Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century 9780567500724, 9780567659538, 9780567327598

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Contributors
Foreword Ecumenical Reception of Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque
1 Introduction: Ecumenical Perspectives and the Unity of the Spirit
Part 1: The Filioque in Context: Historical and Theological
2 The Filioque : A Brief History
I Introduction
II The debate begins (646 – 1054)
III The debate continues (1054 – 1874)
IV Th e debate enters a new phase (1874 – Present)
3 Theological Issues Involved in the Filioque
I Torrance and the element of subordinationism in Barth’s doctrine of the Trinity
II Barth and the element of subordinationism
III Understanding the divine Monarchy: T. F. Torrance and the current discussion
IV Conclusion
4 The Filioque: Reviewing the State of the Question, with some Free Church Contributions
I The filioque : Reviewing the state of the question
II Two free church contributions to the filioque debate
III Conclusion
Part 2: Developments in the Various Traditions
5 The Eternal Manifestation of the Spirit ‘Through the Son’ (διάτοῦYἱοῦ ) According to Nikephoros Blemmydes and Gregory of Cyprus
I The eternal manifestation in Athanasius and the Cappadocians
II The eternal manifestation according to John of Damascus
III The eternal manifestation in the late Byzantine theology of Nikephoros Blemmydes
IV The eternal manifestation according to Gregory of Cyprus
V General conclusion: Trying to find a solution
6 The Spirit from the Father, of Himself God: A Calvinian Approach to the Filioque Debate
I Introduction
II East and West on the filioque: Complementarity and tension
III Aseity and origination: Robust personal order amid strict essential unity
IV Trinitarian confession or doctrinal exposition: To which does the filioque properly belong?
V Conclusion
7 Calvin and the Threefold Office of Christ: Suggestive Teaching Regarding the Nature of the Intra-Divine Life?
I Introduction
II Calvin’s account of the threefold office
III The economy as prolongation of the eternal processions?
IV Calvin as an exemplar of Latin logic
V Concluding thoughts
8 The Baptists ‘and the Son’: The Filioque Clause in Non-creedal Theology
I Introduction
II What is ‘non-creedal theology’?
III Why should non-creedal theology discuss the filioque?
IV History of the filioque
V Attempts at reconciliation
VI Theology of the filioque
VII Implications of the filioque for non-creedal theology
9 Baptized in the Spirit: A Pentecostal Reflection on the Filioque
I Biblicism: The restorationist challenge
II Christology: The modalist challenge
III Spirit baptism: The pneumatological challenge
IV Spirit baptism as a lens: A Pentecostal response to the filioque
Part 3: Opening New Possibilities: Origin, Action and Inter-subjectivity
10 Lutheranism and the Filioque
11 On Not Being Spirited Away: Pneumatology and Critical Presence
I On not abstracting the Spirit
II ‘ Mind the Gap ’
III Anointing, sighing, recreating
IV Therapeutic hesitancy
12 The Filioque: Beyond Athanasius and Thomas Aquinas: An Ecumenical Proposal
I Athanasius: The procession of the Holy Spirit
II Athanasius: A critique
III Thomas Aquinas: Some preliminary issues
IV The personal defining act of the Holy Spirit
V An ecumenical proposal
13 Beyond the East/West Divide
14 Getting Beyond the Filioque with Third Article Theology
I In pursuit of a new metaphysics
II The promise of third article theology
III Toward a theo-logical ontology
IV And the filioque?
Index of Biblical References
Author Index
Subject Index

Citation preview

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century Edited by Myk Habets

Bloomsbury T&T Clark An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury T&T Clark An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Imprint previously known as T&T Clark 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2014 Paperback edition first published 2015 © Myk Habets and Contributors, 2014 Myk Habets and Contributors have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the authors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: PB: ePDF: ePub:

978-0-567-50072-4 978-0-567-66605-5 978-0-567-32759-8 978-0-567-16471-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the twenty-first Century/Myk Habets and contributors p.cm Includes bibliographic references and index. ISBN 978-0-567-50072-4 (hardcover) Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India Printed and bound in Great Britain

Dedicated to Professor Ralph Del Colle (1954–2012): scholar, ecumenist, colleague, example and Spirit filled. In memoriam.

Contents Acknowledgements List of Contributors Foreword Ecumenical Reception of Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque Steven R. Harmon

1

Introduction: Ecumenical Perspectives and the Unity of the Spirit Myk Habets

Part 1

2 3 4

5

6 7

8 9

xi xiii

1

The Filioque in Context: Historical and Theological

The Filioque: A Brief History A. Edward Siecienski Theological Issues Involved in the Filioque Paul D. Molnar The Filioque: Reviewing the State of the Question, with some Free Church Contributions David Guretzki

Part 2

ix

7 20 40

Developments in the Various Traditions

The Eternal Manifestation of the Spirit ‘Through the Son’ (διά τοῦ Yἱοῦ) According to Nikephoros Blemmydes and Gregory of Cyprus Theodoros Alexopoulos The Spirit from the Father, of Himself God: A Calvinian Approach to the Filioque Debate Brannon Ellis Calvin and the Threefold Office of Christ: Suggestive Teaching Regarding the Nature of the Intra-Divine Life? Christopher R. J. Holmes The Baptists ‘and the Son’: The Filioque Clause in Non-creedal Theology David E. Wilhite Baptized in the Spirit: A Pentecostal Reflection on the Filioque Frank D. Macchia

65 87

107 120 141

viii

Part 3

Contents

Opening New Possibilities: Origin, Action and Inter-subjectivity

10 Lutheranism and the Filioque Robert W. Jenson 11 On Not Being Spirited Away: Pneumatology and Critical Presence John C. McDowell 12 The Filioque: Beyond Athanasius and Thomas Aquinas: An Ecumenical Proposal Thomas G. Weinandy 13 Beyond the East/West Divide Kathryn Tanner 14 Getting Beyond the Filioque with Third Article Theology Myk Habets

159

Index of Biblical References Author Index Subject Index

231

167 185 198 211

233 235

Acknowledgements Edited volumes such as this one are vehicles of rich reflection which serve the Church by offering up-to-date treatments of important topics from a variety of perspectives; but they are hard work. Scholars are busy with lecturing, research and other commitments, publishers are weary of ‘yet another book on that topic’ and editors struggle to corral contributors and see their contributions through to production. Yet, for all these obstacles, it is a pleasure to work with such outstanding colleagues as are represented in this volume and to offer the Christian Church theological material that is deeply biblical, ecumenical and resourceful. I first want to thank the theologians who contributed to this volume. Each of them offers a constructive proposal for considered reflection and has done so in such a way as to extend the complex issues surrounding Trinitarian theology and a way forward on the filioque controversy. To each of you, thank you for not only agreeing to contribute to this volume, but for submitting a well-crafted and considered piece. It is my constant joy to work in an environment that is both academy- and Church-facing. My thanks go to Charles Hewlett, Principal of Carey Baptist College, and my colleagues there who choose to live lives of faith and integrity before our blessed students. Special thanks go to Sarah Snell for diligently formatting each of the essays and making a number of helpful suggestions along the way. The good folks at Bloomsbury and especially T&T Clark are to be thanked for continuing to seek out and publish works which are unashamedly theological and academic, and to take risks on new and emerging scholars alongside their commitment as a publisher of mature theological ‘heavyweights’ in the field. Thomas Kraft first contracted the volume after correspondence and a meeting at the 2011 AAR in San Francisco (where our meeting was brokered by the very congenial David Wilhite). Anna Turton then picked up the reins after Thomas’ departure to ministry in Germany, and saw the work through to publication. Thank you. As always it is my family who deserve the greatest acknowledgement. Odele, Sydney and Liam – thank you for the noise, the fun and the play. God has been good to us.

x

Acknowledgements

Finally, this volume is dedicated to the memory of Professor Ralph Del Colle. Ralph was to contribute an essay to this volume, but after being diagnosed with liver cancer he notified me that he would not be able to make the deadline. Ralph died in July 2012. I believe Ralph would have approved of the attempts at genuine theological ecumenism represented by the essays which follow. Myk Habets Doctor Serviens Ecclesiae Auckland, New Zealand

List of Contributors Theodoros Alexopoulos (Greek Orthodox). Scientific Assistant and Cooperator at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Bern, Germany. He is author of DER AUSGANG DES THEARCHISCHEN GEISTES Eine Untersuchung der Filioque-Frage anhand Photios’ “Mystagogie”, Konstantin Melitiniotes “Zwei Antirrheitici” und Augustins “De Trinitate” (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht-unipress, 2009). Brannon Ellis (Presbyterian). Associate Editor, Academic and Reference, Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, USA. He is author of Calvin, Classical Trinitarianism, and the Aseity of the Son (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). David Guretzki (Evangelical Free Church). Professor of Theology, Church and Public Life, Briercrest College and Seminary, Saskatchewan, Canada. His publications include Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms, co-authored with Stanley J. Grenz and Cherith Fee Nordling (Downers Grove: IVP, 1999) and Karl Barth on the Filioque (Surrey: Ashgate, 2009). Myk Habets (Baptist). Head of Carey Graduate School, Carey Baptist College, Auckland, New Zealand. His publications include The Anointed Son: A Trinitarian Spirit Christology (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2010) and Theology in Transposition: A Constructive Appraisal of T. F. Torrance (Minneapolis: Fortress Press Academic, 2013). Steven R. Harmon (Baptist). Adjunct Professor of Christian Theology, GardnerWebb University School of Divinity, Boiling Springs, USA. His publications include Towards Baptist Catholicity: Essays on Tradition and the Baptist Vision (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2006) and Ecumenism Means You, Too: Ordinary Christians and the Quest for Christian Unity (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2010). Christopher R. J. Holmes (Anglican). Senior Lecturer in Theology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. His publications include Revisiting the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes: In Dialogue with Karl Barth, Eberhard Jüngel, and Wolf Krötke (New York: Peter Lang, 2007) and Ethics in the Presence of Christ (London: T&T Clark, 2012).

xii

List of Contributors

Robert W. Jenson (Lutheran). Retired, formerly Senior Scholar for Research at the Center for Theological Inquiry, Princeton, New Jersey, USA. His publications include Canon and Creed (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010) and Lutheran Slogans: Use and Abuse (NP: American Lutheran Publicity Bureau, 2011). Frank D. Macchia (Pentecostal). Professor of Theology, Vanguard University, California, USA. His publications include Justified in the Spirit: Creation, Redemption, and the Triune God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010) and The Trinity: Practically Speaking (Downers Grove: IVP, 2010). John C. McDowell (Presbyterian). Professor of Theology, University of Newcastle, Australia. His publications include Hope in Barth’s Eschatology (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000) and an edited work Philosophy and the Burden of Theological Honesty: A Donald McKinnon Reader (London: T&T Clark, 2011). Paul D. Molnar (Roman Catholic). Professor of Systematic Theology, St John’s University, New York, USA. His publications include Thomas F. Torrance: Theologian of the Trinity. Great Theologians Series (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009) and Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity (London: T&T Clark, 2002). A. Edward Siecienski (Orthodox). Associate Professor of Religion and Clement and Helen Pappas Professor of Byzantine Civilization and Religion at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, USA. He is author of The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). Kathryn Tanner (Episcopal). Frederick Marquand Professor of Systematic Theology, Yale University, USA. Her publications include Economy of Grace (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005) and Christ the Key (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). Father Thomas G. Weinandy, O.F.M., Cap. (Roman Catholic). Executive Director of Secretariat for Doctrine and Pastoral Practices, Washington, USA. His publications include Athanasius: A Theological Introduction (Farnham: Ashgate, 2007) and The Father’s Spirit of Sonship: Reconceiving the Trinity (Reprint. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2010). David E. Wilhite (Baptist). Assistant Professor of Theology, George W. Truett Theological Seminary, Baylor University, Texas, USA. His publications include Tertullian the African: An Anthropological Reading of Tertullian’s Context and Identities (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2007) and (with Matt R. Jenson) The Doctrine of the Church: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: T&T Clark, 2010).

Foreword Ecumenical Reception of Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque Steven R. Harmon

This volume makes its appearance over three decades after Jürgen Moltmann’s dissatisfaction with the status quo of Faith and Order ecumenism led to the publication of the book that most closely resembles the present collection of essays. Moltmann devoted a few pages of his autobiography to reflections on his two decades of service as a member of the World Council of Churches Commission on Faith and Order from 1963 to 1983.1 After voicing a lament that the programme of ‘unity in reconciled difference’ that emerged during the 1970s had become ‘the sleeping pill of the ecumenical movement’, so that ‘we all stay as we are and are nice to each other’,2 Moltmann expressed his appreciation for the theological studies sponsored and published by the WCC Faith and Order Commission. Yet he was disappointed that such studies would be presented, accepted, celebrated and then promptly forgotten. So Moltmann proposed to Lukas Vischer, director of the Faith and Order Commission from 1966 to 1979, a ‘theologically relevant project’: namely, that ‘a specialist group from Faith and Order should try to find a solution to the filioque problem in the doctrine of the 1

2

Jürgen Moltmann, A Broad Place: An Autobiography (trans. Margaret Kohl; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008), pp. 84–7. Moltmann, A Broad Place, p. 86. Moltmann has in mind the paradigm represented by the Leuenberg Agreement of 1973 between several European Lutheran, Reformed, and United/Uniting churches, later joined by other churches and now embodied in the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe. The text of the Leuenberg Agreement is published (among other places) as ‘Agreement between Reformation Churches in Europe: The Leuenberg Agreement (Konkordie)’, Ecumenical Review 25, no. 3 (July 1973), pp. 355–9. For the history of development and analysis of the Leuenberg Agreement, see William G. Rusch and Daniel F. Martensen (eds), The Leuenberg Agreement and Lutheran-Reformed Relationships: Evaluations by North American and European Theologians (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989), pp. 139–54, and Harding Meyer, That All May Be One: Perceptions and Models of Ecumenicity (trans. William G. Rusch; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), pp. 109–13 and 121–2. Meyer described the paradigm represented by the Leuenberg Agreement as ‘unity in reconciled diversity’.

xiv

Foreword

Trinity’.3 A working group appointed for that purpose met in 1978 and 1979 at Château Klingenthal near Strasbourg, France, and in 1981 the WCC published the resulting report Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ: Ecumenical Reflections on the Filioque Controversy as Faith and Order Paper no. 103 and commended it to the churches for study.4 Has anything changed in the three and a half decades since the publication of Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ that warrants issuing yet another collection of essays offering ecumenical perspectives on the filioque? At least four developments render this book not only justified but arguably necessary. First, in Catholic-Orthodox ecumenical engagement since 1981 there have been small but significant steps towards the complete removal of the filioque as an obstacle to full communion. In his autobiography, Moltmann could point to specific instances of the influence of the work represented by Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ in this connection – in particular, the role in a 1982 Vatican symposium on pneumatology of Yves Congar’s arguments for omitting the filioque that seemed to reflect the solutions advocated by the Faith and Order theological working group and an ensuing Sunday Mass at which Pope John Paul II led in the recitation of the Nicene Creed in Greek sans the filioque (something subsequently done jointly by Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI with Patriarch Demetrius I and Patriarch Bartholomew I, it should be added).5 These advances are reflected as well in the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity document ‘The Greek and Latin Traditions Regarding the Procession of the Spirit’ issued in 1995,6 in the agreed statement issued by the North American Orthodox-Catholic Consultation in 2003,7 and in the Greek text of the NicenoConstantinopolitan Creed in the official Greek translation of the Roman Missal, which refrains from adding kaὶtоῦυἱοῦ and thus preserves the original wording

3 4

5

6

7

Moltmann, A Broad Place, p. 86. Lukas Vischer (ed.), Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ: Ecumenical Reflections on the Filioque Controversy (Faith and Order Paper, no. 103; Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1981). Moltmann, A Broad Place, p. 87. For Congar’s arguments referenced by Moltmann, see Yves Congar, ‘Actualité de la pneumatologie’, in Credo in Spiritum Sanctum: Atti del Congresso Teologico Internazionale di Pneumatologia in occasione del 1600° anniversario del I Concilio di Costantinopoli e del 1550° anniversario del Concilio di Efeso, Roma, 22–26 marzo 1982 (ed. P. José Saraiva Martins; Teologia e Filosofia, vol. 6; Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1983), 1: pp. 15–28 (in particular, pp. 20–1). Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, ‘The Greek and Latin Traditions Regarding the Procession of the Spirit’, in L’Osservatore Romano 38 (20 September 1995), p. 3; http://www.ewtn. com/library/curia/pccufilq.htm. North American Orthodox-Catholic Consultation, ‘The Filioque: A Church-Dividing Issue? An Agreed Statement’ (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2003); http:// www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/ecumenical-and-interreligious/ecumenical/orthodox/ filioque-church-dividing-issue-english.cfm.

Foreword

xv

of the creed in the form used by the Orthodox churches today even in this missal issued for the Greek Latin Rite churches.8 Thus the ecumenical situation with regard to the filioque has advanced beyond the state of affairs in 1981. But Moltmann’s complaint about the lack of attention to the active reception in the churches of the fruit of theological work on ecumenical problems commended to the churches for their study probably continues to describe accurately what happens with studies like Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ. The essays in the present volume serve to remind the churches that the filioque remains an ecumenical problem, that the churches’ theologians have proposed and continue to propose promising paths forward, and that these proposals have fruitful theological implications for the life of the church that extend well beyond questions about the proper wording of the creed. Second, despite widespread laments over a contemporary ‘ecumenical winter’ in which the churches that have historically constituted the institutional face of the ecumenical movement exhibit lagging energy for faith-and-order ecumenical engagement, other communities, notably Free Church and Pentecostal, are showing encouraging signs of new ecumenical interest. The essays in this volume reflect this broader participation in the ecumenical movement. The contributors to Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ understandably represented communities with a historic stake in the filioque debate: Orthodox (Markos A. Orphanos, Boris Bobrinsky and Dumitru Staniloae), Catholic (André de Halleux and JeanMiguel Garrigues), Old Catholic (Kurt Stadler and Herwig Aldenhoven), Anglican (Donald M. Allchin) and Reformed (Dietrich Ritschl, Alasdair Heron and Jürgen Moltmann). Fresh voices from those traditions participate in this new book’s conversation in creative ways. But the Free Church and Pentecostal perspectives on the filioque gathered in this book and represented by the editor himself suggest a willingness on the part of at least some members of these communities to see theological controversies that are not of their own making and that impact other churches more directly as matters with implications for the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church to which their own churches belong, and therefore of relevance to Free Church and Pentecostal communities as well. Third, since 1981 the renascence of Trinitarian theology in the last half of the twentieth century has been more fully incorporated into all sorts of 8

According to the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity document ‘The Greek and Latin Traditions Regarding the Procession of the Spirit’ (http://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/pccufilq. htm), ‘the Catholic Church has refused the addition of kaὶ tοῦ υἱοῦ to the formula . . . of the Symbol of Nicaea-Constantinople in the Churches, even of Latin rite, which use it in Greek. The liturgical use of this original text remains always legitimate in the Catholic Church’.

xvi

Foreword

expressions of Christian theological reflection, well beyond the dogmatic locus of the doctrine of the Trinity. This has been especially true of the constructive retrieval of the late patristic concept of perichoresis explicitly developed by John of Damascus but with antecedents in the thought of the Cappadocians, in which each person of the Trinity participates in the hypostatic being, immanent patterns of relationship and economic actions of the other persons.9 Some of the essays in Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ were already moving in the direction of rethinking the filioque in the light of full perichoretic participation in the patterns of processing, sending, begetting and loving that are connected with the particular question of the source of the Spirit’s procession.10 This new book builds on that trajectory of theological reflection on the filioque, extending it towards some fresh applications. While they are creative constructions, such perichoretic accounts of the procession of the Spirit are in continuity with possibilities latent in the tradition. It may not be doing violence to the creative work of Johann Sebastian Bach, for example, to hear the musical setting of ‘Et in Spiritum Sanctum’ in the Credo of his Mass in B-Minor with ears conditioned to hear such things by familiarity with this more recent theological turn. In a key with three sharps (Kreuzen in German!) and 6/8 meter,11 both the Lordly status and vivifying work of the Spirit and the procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son are set forth in threefold phrasings that hint that these things are the shared work of the three persons: 1. Et in Spiritum sanctum Dominum et vivificantem, 2. et in Spiritum sanctum Dominum vivificantem, vivificantem, 3. Spiritum sanctum, Spiritum sanctum vivificantem, vivificantem Dominum 9

10

11

While much of this work has been done under the banner of social Trinitarianism, applications of the concept of the Triune perichoretic participation have been made in work on other rubrics of systematic theology by those who have offered critiques of the manner in which some social Trinitarians seem to make this aspect of the Trinitarian life primarily a model to be imitated by human persons and communities. For example, compare the Trinitarian ecclesiology expressed in Miroslav Volf, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity (Sacra Doctrina: Christian Theology for a Postmodern Age; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), with Volf, ‘“The Trinity is Our Social Program”: The Doctrine of the Trinity and the Shape of Social Engagement’, Modern Theology 14, no. 3 (July 1998), pp. 403–23. See especially aspects of Halleux, ‘Towards an Ecumenical Agreement on the Procession of the Holy Spirit and the Addition of the Filioque to the Creed’, pp. 69–84; Aldenhoven, ‘The Question of the Procession of the Spirit and Its Connection with the Life of the Church’, pp. 121–32; Bobrinsky, ‘The Filioque Yesterday and Today’, pp. 133–48; Garrigues, ‘A Roman Catholic View of the Position Now Reached in the Question of the Filioque’, pp. 149–63; Moltmann, ‘Theological Proposals Towards the Resolution of the Filioque Controversy’, pp. 164–73; and Staniloae, ‘The Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and His Relation to the Son, as the Basis of our Deification and Adoption’, pp. 174–86. Though 6/8 is technically a compound duple meter, the two pairs of three eighth notes per bar have a triple feel.

Foreword

xvii

1. qui ex Patre Filioque procedit, 2. ex Patre Filioque procedit, 3. qui ex Patre Filioque procedit. The reception of worship by the Spirit along with the Father and the Son, on the other hand, is phrased so that this three-personed God is a singular object of worship, with qui cum Patre et Filio simul sung only once and the verbs that express the act of worship (adoratur et conglorificatur) emphasized through repetition: Qui cum Patre et Filio simul adoratur, adoratur et conglorificatur, et conglorificatur.

For Bach, heir to the Western insertion of the filioque into the NicenoConstantinopolitan Creed, the procession of the Spirit could be understood as a fully Trinitarian movement in which all three persons of the one God worshipped by the church share, in a way that incorporates and yet transcends both Eastern and Western traditional understandings of the filioque.12 Chapters in this new book similarly invite the whole church to sing and hear its song of the Spirit’s procession in harmony with the perichoretic Trinitarian faith that is the heritage of all the church across its divisions. The possibility that the church catholic could sing and hear such a song across its current divisions is strengthened by a fourth development since this book’s antecedent appeared in 1981. A new focus on ‘receptive ecumenism’ has been gaining traction in the institutional expressions of the modern ecumenical movement. Receptive ecumenism is an approach to ecumenical dialogue according to which the communions in conversation with one another seek to identify the distinctive gifts that each tradition has to offer the other and which each could receive from the other with integrity.13 Pope John Paul II gave expression to this paradigm for ecumenical engagement in Ut Unum Sint: ‘Dialogue is not simply an exchange of ideas. In some ways it is always 12

13

This is admittedly a ‘hearer-response’ interpretation of this movement of the Mass in B-Minor, but the possibility that Bach himself intended associations along these lines cannot be ruled out in light of the triadic symbolism of Trinitarian themes that have been discerned in Bach’s Clavierübung III, on which see David Rumsey, ‘Bach and the Holy Trinity: Lecture and Performance Given by David Rumsey in University of Sydney’s Great Hall on 1 November 1996 as a Tribute to Prof Eric Sharpe’s work at the University’ (http://www.davidrumsey.ch/TRINITY.pdf). On the theological dimensions of Bach’s art in general, see Jaroslav Pelikan, Bach Among the Theologians (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986); on the place of the Trinity in Bach’s works, see pp. 47, 123–5. The thenLutheran Pelikan did not explore Bach’s musical treatment of the filioque in that study, but one wonders what he might have noticed if he had returned to this subject after his late-career reception into the Orthodox Church. See Paul D. Murray (ed.), Receptive Ecumenism and the Call to Catholic Learning: Exploring a Way for Contemporary Ecumenism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

xviii

Foreword

an “exchange of gifts”’.14 Some bilateral dialogues, such as a recent round of conversations between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Methodist Council, have worked towards concrete proposals for the exchange of ecclesial gifts.15 The exchange of ecclesial gifts in receptive ecumenism is mutual – each tradition has something to offer the others, and each has something it needs to receive. Yet as an international conference on receptive ecumenism held in 2006 defined the enterprise, ‘the primary emphasis is on learning rather than teaching . . . each tradition takes responsibility for its own potential learning from others and is, in turn, willing to facilitate the learning of others as requested but without dictating terms and without making others’ learning a precondition to attending to ones’ own’.16 In many respects, receptive ecumenism is friendlier to the participation of the whole church in the ecumenical engagement of the filioque debate than some earlier models of convergence may have been. Receptive ecumenism assumes that because the particular traditions have been entrusted with a unique journey as a people of God, they possess distinctive gifts to be offered to the rest of the body of Christ. It also suggests the possibility that a particular tradition can incorporate the gifts of others into its own faith and practice without abandoning or distorting the gifts that already define that tradition’s identity. The essays in this book indicate that at the outset of the twenty-first century, the whole church is beginning to receive as gifts the best theological insights into the procession of the Spirit and its implications for the church and world that are offered by both the Eastern and the Western approaches to conceiving of the Triune life. In turn, this book can help the whole church towards ecumenical reception of the filioque debate – not necessarily the reception of a particular solution to the problem, but reception of the discussion itself and therefore of the various critiques and proposals advanced in the discussion, for reception does not entail full concurrence. Over three decades after the Klingenthal consultations and their report to the WCC Faith and Order Standing Commission, it is the right time for such a book to be published – and it is the right time for the churches to receive its proposals.

14

15

16

John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint (‘On Commitment to Ecumenism’), 25 May 1995, §28; http://www. vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25051995_ut-unumsint_en.html. The Joint International Commission for Dialogue Between the World Methodist Council and the Roman Catholic Church, The Grace Given You in Christ: Catholics and Methodists Reflect Further on the Church (Lake Junaluska, NC: World Methodist Council, 2006). Quotation from a briefing document distributed to conference participants in Walter Cardinal Kasper’s ‘Foreword’ to Receptive Ecumenism and the Call to Catholic Learning, p. vii.

1

Introduction: Ecumenical Perspectives and the Unity of the Spirit Myk Habets

If genuine ecumenical progress is to be made, it will be based upon theological agreement concerning the core mysteries of the faith – God, Incarnation, salvation – and only then will fruitful dialogue be had across the divisions of the Christian Church in areas where division still exists (ecclesiology especially). When the authority of Scripture is upheld, the conciliar consensus is adhered to, and filial love for one another is fostered; the Christian Church will then be able to enter into loving, gracious and truthful dialogue, fully intent on working towards the unity of the Spirit Eph. 4.3 engenders. The present work seeks to contribute to the unity of the Spirit by bringing theological perspectives from across the Christian traditions together to reflect on an issue central to each of the three mysteries mentioned above: namely the filioque. Trinitarian theology in the first part of the twenty-first century has proved itself to be a remarkably profound and fecund enterprise and there are no signs of this ceasing any time soon. Theologians from across the Christian traditions have returned to the doctrine of the Trinity and are producing monographs, essays and articles on methods and models of God, and they are turning to patristic, medieval, Reformation and contemporary sources to do so. Contemporary theology is in a fortunate position as geographical boundaries become porous, denominational isolationism decreases, combined missional activity increases, ecumenical convictions strengthen and works originally written in Greek, Latin, Russian and French (to name but a few) are increasingly being translated into English. Perhaps for the first time in many centuries, if not for over a millennium, Christian theologians are in a position to speak with and hear theologians and theology from across the spectrum of the Church – East–West, Latin–Greek, North–South, Orthodox–Catholic–Protestant–Pentecostal – and let that influence the way each of them do theology. It is indeed a privileged time to be doing theology.

2

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

For all the strengths of this often touted ‘renaissance of Trinitarian theology’, we are only recently seeing the fruit of such theology being applied to other loci of the theological enterprise. The present work seeks to contribute to the unity of the Spirit by bringing perspectives of theologians from across the Christian traditions into one volume as they bring Trinitarian theology to bear upon the issue of the filioque. Contributors were asked to write from confessional perspectives and in such a way that significant theological proposals for addressing the complex issues surrounding the debates over how to interpret the filioque are offered. The intent is neither to merely repeat historical rhetoric nor to perpetuate the well-worn route of speaking past each other, but to move the Church forward in its theological reflection. Contributors were asked to focus on theological issues rather than the many historical issues also essential in a full and final ‘solution’ to the problem of the filioque. As such, the essays in this volume do not work towards one agreed solution or definition, nor do the contributors agree with each other over many of the details of the doctrine. Instead, each is rigorously Trinitarian, confessional and ecumenical; offering perspectives from across the range of monopatrist, filioquist and third-way positions. While a number of works on the filioque have appeared in recent years, none have brought together scholars from across the Christian traditions into one volume with the intent of furthering the discussion since the WCC study edited by Lukas Vischer and published in 1981 as Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ.1 The present study has loosely followed the structure of Vischer’s work and in conceiving the volume had in mind a similar goal to that work, to foster genuine theological dialogue across the traditions for the edification of the Church. We are all aware of the limitations of theology, of context and of time, and I am reminded of the words of Morris Inch, who, in his work on the Spirit wrote: No final word with regard to the Holy Spirit ought to be considered final. In a manner of speaking, we are always attempting to discover what He has been up to lately. We may easily bypass the more significant developments in favour of what seems at the moment more striking, relevant, or legitimate. But the topics discussed are at least illustrative and to a degree representative. When taken together, they provide something of a mosaic – simplified, to be sure – of the time and trend.2 1

2

Lukas Vischer (ed.), Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ: Ecumenical Reflections on the Filioque Controversy (Faith and Order Paper, no. 103; Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1981). Morris A. Inch, Saga of the Spirit: A Biblical, Systematic, and Historical Theology of the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985), p. 263.

Introduction: Ecumenical Perspectives and the Unity of the Spirit

3

The following essays are grouped into three parts: in Part 1 the doctrine and the controversy of the Western insertion of the filioque clause into the NicenoConstantinopolitan Creed from the sixth century is placed in its historical perspective. The historical, political, geographical, sociological and theological issues surrounding the insertion and its aftermath are convoluted and complex, and while this volume does not seek to address the historical questions in depth, a context is required in order to understand the theological issues at stake. Chapter 2, by Edward Siecienski, reduces his magnificent 355-page monograph on the same topic into a concise review of such issues. Such a context is further provided in Chapter 3 where veteran scholar of the Trinity, Paul Molnar, specifies the distinctly theological issues at hand in a classical or orthodox Trinitarian construct. In Chapter 4 David Guretzki takes a similar approach to establishing the theological context, this time from the perspective of the Free Church tradition, a notable exception to much ecumenical dialogue until quite recently. In Part 2 theological perspectives on the filioque are offered from across a broad range of Christian traditions, each presenting important aspects and interpretations of the issues involved in the procession of the Spirit. In Chapter 5 Theodoros Alexopoulos appeals to what he argues is a very old usage of language; that the Spirit proceeds from the Father ‘through the Son’. He argues this is in line with the monopatrist theology of the East while adequately addressing the original intent of the insertion of the filioque into the Creed in the first place. Chapter 6 sees the first of two essays which appropriate the theology of the Protestant Reformer John Calvin as a means to further the dialogue. Brannon Ellis introduces Calvin’s idiosyncratic theology of the aseity of the Son and brings that to bear upon the issue at hand, while in Chapter 7 Christopher Holmes explicates Calvin’s office-Christology and explains how this has the potential to open up new possibilities in formulating an account of intra-divine relations. Chapters 8 and 9 have Free Church voices contributing to the discussion. David Wilhite offers a case for why Baptists should care about conciliar theology and what their contributions to such dialogue may constitute in Chapter 8, while in Chapter 9 Frank Macchia offers a Pentecostal reflection which centres on the correlation between baptism in the Spirit and the procession of the Spirit. Having Free Church voices involved in ecumenical theology is essential and these contributions to the volume enrich the final product. Part 3 presents five chapters which open up new perspectives on the procession of the Holy Spirit, arguments intended to encourage the tradition to look in other directions than has been the case to date. None of the essays in this section are atraditional; rather, each seeks to resource ‘solutions’ to the filioque issue by

4

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

appropriating resources from the past while challenging a number of long-held assumptions. The contributors in this section are equal-opportunity critics in that they take issue with aspects of both Eastern and Western construals of the Trinity and thus find the issue of the filioque unresolvable from within such parameters. Instead, each of the essayists argues for either an enrichment of the tradition, or a reappraisal of it, at certain key points. The Modern Church father, Robert Jenson, begins this section in Chapter 10 with a brief but profound proposal towards a more dynamic understanding of the Triune persons as a way to achieve clarity over the procession of the Holy Spirit. In Chapter 11 John C. McDowell seeks to present a thicker description of the Holy Spirit’s Triune presence, but one that carries out a kind of ‘conceptual therapy’ on any contemporary demand that the Spirit (or spirituality) does more in order to make itself relevant. Chapter 12 offers the most articulate and precise presentation yet of Fr. Thomas Weinandy’s seminal thesis of simultaneous and reciprocal personing of each of the divine persons in a way which sees a complementarity of the persons as subsistent relations due to the action of the Holy Spirit. In Chapter 13 Kathryn Tanner focuses upon a Trinitarian narration of Jesus’ life and death, which, she argues, has the potential to resolve the East–West controversies on the place of the Spirit within the life of the Trinity. In the process, she finds both Eastern and Western conceptions lacking. Finally, Chapter 14 by Myk Habets presents a case for a robustly perichoretic doctrine of Triunity and argues for a relational ontology of God and for a more inter-subjective account of the divine processions. In offering this volume of perspectives on the divine processions, on the Trinity, and on the Holy Spirit, I am reminded of the wise words of Gary Badcock, a fine theologian and a keen ecumenist himself, who suggested that: Perhaps even the term pneumatology needs to be reconsidered, since it enshrines in our theology the idea that logos and pneuma are entirely compatible, or even one and the same, in the sense that to know the Spirit is to have a logos of the Spirit, a doctrine of the Spirit. Can one speak rightly of a logos of pneuma or might we perhaps better speak in our theology of the Spirit in terms of love, and so, for example, of a love of the Spirit, a pneumatophilia?3

If a pneumatophilia is indeed possible, may this volume be a down payment in the hope of more to come. Come Holy Spirit – renew the whole creation!

3

Gary D. Badcock, Light of Truth & Fire of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), p. 5.

Part One

The Filioque in Context: Historical and Theological

2

The Filioque: A Brief History A. Edward Siecienski

I Introduction If we accept Maximus’ Letter to Marinus as authentic,1 then we must acknowledge that the dispute about the filioque is among the oldest ongoing debates in Christendom – older even than the question of papal primacy and predating the Reformation by close to a millennium. Over the centuries Greeks and Latins have written literally hundreds of volumes arguing that the Holy Spirit proceeds from ‘The Father alone’ or from the ‘Father and the Son’, maintaining that the opposing view was the worst kind of heresy to be avoided at all costs. Vladimir Lossky called the Latin doctrine of the filioque the ‘sole dogmatic grounds for the separation of East and West’2 and Alexei Khomiakov once described the addition of the filioque to the creed of the Roman Church as an act of ‘moral fratricide’.3 Even today the filioque remains a stumbling block to the restoration of full communion between Christian East and West, despite the great progress that has been made by Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox scholars engaged in the ecumenical movement. Before examining the work of twenty-first-century scholars on the filioque, the editor of this volume thought it would be helpful (dare I say, necessary) to

1

2

3

For the argument in favour of authenticity see A. E. Siecienski, ‘The Authenticity of Maximus the Confessor’s Letter to Marinus: The Argument from Theological Consistency’, Vigiliae Christianae 61 (2007), pp. 189–227. The opposing view can be found in V. Karayiannis, Maxime le Confesseur: Essence et Energies de Dieu (Paris: Beauchesne, 1993), p. 89; V. Karayiannis, ‘O AGIOS MAXIMOS O OMOLOGHTHS KAI H EKKLHSIA THS KUPROU’, Apostolos Varnavas 53 (1992), pp. 379–98. Vladimir Lossky, ‘The Procession of the Holy Spirit in Orthodox Trinitarian Doctrine’, in In the Image and Likeness of God (ed. J. H. Erickson; Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), p. 71. Alexei Khomiakov quoted in A. Gratieux, A. S. Khomiakov et le Mouvement Slavophile 2 (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1939), p. 8.

8

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

examine briefly how the debate has progressed up to this point.4 After all, some of Christianity’s greatest minds, as well as some of her most vitriolic polemicists, have written on the subject of the procession – recognizing, integrating and even critiquing their contributions is an integral part of the modern-day ecumenical task. Contextualizing the modern-day debate this way might enable us to see how far we have come and how far we still need to go.

II The debate begins (646–1054) There is little doubt that by the seventh century Christian East and West had begun to speak about the procession of the Holy Spirit using different, although not necessarily contradictory, concepts and categories.5 This is to some degree understandable – the biblical references to the Holy Spirit, especially in relation to the Father and the Son, are capable of varied interpretations.6 Very often the authors of the New Testament did not express themselves with a great deal of precision when it came to the Trinity7 and various ‘movements’ of Trinitarian revelation in the New Testament, if read without reference to the others, could lend themselves to diverse, and even incompatible, understandings of relationships within the Trinity.8 The Greek fathers, led by Basil the Great and Gregory of Nazianzus, emphasized the notion that the hypostasis of the Father was defined by his unique role as unoriginate cause of the Son and Spirit, the former by generation 4

5

6

7

8

For a more complete history of the doctrine, see A. Edward Siecienski, The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). In an oft-quoted passage, Théodore de Régnon famously contrasted the approaches of Christian East and West on the Trinity: ‘Latin philosophy first considers the nature in itself and proceeds to the agent; Greek philosophy first considers the agent and afterwards passes through to find the nature’. T. de Régnon, Etudes de théologie positive sur la Sainte Trinité (Paris: Retaux, 1892), p. 309. Many scholars today would argue that this contrast is, at best, too broad to be useful and, at worst, a distortion of the patristic corpus. In fact, many biblical scholars today question whether the New Testament authors even thought in explicitly Trinitarian terms (i.e., with Father, Son and Spirit each understood as distinct ‘persons’ within God). See, for example, D. Juel, ‘The Trinity in the New Testament’, Theology Today 54 (1997), pp. 312–24. See also A. Wainwright, The Trinity in the New Testament (London: SPCK, 1967); G. S. Hendry, The Holy Spirit in Christian Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1965); C. K. Barrett, The Holy Spirit in the Gospel Tradition (New York: Macmillan, 1947); G. T. Montague, The Holy Spirit: Growth of a Biblical Tradition (New York: Paulist, 1976); E. Schweitzer, The Holy Spirit (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980); R. Brown, ‘Diverse Views of the Spirit in the New Testament: A Preliminary Contribution of Exegesis to Doctrinal Reflection’, in Biblical Exegesis & Church Doctrine (ed. R. Brown; New York: Paulist Press, 1985), pp. 101–13. In Johannine and Pauline literature, for example, Christ and the Spirit are often assigned similar functions and even given the same name (e.g., Christ as ‘Paraclete’ in John, the Holy Spirit as ‘Spirit of Christ’ in Galatians and Romans). Boris Bobrinskoy, The Mystery of the Trinity: Trinitarian Experience and Vision in the Biblical and Patristic Tradition (trans. A. Gythiel; Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999), pp. 63–76.

The Filioque: A Brief History

9

and the latter by procession (ἐκπορεύεσθαι).9 While other fathers, chiefly Gregory of Nyssa and Cyril of Alexandria, also spoke of the Spirit’s eternal relationship to the Son (moving through him from the Father),10 the Greek tradition remained content with repeating the creedal affirmation of NiceaConstantinople (381) – itself derived from the Scriptures (Jn 15.26) – that the Holy Spirit ‘proceeds from the Father’.11 Later the East would maintain that Canon 7 of the Council of Ephesus, which forbade anyone ‘to produce or write or compose any other creed’ explicitly prohibited any alterations to this creed, whether by a single figure (e.g., the pope) or by another ecumenical council.12 Among the Western fathers, especially those who wrote after Augustine, greater emphasis was placed on the Spirit’s role as the mutual love proceeding from both the Father and the Son.13 More willing than the East to draw conclusions about the immanent Trinity from the revelation of God in history, the Latin fathers read texts such as Jn 20.22 as explicit testimony that the Spirit also proceeded from the Son.14 As the Arian crisis continued, Latin authors

9

10

11

12

13

14

For Gregory, and by extension the whole Eastern tradition, causality was the distinguishing characteristic of the Father’s hypostasis, since, ‘All that the Father has belongs likewise to the Son except causality’. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 34 (Eng. trans; NPNF2 7:337). As ‘the one without beginning’, the Father was distinguished from the Son and the Spirit, who, while still co-eternal and co-equal, each came forth from him, each in their unique manner. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 42.15 in Brian Daley (ed.), Gregory of Nazianzus (New York: Routledge, 2006), p. 147. ‘The one (i.e., the Son) is directly from the First and the other (i.e., the Spirit) is through the one who is directly from the First with the result that the Only-begotten remains the Son and does not negate the Spirit’s being from the Father since the middle position of the Son both protects his distinction as Only-begotten and does not exclude the Spirit from his natural relation to the Father’. Gregory of Nyssa, Ad Ablabium, in F. Mueller (ed.), Gregorii Nysseni opera dogmatica minora (vol. 3.1; Leiden: Brill, 1958), p. 56. While long a staple of Orthodox polemics, it should be noted that twentieth-century Johannine scholars (e.g., Rudolf Schnackenburg, Raymond Brown, C. K. Barrett) have argued that the biblical passage was not necessarily addressing the eternal procession of the Spirit, but was used in tandem with the ‘I shall send’ in the next line, establishing a synonymous parallelism. According to Brown, ‘The writer is not speculating about the interior life of God, he is concerned with the disciples in the world’. R. Brown, The Gospel According to John XIII–XXI (Anchor Bible Series, 29a; New York: Doubleday, 1970), p. 689. N. Tanner, ‘Canons of the Council of Ephesus’, in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils (vol. 1; ed. N. Tanner; Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990), p. 65. Peter L’Huillier acknowledges this as the basis for Orthodox objections against the filioque, but cautions that ‘it is materially impossible to base this condemnation (against the addition of the filioque) on Canon 7 of Ephesus, which did not directly envision some addition but rather the composition of another formula of faith and furthermore concerned the definition of Nicaea’. P. L’Huillier, The Church of the Ancient Councils: The Disciplinary Work of the First Four Ecumenical Councils (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1996), p. 163. ‘For whether he is the unity of both the others or their holiness, or their charity, whether he is their unity because their charity and their charity because their holiness, it is clear that he is not one of the two, since he is that by which the two are joined each to the other, by which the begotten is loved by the one who begets him and in turn loves the begetter’. Augustine of Hippo, De Trinitate 6, 5, 7 in: The Works of St Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (trans. E. Hill; Brooklyn: New City Press, 1991), p. 209. ‘Why, then, should we not believe that the Holy Spirit proceedeth also from the Son, seeing that he is likewise the Spirit of the Son? For did he not so proceed, he could not, when showing himself

10

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

also felt it necessary to affirm that everything the Father has belongs also to the Son, including (so they believed) the ability to spirate the Holy Spirit. For these reasons, by the eighth century the filioque found itself inserted in the creed of several local councils in the West,15 with many authors simply assuming the doctrine to be both apostolic and ecumenical.16 The first evidence we have that the filioque had become a problematic issue between East and West is the Letter to Marinus written by Maximus the Confessor during the pontificate of Theodore I (c. 645/46).17 Apparently Pope Theodore had included the filioque in his synodal letter to Constantinople, occasioning an angry response from the Monothelite hierarchy there. Maximus defended the pope’s inclusion of the filioque, writing that in using the expression ‘they (i.e., the Romans) do not make the Son the cause of the Spirit for they know that the Father is the one cause of the Son and the Spirit, the one by begetting and the other by procession (ἐκπόρευσιν), but they show the progression (προϊέναι) through him and thus the unity of the essence’.18 Although there are no signs that the procession was the immediate cause for further tension between Rome and Constantinople, by the late eighth century, events had conspired to turn the filioque into a genuinely Church-dividing issue. At the Synod of Gentilly (767), convened to resolve the iconoclast debate, discussion of the Spirit’s procession apparently occurred, although we have no knowledge of what was actually said.19 Twenty years later, responding to Patriarch Tarsus’ confession at Nicea (787) that the Holy Spirit proceeded ‘from the Father

15

16

17

18 19

to his disciples after the resurrection, have breathed upon them, and said, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit”. For what else was signified by such a breathing upon them, but that from Him also the Holy Spirit proceedeth?’ Augustine of Hippo, In Joannis Evangelium Tractatus 99, 16, 7 in: Tractates on the Gospel of John 55–111 (trans. J. Rettig; FC, 90; Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1994), p. 226. Although the filioque was long believed to have first been included in the creed of the Third Council of Toledo (589), twentieth-century scholarship has put this in doubt. We do know that subsequent councils held at Toledo did affirm the filioque, as did the Synod of Merida (666), the Fourth Synod of Braga (675), and the Council of Hatfield (680). The inclusion of the filioque in the so-called Athanasian Creed (the Quicumque Vult), for centuries believed to be the work of the great Alexandrian father but now thought to have been written in the West during the late fifth or early sixth century, gave support to this belief. The creed itself says, ‘The Father was made by no one, neither created nor begotten. The Son is from the Father alone, not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son, not made, neither created nor begotten, but proceeding (Spiritus sanctus a Patre et Filio, non factus nec creatus nec genitus sed procedens). Athanasian Creed in J. Pelikan and V. Hotchkiss (eds), Creeds and Confessions of Faith in Christian Tradition 1 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), pp. 676–7. For the dating of the Letter to Marinus see P. Sherwood, An Annotated Date List of the Works of St. Maximus the Confessor (Rome: Herder, 1952), p. 54. Maximus the Confessor, Opusculum 10, PL 91, p. 136. The Acta of the Synod are lost, and the scant references to the proceedings only tell us that the procession of the Spirit was among the issues discussed (‘et quaestio ventilata inter Graecos et Romanos de Trinitate, et utrum Spiritus sanctus sicut procedit a Patre, ita procedat a Filio’). A. Viennensis, Chronicon in Aetates Sex Divisum (PL 123, 125).

The Filioque: A Brief History

11

through the Son,’ Theodulf of Orleans in the Opus Caroli Regis attacked the East for their refusal to confess the true faith – that is, that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son.20 Eager to contrast their orthodoxy with the faith of the allegedly heretical Byzantines, the Carolingians made the filioque a cornerstone of their anti-Arian polemic. Affirmed at the Councils of Frankfurt (794) and Friuli (797), the filioque became central to the Frankish faith, even if Rome remained more hesitant about altering the creed to allow its inclusion. When monks in Jerusalem protested against this practice of reciting the filioque in the creed (as was being done at the imperial chapel in Aachen) Pope Leo III was forced to intervene. Responding to the Council of Aachen (809), Leo argued that while the filioque was theologically correct, he could ‘not prefer himself to the fathers’ and alter the ancient creed.21 For this reason ‘out of the love he bore for the orthodox faith’,22 Leo placed two silver shields in Rome containing the un-interpolated creed in both Greek and Latin, commanding the Franks to remove the filioque, recommending ‘that gradually . . . the custom of singing the Creed be dispensed with’.23 Undeterred by the pope’s actions, the Franks continued to profess the filioque, bringing their creed with them as they began preaching among the Bulgars. When Patriarch Photius of Constantinople became aware of this ‘novel’ teaching he responded quickly, setting out the arguments against the filioque that would become the basis for Orthodox objections for centuries to come. Following the Cappadocian logic, he emphasized that causality belonged to the Father alone, and thus the Son could in no way be considered a source or cause of the Spirit’s hypostasis since ‘if the Son participates in the quality or property of the Father’s own person, then the Son and the Spirit lose their own personal distinctions . . . and one falls into semi-Sabellianism’.24 The Franks, represented by such men as 20

21

22

23

24

Ironically, Theodulf rejects the very argument that would persuade generations of Byzantine unionists of the filioque’s orthodoxy – i.e., that the phrases ex Patre per Filium (διὰ τοῦ Υἱόῦ) and ex Patre et Filio (ἐκ Πατρὸς καὶ Υἱόῦ) were equivalent. Theodulf believed the per Filium formula was ambiguous and capable of Arian interpretation since ‘this preposition “through” is placed recklessly in the profession of the great mysteries by those, serving up their fetid cup of Arian errors, who blaspheme and claim the Holy Spirit is a creature created through the Son just like everything else’. Opus Caroli regis contra synodum 3.3 in A. Freeman (ed.), MGH Leges 4 Concilia 2 Suppl. 1: Opus Caroliregis contra synodum (Hanover: HahnscheBuchhandlung, 1998), pp. 346–7. Ratio de symbol fidei inter Leonem III papam et missos Caroli imperatoris, in Harald Willjung (ed.), Das Konzil von Aachen 809, 290 (Richard Haugh, Photius and the Carolingians: The Trinitarian Controversy (Belmont: Nordland Publishing Co., 1975)), p. 84. Mystagogia, 88 in Photius of Constantinople, The Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit (trans. Holy Transfiguration Monastery; Astoria: Studion Publishers, 1983), p. 112. These shields remained in place for several centuries and were noted by Anastasius Bibliothecarius (PL 128, 1238), Peter Lombard (PL 142, 552) and Pater Abelard (PL 178, 629). See Vittorio Peri, ‘Il Simbolo Epigrafico di S. Leone III nelle Basiliche Romane dei SS. Pietro e Paolo’, Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 45 (1969), pp. 191–221. Photius of Constantinople, Encyclical to the Eastern Patriarchs, in Photius, The Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit (trans. Holy Transfiguration Monastery; Astoria: Studion Publishers, 1983), p. 51.

12

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

Ratramnus and Aeneas of Paris, responded to these charges by reminding the East of the biblical and patristic roots of the doctrine, stressing that since Jesus possessed ‘all that the Father has’ (Jn 16.15), this must include the Father’s ability to generate the Spirit. Although a few voices in the West tried to reconcile the views of the two sides (e.g., Anastasius Bibliothecarius and John Scotus Erigena), by the time the so-called Photian Schism was resolved in 86925 a clear dialectic had been established that would endure for the next several centuries – either the Spirit proceeded from the Father alone as the East believed, or from the Father and the Son as the West professed. By 1014 the growing power of the Ottonians finally forced the pope to accept the filioque in the creed in Rome, forever joining the legitimacy of the addition to the pope’s right to decide the faith of the universal Church.26 By 1054 the events that brought about the ‘Great Schism’ merely confirmed the filioque’s place as the chief theological issue separating East and West – Cardinal Humbert accusing the Constantinopolitans of heresy by omitting it,27 and Patriarch Michael Cerularius calling it ‘an artifice of the devil’ that must be condemned.28

III The debate continues (1054–1874) In the centuries that followed, Western scholastics, such as Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas, built upon the arguments of earlier generations to bolster the case for the Spirit’s procession from both the Father and Son. Among their chief arguments was that within the consubstantial Trinity the only difference between Father, Son and Spirit was their relation to the other persons, and that this relationship must necessarily be one of origin.29 Thus to establish an eternal 25

26

27

28 29

In the Horos of the council that recognized Photius and ended the schism, the creed (without the filioque) was read out and a condemnation pronounced against those who ‘impose on it their own invented phrases and put this forth as a common lesson to the faithful or to those who return from some kind of heresy, and display the audacity to falsify completely the antiquity of this sacred and venerable Horos (Rule) with illegitimate words, or additions, or subtractions’. Translated by G. Dragas, ‘The Eighth Ecumenical Council: Constantinople IV (879/880) and the Condemnation of the Filioque Addition and Doctrine’, Greek Orthodox Theological Review 44 (1999), p. 364. The first recorded use of the interpolated creed in Rome occurred on 14 February 1014 at the insistence of Emperor Henry II (d. 1024). Berno of Reichenau, Libellus de quibusdam Rebus ad Missae Officium Pertinentibus (PL 142, 1060–1). Humbert maintained that the patriarch and his followers ‘like Pneumatomachians or Theoumachians have deleted from the creed the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son’, Excommunicatio qua feriuntur Michael Caerularius atque ejus sectatores, in C. Will (ed.), Acta et Scripta quae de controversiis ecclesiae graecae et latinae saeculo undecimo composite extant (Leipzig, 1861), pp. 153–4. Edictum Synodi Constantinopolitanae in C. Will, Acta et scripta, pp. 155–8. See, for example, Anselm of Canterbury, De Processione Spiritus Sancti, in F. S. Schmitt (ed.), Anselmi Opera Omnia (6 vols; Edinburgh: T. Nelson and Sons, 1938), pp. 2:175–219. English translation:

The Filioque: A Brief History

13

relation between the Son and the Spirit (which was necessary to distinguish them) ‘we must conclude that it is necessary to say that either the Son is from the Holy Ghost; which no one says; or that the Holy Ghost is from the Son, as we [i.e., the Latins] confess’.30 Countering the charge that the filioque introduced two principles into the Godhead, thus challenging the Father’s monarchy, the scholastics claimed that ‘when we say that he is from the Father and the Son, (it) is not from two sources but one’,31 and for this reason it was better to say that ‘the Father and Son are two spirating . . . but not two spirators’; not two principles or causes, but one.32 The Greeks remained unconvinced by this argument, maintaining that procession could either be the act of a hypostasis or of the divine substance shared by all three persons. If the former, then it must be single hypostasis in order to avoid the idea, shunned by both sides, that there was more than one principle within the Godhead.33 If the latter, the consubstantial Spirit would then be responsible for his own existence, which (as the Mystagogia had argued centuries earlier) was absurd.34 The Crusades (1098–1291), inspired in large part by the desire of Pope Urban II to bring East and West closer together, instead had the unfortunate effect of consummating the schism that had grown up between them. The Fourth Crusade (1204) and the subsequent sack/takeover of Constantinople fostered an anti-Latin feeling among the Byzantines that came to equate acceptance of any Western practice (e.g., the inclusion of the filioque) as a sort of ethnic betrayal.35 Dialogues between East and West usually ended acrimoniously, and even those Byzantines with some sympathy for the Latin

30

31 32 33

34

35

Anselm of Canterbury, ‘On the Procession of the Holy Spirit’, in Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works (ed. B. Davies; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 390–434. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q.36, art.2 in T. Aquinas, Summa Theologica 1 (trans. English Dominican Fathers; Westminster: Christian Classics, 1981), p. 184. Anselm of Canterbury, De Processione Spiritus Sancti 10 in B. Davies, Anselm of Canterbury, p. 420. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q.36, art.4 in Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, p. 188. ‘For if we were to say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, then the Father would be a principle of the Holy Spirit and similarly the Son would be a principle of the Holy Spirit, it would immediately follow for us that there are two principles, and we would fall into poluarcivan, that is, many principles; which is against all reason’. Nicetas of Nicomedia quoted in Anselm of Havelburg, Dialogi, 2, 1 (PL 188, 1165). The Mystagogia had argued that if the ability to spirate a person within the godhead was a property of the divine nature, then the Holy Spirit would be ‘in part producer and in part be produced, in part the cause and in part the caused’. Mystagogia, 6 in Photius, Mystagogy, p. 72. Describing the reaction to his unionist efforts at Lyons, George Metochites wrote: ‘Instead of refutative proof, instead of arguments from the Scriptures, what we envoys constantly hear is “You have become a Frank”! Should we who are pro-unionists, simply because we favor union with Rome, be subjected to being called supporters of a foreign nation and not Byzantine patriots?’ George Metochites, ‘Report on the Council’, in Le Bienheureux Innocent V et son temps (ed. M. H. Laurent; Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1947), pp. 419–43.

14

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

position (e.g., Nikephorus Blemmydes) never went as far as accepting the filioque as orthodox.36 For this reason the attempts of Emperor Michael to negotiate Church union following his recapture of the imperial capital in 1261 immediately met with fierce resistance. When the Council of Lyons met in 1274 to accept the emperor’s confession of faith and end the schism, there was never a question of discussing the theology of the procession or the addition of the filioque to the creed. Instead, the Byzantine delegation simply accepted the Latin teaching ‘that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son, not as from two principles, but as from one principle (tantum ab uno principio); not by two spirations, but by one single spiration’.37 Michael’s attempts to enforce the union met with failure, as did the theological efforts of the unionist patriarch, John IX Beccus, who argued that the formulas ‘from the Father through the Son’ (ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς δἰ Uἱοῦ) and ‘from the Father and the Son’ (ἐκ τόῦ Πατρὸς καὶ Uἱοῦ) were substantially equivalent.38 Upon the emperor’s death, John Beccus was deposed and the union officially rejected by the new patriarch, Gregory II of Cyprus, who convened the Synod of Blachernae in 1285.39 Gregory clearly rejected the Latin teaching on the filioque, however he believed that one could speak of an eternal relationship between the Son and the Spirit, differentiating (as he did) between the Spirit’s hypostatic existence from the Father alone and his eternal illumination or manifestation (ἀΐδιον ἔκϕανσιν) from the Father through the Son.40 36

37 38

39

40

The 1234 debate between a delegation of Franciscans/Dominicans and the Byzantines at Nicea was typical of these exchanges. By the end of the proceedings the Latins stormed out, claiming ‘The Lord Pope and the Roman Church will never abandon a single iota of their faith!’ while the Greeks shouted back ‘It is you who are the heretics!’ G. Golubovich, ‘Disputatio Latinorum et Graecorum’, Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 12 (1919), pp. 428–70. Blemmydes, whose position seems to have evolved during his debates with the Latins, allowed for an eternal relationship between Son and Spirit (the Spirit having processed through him), although he never accepted the Latin formula as a valid expression of this belief. See N. Blemmydès, Oeuvres théologiques Tome I. (ed. M. Stavrou; trans. M. Stavrou; Paris: les Éd. du Cerf, 2007). ‘Constitutions of the Second Council of Lyons’, in Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, p. 314. Among the more significant works by Beccus were the Epigraphae (pp. 141, 613–724), De unione Ecclesiarum veteris et novae Romae, De Processione Spiritus sancti, Refutatio libri Photii de processione Spiritus sancti, and Refutatio libri Georgii Cyprii. For a full portrait of Patriarch Gregory and his contributions to the filioque debate see A. Papadakis, Crisis in Byzantium: The Filioque Controversy in the Patriarchate of Gregory II of Cyprus (1283–1289) (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Press, 1996); B. Schultze, ‘Patriarch Gregorios von Cypremüber das Filioque’, Orientalia Christiana Periodica 51 (1985), pp. 163–87. ‘According the common mind of the Church and the aforementioned saints, the Father is the foundation and the source of the Son and Spirit, and the only source of divinity, and the only cause. If, in fact, it is also said by some of the saints that the Spirit proceeds (ἐκπορeύεσθαι) through the Son, what is meant here is the eternal manifestation (ἔκϕανσιν) of the Spirit by the Son, not the purely personal emanation (πρόοδον) into being of the Spirit, which has existence from the Father alone’, Expositio fidei contra Veccum; pp. 142, pp. 233–46, English translation: Papadakis, Crisis in Byzantium, p. 220.

The Filioque: A Brief History

15

As a succession of emperors continued to dangle the prospect of ecclesial union before the pope in the hope of securing Western aid against the Turks,41 a number of influential Byzantine scholars embraced the writings of Thomas Aquinas (e.g., Demetrius and Prochorus Cydones) and began to argue in favour of such a scheme. While some (e.g., Barlaam of Calabria) thought the filioque need not be a Church-dividing issue (since neither side could genuinely claim to know the ineffable God), others (e.g., Nilus Cabasilas and Gregory Palamas) continued to put forward the traditional arguments against the Latin position.42 Palamas went further than most in using the essence/energy distinction to allow for an eternal relationship between Son and Spirit, teaching that it is the natural powers and energies of God that are poured forth through the Son but not the Spirit’s hypostatic existence.43 In 1437, with the Turks poised to take Constantinople, Emperor John VIII, Patriarch Joseph II and a sizeable delegation of Eastern clergy left the imperial capital in the hopes of finally negotiating ecclesial union with the Latins. Led by such figures as Bessarion, George Scholarius and Mark Eugenicus of Ephesus, the Greek delegates made their way to Ferrara (and later to Florence) to discuss the theological issues separating East and West – purgatory, the role of the Bishop of Rome, azymes and the addition of the filioque to the creed.44 Of the four the 41

42

43

44

According to the Byzantine historian Sphrantzes, the Emperor Manuel II had told his son John how best to deal with the growing Turkish threat: ‘Our last resource against the Turks is their fear of our union with the Latins. . . . As often as you are threatened by the miscreants, present this danger before their eyes. Propose a council; consult on the means; but ever delay and avoid the convocation of the assembly. . . . The Latins are proud; the Greeks are obstinate; neither party will recede or retract; and the attempts at perfect union will confirm the schism and alienate the churches’. Quoted in E. Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (vol. 6; New York: Bigelow, Brown & Co., 1845), p. 422. Emmanuel Candel (ed.), Nilus Cabasilas et Theologia S.Thomae de Processione Spiritus Sancti (Vatican City: Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, 1945). Critical edition with French translation: T. Kislas (ed.), Sur le Saint-Esprit (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2001). ‘Thus the Holy Spirit is of Christ, as of God, both in essence and in energy. According to essence and hypostasis he is of him, but not from him; according to energy, he is both of him and from him’. Gregory Palamas, Logos Apodeiktikos 2, 30; Boris Bobrinsky (ed.), Logoi Apodeiktikoi, in Gregorioutou Palama Syggrammata (ed. Panagiotes Chrestou; vol.1; Thessalonica, 1962), p. 105. Prior to leaving Constantinople the Byzantines had decided to concentrate on the liceity of the addition as opposed to the theology behind it since this was believed to be the root cause of the schism. For most of the Greeks the matter was simple – the Council of Ephesus had prohibited changes to the creed and thus all the Latins need do for the union to proceed was to remove the filioque from the creed. As Mark of Ephesus said in his opening address: ‘This Symbol, this noble heritage of our Fathers, we demand back from you. Restore it then as you received it. . . . The addition of a word seems to you a small matter and of no great consequence. So then to remove it would cost you nothing; indeed it would be of the greatest profit, for it would bind together all Christians. . . . It [i.e., the filioque] was added in the exercise of mercy; in the exercise of mercy remove it again so that you may receive to your bosoms brethren torn apart who value fraternal love so highly’. J. Gill (ed.), Quae supersunt Actorum Graecorum Concilii Florentini: Res Ferrariae gestae, CF 5.1.1 and 5.2.2 (Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute, 1953), p. 216. English translation: J. Gill, The Council of Florence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), p. 163.

16

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

filioque was the most debated, with days spent on the liceity of the addition and the meaning of particular patristic texts.45 The majority of the Byzantines, led by Bessarion, Isidore of Kiev and Scholarius, eventually buckled under the weight of the Latins’ patristic evidence, much of which they were encountering for the first time.46 However, Mark of Ephesus remained steadfast in his refusal to accept the authenticity of the Western codices, believing the Latins to be both schismatics and heretics who used spurious and corrupted texts to prove their case.47 On 6 July 1439 the union was celebrated with great solemnity and the Byzantines began their long trip home, but by the time Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, Mark’s position had won the day and rejection of the filioque had become central to the defence of the Orthodox faith.48 For the next several centuries very little occurred by way of productive dialogue. Even when the West divided over a host of other theological issues during the Reformation, Protestants and Catholics remained of one mind on the Spirit’s procession from both Father and Son.49 The Roman Catholic 45

46

47

48

49

The problem of patristic texts and their use at Florence has been an issue of some study. Issues of ecumenicity (i.e., the Greeks’ knowledge of Latin authors and the Latins’ knowledge of the Greeks), authenticity, translation and methodology plagued the council fathers, preventing a genuinely productive study of the patristic witness. As John Erickson has written: ‘All agreed that we must look to the fathers, but in the absence of a common living tradition, this meant looking to the words of the fathers rather than to their message. . . . At the council both sides relied on assembling proof-texts, claiming for these isolated words the full message and authority of the fathers. This hardly is the mark of success’. John Erickson, ‘Filioque and the Fathers at the Council of Florence’, in The Challenge of Our Past (ed. John Erickson; Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1991), p. 162, 166. See also A. Alexakis, ‘ The Greek Patristic Testimonia Presented at the Council of Florence (1439) in Support of the Filioque Reconsidered’, Revue Des Études Byzantines 58 (2000), pp. 149–65. ‘It was not the syllogisms . . . or the force of arguments that lead me to believe this [i.e., the Latin position], but the plain words of the doctors. For when I saw and heard them, straightaway I put aside all contention and controversy and yielded to the authority of those whose words they were. . . . For I judged that the holy fathers, speaking as they did in the Holy Spirit, could not have departed from the truth and I was grieved that I had not heard their words before’. E. Candal (ed.), CF 7.2: Bessarion Nicaenus, S.R.E. Cardinalis, De Spiritus Sancti processione ad Alexium Lascarin Philanthropinum (Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1961), pp. 40–1. English translation: Erickson, Filioque and the Fathers at the Council of Florence, p. 159. Mark claimed he would ‘receive as authentic only those texts that are in accord with the Letter of the divine Maximus [i.e., which denied causality to the Son] and the writings of St. Cyril. All those that are contrary I reject as false’. Syropoulus, Memoirs, 9.7 in V. Laurent (ed.), Les “Mémoires” du Grand Ecclésiarque de l’Église de Constantinople Sylvestre Syropoulos sur le Concile de Florence (1438–1439) (CF, 9; Rome: Pontificium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1971), pp. 440–2. By the time they returned home in 1440 many of the delegates had already come to regret their signature on the union decree, allegedly claiming: ‘We have betrayed our faith. We have exchanged piety for impiety. We have renounced the pure sacrifice and become azymites’. Doukas, Historia Turco-Byzantina of Doukas (crit. ed. V. Grecu; Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Romiine, 1958), p. 315. See G. Demacopoulos, ‘The Popular Reception of the Council of Florence in Constantinople (1439–1453)’, St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 43 (1999), pp. 37–53. Almost all of the early confessions of the Reformation churches contained the filioque in some form. For example, The Belgic Confession (1561): ‘We believe and confess that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son . . . neither made nor created, nor begotten, but only proceeding

The Filioque: A Brief History

17

Church imposed the teaching on those Eastern churches seeking communion with Rome, although they were (on occasion) willing to permit that the creed be recited without the addition.50 The Orthodox, for their part, continued to regard rejection of the filioque as a pillar of the faith, condemning any as ‘rotten members’ who did ‘not confess with heart and mouth . . . that the Holy Spirit proceeds out of only the Father, essentially and hypostatically, as Christ says in the Gospel.’51

IV The debate enters a new phase (1874–Present) In 1874 Dr Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger gathered representatives from both East and West together at Bonn to begin discussing the prospects for Church union. Among the initial subjects to be dealt with was the filioque, opening the way for the first constructive dialogue on the issue in several centuries. For their part, many of the Old Catholic and Anglican delegates admitted that the addition to the creed ‘did not take place in an ecclesiastically legitimate way’, while Eastern delegates (following Gregory of Cyprus and Gregory Palamas) allowed that the Son did indeed have a role in the eternal ἔκλαμψις or ἔκϕανσις of the Spirit.52 Of particular import was the notion, first recognized in Maximus the Confessor’s Letter to Marinus, that the Latin term procedere was a poor translation of ἐκπορeύεσθαι (which spoke of the Spirit’s hypostatic coming-into-being) and that perhaps the Latin teaching (i.e., ex Patre filioque procedit) should instead convey the idea that the Holy Spirit eternally flows forth (προϊέναι) from/through the Son without making the Son cause of the Spirit’s existence. Several years later Boris Bolotov tried to build upon the

50

51 52

from the two of them;’ The Second Helvetic Confession (1566): ‘The Holy Spirit truly proceeds from them both . . . and is to be worshipped with both’; The Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England (1571): ‘The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one substance, majesty, and glory with the Father and the Son’; The Westminster Confession (1647): ‘The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Spirit eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son’. Pope Benedict XIV, in his 1742 bull, Etsi Pastoralis, stated that while ‘the Greeks are bound to believe that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son . . . they are not bound to proclaim it in the Creed’, later writing in the encyclical Allatae Sunt (promulgated in 1755) that the Catholic Church has ‘sometimes allowed the Orientals and Greeks to say the Creed without this addition . . . (and) at other times this See has insisted on Greeks and Orientals using the addition. It has done this when it had grounds to suspect that they were unwilling to include the addition in the Creed because they shared the false view that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Father and the Son or that the Church had no power to add the phrase “and from the Son”’. Benedict XIV, Allae Sunt in C. Carlen (ed.), Papal Encyclicals 1740–1878 (New York: Consortium Press, 1981), p. 65. MS Codex No. 772 of the Monastery of St Panteleimon. H. Reusch, Report of the Union Conferences Held from August 10 to 16, 1875 at Bonn, p. 115.

18

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

consensus reached at Bonn in his ‘Twenty-seven Theses on the Filioque’, arguing that the Latin and Greek understandings of the procession were admittedly diverse, but not necessarily incompatible, and thus both could be maintained as legitimate theologoumena, removing (he hoped) the filioque as a genuinely Church-dividing issue once and for all.53 Although this was a promising start, events conspired to prevent immediate action on any of these proposals. Yet the mid-twentieth century saw both a pneumatological and ecumenical renaissance, leading theologians East and West to once again take up the issue of the filioque. In 1978–79 the WCC organized a formal dialogue comprised of Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant representatives, whose ‘Klingenthal Memorandum’ suggested (among other things) that ‘the original form of the third article of the creed, without the filioque, should everywhere be recognized as the normative one and restored.’54 Beginning in 1980 the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches began a series of official theological dialogues to resolve the issues that continued to separate them. Although they did not take on the filioque directly, in 1995 the Vatican issued ‘The Greek and Latin Traditions Regarding the Procession of the Holy Spirit’, a document aimed at explicating and contextualizing the historic Roman position.55 Generally well-received in the Orthodox world, it was soon followed by the Joint-Statement of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation, which (like the earlier Vatican statement) affirmed that from the Catholic perspective ‘the filioque does not concern the ἐκπόρeυσις of the Spirit issued from the Father as source of the Trinity, but manifests his προϊέναι (processio) in the consubstantial communion of the Father and the Son’.56 Understood in this way, the question was asked whether the East could not recognize the legitimacy of the filioque as an expression of the Spirit’s eternal/ energetic processio, even as Rome was asked to recognize the ‘normative and irrevocable dogmatic value of the Creed of 381 . . . and use the uninterpolated creed in both catechetical and liturgical settings’.57

53

54

55

56

57

B. Bolotov, ‘Thesen über das Filioque von einem russischen Theologen’, Revue internationale de Théologie 6 (1898), pp. 681–712. The Memorandum and many of the papers presented at Schloss Klingenthal were collected together and published in L. Vischer (ed.), Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ: Ecumenical Reflections on the Filioque Controversy (London: SPCK, 1981). English translation found in ‘The Greek and Latin Traditions Regarding the Procession of the Holy Spirit’, Catholic International 7 (1996), pp. 36–43. ‘The Filioque: A Church-Dividing Issue? An Agreed Statement of the North American OrthodoxCatholic Theological Consultation (October 25, 2003)’, St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 48 (2004), pp. 93–123. Ibid.

The Filioque: A Brief History

19

Much remains to be done before the filioque can finally be removed from the list of genuinely Church-dividing issues. As the history of the doctrine demonstrates, too often in the past have individuals prematurely proclaimed the matter resolved, only to see it re-emerge as a landmine on the road to unity. However, as the other authors of this volume will soon make clear, much is presently being done to move the discussion forward and hasten that day when Christians East and West can truly put the debate behind them and proclaim together their shared faith in the undivided and consubstantial Trinity.

3

Theological Issues Involved in the Filioque Paul D. Molnar

Rather than a historical discussion of the problems associated with the filioque, this will be an exploration of its theological implications.1 Most would agree that the phrase stating that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son was unecumenically added to the Creed by the Western Church.2 Many also would agree that the original intention of this statement underscores the belief of both East and West that the Holy Spirit is homoousion with the Father and the Son, that is, the Spirit is worshipped and glorified together with the Father and Son as one God in three persons. Karl Barth, for instance, believed that from the beginning East and West did not disagree materially about the procession of the Spirit even when the expression was used, and he maintained that passages such as Jn 15.26, which speak of the Spirit proceeding from the Father, could not be isolated from other New Testament texts that clearly refer to the Spirit of the Son. Thus, he explicitly affirmed the filioque because he held that statements about the divine modes of being antecedently in themselves cannot be different in content from those that are to be made about their reality in revelation. All our statements concerning what is called the immanent Trinity 1

2

For a historical discussion see A. Edward Siecienski, The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). For an intriguing discussion of Barth and Torrance on the filioque which offers a critical and constructive analysis of both theologians’ key insights and then attempts to move beyond them in ways that merit further reflection and discussion but that will not be discussed here, see Myk Habets, ‘Filioque? Nein: A Proposal for Coherent Coinherence’, in Trinitarian Theology After Barth (eds Myk Habets and Phillip Tolliday; Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2011), pp. 161–202. Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit: vol. III (trans. David Smith; New York: Crossroad, 1997), p. 205, asserts quite bluntly that ‘The one-sided introduction of the Filioque, without consulting the Eastern Church, into a creed of ecumenical value was not only a way of behaving that was canonically illicit, but also an action which devalued the unity of the Christian family’. T. F. Torrance asserts that the ‘ex Patre filioque clause’ was ‘inserted unecumenically into the Creed’ and thus created ‘a serious impasse in the relations between East and West’, The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), p. 186. See also Siecienski, The Filioque, p. 204 and p. 207.

