Spirit of God,

Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ

Ecumenical Reflections on the Filioque Controversy

SPCK

London

WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES Geneva

Faith and Order Paper No. 103

Cover: The Holy Trinity, wall painting in the Church of the Panagia Koubelidiki, Greece.

Several of the texts included in this volume were translated into English from the original French or German. We would like to express our thanks to the Language Service of the World Council of Churches, and to Donald Allchin and Alasdair Heron for these translations.

Cover design: Paul May ISBN: 2-8254-0662-7 (WCC)

ISBN: 0-281-03820-1 (SPCK)

Printed in Great Britain by Ebenezer Baylis and Son Ltd., The Trinity Press, Worcester, and London.

Contents

Preface v

PART I: MEMORANDUM

The filioque clause in ecumenical perspective 3

PART II: ESSAYS

A. Historical aspects

The procession of the Holy Spirit according to certain later Greek

Fathers 21

Markos A. Orphanos

Historical development and implications of the filioque controversy . 46

Dietrich Ritschl

B. Developments in the various traditions

Towards an ecumenical agreement on the procession of the Holy Spirit

and the addition of the filioque to the Creed 69

Andre de Halleux

The filioque clause: an Anglican approach 85

Donald Allchin

The filioque in the Old Catholic churches: the chief phases of theo- logical reflection and church pronouncements 97

Kurt Stalder

The filioque in recent Reformed theology 110

Alasdair Heron

C. Opening a new debate on the procession of the Spirit

The question of the procession of the Holy Spirit and its connection

with the life of the Church 121

Herwig Aldenhoven

The filioque yesterday and today 133

Boris Bobrinskoy

A Roman Catholic view of the position now reached in the question

of the filioque 149

Jean-Miguel Garrigues

Theological proposals towards the resolution of the filioque

controversy 164

Jurgen Moltmann

The procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and his relation to

the Son, as the basis of our deification and adoption 174

Dumitru Staniloae

PREFACE

In the last two years two consultations were organized by the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches to study the famous controversy over the filioque formula in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. Ways and means of bringing this difficult question nearer to solution were examined by a small group of theologians from the Eastern Orthodox and various western traditions. The first consultation (26-29 October 1978) produced a report which was then submitted to a wider circle of specialists for their comments. The text of this report was thoroughly revised at the second consultation (23-27 May 1979) and then presented to the Faith and Order Standing Commission in the summer of 1979. The Commission set the seal of its approval on it to the extent of recommending that it be shared with the churches. The present volume contains the report in its final form as well as the papers presented at the two consultations.

Why did the Faith and Order Commission undertake this study? The answer is simple: the addition of the words “and from the Son” to the text of the Nicene Creed is one of the issues which divided East and West for many centuries past and still divides them today. The restoration of unity is inconceivable if agreement is not reached on the formal and substantial justification for this formula. The fact that individual western churches have already broached the question in discussions with the Orthodox Church lends added urgency to the ecumenical debate. After a careful consideration of all aspects of the matter, the Old Catholic Church has come to the conclusion that the filioque is not to be recited in the liturgy. The Anglican Communion is seriously considering taking the same step. If separate deci- sions are to be avoided, it is essential that the churches should consider the question of the filioque together. The way to communion among the churches can be opened up only by an agreement for which they take joint responsibility.

The only meaningful context in which to raise and deal with the special question of the eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father and of the

vi Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ

role played by the Son in this procession is that of the trinitarian understand- ing of God. The question of the filioque thus becomes an opportunity to develop together the meaning of the Trinity. And could any undertaking be more important than this for the development of common theological, spiri- tual and liturgical perspectives?

The report establishes that the words “and from the Son” are an addition and it concludes, therefore, that all churches should revert to the original text of the Nicene Creed as the normative formulation. This does not mean simply “dropping” the addition. Rather we must investigate further the problem which the West sought to solve by this formula. The report attaches the greatest importance to the readiness of the churches to engage in a new discussion about God. That the understanding of God is not a matter of controversy and can therefore be omitted from the dialogue is an assumption which has often been made in the ecumenical movement. In view of the enormous and novel challenges of our time, theology is faced anew with the question of how we are to speak of God on the basis of the revelation in Christ.

