Transcription
I get asked pretty frequently, what is the easiest argument that we could use against Eastern Orthodoxy? And in my mind, the answer is actually quite simple. The answer is the filioquay.
Now, I've done a lot of different videos on the filioquay. I've had two debates on the filioquay. I've done different articles on the filioquay. But what I wanted to specifically hone in on in this video are actually the biblical arguments for the filioquay. That when we look into sacred scripture, we look into the context of the various different passages talking about the relationship between the son and the spirit, it's pretty clear that the filioquay is true. It's pretty clear that the spirit proceeds from the son.
So, first what I wanted to do because a lot of times in these debates what the normal response is is one of ignorance. It's "I don't know what the filioquay is" or "the filioquay seems very complicated to me." So what I wanted to start out with here is I actually wanted to just sit down and slowly explain what exactly Catholics mean by the filioquay. And you can think about it like this: because we obviously know that there is one divine essence, there are three divine persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So when we're talking about the procession of the persons, you know, the Son proceeds from the Father because the Son is begotten of the Father. The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. What we mean by this word "procession" is merely communication. Okay?
And you can think about it analogously in the way in which a son is begotten of a father. Right? This is actually the prime analog in sacred scripture. What does it mean for a son to be begotten from a father? What does it mean for a son to come from a father? Well, it means that the son receives human nature from the father. Okay? And it's slightly different in divine things because when it comes to the Father and the Son, while they share the general or universal or specific nature of human nature, right, of man, they don't actually have the same exact nature, right? The nature that the Son receives is individually different than the nature which the Father has. But in divine things, what the Father is doing when the Father begets the Son is the Father is communicating that divine nature which he has to the Son.
So the question that we have to ask when it comes to the filioquay is how does the Spirit receive the divine nature? Does the Spirit receive the divine nature only from the Father, or does the Spirit receive the divine nature somehow from the Father and the Son? And this is the way in which the Council of Florence states in an official document of the Roman Catholic Church: "The Holy Spirit is eternally from the Father and the Son. He has his nature and subsistence at once from the Father and the Son. He proceeds eternally from both as from one principle and through one spiration."
So when we are trying to establish the Roman Catholic doctrine against Eastern Orthodox doctrine, we have to just ask one simple question: When the Spirit receives the divine nature, according to sacred scripture, when the Spirit receives the divine nature, is this somehow from the Father alone, or is the Son participating in this?
And to be fair, what I want to do is I actually want to begin by going over what are the biblical arguments for the Eastern Orthodox position. And really, when we look at what the biblical arguments for the Eastern Orthodox position is, we actually just find one argument. So this argument it comes from John 15. So John 15:26 it says: "But when the counselor comes whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me."
So what do we see in this passage? We see that our Lord is speaking to the apostles, obviously. And what he says is that the counselor, the Paraclete, which is obviously in reference to the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. So the conclusion Eastern Orthodox will draw is, "Well, the Bible says that the Spirit proceeds from the Father. Therefore, the Spirit does not proceed from the Son." And this is basically the argument of every single Orthodox author ever. And this is something they harp on time and time and time again. If you go into any Orthodox author, classical Orthodox author, you know, you can look at Mark of Ephesus, uh, you can look at all of the classical Orthodox authors, what they are going to harp on is they are simply going to harp on this passage. And basically, when it comes to scriptural arguments, almost nothing else. So almost exclusively on this passage.
So whereas Catholic authors will bring forward usually a number of different arguments, I'm going to give three of the classic ones, a number of different arguments from scripture. This John 15:26 is that argument that Orthodox bring forward. And this is what Photius says. So Photius, for those who don't know, Photius of Constantinople, he was an Orthodox patriarch and he basically laid down the traditional arguments against the filioquay for the Eastern Church. So you look at future authors writing on the filioquay, they're always going to look back to Photius. So that's a good place for us to start.
So this is what he says, and this is from his Mystagogy. I'm going to have all the section numbers on the screen. "Above all else, there is a saying of the Lord which opposes the Latins like a sharp, inescapable arrow, striking down and destroying every kind of wild beast and fox, as though with a thunderbolt."
So, I really like the uh, I really like the way in which he's describing this. You know, it's a sharp, inescapable arrow. It strikes down every wild beast, thunderbolt. No, it's a, it's, it's really pretty rhetoric, right? It's really beautiful rhetoric. Okay. But no matter what sort of response that is given to Photius, and no matter what response which is ordinarily given to Eastern Orthodox, no matter what argument we bring forward, usually, bar none, they're going to go back to this passage time and time and time again. And we see this throughout Photius's work.
So if you bring forward, for example, the fact that the Spirit is said by our Lord to eternally receive from the Son, this is what Photius has to say to this: "Who cannot see that you appeal to the word of the Savior, not in order to find an advocate for your doctrine, but in order to fashion brutal and insolent attacks against the Master himself? For you break out into insolent disagreement with him, who is the ineffable source of truth, because of your reckless tongue."
So, you see that if you try to quote the Spirit receiving from the Son, what is the Orthodox author going to do? Well, they're just going to say, "Well, John 15:26 says this." If you try to quote St. Paul talking about the the Spirit uh as the Spirit of the Son, right? And you try to extrapolate an argument uh from this. This is what Photius has to say: "Who is it that in every opinion imprudently, impudently smears this Paul, the ambassador of ineffable things? He who strives to prove that Paul contradicts his Teacher and our common Master, or he who reverently maintains in hymns Paul's agreement with the Master?"
If you go through and you try to go through the Fathers, maybe you're quoting St. Augustine, St. Vincent, St. Isidore, Pope St. Leo, Pope St. Gregory, uh, St. Basil. If you're going through and quoting all these authors, Photius, he goes back again and he says, "Well, our Lord says in John 15:26, X, Y, and Z." So, this is what he has to say: "Read through whatever Father you may choose. Which of them wished to affirm anything contrary to the Master's word? If it is I, then I insult your Fathers. But if you say it whilst I deny it, then you insult them, and I condemn you of insolence towards the Fathers."
