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The Filioque - Procession
The Filioque - Procession
Think of the phrase, "In the unity of the Godhead."
Western theology begins at this point. One God possessing full Godhead.
The Father is unbegotten. As such God the Father is the ever-flowing fountain of the divine essence. He communicates this essence to the Son. He with the Son communicates this essence to the Spirit. The communication is eternal. It did not happen one time and then stop.
The first communication is called begetting; the second communication is called procession. Call the communication whatever one pleases, it is the communication itself which is important. So we say the Father begets the Son, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from Father and the Son. The begetting is also often termed generation. The procession is also sometimes called spiration.
Berkhof writes:
Altering the personal properties so as to deny the filioque (fill-ee-oh-qwee) serves to create a new "stream" (using the above analogy of "fountain").
Once the filioque is denied, there is now no longer one stream
--> Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
A second stream has been created
--> Father, Son; Father, Holy Spirit.
There is no longer an unity of three but two unities of two.
Accordingly, the unity of God is maintained in the western theological tradition by what is called the communication of Godhead—begetting and procession. "Person" or "subsistence" depends on personal properties, i.e., properties which are unique to a person in relation to other persons. In the words of our Larger Catechism, there is something "proper" in these relations, that is, "divinely proper." To detract from any property of the Son in relation to the Holy Spirit is to make Him inferior to the Father.
The EO objection in relation to the Holy Spirit is removed by a simple acknowledgement that the unique person of the Holy Spirit also consists in a unique property, and that property is to proceed from the Father and the Son from all eternity.
If this were not accepted as the Holy Spirit's distinct property He would not be the third person of the Trinity but would be a second second person. This means He would be a second Son. His very name, Spirit, is suggestive of an altogether unique relation in union with Father and Son which nullifies the objection. The Holy Spirit is the person upon whom the communication of Godhead finally terminates. In this capacity the Spirit is Himself the bond of union and communion between Father and Son. Likewise, in the ad extra works (works outside the Goddhead) of the Trinity, this unique relation finds expression in His distinctive function in connection with the creation of, providence over, and redemption of, the world— He is the Spirit of life and communion.
AMR
The Filioque - Procession
Rather, they disagree because they not interpret Scripture properly. Rome has no claim on the matter.
Think of the phrase, "In the unity of the Godhead."
Western theology begins at this point. One God possessing full Godhead.
The Father is unbegotten. As such God the Father is the ever-flowing fountain of the divine essence. He communicates this essence to the Son. He with the Son communicates this essence to the Spirit. The communication is eternal. It did not happen one time and then stop.
The first communication is called begetting; the second communication is called procession. Call the communication whatever one pleases, it is the communication itself which is important. So we say the Father begets the Son, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from Father and the Son. The begetting is also often termed generation. The procession is also sometimes called spiration.
Berkhof writes:
- This procession of the Holy Spirit, briefly called spiration, is his personal property. Much of what was said respecting the generation of the Son also applies to the spiration of the Holy Spirit, and need not be repeated. The following points of distinction between the two may be noted, however:
(1) Generation is the work of the Father only; spiration is the work of both the Father and the Son.
(2) By generation the Son is enabled to take part in the work of spiration, but the Holy Spirit acquires no such power.
(3) In logical order generation precedes spiration.
It should be remembered, however, that all this implies no essential subordination of the Holy Spirit to the Son.
In spiration as well as in generation there is a communication of the whole of the divine essence, so that the Holy Spirit is on an equality with the Father and the Son
The doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son is based on John 15:26, and on the fact that the Spirit is also called the Spirit of Christ and of the Son, Rom. 8:9; Gal. 4:6, and is sent by Christ into the world. Spiration may be defined as that eternal and necessary act of the first and second persons in the Trinity whereby they, within the divine Being, become the ground of the personal subsistence of the Holy Spirit, and put the third person in possession of the whole divine essence, without any division, alienation or change.
When one begins with the unity of God these personal properties are the means by which Godhead is understood to belong to a distinct mode of subsistence within the undivided substance.
Altering the personal properties so as to deny the filioque (fill-ee-oh-qwee) serves to create a new "stream" (using the above analogy of "fountain").
Once the filioque is denied, there is now no longer one stream
--> Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
A second stream has been created
--> Father, Son; Father, Holy Spirit.
There is no longer an unity of three but two unities of two.
Accordingly, the unity of God is maintained in the western theological tradition by what is called the communication of Godhead—begetting and procession. "Person" or "subsistence" depends on personal properties, i.e., properties which are unique to a person in relation to other persons. In the words of our Larger Catechism, there is something "proper" in these relations, that is, "divinely proper." To detract from any property of the Son in relation to the Holy Spirit is to make Him inferior to the Father.
The EO objection in relation to the Holy Spirit is removed by a simple acknowledgement that the unique person of the Holy Spirit also consists in a unique property, and that property is to proceed from the Father and the Son from all eternity.