Theological Issues Involved in the Filioque

21

have been reached simply as confirmations or underlinings or, materially, as the indispensable premises of the economic Trinity.3

Thomas F. Torrance also noted that this was its original intention and partially agreed with Barth, even though, as we shall see below, he had reservations about the ‘element of “subordinationism” in his doctrine of the Trinity’, which he believed was a ‘hang-over from Latin theology but also from St Basil’s doctrine of the Trinity’.4 As we shall see, Torrance held that if theologians returned to the thinking of Athanasius and Cyril,5 then the problem of subordinationism within the immanent Trinity would not even arise and there would be no need for the filioque since all would agree that Father, Son and Spirit are each fully divine and inseparably equal in being, in virtue of their perichoretic or co-inherent eternal relations. At stake ultimately is the unity of the Trinity. Before we get ahead of ourselves, however, it might be worth noting that the issue of the filioque is one that is ripe for true ecumenical agreement today among the Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans, Roman Catholics and Reformed. Avery Dulles, for instance, relying heavily on the thinking of Yves Congar, points out that in the East, Maximus the Confessor had no difficulty accepting the filioque when rightly understood.6 And that meant that it could not imply that there were two ultimate sources of the Spirit within the Godhead. Such a notion would undermine the unity of the Trinity on a very basic level since if there were two ultimate sources for the Spirit, one of them would have to be inferior to the other. And that is precisely what the Nicene view of the Trinitarian relations rightly rejected. After considering the historical and theological developments 3

4

5

6

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I.1, The Doctrine of the Word of God (eds G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance; trans. G. W. Bromiley; 4 vols in 13 pts; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975), p. 479. What Torrance and Barth both wanted to affirm at all costs was that what God is towards us in the economy, he is eternally in himself and what he is eternally in himself he is in the economy. And so both theologians would oppose any attempt by Eastern theologians to claim that the procession of the Spirit from the Father took place in God in one way and historically in the mission of the Spirit from the Son in another. That would indeed drive a wedge between who God is eternally and who he is in the economy and would have to raise the question that Torrance himself raises: if the Spirit proceeds only from the Father eternally but is sent by the Son in history since what the Father does he does ‘through the Son, as Basil pointed out’ then ‘Does this mean that the sending of the Spirit by the Son has to do only with revelation and faith, and is not grounded immanently in the eternal Being of God? If so, would that not call in question the full homoousial relation of the Holy Spirit to God the Father?’ Torrance, Christian Doctrine of God, p. 187. Torrance clearly thinks it would and believes Athanasius attacked this very thinking. This would be the ‘incipient subordinationism’ that Torrance finds in the Cappadocians and also in aspects of Western theology. Thomas F. Torrance, Karl Barth: Biblical and Evangelical Theologian (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1990), p. 131. Thomas F. Torrance, Trinitarian Perspectives: Toward Doctrinal Agreement (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), p. 20. Avery Dulles, S. J., ‘The Filioque: What is at Stake?’, Concordia Theological Quarterly 59 (January–April 1995), pp. 31–48 (32). See also Congar, Holy Spirit, pp. 52–3.

22

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

surrounding the filioque, Dulles favoured retaining the filioque for various reasons. Yet he also seemed open to accepting both the Eastern and Western formulations, namely, that the Spirit proceeds ‘from the Father through the Son’ and that the Spirit ‘proceeds from the Father and the Son’ as long as these two expressions are seen as complementary rather than as contradictory7 and as long as both expressions are rightly understood. Yves Congar was more daring since he proposed that the Western Church should suppress the filioque today because we now have ‘an atmosphere which recognizes that two different expressions of a common faith may be compatible and equivalent to each other’8 and such suppression ‘would be a gesture of humility and brotherhood on the part of the Roman Catholic Church which might have wide-reaching ecumenical implications’.9 But, in his view, two conditions must be met. First, the two expressions should follow the agreed path followed at the Council of Florence which held that they were complementary expressions of the same faith. That means that ‘the non-heretical character of the Filioque, properly understood’ must be affirmed and that the depth of the Eastern tradition should be respected as long as the Orthodox do not ‘go beyond the implications in the “from the Father alone” of the monarchy of the Father and the demands made by the New Testament texts’.10 Second, Christians on both sides should be prepared for this ‘so that it may be done in the light, in patience, with respect for each other’s legitimate sensibilities and in love’.11 What is notable about these suggestions is that they open the door to much wider theological agreement because in part they are quite similar to the suggestions offered by T. F. Torrance who was instrumental in formulating the agreed statement on the Trinity in 199112 between the Reformed and Eastern Orthodox churches. As indicated above, Torrance believed that once the element of subordinationism within the Trinity was set aside by firmly asserting the full equality of the three persons as the one God of Christian faith, then there could be no question as to whether or not there was more than one principle of origin 7

8 9 10 11 12

Dulles, ‘The Filioque’, p. 40 and pp. 44–5. Dulles concludes his article saying ‘The toleration of different wording in the Eastern and Western churches seems, then, in this writer’s judgement, ecumenically appropriate at the present time’. This approach is based on suggestions made by Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ (trans. Matthew J. O’Connell; New York: Crossroad, 1986), pp. 221–2. Congar, Holy Spirit, p. 204. Ibid., p. 206. Ibid. Ibid. See Torrance’s own recollections of the events leading up to the ‘Agreed Statement on the Holy Trinity’ between the Orthodox Church and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches on 13 March 1991 in Trinitarian Perspectives, Chapter 6, p. 110.

Theological Issues Involved in the Filioque

23

of the Spirit, because the Spirit would be understood to proceed from the being of the Father and not from the person of the Father in the sense that the Father was the cause of the being either of the Son or of the Spirit. Hence, Torrance himself concluded that both sides could affirm that the Spirit proceeds ‘from the Father through the Son’ and ‘from the Father and the Son’ as long as the full equality of the three persons in the one being of God was maintained.13 But, like Congar, he also had his conditions. One could only accept both of these statements as long as they are not understood to mean: (1) ‘that the Monarchy is limited to the Father which both the Western and the Eastern Church have held in their different ways’; (2) ‘that there is a distinction between the underived Deity of the Father and the derived Deity of the Son and Spirit’ and (3) ‘that the Holy Spirit does not belong equally and completely homoousially with the Father and the Son in their two-way relation within one another in the divine Triunity’.14 In other words as long as the monarchy or the fullness of divinity is not lodged in the Father alone as Person, there would be no possibility of espousing the idea that the Father is the cause of the divinity of the Son and of the Spirit. And as long as the monarchy of God is lodged within the perichoretic relations of the Trinitarian persons, the idea that there could be two ultimate principles that might be the source of the Spirit would never even arise as a possibility. Moreover, Torrance wanted to stress that the formula ‘one Being, three Persons’ had to be understood in a completely personal way to avoid any idea that the one being of God that is common to all three Persons is not personal. Such an idea would rest on a preconceived idea of divine unity and therefore would not be derived from God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ and through the Spirit. It would thus obscure the fact that ‘the “One Being” of God does not refer to some abstract divine essence, but to the intrinsically personal “I am” of God’.15 While neither Dulles nor Congar ever referred to the agreed statement between the Reformed and the Orthodox, it still remains true that both Dulles and Congar on the Roman Catholic side and Torrance on the Reformed side reached very similar conclusions even though the problem of inadvertently espousing the idea of a ‘derived deity’ and Torrance’s emphasis on the personal nature of the divine being might require further ecumenical discussion. Still, these agreements would seem to be extremely promising from an ecumenical perspective. In the rest of this chapter I would like to explore more deeply the theological issues embedded in the filioque by discussing in some depth the reasons why Torrance 13 14 15

Torrance, Christian Doctrine of God, p. 190. Ibid. Torrance, Trinitarian Perspectives, p. 89.

24

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

criticized what he took to be an element of subordinationism in Barth’s doctrine of the Trinity along with a recent proposed solution that relies on Torrance and Barth in order to see whether or not the suggestions of Congar and Dulles on the one side and Torrance on the other could form the basis of a very practical agreement among the Christian churches.

I Torrance and the element of subordinationism in Barth’s doctrine of the Trinity What exactly was Torrance referring to when he spoke of his ‘chief difference with Barth’ with respect to the earlier volumes of the Church Dogmatics? As seen above, Torrance himself says that this difference concerned ‘the element of “subordinationism” in his doctrine of the Holy Trinity’ which he considered a ‘hang-over from Latin theology but also from St Basil’s doctrine of the Trinity’.16 He believed that Barth’s support of the Latin text of the Creed was precisely what left him with that element of ‘subordinationism’. Torrance thought that this influenced his approach to the filioque clause in the Western version of the Nicene Creed. He completely agreed with Barth’s view that the homoousion applied to the Holy Spirit so that the historical mission of the Spirit had to be traced back ‘from the incarnate Son to the eternal mission of the Spirit from the Father’. But, in Torrance’s view, the very problem of the filioque ‘was created by an incipient subordinationism in the Cappadocian doctrine of the Trinity, which the Eastern Church had to answer in one way and the Western Church in another way’.17 His position was that Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen and Cyril of Alexandria all ‘rejected subordinationism in Trinitarian relations’ and if we followed their thinking, the whole issue that led to the filioque never would have arisen in the 16

17

Torrance, Karl Barth, p. 131. Torrance astutely notes two critical points. First, while the term Father refers absolutely to the one being of God which the Father has in common with the Son and Spirit, it also refers relatively to the Father in relation to the Son, that is, to the Person of the Father. Second, Torrance believes that the Cappadocians conflated these two senses by conceiving the unity of God ‘as deriving “from the Person of the Father” and in that way they replaced the Nicene formula which held that the unity of God derived “from the Being of the Father . . .”’ In Torrance’s view this meant that ‘procession is regarded as taking place between different modes of existence or relations of origin, which is hardly satisfactory for it falls short of affirming the homoousion of the Spirit’, Christian Doctrine of God, p. 186. Gregory Nazianzen was the exception here, ibid., pp. 186–7. Nonetheless the Cappadocians rejected Arian and Macedonian ideas that the Spirit was created by God. Augustine also rejected the Arian idea that the Son is subordinate to the Father by affirming the filioque. However, Western theologians following this view mistakenly also espoused the idea that the Spirit proceeds ‘from the Father principally (principaliter)’ and so the conflation seen in the Cappadocian view also seeped into the theology of the West. Ibid., p. 132, 208.

Theological Issues Involved in the Filioque

25

first place and there would have been no reason for division between East and West. He believes that if we return to their approach then ‘the unecumenical Western intrusion of the filioque clause into the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed simply falls away’.18 Moreover, according to Torrance, Gregory Nazianzen not only influenced both Calvin and Barth, but ‘had expressed some serious misgivings with respect to the teaching of his fellow Cappadocians Basil and his brother Gregory’.19 The crucial issue here concerns the idea of causality. Torrance held that the Cappadocians ‘were tempted to account for the oneness and threeness of God through recourse to the dangerous analogy of three different people having a common nature’ and that left them open to the charge of tritheism which they strongly rejected.20 But, according to Torrance, they attempted to preserve God’s oneness by claiming that God the Father, who is himself without generation or origination, is the one Principle or Origin (ἀρχή) and Cause (αἰτία) of the Son and the Spirit, although in such a way that there is no interval of existence, time or space between them and no “before” or “after” in the order of their being.21

Their notion of cause was unique in that it consisted of and was continuous with its effects. Gregory Nyssen spoke of the Son and Spirit being caused not in their nature but with respect to their ‘mode of existence’. Yet, ‘he thought of the being of Holy Spirit as grounded through the being of the Son in the being of the Father’.22 At this point Torrance notes a twofold problem in the way Gregory Nyssen presents the procession of the Spirit. These are the words of Gregory: The Holy Spirit, from whom the supply of all good things in the creation has its source, is attached to the Son with whom he is inseparably apprehended. He depends for his being on the Father as Cause, from whom he also proceeds. It is the identifying mark of his hypostatic nature that he is known after and with the Son, and that he derives his subsistence from the Father.23

In Torrance’s judgement this statement suggests that the Cappadocians’ response to the charge of tritheism and their effort to maintain the oneness of the Godhead 18

19 20

21 22 23

Ibid., p. 132. Like Torrance, Barth believed that materially East and West did not disagree about the procession of the Spirit from the beginning (Barth, CD I.1, p. 477). Ibid., p. 209. Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), p. 237. Ibid. Ibid., p. 238. Gregory/Basil, Ep. 38.4 cited in Torrance, Trinitarian Faith, p. 238.

26

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century by referring the three Persons to a single Principle (ἀρχή) or Cause (αἰτία) in the Father, were made at the expense of a damaging distinction between the Deity of the Father as wholly underived or “uncaused”, and the Deity of the Son and of the Spirit as eternally derived or “caused”.24

In addition, when they differentiated the Trinitarian Persons ‘they cast the internal relations between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit into the consecutive structure of a causal series or a “chain” of dependence “through the Son”’.25 What they should have done is conceptualize the Persons more as Athanasius and Gregory Nazianzen, following Athanasius, had done. Instead of focusing on causality, they should have focused on the ‘living will of God’ (Athanasius) or ‘the identity of being, movement and will in God’ (Gregory Nazianzen).26 What Torrance finds helpful in the thought of Gregory Nazianzen is the fact that he stressed that God’s unity was ‘complete not primarily in the Father but in each Person as well as in all of them’.27 This is the key insight of Athanasius. And while Gregory Nazianzen also used causal language when referring to the Son and Spirit and referred to the Father as ἀρχή, he was, according to Torrance, also aware of the difficulties in that language in that it could imply that the Father is greater and that the Son and Spirit could be thought of as inferior to the Father as first principle. This would ‘insult’ the Father with ‘the idea of precedence in honour . . . For there is no greater or less in respect of the being of the consubstantial Persons . . . To subordinate any of the three is to overthrow the Trinity’.28 Ultimately, Gregory Nazianzen thought of the Persons as relations ‘subsisting in God which are beyond all time . . . beyond all origin . . ., and beyond all cause’.29 Cyril of Alexandria later took up this idea of the divine relations while specifically rejecting any idea of causality within the Trinity.30 There were additional complications. Gregory Nyssen attempted to address the question of whether or not the being and existence of the Son and Spirit were to be traced back to the person of the Father. His solution was ambiguous because on the one hand he claimed that the word God signifies being and not 24

25 26 27 28 29 30

Torrance, Trinitarian Faith, p. 238, with references to Gregory Nazianzen to support his critique and to support his own view, following Gregory Nazianzen, that the Godhead can be referred to as the Μοναρχία. Ibid., p. 238. Ibid., pp. 238–9. Ibid., p. 239. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 240.

Theological Issues Involved in the Filioque

27

person. This would imply that ‘the Father is not God in virtue of his Fatherhood but in virtue of his being; otherwise neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit would be God’.31 On the other hand he simultaneously argued that everything ‘proceeds from the Father as the centre of unity, who is properly called “God” for it is in his ὑπόστασις that the ἀρχή of Deity is lodged’.32 In the end this suggests that the Son and Spirit do not derive their deity from the Father but ‘only their Persons’ or ‘their distinctive modes of existence . . . for the όὐσία of Deity is one and the same in all’.33 In that sense the Son and Spirit can be considered as ‘derived from and causally dependent on the ὑπόστασις or πρόσωπον of the Father’.34 Whereas the term Father was classically used to refer both to the Godhead of God and to the Person of the Father within the Trinity without separating these two senses, the Cappadocians completely conflated these two senses in which God is Father into one and left the Church with the problem ‘as to the significance of the Fatherhood of God, and as to the oneness of the Trinity’.35 This is a big enough problem. But there was an additional difficulty – they also shifted the emphasis from the homoousios ‘as the key to the identity, intrinsic oneness, and internal relations of the Holy Trinity, to emphasis upon the three diverse ὑποστάσeις as united through the Μοναρχία of the Father and through having one being in common’.36 All of this weakened Athanasius’ idea that ‘whatever we say of the Father we say of the Son and the Spirit except “Father”’.37 According to Torrance, for Athanasius and for Alexander any idea that the Father alone was ἀρχή in this sense ‘was an Arian concept’.38 Athanasius’ view that ‘the whole Godhead is in the Son and in the Spirit’ so that ‘they must be included with the Father in the one originless ἀρχή of the Holy Trinity’ is to be preferred.39 In Torrance’s view then even though the Cappadocian stress on the one being, three persons of the Trinity helped Christians come to a better view of the distinctive modes of existence of the persons, it discounted the real meaning of ‘όὺσία as being in its internal relations’ and robbed ‘οὺσία of its profound personal sense which was so prominent at Nicaea’.40 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 240–1. Ibid., p. 241. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 242.

28

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

II Barth and the element of subordinationism With this material in place, perhaps we can understand better what Torrance might have meant when he spoke of the element of ‘subordinationism’ in Barth’s doctrine of the Trinity. He certainly would have agreed with Barth’s description of Jesus’ Sonship. But he would have objected to the way Barth distinguished God the Reconciler from God the Creator even in CD I.1 as Barth spoke of Father/Son relation in terms of super- and subordination. Thus, on the one hand, Barth clearly wished to ascribe subordination to Jesus the Son acting as God the Reconciler for us (i.e., an economic subordination with which Torrance would agree) as when he explained that it was in the light of the unity of content of revelation and the person of the Revealer that we then understood the original and proper sense of the fatherhood of God: He is Father because he is the Father of this His only-begotten Son. From the same unity we at once have the further result of the divine sonship of Jesus Christ. There is no abstract person of the Revealer, but the person of the Revealer is the person of Jesus Christ who is subordinate to the Creator revealed by it, yet who is also indissolubly co-ordinate with Him, who is with Him; in this person the revelation is a reality . . . there is no Jesus per se who might then acquire also the predicate of a bearer of the revelation of his Father. Nor is there any revelation of the Father per se which might then be apprehended in Jesus in an exemplary and pre-eminent fashion. Jesus is the revelation of the Father and the revelation of the Father is Jesus. And precisely in virtue of this “is” He is the Son or Word of the Father. (I.1, p. 412)41

Barth goes on to explain that there is an order between creation and reconciliation and that the latter follows and does not precede the former while it is through the latter that we understand God the Creator and through the former that we perceive the Reconciler. He says we must distinguish these two ‘in such a way that we perceive and acknowledge the relation of subordination that is present here’ (I.1, p. 413). This means that ‘the Reconciler is not the Creator, and that as the Reconciler He follows the Creator, that He accomplishes, as it were, a second divine act – not an act which we can deduce from the first, whose sequence from the first we can survey and see to be necessary, but still a second act which for all its newness and inconceivability is related to the first’ (I.1, p. 413). In other words God is first the Father in heaven who creates and then 41

At this point Barth connects this thinking with his rejection of ebionite and docetic approaches to Jesus, just as Torrance does in following Barth in this.

Theological Issues Involved in the Filioque

29

in a free act the incarnate Son who reconciles us to himself. There is therefore an order of creation and reconciliation. To this order, on the other hand, Barth then claims that there corresponds christologically the order of Father and Son or Father and Word. Jesus Christ as the Reconciler cannot precede the Creator, “our Father in heaven”. He stands to Him in the irreversible relation of following on Him and from Him as the son follows on the father. . . . But again this subordination and sequence cannot imply any distinction of being; it can only signify a distinction in the mode of being . . . Here, then, sonship as well as fatherhood, in and with the super- and subordination expressed thereby, is to be understood as unrestrictedly true deity. (I.1, pp. 413–14, emphasis mine)42

In light of what was said above, I think one can easily see that there is some ambiguity in this particular expression of the matter in the sense that Barth does not clearly and consistently indicate that the subordination of Jesus the incarnate Son, the Reconciler, to the Father is an act of economic condescension for our sakes and not a subordination within the Father/Son relation. This seems to be exactly what Torrance was objecting to in the reasoning of the Cappadocians discussed above. To put this in Torrance’s words: ‘the subjection of Christ to the Father in his incarnate economy as the suffering and obedient Servant cannot be read back into the eternal hypostatic relations and distinctions subsisting in the Holy Trinity’.43 Here one must distinguish clearly between the order of the persons within the Trinity and their being – the Father is first in order – but Father, Son and Spirit eternally coexist as three fully co-equal Persons in a perichoretic togetherness and in-each-otherness in such a way that, in accordance with the particular aspect of divine revelation and salvation immediately in view, as in the New Testament Scriptures, there may be an appropriate variation in the trinitarian order from that given in Baptism.44 42

43

44

At least one contemporary theologian observes that Barth ‘distinguishes between two forms of subordination within the Trinity’. First, ‘“Subordination [Unterordnungsverhältnis] regarding their deity”’ (I.1, p. 393) which Barth unequivocally rejects, and second ‘“the relation of subordination [Unterordnungsverhältnis]”’ (I.1, p. 413) which Barth favours as ‘a matter of the distinction and relationality between the various modes of being of the one essence’, Adam J. Johnson, God’s Being in Reconciliation: The Theological Basis of the Unity and Diversity of the Atonement in the Theology of Karl Barth (London/New York: T&T Clark International, 2012), pp. 73–4, n. 37. Johnson concludes by saying that ‘Barth reaffirms and more fully explores the nature of this Trinitarian subordination in CD IV.1, pp. 200–10’, ibid., p. 74. Torrance, Christian Doctrine of God, p. 180. Importantly, Torrance claims that this is part of the significance of 1 Cor. 15.24 and Phil. 2.7–10. Ibid.

30

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

Nonetheless, according to Torrance, ‘both Athanasius and Basil counselled the Church to keep to the order of the divine Persons given in Holy Baptism, if only to counter the damaging heresy of Sabellianism’.45 The additional problem here is that any confounding of the order of the persons within the immanent Trinity with their co-equal being will necessarily result in some form of subordination, which will inadvertently lead to a weakening of the divine unity and thus the co-equality of the persons that both Barth and Torrance tirelessly sought to uphold. Moreover, it will open the door for a perceived need for the filioque, which Torrance claims never would have happened if the full co-equality of the persons of the Trinity were upheld in the strong Athanasian sense. That then is the issue that arises when one inadvertently reads back elements of the economy into the immanent Trinity. It may seem like a minor point, but it has wide-ranging implications because whenever that happens, God’s eternal being and action are made to be dependent upon his relations with the world in some way and to that extent his free love becomes indistinguishable from our human love. I do not believe that Barth himself drew this conclusion. But a number of his followers certainly have.46 Once that conclusion is drawn, however, it is only a short move to the kind of thinking that equates love of neighbour with love of God and leads to arguments like those of John Hick who claims that the Golden Rule is all that is necessary for all religions because we are all called to treat others as we would have them treat us. He then claims that it is unnecessary and incorrect to assert that salvation can come only in and through Jesus himself.47 45 46

47

Ibid. See, for example, Paul Dafydd Jones, ‘Obedience, Trinity, and Election: Thinking With and Beyond the Church Dogmatics’, in Trinity and Election in Contemporary Theology (ed. Dempsey; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), pp. 138–61. He claims ‘that the eternal identity of the Son encompasses and, in a sense, is constituted by the concrete life of Jesus Christ’, p. 155. And he also argues that ‘the incarnation, as an elective event of divine self-transformation, intensifies God’s triune self-differentiation’, Paul Daffyd Jones, The Humanity of Christ: Christology in Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2008), p. 212. Both of these ideas undermine the unity and Trinity within the immanent Trinity by making the eternal Son’s deity in some sense dependent on events that will occur or do occur ad extra. Jesus’ human life does not constitute his identity as the eternal Son and election does not transform the Son since he remains the God he always was and is even in the incarnation. For a rather overt example of someone espousing the idea of a dependent deity, see Wolfhart Pannenberg: ‘God, through the creation of the world, made himself radically dependent on this creation and on its history’ (italics in original), ‘Problems of a Trinitarian Doctrine of God’, Dialog 26 (1987), p. 255. See also Ted Peters, GOD as Trinity: Relationality and Temporality in Divine Life (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), who claims that ‘God is in the process of becoming Godself through relationship with the temporal creation’, p. 92, and says that ‘the fullness of God as Trinity is a reality yet to be achieved in the eschatological consummation’, p. 16. Finally, he properly claims that ‘the God of Jesus Christ is inextricably and passionately involved in the affairs of human history’ and then mistakenly concludes that ‘this involvement is constitutive of the trinitarian life proper’, p. 82. See, for example, Paul D. Molnar, Incarnation and Resurrection: Toward a Contemporary Understanding (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), pp. 244–60, esp. p. 255.

Theological Issues Involved in the Filioque

31

This reading of subordination back into the immanent Trinity becomes even more explicit in CD IV.1 precisely because Barth carries his confusion of the order of the persons with their being to their logical conclusion by introducing a prius and a posterius as well as a superiority and subordination into the immanent Trinity as a condition for the possibility of the actions ad extra of the Son and Spirit. Both Torrance and Barth think of the obedience of the Son as God’s condescension to a life of humble obedience for our benefit. Thus both of them speak of the incarnate Son as the judge judged in our place,48 and both utterly reject any idea that God is in conflict with himself in acting for us, as well as any sort of modalism and subordinationism within the being of God or any idea that God changes in acting for us either. But, Barth goes beyond this to argue that the basis for what the incarnate Son does for us is to be found in the obedience and subordination of the Son within the immanent Trinity. Barth did of course mention that it is a difficult and tricky or elusive thing to speak about an ‘obedience that takes place in God himself ’ (IV.1, p. 195). Even so, he argues that ‘obedience implies an above and a below, a prius [before] and a posterius [after], a superior and a junior and subordinate’; indeed, Barth insists that ‘a below, a posterius, a subordination . . . belongs to the inner life of God’ (IV.1, p. 201). Barth then asks whether or not these ideas compromise the unity and equality of the divine being, wondering how God can be one and also ‘above and below, the superior and the subordinate’ (IV.1, p. 195) and whether or not such thinking might invite the idea of two divine beings, one of which is not properly divine at all because he exists only within creation. Of course he opposes any such thinking. The question here, however, is this: why does Barth think he must introduce superiority and subordination into God’s inner life, as when he goes on to say that ‘a below, a posterius, a subordination . . . belongs to the inner life of God’ (IV.1, p. 201) to make the same point that Torrance makes? That point of course is that God acts as man in the incarnation so that God suffers both as God and as man for us in order to destroy sin, suffering, evil and death. But Torrance also thoroughly rejects any attempt to introduce superiority and subordination into the immanent Trinity. Both theologians of course firmly rejected the modalist idea that God the Father suffers eternally even while they accepted that there was an element of truth in the erroneous position of Patripassianism.49 In CD I.1 Barth also wrote 48

49

See IV.1, p. 157, pp. 211–83 and Thomas F. Torrance, Atonement: The Person and Work of Christ (ed. Robert T. Walker; Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster and Downers Grove: IVP, 2009), p. 148, 184. See, for example, Torrance, Christian Doctrine of God, p. 199, The Doctrine of Jesus Christ (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2002), pp. 146–7 and p. 163; Barth, IV.2, p. 357. Both theologians agree that

32

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

that ‘If revelation is to be taken seriously as God’s presence, if there is to be a valid belief in revelation, then in no sense can Christ and the Spirit be subordinate hypostases’ (I.1, p. 353, emphasis mine). With Barth, Torrance believes that what God is toward us, he is in himself, and also holds firmly to the fact that there is no God behind the back of Jesus Christ; both also insist that the incarnate life of Jesus falls within the being of the eternal Trinity. But never once does Torrance attempt to ground these assertions in a superiority and subordination within the immanent Trinity; nor does he claim there is a prius or a posterius in God’s inner being.50 In fact, following Calvin, Torrance writes: the principium of the Father does not import an ontological priority, or some prius aut posterius in God, but has to do only with a “form of order” (ratio ordinis) or “arrangement” (dispositio) of inner trinitarian relations governed by the Father/Son relationship, which in the nature of the case is irreversible, together with the relationship of the Father and the Son to the Spirit who is the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son.51

Consequently, Torrance firmly and consistently argues that ‘the subordination of Christ to the Father in his incarnate and saving economy cannot be read back into the eternal personal relations and distinctions subsisting in the Holy Trinity’.52 A full treatment of this matter cannot be presented here.53 But it is worth noting two statements made by Barth that lead more to confusion than to clarity. These are statements Torrance expressly avoids because he does not ascribe the Monarchy to the person of the Father but rather to the being of the Father which is also the being of the Son and Spirit; therefore Torrance consistently avoids any notion at all that the Son and Spirit derive their deity from the Father. Furthermore, Torrance consistently emphasizes the doctrine of perichoresis at precisely this point and so avoids confusing the order of the Persons with their unity of being. First, speaking of God’s pre-temporal election in relation to Jesus’ human existence Barth claims that ‘In this free act of the election of grace the Son of the Father is no longer just the eternal Logos, but as such, as very God from all

50

51 52 53

‘it is God, really God in Christ, who suffers and bears the sin of the world – that is the particle of truth . . . as Karl Barth once said, in the Patripassian heresy’ (The Doctrine of Jesus Christ, p. 167). In the rare instance where Torrance speaks of ‘a “before” and an “after” in the life of God’ he attempts to make sense of the fact that the incarnation was something new even for God. See Thomas F. Torrance, Preaching Christ Today: The Gospel and Scientific Thinking (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), p. 69 and Paul D. Molnar, Thomas F. Torrance: Theologian of the Trinity (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), pp. 253–9. See also Christian Doctrine of God, pp. 241–2. Torrance, Trinitarian Perspectives, p. 66; cf. also ibid., pp. 28–36, pp. 118–20 and p. 133. Ibid., p. 67. For a full treatment of this matter, see Paul D. Molnar, ‘The Obedience of the Son in the Theology of Karl Barth and of Thomas F. Torrance’, Scottish Journal of Theology 67 (2014), pp. 50–69.

Theological Issues Involved in the Filioque

33

eternity He is also the very God and very man He will become in time’ (IV.1, p. 66). How can God already be God and man before he becomes man in time? While Barth clearly meant to distinguish God’s predestination of himself to be born of the Virgin for our salvation and affirmed that that event would occur in the fullness of time, he has unfortunately been read as collapsing the inner Trinitarian relations (the processions) into the missions. If he had done so, that would be a clear indication that he had indeed conceptually reduced God to who and what God is for us in his missions. He certainly did not do that when he asserted that to speak of the Son’s being begotten of the Father before all time means that the pre-existent Son who exists as God for us by virtue of the incarnation ‘did not come into being in an event within the created world’ (I.1, p. 426). Indeed, Jesus Christ does not first become God’s Son when He is it for us. He becomes it from eternity; He becomes it as the eternal Son of the eternal Father. . . . But this becoming (because it is this becoming) rules out every need of this being for completion. Indeed, this becoming simply confirms the perfection of this being. (I.1, p. 427)54

That is why Barth could and did say that We can certainly say that we see the love of God to man originally grounded upon the eternal relation of God, Father and Son. But as this love is already free and unconstrained in God Himself, so, too, and only then rightly, is it free in its realisation towards man. That is, in His Word becoming flesh, God acts with inward freedom and not in fulfilment of a law to which He is supposedly subject. His Word will still be His Word apart from this becoming, just as Father, Son and Holy Spirit would be none the less eternal God, if no world had been created. (I.2, p. 135 emphases mine)

And that is something that he theoretically maintained throughout his career. It is certainly something Torrance consistently maintained in the interest of affirming the sovereignty of God’s grace and judgement. For instance, Torrance insisted that ‘the incarnation was not a timeless event like the generation of the Son from the Being of the Father’.55 This is a complex issue as there are times when Barth is very clear in making such distinctions, as when he says: ‘Jesus Christ 54

55

Compare this to Torrance’s assertion that God’s eternal being is ‘also a divine Becoming’ but that ‘This does not mean that God ever becomes other than he eternally is or that he passes over from becoming into being something else. . . . His Becoming is not a becoming on the way toward being or toward a fullness of being . . . Becoming expresses the dynamic nature of his Being’, Christian Doctrine of God, p. 242. Torrance, Christian Doctrine of God, p. 144.

34

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

was at the beginning. He was not at the beginning of God, for God has indeed no beginning. But He was at the beginning of all things, at the beginning of God’s dealings with the reality which is distinct from Himself . . . He was the election of God’s grace as directed towards man’ (II.2, p. 102).56 Second, Barth claims that ‘In His mode of being as the Son He fulfils the divine subordination, just as the Father in His mode of being as the Father fulfils the divine superiority’ (IV.1, p. 209).57 This too is a confusing remark because the eternal persons within the being of God do not need to fulfil anything even according to Barth’s own understanding of the Trinity. The only way this statement could make sense is if Barth clearly had stated at this point that what the Son fulfils in his mission is the eternal divine decree to be God for us and thus to act as our Reconciler. To assert simply that the Son fulfils his subordination and that the Father fulfils his superiority within the immanent Trinity inadvertently implies that God needs some sort of fulfilment which perhaps then is finally realized in his actions within history for us. That is something that Barth firmly rejected as when he wrote: ‘In order to not be alone, single, enclosed within Himself, God did not need co-existence with the creature. . . . Without the creature He has all this originally in Himself ’ (IV.1, p. 201).58 But it is certainly a road taken by all too many of his followers as already noted above!

III Understanding the divine Monarchy: T. F. Torrance and the current discussion My intention has been to show that the issues related to the filioque do not stand in isolation but involve many theological concerns, especially as these 56

57

58

George Hunsinger, ‘Election and the Trinity: Twenty-Five Theses on the Theology of Karl Barth’, Modern Theology 24 (April 2008), pp. 181–3 explains perfectly that when Barth says that Jesus Christ is the subject of election he is not speaking without qualification. While I think much of Rowan Williams’ critique of Barth is off the mark, his observation about this remark is interesting: ‘What, if anything, this can possibly mean, neither Barth nor his interpreters have succeded (sic) in telling us’, ‘Barth on the Triune God’, in Karl Barth: Studies of his Theological Method (ed. S. W. Sykes; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), p. 175. Here Barth was inconsistent in distinguishing without separating the processions and missions, the immanent and economic Trinity. See II.1, p. 306. and I.1, p. 427 as well as IV.1, p. 113 and especially IV.2, p. 755 where Barth says ‘God loves, and to do so He does not need any being distinct from His own as the object of His love. If He loves the world and us, this is a free overflowing of the love in which He is and is God and with which he is not content, although He might be, since neither the world nor ourselves are indispensable to His love and therefore to His being’. Torrance agrees with this (Christian Doctrine of God, p. 242).

Theological Issues Involved in the Filioque

35

have been contrasted in the thinking of Barth and Torrance. Now I will illustrate exactly how these problems are still very much in evidence in the thinking of those who inadvertently introduce some notion of causality into the Father/Son relation. A recent article discussing Torrance’s view of the divine Monarchy does a largely admirable job duly stressing his emphasis on the twofold meaning of God’s Fatherhood as noted above. But when the author turns to Karl Barth’s understanding of these matters, the critical issues raised by Torrance himself to Barth are glossed over, even though Torrance’s objection to the element of subordination in Barth’s doctrine of the Trinity is noted in a footnote. The question about whether or not Barth has illegitimately read back elements of the economy into the immanent Trinity is not addressed, though the author claims that Barth’s account of ‘the Father’s property of mastery and the Son’s property of service’ is better than Torrance’s account.59 He maintains that Torrance simply avoids the question concerning the Son’s obedience and the Father’s superiority. But the fact is that Torrance does not avoid this question at all. As already illustrated, he firmly rejects any idea of ascribing superiority or subordination to the eternal Trinitarian persons in the interest of avoiding modalism and subordinationism and in the interest of recognizing the freedom of grace. The point to be made here, however, is simply this – whenever subordination is introduced into the immanent Trinity, problematic conclusions follow. Hence, The Father and the Son, together God and servant, origin and consequence, begetting and begotten, majestic and humble, are never apart from one another, and the dynamics of their interrelationship, free, loving and mutual are fulfilled, perfected and brought to completion by the work of the Holy Spirit.60

We have already seen that one cannot speak of the Holy Spirit fulfilling, perfecting and bringing to completion the love of the Father and Son since all three persons of the Trinity are fully God and thus fully perfect in their perichoretic mutual love and freedom within the eternal Trinity. What is perfected by the Spirit is the work of the Trinity within the economy of salvation. Missing from this thinking is any realistic attempt to distinguish without separating the immanent and economic Trinity. Hence, one then might say that in John’s Gospel 59

60

Benjamin Dean, ‘Person and Being: Conversation with T. F. Torrance about the Monarchy of God’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 15 (January 2013), pp. 58–77 (69). Ibid.

36

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century A unity of Being and purpose between the Father and the Son is affirmed alongside the Father’s bestowal and the Son’s consistent deference: “the Father sends Jesus; Jesus obeys and depends on the Father; he comes from and returns to the Father; and the Father does his work and speaks his words through him”.61

Further, the ‘Father communicates self-existence, ultimate right of rule and determination to the Son (through the Spirit)’.62 But this thinking approximates only too closely the notion of causality Torrance rightly rejects when he opposes any idea that the Father causes the deity of the Son and Spirit. What is present here is the very unfortunate insinuation that God’s love is in need of perfection and that this is what occurs as Christ lived out his being in the servant form of his activity for our sakes. Beyond this, after some exegesis of John’s Gospel arguing that the Father ‘has original self-existence, life and ultimate authority in and from himself (5.26)’ and that the Father ‘has conferred . . . similar life and authority to the Son’63 there is a rather unfortunate but consistent confusion of the processions with the missions. Finally, we are told that ‘According to Person, ontological priority and absolute authority belong to the Father. According to Being, ontological supremacy and absolute reign, rule and authority belong equally to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.’64 While this may appear to be an ideal solution on the surface, there is a deep problem embedded in this suggestion. According to Torrance, any idea that the principium of the Father with respect to the order of the Trinitarian Persons might imply ‘an ontological priority, or some prius aut posterius in God’ must lead to some sort of subordinationism.65 Any denial that all three Persons are equal in authority and power is in reality a denial of their oneness in being.66 Such denial inevitably follows the confusion of the immanent and economic Trinity as when it is said that ‘The Father’s authority has been unilaterally delegated to the Son’67 and that ‘it is the Father who has original self-existence, life and ultimate authority in and from himself ’.68 Torrance’s understanding of this matter is much clearer and to be preferred as when he writes 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

Ibid., p. 71. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 72. Torrance, Trinitarian Perspectives, p. 66. See Torrance, Christian Doctrine of God, p. 176. Dean, ‘Person and Being’, p. 71. Ibid.

Theological Issues Involved in the Filioque

37

This priority in order or Monarchy of the Father within the trinitarian relations is consonant with the Father’s relation to the Son and the Spirit within the indivisibility of the Triune Being of God. Hence the priority or Monarchy of the Father within the Holy Trinity must not be taken to imply a priority or superiority in Deity.69

This is because ‘It refers to the fact that “the Son is begotten of the Father, not the Father of the Son”, which is the order manifested in the incarnation between the Father and his only begotten Son, and is reflected in the sending of the Holy Spirit by the Father in the name of the Son’.70 Ultimately, the problem here can be skilfully summed up in the words of Torrance himself: the inner trinitarian order is not to be understood in an ontologically differential way, for it does not apply to the Being or the Deity of the divine Persons which each individually and all together have absolutely in common, but only to the mysterious “disposition or economy” which they have among themselves within the unity of the Godhead, distinguished by position and not status, by form and not being, by sequence and not power, for they are fully and perfectly equal.71

Torrance is criticized for allowing the Father’s person to recede ‘into the background’ because he refuses to think ‘of the Father’s Person as in himself the hypostatic root of God’s self-existence, kingly reign and rule’.72 But that was precisely Torrance’s point in emphasizing the homoousion in the first place and appealing to Athanasius and others to exclude any notion of a derived deity which is clearly implied whenever the Father is portrayed as the ‘hypostatic root of God’s self-existence’. Here it must be said that any attempt to build upon and then expand Torrance’s thinking by introducing some type of causality into the eternal Trinity by ascribing eternal obedience to the Son as a condition of his actions ad extra will always end up in conflict with Torrance’s most important positive contributions to the doctrine of the Trinity. As we have just seen, Torrance refuses to confuse the order of the persons with their oneness in being and thus does indeed avoid modalism, tritheism and subordinationism at every turn. Introducing the ideas of command and obedience into the Trinity in a manner similar to that of Karl Barth does indeed end by confusing the order of the personal relations with the being of the Trinity. Hence, it can be said that 69 70 71 72

Torrance, Christian Doctrine of God, p. 176. Ibid. Ibid. Dean, ‘Person and Being’, p. 74.

38

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century with respect to the Three Persons of God, the Father alone is the principle (principium), source (archē) and cause/explanation (aitia); yet according to the One Being of God the Three are each principle, source and cause/explanation. The Father is most basic and ultimate according to Person, yet the Son and the Spirit are equally basic and ultimate according to Being.73

This distinction unfortunately places God’s being in conflict with the persons precisely because of the notion of causality that is introduced as when it is said that ‘the Father contributes or lends his personal property of rule and authority to the Godhead’.74 This thinking obviates the most important insight offered by Torrance: any claim that the Father is the cause of the Son and the Spirit has to involve an element of subordinationism and to that extent a negation of the homoousion of the three persons. To then claim that according to their being each person is equally basic and ultimate simply places two opposed insights side by side without allowing the persons to be perichoretically one and three within the one being of God in such a way that the Father is first in order or sequence but not in any way the sole principle of the Godhead. This thinking is exactly the thinking that Torrance rightly claims led to the perceived need for the filioque in the first place. While it must be affirmed with Torrance that ‘The Fatherhood and the Sonship of God are as ultimate and eternal as one another, for the Father and the Son are who they are in their mutual inter-personal relations with one another’75 it must also be noted that whenever elements of the economy are illegitimately read back into the immanent Trinity, Torrance’s main insights are disrupted. When that occurs, inconsistency results so that on the one hand one would rightly insist that it is wrong to assert that there is ‘something ontologically prior or primordial to the Son’.76 But on the other hand it is also asserted that ‘ontological priority and absolute authority belong to the Father [as Person]’.77 Unfortunately, this confusion of the order of the persons with their being introduces an element of subordinationism into the immanent Trinity. While Torrance is said to ‘overlook the Father’s hypostatic properties of aseity, initiative, authority and rule’78 because of the way he thinks about perichoresis,79 the truth of the matter is that the ideas espoused in this attempt to correct Torrance’s thinking demonstrate once again 73 74 75 76 77 78 79

Ibid., p. 75. Ibid. Ibid., p. 76, citing Torrance, Christian Doctrine of God, p. 205. Ibid. Ibid., p. 72. Ibid., p. 77. Ibid., p. 76.

Theological Issues Involved in the Filioque

39

just what problems follow from illegitimately reading back elements such as the Son’s incarnate or economic subordination to the Father into the immanent Trinity. While claiming to maintain the full equality of Father, Son and Spirit, such thinking will not allow that, as long as an ontological priority of the Father within the immanent Trinity is allowed. Hence, it can be said that ‘the Father’s Monarchy is definitive within God’s Being, though this is without implying something ontologically prior or primordial to the Son and the Spirit’.80 But that is exactly the question. Torrance refuses to ascribe definitive Monarchy to the Father within God’s being because any such move has to result in embracing the notion of degrees of deity! Torrance’s whole point in speaking of God the Father absolutely and relatively was not to ascribe definitive Monarchy to the Father, since for Torrance the Father’s Monarchy refers only to a form of order within the Trinity and the Monarchy refers to the being of the persons of the Trinity in their perichoretic relations.

IV Conclusion Torrance’s thinking about the unity and Trinity of God is fully in line with the classical doctrine of the Trinity espoused by Catholics, Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans and Reformed. It is enshrined in the Orthodox and Reformed Agreement on the Trinity. And it allows Torrance himself to assert that all Christians can legitimately speak of the Spirit proceeding ‘from the Father through the Son’ and ‘from the Father and the Son’ as long as there is no confusion of the order of the persons with their unity of being; as long as there is no espousal of a concept of derived deity with respect to the Son and Spirit. Ultimately, this proposal is quite close to the position advocated by Yves Congar and Avery Dulles from the Catholic side, namely, that both formulas could be used to express a common faith when rightly understood. Certainly Congar is more daring than Dulles in suggesting that the West might suppress the filioque. And Torrance would have no qualms in following him in this. On this basis, it would appear that there is ample reason why Catholics could continue in this dialogue toward acceptance of the Agreed Statement of the Reformed and Orthodox theologians and move forward to more formal agreement on this matter.

80

Ibid.

4

The Filioque: Reviewing the State of the Question, with some Free Church Contributions David Guretzki

This book is a collection of analytical and constructive reflections on the ancient dispute over the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit, usually referred to in shorthand as the ‘filioque’. Jaroslav Pelikan wryly notes: If there is a special circle of the inferno described by Dante reserved for historians of theology, the principal homework assigned to that subdivision of hell for at least the first several eons of eternity may well be the thorough study of all the treatises—in Latin, Greek, Church Slavonic, and various modern languages— devoted to the inquiry: Does the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father only, as Eastern Christendom contends, or from both the Father and the Son (ex Patre Filioque), as the Latin Church teaches?1

Given Pelikan’s colourful description, sceptics might think that we, the contributing authors to this book (representing a wide spectrum of theological and ecclesiastical perspectives) are doing nothing more than adding yet another day or two of reading to this ‘infernal homework’. Surely, many might contend, the controversy is no further along than when it first surfaced some 1500 years ago! Yet such a jaded perspective on the matter would be mistaken. Though a satisfactory ‘solution’ to the filioque controversy which would satisfy Orthodox, Catholic and Protestants alike is yet to be found, progress has been made on the question, even within the last few decades. Consequently, the task of this chapter will be to provide a short ‘state of the question’ on the filioque debate: Where is the Church at on the thorny question of the Spirit’s procession? Are there things that can be broadly and positively agreed upon, even if not universally? 1

Jaroslav Pelikan, The Melody of Theology: A Philosophical Dictionary (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 90.

The Filioque: Reviewing the State of the Question

41

The corollary to that question is: Which aspects of the debate might now be able to be set aside? And in contrast to broad agreements, What aspects of the debate remain unresolved and in need of further investigation? Once the state of the question has been completed, as part of my own contribution as a theologian working in an evangelical theological context, I will provide some brief reflections on the role and potential contributions of Free Church participants in the filioque debate. In this regard, I will argue that two of the most important contributions Free Church theology can offer pertain to the present ecclesiological structure of ecumenical debate, and to the essential methodological commitment to the Scripture principle which Free Church theologians embrace. One small proviso before moving forward: the limitations of this short review prohibit a detailed historical account of the ecclesiastical and scholarly activity pertaining to the filioque even in the last half-century. In this regard, both Siecienski and Oberdorfer’s landmark monographs in English and German respectively yield rich introductions to the history of the dispute.2 Furthermore, it is far beyond the purview of this essay to enter too deeply into details and we will modestly seek to keep the discussion at a bird’s-eye view rather than delving too deeply into technicalities. Attention both to the literature highlighted in the footnotes and the subsequent chapters of this book will give readers an abundance of technical depth to keep them busy for a long time!

I The filioque: Reviewing the state of the question The latter third of the twentieth century witnessed a flurry of ecumenical theological activity on the filioque debate. However, a broad-ranging analysis of this ecumenical activity reveals some promising broad agreement on both general and specific elements of the debate. So, what have been the signs of progress in the filioque debate? And what are broad areas of consensus which can be celebrated, even while attempting to reach ecumenical agreement? Although some of the things to be mentioned below might appear obvious in retrospect, they still need to be noted precisely because they have not always been obvious. 2

See A. Edward Siecienski, The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); and Bernd Oberdorfer, Filioque: Geschichte und Theologie eines ökumenischen Problems (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001). For shorter historical analyses, see Dietrich Ritschl, ‘The History of the Filioque Controversy’, in Conflicts About the Holy Spirit (eds Hans Kung and Jurgen Moltmann; New York: The Seabury Press, 1979), pp. 3–14; Boris Bobrinskoy, ‘The Filioque Yesterday and Today’, in La Signification et L’Actualité Du IIe Concile Oecuménique Pour Le Monde Chrétien D’Aujourd’hui (Chambesy: Du Centre Orthodoxe du Patriarcat Oecumenique, 1982), pp. 275–87; Gerald Bray, ‘The Filioque Clause in History and Theology’, Tyndale Bulletin 34 (1983), pp. 91–144;

42

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

a Signs of progress: Areas of emerging consensus on the filioque 1 The ecclesiastical mood: A new irenicism One of the first things that should be observed is that both ecclesiastical and scholarly dialogue on the filioque in the past few decades appears to be enjoying a new spirit of irenicism, a welcome relief from the harsh polemics which marked the atmosphere of the original schism. Those familiar with the history of the controversy know that anathemas and charges of heresy lobbed at the opponent have cratered the theological battlefield between East and West ever since at least the late sixth century, culminating in the Great Schism between East and West in 1054.3 However, factors as diverse as globalization, the rise of the modern ecumenical movement, the spirit of aggiornamento in Vatican II, and, I will argue later in this chapter, an implicit spirit of ‘Free Church’ engagement between Christian denominations, have all contributed to greater openness and willingness to listen between Eastern and Western traditions. Indeed, there may be a greater irenic spirit between East and West on the matter of the Spirit’s procession than perhaps the Church has ever witnessed, including in the patristic period when East and West were experiencing a significant cultural tension and were largely unaware of their inchoate pneumatological differences.4 To be sure, polemical treatises for and against the filioque have not disappeared from the scene altogether: they still do exist, but (fortunately) they are increasingly difficult to find in the literature.5 Consequently, I believe it is safe to say that the current ecclesiastical and scholarly mood is marked by hope for unity in the Church, even when a full visible ecclesial unity might still seem to be a long way off. So what are the indicators of what might be called this ‘new irenicism’ in the filioque debate?

3 4

5

Brian E. Daley, ‘Revisiting the “Filioque”: Roots and Branches of an Old Debate, Part One’, Pro Ecclesia X (2001), pp. 31–62; and Brian E. Daley, ‘Revisiting the “Filioque”: Part Two: Contemporary Catholic Approaches’, Pro Ecclesia X (2001), pp. 195–212. For my own review of Siecienski, see David Guretzki, ‘The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy by Edward A. Siecienski, Oxford University Press, 2010’, Reviews in Religion & Theology 20, no. 1 (2013), pp. 124–7. For a review of this crucial period in the debate, see Siecienski, The Filioque, pp. 87–109. David S. Cunningham, These Three are One: The Practice of Trinitarian Theology (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1998), p. 58. My sense here is that one is more likely to find polemical treatises against the filioque than polemical denunciations of those who fail to adopt the filioque. This is naturally to be expected because the filioque is clearly the historical interpolation to the creed, which has put the antifilioquists into a defensive posture ever since. For an example of a relatively recent and intelligent anti-filioque treatise written in response to the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation on the filioque, see Michael Azkoul, ‘ The Filioque: A Reply to the Agreed Statement of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation’, True Vine 35–6 (Fall 2005), pp. 28–73.

The Filioque: Reviewing the State of the Question

43

Although ecclesiastical and scholarly discussions are not easily separated, it is helpful to view the matter from these two perspectives. At an ecclesiastical level, it is noteworthy that there has been active dialogue taking place both at ‘official’ ecclesiastical levels and at the level of inter-theological dialogue between theologians of various branches of Christianity. First, there is perhaps no clearer sign of the spirit of irenicism than was demonstrated at a more ‘official’ level by the public statements on the filioque between the Vatican and Bishop John Zizioulas (Metropolitan of Pergamon). Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) did not see the filioque as an obstacle to future communion between the Orthodox and Catholics,6 and he celebrated liturgies with bishops from the East in which he recited the Nicene Creed without the filioque.7 In 1995 he called for a ‘clarification’8 on the Roman teaching on the procession of the Spirit which resulted in the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity releasing a document entitled, ‘The Greek and Latin Traditions about the procession of the Holy Spirit’.9 This much-discussed document eventually led Zizioulas to write a response in 2002 in which he highlighted matters which still needed to be more fully explored, but also in which he asserted his conviction that a rapprochement between West and East would be eventually possible.10 Although this West-East ecclesiastical/scholarly interchange is now relatively well known amongst those familiar with the recent history of the filioque, its significance should not be underplayed: it is surely hard historical evidence that the prevailing spirit in East and West is one which is seeking ecclesiastical unity. Second, a number of scholarly consultations have taken place in recent decades which have shown great promise for increased mutual understanding.11 6

7

8 9

10

11

John Paul II, ‘The Spirit and the Filioque Debate’, 7 November 1990, http://www.vatican.va/holy_ father/john_paul_ii/audiences/alpha/data/aud19901107en.html. Williams observes that by November 1979, just over a year into his papacy, Pope John Paul II had already eschewed the use of the filioque in joint celebrations of the liturgy with Eastern counterparts. See George H. Williams, ‘The Ecumenical Intentions of Pope John Paul II’, Harvard Theological Review 75 (April 1982), p. 154. Hereafter referred to as the ‘Roman clarification’. ‘The Greek and Latin Traditions about the procession of the Holy Spirit’, L’Osservatore Romano, 1995, also published as ‘The Greek and Latin Traditions about the Procession of the Holy Spirit’, Catholic International 7 (1996), pp. 36–43. John Zizioulas, ‘One Single Source: An Orthodox Response to the Clarification on the Filioque’, Orthodox Research Institute (2002), http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/dogmatics/ john_zizioulas_single_source.htm. For closer descriptions of some of these consultations, see Siecienski, The Filioque, pp. 206–13. Surprisingly, Siecienski does not mention the Orthodox-Reformed-Orthodox consultation held in 1988 and 1990. The consequent ‘Agreed Statement on the Trinity’ can be found in Thomas F. Torrance (ed.), Theological Dialogue Between Orthodox and Reformed Churches (vol. 2; Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1985), pp. 218–26.

44

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

Perhaps the most significant of these was organized by the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches in Schloss Klingenthal (France) in 1978–79. The Commission’s published report and recommendations (which included the so-called ‘Klingenthal Memorandum’) represented a historic and multilateral engagement on the issue representing Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant voices.12 Although the commission’s final recommendation that ‘the original form of the third article of the creed, without the filioque, should everywhere be recognized as the normative one and restored’13 has generally not yet been heeded at official ecclesiastical levels,14 the fact that representatives from the various historic branches of the Christian Church could come to such agreement is heartening evidence of the new irenicism. Three other important consultations dealing directly with the filioque question included the Anglican-Orthodox consultations which took place between 1956 and 1976,15 the Orthodox-Reformed Theological Consultation which occurred between 1988 and 199016 and the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation which was finalized in 2003.17 Although none of these consultations claimed to have dealt with the problem definitively, it is safe to say that their very occurrence is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the days of polemic accusations of ‘heresy’ against one’s theological interlocutors can now safely be said to be over, even if formal ecclesiastical movement on the various recommendations arising out of the consultations seems to have stalled. The irenical spirit briefly documented here should not be taken for granted and should be cause for joyful celebration. One can only speculate about how this theological optimism has already changed the whole tenor of scholarly investigation on the filioque. May this be evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit, moving the Church towards the answer to Jesus’ high priestly prayer to the Father that ‘[the Church] may be one as we are one’ (Jn 17.11)?

12

13 14

15

16 17

Lukas Vischer (ed.), Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ: Ecumenical Reflections on the Filioque Controversy (London: SPCK, 1981). Ibid., p. 18. Some have noted with disappointment the failure of the participating churches to follow up concretely on the recommendations of the Klingenthal Commission, but such a failure notwithstanding should not undermine its importance in the recent history of the controversy. See Kallistos Ware and Colin Davey (eds), Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue: The Moscow Statement Agreed by the Anglican-Orthodox Joint Doctrinal Commission, 1976 (London: SPCK, 1977) and Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue: The Dublin Agreed Statement, 1984 (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985). Torrance, Orthodox and Reformed. ‘The Filioque: Church Dividing?’ The agreed-upon text of the consultation on the filioque is available online at: http://www.scoba.us/resources/orthodox-catholic/2003filioque.html.

The Filioque: Reviewing the State of the Question

45

2 Some emerging scholarly agreements The consultations between representatives of Eastern and Western traditions beg the question of what, if anything, has been broadly agreed upon by the scholarship on the filioque to this point. At least four things can be noted. First, although whether the various consultations are to be regarded as a cause or an effect would be open to debate, one thing appears to be increasingly clear: unlike patristic and medieval contexts, statements on the procession of the Spirit have today (fortunately!) been demoted from the level of a dispute about a fundamental dogma to being a dispute on a matter of doctrinal interpretation upon the already agreed-upon dogma of the Trinity. Consequently, there is likely a correlation between the changed theological status of the filioque and its waning divisive power. To know that this is the case, one only has to be reminded that even as recently as the middle of the twentieth century, the filioque was still broadly viewed as a dogmatic Shibboleth irreconcilably dividing Eastern and Western churches. One only has to recall Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky’s oft-quoted dictum that the filioque was the ‘sole dogmatic grounds for the separation of East and West’18 to realize how far the perspective on the filioque’s dogmatic and ecclesiastical status has shifted. Indeed, it has become increasingly common to hear theologians from both East and West argue that the filioque should not be viewed as a schismatic issue but rather as a theologoumenon – ‘a nonbinding theological thesis that is found clearly neither in scripture nor in the definitive teaching of the magisterium’.19 This does not mean that Western or Eastern representatives think the doctrine is trivial or a mere historical footnote with no practical consequences for faithful carrying out of the mission of the Church; rather, there is a heightened scholarly will to consider the question of the acceptance or rejection of the filioque as a matter of theological interpretation rather than an unyielding theological dogma. In this regard, Orthodox theologian Theodore Stylianopoulos was on the theological cusp when he argued that the filioque question does not signal a “great divide” between Eastern and Western churches because these churches commonly confess the dogma of the Holy Trinity and share broad agreement regarding the work (“economy”) of the Spirit according to Scripture, tradition and liturgy. The filioque marks not a 18

19

Vladimir Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985), p. 71. Gerald O’Collins, ‘The Holy Trinity: The State of the Questions’, in The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity (eds Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall SJ and Gerald O’Collins SJ; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 263.

46

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century decisive difference in dogma but an important difference in the interpretation of dogma.20

Similarly, the Roman Catholic pneumatologist Yves Cardinal Congar21 has suggested that both Eastern and Western churches should begin to assume ‘the fundamental complementarity between the Western insistence on the filioque and the Eastern insistence on monopatrism’,22 because, he insists, ‘Trinitarian faith is the same in the East and the West’.23 Finally, from a Protestant Reformed perspective George Hunsinger has argued that the filioque should be viewed as a theological adiaphora.24 Thus, in essence, the dialogues of the past decades indicate that there is, at the very least, a broad ecumenical will to no longer view the filioque as a ‘church-dividing issue’.25 If the first sign of scholarly promise had to do with the dogmatic/ecclesiological status of the filioque as a non-dividing issue, a second matter of near, if not complete, consensus in the debate pertains to the theological matter of ‘origin’ in the Trinity. One of the main longstanding Eastern objections to the filioque (apart from the thorny question of the ecclesiastical legality of its inclusion in the creed) has been that it introduces the idea that there is more than one principle or origin of deity in the Trinity. Eastern theologians have rightly and consistently resisted any such ‘dual source’ theories of the Trinity. Thus, if modern historical reviews of the controversy have taught anything in regard to the filioque debate, it is that Western theologians have also (nearly)26 always resisted such an idea. 20

21

22

23

24

25

26

Theodore Stylianopoulos, ‘The Filioque: Dogma, Theologoumenon or Error?’, Greek Orthodox Theological Review 31 (1986), p. 58. Siecienski notes that ‘perhaps no Catholic author in the twentieth century concerned himself more with the history and theology of the filioque than Yves Cardinal Congar’, and that Congar’s views have been ‘incredibly influential among Roman Catholic scholars’. See Siecienski, The Filioque, pp. 203, 204. Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit: The River of the Water of Life (Rev 22:1) Flows in the East and in the West (vol. III; New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 2001), p. 213. Ibid. It should be noted that Congar is in favour of suppression of the filioque in the creed, even though he also maintains that it is ‘necessary in the Latin Church’s approach’. Ibid. The Roman Catholic Catechism recognizes that the filioque constitutes, ‘even today, a point of disagreement with the Orthodox churches’, but that this does not prevent seeing a ‘legitimate complementarity’ between Eastern and Western traditions on the Holy Spirit. The affirmation of the filioque, ‘provided it does not become rigid, does not affect the identity of faith in the reality of the same mystery confessed’. See Articles 247 and 248 in Catechism of the Catholic Church (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1994), pp. 58–9. George Hunsinger, The Eucharist and Ecumenism: Let us Keep the Feast (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 226. See ‘The Filioque: A Church-Dividing Issue? An Agreed Statement of the North American OrthodoxCatholic Theological Consultation (October 24, 2003)’, St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 48 (2004), pp. 3–58; also published as ‘The Filioque: A Church Dividing Issue?’ Greek Orthodox Theological Review 49 (2004), pp. 359–92. If there is someone in the Western tradition who failed sufficiently to speak of the Father as being sole source of deity, it is Anselm, not Augustine. See Congar, I Believe in the Spirit, III, pp. 100–1, 135.

The Filioque: Reviewing the State of the Question

47

In fact, if Augustine is commonly associated with the origin of the filioque (even though he never explicitly argued for the filioque per se, nor does the phrase a Patre filioque procedit ever appear in his writings),27 it is clear that he insisted that the Spirit proceeded ‘principally’, ‘directly’ or ‘unmediately’ (principaliter) from the Father.28 Consequently, it is a historical tragedy that both polemical treatises opposing the filioque and irenic supports of the filioque29 alike have sometimes characterized the Western position as a ‘double procession’ of the Spirit, which likely only serves to perpetuate the notion that the filioque teaches a dual-source theory.30 Even if it is granted that there was ambiguity in the Western tradition about a single source of deity in the Trinity, it should be evident that such ambiguity has given way to clarity in the last two decades. The ‘Roman clarification’ on the procession of the Spirit insists that ‘the Greek Fathers and the whole Christian Orient speak . . . of the “Father’s Monarchy”’.31 The document also went on to contend that any understanding of the filioque by the Catholic Church must be ‘in such a way that it cannot appear to contradict the Monarchy of the Father nor the fact that he is the sole origin (arche, aitia) of the ekporeusis of the Spirit’.32 Why has it taken so long to achieve such clarity? There is likely no simple answer to this question, but two things can be noted. First, Siecienski rightly observes that to understand the longstanding Eastern opposition to the filioque is to ‘recognize that the Greeks never had the opportunity of explicating a theology

27 28

29

30

31

32

Nevertheless, even Anselm taught that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son tamquam ab uno principio (‘as from one principle’). For analysis of Anselm’s defence of the filioque, see Dennis Ngien, Apologetic for Filioque in Medieval Theology (Milton Keynes: Paternoster Press, 2005), pp. 23–50. Siecienski, The Filioque, p. 63. ‘[Christ] indicated that the source [principium] of all godhead, or if you prefer it, of all deity, is the Father’. The Trinity, IV.5.29. ‘The Son is born of the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father principally [principaliter], and by the Father’s wholly timeless gift from both of them jointly’. The Trinity, XV.25.47. Ngien notes that Augustine’s choice of the term principaliter is drawn from Tertullian. See Ngien, Apologetic for Filioque, p. 15. For example, Gerald Bray, ‘The Double Procession of the Holy Spirit in Evangelical Theology Today: Do we Still Need it?’, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 41 (1998), pp. 415–26; and Daniel J. Nodes, ‘Dual Processions of the Holy Spirit: Development of a Theological Tradition’, Scottish Journal of Theology 52 (1999), pp. 1–18. There are many instances in the Western tradition where theologians sought to defend the filioque even while agreeing with the East that there is only a single source of deity in the Trinity (i.e., the monarchy of the Father). In this regard, see especially Siecienski’s illuminating examination of early Latin theologians. Siecienski, The Filioque, pp. 51–71. ‘Greek and Latin Traditions’, p. 37. It should be noted, however, that not everyone is as confident about the full compatibility of Eastern and Western views on the monarchy of the Father. Coffey, for example, argues that following a Florentine interpretation of the filioque, at best the Eastern and Western traditions can only be upheld in ‘dialectical tension that is not contradictory’. See David Coffey, ‘The Roman “Clarification” of the Doctrine of the Filioque’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 5 (2003), p. 18. ‘Greek and Latin Traditions’, p. 38.

48

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

of the procession outside the context of their conflict with the West . . . . [and] the Byzantines’ position on the Spirit’s procession was, in large part, worked out only in opposition to the Latin doctrine’.33 In this light, since the filioque was clearly and rightly perceived by Eastern theologians as an ecclesiastical novelty, polemical arguments against the filioque were bound to be constructed in such a way to demonstrate not only its ecclesiastical, but theological novelty as well. When coupled together with the Eastern insistence on the monarchy of the Father as the locus of divine unity, it was virtually inevitable that Eastern characterization of the filioque would lead to the conclusion that the Spirit’s procession from the Father and the Son means nothing less than that there are two sources of deity, the Father and the Son. But there is a second, and much more subtle, reason for the confusion: the characterization of the Western filioque as shorthand for a theology which insists upon a concept of ‘the double procession’ of the Spirit. The inference drawn from such phraseology is unmistakable: to affirm the ‘double procession of the Spirit’ (assumed to be a synonym for filioque) means to hold to two processions, or two ‘origins’, in God; and since the monarchy of the Father is singular, then of course the filioque must be rejected. Though it might be objected that such an argument is trivial, and that a label cannot be blamed for the dispute, the label is nevertheless persistently misleading and confusing because it has the effect of confirming the anti-filioquist conclusion about the doctrine, even before engaging its defence. Thus, if I could insist even on one small thing for the filioque debate to continue to move forward, it would be to impose a theolinguistic moratorium on all use of the phrases ‘double procession’ or ‘dual procession’ when speaking about the Western position, because, as noted above, the Western tradition has never taught that the Spirit proceeds from ‘two sources’ or ‘origins’ in God; consequently, continued use of the phrase ‘double procession’ as a linguistic equivalent to filioque is misleading at best, and false at worst.34 One short but important transitional point before moving on: the emerging ecumenical consensus on the fact that there is only a single origin of deity in

33

34

Siecienski, The Filioque, p. 10. On the nature of Eastern polemical treatises against the filioque in the crucial ninth century, see Tia M. Kolbaba, Inventing Latin Heretics: Byzantines and the Filioque in the Ninth Century (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2008), pp. 51–71. Though I will return to him later in this chapter, it is notable, as I have argued elsewhere, that the Protestant theologian Karl Barth served as a positive Western representative because he refused to speak of the filioque as an expression of a ‘double procession’, preferring rather to speak of a ‘common origin’ [gemeinsamen Ursprung] of the Spirit from the shared being [Gottsein] of the modes of being [Seinsweisen]. See David Guretzki, Karl Barth on the Filioque (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), pp. 126–9.

The Filioque: Reviewing the State of the Question

49

the Trinity does not mean that the question about the meaning of that origin for the Son and the Spirit has by any means been settled. Nevertheless, ongoing discussion about the monarchy of the Father, procession, generation, etc. might point to a deeper problem with which theologians from East and West will need to wrestle: Does a doctrine of the Trinity which portrays the relationship of Father, Son and Spirit in terms of ‘origin’, ‘generation’ and ‘procession’ confirm that Eastern and Western theologies are still too deeply mired in ancient essentialist ontologies which have all but been rejected in the current theo-philosophical context? Indeed (with admitted echoes of Harnack), does the patristic use of this terminology properly align with the biblical use? Or to put it another way, is there a way to continue to be ‘orthodox’ in speaking about Trinitarian relations while simultaneously rejecting the patristic ontologies undergirding the doctrine?35 This is, of course, an issue that extends well beyond the filioque debate proper (and well beyond the limits of this chapter), but it is one that will need to be debated. With these questions in mind we move now to a discussion of some of the unresolved issues emerging in the debate.

b Emerging issues for further study on the filioque The fact that there are important areas of emerging consensus in the filioque debate by no means indicates the debate has been settled. Although a multitude of unresolved historical and theological issues could be raised here, it will be necessary to limit the discussion to a few major issues.

1 The linguistics of ‘procession’ Until recent decades, few scholars, if any, had explored whether the Latin translation of ‘proceeds’, procedit, is a linguistically legitimate dynamic equivalence of the Greek ἐkpοreυsiV found in the Creed. However, upon publication of the ‘Roman clarification’, increased scrutiny has been given to this question, with the Vatican insisting that the Greek and Latin terms are not synonymous. Indeed, the document asserts, ‘a false equivalence was involuntarily created with regard to the eternal origin of the Spirit between the Oriental theology of the ἐkpοreυsiV and the Latin theology of the processio’.36 As the document goes on to explain: 35

36

I owe this way of putting it to Bruce McCormack, whose overarching argument about Barth is that he is a quintessential example of a theologian who is seeking to be ‘Orthodox’ under the conditions of ‘modernity’. See Bruce L. McCormack, Orthodox and Modern: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008). For McCormack’s Barthian improvisation on the filioque, see Bruce McCormack, ‘The Lord and Giver of Life: A “Barthian” Defense of the Filioque’, in Rethinking Trinitarian Theology: Disputed Questions and Contemporary Issues in Trinitarian Theology (eds Robert Józef Wozniak and Giulio Maspero; London: T&T Clark, 2012), pp. 230–53. ‘The Greek and Latin Traditions’, p. 3.

50

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century The Greek ἐkpοreυsiV signifies only the relationship of origin to the Father alone as the principle without principle of the Trinity. The Latin processio, on the contrary, is a more common term, signifying the communication of the consubstantial divinity from the Father to the Son and from the Father, through and with the Son, to the Holy Spirit. In confessing the Holy Spirit “ex Patre procedentem”, the Latins, therefore, could only suppose an implicit Filioque which would later be made explicit in their liturgical version of the Symbol.37

The root of the conflation of these terms most likely goes back to the Vulgate translation of the Greek verb ἐkpοreύsqai (and its cognates) using the Latin verb procedere, logically leading to the use of the verb procedit to translate ἐkpοreύsiV in the Nicene Creed. The problem was, procedere was also used to translate several other Greek verbs.38 As Siecienski explains, this meant that ‘for . . . generations of Latin theologians, procedere was a broader term that could be used to describe both the Spirit’s and the Son’s coming from the Father’.39 The linguistic clarification on the terminology of ‘procession’ has received a generally favourable response from John Zizioulas. He suggests that ‘on the basis of this distinction one might argue that there is a kind of Filioque on the level of οὐsίa (ousia), but not of ὑpόstasiV (hypostasis)’,40 even if in the end he leaves the question open about whether the distinction is sufficient to solve the problem. Whatever the case, there appears to be a promising opening for further scholarship to clarify the Latin and Greek linguistic traditions and their respective translations of ‘proceeding’. A pastoral implication of the terminological clarification remains, however: What liturgical text is to be adopted when the Creed is recited in languages other than Greek or Latin? Or to put it another way: What is the theological affirmation or denial when one recites a vernacular equivalent of ‘and the Son’ in the Creed when in other languages? Would the addition of the phrase positively accept the Latin theology while negating the Greek theology? These are just some of the practical pastoral questions that will continue to need to be explored and which are not simply solved by the recommendation that has had traction in past decades that the filioque simply be dropped.

2 The promise of Maximus the Confessor? A relatively recent opening for ongoing research has been the increased attention to Maximus the Confessor (c. 580–662), whose work has been viewed 37 38 39 40

Ibid. These include ἒrcesqai, prοέrcesqai, prοsέrcesqai, ἐxέrcesqai and prόbaίnw. Siecienski, The Filioque, p. 59. Zizioulas, ‘Single Source’.

The Filioque: Reviewing the State of the Question

51

as a possible way through the filioque divide. In his rejoinder to the Roman clarification on the filioque, Zizioulas makes a tantalizingly short comment that Maximus believed ‘the filioque was not heretical because its intention was to denote not the ἐkpοreύesqai (ekporeuesthai) but the prοeίnai (proeinai) of the Spirit’.41 Siecienski, too, argues that Maximus affirmed that to uphold the filioque ‘in no way violates the monarchy of the Father, who remained the sole cause (mía aitía) of both the Son and the Spirit’.42 Certainly, proponents from various ecclesiastical camps see promise in further study of Maximus,43 although accessibility is an issue because a number of his works remain untranslated for study in the Anglo-speaking world. Others, however, are less convinced of whether in fact Maximus can be counted upon to navigate these deep theological waters. Orthodox theologian John Romanides, for example, argues that ‘Maximus the Confessor . . . [does not] say that the west Roman Filioque “can be understood in an orthodox way” . . . [He] simply explain[s] why it is orthodox’.44 What remains to be seen, therefore, is whether Maximus will emerge as a ‘new-old voice’ that might yield significant advances for the filioque debate.