And this isn't just Photius, by the way. And this is why I'm emphasizing through all of these different quotes that really this is, you know, the one argument. This is the argument beyond all arguments for the Eastern Orthodox is that they will say the filioquay is not in sacred scripture. Why will they say this? Of all, they'll say because our Lord says that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, and therefore they will conclude the Spirit does not proceed from the Son.
So let's analyze the passage real quick. Let's go back and read what it says and ask ourselves the question: Does this contradict the filioquay? So this is what he says: "When the counselor comes whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me."
So we can hone in right here on the fact that it says "who proceeds from the Father." Now, if you say "who proceeds from the Father," are you denying that he proceeds from the Son? For example, if I said that I am the son of my father, am I denying that I am the son of my mother? No, of course not. So this argument, it's just, it's, it's a very bad argument because if our Lord says that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, that does not necessarily mean that the Spirit proceeds *only* from the Father. If we affirm that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, that does not mean that the Spirit does not proceed from the Son. This is basic logic. You know, when you look at universal affirmations, universal negations, particular affirmations, particular negations. If you have a particular affirmation, a particular affirmation is only contrary, right, to a universal negation. That's, that's the only thing it's contrary from. So if you say, you know, "I am white," that would be in contrast to the universal statement "All men are black," right? Or "All men are not white," rather. So this particular affirmation is in contrast to a universal negation.
So in a similar way, there's not really an adjudication when it comes to this verse. If you have "the Spirit proceeds from the Father," and you're not saying "the Spirit proceeds *only* from the Father," then it could be that the Spirit proceeds from the Son, or it could be that the Spirit does not proceed from the Son. The passage, or the affirmation "proceeds from the Father," does not actually deny any of these.
And usually the, the response from the Orthodox, they will say, "Well, the Spirit, we can, we can, conclude that the Spirit proceeds from the Son, mean, does not proceed from the Son, rather, because if the Spirit proceeds from the Father, then the Spirit could only proceed from the Father." This is how it works in divine things. And really, all you have to respond to this is, you know, "Proof, source." You know, what is, what is the proof? What is the actual argument which is being put forward here? Could you prove that if the Spirit proceeds from one divine person, that the Spirit could not proceed from another divine person? Like, what is, what is the sort of argument here?
And then, what is the interesting uh corollary to this is that actually, once you begin asking for proof of these things, what you realize is that they are doing exactly what they accuse us of. Because often time we will go through different verses throughout sacred scripture and we will give an argument and show that what is concluded from this verse. So we will draw forth a conclusion, a consequence which is necessary. We'll draw forth a conclusion and make an argument. They'll say, "Well, this is, this is not actually what is explicitly said in the text. Rather, you actually have to extrapolate from that." That's what they'll, they'll say. And they'll say, "Well, you're, you're just going beyond the text then." But really, here, this is exactly what they're doing. They're accusing us of what they are doing.
When they quote "the Spirit proceeds from the Father," this does not necessarily mean that the Spirit does not proceed from the Son. Rather, they have to draw a conclusion and give, you know, another premise in the argument. And the objection that they'll put forward here is, "Well, okay, fine. But if our Lord also affirmed that the Spirit proceeds from the Son, why didn't he just say that?"
And there's a good response to this, actually, from the Church Fathers. So St. Augustine, he replies to this exact argument. So this is what he has to say in Tractate 99 on John, although he makes this point in other places as well. He says: "If then the Holy Spirit proceeds both from the Father and from the Son, why said the Son, 'He proceeds from the Father'? Why do you think? But just because it is to Him who is wont to attribute even that which is His own, of whom He Himself also is. Hence we have Him saying, 'My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me.' If, therefore, in such a passage we are to understand that as His doctrine which nevertheless He declared not to be His own but the Father's, how much more in that other passage are we to understand the Holy Spirit as proceeding from Himself? Where His words, 'He proceeds from the Father,' were uttered so as not to imply 'He proceeds not from me,' but from Him of whom the Son has it that He is God, for He is God of God. He certainly has it that from Him also the Holy Spirit proceeds. And in this way, the Holy Spirit has it of the Father Himself that He should also proceed from the Son, even as He proceeds from the Father."
So it's very clear right here that St. Augustine is affirming the filioquay. The people who say that St. Augustine does not uh believe in the filioquay, it's just a ridiculous uh sort of position. But the argument that he's making here is very clear that it's, it's very, it's very frequent in sacred scripture that we actually see the Son attributing something to the Father. And in some cases, he will actually deny it of his own. Uh, the example that he gives, "My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me." No, the doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me. When it comes to the uh, the exposition of this passage, are we to say, "Well, Christ does not have this doctrine," or "This doctrine does not come from Christ"? No, he's saying that this originates uh in the Father. So even if, you know, he's denying it of himself, uh, he's really just denying that he's the primary source of this.
So how much more, right, when he doesn't deny it's from him, just like when he's saying he proceeds from the Father, does he also include himself? So unless you have some sort of uh, you know, some sort of opposition, some sort of theological principle that would somehow deny that it's also of the Son, therefore it's somehow implied that it's from the Son. Right? And this is the argument that St. uh, St. Augustine is going to make. Enough with some of these passages from St. Augustine where he's expressing and explaining this verse. It's so devastating to the Orthodox. It's, it's so completely devastating to the Orthodox that you actually get some Orthodox claiming, you know, gratuitously, completely just inventing it out of thin air. They will say that this passage from St. Augustine is actually forged. Um, Macarius actually made this argument that this was somehow uh forged.
So, now that we've went over why the Orthodox argument does not prove their position, and even according to St. Augustine, it actually proves our position. What are the positive proofs that we can bring forward for the Catholic position from sacred scripture?
So the first one is going to be from John 16. So this is actually in the same discourse as John 15. And funnily enough, you can look at this passage as somehow explaining uh the previous passage. This is what he says: "I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare to you. All that the Father has is mine. Therefore I said, 'He will take what is mine and declare it to you.'"
So, the argument from this passage is relatively simple. What do we see here? Well, we see that the Spirit is going to come and the Spirit is the Spirit of truth. Just like we saw in John 15, the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of truth is going to come and the Spirit of truth is going to teach the same doctrine as Christ to the Church. The Paraclete is going to teach the same doctrine as Christ to the Church because, and what's the reason that he gives for this? Because "the Spirit receives the truth from me." So the truth that is in the Spirit is from me. That's the argument that Christ gives. He has received the truth from me. Therefore, the teaching that I will give you is going to be the exact same teaching that the Spirit will give you.
