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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Theological Q&A > Sailing to Byzantium - why I have shifted to the Eastern view of the Trinity | Forum Quick Jump
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Humphrey Bogart
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 205
| Posted 1/17/2006 5:12 AM (GMT -6) |   | Hello everyone.
Recently, prompted in part by previous debates in this forum, I've been looking into the concept of "spirit" and related words (i.e. pneuma and cognates) in the NT. Anyway, PotOnWheel will probably jump for joy when he hears this, but it's actually changed my view on the Trinity with regards to the filioque issue. That is, I don't think the filioque insertion or "double procession" of the Holy Spirit is correct, I've switched from a Western to an Eastern view on the issue. Let me explain why.
One thing I wanted to carefully consider is this. The Trinity consists of three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now we all have a reasonable understanding, more or less, of what "father" means and what "son" means. If we call someone a "father", we know pretty much what we're saying about them. But what does it mean to call the third person of the trinity specifically a "spirit". What is it that distinguishes him in terms of "spiritness". After all, isn't God the Father himself a spirit (Jn 4:24, note that theos here in context refers to the person of the Father)? Isn't Jesus also a spirit (2 Cor 3:17, and not that kurios in context refers to Jesus)? So why would the Holy Spirit be set apart as a spirit if the other two persons are spirits also? So what's the story?
Now, I have to introduce an idea here that not everyone will necessarily agree with, but which forms a background to the argument. That is, that what Jesus is in his incarnation was modelled on what he was eternally. So he was the Son eternally, but he also became a son (in a new sense) in the incarnation and in the resurrection and his glorification. I would appeal to scriptures such as Heb 13:8 to support this, and also I think if this principle is rejected it must logically entail Nestorianism. Every action of Jesus in his incarnation was an expression of both his humanity and his deity. But I digress.
With this assumption, we come to the crucial scripture, which is 1 Cor 14:45. "Thus it is written, "The first man, Adam, became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit." Now obviously, in context the direct reference of the statement about the last Adam becoming a life-giving spirit, is referring to Christ's resurrection. However, there are two reasons that I think that this also pertains to Christ's eternal person:
(a) The principle elaborated above, that what is true of Christ in his incarnation and work as human is equally true of him in his eternal divine person. In other words, if he became a life-giving spirit as a human, then he must have "become" a life-giving spirit in his eternal divine person. Now don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that there was a time when Jesus did not exist. But this is no different to the issue of Jesus being God's begotten Son. After all, Jesus in his work as human was begotten as God's Son in his resurrection (You are my son; today I have begotten you), which was a begetting at a particular point in time; but Jesus also was eternally begotten. So I'm just suggesting a similar relationship here. Jesus became a life-giving spirit in his resurrection in his work as human; but he eternally becomes a life-giving spirit in his divine person.
(b) The reference to Adam relates to Gen 2:7, which was the point at which Adam came into existence. Similarly, it seems reasonable to assume that the reference to Jesus might also relate to his eternal "coming into existence", his eternal begetting.
OK. So what am I saying from all this? Well, I think that God the Father eternally "begat" the person of God the Son and eternally breathed into him his own Spirit, which is what brought him to life, so to speak. God the Father breathed his Spirit into God the Son. But God is totally personal, and his Spirit is personal. In the "externalization" of the Father's Spirit, in the breathing into the Son, the "externalized" Spirit itself emerged as a person. Otherwise it would just be an "it" rather than a "he". Keep in mind all of this is eternal; the Holy Spirit has always existed and the externalization is eternal. But the point is, the Father is the origin of the person of both the Son and the Holy Spirit, and hence the Eastern view of single procession from the Father is confirmed.
This also accounts for scriptures which are sometimes cited to prove the Western view. For example, Western theologians have pointed out that the scriptures refer to the Holy Spirit as both the "Spirit of the Father" and the "Spirit of Christ". But the above account explains this perfectly. Saying that the Holy Spirit is the "Spirit of Christ", does not at all mean that Christ is the Holy Spirit's origin, anymore than referring to a particular human (let's call him Joe) spirit as "the spirit of Joe" implies that Joe was the origin of his own spirit.
In many other ways the Eastern view seems to me to be essentially correct. For instance, a careful examination has led me to conclude that the word theos never refers to the divine nature in abstracto. It always refers to one of the persons of the Trinity, usually the Father, although in rare instances the Son or Holy Spirit. This is crucial in scriptures such as Phil 2:5-11, where understanding this point, which in retrospect is obvious, has revolutionized my understanding of the text. The whole Western tendency to take a "divine nature" as primary and distinct from the person of the Father, like a fourth element of the Trinity, is totally wrong. Untold error has been caused by reading theos in the NT as referring to the divine nature, rather than to a specific person.