3 Is a ‘solution’ to the filioque debate even possible? It is not uncommon in the literature of the filioque to find proposals for a ‘solution’ to the filioque controversy.45 That various scholars put it this way brings with it a fundamental assumption that the filioque is a problem which, given enough time, ecumenical will, and theological ingenuity, can be solved. 41 42 43

44

45

Ibid. Siecienski, The Filioque, p. 81. For an authoritative survey of Maximus’ theological contributions and the modern scholarship up to the 1990s, see Aidan Nichols, Byzantine Gospel: Maximus the Confessor in Modern Scholarship (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993). For a more specific look at Maximus’ contribution to the theology of both East and West, see Deno J. Geanakoplos, ‘Some Aspects of the Influence of the Byzantine Maximos the Confessor on the Theology of East and West’, Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 38, no. 2 (1969), pp. 150–63. Two scholarly treatments of Maximus relative to the filioque after the Klingenthal consultation to appear include George C. Berthold, ‘Maximus the Confessor and the Filioque’, in Studia Patristica (Vol 18; Pt 1; Kalamazoo, Mich: Cistercian Publications, 1985), pp. 113–17; and Leo Scheffczyk, ‘Der Sinn des Filioque’, Internationale katholische Zeitschrift ‘Communio’ 15 (1 January 1986), pp. 23–34. More recently, see Siecienski, The Filioque, pp. 73–86. John S. Romanides, ‘The Filioque in the Dublin Agreed Statement 1984’, 1985, http://www.romanity. org/htm/rom.17.en.the_filioque_in_the_dublin_agreed_statement_1984.01.htm. To cite just three examples: Jürgen Moltmann, ‘Theological Proposals Towards the Resolution of the Filioque Controversy’, in Lukas Vischer (ed.), Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ: Ecumenical Reflections on the Filioque Controversy (London: SPCK, 1981), pp. 164–73; Thomas G. Weinandy, The Father’s Spirit of Sonship: Reconceiving the Trinity (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995); Myk Habets, ‘Filioque? Nein: A Proposal for Coherent Coinherence’, in Phillip Tolliday (ed.), Trinitarian Theology after Barth (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Pubns, 2011), pp. 161–202.

52

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

However, what if this fundamental assumption turns out to be wrong? What if the Latin and Greek theories of procession are actually incommensurable?46 To use some analogies, what if the relationship between Eastern and Western Trinitarian theories of procession is more akin to the relationship between Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry, or between Relativity and Quantum theories? In these cases, there may be a will to find a ‘unified theory of everything’, but there is no guarantee that such a theory will be found. In other words, an axiomatic aspect of the filioque debate which remains unresolved is whether it is even possible to expect a single overarching means of synthesizing the Eastern and Western Trinitarian traditions. The answer to this question will depend on whether one can persuasively argue that the Eastern and Western Trinitarian traditions are simply two facets of one overarching dogmatic history, or, alternatively, two relatively independent traditions which answer two (or more) fundamentally different theological problems. If the former, then a synthetic solution to the filioque should be forthcoming, but the fundamental commensurability of the two traditions must also be sufficiently demonstrated; if the latter, then it is necessary to assume that a synthetic solution to the filioque will not be the way forward, and greater work will then need to be done on what distinct problems the two traditions were seeking to answer and subsequently to propose how the two traditions ought to relate to one another with ecumenical and theological integrity, all without underplaying their common commitment to the dogma of the Trinity. The theory that Eastern and Western Trinitarian traditions may be dogmatically irreducible even with both remaining dogmatically appropriate is not new,47 and I claim no originality for that thesis. But such a possibility, at the very least, needs to be carefully considered in future considerations of so-called ‘solutions’ to the debate. Indeed, if it is true that Eastern and Western Trinitarian traditions are irreducibly incommensurate, it may explain why 46

47

The idea of ‘theoretical incommensurability’ finds its root in the philosophy of science, particularly in popularization of the concept through the work of philosophers of science Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend. For a description of Kuhn and Feyerabend’s theories of incommensurability, see http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/incommensurability/. Congar, although not as clearly stating that East and West is incommensurate, has argued that ‘unity of faith on both sides of Catholicity’ is possible even while recognizing ‘legitimate difference between the two dogmatic expressions of this mystery’. Congar, I Believe in the Spirit, III, p. 201. Mary Anne Fatula more forcefully argues that ‘true accord between East and West can be attained only when each tradition is willing to recognize both the orthodoxy and the irreducible uniqueness and value of its sister tradition’. Mary Ann Fatula, ‘The Council of Florence and Pluralism in Dogma’, One in Christ 19 (1983), p. 27. Finally, careful note should be taken of the superb study by Reid who sees in Eastern and Western traditions two fundamentally different concerns, even if there are common intentions. See Duncan Reid, Energies of the Spirit: Trinitarian Models in Eastern Orthodox and Western Theology (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1997), pp. 122–34.

The Filioque: Reviewing the State of the Question

53

forced solutions to the filioque have failed to take root or to be broadly accepted. After all, the Council of Florence (1438–39)48 supposedly ‘solved’ the problem of the procession of the Spirit, but as Congar sardonically notes, ‘Florence was too great a victory for the Latins – and the papacy – for it to be a full council of union’.49 If the theory of the incommensurability of the traditions is assumed, this is not to say a priori a resolution to the debate necessarily will be impossible; however, an assumption of incommensurability would certainly lead scholarly investigation down some untrodden paths. In addition to the needed research outlined above, it will also need to include clarifying further what the third article of the Creed was (and was not) addressing in Nicea and Constantinople, what the insertion of the filioque in the sixth century meant (including but not limited to the Frankish resistance to Arianism), and what fundamental assumptions have been undergirding various defences or criticisms of the filioque throughout history. Beyond the need for clarification, it will be important for scholars to continue to keep in mind that there is a difference between resolving the theological problem of the procession of the Holy Spirit in Eastern and Western contexts and the ecumenical problem of what it will take to see the reunion of the Church. These are obviously interrelated and cannot be easily separated, but they need to be maintained as conceptually distinct. In this regard, I wish to call upon those involved in research on the filioque not to rule out too quickly the possibility of an ecumenical solution to the filioque that does not in fact require a theological synthesis of both Eastern and Western perspectives. In fact, I argue that one of the weaknesses of what I have elsewhere called “mediating” or “synthetic” theological solutions50 to the filioque is that the drive for ecumenical consensus may actually lead theologians to overlook the “incommensurability factor”. That is to say, a “mediating” solution that satisfies the axioms of both Eastern and Western Trinitarianism may not only be unlikely, but potentially lead to distortion of both.

On the one hand, the theory of theological incommensurability is just that – a theory. It is a theory that needs to be considered and kept in mind as the ‘problem’ of the doctrine of the procession of the Spirit continues to be 48

49 50

On the Council, see the locus classicus in Joseph Gill, The Council of Florence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959). Congar, I Believe in the Spirit, III, p. 187. David Guretzki, ‘The Filioque: Assessing Evangelical Approaches to a Knotty Problem’, in Stanley E. Porter, Anthony R. Cross (eds), Semper Reformandum: Studies in Honour of Clark H. Pinnock (Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2003), pp. 183–207. This article only examines a sample of Protestant evangelical theologians, but the typology of solutions outlined there can be more broadly applied to the ecumenical context.

54

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

debated. On the other hand, it is possible that Eastern and Western traditions are commensurable; consequently, an openness to a potential way forward that would neither too quickly reach a false solution nor denigrate the fundamental concerns of either Western or Eastern theological commitments is needed. Here, two bits of ecumenical wisdom of George Hunsinger are worth heeding: ‘No tradition, including one’s own, should be asked to compromise on essentials’, and ‘The range of acceptable diversity should be expanded as fully as possible within the bounds of fundamental unity’.51

II Two free church contributions to the filioque debate Not surprisingly, the long history of the filioque debate has been dominated by Catholic and Orthodox voices, with an increased presence of Protestant voices joining the debate in the twentieth century.52 However, even with Protestant voices joining in, a large segment of the historic worldwide Church has usually been underrepresented, mainly voices from the Free Church (or Believers’ Church) movement.53 This isn’t to say that Free Church scholars have been wholly unengaged in the debate, but neither can one say that the issue has been one that has garnered a significant corpus of literature among their ranks.54 51 52

53

54

Hunsinger, Eucharist and Ecumenism, pp. 9–10. This doesn’t mean that Protestants have had no contribution on the debate. For example, see Marshall’s fascinating review of early Lutheran defences of the filioque. Bruce D. Marshall, ‘The Defense of the Filioque in Classical Lutheran Theology: An Ecumenical Appreciation’, Neue Zeitschriftfür Systematische Theologie und Religions philosophie 44 (2002), pp. 154–73. In this regard, I also point out that one of the most extensive arguments in favour of the filioque in the twentieth century came from the pen of Swiss Protestant theologian Karl Barth. For his formal defense of the filioque, see Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics I.1 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1975), pp. 473–89. For an extensive reconstruction of Barth’s unique defense of the filioque, and its systematic function in his thought, see my monograph, Guretzki, Barth on Filioque. Not surprisingly, it is notoriously difficult to provide a definition of ‘Free Church’ or ‘Believers Church’ that takes into account a divergent group of churches that include Baptists, Anabaptists, Evangelical Free, Alliance, Disciples, Methodists, Holiness, Pentecostal, and many others. Although the term ‘Free Church’ was originally coined by Max Weber to speak of churches of the Radical Reformation that had no ties to the state Church, that definition is obsolete in a context where many churches today, including a large number of the so-called ‘historic Protestant’ churches, now function essentially as Free churches, especially in North America, South America, Africa, and Asia. For the sake of simplicity, Free Church here simply designates Protestant churches which have their roots in the original ‘Free Church’ movement of churches not associated with the Protestant churches of the Magisterial Reformation and which have no central institutional defining structures or requirements for creedal or liturgical practice. For a helpful discussion of the definition of Believers Church, see ‘Believers Church’, Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online, http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/B4458. html. For the purposes of this article, I will simply refer to the movement as ‘Free Church’. Some notable exceptions from the last few decades can be noted, including Warren McWilliams, ‘Why all the Fuss about Filioque? Karl Barth and Jürgen Moltmann on the Procession of the Spirit’, Perspectives in Religious Studies 22 (1995), pp. 167–81; David E. Wilhite, ‘The Baptists “and the Son”: The Filioque Clause in Noncreedal Theology’, Journal of Ecumenical Studies 44, no. 2 (2009), pp. 285–302; Habets, ‘Filioque? Nein’; Guretzki, ‘The Filioque: Assessing’.

The Filioque: Reviewing the State of the Question

55

The critical reasons for the generally lackadaisical involvement in the filioque debate by Free Church theologians are not simple. But suffice it to say that a major reason is precisely ecclesiological in nature: Free Church theologies tend to be oriented toward an ecclesiology (and corresponding praxis of polity) that emphasizes the operation of the Church at the local level and the invisibility of the Church at the catholic or universal level. Consequently, a lack of commitment to the rulings of visible structural ecclesiological hierarchies, coupled with a general commitment to a form of sola Scriptura in which creeds and confessions play a lesser role in theological formation, has tended to result in an (unfortunate) isolation of the Free Church movement from ecumenical questions such as the filioque. Rightly or wrongly, Free Church thinkers have thus tended to think of the debate as an in-house squabble about the wording of a creed between competing ecclesiological hierarchies. This question has simply not been an essential part of the theological formation of their histories. The relative ‘non-involvement’ of the Free Churches in discussions on the filioque presents a unique problem for ecumenism: how will any agreement on the filioque (or other issues of ecumenical import, for that matter) include the Free Church in such a way that the agreement is truly, by definition, ecumenical? And conversely, how will the Free Church participate in an ecumenical and theological discussion on matters that have historically been alien to its own ecclesiological structures of authority? Here I offer two admittedly broad, but hopefully constructive, proposals.

a Recognizing ecumenical dialogue as a conversation of ‘free churches’ Some decades ago, theologian John Howard Yoder made some apt observations about the ecumenical movement from a Free Church (Anabaptist) perspective. In context, Yoder’s comments were specifically aimed at the now-famous Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (BEM) document published by the World Council of Churches in Lima, Peru, in 1982. One common Free Church critique of BEM is that its conclusions tended to be underrepresentative of Free Church ecclesiologies, and Yoder’s engagement with BEM fits generally into that category. Although the specifics of Yoder’s interaction with BEM are worth consideration in their own right, most pertinent here is Yoder’s insightful assertion that the process of conversation of the modern ecumenical movement has itself proceeded under an implicit Free Church structure. As he explains,

56

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century [The modern ecumenical movement] begins by relativizing those definitions of unity which depended upon an established hierarchy, one particular body of authoritative creeds, or the rejection of a particular set of heretics. It carries on a conversation in which those parties are qualified to be interlocutors who do in fact participate in the dialogue. The dialogical process is thus self-defining, rather than having been made possible (or restricted) by an inherited institutional, ritual, or creedal status.55

In other words, all the parties in ecumenical dialogue (and this certainly includes the various theological interchanges and consultations) deal with one another as if they are all Free Churches. In other words, the ecumenical process is inherently oxymoronic to non-Free Church ecclesiologies, but ecclesiologically ‘natural’ for Free Church participants. If it is granted for the sake of argument that Yoder’s observation is accepted to be true, this highlights a vitally important factor about both the past and future of the filioque conversation, mainly, that the ecclesiological context in which the original dispute arose has, for all intents and purposes, completely disappeared from the scene. In a series of unfortunate events which marked the early and mid-history of the filioque (including the original appearance of the filioque in the sixth-century Latin liturgy and the eventual mutual excommunication of Catholic and Orthodox churches in the eleventh century), the ecclesiological situation has changed so radically that it would be naïve to think that a ‘solution’ to the filioque which simply included Orthodox and Catholic agreement would be sufficient, let alone agreement amongst Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Reformed and Lutheran branches of Christianity. Even if one gives a conservative estimate that there are some 400–500 million Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians worldwide (being designated broadly as adhering to varied forms of Free Church ecclesiology), the ecclesiological situation is such that it would be ecclesiologically irresponsible to assume that the Free Church is irrelevant to the filioque conversation. Princeton theologian George Hunsinger may well provide some of the most succinct guidelines by which to think about and act upon the changed ecclesiological situation in which the Church of Christ finds itself today. In his book on the ecumenical dimensions of the Eucharist, Hunsinger outlines seven guidelines which he suggests need to inform ‘ecumenical theology in its special vocation’. I believe all of these guidelines are apropos to the filioque debate generally, but are also important reminders both to Free Church and non-Free 55

John Howard Yoder, ‘A “Free Church” Perspective on Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry’, Mid-Stream 23 (July 1984), p. 271.

The Filioque: Reviewing the State of the Question

57

Church participants in the conversation. I reiterate Hunsinger’s seven guidelines below, with my own ‘applications’ to the filioque debate in italics and square parentheses: ●

●

●

●

●

●

Church-dividing views should be abandoned, especially in the form of false contrasts. [Broadly speaking, the fact that the filioque is increasingly being viewed as a theologoumenon is evidence of progress toward this guideline.] No tradition, including one’s own, should be asked to compromise on essentials. [To speak of a ‘filioque-less’ Western Trinitarian tradition would be theologically impossible; to speak of a non-collegially enforced filioque in the Eastern Trinitarian tradition is ecclesially illegal; to speak of a hierarchical enforcement of a filioque solution in the Free Church theological context is ecclesiologically oxymoronic.] Where possible, misunderstandings from the past should be identified and eliminated. [Might the terminological and theological differences between procedit and ἐkpοreύsiV be a live example of this taking place?] Real differences should not be glossed over by resorting to ambiguity; they will only come back to haunt theology and Church. [Here complex dogmatic solutions to the filioque may well be theologically ingenious but ultimately prove to be ecumenically, scripturally, and liturgically unsatisfactory; further, from a Free Church perspective that highly values the need to unendingly test Christian confession and doctrine by scriptural exegesis, the solution must be shown to be scripturally warranted. More on this below.] The range of acceptable diversity should be expanded as fully as possible within the bounds of fundamental unity. [The most pertinent point here is that Free Church theologians and participants must be encouraged and willing to engage more fully at the ecumenical table (with personal grateful acknowledgement expressed here for the inclusion in a volume such as this!) while non-Free Church participants must be encouraged and willing to engage Free Church voices in the conversation as equal partners.] All steps toward visible unity should be taken which can be taken without theological compromise. [The filioque has been a Church-dividing issue, but the emerging consensus is that it need not be. However, it is unclear what visible unity would look like relative to the filioque or absence thereof in the creed. For those working in Free Church contexts, more discussion is needed about how it would receive a creedal resolution achieved by churches where the creed is fundamental to a church’s identity and liturgies.]

58 ●

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

No one Church should be expected to capitulate to another or be swallowed up into it. [Simply put, are non-Free Church theological traditions willing to acknowledge the ecclesial legitimacy of Free churches and vice versa?]56

b The filioque and the scripture principle In the late 1950s, the French ecumenist George Tavard called for an ecumenical reappraisal of the Reformation principle of sola Scriptura.57 In this regard, Tavard rightly understood that many Protestants had taken up the assumption that sola Scriptura means to find the truth of Scripture outside, or even in spite of, the traditions of the Church.58 Nevertheless, whatever weaknesses Free Church conceptions of the so-called ‘Scripture principle’ have perpetrated, the Free Church movement has remained a consistent witness to the Church universal that all aspects of her faith and practice must finally be grounded in and warranted by Scripture – and this includes the creeds and confessions of the Church themselves. Free Church theologians, if and when they do acknowledge the authority of a creed, will consistently argue that whatever authority is accorded it is finally penultimate to Scripture itself. If the creed is authoritative for the Church, it is because in it the Church recognizes its scriptural grounding. While in theory, one would expect that there should never be tension between ‘ecumenical’ and ‘biblical,’ that such a tension really does exist needs to be readily acknowledged. Indeed, one of the inherent dangers of the filioque debate (and ecumenical debates in general) is to press for an ecumenical solution for the sake of achieving unity in the Church against the patient need to ensure the ‘solution’s’ exegetical soundness. In the 15 years I have been studying the filioque debate, I have come across many extensive discussions of the filioque with barely a mention, for or against, its biblical warrants. In this regard, I believe that Free Church theologians can serve an important function in the ongoing debate, not because other traditions do not care about Scripture – to posit this would be to violate at least the first of Hunsinger’s ecumenical principles noted above – but because in practice the literature on the filioque can so easily drift further and further from the question 56 57

58

Hunsinger, Eucharist and Ecumenism, pp. 9–10. George Henry Tavard, Holy Writ or Holy Church: The Crisis of the Protestant Reformation (London: Burns & Oates, 1959). Daniel H. Williams, The Free Church and the Early Church: Bridging the Historical and Theological Divide (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), p. 124.

The Filioque: Reviewing the State of the Question

59

of a position’s scriptural merit.59 In the Free Church tradition out of which I work (Evangelical Free Church), the dictum, ‘How stands it written?’60 can serve as a reminder that every dogmatic proposal must in the end stand up under the authoritative scrutiny of Holy Scripture. An example here may be instructive. Space does not permit due justice to Thomas F. Torrance’s creative solution to the filioque. But it will be recalled that Torrance suggests that the whole filioque debate could have been avoided had the Church adopted the Athanasian idea that ‘the Holy Spirit proceeds from the one monarchy of the Triune God’,61 that is, the Spirit proceeds from the monarchy of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. While I (and others) find Torrance’s solution to be dogmatically reasonable and theologically ingenious, as a Free Church theologian I also find myself ultimately resisting Torrance’s dogmatic construction because I remain (yet) unconvinced of its exegetical warrants. As a logical deduction from the doctrines of homoousios and perichoresis, the concept that the procession of the Spirit is a procession equally from the Father, Son and Holy Spirit makes good sense; if Father, Son and Spirit share consubstantial deity, then the procession of the Spirit is indeed a procession from this Monarchy of the Trinity. But insofar as it actually is grounded in Scripture in such a way that it does not function as a theological redundancy to homooousios or perichoresis, I am not convinced. Where in Scripture is there clear evidence of such a procession of the Spirit equally from Father, Son and Spirit that does not ignore the plain sense of the text? What are we to make of the plain statement in Jn 15.26 that the Spirit proceeds from the Father as sent by the Son? Further, if the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Monarchy of the Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, then should not we also conclude dogmatically that the Son’s generation is that of Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Surely such a conclusion would be rejected as speaking beyond the warrants of Scripture itself. In this regard, Torrance’s solution may garner a degree of ecumenical support – as it appears to have garnered at least some support from Orthodox quarters62 – but ecumenical consensus is no replacement for scriptural soundness. 59

60

61

62

For a recent excellent example of a scholarly treatment that is well attuned both to patristic theologians and to the scriptural evidence supporting the patristic arguments, see Lucas Francisco Mateo-Seco, ‘The Paternity of the Father and the Procession of the Holy Spirit: Some Historical Remarks on the Ecumenical Problem’, in Rethinking Trinitarian Theology: Disputed Questions and Contemporary Issues in Trinitarian Theology (eds Robert Józef Wozniak and Giulio Maspero; London: T&T Clark, 2012), pp. 69–102. Arnold Theodore Olson, ‘The Significance of Silence’: The Evangelical Free Church of America (Heritage Series 2; Minneapolis, MN: Free Church Press, 1981), p. 27. Thomas F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, One Being Three Persons (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), p. 190. Torrance, Orthodox and Reformed, pp. 219–26.

60

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

In the end, Torrance’s proposal may or may not lead the way in future ecumenical discussion on the filioque; but to garner support from a Free Church perspective, it will be necessary to substantiate the dogmatic construction with greater clarity and attention to Scripture. It is one of the reasons that I believe Karl Barth’s apologetic for the filioque is more persuasive to a Free Church perspective than Torrance’s, not because Barth’s defence is watertight (it isn’t), but because methodologically he was more concerned to give a biblical rationale for the filioque than coming up with an ecumenical solution per se.63 Although Barth was a Reformed theologian, his methodological stance is quintessentially in alignment with Free Church convictions: it is more important to defend one’s position as scriptural than to come to ecumenical agreement that is only nominally scriptural. As I have stated elsewhere, ‘the question for Barth is not whether the addition of the word “filioque” to the Creed is ecclesiastically illegitimate, but whether its addition is faithful to the apostolic witness of Scripture’.64

III Conclusion The foregoing review of the state of the question on the filioque will have hopefully accomplished a good launching point not only for the remaining essays in this book, but also for future research and debate. Undoubtedly, I am first to admit that there are weaknesses to the review, not least that it has taken place at the conceptual altitude of 30,000 feet! Furthermore, it most certainly reflects a perspective from a particular place, time and expertise and from a particular ecclesiological position. Similar reviews from other traditions would likely emphasize different things than what has been highlighted here, so I leave it to the reader to judge the merits of my own review. In conclusion, rather than summarizing what has already been stated in this chapter, I instead wish to offer three things I hope all readers can together affirm and celebrate.

1. There is no need to assume that the division of the Church over matters such as the filioque in her history had meant the absence of the Holy Spirit in her midst, but neither should the Church presume that such division 63

64

For recent engagements on Torrance and Barth on the filioque, see Guretzki, Barth on Filioque, 2009; Matthew Baker, ‘The Eternal “Spirit of the Son”: Barth, Florovsky and Torrance on the Filioque’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 12 (1 October 2010), pp. 382–403; Habets, ‘Filioque? Nein’. Guretzki, Barth on Filioque, p. 16.

The Filioque: Reviewing the State of the Question

61

has had no negative impacts upon the Church in her ability to faithfully carry out her God-ordained mission. May God give the Body of Christ the endurance and faithfulness to keep working on this problem by the Spirit’s strength! 2. Although theological progress on a longstanding debate such as the filioque is almost always painfully slow, there are signs of forward movement. The spirit of the debate has undoubtedly shifted to the irenic, and there are some broad aspects of consensus which even some decades ago would have yet been unacknowledged. Here may we be encouraged to continue to cry, Veni, Creator Spirit, Come Holy Spirit! 3. The filioque serves as a constant reminder to those in theological vocations that our task is not merely academic, but spiritual. For what are our labours in scriptural, dogmatic and ecumenical work if we do not continually remind each other that we are to be participating in the Spirit’s labour, in faith, hope and love, to answer Christ’s own prayer to the Father that ‘they might be one as we are one’ (Jn 17.11), even as we pray that the Spirit would lead us into all truth (Jn 16.13)?65

65

Special thanks are due to one of my graduate students and fellow theologians, Mr Derek Geldart, who took the time to read this chapter carefully and to give helpful and encouraging feedback. Thanks also to Dr Myk Habets who enlisted me to write this chapter and who encouraged me throughout the whole writing process.

Part Two

Developments in the Various Traditions

5

The Eternal Manifestation of the Spirit ‘Through the Son’ (διά τοῦ Uἱοῦ) According to Nikephoros Blemmydes and Gregory of Cyprus Theodoros Alexopoulos

My goal is to stimulate a discussion between scholars who have specialized mainly in the field of Byzantine patristics on the multifarious issue of the procession of the Holy Spirit, with the intention of seeking a satisfactory solution to the problem in order that true progress can be made in terms of inter-confessional dialogue. The Trinitarian theology of Patriarch Gregory of Cyprus (1283–9) and especially his teaching of the eternal manifestation of the Spirit ‘per Filium’ is, in my assessement, a worthwhile subject for such a discussion. According to a number of scholars, Gregory, with the above teaching, bridged the views of the eternal manifestation of the Spirit and of his temporal mission, so that the divine essence remains incommunicable in time and the existence of the Spirit also remains exclusively dependent on the hypostasis of the Father.1 The problem has broader dimensions if we take into consideration the questions raised by scholars of the Western tradition, such as D. Wendebourg,2 who saw in the Trinitarian theological positions of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with respect to the matter of the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, a fundamental conceptual inconsistency between Nikephoros Blemmydes and Gregory of Cyprus. While, according to Wendebourg, Blemmydes provides us with the reason why the temporal mission of the Spirit from the Son must be consolidated in God’s supra-eternal being, Gregory of Cyprus does not provide us with any satisfactory explanation for how the inner-Trinitarian position of the 1

2

See G. G. Blum, ‘Oikonomia und Theologia. Der Hintergrund einer konfessionellen Differenz zwischen östlichen und westlichen Christentum’, OS 33 (1984), pp. 281–301. See D. Wendebourg, Geist oder Energie Zur Frage der innergöttlichen Verankerung des christlichen Lebens in der byzantinischen Theologie (München: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1980).

66

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

Spirit is related to his place and function at the level of economy.3 The relation of correspondence between ‘theology’ and ‘economy’, between inner-Trinitarian being and God’s movement ad extra that Wendebourg has aptly marked out, will be useful to us as a specific matter in question when deploying and analyzing the theology of Gregory of Cyprus. Before analyzing Gregory’s works it would be more appropriate from a methodological point of view to investigate the background of the idea of the eternal shining forth of the Spirit in the writing of previous Church Fathers. This attempt could not only be of pivotal theological importance, for it would greatly benefit the reader to see the origins of this view rooted in the patristic thought, but it could also be advanced as a valid historical argument for the theological continuity and coherence from the earlier Fathers via the contribution of Gregory of Cyprus to Gregory Palamas and late Byzantine theology in general.4

I The eternal manifestation in Athanasius and the Cappadocians Athanasius’ fundamental contribution to the debate with the Arians is that he has clearly shown the divinity of the Holy Spirit by stressing the specific relationship in which the Spirit stands to the Son as being proper (ἴdiοn) to him5 and through the Son, because of the unity of the essence to the Father. For, If the Son, because of his specific relationship with the Father and because he is the proper offspring of his essence, is not a creature, but one in essence with the Father, the Holy Spirit likewise, because of his specific relationship with the Son, through who he is given to all men and whose is all that he has, cannot be a creature, and it is impious to call him so.6

The specific way in which the Spirit is connected with the Son clearly implied in the above abstract is more transparently put forward in another passage from the first Letter to Serapion. Here the relationship between Son and Spirit acquires 3 4

5 6

See ibid., pp. 97 and 103. See G. Patasci, ‘Palamism Before Palamas’, GCR 9 (1977), pp. 54–71; A. J. Sopko, ‘Palamism Before Palamas and the Theology of Gregory of Cyprus’, StBThQ 23 (1979), pp. 139–47. See Ep. Serap. I.27. Ep. Serap. II.10, 4, in C. R. B. Shapland, The Letters of St Athanasius Concerning the Holy Spirit (New York: The Philosophical Library, 1951), and is slightly altered by A. M. Ritter, ‘Athanasius as Trinitarian Theologian’, StP 52 (2012), pp. 101–11.

The Eternal Manifestation of the Spirit ‘Through the Son’

67

an additional dimension. The Spirit is not only given by the Son but also shines forth from him: As the Son is an only-begotten offspring, so also the Spirit is given and sent from the Son, and He Himself is one and not many; and He is not one from among many, but only Spirit. For as the Son, the living Word, is one, so must His living energy and gift which sanctifies and enlightens, be one, perfect and complete. The latter is said to proceed from the Father, because He shines forth (ἐklάmpei) from the Logos who is confessed to be from the Father and is sent and given by Him.7

In the above passage the puzzling question is whether the verb ἐklάmpei refers to the eternal relationship between the Logos and the Holy Spirit (the divine theology), or to the sending of the Spirit in the world (the divine economy), or perhaps to both. Joost van Rossum draws the conclusion from the textual analysis that here the verb ἐklάmpei is ambiguous, and that it may refer to the divine ‘theology’, or to the divine ‘economy’, or, and what is perhaps most likely, to both at the same time.8 What follows are some additional elements that will provide the impetus for a more thorough theological reflection (speculation) and might allow safer conclusions to be drawn on the matter of the filioque. The argument will cover the following points: (a) As van Rossum correctly points out, the theological vocabulary of Athanasius provides the reader with no hints of a distinction between the levels on which we can speak about God’s eternal life or being and his movement-revelation outwards.9 This distinction acquires its theological fulfillment and becomes a central topic of interest very late in the debates of the thirteenth century. That means that it is methodologically incorrect to evaluate the theology of Athanasius with theological criteria of a later period. (b) A key term for Athanasius is that of ‘unity’ (ἑnόthV). All of his arguments that are based on scriptural testimony aim to prove the indestructible unity of the three persons. This unity can be shown by their cooperating action in creation, salvation and sanctification-enlightenment of creatures. Sanctification is performed from the Father as the source of the deity, goes through the Son, and finds its fulfillment in the Holy Spirit. The unity of 7 8

9

Ep. Serap. I.20. See J. van Rossum, ‘Athanasius and the Filioque, Ad Serapionem, I.20 in Nikephoros Blemmydes and Gregory of Cyprus’, StP 32 (1995), pp. 53–8 (54). See ibid., p. 58.

68

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

the nature of divine persons (including the Spirit) is concluded from their common and inseparable action towards the creation. (c) If the Son is said by Scripture to be the true Life and Light, and if it is said also that we will be endowed with life and light, then it is obvious that the Son is inseparably connected with his living energy and gift which sanctifies and enlightens, and that is the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is given and sent in order to sanctify and enlighten, that is to say, to perform a deed that reflects the outgoing movement of the Trinity with respect to the creation. The verb ‘ἐklάmpei’ is more likely to be related in this context with the action of enlightenment and specifically with the enlightenment of creatures. That means it clearly refers more to the ‘economy’ than to ‘theology’. The context further fortifies the validity of this assumption when it states that the ‘Father sends the Son, for he loved the world’, the Son on his side sends the Spirit, or, ‘The Spirit shall receive of mine and shall shew it unto you’. However, the theological development in late Byzantium of the term ἐklάmpei and the attribution to it of a meaning immediately connected with the level of ‘theology’ can in no case be considered as unjustified and arbitrary. For the Son as splendour of the Light (ἀpaύgasma tοῦ fwtόV), as living Word can also be conceived as existing eternally and as inseparately connected with his living and sanctifying energy and gift. If the Son sends and gives his own Spirit that means that he possesses it eternally. In summary: Does Athanasius’ pneumatology contain elements which would justify a procession of the Spirit which is also a Filio? A thorough investigation of his two Letters addressed to Serapion allows us to assess that no signs of such a teaching are to be found.10 On the contrary, his theological development bears witness to an ‘ex Patre solo’ procession of the Spirit. However, his sometimesinaccurate terminology and some unsuccessful formulations became objects of theological exploitation on the side of the so-called filioque supporters of the thirteenth century.11 The idea of the eternal manifestation of the Spirit through the Son acquires much more discernible signs in Gregory of Nyssa’s theological speculation. 10

11

See A. M. Ritter, ‘Athanasius und das Filioque’, in Athanasius. Handbuch (ed. P. Gemeinhardt; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), pp. 316–17. For a further discussion of the matter see also, G. Berthold, ‘The Procession of the Spirit in Athanasius’, StP 41 (2006), pp. 125–31; T. Campbell, ‘The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the Theology of Athanasius’, SJTh 27 (1974), pp. 408–40; S. Papadopoulos, ‘Ἀqanasίου ἈlexandreίaV perὶ ἁgίου PneύmatόV katὰ tὰV prὸV Σerapίwna ἐpistοlὰV’, Ecclesiastikos Faros 53 (1971), pp. 33–70. See ibid., p. 317 with reference to T. Alexopoulos, Der Ausgang des Thearchischen Geistes. Eine Untersuchung der Filioque Frage anhand Photios’ “Mystagogie”, Konstantin Melitiniotes “Zwei Antirretici” und Augustins “De Trinitate” (Göttingen: V&R unipress, 2009).

The Eternal Manifestation of the Spirit ‘Through the Son’

69

Gregory uses the term pejhnέnai, a term of equivalent meaning with ἐkjaίnein. The term in Gregory’s writings refers more to ‘economy’ than to ‘theology’. The following passages are indicative of our position. (a) ‘And the one and only Holy Spirit which has his existence from God, and that has been manifested, [to men]12 through the Son, the perfect image of the perfect Son, life cause of life, holy source, holiness who grants holiness; in Him is manifested God the Father who is above all and in all, and God the Son who is in all creation.’13 (b) And the Holy Spirit, who in the uncreated nature is in communion (kοinwnίan) with the Father and the Son, is nevertheless distinguished in turn by His proper characteristics. To not be that which is contemplated properly in the Father and the Son is His most proper characteristic and sign: His distinctive property in relation to the procession neither consists in being ungenerated (ἀgennήtwV), nor in being Only-begotten (mοnοgenῶV), but to be in the mode of constituting a whole (ὅlwV). He is conjoined to the Father by the fact of being uncreated, but is distinguished in his turn by the fact of not being the Father as He is. United to the Son by the uncreated nature and by the fact of receiving the cause of existence from the God of the universe, He is distinct from the Son in his turn by the peculiarity of not subsisting hypostatically (ὑpοstῆnai) as the Only-begotten of the Father and by the fact of being manifested by the Son himself (di ‘aὐtοῦ tοῦ υἱοῦ pejhnέnai). But further, the Holy Spirit is distinguished from creation that subsists (ὑpοstάshV) by means of the Only-begotten (diὰ tοῦ mοnοgenοῦV), so that one does not think that the Spirit has something in common with it due to the fact that he is manifested by the Son, he is distinguished from the creation since He is invariable, immutable and without need of any external good (ἑtέrwqen).’14 The second passage seems to be more interesting, for here the manifestation of the Spirit through the Son is conceived to be a distinctive property belonging 12

13

14

The phrase ‘to men’ is absent in the Latin translation by Rufinus and in one of the two Syriac manuscripts, more specifically in the most recent which dates back to the ninth century. The fact that the oldest Syriac tradition would have included the phrase seems to suggest that the element has been eliminated to promote an immanent reading of the passage, otherwise referring to the ‘economy’. See G. Maspero, ‘The Spirit Manifested by the Son in Cappadocian Thought’, StP 67 (2013), pp. 3–11. Gregory of Nyssa, De vita Gregorii Thaumaturgi (ed. G. Heil; Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 1990), GNO X/1, 18, pp. 13–22. Translation mine. Gregory of Nyssa, Eun. I 279f, in Gregorii Nysseni Opera (ed. W. Jaeger; Vol. I; Brill Academic Publishers, Leiden 1960), GNO I, pp. 108, 7–109, 5. Translation mine.

70

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

exclusively to the third Person and probably, as some scholars estimate, in reference to the ‘theology’.15 But is that the case? Here, the Spirit is differentiated from the Son as a distinct person first because he receives the cause of his existence from the Father not in the way that the Only-begotten does (that means in the way of procession), and secondly because he is manifested through the second person, the Son. But manifested to whom? The context below the passage shows that the writer specifies the property of being manifested for the Spirit in reference to his relationship to the creation. Gregory stresses the big difference that exists between the two ontological levels: the uncreated and the created. The Spirit belongs not to the level of created being. While creation receives its existence through the Son the mediating role of the Son in the manifestation of the Spirit does not reduce the ontological status of the third Person, implying a community of properties with the mutable creation. Further, if the basic axiom in the Cappadocian thought is that the three persons are distinguished from each other only by a single property, what is the meaning of one more additional distinctive property (in our case the manifestation)? The matter becomes clearer if we examine another passage from De Oratione Dominica. Here it is said that the distinctive property of the Spirit is that he proceeds from the Father and that he is proper to the Son (pneῦma Χristοῦ).16 The so-called first property refers to the mode of existing of the Spirit, the second to his consubstantiality with the Son. A parallel attitude, in our view, also keeps Gregory here in Contra Eunomium: the first so-called distinctive property of the Spirit is that he receives his cause of being only from the Father (level of ‘theology’) not in the same way as the Onlybegotten does. His second property is that he is manifested through the Son towards the creation. In his movement ad extra God reveals and brings forth his own Spirit through his own Son. It follows that the formula ‘manifested by the Son’ is to be interpreted here only in an ‘economic’ sense!17 However the specification of this personal characteristic with respect to the ‘economy’ aims to underscore the unity of the Divinity, and thus the inseparability of the Spirit from the Father and the Son.

15

16

17

See Maspero, ‘The Spirit Manifested’, pp. 5–6 and also A. de Halleux, ‘Manifesté par le Fils. Aux origines d’une formule pneumatologique’, RTL 20 (1989), pp. 3–31, (25). GNO VII/2 43, 1–4. See W. Jaeger, Gregors von Nyssa Lehreüber den Hl. Geist (Leiden: Brill Archive, 1966), pp. 122–53. In favour of this position are many scholars such as A. de Halleux, ‘Manifesté par le Fils’, RTL 20 (1989), pp. 3–31, E. Moutsoulas, ‘Η Β Οἰkουmenikὴ ΣύnοdοV kaὶ GrhgόriοV ΝύsshV’, Theologia 55 (1984), pp. 384–401; and Chr. Savvatos, The Theological Terminology and Problematic of Gregory’s II of Cyprus Pneumatology (in Greek) (Kateriné: Epektasis, 1997), p. 183.

The Eternal Manifestation of the Spirit ‘Through the Son’

71

II The eternal manifestation according to John of Damascus In the theological speculation of John of Damascus the idea of the manifestation of the Spirit through the Son is not restricted only to his shining forth in an ‘economic’ sense (temporal mission) but it is extended to the Holy Spirit’s eternal manifestation.18 Further, the eternal manifestation of the Spirit through the Son implies in no way that the Spirit owes his cause of being to the Son.19 John exclusively ascribes to the hypostasis of the Father the property of being cause and origin of the deity.20 But what is the role of the Son with respect to the Spirit? John ascribes the Son, with reference to Romans 8 and 9, a mediating role to the impending and bestowal of the Spirit to the world: ‘We speak likewise’, Damascenus says, Of the Holy Spirit as from the Father, and call Him the Spirit of the Father. And we do not speak of the Spirit as from the Son but yet we call Him the Spirit of the Son. For if any one has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His, says the divine apostle. And we confess that He is manifested and imparted to us through the Son. For he breathed upon His disciples says he, and said “Receive ye the Holy Spirit”.21

This undoubtedly ‘economic’ mission of the Spirit through the Son is illustrated by John by means of a favourite late Byzantine analogy, that of the sun, the sunbeam and radiance.22 Making a clear distinction between the Spirit’s causal procession from the Father and his manifesting energy as well as his temporal mission from the Father through the Son, John of Damascus says that the Holy Spirit is called Spirit of the Son, because he is manifested and bestowed to the creation through the Son.23 The mediating role of the Son in the manifestation of the Spirit should not be restricted, according to John of Damascus, only to his temporal mission. Through the Son the ‘manifestation’ is also carried eternally since the Son shares 18

19

20 21 22

23

See M. Orphanos, The Procession of the Holy Spirit According to Certain Greek Fathers (Athens: Reprinted by Theologia, 1979), p. 53. See John of Damascus, Hom. in Sabbatum sanctum 4, PG p. 96, 605A: ‘The Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father It is said also to be from the Son, for It shines forth through Him and It is given to the creatures, but not for having Its very existence from Him’ (translation mine). See also, John of Damascus, Expositio Fidei I, 12 (PTS 12), p. 36, pp. 55–7 Kotter. See John of Damascus, Expositio Fidei I, 12, p. 36, pp. 52–3. Ibid., I, 8 (p. 30, pp. 286–312): Trans. M. Orphanos, The Procession, p. 52. See ibid., I 8 (pp. 31, 293–6): ‘It is just the same as in the case of the sun from which come both the ray and the radiance (for the sun itself is the source of both the ray and the radiance) and it is through the ray that the radiance is imparted to us and it is the radiance itself by which we are lightened and in which we participate’. Orphanos, The Procession, p. 52 (translation mine). Orphanos, The Procession, p. 52.

72

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

in the essence of the Spirit eternally. In terms of consubstantiality and identity of the essence, a particular relationship between the Son and the Holy Spirit is to be found. The Holy Spirit, as the breath of the Father, eternally accompanies the Word revealing his energy.24 He is an essential power existing in his own proper and peculiar subsistence, proceeding from the Father, who rests in the Son and shows forth the Word.25 So in terms of the inseparable unity between the divine Persons the Word is never destitute of Spirit.26 Within the Trinity the Word must be in possession of his own Spirit just as our Word is never conceived without his own Spirit.27 Thus the eternal manifestation, which clearly indicates a particular relationship of the Spirit with the Son, is grounded on the eternal reciprocal relationship between the two divine persons and implies an immanent dimension. In John of Damascus’ speculation the temporal mission is indicative of an inherent and much closer relationship between Son and Spirit in the level of inner-Trinitarian relations (theology). In other words, the eternal relationship of the Son to the Spirit in terms of unity of the essence is the basis for his temporal mission to the world. The Son would not have revealed his own Spirit to the creation if he didn’t possess it eternally. On account of this eternal relationship, which does not apply to the ad extra mission of the Holy Spirit, but as we have stressed, to the eternal life of the Holy Trinity, the Father is through the Son projector of the revealing Spirit (Lógου gennήtwr kaὶ diὰ Lógου prοbοleὺV ἐkjantοrikοῦ pneύmatοV – ‘The Father is begetter of the Son and projector through the Son of the revealing Spirit’).28 That means the Son participates in the eternal manifestation of the Spirit because he is the revealing power proceeding from the Father through the Son.29 These last expressions of John of Damascus played more than a marginal role in the filioque debate in the thirteenth century and were proved to be sharp arrows in the quiver of the so-called Byzantine filioque supporters John Beccos and Konstantin Melitiniotes30 in order to fortify their theological position 24

25

26

27 28 29

30

See John of Damascus, Expositio Fidei I 7, p. 16, pp. 1–2 Kotter: tὸ sυmparοmartοῦn tῷ Lόgῳ kaὶ janerοῦn aὐtοῦ tὴn ἐnέrgeian (‘the Holy Spirit who accompanies the Word and reveals His energy’). See ibid., I 7, p. 16, pp. 14–20, Kotter: ‘The Spirit is an essential power, existing by itself and considered in its own hypostasis, coming forth from the Father and resting in the Son, and showing Him also forth’. See ibid., I 7, p. 17, pp. 25–6, Kotter:‘neither was ever the Son without the Father nor the Son without (his) Spirit’. See ibid., I 7, p. 16, pp. 2–4, Kotter. See ibid., I 12b, p. 36, pp. 43–5, Kotter. See ibid., I 12b, p. 36, pp. 47–8, Kotter: ‘the Holy Spirit is the revealing power of the obscure Deity, that proceeds from the Father through the Son’. See Konstantin Melitiniotes’ Two Antirrhetical Orations (ed. M. Orphanos; Athens: Organismos Ekd. Didaktikon Biblion, 1986), Antirr. I, p. 139, pp. 12–20.

The Eternal Manifestation of the Spirit ‘Through the Son’

73

by advancing citations of famous Fathers of the Church. Recent studies have proved that this kind of expression can be misleading if one does not take into consideration the entire context in which these citations are placed and the whole theological system of the writer.31 The most representative answer to the question about filioquism or antifilioquism in John Damascus’ works stems from E. Siecienski: We witness here the same dynamic that was operative in the thought of Maximus (Confessor): while one cannot speak of the Son as a cause of the Spirit’s hypostatic being (the Father being the only cause), there is an eternal relationship between the Father and the Son (since “the Father could not be so called without a Son”) that demands that one uphold the Son as a condition of the Spirit’s coming forth from the Father both in time and on the level of the theology.32

III The eternal manifestation in the late Byzantine theology of Nikephoros Blemmydes Nikephoros Blemmydes is one of the important figures of the late Byzantine period whose theological contribution with respect to the matter of the procession of the Holy Spirit remains priceless. Nikephoros seems to be inconsistent with respect to the matter in question.33 He wavers between a procession of the Spirit only from the Father and a procession through the Son; considering the mediation of the Son as a basic condition for the eternal coming-into-being of the Holy Spirit.34 However, he provides us with a logical, coherent teaching on the matter of the eternal manifestation of the Spirit ‘through the Son’ claiming that this formula is never meant to attribute causality to the Son (since this is a hypostatic property belonging only to the Father) but rather to show the unity of the divine essence.35 In his discussion with other Byzantine theologians he refers to the passage from Athanasius36 and gives to the verb (ἐklάmpei) an additional interpretation 31

32

33

34 35 36

See Chr. Savvatos’ analysis of discussions in the thirteenth century about the authenticity of the phrase of John of Damascus, ‘Projector through the Word of the Manifesting Spirit’, Theologia 68 (1997), pp. 197–211. Also T. Alexopoulos, Der Ausgand des Thearchiscen Geistes, pp. 91–100. See A. Edward Siecienski, The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 91. On this issue see N. Ioannides, Nikephoros Blemmydes and his Teaching on the Procession of the Holy Spirit (in Greek) (Athens: Athos Publishers, 2006), pp. 235–47. See ibid., p. 240. See Siecienski, The Filioque, p. 126. See note 7.

74

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

by saying that this verb refers to the eternal existence or being of the Holy Spirit.37 Blemmydes paraphrases Athanasius’ text as follows: ‘Thus as Energy of the Son and Logos of God the Holy Spirit eternally shines forth from Him, i.e. through Him from the Father; and as Gift he is substantially sent and given.’38 From the above citation, which in a clearly literal sense refers to the manifestation of the Spirit in time,39 the idea is put forward of a closer relationship between the Son and Spirit, restricted not only to the temporal missions but also extended into ‘theology’. The adverb ‘eternally’ transparently shows that the donation of the Spirit by the Son, far from happening accidently and in reference only to creatures, belongs by nature to the Son and because of his essence, the Son is eternally donator of the Spirit as he has this perfection as an inherent ability and property of his essence. For nothing is imperfect within the Deity.40 The Son is eternally donator of the Spirit just as he has eternally the property of being Creator. If the Son was not eternally donator of the gifts of the Spirit and Creator of the world he would not have the capacity to either give the Spirit to those who are worthy to receive it or to bring beings into existence from non-being.41 So in Blemmydes’ theological speculation there exists an immanent innerTrinitarian eternal relationship between Son and Spirit, which lays the ground for an equivalent relationship at the level of ‘economy’. In other words: the Spirit cannot be sent from anyone other than the divine Word for he possesses the Spirit eternally. The eternal manifestation of the divine energy, as the editor of Blemmydes’ works M. Stavrou successfully points out, is extended in the mission of the divine grace to the world and in the sanctification of the created being. This 37

38 39 40

41

See Athanasius, De processione S. Spiritus Oratio I, p. 142, 541A: tὸ ἐklάmpein ἐn qeοlοgίᾳ parastatikόn ἐsti tῆV ἀpaqοῦV kaὶ ἀcrόnου ὑpάrxewV . . . . the (verb) manifesting in terms of the Theology (inner-Trinitarian being) is indicative of the unaffected and timeless coming into being. In order to prove the validity of his position Nikephoros advances citations from Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa: Basil, Eun II 25 (SC 305, 104, 4–7 Sesboué): ‘it is a common conception of all Christians and in a similar way that the Son is light, begotten, shined forth from the ungenerated light’; Bas. or Greg. Nyss., Ep. 38, PG 32, 329C: ‘the Son, also, making known through himself and in connection with himself the Spirit who proceeds from the Father, shined forth one and only begotten from the ungenerated light, has neither communion in terms of the hypostatic proprietas to the Father nor to the Holy Spirit’. See also Greg. Nyss., Eun I 378, GNO I, p. 138, pp. 6–15 Jaeger. See Athanasius, Oratio I, p. 142, 541A. See v. Rossum, ‘Athanasius and the Filioque’, p. 55. See N. Ioannides, Nikephoros Blemmydes, pp. 290–1. See Nikephoros Blemmydes, ΔiήghsiV Μerikή Β' II 30, Corpus Christianorum 13, p. 58, pp. 11–59, 11 Munitiz: ‘The Son is indeed pre-eternally giver of the Spirit and He has by nature this kind of perfection (for, nothing within the deity is imperfect), while that who receives, due to its own measure, participates to that gift. For, if the Son had accidently the ability to give the gifts of the Spirit, then one could find some space for this accompanied with thoughtlessness and blasphemy untenable position. For the (ability) of giving the gifts of the Spirit belongs by nature and essentially to him, the Son is preeternally and eternally giver of the (divine) grace’. See M. Stavrou, ‘«L’Ésprit Saint procède du Père par le Fils». L’actualité de la pneumatologie de Nicéphore Blemmydes (13e siècle)’, FZPhTh 52 (2005), pp. 115–44 (136); N. Ioannides, N. Blemmydes, p. 252; Wendebourg, Geist oder Energie, p. 97. See Nikephoros Blemmydes, ΔiήghsiV Μerikή Β' ΙΙ 31, CChr. 13, p. 59, 1–10 Munitiz.

The Eternal Manifestation of the Spirit ‘Through the Son’

75

implies, in Blemmydes’ thought, neither a discrepancy between ‘theology’ and ‘economy’, nor a confusion that would abolish the dialectical relation between created and uncreated (being), a distinction that is fundamentally biblical and reaffirmed by the Cappadocians.42 If Nikephoros does not confuse these two levels of being, he surely presupposes a relationship of correspondence between them: for him ‘theology’ is accessible in and through the ‘economy’.43 If Blemmydes sees the ‘economic’ relationship between Son and Spirit grounded in God’s being, this should in no case also mean that the mission of the Spirit through the Son implies a relationship of dependence and of origin between the two persons.44 For if we focus on the passage that Blemmydes advances, the idea of the eternal relationship between Son and Spirit, we conclude that this kind of relationship is explained in terms of consubstantiality (ὡV ὁmοούsiοn tῷ Uἱῷ tὸ Pneῦma tὸ ἅgiοn)45 and not in terms of a causal relationship. Blemmydes clearly points out that the Spirit proceeds from the Father but he shines forth and is granted through the Son. Furthermore Blemmydes seems to be fully attached to the Cappadocian thought as far as the axiom of the incommunicability of the hypostatic properties is concerned. He uses exactly the same terminology and maintains the same view on the matter as the Cappadocians and Photius do! The divine properties remain strictly personal, incommunicable (ἀkinήtουV) and unconfounded (ἀsυgcύtουV).46 He clearly poses the question: how can it be possible that the Son takes share in the property of being-cause which belongs and is attributed by nature to the Father? Given the fact that the existence of the Son from the Father is perfect, how could it be possible that the existence of the Spirit is imperfect deriving from the same natural cause? In that case the Spirit would need to come into being also from the Son.47 42 43

44 45 46

47

See ‘L’Ésprit Saint procède du Père parle Fils’, p. 136. See ibid., p. 134 with reference to Oratio I PG 142, 576D–577A: ‘For, the Son as Man has indeed received in terms of the Economy (history of salvation) his own Spirit, from where else should have received Him (sc. The Spirit) if not from the heaven for his own glorification; After the passion and the resurrection, once the salvation has already been fulfilled, the Son does not receive (any more) the Holy Spirit, but he gives Him and the Spirit comes forth from him through blowing into (the Disciples), teaching (with that) in a practical way that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through him’. As Wendebourg argues. See Geist oder Energie, p. 100. See Nikephoros Blemmydes, ΔiήghshsV Μerikή Β' II 34, CChr. 13, p. 60, 1 Munitiz. See ibid., II 33 (p. 60, pp. 8–13): ‘for that reason it is also necessary . . . for the hypostatic properties to remain always uncommunicable-unmoveable; for, on the one side, from the common essence results the individness within the Trinity, on the other side, from the properties results the unconfusion. So how could it be possible for what that is proper to the one (person) also to be to it and at the same time to another person common? And (how could it be possible) in that respect for what is proper to someone to remain exclusively proper (to someone) and not to be in confusion?’ See ibid., II 39 (63, 4–10); see also Photius’ Mystagogy, PG 102 288B and Ep. 291 (III 143, pp. 124–6 Westerink), which had a great impact also on Gregory of Cyprus, De processione, PG 142, 273CD.

76

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

The view of the eternal manifestation of the Spirit through the Son, according to Blemmydes putting forward the eternal relationship between the Son and the Spirit in terms of the unity of the essence, has provided later Byzantine theologians with a tenable alternative in order to find a solution to the dogmatic quarrel over the filioque. By means of this idea one could say that Blemmydes enriches the teaching of Photius, who restricted the relationship between Son and Spirit only to the sending of the gifts of the Spirit, that is to say, to its temporal mission and with respect to the level of the economy. For Blemmydes their relationship also has an inner-Trinitarian dimension.48 Irrespective of this specific theological contribution, Blemmydes shows himself inconsistent in his teaching on the procession of the Holy Spirit in his earlier works, when refuting the Photian axiom ‘either something belongs exclusively to one Person within the Trinity or is a common property of the three Persons’.49 He (in his later works and probably in his desire to reconcile the formula per Filium with the procession from the Father) considers the mission of the Spirit through the Son something that stands in the middle between a hypostatic-personal and a natural property.50 This last view, one which clearly implies a confusion between ‘theology’ and ‘economy’, combined also with the consideration of the Father as first cause and principle (prώth aἰtίa-ἀrcὴ),51 has had a great impact on the so-called filioque supporters of the thirteenth century (John Beccos and Konstantine Melitiniotes) and provided them with additional arguments in order to fortify their theological position. In that respect one could say that Blemmydes paved the way for an increased interaction between the Western and Eastern theological systems in support of the filioque.52

IV The eternal manifestation according to Gregory of Cyprus Gregory of Cyprus also develops a conception of the eternal manifestation of the Spirit through the Son in order to reconcile the refutation of the filioque with the 48

49

50

51 52

See N. Ioannides, Nikephoros Blemmydes, p. 261; V. Lossky, À l’image et à la ressemblance de Dieu (Paris: Editions Aubier-Montaigne, 1967), p. 91; Chr. Savvatos, The Theological Terminology, pp. 46–7; M. Stavrou, ‘L’Ésprit Saint procède du Père par le Fils’, pp. 140–1. See Mystagogie 6 and 36, PG 102, 288B; 316B. On this issue see Alexopoulos, Der Ausgang, pp. 36–7. See Nikephoros Blemmydes, Ad Theodorum Ducam Lascarim 11, PG 142, 577C. On this issue see Ioannides, Nikephoros Blemmydes, pp. 276–80; A Riebe, Rom in Gemeinschaftmit Konstantinopel: Patriarch Johannes XI. Bekkos als Verteidiger der Kirchenunion von Lyon (1274) (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005), pp. 229–30 note 50. See Nikephoros Blemmydes, Ad Jacobum Bulgarie Archiepiscopum 6, p. 142, 537D; 533B; 556C. See Riebe, Rom in Gemeinschaft mit Konstantinopel, p. 315.

The Eternal Manifestation of the Spirit ‘Through the Son’

77

acceptance of a direct dependence at an inner-Trinitarian level of the Spirit from the Son.53 The questions that one could raise with respect to this matter are the following: (a) Does Gregory impoverish or amplify the ideas of his predecessors? (b) To what extent could one legitimately say that the Cypriot is indebted to Blemmydes concerning the idea of the eternal manifestation? (c) How does he relate the inner-Trinitarian position of the Spirit with His ‘economic’ position and function?54 In other words: if there is no relationship of origin, of cause between Son and Spirit, on what exactly is the mission of the Spirit through the Son grounded? (d) How are the two levels of being, ‘theology’ and ‘economy’ related to each other? (e) Could someone see in Gregory’s teaching an important link between the theological attitudes of earlier Fathers and those of Palamas? Furthermore, could some scholars from different confessional standpoints, on the basis of Gregory’s ideas, launch a new discussion on the matter of filioque and try to find a point of consensus?55

a Dealing with the matter of the eternal manifestation Gregory clearly distinguishes three specific functions within the Deity referring to the Holy Spirit: procession, eternal manifestation and temporal mission. Within these three functions yet another distinction must be made. The procession must be explained in terms of a relationship of origin while the other two functions in terms of the unity of the essence (consubstantiality). (1) The procession: according to Gregory the procession presents nothing else than the natural coming-into-existence of the Spirit from the Father and shows his specific and personal mode of being.56 So the procession refers exclusively to the mode of being of the Spirit himself and not of another person. If someone also ascribes to the Son the property of being-cause of the Holy Spirit’s mode of existence, that view contradicts the teaching of the Fathers and especially the view of he who claims that, whatever the Father has, so has the Son except causality. In that case he would have taken from the Father the property of being the only cause and source of the Deity.57 53 54 55

56 57

See Wendebourg, Geist oder Energie, p. 100. See ibid., p. 103. Genuine source-material that will allow us to treat the matter thoroughly includes the following works by Gregory of Cyprus: Expositio Fidei Contra Beccum (p. 142, 233A–246B), Scripta Apologetica (p. 142, 251C–267B), De Processione 55 (p. 142, 269B–290B). See Apol. PG 142, 254A, and 241A. See ibid., PG 142, 241A: ‘According to the common faith of the Church and the Saints mentioned before the Father is root and source of the Son and the Spirit and unique source of the Deity and only cause. But, if the Holy Spirit is said by some Fathers to proceed also from the Son, the expression

78

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

This property of being-cause belongs exclusively to the Father and implies the perfect and unoriginated character of this hypostasis. As a perfect and unoriginated hypostasis the Father brings forth in an equal way (ἰsοtίmwV)58 the two other Persons, the Son and the Spirit, by means of the generation and procession respectively. If the Son’s generation from the Father is perfect, why should this not be the case for the Spirit’s eternal procession? For he, according to the same principle of perfection, proceeds from the Father and in a perfect way!59 So Gregory refutes the idea of a causal procession of the Spirit through the Son not only by advancing citations from famous Church Fathers such as Gregory the Theologian but also by means of common logic. (2) While in terms of causality Gregory acknowledges only one procession of the Spirit from the Father, in terms of the unity of the essence he distinguishes two basic functions: the eternal manifestation of the Spirit through the Son and his temporal mission that reflects the ad extra movement (towards the creatures) of the Deity. The eternal manifestation refers to the divine life itself of the Spirit, which concerns the Father and the Son. Gregory argues that the phrase of John of Damascus advanced by his opponents, ‘the Father is the projector through the Son of the manifesting Spirit’ clearly denotes the manifestation – through the intermediary of the Son – of the Spirit, whose existence is from the Father.60 Gregory continues: Those who affirm that the Paraclete which is from the Father, has His existence (ὕparxin ἔcein) through the Son and from the Son . . . propose as proof the phrase the Spirit exists (ὑpάrcei) through the Son and from the Son. In certain texts (of the Fathers) the phrase denotes the Spirit’s shining forth and manifestation. Indeed, the very Paraclete shines forth and He is manifested eternally through the Son, in the same way that light shines forth and it manifests through the intermediary of the sun’s rays; it further denotes the bestowing, giving and sending of the Spirit to us.61

58

59

60 61

“through the Son” points out in that case not to the coming-into-being of the Spirit, having His existence from the Father, but to the eternal shining-forth; for, in that respect, this would have (firstly) taken away from the Father the property of being the only cause and the only source of the Deity, and (secondly) it would put in question the Theologian who says that “everything the Father has, has also the Son except of being cause”’. Cf. also ibid., 256AB. This adverb holds a place of honour in Photius’ Mystagogie 38, PG 102, 317B and 53, 332A: ‘from the one and undivided cause takes place pre-eternally and according to the same order the bringing forth, both of the Son and the Spirit’. See Apol. PG 142, 255CD. Cf. also De Processione, PG 142, 273CD and in Blemmydes, ΔiήghsiV Μerikή Β' II 39, CChr. 13, p. 63, 6–7 Munitiz. See Apol. PG 142, 240A. See Apol. PG 142, 240BC, trans. A. Papadakis, Crisis in Byzantium: The Filioque Controversy in the Patriarchate of Gregory II of Cyprus (1283–9) (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir᾽s Seminary Press, 1996), p. 91.

The Eternal Manifestation of the Spirit ‘Through the Son’

79

The eternal manifestation in no way means that the Son contributes essentially in the coming-into-existence (οὐsίwsiV) of the hypostasis of the Spirit. The mode of the Holy Spirit’s existence depends only upon the Person of the Father. Gregory maintains this view vehemently: We affirm the immediate procession, because the Spirit derives His personal hypostatic existence, His very being, from the Father Himself and not from the Son, not through the Son . . . For all that we say that the Spirit proceeds through the Son, and this without destroying our faith in the immediate procession. For, on the one hand He proceeds and has His existence from the Father, of whom is born the Son himself; while on the other, He goes forth and shines through the Son, in the same manner as the sun’s light is said to go forth through its rays, while the sun remains the light’s source, the cause of its being, and the natural principle of its origin; and yet, the light passes forth, emanates, and shines through the rays from which it derives neither being nor (coming-intoexistence). And, although the light passes through the rays, it in no wise derives the origin of its being through or from the rays, but immediately and exclusively from the sun – whence the rays themselves, through which the light is made manifest.62

Using the favourite metaphorical scheme of sun-ray-light Gregory offers us an explanation of the inner-Trinitarian functions stressing the fact that the Son’s participation in the Spirit’s manifestation poses no problem, since it refers to the energetic life of the Trinity and not to the internal-causal relations among the three Persons and particularly to their mode of being. The ‘Spirit’ goes forth and shines through the Son, independent in His origin of the hypostasis of the Father. For the sun is still the source of the light and the source of its being.63 (3) The manifestation of the Spirit refers not only to the energetic internal life of the Trinity but also has a broader ‘economic’ dimension. It refers to the temporal mission of the gifts of the Spirit, namely to the ad extra movement and action of God towards the creation. In his manifestation in the ‘economy’ the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and also from the Son.64 The Holy Spirit having his very being from the hypostasis of the Father rests and abides in the Son, from whom he shines forth.65 Gregory points out when addressing his opponents:

62

63 64 65

Apol. PG 142, 251AB, trans. by A. Papadakis, Crisis in Byzantium, p. 92. See also De Processione, PG 142, 287BC. See Papadakis, Crisis in Byzantium, p. 92. See De Processione, in PG 142, 275C. See Apol. PG 142, 266CD. Cf. also 267AB. See Orphanos, The Procession, p. 67.

80

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century The Holy Spirit exists, from the Son, so said Cyril (of Alexandria) not because of His own coming-into-existence, for that is to be made only by the Father, but because of the shining forth and manifesting of the Spirit who in His cominginto-existence from the Father is closely connected with the Son and rests upon him. Proceeding from the Father he indeed shows Himself and shines forth through the Son. He exists also from the Son, whenever we consider Him as being manifested given, sent and breathed upon (those who are worthy of Him),66 whenever He comes to renew the creation and whenever He is given, He has in this way the Son as Giver, whenever He is bestowed, He has the Son as His bestower and whenever He is sent, He has the Son as sender.67

From the text above, it results that the temporal mission of the Holy Spirit through the Son is clearly distinguished from the eternal manifestation also through him. But how are these two functions associated with each other? In other words: is the temporal mission of the Spirit rooted in the eternal inner-Trinitarian life and in what way? Or does the temporal mission imply or give us clear indication of closer existential relationship between Son and Spirit?68 The answer to this puzzling question is that the two functions cannot be seen independently of each other. The temporal mission is surely rooted, according to Gregory, in the relationship subsisting eternally between Son and Spirit, not in terms of cause and being caused but on the grounds of their common nature which is based on their common derivation from the one and unoriginated origin, the Father. ‘Because the Spirit proceeds from the Father and is inseparably connected with the Son, and has the same nature as him and is one-in-essence with him, therefore the Son bestows the Spirit himself, and gives him, and sends him.’69 Because both the Son and the Spirit depend upon the Father’s hypostasis they are of the same nature. In that respect the Spirit is carried eternally by the Son since the Son shares in the essence of the Spirit eternally. In Gregory’s Apologia the timeless relationship between the Son and the Spirit is proclaimed: But if you hear of the Spirit being called Spirit of the Son for He is through Him that He is revealed, but without receiving His existence from Him, what are you going to say in the name of the Spirit Himself? Should someone ever consider the Spirit as being proper to the Son in time and not eternally? Begone! I know, you will say. He is proper to Him eternally and for ever. If the Spirit is eternally 66 67

68 69

Ibid. De Processione, p. 142, 275CD: See also Alexopoulos, ‘Die Argumentation des Patriarchen Gregorios II Kyprios zur Widerlegung des Filioque-Ansatzes in der Shrift De Processione Spiritus Sancti’, BZ 104/1 (2011), pp. 1–39 (21–2). See Wendebourg, Geist oder Energie, p. 103. De Processione, in PG 142, 288D.

The Eternal Manifestation of the Spirit ‘Through the Son’

81

the Spirit of the Son and is called the Spirit of the Son–for He is through Him that He is revealed–then he who acknowledges this reality and says that the Spirit is revealed through the Son must perforce admit that He is also revealed eternally.70

Stripping the conceptions of space and time away, Gregory demonstrates that God interacts freely with his creation through his glory and that he cannot be limited to essence alone because this would make him inactive.71 The resplendence of the Divine glory is, according to Gregory, an eternal property (ἀΐdiοn prοsὸn) of the hypostasis of the Son, something that brings in connection the temporal shining forth of God’s creative and ‘economic’ activity with his eternal and everlasting working.72 So, taking that into account, one could say that Kyprios’ views coincides with those of Blemmydes since both see the temporal ‘economic’ mission of the Spirit through the Son lying in God’s eternal being. The temporal mission of the gift of the Spirit is an expression in time of God’s inner-Trinitarian and timeless property that underscores the eternal and uncreated character of God’s manifestation. The distribution of the charismata in time is also indicative of the fact that they had to be shared eternally since Son and Spirit are of the same essence. Gregory demonstrated their eternal nature by stressing that the ‘manifestation’ was shown in the Spirit through the Son from the Father even before man could experience it at his creation.73 Finally, Gregory underscores the timeless and eternal character of the Spirit’s manifestation through the Son by pointing out that this coincides (sυntrέcουsa) with the coming-intoexistence (tῇ prοόdῳ) of the hypostasis of the Spirit from the Father just as the manifestation and coming forth of the light through the radiance concurs with the resplendence of the light itself from the sun.74 It is noteworthy that Kyprios, in his dealing with the idea of the eternal manifestation, advances exactly the same passages from famous Church Fathers as Blemmydes does. The passages from the so-called 38th Letter and the first Letter of Athanasius to Serapion, as this one from Contra Eunomium I,75 hold a place of honour in Gregory’s Apology (p. 142, 258C–260B), and strengthen his argument. The question that arises at this point, and we are going to address 70

71 72 73 74

75

Apol. PG 142, 267AB. Cf. also Papadakis, Chrisi in Byzantium, p. 95; Chr. Savvatos, Theological Terminology, p. 195; Alexopoulos, Der Ausgang, pp. 99–100. See Sopko, ‘Palamism Before Palamas’, p. 142. Chr. Savvatos, The Theological Terminology, p. 187. See Apol. PG 142, 266C–267A. See Sopko, ‘Palamism Before Palamas’, p. 145. See Apol. PG 142, 250C. See also, J. C. Larchet, La vie et l᾽ œuvrethéologique de Georges/Grégoire II de Chypre (1241–1290) patriarche de Constantinople (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf 2012), p. 85. See note 37.

82

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

it below, is the following: Does Kyprios accept, and if yes to what extent, a relationship of correspondence between ‘theology’ and ‘economy’? In other words: Could someone draw safe conclusions from the second to the first, from God’s acting towards the creation to God’s inner-being? (4) ‘Theology’ and ‘economy’: relationship of correspondence or not? Gregory follows in his previous Church Fathers’ footsteps and tries to avoid any confusion between ‘theology’ and ‘economy’ as the so-called ‘Filioquists’ did when drawing conclusions concerning the eternal being of the divine persons on the basis of what is observed in the divine ‘economy’: because we see that the Son bestows the Holy Spirit, therefore we may conclude that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.76 Gregory vehemently attacks those who expound the mode of being of the Creator of the universe in such a way that is similar to the mode of being of the creatures.77 The bestowal of the Spirit by the Son does not provide us with any clear indication of a relationship of origin between the two persons. It is only a ‘sign’ or proof of their consubstantiality and nothing more. Gregory argues as follows: we say that the fire burns because we see ashes and because the loosing of liquid becomes mud. But this does not mean that mud or ashes are the cause of fire. They are rather its ‘sign’ or ‘proof ’ (shmeῖοn).78 Gregory points out that we should not rush to humble and earthly things that are more familiar to us immediately and transfer them hastily to what is not proper.79 So as far as the creation of the world is concerned, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, on the ground of their common nature create in common as one principle and one cause the created order.80 However, with regard to the mode of being of the Holy Spirit, the unique principle and cause is the Father in his hypostatic property which is incommunicable.81 M. Orphanos, my much loved and recently departed teacher, strikes the right note by saying that Gregory considers the question of the Holy Spirit’s hypostatic procession from the Father through the Son from the point of 76 77

78

79

80

81

See Rossum, ‘Athanasius and the Filioque’, p. 55. See De Processione, in PG 142, 281C. Cf. also Chr. Savvatos, The Theological Terminology, pp. 59–60; Alexopoulos, ‘Die Argumentation’, p. 32. See ibid., 288D: ‘so in this case the sending and giving of the Spirit from the Son in no way signifies that the Son is cause of the procession of the Spirit from the Father, but that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and that He is timelessly connected with the Son and that He is connatural with Him and of the same essence; that is why the Son provides and gives and sends the Spirit’. See ibid., 289C: ‘tοῖV tapeinοῖV kaὶ camaipetέsin’ (literally: ‘from the lower things and those which lie on the ground’). See ibid., 294D–295A: ‘Both the Holy Spirit and the Son are another (distinct) along with Father separate cause and principle of the creation of beings and of their grounding. For, such as the three persons are not divided with respect to their nature, they are also divided neither with respect to the power, nor to the will, and of course nor to the energy’. See ibid., 271A–272D. Cf. also Orphanos, The Procession, p. 69.

The Eternal Manifestation of the Spirit ‘Through the Son’

83

view of the distinction between the divine essence and the eternal uncreated energies,82 a view that reflects the striking similarity between Kyprio’s position and the subsequent fourteenth-century Palamite conception of God.83 In terms of this distinction the Holy Spirit is said to be from the Father through the Son because of the distribution and bestowal of his charismata (diὰ tὴn tῶn ἑaυtῷ carismάtwn, diamοnῂn kaὶ metάdοsin)84 in order to underscore that the processio belongs exclusively to the hypostasis of the Father and refers to the ‘theology’ while the manifestation of the ‘gift’ of the Spirit from the Father through the Son refers to the ‘economy.’ In this context Gregory stresses that it is necessary to distinguish between the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit and his gift or energy in order to exclude any suspicion of pantheism. Directing his arguments against those who identified the hypostasis of the Paraclete with his donations,85 Gregory addresses to his opponents the following questions: How can the gift be one-in-essence with the Giver? How can it be of the same rank with Him according to nature? How will the energy have the same definition as the essence of which it is the energy? How can the Spirit be conceived as existing by Himself if He is merely energy? For the concept of “energy” does not allow this . . . (And) if the essence of the Paraclete, which is conceived in His own hypostasis, is both gift and energy, do we—who partake of the gift and for whom the gift and illumination operate—share and receive the essence? And what truth is there in him who says that the divine is participable alone in its energies and illuminations?86 As regards what St. Athanasius says—that the coming down of the divine power—what value will that have? None, I believe— if you are right!87

It can be seen from the above advanced passage that the distinction between the hypostasis of the Spirit and his participable (by creatures) gifts initiated by Gregory in the filioque debate of his time is of pivotal importance, for through this distinction a confusion between the two levels of being, between ‘theology’ and ‘economy’, between the hypostatic procession of the Spirit and ‘economic’ 82 83 84 85

86

87

See Orphanos, The Procession, p. 69. See Papadakis, Crisis in Byzantium, p. 94, and Sopko, ‘Palamism Before Palamas’, p. 145. See De Processione PG 142, 284B. Gregory means no one other than John Beccos. Cf. Ad Andronicum Camaterum 12, PG 141, 424C: ‘Saying in the Gospel, “when the Paraclete comes, whom I send to you” the Lord does not show forth some sort of spiritual grace, as if it was separated from the Spirit, but the Paraclete Himself who is perfect and true God just as the Father and the Son’. Cf. Dion. Areop. Divinis Nominibus, Corpus Dionysiacum II 7 (PTS 33, 131, 5–13, ed. B. R. Suchla; Berlin/New York: Walter De Gruyter, 1990). De Processione, p. 142, 289D–290A. (trans. v. Rossum), A. Sopko, ‘Palamism Before Palamas’, p. 56 and Papadakis, Crisis in Byzantium, p. 94.

