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A problem only arises when one tries to combine the two traditions, or judge one system based upon the presuppositions of the other system.

Clearly I became Byzantine Catholic because I hold that the Eastern understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity makes more sense. But I have no intention of declaring the Western viewpoint heretical, because it is -- like the Eastern understanding -- accepted as orthodox by the Pope, who I hold to be the visible head of the Church.

Yes Jason, I know that you are familiar with the various documents enumerated above, because we have discussed these issues in email before.

God bless,
Todd

Apotheoun (Todd),

Before getting into this lengthy post, let me note for convenience's sake that point (5) below is likely the most crucial. But all of this is important, so it would be well to consider it all.

You say:
Ah, again we are getting somewhere. Thank you for the clarification.

Still, questions remain. Clearly, the Pope admits that the Eastern gloss on the Trinity is orthodox, just as is the Latin gloss. However, is it really the case that the Pope allows that there are two different understandings of the Trinity that are orthodox? That is, does the Pope really allow that the East directs its considerations toward a different Trinity than the West (i.e., a Trinity wherein the divine essence is inapprehensible, wherein the Son is not some sort of cause of the Spirit's procession, etc.), or is it rather the case that the Pope thinks that the East and the West believe in fundamentally the same Trinity and have fundamentally the same understanding? I think that the latter alternative is the case. The position of the Pope and the Western Church seems to be that the two positions on the Trinity are really the same, albeit approached from different starting points and expressed in different language. What this means is that, really, Eastern Catholics must also agree to the truth of the Latin doctrine -- they must accept (although perhaps not liturgically confess) that, in some sense, the divine essence is apprehensible by the saints in the eschaton, that the Son is a cause of the Spirit's procession, etc. This interpretation is borne out from an exegesis of the Vatican's clarification on the filioque, and also the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the attempted union Council of Florence. Please bear with me:

(1) (From the Vatican's clarification on the filioque, emphasis added:) "Even if the Catholic doctrine affirms that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son in the communication of their consubstantial communion, it nonetheless recognizes the reality of the original relationship of the Holy Spirit as person with the Father, a relationship that the Greek Fathers express by the term ekporeusis."

Commentary: Notice that this document affirms that this is the Catholic doctrine (i.e., one underlying doctrine); it does not allow that there are separate Eastern Catholic and Western Catholic doctrines.

(2) (The Catechism of the Catholic Church, #248, emphasis added:) "This legitimate complementarity [of perspectives on the procession of the Holy Spirit], provided it does not become rigid, does not affect the identity of faith in the reality of the same mystery confessed."

Commentary: Again, the assertion is that, while there are two complementary approaches allowed in the Catholic Church, it is ultimately the same mystery that is confessed. There is no fundamental difference allowed in the doctrine of the Trinity. There are no separate Eastern Catholic and Western Catholic doctrines of the Trinity.

(3) (More from the filioque clarification, with emphasis added:) "The Holy Spirit, therefore, takes his origin from the Father alone (ek monou tou Patros) in a principal, proper, and immediate manner."

Commentary: Notice the latter qualifications. The filioque clarification does not unequivocally allow that the Spirit takes his origin from the Father alone, but rather from the Father alone in a principal, proper, and immediate manner. These qualifications allow for the interpretation that the Spirit still takes his origin from the Son in a non-principal, mediate manner (an interpretation which, as I will show in a moment, must be the actual doctrine of all Catholics, Eastern and Western) -- which, as you will know, is something like the doctrine of John Beccus (a man whom many Catholic theologians seem to view as an exemplar of Catholic ecumenical understanding). In fact, note this crucial point: as a support for its statement that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone in a principal, proper, and immediate manner, the clarification cites St. Thomas Aquinas. Now clearly you will admit that St. Thomas' understanding of the procession from the Father alone is not the understanding endorsed by the Eastern Orthodox(!). The clarification, however, says that it is the Catholic doctrine; I would say that the Eastern Catholics thus have to accept it just as well as the Western Catholics.

(4) (More from the filioque clarification, with emphasis added:) "The Greek Fathers and the whole Christian Orient speak, in this regard, of the 'Father's Monarchy,' and the Western tradition, following St Augustine, also confesses that the Holy Spirit takes his origin from the Father principaliter, that is, as principle (De Trinitate XV, 25, 47, PL 42, 1094-1095). In this sense, therefore, the two traditions recognise that the 'monarchy of the Father' implies that the Father is the sole Trinitarian Cause (aitia)."

