Filoque & Church

[Bruce Michael]

Hello Readers,
Is it right to imagine Christ ascended into heaven and seated at the right hand of the Father?

I sometimes think this puts Christ up in Heaven, away from the events here on Earth. I acknowlege Christ in this World- the Etheric Christ (Parousia) permeating the etheric world.

The famous "filoque" clause, "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son." is the old chestnut that split the Church in two.
Filioque clause - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The original Nicene Creed reads "We believe in the Holy Spirit ... who proceeds from the Father."

I think I would side with the Eastern Orthodox theologians here- that the Holy spirit proceeds from the Father. The Holy Spirit encapsulates all Life. Nothing can live without it- no demon or demigod.

Just what is the "Church". What is Christ's Church?

I'll cut and paste this definition:
Church
The word translated "church" in the English Bible is ekklesia. This word is
the Greek words kaleo (to call), with the prefix ek (out). Thus, the word
means "the called out ones." However, the English word "church" does not
come from ekklesia but from the word kuriakon, which means "dedicated to the Lord." This word was commonly used to refer to a holy place or temple. By the time of Jerome's translation of the New Testament from Greek to Latin, it was customary to use a derivative of kuriakon to translate ekklesia.
Therefore, the word church is a poor translation of the word ekklesia since
it implies a sacred building, or temple. A more accurate translation would
be "assembly" because the term ekklesia was used to refer to a group of
people who had been called out to a meeting. It was also used as a synonym for the word synagogue, which also means to "come together," i.e. a gathering.

So the Church is simply those called out by Christ- not buildings, organisations, groups etc.

The Apostolic Churches are represented by the various apostles, notably we have the Church of Peter and the Church of John. They are parts of the one Church- aspects of.

-Br.Bruce

 

[Quahom1]

Hello Readers,
Is it right to imagine Christ ascended into heaven and seated at the right hand of the Father?

I sometimes think this puts Christ up in Heaven, away from the events here on Earth. I acknowlege Christ in this World- the Etheric Christ (Parousia) permeating the etheric world.

The famous "filoque" clause, "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son." is the old chestnut that split the Church in two.
Filioque clause - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The original Nicene Creed reads "We believe in the Holy Spirit ... who proceeds from the Father."

I think I would side with the Eastern Orthodox theologians here- that the Holy spirit proceeds from the Father. The Holy Spirit encapsulates all Life. Nothing can live without it- no demon or demigod.

Just what is the "Church". What is Christ's Church?

I'll cut and paste this definition:
Church
The word translated "church" in the English Bible is ekklesia. This word is
the Greek words kaleo (to call), with the prefix ek (out). Thus, the word
means "the called out ones." However, the English word "church" does not
come from ekklesia but from the word kuriakon, which means "dedicated to the Lord." This word was commonly used to refer to a holy place or temple. By the time of Jerome's translation of the New Testament from Greek to Latin, it was customary to use a derivative of kuriakon to translate ekklesia.
Therefore, the word church is a poor translation of the word ekklesia since
it implies a sacred building, or temple. A more accurate translation would
be "assembly" because the term ekklesia was used to refer to a group of
people who had been called out to a meeting. It was also used as a synonym for the word synagogue, which also means to "come together," i.e. a gathering.

So the Church is simply those called out by Christ- not buildings, organisations, groups etc.

The Apostolic Churches are represented by the various apostles, notably we have the Church of Peter and the Church of John. They are parts of the one Church- aspects of.

-Br.Bruce

Is it right to presume? The Bible states that it happened. The wonderful thing about the Bible is that no one can prove it false. Therefore, Jesus apparently rose into the clouds and was taken away, while human and angel witnessed the whole thing. therefore it is not a presumption, but an apparent fact, until otherwise proven wrong.

The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. And together with the Father and the Son He is glorified...let's read the creed as it is written.

It wasn't the creed that split the church...it was people who thought they new a better way (their way)...and maybe they did, but it wasn't the creed...

v/r

Q

 

[Bruce Michael]

Hello Q,
>The wonderful thing about the Bible is that no one can prove it false.

Which particular Biblical scholar are you quoting here- or are you just presuming?
Bible errata - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
>Therefore, Jesus apparently rose into the clouds and was taken away, >while human and angel witnessed the whole thing.

That was then and this is now.



>The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. And together with >the Father and the Son He is glorified...let's read the creed as it is written.

You mean the later altered version.

-Uncle Bruce

 

[Thomas]

The 'filioque dispute' was done and dusted years ago.

"The Greek and Latin Traditions About the Procession of the Holy Spirit" is a document issued jointly by the Catholic and Greek Orthodox Churches.

Thomas

 

[wil]

The 'filioque dispute' was done and dusted years ago.

You say done and dusted years ago...it appears there is a current consensus with this almost 2000 year old discussion that occurred what 12 years ago?? I'd say that hasn't set long enough for any dust to settle...especially with the changes that we see from one Pope to the next...

In 1995, during the visit of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, Pope John Paul II urged that the doctrine of the filioquebe clarified to show its full harmony with the Creed of the Ecumenical Council of Constantinople of 381. This document, prepared by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity (PCPCU) in September, 1995, is the result. It was intended as a contribution to the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. It was approved by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Eastern Orthodox Bishop Kallistos Ware, who once adamantly opposed the filioque doctrine, stated in May of 1995: "The filioque controversy which has separated us [Eastern Orthodox and Catholics] for so many centuries is more than a mere technicality, but it is not insoluble. Qualifying the firm position taken when I wrote [my book] The Orthodox Church twenty years ago, I now believe, after further study, that the problem is more in the area of semantics and different emphases than in any basic doctrinal differences" (Speech to a symposium on the Trinity; Rose Hill College, Aiken, South Carolina; emphasis added). In light of this PCPCU document, and similar ones, Bishop Ware is probably right: "the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone" and "the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son" may both have orthodox meanings if the words translated "proceeds" actually have different meanings.