84

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

manifesting and sending is avoided. While Photius restricted the donationbestowal of the charismata in time, Kyprios, following the views of Blemmydes, has shown that these charismata had an eternal dimension other than that of their temporal distribution.88 In this way Kyprios managed to clarify the eternal relationship between the Son and the Spirit in terms of their consubstantiality which is grounded on their common source and origin: the Father. Gregory’s contribution is in that respect remarkable. In underlining this we advance J. Meyendorff ’s position concerning this specific point: ‘Instead of simply repeating Photius’ formulas about the “eternal procession” of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone and the “emission in time” by the Son, Gregory recognized the need to express the Son and the Spirit as divine hypostases, and he spoke of an “eternal” manifestation of the Spirit by the Son’.89

V General conclusion: Trying to find a solution The analysis has shown that the idea of the eternal manifestation does not appear as new in the texts of the late Byzantine theologians, but it is rooted in the early Patristic tradition, especially in Athanasius and the Cappadocians. Both later theologians, Blemmydes and Kyprios advance the same texts from their forerunners in order to develop the idea of the eternal relation between the Son and the Spirit, putting forward the formula that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father ‘through the Son’. Both feel the need to clarify the theological vocabulary of Athanasius that seems to be somewhat undeveloped and ambiguous90 and try to shed light on the matter of the eternal relationship between the Son and the Spirit on the basis of their consubstantiality, which is grounded on their common derivation in equal terms from the one and single principle in the Deity, the Father. At the level of the inner-Trinitarian relations one should make the distinction according to Gregory of Cyprus between a relationship of origin 88 89

90 91

See A. Sopko, ‘Palamism Before Palamas’, pp. 145–6. See J. Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas (London: The Faith Press, 1964), p. 13, with reference to M. Orphanos, The Procession, p. 70. See Rossum, ‘Athanasius and the Filioque’, p. 54. Such a distinction embraces M. Haudel in his famous study Die Selbsterschließung des dreieinigen Gottes. Grundlage eines Offenbarungs-, Gottes- und Kirchenverständnisses (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 2006), pp. 529–32. Haudel speaks of an interaction within a nexus of relationships at a level of origin and a level of existence according to which the procession of the Spirit from the Father, because of the permanent existential relationship between the Son and the Spirit, can be accomplished only ‘through’ (diά) the Son. So the ‘diά’ should not be restricted only to the

The Eternal Manifestation of the Spirit ‘Through the Son’

85

and a relationship in terms of the identity of the essence.91 Such relationships are the procession of the Spirit from the Father and his eternal manifestation from the Father through the Son respectively. In the theological speculation of Gregory the Cypriot the following reasoning is to be detected: if the procession, which means nothing more than the natural coming-intobeing of the Spirit from the Father, is indicative of a relationship of origin between these two Persons, one should clarify the status of the existing innerTrinitarian relationship between the Son and the Spirit clearly implied in the Scripture.92 This relationship can be explained according to Gregory only in terms of consubstantiality and it is expressed through the idea of the eternal manifestation and the temporal mission of the Spirit through the Son. Gregory clearly distinguishes between the eternal manifestation and the temporal mission of the ‘gift’ of the Spirit, for he distinguishes between ‘theology’ and ‘economy’, God’s eternal Life or Being and his revelation and saving acts ad extra. These two levels of being are, according to Gregory, distinguished from each other but not separated. If they were seen as fully separated from each other that would mean that God exists and acts without providence towards his creatures.93 In other words this would imply a clear agnosticism, something that Kyprios surely wants to avoid. So the following scheme can be depicted according to Gregory’s thinking. The Holy Spirit is sent and given by the Son for they are eternally related to each other at an inner-Trinitarian level and in terms of the unity of the essence. This unity is grounded on a relationship of origin – relationship of a higher rank between the Son and the Spirit because both come from the same cause in fully equal terms. While Gregory, in conceptual consistency with Blemmydes, also acknowledges a relationship of correspondence between ‘theology’ and ‘economy’, he simultaneously underscores a certain limitation in drawing conclusions from the second to the first. The ‘economy’ only provides us with signs and indications of God’s eternal energetic life but it does in no case allow us to penetrate into the divine mystery. Gregory puts emphasis on the fact that the eternal being of God is in his absolute transcendency independent of his acts ad extra. If there is a direct relevance between ‘economy’ and ‘theology’ this would

92 93

temporal mission of the Spirit or at the level of existence, to his shining forth. Moreover the ‘diά’ is an expression of the connection between the so-called level of origin and the level of existence, since it shows simultaneously the difference and the linking between the relationship of the Spirit to the Father as principle and his relationship to the Son at the level of existence which is intimately tied up with the first. See, for example, Gal. 4.6; Jn 16.7; 16.14. See Chr. Savvatos, The Theological Terminology, p. 231.

86

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

imply a confusion of the hypostatic procession of the Spirit from the Father with his shining forth and sending in time from the Father through the Son. Summa summarum: according to the theological speculation of Gregory of Cyprus one should acknowledge a certain and clear priority to the relationships of origin with respect to those of consubstantiality. The latter ones must have their grounds on the first. Taking this into account, the Spirit is given by the Son for he is consubstantial with him and he is so because of his coming-intoexistence in an equal way to the Son coming from the Father. In Gregory’s teaching one could detect striking similarities with the equivalent views of Saint Maximus the Confessor. In him there is also an eternal relationship between the Son and the Spirit, the latter flowing from the Father through the consubstantial Son, with whom he enjoys an eternal relationship as Father.94 Between the hypostatic procession of the Spirit from the Father and his temporal mission from the Father through the Son, Gregory adds an important element to the theological development of his time. In clarifying the eternal relationship between the Son and Spirit because of their consubstantiality, he not only showed a creative solution to the filioque problem, something which had been lacking since Photius, but also demonstrated the significance of his solution in relating the Divine to the created order.95

94

95

See Siecienski, The Filioque, p. 85. Concerning the importance of Maximus’ thought with respect to the filioque problem see also Siecienski, ‘The Authenticity of Maximus the Confessor’s Letter to Marinus: The Argument from Theological Consistency’, VigChr 61 (2007), pp. 189–227. See Sopko, ‘Palamism Before Palamas’, p. 146

6

The Spirit from the Father, of Himself God: A Calvinian Approach to the Filioque Debate Brannon Ellis

I Introduction In 1537, Pierre Caroli, a combative Sorbonne theologian recently converted to the Swiss Reformation, began a public spat with the newly influential reformer John Calvin and his fellow Genevan ministers. His most serious accusation was that the Genevans did not explicitly require from their parishioners subscription to the ecumenical creeds, and the new Genevan confession of faith did not include most of the key vocabulary of Trinitarian orthodoxy (persons, Trinity and so on). For their apparent reticence in this regard, Caroli accused the Genevans of Arianism.1 Calvin defended himself and his colleagues in a speech before a large synod in Lausanne by affirming thoroughly classical doctrines of God and Christ – a clear endorsement of Nicene and Chalcedonian orthodoxy that, to make a point, never once uses the terms trinitas or persona.2 Calvin did, however, use some fairly unique theological language that would become significant for the rest of his career and well beyond. In confessing the identity of Christ as fully God, Calvin referred to him as the one Jehovah, ‘who has always possessed it 1

2

The 1537 Genevan confession was a condensed version of the French catechism from a year before (which does contain a brief, explicit statement of Trinitarian belief). For Caroli, see James K. Farge, Biographical Register of Paris Doctors of Theology, 1500–1536 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1980), pp. 65–71. For this conflict with the Genevans, see Marc Vial’s Introduction to Confessio Genevensium praedicatorum de Trinitate, in Calvini opera: Denuo recognita, 2. Iohannis Calvini scripta ecclesiastica (Geneva: Librarie Droz, 2002), pp. 125–44; Brannon Ellis, Calvin, Classical Trinitarianism, and the Aseity of the Son (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 39–45 (hereafter CCTAS). For Calvin’s contribution at synod and his speech, see Confessio de Trinitate propter calumnias P. Caroli (1537), in CO 9.703–10. Much of the account of the proceedings comes in Calvin’s later work against Caroli, pseudonymously attributed to Calvin’s secretary Nicolas Des Gallars, Pro G. Farello et collegis eius adversus Petri Caroli theologastri calumnias defensio (1545), in CO 7.289–340. Cf. Arie Baars, Om Gods verhevenheid en Zijn nabijheid: De Drie-eenheid bij Calvijn (Kampen: Kok, 2005), pp. 108–21.

88

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

of himself that he is’.3 Caroli immediately seized on this attribution of aseity or self-existence to the Son as on an implicit rejection of eternal generation, and (not without some irony) began accusing the Genevans of Sabellianism.4 Calvin, equally incensed – and now quite willing to use traditional vocabulary – replied, Certainly, if the distinction between the Father and the Word be attentively considered, we shall say that the one is from the other. If, however, the essential quality of the Word be considered, in so far as he is one God with the Father, whatever can be said concerning God may also be applied to him, the second person in the glorious Trinity. Now, what is the meaning of the name Jehovah?5

If aseity belongs to the Lord, the self-existent God from whom all creatures exist and upon whom they depend, then certainly this attribute belongs to each person simply as God. The synod exonerated the Genevans and censured Caroli who, for the first of several times, returned to communion with Rome. But the issue of the aseity of the Son did not go away for long. Not only would Calvin hear again from Caroli and his sympathizers, still suspicious of his claims, but he would have to fend off attacks from the opposite direction – from anti-Trinitarians who were just as zealous to affirm the sole aseity of the Father, though with entirely different motives.6 Against both fellow Trinitarians and anti-Trinitarians, Calvin advocated the essential aseity of the only-begotten Son as faithful to Scripture and Catholic Trinitarianism. Indeed, though differing over the implications, Calvin’s rationale for affirming the Son’s aseity was identical to that of his Trinitarian critics who demurred from this language, as co-heirs of what Lewis Ayres has called the ‘first and most fundamental shared strategy’ of pro-Nicene orthodoxy: ‘a style of reflecting on the paradox of the irreducible unity of the three irreducible divine persons’.7 3 4 5

6

7

Calvin, Confessio de Trinitate, p. 706: ‘qui a se ipso semper habuit ut esset’. Calvin, Pro G. Farello, pp. 315, 322–4. As summarized afterward in Calvin, Letters, Part 1: 1528–1545 (eds Jules Bonnet and Henry Beveridge; trans. David Constable; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983), pp. 55–6. Calvin in hindsight remarked that Caroli’s attack on his language about the aseity of the Son as a denial of his generation from the Father was Caroli’s ‘most atrocious calumny of all’. In idem, Pro G. Farello, p. 322. For other Trinitarians who challenged Calvin in the early 1540s, see especially B. B. Warfield, ‘Calvin’s Doctrine of the Trinity’, in Calvin and Augustine (ed. Samuel G. Craig; Philadelphia: Presbyterian & Reformed, 1956), pp. 189–284; Calvin, Letters, pp. 412–13. For Calvin’s key conflict in 1558–61 with Italian anti-Trinitarian Valentine Gentile regarding the Trinity vis-à-vis aseity, see Calvin, Impietas Valentini Gentilis detecta et palam traducta qui Christum non sine sacrilega blasphemia Deum essentiatum esse fingit (1561), in CO 9.361–430; Baars, Om Gods verhevenheid en Zijn nabijheid, pp. 230–56; Antonio Rotondò, Calvin and the Italian Antitrinitarians (trans. John and Anne Tedeschi; St. Louis, MO: Foundation for Reformation Research, 1968); and my account in CCTAS, pp. 45–61. Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 278–9. Cf. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion [1559]

The Spirit from the Father, of Himself God

89

Still, Calvin’s significance for the filioque debate is not obvious. He inherited and defended the Western version of the creed, and though his Trinitarian debates centreing on the Son have clear implications for the Spirit as well, he did not develop these at any length. He has never been an important figure in the reception history of the doctrine.8 Nonetheless, Calvin’s wrestling with issues at the intersection of procession, consubstantiality and aseity holds tremendous promise for progress on some of the deepest issues of the filioque. All of Calvin’s exchanges revolved around the implications of appropriate patterns of Catholic Trinitarian speech, especially concerning how we should think about the personal processions in God and their relation to divine unity.9 According to received classical exposition of the manner of the processions, the Father ineffably communicates or imparts to the Son and the Spirit possession of the divine essence, thus constituting them Son or Spirit with respect to the Father who gives and God with respect to the essence that is given. Of course, this communication accords with the incomprehensible perfection of God: it is eternal, spiritual, intra-essential and simple, without composition or change, multiplication or division of the one divinity which the persons share. So the Father, who possesses his essence of himself, does not ‘have’ it without communicating it to the Son and the Spirit, and he does not lose anything of himself in doing so – or rather, he is truly himself only as the one who also communicates being fully to his Son and Spirit. In this sense, possessing the essence and being God are one and the same thing; the persons’ distinctions are located not in any differences in essence, but in their differing manners of possessing the selfsame essence.

8

9

(ed. John T. McNeill; trans. Ford Lewis Battles; Louisville, KY and London: Westminster John Knox, 1960), 1.13.19–20; Warfield, ‘Calvin’s Doctrine of the Trinity’, pp. 238–9. A. Edward Siecienski, The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 176–7. Notable exceptions are Gerald Bray, ‘The Double Procession of the Holy Spirit’, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 41, no. 3 (1998), pp. 415–26, and Thomas F. Torrance, ‘Calvin’s Doctrine of the Trinity’ and ‘The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity in Gregory Nazianzen and John Calvin’, in Trinitarian Perspectives: Toward Doctrinal Agreement (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), pp. 41–76 and 21–40. Bray and Torrance both argue – though from different viewpoints – that Calvin’s Trinitarian approach and conclusions regarding the aseity of the Son are significant for the question of the filioque. Bray takes Calvin to assert that the mutually ordered immanent relations among the persons are voluntary, while Torrance interprets Calvin as holding that the Son proceeds from the common essence of the Trinity rather than the person of the Father. My purpose here is not to engage either of their positions directly (and Torrance features elsewhere in this volume), although I hope it will become clear that on these points Bray and Torrance have interpreted Calvin inaccurately. Throughout this chapter, unless referring to someone else’s views, I employ the term procession in its broad Western sense, referring to immanent hypostatic origination in general (whether the Son’s or the Spirit’s); for the unique hypostatic origination of the Spirit, I prefer the language of spiration, rather than procession in its narrow sense. My goal with this is to engage the received vocabulary of Calvin’s (and my own) Latin tradition, while mirroring the ultimately clearer distinction in

90

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

Conceptualized in this way, the processions’ essentially communicative manner serves theologically both to assert the Son and the Spirit’s personal distinction from and ordered relation to the Father and to secure their full consubstantiality and equality with the Father. The essential unity of the Trinity both flows from the Father and is consequent upon its manner. Augustine, for example, stated plainly that it is ‘by birth that He is equal, who was always born, the Son of the Father, God of God, coeternal of the Eternal . . . therefore in begetting the Son, the Father “gave” Him to be God, in begetting He gave Him to be coeternal with Himself, in begetting He gave Him to be his equal’.10 Gregory of Nazianzus also took this as a given: ‘from [the Father] flows both the Equality and the Being of the Equals (this will be granted on all hands)’.11 Examples of similar statements could be almost endlessly multiplied.12 Yet this explanation of the ineffable relation between personal taxis and essential unity is precisely what a Calvinian perspective does not grant – and ostensibly on the classical tradition’s own terms. Calvin was wholly committed to confessing the role of the processions in personal origination and order, enshrined in creedal affirmations of the generation of the Son and the spiration of the Spirit; but he resisted explaining these processions in any way that could compromise an equally creedal confession of the persons’ simple consubstantial unity. Simply put, to speak of the divine essence itself in a relative or comparative sense (as given and received among the persons) is just as inappropriate as making no personal distinction between Father, Son and Spirit – no matter how carefully or sublimely conceived, such ways of speaking break the rules of appropriate Trinitarian speech. Thus I argue that the direct relevance of Calvin’s Trinitarian conflicts for the filioque debate is that they force the classical tradition to wrestle with the following questions that to this point have been almost entirely ignored: what if the ageold divergence between Eastern and Western formulations of the spiration of the Spirit is due to a significant extent to teasing out variant implications of a shared commitment to a particular explanatory strategy for speaking of the manner of divine procession? And what if this attempt at explaining the manner of ineffable procession is subtly but significantly in tension with the fundamental grammar of Trinitarian speech which both traditions wholeheartedly confess?

10

11 12

developed Greek terminology – though by no means exclusive to the Eastern tradition – between the ‘flowing forth’ of the Son or the Spirit (viz. prοϊέnai), and the Spirit’s distinctive hypostatic origination (viz. ἐkpοreύesqai). Thus spiration is here synonymous with ἐkpόreusiV. Augustine, Tractates on John, 48.6, in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church (eds Philip Schaff and Henry Wace; series I and II; 28 vols; repr., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), series I, 7:267 (hereafter NPNF, with series number in superscript). Gregory, On Holy Baptism 40.43 (NPNF2 7:376). See further Ellis, CCTAS, pp. 83–102, 109–20, 137–68.

The Spirit from the Father, of Himself God

91

Here I approach the question of the filioque from this consciously yet selfcritically classical (Catholic) and Calvinian angle.13 I suggest that such an approach to Trinitarian formulation untangles the filioque from at least three key aspects of the controversy: 1. It provides a fruitful way of framing the complementarity and tension between and within Eastern and Western approaches to the spiration of the Spirit. 2. It consistently maintains a dual emphasis on both robust ordered distinction and simple essential consubstantiality. 3. It illustrates well the way in which Catholic Christian confession of the Spirit, and the various explanatory mechanisms for conceptualizing his eternal origination, are intrinsically distinguishable while carrying real mutual influence. Each of these untangled complications has several related positive dogmatic implications.

II East and West on the filioque: Complementarity and tension One of the basic issues of the filioque debate is the nature of the similarities and differences between East and West, both in terms of underlying assumptions and in terms of theological claims. A Calvinian demurral from essential communication as a venerable yet problematic explanatory mechanism for understanding divine procession provides a fruitful angle for framing the simultaneous complementarity and tension between as well as within Eastern and Western accounts of the Spirit’s personality and deity. It is generally accepted that while the East has tended to approach the filioque’s significance from a concern for protecting personal taxis, lodging unity in the person-essence of the Father who generates and spirates, the West has tended to approach it from a desire to underline the consubstantial unity with the Father in which his Son and Spirit share by being generated and spirated. So each side has harboured legitimate and multifaceted doctrinal concerns about the other. 13

By Calvinian I intend to encompass both Calvin’s explicit claims and rationale and my own reflections on their implications. I do not argue that Calvin would have always agreed with the latter – of course I believe that in the main he would, just as I like to believe many of the fathers would have been sympathetic with what I am developing here – but that is no argument!

92

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

This tension between Eastern and Western approaches has garnered most attention historically; more recently ecumenical gains have been much more to the fore.14

a Complementarity between East and West A Calvinian view offers a fruitful doctrinal vantage for appreciating the complementarity between Eastern and Western convictions, even amid their differences. Put in terms of the present theme, this historic divergence may be seen more clearly as largely a matter of emphasis and accent rather than dogmatic variance.15 The East has been most sensitive to fully affirming the Spirit’s personal origin and order which is uniquely constituted by the Father’s communication of his essence in spiration, while the West has been most sensitive to fully affirming the consubstantiality and equality logically consequent upon this communication (first for the Son and thus for the Spirit). The distinct orientation and emphases of Eastern and Western approaches, therefore, nevertheless overlap in a basic assumption of the essentially communicative manner of the Spirit’s spiration. This is an important area of complementarity – and a fruitful avenue for mutual insight and understanding – that should not be overlooked.

b Tension between East and West Still, the differences are not merely a matter of emphasis, and it would be belittling both sides in this ancient controversy to say so. There is real, meaningful divergence. If the manner of the immanent procession of the Son and that of the Spirit are identical (both a communication of the essence), and if both persons’ identities are constituted by their processional origin, then from a Western perspective, sufficiently distinguishing and relating the Son and the Spirit in the unity of the Godhead seems problematic for the East. This is especially concerning within a Photinian reading of the Eastern tradition, where both persons are emphatically from the Father alone.16 Certainly there is a clear 14

15

16

Cf. Siecienski, Filioque, p. 194: ‘The doctrinal controversy surrounding the filioque is not yet resolved, but the past century does provide reason to hope that a resolution is not far off ’. It is not my present concern to address ecclesial, political and cultural issues – which often have been more decisive for the actual outcomes of Eastern and Western encounters than doctrinal concerns. Photius, The Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit (trans. with an introduction by Joseph P. Farrell; Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1987). The Mystagogia may or may not have been written by Photius, although it is ‘Photinian’ and foundational for subsequent Orthodox polemic; on this see Tia Kolbaba, Inventing Latin Heretics: Byzantines and the Filioque in the Ninth Century (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2008). I assume Photius as its author here.

The Spirit from the Father, of Himself God

93

difference in the terminus ad quem of the essence communicated from the Father, issuing in God the Son (generation) or in God the Spirit (spiration). But for the West, the typical Eastern account of the terminus a quo of procession still appears inadequate; if both Son and Spirit originate solely from the Father, then the manner of each person’s relation of origin appears identical to that of the other. Despite the terminological difference between generation and procession (in the narrow sense), it seems the origination of the Son and that of the Spirit are indistinguishable.17 The Father is related directly to each as sole processor, opening the door to a Trinity consisting of one Father and two Sons/Spirits (who are not sufficiently related to one another).18 In return, the East has felt that the Western filioque – setting aside for now its dubious ecclesial legitimacy – is no improvement theologically, rendering the Father and the Son indistinguishable vis-à-vis the Spirit. The Spirit personally flows from and relates to each as his processor, evoking a Trinity of two Fathers and one Spirit.19 Thus one side is accused of failing to sufficiently distinguish and relate the Son and the Spirit, the other side of making the Father and the Son hypostatically identical. And either worry carries direct implications for Christian faith and practice: ‘Is it possible to have a deep experience of the Holy Spirit and yet know little or nothing of the atoning work of Christ? Is it true that the Filioque clause has led to a subordination of the Holy Spirit to the Son so complete that a Christocentric faith has become Christomonism?’20 On both sides, the suspected implications have been explicitly and repeatedly rejected as untrue and unwarranted.21 Still, we can learn a lot from the mutual 17

18

19

20 21

So, for example, the Carolingian Ratramnus of Corbie’s concern during the ninth century controversies: ‘if the Son proceeds from God the Father and the Holy Spirit also proceeds [i.e., from the Father alone], what will keep the Arians silent, not blaspheming that the Holy Spirit is also the Son of the Father?’ As quoted in Siecienski, Filioque, p. 107. Although an emphasis on simple essential unity and the distinctions between the persons as strictly ‘relative’ is by no means uniquely Western (as ably demonstrated by the works of Lewis Ayres, Michel Rene Barnes and others), it is unique to the Western tradition when paired with both a view of the Spirit as the mutually expressed bond of love between Father and Son and an emphasis on a relation of origin between the Son and the Spirit as necessary if they are to be persons-in-relation at all. Thomas Aquinas is a key example of the place that relations of origin (and opposition) have had in Western approaches to the filioque question. From this perspective, ‘there cannot be in God any relation opposed to each other except relations of origin’, and so in order for the Son to be distinct from yet related to the Spirit, one of them has to originate from the other. No one believes the Son originates from the Spirit; but the Spirit must surely originate from the Son, seeing that the Father has given everything he has to the Son, even the ability to breathe their common Spirit. See The Summa Theologica of St Thomas Aquinas (trans. the Fathers of the English Dominican Province; London: Burns, Oates and Washbourne, 2nd rev. edn, 1920), 1a q.36 a.2. See, for example, the various arguments along these lines from Photius, Mystogogy, pp. 10, 14–18, 38–40. Bray, ‘The Filioque Clause in History and Theology’, Tyndale Bulletin 34 (1983), pp. 91–144 (103). Cf. ‘The Filioque: A Church-Dividing Issue? An Agreed Statement of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation, Saint Paul’s College, Washington, DC, October, 2003’: ‘[D]iscussion of this difficult subject has often been hampered by polemical distortions, in

94

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

tension. Thomas F. Torrance argued that these competing visions of the intraTrinitarian life and thus of our participation in the Trinity are a lasting testament to the inability of our theological reasoning to comprehend God in himself.22 This is insightful as far as it goes, but more can be said about the specific role and character of the filioque. Specifically in light of Calvinian concerns, it can be said that Eastern critics of the filioque have tended to deploy twofold Trinitarian speech more consistently when discussing the relationship between the processions and consubstantiality than their Western peers. Put simply, Photius – whose arguments I take as representative here – was right to criticize supporters of the filioque for subtly transferring discussion of the Father’s spiration of his Spirit out of comparative personal predication into absolute or common essential predication. The Spirit’s personal origination from the person of the Father is a claim about the distinct identities of the hypostases and the relationship between them, not a comparison between the Father (‘and the Son’) and the Spirit as one God. Western theologians, of course, have been quick to affirm that generation and spiration are personal; ‘God of God’ certainly does not mean the divine essence begets another essence.23 And it has become abundantly clear that all sides grant a single, original source of the Godhead in the Father.24 Yet Photius and his successors still have a point: when the power of breathing the Spirit in God is what the Son receives as God from the Father as God, then advocates of the filioque are still speaking of the Spirit’s origination, but no longer on the level of personal predication. The West’s language was intended to guard against subordinationism (by bolstering the Son’s full consubstantiality with the Father), and to ground the immanent relationship between the Son and the Spirit – but it is also a transposition of properly personal speech into an essential register.

22

23 24

which each side has caricatured the position of the other for the purposes of argument. It is not true, for instance, that mainstream Orthodox theology conceives of the procession of the Spirit, within God’s eternal being, as simply unaffected by the relationship of the Son to the Father, or thinks of the Spirit as not “belonging” properly to the Son when the Spirit is sent forth in history. It is also not true that mainstream Latin theology has traditionally begun its Trinitarian reflections from an abstract, unscriptural consideration of the divine substance, or affirms two causes of the Spirit’s hypostatic existence, or means to assign the Holy Spirit a role subordinate to the Son, either within the Mystery of God or in God’s saving action in history’. In Section 3, available online at http://www.scoba.us/resources/orthodox-catholic/2003filioque.html. Torrance, Theology in Reconstruction (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1965), pp. 192–239. He also suggests – again insightfully – that the filioque is an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to secure what the homoousion (rightly understood) successfully accomplishes. Thomas, Summa Theologica, 1a q.39 a.4. See esp. the strong historical and theological claims made to this effect by the Vatican, in ‘The Greek and Latin Traditions Regarding the Procession of the Holy Spirit’, Catholic International 7 (1996), pp. 36–43.

The Spirit from the Father, of Himself God

95

But could this Eastern insight not also become a fruitful self-critique? Because even amid robust epistemological reservations regarding the ‘supersubstantial’ nature of the Trinity’s ‘unqualified, ineffable unity’ of essence, Photius was still willing to make roughly the same move as his opponents: ‘the equal dignity of [the Spirit’s] essence and nature’ as God belong to him because of ‘the dignity of the eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father’.25 At the same time, to say that the East’s unease concerning the language of procession from the Son is consistent with Calvinian patterns of speech is perhaps a strange claim, seeing that Calvin and his Reformed heirs have almost universally affirmed the filioque.26 It is important to note, however, that the way Calvin and those Reformed who followed his particular views on the processions affirmed the interpolated creed is in key respects quite different from the standard Western approach. Calvin accepted the venerable pro-filioque argument that the Spirit is faithfully confessed to proceed also from the Son chiefly because, in Scripture, the Spirit is, without any distinction, called sometimes the Spirit of God the Father, and sometimes the Spirit of Christ; and thus called, not only because his whole fullness was poured on Christ as our Mediator and head, so that from him a portion might descend on each of us, but also because he is equally the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, who have one essence, and the same eternal divinity.27

In discussing Romans 8.9, Calvin affirmed the legitimacy of the filioque for the very same reason that Photius had argued against it: for Photius, such passages that speak of ‘the Spirit of the Son’ are not referring to the Spirit’s procession from the Son as well as the Father, but to his consubstantiality with each.28 Though Calvin took the Spirit being ‘of the Son’ and ‘proceeding from the Son’ as synonymous in typically Western fashion, he did not take the Son’s involvement in the Spirit’s personal origination to be ‘Fatherly’ in any way – that is, the Son does not impart divine essence to the Spirit, having received it for himself. 25

26

27 28

Photius, Mystagogy, pp. 36, 40, 45. Cf. ibid: ‘from the same everlasting fount of grace comes both: the dignity of the eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father and, because of this, the equal dignity of His essence and nature as well. For it is the Father Who initiates all greater and lesser things in every way’ (28). See Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, vol. 4: The Triunity of God (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), pp. 371–8. Calvin, Institutes, 1.13.18. Photius, Mystagogy, p. 107.

96

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

Calvin’s similarly worded endorsement of the filioque in the Institutes comes after his description of the immanent order of personal origin and activity within the one being and work of God: ‘To the Father is attributed the beginning of activity, and the fountain and wellspring of all things; to the Son, wisdom, counsel, and the ordered disposition of all things; but to the Spirit is assigned the power and efficacy of that activity’.29 He had earlier affirmed categorically that ‘whatever is attributed to the Father as a distinguishing mark cannot agree with, or be transferred to, the Son’.30 In tandem with Calvin’s conviction that origination and order in God are strictly personal affirmations, therefore, these statements indicate that the character of his confession of the Spirit’s procession from the Son is virtually synonymous with endorsements of the filioque (like Maximus the Confessor’s) that describe the Spirit’s ἐkpόreυsiV as uniquely from the Father but always in loving communion with his consubstantial Son, the one on whom the Spirit eternally rests, and through whom the Father works by the same Spirit.31 In this context, whether the filioque is employed or not ultimately makes less of a difference than whether, in doing so, one is attempting to describe the manner of the Spirit’s origin in inappropriately essential terms.

c Tension within East and West This Calvinian way of framing things further indicates that – insofar as essentially communicative procession is in tension with basic Trinitarian grammar – both traditions have inadvertently given in to a perennial temptation to explain how God comes to be Triune (failing to thoroughly challenge non-Trinitarian assumptions and modes of reasoning in the process). Perhaps the clearest examples of this in patristic exposition occur when they encounter Arian or Eunomian theological logic admitting the distinction of the Son and the Spirit from the Father, but only in such a way that they therefore cannot be the selfsame God. The classical tradition has often sought to confound such thinking by turning it on its head: arguing that the perfectly divine manner of the processions is in fact the reason for and basis of the truth of the full divinity of the Son and the Spirit. This usually involves taking biblical patterns of speech or analogies displaying the persons’ ordered distinction within divine unity – such as Jn 1.18, 5.26, 6.57, 10.29 (in the Vulgate) and Heb. 1.3 – and making them arguments 29 30 31

Calvin, Institutes, 1.13.18. See further Ellis, CCTAS, pp. 28–30. Calvin, Institutes, 1.13.6. For a great summary of Maximus’ theology and his lasting contribution to the debate, see Siecienski, Filioque, Ch. 4.

The Spirit from the Father, of Himself God

97

for the ground of unity between the persons. Take Cyril’s anti-Arian meditation on eternal generation from Jn 6.57, ‘Just as the living Father has sent me, and I myself live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me’. It was not possible for him who is from the living Father not to live. Just as if someone were to say concerning our own situation, I am a rational man because of my father [,] because I was born as a child of a rational man, so also you should understand it in the case of the Only Begotten himself as well. “I live”, he says, “because of the Father”. Since the Father who begat me is life by nature, and I am his natural and genuine offspring, I gain by nature what is his, that is, being life, since this is what the Father is.32

Augustine offered a similar description of what he took to be a sufficiently divine processional ontology, to the same effect, against Maximinus: We too profess that the Son received his might from him of whom he was born powerful, and that no one gave might to the Father because no one generated him. For it was by generation that the Father gave might to the Son, and also all that he has in his own substance he gave by generation to the one whom he begot of his substance.33

Let me be clear: throughout their works these Catholic Fathers challenged their opponents most fundamentally by appealing to the Trinitarian scope of Scripture and its rule of faith, and (unlike their opponents) continually confessed that the being of God is incomprehensible, truly acknowledged only in participation by faith in the Son through the grace of the Spirit.34 And these fathers and their successors were certainly orthodox in their dogmatic conclusions about the Triunity of God. Calvin himself freely appealed to the foundational works of Augustine, Gregory of Nazianzus and Cyril (among others) in his discussions of the Trinity; but he would not admit the appropriateness of arguing to the Son and the Spirit’s simple consubstantiality with the Father by way of their procession 32

33

34

Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on John (ed. Joel C. Elowsky; trans. David R. Maxwell; vol. 1; Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2013), p. 243. It is important to note that in this context, as elsewhere, Cyril contrasts the Son’s living from the Father by generation to his living by ‘receiving life’ from the Father. Cyril only rejects the language that the Son per se receives life in the sense that he does not gain something by participation and in time that he did not possess eternally and by nature. Augustine, Against Maximinus, 2.12.1, as quoted by Peter Lombard, The Sentences: Book 1: The Mystery of the Trinity (trans. Giulio Silano; Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2007), 30.3.2 (117). On the crucial role of the incomprehensibility of the divine nature in classical Trinitarianism, see Stephen R. Holmes, The Quest for the Trinity: The Doctrine of God in Scripture, History and Modernity (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2012), Ch. 5 passim.

98

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

from him. He consistently interpreted the classic passages just mentioned as testimonies to the persons’ order of subsistence and manner of working as revealed in the economy, but he disallowed any immanent giving or receiving of the divine essence between Father and Son as inappropriate.35 Calvin was even willing to admit that the fathers sometimes needed to be ‘harmonized’ if they were to be understood to agree with him, though he felt it was warranted on the basis of their own commitments.36 Indeed, the inner motive of classical speech about God goes deeper than even its most able advocates, undermining non-Trinitarian thinking at its roots. Because the one God is Trinity, and because the Father and his Son and Spirit are this one God, any theological reasoning that does not operate already from a conviction of their personal distinction and essential unity is inappropriate – such reasoning does not need to be made more perfect, but to be judged and raised anew in Christ. Eunomius, for example, did not reject the simple unity of the Son and the Spirit with the Father primarily because his notions regarding the manner of their origin from the Father were faulty. He rejected their unity principally because he believed true Godhead was entirely and strictly synonymous with the Father: The whole account of our doctrines is summed up thus; there is the Supreme and Absolute Being, and another Being existing by reason of the First, but after It though before all others; and a third Being not ranking with either of these, but inferior to the one, as to its cause, to the other, as to the energy which produced it . . . .37

Eunomius ipso facto could not offer a Catholic account of the processions, because he would not give credence to the Triunity of the one God. From a classical 35

36

37

See esp. his comments on Heb. 1.3. Calvin approached these passages via the incarnate person of Christ – for example, commenting on Jn 6.57, he says that Christ’s claim to ‘live because of the Father’ applies strictly neither to his divine nor to his human nature, but to his entire person; he is simultaneously the Father’s Son sent to bring life and Life himself. Calvin describes the same Christological ‘location’ for the communication of life to and in the Son in Jn 5.26. Calvin, Institutes, 1.13.19: ‘Sometimes, indeed, they teach that the Father is the beginning of the Son; sometimes they declare that the Son has both divinity and essence from himself, and thus has one beginning with the Father’. Calvin interpreted the Fathers’ language regarding the Son’s derivation in any sense as necessarily belonging to an affirmation of his personal origination from the Father. In other words, any mutually comparative or ordered language applied to the essence per se seems to have been for Calvin obviously incongruous with the Fathers’ Trinitarian orthodoxy. As quoted by Gregory of Nyssa in Against Eunomius 13 (NPNF2 5:50). Cf. Basil’s quote from Aetius in On the Holy Spirit 2.4 (NPNF2 8:3-4): ‘Their pertinacious contention is to show that the mention of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is unlike, as though they will thence find it easy to demonstrate that there is a variation in nature. They have an old sophism, invented by Aetius, the champion of this heresy, in one of whose Letters there is a passage to the effect that things naturally unlike are expressed in unlike terms, and, conversely, that things expressed in unlike terms are naturally unlike’.

The Spirit from the Father, of Himself God

99

perspective, such reasoning does not stem from faith seeking understanding, but human understanding seeking to establish for itself a rule of faith. What subordinationism and modalism need most basically is not closer conformity to a fitting conceptuality of divine procession – although this is certainly needed – but a faithful confession of one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The greatest value of seriously considering the present approach for the filioque, therefore, does not lie in accusing either the Eastern or Western stream of the classical tradition of any capitulation to heterodoxy, but in calling it to deeper self-consistency in challenging all modes of thought and speech that are in tension with the reality of the Trinity. As Catholic Christians who reason together from and within Scripture’s Trinitarian rule, we must trust that seeking to respond more consistently to God’s self-disclosure should lead us into greater conformity to orthodox faith and reasoning, not less.

III Aseity and origination: Robust personal order amid strict essential unity a The self-existence of the Father or of the Trinity? Though Calvin’s Trinitarian opponents were sometimes willing to attribute aseity to the Son and the Spirit, it was in a strictly negative sense (as not depending for their existence on anything outside of the self-existent nature which they possess from the Father). Of course it is appropriate to make all the other materially positive divine claims about them unqualifiedly – as wise, good, powerful and so on – but when this particular characteristic of deity was brought up, the classical response to Calvin’s language was to allow any positive significance of divine aseity for the Father alone.38 The accusation that Calvin was effectively denying eternal generation by claiming that the Son ‘has always possessed it of himself that he is’, after all, is a suspicion of something more fundamental: either dividing the essence (Arianism) or confusing the persons (Sabellianism) by attributing to the Son what belongs to the Father alone. Both Trinitarians and anti-Trinitarians were quick to point out that only the Father is a se, ‘of himself ’. For Calvin’s anti-Trinitarian opponents, similarly to Anomoeans like Eunomius long before them, this meant that only the Father should be considered the one true and highest God; in 38

See Ellis, CCTAS, pp. 152–68.

100

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

response, Calvin – in good classical form – simply castigated their faithlessness and impiety for denying the Son and thus his Father also (Jn 5.23; 1 Jn 2.23).39 But with fellow Trinitarians, for whom his claim of aseity for the Son seemed a denial of personal origin and order, Calvin generally took a different tack. He appealed to shared convictions concerning twofold speech appropriate to the ineffable nature of the Triune God. Essential aseity is not a denial of personal origination and order, but an affirmation of the ineffably simple nature of the ever-living Trinity. So to state this Calvinian conviction as concisely as possible is to say that the Trinity – in all the persons’ hypostatic integrity and ordered mutuality – is self-existently God. Calvin’s approach, then, enables a materially positive and thoroughly Trinitarian account of God’s aseity. Focusing on aseity’s negative significance by contrasting God’s nature with that of his (essentially contingent and dependent) creatures has its place, of course, but the Triune God’s nature is not fundamentally constituted or defined over against the world. Aseity is not a paired concept (to use John Webster’s phrase), to be understood according to whatever our existence is not.40 God is ‘beyond being’ in that sense, since our denial of dependence or derivative life in God can never enable us to comprehend him as he is. Whenever we are describing the essence of Father, Son and Spirit, we are describing the God whose nature and character are primary, sui generis, incomprehensible, yet self-disclosing – and therefore self-interpreting. This is what I mean by a materially positive account of aseity. The God who is, is this sort of God, and is uniquely so, from and in the mutual and perfect fullness of the divine life. We must learn from God’s own self-disclosure what it means to us for him to be such, listening to the Son by the Spirit not only to truly know the Father, but to truly know the Son and the Spirit as well.

b The Father’s Son and Spirit: Distinct and ordered in manner of subsisting and working With the classical tradition, Calvin was as committed to the importance of confessing God’s immanently ordered threeness as he was to confessing this Trinity’s simple unity. While at first blush his unique stance in not making 39

40

This is particularly apparent in Calvin, Impietas Valentini Gentilis detecta, Praefatio. Cf. Ellis, CCTAS, pp. 52–63. Webster, ‘Life in and of Himself: Reflections on God’s Aseity’, in Engaging the Doctrine of God: Contemporary Protestant Perspectives (ed. Bruce McCormack; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), pp. 107–24 (110).

The Spirit from the Father, of Himself God

101

the deity of the Son and the Spirit consequent upon that order in any sense may seem to undermine immanent personal taxis in God, it does so only if the essentially communicative manner of this order is assumed in the first place. In fact, when all such language inquiring into manner is chastened, language affirming ordered personal distinction and manner of operation in God is more freely allowed to do its own dogmatic work. In other words, we may emphasize even more strongly the fundamental theological and soteriological significance of the divine persons’ ordered existence precisely because we do not need that order itself to do the work of securing, explaining or providing the intrinsic rationale for the persons’ unity and equality. The doctrines of generation and spiration are not asked to accomplish more for the doctrine of the Trinity than they are supposed to – but they are required to do all that they are supposed to. So the Spirit being of himself God, unqualifiedly Lord and underivatively Life, does not deny his identity as from the Father and in intimate relation to the Son. Indeed, who the Spirit is, and everything he does in the integrity of his divine identity, will and works, is appropriately understood as proper to him precisely as the One from the Father who rests on or remains in the Son. The Spirit creates from the Father through the Son (Gen. 1.3-4; Ps. 33.6), and recreates in the same way, taking from everything that belongs to the Son – which is all that belongs to the Father – and giving it to us (Jn 16.15). The Spirit is simultaneously the Creator of all things and ‘the breath of his mouth’ through whom together with the Word all things were created (Pss. 33.6, 104.30), on whom all creatures depend (Job 34.14). The Spirit is himself ‘living water’ (Jn 7.37-39), the ‘Spirit of life’ (Rom. 8.2), by whose life alone we may truly live (Ezek. 37.14). The Holy Spirit is not holy because he is from the Father, but together with the Holy Father (Jn 17.11) and the Holy One of God (Lk. 4.34) he is in and of himself holy, the one whose intrinsic purity and freely shown grace is able to sanctify us for the Father in the Son (Rom. 15.16). Whether proceeding from the Father, or from the Father and the Son, or from the Father through the Son, the Spirit is not the one true God because he proceeds. Rather, the Spirit who proceeds is the one true God because he is. The God who is, Father, Son and Spirit, is not properly said to come to be. This is key. All that it means to be God is true also of the Spirit, and thus he is not to be separated from or made less than the Father and the Son from whom he is distinguished and to whom he is ordered. The Spirit has created all things from the Father through the Son, but we should not think he is Creator because he is

102

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

from the Father and with the Son. God is one. Likewise, the Spirit is sent by the Son from the Father for our redemption, and redeems us for the Father in the Son, while he is nonetheless the selfsame Redeemer together with the Father and the Son.41 So the Spirit redeems from the Father through the Son, but we should not say the Spirit is our Lord because he is the Spirit of the Father (or of the Son, Gal. 4.6). There is one Lord. But in and with this confession is the mystery of the Trinity: the ‘Lord who is the Spirit’ is simultaneously ‘the Spirit of the Lord’ (2 Cor. 3.17), the one by whose power alone we may confess, ‘Jesus is Lord’ (1 Cor. 12.3). This approach, finally, locates the rich biblical and dogmatic language of ‘communication’ where it most properly belongs – not as a predicate of the divine essence itself and per se, but of the persons and the ordered relations between them, and for this reason it also speaks into the intersection of procession and mission, interpreted within and through the Spirit-filled person and work of Christ. This Spirit, which proceeds from the Father (Jn 15.26) as the sole source of the Trinity, and which has become the Spirit of our sonship (Rom. 8.15) since he is already the Spirit of the Son (Gal. 4.6), is communicated to us, particularly in the Eucharist, by this Son upon whom he reposes in time and eternity. (Jn 1.32)42

IV Trinitarian confession or doctrinal exposition: To which does the filioque properly belong? Finally, a Calvinian stance towards speaking of God’s Triunity illustrates very well how Catholic Christian confession according to the rule of faith, on one hand, and the somewhat varying explanatory mechanisms Christians employ to understand and participate in this reality, on the other, are intrinsically distinguishable while wielding real mutual influence. Calvin was willing to claim aseity for the only-begotten Son of the Father because he believed it most fitting for confessing him to be very God of very God, consubstantial with the Father. He avoided the language of essential communication for the very same reason. 41 42

See Basil, To Gregory, NPNF2 vol. 8, letter 38.4. ‘ The Mystery of the Church and of the Eucharist in the Light of the Mystery of the Trinity’, Joint International Commission 1982, no. 6. Cf. Khaled Anatolios: ‘ The personhood of the Spirit is always manifested in the communion that he brings about between other persons – both divine and human’; in ‘Divine Disponibilité: The Hypostatic Ethos of the Holy Spirit’, Pro Ecclesia 12 (2003), p. 299.

The Spirit from the Father, of Himself God

103

And as with the classical tradition before him, Calvin’s motives were also thoroughly biblical and soteriological.43 I think this carefulness on Calvin’s part can serve to remind us that, ultimately, the truth we confess and our exposition of it cohere not in our conceptualities (which never comprehend the incomprehensible Trinity), but in the Spirit who searches the deep things of God, both bringing to fruition the revelation of the Father in his Son and graciously enabling and sanctifying our response in fellowship with the Father and the Son.44 Our assumptions, convictions and thus speech about the nature of God must continually be submitted to his selfdisclosure through the Spirit speaking to the Church in the Scriptures. Whenever our exposition is less than appropriate to or inconsistent with our confession, the distinction between them becomes dissonance (this can be idiosyncratic or quite widespread). This places the filioque in an admittedly ambivalent position. While there is certainly a clear sense in which the filioque can be understood as a faithful exposition of Catholic Trinitarian confession, there is also a real sense (discussed above) in which the language of the filioque is not entirely fitting for what it seeks to defend. From this perspective, the purpose of the language of the Spirit’s spiration in the creed is not to describe the manner or conditions of his coming forth, which is the traditional area of concern with the filioque; it is focused on modelling an appropriate pattern of speech about the Spirit’s personal origin from the Father and his intrinsic relation to and unity with the Father and the Son as displayed by his sharing in their proper work and worship. The fathers of Nicea admitted as much. In a synodical letter the following year (382) to Pope Damasus, they articulated their reception of the creed and its significance in this way: [It] is the faith of our baptism. It tells us how to believe in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Spirit; believing also, of course, that 43

44

Calvin, Institutes 2.14.5: ‘[T]his ought to be unwaveringly maintained: to neither angels nor men was God ever Father, except with regard to his only-begotten Son; and men, especially, hateful to God because of their iniquity, became God’s sons by free adoption because Christ is the Son of God by nature’. Cf. ‘The Filioque: A Church-Dividing Issue?’, § 3: ‘That we do, as Christians, profess our God, who is radically and indivisibly one, to be the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit – three “persons” who can never be confused with or reduced to one another, and who are all fully and literally God, singly and in the harmonious whole of their relationships with each other – is simply a summation of what we have learned from God’s self-revelation in human history, a revelation that has reached its climax in our being able, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to confess Jesus as the Eternal Father’s Word and Son’.

104

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

the Father, the Son and the holy Spirit have a single Godhead and power and substance, a dignity deserving the same honour and a co-eternal sovereignty, in three most perfect hypostases, or three perfect persons.45

The letter goes on to contrast the Catholic faith with heresies on either side, which either conflate the persons or destroy the simple essential unity of the ‘uncreated and consubstantial and co-eternal Trinity’.46 Though the Creed itself has an economic structure, then, it entails and even prescribes a certain grammar and fitting patterns of speech that reflect Ayres’ ‘irreducible unity of the three irreducible divine persons’. The creed does not answer the question of whether the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone or also from the Son, or what the character of the Spirit’s immanent relationship to the Son is. But it does disciple us in the Trinitarian way we should seek to answer such questions. Still, I agree with many others that the filioque’s eventual official inclusion in the creed throughout the West, while originally ecclesially dubious, should not be a Church-dividing issue. I am not suggesting there are not good reasons for deleting or eliding it.47 But it seems the most practical way forward in communions that have historically embraced the filioque – especially in the splintered contemporary denominational climate in many countries – is probably not to seek its excision (and certainly not its replacement with an alternative formulation), but to pursue deep Trinitarian discipleship. The Spirit of truth (Jn 16.13) who belongs to those who profess the original creed no less than those who add the filioque – and we must not forget those many Christians who have not been explicitly taught either way, yet ‘all know’ (1 Jn 2.20) – this Spirit must lead the Church into all truth.

V Conclusion During the Colloquy of Poissy in 1561 exploring the possibility of reconciliation between the Reformed and Roman Catholics, French controversialist Claude de 45 46 47

Quoted in Ayres, Nicaea, p. 258. Ibid. See Ellis, CCTAS, pp. 74–6. See, for example, the summary conclusions in Lukas Vischer (ed.), Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ: Ecumenical Reflections on the Filioque Controversy (London: SPCK, 1981), p. 18. The practical side of the issue is massively complicated by the presence of the filioque in the Athanasian Creed and by the endorsements of the Western version of both creeds in the historic Protestant confessional standards (though without explicitly delineating the filioque’s theological significance).

The Spirit from the Father, of Himself God

105

Sainctes accused the Reformed of denying Trinitarian orthodoxy by claiming aseity for the Son. De Sainctes based his accusations on Caroli’s charges against Calvin three decades earlier. Calvin did not attend the Colloquy, but his eventual successor as leader of the Church in Geneva, Theodore Beza, spoke on behalf of the Reformed. Beza strongly defended Calvin’s Trinitarian orthodoxy, but granted to de Sainctes that Calvin had misspoken – improperly asserting the Son’s possession of deity of himself (a se Deus), rather than merely affirming his subsistent and intrinsic identity as himself God (Deus per se).48 After Calvin, all of the Reformed continued to affirm and defend his language of self-existence for the Son, but the majority did so only in the negative sense of aseity, as put so succinctly by Beza.49 The story of Calvin’s mixed reception even within his own communion is instructive. I am well aware that it will be difficult for fellow classical Trinitarians to receive my appeal for avoiding the language of essential communication with anything but suspicion (if not bare incredulity). Christian theology has had to fight hard to deepen and extend our attempts to grasp how God can be three yet one, and how the Spirit is ordered to yet one with the Father and the Son; one aspect of this is that we are heavily invested in a certain way of explaining the manner of the processions that simultaneously asserts the ordered distinction of the persons while securing their consubstantiality. A Calvinian approach is frankly not very good at making the relationship between ‘Unity and Trinity’ conceptually intelligible in the same way, because it demurs from such explanation in favour of simply re-narrating the pattern of Trinitarian confession. I only ask that others prayerfully consider the possibility that in arriving at such explanatory power, we have had to transgress the boundaries of appropriate Trinitarian speech in order to get here. If, after seeing the language of essential communication in this light, this strikes any of my colleagues as entirely understandable but nevertheless out of place, perhaps the first step on the path towards reconciliation over the question of the filioque is for all sides to seek to embrace anew by faith the ineffability of the manner of the divine processions. Let us apply Irenaeus’ warning about

48

49

Warfield, ‘Calvin’s Doctrine of the Trinity’, p. 281 n. 140. For the background of Beza and de Sainctes’ Trinitarian exchanges, see Irena Backus, Historical Method and Confessional Identity in the Era of the Reformation (1378–1615) (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 178–83. See Ellis, CCTAS, Ch. 5 for an account of the views of Calvin’s mainstream Reformed interpreters in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and Ch. 6 for the Reformed ‘minority report’ during the same era, which was in line with Calvin’s own stance on the cluster of themes discussed here.

106

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

inquiring into the manner of the Father’s generation of his Son also to the spiration of the Spirit: If any one, therefore, says to us, “How then was the Son produced by the Father?” we reply to him, that no man understands that production, or generation, or calling, or revelation, or by whatever name one may describe His generation, which is in fact altogether indescribable. Neither Valentinus, nor Marcion, nor Saturninus, nor Basilides, nor angels, nor archangels, nor principalities, nor powers [possess this knowledge], but the Father only who begat, and the Son who was begotten.50

50

Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 2.28.6, in vol. 1 of The Ante-Nicene Fathers: The Writings of the Fathers Down to ad 325 (eds A. Cleveland Coxe, Alexander Roberts, and James Donaldson; repr., Peabody, MA: Hendricksen Publishers, rev. American edn, 1994), p. 401; and similarly Hilary, On the Trinity, 2.8-23 passim (NPNF2 9:54–58).

7

Calvin and the Threefold Office of Christ: Suggestive Teaching Regarding the Nature of the Intra-Divine Life? Christopher R. J. Holmes

I Introduction Biblically speaking, it goes without saying that the Holy Spirit is not an isolated person of the Godhead but rather the Spirit of the Son.1 His hypostasis in terms of its divinity and activity is unintelligible apart from another, namely that of the Son. This is a fairly obvious point but one which is yet inexhaustible in its richness. Indeed, if knowledge of the person of the Spirit has as its underlying basis the Spirit’s actions in relationship to Christ, and, moreover, the Spirit’s actions in the economy attest the Spirit’s equality of deity with respect to Father and Son, those actions themselves remain opaque without an understanding of the identity of the agent undertaking them.2 In other words, who is the Holy Spirit? John the Baptist tells us, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit’.3 In some sense, then, the Son is the key to the Spirit. This one on whom the Spirit remains is the one who, in his appearance to the disciples after having been raised, sends them forth, breathing on them ‘the Holy Spirit’.4 The Spirit is the gift to the disciples of Jesus himself, crucified and risen. All told, the Spirit is of the Son; the temporal mission of the Son demands an account of the Spirit’s co-inherence with the Son. Where this 1

2

3 4

For example, Gal. 4.6, although of course there are many more. Regarding the witness of St Paul to the Holy Spirit, see Michael Ramsey, The Holy Spirit: A Biblical Study (London: SPCK, 1977), p. 46. So Dietrich Bonhoeffer: ‘Only when I know who has done any particular work do I understand these works’. D. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works: Vol 12, Berlin 1932–1933 (eds V. J. Barnett and B. Wojhoski; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009), p. 309. Jn 1.33. Jn 20.22.

108

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

chapter seeks to make a contribution is with respect to whether the ‘of ’ the Son – which both the East and West would support – demands a ‘from’ the Son, and if so what kind? Put again, to what extent does agreement upon the Spirit as being the Spirit of the Son require a ‘from’, the Spirit as one who is ‘from’ the Son and the Father? Just as John cannot conceive of Jesus Christ apart from the Spirit who descends on him and the Spirit as one who is breathed by him, so too Calvin cannot conceive of Christ’s three offices without the effectual working of the Holy Spirit. ‘But he [Christ] unites himself to us by the Spirit alone.’5 As we closely examine Calvin’s treatment of the offices, we shall see that his account of the Spirit’s activity in relationship to Christ has significant metaphysical implications as to how to most faithfully conceive of the Spirit in terms of the Spirit’s relation of origin with respect to not only the Son but the Father as well. Indeed, Calvin’s account of the economy of Christ is, I argue, highly suggestive with respect to the shape of the immanent life of God precisely because the order of the economy is to be identified – although not conflated – with the eternal existence of the hypostases.6 Indeed, to extrapolate from the economy as Calvin conceives it is, I think, warranted, given the nature of the adherence of the Spirit in the Son and the Son in the Spirit as Calvin describes it. More technically expressed, Calvin’s account of Christ’s offices has the shape that it does insofar as it is personed by one who is both God and human, the God-man, one whose offices suggest his person as having a significant role in the Spirit’s coming to be. It is the Son’s role in the Spirit’s coming to be that is to be pursued in this chapter.

II Calvin’s account of the threefold office Calvin’s Christology is, as Stephen Edmondson points out in his helpful monograph on the same, ‘an offices-Christology’.7 This is not to suggest for a moment that Calvin is indifferent to a ‘natures-Christology’.8 Rather, the impulse underlying Calvin’s account is that understanding of Christ’s person – articulating the metaphysics of his person, if you will – is undertaken within the context of 5

6

7 8

John Calvin, Calvin: Institutes of Christian Religion (ed. J. T. McNeill; Library of Christian Classics, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 3.1.3. Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit: Vol. III, The River of the Water of Life (Rev 22:1) Flows in the East and West (trans. D. L. Smith; New York: Herder & Herder, 1997), p. 17. This view is of course fundamental to the Latin position. Stephen Edmondson, Calvin’s Christology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 6. Ibid.

Calvin and the Threefold Office of Christ

109

an account of Christ’s offices as prophet, king and priest. For Calvin, the identity of the particular person who mediates is that of one who has acted historically to save. Accordingly, ‘history as a Christological framework privileges doing over the metaphysics of being’.9 Again, Calvin is not opposed to metaphysics but rather to those who seek ‘the knowledge of who Christ is apart from what he does’.10 Christ’s person, his identity, is dynamically defined, just as his activity is personally defined.11 So Calvin: ‘We have said that perfect salvation is found in the person of Christ [emphasis mine].’12 When it comes to articulation of the Spirit’s person ‘as [one who has] emptied himself of the characteristics of a private or particular person’,13 it makes sense to turn to Calvin’s account of Christ’s offices in order to see what activity the Spirit undertakes but also how that activity points to the metaphysics of the Spirit’s person as concerns the Spirit’s origin with respect to Son and Father. This is important to do. T. F. Torrance argues forcefully for the necessity of understanding the Spirit not on the basis of the ‘manifestations or operations of the Spirit in creaturely existence which is external to God but from the propriety of the Spirit to the eternal being of God, as the Spirit of the Father and the Son, and thus from his internal relations within the Godhead’.14 Indeed, as we examine Calvin’s account of the threefold office we see the shared divinity of the persons as its underlying basis. ‘Therefore, since that there is one God, not more, is regarded as a settled principle, we conclude that Word and Spirit are nothing else than the very essence of God’.15 To begin, then, Calvin’s Christology privileges above all the language of ‘mediator’. Christ is the mediator, meaning that in his one person ‘there are two diverse underlying natures’.16 Although ‘diverse’, his divine and human natures do not compete with one another; nonetheless, ‘because the selfsame one was both God and man, for the sake of both natures he gave to the one what belonged to the other’.17 Notice that each nature does not communicate to the other per se; rather, he – as one who is both God and man – unites the natures in his one person in such a way that ‘improperly, although not with reason’, the ‘things carried out in 9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16 17

Ibid., p. 84. Ibid., p. 185. Ibid., p. 191. Calvin, Institutes, 3.1.4. Congar, Holy Spirit, p. 5. Thomas F. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith: The Evangelical Theology of the Ancient Catholic Church (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), p. 208. Calvin, Institutes, 1.13.16. Ibid., 2.14.1. Ibid., 2.14.2.

110

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

his human nature’ are transferred to his divine nature.18 Qualities that are said to belong to one nature or the other Jesus Christ takes ‘upon himself as being in harmony [emphasis mine] with the person of the Mediator’.19 One can thus see that, for Calvin, the person of the Mediator is the basis, the very actuality of the hypostatic union. In his person he mediates, meaning that ‘those things which apply to the office of the Mediator are not spoken simply either of the divine nature or of the human’, precisely because he mediates in his person.20 His person in which he is revealed as God and man is the surety of his office as Mediator. Were he not the one he is, God and man; were he not, furthermore, ‘the true Son of God even according to, but not by reason of, his humanity’, he could not take human nature upon himself.21 Indeed, human beings could not become ‘God’s sons by free adoption’.22 Rather, it is only possible because of who he – Jesus Christ – ‘is . . . by nature’.23 What renders him worthy of being called Son of God is thus ‘his deity and eternal essence’.24 He is said by Calvin to mediate in his person according to his two natures: ‘Son of God’ according to his divine nature and ‘Son of Man’ according to his human nature. It is crucial to note that Calvin, in his refutation of Servetus’ account of Christ’s person, speaks of Christ’s identity as being a function of his peculiar origin: ‘Christ the man is the Son of God because he was begotten of God according to his human nature’.25 Describing the difference of Father, Son and Spirit, Calvin states that ‘the Son is said to come forth from the Father alone’.26 Christ’s being Son of God is as a result of his being begotten of God ‘according to his human nature’.27 The Son’s mission – or better, his threefold office – reveals his divine person in its eternal origin: ‘begotten of God’.28 Just so, his threefold office exists ‘in him’ as one ‘begotten of God’.29 These two little words – ‘in him’ – undergird Calvin’s entire treatment. Jesus Christ –‘Son of God’ and ‘Son of Man’ – ‘was sent by the Father’ in order to take up these offices and communicate the benefits that flow forthwith. As one sent, he conferred upon us inestimable blessings which are bound up with his ‘prophetic office, kingship, and priesthood’.30 Moreover and 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Ibid. The same cannot be said of the obverse. Ibid. Ibid., 2.14.3. Ibid., 2.14.4. Ibid., 2.14.5. Ibid. Ibid., 2.14.6. Ibid., 2.14.8. Ibid., 1.13.18. Ibid., 2.14.8. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 2.15.

Calvin and the Threefold Office of Christ

111

most importantly for our purposes, we catch glimpses of the part played by the Son in the Spirit’s hypostatic existence.31 Let us then turn to his description of the Son’s offices to see what light they may shed upon the part played by the Son in terms of originating the Spirit. The prophetic office of Christ, writes Calvin in a programmatic statement, is effectual by virtue of his being ‘anointed by the Spirit to be herald and witness of the Father’s grace’.32 Note that Calvin states that ‘he [Christ] received anointing’, a statement whose implications are highly suggestive in regard to the nature of the intra-divine life. That Christ receives from the Spirit anointing ‘not only for himself that he might carry out the office of teaching, but for his whole body’ promotes attention to a prominent theme in the Johannine witness. Think, for example, of how the resurrected Jesus breathes the Spirit on his disciples: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’.33 Jesus bestows the Spirit, says Ramsey, ‘with the Old Testament imagery of breath. But now it is the breath of Jesus, and the Spirit is indeed the Spirit of Jesus’.34 The Spirit, as the Spirit of Jesus, is indeed one of what Calvin calls the ‘heavenly benefits’: thus all who ‘perceive what he [Christ] is like have grasped the whole immensity of heavenly benefits’.35 What is Christ like? He is as one who receives anointing not only for himself but for his body so ‘that the power of the Spirit might be present in the continuing preaching of the gospel’.36 Ingredient in the benefits of Christ which Calvin has in mind is thus the anointing of the Spirit for a particular purpose. The office which supplies this benefit is the prophetic office, and the person who gives rise to this office is Jesus Christ, ‘Son of God’ and ‘Son of Man’. He receives the Spirit and, in turn, breathes it upon others such that they may be said to receive it. The prophetic dimension of the Mediator’s office is suggestive of the part played by the Mediator in the Spirit’s hypostatic existence. That Christ receives the Spirit’s anointing makes a very subtle point insofar as the Son’s reception of the Spirit is, to use the language of eternal processions, indicative of a relationship of eternal receiving by the Son of the Spirit. The Son heralds the Father’s grace, the Father with whom he is one. He receives from the Father the Spirit whom he (the Son) in turns breathes and commands his disciples to receive. Writing with reference to Jn 15.26 and 14.24, Calvin speaks of the Spirit as distinct from 31

32 33 34 35 36

I owe this way of phrasing things to Congar. He writes of the Greek Fathers: ‘Are they not an undefined opening or a beginning, in the sense of pointing to the part played by the Son in the hypostatic existence of the Spirit?’Holy Spirit, p. 76. Calvin, Institutes, 2.15.2. Jn 20.22. Ramsey, Holy Spirit, p. 110. Calvin, Institutes, 2.15.2. Ibid.

112

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

the Father by virtue of his proceeding from the Father. In keeping with this, ‘God the Father gives us the Holy Spirit for his Son’s sake, and yet has bestowed the whole fullness of the Spirit upon the Son to be minister and steward of his liberality’.37 Although it is not Calvin’s intention in this context to wrestle with the filioque in any direct sense, the Trinitarian pattern evident in the prophetic office encourages reflection on the character of the eternal origins of the persons in a distinctly Latin manner. Christ receives the Spirit in such a way as to receive it for others, that is for ‘his whole body’. The prophetic office, as ‘enjoined upon Christ by the Father’, is not eternal of course, but does, nonetheless, correspond in a fitting way to the eternal processions of the persons.38 As Calvin presents it, the Spirit has a crucial part to play in the Son’s mission. The mission of the Son is surely one of being anchored in utter transparency to the Spirit: from all eternity the Son receives the Spirit from the Father. Does this mean that the Son has a causal relationship to the Spirit? In order to answer this question rightly, let us examine Calvin’s account of Christ’s kingly office, for in it he further unfolds the intra-Trinitarian logic of the Spirit as ‘of the Father and Son’.39 The first thing to be noted about Calvin’s description of the kingly office is that ‘Christ’s dominion’ in all its eternity is said to be ‘spiritual in nature’.40 What Calvin means by ‘spiritual’ contains a surplus of meaning. Indeed, it connotes that Christ’s kingship is not an earthly kingdom, for ‘whatever is earthly is of the world and of time’.41 Rather, its ‘spiritual’ nature lies in the fact that what oppresses the godly in the here and now, their opposition by sin, death and the devil, will be no more in the spiritual kingdom that is coming to be. The Christ who has survived death will be his bride’s pure joy and life. The kingly office, as with the prophetic, has benefits for us, benefits that relate principally to the Spirit. Calvin writes, ‘Hence we are furnished, as far as God knows to be expedient for us, with the gifts of the Spirit, which we lack by nature’. Christ’s kingly rule is resplendent with the gifts of his Spirit, just so ‘that he shares with us all that he has received from the Father’.42 What does Christ receive from the Father but the Spirit whom he shares with the Father. Importantly, Christ’s reign as one of sharing in his fruits is such, writes Calvin, ‘that we are truly joined to God in perfect blessedness’.43 This is suggestive of the nature of the eternal relations of the Son and Spirit. Specifically, the gifts of the Spirit are proper to Christ, to 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

Ibid., 3.1.2. Ibid., 2.15.1. Ibid., 1.13.19. Ibid., 2.15.3. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 2.15.4.

Calvin and the Threefold Office of Christ

113

his person as the Mediator. The gifts Christ has – and I would include the gifts of the Spirit in this – are his insofar as he receives them (eternally so) from the Father. But unlike us, they are his by nature: they are proper to him. The eternal Christ plays a specific part in the Spirit’s hypostatic existence as the economy confirms, but it is a surprising one in that it is fundamentally receptive. In a telling comment on the ‘spiritual nature of his kingly office’, Calvin writes, ‘The Father is said “not by measure to have given the Spirit to his Son [Jn 3.24p.]”’. The Son does not receive the Spirit in the economy by degree, for the Spirit is the Spirit of the Son. The Spirit is the Son’s by nature, inasmuch as it is in the Son’s nature to always receive him (the Spirit). The Father’s giving of the Spirit to the Son as revealed by the Son’s kingly office points to the Spirit’s origin as one who is given by the Father to the Son, the Son who in turn receives all that is the Spirit’s by virtue of their common nature – ‘for the simple name of God admits no relation’.44 In sum: the spiritual nature of the kingly office points to the Spirit as one given by the Father to the Son, the Son who ‘is joined in the same Spirit with the Father’.45 Accordingly, there is an impulse present which is ‘Western’ – or better, Augustinian – insofar as there is openness, in Calvin, ‘to the idea that the Son played a part in the eternal coming of the Spirit to consubstantial being’.46 Indeed, in Calvin’s mind, as he unfolds the threefold office of the Mediator, one cannot conceive of the Spirit’s coming to be without the Son to whom the Father gives the Spirit without measure. The life of the Spirit is, for Calvin, fundamentally, ‘heavenly life’.47 Such life is precisely what the Spirit instills. So Calvin: ‘For the Spirit has chosen Christ as his seat, that from him might abundantly flow the heavenly riches of which we are in such need’.48 The riches of the Spirit are proper to Christ. However, the Spirit pours out his riches – which are also Christ’s by nature – through Christ; the riches of the Spirit are mediated through Christ. In the economy, as Calvin describes it, Christ is acted upon by the Spirit, receives from the Spirit, even as he is given the Spirit by the Father, the Spirit whom he shares with the Father and so is the Spirit of the Father and himself. Jesus Christ’s threefold office – his work – is enabled to be precisely what it is through the Spirit as given to him by the Father, the same Spirit whom he, in turn, breathes upon his disciples. Indeed, when Calvin expounds the priestly office, he speaks of it as an office with myriad benefits. The one who ‘was to be priest and sacrifice’ receives ‘us 44 45 46 47 48

Ibid., 1.13.20. Ibid., 3.1.2. Congar, Holy Spirit, p. 58. Calvin, Institutes, 2.15.5. Ibid.

114

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

as his companions in this great office [Rev. 1.6]’.49 Although pneumatological language does not appear in his brief treatment of the priestly office, it is implicit inasmuch as Christ’s priestly office takes shape and has effect in and by the Spirit by which Christ unites us to himself. Stepping back for a moment, let us pause to recount what Calvin says about the Son’s relationship to the Spirit and vice versa in his exposition of the threefold office. The Son receives from the Spirit the myriad gifts of the Spirit, the Spirit given by the Father to the Son for ‘his Son’s sake’; the Spirit distributes heavenly life from the seat that is Christ.50 The Son’s mission – his threefold office – has effect in the Spirit. But that is so only because the Spirit has by nature what the Son has too – but as the Son and not as the Spirit ‘because the peculiar qualities in the persons carry an order within them’.51 In terms of the immanent relations of the persons, Calvin argues that to know the Spirit is not to know in any mediate sense. As Torrance notes, ‘the Holy Spirit is not directly known in his own hypostasis for he remains veiled by the very revelation of the Father and Son which he brings’.52 In Torrance’s view, which is true of Calvin’s as well, the Spirit brings the revelation of the Son. Accordingly, Calvin cannot conceive of Christ’s prophetic and kingly office without the Spirit, the Christ who shares in all that is the Spirit’s by nature. The Spirit, for Calvin, has agency; however that agency is exercised in relationship to Christ in such a way that the Spirit is said to inhere in Christ as the Spirit always has by virtue of his being given by the Father and to the Son. One of Calvin’s preferred texts in his discussion of the spiritual nature of the kingly office is Jn 3.34: ‘He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure’. The Greek theologians claim another Johannine text as most dogmatically significant, namely that of Jn 15.26: ‘When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf ’.53 Importantly, the latter text was translated in part as ‘the Spirit who proceeds from the Father’. Scripture, as Congar has noted, does not ‘do away with our problem’.54 The economy of salvation as attested in Scripture presents the co-inherence of the Son and Spirit without leading us to the point where exacting statements can be made about the part played by the Son in the Spirit’s hypostatic existence. Nonetheless, Calvin helps us to see the part played by the Spirit in relation to the humanity 49 50 51 52 53 54

Ibid., 2.15.6 iii. Ibid., 3.1.2. Ibid., 1.13.20. Torrance, Trinitarian Faith, p. 211. This is the NRSV’s rendering. Congar, Holy Spirit, p. 50.

Calvin and the Threefold Office of Christ

115

of Jesus Christ, to his being the Son of Man. It is the Spirit who anoints him and chooses him as the seat by which heavenly life is communicated. To be sure, it is not the Spirit’s kingdom, or the Spirit’s reconciliation, or the Spirit’s prophecy: it is Christ’s. But when we have Christ, we have the Spirit. Kathryn Tanner writes in this connection, ‘The Mission of the Son is to give us his own Spirit which conforms us to himself ’.55 The spiritual nature of Christ’s prophetic and kingly office in particular attests this point: the Son works in the Spirit, indeed is ‘the shape’ of the Spirit’s working.56 If such is the case, then, the move from the threefold office of the Mediator to what he is inherently in himself in the inner communion of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is necessary. Why? Because the office of the Mediator and the activity of the Spirit intrinsic to it flow from somewhere, namely that intra-divine communion the shape of which is the task of this essay to sketch, especially as pertains to the role played by the Son in the Spirit’s hypostatic existence as Calvin conceives it.

III The economy as prolongation of the eternal processions? Calvin’s instincts with respect to the character of God’s Triunity are certainly Augustinian. When describing the relationship of Father, Son and Spirit in 1.13.20 he quotes at length from the Fifth Book of Augustine’s De Trinitate, arguing, as does Augustine, that the divine nature is indeed common to the three persons. Calvin avers that the Spirit, as with the Father and Son, subsists in God and resides hypostatically in God. So Calvin: ‘In God’s essence reside three persons in whom one God is known.’57 The three persons in whom God is said to be God are yet to be distinguished from one another by their originating relations. Importantly, Calvin, in distinguishing Christ from the Spirit, refers to the text of Jn 15.26, a text which has played – as we have briefly noted – such an important role in Greek theology regarding the nature of the Spirit’s procession. Calvin writes, ‘Christ implies the distinction of the Holy Spirit from the Father when he says that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father [Jn 15.26; cf. Jn 14.26]’.58 The distinction of the Father from the Spirit means that they cannot be collapsed into one another: they are unique hypostases. Set in this situation, there is nonetheless an order to be observed among the persons. Calvin states, ‘The Son is said to come forth from the Father alone; the Spirit from the Father and the Son at the same time’.59 55 56 57 58 59

Kathryn Tanner, Christ the Key (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 173. Ibid. Calvin, Institutes, 1.13.16. Ibid., 1.13.17. Ibid., 1.13.18.

