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Monday, December 31, 2012

Trinitarian plumbing

What does it mean to profess the Nicene creed? As a logical and logistical matter, it isn’t even possible to profess the Nicene creed, for there’s no one Nicene creed to profess. Rather, you have to make an initial choice between two different versions of the Nicene creed: the Eastern and the Western.

The Western edition contains the famous or infamous (depending on your viewpoint) filioque clause, whereas the Eastern edition, which represents the “original” version, does not.

The filioque is generally dated to Toledo III in 589, although there’s a text-critical question regarding our extant MSS. Did the original canon include the Filioque?

However, the theology underwriting the filioque antedates Toledo. It has antecedents in Hilary of Poitiers (4C) and Marius Victorinus (4C). It especially reflects the Triadology of Augustine.  

The Western edition is the default edition for Protestants and Roman Catholics. I believe that’s the edition which is customarily recited in Roman Catholic and Protestant churches.

If you’re a high churchman (e.g. Roman Catholic, Anglo-Catholic, Eastern Orthodoxy), your authoritarian ecclesiology commits you to a take-it-or-leave-it attitude towards the Nicene creed. If, on the other hand, you’re a low churchman, you’re at liberty to affirm as much as you think is correct.

From what I’ve read, the Eastern orthodox object to the filioque on two basic grounds:

i) They raise an ecclesiastical objection. They don’t think the Western church had the authority to unilaterally amend the Nicene creed. The Nicene creed was promulgated by Constantinople 1, and only another ecumenical council has the authority to revise the Nicene creed.

Of course, that objection shifts the question to whose church has the authority to revise the Nicene creed. Obviously Roman Catholics do think their church has that prerogative.

ii) They also raise a theological objection. They think double procession is ditheistic, for it introduces a second originating principle into the Trinity.

Whether that’s true is a matter of interpretation. For instance, I believe that Augustine still regarded the Father as the primary and ultimate source of the Son and the Spirit alike. So it may be a difference of emphasis.

Conversely, the filioque may have been added to close the door on Arianism, by giving the Son a constitutive role in the intratrinitarian existence.

To some degree the Eastern and Western versions of the Nicene creed reflect different models of the Trinity. To somewhat oversimplify the difference, the Eastern begins with the Father as the source of the (other) persons whereas the Western begins with the divine nature as the source of the persons.

The whole debate is like Trinitarian plumbing. Is the Father the faucet that channels the Son and Spirit through two separate pipes, or does the Father channel the Son through one pipe, while the Son diverts the stream through another pipe to channel the Spirit?

In my opinion, both models of the Trinity trade on implicitly mechanical metaphors which are unsuited to a timeless, spaceless God.

In any event, we need to ground our doctrine of God in his biblical self-revelation, rightly interpreted.

17 comments:

  1. Hey Steve,

    Thanks for your thoughts on these issues. I would like to add a quick question and a few comments on this post:

    Of course, that objection shifts the question to whose church has the authority to revise the Nicene creed. Obviously Roman Catholics do think their church has that prerogative.

    >> I assume you mean post-schism? The bishop of Rome did not have the prerogative beforehand, as that was the purpose of ecumencial councils.

    Is the Father the faucet that channels the Son and Spirit through two separate pipes, or does the Father channel the Son through one pipe, while the Son diverts the stream through another pipe to channel the Spirit?

    >> I don't think these two illustrations are incompatible, as the East states that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, "through the Son." A better example (that would be sympathetic to the East) would be to speak of two faucets (two sources) with piping that converge. If I recall correctly, St. Photius argued that the two arche position would add metaphysical composition, which of course doesn't play nicely with the doctrine of simplicity.

    - Justin

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  2. Justin

    "I assume you mean post-schism? The bishop of Rome did not have the prerogative beforehand, as that was the purpose of ecumencial councils."

    i) From a Catholic standpoint, that prerogative was always latent in the papacy, even if it wasn't always exercised. It's not as if Catholics think that papal prerogative is a theological innovation, do they?

    ii) Catholicism continues to have to what it deems to be ecumenical councils (not recognized as such by the East, of course) post-schism.

    iii) I referred to the authority of the Roman "church," not the papacy in particular.

    iv) One could, of course, argue that recourse to ecumenical councils to resolve these disputes undercuts the historic claims of papal primacy. That that reflects a later phase in Catholic ecclesiology. I'm just mentioning the Catholic claim for the sake of argument.

