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Nexus of Christian Mysteries: The Filioque and its Doctrinal “Life-Significance”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Abstract
Neither a recapitulation of the Catholic Church's teaching on the Filioque nor a comprehensive reconstruction of Thomas Aquinas’ theology of the Spirit, this paper is instead a response to several objections raised against Thomas’ defense of the Filioque by the highly-original Orthodox theologian Sergei Bulgakov. Following his patristic predecessors, particularly Augustine of Hippo and Cyril of Alexandria, and the conciliar tradition, Thomas situates the contemplation of the Spirit's procession within Christology—for He is the Spirit of Christ (see Rom. 8:9). The Christological framing of the Spirit's procession a Filio leavens theological examination of the doctrine's expansive influence on the understanding of other Christian Mysteries. By examining Matthias Joseph Scheeben's speculative reflections on the procession of the Spirit as analogous to the creation of Eve and illuminative of the Church as Bride of Christ, Bulgakov's most damning criticism, that the Filioque is a theologoumenon lacking in “life-significance” is rebutted. Finally, additional avenues of elaborating upon the Spirit's procession as indivisibly connected to other mysteries of the faith are advanced.
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- Copyright © 2019 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 The scholarship of Giles Emery and Matthew Levering suffice as articulations of Thomistic theology of the Spirit and His procession. Emery, Giles O.P., Trinity in Aquinas, (Ave Maria, FL: Sapientia Press, 2006)Google Scholar; Levering, Matthew, Engaging the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit: Love and Gift in the Trinity and the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2016)Google Scholar. See note 74 below for dogmatic definitions of Second Lyons and Florence.
2 The historical prolegomena is drawn from: Siecienski, A. Edward, The Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Daley, Brian E., “Revisiting the ‘Filioque’: Roots and Branches of an Old Debate, Part One” in Pro Ecclesia 10 (2001): 31-62CrossRefGoogle Scholar and “Revisiting the ‘Filioque’: Part Two: Contemporary Catholic Approaches” 10 (2001): pp. 195-212Google Scholar; and, Plested, Marcus, Orthodox Readings of Aquinas, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Daley, “Part One,” pp. 37-39.
4 Daley argues convincingly that Cyril conceives of the Spirit as the Son's, belonging to Him in the internal and eternal life of God, of the ousia of the Son, and substantially from Father and Son (Daley, “Part One,” 44). The reason for the Son's mediatorial role in his full divinity received in being eternally begotten of the Father. The distinction between theology and economy is consistently avoided by Cyril as he tries to unite God's being with His creative and salvific acts, “God acts in history as God is.” Daley, , “The Fullness of the Saving God: Cyril of Alexandria and the Holy Spirit” The Theology of St. Cyril of Alexandria: A Critical Appreciation, ed. Weinandy, Thomas G. OFM, Cap., and Keating, Daniel A. (New York: Continuum, 2003.): pp. 147-48Google Scholar. Norman Russel too describes Cyril as the “easiest [Greek Father] to accommodate to the Western position on the Filioque” in Russel, Norman, Cyril of Alexandria (New York: Routledge, 2000): p. 214 n.96Google Scholar. Russel, however, sides with several other modern scholars in concluding that Cyril only attributed a mediatorial role to the Son in the economy. These scholars include, Berthold, G.C., “Cyril of Alexandria and the Filioque,” Studia Patristica 19 (1989): pp. 143-7Google Scholar; de Halleux, A., “Cyrille, Théodoret et le Filioque,” Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique 74 (1979): pp. 597-625Google Scholar; and, Theodorou, A., He christologike horologia kai didaskalia Kyrillou tou Alexandreias kai Thedoretou Kyrou (Athens: Theoloike Schole Panepistemiou Athenon, 1955)Google Scholar.
5 Russel, Cyril of Alexandria, p. 68, p. 225 n.4.
6 Marie-Odile Boulnois instead sides with Daley and Pusey in arguing for Cyril's compatibility with the Filioque. The “continuity between economy and theology” and the linking of the Divine persons in a “threefold way” are given by Boulnois as two reasons for Cyril's articulation of a mediatorial role of the Son in spiration. The language of ek and dia have to balanced so that the monarchy of the Father and his perfect begetting of his Son (including the ability to spirate) are equally affirmed. Boulnois, Marie-Odile, “The Mystery of the Trinity According to Cyril of Alexandria: The Devlopment of the Triad and Its Recapitulation into the Unity of Divinity,” The Theology of St. Cyril of Alexandria: A Critical Appreciation, ed. Weinandy, Thomas G. OFM, Cap., and Keating, Daniel A. (New York: Continuum, 2003.): pp. 106-8Google Scholar. See also Le paradoxe trinitaire chez Cyrille d'Alexandrie. Herméneutique, analyses philosophiques et argumentation théologique, (Paris: Institut d'Etudes Augustiniennes, 1994)Google Scholar. Jonathan Morgan endorses the careful reading of Boulnois in his dissertation, “Circumcision of the Spirit in the Soteriology of Cyril of Alexandria” (PhD diss, Marquette University, 2013, p. 152 n.112, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.
