The Filioque and Other Offenses
We’ve been talking a lot about the filioque lately. The filioque is a stick we use to beat Catholics. If there is anything about Catholics we don’t like, we blame it on the filioque. Lossky is notorious for this. The papacy comes from the filioque. The neglect of the Holy Spirit comes from the filioque.
It is obvious that the filioque is not a historical cause of any of these things. Florovsky criticized some Orthodox thinkers for portraying history in terms of intellectual systems: the eastern Fathers on the one hand and the Latin church on the other. This approach obscures the variety among historical thinkers, both East and West. It imagines a system of thought that is more consistent than the facts will bear. There is something Hegelian about it: making history the drama of Reason. Its use is to correlate ideas within a tradition and reveal their connections; its fault is to distort those ideas’ historical relation. Certainly the filioque is not a historical cause. But is it a logical one? Lossky thought so. St. Photios thought so. I’m not so sure, so I want to think through the various accusations we make.
We say it is rationalistic. I don’t see how saying “ex patre filioque procedit” in the Creed is any more rationalistic than saying, “ex patre procedit.” So where does the rationalism come from? The historical beginning of the filioque is not too rationalistic. It came about when pro-Nicea Gauls thought they could silence Arianism if the Son, like the Father, was a source of divinity. I’d call this not rationalistic but just irrational. But perhaps apologists for the filioque have used rationalistic arguments. That was the accusation in class.
Thomas Aquinas argues that every real relation must be a real opposition (ST 1.28.3; SCG 4.24.8). Since there is no opposition between paternity and spiration, the Father can have both these properties. He has paternity as Father of the Son and spiration as Breather of the Spirit. But if paternity and spiration are not opposed, neither are their complements: filiation and procession. Because filiation and procession are not opposed, they can both be in a single person. Thus they would not signify two other Persons, but only one, unless something else distinguished them. The Son and Spirit are distinguished by their origins. The Son’s origin is the Father alone, but the Spirit’s origin is the Father and Son.
Supposedly, the principle Thomas uses is rationalistic: that every real relation must be a real opposition. I don’t see what’s so rationalistic about it. The Fathers commonly applied principles of logic in their theological arguments. If we’re going to think and speak about God, we might as well think and speak with our brains.
That doesn’t mean I agree with Thomas’ reasoning. Who can say that spiration and generation are not opposed? Perhaps he is rationalistic for thinking he knows what these terms mean. But even if they are dark, we can refute his reasoning. Just because one Person can spirate and generate, can one Person be spirated and generated? I think Aristotle said that a thing cannot have two causes. The relations are matters of cause. St. Basil said only the Father was ἄναρχος (On the Holy Spirit 19.). Begetting and proceeding describe the mode of origin, and a thing cannot have two modes of origin. But in that cause, begetting and proceeding are alone sufficient to distinguish Son and Spirit. Since the mode is different, the origin can be the same. But then Thomas is wrong to claim that different origins are needed to distinguish Son from Spirit.
Another accusation is that the filioque obscures the differences among the three Persons. I don’t think I ever heard a real reason for this charge, but as we just saw, Thomas’ motivation was precisely to distinguish them better. Filioque or not, I’m not in any confusion about who is the Father, who is the Son, and who is the Spirit.
We say the filioque destroys the monarchy of the Father. I agree with that. The Father is πηγὴ θεότητος according to St. Dionysius (Divine Names 2.7) and St. John of Damascus (Orthodox Faith 1.8). But the filioque makes the Son a source of divinity, too. Saying “tanquam ab uno principio” only makes things worse. Now everything is confused. What is this principle? Is it a real thing? If so, it must be a hypostasis. But then is there a Fourth Person?
Or perhaps the uno principio is the Father Himself. In that case the filioque has the Greek meaning of διὰ υἱοῦ (e.g. Gregory of Nyssa, On Not Three Gods, NPNF 5.336.) St. Maximus assured his Greek friend that this was how the Latins understood the filioque, and I believe the Council of Florence took this line. But it doesn’t seem to square with the reasoning in Aquinas, and as Maximus admitted, it was prone to misunderstanding. “Ex patre filioque” suggests that the procession is from Father and Son in the same way, not merely through the Son.
We say that the filioque is subordinationist. St. Photios made this charge, but I don’t see it. Of course the Latins deny that it’s subordinationist. First of all, I ask what it means to subordinate. The trick here is to find a definition that indicts the filioque but acquits the monarchy of the Father. I raised this question in class, and for an hour people tried to find an answer. I haven’t read St. Photios yet, but I’ve talked with a lot of seminarians about it. Here is the best I’ve been able to do:
One thing is subordinate to another if it has an inferior nature. That is a common-sense definition, I think. The monarchy of the Father is not subordinationist because Father, Son, and Spirit share one nature; they are alike in all ways but mode of origin. Of course the Latins likewise say that Father, Son, and Spirit share one nature, but this contradicts the filioque. The filioque implies that Father and Son share one nature, and the Holy Spirit has something else. That is what the East must prove.
