Yup, I am still here.

I am simply stating what the doctrine is. The relations of the encomia fall out of the theologia on that doctrine. I stated that the doctrine has metaphysical content, which is something distinct from your gloss on what I wrote.

Second, your remark about what it is all about for the Orthodox seems to border on an ad hominem. As I have represented the teaching, I don’t think any faithful and philosophically informed Catholic would find fault with it. If you think I am mistaken in how I am representing the view, then please point out where I have done so. Besides, I had problems with the doctrine when I was Anglo-Catholic.

I am not trying to tell anyone what they mean by the term. I am simply noting what it has meant historically and theologically out of the mouths of its advocates. I do argue that the doctrine has problematic implications or entailments, but that doesn’t imply that I am misrepresenting the doctrine. Again, if you think I am doing so, then please point out where.

Now I know Mike Liccione and we have gone through this issue for nearly four years now. I don’t think Mike would deny the doctrine has metaphysical content and posits a kind of metaphysical relation in and as deity. If you subscribe to the doctrine, these metaphsical claims require justificaiton on Reformed principles. As I noted above, the economia is not relevant for two reasons. First because that is not controversial material since everyone agrees with it. Second, because the Filioque isn’t per se about the economia but about hypostatic generation. That is the point of the language of “as from one principle” which the Reformed use as well. I understand where Anselm Albert, and Thomas get it from but I don’t think you can justify it on from Sola Scriptura.

As for Nicea and Chalcedon, I am not sure how you could agree with them. So please clarify. Do you think that the Son is “God of God” or do you think that all three persons of the Trinity are autotheos as Calvin taught? On Chalcedon, do you think Jesus is a human and divine person, that Christ qua person of the mediator is “out of” two natures as Calvin thought or that Christ is always and only the divine eternal person of the Son? If you take the former of the two options then you dissent from the Nicene Creed and Chalcedon. These are well worn paths and I believed the Reformed on these when I was Reformed and so did my Reformed ministers and Reformed ministers that I knew in the PCA and the OPC as well.

As for some “mystical strand of thinking” that attempts to access the Son apart from the Spirit, I have no idea where you got this idea as far as primary sources. I know Bavink, Kuyper, Van Til, Rushdoony and a few others try to make this argument against the Orthodox, but it is baseless and absurd. The Orthodox posit an eternal energetic relationship between the persons of the Son and the Spirit which is then manifested in our doctrine of the baptism of Christ. This is wonderfully exemplified in say Cyril’s (of Alexandria) explication of Christ’s baptism. (See Keating’s explication in his, The Appropriation of Divine Life in Cyril of Alexandria.) Second, we have never said that there is no relation between the economia and eternity, we just deny that it implies hypostatic generation. The problem posed would only have the implication if there was nothing between hypostatic generation and the workings in the temporal sphere. This just ignores the doctrine of the energies and so anyone who makes this claim just isn’t informed on Orthodox Triadology at all and suffers from an impoverished two-place theology-an eternal hypostatic generation and a temporal working. This just implies that the Orthodox don’t share a common view of the Trinity with the Reformed, but we knew that already. What Kuyper, Van Til, Bavink, Rushdoony and Co. have done is simply trace out the consequences of rejecting the Filioque on their Platonic structuring of Trinitarianism and then concluded that this grounds Orthodox “mysticism” where “mysticism” picks out something like hating the mind, reason, etc. and being absorbed into the divine essence-that is, it’s a curse word. But none of this follows since we don’t accept the Platonic structuring of the Trinity in the first place. The supposed separation between mind and will that they posit is absurd. Orthodox apophatic theology isn’t grounded there in the first place but in a denial that God as intra is self subsisting being. What is more, this objection is a product of philosophical theology and not biblical exegesis. And if the Reformed maintain the doctrine to stave off this supposed “mystical strand of thinking” then it seems that the doctrine is important, highlighting again the need for an exegetical justification. In the same article the author argues via Reformed sources that the denial of the Filioque opens the door to not only the idolatry of icons (one wonders why Rome has icons then), statism, pantheism and horror of horrors, Pelagianism! This is just absurd written by people in fear trying to use bogeymen to keep the faithful in. http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/0304/030401uttinger.php