Cordial thanks are due to those who took part in the consultations for making their papers available for publication. But I would like especially to express our gratitude to the Johann Wolfgang van Goethe Foundation for welcoming both meetings in the beautiful premises of Schloss Klingenthal near Strasbourg; the warm hospitality of Dr Marie-Paule Stintzi contributed

much to the success of the conversations.

* * *

Sixteen centuries have passed since the Council of Constantinople (381) in which the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed originated. Received by the Church as the expression of the common apostolic faith it has tragically also become a source of disagreement and disunity. The findings of this ecu- menical debate are offered for discussion in a year in which the Council is commemorated by the churches in response to the call of Ecumenical Patri- arch Dimitrios I. May the common reflection on the meaning of the Creed inaugurate a century in which the common calling and the unity of the churches will become more visible!

Lukas Vischer

PART I

MEMORANDUM

THE FILIOQUE CLAUSE IN ECUMENICAL PERSPECTIVE

Preliminary note

The following memorandum has been drawn up by a group of theologians from eastern and different western traditions who met at Schloss Klingenthal near Strasbourg, France, 26-29 October 1978 and 23-27 May 1979. An initial draft was composed after the first meeting and circulated for comment to a number of other specialists. At the second meeting, the document was revised and expanded in the light of their reactions. A large number of specially prepared papers was presented at these meetings.

I. Introduction

The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, often called simply “the Nicene Creed”, which dates from the fourth century, has for over 1500 years been regarded as a primary formulation of the common faith of the Christian people. It has been used in many ways in the worship and teaching of different churches throughout the world, and holds a unique place as the Creed which is most widely received and recognized throughout the various Christian traditions.

There have, however, been significant differences between churches in the use that they have made of this Creed and in the authority they have ascribed to it. In the Eastern Orthodox churches it displaced all other credal formulations and came to be seen as the authoritative expression of the faith. In the western Church it only more gradually came into regular use alongside other, distinctively western formulae: the so-called Apostles’ and Athanasian Creeds. It became and has remained the Creed regularly used in the Roman Catholic mass. At the Reformation, many of the Protestant churches (in- cluding the Anglican) continued to use it, or made reference to it in their own confessions of faith, though some have in effect ceased to make any use of it at all.

4 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ

Alongside these variations in attitude and practice, there is a further contrast between the broad eastern and western traditions. In the West the wording of the third article was expanded by the addition of the “ filioque clause”. This supplemented the description of the Holy Spirit as “proceeding from the Father” with the Latin filioque , “and (from) the Son”. In the background to this lay certain differences between the eastern and western approaches to understanding and expressing the mystery of the Trinity. The clause itself was one of several principal factors in the schism between East and West in the Middle Ages, and has continued to the present day to be a matter of controversy and a cause of offence to the Orthodox churches. So the Nicene Creed itself has come to be a focus of division rather than of unity in common faith.

Three distinct issues may be recognized in this situation. First, there is the divergence of approach to the Trinity. Second, we are presented with the particular problem of the wording of the Creed and the filioque. Third, the question needs to be faced of the standing and potential ecumenical significance of the Nicene Creed itself. All of these matters have taken on a new urgency and relevance in our present time. There is a widespread feeling that, especially in the West, the trinitarian nature of God needs again to be brought into the centre of Christian theological concern. The new ecumenical climate of recent years poses afresh the question of a reconcili- ation between East and West - a question which inevitably involves that of the filioque. This in turn gives a new sharpness to the question whether the Nicene Creed itself can again be received and appropriated afresh as a shared statement of the Christian faith. These questions are a challenge to all the churches; they are placed on the agenda by our present theological and ecumenical setting; and they deserve to be widely and seriously considered.

II. The Nicene Creed and the filioque clause

A. The history and reception of the Nicene Creed

In spite of its name, this Creed is not in fact that of the Council of Nicea (A.D. 325). In the form in which it has been handed down, it dates from the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381, though it does include the main emphases of the original formulation of Nicea, if not always in exactly the same words. The full text of the Creed was reproduced by the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451, and since then it has been seen as the classical and definitive expression of the orthodox Christian faith as developed and ar- ticulated in the controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries.