Commentary: Notice first that the clarification says that the doctrine of the Father's monarchy expressed by the East is also confessed by Augustine; as such, it once again holds that the two teachings are fundamentally the same(!). Furthermore, notice again that the statement qualifies the affirmation of the Father as "sole cause" with the phrasing "sole Trinitarian Cause." This phrasing allows the Catholic Church to affirm that the Father is the sole ultimate cause of the Trinity, but also that the Son is a cause of the Spirit's procession in some other way (as it must affirm -- see below). Again, the attempt is to show that the Eastern Catholic and Western Catholic understanding is really the same, something which Eastern Catholics must also accept.

(5) (Finally, what must be considered the infallible decree of the Council of Florence, affirmed at the time by both the Eastern and Western churches, and of course by the Pope, with emphasis added:) "Texts were produced from divine scriptures and many authorities of eastern and western holy doctors, some saying the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, others saying the procession is from the Father through the Son. All were aiming at the same meaning in different words. [ . . . ]

"In the name of the holy Trinity, Father, Son, and holy Spirit, we define, with the approval of this holy universal council of Florence, that the following truth of faith shall be believed and accepted by all Christians and thus shall all profess it: that the holy Spirit is eternally from the Father and the Son, and has his essence and his subistent being from the Father together with the Son, and proceeds from both eternally as from one principle and a single spiration. We declare that when holy doctors and fathers say that the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, this bears the sense that thereby also the Son should be signified, according to the Greeks indeed as cause, and according to the Latins as principle of the subsistence of the holy Spirit, just like the Father.

"And since the Father gave to his only-begotten Son in begetting him everything the Father has, except to be the Father, so the Son has eternally from the Father, by whom he was eternally begotten, this also, namely that the holy Spirit proceeds from the Son.
[ . . . ]

[Then later, addressing the Copts, but doing so with "the approval of this sacred ecumenical council of Florence" and proclaiming it as "true and necessary doctrine":] [T]he holy Spirit proceeds at once from the Father and the Son . . . These three persons are one God not three gods, because there is one substance of the three . . . Whatever the Son is or has, he has from the Father and is principle from principle. Whatever the holy Spirit is or has, he has from the Father together with the Son . . . Therefore it [the church] condemns, reproves, anathematizes and declares to be outside the body of Christ, which is the church, whoever holds opposing or contrary views."

Commentary: The decrees of Florence, which have been accepted by the Catholic Church as infallible decrees, make a number of points here. First, the point that the Eastern and Western doctrines really have the same meaning. Second, (1) that all Christians must accept that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son both in his essence and in his subsistent being (i.e., hypostasis); (2) that the Son is a cause of the Spirit's procession, "just like the Father," even on the Greek (Eastern) understanding; (3) that it can even be said in some sense that the Spirit proceeds from the Son, who apparently receives this causality from the Father; (4) that there is one God because there is one substance (i.e., apparently not because there is one Father); (5) that the Son is a principle just like the Father, although the former is principle from principle; (6) that anyone who holds opposing or contrary views is condemned and outside of the Church.

Thus, apparently the only way to make the decrees of Florence compatible with the Catechism of the Catholic Church and with the clarification on the Filioque is to affirm that the Father is the sole ultimate cause of the Spirit's procession, but that the Son is also a cause in a non-ultimate, mediate way (i.e., He is "principle from principle"), since He has causality "just like the Father" in His being begotten. This, it seems to me, is the understanding of John Beccus and (by implication from above) the Catholic Church, both Eastern and Western.

My ultimate question, then: do you disagree with any of this?

Forgive me.

Humbly Yours,
Jason

P.S. I have finally managed to read "Crisis in Byzantium." It was very helpful, as you suggested.

Dear Jason,

It is perhaps better not to refer to the Son as the "cause" of the Spirit at all.

The formula "From the Father through the Son" is agreeable to both East and West (as it was to Aquinas) and is perhaps the best possible expression of the Procession of the Most Holy Spirit.