Why shouldn’t I look to your confessional standards in comparing the infra/supra positions and the filioque or simplicity? Where else do you propose I look? The analogy as I pointed out is weak. There certainly seems to be some undermining of SS here since if it were to be used rightly, you’d think that the doctrine would be removed by now, but its not. The same goes for doctrines that have even less, as in zero, biblical support like simplicity. I think it points out that the Reformed are operating by tradition and not SS. This is manifested with the recent rows over Enns and the Federal Vision. The tradition trumps appeals to scripture. Appeals to sola scriptura operate in evaluating external bodies where as the tradition operates to structure and corral scriptural exegesis and models.

Here is the problem with what you offer. I do hear Reformed folk making the kind of claim about the Filioque, but the Filioque (and simplicity) are in fact quite significantly placed. First, they are located within a major doctrinal head. Besides, its not like screwing around with the Trinity is not likely to have serious consequences. Second, the reasons for it structure the Reformed doctrine of the covenant of redemption. Without those assumptions the covenant of redemption is in serious trouble. Third it is used to distinguish the persons as relations such that without it, it is argued by Reformed theologians, that it will be impossible to distinguish the persons and so the Trinity will collapse into modalism, the Klingons will invade and cats and dogs will start living together. Third to play down the doctrine just motivates the other end of the problem. If it is minor, remove it from the confessions. If its position is that attenuated why raise it to or retain it at the level of confessional doctrine?

I grant that you do not countenance any kind of dual source in the Trinity but that doesn’t help your position. Rome doesn’t countenance any kind of Pelagianism or semi-Pelagianism either and yet the Reformed seem to take themselves as licensed that by implication they do. I am not therefore clear on why I am not licensed to take Reformed denials as inconsistent with what I argue their theology implies or entails? This is special pleading. As I noted before, Nestorius denied a Two Son Christology but his teaching implied it nonetheless.

If I am getting the Reformed view of the Filioque wrong, then please show exactly where I have done so. You repeat this but so far I haven’t seen any demonstration. The doctrine makes claims about the inner life of the Trinity as the persons as relations and distinguished by relations of opposition. This is uncontroversial across the board. And the Reformed do defend those two theses explicitly, so here I think you are mistaken.

The point of this is once again that there is no shared essential doctrinal unity between the three parties. The Reformed are not genuine inheritors of Nicene and Chalcedonian theology.

Glory to Him for His Annunciation-this brief interlude in the midst of our Lenten road to Golgotha.

Jonathan
p.s. I will most likely not comment on my issues with Orthodoxy until after Pentecost.

Neal – I agree with you that we cannot say that it is not important because we don’t think about it. My point to Perry is that the Reformed (and I think the Catholics as well) don’t respond to the EO position because the EO position is not what we hold when we use the term “filioque.” We thus don’t defend something that we don’t recognize as our position. We don’t mean to say the sorts of things that the EO hear. The lack of any sort of systematic treatment of the inner life of the Trinity in respect to this doctrine is a reflection of this. We don’t think about what we did not try to defend in the first place. If the EO want to tell us what we mean by filioque well then what can we do?

The Filioque isn’t that the person of the Spirit works through the agency of the Son, rather it is the thesis that the person of the Spirit is generated from the person of the Father and the Son.

You have made this kind of statement more than once. Do you really think that there are no economic aspects to the doctrine of the Filioque? You state that the doctrine is all about metaphysics, but what I really think you mean is that this is that this is what it is all about to the Orthodox. To me the core of the problem is that the Orthodox are trying to tell us what we mean by “filioque” and in reality we don’t mean this. Hence my reference to the Catholic Encyclopedia article which I see that Tim referenced above. Again, the CE article says quite a bit about the economic aspects of the relationship between the Son and the Spirit, but it does not try to make the kinds of metaphysical judgments that the Orthodox take from the matter. So maybe the EO have taken too much from the statements of Catholic and Protestant sources on the filioque? You have made statements about what you believe about Nicean and Chalcedodian orthodoxy (note small “o”) and I agree with them. But then you tell me that in reality I don’t agree. At this point I throw up my hands and say OK, whatever.