In the Eastern Orthodox churches, this same Creed was also seen as the

The filioque clause in ecumenical perspective 5

heir and beneficiary of the instruction made by the Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431) that no other Creed than that of Nicea should be used. The force of this regulation was primarily directed against any attempt to return behind the affirmations of the Council of Nicea concerning the full divinity of Jesus Christ; but it came in the East to have a further significance as ratifying the sanctity of the Creed framed at Constantinople, which was seen as possessing the same authority, and with it, the same exclusive status.

In the West, by contrast, the process of “reception” of this Creed was a slower one in the sense that while its canonical authority was not questioned, its actual use in the life and teaching of the Church was for many centuries distinctly limited. The western Church already possessed and continued to use the various local forms of the Old Roman Creed, from which in the eighth century the “Apostles’ Creed” finally evolved; and also the “Athan- asian Creed”, which is not in any way connected with Athanasius, but dates from sixth century Gaul. The use of the Nicene Creed spread gradually through the western Church, and it was only as late as ca. 1014 that its singing was introduced into the liturgy of the mass in Rome itself. It was at the same time that the addition of the filioque was sanctioned by the Pope.

B. The addition of the filioque

Although the filioque was officially added to the Creed throughout the western Church only in the eleventh century, its history runs back very much further. As early as the fourth century, some Latin writers spoke of the Holy Spirit as “proceeding from the Father and the Son”, or “from both”, or in other similar ways directly linked the person of the Son with the procession of the Spirit. This understanding was developed further by Au- gustine in the early fifth century, and between his day and the eighth century it spread throughout the West. What may be called ‘ filioque theology” thus came to be deeply anchored in the minds and hearts of western Christians. This represents the first stage of the development and the necessary back- ground to what followed.

The next stage was the appearance of the filioque in official statements - e.g. the Canons of the Council of Toledo in A.D. 589 - and in the Athanasian Creed. At that time there was no apparent intention thereby to oppose the teaching of the Church in the East. (Many scholars have thought that the main concern was to counter western forms of Arianism by using the filioque as an affirmation of the divine status of the Son.)

By the end of the eighth century the filioque had come in many places in the West to be added to the Nicene Creed itself - one of these places being the court of the Emperor Charlemagne at Aachen. Charlemagne and his

6 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ

theologians attempted to persuade Pope Leo III (795-816) to ratify the alteration; but Leo, though seeming to agree with the theology of the filioque, refused to sanction an addition to the wording of the Creed which had been drawn up by an Ecumenical Council and reaffirmed by others. The expanded form of the Creed continued, however, to be widely used in the West; and two centuries later Pope Benedict VIII (1012-1024) finally au- thorized and approved it. Since then the western form of the Creed has included the filioque.

Attempts were made at the Councils of Lyons (1274) and Florence (1439) to impose the filioque on the East. These attempts were unsuccessful, how- ever, and their effect in the long run was to intensify the bitterness felt in the eastern Church at the unilateral action of the West - not least because of the anathema which Lyons laid on those who rejected the clause. Eastern and western theologies of the Trinity and of the procession of the Holy Spirit came very much to stand over against each other, and the differences in approach which the filioque problem highlighted hardened into what were felt to be mutually exclusive positions.

While the Reformers were very critical of many of the developments in medieval theology, the question of the filioque was not seriously raised in the sixteenth century. Most Protestant churches accepted the clause and its underlying theology and continued to subscribe to both. It has only been much more recently that a new perspective has opened up. The last hundred years have brought many fresh contacts between East and West and enabled a new dialogue between them - a dialogue that is still growing today. The question of the filioque is now being discussed in a climate very different from that of the medieval Councils.

In this new climate, the possibility of returning to the original wording of the Creed has suggested itself to more than one western Church. The Old Catholic churches already began to make this change in the nineteenth century; the Lambeth Conference of 1978 has asked the churches of the Anglican Communion to consider doing the same; other churches too are exploring the question. It is our hope that yet more will give it serious consideration. Even those which make relatively little (or even no) use of the Nicene Creed have an interest in the matter in so far as they too are heirs of the western theological tradition and concerned both with the issues involved in the filioque and the progress of the ecumenical movement.