The Roman Catholic Church herself teaches that the Spirit proceeds from the Son "passively."

"Through the Son" is much clearer and theologically precise than "from the Son."

At least from my Eastern vantage-point,

Alex

Alex,

True, perhaps it is better not to refer to the Son as the "cause" of the Spirit. Even so, the Council of Florence does so and declares that this is what the Greeks mean when they say "through the Son." That is, perhaps, the heart of the problem.

In any case, I should mention that one alternative not discussed here is that one could reject the dogmatic force of the Council of Florence. Todd, I wonder if you would go that way? For instance, some have referred to the first seven councils as the only Ecumenical Councils, whereas latter councils (like Florence) are called "General Councils of the West." The only problem I might have with this is that it is unclear that calling the council a "General Council" automatically implies that it may not be infallible and dogmatic, especially because it has been affirmed by the Pope and by the subsequent six centuries of Western Catholic theology. In fact, I would be worried that a decision that the Council of Florence was misinformed might call into question Papal infallibility and the primacy of Rome.

In any case, those are my thoughts.

Humbly Yours,
Jason

In addition to the option noted above of rejecting Florence outright, I suppose one might also possibly claim that the statements made by Western councils that seem to contradict Eastern teaching are either acceptable as theological opinion but not dogmatically binding, or that perhaps they just mean different things than the language seems to imply (i.e., maybe Florence meant something else by calling the son a "cause" than it seems to have meant), or both. My question has been which option is being taken here.

Jason

Jason,

As you know from our previous email dialogue, I will never accept the notion of the Son as a cause in the Trinity, because that would involve, from an Eastern perspective, the sin of polytheism, or the heresy of modalism. There is only one cause in the Trinity, and that cause is the Father, and because there is but one cause there is only one God. The Cappadocian doctrine of the Trinity cannot accept the Augustinian notion of 'co-principle' of causation because it either ends in positing two gods, i.e., the Father and the Son as separate deities, or it confounds the persons, thus making the Father the Son and the Son the Father.

Generation and procession are hypostatic properties of the Father alone and anything which threatens that truth cannot be conformed to the Byzantine understanding of the Trinity.

I have suggested already once, perhaps in our email exchange, that you read the book by Sherrard entitled "The Greek East and the Latin West," because it clearly enunciates the Eastern doctrine, while also highlighting the fact that the two Triadologies, which are clearly based on two different metaphysical approaches, need not be seen as absolutely contrary to each other. But the blending of the two viewpoints will inevitably lead to error.

I was a Thomist, but by reading the Cappadocians, Maximos, and Palamas, I have become convinced that the Eastern approach, at least for me, is a better one.

God bless,
Todd

As far as the ecumenical councils are concerned, it might be helpful to read the article by Eastern Catholic theologian Francis Dvornik entitled "Which Councils are Ecumenical?" The article can be found at the link below:

Which Councils are Ecumenical? [orthodoxchristianity.net]

Todd,

Thank you for your replies. You're right that I know you will not accept positing the Son as any kind of cause, and I didn't intend to question your doctrine of the Trinity, per se; forgive me if it seemed otherwise. My only concern has been finding out how to reconcile that perspective with the Council of Florence.

That said, I don't wish to stubbornly push the dialogue further against the will of everybody else here, so I will leave it up to others if they wish to continue the discussion. I admit that I have perhaps been somewhat "forceful" as it is. In any case, though, I will do my best to get ahold of Sherrard's book, especially now that I've read Papadakis' as well. And thank you for the link to that article on ecumenical councils by Dvornik; I was looking for it yesterday but couldn't find it anywhere (I couldn't remember the title).