Comments? Where are you, PoW?
"And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium."
(WB Yeats).Post Edited (Humphrey Bogart) : 1/17/2006 4:23:15 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 1/17/2006 6:43 PM (GMT -6) | | | I'll get back to you.
Here's some links:
http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/history_timothy_ware_1.htm
http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/history_timothy_ware_2.htm
http://www.holytrinitymission.org/books/english/byzantine_theology_j_meyendorf.htm
What I remember from reading you this morning, I thought you go too far in speculating. My gut says that you might have weakened the trinitarian nature of the economy of salvation. Everything God does God does "in trinity." The way it struck me, it seemed that it might allow only centering on the Son, and not on all three together at all times. http://www.oca.org/OCchapter.asp?SID=2&ID=29
Eastern Christian Thought is deeply, and arguably 'only" Christological. (And that means, in effect, self-restricted to the economy of salvation.) That Christ is God, and that the Spirit is God (Basil) is christological and soteriological. Its the economy, and not speculation.
t seemed to me you were doing things to Chirst's divinity that belong to his humanity.
Forgive me, I only read yours once so far, and that was this morning...and I have to cook dinner soon!
Florevsky, and quoted by Meyendorff is the phrase "asymmetrical union" for refering to the union of Christ's divinity and humanity. God is not changed in that union. But neither is humanity diminished. I think you are struggling with this. And it felt like deity was about to be changed there. (Too acceptable on this site, I've feared. Be kind folks! I have to be honest.) All this is NOT speculation from the pagan-Greek side, in some debate between Hebrew and Classical Greek notions. What it is ALL about is salvation. Look at Meyendorff (the third Link above):
The very technical Christological discussions of the twelfth century, in fact, reconsidered all the major issues, which had been debated in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries. The Byzantine Church remained fundamentally faithful to the notion of what George Florovsky once called an "asymmetrical union" of God and man in Christ: while the hypostatic source of life — the goal and pattern — remains divine, man is not diminished or swallowed by the union; he becomes again fully human. This notion is also expressed in the Eucharistic sacrifice, a unique act in which no single action of Christ’s is represented in isolation or reduced to purely human concepts, such as an "exchange," or a "satisfaction." Christ as the Synodikon proclaims every year on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, "reconciled us to Himself by means of the whole mystery of the economy, by Himself, and in Himself and reconciled us also to His God and Father and of course to the most holy and life-giving Spirit."5
So...
I'll try to read it again. Thanks.
(o) Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 1/17/2006 9:39:20 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Starkman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 1/19/2006 6:15 PM (GMT -6) | | The bothersome part about this, HB, as I see it, is that I see know way to get around infinite regression within the angle in which you are presenting your argument. I do not have a problem with "eternally begotten" being a way of saying eternally or everlastingly in a certain type of relationship, which is what I think "eternally begotten" is. Whatever "begotten" is to mean, it cannot mean ontological always-has-been-begotten in some process, like...well, an eternal child birth taking place. Rather, I think the theological weight is on the Son's position; if the Son is eternally begotten from the Father, it is that the Son is in the position of one who has always been "subject to the Father" (I Cor 15:28 - When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all).
My thoughts on the subject,
Starkman
My teacher used to say that whenever he read Scripture, he would always ask the question, "What does this have to say about the character of God?" Working off his thinking, as I read Scripture, I have come to ask, "What does this have to say about the heart and passion of God's desire for relationship for us? | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 1/19/2006 6:24 PM (GMT -6) | | Bogart, what I keep coming back to in my mind is the opinion that east and west need each other. One is stronger in one thing and the other in another. Balance is the word.
Yannaras, or was it Lossky pointed out that recovering attention to the person does not reduce the truth of the essence.
Balance.
The creaturly thing to do is to focus on the actions of God personally to us (glories, energies). And to focus on them allthewhile understanding that God's essence "dwells in mystery"--that is, we can receive what God gives us but not know the inner-life of the trinity directly.
And there too balance is necessary to avoid wandering off into extreme corners. While sometimes it has been thought that the glories of God are not personal encounters, this is to be kept in check. God's Spirit dwells personally with men. What in his glories/energies we know...we REALLY know (as Tom pointed out). We don't know God "in" the trinity but we do know God, really, "from" the energies of God. And what God does God does always in Trinity. The Spirit teaches us of Christ in whom the Father is revealed. Christ teaches us all the truth of the Fahter by sending the Spirit. Etc.
NOW, IN BOTH THESE POSTS, I MAY HAVE DONE A VERY BAD MISREADING OF YOUR POST. SORRY IF SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ONE point in my getting hung up is this: then he must have "become" a life-giving spirit in his eternal divine person."