 

[kenod]

The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. And together with the Father and the Son He is glorified...let's read the creed as it is written.
v/r
Q

Ok, now we know what it says, what does "proceeds" mean ... in layman's terms.

 

[mee]

Ok, now we know what it says, what does "proceeds" mean ... in layman's terms.

God’s Active Force; Holy Spirit. By far the majority of occurrences of ru′ach and pneu′ma relate to God’s spirit, his active force, his holy spirit.force in motion

 

[Thomas]

Hi Kenod —

That's a technical question regarding the use of theological terms and the expression of doctrine.

Both East and West acknowledge the Father as the origin of the Second and Third Persons of the Trinity. Both therefore recognize that the "monarchy of the Father" implies that the Father is the sole Trinitarian Cause (Aitia) or Principle (Principium) of the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The idea of the Holy Spirit is from the Father alone as Principle of the whole Trinity is called ekporeusis by Greek tradition, following the Cappadocian Fathers. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, the Theologian, in fact, characterizes the Spirit's relationship of origin from the Father by the proper term ekporeusis, distinguishing it from that of procession (to proienai) which the Spirit has in common with the Son. "The Spirit is truly the Spirit proceeding (proion) from the Father, not by filiation, for it is not by generation, but by ekporeusis"
Gregory of Nyssa, Discourse 39. 12, Sources chretiennes 358, p. 175).

Yet the Trinitarian order the Holy Spirit is consecutive to the relation between the Father and the Son, since he takes his origin from the Father as Father of the only Son, it is in the Spirit that this relationship between the Father and the Son itself attains its Trinitarian perfection.

Just as the Father is characterised as Father by the Son he generates, so does the Spirit, by taking his origin from the Father, characterise the Father in the manner of the Trinity in relation to the Son and characterises the Son in the manner of the Trinity in his relation to the Father: in the fullness of the Trinitarian mystery they are Father and Son in the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit does not precede the Son, since the Son characterises as Father the Father from whom the Spirit takes his origin, according to the Trinitarian order. But the spiration of the Spirit from the Father takes place by and through (the two senses of dia in Greek) the generation of the Son, to which it gives its Trinitarian character. It is in this sense that St. John Damascene says: "The Holy Spirit is a substantial power contemplated in his own distinct hypostasis, who proceeds from the Father and reposes in the Word"
St John Damascene De Fide Orthodoxa I, 7, PG 94, 805 B, ed. B. Kotter, Berlin 1973, p.16; Dialogus contra Manichaeos 5, PG 94. 1512 B, ed. B. Kotter, Berlin 1981, p. 354).

+++

The original character of the person of the Spirit as eternal Gift of the Father's love for his beloved Son shows that the Spirit, while coming from the Son in his mission, is the one who brings human beings into Christ's filial relationship to his Father, for this relationship finds only in him its Trinitarian character: "God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying Abba!Father!" (Gal 4:6). In the mystery of salvation and in the life of the church, the Spirit, therefore, does much more than prolong the work of the Son. In fact, whatever Christ has instituted - Revelation, the church, the sacraments, the apostolic ministry, and its magisterium - calls for constant invocation (epiclesis) of the Holy Spirit and his action ([/i]energeia[/i]), so that the love that "never ends" (1 Cor 13:8) may be made manifest in the communion of the saints with the life of the Trinity.

Filioque

Catholic Culture : Library : The Father as the Source of the Whole Trinity: The Procession of the Holy Spirit in Greek and Latin Traditions

Thomas

 

[Thomas]

You say done and dusted years ago...it appears there is a current consensus with this almost 2000 year old discussion that occurred what 12 years ago?? I'd say that hasn't set long enough for any dust to settle...especially with the changes that we see from one Pope to the next...

Nothing 'changes' from one pope to the next, just a deepening of the understandings ... people keep looking for change, and rarely find it.

I suppose my point was whether the post is adding anything constructive to the debate ...

Letter from St Maximus the Confessor (580-662)
Those of the Queen of Cities [Constantinople] have attacked the synodal letter of the present very holy Pope, not in the case of all the chapters that he has written in it, but only in the case of two of them. One relates to the theology [of the Trinity] and according to this, says 'the Holy Spirit also has his ekporeusis from the Son.'

The other deals with the divine incarnation. With regard to the first matter, they [the Romans] have produced the unanimous evidence of the Latin Fathers, and also of Cyril of Alexandria, from the study he made of the gospel of St John. On the basis of these texts, they have shown that they have not made the Son the cause of the Spirit -- they know in fact that the Father is the only cause of the Son and the Spirit, the one by begetting and the other by procession -- but that they have manifested the procession through him and have thus shown the unity and identity of the essence.

They [the Romans] have therefore been accused of precisely those things of which it would be wrong the accuse them, whereas the former [the Byzantines] have been accused of those things it has been quite correct to accuse them [Monothelitism].

In accordance with your request I have asked the Romans to translate what is peculiar to them (the 'also from the Son') in such a way that any obscurities that may result from it will be avoided. But since the practice of writing and sending [the synodal letters] has been observed, I wonder whether they will possibly agree to doing this. It is true, of course, that they cannot reproduce their idea in a language and in words that are foreign to them as they can in their mother-tongue, just as we too cannot do."
Migne, PG 91:136.

St Maximus and Pope Martin I were arrested by the Byzantine emperor for opposing a heresy in the East, taken to Constrantinople, they were imprisoned and tortured, then exiled, where both died shortly after of their wounds.

(It seems notable that the Roman Catholic Church, so often presented as the villain of the Christian world, seeemd unable to protext its own pope, even as late as the 7th century)

Thomas