116

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

Although Calvin does not put it in these terms, he implies that the Son receives from the Father ‘the faculty of spiration’.60 Both the Son and the Spirit come from the Father, for Calvin; but they come in different ways from the Father: one is begotten, the other proceeds. Accordingly, the Spirit is not after the Son but is common to the Father and the Son. So Calvin: ‘the Son is one with the Father because he shares with the Father one and the same Spirit; and that the Spirit is not something other than the Father and different from the Son, because he is the Spirit of the Father and the Son’.61 To be sure, Calvin is not terribly specific as to the exact character of their differing processions. Nonetheless, some basic contours can be described insofar as the Son’s reception of the Spirit in the salvation he achieves points to a basic truth about the Spirit’s mode of procession with respect to the Son. In his account of ‘How and why Christ was endowed with the Holy Spirit’, Calvin writes, ‘God the Father gives us the Holy Spirit for his Son’s sake, and yet has bestowed the whole fullness of the Spirit upon the Son to be minister and steward of his liberality’.62 Although Calvin has his sights set on the economy, what takes place in the economy as concerns Christ’s endowment with the Spirit is highly suggestive in terms of why the filioque is necessary teaching when mapping the intra-divine life. The Father bestows the fullness of the Spirit upon the Son in the economy of grace. That the Father does so is fitting because he, together with the Son, shares ‘the same Spirit’.63 The Spirit whom the Father bestows is the Spirit of himself and the Son, the Spirit who forever unites the Son to the Father and the Father to the Son. The economy as Calvin conceives it describes the shape of the immanent life of God: the Father has always bestowed the fullness of the Spirit upon the Son in such a way that the Spirit is said to proceed from the Father and the Son. The Son who in receiving the Spirit in the economy does something he has always done. Indeed, in receiving the Spirit eternally, the Son is also said to be the one through whom the Spirit eternally proceeds.

IV Calvin as an exemplar of Latin logic In a programmatic statement Calvin writes, Christ ‘is joined in the same Spirit with the Father . . . he [Christ] shares with the Father the same Spirit’.64 60 61 62 63 64

This is of course a Latin instinct. See Congar, Holy Spirit, p. 121. Calvin, Institutes, 1.13.19. Ibid., 3.1.2. Ibid., 1.13.19. Ibid., 3.1.2; 1.13.19.

Calvin and the Threefold Office of Christ

117

The Greek Fathers would not disagree with such a formulation. Along with the Greek Fathers, Calvin thinks ‘that the Son, the Word, played a part in the eternal being of the Spirit’.65 Accordingly, ‘this dependence of the Spirit on the Son is identified with the fact that he [the Spirit] receives from him’.66 The issue at stake is whether the Son has a constitutive role to play in regards to the Spirit’s hypostases. According to Calvin, the Son receives what is proper to the Father with the exception of the Father’s ‘peculiar qualities’, that is the Father as the One who ‘is the beginning and source’.67 In this sense, then, the Son has all that is in common with the Father including the Spirit. So, for Calvin, the Spirit is of the Father and Son but not of them in the same way. We see this attested in the economy, specifically in his account of the threefold office. The Father is the ‘beginning and source of the Spirit’ in a way that is different from the Son, for the Father eternally gives the Spirit to the Son.68 There is, if you will, ‘a single principle of active spiration’ that ‘goes back principaliter to the Father’.69 This is the Father whose nature is the same as that of the Spirit and the Son. Of this Congar comments, ‘This in-existence is based on the unity and identity of substance between the three, even in the teaching of the Greek Fathers’.70 The issue, it seems to me, in terms of teasing out Calvin’s indebtedness to the Latin tradition, is that of causality. For Calvin, the Spirit is more than one who comes ‘through’ the Son as the Greek Fathers maintain: indeed, the Spirit’s cause is in part because the Spirit is ‘from’ the Son – the former being John of Damascene’s position, the latter being more closely aligned with Augustine.71 Indeed, for Calvin, as the Latins in general, the Son ‘has this faculty of being the co-principle of the Spirit entirely from the Father’.72 Thus, the Spirit is not different from the Son, ‘substance wise’, and so is said to be also from the Son – not just through the Son.73 The Spirit is also shared by the Son. So Calvin: ‘The Son is one with the Father because he [the Son] shares with the Father one and the same Spirit’.74 Indeed, nature, for Calvin, ‘is hypostatic in its existence and the hypostases are constituted by their subsistent relationships – the Father is fatherhood and the Son is sonship or begottenness’.75 Thus, to say that Latins begin with nature whereas 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75

Congar, Holy Spirit, p. 26. Ibid., p. 27. Calvin, Institutes, 1.13. 19, 20. Ibid., 1.13.20. Congar, Holy Spirit, p. 32. Ibid., p. 37. For an expansion of his position, see ibid., p. 39. Ibid. Augustine, The Trinity, V.6. This is Edmund Hill’s translation. Calvin, Institutes, 1.13.19. Congar, Holy Spirit, p. 59.

118

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

the Greeks begin with hypostases is a rather superficial judgement.76 Nature, for Calvin, is understood only with reference to each person, as each person shares all except what is ‘his own peculiar quality’.77 Accordingly, distinctions signify mutual relations: ‘The only way to differentiate between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is possible in terms of the relations (relationes) between the Persons of the Godhead’.78 The differences of origin thus function, for Calvin, as with Augustine, as oppositions of relationship within an essential identity.79 The Spirit of the Father and the Son proceeds from the two according to a common essence ‘for the simple name of God admits no relation’.80 In other words, for Calvin, as for the Latins in general, the relations of origin enjoy ‘the prerogatives of substance . . . while at the same time being intra-divinely incommunicable’.81 Said differently and in sum, the Spirit proceeds ‘from God who is Father’; the God who is Father shares the faculty of spiration in the Son.82

V Concluding thoughts Congar’s words regarding the schism which the filioque has occasioned are apt. ‘We must re-create the situation of the Church Fathers, who were in communion with each other while following different ways, and admit the possibility of two constructions of dogmatic theology, side by side, of the same mystery, the object of the same faith’.83 Calvin’s construction is indeed distinctly Latin. He is of course not Latin for the sake of being Latin but because the biblical witness as it maps the threefold office of Christ, and as it informs one of the intra-Trinitarian relationships, leads him in the direction of a Latin position, one indebted to Augustine. Indeed, ‘What is common to both Greeks and Latins is the scriptural basis of the processions, according to which the Spirit is the Spirit of the Son and is sent by the Son’.84 Where Calvin is distinctly Latin is in terms of his account of the person, namely persons as being constituted by ‘the (first) substance or supposit that is distinguished by a certain property’.85 Accordingly, the issue 76 77 78

79 80 81 82 83 84 85

Ibid., p. 73. Calvin, Institutes, 1.13.19. Michael Beintker, ‘Calvins Theologie des Heiligen Geistes’, Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe 49 (September 2009), p. 488. See further, Augustine, On the Trinity, V.I.7. Calvin, Institutes, 1.13.20. Congar, Holy Spirit, p. 118. Ibid., p. 121. Ibid., p. 131. Ibid., p. 178. Ibid., p. 180.

Calvin and the Threefold Office of Christ

119

for Calvin is the identity of the hypostases with the divine essence. The divine nature is present, for him, in each hypostasis. In this there lies, argues Congar, resources for agreement between East and West. The solution, Congar thinks, is that the Father be seen as ‘the original source and the Son is associated or a participant [source]’.86 This is a solution that would work for Calvin as ‘the name of God is peculiarly applied to the Father’.87 But the Father is never without the Son, Calvin maintains, and so shares all that he has with the Son including the faculty of spiration. Here we see a distinctly Western line of reasoning at work in Calvin that is nonetheless amenable to Eastern concerns. Although Calvin understands the ‘from’ of the Spirit to be applied to both Father and Son, it is to be applied differently. This is because Calvin pays perspicuous attention to the economy as attested in the Scriptural witness. The Son receives the Spirit from the Father, eternally so. This is what secures the ‘of ’, that is the Spirit’s being ‘of the Father and the Son’. The Son as the steward of the Father’s liberality acts as such in the Spirit. That the Son receives the Spirit in the way that he does thus informs our account of God’s intra-Trinitarian being. Just so, the works of God attest the being of God; the missions attest the processions of Son and Spirit. The Son receives the Spirit who is said to be of him and of the Father, but not of them in the same way, for the Father is the giver in a way that the Son is not. The Son eternally receives the Spirit he shares with the Father; the Spirit who is given by the Father. The Son only receives, but again he does so eternally, and so sends the Spirit he receives upon his people in a way that points to the Spirit’s origin as one who is of both Father and Son. Indeed, Jesus Christ, as Calvin describes him, ‘effectually unites us to himself ’ by the Spirit, the Spirit whom he receives from and shares with the Father from eternity, and so breathes out upon us in order that we may obtain the ‘perfect salvation that is found in the person of Christ’.88

86 87 88

Ibid., p. 201. Calvin, Institutes, 1.13.20. Ibid., 3.1.1; 3.1.4.

8

The Baptists ‘and the Son’: The Filioque Clause in Non-creedal Theology* David E. Wilhite

I Introduction Part of the Baptist (and, for that matter, the broader non-creedal) tradition is the dictum, ‘We have no creed but the Bible’, which is sometimes worded ‘No creed but Christ’.1 Deleting the taboo creeds from our collective liturgy and polity, and unfortunately also from our collective memory, often includes circumnavigating or altogether disregarding certain creed-related theological controversies – such as the filioque clause, the phrase translated ‘and the Son’, which the West added to

* This essay originally appeared in the Journal of Ecumenical Studies 44, no. 2 (2009), pp. 285–302; reproduced here with permission. 1 For fuller discussion amongst Baptist scholarship, see Bill J. Leonard, Baptists in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), pp. 65–6; Steven R. Harmon, ‘Baptist Confessions of Faith and the Patristic Tradition’, Perspectives in Religious Studies 29, no. 4 (2002), pp. 349–58; Jeff B. Pool, Against Returning to Egypt: Exposing and Resisting Credalism in the Southern Baptist Convention (Mercer, GA: Mercer University Press, 1998); Thomas J. Nettles, ‘Creedalism, Confessionalism, and the Baptist Faith and Message’, in The Unfettered Word: Southern Baptists Confront the Authority-Inerrancy Question (ed. Robison B. James; Waco, TX: Word Books, 1987), pp. 140–54; Gilbert R. Englerth, ‘American Baptists: A Confessional People?’, American Baptist Quarterly 4 (June 1985), pp. 131–45; and W. M. S. West, ‘Foundation Documents of the Faith VIII: Baptists and Statements of Faith’, The Expository Times 91 (May 1980), pp. 228–33. For the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition, see Woodrow W. Whidden, ‘Sola Scriptura, Inerrantist Fundamentalism, and the Wesleyan Quadrilateral: Is “No Creed but the Bible” a Workable Solution?’, Andrews University Seminary Studies 35 (Autumn 1997), pp. 211–26. On the difference between confessions and creeds, see Paul S. Fiddes, Tracks and Traces: Baptist Identity in Church and Theology (Waynesboro, GA.: Paternoster Press, 2003), pp. 8–10; Jeff B. Pool, ‘“Sacred Mandates of Conscience”: A Criteriology of Credalism for Theological Method among Baptists’, Perspectives on Religious Studies 23 (Winter 1996), pp. 353–86 (355), n. 5, especially, for a bibliography of previous discussions; W. R. Estep, ‘Baptists and Authority: The Bible, Confessions, and Conscience in the Development of Baptist Identity’, Review and Expositor 84 (Fall 1987), pp. 599–615 (600–2); and H. Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1987), pp. 686–7. For a critique of this distinction, see Bill J. Leonard, ‘Southern Baptist Confessions: Dogmatic Ambiguity’, in David S. Dockery (ed.), Southern Baptists and American Evangelicals: The Conversation Continues (Nashville: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 1993), pp. 163–75 (173).

The Baptists ‘and the Son’

121

the 381 Creed.2 How does the filioque controversy – what C.F.D. Moule deemed an instance in ‘hair-splitting theology’ – have an impact on our understanding of the person of the Holy Spirit and our formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity, not to mention other theological concerns related thereunto?3 I will undertake a brief historical-theological survey of the filioque and suggest points of contact where non-creedal theology can engage the issues involved. In discussing the ‘theology’ of the filioque under a distinct and separate subheading from the ‘history’ of the clause, I do not intend to suggest that there should be such a false dichotomy between history and theology. The contributions of the many so-called contextual theologies of recent decades have shown us that there is no such thing as ‘non-contextual’ theology; there is contextual theology, and there is contextual theology that does not admit to being such. Non-creedal theology too often falls victim to the dualistic notion that we can divorce our theological formulations from our concrete experiences. Sections on the history and theology of the filioque emphasize the importance of context for theology, not the opposite. Before delving into these categorical discussions of the filioque controversy, we must first define ‘non-creedal theology’ and suggest some preliminary hopes for what non-creedal theology can offer the wider ecumenical dialogue.

II What is ‘non-creedal theology’? Non-creedal theology claims to be the logical conclusion of the Protestant principle of sola Scriptura. The Reformers countered ‘papalism’, or the recognition of there being a dogmatic teaching office in the Church invested 2

3

This creed is often called the ‘Nicene Creed’. However, because this title can be misleading (it is the revised creed from the Council of Nicea, 325, which was confirmed at the Council of Constantinople, 381), some prefer the ‘Constantinopolitan Creed’, the ‘Symbol of Constantinople’, or even the ‘Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed’. For simplicity’s sake, I shall refer to it as the ‘381 Creed’ or the ‘Creed of 381’. Regarding the tendency to ‘circumnavigate’ creedal issues, there is work being done in non-creedal theology to correct what is often an overly simplistic application of this dictum; for example, Steven R. Harmon, Towards a Baptist Catholicity: Essays on Tradition and the Baptist Vision (Waynesboro, GA: Paternoster, 2006), pp. 8–10, 34–8; idem, ‘“Catholic Baptists” and the New Horizon of Tradition in Baptist Theology’, in New Horizons in Theology (ed. Terrence W. Tilley; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004), pp. 117–34; D. H. Williams, Evangelicals and Tradition: The Formative Influence of the Early Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2005); idem, Retrieving the Tradition and Renewing Evangelicalism: A Primer for Suspicious Protestants (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999); E. Glenn Hinson, ‘Creeds and Christian Unity: A Southern Baptist Perspective’, JES 23 (Winter 1986), pp. 25–36; and Morris Inch, ‘A Call to Creedal Identity’, in The Orthodox Evangelicals: Who They Are and What They Are Saying (eds Robert E. Webber and Donald Bloesch; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1978), pp. 77–93. C. F. D. Moule, The Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), p. 47.

122

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

in one person, with the notion that only matters conclusively shown to be taught in Scripture were required for faith. The problem arose, however, as soon as someone asked, ‘What things are conclusively shown to be taught in Scripture?’ Very often, the ecumenical creeds were invoked as summaries of the biblical message, but of course those ancient formulas offered little help in the theological debates of the Reformation that centred around soteriology and ecclesial authority. Supplementary ‘confessions’ were then formulated, which in some circles came to carry as much binding force as the original creeds or even the eschewed magisterium. As the Protestant Reformation splintered into denominationalism, some groups, especially those from the so-called radical arm of the Reformation, came to reject any articles, confessions or creeds as authoritative or binding upon churches or believers, and any who attempted to promote such declarations became suspect. It is at this last point that noncreedal traditions slip from a-creedalism into anti-creedalism. Non-creedal theology, therefore, is less a cohesive branch of Christian tradition – it would be more precise in this sense to speak of non-creedal theologies – and more an approach to theological discourse. To be clear, I am not offering an apologia for non-creedal theology as much as acknowledging the non-creedal tradition(s) and exploring points of contact with the debate over the filioque clause. When looking to the etymology of the word ‘creed’ (Greek/Lat. credo, ‘I believe’), it readily becomes apparent that some form of creedalism is inevitable in that everyone ‘believes’ something: ‘no creed but Christ/the Bible’ sounds very much like a creed. The distinction, however, made by non-creedal Christians is that formalized creeds or confessions are always an interpretation of Scripture and should, therefore, neither be elevated to the same authoritative status as Scripture nor carry any binding authority on Church polity or private belief. In the current postmodern age, it is widely recognized that every retelling, reformulating, or summarizing of Scripture involves more than just a listing of bruta facta. This can be seen by looking back to the age of the ecumenical councils, wherein no statement was ever sufficient but always required additional explanation and elaboration. Many students of early Church history have sighed a revised Qoheleth’s lament: ‘Of making many creeds, there is no end’!4 Why, then, should non-creedalists address issues arising out of the 381 Creed? 4

Wolfhart Pannenberg, in his Systematic Theology: vol. 3 (trans. Geoffrey W. Bromily; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998. [orig.: Systematische Theologie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993)]), pp. 110–22, argued that the 381 Creed is the sole true creed of the Church because of its ecumenical nature. To non-creedalists, however, this begs the question: why the 381 Creed with the amendments to the Creed of Nicea 325? Moreover, could we not envision a future council just as ecumenical as Constantinople 381 (if not even more so)? Why prohibit such a council’s ability?

The Baptists ‘and the Son’

123

III Why should non-creedal theology discuss the filioque? Christians have debated the filioque clause for well over a millennium; that fact alone should convince us of the controversy’s importance for any robust and well-informed theological tradition. Additionally, if non-creedal theologians wish to join in ecumenical dialogues, there must be an appreciation of this controversy and an understanding of all sides of the issue. Beyond these general reasons why non-creedal traditions should discuss the filioque, I would like to suggest that the filioque clause, at least implicitly, is central to any sophisticated foray into the doctrine of the Trinity – a doctrine that has once again taken its rightful place at the heart of theological discourse.5 Further, we Baptists, and non-creedal theologians in general, have been known to tout our ability to look to ‘Scripture alone’ to answer theological inquiry. Here, it would seem, where both East and West have been divided precisely over a creed, we should be able to address the issue without (what some non-creedalists would characterize as) the baggage and constraints of traditional dogmatism and ecclesial hegemony inevitable in any creedal approach. This is not to say that non-creedalists can attain objectivity on this issue – many non-creedalists see themselves as part of the Western tradition and are therefore biased towards the filioque teaching, while other non-creedalists are adamantly anti-Catholic in their approach to theology and therefore privilege the Eastern (that is, nonRoman) stance that omits the filioque. I am suggesting that our non-creedal theology should be demonstrably most fruitful precisely in a debate such as the filioque controversy wherein the source of the disagreement, the creed, is something removed and distant to us – that is, it has no formal linkage to our theological reflections and is therefore more easily approached in a fresh and constructive manner. In order, then, to bring non-creedal theology into dialogue with the filioque clause, a brief survey of the filioque controversy follows, first from a roughly chronological perspective and then from a dialogical one.

IV History of the filioque While the full array of time lines, backgrounds and historical data related to the filioque controversy need not be recounted here, it will prove helpful to highlight some of the significant aspects of this dispute between East and West 5

Geoffrey Wainwright, ‘The Ecumenical Rediscovery of the Trinity’, One in Christ 34, no. 2 (1998), pp. 95–124.

124

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

and then revisit three scenes from Christian history that illustrate some of the complexities of the debate at hand.6 Following this survey, I will briefly allude to some of the attempts to reconcile both sides. Historians have widely agreed that the East/West tension in Christianity can be found in some of the earliest sources from the patristic period. Beyond the language barrier itself, which repeatedly caused theological obfuscation,7 the two traditions formed different theological trajectories that would become codified in later writings relying on their respective sources.8 Many of the first significant theologians to write in Latin, such as Tertullian, Hilary of Poitiers and Ambrose, discussed the oneness of the Trinity by first emphasizing the unity of the Father and the Son and then correlating the unity of the Spirit.9 The findings of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation note that all three of these writers emphasized the divinity of the Spirit without reflecting on the Spirit’s ‘mode of origin’, and they all acknowledged that ‘the Father alone is the source of God’s eternal being’.10 The subtle but significant shift in the Western tradition came in Augustine, the most influential of the Latin writers. Augustine and his employment of the psychological analogy of the Trinity, which served to combat Arianism by defining the deity of the Son as equal to that of the Father, unequivocally pushed the discussion of the Spirit’s procession from the sphere of history into eternity: not only did the Father and the Son breathe 6

7

8

9

10

A full account has been produced by the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation (hereafter, NAOCTC): ‘The Filioque: A Church-Dividing Issue?’, St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 48, no. 1 (2004), pp. 93–123. This study is especially helpful because it represents a consensus on which both sides can agree as to the basic historical unfolding of the controversy. In the following section, I generally follow the NAOCTC, and I am indebted to members of the consultation for many of their insights. Although the broad framework of this study’s narrative has been challenged by some scholars (e.g., Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to FourthCentury Trinitarian Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 384), the overwhelming number of systematic and historical theologians that form the consensus represented by this study’s narrative recommend its claims. Other comprehensive studies include Bernd Oberdorfer, Filioque: Geschichte und Theologie eines ökumenischen Problems (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001); and Peter Gemeinhardt, Die Filioque-Kontroverse zwischen Ost- und Westkirche im Frühmittelalter (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2002). An earlier and shorter study in English that still proves helpful in its detail is Gerald Bray, ‘The Filioque Clause in History and Theology’, The Tyndale Bulletin 34 (1983), pp. 35–59. For the East/West schism more generally, see Henry Chadwick, East and West: The Making of a Rift in the Church – From Apostolic Times until the Council of Florence (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003). Language was an issue even in early exchanges; for example, Tertullian’s complaint in Aduersus Praxean 4. Gerald Bray, in his Holiness and the Will of God: Perspectives on the Theology of Tertullian (London: Marshal, Morgan, and Scott, 1979), p. 89, traces the general differences back as early as the differences between Tertullian and Irenaeus; later he does so in regard to the filioque between Tertulian and Origen in Bray, ‘The Filioque Clause’. For example, Tertullian, Aduersus Praxean 4.1, a Patre per Filium; Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitate 2.29, et filio (cf. De Trin. 8.20.); and Ambrose of Milan, De Spiritu sanctu 1.11.20, et filio. For a bibliography of these patristic sources, see Brian E. Daley, ‘Revisiting the “Filioque”: Roots and Branches of an Old Debate, Part One’, Pro Ecclesia 10 (Winter 2001), pp. 36–9. NAOCTC, ‘The Filioque’, p. 98.

The Baptists ‘and the Son’

125

forth the Spirit in the temporal unfolding of salvific revelation (see Acts 2 and Jn 20.22), but the Spirit is also said to derive divinity (i.e., by proceeding) from the Father and the Son in an ontological sense.11 Augustine’s influence carried over into many succeeding Latin writers and thereby became codified into the Western theological tradition, as seen in the Council of Toledo in 589. Unlike the Eastern churches, the Western churches encountered Arian teachings well into the medieval period, which required the attention of Church leaders.12 One such instance is when the Council of Toledo was convened and pronounced that the Son is equal to the Father in all ways. Anyone who denied that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son was seen to be denying the full divinity of the Son. After Toledo, the West would presume the filioque to be part of the orthodox formulation of the 381 Creed. Accompanying the theological differences was a political element between the Roman and Byzantine empires.13 This tension was salient in secular society, and historical theologians note that the Church was not immune from the politics of its day.14 When Charlemagne was crowned emperor on 25 December 800, many in the Eastern theocratic-like empire saw this as an act of schism: the (Byzantine) emperor is a servant of God, and to set up a rival emperor is to rival God.15 Charlemagne had already charged the Byzantine emperors with heresy in the commissioned work Libri Carolini (791–94), which claimed that the filioque was in the 381 Creed.16 With the variety of sociopolitical forces interwoven with the two theological trajectories, it is no surprise to find the East/West tensions 11

12

13

14

15 16

For example, Augustine, De Trinitate 15.10, et filium; 15.29, et de filio; cf. 4.29; 15.37. The influence of Augustine’s model on Western Trinitarianism is widely acknowledged. His psychological analogy of the Trinity (see esp. books 9–10) still serves as the primary assumption of Western theologians for requiring the filioque; for example, Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics I.1 (eds G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance; trans. G. W. Bromiley; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1986 [orig.: Die kirchliche Dogmatik (Zollikon, Switzerland: Evangelischen Buchhandlung, 1938)]), pp. 486–7. Thomas A. Smail, in his ‘The Holy Spirit in the Holy Trinity’, in Nicene Christianity (ed. Christopher Seitz; Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2001), p. 154, concludes that the filioque was added ‘in an excess of Anti-Arian zeal’. Yves Congar, in his After Nine Hundred Years: The Background of the Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches (New York: Fordham University Press, 1959 [orig.: ‘Neuf cents ans après’, in 1054–1954: L’Église et Les Églises (Chevetogne: Éditions de Chevetogne, 1954)]), devotes chapters to ‘political’, ‘cultural’, and ‘ecclesiological’ factors. See also the account of Nicolas Zernov, Eastern Christendom: A Study of the Origin and Development of the Eastern Orthodox Church (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson; New York: Putnam, 1961), pp. 89–108. For a discussion of the political influences behind the ecclesiological disputes, see Robert M. Haddad, ‘The Stations of the Filioque’, St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 46, nos. 2–3 (2002), pp. 209–68; (Kallistos) Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (New York: Penguin Books, 1985 [orig., 1963]), pp. 53–4 NAOCTC, ‘The Filioque’, p. 100. On Libri Carolini, see Luitbold Wallach, Diplomatic Studies in Latin and Greek Documents from the Carolingian Age (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977); Patrick Henry, ‘Images of the Church in the Second Nicene Council and the Libri Carolini’, in Law, Church, and Society: Essays in Honor of Stephan Kuttner (eds Kenneth Pennington and Robert Summerville; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977), pp. 237–52.

126

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

having an impact on many areas of Christianity, including the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit. One last aspect of the historical background that significantly affected the East/West differences over the filioque is the liturgical. As early as the beginning of the sixth century, the Eastern rite incorporated the Creed of 381 (in the original Greek; i.e., without the filioque), instilling both the clergy and the laity with cognitive space for mono-processionism through the Eucharistic ritual. It seems apparent that the Eastern churches strictly applied the mandate of the 431 Council of Ephesus: ‘It is not permitted to produce or write or compose any other creed’.17 In other words, adding a clause such as filioque would be a breach of this later council’s decision and perceivable, therefore, as a heretical act. The Western liturgical tradition delayed incorporating the Creed of 381, leaving a discursive vacuum wherein other formulations took precedence. In addition to the significant patristic commentators being formative in the theological and therefore liturgical framework of the West, the Latin speakers also invoked the Quicunque Vult (the Athanasian Creed) in the litany, which describes the Spirit’s proceeding from the Father and the Son.18 It should be noted that Athanasius did not actually compose this creed; instead, it is a Western formula dating from approximately the fifth century that assisted in asserting a dual-procession paradigm into Western theology. Even when Toledo affirmed the filioque version of the 381 Creed, the council believed it was following the practice of the East, which in fact had already attached this creed to the Eucharist but without the filioque clause.19 In order to illustrate the array of concerns inherent in this controversy and to survey the historical data related to this debate in succinct fashion, let us now focus on three scenes of encounter between East and West. Although the Church in Rome did not officially include the 381 Creed with filioque in its Eucharistic liturgy until the turn of the millennium, which would permit certain instances of papal dialogue (see later), the widespread use of the amended version of the creed in the West, accompanied by a more extensive liturgical tradition that included filioque phraseology, ensured that Western Christians adhered to dual-processionism even when faced by Eastern claims 17

18

19

Canon 7: aliam fidem nulli licere proferre vel conscribere vel componere. Text and translation in Jaroslav Pelikan and Valerie Hotchkiss (eds), Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition: vol. 1 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 163. See discussion in Ware, The Orthodox Church, p. 59. ‘The Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son . . . proceeding’ (Spiritus sanctus a Patre et Filio . . . procedens); text and translation in J. N. D. Kelly, The Athanasian Creed (London: A&C Black; New York: Harper & Row, 1964), p. 19. NAOCTC, ‘The Filioque’, pp. 98–9.

The Baptists ‘and the Son’

127

that it was an innovation. With these factors in mind, the encounter between these two theological trajectories can be further appreciated in three historical scenes wherein the filioque took centre stage.

a Scene one – Jerusalem (c. 808) Far away from the episcopal centres of power, two groups of monastic brethren pursued their pilgrimage of prayer in the ancient and holy city of Jerusalem.20 These two groups, one Greek from the East and the other Frankish from the West, seemed to be of one accord in all matters. Things turned for the worse, however, when all joined together in the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist that included a singing of the 381 Creed. When the Frankish brethren interrupted the flow of the joint confession by inserting an additional clause, the filioque, each side accused the other of corruption, and the Western monks sent word to Rome, petitioning Pope Leo III and reporting all that took place. Leo was already under pressure from the recently crowned Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne to denounce the Byzantines, and the filioque provided another accusation in this campaign.21 Under the mounting pressure, Leo sent a letter to the Eastern churches defending dual-processionism.22 However, he refused to allow the filioque to be inserted into the 381 Creed and, in a bold instance of visual pedagogy, ordered two silver shields to be hung in the papal chapel, one in Latin and the other in Greek, both containing the original creed without the filioque clause.

b Scene two – Bulgaria (867) In the ninth century the Frankish kingdom gained political sway over the region known as Bulgaria.23 One of King Boris’ new policies for the region included expelling the Eastern missionaries. These clerics in turn petitioned Photios of Constantinople, reporting the many discrepancies they observed in the Latin rites, 20

21 22

23

For this encounter and its sources, see Richard Haugh, Photius and the Carolingians: The Trinitarian Controversy (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing, 1975), pp. 63–90. See above in this section. NAOCTC, ‘The Filioque’, p. 102: ‘In that response, the Pope did not distinguish between his personal understanding and the issue of the legitimacy of the addition to the Creed, although he would later resist the addition in liturgies celebrated at Rome’. See the more detailed discussion in Francis Dvornik, The Photian Schism: History and Legend (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948 [repr. 1970]); Alexander Schmemann, The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy (trans. Lydia W. Kesich; Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1977 [orig.: Istoricheskii put’ pravoslaviia (N’iu-lork: Izd-vo imeni chekhova, 1954)]), pp. 245–7; Haugh, Photius and the Carolingians; and Philip Zymaris, ‘Neoplatonism, the Filioque, and Photios’ Mystagogy’, Greek Orthodox Theological Review 46 (Fall/Winter 2001), pp. 345–62.

128

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

including the filioque. In an encyclical addressed to the other Eastern patriarchs, Photios decried such Western innovations as papal authority and the filioque and requested that an ecumenical council be convened to investigate these matters. The so-called ‘ecumenical’ council, consisting only of Eastern representatives, met and not surprisingly supported Photios’ argument, even to the extent that they agreed to depose Pope Nicholas I of Rome. Photios and the council’s actions, however, introduced further complications rather than bringing about the resolution, albeit one-sided, that was intended. Nicholas refused to recognize the council’s legitimacy, and he did so based on a fairly solid juridical matter: Nicholas and the Latin West had already denounced Photios’ appointment in 863.24 In 863, Photios had replaced Patriarch Ignatius, who had been defrocked on false charges. When the Ignatian party appealed to Nicholas, he sided with them, refusing to acknowledge Photios. Soon after Photios’ council denounced Nicholas, Byzantine Emperor Michael was assassinated and was succeeded by Basil the Macedonian. Basil, in an attempt to gain support from the West, convened another ‘ecumenical’ council (this time with representatives from the West), which reinstated Ignatios as patriarch in 869.25 The unrest did not end, however, because after Ignatios died Photios himself was reinstated as patriarch, and the new bishop of Rome, Hadrian II (who had anathematized Photios at the 869 council), objected to the appointment. Resolution came when the following pope, John VIII, finally restored good relations by recognizing Photios as the rightful patriarch. At the council of Constantinople (879–80), wherein Photios’ status was clarified and the Nicene declarations (787) were reaffirmed, no mention was made of the filioque, other than to reaffirm the 381 Creed (without filioque) and anathematize ‘anyone who composed another confession of faith’.26

c Scene three – Constantinople (1054) In the final scene observed here, we find once again a group of clerics retreating after being expelled by their Christian counterparts.27 In this instance it is the Western priests who have left Constantinople after Patriarch Michael Keroularios 24 25 26 27

Ware, The Orthodox Church, p. 62. Note that the Roman Church recognized this council as the eighth ecumenical council. NAOCTC, ‘The Filioque’, p. 104. For discussion and sources of the 1054 scene, see Steven Runciman, The Eastern Schism: A Study of the Papacy and the Eastern Churches during the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955); and Schmemann, The Historical Road, pp. 247–51.

The Baptists ‘and the Son’

129

closed all Latin churches in his jurisdiction. The head bishop had already commissioned a treatise to be written against Western practices, including the use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist, claims of papal supremacy and the insertion of the filioque clause into the 381 Creed. Like the disinherited monks from the previous scenes, the Western contingent fled back to Rome to report on all that had happened. Pope Leo IX then sent emissaries to Constantinople to address Keroularios. Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida arrived in Constantinople, expecting to be given the full rights and privileges of a papal representative. Yet, his arguments for the filioque, and any other item for that matter, were never vocalized because Keroularios refused to grant him a hearing. Invoking the full weight of his authority as pontifical ambassador, Humbert interrupted the litany of the Hagia Sophia on Sunday, 16 July 1054, by storming into the sanctuary and depositing the Bull of Excommunication upon the altar itself. It is noteworthy that the bull did not explicitly excommunicate the entirety of Eastern Christendom, but only Keroularios, which, of course, may imply all in agreement with Keroularios and all falling under his ecclesial jurisdiction. Keroularios in turn also declared excommunication, but this too can be interpreted ambiguously: his statement is directed only against the bull itself and all who supported it, which of course implicitly and primarily refers to Leo; nevertheless, by not naming the pope explicitly he left open the possibility of reconciliation. Moreover, had Keroularios excommunicated Leo, it would have mattered little, since the Bishop of Rome had actually died three months before Humbert arrived in Constantinople, word of which had not reached the cardinal in time. These three scenes illustrate the manifold complexities involved in any discussion of the history of the filioque. Blame can be laid on both sides, and we can see where corresponding matters such as papal authority are inextricably bound to the controversy. Before attempting to give an analytical account of some of the filioque’s theological issues, let us look briefly at some of the attempts to reconcile both sides of the debate.

V Attempts at reconciliation As momentous as the 1054 encounter seems to us today, neither side took much notice of it in the immediate aftermath. Instead, the incident only solidified the already present assumption that the Eastern and Western churches had really divided into two ecclesiastical traditions. In the succeeding centuries, however,

130

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

there were numerous attempts at reconciliation that inevitably included discussion of the filioque clause. In 1136 the German emperor Lothair III sent Anselm of Havelberg as political envoy to Constantinople, during which time he concluded, with Metropolitan Niketas of Nicomedia, ‘that the differences between the two traditions were not as great as they had thought’.28 Several other formal dialogues took place following the Anselm-Niketas statement, which at first appeared promising but were ultimately overshadowed by the continued political conflict between the two sides that was exacerbated by the growing threat of the Turkish advance.29 In 1274 a so-called ‘ecumenical’ council met in Lyons to address the schism and readdress the filioque.30 The council pronounced that the filioque does belong in the creed and anathematized any who held to mono-processionism. Additionally, the announcement was made that both sides had reconciled and that the reunification of the Church had taken place. As one might guess, the Lyons declarations were never accepted in the Eastern Church, and by 1285 an Eastern council convened to denounce them formally.31 In 1438 another council convened at Florence. It, too, aimed at full reunification of the churches, which entailed further discussion of the filioque.32 The Turkish empire posed an imminent threat to the Byzantines, and many in the East believed an alliance with the West was necessary. In this instance further voice was given to the Eastern tradition, and compromise on the filioque was attained by allowing the formula ‘through the Son’ (dia tou Hiou), which had been used by many Eastern writers and which the council said equated with the dual-processionist view wherein the Father and the Son together breathed forth the Spirit in a ‘single spiration’. With this decision came another pronouncement (like Lyon) wherein the Church was said to be reunited. The Western support,

28 29

30

31

32

NAOCTC, ‘The Filioque’, p. 107. The most unforgettable (and some would say unforgivable) moment came in 1204 when Western crusaders razed Constantinople itself. See discussion in Schmemann, The Historical Road, pp. 251–2. Only two representatives from the East attended, and their ability to voice the Eastern perspective at the council has been questioned. Donald M. Nicole, ‘The Byzantine Reaction to the Second Council of Lyon (1284)’, in Councils and Assemblies: Papers Read at the Eighth Summer Meeting and the Ninth Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society (eds G. J. Cuming and Derek Baker; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), pp. 113–46; Ware, The Orthodox Church, p. 71. See John Meyendorff, ‘Was There an Encounter between East and West at Florence?’, in Christian Unity: The Council of Florence 1438/9–1989 (ed. Giuseppe Alberigo; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1991), pp. 153–75; Deno J. Ganakoplos, ‘The Council of Florence (1438–1439) and the Problem of Union between the Greek and Latin Churches’, Church History 24 (December 1955), pp. 291–323.

The Baptists ‘and the Son’

131

however, failed to save the Byzantine Empire (which fell in 1453), and Eastern Christians never accepted Florence as valid.33 With the advent of the modern ecumenical movement, many dialogues have taken place regarding the filioque controversy.34 When in 1965 Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I of Constantinople retracted the 1054 anathemas, it looked as if the door had been opened for East/West unification, following fresh discussion of the old dogmatic differences. The most notable enactment of this kind was when John Paul II, on three different occasions, joined an Eastern archcleric in reciting the 381 Creed without the filioque clause.35 While no formal agreement has been reached to date between the East and West regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit, there have been numerous suggestions made as to how to move forward.36 The late Avery Dulles listed the following three options available to Catholics: 1. They could insist on acceptance of the filioque as a condition of full ecclesial communion, while rejecting the formula ‘from the Father through the Son’. 2. They could allow two or more alternative forms of the creed. These might include the form that affirms the double procession, the form that asserts the procession simply ‘from the Father’, and the form that declares ‘from the Father through the Son’. 3. They could suppress the filioque and revert to the wording of the creed as approved in 381.37 33

34 35

36

37

See responses in Schmemann, The Historical Road, pp. 253–4; and Ware, The Orthodox Church, pp. 80–1. The 1484 Council of Constantinople formally rejected Florence. See Wainwright, ‘Ecumenical Rediscovery of the Trinity’, p. 119. Note that John Paul II continued to affirm, and the Roman Catholic Church continues to teach, the filioque as established doctrine. See the ecumenically sensitive yet dogmatically firm statements in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1994), nos 247–8, pp. 66. The last official statement made by either the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox communions regarding the filioque is that of the NAOCTC. Dialogue has continued, however, on broader issues of unification between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. Most recently (30 November 2006), after a visit to Turkey, Pope Benedict XVI issued a joint statement with Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I, pleading for dialogue and cooperation (see E. T. at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/ benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/november/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20061130_dichiarazionecomune_en.html). Also, on 18–25 September 2006, the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, meeting in Belgrade, Serbia, issued a communiqué in which the members ‘strongly commend the ongoing work of the dialogue to the prayers of the faithful’ (see http://www.zenit.org/english/visualizza. phtml?sid ⫽ 95764). A helpful timeline of Orthodox-Catholic dialogue can be found at http:// prounione.urbe.it/dia-int/o-rc/e_o-rc-info.html. For a detailed discussion of developments from previous decades until 2003, see Waclaw Hryniewicz, ‘Ecumenical and Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church’, Exchange 32, no. 2 (2003), pp. 168–87. Avery Dulles, ‘The Filioque: What Is at Stake?’, Concordia Theological Quarterly 59 (January–April 1995), p. 34. For other recent proposals made by Roman Catholic theologians, see Brian E. Daley, ‘Revisiting the “Filioque”: Contemporary Catholic Approaches, Part Two’, Pro Ecclesia 10 (Spring 2001), pp. 195–212.

132

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

While the official stance of the Eastern churches going back to Photios is to insist on mono-processionism, many Orthodox theologians believe that the ambiguous phrase ‘through the Son’ found in many patristic writers offers a way forward.38 Additionally, the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, while recommending that the filioque be dropped from the 381 Creed, suggested several optional expansions of the filioque that would permit the West to address the relation of the Son to the procession of the Spirit: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

the Spirit proceeds from the Father of the Son the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son the Spirit proceeds from the Father and receives from the Son the Spirit proceeds from the Father and rests on the Son the Spirit proceeds from the Father and shines out through the Son39

In order to better appreciate these and other possibilities for future discussion of the filioque, we now turn to a presentation of some of the theological matters inherent in the controversy.

VI Theology of the filioque In attempting to discuss the filioque from a non-creedal perspective, we should note that the dispute over the filioque, while originally entailing the liturgical question of which formula to confess and then intertwining the juridical question of whether the pope can add dogmatic statements to the findings of an ecumenical council without the East’s consent, extends into the theological concerns of anyone attempting to articulate the doctrine of the Trinity.40 Were the West to agree to omit the phrase from the 381 Creed (as John Paul II did on multiple occasions), the East would still stipulate that the Western doctrine of 38

39

40

For example, Sergius Bulgakov, in his The Comforter (trans. Boris Jakim; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004 [orig.: Utieschitel’ (Tallin: YMCA Press, 1936]), argued that the 381 Creed was simply not concerned with the procession of the Holy Spirit but with the equi-divinity of the third hypostasis. Therefore, the question of procession is left open to theological speculation. He found that the consensus of early Greek Fathers was to speak of the procession of the Holy Spirit in relation to the Son (dia tou Hiou) and, therefore, concluded that Photios strayed from patristic theology by insisting on the Holy Spirit’s procession ‘from the Father alone’ (ek monou tou Patros). Lukas Vischer (ed.), Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ: Ecumenical Reflections on the Filioque Controversy (Faith and Order Paper, no. 103; Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1981), p. 16. For example, Ware, The Orthodox Church, p. 59; Schmemann, The Historical Road, p. 237.

The Baptists ‘and the Son’

133

dual-processionism is errant.41 What, then, are the theological matters entailed in the filioque controversy? Let us examine first the concerns of the monoprocessionists (the Orthodox view) before looking to the dual-processionist stance (the Catholic teaching). The mono-processionist view, as traditionally explicated by Eastern writers, prioritizes the monarchy of the Father.42 The distinction of personhood in the Trinity is known via their relational polarities: the Father is known by the begetting of the Son, who is known as the Begotten of the Father; the Father is also known through the spiration of the Holy Spirit, who is known as the one who proceeds from the Father. In these relational descriptors each hypostasis (Greek loanword in Latin for ‘person’; cf. persona) is distinguishable yet united, a formula that served in the ancient Church to refute Sabellian patripassianism on both fronts.43 First, it was the Son, not the Father, who became incarnate, and it is the Spirit sent upon the believers today, not the Son or the Father merely in spiritual form – the Trinitarian persons are distinguishable (see Irenaeus’ ‘two hands’-of-God metaphor for the Son and the Spirit).44 Alternately, the Sabellian charge – that without a modalistic understanding of the Trinity Christianity inescapably ascribes to tritheism – was shown to be unfounded in that hypostatic relationships spring from the Father, who is the source of the Godhead. The Trinitarian persons are united (see Origen’s ‘eternal generation’ vocabulary).45 The objections to mono-processionism, as traditionally voiced by the Western tradition, entail a lingering concern about tritheism and a questioning of the hypostatic distinctiveness for the Son and the Spirit. While the adjective ‘eternal’ applied to generation and spiration is intended to prevent a plummet into a tritheistic understanding of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the West will encounter Arian theology that depicts the three ‘persons’ in a subordinated relationship to such an extreme that they are unequal and therefore not united in all ways. Without further assurance of the relationship 41

42 43 44 45

For example, Vladimir Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Press, 1974 [orig.: À l’image et la resemblance de Dieu (Paris; Aubier-Montaigne, 1967)]), p. 71. Ware, The Orthodox Church, p. 219. Ibid., pp. 221–2. Aduersus haereses 4.4. De principiis 2.2. This became especially useful when the Macedonians countered the Arian view by declaring the Son to be equal to the Father, yet they in turn subordinated the Holy Spirit to the Son. Note that the same is said of the Holy Spirit, i.e., ‘eternal procession’; see Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith: An Elementary Handbook on the Orthodox Church, vol. 1, Doctrine (New York: Department of Religious Education, The Orthodox Church in America, 1972–76), p. 118 (available at http://www.oca.org/OCchapter.asp?SID⫽2&ID⫽25).

134

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

of all Trinitarian hypostases (i.e., the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son), the inherent oneness of God is eclipsed by threeness. Also stemming from the confrontation with Arianism is the Western concern for the distinction between the Son and the Spirit. If the Son in a sense also ‘proceeds’ from the Father, then does God have two sons?46 What is the ontological distinction made between the Son and the Spirit? Without declaring the Son equal to the Father in all things (contra Arianism), and thereby understanding the Father and the Son equally to breathe forth the Spirit, what differentiates the Spirit from the Son? The solution, according to the Latin writers, was found in the filioque.47 The dual-processionist view, as traditionally formulated in the West, prioritizes the full divinity of the Son. The ecumenical councils of Nicea and Constantinople declared, against Arian teachings, that the Son was ‘true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father, through whom all things came to be’. When Arianism continued to plague later Western writers, this formulation was seen to be both normative and incomplete. It was normative in that all teachings regarding the person of Christ and the relation of the Son to the Father and the Spirit must correspond thereunto. If declaring the Son equal to the Father in all things and insisting that all things came into being through him, then one must illustrate this at every doctrinal opportunity, such as the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit; the Son is equal to the Father even in this act of spiration. The Niceno-Constantinopolitan expression, however, is incomplete in that it had yet to be applied to the Spirit’s procession; by adding the filioque the dual-processionists understood themselves to be applying Nicea consistently and comprehensively. Objections to dual-processionism, as customarily raised by the East, revolve around a concern that the Christocentrism of the filioque actually implies a Christomonism of sorts, thereby compromising the orthodox teaching on the Father and the Spirit.48 Teaching on the Father is compromised because the monarchy has been divided between the Father and the Son. On the contrary, the East has repeatedly accused the West of losing sight of God’s threeness, usually at the expense of full recognition of the person of the Spirit. If full equality with God for the Son requires breathing forth the Spirit, then how can one affirm the 46

47

48

See Augustine, De Trinitate 9.17. Cf. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness, pp. 74–5, for the etymological ambiguity of both Eastern and Western traditions. On the concern regarding the differentiation of the second and third persons of the Trinity, and on the filioque as the explicit solution, see the symbol confessed at the Eleventh Council of Toledo (675). Ware, The Orthodox Church, p. 222.

The Baptists ‘and the Son’

135

full equality of the Spirit? By declaring that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son and the Spirit?49 The answer, according to Eastern thinkers, is the omission of the filioque. With these theological divergences now delineated, we may turn to some of the possible ramifications and concerns involved in the dual-processionist/mono-processionist debate.

VII Implications of the filioque for non-creedal theology Now that we have surveyed the history and theology of the filioque, I will highlight some implications of the filioque that should be noted by non-creedal theologians. In a more ecumenical discourse these implications, as seen previously, are tied to liturgical, ecclesio-juridical, and Trinitarian concerns, whereas non-creedal theologians are only directly affected by the latter. The primary implications for our purposes coincide with the delineation of the immanent and the economic Trinity. An initial implication of the filioque is found in the fact that the doctrine of procession of the Holy Spirit intersects with any inquiry into the interior life of God (the immanent Trinity). Whenever we attempt to extricate the uniqueness of any person in the Trinity, we encounter filioque concerns: is there a difference between generation and spiration? If not, does God have two sons?50 Similarly, when attempting to appreciate the perichoretic relationships within the Trinity we touch upon the same controversy: is there a hierarchy in God? Is the Father the source of the Godhead? Is there subordination in God? It hardly needs stating that one’s answers to these questions have further ramifications for other matters such as ecclesiology, anthropology and ethics.51 For example, if God is hierarchical, then is not hierarchy defensible within 49

50

51

Dulles, ‘The Filioque’, p. 36, restates this fallacious argument. The traditional syllogism is as follows. The Spirit proceeds from God. The Son is God. Therefore, the Spirit must proceed from the Father and the Son. See also Dulles’ answer to this type of objection ‘The Filioque’, pp. 42–3. A concern of both Barth (Church Dogmatics I.1, p. 475), who called it an ‘insurmountable’ difficulty, and Karl Rahner, The Trinity (trans. Joseph Donceel; New York: Seabury Press, 1974 [orig.: Mysterium Salutis, Grundriss heilsgeschichtlicher Dogmatik, vol. 2, Ch. 5 (Einsiedeln: Benzinger, 1967)]), pp. 11, 14. The Greek tradition has two theologically distinct words for ‘proceed’ – ekporeuesthai (to proceed out of) and proienae (to proceed forward) – as opposed to one term in the Latin, processio. See discussion in NAOCTC, ‘The Filioque’, pp. 114–15. For a bibliography of these terms, see Daley, ‘Revisiting the “Filioque”’, p. 36; and Dulles, ‘The Filioque’, p. 39, n. 17. For example, John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion (Crestview, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002), p. 40; Miroslav Volf, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), p. 191; and Leonardo Boff, Trinity and Society (trans. Paul Burns; Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988 [orig.: A Trindade, a Sociedade, e a Libertação (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1986)]), pp. 123–54.

136

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

society, the Church and the home? By encroaching upon the immanence of God, we are inevitably led back down the systematic ladder into other fields of theological discourse. Just as the filioque intersects with an inquiry into the internal life of the Trinity, it also bears implications for any inductions from the external mission of God in history (the economic Trinity). Defenders of the filioque often invoke potential dangers in this sphere, such as the following concerns listed by Thomas Smail in his essay on neo-Nicene ecumenism: 1. If the Spirit proceeds from the Father and not the Son, can other religions receive the Spirit? 2. If the Spirit proceeds from the Father and not the Son, can Spirit-filled believers utter words of God that are not words of Christ? 3. If the Spirit does not also proceed from the Son, can one speak of the Son (i.e., doctrinally) without experiencing the Spirit (i.e., spiritually)? Conversely, can one experience the works of the Spirit without knowing the benefits of Christ?52 These concerns, while valid in and of themselves, do not seem appropriately used as arguments for the filioque.53 One could just as easily charge dual-processionists with pneumatophobia as mono-processionists with pneumatomania.54 Could the problems listed result more from a misapplication of mono-processionism than from the doctrine itself? Surely, comparable lists of concerns could be constructed against dual-processionism, such as the diminished role of the Holy Spirit discussed previously. Moreover, even mono-processionists accept that the Spirit has been sent forth by both the Father and the Son in the external mission in the world.55 Therefore, the Spirit of God will always be the Spirit of Jesus. These types of concerns, however, do illustrate the need for a theological reflection on how the persons of the Trinity relate to one another, especially when addressing 52

53

54

55

Smail, ‘The Holy Spirit’, p. 158 (my summary). See Wainwright, ‘Ecumenical Rediscovery of the Trinity’, p. 121, for an example of this first fear’s being realized in a World Council of Churches assembly. For a Pentecostal perspective regarding these charges, see Veli-Matti Kärkäinnen, ‘Trinity as Communion in the Spirit: Koinonia, Trinity, and Filioque in the Roman Catholic-Pentecostal Dialogue’, Pneuma 22 (Fall 2000), pp. 225–7. Also, compare the presentation of possible points of contact between mono- and double-processionists made by Robert Fastiggi in his ‘A Catholic Response to Kallistos Ware’, in Reclaiming the Great Tradition: Evangelicals, Catholics, and Orthodox in Dialogue (ed. James S. Cutsinger; Downers Grove: IVP, 1997), pp. 146–54 (150–4). Jürgen Moltmann, Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation (trans. Margaret Kohl; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993 [orig.: Der Geist des Lebens: Eine ganzheitliche Pneumatologie (Munich: Kaiser Verlag, 1992)]), p. 72. Smail uses the term ‘charismania’, (Smail, ‘The Holy Spirit’, p. 158). Ware, The Orthodox Church, p. 220.

The Baptists ‘and the Son’

137

God’s work in our salvation; in other words, we need to be ready to address how the Spirit relates to the Father and the Son. The filioque, it seems to me, is applicable if we apply creedal statements of the past (not qua creedal statements, but as doctrinal formulations the Church has confessed in the past and that we still find helpful and illustrative today) equally and reciprocally, be it to the economic or the immanent Trinity: why not allow for a filioque clause in our pneumatology while simultaneously invoking a Spirituque clause in our Christology? Although many theologians have considered the possibilities of this line of thinking, their theological impetus, it seems, has been inhibited by creedal constraints.56 One of the strengths of the dual-processionist stance is that it follows the pattern of salvation history; the God of Israel sends the Son who, in turn, together with the Father sends the Paraclete upon the believers. This representation, however, is not entirely adequate in that the revelatory account is not strictly dispensational in its chronology. Warren McWilliams has claimed that Barth’s insistence on the filioque stems from his understanding of Heilsgeschicte: the Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son. However, citing insights from Moltmann, McWilliams has suggested, ‘A better reading of salvation history reminds us that Jesus was, among other things, conceived by the Spirit, and was baptized in the Spirit’.57 In other words, Christ’s incarnation, baptism, spirituality, ministry, death and resurrection were all, according to the Scriptures, pneumatologically conditioned. Moreover, Christians, even after the induction of historical criticism, have argued that we can look back to the Hebrew Scriptures and perceive the Spirit of God at work before the incarnation of the Son. 56

57

Traditionally in the West, the Athanasian Creed prohibits such a move: ‘The Son is from the Father alone’ (Filius a Patre solo est). It is interesting to note, however, that Augustine is comfortable with the notion; see De Trinitate 15.37: ‘the Son too turns out to be the Son, not of the Father only, but also of the Holy Spirit’ (CCSL 50A: et filius non solius patris uerum etiam spiritus sancti filius inuenitur; ref. Col. 1.13). Although Augustine may have been thinking in terms of the incarnation, this is difficult to substantiate because he invoked the Pauline Christological hymn as support wherein the Son is the ‘first-born of all creation’ (Nestle-Aland, Novum testamentum Graece, 27th ed.: prοtόkοV pάshV ktἰsewV; Vulgate: primogenitus omnis creaturae). Photios, in his De Spiritus sancti mystagogia 3, arguing against a dual-processional creed, suggested that this would be the logical conclusion of the filioque. Barth’s Church Dogmatics I.1, pp. 485–6, acknowledges this problem but goes to great exegetical length to demonstrate why related scriptural passages do not apply to the immanent Trinity. Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit: Vol. 3 (trans. David Smith; New York: Seabury Press, 1983 [orig.: Je crois en l’Esprit Saint (Paris: Cerf, 1980)]), p. 16, fears that Rahner’s method would require Spirituque but of course believes adding an actual clause to the creed is unacceptable. Moltmann’s Spirit of Life, p. 71, affirms Spirituque teaching but is leery of placing it in the creed. Likewise, Boff ’s Trinity and Society, p. 236, is in favour of this understanding but neglects to mention the creed. For discussion of Boff and other pneumatological Christologies, see Ralph Del Colle, ‘Reflections on the Filioque’, JES 34 (Spring 1997), pp. 202–17. Warren McWilliams, ‘Why All the Fuss about Filioque? Karl Barth and Jürgen Moltmann on the Procession of the Spirit’, Perspectives on Religious Studies 22 (Summer 1995), p. 174.

138

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

If we speak of dual-procession of the Holy Spirit, ought we not allow for discussion of double-generation of the Son?58 The strength of relating the Son and the Spirit in these ways, that is, filioque and Spirituque clauses (which for us Baptists, of course, are somehow ‘confessed’ but not creedalized), can be readily seen through a non-creedal lens. Creedal theologians qua creedalists, however, even if acknowledging such concepts as beneficial, are prohibited from adopting said clauses explicitly.59 These concerns, loosed as they are in non-creedal theology from fixed formulations, require much lengthier exploration than I am able to do here; suffice it to say that non-creedal theologians can recognize when and where our Trinitarian, Christological and pneumatological discourse is intersecting with debates of the past, such as the filioque, and we can engage these discussions with the confidence that we have much to contribute. Finally, an essential difference between mono- and dual-processionists lies in their understanding of revelation: is God truly revealed, or is God ultimately a mystery?60 In current Western theology, still haunted by the ghost of Kant, there is wide impetus to require a bridge from our epistemology to God’s ontology – thus Rahner’s rule that ‘the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity and the immanent Trinity is the economic Trinity’.61 In the traditional Eastern approach, however, God is ‘essentially inconceivable and inexpressible’ due to our creatureliness, but through the process of theosis (deification) we can be drawn ever closer unto God.62 Eastern theologians going back at least as far as Gregory Palamas have distinguished between God’s essence (Greek ousia) and

58

59 60

61

62

The East insists that the Son and Spirit can accompany each other in the Trinitarian relationships but the Father alone remains the primary source. See discussion in Moltmann, Spirit of Life, p. 307. For example, see note 56 above. James W. McClendon, Jr., Systematic Theology: Vol. 2, Doctrine (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), p. 322, misrepresented this choice by inquiring, ‘is this “economic” God the real God, or is there some other, secret God beyond God?’ McClendon may rightly raise concern about an understanding of revelation where God is ultimately unknown or unknowable, but this is quite a different claim from asserting that anyone denying Rahner’s rule inevitably professes there to be an ‘other, secret God’ beyond the revealed Triune God of Scripture. For an attempt to circumvent the knowable yet unknowable problem, see, for example, Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, p. 89. Rahner, The Trinity, p. 22; also see pp. 21–48, 99–103 for explanation of the rule. Rahner, however, proves to be problematic for non-creedal double-processionists because his primary ground for asserting this rule is the papal enforcement of the filioque. He accepted the filioque as binding first and then laid out a constructive theology for the clause, not vice versa. While it is safe to say that the Roman Catholic consensus supports Rahner – for example, Dulles, ‘The Filioque’, pp. 37–8 – Rahner is not without his critics, for example, Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit: Vol. 3, pp. 13–16. Note also that Rahner was indebted to Barth (Church Dogmatics: Vol 1, pp. 479–80) for this appreciation of the filioque. Hopko, The Orthodox Faith: Vol. 1, p. 118.

The Baptists ‘and the Son’

139

God’s energies (Greek energeia): God will always be a mystery in essence but is truly known via energies.63 In the light of these diverging approaches, the filioque for non-creedal theology is not simply a matter of interpreting a doctrine; it encompasses the doctrine of revelation. I say ‘the’ with intended emphasis because non-creedal theology claims to be grounded in revelation; the two formulations ‘no creed but Christ’ and ‘no creed but the Bible’, while potentially divergent in defining revelation, both invoke revelation itself as the font from which all other doctrines spring. The filioque, therefore, decentres non-creedal theology by forcing us to normalize our unnormed norm. Does Scripture teach that the Son is included in the sending forth of the Holy Spirit? Yes. Does the Scripture say that the Spirit proceeds eternally from the Son as well as the Father (a Patre Filioque)? No, but neither does it state the Spirit does not proceed eternally from the Son (ek monou tou Patros). The hermeneutical crux is whether or not God revealed (economic Trinity) reveals God in se (immanent Trinity). Does Scripture itself answer this question? It must be admitted that Scripture does not; the question is answered a priori.64 This does not condemn an a priori answering of the question, for such is inescapable, but it does take us beyond the specified realm of non-creedal theology. Non-creedal theologians can therefore prioritize the mystery of God and allow the Eastern apophatic approach to govern much of our theology (something arguably inherent in the non-creedal tradition). Alternatively, noncreedal theologians can position themselves within the Western tradition that can speak more of the immanence of God in the created order and thereby allow for further definitiveness in our doctrinal proclamations (something equally inherent in the non-creedal approach). Either way, we find ourselves in the quagmire of non-foundationalism, and we are forced to reevaluate the capacities and benefits of our approach. How the filioque controversy will play out remains to be seen. How noncreedal theology will proceed in future discussions depends upon which theological prolegomena we are willing to commit ourselves to. Unfortunately, though not surprisingly, the implications we have raised here leave many unanswered questions, and, it must be admitted, our cursory treatment of the subject leaves much room for discussion, detail, and further insight. It is

63 64

See Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, pp. 31–69. Prooftexts could be mounted for either stance. See discussion in Charles P. Price, ‘Some Notes on Filioque’, Anglican Theological Review 83 (Summer 2001), pp. 515–35.

140

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

hoped, however, that the review of the major historical encounters and the delineation of both sides of the debate will underscore points of contact between non-creedal theologians and wider ecumenical dialogue. Additionally, it is our prayer that, in spite of frustrations and disputes arising from different traditions and competing approaches, Baptists and other non-creedal Christians will be sincere, circumspect and sensitive when deciding whether or not to embrace the filioque.

9

Baptized in the Spirit: A Pentecostal Reflection on the Filioque Frank D. Macchia

No-one disputes the Nicene Creed’s indication that the Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father (Jn 15.26). As is widely known, the controversy has historically surrounded the addition in the West of the filioque (and the Son) so that the Spirit is now said to proceed from the Father and the Son. Added to the Nicene Creed in the West to bolster the Son’s homoousios (unity of nature) with the Father, the clause called into question for many in the East the equality of the Spirit’s person to that of the Son, as well as the unique personhood of the Father as alone the fount of deity. The ambiguity involved in the debate has only served to make discussions of the issue difficult. For example, the Western tradition never intended to deny the sole role of the Father as the fount of deity. On the other hand, the Eastern tradition never meant to deny a procession of the Spirit through the Son, even in the inner life of God. Their focus was instead on the hypostatic procession of the Spirit (having to do with the Spirit’s unique person as from the Father alone). Recent ecumenical discussions have served to clarify the issues and have arguably brought East and West closer together on the issue, establishing the Father alone as the fount of deity and preserving the full and unique person of the Spirit by proposing such compromise formulations concerning the hypostatic procession of the Spirit as ‘through the Son’, ‘with the Son’ and ‘of the Son’ (the Spirit proceeding from the Father of the Son). Enter the Pentecostal Movement into this complex creedal debate. Though Pentecostals have not reflected much on this issue, I agree with Gerald T. Sheppard that ‘Many of the underlying issues at stake in the historic controversy over the filioque have been of great interest to Pentecostals, even though most

142

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

Pentecostals have yet to realize that fact’.1 Perhaps it is time, as Amos Yong has suggested, for Pentecostals to develop their accent on the Holy Spirit by confronting this debate.2 In the past, Pentecostals have typically not wrestled with the filioque controversy in part because of their brand of restorationism, which represents a biblicistic and anti-creedal attempt to rediscover the experiential power involved in the early apostolic witness. There are also other accents typical of Pentecostal theology, both Christological and pneumatological, that will function as resources for discussing this issue. It is my purpose to explore all of these issues in order to discern how Pentecostals might approach the filioque given their theological accents as a movement, especially their chief focus on Spirit baptism, God’s eschatological self-giving through the incarnation and death of the Son and the resting of the Spirit.

I Biblicism: The restorationist challenge The first accent relevant to a Pentecostal response to the filioque has to do with Pentecostalism’s concentration on the biblical narrative due to the fact that the movement is not strictly speaking creedal or confessional in nature. This means that the issues surrounding the filioque would have to be worked through fundamentally on strictly biblical grounds, from the bottom up, so to speak, or from within the implications of the biblical narrative as a story of the eschatological self-impartation of God to creation. Pentecostals did not see the need to wrestle with creedal issues because, in their view, ‘faith expressed through creeds seemed idealized, a set of bloodless abstractions, divorced from the reality of God’s presence in everyday life’.3 Creeds, moreover, were also thought to have been crafted by ecclesiastical authorities divorced from the prophetic insights of gifted laity.4 The Pentecostals wished to speak of the Spirit primarily in the context of the power of love and of spiritual gifts that overcome the dark forces and bear witness to the kingdom of God dawning in the world and reaching for eschatological fulfillment. Therefore, they would not be prone to be concerned with the legitimacy of adding the filioque to the creed in the desire to understand the eternal origin of the Spirit.5 Even the Reformation in 1

2

3 4 5

Gerald T. Sheppard, ‘The Nicene Creed, Filioque, and Pentecostal Movements in the United States’, Greek Orthodox Theological Review 31, nos 3–4 (1986), pp. 401–16 (409). Amos Yong, The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh: Pentecostalism and the Possibility of a Global Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), p. 220. Gerald T. Sheppard, ‘The Nicene Creed’, p. 405. Ibid. They were forced to confront creedal issues by the challenges of the Oneness Pentecostals, but, even here, they argued with the Oneness on overwhelmingly biblical rather than creedal grounds.

Baptized in the Spirit

143

the words of Pentecostal pioneer, R. G. Spurling, failed to ‘reform from creeds to God’s law [of love] but tried to reform the creeds to a purer standard of faith like thousands today who fail to see that God’s law wasn’t a creedal system’.6 This sentiment was not an abstract judgement but was connected to some degree to the propensity within mainstream Protestant theology (from Luther and Calvin to Barth) to use a certain reading of Christology and the Bible (including the filioque clause itself) as a weapon against spiritual enthusiasm of all stripes,7 of which the Pentecostals regarded themselves to be kindred spirits. At any rate, Pentecostals did not feel in the early decades of the movement a part of the mainstream historic Church and its traditions. Of course, Pentecostals were not always complimentary in how they viewed the mainstream Church. They shared with their pietistic forebears a view of historic Christianity as cold and lifeless. In fact, the Pentecostals saw world Christendom’s massive institutional, ritual and creedal life as an empty shell that masks a lack of Pentecostal power for vibrant praise, consecrated living and empowered witness in the world in vital hope for the fulfillment of the kingdom of God. What connects Pentecostal churches is an understanding of the gospel that tells the story of how Jesus liberates and heals by imparting the Spirit from the Father. As Walter Hollenweger noted, Pentecostals are bound together by an intense experience of the Spirit than by doctrinal concerns.8 If the filioque cannot speak directly to the life of the Spirit in and through the Church, Pentecostals are unlikely to be interested. As for the filioque issue, all of the above means that there would be an implicit tendency within the Pentecostal Movement to sympathize with Catherine M. LaCugna’s thesis that from the time of the Nicene Creed the doctrine of the Trinity has historically been caught up in debates over the immanent life of the Godhead in abstraction from the manner in which the Triune God actually structures for us the narrative of salvation and the Christian life.9 They would also be prone to see this trajectory as eclipsing the central role of Christ, his passion and impartation of the Spirit, for revealing God. The pietist stream implicitly sympathetic to this conclusion has tended not to be convinced by arguments concerning the relevance of ontological triadologies for the life of faith. In my 6 7

8

9

R. G. Spurling, The Lost Link (Turtletown, TN: Author, 1920; published from an 1897 ms.), pp. 20–1. Dietrich Ritschl, ‘Historical Development and Implications of the Filioque Controversy’, in Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ (ed. Lukas Vischer; Geneva: World Council of Churches; London: SPCK, 1981), pp. 46–68 (62–3). Walter J. Hollenweger, ‘From Asuza Street to the Toronto Phenomenon: Historical Roots of the Pentecostal Movement’, Concilium 3, Pentecostal Movements as an Ecumenical Challenge (eds Jürgen Moltmann and Karl-Josef Kuschel; London: SCM, 1996), pp. 3–14. Catherine LaCugna, God For Us: The Trinity and the Christian Life (New York: Harper One, 1993), passim.

144

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

view, Schleiermacher spoke from his pietist background when he mused that the dogma of the ontological Trinity remained disconnected from the Church’s actual faith in Christ (as if saying that it would make little difference if the doctrine of the Trinity were to suddenly disappear).10 If the filioque were to become a topic of concern to Pentecostals, it would need to be within the task of making sense of the biblical narrative in the context of the life of faith, especially as it emerges in the power of the Spirit in and through the life of the Church and her hope for the future. All of the above should not be taken to mean that the Pentecostals were not concerned with doctrine. Though non-creedal, the Pentecostals did have a strong devotion to biblical orthodoxy. They focused on the rediscovery of Spirit baptism which they understood as the culminating point in the believer’s experience of the Spirit. Involved in this experience was also the rediscovery of extraordinary gifts that flowed out from the filling or empowerment of the Spirit for witness, such as speaking in tongues and healing. They were thus sensitive to the criticism that they were possibly opening the door in their dislike of doctrinal disputes to spiritual fanaticism and chaos. In response to this danger, Pentecostals stressed that their renewal movement merely sought to restore to the churches the living and practical apostolic witness to Christ in the power of the Spirit described in the New Testament. The Apostolic Faith Mission on Azusa Street thus noted in the preamble of its official paper: ‘We are not fighting men or churches, but seeking to displace dead forms and creeds and wild fanaticisms with living, practical Christianity. “Love, faith, unity” are our watchwords, and “victory through the Atoning Blood” our battle cry.’11 They were restorationist, Christocentric and pneumatologically driven. All of this would seem to imply that they would not be prone to separate the revelation of God in the story of salvation from hypostatic relations in the immanent Trinity. They would tend towards a radical devotion to Rahner’s rule that the immanent Trinity is the economic Trinity. Would this impulse tilt them in the direction of the filioque? Before we seek to answer this question, however, we need to look at Pentecostal Christology and pneumatology.

II Christology: The modalist challenge Pentecostal pneumatology, especially its focus on Spirit baptism, has always been Christocentric. Its accent on the third article of the creed has connected 10 11

Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), p. 741. The Apostolic Faith 1:1 (September 1906), p. 2.

Baptized in the Spirit

145

more strongly with the second article than the first, which is why Pentecostal pneumatology has neglected the Spirit’s role in all of creation in favour of soteriological and missional considerations.12 As Donald Dayton has noted, Pentecostal efforts to summarize the full gospel centred on Christ as Saviour, Spirit Baptizer, Healer and Coming King.13 Central was the insight that Christ as the exalted Lord in the Church has conquered sin and death and now imparts the Spirit onto all flesh with the goal of imparting all of the benefits mentioned in fourfold ministry of Christ. As I have noted elsewhere, Spirit baptism, understood as the impartation of the Spirit of life on all flesh, is the Pentacostals’ chief theological accent and, therefore, important to their Christological concentration. Their central Christological focus is thus on Jesus as the Spirit Baptizer.14 For the Pentecostals, the believer drinks from the fullness of Christ when drinking from the Spirit. This pneumatologically rich Christocentrism was clear in the early Pentecostal literature, calling into question those who charge that Pentecostals underemphasize Christology. As Pentecostal founder William J. Seymour wrote, ‘Let us lift up Christ to the world in all his fullness, not only in healing and salvation from all sin, but in his power to speak in all the languages of the world’.15 Notice how the tongues of fire occasioned by the outpouring of the Spirit in Acts 2 are understood by Seymour to be the very tongues of Christ. So also Pentecostal pioneer Charles Mason wrote of his first experience of speaking in tongues: ‘It seemed I was standing at the cross and I heard him as he groaned, the dying groans of Jesus, and I groaned. It was not my voice but the voice of my beloved that I heard in me.’16 The fullness of the Spirit was drunk from the presence of Christ and led to a kind of mystical union with Christ in both his suffering and his exalted life. One would think that this strong focus on Christ as the well-spring of the Spirit would lead to an acceptance of the filioque. This is especially true given the common assumption in the West (and especially in Pentecostalism) that the economic Trinity reflects the immanent Trinity in eternity, even with regard to the hypostatic generation of the Son and procession of the Spirit from the Father.

12

13 14

15 16

Pentecostal theologian Amos Yong has done much to counter this trend. See, for example, Amos Yong, The Spirit of Creation: Modern Science and Divine Action in the Pentecostal-Charismatic Imagination (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011). See also Frank D. Macchia, Justified in the Spirit: Creation, Redemption, and the Triune God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010). Donald W. Dayton, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988). See Frank D. Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006). William J. Seymour, ‘River of Living Water’, The Apostolic Faith 3 (November 1906), p. 2. C. H. Mason, ‘Tennessee Evangelist Witnesses’, The Apostolic Faith 6 (April 1907), p. 7.

146

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

One could reason from this that if Christ is the source of the Spirit in the divine economy (in the history of salvation) then Christ would mediate the Spirit in the eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father. There is little question but that this Christocentrism did cause Pentecostals to tilt in the direction of accepting the filioque. Interestingly, this Christocentrism also tended in the direction of regarding the filioque controversy as part of a heretical theological detour in the history of the Church. Pentecostal Christocentrism also took a modalistic direction that made any discussion of the relations of the persons in the Godhead a tritheistic detour from the gospel. David William Faupel argued that the early Pentecostals so focused on Christ in their experience of the Spirit that the entire dogmatic tradition of the Church concerning the immanent Trinity was called into question. In gazing on Christ, a faction of the Pentecostal Movement, called Oneness Pentecostalism, did not see the open window to the mystery of the Trinity but rather an open window to the one God in whom there is no distinction of persons. This conclusion was arrived at starting with the early Pentecostal conviction that all of the blessings of the Spirit come to us through Christ and in Jesus’ name. Some early Pentecostals focused on the use of Jesus’ name in baptism in Acts as supportive of this insight (e.g., Acts 2.38). The effort to harmonize this Christocentric baptism with the triadic formula of Mt. 28.19 led some of them to conclude that the designations ‘Father, Son and Spirit’ were not names of persons but rather titles indicating the different roles played by the one God in the story of Jesus. The personal name of the God who functions as Father, Son and Spirit is properly Jesus! The result was a Christocentric modalism that regarded the Father as hypostatically indistinguishable from the Holy Spirit and as incarnated in the man Jesus (making Jesus the divine Son of God). The Spirit is now present to us through faith in Jesus and water baptism in Jesus’ name.17 The Oneness Pentecostals came to believe that only their modalism preserved an unqualified incarnation of the one God in Jesus. In their view, Trinitarian theology by way of contrast limits the incarnation to a ‘second’ or subordinate person in the Godhead who is derivative from the Father, a kind of inferior god (God the Son). The Trinitarian dogma thus only served to eclipse the full deity of Christ or the fact that Jesus was the ‘fullness of the Godhead bodily’ (Col. 1.9) or the full and unqualified incarnation of the divine Spirit who is in reality the presence of the Father. Viewing Trinitarianism as inherently subordinationist 17

For insight into this movement and recent ecumenical conversations with Trinitarian Pentecostals, see Frank D. Macchia, ‘The Oneness-Trinitarian Pentecostal Dialogue: Exploring the Diversity of Apostolic Faith’, Harvard Theological Review 103, no. 3 (July 2010), pp. 329–49.