Can you lead me thought the meaning of your verb text. I'm a bit slow on the uptake--but jump to conclusions that I'm not...getting me into trouble, and maybe annoying you, Bogart.
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 1/19/2006 6:46 PM (GMT -6) | | |
Humphrey Bogart said...
The whole Western tendency to take a "divine nature" as primary and distinct from the person of the Father, like a fourth element of the Trinity, is totally wrong. Untold error has been caused by reading theos in the NT as referring to the divine nature, rather than to a specific person.
PoW: The fourth element thing does seem to control a lot of discussions and inquiries. Good point.
Ware: When thinking about the Trinity, Latins started with the unity of the Godhead, Greeks with the threeness of the persons...
But I wonder whether it is also possible for us to go to the other extreme. And like an end to the pavement near soft mud, I approach with caution. That other end would be to much individualization. . . as I'm onguard for here.
Honestly, I don't see anything wrong. But I don't feel settled about this all here either.
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Humphrey Bogart said...
OK. So what am I saying from all this? Well, I think that God the Father eternally "begat" the person of God the Son and eternally breathed into him his own Spirit, which is what brought him to life, so to speak. God the Father breathed his Spirit into God the Son. But God is totally personal, and his Spirit is personal. In the "externalization" of the Father's Spirit, in the breathing into the Son, the "externalized" Spirit itself emerged as a person. Otherwise it would just be an "it" rather than a "he". Keep in mind all of this is eternal; the Holy Spirit has always existed and the externalization is eternal. But the point is, the Father is the origin of the person of both the Son and the Holy Spirit, and hence the Eastern view of single procession from the Father is confirmed.
PoW: Where does this come from?
Parts of this are unsettling. Parts make me want to get up and run out of the room: "eternally breathed into him his own Spirit, which is what brought him to life"
Where does revelation about the economy of salvation teach us that "the 'externalized' Spirit itself emerged as a person."
The extreme feel of these makes me look for overarching causes,and to begin wondering whether you might have overreacted to the western, and went past the eastern...
Humbly....
=========================
Some Kallistos Ware:
Secondly, and more important, the Councils defined once and for all the Church’s teaching upon the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith — the Trinity and the Incarnation. All Christians agree in regarding these things as "mysteries" which lie beyond human understanding and language. The bishops, when they drew up definitions at the Councils, did not imagine that they had explained the mystery; they merely sought to exclude certain false ways of speaking and thinking about it. To prevent men from deviating into error and heresy, they drew a fence around the mystery; that was all.
And
When thinking about the Trinity, Latins started with the unity of the Godhead, Greeks with the threeness of the persons; when reflecting on the Crucifixion, Latins thought primarily of Christ the Victim, Greeks of Christ the Victor; Latins talked more of redemption, Greeks of deification; and so on. Like the schools of Antioch and Alexandria within the east, these two distinctive approaches were not in themselves contradictory; each served to supplement the other, and each had its place in the fullness of Catholic tradition. But now that the two sides were becoming strangers to one another — with no political and little cultural unity, with no common language — there was a danger that each side would follow its own approach in isolation and push it to extremes, forgetting the value in the opposite point of view.
Balance.
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Humphrey Bogart
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 205
| Posted 1/20/2006 5:06 AM (GMT -6) | | Starkman said...
The bothersome part about this, HB, as I see it, is that I see know way to get around infinite regression within the angle in which you are presenting your argument. I do not have a problem with "eternally begotten" being a way of saying eternally or everlastingly in a certain type of relationship, which is what I think "eternally begotten" is. Whatever "begotten" is to mean, it cannot mean ontological always-has-been-begotten in some process, like...well, an eternal child birth taking place. Rather, I think the theological weight is on the Son's position; if the Son is eternally begotten from the Father, it is that the Son is in the position of one who has always been "subject to the Father" (I Cor 15:28 - When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all).
Yeah, this is an old problem but I don't see any way around it. As I see it, we can only have a partial understanding of what "eternally begotten" means. We have some understanding of what "eternally" means, and we understand "begotten", and when we put them together we can sort of see what it means but it also seems a bit contradictory. But there's no avoiding that unless you ditch the whole "eternally begotten" thing, which kind of goes beyond the scope of what I was raising here.