You do raise a good point about the fact that the filioque survives in Reformed confessional statements and I think this underscores the importance that the Reformed place on the relationship of the Son and the Spirit. There is a mystical strand of thinking in the history of the Church which attempts to access the Spirit directly without reference to the Son and the Reformed react strongly against this. Again this underscores the economic aspects of the Trinity without necessarily referencing any ontological matters.

And don’t look to the dogmatic status of the respective doctrines when I compare the filioque to the infralapsarian debate. The analogy rests in the relationship of these doctrines to Scripture. The analogy is meant to comment on your observation that Reformed will state something as theological verity but not ground it in Scripture. I use the analogy to point out that there is no undermining of the Protestant principle of sola scriptura here. If you hear someone from the Reformed camp saying that they believe something that cannot be derived from Scripture I would take this as a cue that they are stating that this is not of preeminent importance to the faith. And the ontological implications of the doctrine of the filioque are just in this category. The lack of emphasis on such matters is underscored by the paucity of commentary on the matter in the Reformed corpus. Take a look at a modern systematic theology like that of Berhkof. You will find quite a bit in their about the Trinity but precious little if anything at all about the ontological considerations surrounding the filioque. The reason for this is that there is no attempt to formulate a theology of the ontological inner life of the Trinity. Again, what the Orthodox hear us saying is not what is meant at all. If it were, then you would find a comprehensive discussion on it. We do not countenance any sort of dual source of divinity.

No need to apologize about the delay. Its kewl. The Filioque isn’t that the person of the Spirit works through the agency of the Son, rather it is the thesis that the person of the Spirit is generated from the person of the Father and the Son. The Reformed have followed Rome in this teaching and in claiming that they in fact know that this is true of God ad intra.

I’d argue that while the Reformed have seemed to have been cautious about creating theologies of the inner life of the Trinity, this at the end of the day isn’t so. Calvin for example is just as much an advocate of De Deo Uno as Thomas, though Thomas by fair is the greater intellect and at least explicit about it. (http://energeticprocession.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/de-deo-uno-in-calvin/ )

Even if this were not so, the point is that the Filioque entails certain metaphysical claims and has metaphysical import. Second, the doctrine cannot be derived from Scripture without certain extra-biblical metaphysical assumptions and concepts. Third, all of the major Reformed and Lutheran confessions contain the doctrine within their gloss of the Trinity thus putting it at a dogmatic level even though its fairly clear that the doctrine can’t be justified by an appeal to scripture alone. There isn’t a major theological text on Reformed or Lutheran doctrine of the Trinity in the last five hundred years that doesn’t castigate the Orthodox for rejecting this “scriptural” doctrine. As for secondary tradition, this is trumped by Scripture in your view and even that aside, the tradition isn’t uniform in terms of the patristic tradition. John of Damascus and Augustine clearly do not agree. If you’re Catholic that’s fine since you’ve got a trump card in Rome and even Thomas was wrong on the immaculate conception of Mary.

I don’t think the analogy with infra and supra actually works and here’s why. First because those to my knowledge aren’t enshrined in the Reformed confessions while the Filioque is. Second, there isn’t the variety of interpretations of the Filioque in the Reformed tradition as there is on say infra and supra so as to allow leeway. It isn’t one way of glossing how the persons are related, but the way. Consequently the Filioque isn’t a theological speculation or theologoumenon. And that’s the problem, the idea that the Father and the Son generate the person or hypostasis of the Spirit can’t be justified via Sola Scriptura. Second, the question is not if this or that view of the Filioque is derivable from scripture alone, but if the doctrine itself is derivable from Scripture alone. So I am not talking about what theologians put forward, but what bodies confess in terms of their official and formal theological statements. Besides, all of the Reformed theologians I know of for the last five hundred years have pretty much uniformly followed Augustine here on how they understand the Filioque.