And the argument from this is relatively simple. When it comes to the reception of truth, right, truth is an attribute of God. God is, you know, true. We all know this. When it comes to the reception of truth, this is going to clearly imply that the entirety of the essence is received from the Son. If, if truth is received from the Son, therefore the essence is received from the Son. It's kind of similar as, you know, we call the Son "Light of Light." So in here, we're calling the Spirit "Truth of Truth." So because "Light of Light" is equivalent to "God of God," right? "Truth of Truth" is going to be equivalent of "God of God" as well.
And the Orthodox, they'll have arguments against this, which we'll, we'll get to in a second. But what we need to do to, to kind of establish this firmly is we need to look in this passage, know who is the Spirit of truth, who from whom is the Spirit receiving, and what does it mean to receive? Because if we can establish on these three points: the Spirit of truth is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth is receiving from the Son, and what does it mean to receive? Well, it means to receive uh, also the, the entirety of the essence, right? The entire divine nature. Then from this, we can clearly conclude that the filioquay is true, because the filioquay, it just means to receive the divine nature. That's what "proceed" means: to receive the divine nature uh from somebody. So in the same way as I receive human nature from my father, right? And I'm said to proceed from my father, then therefore we can also conclude the same.
So let's go into these questions point by point. So first, it's quite obvious that the Spirit of truth is talking about the second person of the Trinity. And this has to be the case because when we go back to John 15 and we read the passage where the Orthodox are trying to argue that the Holy Spirit proceeds only from the Father, and they see "the Spirit of truth proceeds from the Father," they're interpreting "Spirit of truth" there as the Holy Spirit. So because this is in the same discourse, very clearly that we're going to come to a common agreement. The Spirit of truth in this passage, that's referring to the Holy Spirit. Okay, pretty easy. You know, Greeks, Latins, we agree on this point.
Second, who is the, who from whom is the Spirit receiving here? And this is where there's actually a little bit of, there's a little bit of controversy here. When we look at the, the actual passage of John 16, it's very clear. Our Lord is speaking in his own person. He is saying that he's receiving "of mine," right? It, it's very clear that he's receiving "of mine." You know, "I all things," he says that "all that the Father has is mine. Therefore I said, 'He will take what is mine and declare it to you.'" What is to "take" or "receive" "what is mine"? Right? It's very clear that it's coming from Christ as the second person of the Trinity.
But interestingly enough, there's some controversy around this. There is some controversy around this. So what Photius thought is, in order to get around this, because Photius realized, because Photius, he, it's kind of funny because a lot of his arguments against the filioquay will actually uh, will actually rely on the principle of divine simplicity. So what Photius realizes is that if you have the Spirit receiving from the Son and receiving truth from the Son, therefore you would have to say that the Spirit is receiving the divine nature from the Son. So when he interpreted this passage, he could not "eat of mine" as, you know, "receive from the Son." He had to interpret it as something else.
So the argument that Photius makes is that when he says "receive of mine," he actually means he's leaving out the uh, the sort of second part of that object. Right? When he's saying "receive of mine," he actually receives, he actually means "receive of my Father." So in here, you say, "Well, this actually just proves our point because when he, when the Son says 'he receives of mine,' he actually means 'receive of my Father.'" That, that's the argument he's going to make. And this is what he says: "The Savior did not say, 'He will receive from me.' Rather, he will, he will receive from all that which is mine. There is a great and profound difference between the words 'from that which is mine' and 'from me.' The expression 'from me' indicates the speaker of the phrase, but doubtless another person is meant than the speaker. What other hypothesis from whom the Spirit is said to receive could be meant other than the Father?"
Now, what's most funny about this is it kind of shows the, it kind of shows the hypocrisy surrounding the Patristic argument. Is is you'll get the Orthodox coming out is, "Oh, we, we follow the Fathers in all things. You know, we, we teach the doctrine of the Fathers. We're very concerned about what the Fathers say." But they can't point to a single Father, not even one, who interprets this verse in this way. Any Father who goes over this verse and explains this verse, when they interpret "receive of mine," they're going to interpret this as receiving from the Son. Every single Father. And there's some good Catholic sources on this where they collect all the quotes. Uh, Petavius's De Trinitate, Book 7, Chapter 5, Cardinal Hergenrother, his commentary on Photius's Mystagogy, 210. When you read the Catholic authors, they will quote, and this is one of the main points against Photius, is they will say, "You know, you're kind of making up some of these interpretations." We see this in multiple different instances, but they'll say, "Look, when it comes to your different interpretations to try to get around how this implies a filioquay, your interpretations are very, very obviously not the interpretations of the Fathers." Uh, Father. So you can look at those to read the Patristic quotes. But just off the bat, this is not a Patristic interpretation of John 16. It's, it's completely arbitrary. It's, it's made up.
But we can actually give reasons from the passage itself. We can look at the ancient translations, uh, such as the, the Persian, Arabic translations. Different, different ancient translations of sacred scripture are going to actually translate "of mine" as "of me." So very clearly, uh, you know, the, the exegetical history, the translation history, it's relatively normal. This is relatively uncontroversial until there had to be, uh, this sort of excuse to give arguments against the, against the filioquay, uh, from the East. But we just, on a grammatical basis, on a grammatical basis, we can see that this just doesn't work, right? The grammar of the passages actually does not allow for this.
So this is what uh, Adolus van der Ven, and you, and if you, if you like, if you like this passage, actually, I posted on my Substack his whole section on biblical arguments for the filioquay. So check out scholasticansers.substack.com, is I think the, the link. Check out, uh, that article going over all the arguments in a lot more detail than I'll give here from scripture for the filioquay. Definitely check out the Substack. Very good. A lot of articles that you would like. But this is what he has to say: "Possessive pronouns in the masculine or feminine gender in Greek or Latin are never used without the addition of the noun to which they refer. It follows, therefore, that possessive pronouns when used without a noun must be understood as neuter and referring to a thing."
