I have to say I agree with you. I would like to hear more about the distinction that Karl makes between the way the Spirit is said to proceed from the Father and from the Son. If, in latin theology, the Father and the Son are one principle from which the Spirit proceeds, then I don't see how any real distinction can be made. I think that what is heretical in Lyons is the notion that the Spirit proceeds eternally from the Son as well as the Father. Granted, the western councils say that they proceed as from one (and not two), but how? What would be a better translation and interpretation of "as from one principle?" It seems pretty straightforward for me.

Joe

The western teaching is taking into account the Scriptural truth that when we see the Son we also see the Father, for the Father is in Him and He is in the Father. That is also how the east is able to present its theology of image and likeness in substantial terms.

Also, and in the most basic words, most of these new scholastic studies that Todd reads predicate their "findings" on a near complete or actually complete separation between God's essence and His energies, something which not all Orthodox theologians agree that St. Gregory Palamas did do. David Hart would be one Orthodox theologian who has gently countered this eastern new-scholasticism in Orthodox theological circles. David suggests that St. Gregory never meant for there to be such a total separation posited between essence and energies.

But when the world is full of demands for bigger and better credentials, there will be men and women rise to the challenge and to do so they must do independent and individual research and writing...and that is essentially the root source of what we know as the scholastic period. Sad to say, on one hand, we are still in it. On the other hand there have been great gains on account of great learning. The dogmatic teaching on the Incarnation comes immediately to mind. Some hairs are created in order to be split.

Mary

I really fail to see how anyone can agree with Todd on anything because according to his first principle, God is utterly incomprehensible and utterly beyond human language. And since God's energies (of course how can you know they are His energies) are not Him, we have ceased to speak of God. But of course we couldn't even know that because God is utterly beyond human language.

If, however, we can speak of God analogically, we know that we can know something about Him and yet we do not comprehend Him. Analogical predication lies between univocal and equivocal predication.

It is interesting to note that St. Thomas maintains, and I think rightfully so, that those who deny the filioque, end up denying the Papacy.

I should add that I fail to see how anyone can disagree with Todd either. In fact there can be no agreement of disagreement because our words are incapable of expressing anything about God.

They are always there. I think about you often because we struggled a long time to make and keep my dad comfortable with advancing COPD. So I have some idea what a deep breath means. Even when I am away from here and you can't see me, the prayers continue. You have a very special place in this mother's heart.

Mary

The way in which they're one principle is in Spirative power, not in unity of identity. In other words, the one principle is Spiration, the procession of the Holy Spirit, and the Father and the Son share in that principle (though not in a univocal manner, as I'll explain). They are said to be one principle in order to deny the alternative, which is that the Holy Spirit has two sources; this would either make two Holy Spirits, which is absurd, or would mean that the Holy Spirit is a kind of composite of Spirations from the Father and the Son, which would eliminate His unity of Nature.

So looking at the Spiration itself as a single principle, what is basically meant is that the Holy Spirit is identified by Spiration, that's what makes Him a unique and identifiable Divine Person. The Father and the Son share this Spiration, which is one, but they don't share it in precisely the same manner. St. Thomas Aquinas [newadvent.org] puts it this way:


So the Son shares equally in the Spiration, which is necessary to preserve the unity of Spiration and make it non-composite, but the Spiration actually comes from the Father, properly speaking. This is why Latins have insisted that "through the Son" is the same as "and the Son", since the latter refers to the unity of Spiration as its point of reference, and the former refers to the manner of this one Spiration being shared with the Son, but both are refering to precisely the same reality. When we say "and the Son", through is implied, and when we say "through", and is implied.

It's also worth noting that this distinction between the Father and Son in the Spiration of the Holy Spirit is also preserved in the definition of the Council of Florence [ewtn.com] , which says:


Now obviously this doesn't address the "distinction of Essence and Energy within God" (as opposed to the distinction between the Essence of God and His Energies in the sense of His operations on Creation, which is how the Latins and Oriental Orthodox have always understood the distinction), which has yet to be shown as a truly Patristic position, and isn't even accepted as such universally within Eastern Orthodoxy, but it does address accusations of Sabellianism and such. One principle, the Spiration, shared between two Divine Persons, the Father and the Son, without dividing that Spiration into two because it remains one Spiration from the Father as Source, through the Son. This distinction can be seen even in the ancient Greek Fathers, especially in St. Gregory of Nyssa [ccel.org] :


Peace and God bless!

Dear lm,

First of all, Todd represents in the fullest possible measure the Byzantine Trinitarian position.

That perspective is understood also and acknowledged by Roman Catholic theologians engaged in Orthodox dialogue today - it is acknowledged and respected by the Vatican and the Pope - both in terms of being different and distinct from the Latin tradition and in terms of being THE ecumenical challenge to address in talks with the Orthodox.

I don't understand why you and others seem to want to call into question Todd's communion with Rome because of his articulation of Byzantine theological/ecclesiological/canonical traditions.