Baptized in the Spirit

147

and tritheist, the Oneness Pentecostals, who now make up more than one-fourth of the world Pentecostal Movement, reverted to a Christocentric modalism that denied the pre-existence of the Son.18 In such a framework, the entire debate over the role of the pre-existent Son in the procession of the Spirit from the Father would be evidence of precisely the subordinationism and tritheism that removes the centrality of Christ from the divine self-disclosure. The Oneness reading of theological history, though certainly unorthodox in some respects, is to be taken seriously. Wolfhart Pannenberg has argued that the historic preoccupation with the issue of origins when construing the personal relations within the Godhead can imply an ontological inferiority of the Son and the Spirit to the Father, for only the Father in this construal is unoriginate. Even the recent Faith and Order statement, ‘the Father derives his being from himself and brings forth the Son and the Spirit’, can be taken to mean that the Father is not dependent on the Son and the Spirit for his deity, while they are dependent on the Father for theirs.19 This implied ontological inferiority of the Son and Spirit to the Father may indeed have been implicitly behind Origen’s remark that prayer is only to be directed in the proper sense to the Father.20 Ironically, Arius’ conviction that the Son is created by the Father was crafted in protest against the assumption, pagan in his view, that the Son was a derivative deity who generated forth from the Father.21 Moreover, the Christocentric modalism of the Oneness Pentecostals is connected to an ancient voice that stood among the ranks of the pro-Nicene Fathers and against the theological trajectory that went from Origen to Arius. I refer here to Marcellus of Ancyra (Bishop of Ancyra in Galatia), with whom the Oneness Pentecostal Christocentrism is allied more closely than with Sabellius. Marcellus is the symbolic father to Oneness Pentecostalism, since his Christocentric modalism parallels theirs rather closely. Interestingly, he was a sharp critic of Arianism and a fierce defender of Nicea, and he may have even had a hand in the use of the term ‘homoousios’ at Nicea supporting Christ as of ‘one nature’ with the Father.22 He was allied closely with Athanasius and when he 18

19

20

21 22

The Oneness affirmed the pre-existence of the logos (Jn 1.1) but tended to view this as the ‘mind’ of God rather than as an eternal person. ‘The Filioque Clause in Ecumenical Perspective’, IV. B. 1. b., in Lukas Vischer (ed.), Spirit of God Spirit of Christ, p. 12. Origen, On Prayer, ch. X, http://www.tertullian.org/fathersorigen_on_prayer_02_text.htm. See also, Jungmann, The Place of Christ in Liturgical Prayer (Colleville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1989), p. 159. As Athanasius admits: De synodis, p. 16. Joseph T. Lienhard, Contra Marcellum: Marcellus of Ancyra and Fourth Century Theology (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press of America, 1999), esp. p. 18.

148

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

and Athanasius were deposed from their offices, they were together exonerated and restored, more than once, and decisively by Julius of Rome at a synod held for this purpose. I will not pursue this discussion further, except to say that Marcellus may be a sign that Oneness Pentecostals need not reject Nicea in terms of its major thrust, as one Oneness scholar has noted.23 In addition to exalting Christ as God and Saviour, the Oneness Pentecostals do defend the absolute monarchy of the Father and the flow of the Spirit from the Father through the Son in terms of the economic life of God. And they view the Spirit as proceeding economically through the Son and present to us through faith and baptism. They reject adoptionism and seek to exalt Christ in the power of the Spirit and to the glory of the Father. There is a kind of economic Trinitarianism here that raises the question as to how broad the tent of Trinitarian orthodoxy can be. Are the Oneness Pentecostals implicitly Trinitarian, even in the ontological sense, due to their strong defence of Christ’s deity, though they do not yet realize it? Oneness Pentecostal pioneer Andrew Urshan did wonder, based on Christ’s deity, whether or not there was a mysterious ‘threeness’ to God, even if he could not call these three separate ‘persons’.24 Leading theologians in the West have also questioned the adequacy of the modern term, ‘person’, when speaking of the three designated biblically as Father, Son and Spirit. Of relevance to the filioque, the Oneness Pentecostals would stress the priority of the Spirit to the Son, since the Son is precisely the man Jesus as indwelt and empowered by the Spirit. There is no pre-existent Son in Oneness theology, only the one God who is incarnate and manifested in the world as Spirit in the Son. In their thinking, the Spirit proceeds from the Father (without hypostatic distinction) to take up residence in the human race by first taking up residence in Jesus.25 Incarnated in Christ, the eternal God who is known as ‘Father’ (especially as transcendent) or ‘Spirit’ (especially as immanent) is now named for all time by Jesus Christ (the divine Son), who serves as that point in history where God is decisively named and revealed. The Spirit that comes forth from Christ to us is now the Spirit of Christ, the eternal Spirit that bears Christ’s name and his stamp, the stamp of the crucified and risen One. But, since the Spirit is the principle of Christ’s deity, Christ is also decisively shaped by the Spirit. There is here a mutual identity between the Spirit (who is also known as ‘Father’) and the Son. 23 24

25

I am grateful to Oneness scholar and minister, Kenneth Bass, for personally sharing this with me. A. D. Urshan, The Almighty God in the Lord Jesus Christ (1121 S. Mott Street, Los Angeles, CA: The author, 1919), p. 10; Quoted in David Reed, ‘Aspects of the Origins of Oneness Pentecostalism’, in Aspects of Pentecostal-Charismatic Origins (ed. Vinson Synan; Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1975), p. 151. They would make a distinction here between incarnation and the Spirit’s indwelling in us.

Baptized in the Spirit

149

For Oneness Pentecostals (as for all Pentecostals), the goal of the divine mission is Spirit baptism. The Spirit takes up residence in Christ and is revealed in his obedient path to the cross in order to take up residence in us. Through resurrection and exaltation, the Spirit who is now decisively defined by the cross rests upon humanity to cause us to glorify Christ and the Father and to live in obedience to Christ in the power of the Spirit. Oneness pioneer Frank Ewart thus wrote that ‘Calvary unlocked the flow of God’s love, which is God’s very nature, into the hearts of his creatures’.26 This Oneness vision is similar in many respects to Pentecostalism in general. All Pentecostals would stress the resting of the Spirit on Jesus for his life and mission with the goal of transferring the Spirit of Christ to us in order to allow us to fully participate together in Christ’s and the Father’s mission on earth.27 This vision accents the mutual relation between the Spirit and the Son, which would, by implication, call into question any filioque doctrine that either grants the Son theological precedence to the Spirit or in any way casts doubt on the full personhood of the Spirit vis-à-vis the Son. Yet, the Oneness failure to hypostatically distinguish the Spirit from the Father could be viewed as causing the preservation of the Spirit’s unique personhood to lack development. Arguably, Trinitarian Pentecostalism advantageously preserves the uniqueness of the Spirit as a person by distinguishing between the Spirit and the Father (e.g., 1 Cor. 2.10) as well as the Spirit and the Son (Acts 2.33). The uniqueness of the Son’s personhood is best preserved as well by noting the Son’s eternal relation to the Father (Jn 1.1-3; Heb. 1.2-3). It is to this point that the Trinitarian Pentecostals can fill out the Pentecostal understanding of the filioque. We need to discuss Pentecostal pneumatology before suggesting a constructive direction for a Pentecostal approach to the filioque.

III Spirit baptism: The pneumatological challenge As the previous two sections imply, the chief Pentecostal doctrinal accent is the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Though the Pentecostal message was Christocentric, it was also pneumatologically rich, for the Pentecostals highlighted the role of Jesus as the Spirit Baptizer. The presence of the Spirit as the promise 26

27

Frank Ewart, ‘The Revelation of Jesus Christ’, in Seven Jesus Only Tracts (ed. Donald W. Dayton; New York: Garland Press, 1985), p. 5. For a presentation of this Pentecostal vision, see Roger Stronstad, The Charismatic Theology of St. Luke (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1988); Yong, The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh; and Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit.

150

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

of the Father was their greatest emphasis. Even the Pentecostal accent on the centrality of Christ was crafted in an effort to account for how Jesus as the man full of the Spirit channels the Spirit to us. In fact, the entire Christian life for the Pentecostals is a journey towards full possession of the Spirit (or being possessed by the Spirit). Spirit baptism was typically viewed as the culminating point of receiving the Spirit. The phases of conversion, sanctification and Spirit baptism (or empowerment) were viewed by the earliest Pentecostals as steps in the direction of becoming the vessel of the Spirit. The entire Christian life is described in a way that emphasizes the realization of the Spirit as a consecrating and empowering presence in life. Notice Pentecostal founder William Seymour’s description of how the sinner is converted: The Lord has mercy on him for Christ’s sake and puts eternal life in his soul, pardoning him of his sins, washing away his guilty pollution, and he stands before God justified as though he had never sinned . . . Then there remains that old original sin . . . Jesus takes that soul that has eternal life in it and presents it to God for thorough cleansing and purging from all Adamic sin . . . Now he is on the altar for the fire of God to fall, which is the baptism with the Holy Ghost. It is the free gift upon the sanctified, cleansed heart.28

Seymour’s view on Spirit baptism was not the only among the Pentecostals. The Pentecostals influenced by William Durham of Chicago (who came from nonholiness backgrounds) eliminated the middle step of entire sanctification noted above and viewed the attainment of the Spirit as coming through regeneration and Spirit filling (called Spirit baptism). The Oneness Pentecostals, however, viewed Spirit filling as identified with regeneration, which they connected with faith and water baptism in Jesus’ name. Many (though not all) Pentecostals viewed speaking in tongues as the characteristic evidence of Spirit filling (called Spirit baptism). I have suggested that Spirit baptism be viewed by Pentecostals as an eschatological reality, the outpouring of the Spirit from the Father, through the Son, over all flesh and involving regeneration (through faith and baptism), Spirit empowerment and eschatological glorification.29 Though various proposals were offered by Pentecostals historically for understanding the process of fully yielding to the power and witness of the Spirit (and not every proposal was biblically justifiable or ecumenically helpful), the key Pentecostal accent is clear enough. If Christ is Saviour, Spirit Baptizer, Healer and Coming King, he is these things centrally as the one who imparts the Spirit. He is chiefly the Spirit Baptizer. 28 29

Seymour, ‘The Way into the Holiest’, The Apostolic Faith 2 (October 1906), p. 4. Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit.

Baptized in the Spirit

151

Since for the Pentecostals all Christians receive the Spirit directly from Christ through union with him in faith and are gifted to be channels of the Spirit’s work to one another, their pneumatological emphasis has also led to a strongly charismatic ecclesiology. James Dunn in fact maintained that one of the key distinguishing marks of Pentecostalism is its charismatic ecclesiology. Pentecostals have lifted up what Hans Küng termed the charismatic structure of the Church. He noted that the Church has historically made the error of defining the charisms from the top down or primarily according to Church office. This move led to the implication that the laity are somehow deficiently or only derivatively gifted or are dependent on the office holders for their role in the life of the Church. Küng chose instead to define charisms from the bottom up, primarily as emerging from the Church’s diversely shared faith. One is then to understand the unique role of oversight from within this larger context of faith as embodied and shared through multiple gifts among all of God’s people.30 Similarly, by starting with the diverse koinonia of the Church, Miroslav Volf, writing from a Pentecostal background, has also proposed a polycentric understanding of the centres of life and ministry in the Church.31 Pentecostal theologians such as Gerald T. Sheppard, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen and Amos Yong, have wondered whether Pentecostalism’s characteristic theological accents really do slant it in the direction of the filioque. Has not Protestantism used the filioque to silence the prophets and to quench the Spirit in Pentecostal estimation? This is not to say that the filioque necessitates such quenching, but there is a short step from subordinating the Spirit to Christ to subordinating the Spirit to those who stand in persona Christi before the congregation to deliver the Word of God in preaching and sacrament. In this case, the Spirit’s unique role in rising up to exalt Christ and glorify the Father in the shared koinonia, powerful praise, and diversely gifted lives of the people of God can be neglected. Such neglect would be inconsistent with the basic thrust of the Protestant Reformation’s devotion to the universal priesthood of all believers to be sure. A Pentecostal could argue that the filioque has undercut this universal priesthood from the start, since it sets the churches of the West on the path to subordination, first of the Spirit to the Son and then of the Spirit to the Church hierarchy. The only way to grant full credit to the unique economy of the Spirit is to avoid any pneumatological subordination to the Son. Only then does the voice of the Spirit truly govern the Church, even to the point of 30 31

Hans Küng, The Church (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967), p. 363. See Miroslav Volf, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997).

152

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

allowing ordinary believers to speak prophetically to the entire Church including its clergy in ways that command obedience to Christ.

IV Spirit baptism as a lens: A Pentecostal response to the filioque Spirit baptism is the chief distinctive among Pentecostals. It may be said that they have highlighted this metaphor for ecumenical discussion, evoking a few prominent non-Pentecostal responses.32 The chief Christological accent in Scripture for Pentecostals is thus Christ’s role in bestowing the Spirit from the heavenly Father. Pentecostals would certainly embrace Irenaeus’ point that the Spirit rests on Jesus ‘in order to get accustomed to dwell in the human race, to repose on men, to reside within the work God has modeled, working the Father’s will in them and renewing them from oldness to newness in Christ’.33 The basis of this pneumatological Christology is the Old Testament expectation that the Lord will redeem by pouring out the divine breath or Spirit upon all flesh (Joel 2.28). God will no longer hide his face from Israel but will pour out the Spirit upon the nation (Ezek. 39.29), cleansing them and empowering them to follow the law (Ezek. 36.25-27). By putting the Spirit within them, God will even raise them from the grave of despair (Ezek. 37.13-14). The Spirit is said to rest on God’s chosen messenger in the last days (Isa. 61.1-3). What role will the anointed one play in the final outpouring of the Spirit? The gospels and Acts, the narrative foundation of the New Testament, are unanimous in saying that the Spirit will be poured forth through the anointed Messiah. Jesus as the Spirit Baptizer is the key to the New Testament understanding of the significance of the Messiah to end-time salvation. Spirit baptism is thus, arguably, the root metaphor in the New Testament for describing salvation. The Pentecostals did well in pointing us all to this root metaphor, though most of them were too narrow in confining this metaphor to an empowering experience for witness in the world. The experience of Spirit baptism certainly highlights such diverse empowerment in Luke and Acts but the metaphor itself is too deep and expansive eschatologically to be adequately contained by this or any single dimension of life in the Spirit; for it 32

33

See James D. G. Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit (London: SPCK, 1971), and Kilian McDonnell and George T. Montague, Christian Initiation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit: Evidence from the First Eight Centuries (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991). Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.17.1.

Baptized in the Spirit

153

is eschatological in the broadest sense of that term, as Acts 1.6-8 and 2.17-21 indicate. Spirit baptism describes the outpouring of the Spirit through Christ upon all flesh in order to bring eschatological salvation to fulfillment.34 Pentecostals also emphasized the power of the atonement, but even here the description of this reconciling event reaches towards Pentecost. For example, Seymour wrote: ‘We that are messengers of this precious atonement ought to preach all of it, justification, sanctification, healing, the baptism with the Holy Ghost with signs following’.35 This is not meant to say that the atonement overshadows Pentecost but rather, in the light of Seymour’s other statements, atonement and Pentecost overlap. The victory of the former implies and reaches forwards to the latter for fulfillment and the latter implies and reaches back to the former for its basis. After all, Jesus said that the seed must die in order to give life to the many other seeds (Jn 12.24). I proposed elsewhere that the Son descended as the man of the Spirit into the abyss of alienation from God in order through resurrection and Pentecost to bring the alienated creation into the life of the Spirit.36 The event of Spirit baptism as a divine act implies a perichoretic relationship between the economies of the Son and the Spirit. The same is implied in their names. ‘Christ’ means the one anointed by the Spirit. Christ is in a sense ‘of the Spirit’; his very name implies it. So also, the Spirit sent forth from the Father is the ‘Spirit of Christ’ as well as the Spirit of God (Rom. 8.9). The Spirit is also ‘of Christ’; his very name says as much.37 At Jesus’ conception in Mary’s womb and at his baptism and resurrection, he is anointed of the Spirit as the Son of God. At Jesus’ exaltation to the right hand of the Father, the Spirit rests on him once more, but this time to grant sonship/daughtership to all flesh (Acts 2.33). The Spirit gives us Christ as the Son of God in Mary’s womb, at the Jordan and at the cross/resurrection, and Christ gives us the Spirit as the Spirit of sonship/ daughtership at Pentecost. As St Augustine taught us, only as divine could Christ impart the Spirit, for only God can impart God.38 We may add, only as divine could the Spirit anoint Christ for this outpouring and flow through him lavishly to anoint all flesh for living witness to Christ. What does this all have to do with a Pentecostal response to the filioque? The Pentecostal focus on Spirit baptism can influence the response in three ways. First, Spirit baptism refers to the monarchy of the Father as alone the eternal 34 35 36 37

38

See Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit. Seymour, ‘The Precious Atonement’, The Apostolic Faith 1 (September 1906), p. 2. Macchia, Justified in the Spirit, esp. pp. 131–85. I am inspired here in part by Jürgen Moltmann, The Holy Spirit: A Universal Affirmation (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2001), pp. 58–73. Augustine, De Trinitate 15:46.

154

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

fount of deity in a way that avoids the ontological inferiority of the Son and the Spirit. Spirit baptism implies that the Father is not a stagnant pool but a flowing river, not Aristotle’s self-preoccupied deity but the self-imparting God. God is not a closed circle but an open and giving one. Thus, the Father who generates and breathes forth is as dependent on the Son and the Spirit for the fulfillment of deity as they are on the Father. They draw from one another’s unique fullness as well as imparting that fullness eschatologically to creation. Second, Pentecostals can talk about the procession of the Spirit from the Father alone and in relation to the Son in a way that protects the unique and full person of the Spirit. In Spirit baptism, the Spirit ‘rests’ on Jesus Christ in a way that reveals the Spirit’s own unique personhood from the Father. This resting gives us a valuable clue into the Spirit’s unique role as the one breathed forth from the Father. As Eugene F. Rogers has suggested, the Spirit’s resting is the act of befriending creation.39 Indeed, the Spirit hovered over the deep in the divine word’s original expression of the Father’s will to bring the creation into being (Gen. 1.2-3). Little wonder that the Spirit in the context of gnostic and Greek dualism suffered neglect in the history of the Church. The Spirit befriends matter. The Spirit rests on the body of the Son at Jesus’ conception in Mary’s womb in order to mediate the incarnation and lavishly rests on the Son at his baptism, his atoning death (Heb. 9.14), his resurrection (Rom. 1.4) and his exaltation (Acts 2.33) in order to then rest through the Son on all of creation so as to bring the creation in all of its diversity into a witness to the Son in glory to the Father. As Rogers notes, ‘In that the Spirit rests on the Son it becomes manifest and worthy of belief that the Spirit befriends the body, turns matter into sacrament, distributes gifts and incorporates diversity’.40 This resting not only reveals the Spirit’s befriending of creation, it also reveals that the Spirit does so as the principle of excess and abundance in the Godhead, the principle of abundant love and grace. The Spirit celebrates and overflows the love and unity enjoyed between the Father and the Son in order to eschatologically reach the whole of creation and to gather all things into Christ to the glory of the Father.41 In this ingathering, the creation in all of its diverse gifting is brought into the embrace of the divine koinonia. As Simon Chan points out, the Spirit is the ‘third’ person of the Godhead in the sense that he takes the love shared

39

40 41

Eugene F. Rogers, After the Spirit: A Constructive Pneumatology from Resources Outside the Modern West (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), passim. Ibid., p. 70. Also an accent of Rogers’, After the Spirit, passim.

Baptized in the Spirit

155

between the Father and the Son and celebrates it by lavishly sharing it with the many.42 Third, Spirit baptism protects the Son’s vital role in the specific resting of the Spirit on creation. The Spirit rests on creation with Christoformistic specificity. The Son as the Spirit Baptizer imparts the Spirit from his self-emptying and obedience to the Father in all things. As the Spirit hovers over creation in cooperation with the expressed will of the Father in Genesis 1, so also the Spirit will rest on Jesus in cooperation with the express will of the Father as revealed in the Logos made flesh and manifested in Jesus’ self-emptying and obedience that lead to the cross. The Spirit mediates the incarnation and empowers the Son in his determination to bring the Father’s will to expression in creation. But it is the obedience of the Son that specifically reveals this will. It is fitting that the Son imparts the Spirit upon the creation on behalf of the Father, since it is from his obedient self-sacrifice that the Spirit will rest on the creation and shape the creation in all of its diversity into the image of the Son. As Simon Chan notes, the Spirit incorporates people into Christ as his body and then shapes the creation in the image of this body.43 The Son becomes the first born among many brothers by being the Spirit Baptizer (Rom. 8.29). The Spirit rests and the Son incarnates and imparts. This mutual work between the Son and the Spirit means that the filioque from Pentecostal perspective is inadequate to describe the coming forth of the Son and the Spirit from the Father. The filioque privileges the Son in a way that does not match the mutual dependence between the Son and the Spirit in the Scriptural narrative of Spirit baptism and its effects in creation. The narrative of Scripture implies that the Son and the Spirit do not receive their unique or characteristic hypostasis from each other but rather from the Father. Yet, there is a mutual dependence and cooperation of the Son and the Spirit upon each other as well as the Father on them. Spirit baptism has the Spirit mediate the incarnation and lavishly rest on the Son in order to rest on the creation and to bring the abundant diversity of the creation into the embrace of divine koinonia. The Son mediates the Spirit through his obedient sojourn to the cross and his act of bestowing the Spirit upon the creation from that obedient life in order to conform all things to the will and glory of the Father. The Spirit and the Son mediate each other in different ways to the glory of the Father.

42 43

Simon Chan, Liturgical Theology (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2006), pp. 32–4. Simon Chan, ‘Mother Church: Toward a Pentecostal Ecclesiology’, Pneuma 22 (2000), pp. 177–208.

156

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

As I bring this essay to a conclusion, I am aware of the fact that I have reached beyond what is typical of Pentecostal thought. Due to its abstract and speculative nature, this reflection on the filioque as an ontological issue is not typical of Pentecostal thought. Pentecostals are experiential and eschatological in orientation when thinking of the life of the Triune God as imparted to us in Spirit baptism. As Simon Chan notes, it is more typical of Pentecostals to think in terms of eschatological ends than ontological origins when it comes to the divine life.44 The Son and the Spirit come forth from the Father eternally to make the creation the place of the divine indwelling and sharing of life. In reading the biblical narrative of this eschatological indwelling, we are caught up in this indwelling in the image of the obedient Son. Origins only make sense when read backwards from this eschatological end. Is it necessary to do so? Perhaps it is time for Pentecostals to add their voice to those who question the helpfulness of the filioque. Though their Christocentrism might seem to indicate a sympathy for the filioque, their strong tendency to make the Son equally dependent on the resting of the Spirit and their charismatic ecclesiology tend them to be wary of any subordination of the Spirit to the Son or to those who stand over the church in persona Christi. Their anticreedalism, however, will most likely mean that Pentecostals would not grant this discussion the weight that it has had historically in the conflict between the East and the West.

44

Simon Chan, Liturgical Theology, pp. 32–4.

Part Three

Opening New Possibilities: Origin, Action and Inter-subjectivity

10

Lutheranism and the Filioque Robert W. Jenson1

The theologians who in the later sixteenth century worked for, and in large part achieved, confessional unity among the various Lutheran reformers and territories were specifically concerned with the dispute about the filioque. Many of them would now be regarded as ‘patristic’ experts. But for them the dogmatic disputes of theological history and conceptual proposals were not ‘ancient history’ in modernity’s pejorative sense but were urgent occasions of thought, always potentially relevant to present churchly concerns; and in the situation of developing schism, the theological occasion of the existing Great Schism had to draw their attention. More immediately, some Lutheran leaders entertained a fleeting hope of making common cause with the East against Roman hegemony. Indeed, Jacob Andreae (1528–90), a primary leader of the effort to unify the Lutheran movement,2 together with colleagues at Tübingen, wrote to the patriarch suggesting such convergence, and to that end needed to argue that the filioque should not be an impediment. The initiative was not taken up; the patriarch remained suspicious of all Latins, even – or perhaps especially – protesting ones. The early Lutherans stuck to the Western text of the creed, because it was embedded in the dogmatic tradition of the Western Church, and so also in their confessional documents; they could do this because they thought the filioque was in fact theologically defensible. Through subsequent history, Lutheran bodies and individual theologians have sometimes acknowledged the fault of 1

2

When the editor, noting that there were no Lutherans in their line-up, asked me to fill the gap, I responded that I could not at this time add a research project, or take up contemporary discussion in any planned way. The most I could offer would be a piece shorter than is standard for the volume, and with few notes or references – and those thrown in somewhat arbitrarily. The editor said that would be acceptable, and the following reflection is the result. He drafted the Formula of Concord (1577), which adjudicated disputes threatening the unity of the Lutheran movement, and is the most theologically analytic of the now authoritative Lutheran confessions.

160

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

the West’s unilateral action in inserting the filioque, but have not been willing to remove it from the text of public worship, except for special occasions or purposes, or from its dogmatic status in their teaching. Indeed, Lutherans have in general been typically Western about this aspect of the conflict. As for myself, I have no new wisdom to offer about what is, practically or canonically, to be done. It is the theological aspect of the East–West divergence that the essay will be devoted. Again, we can start with the generation of Lutheran confessional unifiers. They came to the same conclusion that much modern ecumenical discussion has reached: that East and West have worked within very different conceptual frameworks and that when this is reckoned with, neither side needs to deny what the other affirms or affirm what the other denies. Let me cite Andreae’s close colleague, Martin Chemnitz (1522–86), perhaps the most acute – and anyway now most read – of that flourishing generation of Lutheran thinkers. Speaking of the Greek and Latin fathers, he wrote: Both parties confessed that the Spirit is of the Son as well as of the Father; but the Greeks said that He is “from the Father through the Son,” and the Latins said “from the Father and the Son.” They each had reasons for speaking the way they did. Gregory of Nazianzus, on the basis of Romans 11, says that the prepositions ek, dia and eis express the properties of the three . . . Therefore, the Greeks said that the Holy Spirit proceeds from (ek, ex) the Father through (dia) the Son, so that the property of each . . . is preserved. Nor did the Latins take offense at this formula for describing the matter. For Jerome and Augustine both say that the Holy Spirit properly and principally proceeds from the Father, and they explain this by saying that the Son in being begotten of the Father receives that which proceeds from the Father, namely, the Holy Spirit; but the Father receives from none, but has everything from Himself, as Lombard says.3

Chemnitz and other Lutheran theologians were unwilling to give up the filioque, but they could see the Eastern point. Again, in this they were in no way original. Thus at the union Council of Florence, in its decree of 1477, it was in effect agreed between East and West that when allowance is made for differing conceptual contexts in Greek and Latin, the two phrases ‘from the Father through the Son’ and ‘from the Father and the Son’ can be seen to teach compatible doctrines. Other such moves towards convergence could be noted – and no doubt are by other essays in this volume. Why then the continuing mutual suspicion? For it does continue: the East, especially where neo-Palamite theology is strong, suspects that Western theology cannot conceptually sustain a proper 3

Martin Chemnitz, Loci Theologici (trans. J. Preus; vol. I; St Louis: Concordia, 1989), p. 43.

Lutheranism and the Filioque

161

distinction of the Triune persons; and the West perceives in Eastern theology a continuing temptation to the East’s ancient subordinationism. I propose that both suspicions are justified – a proposal made, as will appear, from what is perhaps a characteristically Lutheran viewpoint. First, the difficulties of the Western position. As has often been noted, St Augustine, at the source of subsequent Western tradition, said that the language we use to state the differences between the Trinitarian persons has no available descriptive meaning and that we use it only so as not by silence to imply that the persons are simply not distinguished. But of course, if such language as ‘proceeds from the Father . . .’ has no ascertainable meaning for us, then in our discourse nothing follows from sentences that use this language, and the constructive formulas worked out in the East by the Cappadocians and others are of no use in theological argument or instruction in piety. To observe that Augustine did teach this extreme trinitarian apophaticism, and with emphasis,4 and that the teaching has had deleterious consequences for following Western theology and piety, is not to say that in the totality of Augustine’s writing and preaching he was not a profound Trinitarian or that his widely ranging influence has not in general been a great blessing. But that he found it necessary to adopt such positions when working in epistemologically technical contexts does reveal the presence of a Jonah in the Western trinitarian ship. I suggest that this presence results from the following persistent aporia. The main Western tradition centres its discourse about the Spirit in the Trinity on the doctrine that the Spirit is the vinculum amoris, the bond of love, between the Father and the Son – and the proposition is surely true so far as it goes. But does, then, the filioque teach that Father and Son are one arche (‘bestower’? ‘principle’? ‘cause’?)5 of the Spirit or two? If one, how is the Spirit between them? If two – if the Father and the Son love each other and the love between the two lovers is the Spirit – are not Father and Son co-equal archai of the Spirit? How then is the ecumenically agreed monarchy of the Father preserved, or conversely the distinct identity of the Son over against the Father? The filioque was devised in Spain to block any suggestion that the Son is in any way lesser in deity than the Father. And it does that very effectively. But what 4

5

For the citations and analysis – and for my retrospective and indeed a bit over-the-top general polemics – see Robert Jenson, The Triune Identity: God According to the Gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1982). I will take this occasion to remark that several defenders of Augustine have expressed their outrage at this book, but none has engaged my actual argument to show that anything is the matter with it. That the Greek arche does not translate easily into the discourse of Western theology is itself a sign of the conceptual misfit between Greeks and Latins.

162

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

if that is not your great worry? What if your history has led you to perceive the real threat to robust Trinitarianism in failure to clearly distinguish the persons? Against this background, you are likely to read the filioque as the statement of a problem rather than as the solution of anything. And we have seen that there is reason for this impression. Analogous difficulties afflict Eastern thinking. The ruling determination of the vigorously Trinitarian theologians of the East – who include the Arians and neo-Arians – was to clearly distinguish Father, Son and Spirit. Platonism’s metaphysical vision of ontological descent and returning soteriological ascent, perfected within Christian theology by the great Origen, provided a frame within which the distinctions could be delineated: the Father stands as the top of the descent from eternity to creation and its temporality; the Son determines and occupies the metaphysical interval of descent and the Spirit empowers temporal beings to returning ascent. This structure nicely accommodates distinguishing prepositions such as those adduced from Gregory by Chemnitz. And it could and did continue to do this also when Gregory and the other Cappadocians tipped it – so to speak – on its side, making the sequence eschatological rather than, in properly Platonist fashion, vertical to time. But to what exactly do the prepositional phrases of the East refer? Clearly, they do lay out the plot of the ‘economic’ Trinity, the history which God lives with his people, as narrated in Scripture – or one strand of it anyway. But do they indeed characterize the history which God lives with himself, commonly, if perilously, called the ‘immanent’ Trinity? If they do, how does the intervening eternal mediation of the Son, the dia, not constitute a metaphysical distancing of the Spirit from the Father’s unqualified deity? Or in God’s history with himself does the Spirit proceed directly from the Father, without intrinsic mediation through the Son? If he does, what foundation is there in God’s immanent life for the Son’s economic bestowal of the Spirit? What must the Eastern scheme suggest to Westerners? The West has tended to take the distinction of the three for granted, as a sheer dogmatic inheritance; its concern has rather been to proclaim the oneness of this Triune God. To such a sensibility the scheme must appear as the mere delineation of the old Eastern temptation to subordinationism. And there is cause also for this seeming; there is a Jonah also in the Eastern ship. So far symptomology. We come to a proposal, one part of which is that the Jonah is in both cases the same one. Making such a judgement may locate me in a fictitious godlike position above the parties. Or the key move to be proposed may instead be regarded as characteristic of a third, Lutheran, party.

Lutheranism and the Filioque

163

The aporia of the Western position results from the way in which in the dogmatic-systematic discourse of the West the Spirit tends to appear as an it rather than a he. That the Spirit is the bonding love between the Father and the Son, if nothing else is said, leaves the Spirit as an impersonal phenomenon, a something that occurs rather than one responsible for an occurrence.6 Thus, for example, in those existing parts of Karl Barth’s Kirchliche Dogmatik which are headlined as being about the Spirit, the subject of active verbs regularly turns out to be the Father and the Son, and not in fact the Spirit,7 in manifest consequence of Barth’s emphasis on the vinculum theologoumenon. I am somewhat at a loss for language to make the next point. Let me beg indulgence for a crude try: what makes the Spirit appear in Western theology as an impersonal event is failure to attribute specific personal leverage to him. The Father and the Son each have theirs. The Father is the monarchos both of deity and creatures, who holds this place merely by his sheer occurrence as the One who is who he is. The Son is – in the irreducible fact – the hypostasis of the man Jesus, with his specific human agency. But despite the wealth of scriptural possibilities, Western Trinitarian analysis attributes no analogous leverage to the Spirit. The aporia of the Eastern tradition results from the way in which in its discourse the Spirit occupies the place where God’s generating agency ceases: on the ontological ladder there is nothing below the Spirit’s level of action but nothingness. The Spirit is indeed the agent of creatures’ ascent back up the ladder, but this soteriological leverage is not thought to participate in the constitution of the ladder. Thus the Spirit comes regularly to be identified with tradition, with the preservation of past spiritual and theological gifts. Eastern theologians sometimes extol the tradition as a liberating agency, and have developed theologoumena to that effect which the ecumene does well to adopt. But one needs little exposure to the East’s actual wielding of tradition to suspect that this freedom is mostly freedom to appropriate the past. Permit me a personal anecdote: I once read a paper to a, in many ways, splendid conference of Orthodox theologians in Moscow, at which I was honoured to be a guest. I spoke of possible East–West convergences about ‘deification’, and, thinking it was my role, I cited Martin Luther’s Eastern-sounding treatment of the matter; the only reaction to my talk was rebuke for relying on ‘the moderns’ when we ‘have the Fathers.’ Thus diagnosis of Eastern troubles arrives rather quickly at the same point to which diagnosis of Western troubles came by a longer series of steps. Also in the 6

The idea that, at this level, the distinction may be challenged is a dialectical opening which I will not take up here.

164

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

East, the Spirit’s role in the history God lives with himself is not constitutive in the Triune deity. Now why ever is that? How can it have happened? For of course in Scripture’s narrative the Spirit is if anything a sort of hyperagent, even to the point of sometimes seeming to go off on his own. Moreover, our inclusion in God’s own vinculum of love is the very eschaton he brings to bear. Why is the scriptural narrative ignored at this point? I propose: it is because of a theological rule shared by both traditions. A recent (2003) report of North American Orthodox/Roman Catholic dialogue about the filioque8 lists as a fundamental agreement between them ‘that the three hypostases or persons in God are constituted in their hypostatic existence . . . solely by their relationships of origin, and not by any other characteristics or activities . . .’ This is laid down with no argument whatsoever as to why it should be true, as if it were somehow self-evident. This rule is, once one stops to ponder it, extremely strange. East and West, we allow only relations of origin to appear in God’s Triunity, whereas in Scripture’s narrative of his history with us creation is ‘good for . . .’9 at every step, and Jesus is Saviour precisely as his resurrection anticipates the general Fulfilment. As for the Spirit, Scripture’s language about him can be summarized in Paul’s proposition that he is the present force – the arabōn – of the divine goal; thus the rule excludes what should be the Spirit’s personal leverage in the divine life. I have devoted considerable ink to provide an explanation as to why the shared main tradition recognizes only relations of origin as constitutive in God’s history with himself: this – I have argued – has been one of the points where we have let the great pagan Greek theologians10 tell us too much about what deity must be like. But I will not go on about that here; the truth or falsity of my view of the history is not relevant to the truth or falsity of my present argument. So to the step which may be thought of as characteristically Lutheran, whether or not many Lutherans have made it: we should not be content with this restriction.11 The relation between the immanent and economic Trinities is 7

8

9 10 11

See my article that initiated debate over this: ‘You Wonder Where the Spirit Went’, now anthologized in Eugene F. Rogers, The Holy Spirit: Classical and Contemporary Readings (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), pp. 9–18. And for those puzzled by the title, it did not at the time occur to me that many readers were too young to recognize parody of the once omnipresent ditty advertising Pepsodent. Available on the website of the USA Catholic Bishops Conference, see: http://www.usccb.org/ beliefs-and-teachings/dialogue-with-others/ecumenical/orthodox/filioque-church-dividing-issueenglish.cfm. Ibid. Which is what Parmenides, Plato and Aristotle were. The other theologian to have made this point vigorously, Wolfhart Pannenberg, is also a Lutheran – if like me a sometimes dissenting one.

Lutheranism and the Filioque

165

determined by Christology, and classical Lutheran Christology identifies God the Son and Jesus of Nazareth far less hesitantly than does the general Western tradition. In Lutheran Christology, Jesus’ relation to the Father just is the person, God the Son.12 Controlled by this Christology, Lutheran thinking should identify the person of the Spirit’s ‘economic’ self-giving as the Spirit in the ‘immanent’ Trinity. A diagram of the Trinity’s constituting relations would then show both active relations of the Triune origin – the Father begets the Son and breathes the Spirit – and active relations of the Triune goal – the Spirit differentially liberates the Father for paternal love and the Son for filial love. If we opened our Trinitarian plotting to the eschatological dynamism of Scripture’s narrative, and so to a specific leverage of the Spirit, we would be freed to shape the notion of vinculum amoris somewhat as follows. The Spirit is the lover who so perfectly gives himself to a beloved community that he is himself the very love that binds its members to each other. With respect to the ‘economic’ Trinity – to the plot of God’s history with us – we have sometimes and in various ways been willing to talk that way. But we have not been willing to speak so with respect to the ‘immanent’ Trinity, to say that in God’s own life the Spirit is the lover of the Father and the Son, who so perfectly gives himself to their mutuality as to be indeed the love between them. If we opened our Trinitarian plotting to the eschatological dynamism of Scripture’s story about God, we would be freed to wield Gregory’s prepositional phrases and their like somewhat as follows. With respect to sheer establishment in existence by an arche, the Spirit indeed proceeds from the Father dia the Son; and this is the very mark of his specific personal leverage, which is the reciprocal of the Father’s. Freedom is never established by an arche, by any variety of causality; it is established in its own sort of sheer occurrence. The Spirit is the breath of the Father resting on the Son. But that just previous ‘is’ is of its own sort. This ‘is’ does not capture the Spirit, as does the ‘is’ in a regular substancepredicate proposition; the Father lets the Spirit go as he does not let the Son go. The Spirit happens as a wind whose coming and going no one sees, and so there is freedom, in God and – if there are others than God – among creatures. We might even say that with respect to being freely the one arche, the Father depends from the Spirit dia the Son – begging readers to pay strict attention to what was actually just said and what was not said. It is a great abiding failure of theology that freedom is not treated as – in its own way – constitutive in God and so of being. Remedying this failing is, 12

As in ancient Christology prior to the ‘apologetic’ thinkers.

166

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

to be sure, one side of a major, daunting and, in my judgement, now urgent work of revisionary metaphysics which will depend on and impact all loci of theology; and which again cannot be more than indicated here.13 One thing that makes me sometimes pleased to be a Lutheran is, however, that the general project of such revision was once in pioneering fashion undertaken by Lutheran thinkers of the late sixteenth century at Wittenberg and elsewhere; their work was lamentably aborted by the Thirty Years’ War, which scattered the Lutheran faculties.14 More ambiguously, some nineteenth-century German philosophy might be adduced.15

13

14

15

The whole of my two-volume: Robert Jenson, Systematic Theology (2 vols; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, 1999) is in one of its strands my attempted contribution. For what was even so achieved, see the ground-breaking study by W. Sparn, Wiederkehr der Metaphysik (Stuttgart: Calwer, 1976). Most notably, Hegel did not succeed in articulating a metaphysics of freedom, but he tried.

11

On Not Being Spirited Away: Pneumatology and Critical Presence John C. McDowell

I On not abstracting the Spirit ‘Christian theology’, Vladimir Lossky observes, ‘does not know of an abstract divinity’.1 By this one can read ‘no doctrine of God abstracted from the rich sets of traditions that provide a context for the form of such a confession’, traditions that shape reason doxologically to witness to the incomprehensible ‘plenitude of being’.2 Sounding like Pascal he declares that ‘the God of the philosophers and savants is introduced into the heart of the Living God, taking the place of the Deus absconditus, qui posuit tenebras labitulum suum’.3 Consequently, what Christian dogmatics speaks of as ‘the Holy Spirit’ cannot be conceived as the Spirit of such an abstracted God, but of the God who ‘descends’ in ‘the divine person of Christ [who] makes human persons capable of an ascent in the Holy Spirit’.4 According to Nicola Slee, however, ‘The Holy Spirit, it is often noted, has been much neglected in Western theology, and when given serious theological consideration, usually subordinated to the Father and the Son, a kind of Cinderella of the Trinity’.5 Here Slee follows the predictable pattern observed by George Hendry over half a century earlier, that ‘It has become almost a convention that those who undertake to write about the Holy Spirit should begin by deploring the neglect of this doctrine in the thought and life of the 1

2 3

4 5

Vladimir Lossky, Orthodox Theology: An Introduction (trans. Ian and Ihita Kesarcodi-Watson; Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1978), p. 45. Ibid., p. 22. Vladimir Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God (trans. John H. Erickson and Thomas E. Bird; Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1974), p. 88. Ibid., p. 97. Nicola Slee, ‘The Holy Spirit and Spirituality’, in The Cambridge Companion to Feminist Theology (ed. Susan Frank Parsons; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 171–89 (171).

168

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

Church today’.6 This framing of the matter takes the form of a commonly generalizing set of comments, familiar among those who contrast East and West, ancient and modern, Hebrew and Greek and so on. As generalizing, it is not historically helpful. John Meyendorff, for example, claims that apart from the pneumatological authorities Athanasius and Basil, ‘there was little conceptual development of pneumatology in the Byzantine Middle Ages’. This suggests that care needs to be exercised when pitting West against East.7 Moreover, the way in which Slee frames the issue, following Elizabeth Johnson and others, implies that the Spirit has to appear more in theological discourse rather than hide, or to draw more attention to herself rather than defer away to Christ in particular. It is a problem that the Spirit is ‘“faceless” (Walter Kasper), “shadowy” (John Macquarrie), “ghostly” (Georgia Harkness) or “anonymous”, the “poor relation” in the Trinity (Norman Pittenger), the “unknown” or “half-known” God (Yves Congar)’, the ‘forgotten God’.8 Nonetheless, reflections on modern subjectivity might suggest not so much that the Spirit has been overlooked as such but rather that pneumatological discourse has, in fact, migrated into theological categories such as anthropology and the phenomena of consciousness. According to Moltmann, for instance, ‘there can be no question of the Spirit’s being forgotten in modern times. On the contrary: the rationalism and pietism of the Enlightenment was every bit as Enthusiastic as Pentecostal Christianity today.’9 However, a critical claim of Christian dogmatics is that not all appeals to ‘spirit’ or ‘spirituality’ are determined by a theologically well-ordered account of the pneuma or concretely life-giving ruach of God, but are abstractions determined instead by, among other things, an anthropology of atomistic subjectivity. Spiritualities shaped by detraditioned forms of religious fluidity in a constructivistic and consumerist context express forms of ontological immanentism that do not offer the radicality of a new life, a life in the divine giving of eschatological healing and teleological flourishing. Of course, one must at least recall that there is a kind of democratic temperament at this constructivism’s heart. Yet its liberative potential is distinctly mitigated by an unavoidable dematerialization and privatization of the spiritual operating within.10 It is consequently unable to make transcendental 6 7

8

9

10

George Hendry, The Holy Spirit in Christian Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1965), p. 11. John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (New York: Fordham University Press, 1974), p. 168. Slee, ‘The Holy Spirit and Spirituality’, p. 171; Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: Crossroad, 1992), p. 130. Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation (trans. Margaret Kohl; London: SCM Press, 1992), p. 2. See Kathryn Tanner, ‘Workings of the Spirit: Simplicity or Complexity?’, in The Work of the Spirit: Pneumatology and Pentecostalism (ed. Michael Welker; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), pp. 87–105.

On Not Being Spirited Away

169

judgements, and by default it then leaves intact the paradigms of the power of the consumptive and possessive self, of pneumatics within the ‘narcissism’ of subject-driven hedonisms.11 Pneumatic discourse, in just such an untransformed scheme, would function as ‘a refuge from the critical rather than a pressure towards the critical’, to borrow Rowan Williams’ terms.12 In fact, ‘S/spirit’ tends to become a term for the substancelessness that involves body-loss, for the ethereal ghostliness and phantasmic spectrality and for forms of escape ‘from the trammels of everyday life where toil and sweat and suffering’ are endured.13 Christian pneumatology refuses to divide the secure ‘theological’ off from other sets of claims and contexts. Indeed, if and when references to Spiritus Creator and the Spirit of life occur they tend to be inclusivistic and cosmically transfigurative. So for Basil, creation as a whole is perfectly itself not by ‘nature’ but only when it is in communion with God, filled with the perfecting and sanctifying Spirit.14 The problem with Slee’s framing of the issue is suggested by Eugene Rogers’ complaint about the contemporary students of Christianity who ‘want for the Spirit to “have more to do”’.15 These, he judges, ‘need conceptual therapy to understand how the Spirit works’. This therapy, however, may well require that asking the ‘who’ question concerning saving action involves a well-ordered pneumatology that continues to imagine forms of deference and theological hesitancy. Only when the filioque is presented at its best (as a refusal to abstract the Spirit from the giving of the Father’s own life in the Logos) can it perform this critical treatment, and can consequently provide markers that prevent the identification of the Spirit with the projecting of modern selves, and can help resist securing the atomized self and its inner life of feeling in order to transfigure the political conservatism of contemporary consumerist spiritualities.

II ‘Mind the Gap’ The reparative theological conditions are not offered by removing ‘Spirit’ from talk of immanence, as if transcendence is any healthier a theological category. 11 12 13

14

15

Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, p. 31. Rowan Williams, On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), p. 126. Eduard Schweizer, The Holy Spirit (trans. Reginald H. Fuller and Isle Fuller; London: SCM, 1978), p. 1. Basil of Caesarea, ‘On the Holy Spirit’, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers 2-8 Basil: Letters and Select Works (ed. PhilipSchaff; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1895), pp. 16–38. Eugene F. Rogers, After the Spirit: A Constructive Pneumatology from Resources Outside the Modern West (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), p. 60.

170

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

As Gregory Baum argues, ‘Once the theologian thought of God as a fully constituted subject apart from and superior to history, it became impossible for him to get back into history again. God necessarily became the outside to human life.’16 The difficulty is that if the Spirit is regarded as the immanence of God, the ‘kenosis’ of God perhaps, then Father and Son are displaced into a nonengaging transcendence, and the pneumatic immanentism loses its critical edge as the interrogative and transformative presence of the holy God and can slip into modes of experiential subjectivisation. Moreover, God’s transcendence here would require ‘bridging’, and this opens theology back up to hierarchical forms of Platonism that constrained portrayals of God and the mediation of God in the second and third centuries. The cosmologically mediatorial role of Logos/Son and Spirit in the writings of the Apologists, for instance, defined their very ontos, and this functionalized the divine plurality. According to Rowan Williams, since a revelational scheme in which the Logos incarnate unveils the Godhead to the human gaze strictly requires ‘one mediator only’, ‘there is an immediate awkwardness’ in speaking of the Spirit.17 At best, pneumatology would then be, in Milbank’s terms, ‘merely the efflorescence of the contentious distillation of Christology’.18 Williams, however, detects a pneumatologically operative ‘bridge concept’ not merely in The Shepherd of Hermas and the Apologists but in more recent theologies of revelation as well, particularly in Barth’s account. ‘God communicates or “interprets” himself to the world by the medium of Word and Spirit.’19 This might seem well and good given that divine communicative agency is generative of the very conditions of creaturely knowing. Moreover, if the primary theological question of the second century was ontological (how to conceive the presence of ‘the One’ to ‘the many’) the modern one is largely epistemic (how to conceive of the knowing of God). This is where the criticism of the filioque as subordinationist needs to be more carefully specific, especially since T. F. Torrance’s account of revelation follows this path and yet he himself rejects the filioque in favour of the qui procedit ex Patre Filioque emerging from a Triune conception of divine monarchy.20 Torrance’s concern is to emphasize that the presence of the Spirit is the very presence of God’s own life, and is so 16

17 18

19 20

Gregory Baum, ‘Divine Transcendence’, in The God Experience: Essays in Hope (ed. Joseph P. Whelan; New York, Paramus, Toronto: Newman Press, 1971), pp. 120–36 (120). Williams, On Christian Theology, p. 111. John Milbank, The Word Made Strange: Theology, Language, Culture (Malden and Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), p. 173. Williams, On Christian Theology, p. 110. Thomas F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), p. 190, 188.

On Not Being Spirited Away

171

in such a fashion that God does not ontologically transcend God’s energies, as in Gregory Palamas’ theology. Moreover, the filioque’s advocates, for their part, claim that the sending of the hypostatic reality of Spirit by Father and Son is a divine act, and therefore the consequence of a double giving that does not take place on the creaturely side of the ontological distinction of divine and creaturely realities. This stands in marked contrast to the ‘Macedonians’ often known to posterity by the insult ‘pneumatomachians’. Indeed, for Barth, the very notion of procession ‘is meant in the first place as a negation: the Holy Spirit is not a creature. No creature can be said to have proceeded from God, i.e., to be an emanation of the divine essence.’21 In fact, the filioque has often been defended in anti-Arian terms with reference to the prerogatives of divinity. When the ‘Spirit of God’ is confessed as the ‘Spirit of Christ’, an important claim has been made for the theological significance of Christ, and the confession of the Son’s consubstantiality in conjunction with Christ’s out-breathing of the Spirit (Jn 20.22) lends itself to the articulation of a substantive double pneumatic procession. This hardens the a Patre per filium (‘from the Father through the Son’) into an Anselmian a Patre Filioque tanquam ab uno principio (‘from Father and Son as from one principle’).22 Subsequently, Anselm, for instance, spends some time arguing that this does not ‘posit grades of dignity in God (who is one) nor constitute intervals in eternity (which is outside every point of time)’.23 Nonetheless, the trouble with this way of defending the Son’s consubstantiality with the Father is that if the act of hypostatic sending is the function of the Father (generation and spiration) and the Son (co-spiration) as God, then if the Spirit is uninvolved in the inner-Trinitarian sending the Spirit lacks a (the?) crucially identifying marker of what is meant by God. Williams implies that theologically the two periods overlap so that in both the shared difficulty is that the doctrine of the Spirit is attenuated by the conception of the revelational process. This difficulty arrives in two main forms for theology in modernity: the circumscribing of the modern theological imagination as it comes to be dominated by the epistemic question24 and the substantial pneumatological reductionism involved.25 Accordingly, he argues 21 22

23 24

25

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (14 vols; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956–75), I.1, p. 473. Anselm, ‘On the Procession of the Holy Spirit’, in Anselm of Canterbury, The Major Works (eds Brian Davies and G. R. Evans; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 390–434 (407). A modified version of this argument is presented by Barth (CD, I.1, p. 482). Anselm, ‘On the Procession of the Holy Spirit’, p. 413. The paper entitled ‘The Epistemological Relevance of the Spirit’, and collections such as God and Rationality, Theological Science, and Ground and Grammar of Theology signal a pronounced appeal to epistemological considerations in theological reflection on revelation. See John Webster, Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 11. This noeticization, is not merely the case with the cruder propositionalist accounts

172

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

that the ‘bridge concept’ is designed in such a way as to ‘answer the question of how God comes to the world; that is, the line runs from God “downwards”’. There might be two ways of understanding this claim. First, a focus on the second half of the criticism would entail that the model does not articulate divine mediation well in that the creature is not drawn into the life of God. Accordingly, Williams observes, ‘we do not know what sort of line runs from world to God through the mediator’. What emerges from this account is that not only is God’s presence to the creature a distinct problem, but so too is the presence of the creature to God. It is significant, then, that the question of what kind of contribution human reception makes is distinctly underplayed in Torrance’s account in favour of talk of the mediating elements’ transparency, what Ronald Thiemann exaggerates as ‘Revelation as divine imposition’.26 Torrance does admit that divine ‘communication . . . must take into account the nature of the receiver, and the mode of communication will be conditioned also by the mode of the reception’ without determining ‘the content of the Truth’.27 Again, with Thomas Kuhn he acknowledges just ‘how deeply conditioned even our scientific concepts can be by psychological and sociological facts at work in the community in which we live and work’.28 Moreover, he contests the ‘supra-rational or ecstatic’ mode of pneumatic knowing of God.29 Finally, he avers that the Spirit’s epistemic work is ‘sharply eschatological’.30 However, in practice such reflections do not extend very far in his consideration of the event of knowing, and they also tend to be construed as something negative and needing to be broken through by the revelatory act rather than critically taken up, repaired and redeemed. Second, and by implication, God has been construed in terms distancing the divine from creation. Hence even when Torrance does claim that ‘the Holy Spirit makes use of creaturely realities which God has made as the media of divine revelation’ he frames matters in an occasionalist, externalist (God as transcendent ‘other’ ‘outside us’ who then reveals and enters the believer in the Spirit ‘in us’), interruptive (God’s pneumatic revealedness bypasses our normal

26

27 28

29 30

of revelation, but, Williams argues, is equally characteristic of ‘a liberal theology which appeals to some isolable core of encounter, unmediated awareness of the transcendent, buried beneath the accidental forms of historical givenness, a trans-cultural, pre-linguistic, inter-religious phenomenon’ (On Christian Theology, p. 131). Even in some forms of charisma there is a reduction of the Spirit’s presence to communication through gifts of prophecy and ecstatic utterance, or to momentary encounters with God in the Spirit. Ronald F. Thiemann, Revelation and Theology: The Gospel as Narrated Promise (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985), p. 32. Thomas F. Torrance, Theology in Reconstruction (London: SCM, 1965), p. 26. Thomas F. Torrance, God and Rationality (London, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 46. Ibid., p. 168. Ibid., p. 192.

On Not Being Spirited Away

173

process of knowing), even potentially individualist (that God in God’s revealing encounters the knowing subject with the realism of God’s own objectivity), as well as noetic fashion.31 This kind of account, according to Milbank, entails that ‘time and again the Spirit is falsely seen as more immanent, more economic, than the other two [divine] persons: a “go-between God” whose redundant mediation only obscures the immediacy of the divine presence’.32 The Holy Spirit, as the subjective possibility of revelation or of as revealedness, has the primary role of uniting believer and the distant God in a cognitive act. Ironically, for one who is particularly critical of a pervasive dualism that permeates Western thought as a hangover from the Hellenization of the gospel, Torrance may not be adequately equipped to resist the theological disjunction of minds and bodies, beliefs and practices, revelation and creation, sacred and secular and so on. So Roland Spjuth, for example, claims that Torrance’s ‘stress on immediate communion downplays the diachronical and historical mediation of divine presence in the body’.33 Equally, in this context it is important that Williams’ concerns are not only specifically Trinitarian, or ‘theological’ in the proper sense of that word, but anthropological. He worries that ‘if we conceive the Spirit and the Word as illuminators, transmitters of saving knowledge, we are in danger of driving a wedge between the idea of “Spirit” and the “spirituality” of Christian people’.34 This, however, might suggest that the anthropology he deems more appropriate is one searching for a spiritual point of contact, a natural spirituality that is separated from the Spirit when the illuminative model dominates the theological imagination. The point is different, though, and his critique takes what one might call a ‘holistic’ direction: ‘If the Spirit simply instructs and guides, leads toward the Logos, it is less easy to talk about “Spirit” as the constitutive reality or quality of Christian existence – Spirit as received in baptism, as invoked in liturgy, received and invoked not simply to instruct and inform but to transform’. Perhaps not merely ‘instructive’ or ‘intellectualist’, but one of the distance of externally related Creator and creature so that spirituality involves the latter following after or corresponding to or mimetically relating to the former’s way. God and creatures become separated again in a manner excluded by the communiocative or theosis-type soteriologies, those for which illumination is bound up with the luminosity of transfiguration. 31

32 33

Citation from ibid., p. 183. Torrance’s epistemic account appeals to the category of ‘distance’ being broken through by the Spirit’s work (idem., p. 173). Milbank, The Word Made Strange, p. 174. Roland Spjuth, Creation, Contingency and Divine Presence in the Theologies of Thomas F. Torrance and Eberhard Jüngel (Lund: Lund University Press, 1995), p. 218.

174

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

The ramifications of this are pronounced. David Ford, for instance, insightfully maintains that ‘If there can be any sense in which “Spirit” is a bridge-concept, its work is not to bridge the gap between God and the world or even between the Word’ and the soul, but rather between suffering and hope without illusion or despair.35 It is far from insignificant, then, that ‘The Epistemological Relevance of the Spirit’, as with so many of Torrance’s noetic reflections, is strangely empty of morally formative claims. It abstracts persons from their actions, knowledge from the history of its mediate forms and the work of the Spirit (and the knowledge of God) from the making of persons responsible to the coming of the kingdom of God. Put in its most basic and crudely damning terms, the overriding suspicion is that Torrance is asking the wrong kind of theological question. There is simply too little space for the non-interruptively transfigurative presence of God to all things or to the making and reordering of life pneumatically in the eschatological freedom of the ruach of the new creation (see Rom. 8.11).36 It is not until subpoint (v) near the paper’s end that Torrance speaks of the Spirit’s making of the human subject’s ‘personal relations with God and with his fellow creatures’.37 While not adhering to the filioque, Torrance’s revelatory model is not well placed to contest the modern pathologies that result from reducing the Spirit to anthropological presence since he too assumes and inhabits a form of dualism, and parades a powerful Spirit of epistemic presence that too frequently dislocates the pneuma from the transfigurative Spirit of new life. Directing Williams’ critical engagement with this account of the relation of pneumatology and the Logos is a concern to deconstruct and repair a theological voice that makes God the ultimate ideological warrant. ‘Theology, in short, is perennially liable to be seduced by the prospect of bypassing the question of how it learns its own language.’38 Even the incarnation, he argues, is reduced to ‘a sophisticated technique for ensuring that such non-worldly truth is accurately communicated’ which then entails that the contingencies of the Logos’ enfleshment one ‘may ignore after we have reached a certain stage of theological [or spiritual] expertise’. With this closing of the hermeneutical circle, theology and spiritual reflection can be expressed in terms of a self-privileged transcending of, and shortcut away from, the self-subverting interrogative possibilities of 34 35

36

37 38

Williams, On Christian Theology, p. 116. David F. Ford, ‘Holy Spirit and Christian Spirituality’, in The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern Theology (ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 269–90 (269). It is in this eschatological context that the NT references to the Spirit’s work in raising Jesus from the dead has to be understood (e.g., Gal. 4.6). Torrance, God and Rationality, p. 188. Williams, On Christian Theology, p. 131.

On Not Being Spirited Away

175

self-reflexivity and learning involved in patient consideration that comes with ‘debate [and] conflict’. It mitigates the sense of historical conditioning, as well as an awareness of ‘ambivalence, polysemy, paradox’.39 Revelation in this mode instead interrupts the uncertainties of history with a summons to an absolute knowledge in God’s own knowledge of God’s self. It thereby provides a ‘seal of epistemological security’.40 In contrast, to draw on Williams’ repair of Barth, ‘To allow any positive place of human freedom of response . . . is at once to abandon certainty, to say that the eternal unity of God’s utterance is, as it were, [potentially, we must add] adulterated by the plurality and [actually by the sinful] confusion of human minds and hearts’.41 According to Torrance, with the Spirit’s ‘reconciliation He works communion and with His emancipation of ourselves from ourselves He lifts us above and beyond ourselves to find the truth of our being in God’.42 However, when this rhetoric is pressed, Torrance’s theologizing involves not so much the self-denial that comes through the transformation of sinful selves into reconciled and redeemed selves but a self-renunciation involving God’s self-replacement of the self. Here God and creature remain too competitively construed as a result of the determinations of a conflictual subject-object epistemic scheme, and when this scheme is imported into an account of theological knowing the contingencies, histories, particularities of the creature are engulfed and the revelatory act comes to contain its own unimpeded translucence. What Torrance requires, among other things, is a fuller account of the teleologically recreative participation of all things in the life of God by the Spirit through the Son, of an iconicity that can resist making God’s revelation prematurely opaque in its unveiling to perception. Without this the self-critical mood of the theological enterprise is circumvented. Consequently, his proposals, unless reconfigured, may well subvert his own appeal to theology to be a perennial disciplined repentance for the divine renewal of the Church’s mind.43

III Anointing, sighing, recreating According to Meyendorff, the Byzantine response to the filioque was an overreaction, with the likes of Peter of Antioch even proclaiming it to be 39 40 41

42 43

Ibid., p. 132. Ibid., pp. 117–18. Rowan Williams, Wrestling with Angels: Conversations in Modern Theology (London: SCM, 2007), p. 139. Torrance, God and Rationality, p. 174. Ibid., p. 48. Thiemann maintains that Torrance’s work ‘operates against the background of an accepted epistemology and seeks to adjust that epistemology to make room for transcendent claims’. Thiemann, Revelation and Theology, p. 43.

176

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

‘the worst of evils’.44 ‘Generally, the Byzantines lacked a full knowledge of the [long and] complicated historical circumstances which led to the acceptance of the filioque in the West’.45 In this regard, therefore, while the creedal imposition was certainly an act of Rome’s political muscle flexing, Torrance’s claim that the eleventh century unconciliar interpolation by Benedict VIII was pre-eminently an act of (papal) power is something of a historical exaggeration.46 Even so, the Spirit has in one way or another commonly been associated with matters of power and authority. Power, of course, comes in many forms, and it is important not to locate the theological problem in such simplistic terms. However, when conceptions of the Spirit no longer function to keep the creature open to the power of the transfigurative presence of the coming of the God who is freely oriented to the beloved ‘other’ in a non-coercive faithful responsibility- and freedom-empowering self-giving, then a certain theological deformation has taken place. Theological terms, like any other, have their sense by the company they keep. Evacuating pneumatology of the conditions for its theological articulation would be an arbitrary assertion, since it would exempt Spirit-talk from the rich traditions of its use, and would equally secure the power of the immanent by emptying pneumatic talk of its holiness, from its conditioning by speech about being God’s Spirit. An account of the Spirit who is Holy necessitates an opposition to the controlling and self-securing democracy of interiorized projection as much as to the tyrannical distance of monadic sovereignty. It is here in the prayer Come Creator Spirit that Torrance locates the reality that prevents us from confusing ‘the Holy Spirit with our own spirits, or . . . with our own subjective states’.47 Accordingly, Torrance maintains, it is in Christology, God’s being-for-the-world and human freedom-for-God, that possibilities for a conception of the Spirit that can resist the deformations into immanental conditions appear.48 According to Schweizer, ‘What really mattered . . . [for the primitive assembly of Jesus’ disciples] was to go about with One who would soon be hanging on a cross and, being with him, to open their hearts to blind beggars and notorious 44

45 46 47 48

Peter of Antioch cited in Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, p. 92. On Photius of Antioch, see Jaroslav Pelikan, Credo (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), p. 209. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology, p. 92. Torrance, Theology in Reconstruction, p. 219. Ibid., p. 238. Nonetheless, Torrance’s explication tends to be in terms of the hypostatic union, and even when he does speak biblically his metaphysical imagination tends to flatten the rich sets of plot and circumstance within the narrative witness (see Spjuth, Creation, Contingency and Divine Presence, p. 219). This may be the reason for the unconvincing discussion in a paper with a title otherwise rich in interrogative possibility, ‘Questioning in Christ’, in Theology in Reconstruction, pp. 117–27.

On Not Being Spirited Away

177

prostitutes’.49 Whatever is meant by ‘the Spirit of God’, then, it cannot entail, in Barth’s terms, a ‘special and second revelation of the Spirit alongside that of the Son. There are not two Sons or Words of God.’50 Speaking distinctively of the Spirit only per appropriationem in relation to the indivisible action of God to the creature cannot, without theological disordering, bypass the incarnately expressed life of God as a life of salvific Self-giving (even unto death [Phlm. 2.8]), of the making of all things new in the image of the resurrection and ascended life of the ‘New Man’ or of the perceivability in Jesus’ performance of God’s critical question raised over a sinful world and convictingly intensified in the Spirit. In fact, the Spirit only becomes distinctly hypostasisable in the theological imagination through the occasions when the interaction of Son and Spirit hints at the Spirit’s distinctive operations within the unified work of God in the economy (opera Trinitatis ad extra indivisa sunt). From the New Testament materials, William Placher argues, the least we can say is ‘that the Spirit has some sort of relation with the Son’.51 This is too bland an observation, although it can ward off any attempts to unduly systematize the various texts. The mention of ‘procession’ in Jn 15.26 is wildly over-determined and distorted when it is made to ask about the divine metaphysical mechanics of the Spirit’s eternal procession. What we can say is that as saving realizer of human perfection Jesus is the bearer of the Spirit as much as the sender of the Spirit. As sent the Spirit receives a specific set of coordinates in the work of renewing creatures. As Athanasius declares, ‘Whatever the Spirit hath, He hath from the Word’.52 The primitive Christian communities, according to Schweizer, were convinced that in Jesus Christ God’s new life had eruptively broken into and opened the old.53 ‘This conviction was so central that at first the community saw the new work of the Spirit exclusively in Jesus.’ The key, then, even in the thinnest of hints and suggestions of the New Testament itself, is not to regard the Spirit as additional to the operations of the Logos incarnate, but to recognize the mutual informing their relations take in the divine action of healing sinful creatures. As agential anointer, however, the Spirit of Christ is the source of Christ’s life. What does this recognition of formative anointing do to consideration of

49 50 51

52

53

Schweizer, The Holy Spirit, p. 131. Barth, CD, I.1, p. 474. William C. Placher, The Triune God: An Essay in Postliberal Theology (Louisville and London: Westminster John Knox, 2007), p. 116. Athanasius, Discourses Against the Arians, 3.25.24, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series 2: vol 4, St Athanasius: Select Works and Letters (trans. Archibald Robertson; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), p. 407. Schweizer, The Holy Spirit, p. 118.

178

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

the processio? It is worth mentioning here Barth’s redevelopment of a common filioquist response to the exegesis of its objectors through appeal to the agency of the Spirit on what is appropriate to confess regarding the humanity of Christ, since this can at least serve as a warning against too easy a theologically predicative move from the economy to the divine life ad intra.54 Nonetheless, it is important to emphasize that the life-givingness of the Spirit involves not only a way of speaking about the humanity of Jesus as Spirit-possessed and pneumatologically ‘consecrated for his mission’ but of the eschatological realization of that humanity in the One in whom God’s redemptive agency is irreducibly identified.55 ‘The Holy Spirit is God in his freedom’, Torrance helpfully argues, ‘not only to give being to the creation but through his presence in it to bring its relations with himself to their end and perfection’.56 The manner of this eschatological enactment occurs in and through the mediatorial work of Jesus. As bearer of the Spirit, Jesus soteriologically lives in the presence of ‘the gift of the Holy Spirit whom he received fully and completely in his human nature for us. . . . [Accordingly,] human nature has been adapted and become accustomed to receive and bear that same Holy Spirit.’57 That means that, among other things, Jesus’ humanity cannot be conceived as a container to be broken open and disposed of in the process of spiritual maturation. It is not a clothing of God’s revelatory communicativeness that is arbitrary and momentary, even if that conceived in terms of a transparency given in the act of the Spirit’s inner testimony. Rather, it is the irreducible condition for the saving realization and enactment of communion with God. As John MacIntyre argues, ‘We can no longer refer allusively to the humanity of Christ in general, or treat it comprehensively as a totum simul which yields immediate awareness of the divine being. . . . Accordingly, there is no shortcut to revelation, least of all to the revelation of God, which can bypass the complexity which in our analysis constitutes the humanity of Christ.’58 What both forms of speaking of the Spirit in relation to Jesus (as ‘passive’ and ‘active’, ‘sent’ and ‘anointer’) do is provide the critical context for talk of the divine embrace as the inexhaustibly abundant love that expresses the excesses of the divine plenitude. As 1 Jn 4.1 suggests, discipleship does not involve the worship of every spirit, but worship in the Holy Spirit who conforms believers to the likeness of God in Christ. Thus, ‘What distinguishes the Spirit of God from 54 55 56 57 58

Barth, CD, I.1, p. 485. Torrance, Theology in Reconstruction, p. 246. Ibid., p. 248. Ibid., p. 246. John MacIntyre, Theology After the Storm: Reflections on the Upheavals in Modern Theology and Culture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), p. 144.

On Not Being Spirited Away

179

all other spirits is not the strange mode of his manifestation but his witness: the unambiguous word of Jesus, this strange figure who runs counter to all human plans and desires’.59 There is, then, still much fruit to be gained from continuing to theologically meditate on the notion of the Spirit as the agency of love who actively bonds Father and Son, a Giving Gift of One to the Other.60 According to Gregory Palamas, for instance, the Spirit ‘is like an ineffable sort of love by which the very God and Son beloved of the Father responds to the Begetter.’61 The opening of that love as divine creativity enables Augustine, despite critics’ perceptions in his account of a proto-modern form of subjectivity, to propose that the Spirit is the sanctifying vinculum caritatis, the bond of self-communicative love for the making of God’s people in teleological delight and love together. As Augustine declares, God ‘sheds abroad charity in the hearts of those whom he foreknew’ in this patient Spirit-led ‘pilgrimage in which we now walk by faith’ towards completion.62 Among other things, this perspective should diffuse both the concerns about the Spirit as power and those about the Spirit as unreserved immanence. Godtalk is thereby saved from the projection of the divine into the idleness of a Shabbat-ical or the imposition of the immediate in the mode of an enslaving dominus. Forms of power that in one way or another domesticate the critically renewing freely active presence of God, thereby intensifying destructive patterns of self-understanding and performance, are theologically inappropriate. In a dogmatically well-ordered account of the reciprocity of the relations of Son and Spirit, to adopt Lossky’s terms, ‘God therefore remains transcendent, radically transcendent by his nature, in the very immanence of his manifestation’.63 That theological dialectic provides an embracive context without which the Spirit becomes a contrastive concept. Under these theo-grammatical conditions, ‘A theology that constitutes itself into a system is always dangerous. It imprisons in the enclosed sphere of thought the reality to which it must open thought’.64 Systems remain locked in their immanence to themselves. In this way they belong as hermeneutical acts of foreclosing perception, feeling, history 59 60

61

62 63 64

Schweizer, The Holy Spirit, p. 118. It is not entirely clear, however, that the way Augustine utilizes the image of the Spirit as vinculum depicts the Spirit sufficiently as agent. Critics’ concern that the ‘bond’ image depersonalizes the Spirit is mitigated only when one depicts the Spirit’s act in the communicative conjoining as the work of the Person of God as Spirit. Gregory Palamas, Physica, Theologica, Moralia et Practica Capita, 150.36, cited in Placher, The Triune God, p. 113. Augustine, ‘The Spirit and the Letter’, 7 (v); 64 (xxxvi). Lossky, Orthodox Theology, p. 23. Ibid., p. 15.

180

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

and/or consciousness in such a way that they shape identity without the critical transformativeness of God’s Holy Spirit. It is certainly the case that consideration of the Spirit will have an impact on what can be claimed about spirit(s). But the distinction is vital to a healthy theological discourse that engages in the Church’s mission to ‘bring to all nations and races the message of hope in the darkness and dangers of our times, and to summon them to the obedience of the Gospel’ in the Spirit’s outpouring of ‘the love of God in Jesus Christ’.65 With a distinctively prophetic voice Torrance provides a critical reading of Western theologies of grace which underplay the full humanity of Christ.66 What emerges from such a process, he argues, is a substitution of the power of ecclesiastical performance for grace as ‘other functionaries [begin] exercising a mediatorial ministry, to make up for the human priesthood of Christ’.67 Torrance avoids substituting for the filioque any sort of ‘ecclesiaque’ or ‘homineque’ (and those should also include the Protestant scholastic temptation to ‘bibliolatry’ along with a certain version of the Spirit’s ‘inner testimony’). These both express a comparable domestication of the Spirit’s divine reality which places the Spirit at the disposal of creatures in significant ways.68 Crucially, with themes of ‘newness’ and ‘transformation’ in tow for depicting the plenitude of God’s self-giving the distinctive agencies of God and world are to be irreducibly conceived in terms that are formative and reparative of the agency of creatures. In and through the Spirit God luminously, energetically and inexhaustibly acts creatively to renew creatures by the Logos incarnate. This gift of the novum requires a sense of what it is that is being made new and why, and thus eschatological discourse is bound in reparative terms, as the postlapsarian form that God’s creative agency takes. As Moltmann argues, the Spirit’s sighing is integral to the epiklesis, and this is why the Spirit is depicted in terms of judgement and conviction as well as of advocate representing the Christian community to a hostile world (Jn 16.7).69 Without the critical reserve that the confession of the Holy ‘Spirit of Christ’ demands, something that Western thinkers fear was circumvented with the monopatrist notion of sole procession ekmonoutō Patros (‘from the Father alone’), suggestions for the cultural embraciveness of the pneumatic always endanger the hesitancy of 65 66

67

68 69

Torrance, Theology in Reconstruction, p. 193. The fact that he is engaging theologically with doxological matters of divine-creature communion at least offers a potential corrective resource to the kind of epistemological over-determination that was identified in the previous section. Torrance, Theology in Reconciliation: Essays Towards Evangelical and Catholic Unity in East and West (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1975), p. 203. Torrance, Theology in Reconstruction, p. 231. Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, p. 77.