So, what the argument that he's making is, he's making an argument from the pronoun, especially from the gender of the pronoun. When we look at at this pronoun, it could plausibly, like, one could, you know, not really actually, but, you know, if, if we wanted to, uh, give the arguments, uh, right here from a, maybe like the English language, you know, maybe "mine" might work in this way, but just the way in which pronouns work in relation to the gender, uh, of the pronoun, it just doesn't work. This is not the way in which Greek or Latin, uh, grammar works. So it has to be referring to, uh, you know, the, the thing itself, and not necessarily some other, uh, sort of reference when there's no noun right there. Okay.
So we went over, it's obviously, you know, the Spirit who's receiving. It's obviously the, the Son who is giving. Now, when it, what is the Son said to receive from the Spirit? And obviously, right here, when we look at the passage, the entire, the entirety of the passage, what the argument that Christ is making is, Christ is making the argument that the Spirit is giving the same teaching as me because the Spirit is receiving the truth from me. He's receiving the doctrine from me. He's receiving the knowledge from me. Right? This is the argument that is being made here.
Now, an argument that usually gets thrown around in, in opposition to this from the Eastern Orthodox is they say, "Well, the Spirit is receiving knowledge, sure, receiving truth, sure, receiving doctrine, sure, from the Son, but he's not receiving the divine nature from the Son. He's not receiving the divine essence from the Son."
Now, in reply to this, despite, you know, we could go into the, the reflections on divine simplicity. We could go into those all day. We could talk about, you know, what the Church Fathers say about divine simplicity. We, we could do that. But very obviously, even under a form of doctrine where one is going to say there are, there's a real distinction between the, the attributes and the essence. Somebody wants to put that forward, very obviously, even the Eastern Orthodox who are going to put forward this novel view, they, they always say that there is an inseparability between the attributes and the essence. So there's an inseparability. You know, the attributes and the essence are like two Lego blocks put together that could be separated. The one comes in with the other. Even while they would say it's really distinct, they would say that, you know, there's an inseparability, uh, to them, because obviously if you say that there's a separability, you would go into a lot of different problems, right?
So the issue with this is that you have the, the Spirit receiving knowledge, receiving truth, receiving doctrine from the Son. That knowledge, truth, doctrine is inseparable. Even if you want to argue that's really distinct, it is inseparable from the divine nature. So what does this imply? Well, this implies that if he receives any of these attributes from the Son, he's also receiving the divine nature, the divine essence from the Son. I mean, the, the conclusion is, is necessary.
And beyond this point, this is another novel argument. This is another argument that does not reflect the doctrine of the Fathers. When the Fathers explain this passage, explain what knowledge means, what doctrine means, what truth means, they'll very often, actually, this is the same as to receive the divine essence, the divine nature. So I brought forward a few, because this is a very important crux in our argument, is the argument from John chapter 16.
So this is what St. Augustine has to say, but I will quote others too, because a lot of people, they will, they will not like St. Augustine. So St. Augustine, he says: "God is not knowledge in any such way as that the knowledge whereby it knows should be one thing and the essence whereby it exists another, but both are one, nor ought that to be called both which is simply one."
So what he says, he says that knowledge and essence, explicitly, actually, in Tract 8.99, explaining this passage, he says knowledge and essence are one. So if the Spirit is receiving knowledge, the Spirit is also receiving essence.
So this is what Pope St. Leo the Great says: "No man is truth, wisdom, justice. But many are partakers of truth, wisdom, and justice, but God alone is exempt from any participating in anything which is in any degree worthily predicated of him is not an attribute, but his very essence."
So he says explicitly in this passage, when speaking of truth and wisdom, right, truth is what is being received uh by, uh, from the Spirit, well, from the Son to the Spirit, right? He's saying that this is not simply an attribute, but his very essence. So receiving truth, he's receiving the very essence in that as well. This is what he has to say: "To hear is nothing other than to be. And that divine nature, the Holy Spirit hears what the Son says with the Father, because by the communication of the natural essence, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. Therefore, for the Spirit to hear is to proceed from the nature of the Father and the Son."
And he says, uh, he goes on and on and on in other passages. This is not the only other passage from St. Vincent. In my opinion, actually, St. Vincent is probably, of all of the Fathers, maybe St. Isidore would be up there, close to him, uh, even clearer than St. Augustine. He, he's just super crystal clear about his belief in the filioquay, and he actually gives the arguments from the modern Latins for the filioquay, and he gives the responses to some of the objections, actually, funnily enough, that the Greeks will give against us. And this is going to the East. You know, if you complain that I'm just quoting, uh, Western authors, going to the East. This is what St. Epiphanius has to say when it comes to the reception in John 15: "Now since Christ, who proceeded from the Father, is to believe to be God from God, and the Spirit of God from Christ, as he who proceeds from both. This is what Christ himself testifies, who proceedeth from the Father. He says, 'And he shall receive of mine.'"
So very clearly in here, he is making an equivalence between this reception and the procession. He's saying that, you know, the Spirit is from both the Father and the Son because he proceeds from the Father, and it's said to receive from the Son. So he's making an equivalence statement between these two things. So you can't say that reception means this one thing, uh, and this procession means another thing. He's saying that this means the exact same, and he's quoting both, uh, verses.
Now, what a lot of Orthodox will object to this is the Orthodox, they will object, and this will actually kind of bleed over into our next argument, and we'll give a fuller exposition of this doctrine in the next argument. But what they'll often say is they'll say, "Well, it does not say that he has in eternity received truth from the Son, or received knowledge or doctrine from the Son. It rather says 'he will' sometime in the future. So therefore, you know, truth and doctrine from the Son, he actually only in the future, when the Spirit came, received this doctrine and knowledge." And this objection, I'll be honest, guys, this objection is insane. Like, just prima facie, this objection is insane. How could you have the Spirit somehow, like, unless you're an open theist or something, which obviously the Orthodox are not open theists because open theism is a heresy condemned by the Church. But unless, unless you're an open theist or something, how could you have the Spirit receiving something in the future and not always receiving it, right? Unless you deny the eternality of God, unless you deny the immutability of God, how would you even say, like, how does this sort of response make sense to say something happens in the future, but it doesn't happen now? It didn't happen in the past? That, that's just an insane sort of response.