Vatican II and Pope John Paul II in particular have called us EC's to rediscover and delve ever more deeply into our Eastern, in our case Byzantine, theological traditions. Todd/Apotheoun has done that in his own theological thinking and writing in a way that truly sets an example for all Eastern Christians. Eastern Orthodox Christians themselves could learn much about their own tradition from Todd, as well!

St Thomas Aquinas' assertions about the Filioque have never been proclaimed by the Latin Church "ex cathedra" in terms that would bind all Catholics to accept it and the scholasticism that underpins it.

If so, then - guess what - there will NEVER be any rapprochement with the Orthodox East, not now, not ever. Such "ecumenism" would then be simply a PR cover for an insidious "conversion" program of Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism. I don't believe that is Rome's attitude toward Orthodoxy today. Rome and her contemporary Popes are willing to acknowledge the validity of what makes the East different from the West. Pope Benedict doesn't even see the need for a total agreement on everything, including the Filioque, for the restoration of full communion, as we gather from his recent words on the matter.

What are we to make of Aquinas' statement that to deny the Filioque is to deny the Papacy?

At the outset, there is NO evidence to suggest that Aquinas was applying this statement to the theology of the Filioque at all. He was addressing, instead, the "other" issue of the Filioque - the legitimacy of its insertion into the Creed by a pope - something that the Orthodox East has always denied, i.e. that any hierarch, including a pope, has the right to change the Creed that was intended to be an expression of the faith for the universal Church, East, West, North and South.

In short, Aquinas rejected the notion that a pope did not have the right or power to change the Creed. And Prof. John Meyendorff wrote that there were times in the historic relations between Orthodoxy and RCism when Orthodox did NOT object too strenuously over the Filioque in the Creed.

For Aquinas, if the Orthodox East affirmed that the pope had no right to insert the Filioque, then this view derives from another view of the papacy as being capable of committing error - and that is where the source of the problem for the Filioque issue in this context lies for Aquinas.

Today, of course, RC and Orth. theologians treat both issues involving the Filioque separately - the theological issues separately from the canonical issue of whether Rome had the right to unilaterally change the Creed in that way.

Historically, the two issues were likewise treated as separate ones even during the failed unionist councils, especially Florence where the Greeks initially pushed for the removal of the Filioque while leaving the theological issue as an expression of a theologoumenon.

There is much that can be discussed about this - we should also be cognizant of the attitudes and perspectives of the RC theologians who would, I might add, NOT engage in a defense of Aquinas on the issue of the Filioque, or else I've never read them go into him in their published discussions with the Orthodox.

I think that if they did, the Orthodox would simply walk away from the table, and that is something no one would wish.

Unless we can discuss this topic in a way that sees and acknowledges what we have in common on Triadology, and acknowledges the Orthodox perspective as also the ideal to which Byzantine Catholics should also strive for in their own faith confessions, this discussion is quickly becoming a move to establish Aquinas as the ultimate arbiter of Trinitarian orthodoxy, rather than a theological tradition of the West.

The Filioque was ultimately developed as a way for the West to understand the distinctions among the Persons from within its theological perspectives.

Todd has consistently articulated the Byzantine perspective and how the Western perspective appears to it.

The "Men of Aquinas" here have failed to even take the Byzantine perspective seriously as another legitimate, Catholic theological tradition because there's "no Filioque."

But the idea that Todd is somehow being disobedient to the Papacy - that is to besmirch ALL Eastern Catholics who are trying to be true to their traditions. It helps no one and, at worst, shows that one is at a loss for argumentation otherwise.

I would also like the Administrator to weigh in with his always erudite thoughts at this juncture.

Alex

Dear Alex,

I think you might be overstating what has happened here. Unless I missed it, no one was making any statements about any individual's status with any Church.

As far as the filioque goes, the only thing I've objected to in the presentation of the Byzantine position is the assertion that it is fully incompatible with the filioque. If this is indeed true, then ecumenism is dead. I don't think it's true that the Trinitarian Theology of Orthodox and Catholics are incompatible. I think that what is needed before anyone makes any flat declarations that "The West is incompatible with the East on this!" or vice versa is a strong effort of understanding each other's theological expressions. Accusations of ditheism or Sabellianism shouldn't be made, I think, or should only be made after much diligent work in the translation of concepts, using the hermeneutics of charity.

As for whether the filioque is ex cathedra, I don't know. But it was solemnly declared by a council that Rome considers ecumenical. I don't think it is likely that any ecumenical movement will come about by way of repudiation of the filioque, only by understanding of what was meant. This will require close reading by both sides. I note in passing the simple misunderstanding given in this thread, that Rome teaches that the Father and the Son are one principle. They don't, and it is clear from II Lyons that they don't. What exactly it is they do teach, that's a good question, and one worth following up.

http://www.agrino.org/cyberdesert/zizioulas.htm

I think that there's been something of an over reaction in evidence here. The statement referenced above indicates more of a concurrence theologically than some might prefer.

As for the assessments of Aquinas, I would prefer to hear them from a Thomist, professional or even lay aspirant, rather than from an apparent detractor.

It seems rather odd to call down the eye of the Administrator on such an open discussion as we have, up till now, been engaging here.

Mary