    "I don't think these two illustrations are incompatible, as the East states that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, 'through the Son.' A better example (that would be sympathetic to the East) would be to speak of two faucets (two sources) with piping that converge."

    From what I've read, the East only concedes procession from the Father *through* the Son at the level of the economic Trinity, not the immanent Trinity.

    "If I recall correctly, St. Photius argued that the two arche position would add metaphysical composition, which of course doesn't play nicely with the doctrine of simplicity."

    Yes, that would be a point of tension for Scholastic simplicity, a la Aquinas.

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  3. Justin,

    "I don't think these two illustrations are incompatible, as the East states that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, "through the Son."

    >>>That was a compromise that the Eastern Church backed away from after agreeing to that language as a way to get the Church of Rome to help them fight off the Muslims. After that war was over, the East backed away from this phrase.


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  4. Steve,

    "In my opinion, both models of the Trinity trade on implicitly mechanical metaphors which are unsuited to a timeless, spaceless God.

    In any event, we need to ground our doctrine of God in his biblical self-revelation, rightly interpreted."

    >>>Decrypted: Human language is alien to the essence of God, and thus our definition of truth is derived in a relation with an intermediary who can interpret the anagogy, which comes at us, not as a proposition univocally understood in a proportion agreeable to created nature, but as an infused attitude of implicit submission of our conscience to Holy Church.

    What you are doing with revelation as it pertains to God, you do not do with the sacraments. Your attitude towards revelation as it concerns Theology Proper, is the exact attitude that Romanists and Anchoretics of all stripes use with the Sacraments. This was a scandal to the Jesuits and others during the Reformation and 2nd Reformation. The Reformers would say that Christ's ubiquity in transubstantiation is a logical contradiction to Chalecdon's consubstantial clause. The Anchoretics would reply, oh but the Truiune God is also a logical contradiction but you believe it. The Anchoretics have a refuge: implicit submission to the Hierarchy. You Steve are on your way. Give these ideas ten years: you'll be kissing the foot of a statue, or an atheist.

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    1. Drake, I don't understand how you can insist that it's possible and necessary to be able to squeeze out such a detailed ontology of God from the limited explicit and implicit statements found in Scripture when Christians can barely do that with regard to other less important and less profound issues. For example:

      -whether paedobaptism or credobaptism is Biblical;
      -whether the A-theory of time or the B-theory of time regarding the creation is true;
      -whether presentism, possibilism or a "block view" of the universe is true so that a kind of internal "eternalism" (if we could call it that) is true;
      -whether one should appeal to occasionalism, or (similarly) to continuous creation, or to the implications of a "block view" of the universe to explain divine causation;
      -whether infralapsarianism, supralapsarianism, or Reymond's modified supralapsarianism is true;
      -whether eternal justification is true;
      -whether Duty-Faith is true;
      examples could be multiplied.

      This task is all the more difficult if we were to limit ourselves to Scripturalist constraints on knowledge.

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    2. Drake Shelton

      “Decrypted: Human language is alien to the essence of God, and thus our definition of truth is derived in a relation with an intermediary who can interpret the anagogy, which comes at us, not as a proposition univocally understood in a proportion agreeable to created nature, but as an infused attitude of implicit submission of our conscience to Holy Church.”

      That’s not a decryption, Drake. That’s your interpolation, whereby you superimpose your scotch-taped theory of truth/predication onto what I said, then derive alleged implications, not based on anything I said, but you’re imputation.

      You didn’t get your theory of analogy from Scripture. Rather, you picked that up from bits of Plato and Aristotle, filtered through bits of Augustine and Aquinas, filtered through Clark.

      It’s an aprioristic theory that doesn’t take its lead from the world God has actually given us. The world God made and put us in is a fractal world with ragged boundaries in space and time. Where patterns bleed into another patterns. A world of shared surfaces. A world where comparisons come down to degrees of similarity and dissimilarity rather than sharp-edged identity and alterity.