And if you want the, the sort of more direct response to this, why it's said to be in the future, well, it's really simple. I mean, when it comes to the tenses of verbs with God, it doesn't matter whether you say past, present, or future, because God, he, he was and is and is to come, right? He is the Alpha and the Omega. The tenses of verbs don't matter when it comes to God. We can use any tense we want because he is eternal. There's no succession or shadow of change, uh, within God. This is sort of obvious, and this is explicitly said by St. Augustine. Says: "Be not disturbed by the fact that the verb is put in the future tense. For it is not said, 'Whatsoever he has heard,' or 'Whatsoever he hears,' but 'What things soever he shall hear, he shall speak.' For such hearing is everlasting, because the knowing is everlasting. But in the case of what is eternal, without beginning and without end, in whatever tense the verb is put, whether in the past or present or future, there is no falsehood thereby implied."
And yeah, this is basically what I said. You know, you would have to basically just throw, uh, sulfuric acid on our entire doctrine of God to seriously make this as a response. Okay.
So when it comes to, uh, this passage as well, this passage is actually able to, um, contextualize the above passage because we see in the above, uh, the above passage, you know, "he proceeds from the Father," and in this passage, he says that "he receives from me because all that the Father hath is mine." Very interesting. Uh, he says: "All that the Father has is mine. Therefore I said, 'He will take what is mine and declare it to you.'"
So there's an interesting argument that's actually being placed here. The Christ, the argument that he makes is very simple. He begins this whole discourse is, "I will send you the Spirit, right? I will send you the Spirit, the Spirit of truth, whom I will send. He proceeds from the Father." So the Son is sending the Spirit, and the Spirit is proceeding from the Father, right? The Spirit who proceeds from me, uh, proceeds from the Father. Well, the Spirit who, uh, I send, proceeds from the Father. And the argument that he makes here is, "Well, obviously the Spirit receives from me." Why is it obvious that the Spirit receives from me? Christ is saying, "Oh, well, it's stupidly obvious that the Spirit receives from me. Like, this is obviously clear. You know, just cf. what I said above, right?" Uh, why is this obvious? Well, he says it's obvious is because "all that the Father hath is mine." Therefore, "I said, 'He will take what is mine and declare it to you.'"
So why does, why is it obvious that the Spirit receives truth, receives doctrine, receives knowledge from the Son? Well, it's obvious because "all that the Father hath is given to the Son." So this contextualizes the above passage. So the Spirit proceeds from the Father. Well, he just said right here, "All that the Father hath is mine." Therefore, it follows by necessity. Follows by logical sequence that because the Spirit proceeds from the Father, and all that the, the Father has is the Son's, as he says right here, therefore also to proceed from the Father is had by the Son. So the same argument made for the procession, well, the same argument made for the reception can be made for the procession. And this is an argument which is given, you know, by Christ himself.
So very interesting. But this is not just an argument that is made up in the medieval era by a bunch of Roman Catholic theologians who were coping and seething, right? This isn't just an argument which is made in the medieval era. This is made in the Patristic era. Irenaeus says: "Therefore the Holy Spirit received from the Son, and all things that the Son has are all things that the Father has are the Son's, which the Holy Spirit received, because he proceeds not from the Father alone, nor from the Son alone, but from both together."
So this exact argument is being made in the Patristic era already. So we can go forward. This is the most clear. I would say John 16, uh, ends up being the most clear. The, the reception, uh, that occurs is very clearly, uh, also in reference to the procession. Okay.
But the, the second argument is, I would say, in, in the economy of sacred scripture, this argument is the more common one. So while the, the first one is more clear, this one actually stretches out and contextualizes the entire story of sacred scripture, the entire redemptive covenant. You, unless you understand this principle right here, you can't understand the entirety of scripture. So this argument is, you know, requires a little bit more argument. It requires a little bit more conclusion in the establishment of principles, but relevant to the entirety of the canon of scripture.
So in John 15:23, this is what the verse states. We can go back to this verse again and again. And this is what he says: "But when the counselor comes whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me."
So the place that we're highlighting right here is "whom I shall send to you from the Father." So the instant response, the instant reaction, I can hear it crying out from from a thousand, you know, Orthodox hearts is the instant response they will give is, "Well, he's sending it to him. Obviously, the sending is talking about temporal procession. It's obviously talking about the sending of the Spirit in time." This objection, it's brought forward all the time. But this sort of misunderstands what the Latin argument is. The Latin argument isn't, in a similar way as, you know, from the Orthodox argument, they would say, "Well, the Orthodox argument, when we're saying that the Father proceeds, well, that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, we're not using that as standing alone. We're drawing a conclusion from this. We're saying that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, and the Spirit could not proceed from a second person, therefore the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone and not from the Son." They're drawing forth a conclusion here, right? And in a similar way, when we're looking at this passage and it's saying that the Spirit is being sent from the Son, we conclude in a similar way. We say, "Well, the Spirit temporally proceeds from the Son. Now, whatever temporally proceeds from another person must eternally proceed from that person. Therefore, the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Son."
So we have a minor premise there, just like they have a minor premise. And this isn't, you know, at all somehow odd when it comes to Orthodox theology or the theology of the Fathers, right? We see all the time the Fathers are going into sacred scripture. They're reading something and they're drawing a conclusion from it. So the famous argument, for example, of St. Athanasius. St. Athanasius says that the Son deifies us. This principle that the Son deifies us, there's a certain minor premise that has to be drawn in order to prove that the Son is God. What is that minor premise? Well, the minor premise is that whoever deifies must be God. So the, the Son deifies us. Now, whatever deifies is God. Therefore, the Son is God. This is an argument that's being drawn forth. It's drawing forth a conclusion from a principle.
So in the same way, they can dispute the minor premise. They can say, "Well, I don't believe that whatever temporally proceeds is whatever, uh, is the same as whatever eternally precedes." There's a reflection of the temporal and the eternal. They, they could say, "I don't believe in that principle." But they can't say that somehow this is an invalid way of arguing. We argue all the time, uh, in this way.