Is it true? Does the filioque attribute one nature to Father and Son and another to the Holy Spirit? I’m not convinced. I think the reasoning goes like this: According to the filioque, Father and Son both spirate the Spirit. But whatever is common to more than one person is part of the divine nature. Then spirating is part of the divine nature. But since the Spirit does not spirate, the Spirit is not God.
The part I doubt is that whatever is common is part of the divine nature. An attribute doesn’t usually become natural or not-natural just because it is possessed by one person or two. Brown eyes are not part of human nature; they are accidents. Even being right-handed is not part of human nature; left-handed people are still human. Now, there are no accidents in God, but mode of origin is not an accident. I can believe that mode of origin is not part of the divine nature because it is a mode. As St. Maximus would say, it pertains to τρόπος, not λόγος. So if mode of origin is not a property of nature, why does it suddenly become a property of nature when Father and Son both spirate?
As our class discussion began to seem fruitless, people started saying that the Trinity was a mystery, and I shouldn’t probe too deeply into it. Okay, that’s fine; the Trinity is a mystery. But in that case, we shouldn’t malign the Latins. If we’re going to make an accusation, we’d better have reasons to back it up.
On the other hand, wasn’t it Barlaam who appealed to mystery in the face of the filioque?
We say the filioque is semi-Sabellian. Here I definitely need to read St. Photios, but in my ignorance, I am suspicious of semi-anything. Calling something a semi-heresy means what? Not quite the heresy? Then what is it? Is it a heresy or not? It seems like the worst sort of labeling, trying to impugn one idea by tying it vaguely to another.
Certainly the filioque is not Sabellian in the pure sense. Can anything be both modalist and subordinationist? If subordinate means of an inferior nature, then I think not, because modalism means one and the same God under different modes.
We say the filioque reduces the Persons to relations. There are two questions here. First, does the West reduce the Persons to relations? Second, is it logically tied to the filioque?
For now, let us assume that the West does reduce the Persons to relations. Is it because of the filioque? I don’t see any logical implication. I don’t think the filioque commits the West to viewing the Persons as relations. No one could draw this link for me, and I can’t see the connection myself.
So let’s return to our first question: does the West reduce the Persons to relations? I don’t think it does. Usually this accusation aims at Aquinas. Two citations of Boethius seem relevant here. Aquinas follows him in saying, “In God the substance contains the unity; and relation multiplies the trinity” (ST 1.28.3). He also cites him saying, “Every term that refers to the Persons signifies relation” (ST 1.29.4.). Now, this seems to be the same idea as the Cappadocians’ mode of origin. The Persons are alike in essence but different in mode of origin. The relation is not itself the Person, but it signifies the Person. He writes, “A divine person signifies a relation as subsisting,” and, “‘Person’ signfies relation directly, . . . not, however, the relation as such, but as expressed by way of a hypostasis” (ST 1.29.4.). For the bulk of Aquinas’ treatment of the Trinity, it sounds like a Person is a Person.
But then, after proving the three-in-one, he asks “whether relation is the same as person?” (ST 1.40.1.). He answers yes, because God is always identical to His properties. This is typical of Aquinas, on account of his commitment to absolute divine simplicity. God’s essence is identical to His being, which is identical to His wisdom, which is identical to His power, etc. The same principle applies to the Persons. As God is His wisdom, so the Father is His paternity. This is the sense in which Aquinas makes the Persons their relations. But then I think it is misleading to say he “reduces” the Persons to their relations. It is more like he elevates the relations to the Persons.
What is really weird in Aquinas is how he uses Augustine’s analogy of the soul. The Son—the Word—is the reason of the Father. The Spirit is the will or love of the Father. To Augustine this was just an analogy, but Aquinas makes it an actual description of the Trinity. He equates generation with thinking and procession with willing, and thus the Son is intellect and the Spirit is will. The Son thinks God and the Spirit loves God. Because God must think what He loves, the Spirit proceeds from the Son. Not only is this teaching weird, it is even tied to the filioque.
Some people at seminary have called this modalist. I’m not sure what to call it. The Trinity as divine anatomy? The Fathers said that Father, Son, and Spirit cooperate in whatever they do. If the Son is intellect and the Spirit is will, what cooperation is there? How do the Father and Spirit think? How do the Father and Son will? St. Maximus insisted that will was a property of the divine nature, but Aquinas has converted it into the second Person.
The filioque, like all heresies, poses to the Church a question. Its question is the relation between Son and Spirit. Granted, the Son is begotten from the Father and the Spirit proceeds from the Father. How are the Son and Spirit related?
St. Photios answered that the relation is purely economic. The Son sends the Spirit after His resurrection. On the one hand, this dodges the question, which is a question about their eternal relation. On the other hand, if St. Photios really means that there is no eternal relation, how can this be? Can there be a κοινωνία of Persons when the Son and Spirit don’t know each other? If they only acquire a relation in time by the Son’s sending the Spirit, perhaps St. Photios has some subordinationist tendencies himself. Eventually, the East would answer the question, saying the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son.