      That’s why Plato retreated into an abstract world of perfect circles and mathematically straight lines. Sharp borders and discrete surfaces.

      That’s not the world God fashioned. Take family resemblance. That’s something we can recognize at a glance, without being able to isolate exactly what there is in common.

      BTW, analogy of proportion is hardly the only theory of analogy on the market. Take functional analogies (a la Alston).

      “The Anchoretics would reply, oh but the Truiune God is also a logical contradiction but you believe it.”

      I never conceded that the Trinity is a logical contradiction. That’s the unitarian allegation, a la Tuggy.

      “You Steve are on your way. Give these ideas ten years: you'll be kissing the foot of a statue, or an atheist.”

      That’s funny coming from a greenhorn like you. I’ve been a Christian for almost 40 years. There’s no Romeward trajectory in my theology.

      You, by contrast, are a reactionary, addicted to crackpot conspiracy theories, like who was *really* behind the JFK assassination. You’re the one who’s likely to jettison the Christian faith in a few years or less after you flame out.

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    3. Drake, I don't understand how you can insist that it's possible and necessary to be able to squeeze out such a detailed ontology of God from the limited explicit and implicit statements found in Scripture when Christians can barely do that

      While this may make you somewhat more annoyed, you simply do not understand. Drake is an avatar. Have you not read his blog where he tells his readers: “God gave me an understanding into things that maybe a handful of people alive understand.”

      Clearly you are not one of the handful.

      Among other amazing truths not found in Scripture, God has revealed to Drake that the Trinity is a farce and that racism is a biblical mandate. In accordance with Drake's divine revelation he rightly opposes your “absolute blasphemy of the Tri-Theistic or Monadistic phrase ‘God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost.”

      God (by which we mean "the Father") "is not a distinction-less monad" and that one true God requires the absolute separation and segregation of the races. OK, maybe not absolute segregation, because Shelton prophesies that while white men “are not very interested in black women,” and he has known “zero white men who had a black girlfriend or a black wife,” God has revealed to him that Asian women are just fine. And who can argue? After all, the prophet Shelton explains: "I can assure you that white men are in the vast majority, interested in two kinds of women: White women and Asian women." Amen!

      Mr. Pinoy, you need to embrace the new revelation that Drake has given us... either that or you are just another “Yankeeized, Negroized, Darwinists” papist shill. I hope you will join us.

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    4. Sean,

      "Have you not read his blog where he tells his readers: “God gave me an understanding into things that maybe a handful of people alive understand.”

      >>>And what was the context of that Sean? It was in a context of the differences between Reformed Theology and Eastern Orthodox Theology and Reformed criticisms of Eastern Orthodoxy. I believe in immediate knowledge as following Augustine and Clark. You are an Anchoretic who gets his knowledge filtered through the hierarchy. That statement had nothing to do with receiving new doctrines. I have already shown that you are a pathological liar Sean and this is just one more instance of that.

      "God has revealed to Drake that the Trinity is a farce"

      >>>Depends on what you mean by Trinity.

      "and that racism is a biblical mandate"

      >>>Depends on what you mean by racism. Sean you are a factory of equivocation, straw man, red herrings,and embarssing emotional meltdowns. I feel soprry for you. Your own people are shaming you and from what I gather from the forum, most of them agree with me. You are a snake Sean and your poisonous colors are now becoming abundantly evident to your own people. Leave apologetics Sean. Just quit and tend to your family. You have no business doing this. It is probably going to give you panic attacks and emotional breakdowns. I hope the best for you Sean.

      "and that one true God requires the absolute separation and segregation of the races"

      >>>That is simply amazing. Here is a quotation from my blog I published just today:

      "I AM NOT NOR HAVE I EVER ADVOCATED AN ABSOLUTE SEPARATION OF RACES NOR HAVE I EVER ABSOLUTELY CONDEMNED INTER-RACIAL MARRIAGE"

      http://eternalpropositions.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/a-biblical-defense-of-racialism/

      The fact that you use the word "absolute" tells me you probaly have read this article or others where I clearly deny these things. So you are doing what? Trying to get a rise out of me? You are no Christian Sean and seeing your interactions with people online your life must be completely miserable. You deserve it.