So a lot of times they will misunderstand what is going on here. Sure, this is direct a temporal procession, granted. But that's not just our argument. Our argument is also to include this principle that the oral have this linking together. So how do we actually go about proving this from sacred scripture? Well, first, we can talk about the principle in sacred scripture that the sending of the persons will always reflect their eternal relations. The sending of the persons will always reflect the eternal relations. We can give a theological reason from this. The theological reason is basically due to the immutability of the persons, is that there is not somehow anything gained in time, you know, in the, the sort of realm of the divine in the persons, because that would require the persons to change, you know. So if the, if the Son went from having not having to, uh, the Spirit to having it in time, then there would be some sort of mutability.
So we can give, like, a theological reason for it. So in scripture, scripture in its practice only says that persons are sent from persons that they proceed. So we never see the Father being sent. There's nowhere in scripture that the Father is said to be sent. Why? Because the Father does not proceed from another person. The Father is not begotten like the Son is. The, the Father does not, is not spirated like the Spirit is. Second, the, the Son is said to be sent from the Father, and only to be sent from the Father. The Son is, in divine matters, in this, you know, in his divinity, is not said to be sent from the Father, from the Spirit, only from the Father, right? And the Spirit is said to be sent from the Father, and is also said to be sent from the Son. And you, we can bring forward this principle time and time and time again: the temporal reflects the eternal, right? The economy reflects the theology. We, we see this all the time in sacred scripture. It happens time and time and time again.
But the objection that always is given to this, we can see this. This is more of a modern objection. It's more of a modern objection. But when it comes to Photius, you know, this is a funny part, and I brought this point up before. Photius does not argue like this. Photius just says, "Well, there's a temporal procession." And he'll just kind of leave it at that. This is not talking about the eternal. It starts just talking about the temporal. Not actually deal with the very powerful principle from sacred scripture that the economy reveals theology. The temporal reveals the eternal, right? They'll not deal with the extremely powerful principle of this. He'll just say, "Nah, it's just temporal procession."
But what later Orthodox theology, during the time of Photius, uh, and during the time of, um, uh, Black, the principle that they will bring forward is there's actually some sort of eternal energetic communication. So the essence is not communicated. So the, the personhood of the Spirit does not come from the Son, but there's actually an eternal, uh, communication of the energies, right? There's eternal communication of, uh, you know, the, the, there's an eternal manifestation which is occurring here. That's going to be the argument which is being made by the Orthodox. They'll say, "Okay, well, sure, this principle is true, that the eternal has this relation to the temporal, the economy and theology, they have this relationship. You know, sure, this is absolutely true, but it's not in the realm of the person. It's in the realm of the energies." That's the argument that, that's, uh, being made here. But the response to this is quite simple. The response, and this is something that I don't think Orthodox actually deal with too much. Their argument would follow if, and this is very important, if these passages where the Spirit is being sent was the energies of the Spirit or the working of the Spirit being sent in time. So if we had, you know, the, the Spirit's gifts are being sent in time by, from, you know, from the Son. The Spirit's gifts are being sent in time from the Son. It might make sense to say, "Oh, well, this is just reflecting the eternal giving, right?" It might make sense to do that, but it's actually, when we look at sacred scripture, we don't see that it's the, the gifts or the energies or whatever else of the, of the Spirit, it's actually the person of
"the spirit being sent." So, in order to keep the reflection of the temporal, the eternal, not only the gifts or the energies must be sent, also the person must be sent because the person is sent in time. Therefore, the person has this procession from eternity. So they actually break the logic of scripture and they're actually adding in a lot in into sacred scripture.
Now we could ask the question, okay, what does it mean for this the spirit to be temporally sent? Sure, we can ask that question, but the scriptural passage is not the energies of the spirit being sent. It's the person of the spirit. So in the same way, the eternal reflection is not the energies of the spirit. It's it's the person of the spirit. So and we can see this throughout a number of different passages. you know, the um the passage in Galatians, for example, and I'm going to try to quote this off the top of my head, but I'm sure I'm going to mess it up slightly. It is uh you know, that the the father will send the spirit of the son and he will cry aba father. Now, when we when we get this uh this passage right here, it's very clear in this passage that it is not simply the gifts, not simply the manifestation or energies or whatever else of the spirit, it's the person of the spirit. Because how can you have the uh the the energies crying you know the energies crying out aba father it's the only a person is going to cry out aba father and we could look at a number of different passages there but I mean that's just a brief example but yeah it's it's the this objection doesn't work because this objection breaks the actual logic of what the text of scripture is is saying itself and we can confirm this from a number of different fathers uh and I I'll just give two St. Fentius and St. Gregory the Great.
This is what St. Valentia says. Quote, "The son is sent by the father, not the father by the son, because the son is begotten by the father, not the father by the son. In like manner too, this holy spirit is read to be sent by the father and the son because he proceeds from the father and the son." End quote.
Okay. Now, this is what St. Gregor the Great says. Quote, "The mission," so mission is sending. The mission of the Holy Spirit is the very procession by which he proceeds from the father and the son. Just as therefore the spirit is said to be sent because he proceeds, so too the son is not unfittingly said to be sent because he is begotten. End quote.
Okay. And we could bring up, as I said, a number of different fathers, but I don't want this video to be 10 hours long. Okay.
Now, an objection that's going to get brought up here is they're going to say, well, you said that uh, for example, the son is only sent by the father. Said that the son is only sent by the father. But when we look in scripture itself, the son is said to be sent by the spirit him as well. So what what gives? So they usually quote something like Isaiah 61. Quote, "The spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to be afflicted. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound." End quote. So time and say, "Hey, look, this is supposed to be a prophecy of the incarnate son. Now the incarnate son is said to be sent from the spirit. Therefore, your principle doesn't work. Your principle is it's stupid. You know, the temporal does not always reflect the eternal. But the church fathers, they will explicitly explain this passage. Uh St. Fentius, St. Ambrose, uh St. Jerome, they'll explicitly explain this passage and say, "Hey, you know, this is meant not of the sun eternally or not of the sun, you know, in his pre-incarnate state. This is just talking about the son in the economy of the incarnation." So it's talking about the son in so far as he is a man which the principle we we don't the Latins never claim that the principle applied to the son in so far as he is man. Um the son in so far as he's man is actually sent by himself as well uh into the world. So this is what uh St. Ambrose says. Quote and rightly did he say upon me because he was speaking as the son of man for as the son of man he was both anointed and sent to preach the gospel. End quote.