III. The Trinity and the procession of the Holy Spirit

The filioque question demands some consideration of the relation between the doctrines of the Trinity, of the “eternal procession” and of the “temporal

The filioque clause in ecumenical perspective 7

mission” of the Holy Spirit. This is offered in the following four sub-sections which deal in turn with the Church’s faith in and experience of the triune God (A), with biblical reflections upon the Spirit and the mystery of Christ (B), with the implications of the Spirit’s temporal mission for relations between the persons of the Trinity (C), and with the way in which the Church always has to do with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (D).

A. From its beginnings in the second and third centuries, the doctrine of the Trinity was intended to be a help for Christian believers, not an obstacle or an abstract intellectual superimposition upon the “simple faith”. For it was in simple faith that the early Christians experienced the presence of the triune God; and it was in that presence that were gathered and held together the remembrance of the God of Israel, the presence within the congregation of the crucified and risen Christ and, from Pentecost, the power to hope in God’s coming Kingdom which is the future of humankind.

This perception, celebrated in worship, strengthened and renewed by word and sacrament, and expressed in the individual and corporate lives and actions of believers, was not “dogmatic” or “conceptual” in the sense of enabling them to distinguish between “the advent of the risen Christ”, “the presence of the Spirit” and “the presence of the Father”. Their experience was - as it still is today - of the unity of the triune God. Both their prayerful acceptance and their rational understanding of this gift of God’s presence, however, were articulated in terms of his triune life and being. This enabled the early Church - as it enables the Church today - to see itself as belonging within the story which God began with Abraham and Sara, which culminated in the coming, teaching, suffering, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, and which marks out the way of the Church ever since Pentecost.

It was for this reason that the early Fathers gave witness to God’s activity in Israel, his speaking through the prophets, in Jesus of Nazareth, and in the apostolic Church, as the activity of the triune God. They did not deduce their theological conclusions from a preconceived trinitarian concept. So, too, today in any reconsideration of trinitarian concepts as they have come to be developed, it is desirable that we should retrace and follow through the cognitive process of the early Church. The communion of the Church as articulated in ecclesiology seems to be the appropriate theological starting point for re-examining the function of trinitarian thought in the Church’s faith, life and work. God is received, thought of and praised in the Church as God in his triune life: as Creator and God of Israel, as God the Logos and Son, as God the Spirit. It is this insight which preserves the biblical and historical roots of Christian faith in the living God.

B. The most personal Christian experience grafts us into the very heart

8 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ

of the mystery of Christ: sharing in the work of salvation, we are introduced into the divine life, into the heart of the deepest trinitarian intimacy. It is thus that, through the whole experience of the Church, the mystery of Christ is realized in a trinitarian perspective of salvation. New life in Christ is inseparable from the work of the Spirit. In its depths, the Church is nothing other than the manifestation of the risen Lord, whom the Holy Spirit renders present in the eucharistic community of the Church. There is a profound correspondence between the mystery of the Church and of Christian life on the one side, and the earthly life and work of Jesus himself on the other. It is thus not possible to speak of the mystery of Christ, of his person and work, without at once speaking not only of his relation to the Father, but also of the Holy Spirit.

In the earthly life of Jesus, the Spirit seems to be focused in him. The Spirit brings about his conception and birth (Matt. 1:18, Luke 1:35), mani- fests him at his baptism in the Jordan (Mark 1:9-11 and par.), drives him into the desert to be tested (Mark 1:12-13 and par.), empowers him in his return to Galilee (Luke 4:14) and rests in fullness upon him (Luke 4:18). It is thus in the permanent presence of the Spirit that Jesus himself lives, prays, acts, speaks and heals. It is in the Spirit and through the Spirit that Jesus is turned totally towards the Father, and also totally towards humankind, giving his life for the life of the world. Through his passion, his sacrifice on the cross “through the eternal Spirit” (Heb. 9:14), and his resurrection by the power of the Spirit (Rom. 8:11, etc.), it is in the Spirit that henceforth Jesus comes to us in his risen body, penetrated and suffused by the energies of the Spirit, and communicating to us in our turn power from on high. The humanity of Christ, full of the Holy Spirit, is real and authentic humanity; and it is by the Holy Spirit that we, too, become a new creation (John 3:5), sharing in the humanity of Christ (Eph. 2:15). We are “christified”, “made christs”, in the Church by the indwelling in us of the Holy Spirit who communicates the very life of Christ to us, who in Christ makes us the brothers and sisters of Christ, and strengthens us in our new condition as the adopted children of the heavenly Father.