On Not Being Spirited Away

181

Christian perception, potentially distort the envisioning of the eschatological through the provision of masterable systems, and therein frame the Spirittesting apart from the bond to the Crucified Christ.70 In Placher’s terms, the Spirit would become ‘an independent contractor doing spiritual works without regard to any claims about the triune God’.71 Incumbent on this theological account, moreover, is the rearticulation of the deep connection between the divine activity of creating and regenerative recreating, that relation which resists the modern ‘spiritualizations’ of the Spirit in relation to the material order. Here talk of the Spirit of resurrection as Spiritus Creator is significant. The Spirit’s communicative or koinonia-making action cannot bypass the materiality God’s creatures. As Basil observes, ‘the Lord was anointed with the Holy Spirit, who would henceforth be united with his very flesh’.72 For Sergei Bulgakov that entails that ‘the world receives its reality, matter and elements from the Holy Spirit, so that its most material elements are, at the same time, its most spiritual ones by virtue of their’ creation in the Spirit.73 The transfiguring Spirit both renews the telic shaping of the creature’s communicative nature in God’s giving and disrupts the distortions of sinfulness. So Augustine claims, ‘it is the work of the Spirit of grace to renew in us the image of God, in which “by nature” we were made. The fault in man is contrary to his nature, and is just that which grace heals.’74 So it is ‘not that nature is the denial of grace, but that grace is the mending of nature’. God’s Spirit comes to realize a judgement made about us, and in so doing makes not for a phantasmic pneumatology but rather a pneumatic materiality. Not merely does this reconceiving of the Spirit undermine domestications of the divine, but thinking in and through the breath of divine presence equally resists conceiving God’s coming as a simple irruption or interruption, in any metaphysical sense at least. The Spirit, then, is the Spirit of hope whose transformative action subverts the despair of the ontologically tragic or of the escapist spirits of apocalyptic catastrophism. The intensification of the shape of God’s Christic acts of communicative healing in exalting the creature into communion in the Spirit does not make of the Spirit something less than the Logos. Pneumatic agency in the act of 70

71 72

73 74

The connection of the Spirit with seeing and hearing is made in, for example, Acts 2.33. The charismatic Spirit’s mortifying and vivifying work, then, applies equally to illuminating perception, the education of the judgements of ‘reason’ and transforming the ‘conscience’. Placher, The Triune God, p. 99. Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit, 15.36 (trans. David Anderson; Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997), 16.39 and 65. Sergei Bulgakov, The Bride of the Lamb (trans. Boris Jakim; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2002), p. 401. Augustine, ‘The Spirit and the Letter’, p. 47 (xxvii).

182

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

God is not an afterthought, something additional that can be displaced, but intrinsically one with the unified divine action. In fact, Rogers indicates, ‘Basil remarks in passing that the Holy Spirit “completes” or “fills out” even the Trinity itself ’.75 Here talk of the ‘kenosis’ of the Spirit does not help as an act of theological predication, as if the self-effacement of the Spirit functions to conceive the Spirit as giving up possibilities for attention and power in favour of spotlighting and empowering the Son and Father. Talk of the hiding, shyness or self-effacement of the Spirit unwittingly suggests a pneumatic activity, as if the Spirit could unhide, flamboyantly be less shy and so on. But this would be a very odd thing to claim, not merely because it breaks with linguistic convention but because it subverts the work that is attributable to the Spirit’s distinctive agency in the intrinsically perichoretic action of God. So, as the One associated in much of the patristic tradition with ‘gift’ and ‘love’ itself, the Spirit leads creatures, to cite Maximus the Confessor, into the excessiveness of the ‘eternal movement of love’ that grounds God’s redemptive rest for the munificent healing and blessing of all things in ‘their telos in God’.76 In this context, Torrance suggests, ‘it would not be reverent to ask how the Spirit proceeds from God’.77 Accordingly, pneumatological discourse is incompatible with Cinderella-talk in that the Spirit cannot become the glamorous focal point of theological attention. The ‘certain anonymity [that] characterizes the Third Person of the Trinity’,78 to use Lossky’s image, is not the result of a hypostatic overwhelming pleroma of Logos, and is certainly not an assumption of ontological subordination, but rather belongs to the other-generating work of God whose economic form is life-giving incarnationality. According to John of Damascus, ‘the image of the Son’ requires the admission with Paul in 1 Cor. 12.3 that no one can even say Jesus is Lord, except in the Spirit.79 Perhaps we need to recall that with God-talk we do not know what we are saying, but that it functions to ground the gracious giving and repairing of a material reality in an act of eschatological beneficence. In this regard, reimagining God precisely prevents the ineffability of the Godhead from being circumscribed by theological ‘rationalization’.80 75 76

77 78 79 80

Rogers, After the Spirit, p. 147. Maximus the Confessor, cited in Lossky, Orthodox Theology, p. 45; Torrance, God and Rationality, p. 171. Torrance, The Doctrine of God, p. 188. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, p. 74. John of Damascus, De Imaginibus III.18, cited in Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, p. 135. Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, p. 80.

On Not Being Spirited Away

183

IV Therapeutic hesitancy These reflections suggest several things. First, the perichoretic unity of the divine economy is indicative of God’s Godness or life in se as expressively lived out under the conditions of the redeeming Gift in Christ. What is meant by ‘procession’ or ‘spiration’, then, is not that the Spirit is a processive event ontologically distinguishable from God’s being-in-act, as in Eunomian Neo-Arianism, an origination ex nihilo in the mould of the economic action of God’s creativity. The application of the anti-Arian homoousion to the Spirit at Constantinople theologically ended such a possibility, even if the creedal additions could remain to some only somewhat ambiguous in their role of rejections of the Sabellian successiveness-of-identity-without-simultaneity. Second, the relation of Spirit and Son is such that God’s healing action for, with and in the world is one. In fact, intra-Trinitarianly, talk of ‘procession’ in many ways differs from talk of the Logos’ ‘generation’ only linguistically – as a grammar of difference that seeks to remind that with the life of God we do not know what we are talking about. Barth, in attempting to refuse the disentanglement of these simultaneous modes of God’s being-in-act, nonetheless goes too far in suggesting that it is otherwise ‘lost when the immanent Filioque is denied’.81 For Torrance, in contrast, this work can be done with the broader conception of the perfilium instead. Third, dogmatics refuses to conceive of the Spirit as reducible to spirits other than the continuing Gift of God. Finally, good theological order requires a measured and Trinitarianly contoured hesitancy in speaking of the inner life of God, thereby refusing to relinquish the warning that generation and spiration language ‘is just an attempt to express what man cannot essentially express, what his language is unable to achieve’.82 Only in this way as the Spirit of Christ, which is not well articulated through the notion of single procession from the Father, is the Spirit of God the eschatological opening of all things towards their fulfilling flourishing in communion with the ground of all being through the Logos incarnate. We do not encounter God in the displacement of this world but in its transformation; not in the evasion of the conditions of our particular histories but in their transfiguration; not in the seemingly successful forms of power-relations and the realization of human control but rather in the strange and alien figure of one crucified and on his way to raising us with him by his Spirit. 81 82

Barth, CD, I.1, p. 481. Ibid., p. 475.

184

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

In this regard, while the modern religious subject is ‘in desperate need of some kind of spiritual psychiatry’, theology does something more radical, subversive and ultimately hopeful for healing: it re-educates us in the kinds of questions that are appropriately well ordered for our flourishing, and forms ‘the disciplined repentance’ for our renewal and transformation in Christ.83 This entails, among other things, that the Spirit’s presenting of God’s judgement in Christ on creatures enables creaturehood to be brought to its proper end. Pneumatology, then, prevents considerations of Christology from prematurely enclosing the world in grace accomplished, for by the Spirit Jesus Christ comes in his critically liberative person. Christology, in its turn, gives content to the novum of pneumatic presence, providing substance to the theological witness that opens all things up to God’s redemptively renewing work through the Son. Likewise, it prevents Spirit-uality from kenotically collapsing into the world rather than enabling the generation of critically transfigurative hope in the cinders, the ashes of despair.

83

Torrance, Theology in Reconstruction, p. 231; God and Rationality, p. 48.

12

The Filioque: Beyond Athanasius and Thomas Aquinas: An Ecumenical Proposal Thomas G. Weinandy, O.F.M., Cap.

The issue of the filioque has had, to say the least, an acrimonious history. For centuries, both the Orthodox and the Latin churches have, with theological rigour and demonstrative allegiance, tirelessly articulated and staunchly defended their conflicting views.1 In this essay, I wish, first of all, to present briefly, by way of an apologetic, Athanasius’ understanding of the procession of the Holy Spirit. The West has, and I think rightly, consistently regarded him, along with the other Alexandrians, especially Cyril, as a theological precursor to and so a dogmatic ally of the filioque position and cause.2 Second, I will examine Aquinas’ arguments, following those of Augustine, on behalf of the filioque. In so doing I want to demonstrate that he makes significant theological advances over Athanasius and so provides a more systematically developed conception and a clearer doctrinal articulation of the filioque. Moreover, I will note what I consider significant theological misconceptions and unaddressed Trinitarian issues within Athanasius and Aquinas that bear upon a proper understanding of the Holy Spirit and his procession from the Father and the Son. Third, in my attempt to address these concerns, I hope to offer a possible ecumenical pathway through the doctrinal and ecclesial filioque impasse.

I Athanasius: The procession of the Holy Spirit During the Arian controversy Athanasius showed little interest in the procession of the Holy Spirit as such, though he ardently affirmed the full divinity of the 1

2

For a recent theological and historical study of the filioque controversy, see A. Edward Siecienski, The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). The fact that historically the Orthodox tradition has quietly distanced itself from the Alexandrians on this issue appears to corroborate that it too accepts, if only reluctantly, the West’s theological

186

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

Holy Spirit. This is primarily witnessed within Trinitarian doxology where the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are together worshipped and adored as the one God, and within baptism where a person is baptized in the threefold divine name. Also for Athanasius, baptism became a hermeneutical principle for discerning the inner life of the Triad, especially the position of the Holy Spirit. Commenting on 1 Jn 4.13 where it states that believers come to abide in God because they have been given the Holy Spirit, Athanasius articulated both his understanding of grace and the inner relationships between the persons of the Trinity.3 Athanasius argued for the full divinity of the Son in that the he does not merely, like creatures, participate in the Spirit and so becomes united to the Father. Rather, the Spirit actually receives from the Word because the Word, as God, possesses all that the Father is. What is fascinating here is that Athanasius stressed not that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, though he did uphold this as well, but rather that the Spirit is from the Son for the Son has given to the Spirit what he himself has received from the Father, that is, the fullness of divinity.4 Around 360 AD, during Athanasius’ third exile, Bishop Serapion of Thmuis, his friend and supporter, wrote to him requesting his assistance in refuting a group of Christians who professed that the Son was truly God but denied such divine status to the Holy Spirit.5 They argued that not only does Scripture never explicitly refer to the Spirit as God, but also, if the Spirit were truly divine, then he would be a second Son and so brother of the Son, or if he proceeded through the Son then he would be a grandson. Since these alternatives are ludicrous, the Holy Spirit must be a creature. Athanasius begins his discussion by noting that as ‘the Arians, in denying the Son, deny also the Father; so also these men, in speaking evil of the Holy Spirit, speak evil of the Son’.6 Why is such the case? It is obvious that if one denies the divinity of the Son, one denies the divinity of the Father for the Father can only be God the Father if the Son is God the Son. The implication, again as seen above, is that the divinity of the Holy Spirit is predicated, and so is in some manner dependent upon, the divinity of the Son for the Son gives all that is his

3 4

5 6

assessment of them. This is in contrast to the Cappadocians, whom the East champion as the patriarchal and unassailable doctrinal authorities for their position. See Contra Arianos, 3, 24-5. While Athanasius does not explicitly state the Augustinian filioque, his argument bears a striking resemblance to the one Augustine himself will employ, and which will be followed by Aquinas, that is, that all that the Spirit possesses from the Father comes through the Son’s bestowal and so the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. See Augustine, De Trinitate, 15, 25–7 and In Evang. John. Tractate, 99.8-9. See also Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, 36, 2 ad 1. See Ad Serapion, 1, 1. Ibid. The translation is taken from: Athanasius, The Letters of Saint Athanasius Concerning the Holy Spirit (trans. C. R. B. Shapland; London: Epworth Press, 1951).

The Filioque: Beyond Athanasius and Thomas Aquinas

187

to the Holy Spirit, similar to the Father giving to him all that is his. To deny the divinity of the Holy Spirit would then be to deny the divinity of the Son. For Athanasius, ‘the Spirit of the Son’ cannot ‘be a creature’, for, as ‘the Word and the Father’ are one and so both divine, so the Holy Spirit shares ‘the same oneness with the Son as the Son with Father’ and so must be divine as well. If those who deny the divinity of the Holy Spirit ‘would think correctly of the Word, they would think soundly of the Spirit also, who proceeds from the Father, and, belonging to the Word, is from him given to the disciples and all who believe in him’. For Athanasius, those who deny the divine status of the Spirit, and in so doing deny the divinity of the Son, ultimately ‘have not the Father’, for he too then would not be God’, if this is what was intended.7 However, if the Holy Spirit is not a creature, does this not demand that he be another Son? If such be the case, how can the Son be the only begotten? Or, if the Spirit is of the Son, does not this make the Father his grandfather? While Athanasius appeals to the unfathomable mystery of the Trinity, he concludes that ‘the Spirit of the Father is called Spirit of the Son’ and, as such, is differentiated from them. While Athanasius is reluctant to say more, he is not hesitant in acknowledging that the divinity of the Spirit resides precisely in his ‘proceeding’ from the Father and from the Son.8 Athanasius stated: we must ‘acknowledge what is written and join the Son to the Father, and not divide the Spirit from the Son’.9 To confirm this Athanasius argued that as the Son is the image of the Father so the Spirit is the image of the Son. It is being in the image of the Son that guarantees the divinity of the Holy Spirit, for ‘the Spirit bears the same relation to the Son as the Son to the Father’.10 What Athanasius has done, so as to ensure the divinity of the Holy Spirit, is to model the Spirit’s relationship to the Son after the Son’s relationship to the Father. Thus, as the Son is the Father’s ‘image’ because he is ‘begotten’ of the Father as Son, so the Spirit is the Son’s ‘image’ because he . . . At this juncture there arises a problem which Athanasius never 7 8

9 10

Ad Serapion, 1, 2. Ad Serapion, 1, 15 and 16. I have purposely spoken of ‘the divinity of the Holy Spirit’ and not his identity as the Holy Spirit. As we will see, this is a weakness within Athanasius’ understanding. Ad Serapion, 1, 17. Athanasius, following Jn 15.26, never uses exporeuesthae in relationship to the Son. Ad Serapion, 1, 21. He also states: From our knowledge of the Son we may be able to have a true knowledge of the Spirit. For we shall find that the Spirit has to the Son the same proper relationship as we have known the Son to have to the Father . . . so we shall find that through the Son all things are in the Spirit also . . . so the Holy Spirit, which is said to belong to the Son, belongs to the Father (Ad Serapion, 3, 2). See also 4, 2.

188

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

adequately addresses. How does the Spirit proceed from the Son so as to be the Son’s image?11

II Athanasius: A critique While not with the clarity and phrasing of Augustine, I believe that Athanasius did argue for a double procession in that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father by way of the Son for all that the Father has given to the Son is bestowed by the Son upon the Spirit, that is, the fullness of his divinity. Thus, the Son is instrumental in and so contributes to the Spirit’s procession from the Father. The Holy Spirit cannot, however, proceed from the Son by way of begetting, and so he is not the ‘image’ of the Son in the same sense as the Son is the image of the Father. The begetting of the Son by the Father determines not only that the Son is equally God, but also that he is uniquely and distinctly the Son. For Athanasius, the Spirit is the image of the Son only in so far as he is truly God. To be ‘the image of the Son’ does not, within Athanasius’ thought, effectively determine the personal singular identity of the Holy Spirit as Holy Spirit. This is clearly seen in a later argument. Athanasius stated: ‘If the Son, because he is of the Father, is proper to his essence, it must be that the Spirit, who is said to be from God, is in essence proper to the Son’.12 ‘Image’ pertains solely to the Spirit being God, a partaker of the divine ousia, and not to his distinct subjective divine identity as Spirit – his hypostasis. Athanasius is correct in asserting that the Holy Spirit’s divine nature is predicated upon his relationship to both the Father and the Son. However, his singular identity as a divine subject, as the Holy Spirit, demands a unique relationship to the Father and to the Son that differs from that of the Father and Son’s relationship. Thus, the Holy Spirit’s unique divine identity cannot be by way of a chain of ‘images’.13 The Spirit’s procession from the Father and the Son must be such that it not only accounts for his full divinity, but also positively 11

12

13

For a fuller treatment of and bibliography on Athanasius’ theology of the Holy Spirit, see Thomas G. Weinandy, Athanasius: A Theological Introduction (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), pp. 103–19. Ad Serapion, 1, 25. As Athanasius argued that the Son is ‘proper’ to the Father and so is God, so the Spirit is ‘proper’ to the Son and so is God. Aquinas is aware that the Greek Fathers speak of the Holy Spirit being the image of the Son. He argues, as have I, that image, properly speaking, applies only to the Son. However, since the Holy Spirit is by nature (essentia/ousia) fully divine, he does bear a perfect ‘similitude’ to the Father and the Son (see S.T., I, 35, 2 and ad. 1).

The Filioque: Beyond Athanasius and Thomas Aquinas

189

establishes what differentiates the Spirit from the Son, that is, his singular personal identity. This, it seems to me, is what Athanasius ultimately wanted to do, but his use of the concept of ‘image’ does not allow him adequately to do so. There also resides another flaw within Athanasius’ understanding of the procession of the Holy Spirit, that is, what I refer to as ‘Trinitarian sequentialism.’ The sequence is that the Father first begets the Son and only then does the Spirit proceed from the Son as his image. No doubt Athanasius recognized that this sequence is not in time, but that is not the issue. The issue is simply that there is a sequence, even if it is an eternal sequence. Such Trinitarian sequentialism, I will argue shortly, does not provide an accurate and acceptable metaphysical account of the Trinity.14

III Thomas Aquinas: Some preliminary issues The First Council of Constantinople (381 AD) professed that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, and with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified, and thus is God as they are God. Such a doctrinal proclamation intensified an already existing, though often unrecognized, threefold interrelated question. (1) What differentiates the Holy Spirit from the Son? (2) Or, what differentiates the Father’s ‘begetting’ the Son from the Father’s ‘spirating’ the Holy Spirit? (3) Or, what is it about the Father’s fatherhood that necessitates that he not only ‘beget’ his Son but also ‘breathe-forth’ his Holy Spirit? The answer to the third question is key to answering the other two! The personal identity and subjective differentiation of the Son and the Holy Spirit must be found within the fatherhood of the Father for it is from him, as Father, that the Son is begotten and the Spirit proceeds. In an attempt to address these questions, the Greek tradition, as a whole, has distinguished the proceeding of the Son, the ‘begetting’, from the ‘proceeding’ of the Holy Spirit by insisting that the term ekpοreuesqai (which designates the proceeding of the Holy Spirit, Jn 15.26) denotes a manner of proceeding different from that of the Son. This is doubtlessly true, but the Greek tradition has never adequately articulated what the difference is; thus it is a distinction that possesses no defining and so differentiating component – unlike the proceeding by way of ‘begetting’, ekpοreuesqai lacks specific positive cognitive content. 14

Athanasius is not alone in this annunciating a Trinitarian sequentialism. It is also found within the Orthodox as a whole where the Father first begets the Son and then, sequentially, the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. As we will see, Aquinas and the Western tradition are also guilty.

190

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

Because ekpοreuesqai contains no unambiguous defining content, it is, as a concept, vacuous as to why such a ‘proceeding’ gives rise to the Holy Spirit. Εkpοreuesqai is unable to provide a positive metaphysical tether between itself and the Father, that is, there is no known metaphysical characteristic within the Father’s fatherhood which would compel and warrant the ekpοreuesqai of the Holy Spirit. Since ekpοreuesqai does not specify that metaphysical paternal characteristic which would give rise to the Holy Spirit, ekpοreuesqai cannot metaphysically account for why the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father with a singular subjective identity, as a unique divine person that differs from the Son. Ultimately, it cannot account for why the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit or simply why such a divine person exists at all. Aquinas, following Augustine, does, I will argue, provide an answer as to why the proceeding of the Holy Spirit, the ekpοreuesqai, differs from the proceeding of the Son, the ‘begetting’, and in so doing accounts as to why the Father not only begets the Son but also breathes-forth the Holy Spirit. The West, consequently, offers a more satisfactory understanding of the Trinity as a whole and particularly a perception of who the Holy Spirit is and why.

a Thomas Aquinas: The proceeding of the Holy Spirit Aquinas was well aware that the Alexandrians held that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son.15 In harmony with them and affirming Augustine’s understanding, Aquinas states that the Holy Spirit ‘is said to be the bond of the Father and Son, inasmuch as he is Love; because since the Father loves himself and the Son with one love, and conversely, there is expressed in the Holy Spirit, as Love, the relation of the Father to the Son and conversely, as that of the lover to the beloved.’ Because the Holy Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and the Son, ‘it necessarily follows that this mutual Love, the Holy Spirit, proceeds from both’.16 Thus, for Aquinas, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father as the paternal love of the Father for the Son and, in turn, proceeds from the Son as the filial love of the Son for the Father.17 Moreover, all gifts 15 16

17

See S.C.G., 4, 24, 5–6. S.T., I, 37, 1, ad. 3. Aquinas argues that if the Holy Spirit did not proceed from the Son, he would be indistinguishable from the Son. The persons of the Trinity are distinguished by their ‘opposing relations’, that is, the Father and Son are distinguished by being related as Father and Son. The Holy Spirit is distinguished from the Father and Son by proceeding from them and so being uniquely related to them. See S.T., I, 28, 3; 30, 2; 36, 2; and 40, 2. See, S.T., I, 30, 2. Following Augustine, Aquinas understands the processions within the Trinity to be analogous to the processions within the human intellect – that of knowledge and will. As human knowledge is expressed in word and will gives rise to love, so within the Trinity the Word proceeds as knowledge and the Holy Spirit proceeds as love. See S.C.G., 4, 23, 5 and S.T., I, 27, 3.

The Filioque: Beyond Athanasius and Thomas Aquinas

191

spring from and express love and thus love is in itself the greatest of all gifts. The Father, therefore, bestows this supreme gift upon his Son, that of love itself, and the Son, in turn, bestows upon the Father this same supreme gift, that of love itself. This mutual bestowal of the supreme gift of love upon one another is the Holy Spirit.18 Hence, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as their mutual gift of absolute love for one another. Aquinas, in the above, addresses the totality of the threefold question. The Father begets the Son and what differentiates the Spirit from the Son is that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, not by way of begetting, but as the love of the Father for the Son and as the love of the Son for the Father. Here we clearly discern the distinguishing positive content of ekpοreuesqai – ‘the proceeding’ of the Holy Spirit – and thus what differentiates the Spirit from the Son. Moreover, we perceive that the very identity of the Father resides not only in the begetting of his Son, but also in his spirating the Holy Spirit for the Spirit is the very paternal love of the Father for his only begotten Son. Similarly, as the Father’s love for his Son is constitutive of who the Father is, so the Son’s love for his Father is constitutive of who the Son is and thus the Holy Spirit proceeds from both as the one identical gift of love to each other.19 While all will not be convinced, Aquinas’ exposition of the Latin tradition offers, I believe, a coherent argument as to why the Holy Spirit must proceed from the Father and the Son. Only if the Holy Spirit proceeds by way of the Father and the Son does his precise and definitive identity come into focus, as well as the full and distinct identities of the Father and the Son. The Father and Son are who they are precisely because the Spirit proceeds from both as their mutual paternal and filial self-defining and all-consuming love for one another. Moreover, within Aquinas and the Western tradition, the inadequacy found within Athanasius is now addressed. In accord with Athanasius, Aquinas grasps that the Holy Spirit shares fully in the divine nature (ousia/essentia) because he proceeds from both. Moreover, by specifying that this procession of Holy Spirit is by way of love, rather than by way of ‘image’ as in Athanasius, Aquinas and the West can simultaneously account for the specific divine personal identity (hypostasis/persona) of the Holy Spirit – that he is the divine person by which the Father and the Son mutually love one another.20 18 19

20

See S.T., I, 38, 2. While Aquinas holds that the Father and Son together spirate the Spirit, the Father is nonetheless the primary principle of the Holy Spirit for, as Father, he is the source of the Son’s ability to spirate the Spirit together with the Father. See S.T., I, 36, 3, ad. 2. Thus, contrary to the Eastern claim, the West does not jeopardize the monarchy of the Father. In light of the above, I believe that Athanasius would not only accept the Augustinian and Thomistic conception of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son, but that he would also

192

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

b Inadequacies within Aquinas Before attempting to advance the Alexandrian/Western tradition concerning the filioque, I wish briefly to note what I consider two major issues.21 First, in the above exposition, both within Athanasius and Aquinas, the Father and the Son are active personal subjects. The Father begets the Son and the Father and his begotten Son, as one, actively bring forth the Holy Spirit who proceeds from them as their one reciprocal love. These acts metaphysically constitute their distinct subjective identities as persons – as Father and as Son.22 Unlike the Father and the Son there is no comparable act performed by the Holy Spirit that metaphysically constitutes and corroborates his subjective identity as a distinct person. The Holy Spirit is merely passive within the Trinity – the love shared through the paternal and filial actions of the Father and the Son.23 Because the Holy Spirit performs no subjective ontological act within the Trinity, his distinct personhood is jeopardized. Second, Trinitarian sequentialism is, I believe, the cause of this defect. Within the Latin tradition, the Father is logically and conceptually prior to the Son since he actively begets the Son. The Father and the Son are logically and conceptually prior to the Holy Spirit who proceeds from them as their act of love for one another. However, this inner Trinitarian sequentialism deprives the Holy Spirit of any endowed action distinctively his own, since he is purely passive amidst the sequential acts of the Father and the Son.24 In this light, I am convinced that only when we identify the proper and rightful act of the Holy Spirit within the Trinity will he assume his particular

21

22

23

24

embrace what would unwittingly be their clarification of his own position – the manner in which the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son is not by way of a series of images but by way of love. The two criticisms that I will discuss are not peculiar to Aquinas and the West. They are also found, in similar manner, within the Eastern tradition. See Thomas G. Weinandy, The Father’s Spirit of Sonship: Reconceiving the Trinity (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), pp. 6–15. In being begotten the Son receives his Sonship. Nonetheless, in actively spirating the Spirit in union with the Father, he confirms his Sonship by way of his filial love for the Father. The basis of my criticism is found within Aquinas’ own exposition. Aquinas notes that the Father and the Son both act – the Father ‘begets’ the Son and the Father and Son ‘spirate’ the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit does not act ‘as no other person proceeds from him’ (S.T., I, 32, 3). Unsurprisingly this is traditionally known as ‘passive’ spiration or procession. See also, S.T., I, 28, 4. The same problem is found within the Eastern tradition where the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, but in so doing performs no action specifically his own within the immanent Trinity. This sequentialism is partly due to Aquinas’ philosophical understanding of the relationship between knowing and loving. He writes: ‘Though will and intellect are not diverse in God, nevertheless the nature of will and intellect requires the processions belonging to each of them to exist in a certain order. For the procession of love occurs in due order as regard the procession of the Word; since nothing can be loved by the will unless it is conceived in the intellect’ (S.T., I, 27, 3, ad 3; see also I, 27, 4). For something to be loved it first must be known – only in knowing the Son can the Father then love the Son in the Spirit.

The Filioque: Beyond Athanasius and Thomas Aquinas

193

subjective identity. This act, in turn, will render redundant the flawed Trinitarian sequentialism that compromises his unique personhood. Moreover, the Spirit’s rightful and appropriate act, by which he is identified, must, as stressed earlier, be located from within the act that is the Father’s fatherhood, for the very designation of the Father as Father demands that he be the foundational source of all other acts within the Trinity. To this end, my foundational and guiding hermeneutical principle is that a proper understanding of the Trinity can only be obtained if all three persons, logically and ontologically, spring forth in one simultaneous, non-sequential, eternal act in which each person of the Trinity subsistently defines, and equally is subsistently defined by, the other persons. In such an understanding, all three members of the Trinity simultaneously and reciprocally act upon one another and so are equally, simultaneously and reciprocally being acted upon. This simultaneity of an interrelated reciprocal threefold act accounts for the specific identity of each of the divine persons. To achieve this demands reconceiving the interrelationship between the divine persons. We need a new Trinitarian paradigm or template different from, but not inconsistent or incompatible with either the Eastern or Western traditional conceptions of the Trinity.

IV The personal defining act of the Holy Spirit My proposal is the following: the Spirit (of love) proceeds from the Father simultaneously to his begetting of the Son. The Spirit does so as the one in whom the Father loving begets his Son and in so doing the Spirit conforms (persons) the Father to be the loving Father of and for the Son he is begetting. Moreover, the Holy Spirit proceeds simultaneously from the Son and in so doing conforms (persons) the Son to be the loving Son of and for the Father who begets him. By discerning this proper and defining act of the Holy Spirit we are able now to recognize his personal ontological singularity as a distinct acting subject.25

25

Aquinas realizes that this sequentialism does not take place within time. ‘As the begetting of the Son is coeternal with the begetter (and hence the Father does not exist before begetting the Son), so the procession of the Holy Spirit is coeternal with his principle. Hence, the Son was not begotten before the Holy Spirit proceeded; but each of the operations is eternal’ (S.T., I, 36, 3, ad. 3). Aquinas is obviously correct. Nonetheless, the sequentialism remains. There must be some metaphysical principle within the very identity of the divine persons that accounts for their eternal simultaneity. Within Aquinas there is no principle to account for their eternal simultaneity precisely because the inherent sequentialism precludes it. This sequentialism is easily discerned within the Eastern tradition where the Father begets the Son and then the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. For a more complete exposition of the understanding, along with its biblical basis, see Weinandy, The Father’s Spirit of Sonship, pp. 17–52. For those who support or reject my thesis, see also idem., pp. 18–25.

194

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

This understanding of the procession of the Holy Spirit allows us not only to appreciate more fully why the Holy Spirit is a person, but it also enhances the identity of the Father and the Son. Actually, it is discerning the fullness of the Father’s fatherhood and the Son’s sonship that makes evident this understanding of the procession of the Holy Spirit. To designate the Father as ‘Father’ demands that he beget his Son in love. If he did not beget the Son in the love of the Spirit, he would not truly and fully be Father of his Son for his Son would not have been begotten in his paternal love. Thus, the Holy Spirit, inherently and necessarily, proceeds from the Father as the love in whom the Son is begotten. Contrary to Aquinas, the Father no longer first needs to know the Son he has begotten in order to, then, love him in the Spirit he spirates. The begetting and spirating now come forth from the Father as distinct, but concurrent, acts. The Father does not, even logically, first beget the Son and then love the Son in the Spirit. The begetting of the Son and the proceeding of the Spirit are simultaneous and, while distinct, mutually inhere in one another. It is precisely in loving his Son in the Spirit that the Father begets his Son and it is in begetting his Son that he loves his Son in the Spirit. The Father is the Father because, in the one act by which he is eternally constituted as the Father, the Spirit proceeds as the Love in whom the Son is begotten of the Father. Thus, the spirating of his Holy Spirit renders the Father to be ‘the Father’ as much as does the begetting of his Son.26 Likewise, this understanding of the procession of the Spirit equally confers new insight into the personhood of the Son. The Son is Son not only because he is begotten of the Father in the Love of the Spirit, but also because the Spirit of love conforms him to be the loving Son of the Father. This act of filial love, enacted in the Spirit, conforms and so confirms his Sonship. The one action by which the Spirit is the Spirit is then twofold in effect – pertaining to the Father and to the Son. The Spirit, springing forth within the Father as his love in and by which his Son is begotten, conforms the Father to be the loving Father for the Son and concurrently conforms the Son to be the loving Son for the Father. This does not imply that the Spirit has now taken precedence over the Father and the Son. While, within my thesis, the order of sequence is rendered redundant, the order of origin is maintained and even enhanced. While there must be an order among the persons of the Trinity, there must not be a sequence 26

This view of the Trinity captures the authentic concern of the Orthodox in that it grounds more deeply not only the monarchy of the Father, but also his inherent dynamism. The Father acts truly as the Father as the fons divinitatis from whom come both the Son and the Spirit.

The Filioque: Beyond Athanasius and Thomas Aquinas

195

among the persons of the Trinity. Order is far different from sequence, but the traditions of the East and West have yet to fully appreciate this distinction. Thus, the Spirit does conform the Father to be the loving Father and the Son to be the loving Son, but he does so only because he proceeds from them as their love for one another. The Spirit principally proceeds from the Father as the love in whom the Father begets his Son and so conforms the Father to be the loving Father of his Son. And, equally, but derivatively, the Spirit proceeds from the Son as the Son’s love for his Father and so conforms the Son to be the loving Son of the Father. There is an order of mutually co-inherent reciprocal and interrelated eternal acts that is the one God, but these are, by metaphysical necessity, intrinsically non-sequential. Because of the above understanding, the term ‘spiration’ has now assumed a singular specificity. ‘Spiration’ is the act by which the Father and the Son give rise to the act that is the Holy Spirit – the act in whom they are concurrently and synchronically fashioned into the loving Father of the Son and the loving Son of the Father. Within the present proposal we have discovered a mutual co-inherence or perichoresis of action within the Trinity which makes the persons be who they distinctively are. Unlike past conceptions of the Holy Spirit, the newly conceived role of the Spirit makes this mutual co-inherence of action possible and intelligible. The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son and does so by conforming each to be in relation to the other, and so becomes distinct in himself in his mutual relation to them as the love by which they come to be who they are for one another. Because all three divine persons are now acting subjects, the persons themselves are co-inhering acts with their co-inhering identities. This also provides further clarity and depth to the notion that the persons of the Trinity are subsistent relations, that is, that they subsist or exist as distinct identifiable subjects only in relation to one another.27 Since all three persons now possess an identifiable act, they are subsistent relations fully in act. The Father is fatherhood fully in act in begetting his Son through the spirating act of his loving Spirit. The Son is Sonship fully in act in loving the Father through the same spirating act of his loving Spirit. In coming forth as the mutual and reciprocal love of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit is fully in act in configuring the Father so as to give himself lovingly in his entirety as Father in the begetting of his Son and configures the Son so as to give himself lovingly in his entirety 27

Aquinas follows Gregory of Nazianzus and Augustine’s insight that the persons of the Trinity are distinguished by their relations. See Aquinas, S.T., I, 28–9 and I, 40.

196

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

as Son to the Father as the Only-begotten. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit only subsist as who they are in their mutual and reciprocal interrelated and co-inherent acts as the one God. As subsistent relations fully in act they define and are simultaneously being defined by their mutual and reciprocal fully in act relations. Such an understanding provides an unprecedented dynamism and symmetry within the Trinity.28

V An ecumenical proposal On the one hand, I offer the above simply as a possible authentic re-conception and richer articulation of the Trinity – one that builds upon and develops the Church’s doctrinal tradition. In so doing, I believe that I have addressed inherent past weaknesses so as to make the mystery of the Trinity even more luminous. On the other hand, I also see my newly conceived understanding of the Trinity as an ecumenical proposal, one that overcomes and transcends the filioque impasse. It is this second aspect that I especially offer to the theological and ecclesial communities of the East and West. I am convinced that I have not only maintained the monarchy of the Father, in accordance with the East’s demand, but that I have also enhanced his integrity by demonstrating why he is the Father not only in begetting his Son but also in the spirating of his Spirit. The Spirit proceeds as the engendering paternal love of the Father in whom the Son is begotten. I have also shown, in accordance with the Western tradition, why the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son as well as from the Father. He proceeds from the Son as he who infuses the filial love of the Son for the Father. The enriching of the fatherhood of the Father and the Sonship of the Son is due solely to the proper enhancing of the personal integrity of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit now performs the defining personal act that is in keeping with 28

Aquinas emphasized that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit subsist as relations of opposition, that is, it is their relations that distinguish them one from another. This is true, but I would want to add that in the present conception of the Trinity, the persons subsist not only in opposition to one another, but also in complementarity to one another. They consummate one another. Because each of the persons now actively plays a role in determining the subjectivity of the others, they complement one another. The Father is Father not only in opposition to the Son and the Son is Son not only in opposition to the Father, but they also, in their relatedness, complement one another as being, respectively, Father for the Son and Son for the Father. This complementarity of the persons as subsistent relations is due again to the Holy Spirit. By being the one in whom the Father begets the Son and so is Father for the Son, and by being the one in whom the Son is begotten and so is Son for the Father, the Holy Spirit subsists as the source of their complementarity. The Trinity of persons then subsists in opposition to one another only as complementary relations. See S.T., I, 36, 2; I, 40, 2.

The Filioque: Beyond Athanasius and Thomas Aquinas

197

who he is – he conforms the Father to be the loving Father of the Son and the Son to be the loving Son of the Father.29 If the procession of the Spirit has been the doctrinal conundrum over all of these centuries, it is only fitting that a proper understanding of who he is would be the ecumenical resolution to this sad history. May the Holy Spirit not only engender the love of the Father and the Son for one another, but also may he engender love among the Father’s children and so, in love, engender peace and unity within the Body of Christ.

29

The reason the Holy Spirit does not have a distinct proper name, as do the Father and the Son, is that he subsists precisely as the one in whom the Father and the Son are named. The Father subsists in relation to the Son (and so is named Father) only in the Holy Spirit by whom he begets the Son. The Son subsists in relation to the Father (and so is named Son) only in the Holy Spirit who conforms him to be Son. The Spirit subsists in relation to the Father and the Son in that he sustains their relationship and so imparts or manifests their names. The Holy Spirit is the hidden or unnamed person because the very nature of his subjectivity as a subsistent relation fully in act is to illuminate or, more deeply, to configure the Father and the Son for one another. Through him the Father and Son eternally gaze upon one another in love.

13

Beyond the East/West Divide Kathryn Tanner

The theological position I outline in this paper has the potential, I argue, to move theologians beyond the East/West divide on the issue of how to conceive relations among the persons of the Trinity.1 Opposed positions are surpassed in a view reconciling the usual differences between them. Surpassed is the idea of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son, as the Western churches have come to affirm both liturgically and theologically. Surpassed too is the idea of the Son and Holy Spirit each coming forth separately from the Father alone in potentially indistinguishable and seemingly unrelated ways, as the Eastern view might suggest. Instead, the second and third persons, I aver emerge together from the first, in a single, complexly interwoven fashion, which does better justice, I think, to what might be taken to be the gospel narration of those relations. Indeed, that the second and third persons of the Trinity emerge together from the first in mutual dependence upon one another can be considered a summary statement of the biblical narration of those relationships. Let me develop this point first, before turning to the way it provides a solution to the East/West divide. Once one identifies Jesus with the second person of the Trinity and a developed Trinitarianism is in place, according to which there exist three perfectly equal and indivisible persons in one substance and so on, it makes sense to view the gospel stories as a narration of what the relationships among the persons of the Trinity are more specifically like – how the persons are ordered with respect to one another, the roles they play vis-à-vis one another and so on – the matter at issue between East and West. Jesus is the Word incarnate and therefore the character of the relations that the Word has with the other members of the 1

This chapter has drawn upon material from Kathryn Tanner, ‘Trinitarian life’, in Christ the Key (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 140–206, © Kathryn Tanner. Reproduced with permission.

Beyond the East/West Divide

199

Trinity is displayed in his human life. For example, Jesus’ relations with the One he calls Father say something about the relations between the first and second persons of the Trinity because Jesus is that second person of the Trinity relating in the usual ways to the first – albeit now as a human being.2 What can be said about the relationships among the three persons of the Trinity as these are narrated in the New Testament account of Jesus’ life and death? A quite common theological way of summing up those narrated relations in both East and West goes this way: the Father initiates a movement or mission to do humans good, sends out the Word and Spirit to bring that about, and accomplishes it by way of gifts of Word and Spirit to humans, by giving them, in short, the power of the Spirit enabling them to live a life like Christ’s. In the West, stress is put on the way the relationship between Father and Son gives rise to the Spirit here. The shared general pattern of Trinitarian relations is thereby broken into two discrete halves. The Father sends the Word to be incarnate and to undertake a mission of salvation as this incarnate One. And then the Word incarnate communicates the Spirit to Jesus’ disciples upon his death, resurrection and ascension. One could say there are two separable and sequential acts here, the one moving from Father to Son, inclusive of the second person of the Trinity’s becoming incarnate and pursuing an earthly mission; the other, from Son to Spirit, focusing in particular on the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, subsequent to which the Spirit is sent out by the Word incarnate into the lives of Jesus’ followers. In this way, the overall Trinitarian movement of Father ⬎ Son ⬎ Spirit would be made up of two different two-person or binitarian acts, the one moving from Father to Son and the other from Son to Spirit. Closer attention to the biblical narration of what is happening here, however, brings out the place of the Spirit in the first set of relations between Father and Son – in the Word’s incarnation and performance of the mission prior to Jesus’ sending of the Spirit to his followers.3 The relationship between Father and Son becomes, therefore, more properly Trinitarian: the Spirit enters within that relationship right from the start and over its course. And this has the effect of complicating the way the Son is often thought, in the West at least, to send the Spirit. The Spirit is already active in Christ’s life when the Spirit is sent to us from the Father by Christ; it is only because the Spirit is already in him that the Son can send the Spirit to us. Relations between Son and Spirit are in this way more thoroughly canvassed (than they usually are in either East or West, 2

3

I leave aside for purposes of this paper the difference Jesus’ humanity makes for these general relationships. For more on this, see Tanner, Christ the Key, pp. 180–7. See Thomas Weinandy, The Father’s Spirit of Sonship (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993).

200

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

although a lack of concern for this is typically viewed as an Eastern problem). Rather than a simple one-way relationship from Son to Spirit, in other words, the complex back-and-forth of their mutual interdependence is drawn out. And this more thorough treatment of relations between Son and Spirit then allows one to see the differences between the Son’s sending of the Spirit and the Father’s sending of the Spirit. The distinctively different roles of Father and Son in these Trinitarian movements thereby become more apparent (than they usually are in a Western view). If one turns to the New Testament story with the role of the Spirit in the Son’s own mission from the Father in mind, what stands out, first of all, is the Spirit’s agency in the incarnation. The Father brings the Word into human history, makes the Word to be incarnate, through the preparatory and enacting agency of the Spirit. The power of birth is clearly associated with the Spirit both in Jesus’ life (see Mt. 1.20-21 and Lk. 1.35 – Jesus is born of or through the power of the Holy Spirit) and in the new birth of Jesus’ disciples, created or birthed anew in Christ’s image by the Spirit’s power (see, e.g., Rom. 8.14). Moreover, the Spirit seems itself to enter into human history along with the Word to empower the Word incarnate’s historical mission. The Word incarnate never acts without the Spirit. If he is the second person of the Trinity, Jesus has the Spirit that is inseparable from that second person for his own. He has this power from the first in that he is divine, in short. But by way of that fact his humanity also has the same power; the Spirit becomes increasingly manifest as the internal motor, so to speak, of a human life that enacts the Word’s working of the Father’s mission over its whole course.4 Thus, at his baptism in the Jordan, which initiates his public ministry in particular, the Spirit comes down (Lk. 3.22; Mk. 1.10-11) and rests or remains upon the humanity of Jesus (Jn 1.32); and as one thereby anointed with the Spirit, Jesus then ministers to the sick, the blind and the captive (Lk. 4.18; Mt. 12.18, following Isa. 61.1). It is because of the Spirit’s own power in Jesus’ life that the Spirit can be given to the followers of Jesus through him. As Gregory Palamas maintained, and the contemporary Eastern Orthodox theologian Dumitru Staniloae reaffirmed, the Spirit rests on Jesus, is contained within him, like a treasure in a treasury for further distribution, and for only that reason is he the treasurer, the keeper and dispenser, of that treasure to us.5 The Spirit must come 4

5

For more on the progressive character of the Spirit’s manifestation in the Word incarnate’s human life, see Tanner, Christ the Key, pp. 167–71. See Dumitru Staniloae, ‘The Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and his Relation to the Son, as the Basis of our Deification and Adoption’, in Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ: Ecumenical Reflections on the Filioque Controversy (ed. Lukas Vischer; London: SPCK, 1981), p. 179.

Beyond the East/West Divide

201

to full realization in Christ’s own human life before the Spirit can be sent to us from the Father by the Word incarnate. Because of the Spirit’s central role in the Son’s execution of the Father’s mission, the Holy Spirit can be said to be what unites Son and Father, bringing about and sustaining a conformity of wills between Jesus, the Word incarnate, and the Father; the Holy Spirit is the power by which their oneness of heart and action for us is manifested. In much the same fashion, the Spirit brings about our unity with Christ in establishing a conformity of life and purpose between ourselves and the Father. Both Son and Spirit can indeed be said to be always in one another in carrying out the mission of the Father. In other words, each manifests the other in the course of the mission by working in and through what the other does. Thus, in Jesus, the incarnate Word, the Spirit becomes manifest on earth, working with power wherever Jesus works to heal and save. And as the power of Christ’s working – the power that initiates, sustains and accomplishes Christ’s mission – the Spirit always makes its appearance in the form of Christ; the Son is the shape that such power takes. The workings of Word and Spirit are in this way intertwined from the first in the mission of redemption they undertake together from the Father. They are sent out at once together on that mission – right at its start and over its course, from the beginning of Jesus’ life through to its end – and then beyond, as that mission spreads more widely into human history. The mission of the Father involves sending the Son on a mission by way of the Spirit as much as it involves the Father’s sending of the Son to bring the Spirit to humans. Both those movements summarize, from different points of view, the fact that Son and Spirit are sent into the world with the incarnation for the sake of making a gift of both to us. Intertwined in undertaking the mission of the Father together, they nonetheless do so in ways that maintain the distinctiveness of their respective contributions. There are clear irreversible relations here that make evident the diversity of the persons. The three are always working the same things together but they do not do so in the same fashion. Thus, the Father commends the incarnation, the Spirit enacts it, the Word is the one who actually becomes incarnate – the Word is the only one to be identified with this human being, Jesus. Son and Spirit are both sent by the Father but not in the same way; only the Son is incarnate, not the Spirit. The Spirit is the enabling and animating principle of Jesus’ humanity, but does not have that humanity for its own. The Word has a human body; the Spirit does not.

202

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

The Father sends the Word by way of the Spirit’s power; the Word is therefore sent on a mission by the Father and not by the Spirit. The Spirit does not send the Word as the Father does because the Spirit is being sent by the Father too, along with the Word. The Son incarnate is for this reason Son of the Father and not of the Spirit. The Spirit is sent by the Father for the sake of the Son, to enable his mission and to complete it by uniting humans to Christ and becoming in that way humans’ own power for Sonship. The Son is also sent for the sake of the Spirit, but in the Son’s case in order to give the Spirit to other humans. The Son is the shape of the Spirit’s working in human history, the form that the power of the Spirit takes there, while the Spirit gives animated efficacy to that Sonship, providing the power in and by which the form of the Son is realized. The Spirit rests on the Son; the Son does not rest on the Spirit. The Spirit gives the power of Sonship; the Son does not similarly give the power that makes the Spirit the Spirit. The Son gives the Spirit to us, but does not give to the Spirit in the way the Spirit gives to him, by empowering his acts as Son. If the Son gives anything to the Spirit it is, to the contrary, just the Spirit’s shape; the power of the Spirit takes on in Christ the form of the Son’s missionary action. The Son sends the Spirit to us from the Father, but not as the Father does. The Spirit has already been sent out from the Father as a condition of the Son’s own incarnation and mission. Unlike the Father, the Son can send the Spirit – specifically to us – only because he has already received the Spirit and felt the Spirit’s working in his own human life. Thus, Jesus can send the Spirit only after he has been raised by Father and Spirit from the dead and felt the full efficacy of the Spirit in and through his own life and death. This biblically narrated pattern of relationships can be generalized so that the pattern also holds for relations among the Trinitarian persons themselves, irrespective of their workings for us in the world, if one assumes that the Trinity itself is at work in the world, by way of the incarnation of the Word, and works as itself there. The Son or Word comes out from the Father, is begotten of him eternally and not just as incarnate. The Son or Word perfectly exhibits, manifests or lays out, what the Father is not simply in what he does in the mission but in and of himself. The Spirit, not just in history but eternally, is the power – the loving inclination and impulse, one might say – behind the Father’s begetting of the Son. The Spirit, indeed, is always from the Father for the sake of the relationship between Father and Son: both in history and eternally, the Spirit itself comes forth from the Father just for the sake of that relationship. The Spirit gives rise to that relationship by enabling the Son’s eternal begetting from the Father; the Spirit empowers the Son’s perfect exhibition of the Father and unifies them thereby into

Beyond the East/West Divide

203

a relationship of perfect conformity to one another. The Spirit perfectly conforms to the Father in being for the sake of that relationship between Father and Son; and perfectly conforms to the Son as the Son’s own Spirit of Sonship. As in the historical mission of the Trinity the Spirit in eternity too rests on the Son: ‘we believe also that the Spirit proceeds from the Father to rest on the Son’.6 And in so resting the Spirit becomes the very power by which the Son relates back to the Father. Gregory Palamas makes the point clearly: ‘The Word, the beloved Son of the Father, avails himself of the Spirit in his relationship with the Father . . . [in that] he possesses the Spirit as the one who has come forth together with him from the Father and who abides in him (the Son)’.7 Since it is the Spirit of and from the Father that animates the Son’s own life, in laying out or exhibiting what has been received from the Father the Son by way of that Spirit mirrors back to the Father what the Father is for the Son. The Spirit of the Father, as a Spirit of loving beneficence for the Son (see 1 Jn 3-4), is immediately sent back to the Father by the Son, displayed in the Son’s own love for the Father – and not just for humanity. By the Son’s sending back of the Father’s Spirit of animating love, the movement of the coming out of Son and Spirit is completed in the Trinity just as the mission is on earth. In the Spirit, the whole of the Trinitarian movement comes to term. The Spirit is a kind of ‘amen’, a joyful sound, rounding off those loving relations between Father and Son that the Spirit itself bears up or sustains across their course. In sum, Son and Spirit come forth together from the Father and return together in mutually involving ways that bind one to the other. There are not two separable comings out of Son and Spirit and then two separable returns of the one and the other, but in each case of coming out or return a single threeperson movement in which they both come out or go back together in complex dependence upon what the other has from and gives back to the Father.8 A number of biblically informed analogies help clarify the way this is the case. Following Ps. 33.6 and biblical imagery of the second person of the Trinity as the Word, one could say that the Word of God goes forth from the Father’s mouth on the breath of the Spirit. That breath carries or sustains and empowers 6

7

8

John of Damascus, ‘Exposition of the Orthodox Faith’, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 9 (eds Philip Schaff and Henry Wace; trans. S. D. F. Salmond; Second Series, Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1994), Book 1, Ch. 8, p. 9. Gregory Palamas, cited by Dumitru Staniloae, Theology and the Church (trans. Robert Barringer; Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir Seminary Press, 1980), p. 29. See Boris Bobrinskoy, The Mystery of the Trinity (trans. Anthony Gythiel; Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Press, 1999), pp. 277, 278, 295, 302.

204

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

the Word. The breath is in the Word and goes out with it when a word is spoken. So, for example, Gregory of Nyssa can say: ‘we shall be brought to [an understanding] of the Spirit, by observing in our own nature certain hints and likenesses of its ineffable power. In our own case, indeed, “spirit” (i.e., breath [pneuma]) is a drawing in of the air. . . . In the moment we give expression to a word, our breath becomes an intelligible utterance which indicates what we have in mind.’9 John of Damascus affirms much the same thing: ‘The Word must also possess the Spirit. For in fact even our word is not destitute of the spirit. . . . For there is an attraction and movement of the air which is drawn in and poured forth . . . . And it is this which in the movement of the utterance becomes the articulate word, revealing in itself the force of the word.’10 One can also follow biblical light imagery for God and think of the second and third persons of the Trinity coming out from the first like a ray and its radiance from a shining source of light. Again John of Damascus makes the point: ‘The generation of the Son from the Father and the procession of the Holy Spirit are simultaneous . . . . It is just the same as in the case of the sun from which come both the ray and its radiance [for the sun itself is the source of both the ray and the radiance].’11 According to this imagery, they always accompany one another: the ray is in the radiance and the radiance in the ray, the radiance both sustaining the ray, which becomes visible, for example, in it, and being given off by it in the form of the ray’s own penumbral luminescence. Biblical imagery of love between parent and offspring – specifically between father and son – can also prove illuminating. Rather than the Spirit being the love that emerges from the relationship between Father and Son (as is usually the case for Augustine), the Spirit is the love that comes forth from the Father to beget the Son.12 The Son is carried out of the Father by and in the Spirit of love; the Father begets the Son out of the Father’s own love for the Son, the Father’s own Spirit of love proceeding out from the Father in the direction of the Son as the Son is being begotten. The love of the Son, reflecting back to the Father the Father’s own love of him, is then carried along by the very same Spirit of love.

9

10

11 12

Gregory of Nyssa, ‘An Address on Religious Instruction’, in Christology of the Later Fathers (ed. Edward Hardy; trans. Cyril Richardson; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1954), § 2, pp. 272–3. John of Damascus, ‘Exposition of the Orthodox Faith’, Book 1, Ch. 7, p. 5. See also Athanasius, De sententia Dionysii, p. 23, cited by Thomas F. Torrance, Divine Meaning: Studies in Patristic Hermeneutics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995), pp. 267–8. This analogy of an exterior word stands in contrast to an Augustinian focus on an interior word. John of Damascus, ‘Exposition of the Orthodox Faith’, Book 1, Ch. 8, pp. 9, 11. For the Spirit as the love that emerges from Father and Son, see Augustine, ‘On the Trinity’, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3 (ed. Philip Schaff; trans. Arthur West Haddan and William Shedd; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), Book 6, § 7, p. 100; and § 11, p. 103 (for example).

Beyond the East/West Divide

205

Dumitru Staniloae summarizes both movements of love this way: ‘Through the Holy Spirit the Son returns to the Father in order to love him through the Spirit, just as the Father causes the Spirit to proceed in order to love the Son through him, or because of his love for the Son’.13 One also finds the position clearly stated by Gregory Palamas: ‘The Spirit is like the mysterious love of the Father toward the Word mysteriously begotten; the Word and well-beloved Son of the Father makes use of this love himself towards the one who begot him’.14 Putting the light and love imagery together in discussing the return of the Son to the Father and the Son’s dependence on the procession of the Spirit from the Father, Staniloae again writes: ‘The irradiation of the Spirit from the Son is nothing other than the response of the Son’s love to the loving initiative of the Father who causes the Spirit to proceed. The love of the Father [that is, the Spirit] coming to rest in the Son shines forth upon the Father from the Son as the Son’s love.’15 And he helpfully adds, since these relations among the persons of the Trinity are also manifest in a way we can perhaps better understand in the effects they have on us: ‘In the same way . . . the Spirit of the Father who is communicated to us returns to the Father in conjunction with our own loving filial affection for him’.16 One can also use mind, will and knowledge imagery (which is not specifically biblical but certainly has a long history from Augustine through Aquinas) to clarify how Word and Spirit go out and come back to the Father in interwoven, mutually dependent fashion. The Spirit and the Word come out from the Father together in the way the will to know and the word or thought known come out from the mind. Most simply stated, one’s mind forms a thought through the desire or inclination to do so. The desire and the thought happen together and are entangled with one another through relations of dependence on one another. The word, on the one hand, does not arise without the inclination. But, on the other, there is nothing to the inclination – the inclination comes to nothing – unless the word is formed. The desire rests in the word so formed and is expressed in and through it.17 What is the significance of all this for reconciling differences between East and West? Neither side, I contend, pays full attention to the gospel narration of 13 14

15 16 17

Staniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 30. Gregory Palamas, cited by Olivier Clement, Byzanceet le christianisme (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964), pp. 46–7, and cited again in Bobrinskoy, Mystery, p. 289. Staniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 31. Ibid. See, for example, Augustine, ‘On the Trinity’, Book 9, Ch. 12, § 18, p. 133. One can in this way read him against the grain of his own express statements in support of the idea that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

206

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

Trinitarian relations. Part of the story is left out. On the one hand, the East since Photius typically maintains that the Word incarnate’s sending of the Spirit has no correlation in relations between the Son and Spirit themselves: the Father alone sends the Spirit. The West, on the other hand, refuses to make much of anything of the Spirit’s role in the sending of the Son. Each truncates the gospel story’s significance for an understanding of the Trinity, refusing to follow it all the way in formulating an account of relations among the Trinitarian persons themselves. Their reasons for doing so are often based on genuinely worrisome features of the other side’s position. Thus the East typically refuses to recognize the significance of the Son’s sending of the Spirit in an attempt to maintain the distinctive place of the Father in the coming forth or procession of the Spirit. If the Spirit comes forth from both the Father and the Son, as the West maintains, then the Father loses his distinctive place as the one from whom the others come. The role of being the originator and generator of the others is transferred to the Son in a way that confuses the two. The West usually replies that the non-communicable personal qualities of the Father are not being transferred to the Son but only the sort of powers that can be the Son’s own, or that the two work together ‘as one principle’ so that the Father’s property of originating others is not really taken over by the Son in and of himself.18 The East convincingly retorts – to my mind – that the latter response either turns the coming forth of the Spirit into some sort of impersonal process, in which the operation of the Trinity’s essence is separated off from that of the persons in an unacceptable way, or makes the Son’s role in the procession of the Spirit far less than what is implied with the conjunction ‘and’, the role of a mere hanger-on. The former response also suggests that procession of the Spirit is a less than personal process, since it takes place in virtue of a non-person-specific divine nature shared by Father and Son. It illegitimately transforms into a general divine quality what is really a proper distinguishing characteristic of the Father. And this has the unfortunate consequence of implying that the Spirit is not an equal member of the Trinity. If the power to generate another is not defining of the Father but part of the one divine nature shared between Father and Son, then the Spirit should share it too. If, as in the West, the Spirit is the only member of the Trinity that does not give rise to another, then the Holy Spirit is not fully

18

For the former response, see Henry Barclay Swete, The Holy Spirit in the Ancient Church (London: Macmillan, 1912), pp. 370–1; and Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit: The Complete ThreeVolume in One Volume (trans. David Smith; New York: Crossroad Herder, 1999), vol. III, pp. 87, 120. For the latter, see Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, vol. III, pp. 98, 116; and Bobrinskoy, Mystery, p. 285.

Beyond the East/West Divide

207

divine. And this is a major general worry in the East: the West slights the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is not an agent as the others are, figures in the movements of the Trinity as a mere secondary expression of the more primary relationship between Father and Son and becomes completely submerged in the Son’s service.19 The West worries that Son and Spirit are not sufficiently distinguished from each other in saying simply that they both emerge from the Father. The relationship they have with one another in virtue of the fact that they both come forth from the Father does not itself distinguish them in the way, say, the relationship between Father and Son, the relationship in which the Father begets the Son, distinguishes the two of them. It is not, in short, a relation of opposition, a relationship between terms like Father and Son that are opposed to one another, and for the West following Augustine and Aquinas this is the primary way persons of the Trinity are shown to be distinct.20 The East typically replies as John of Damascus does: that proceeding is different from begetting. The two come forth from the Father in different ways. The specific Greek term in John 15.26 (ekporeusis) marks that difference: the procession of the Spirit is quite distinctive and not a procession in the general sense of the Latin term that holds for both Son and Spirit. But the East typically declines to specify in what the difference consists: ‘There is a difference between generation [of the Son] and procession [of the Spirit], but the nature of that difference we in no wise understand’.21 The difference remains a mere posit. It is, moreover, not clear from the Eastern (Photinian) view what the relations, if any, are between Son and Spirit. They can easily appear to be disjoined, coming forth on separate tracks from the Father, in ways that jeopardize the unity of the Trinity. The Spirit’s relations with the Father, for instance, seem to bypass the Son, and this might imply that our relations to the Father could too. If, to the contrary, we always approach the Father by way of the Son, a rather radical disjunction looms here between the relations of the persons of the Trinity when they work for us and as they are in themselves. In general, the West is concerned that the Eastern position slights the dignity of the Son: in the Father’s relations with the Spirit but also simply vis-à-vis the 19

20

21

For an exaggerated but influential critique of the West of this sort, see Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976), pp. 57–8. My talk of irreversible relationships and roles is a more general version of this sort of principle, but a more complicated one in that the relations that distinguish the persons are themselves Trinitarian. That is, each person is distinguished or opposed to the other two in a relation with both of them. For example, the Spirit comes out or proceeds from the Father as the power with which to beget the Son. The East, for example, Photius, distinguishes persons by non-communicable properties rather than relations of opposition. See Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, vol. III, p. 58. John of Damascus, ‘Exposition of the Orthodox Faith’, Book 1, Ch. 8, p. 9.

208

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

Father’s exclusive originating powers. This is one reason why the West avoids considering the role of the Spirit in the Son’s own sending. In early Trinitarian controversies, the place of the Spirit in the Son’s own life was used to suggest that the Son is nothing more than a spirit-filled or spirit-directed human, like any other prophet or anointed king of the Old Testament. According to that position, Jesus is not the Son of God by being the Word who takes on flesh but becomes the Son only when he receives the Spirit upon his baptism in the Jordan. The claim that the Spirit proceeds from both Father and Son excludes altogether this sort of Son-making capacity of the Spirit in Christ’s case, and ensures the fully divine status of the Son. If the Son has everything that the Father has and is in that way just as divine as the Father, the Son should also have the power by which the Spirit is generated. If the Father alone has the capacity to give rise to the Spirit, the West worries that the Son is not the Father’s equal. The fact that in the East the Father alone gives rise to both Spirit and Son might indeed suggest they are both subordinated before the majesty of the Father, that the Father is somehow uniquely and alone truly God. The concerns on both sides are well taken (as I have suggested); but the way to address them is to give fuller, not lesser, attention to the whole biblical narration of Trinitarian relations. According to that narration, as we have seen, one should say with the East that the Father has the exclusive person-defining property of being the source of the other two: both Word and Spirit come out of the Father, just as they are both sent by him on a mission for the world. The Father is the only unoriginated originator in the Trinity; the Father gives rise to both Word and Spirit in a way that they do not give rise to the Father. The Father does receive back from Son and Spirit, but, unlike what happens in their case, the Father only receives back from them the very same things the Father gave them. The Father, for example, gets back from the Son the very love the Father poured out on the Son in begetting him. Son and Spirit, to the contrary, receive from one another what they do not give to one another as they emerge together from the Father. The Spirit receives from the Son its shape but not the power that the Spirit gave the Son; the Son receives its efficacy from the Spirit and not the shape the Son bestowed on the Spirit. With the West one can say that the Word is actively involved when the Spirit proceeds from the Father; this is simply part of what it means to say that Word and Spirit come out from the Father together in mutually conditioning fashion. But, contrary to the Western view, the Word is not the one that the Spirit comes out of. The Spirit emerges only from the Father and then is given shape by the Word or Son, albeit in crucial fashion: without that shape the

Beyond the East/West Divide

209

Spirit is nothing – mere dissipating air, so to speak. The Word does not produce the Spirit but is its reason for being, one might say. The Spirit proceeds from the Father for the sake of empowering the Word to be the very explication or manifestation of what the Father is. The Word, one might say, is the draw of the Spirit, the one to whom the Spirit is proceeding from the Father so as to animate. With the West one can say that the Word does breathe out the Spirit, or (changing the metaphor) send back the Spirit of love to the Father, but this (contrary to the Western view) is not the way that the Spirit arises to begin with: the Word cannot be the cause of the emergence of the Spirit as the Father is since the Word has no efficacy of action apart from its own empowerment by the Spirit. The Word has to have already received the Spirit as both emerge from the Father before the Word can send that Spirit, as, for example, the Spirit of the Father’s own love, back out again to the Father. The sending back out of the Spirit by the Son does not then make the Spirit to be the Spirit – that happens when the Spirit emerges from the Father. Or one might say, it is at most only a part of what makes the Spirit the Spirit; if the Spirit is defined as the Spirit it is by its whole movement: emerging from the Father, into the Son and then out again, to return. The slighting of the Spirit that might come from including the Word in the process of its emergence – the Eastern worry – is here remedied by giving the Spirit, too, an irreplaceable role in the begetting of the Word. The Spirit is the love or power of the Father that helps bring the Word about as an animated and efficacious expression of the Father. Just as we saw in the case of the Word’s contribution to the emergence of the Spirit, the Spirit is not thereby confused with the Father. The Word does not come out of the Spirit as the Word does from the Father, but is carried away from the Father with the Spirit’s support, like a word carried away by a breath of air from someone’s mouth. The Spirit is not the source of the Word as the Father is; but could be called instead merely the Word’s reason for being (in a way easily distinguished from the way, as I said before, the Word is the Spirit’s reason for being). The Word comes forth from the Father for the sake of the Spirit, so that the Spirit – the beneficent or loving power of the Father – might be manifest in an appropriate, indeed perfect, way. In fact neither the Word nor Spirit are slighted in reference to the Father. They are both more clearly the equal of the Father – thereby addressing a Western worry – because the Father never acts alone in giving rise to them; the Father does nothing of himself, even if the Father is in a unique way the source of the other two. The members of the Trinity are the equal of one another because they

210

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

are always all actively involved in doing the very same things; they all play their indispensable roles in the complex movement by which Word and Spirit arise from the Father together. Son and Spirit are fully interrelated, too, on the understanding of Trinitarian relations I have offered, at each moment and from the first insofar as they arise – and return – together. There is no question, then, of the Spirit’s somehow bypassing the Son in the Spirit’s relation with the Father, or the reverse, the Son’s bypassing of the Spirit. The movements between Father and Son and between Father and Spirit are, to the contrary, completely interwoven with one another. The relations of the former always fundamentally show the influence of the relations of the latter. The Word cannot emerge from the Father’s mouth unless the Spirit emerges at the same time as the Father’s breath, so as to carry and animate that Word. And so on, as we have seen. Finally, there is no question here of the West’s focus on the Word being at odds with the East’s highlighting of the Spirit. The very same complex movements of the Trinity can be read with an emphasis either way. Because they both come out and return together, either Word or Spirit can be viewed as the hinge of the whole movement, at the bend, so to speak, of the coming out and return. The Father begets the Son so that the Spirit can proceed from the Father and return; or the Father generates the Spirit so that the Father will have a Son to love and be loved by. These are just two different ways of talking about the very same thing. Thereby East and West are fundamentally reconciled.

14

Getting Beyond the Filioque with Third Article Theology Myk Habets

I In pursuit of a new metaphysics In a recent Theological Studies article, influential Roman Catholic theologian Joseph Bracken, S. J., favourably reviews the recent turn to Spirit Christology, especially my own account, observing particularly how such Christologies emphasize in a new way the activity of the Holy Spirit both within the immanent Trinity and in salvation history. Bracken then suggests that such a theology ‘introduces a new understanding of the classical dogma of the Trinity’.1 ‘New’ in this context does not mean novel. Rather, by ‘new’ I believe Bracken means the same as William Alston, for instance, who argued that ‘The Trinity, no less than other articles of the Christian faith, needs re-examination and reformulation for each age, as has happened throughout Christian history. The doctrine provides inexhaustible riches for exploration, a task to which each period brings distinctive skills and perspectives’.2 In 1926, process theologian Alfred North Whitehead noted that ‘Christianity has always been a religion seeking a metaphysic’.3 While Whitehead’s claim may be an overstatement, Allston and Bracken are correct in continuing to constructively reflect on divine ontology. Spirit Christology, and the Third Article Theology it gives rise to, is one such distinctive perspective seeking to enrich the received tradition.

1

2

3

Joseph A. Bracken, ‘Trinitarian Spirit Christology: In Need of a New Metaphysics?’, Theological Studies 72 (2011), pp. 750–67 (750). William P. Alston, ‘Substance and the Trinity’, in The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity (eds S. T. Davis, D. Kendall and G.O’Collins; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 179–202 (179). Alfred North Whitehead, Religion in the Making (New York: World Publishing, 1960), p. 50. The comment was made as part of his 1926 Lowell Lectures.

212

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

Bracken particularly notes how a Spirit Christology along the lines of that which I developed in The Anointed Son4 thinks of the intra-Trinitarian relations not simply in terms of divine processions (origin and action) but more in terms of the active role of the Spirit in the Godhead’s eternal act of self-giving love. Further to this, Bracken suggests that more can be added to my account of Spirit Christology at the level of divine ontology by means of a more detailed reflection on intersubjectivity. At this point I am in agreement with Bracken when he suggests that such a new understanding of intersubjectivity would be based on Aquinas’ notion of subsistent relations, but rendered more dynamic in terms of a presupposition of mutually constitutive causal relations between the divine Persons. Bracken’s detailed proposal suggests: The classical notion of the divine processions, in other words, presupposes the unilateral directionality of traditional cause-effect relations (first the cause, then the effect) even as it claims that this unilateral directionality from Father to Son and then to the Spirit is purely logical, not temporal, given the alleged eternity of the divine life. The alternative, more-dynamic understanding of subsistent relations, however, presupposes that the three divine Persons are simultaneously both cause and effect of their ongoing “relatings” to one another. Father and Son are both cause and effect of their ongoing relationship to each other, and the Spirit is both cause and effect of the dynamic interrelations of Father and Son.5

Bracken’s suggestion is helpful; although I do not think even Bracken goes far enough with this revision of the traditional idea of subsistent relations. He is right to see that the traditional construal of subsistent relations requires a more dynamic account, but he is wrong to suggest that this dynamism is limited to the Spirit’s ‘dynamic interrelations of the Father and Son’. The Spirit, too, is as active in the ‘ongoing relatings’ of Father to Son and Son to Father as he is in Father to Spirit and Son to Spirit. Bracken correctly summarizes my earlier work on reconceiving the Trinity along relational lines as building on the prior work of Fr. Thomas Weinandy,6 and positing the central conviction that the Godhead is neither derived from the person of the Father alone (an Eastern tendency) nor a solitary substance separate from the three Persons (a Western tendency). The Godhead is nothing other than the Trinity.7 Bracken, however, even calls this revision into question due to his 4

5 6

7

Myk Habets, The Anointed Son: A Trinitarian Spirit Christology (Princeton Theological Monograph Series, 129; Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2010). Bracken, ‘In Need of A New Metaphysics?’, p. 751. Thomas G. Weinandy, The Father’s Spirit of Sonship: Reconceiving the Trinity (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995). See Habets, The Anointed Son, p. 225.

Getting Beyond the Filioque with Third Article Theology

213

misunderstanding of my insistence on the monarchy of the Father.8 What follows is a further elaboration of the sort of relational ontology a Third Article Theology leads to with special emphasis upon the doctrine of the Monarchy of God9 and the related issue of the filioque.10 In presenting such a thesis my intention is to draw upon Eastern and Western insights, while at the same time critiquing aspects of both traditions, in order to enrich the tradition as a whole.

II The promise of third article theology The recent (re)turn to the Trinity as ‘the doctrine which changes everything’ has reinvigorated contemporary theology and sponsored a number of significant projects which are bearing much fruit. Such Trinitarian projects range from theologies of retrieval to constructive theological propositions. One significant implication of this Trinitarian renaissance has been a renewed interest in pneumatology to the point that we may speak of a pneumatological renaissance characterizing theological discourse in the first decade of the twenty-first century. We see such a flowering of Trinitarian pneumatology in such diverse areas as theology of religions, the dialogue between theology and science and theological anthropology. But, perhaps more so than in any other area, the Trinitarian pneumatological renaissance is evident in the (re)turn to Spirit Christology. Across the spectrum of the Christian Church, theologians are turning to Spirit Christology in order to further articulate the person and work of Jesus on the one hand and the identity and mission of humanity on the other. This turn to Spirit Christology in a robust Trinitarian context is welcome and has produced a number of suggestive and significant works. However, it is also, I suggest, a discipline come of age, and with that, it is poised to move from its preoccupation with definition and methodology, that is, with prolegomena, to constructive and systematic integration. In other words, it has moved from 8

9

10

Bracken, ‘In Need of A New Metaphysics?’, p. 755. Bracken was obviously not aware of Myk Habets, ‘Filioque? Nein. A Proposal for Coherent Coinherence’, in Trinitarian Theology After Barth (eds Myk Habets and Phillip Tolliday; Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2011), pp. 161–202, where my argument on the monarchy of the Father is outlined in some detail. What I offer here is a more expansive outline of the divine ontology supporting such an argument. Throughout the essay I am using Monarchy/ia with an uppercase when referring to the Godhead or the being of the Father, and monarchy/ia with a lowercase when referring to the person of the Father, or the Father in relation to the Son and the Spirit. This corresponds to Thomas Torrance’s use of absolute and relative senses of God’s Fatherhood. For a helpful discussion see Benjamin Dean, ‘Person and Being: Conversation with T. F. Torrance about the Monarchy of God’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 15 (2013), pp. 58–77. Bracken’s suggestion that a process-oriented view of the Trinity is to be preferred over what I am calling a relational ontology will not be addressed in this essay, as I limit myself here to a clearer explication of what a relational ontology is in relation to the filioque.

214

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

a discipline specific ‘Spirit Christology’ to a systematic-wide ‘Third Article Theology’. We see signs of this happening in the recent work from, amongst others, Ralph Del Colle,11 David Coffey,12 Myk Habets,13 Lyle Dabney,14 VeliMatti Kärkkäinen15 and Amos Yong,16 in addition to a number of theses. One area in particular that a Third Article Theology highlights, one that methodologically starts with pneumatology, is that of metaphysics, specifically an understanding of divine ontology. With the dominance of Logos Christology in the early Church, especially as developed by the Apologists of the second century, philosophical concepts of absolute being came to dominate theological discourse. Central to a Spirit Christology is a focus on categories of function over metaphysics, narrative over analytic philosophy and relationality over static conceptions of substance. With the eclipse of Spirit Christology in favour of Logos Christology something like a relational ontology of the divine being was obscured by static-substance ontology.17 The recent return to Spirit Christology and its more holistic Third Article Theology has thus brought with it further opportunity to develop a biblical and relational ontology not reliant upon the substance of philosophical concepts of absolute being. What is in dispute, however, is which ontology best represents a biblical and orthodox Trinitarianism informed by the insights of a Third Article Theology. What follows is a suggestive account I am construing as a relational ontology.