I think Neal is correct and as I pointed out before, how much time the Reformed have spent on their own Trinitarian theology is irrelevant. They are, on their own principles, responsible for the doctrines they profess, regardless of how interesting or boring the doctrine of the Trinity might strike them aesthetically. Yet for five hundred years simper reformada hasn’t managed to touch this doctrine. It just strikes me as ironic that the Reformed howl about this or that doctrine that they deem to be unscriptural or the product of philosophical reasoning in Rome, but when it is pointed out in their own confessions, they play down the doctrine of the *Trinity* like an error there is like a flesh wound. I think something more is at work than just concern for being biblical. Rather there is a good pit of psychology here. I am not trying to put you on the couch personally, but dismissing an error in the doctrine of the Trinity as not a big deal seems to me to be more akin to Freudian denial than zeal for the Lord’s house.

I don’t want to interfere with your discussion with Perry, but I wanted to make a few points if the two of you don’t mind.

First, even if it were true that both Reformed and Catholic did not spend as much time as Orthodox dwelling on this aspect of Trinitarian theology, how could that possibly be a measure of the importance or theological significance of this aspect of Trinitarian theology? It seems to me that we can’t ever move from the premise that “I don’t think much about X” to the conclusion that “X does not really matter all that much.” This seems to be the purest form of empiricist reductionism. Even if you are right that Catholics and Reformed haven’t given this issue a lot of attention, why doesn’t that just mean that we haven’t given it the attention actually due it, instead of meaning that the Orthodox are wrong to pay attention to it? (The point I’m making here is quite similar to points I’ve made in the past on other issues; e.g., you’ve repeatedly argued that because evangelicals don’t ever worry about whether their canon is accurate or complete, or how they know it is, this implies that there just isn’t any problem for evangelicals about where you got your bibles or how its contents were fixed. This is another case of empiricist reductionism.)

Second, you note that it’s a dangerous matter trying to speculate upon or dogmatize about the Trinity. But of course. “Christian theology is by its nature a dangerous enterprise,” as Peter van Inwagen has rightly said. Speculating and dogmatizing about, say, justification is just as “dangerous,” if we measure degrees of “danger” by the impact such speculation/dogmatizing might have on our theological understanding. To be sure, you’re supposing that your particular opinions concerning the metaphysics of justification (and a lot else related to it) can be “derived directly from Scripture,” and evidently you don’t think that your particular (dogmatically received?) views on the Trinity can be clearly “derived from Scripture” in the same sort of way. But I think this is precisely the stance that you are being pressed about just now.

I’ll let Perry respond to your analogy about supra/infralapsarianism, but my guess is that he won’t view the “metaphysics of the Trinity” as being on par with these in house disputes among Protestants, if for no other reason than that Protestants have aligned themselves with a specific view on the Trinity the Biblical support for which he’s right now questioning.

Best,

Neal

Andrew then replies: Perry, sorry for the delay in replying, it’s been a very busy weekend. Yes, there is a metaphysic behind the statement. The fact that the Spirit works through the agency of the Son says something about the ontological relationship between the two. But what is this relationship? The Reformed in general ( and I think the Catholics in general) have not spent too much time theologizing about it (at least, they have spent a tiny fraction of the time that the Orthodox have dwelling on this matter). It always seems us Reformed to be potentially dangerous to be creating theologies of the inner life of the Trinity so we (again in general) relegate such matters to mystery. Now of course there are Protestant theologians and philosophers who will try to speculate on these things. I have no issues with this as long as they don’t try to create dogmatic statements that go beyond what can be reasonably deduced from primarily Scripture and secondarily tradition. And perhaps this underscores the observation that you have made of Reformed theologians wanting to make certain metaphysical speculations concerning the Trinity but not wanting to say that they can derive these directly from Scripture. This can be analogized to the aforementioned example of the logical order of the decrees. It’s just a mistake to be overly dogmatic on a defense of, for instance, supralapsarianism, but that does mean that it is wrong to raise philosophical points about this issue. There is nothing inconsistent with a Protestant theologian or philosopher positing a theology that cannot be rigorously derived from Scripture since there are some things that we cannot know for sure.

Cheers….

I can still remember when I was hit with the sheer clarity of Luke 1:48, and that was a great aid to me when I visited an Orthodox church. Even still, I found the invocations to her a bit overwhelming.