The Spirit thus appears in the New Testament at once as he who rests upon Jesus and fills him in his humanity, and as he whom Jesus promises to send us from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father (John 15:26). The Spirit therefore does not have an action separate from that of Christ himself. He acts in us so that Christ may be our iife (Col. 3:4), so that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith (Eph. 3:12). The Spirit, who proceeds from the Father, is also therefore the Spirit of Jesus Christ himself (Rom. 8:9. Phil. 1:19) who rests in him (Luke 3:22, John 1:32-33),

The filioque clause in ecumenical perspective 9

in whom alone we can confess Jesus as Lord (I Cor. 12:3), the Spirit of the Son (Gal. 4:6). These and many other New Testament passages reflect the Church’s deep experience of the Spirit-filled and Spirit-giving being of Jesus himself. Here can be seen a full and constant reciprocity of the incarnate Word and the Holy Spirit, a reciprocity whose depths are further revealed in the fact that the sending of the Spirit had as its result the formation of the mystical body of Christ, the Church. This reciprocity must be emphasized as a fundamental principle of Christian theology. It is from this interaction, at once christological and trinitarian, that the divine plan for the salvation of the world is to be viewed in its continuity and coherence from the beginning of creation and the call of Israel to the coming of Christ. Further, all the life of the Church, indeed all Christian life, carries the imprint of this reciprocity from the time of Pentecost till the final coming of Christ. If it loses that vision, it can only suffer grievously from its lack.

C. The points of the Holy Spirit’s contact with God’s people are manifold. While one might be inclined to connect the coming of the Spirit exclusively with Pentecost, it must be remembered that any such limitation tends to- wards Marcionism in its patent neglect of the Old Testament witness to the presence and activity of the Spirit in Israel. Moreover, the Spirit is confessed to have been instrumental in the coming of Christ (“conceived by the Holy Spirit”), and to have been the life-giving power of God in his resurrection. Jesus during his ministry promised the sending of the Spirit, and the earliest Christians understood the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost to be the fulfilment of that promise. Thus the Spirit precedes the coming of Jesus, is active throughout his life, death and resurrection, and is also sent as the Paraclete by Jesus to the believers, who by this sending and receiving are constituted the Church. This chain of observations suggests that it would be insufficient and indeed illegitimate to “read back” into the Trinity only those New Testament passages which refer to the sending of the Spirit by Jesus Christ.

In the New Testament, the relation between the Spirit and Jesus Christ is not described solely in a linear or one-directional fashion. On the contrary, it is clear that there is a mutuality and reciprocity which must be taken into account in theological reflection upon the Trinity itself. The “eternal pro- cession” of the Spirit of which trinitarian theology speaks as the ground which underlies and is opened up to us in his “temporal mission” cannot be properly characterized if only one aspect of the latter is taken into account. This raises certain questions about the filioque. Does it involve an unbiblical subordination of the Spirit to the Son? Does it do justice to the necessary reciprocity between the Son and the Spirit? If its intention is to safeguard

10 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ

the insight that the Holy Spirit is truly the Spirit of the Father in Jesus Christ , could other arguments and formulations defend that insight as well or even better? Is it possible that the filioque , or certain understandings of it, may have been understandable and indeed helpful in their essential intention in the context of particular theological debates, but yet inadequate as articulations of a full or balanced doctrine of the Trinity?