So those are the first two arguments right? We have the argument from John 16. We have the argument from the temporal sending. There's a third argument as well. And this argument, you know, I I think when it comes to this argument, this argument is probably the worst responded to of the arguments. Uh if if you can believe it, when it comes to the objections brought against this from the orthodox, it's just egregious. Okay? It's completely egregious. So in this arguments, uh what we bring forward is that the the spirit is said to be the spirit of the father. Why is the spirit the spirit of the father? Well, the spirit is the spirit of the father, you know, of that's some sort of possession. The spirit is uh the spirit of the father given this relative uh sort of uh relationship between the two. It's said to be the spirit is the spirit of the father because the spirit proceeds from the father. Now, why is the son to be said to be the son of the father? Well, the son is the son of the father because the son is begotten of the father. Well, in the same way, the spirit, the holy spirit is said to be the spirit of Jesus, the spirit of Christ, the spirit of the son. We get all these phrases in sacred scripture. Therefore, we can conclude from this in the normal way in which scripture has is speaking throughout uh the entirety of the canon. We can conclude from this that because the spirit is a spirit of the sun, therefore the spirit proceeds from the sun.
And the response to this, you'll you guys will love this one, okay? You guys will just adore this one. The response to this will be, well, okay, the spirit said to be the spirit of wisdom. Does a spirit proceed from wisdom? This is this is a response that Fodius gives. This is what he says. Quote, "If the holy spirit therefore proceeds from the son because he is called the spirit of the son, it would have also followed that the holy spirit proceeds from his own gifts and charisms since he is called the spirit of prudence, fortitude, etc. Now on the one hand, this is actually kind of funny because the spirit is called the spirit of prudence. Why? Because prudence proceeds from him. So it's, you know, you got it you got it wrong. You got it wrong, Fodius. It actually. Yes. This still is talking about procession because the gifts and charrorisms proceed from the spirit. They come forth from the spirit. So yes, even in those cases of of the the different charisms and gifts, sure we call the spirit the spirit of prudence because prudence proceeds from the spirit. That's that's all I'm going to say. U so on the one hand, bad response. But on the other hand, uh the this is actually not the same case whatsoever. And I'll get into why, but the basic response is, well, when it comes to the spirit being the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of truth, the spirit of fortitude, whatever else, when it comes to these of or these genatives, this is the relationship uh in this genative by the way, genative is kind of like that of right there. That's what a genative is in in uh in uh Latin and Greek. Usually what they'll do is they will have you know a certain form of of the word and this form of the word will u you know relate the two rather than uh necessarily having to put that of there. So that when I talk about the genative that's what I mean. Um so when it comes to the genative where you have a relationship between a person and an attribute so um you know the the cloth of red the cloth of red when you have this relationship between the two yeah sure it's an attributive you can have these different forms of the genative sure it's an attributive but when we talk about the relationship between two persons it's slightly different right when I talk about myself as the son of my father this is a relationship of one person to the other in the genative. So therefore, it's something a little bit more of mere attribution. So we have to ask the question, okay, when it comes to a genative that specifically is the relationship of two persons, well, what kind of genative could there be in divine things? That's it's a good question to be asking.
So what we have to do here is we have to establish three things just like we established in the in the first argument. First, we have to ask ourselves the question, well, what is the spirit being spoken of? Is it some other sort of spirit? Second, uh what is the son being spoken of? Is it Christ? I know these are basic questions, but you're going to see that it's actually yes disputed. And the third one, what does this of mean? What is this genative? Is this genative necessarily? Can we conclude from this uh some sort of eternal relation, right? Or do we have to uh reference, you know, the charrorisms, gifts, energies or whatever else uh might be uh put forward. Okay.
So, first it's kind of obvious that this is talking about the person of the spirit and not necessarily something else. Uh the the example I gave from uh Galatians 4:6 because you are sons. God has sent the spirit of his son into your hearts crying aba father. The spirit of his son is not merely talking about charrorisms or gifts or anything like that. This is talking about the person right because how else would you have the crying forth of aba father persons acts or persons you know carrorisms are not acting okay and similarly you know it's obvious that the son being spoken of is the son this second person of the trinity and we can see this from something like acts 16 uh quote and when they uh were come into messia they attempted to go into Bethnia and the spirit of Jesus suffered them not end quote so spirit of Jesus spirit of Christ is are obviously being spoken of the second person the trinity. Okay, like we don't really need to go into this more but unfortunately you know you'd think that this was obvious but Fodius in part six of his mystigology he actually disputes this and it's not even really a sort of serious dispute uh for us to have. He actually disputes this that this is actually talking about the Holy Spirit. But modern Orthodox to my knowledge and anybody, you know, with basic reading skills are going to see that this is talking about the Holy Spirit. Okay? And this the big part I kind of wanted to briefly go through that, but the big part is going to be the of the genative, right? What is the genative actually talking about? And we went over above the genative can be used in a number of different ways. Sure, it can be referred to attributes. the genative of attribution. That's a thing. But we're talking not of an attribute. We're talking of a person. So this is obviously not a genative of attribution. But when it comes to persons, right, persons can actually come in a number of different relationships to one another. So you could talk about the you could talk about the the son of a father and obviously this talk about somehow procession. You could also talk about, you know, the wife of a husband or you could talk about the uh the servant of a master. You could talk about all of these other different relationships between persons. Now, what what we're going to say is that uh the genative basically is going to intribute some sort of dependence. Like that's what it means. Wife of a husband, servant of a master, son of a father. What do these have in common? When you have two persons, the genative is going to require some sort of dependence o of one on another. So in divine persons, where can there be found this sort of dependence? Well, the only place there can be found this sort of dependence between persons is in the communication of nature. You're not going to have anything else or that would obviously require some sort of subordination in the essence which would just be ridiculous. So when it comes to this of the of persons, you know, this is going to require some sort of dependence. The only dependence that makes sense is going to be the dependence of the communication of the divine nature.