7 Daley, “Part One,” pp. 43-44.
8 Ibid, p. 43
9 No Western bishops were invited to Constantinople. By comparison, Emperor Theodosius II, personally invited Augustine to the Council of Ephesus (431), although Augustine was by then already deceased (+August, 28, 430).
10 Lienhard, Joseph T. S.J., “The ‘Arian’ Controversy: Some Categories Reconsidered,” in Theological Studies 48 (1987): pp. 415-437CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
11 Thomas’ interaction with Cyril is found first in his attention to the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon on which Cyril was the largest theological influence, but also in Thomas’ Contra errores graecorum in which Cyril is one of the most frequently cited exponents of the Filioque doctrine.
12 Plested, Orthodox Readings of Aquinas, pp. 2-4.
13 Ibid, pp. 77-88, 131.
14 Bulgakov, The Comforter, p. 100.
15 Ibid, p. 90. Emphasis is mine.
16 Ibid, p. 42.
17 Ibid, p. 40.
18 Ibid, p. 41.
19 Marshall, Bruce D., “Aquinas the Augustinian? On the Uses of Augustine in Aquinas’ Trinitarian Theology” in Aquinas the Augustinian, ed. Dauphinais, , David, , and Leverying, (Washington DC: CUA Press, 2007): p. 44Google Scholar.
20 Bulgakov, The Comforter, p. 100.
21 Ibid, p. 133.
22 Ibid, p. 77.
23 Ibid, p. 97.
24 Ibid, pp. 119-20.
25 Ibid, p. 93.
26 Ibid, pp. 87, 947.
27 Ibid, p. 93, 116, 144.
28 Contemporary Spirit Christologies include Durrwell, François-Xavier, Holy Spirit of God: An Essay in Biblical Theology, trans. Sr.Davies, Benedict O.S.U., (Cincinnati, OH: Servant Books, 2006)Google Scholar; Weinandy, Thomas O.F.M., The Father's Spirit of Sonship: Reconceiving the Trinity, (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1995)Google Scholar; and, del Colle, Ralph, Christ and the Spirit: Spirit-Christology in Trinitarian Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994)Google Scholar.
29 Bulgakov, The Comforter, p. 116.
30 Ibid, p. 127.
31 Ibid, pp. 124-25.
32 Ibid, pp. 124-25.
33 Ibid, pp. 139-40.
34 Ibid, p. 149.
35 Ibid, p. 131.
36 Ibid, p. 131.
37 Ibid, p. 148.
38 Ibid, p. 144.
39 Ibid, p. 144.
40 Daley, “Part One,” pp. 3-33.
41 Emery, Trinity in Aquinas, p. 107.
42 Ibid, p. 109.
43 Ibid, p. 110.
44 Ibid, p. 11.
45 Ibid, pp. 169-71. André Malet, Paul Vanier, Hans Christian Schmidbaur are cited as examples.
46 Marshall, “Aquinas the Augustinian?” p. 51.
47 Emery, Trinity in Aquinas, p. 315.
48 Marshall, “Aquinas the Augustinian?” p. 52.
49 Emery, Trinity in Aquinas, p. 199.
50 De Potentia, q.8, a. 3, ad 7 and ad 9. Cited Emery, Trinity in Aquinas, p. 200.
51 SCG IV, 14 (#3502). Cited Emery, Trinity in Aquinas, p. 204.
52 Emery, Trinity in Aquinas, p. 207.
53 Ibid, p. 207.
54 STh. I. q. 40, a. 4, ad. 1.
55 Daley, “Filioque, Part Two,” pp. 208-10.
56 Marshall suggests STh. III, q. 3, a. 4, obj. 1
57 Pelikan, “Filioque,” 327; STh. I, q. 36, a. 2, ad 2.
58 Pelikan, “Filioque,’ 331; STh. I, q. 36, a. 2, ad 3.
59 Marshall, Bruce D., “What Does the Spirit Have to Do?” in Reading John with St. Thomas Aquinas: Theological Exegesis and Speculative Theology, ed. Dauphinais, and Leverying, , p. 66.Google Scholar Emery, p. 291.