In approaching these questions it is imperative to remember that any reference to the Trinity is originally doxological in nature. This is all the more important in our own time, when talk of God is so severely challenged and trinitarian thinking so obviously neglected. Doxology is not merely the language of direct prayer and praise, but all forms of thought, feeling, action and hope directed and offered by believers to the living God. Doxological affirmations are therefore not primarily definitions or descriptions. They are performative and ascriptive, lines of thought, speech and action which, as they are offered, open up into the living reality of God himself. Trinitarian thought in the early Church originated within that doxological context, and only within it are we able to speak of the “inner life” of the triune God. Further, as fathers like Athanasius and Basil made clear, all such doxological references to that inner life must be checked by reference back to the biblical message concerning God’s activity and presence with his people.

D. Conceptual distinctions between the “economic” and “immanent” Trinity, or between “temporal mission” and “eternal procession” should not be taken as separating off from each other two quite different realities which must then be somehow re-connected. Rather, they serve the witness to the triune God as the living God. In calling upon God, we turn and open ourselves to the God who is none other than he has revealed himself in his Word. This calling upon his name is the essential expression of doxology, that is, of trust, praise and thanks that the living God from eternity to eternity was, is and will be none other (“immanent Trinity”) than he has shown himself to be in history (“economic Trinity”).

In our calling upon him, the mystery of the Trinity itself is actualized. So we pray with Christ and in the power of the Spirit when we call on God his Father as our Father. So too we have a share in the joy of God when we allow ourselves to be told again that “for us a child is born”. So too we pray in the Holy Spirit and he intercedes in us when we call on the Father in the name of the Son. In the calling upon the Father, the Spirit who proceeds from the Father, and we who worship in the Spirit, witness to Jesus Christ (John 15:26-7). The Spirit who proceeds from the Father of the Son is he whom the risen and ascended Christ sends, and by whose reception we are made the children of God.

The filioque clause in ecumenical perspective 11

IV. Theological aspects of the filioque

A. The approaches of eastern and western trinitarian theology

In its origins the Latin tradition of the filioque served as an affirmation of the consubstantiality of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and also gave expression to the deeply-rooted concern in western piety to declare that the Spirit is the Spirit of the Son. The theology of Augustine marked a definite stage in the development of this tradition by articulating with particular clarity its fundamental concern for the oneness of the divine being, and by setting out on that basis to conceive of the Trinity in terms of a dialectic of oneness-in-threeness and threeness-in-oneness. In subsequent interpretation and application, this approach crystallized into a formal system which be- came the standard western teaching, and to which all the authority of the name of Augustine himself was attached. The introduction in the West of the logical procedures of medieval scholastic theology brought this form of trinitarian thinking to a new level of definition. One result of this develop- ment was to make dialogue with the East increasingly more difficult: hence arose the polemical frustrations of medieval controversy.

The eastern tradition of teaching about the Holy Trinity had from the beginnings somewhat different emphases. A central concern from the time of the Cappadocians in the late fourth century has been to affirm the irreducible distinctiveness of each of the divine hypostases (or, in the term more familiar in the West, “persons”) of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and at the same time, the uniqueness of the Father as the sole principle (apxfi), “source” (tithti) and “cause” (ama) of divinity. Thus, while Greek theologians could and did use such expressions as “from the Father through the Son”, they could not accept the western “from the Father and the Son” as a suitable formulation for describing the procession of the Holy Spirit. This difference in emphasis, combined with the virtual absence in the East of the scholastic methods developed in the medieval West, made it difficult for the eastern Church to appreciate the western attitude. The controversies of the ninth century between Constantinople and the West - controversies, it must be said, which were as much political as theological - were the occasion of a further definition of the eastern position in the teaching of Patriarch Photius and his famous formula, “the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone”. This tradition was continued and further developed by the work of Gregory the Cypriot and Gregory Palamas. Both these writers sought to respond to the controversy with the West by distinguishing between the procession of the Spirit from the Father and an “eternal manifestation of the Spirit through the Son”.