Also, although this is also kind of a tangent, I absolutely agree with you on the eternal subordination of the Son to the Father. That's not a popular view these days. But besides the direct scriptural evidence, I believe that to reject eternal subordination is to adopt Nestorianism. Here's why. Those who reject eternal subordination, generally do so because of egalitarian concerns (i.e. they think that being subordinate would make the Son somehow lesser in divinity than the Father). But that implies that being in submission is somehow not something that God can do. It assumes that God can only "be the boss", so to speak, and could not be a servant or be in submission without lessening his divinity. BUT everything Jesus did on earth was in submission to the Father and was also servanthood. So if being in submission and servanthood are incompatible with divinity, then nothing Jesus did revealed to us the nature of God. We would have to split the "divine Jesus" who never is in submission and never acts as a servant, from the "human Jesus" revealed to us in the gospels who always acted in submission and as a servant. That is Nestorian. So I think that servanthood and being in submission must be an integral part of the divine nature, just as much as "being the boss" is. And if so, then Jesus being in submission to the Father in no way lessens his deity.
PoW said...
Can you lead me thought the meaning of your verb text. I'm a bit slow on the uptake--but jump to conclusions that I'm not...getting me into trouble, and maybe annoying you, Bogart.
No, not annoying at all! Verb tense is a problem. The creeds state that Christ is/was eternally begotten. But the word "begotten" is past tense (I'm not sure what tense the original Greek/Latin creeds used). But the point is, that by putting "eternally" before "begotten", it kind of makes tense irrelevant. Now when I say "eternally becoming" a life giving spirit, I mean it in exactly the same way as we say that the Son was "eternally begotten" or that the Holy Spirit "eternally proceeds" from the Father (I prefer to use the term "eternally breathed" than "eternally proceeds", but I agree with both).
PoW said...
Bogart, what I keep coming back to in my mind is the opinion that east and west need each other. One is stronger in one thing and the other in another. Balance is the word.
Yes, I agree, and I wouldn't dismiss outright the Western contribution, in fact some of it I think flows on nicely from the East. But on this issue of the filioque, I now come down firmly on the side of the East. I think it was a mistake to insert it. I think the East is fundamentally right, and the West has made some useful contributions but went wrong with the filioque.
I agree it's all very speculative, but it's not every day that you are convinced to alter your view to the opposite side!Post Edited (Humphrey Bogart) : 1/20/2006 4:16:14 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 1/20/2006 7:34 AM (GMT -6) | |
Humphrey Bogart said...
...I absolutely agree with you on the eternal subordination of the Son to the Father. That's not a popular view these days. But besides the direct scriptural evidence, I believe that to reject eternal subordination is to adopt Nestorianism. Here's why. Those who reject eternal subordination, generally do so because of egalitarian concerns (i.e. they think that being subordinate would make the Son somehow lesser in divinity than the Father). But that implies that being in submission is somehow not something that God can do. It assumes that God can only "be the boss", so to speak, and could not be a servant or be in submission without lessening his divinity. BUT everything Jesus did on earth was in submission to the Father and was also servanthood. So if being in submission and servanthood are incompatible with divinity, then nothing Jesus did revealed to us the nature of God. We would have to split the "divine Jesus" who never is in submission and never acts as a servant, from the "human Jesus" revealed to us in the gospels who always acted in submission and as a servant. That is Nestorian. So I think that servanthood and being in submission must be an integral part of the divine nature, just as much as "being the boss" is. And if so, then Jesus being in submission to the Father in no way lessens his deity.
PoW: Read John Chrysostom's commentary on 1 Cor 15.
Tell me what you think of it, H.B.!
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Humphrey Bogart said...
No, not annoying at all! Verb tense is a problem. The creeds state that Christ is/was eternally begotten. But the word "begotten" is past tense (I'm not sure what tense the original Greek/Latin creeds used). But the point is, that by putting "eternally" before "begotten", it kind of makes tense irrelevant. Now when I say "eternally becoming" a life giving spirit, I mean it in exactly the same way as we say that the Son was "eternally begotten" or that the Holy Spirit "eternally proceeds" from the Father (I prefer to use the term "eternally breathed" than "eternally proceeds", but I agree with both).
PoW: "Becoming" opens up other things. Especially for creatures in eternity.
If I were to use it AT ALL for God, I'm thinking I'd use it for ALL three, as the aspect that it is use for US in EO is in imaging God.
So, I'd stick with begotten, and read more EO on how it is used.
.
Humphrey Bogart said...
the West has made some useful contributions but went wrong with the filioque.
PoW: The RCC "took it back, officially in the last few years. But the mass of theology built on it is not easily undone.
Humphrey Bogart said...
I agree it's all very speculative, but it's not every day that you are convinced to alter your view to the opposite side!
PoW: Ware (above), or any EO on speculation.
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Humphrey Bogart
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Date Joined Jun 2003
Total Posts : 205
| Posted 1/22/2006 5:43 AM (GMT -6) | | Thanks for your thoughts, PoW!
I've had a look at Chrysostom's Homilies on 1 Cor 15. Very interesting! I'll read them more thoroughly later. | | Back to Top | | |
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