III Toward a theo-logical ontology Trinitarian theology must be established in Holy Scripture if it is to be orthodox. The contention of a relational ontology of the divine being begins with 11

12

13

14

15

16

17

Ralph Del Colle, Christ and the Spirit: Spirit Christology in Trinitarian Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). David Coffey, Deus Trinitas: The Doctrine of the Triune God (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), ‘Spirit Christology and the Trinity’, in Advents of the Spirit: An Introduction to the Current Study of Pneumatology (eds B. E. Hinze and D. L. Dabney; Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2001), pp. 315–38. Habets, The Anointed Son; and ‘Spirit Christology: Seeing in Stereo’, Journal of Pentecostal Theology 11 (2003), pp. 199–235. D. Lyle Dabney, ‘Starting with the Spirit: Why the Last Should be First’, in Starting with the Spirit: Task of Theology II (eds G. Preece and S. Pickard; Hindmarsh, SA: Australian Theological Forum, 2001), pp. 3–27. Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Toward a Pneumatological Theology: Pentecostal and Ecumenical Perspectives on Ecclesiology, Soteriology, and Theology of Mission (ed. A. Yong; New York: University Press of America, 2002). Amos Yong, Beyond the Impasse: Toward a Pneumatological Theology of Religions (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2003). For an account of the rise of Logos Christology over Spirit Christology in the early Church, see Habets, The Anointed Son, pp. 10–88, especially pp. 12–24.

Getting Beyond the Filioque with Third Article Theology

215

questioning the hegemony Greek philosophical thought has had over theology. It is not the case that all things Greek are de facto contrary to Scriptural truth. While Tertullian may have questioned what Athens has to do with Jerusalem, it is patently evident that Greek philosophical thinking has been a boon to advanced metaphysical thought, theology included. What is not so often acknowledged, however, is that Greek metaphysics carries its own internal logic and thought forms which, if not assiduously scrutinized, may not be compatible with the God who reveals himself. What I am challenging is a Greek philosophical conception of being which ultimately leads to speculation on a supposedly universally accessible structure of being, with its concomitant attributes and necessary corollaries, a perspective in which God is understood on the basis of an a priori knowledge of absolute being.18 This is what I am referring to as substance ontology, one that is static and often at odds with the dynamic and relational ontology of the God who names himself. It is just such a narrative of Greek philosophical metaphysics which the final work of Stanley Grenz narrates under the name ‘onto-theology’.19 In opposition to such an onto-theology and its recent ‘death’, Grenz rightly suggests we return to a Trinitarian ‘theo-ontology’.20 This entails, in short, the move from philosophy (being) to theology (God).21

a The self-naming God – I AM After narrating the ‘death of being’ over the history of Western philosophical reflection up to Derrida, Grenz turns to the constructive section of his work and examines the significance for divine ontology of God’s self-naming throughout his covenantal dealings with Israel, and then supremely in the incarnation. 18

19 20

21

Such attributes established a priori include: self-existence, eternality, unchangeability, and, consequently, absolute being. See Stanley J. Grenz, The Named God and the Question of Being: A Trinitarian Theo-Ontology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), p. 133. Such attributes may in fact be found in the divine being, but if so, they will be understood in nuanced ways from that of Greek philosophy. One may, for example, see the account of apathea offered by David Bentley Hart in The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), pp. 346–60, especially pp. 354–6. Grenz, The Named God. Grenz points out that he was not the first to use the term ‘onto-theology’, pointing the reader to Merold Westphal, Overcoming Onto-Theology: Toward a Postmodern Christian Faith (New York: Fordham University Press, 2001), see Grenz, The Named God, p. 119. This is not the first time such an attempt has been made, of course. One is reminded of the work of Karl Barth throughout his Church Dogmatics and his German interpreter Eberhard Jüngel, of whom John Webster said in the introduction to his own translation of one of his works, ‘Jüngel undertakes this task on the basis of a conviction that theological misunderstanding often derives from metaphysical presuppositions unexamined and uncriticised by substantive Christian truth, a conviction given lengthy exposition in God as the Mystery of the World’, John Webster, ‘Translator’s Introduction’, in God’s Being is in Becoming (ed. Eberhard Jüngel; trans. J. Webster; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2001), p. x.

216

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

The particular focus of Grenz’s study is the significance of the designation ‘I AM’. Focusing on Exod. 3.14 and its subsequent biblical history (Exod. 6.7; 33.19 etc.), Grenz finally settles on the following meaning of the ‘I AM’ name: ‘Yahweh’s self-disclosure at the time of the call of Moses presents the divine name as indicating that Yahweh is the I AM, the one who is present-compassionatelywith his people at each point along their journey’.22 After revoking his name in Hos. 1.2–9, Yahweh revokes the revocation in second Isaiah (40-55) revealing an advance on the divine name, now as ‘I AM he’ (Isa. 43.10-13, 25; 46.4; 51.12). In this advancement ‘Yahweh is pledging that even to the farthest future, he will remain “I am he” to Israel’.23 This is what it means for Yahweh to be the ‘first and the last’, and not just for Israel but for all of creation (Isa. 48.12). Such a revelation of the self-naming God is further expanded and clarified in the incarnation. Canvassing various interpretations of Jesus’ use of ‘I AM’/ego eimi throughout the gospels, Grenz examines the I AM sayings of the Gospel of John, especially the High Priestly Prayer of Jn 17.6, 26 before concluding: ‘The exegetical trail we have been traversing . . . leads to the conclusion that, whatever else John might have in mind here, the revealed and bestowed name must be the divine I AM. What Jesus has received from the Father is the Old Testament name of the covenanting God of Israel. Consequently, Jesus shares with the Father the great I AM self-designation.’24 This self-identity is not, however, without differences as well. While Jesus shares the divine identity, to use Richard Bauckham’s helpful terminology,25 he and the Father are not simply identical. Jesus reveals God as his Father, literally ‘the Father of the Son’, and Jesus himself is revealed as ‘the Son of the Father’. It is such a divine self-revelation that led the early Church to speak of the Father, the Son and the Spirit as homoousios and together they are the one true God in a form of mutual indwelling. Here we must think supremely of the incarnate Son’s relationship to the Father by the Holy Spirit, the central theme of Spirit Christology,26 and the large number of texts which testify to the divine identity shared by Father, Son and

22 23 24 25

26

Grenz, The Named God, p. 151. Ibid., p. 167. Ibid., p. 205. In Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity (Milton Keynes: Paternoster/Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), Richard Bauckham masterfully develops and defends the thesis that Jesus (and the Spirit) share the divine identity as revealed in the Old Testament and as such his proposal dovetails nicely with that of Grenz, while they differ in some of the details. A detailed theological interpretation of those texts which narrate the relationship between the incarnate Son and the Holy Spirit throughout the gospels, something I now refer to as ‘Messianic kairoi’, can be found in Habets, The Anointed Son, pp. 118–87.

Getting Beyond the Filioque with Third Article Theology

217

Holy Spirit. I have confined the treatment to a few representative illustrations.27 When we turn to John 5 and the story of Jesus healing a lame man on the Sabbath and the subsequent dialogue with the Jews, we see Jesus asserting a functional equivalence to God his Father; ‘My Father is working until now, and I myself am working’ (v. 17), which was clearly understood by the Jews to be an assertion of relational equivalence; ‘For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he . . . was calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God’ (v. 18). Such functional and relational equivalence is repeated throughout the gospels. If we merely stay with John’s Gospel we may remember such texts as Jn 5.23, ‘. . . all will honour the Son even as they honour the Father . . .’; Jn 5.26, ‘. . . just as the Father has life in himself, even so he gave to the Son also to have life in himself . . .’; Jn 8.19, ‘ . . . if you knew me, you would know my Father also’; Jn. 10.30, ‘. . . I and the Father are one’;28 Jn 10.38, ‘. . . the Father is in me, and I in the Father’; Jn 12.44, ‘. . . he who believes in me, does not believe in me but in him who sent me’; Jn 12.45, ‘He who sees me sees the one who sent me’; Jn14.7, ‘If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; from now on you know him and have seen him’; Jn 14.9, ‘. . . he who has seen me has seen the Father . . .’ and Jn 15.23, ‘He who hates me hates my Father also’. In Harner’s considered opinion, ‘This theme of mutual indwelling expresses the dynamic aspect of the unity between the Father and the Son. It is a way of stating, in what we might call pre-Trinitarian language, that distinct “persons” exist in mutual interrelatedness within the Godhead.’29 To these illustrative texts we must also add those that speak of the oneness of the Spirit with God. Once again limiting ourselves to representative texts we may include the following: 1 Cor. 2.10-12, ‘For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God’; Jn 14.16-18, ‘I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, that he may be with you forever, that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see him or know him, but you know him because he abides with you and will be in you. 27 28

29

More examples may be found throughout Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel. Here once again the Jews pick up stones as they realize that with this statement Jesus is claiming to be God, ‘The Jews answered him, “For a good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy; and because you, being a man, make yourself out to be God”’, Jn 10.33. Philip B. Harner, The “I AM” of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Johannine Usage and Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970), p. 41.

218

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you’; Rom. 8.9-10, ‘However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him. If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the Spirit is alive because of righteousness’; and Eph. 2.20-22, ‘having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God the Spirit’.30 The combined testimony of the Scriptures is that God names himself as Yahweh, which is linked to the language of ‘I AM’ and denotes be-ing or dynamic presence. Those texts briefly addressed above, and many others, confirm that Jesus and the Spirit share the divine identity with the Father, yet each in their respective ways; Jesus as the eternal Son and the Holy Spirit as the one who proceeds from the Father through the Son. Such texts lead to the development of a Trinitarian and relational ontology. Building upon the substantial biblical testimony to the oneness of the Triune being of God in relational terms, Western theologians developed what has come to be termed the doctrine of subsistent relations, which stresses the oneness of the Godhead; while Eastern theologians developed what has come to be termed the doctrine of perichoresis, as a way of further explaining the dynamic relationships between the three persons. When both concepts are combined in such a way that they mutually explicate the other then something like a biblically grounded, theologically informed relational ontology results. Only when this ontology is recognized can we appreciate the revolutionary transformation of the concept of ousia by the early Church in relational terms from the Greek impersonal concept of being.31

b Subsistent relations fully in act We turn first to the notion of subsistent relations. Thomas Aquinas rightly argued that the one being (ousia) of God is the relationship of the three Persons (hypostaseis). 30

31

In Panarion 74, in opposition to the heresy of the pneumatomachi, Epiphanius of Salamis shows that the Holy Spirit is equally Lord with the Father and the Son, citing as evidence Wis.1.7; Jn 15.26; 16.13; 16.14; 1 Cor. 2.10 and 1 Cor. 12.11. Epiphanius, The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, Volume Two: Books II and III (Sects 47–80, De Fide) (trans. Frank Williams; Leiden: Brill, 1994), p. 472. For a critical history of the concept of ousia and the transformation of the term into a thoroughly relational category, see Grenz, The Named God, pp. 1–50.

Getting Beyond the Filioque with Third Article Theology

219

In God essence is not really distinct from person; and yet . . . the persons are really distinguished from each other. For Person signifies relation as subsisting in the divine nature. But relation as referred to the essence does not differ therefrom really; but only in our way of thinking; while as referred to an opposite relation, it has a real distinction by virtue of that opposition. Thus there are one essence and three persons.32

The doctrine of personal subsistence clearly articulates the relational being of God as involving three co-equal persons in one undivided (relational) substance. Bracken has rightly argued for the retention of the doctrine of co-inherence, or subsistent relations, but in more dynamic terms: ‘Aquinas argued that the works of God ad extra are one. I would argue that the works of God ad intra are likewise one’.33 This, of course, is a paraphrase of the doctrine of divine simplicity; but it is a concept of simplicity that is not static, in some caricature of Greek substance ontology, or alternatively a Boethian account of person.34 Boethius famously defined ‘person’ as: ‘persona estrationalis naturae individua substantia’ (‘a person is the individual substance of a rationale nature’).35 If this view were to dominate then we would have to posit three individual substances in the Godhead, or what simply amounts to tritheism. The basic mistake the Boethian definition makes is that it separates essence from existence in God when the two cannot be separated. Thus the notion of subsistent relations and divine simplicity are concomitant doctrines in a relational ontology. Such a dynamic and Trinitarian construal of the divine being safeguards a fully relational understanding of divine substance. Here we might more properly speak of subsistent relations fully in act (actus purus).36 Still closer to the tradition of a relational ontology is the work of twelfthcentury spiritual writer Richard St Victor who, in contrast to Boethius, defined a divine person as follows: ‘divina persona est naturae divinae incommunicabilis existentia’ (‘a divine person is the incommunicable existence of the divine 32

33

34

35 36

Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica (trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province; New York: Benzinger Bros., 1947), I.39.1., as cited by Douglas F. Kelly, Systematic Theology: Grounded in Holy Scripture and Understood in the Light of the Church, Volume One: The God Who Is: The Holy Trinity (Fearn: Mentor, 2008), pp. 491–2. Bracken, ‘In Need of A New Metaphysics?’, p. 757. Citing Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologica, 1, q. 45, a. 6 resp. For a critical account of such misunderstandings of substance metaphysics, see Alston, ‘Substance and the Trinity’, pp. 179–202. This is not to imply that Aquinas rejected the Boethian definition of person outright; it would appear he didn’t. However it is clear that the full development of the notion of ‘person’ in the Summa theologica gives priority to the notion of relation over substance. Boethius, Liber de Persona et Duabus Naturis, Ch. 3. For an account of divine simplicity and actus purus that comports with my position here, see Thomas G. Weinandy, ‘Does God Suffer?’, First Things 117 (2001), pp. 35–41.

220

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

nature’).37 Richard built his divine ontology not upon a priori philosophical speculation but a posteriori,38 as he reflected on the biblical assertion that ‘God is love’ (1 Jn 4.8). While idiosyncratic in its details,39 Richard argued that the three Persons of the Trinity wholly co-indwell in one another in such a way that their personal distinctness as Father, Son and Holy Spirit remains irreducible or incommunicable. Thus, unlike many recent accounts which argue the relations of the Trinity are prior to the persons,40 Richard argues that, in Douglas Kelly’s words, ‘although Father, Son and Holy Spirit co-inhere in one another, their distinct conscious subjectivity is not lost on one another or merged into an impersonal unity’.41 Kelly nicely summarizes this as follows: ‘The three divine Persons thus exist in common relationship, while having an incommunicable reality about each one in particular’.42 These two axioms; first, the irreducible distinction among the three divine Persons within the unity of the being of God, and second, the incommunicable distinctions amongst the three Persons are distinguishing features of Trinitarian orthodoxy and are shared by East and West alike. Bracken has called for more sustained attention to the category of ‘intersubjective relations and simultaneous mutual causality’, something we do find already in the tradition of Aquinas and the Victorine, to name just two. We also already find such inter-subjectivity within the Eastern tradition as seen in their focus upon the perichoretic relations of the Triunity; the theme of the next section.

c Perichoresis and onto-relations It was the theology which lay behind the Western notion of subsistent relations fully in act which the Greek Fathers would speak of by means of an analogy – that 37 38

39

40

41 42

Richard St Victor, De Trinitate (trans. Gaston Salet; Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1959), IV.22. In his Prologue, Salet clearly represents such a methodology as follows: ‘From faith, which is the foundation and origin of everything good, we ought with all our ardor to rise to the understanding of faith, climbing from the visible to spiritual realities, and to the Eternal himself ’, Richard St Victor, De Trinitate, p. 13. Richard sought to explain or justify why there had to be three persons for perfect love to exist on logical grounds and at this point he departed from revealed theology into a form of analytic speculation. Surprisingly in many ways, Romanian Orthodox theologian Dumitru Stanliloae offers a similar account in his Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, vol. 1: Revelation and Knowledge of the Triune God: The Experience of God (trans. and eds Ioana Ionita and Robert Barringer; Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1994), pp. 265–7. See for instance the example of Paul Fiddes, Participating in God: A Pastoral Doctrine of the Trinity (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2000); and ‘Participating in the Trinity’, Perspectives in Religious Studies 33 (2006), pp. 375–91. Fiddes defines ‘subsistent relations’ incorrectly when he argues that ‘there are no persons “at each end of a relation,” but the “persons” are simply the relations’, ibid., p. 281. Kelly, Systematic Theology, p. 494. Ibid., p. 496.

Getting Beyond the Filioque with Third Article Theology

221

of perichoresis. Staniloae reminds us that ‘Being does not exist really except in hypostasis . . . We can say more: the spiritual essence that is subsistent only in a subject always implies a conscious relation between subjects, and consequently a hypostatization of that essence in numerous subjects, in perfect reciprocal interpenetration and transparance[sic] – what Saint John of Damascus termed perichôrêsis.’43 Staniloae goes on to speak of such relations in the same terms as those of Bracken – Divine inter-subjectivity. ‘The subsistence of the divine being is nothing other than the concrete existence of divine subjectivity in three modes which compenetrate each other, hence a threefold subjectivity’.44 The divine persons are in full and transparent communion with each other as pure subjects which implies their complete inter-subjectivity. Thomas Torrance can even speak in this regard of there being three conscious subjects within the Godhead when he comments: Not only is the divine consciousness proper to the nature of the one God common to Father, Son and Holy Spirit alike, but each divine person in virtue of his distinctiveness shares in it differently and appropriately, so that we would have to say that while Father, Son and Holy Spirit constitute one indivisible God, they do so as three conscious subjects in mutual love and life and activity. That is to say, coinherence applies fully to the three divine Persons as conscious of One another in their distinctive otherness and oneness.45

It is significant to notice that calls for a focus on divine inter-subjectivity have come from within other attempts at what I am calling a Third Article Theology. A prime example of this is found in the work of Clark Pinnock, whose Flame of Love sets out the first attempt at a systematic Third Article Theology. At one point he argues that ‘Plurality in God is real plurality, and relationality belongs to his essence. The dimension of intersubjectivity is basic – Father, Son and Spirit are three subjects in common. They constitute a community of persons in reciprocity as subjects of one divine life. They joyously share life together.’46 Pinnock makes this comment amidst a critique of Augustine’s notion of the Spirit as the bond of love, a concept Pinnock finds lacking as it makes the Spirit

43 44 45

46

Stanliloae, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, p. 256. Ibid., p. 260. Thomas F. Torrance, ‘Towards an Ecumenical Consensus on the Trinity’, in Ecumenical Perspectives: Towards Doctrine Agreement (ed. T. F. Torrance; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), p. 97. This is paralleled in Pannenberg’s qualified statement: ‘If the trinitarian relations among Father, Son, and Spirit have the form of mutual self-distinction, they must be understood not merely as different modes of being of the one divine subject but as living realizations of separate centers of action’, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), p. 319. Clark H. Pinnock, Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Downers Grove: IVP, 1996), p. 40.

222

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

passive, brings his personal subsistence into question and leads inexorably to modalism. In Staniloae’s work, offered as a corrective to certain Augustinian ‘misadventures’,47 we find a solution to an emphasis on static substance ontology, while still finding traces of the problem in the solution. Rejecting notions of the generatio activa of the Father and the generatio passiva of the Son as lacking full Trinitarian agency, Staniloae speaks of divine inter-subjectivity in sublime fashion but fails to mention that the Father himself is ‘personed’ by the Son and the Spirit just as he is involved in ‘personing’ them in the eternal generation of the Son and the eternal spiration of the Spirit.48 Only when such fully Trinitarian relations are posited whereby each person is active in the ‘personing’ of the other as subject is a fully perichoretic view of God possible, one which accords with the relational ontology of a Third Article Theology.49 Arguably the most profoundly useful suggestion in recent theology that attempts to complete the circle of divine subjectivity along the lines indicated by Bracken, Staniloae and Third Article theologians has been offered by Fr. Thomas Weinandy, and he does this precisely by means of looking at the specific role of the Holy Spirit within the intra-Trinitarian life.50 His thesis is that: . . . the Father begets the Son in or by the Holy Spirit. The Son is begotten by the Father in the Spirit and thus the Spirit simultaneously proceeds from the Father as the one in whom the Son is begotten. The Son, being begotten in the

47

48

49

50

Lest Augustine be tarred with every brush of Western heresy, as was the habit of Thomas Torrance and Colin Gunton, to name but two, I simply note the recent revisions of Augustinian interpretation given by Lewis Ayres: ‘The Fundamental Grammar of Augustine’s Trinitarian Theology’, in Augustine and His Critics: Essays in Honour of Gerald Bonner (eds Robert Dodaro and George Lawless; London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 51–76; ‘“Remember That You Are Catholic” (serm. 52.2): Augustine on the Unity of the Triune God’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 8 (2000), pp. 39–82; and Michel R. Barnes: ‘Rereading Augustine’s Theology of the Trinity’, in The Trinity (eds Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall and Gerald O’Collins; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 145–76; and ‘Augustine in Contemporary Trinitarian Theology’, Theological Studies 56 (1995), pp. 237–50. Such accounts highlight the distinctly relational and Trinitarian nature of Augustine’s theology, despite any other criticisms his work might engender. Staniloae, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, pp. 260–2. Staniloae correctly argues that neither Father, Son nor Spirit are strictly passive in their relations to each other as this would make the persons an object of the other, whereas divine inter-subjectivity demands that each of the three persons of the Godhead remain subject to the other two. Pannenberg offers a similar argument in his account of Triune self-distinction and mutual dependency when he argues the fallacy of the tradition is in looking at the Trinitarian relations from the perspective of origin rather than reciprocity. Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, pp. 317–20. The Thomistic version of the oppositio relationis is rejected by Staniloae as being too static, lacking full perichoretic reality. He favours the version posited by Basil who spoke of this oppositio, ‘but he took care to affirm with equal vigor that in these acts of coming forth there persisted the unity of being of the persons who are “opposed”’, Staniloae, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, p. 262. Notable others who have worked in this direction and deserve further consideration include John Owen, Jonathan Edwards and Colin Gunton; each of whom seek to construct a fully Trinitarian

Getting Beyond the Filioque with Third Article Theology

223

Spirit, simultaneously loves the Father in the same Spirit by which he himself is begotten (is Loved). The Spirit (of Love) then, who proceeds from the Father as the one in whom the Father begets the Son, both conforms or defines (persons) the Son to be the Son and simultaneously conforms or defines (persons) the Father to be the Father. The Holy Spirit, in proceeding from the Father as the one in whom the Father begets the Son, conforms the Father to be Father for the Son and conforms the Son to be Son for (of) the Father.51

Implicit in Weinandy’s proposal, but not developed in his work, is the active role of the Son and the Spirit in ‘personing’ the Father as well.52 In this regard, the suggestion of Grenz is particularly apt. While not owning all the nuances of his proposal, his stress upon the mutually constituted relations within the intraTrinitarian being is exactly the direction Scripture points and where a more dynamic and relational divine ontology needs to work. Grenz suggests: It is in this respect that the act of God naming God emerges as a triune or Trinitarian act. Present in this act of naming are Namer, Named, and Name. Moreover, all three are constituted by the act. The second of the three is constituted as the one who is named by the Namer, of course. But the first is likewise constituted as the Namer of the Named, who receives back the bestowed Name. And insofar as the name is bound up with the very essence of its bearer, the third emerges as the Name shared by the Namer and the Named. Exchanging substantive for dynamic language leads to the conclusion that the act involves Naming, Being Named, and Name Sharing.53

While still giving priority to the Father and a degree of subsidiarity to the Spirit, the dynamic contours of Grenz’s proposal are entirely along the lines of the relational ontology I am seeking to develop, an idea already found in the tradition embedded within the doctrine of perichoresis.

51 52

53

ontology and do so by a concentrated focus on the person of the Holy Spirit. See Kelly M. Kapic, Communion with God: The Divine and the Human in the Theology of John Owen (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007); Kyle Strobel, Jonathan Edwards’s Theology: A Reinterpretation (London: T&T Clark, 2013), pp. 23–71, pp. 234–42; Colin Gunton, Act and Being: Towards a Theology of the Divine Attributes (London: SCM, 2002), pp. 94–108; idem., The Promise of Trinitarian Theology (2d edn; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997), pp. 128–36; and idem., The One, the Three and the Many: God, Creation and the Culture of Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 188–209. I am grateful to Kyle Strobel and Andrew Picard for pointing me to specific references in Edwards and Gunton. Weinandy, The Father’s Spirit of Sonship, p. 17. I have worked with, and developed, Weinandy’s thesis extensively in other work, see Myk Habets, ‘A Little Trinitarian Reflection’, Evangel 19 (2001), pp. 80–1; ‘Spirit Christology: Seeing in Stereo’, pp. 199–235; The Anointed Son, pp. 188–227 and ‘Filioque? Nein’, pp. 161–202. Grenz, The Named God, p. 290 (italics mine).

224

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

Leonardo Boff makes clear the dynamic aspect of perichoresis when explaining its Greek use and the Latin equivalents: The Greek word has a double meaning, which explains why two words were used to translate it into Latin. Its first meaning is that of one thing being contained in another, dwelling in, being in another – a situation of fact, a static state. This understanding was translated by circuminsessio, a word derived from sedere and sessio, being seated, having its seat in, seat. Applied to the mystery of the communion of the Trinity this signified: one Person is in the others, surrounds the others on all sides (circum-), occupies the same space as the others, fills them with its presence . . . Its second meaning is active and signifies the interpenetration or interweaving of one Person with the others and in the others. This understanding seeks to express the living and eternal process of relating intrinsic to the three Persons, so that each is always penetrating the others. This meaning was translated as circumincessio, derived from incedere, meaning to permeate, compenetrate and interpenetrate.54

A doctrine of perichoresis allows us to speak of the one God in dynamic terms, and in ways which seek to express the genuine unity in distinction between the three persons. The doctrine also aids in rejecting an unbalanced essentialist approach which has tended to dominate Western Trinitarian theology since at least the time of Augustine, and an overly strong doctrine of monopatrism in the East.55 In order to more fully express the inter-subjectivity of the Godhead, that is, both subsistent relations fully in act and a doctrine of perichoresis, we should have to adopt some such notion as that posited by Thomas Torrance of ‘ontorelations’ or being-constituting-relations. Building on the doctrines of both the homoousios tō patri and perichoresis, Torrance developed what he termed an onto-relational concept of the divine persons. By onto-relational Torrance implies an understanding of the three divine persons in the one God in which the ontic relations between them belong to what they essentially are in themselves in their distinctive hypostaseis. In short, onto-relations are being-constitutingrelations. The differing relations between the Father, Son and Spirit belong to what they are as Father, Son and Spirit; so the homoousial relations between the three divine Persons belong to what they are in themselves as Persons and

54 55

Leonardo Boff, The Trinity and Society (New York: Orbis, 1988), pp. 135–6. Even if such treatments of Western substance ontology have tended to exaggerate the claims. All talk of being, especially within the Christian tradition with its emphasis upon the being of God, are claims towards a substance ontology. It is the nature of such an ontology that is in dispute. As David Bentley Hart has said, ‘a theology that refuses to address questions of ontology can never be more than a mythology’, The Beauty of the Infinite, p. 213.

Getting Beyond the Filioque with Third Article Theology

225

in their communion with one another.56 In summary, the divine being and the divine communion are to be understood wholly in terms of one another. As the ousia or be-ing of God is fully Trinitarian, and thus fully relational, we must understand the being of God as having intrinsic constitutive relations.57 The onto-relations are not modes of existence, as in the Basilian notion of τροποV ὑπαρξeωV (tropos huparxeos), but are instead eternally existing relations or sχεseιV (skeseis), substantially subsisting in God and are beyond all time (ἀχρονωV), beyond all origin (ἀναρχωV) and beyond all cause (ἀναιτιωV).58 They are, as Del Colle explains; ‘persons in the fullest sense, constituted by relationality that is homoousial and perichoretic, one with each other in their relational being and mutually inhering in each other’.59 As a direct result, Torrance affirms the traditional taxis of the divine Persons (the eternal processions) with the stipulation that the eternal generation of the Son and the spiration of the Spirit from the Father apply only to the mode of their enhypostatic differentiation and not to the causation of their being.60 Here Torrance is following the theology of Epiphanius of Salamis particularly. I would add to this account the enhypostatic differentiation of the Father is also ‘personed’ in the simultaneous acts of begetting and spirating the Son and the Spirit, as both Son and Spirit relate to the Father as Father, as fons divinitatis, and as the mia archē. As Torrance writes: When we consider the order of the three divine Persons in this perichoretic way we do indeed think of the Father as first precisely as Father, but not as the Deifier of the Son and the Spirit . . .61 This does not derogate from the Deity of Son or of the Spirit, any more than it violates the real distinctions within the Triune Being of God, so that no room is left for either a Sabellian modalism or an Arian subordinationism in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. . . . Since no distinction between underived Deity and derived Deity is tenable, there can be 56 57

58

59

60

61

Thomas F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), pp. 102–3. Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, p. 323, follows Robert Jenson’s contention that Augustine missed this fundamental point of Nicene theology, that ‘the relations between the persons are constitutive nor merely for their distinctions but also for their deity’. Cf., Robert W. Jenson, The Triune Identity: God According to the Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), p. 119. This is the language of Gregory Nazianzen over Basil and Gregory Nyssen. Gregory Nazianzen, Or., 23.8, 11; 29.2ff, 16; 30.11, 19f; 31.9, 14, 16; 42.15ff. References from Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith, p. 321. Ralph Del Colle, ‘“Person” and “Being” in John Zizioulas’ Trinitarian Theology: Conversations with Thomas F. Torrance and Thomas Aquinas’, Scottish Journal of Theology 54 (2001), p. 79. See Del Colle, ‘Person and Being’, p. 80, who cites Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996), p. 179; and Trinitarian Perspectives: Toward Doctrinal Agreement (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1994), p. 135. Torrance here cites John Calvin in support: ‘The name of God is restricted to the Father only in respect of his being the Principle of Godhead (Deitatis Principium), not because he is the source of the divine Being (non essentiando), as the fanatics babble, but by reason of order (ratione ordinis)’, Institutes 1.13.26.

226

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

no thought of one Person being ontologically or divinely prior to another or subsequent to another. Hence while the Father in virtue of his Fatherhood is first in order, the Father, the Son and the Spirit eternally coexist as three fully co-equal Persons in a perichoretic togetherness and in-each-otherness in such a way that, in accordance with the particular aspect of divine revelation and salvation immediately in view, as in the New Testament Scriptures, there may be an appropriate variation in the trinitarian order from that given in Baptism, as we find in the benediction, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” Nevertheless both Athanasius and Basil counselled the Church to keep to the order of the divine Persons given in Holy Baptism, if only to counter the damaging heresy of Sabellianism.62

Torrance affirms a number of Trinitarian axioms that contribute to his ontorelational definition of divine ontology.63 He first affirms the personal status of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit but he also affirms as orthodox the personal status of the one being of God. Thus in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity the one being of God does not refer to static substance or abstract ousia (philosophically derived notions of absolute being) but to the intrinsically personal I AM of the self-naming God.64 It is, as such, a thoroughly relational ontology. Second, Torrance lays stress on the Monarchy of the personal being of God, ‘or the one ultimate Principle of Godhead, in which all three divine Persons share equally, for the whole indivisible Being of God belongs to each of them as it belongs to all of them’.65 The Monarchy is thus the Triune Godhead and the person of the Father (enhypostatic), but, strictly speaking, it is the being of the Father, the one Triune Godhead, that Monarchy actually refers to.66 Third, and consequently, the Spirit 62 63

64

65

66

Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, pp. 179–80. These are worked out in relation to ‘The Agreed Statement’ on the Trinity in dialogue with the Eastern Orthodox Communion. See Thomas F. Torrance, ‘The Agreed Statement on the Holy Trinity’, in Theological Dialogue between Orthodox and Reformed Churches, vol. 2 (ed. T. F. Torrance; Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1993), pp. 219–26. Torrance, Trinitarian Perspectives, p. 112. It is on this point that ‘Torrance and Zizioulas are on the same page’, writes Ralph Del Colle, ‘Person and Being’, p. 73. For theological accounts of the ontological significance of the divine name, see Kelly, Systematic Theology, pp. 461–4; and Grenz, The Named God, especially pp. 133–246. Torrance, Trinitarian Perspectives, p. 112 (emphasis mine). See also Torrance, Theological Dialogue between Orthodox and Reformed Churches, vol. 2, p. 231. Torrance accepts the doctrine of the Monarchy according to Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzen and Cyril of Alexandria, over that of the other Cappadocians; and in so doing he rejects what may be termed standard, Eastern Palamite theology. For critical engagement see Del Colle, ‘Person and Being’, pp. 70–86. It is not the point of this essay to defend this reading of Greek patristic theology except to note that Torrance’s interpretation is not idiosyncratic and is shared by a number of Eastern Orthodox theologians such as Nicholas Loudovikos, ‘Person Instead of Grace and Dictated Otherness: John Zizioulas’ Final Theological Position’, The Heythrop Journal 52 (2011), pp. 684–99, and Hegumen Hilarion Alfeyev, ‘The Trinitarian Teaching of St. Gregory Nazianzen’, in The Trinity: East/West Dialogue (eds Melville Y. Stewart and Richard Swinburne; trans. Eugene Grushetsky and

Getting Beyond the Filioque with Third Article Theology

227

proceeds from the Father, but given the previous definition of Monarchy, ‘the Holy Spirit proceeds ultimately from the Triune Being of the Godhead’.67 Thus the Spirit proceeds out of the mutual relations within the one being of the Holy Trinity ‘in which the Father indwells the Spirit and is Himself indwelt by the Spirit’.68 Hence the biblical testimony that ‘the Lord is the Spirit’ (2 Cor. 3.17).

d The Monarchy of God As a result and a natural implication of a perichoretic and onto-relational way of thinking, I now want to directly suggest that the Father himself is ‘personed’ by the begetting of the Son and the spiration of the Spirit and the nature of their mutual love in return. There is thus origin and action for all three Persons of the Trinity.69 We see the foundations of such a position already in the patristic tradition when, as Staniloae highlights, ‘the self of the Father would not know itself if it did not have the Son in the mirror of its consciousness as another consciousness of its own. This does not mean that the Son brings the Father knowledge of himself from outside, but that the Father knows himself only inasmuch as he is the subsistence of the divine essence as Father, hence inasmuch as he is the begetter of the Son.’70 But why limit the self-knowledge of the Father through the Son and not also speak of the Holy Spirit? And then why not go on to make this a truly Trinitarian and perichoretic notion? The Father is the source of both Son and the Spirit; the Son through his eternal generation, the Spirit by his eternal spiration. But as we have already had occasion to see, neither Son nor

67

68 69

70

Xenia Grushetsky; Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003), pp. 107–30. This is also the interpretation adopted by Reformed and Orthodox theologians who participated in and drafted the ‘Agreed Statement on the Holy Trinity’, see Torrance, Theological Dialogue between Orthodox and Reformed Churches, vol. 2, pp. 219–26. Conversely, the following adopt the more common Orthodox understanding that the person of the Father is the Monarchia: Boris Bobrinskoy, The Mystery of the Trinity: Trinitarian Experience and Vision in the Biblical and Patristic Tradition (trans. Anthony P. Gythiel; Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999), pp. 264–8; Vladimir Lossky, Orthodox Theology: An Introduction (trans. Ian and Ihita Kesarcodi-Watson; Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1978), p. 46, and idem., The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (trans. by members of the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius; Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976), p. 58; John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (New York: Fordham University Press, 1983), p. 183; and John D. Zizioulas, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997), pp. 40–1, and idem., Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church (ed. Paul McPartland; London and New York: T&T Clark, 2006), p. 134. Torrance, Trinitarian Perspectives, p. 113. At this point Torrance and Zizioulas find themselves diametrically opposed. Torrance, Trinitarian Perspectives: Toward Doctrinal Agreement, p. 113. Weinandy, The Father’s Spirit of Sonship, pp. 53–65, also seeks to illustrate both action and origin of the Father by appeal to the Athanasian-Nazianzen-Epiphanian-Nicene theology that the monarchy belongs to the being of God and also then to the person of the Father. Staniloae, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, p. 258.

228

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

Spirit are passive in such begetting and spirating, and the Father himself receives from the Son and the Spirit as much as he gives. From Weinandy we are also reminded that the Spirit is involved in the begetting of the Son in the Spirit and the Father spirates the Spirit in the same act by which he begets the Son, ‘for the Spirit proceeds from the Father as the fatherly Love in whom or by whom the Son is begotten’.71 In this way the Persons sustain themselves in what they are. But we may add another level to these actions and origins – that of the Monarchy.72 By being the eternally begotten Son, the Son ‘persons’ the Father with his monarchia, and by being the eternally spirating Spirit, the Spirit ‘persons’ the Father in his monarchia also. Torrance attempts to summarize such a position when he writes of Athanasius: He certainly thought of the Father as the ἀρχη, but he immediately associated the Son with that ἀρχη . . . While the Son is associated with the ἀρχη of the Father in this way, he cannot be thought of as ἀρχη subsisting in himself, for by his very nature he is inseparable from the Father of whom he is the Son. By the same token, however, the Father cannot be thought of as ἀρχη apart from the Son, for precisely as Father he is Father of the Son . . . While the Father was on occasion denoted as the ἀίτιος and the ἀρχη of the Son that was meant to express the truth that the Father is the Father of the Son and that the Son is the Son of the Father, but not to withdraw anything from the complete equality of the Son with the Father, for the Sonship of the Son is as ultimate as the Fatherhood of the Father.73

In his own adaptation of Torrance’s position, Benjamin Dean offers a complementary perspective on this theme when he suggests that, ‘There is an authority that is common to Father, Son and Holy Spirit because each Person shares perichoretically in the One unified Being of God . . . Yet there is an authority that is the particular personal property of the Father alone. That is, generative authority and ultimate rule is appropriate to the Person of the Father in terms of source and origin in a manner that is hypostatically peculiar.’74 In the economy the Son comes to do the will of the Father who sent him, and the Spirit is sent by the Father through the Son to accomplish all that the Father and Son have given him to do. They do so willingly for the monarchy of the 71 72

73 74

Weinandy, The Father’s Spirit of Sonship, p. 69. In line with Torrance’s contention, Pannenberg suggests such a ‘dependent divinity’ (Ted Peter’s term for this form of relational ontology, God as Trinity: Relationality and Temporality in Divine Life [Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993], p. 135) does ‘not mean that the monarchy of the Father is destroyed’. Rather, ‘By their work the Son and Spirit serve the monarchy of the Father. Yet the Father does not have his kingdom or monarchy without the Son and Spirit, but only through them’, Systematic Theology, p. 324. Pannenberg does not, however, follow the argument of Torrance for applying the term Father (and thus the monarchy) to the whole Trinity. Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, pp. 325–6. Torrance, The Trinitarian Faith, pp. 312–13. Dean, ‘Person and Being’, p. 74.

Getting Beyond the Filioque with Third Article Theology

229

Father is as constitutive of the Godhead that they are a part of as is Sonship or communion. Pannenberg is adamant on this point, ‘The fact that the monarchy of the Father and knowledge of it are conditional on the Son demands that we bring the economy of God’s relations with the world into the question of the unity of the divine essence.’75 As Athanasius held, since the whole Godhead is in the Son and in the Spirit, they must be included with the Father in the one originless Source or Archē of the Holy Trinity.76 The Father would not be the Father, with his monarchia, if he was not the begetter of the Son and spirator of the Spirit.77 The monarchy of the Father is thus a personal attribute which comes with his fatherhood, like filiation is for the Son and communion is for the Spirit. The absolute Monarchia, however, belongs to the entire undivided Godhead, and is thus not limited to one Person.78 As the ‘Agreed Statement on the Holy Trinity’ brokered between the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and a PanOrthodox consultation states: The priority of the Father or Monarchy of the Father within the Trinity does not detract from the fact that the Father is not properly (κυριωV) Father apart from the Son and the Spirit, that the Son is not properly Son apart from the Father and the Spirit, and that the Spirit is not properly Spirit apart from the Father and the Son. Hence the Monarchia of the Father is perfectly what it is in the Father’s relation to the Son and the Spirit within the one indivisible Being of God.79

IV And the filioque? Unless a divine ontology is construed along relational lines, in accordance with God’s self-revelation, voices surrounding the filioque will simply continue to 75 76

77

78

79

Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, p. 327. Athanasius, Ad Antiochenos, 5; Contra Arianos, 4.1–4; cf Epiphanius, Panarion, 69.29; 73.16; Expositio fidei, 14. References from Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, p. 181. As Pannenberg would have it, ‘The monarchy of the Father is not established directly but through the mediation of the Son and Spirit. . . . the essence of the Father’s monarchy acquires its material definition through this mediation. At any rate, the mediation of the Son and Spirit cannot be extraneous to the monarchy of the Father’. Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, p. 327. Pannenberg differs from our account in that he places much of this mediation in history and not directly in the immanent Trinity. This is the teaching of Nicene theology which states that the Son proceeds from the being of the Father (ἐκthV όὐsiaV tου PatροV). References may be found throughout Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God, particularly pp. 180–5; and The Trinitarian Faith, pp. 310–11. Benjamin Dean comes to similar conclusions when he states: ‘According to Person, ontological priority and absolute authority belong to the Father. According to Being, ontological supremacy and absolute reign, rule and authority belong equally to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit’, in ‘Person and Being’, p. 72. Dean believes Torrance ‘underplays and effectively denies’ the role of the monarchy of the person of the Father (p. 72). While that is a little strong, Torrance does underemphasize this aspect, and that is something I have sought to correct here. Torrance, Theological Dialogue between Orthodox and Reformed Churches, vol. 2, p. 223.

230

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Filioque for the Twenty-first Century

speak past each other in a series of unfortunate miscommunications. Once a perichoretically conceived doctrine of God is constructed along onto-relational lines, then the issue of the filioque is, I suggest, resolved; it literally becomes irrelevant. The Spirit proceeds from the one being of the Triune Godhead and from the person of the Father, as the monarchia is both appropriated to the Father and a defining personal characteristic of his subsistence. Thus the filioque may be said to be both proper and improper at the same time. Both the filioquist and the monopatrist traditions contain elements of theological truth and theological error. When one is able to discern what is what, ecumenical rapprochement may be possible. That is certainly the intention of my own work. We may say, therefore, with large sectors of the tradition, East and West, that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, if by that it is meant from the perichoretic being of God. We may say the Spirit proceeds from the Father through that Son, if by that it is meant from the person of the Father by means of the person of the Son. But we may also say, although it is rather clumsy language and not to be preferred, that the Spirit proceeds from himself, if by that it is meant he proceeds from within his own divine being, and thus consequently from the Person of the Father through the Person of the Son. In presenting this thesis I am challenging the persistent position of Catholic theology, East and West in their respective ways, of positing the Holy Spirit as merely the one who perfects or completes the Father-Son relationship. I am arguing that the Spirit is as constitutive of the Father-Son relationship as Father and Son are of their relationships with him. Only such a Trinitarian theology can do full justice to a biblically derived relational ontology of the Godhead and make sense of the issues behind the filioque dispute. Such a relational ontology provides a biblical construal of divine inter-subjectivity and offers an account of God’s be-ing that is essentially in line with the ecumenical tradition (with clear modifications)80 and with a Third Article Theology, but one that is able to affirm what the filioquist West and the monopatrist East both want to safeguard: the essential Triunity of God.

80

I am aware that my most controversial move is to reject the standard theological principle that the Father has no origin, and that the Son has origin from the Father and the Spirit, theology enshrined in the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, Canon 1: ‘the Father (proceeding) from no one, but the Son from the Father only, and the Holy Ghost equally from both, always without beginning and end’. It is my contention that the Trinitarian theology of East and West contains within it such an inner theologic to revise this traditional teaching in a very traditional way. That is, I firmly believe ecumenical theology demands the revision of this aspect of ecumenical theology in order for it to be ecumenical theology.

Index of Biblical References Acts 1.6-8 Acts 2 Acts 2.17-21 Acts 2.33 Acts 2.38 1 Cor 2.10 1 Cor 2.10-12 1 Cor 12.3 1 Cor 12.11 1 Cor 15.24 2 Cor 3.17

149 96, 98 154

Jn 16.7 Jn 16.13 Jn 16.14 Jn 16.15 Jn 17.6 Jn 17.11 Jn 20.22

147 96 102, 200 107 113 113 98, 217 96–7 96–7 101 217 96 217 217 217 153 217 217 217 217 217 111 115 217 9, 20, 59, 102, 111, 113, 115, 141, 177, 187, 189, 218 85, 180 104 85 12, 101 216 44, 61, 101 107, 125, 171

216 216 216 216 200 152

1 Jn 2.20 1 Jn 2.23 1 Jn 3-4 1 Jn 4.1 1 Jn 4.8 1 Jn 4.13

104 98 203 178 220 186

152 125, 145 152 149, 153–4, 181 146 149 217 182 218 29 102, 227

Eph 2.20-22 Eph 4.3

218 1

Exod 3.14 Exod 6.7 Exod 33.19

216 216 216

Ezek 36.25-27 Ezek 37.13-14 Ezek 37.14 Ezek 39.29

152 152 101 152

Gal 4.6

85, 102, 107, 174

Gen 1 Gen 1.2-3 Gen 1.3-4

155 154 101

Heb 1.2-3 Heb 1.3 Heb 9.14 Isa 43.10-13 Isa 43.25 Isa 46.4 Isa 51.12 Isa 61.1 Isa 61.1-3

Jn 1.1 Jn 1.18 Jn 1.32 Jn 1.33 Jn 3.24 Jn 3.34 Jn 5.23 Jn 5.26 Jn 6.57 Jn 7.37-39 Jn 8.19 Jn 10.29 Jn 10.30 Jn 10.33 Jn 10.38 Jn 12.24 Jn 12.44 Jn 12.45 Jn 14.7 Jn 14.9 Jn 14.16-18 Jn 14.24 Jn 14.26 Jn 15.23 Jn 15.26

232

Index of Biblical References

Job 34.14

101

Joel 2.28

152

Lk 1.35 Lk 3.22 Lk 4.18 Lk 4.34

200 200 200 101

Mk 1.10-11

200

Mt 1.20-21 Mt 28.19

200 146

Phlm 2.7-10 Phlm 2.8 Ps 33.6 Ps 104.30

29 177 101, 203 101

Rev 1.6

144

Rom Rom 1.4 Rom 8-9 Rom 8.9-10 Rom 8.15 Rom 11

8 154 71 218 102 160

Author Index Aeneas of Paris 12 Alston, William 211, 219 Anatolios, Khaled 102 Andreae, Jacob 159–60 Anselm of Canterbury 12–13, 46–7, 171 of Havelberg 130 Aquinas, Thomas 12–13, 15, 93, 185–6, 188–96, 205, 207, 212, 218–20, 225 Aristotle 154, 164 Athanasius 10, 21, 24, 26–7, 30, 37, 59, 66–8, 73–4, 81–4, 104, 126, 137, 147–8, 168, 177, 185–9, 191–2, 204, 226–9 Athenagoras of Constantinople 131 Augustine 9–10, 24, 46–7, 88, 90, 97, 113, 115, 117–18, 124–5, 134, 137, 153, 160–1, 179, 181, 185–6, 188, 190–1, 195, 204–5, 207, 221–2, 224–5 Ayres, Lewis 88, 93, 104, 124, 222 Barlaam of Calabria 15 Barrett, C. K. 8–9 Barth, Karl 20–1, 24–5, 28–35, 37, 48–9, 51, 54, 60, 125, 135, 137–8, 143, 163, 170–1, 175, 177–8, 183, 213, 215 Basil of Caesarea 8, 21, 24–5, 30, 74, 98, 102, 128, 168–9, 181–2, 222, 225–6 Bauckham, Richard 216–17 Beccos, John 72, 76, 83 Blemmydes, Nikephoros 14, 65, 67, 73–8, 81, 84–5 Bobrinskoy, Boris 8, 41, 203, 205–6, 227 Boff, Leonardo 135, 137, 224 Bolotov, Boris 17–18 Bracken, Joseph 211–13, 219–22 Bulgakov, Sergei 132, 181 Calvin, John 3, 25, 32, 87–92, 94–100, 102–3, 105, 107–19, 143, 225 Caroli, Pierre 11, 87–8, 105 Chan, Simon 154–6

Chemnitz, Martin 160, 162 Congar, Yves 20–4, 39, 46, 52–3, 108–9, 111, 113–14, 116–19, 125, 137–8, 168, 206–7 Cyril of Alexandria 9, 16, 21, 24, 26, 80, 97, 185, 204, 226 Dayton, Donald 145, 149 Dean, Benjamin 35–7, 213, 228–9 del Colle, Ralph 137, 214, 225–6 Dulles, Avery 21–4, 39, 131, 135, 138 Dunn, James 151–2 Ellis, Brannon 3, 87, 90, 96, 99–100, 104–5 Epiphanius of Salamis 218, 225, 227, 229 Gregory of Cyprus 14, 17, 65–7, 70, 75–8, 84, 86 Gregory of Nyssa 9, 68–70, 74, 98, 204 Grenz, Stanley 215–16, 218, 223, 226 Gunton, Colin 222–3 Guretzki, David 3, 40, 42, 48, 53–4, 60 Habets, Myk 1, 4, 20, 51, 54, 60–1, 211–14, 216, 223 Hendry, George 8, 167–8 Hunsinger, George 34, 46, 54, 56–8 Ignatius 128 Irenaeus 105–6, 124, 133, 152 Jenson, Robert 4, 159, 161, 166, 225 Kuhn, Thomas 52, 172 Kung, Hans 41 Lossky, Vladimir 7, 45, 76, 133–4, 138–9, 167, 179, 182, 207, 227 Luther, Martin 143, 163

234

Author Index

Macchia, Frank 3, 141, 145–6, 149–50, 153 Marcellus of Ancyra 147–8 Maximus the Confessor 7, 10, 16–17, 21, 50–1, 73, 86, 96, 182 Meyendorff, John 84, 130, 168, 175–6, 227 Moltmann, Jurgen 41, 51, 54, 136–8, 143, 153, 168–9, 180 Nazianzus, Gregory Origen

8–9, 90, 97, 160, 195

124, 133, 147, 162

Palamas, Gregory 15, 17, 66, 77, 81, 83–4, 86, 138, 171, 179, 200, 203, 205 Pannenberg, Wolfhart 30, 122, 147, 164, 221–2, 225, 228–9 Photius 11–13, 75–6, 78, 84, 86, 92–5, 127, 176, 206–7 Rahner, Karl 135, 137–8, 144 Rogers, Eugene F. 154, 164, 169, 182

Siecienski, A. Edward 3, 7–8, 20, 41–3, 46–8, 50–1, 73, 86, 89, 92–3, 96, 185 Slee, Nicola 167–9 Staniloae, Dumitru 200, 203, 205, 221–2, 227 Tanner, Kathryn 4, 9, 14, 115, 168, 198–200 Tertullian 47, 124, 215 Torrance, Thomas F. 20–39, 43–4, 59–60, 89, 94, 109, 114, 125, 170, 172–6, 178, 180, 182–4, 204, 213, 221–2, 224–9 Vischer, Lukas 2, 18, 44, 51, 104, 132, 143, 147, 200 Volf, Miroslav 135, 151 Weinandy, Thomas G. 4, 51, 185, 188, 192–3, 199, 212, 219, 222–3, 227–8 Wendebourg, D. 65–6, 74–5, 77, 80 Williams, Rowan 34, 169–75 Yong, Amos 142, 145, 149, 151, 214

Schweizer, Eduard 169, 176–7, 179 Sheppard, Gerald 141–2, 151

Zizioulas, John

43, 50–1, 135, 225–7

Subject Index Adam/Adamic 29, 150 adoptionism 148 agent/agency 8, 107, 114, 163, 170, 178–82, 200, 207, 222 aggiornamento 42 agnosticism 85 Alexandrian 10, 192 Anabaptist 54–5 Anglican 17, 21, 39, 44, 56, 139 anoint/anointed/anointing 111, 115, 152–3, 177–8, 181, 200, 208, 212, 214, 216, 223 anthropology/anthropological 135, 168, 173–4, 213 Antioch 175–6 Apologists 170, 214 apostle 10, 60, 71, 142, 144, 218 Apostolic/Apostolica 13, 15, 124, 144–6, 150, 153 Arian/Arianism/Arians 9, 11, 24, 27, 53, 66, 87, 93, 96–7, 99, 124–5, 133–4, 147, 162, 171, 177, 183, 185–6, 225 ascension 199 aseity 3, 38, 87–9, 99–100, 102, 105 Athens 71–3, 215 atonement/atoning 29, 93, 144, 153–4 baptism/baptized/baptizes 3, 29–30, 55–6, 90, 103, 107, 137, 141–56, 173, 186, 200, 208, 226 Baptist 3, 54, 107, 120–1, 123, 125, 127, 129, 131, 133, 135, 137–40 begotten/begottenness 9–10, 16–17, 28, 33, 35, 37, 67, 69–70, 74, 88, 97, 102–3, 106, 110, 116–17, 133–4, 160, 187, 189, 191–4, 196, 202, 204–5, 222–3, 228 Biblicism 142 bibliolatry 180 bind/binding/binds 15, 122, 138, 165, 203

binitarian 199 Blachernae, synod of 14 bond/bonding/bonds 93, 161, 163, 179, 181, 190, 221 breath/breathe 10, 71–2, 80, 93–4, 101, 107–8, 111, 113, 119, 124, 130, 134, 152, 154, 165, 171, 181, 189–90, 203–4, 209–10 brethren 15, 127 bride 112, 181 Byzantine 11, 13–16, 48, 51, 65–6, 68, 71–3, 76, 78–9, 81, 83–4, 92, 125, 127–8, 130–1, 168, 175–6, 227 Calvary 149 Canon/Canons 9, 126, 230 Cappadocia/Cappadocian 11, 21, 24–5, 27, 29, 66, 69–70, 75, 84, 161–2, 186, 226 Carolingian 11, 93, 125, 127 Catechism 46, 87 Catholic/Catholicism/Catholics 1, 7, 10, 16–18, 21–3, 25, 39–40, 42–4, 46–7, 54, 56, 88–9, 91, 93–4, 97–9, 102–4, 109, 121, 123–4, 131, 133, 136, 138, 147, 164, 180, 211, 222, 230 causality 9, 11, 16, 25–6, 35–8, 73, 77–8, 117, 165, 220 Chalcedonian 87 charisma/charismania/charismata/ charismatic 81, 83–4, 136, 151, 172, 181 Charismatic 145, 148–9 Charlemagne 125, 127 Christendom 7, 40, 125, 129, 143 Christocentric 93, 134, 144–7, 149 Christological 3, 29–30, 98, 108–9, 137–8, 142–5, 152, 165, 170, 176, 184, 204, 211–14, 216, 223 Christomonism 93, 134

236

Subject Index

Church 1–4, 7–10, 12, 14–15, 17–20, 22–5, 27, 30, 40–2, 44–7, 53–61, 66, 73, 77–8, 81–2, 90, 93, 102–5, 109, 118, 120–2, 124–6, 128, 130–7, 143–6, 151–2, 154–5, 159, 168, 175, 180, 196, 203, 205–7, 213–14, 216, 218–19, 226–7 circumincessio 224 clergy 15, 126, 152 coeternal 90, 193 coexist 29, 226 coinherence 20, 51, 213, 221 Colloquy of Poissy 104–5 Communion/communion 7, 17–18, 43, 69, 74, 88, 96, 102, 105, 115, 118, 131, 135–6, 169, 173, 175, 178, 180–1, 183, 221, 223–7, 229 complementarity 4, 46, 91–2, 196 condemnation/condemned/ condemning 9, 12, 17 Confession/Confessional/ Confessionalism 16–17, 105, 120 confession/confessional/confessor 2, 10, 14, 50, 57, 65, 77, 87, 90–1, 96, 99, 102–5, 127–8, 142, 159–60, 167, 171, 180 conservatism 169 Constantinople 10–13, 15–16, 25, 53, 81, 121–2, 127–31, 134, 183, 189 constructivism 168 consubstantial/consubstantiality 12–13, 18–19, 26, 50, 59, 70, 72, 75, 77, 82, 84–6, 89–92, 94–7, 102, 104–5, 113, 134, 171 covenantal 215–16 creation 4, 25, 28–31, 67–72, 79–82, 137, 142, 145, 153–6, 162, 164, 169, 172–4, 178, 181, 216, 223 Creator 28–9, 61, 74, 82, 101, 169, 173, 176, 181 Creed/Creeds 3, 10–11, 17–18, 20, 24–5, 43, 49–50, 53, 60, 104, 120–2, 125–9, 131–2, 137, 141–3 creed/creeds 7, 9–12, 14–15, 17–18, 20, 42, 44, 46, 55–8, 87, 89, 95, 103–4, 120–3, 126–7, 130–1, 137, 139, 142–4, 159 creedal 9, 54, 56–7, 90, 120–3, 132, 135, 137–44, 176, 183

creedalism/creedalists 120, 122–3, 138 cross 53, 92, 145, 149, 153, 155, 176, 220 cult 31, 42, 54, 93, 105, 137, 141 Damascus 71–3, 78, 182, 203–4, 207, 221 daughtership 153 death 4, 14, 31, 112, 137, 142, 145, 154, 177, 199, 202, 215 decree 16, 34, 160 deformation 176 deity 23, 26–7, 29–30, 32, 36–7, 39, 46–8, 59, 67, 71–2, 74, 77–8, 84, 91, 99–100, 105, 107, 110, 124, 141, 146–8, 154, 161–4, 225 democracy/democratic 168, 176 denominational/denominationalism/ denominations 1, 42, 104, 122 devil 12, 112 dialectic/dialectical 12, 47, 75, 163, 179 dialogical 56, 123 disciple/discipleship 9–10, 54, 71, 75, 104, 107, 111, 113, 176, 178, 187, 199–200 dispensational 137 diversity 29, 54, 57, 146, 154–5, 201 Divine 30, 81, 86, 102, 107, 145, 170, 173, 176, 216, 221, 223, 228 divine 3–4, 13, 16, 20–1, 23, 26, 28–31, 33–5, 37, 48, 65, 67–8, 71–5, 78, 82–5, 88–91, 94–102, 104–5, 109–11, 115–16, 119, 146–9, 152–6, 164, 167–8, 170–3, 175, 177–83, 186–8, 190–1, 193, 195, 200, 206–8, 211–16, 218–27, 229–30 divinity 14, 23, 50, 66, 70, 89, 95–6, 98, 107, 109, 124–5, 132, 134, 167, 171, 185–8, 228 doctrinal 8, 20–1, 41–2, 44–5, 73, 89, 91–2, 102, 134, 137, 139, 143–4, 149, 168, 185–6, 189, 196–7, 225, 227 doctrine/doctrines 1–4, 7–8, 10, 12, 19–21, 23–4, 28–40, 45, 47–9, 53, 57, 59, 68, 87–9, 97–8, 100–1, 105, 121, 123, 126, 131–2, 134–6, 138–9, 143–4, 149, 160–1, 167, 170–1, 182, 211, 213–14, 218–21, 223–6, 229–30 dogma 45–6, 52, 144, 146, 211

Subject Index dogmatic 7, 18, 21, 24, 30, 43, 45–6, 52, 54, 57, 59–61, 76, 91–2, 95, 97, 101–2, 118, 120–1, 125, 131–2, 135, 137–8, 146, 159–60, 162–3, 167–8, 171, 183, 185, 215, 220–2, 227 dogmatism 123 dualism/dualistic 121, 154, 173–4 dynamic/dynamically/dynamism 4, 33, 35, 49, 73, 109, 165, 194, 196, 212, 215, 217–19, 223–4 Ecclesia 42, 102, 124, 131 ecclesial 15, 42, 58, 92–3, 122–3, 129, 131, 185, 196 ecclesiological 41, 46, 55–6, 60, 125 ecclesiology 1, 55–6, 135, 151, 155, 214 economic 21, 28–9, 34–6, 39, 70–1, 75, 77, 79, 81, 83, 104, 135–9, 144–5, 148, 162, 164–5, 173, 182–3 economy 21, 29–30, 32, 35, 37–8, 45, 66–70, 74–7, 79, 82–3, 85, 98, 107–8, 113–17, 119, 146, 151, 177–8, 183, 228–9 election 30, 32, 34 emancipation 175 Energie/Energies 7, 52, 65, 74–5, 77, 80 enhypostatic 225–6 Enlightenment 168 Ephesus 9, 15–16, 126 episcopal 127 epistemology 95, 138, 161, 171, 174–5, 180 eschatological 30, 142, 150, 152–4, 156, 162, 165, 168, 172, 174, 178, 180–3 etymology 122, 134 Eucharist 46, 55–6, 102, 126–7, 129 Eunomius 98–9 Evangelical/Evangelicanism 21, 25, 41, 47, 53–4, 56, 59, 89, 109, 120–1, 125, 136, 145, 180 evil 31, 186 exegesis 8, 36, 57–9, 137, 178, 216 Fall 15, 42, 120, 127, 136 fatherhood 27–9, 35, 38, 117, 189–90, 193–6, 213, 226, 228–9 Fathers 13, 15–16, 47, 66, 71, 73, 77–8, 81–2, 90, 93, 97–8, 106, 111, 117–18, 132, 147, 163, 169, 177, 188, 203–4, 219–20

237

fathers 8–9, 11, 16, 91, 97–8, 103, 160 Filium 11, 65, 76, 124 foundationalism 139 Frankish 11, 53, 127 Fundamental/Fundamentalism 45–6, 51–4, 57, 65–6, 88, 90, 99, 101, 108, 120, 164, 222, 225 Geneva/Genevans 2, 87–8, 105, 132, 143 glory 17, 81, 148, 154–5 Godhead 13, 21, 25–7, 37–8, 47, 92, 94, 98, 104, 107, 109, 118, 133, 135, 143, 146–7, 154, 170, 182, 212–13, 217–19, 221–2, 224–7, 229–30 Gospel 8–10, 17, 32, 35–6, 51, 83, 111, 143, 145–6, 152, 161, 172–3, 180, 198, 205–6, 216–17, 225 grace 32–5, 74, 83, 95, 97, 101, 111, 116, 154, 180–1, 184, 186, 226 Greek/Greeks 1, 7–9, 11–18, 40, 43, 47, 49–50, 52, 70–1, 73, 90, 94, 111, 114, 117–18, 122, 125–7, 130, 132–3, 135, 138–9, 142, 154, 160–1, 164, 168, 188–9, 207, 215, 218–20, 224, 226 heal/Healer/healing 143–5, 150, 153, 168, 177, 181–4, 201, 217 Hebrew 137, 168 heir 88, 95, 182 Hellenization 173 heresy 7, 12, 30, 32, 42, 44, 98, 104, 106, 125, 152, 218, 222, 226 heretics 14, 16, 48, 56, 92 Hermeneutics/hermeneutical 139, 174, 179, 186, 193, 204 heterodoxy 99 hierarchical/heirarchy 10, 55–7, 135, 151, 170 holiness 9, 54, 69, 120, 124, 176 homoousios 21, 23–4, 37–8, 59, 183, 224–5 humanity 30, 110, 114, 149, 178, 180, 199–201, 203, 213 hypostases 32, 84, 94, 104, 108, 115, 117, 119, 134, 164 hypostasis 8–9, 11, 13, 15, 50, 65, 71–2, 78–81, 83, 107, 118–19, 132–3, 155, 163, 188, 191, 221

238

Subject Index

hypostatic 14–15, 17, 25, 29, 37–8, 69, 73–6, 79, 82–3, 86, 89–90, 93–4, 100, 102, 110–11, 113–15, 117, 133, 141, 144–6, 148–9, 164, 171, 176, 182, 228 identity 26–7, 30, 46, 57, 72, 85, 87, 101, 105, 109–10, 117–18, 148, 161, 180, 183, 187–94, 213, 216, 218 image 7, 45, 69, 76, 133–5, 138–9, 151, 155–6, 167, 177, 179, 181–2, 187–9, 191, 200 immanent 9, 20–1, 30–2, 34–6, 38–9, 69, 72, 74, 89, 92, 94, 96, 98, 101, 104, 108, 114, 116, 135, 137–9, 143–6, 148, 162, 164–5, 173, 176, 183, 192, 211, 229 incarnation 1, 30–3, 37, 137, 142, 146, 148, 154–5, 174, 199–202, 215–16 indwell/indwelling 148, 156, 216–17, 220, 227 Inerrancy 120 innerTrinitarian 74, 85 interpenetrate 221, 224 interrelations 35, 53, 189, 193, 195–6, 210, 212, 217 intraTrinitarian 94, 223 Israel 137, 152, 215–17 Jehovah 87–8 Jerusalem 11, 127, 215 Jews 217 Johannine 8–9, 111, 114, 217 judgement 22, 25, 33, 118, 143, 162, 166, 180–1, 184 kingdom 112, 115, 127, 142–3, 174, 228 kingship 110, 112 Klingenthal 18, 44, 51 koinonia 136, 151, 154–5, 181 Kyprios 80–2, 84–5 laity 126, 142, 151 Latin/Latins 1, 7–9, 11, 13–18, 21, 24, 40, 43, 46–50, 52–3, 56, 69, 89, 92, 94, 108, 112, 116–18, 124–30, 133–5, 159–61, 185, 191–2, 207, 224 Lausanne 87 likeness 7, 45, 133–5, 138–9, 151, 167, 178, 182, 204

liturgy/liturgical 18, 43, 45, 50, 54, 56–7, 120, 126–7, 132, 135, 147, 152, 155–6, 173, 198 Logos 32, 67, 74, 147–8, 155, 169–70, 173–4, 177, 180–3, 214 Lutheran/Lutheranism 21, 39, 54, 56, 159–66 Macedonian 24, 128, 133, 171 magisterium 45, 122 manifest 18, 70, 78–9, 154, 163, 197, 200–2, 205, 209 manifestation 14, 65–81, 83–5, 109, 179, 200, 209 Marinus, Letter to 7, 10, 17, 86 Mediator 95, 109–11, 113, 115, 170, 172 Mennonite 54 Messiah 152 Messianic 216 metaphysical 108, 162, 176–7, 181, 189–90, 193, 195, 215 metaphysics 108–9, 166, 211–15, 219 Methodists 54 mission 21, 24, 34, 45, 61, 65, 71–2, 74–81, 85–6, 102, 107, 110, 112, 114, 136, 149, 178, 180, 199–203, 208, 213 missional 1, 145 modalism 31, 35, 37, 99, 133, 144, 146–7, 222, 225 modernity 49, 97, 159, 171, 223 Monarchy/monarchy 13, 22–3, 32, 34–5, 37, 39, 47–9, 51, 59, 133–4, 148, 153, 161, 170, 191, 194, 196, 213, 226–9 monopatrism 2–3, 46, 180, 224, 230 monoprocessionists 133 Mystagogy 11, 13, 68, 92, 127, 137 NAOCTC (see North American OrthodoxCatholic Theological Consultation) Nazianzen 24–6, 89, 225–7 Neoplatonism 127 Nicea 10, 14, 53, 103, 121–2, 134, 147–8 Nicene 21, 24–5, 43, 50, 87–8, 90, 106, 121, 125, 128, 136, 141–3, 147, 169, 177, 203–4, 225, 227, 229 noetic 173–4 noeticisation 171

Subject Index North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation 124–8, 130–1, 135 oneness 25, 27, 36–7, 124, 134, 142, 146–50, 162, 187, 201, 217–18, 221 ontological 32, 36, 38–9, 70, 125, 134, 143–4, 147–8, 154, 156, 162–3, 168, 171, 182, 192–3, 226, 229 ontology 4, 49, 97, 138, 211–15, 218–20, 222–4, 226, 228–30 ontorelations 224, 226 Orthodox 1, 3, 7, 9, 11–12, 14, 16–18, 21–3, 39–40, 42–6, 49, 51–2, 54, 56, 59, 92–4, 97, 99, 121, 124–8, 130–4, 136, 138, 142, 163–4, 167, 185, 189, 194, 200, 203–4, 207, 214, 220–2, 226–7, 229 orthodoxy 11, 52, 87–8, 95, 98, 105, 127, 131, 144, 148, 220 ousia 188, 218, 225 pantheism 83 Paraclete 8, 78, 83, 137 paternal 165, 190–2, 194, 196 Patriarch/patriarchs 10–12, 14–15, 65, 76, 128, 131, 159 Patripassianism 31–2, 133 Paul/Pauline 3, 8, 20, 30, 32, 43, 52, 93, 107, 120, 131–2, 135, 137, 164, 182, 220, 227 Pentecostal/Pentecostalism 1, 3, 54, 56, 136, 141–56, 168, 214 perichoresis 4, 21, 29, 38, 59, 135, 195, 220–1, 223–8, 230 personhood 102, 133, 141, 149, 154, 192–4, 227 pietism 143–4, 168 Plato/Platonism 52, 162, 164, 170 Pluralism/plurality 52, 170, 175, 221 pneumatic 170–2, 176, 180–2, 184 pneumatological 18, 42, 114, 137–8, 142, 149, 151–2, 168, 171, 182, 213–14 pneumatology 68, 70, 137, 144–5, 149, 154, 167–70, 174, 176, 181, 184, 213–14 pneumatomachians 12, 171 pneumatomania 136 pneumatophilia 4

239

pneumatophobia 136 predestination 33 priesthood 110, 151, 180 prophecy 115, 172 prophetic 110–12, 114–15, 142, 180 Protestant 1, 3, 7, 16, 18, 40, 44, 46, 48, 53–4, 58, 100, 104, 121–2, 143, 151, 180 reciprocity 179, 221–2 reconciliation 28–9, 104–5, 115, 129–30, 175, 180 reconstruction 54, 94, 172, 176, 178, 180, 184 redemption 102, 145, 152, 172, 175, 178, 182–4, 201 Reformation 1, 7, 16, 54, 58, 87–8, 95, 105, 122, 142, 151 restorationism 142, 144 resurrection 10, 30, 75, 137, 149, 153–4, 164, 177, 181, 199 revelation 8–9, 20–1, 23, 28–9, 32, 67, 85, 103, 106, 114, 125, 138–9, 144, 170–3, 175, 177–8, 216, 226, 229 Roman 7, 14–16, 18, 21–3, 43–4, 46–7, 49, 51, 104, 125, 127–8, 131, 136, 138, 159, 164, 211 Rome 10–13, 15–18, 88, 126–9, 148, 176 Sabellianism 11, 30, 88, 99, 133, 147, 183, 225–6 salvation 1, 29–30, 33, 35, 67, 75, 109, 114, 116, 119, 137, 143–6, 152–3, 199, 211, 226 sanctifying 68, 101, 103, 169, 179 Saviour 145, 148, 150, 164 schism 12–15, 42, 118, 124–5, 127–8, 130, 159 sola Scriptura 55, 58, 120–1 sequentialism 189, 192–3 sin 31–2, 112, 145, 150, 218 Sonship 28–9, 38, 51, 102, 117, 153, 192–6, 199, 202–3, 212, 223, 227–9 sophism 98 soteriology 101, 103, 122, 145, 162–3, 173, 178, 214 sovereignty 33, 104, 176

240

Subject Index

spiration 10, 13–14, 89–94, 101, 103, 106, 116–19, 130, 133–5, 171, 183, 189, 191–2, 194–6, 222, 225, 227–9 Spirituque 137–8 Spiritus 10, 12–16, 74, 80, 126, 137, 181 subordination 21–2, 24, 26, 28–32, 34–9, 93–4, 99, 133, 135, 146–7, 151, 161–2, 167, 170, 182, 208, 225 substance 13, 17, 94, 97, 104, 117–18, 184, 198, 211–12, 214–15, 219, 222, 224, 226 substancelessness 169 temporal 30, 32, 65, 71–2, 74, 76–81, 84–6, 107, 125, 162, 212, 228 theologoumena 18, 163 theologoumenon 45, 57, 163 theosis 173 transcendency 85, 148, 168–72, 174–5, 179, 196 transformation 30, 170, 175, 180–1, 183–4, 206, 218 triadologies 143 Trinitarian 1–4, 7–8, 11, 20–6, 29–30, 32–3, 35–7, 42, 46, 49, 51–2, 57, 59, 65–6, 72, 74, 76–7, 79–81, 84–5, 87–91, 94, 96–100, 102–5, 109, 112, 118–19, 124, 127, 133, 135, 138, 146,

148–9, 161–3, 165, 171, 173, 185–6, 189, 192–3, 198–200, 202–3, 206–8, 210–15, 217–30 Trinitarianism 53, 87–8, 97, 125, 147–8, 162, 198, 214 Trinitarians 88, 99–100, 105 Trinity 1, 3–4, 8–9, 12, 18–22, 24, 26–32, 34–9, 43, 45–7, 49–52, 59, 68, 72, 75–6, 79, 87–90, 93–5, 97–106, 117–18, 121, 123–5, 131–9, 143–6, 151, 161–2, 165, 167–8, 182, 186–7, 189–90, 192–6, 198–200, 202–14, 219–22, 224–9 tritheism 25, 37, 133, 147, 219 tritheist 147 tritheistic 133, 146 Triunity 4, 23, 95, 97–8, 102, 115, 164, 220, 230 unecumenical

20, 25

Vatican 13, 15, 18, 42–3, 49, 94, 131 vinculum amoris 161, 165 worship

17, 20, 103, 160, 178, 186, 189

Yahweh 216, 218