What is striking is that, despite the evident differences between East and

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West before the eleventh century, communion was maintained between them. The two traditions of trinitarian theological teaching, though divergent and at times in friction with each other, were not considered to be mutually exclusive. In the seventh century indeed, a notable attempt to explain and reconcile them was made in the work of Maximus the Confessor, a Greek Father who spent a large part of his life in the West. Only after the eleventh century did the two traditions come to be felt to be altogether irreconcilable.

B. Two CENTRAL ISSUES

In the debate between East and West about the fdioque , two sets of questions can be seen as central. The first has to do with the traditional eastern insistence that the Spirit proceeds from the Father “alone”; the second with the western concern to discern a connexion between the Son and the procession of the Spirit.

L Procession from the Father “alone”

According to the eastern tradition, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone for the following reasons:

a) The Father is the principle and cause of the Son and the Holy Spirit because it is an “hypostatic” (or “personal”) property of the Father (and not of the shared divine nature) to “bring forth” the other two persons. The Son and the Holy Spirit do not derive their existence from the common essence, but from the hypostasis of the Father, from which the divine essence is conferred.

b) On the ground of the distinction between ousia (“being” or “essence”) and hypostasis - which corresponds to the difference between what is “com- mon” or “shared” and what is “particular” - the common properties of the divine nature do not apply to the hypostasis, and the distinctive properties of each of the three hypostases do not belong either to the common nature or to the other two hypostases. On account of his own hypostatic property, the Father derives his being from himself, and brings forth the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Son comes forth by yevvTicris (“generation” or “beget- ting”), and his hypostatic property is to be begotten. The Holy Spirit comes forth by eKTropewis (“procession”), and that is his own distinctive hypostatic property. Because these hypostatic properties are not interchangeable or confused, the Father is the only cause of the being of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and they are themselves caused by him.

c) In no way does the Father communicate or convey his own particular hypostatic property to either of the other two persons. Any idea that the Son together with the Father is the cause of the Holy Spirit’s “mode of

The filioque clause in ecumenical perspective 13

existence” (tpottos rfis vrrdp^eojs) was felt in the East to introduce two causes, two sources, two principles into the Holy Trinity. It is of course impossible to reconcile any such teaching with the divine ixovapxta (“mon- archy”) of the Father, that is, with his being the sole “principle” (dpxfi).

d) In asserting in its theology, though not in the wording of the Creed, that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, the eastern Church does not believe that it is adding to the meaning of the original statement of the Creed. It holds, rather, that it is merely clarifying what was implicit in that original wording but had come to be denied by the West.

From a western point of view, which at the same time appreciates the concerns of the eastern tradition, it may be said that neither the early Latin Fathers, such as Ambrose and Augustine, nor the subsequent medieval tradition ever believed that they were damaging the principle of the Father’s “monarchy” by affirming the filioque. The West declared itself to be as much attached to this principle as were the eastern Fathers. But by describing the Son as the “secondary cause” of the procession of the Holy Spirit, the doctrine of the filioque gave the impression of introducing “two principles” into the Holy Trinity; and by treating the Son in his consubstantiality and unity with the Father as the origin of the person of the Holy Spirit, it seemed to obscure the difference between the persons of the Father and the Son.

Nonetheless, an important fact remains. Quite apart from the - more or less happy or unhappy - formulations of the filioque advanced in western theology (which one must be careful not to treat as dogmas), and even if western Christians are prepared simply to confess in the original terms of the Creed that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father” (without men- tioning any secondary causality on the part of the Son), many would still maintain that the Holy Spirit only proceeds from the Father as the Father is also Father of the Son. Without necessarily wishing to insist on their own traditional understanding of a logical priority of the generation of the Son over the procession of the Spirit, they believe nonetheless that the trinitarian order (or, in Greek, tcx^ls) of Father-Son-Holy Spirit is a datum of revelation confessed by the Creed itself when it declares that the Spirit is to be “wor- shipped and glorified together with the Father and the Son”. Thus they might indeed be ready to confess that the Holy Spirit proceeds “from the Father alone”; but by this they would not mean, “from the Father in isolation from the Son” (as if the Son were a stranger to the procession of the Holy Spirit), but rather, “from the Father alone, who is the only Father of his Only-begotten Son”. The Spirit, who is not a “second Son”, proceeds in his own unique and absolutely originated way from the Father who, as Father, is in relation to the Son.