All the best,
Jason

I do not think that the two theological traditions of East and West can be reconciled, but then I do not believe that they need to be reconciled. As Philip Sherrard pointed out in his book on the differences between the East and the West, the Truth is beyond any formulations ". . . and to seek for it in the latter [i.e., in doctrinal formulations] is to confuse what belongs to a relative, and imperfect, order with what is absolute and universal -- is, in fact, to fall into a kind of idolatry of which the Christians accuse pagans, namely, that which arises from worshipping creation rather than the Creator." [Sherrard, The Greek East and the Latin West, page 51] But of course from this it does not follow that the dogmatic formulas of the Church are pointless; rather, it is a recognition of the fact that God is beyond any category of human thought. The doctrinal pronouncements of the Church are of course vital in conveying the truth revealed in Christ, but they themselves are not that truth, and so it is possible to express the revelation of God in Christ in different ways, so long as the reality revealed is not itself compromised. As Sherrard goes on to say, "A formulation of the Truth, a doctrinal formulation, is valid, not because it contains the whole Truth in itself, for this is impossible, but because it provides, for those capable of receiving it, a mental form through which a ray of this Truth is communicated to man; it thus provides an indispensable support through which the individual may approach the Reality of which it is the expression." [Sherrard, pages 51-52] In other words, what I am arguing for is a recognition by both sides that their theological traditions are, at least in a certain sense, self-contained wholes, and that they both -- each one in its own way -- are a reflection of a single truth, even if the presuppositions underlying them appear contradictory. God is beyond any category of thought, He is beyond any form of predication, in fact He is beyond being itself, because "He is," as St. Maximos said, "infinitely beyond the infinite."

Todd,

While I agree with the point that I think Sherrard is trying to make, I really am just not sure that it applies here. Let me say why.

First, it is clearly admitted by all of us that some attempted doctrinal formulations just are wrong and can contradict the truth. When the Arians declared that "there was a time when the Son was not," or when the Montheletes attempted to affirm the "one energy" of Christ, they were wrong. It wasn't just that their formulations were irreconcilable with the Orthodox formulations -- they were, of course, but there was more to it than that: they were wrong. To put it in the terminology you used, the "reality revealed" by those doctrinal formulations was not the Truth. It was a different reality.

Now, the questions that I have been asking are precisely whether or not the realities expressed by the Western formulations and the Eastern formulations are also different. From what you have said, it still seems to me that you think that they are: the Eastern formulations reveal a reality wherein the divine essence is wholly transcendent and incommunicable/inapprehensible and wherein the Father is the sole cause in any sense of the Spirit's procession; the Western formulations reveal a reality wherein the divine essence is apprehended in the eschaton and wherein the Son is some form of a cause of the Spirit's procession (a doctrine that Florence even says is necessary for all Christians). The problem generated by such facts doesn't seem to be a matter of idolatrously adhering to mere doctrinal formulations; I fully agree, with Sherrard, that no doctrinal formulations contain the whole Truth in themselves. I don't worship the words, and if it could be shown that this was a merely terminological issue, I would rejoice. But you see, I also agree with Sherrard that any doctrinal formulation is intended to provide an "indispensable support through which the individual may approach the Reality of which it is the expression." My problem, again, is that these two doctrinal traditions seem to approach different realities -- and that is what I have been trying to reconcile.

Certainly doctrinal formulations are not pointless.
Certainly God is ultimately beyond the categories of human thought.
Certainly doctrinal formulations themselves are not the Truth.

It does not follow immediately from any of the above that irreconcilable doctrinal formulations are acceptable. Irreconcilabe doctrinal formulations are only acceptable if they serve the purpose Sherrard notes: that of providing an approach to the Truth. However, since the Eastern and Western doctrines here appear to say things that are not only irreconcilable, but also perhaps directly contradictory, it needs to be figured out for sure that they do actually express the same Truth. That is what I'm trying to figure out in my questions to you. Is the divine essence ultimately apprehensible or inapprehensible, or are both of these statements somehow revelatory of the same Truth? Is the Son in some sense a cause of the Spirit's procession or is He not, or are both of these statements also somehow revelatory of the same Truth? You can probably see my extreme difficulty with this.

In closing, I note that you affirm, with St. Maximos, that God is beyond being. Does this amount to an affirmation that the divine essence is inapprehensible? If so, doesn't it follow that it is not the case that the divine essence is apprehensible? Doesn't it follow from that that the doctrinal formulation that says that the divine essence is apprehensible does not reveal the True Reality? I am genuinely confused and seeking your answer not as a critic, but as someone in a situation desperately trying to work out some solution here. Forgive my apparent frustration.

Humbly Yours,
Jason

P.S. I don't know if it's too forward, but I suppose a point-blank question to make sure we're not talking past eachother here is: do you accept the decrees of the Council of Florence as dogmatically binding and orthodox?