So, uh, this is Vanderin. Again, I have all of this on Substack. So, if you want to read more, if you think that I maybe glossed over something and didn't explain it in detail, Vanderin's going to have it. So, check out the Substacks classicers.substack.com and you can read the whole article. But this is what he argues. Quote, "Since we are here speaking of divine persons, any kind of dependence or habitude must be rejected that would in any way be incompatible with the absolute perfection of God. Therefore, the Holy Spirit is not said to be of the son as a part of a whole or as the quality of a subject or as the servant of a master, etc. For such interpretations are excluded by the very notion of a divine person." End quote.
So basically, if we kind of boil it down when it comes to this relationship of dependence of one person on another, then we're going to get down to basically one option. This is going to be the dependence of one divine person on another in the communication of the divine nature. Like that's all that we have uh sort of last. Or even if they want to say, well, I think this is only talking about well, if they wanted to say, oh, I think this is only talking about the energies. Well, this isn't talking about the uh the energies of the spirit of the sun or the energies of the spirit of the energies of the sun. It's talking about the the spirit of the sun. It's talking about the person of the spirit of the person of the sun. Right? So, this is it would be completely exoggetically uh ridiculous to somehow say, oh, this every single case here is just talking about the energies of the energies rather than the the person of the person. What is being said here? You know, energies don't cry out. you know its energies don't uh don't suffer us not to go here know these are personal acts it's of persons uh very clearly when you're just executing the texts without some sort of preconception that you need to you just have to you know oppose the Latins at all cost and you can't you know just follow the plain meaning of sacred scripture but uh we can we can kind of go uh further than this and we could say well they will object to this and say well actually when you have this of a lot Lot of times in the church fathers when they talk about the spirit of the sun they'll say the spirit is the spirit of the sun because the spirit is consubstantial with the sun. This is a big argument which is used against uh the eomians. It's used against the aryens the semi-arans. What they'll argue is that well when you have this of this of implies consubstantiality that's what they'll say. So, but the issue with this is that it makes no sense to have consubstantiality without origin. We don't say that the the father is of the spirit. We don't say that the son is of the spirit. We say that the spirit is of the father. We say that the spirit is of the father. Right? There's this sort of relationship right there that's establishing is establishing some sort of origin. Right? And uh this is what Vanderin says. Quote, "All human beings are consubstantial with one another. Yet no man in so far as he is consubstantial with another can be said to be of the other. If one were to ask why, for example, Peter is said to be of John, it would be absurd to answer because Peter is consubstantial with John." End quote.
So this is uh this is very awesome because really when you're talking about consubstantiality, sure consubstantiality plays a factor with being of another. You know, I am of my father and if I wasn't consubstantial with him, I wouldn't be of my father. This is very obvious, but we have to make a caveat here. It's maybe necessary to be consubstantial with another, but it's not sufficient to be consubstantial with another. I am not simply of my father because I'm consubstantial with it. In the same way, I'm not of you, of any of you out there, any of my listeners out there listening to this. I am not of you. I'm not of George Washington. I'm not of St. Thomas just because I'm consubstantial with them. just because we all share human nature. Rather, it requires something more than this. To be of another requires consubstantiality to be of the same substance and also beyond this to have some sort of origin with the other. And this is uh actually how the fathers themselves explain this themselves because often they'll quote fathers who will say, "Oh, well this of has consubstantiality." But the fathers understood that when it comes to this consubstantiality and this of relationship, it implies origin as well. So this is what uh St. Basil says. St. Basil, it's an anacronism to to speak in the way in which they speak. But St. Basil, this is what he says. Quote, "Those who bear the relation of brothers to one another are not said to be consubstantial as some suppose. But when both the cause and that which has its existence from the cause are of the same nature, then they are said to be consubstantial." End quote.
So what does consubstantiality imply is what he says both the cause and that which has existence from the cause are of the same nature. So I'm not consubstantial with a book that I write. Why? I'm the cause and that is from the cause but we're not of the same nature. I'm not in the technical way in which they are speaking consubstantial with my brother as you know St. Basil says in the full sense, in the proper sense, I'm not consubstantial with my brother because we might be of the same nature and of the same family, but I'm not from him and he's not from me. Therefore, there's not this sort of full sense of consubstantiality. Rather, St. Basil says you need to have two conditions to have existence from the cause. And notice existence from the cause is kind of funny. Uh because existence from the cause, oh uh the sun is the the spirit is consubstantial with the sun. Hm. To be existence of the cause. Okay. Funny, funny. Uh, but you know, it's it's not only to have the the cause, but it's to have the the existence from the cause. Okay. So, this is going to imply exactly what I said is that it's not sufficient to be of another, just to have to be of the same nature. To be consumantial in the full and proper sense is to both have the same nature and to be of the other. Okay.
Okay, so those are the three arguments uh that we put forward, the objections to in responses to all of the orthodox arguments and all of the counterarguments that we bring forward. Um I tried to be as fair as possible. I tried to bring forward all of what I would find to be some of the most convincing objections um that the orthodox would bring forward and I tried to reply to them with statements from the fathers. I tried to reply to them with uh you know reasons from sacred scripture uh etc. So, this is uh meant in good faith. Uh obviously, I I hope that I was able to do the topic due diligence. Um and remember, if you want to read more about this, uh definitely check out the Substack. Uh consider going to the Substack um and signing up, you know, and going and reading uh what Vanderin says. I might quote uh I might put up more about sacred scripture in the filioquay from, you know, Franlin, his longer and shorter works, from Jui and from other authors. I might translate from um Urban Rother uh and from uh Pattavius on the interpretation of of mine. I might I might do that as well. Uh so definitely check out the substack. That's where I like to do know more of my notes and translations and stuff like that that actually dive deeper into this. So it's it's a good one-two punch for you because it's important that you read books. It's important that you read, you know, longer sections and you don't only listen to stuff. So maybe listening to this and then reading that will be a good mutuality between the two uh in order to help you learn in the most uh effective and efficient way possible. So that's exactly what I would like to do for you guys. So thank you for listening to this. I hope that this was helpful and as always, God bless.