60 In Ioan. 14:26 (#1958). Cited Emery, p. 291.
61 Bruce D. Marshall, “What Does the Spirit Have to Do?” p. 64, citing In Ioan. I, lect. 2, n. 76.
62 Bruce D. Marshall, “What Does the Spirit Have to Do?” p. 65.
63 Bruce D. Marshall, “What Does the Spirit Have to Do?” pp. 72-74.
64 STh. I. q. 36, a. 4, ad. 1.
65 STh. I. q. 36, a. 4, ad. 2.
66 Levering, Engaging the Doctrine, pp. 158-59.
67 STh. I, q. 36, a. 4, ad. 1: Ad primum ergo dicendum quod, si attendatur virtus spirativa, spiritus sanctus procedit a patre et filio inquantum sunt unum in virtute spirativa, quae quodammodo significat naturam cum proprietate, ut infra dicetur. Neque est inconveniens unam proprietatem esse in duobus suppositis, quorum est una natura. Si vero considerentur supposita spirationis, sic spiritus sanctus procedit a patre et filio ut sunt plures, procedit enim ab eis ut amor unitivus duorum.
68 STh. I. q. 36, a. 4, ad. 7.
69 Levering, Engaging the Doctrine, p. 161.
70 Ibid, pp. 142-46.
71 Ibid, p. 166.
72 See Dei Filius 4.
73 Bulgakov explores the connection of the Filioque to the “pseudo-dogma” of papal infallibility in The Comforter, p. 121.
74 Jaroslav Pelikan argues, “[W]e may be entitled to view the dogmatic outcome at Lyons as at least in part an achievement of Thomas Aquinas.” Pelikan, Jaroslav, “The Doctrine of the Filioque in Thomas Aquinas and its Patristic Antecedents: An Analysis of Summa Theologiae, Part I, Question 36,” in St. Thomas Aquinas 1274-1974: Commemorative Studies, ed. Maurer, Armand A. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1974): p. 318Google Scholar. The Second Council of Lyon defines the following in its “Constitution on the Most High Trinity and the Catholic Faith”: “Fideli ac devote professione fatemur, quod Spiritus Sanctus aeternalister ex Patre et Filio, non tamen ex duobus principiis, sed tanquam ex uno principio, non duabas spirationibus, sed unica spiratione procedit; hoc professa est hactenus, praedicavit et docuit, hoc firmiter tenet, praedicat, profitetur et docet sacrosancta Romana Ecclesia, mater omnium fidelium et magistra; hoc habet orthodoxorum Patrum atque Doctorum, Latinorum partier et Graecorum incommutabilis et vera sentential.” DS (43rd ed.) 850. The Council of Florence defines the following in the Bull Laetentur caeli: “quod Spiritus Sanctus ex Patre et Filio aeternaliter est, et essentiam suam suumque esse subsistens habet ex Patre ex simul et Filio, et ex utroque aeternaliter tanmquam ab uno principio et unica spiratione procedit…Diffinimus insuper explicationem verborum illorum “Filioque” veritatis declarandae gratia, et inaminente tun necessitate, licite ac rationabiliter Symbolo fuisse appositam. DS (43rd ed.) 1300, 1302.
75 Farmer, William R. and Kereszty, Roch O.Cist., Peter and Paul & the Church of Rome: The Ecumenical Potential of a Forgotten Perspective, (New York: Paulist Press, 1990)Google Scholar.
76 For Lutheranism, see Marshall, Bruce, “The Defense of the Filioque in Classical Lutheran Theology: An Ecumenical Appreciation,” in Neue Zeitschrift fur systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 44 (2002): 154-173Google Scholar; for the Reformed Tradition, Muller, Richard A., Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725, vol. 4 (Baker Academic, 2003): pp. 373-76Google Scholar; for Anglicanism, see Price, Charles P., “Some notes on Filioque,” Anglican Theological Review, no. 83 (2001)3: pp. 515-35Google Scholar; for Karl Barth, see Guretzki, David, Karl Barth on the Filioque, (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009)Google Scholar.
77 Scheeben, Matthias Joseph, Mysteries of Christianity, trans. Vollert, Cyril S.J. (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder Book Co., 1946): p. 45Google Scholar.
78 Weinandy, Thomas G. O.F.M. Cap., The Father's Spirit of Sonship: Reconceiving the Trinity (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995): p. 67, n27Google Scholar.
79 Scheeben, Mysteries, p. 96.
80 Ibid, p. 88.
81 Ibid, p. 182. Gregory and Scheeben do admit that there does not necessarily have to be a natural analogue for spiration.
82 Ibid, pp. 181-82.
83 Ibid, p. 189.
84 Ibid, p. 184.
85 Ibid, p. 185. Citing St. Methodius, Convivium decem virginum, III, c. 8; PG, XVIII, 73.
86 Ibid, p. 184. See also Torrell, Christ and Spirituality, pp. 45-64, on reciprocity as necessary for charity and friendship in the Godhead and between Christians and God.