14 Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ

2. The place of the Son in relation to the procession of the Holy Spirit

The Creed in its original form does not mention any participation of the Son in the procession of the Spirit from the Father, nor does it indicate the relationship between the Son and the Spirit. This may be because of the conflict with various current heresies which subordinated the Spirit to the Son, and reduced him to the level of a mere creature. However this may be, the absence of any clear statement on the relation between the Son and the Holy Spirit faces dogmatic theology with a problem which the West in the past attempted to solve by means of the filioque. In the Creed’s lack of clarity on the point lies at least one of the roots of the divergence between later eastern and western theology of the Trinity. This means that even if agreement were reached on returning to the original wording of the Creed, that by itself would not be enough. In the longer term an answer must be given to the question of the relation between the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The observations which follow are advanced as a suggestion on the way in which western theology might move forward towards a closer understand- ing with the East, while still maintaining its concern to link the persons of the Son and the Spirit:

a) The Son’s participation in the procession of the Spirit from the Father cannot be understood merely in terms of the temporal mission of the Spirit, as has sometimes been suggested. In other words, it cannot be restricted to the “economy” of the history of salvation as if it had no reference to, no bearing upon and no connexion with the “immanent” Trinity and the relation within the divine life itself between the three consubstantial persons. The freedom of God in his own being and as he acts in history must always be respected; but it is impossible to accept that what is valid for his revelation of his own being in history is not in some sense also valid for his eternal being and essence.

b) There is a sense in which it is correct to say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone (ck jxovou tou IlaTpos). This “alone” refers to the unique procession of the Spirit from the Father, and to his particular personal being (uTToaTao-is or hyparxis) which he receives from the Father. But it does not exclude a relationship with the Son as well as with the Father. On the one hand, the procession (eKiropewis) of the Spirit must be distinguished from the begetting (yevvT)o-i<?) of the Son; but on the other hand this procession must be related to the begetting of the Son by the Father alone. While the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, his procession is nevertheless connected with the relationship within the Trinity between the Father and the Son, in virtue of which the Father acts as Father.

The filioque clause in ecumenical perspective 15

The begetting of the Son from the Father thus qualifies the procession of the Spirit as a procession from the Father of the Son.

c) From this fundamental thesis, two things follow. First, it should not be said that the Spirit proceeds “from the Father and the Son”, for this would efface the difference in his relationship to the Father and to the Son. Second, it should be said that the procession of the Spirit from the Father presupposes the relationship existing within the Trinity between the Father and the Son, for the Son is eternally in and with the Father, and the Father is never without the Son. Eastern theology has traditionally emphasized the first of these two conclusions. The Latin Fathers were already exploring the impli- cations of the second long before the filioque had finally been clarified and introduced into the Creed.

d) Along these lines, western trinitarian theology could come to under- stand the procession of the Holy Spirit in the way suggested by such patristic formulations as “the Spirit proceeds from the Father and receives from the Son”. This underlines the fact that the Son is indeed not alien to the procession of the Spirit, nor the Spirit to the begetting of the Son - something which has also been indicated in eastern theology when it has spoken of the Spirit as “resting upon” or “shining out through” the Son, and insisted that the generation of the Son and procession of the Spirit must be distinguished but not separated. Differences certainly remain still in this area, for eastern theology is not easily able to agree that there is any priority of the generation of the Son over the procession of the Spirit, and desires rather to emphasize the “simultaneity” of the two, and to see the one as “accompanying” the other. Nonetheless, there does open up here a field for further exploration. So far as western theology is concerned, the Spirit could then be seen as receiving his complete existence (hypostasis) from the Father, but as existing in relation to both the Father and the Son. This would follow the principle that because the Father is the source of divinity, the Spirit does proceed from him “alone”. At the same time, however, it would express what that principle alone and by itself cannot: the relation of the Spirit as a person within the Trinity to the Son as well as to the Father. The filioque, on this suggestion, would have valid meaning with reference to the relationship of the three hypostases within the divine triunity, but not with regard to the