If this were not accepted as the Holy Spirit's distinct property He would not be the third person of the Trinity but would be a second second person. This means He would be a second Son. His very name, Spirit, is suggestive of an altogether unique relation in union with Father and Son which nullifies the objection. The Holy Spirit is the person upon whom the communication of Godhead finally terminates. In this capacity the Spirit is Himself the bond of union and communion between Father and Son. Likewise, in the ad extra works (works outside the Goddhead) of the Trinity, this unique relation finds expression in His distinctive function in connection with the creation of, providence over, and redemption of, the world— He is the Spirit of life and communion.
AMR
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We agree on the Filioque. I see the East's rejection of it, and also of their necessarily resultant rejection of the primacy of the papacy in matters of faith, as residue from the Aryan controversy. Most of the Aryan bishops in AD 325 were from Eastern sees, and the Aryan position just couldn't have been squelched and completely unearthed from that soil so suddenly, so it must have gone underground, for lack of a better concept, and it reared its head in the Great East West Schism ultimately and remains today. It is the only thing that separates the Orthodox from full communion again with Rome, but they would have to admit that the popes are right now, and have always been right, and that's a tough pill for anybody to swallow.
One is either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness. There is no middle ground.
Romans 6 is every bit as important as Romans .
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! 16 Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17 But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 19 I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.
Wikipedia has multiple versions. No real surprise there.
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
I like that they correctly have catholic in lower case as it means "universal", which is Paul's church. Where my faith is accounted for righteousness.
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.
I like that they correctly have catholic in lower case as it means "universal", which is Paul's church. Where my faith is accounted for righteousness.
Agreed!
Do you also believe that the head of the Roman church is the Shepherd of God's people, whom he raised up in the land after he had been rejected by the Jews?
Greetings Sealeaf,
Kind regards
Trevor
I personally have difficulty accepting most of this paragraph after "the only Son of God". As far as the Council was concerned I had the impression that the meeting was very much divided in opinion, and that Constantine demanded that they reach an outcome, and the result was thus forced upon many of them. Also as far as Constantine was concerned he refused to be baptised until near his death, and even then he was baptised by an Arian.
Kind regards
Trevor
jsanford108
New member
Excellent point. Except that it is completely false.
Catholics do believe that Christians outside of the Catholic Church can, and have, received salvation. Often we refer to them as "our Protestant brothers and sisters." A clear denotation of unity in Christ and salvation.
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I quote:
Since the sacraments are the ordinary means through which Christ offers the grace necessary for salvation, and the Catholic Church that Christ established is the ordinary minister of those sacraments, it is appropriate to state that salvation comes through the Church. Extra ecclesiam nulla salus
Then you are not a sinner?
That's just a true statement.
Note though, that the initiation sacrament of Baptism is now officially distributed to anybody who performs a baptism seriously, and in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Church, through the power of her keys (Mt16:19KJV), has loosed Baptism to anybody, even an avowed atheist and Christ hater, so long as they perform the baptism, and not in a joking manner, with water, and in the name of the Trinity.
A pot and kettle were walking down the street.....
Oh I'm a sinner, just as surely as you are, and as everybody is, whether they believe the gospel of our salvation or not, everybody sins, in that everybody transgresses God's moral law. In the flesh, in this dead flesh, we sin. But I sin venially, and lightly, as do most Christians, and we do so only because we are under a lot of stress living in this world, trying to integrate our true and deep and extreme faith in the Lord Jesus, always working, towards a better future on this earth, while we await the new earth. Venial means forgiven, and they're forgiven because of 1st Corinthians 15:3 (KJV), and while I am a slave to righteousness, my flesh is not, and cannot be, this filthy body of mine. So filthy. But the Holy Spirit is working towards a better aim than I ever did when I was flagrantly moral and moralistic, which is the wrong way to do things. It results in communal fracture, and it is this intensive moral effort that causes the fracture, because we are all sinners, so there's never a valid reason for one group of Christians to break unity with another, over sin. The Holy Spirit convicts me of my sin every day, and I learn just how rotten and filthy I am, this body of death, this dead thing walking. And this emphasizes the point here, it emphasizes what the Lord did for me. It isn't sinning so that grace may abound, God forbid, but that the more keenly aware I am of my sin, the more keenly aware I am of His grace, and what it means, in my life, in this body, of death.
I should add that such keen awareness of my own filth gives me a clarity in seeing others. "This is why the Lord had to die," is what I remind myself whenever confronted with somebody else's unsurprising filth. He had to die for my filthy body of death, and for everybody's. All of us are filthy and rotten to the core, these bodies of death. It is only Him, the Holy Spirit, that is any good in us, and whenever our flesh manages to pull off a truly good work, it is always because of the Spirit that we do so, we cannot claim any credit for the good that we do, and we cannot claim to not be sinners.
jsanford108
New member
That doesn't render my statement false. It doesn't say "only the Church."
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18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
1 Corinthians 6
11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
Present yourself not as a sinner, but as righteous. And not because of what you have done. You don't give people impossible standards to live up to. You tell people you do not sin because all things are lawful for you. Even though you do things that are immoral and contrary to the law, you do not break the law. You have been set free from the law, sin, and death. Embrace it.
jsanford108
New member
Name calling when your point is demolished. Really shows your maturity level and ability to have intellectual discussions.
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