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  5. Steve,

    I notice you didn't provide the difference between your view and the Roman anagogy. Second, you also refused to show how your epistemic method in the sacraments washes with your method in Theology Proper. Anchoretics clearly state that Transubstabtiation does not need to make sense or follow any logical rules. That is exactly what you say about the Trinity. Anchoretics have caught Protestants doing this and I think you are a hypocrite for doing so and have only given them reason to blaspheme.

    Your mention of numerous analogies is a simple parrot of what I told you last week.

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    1. Drake Shelton

      "I notice you didn't provide the difference between your view and the Roman anagogy."

      Since I don't interpret the Bible mystically, there's no comparison.

      "Second, you also refused to show how your epistemic method in the sacraments washes with your method in Theology Proper. Anchoretics clearly state that Transubstabtiation does not need to make sense or follow any logical rules. That is exactly what you say about the Trinity."

      Since I don't take the position that the Trinity is illogical or nonsensical, there's no comparison. You keep inventing positions for me that don't match up with my stated position.

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    2. This is such sick Jesuitry. You refuse to define your terms and then demand that you deny logical contradiction. Well, I guess it would be easy to do so, when your words have no meaning.

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    3. It's easy to define my terms. But that's not what you're really after. You want to divert the question into a debate over philosophical theories of analogy. But understanding the Bible doesn't depend on that, for reasons I've already given.

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  6. "I AM NOT NOR HAVE I EVER ADVOCATED AN ABSOLUTE SEPARATION OF RACES NOR HAVE I EVER ABSOLUTELY CONDEMNED INTER-RACIAL MARRIAGE"

    Of course you haven't. Then again, there is this from the prophet's website:

    ______________

    "Brooks believes that Black Nationalism has created a detrimental and destructive hostility towards anything European. He calls this “Racial Romanticism.”

    I would reply that all of these objections are satisfied in the solution that Eric Jon Phelps has presented, namely, that the United States reserve a handful of States to be populated by Blacks **and other necessary persons such as inter-racial spouses.** The States would constitute a new nation, independent of the United States. This movement should be based upon the origin of Races, and Racial and Linguistic Separation found in Genesis 9-11. In this construction the races and languages are something that God created according to his good pleasure, as he is a God who loves distinction and variety. He is not a distinction-less monad. Thus any preaching of racial or genetic purification by the elimination of a certain race would be absent and strongly condemned. Secondly, this would not involve an exodus back to Africa but would involve a population shift within a social structure already replete with Black Democratic Government Representatives. Thirdly, this solution would remove the Blacks from being under a White government and thus remove the ability of any Whites to oppress or hold Blacks back. On the contrary, and fourthly, the Whites would be giving up huge industrialized States ready to be used by the Blacks, thus removing the detrimental effects of Black Racial Romanticism."
    ___________

    Play Twilight Zone music here. :)

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    1. This quote says nothing of absolute racial separation and even advocates that inter-racial spouses should be allowed and taken account for. Did you just not find the honesty in yourself to admit your lie Sean?

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    2. Segregating blacks along with "other necessary persons such as inter-racial spouses" into separate self-governing northern states (unless you know some other areas where there are "huge industrialized States ready to be used by Blacks" and their inter-racial spouses)says nothing of absolute racial separation? You really are an empty bag of half-baked nuts. What is amazing is how oblivious and proud you are in your sin. It's like watching car wreck.

      One question, will Asian women married to black men be segregated too, or, since you say white men like Asian women will they be exempt from you permanent one-way forced busing plan? Speaking of which, will you use buses to transport blacks,inter-racial couples, and other "necessary persons" to these Northern set-aside states or will you just march them there at the end of a gun barrel in leg irons and chains? Being a superior white man, I have to think you've already thought through the logistics of your master plan.

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    3. I guess I don't see why Drake's pipe dream is worth discussing. I'm not sure why he bothered mentioning it in the first place, and I don't see any reason for anyone to discuss it now. If his plan was to mine the moon for cheese, would we even be having this dialog? If not, why this one?

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  7. It's not worth discussing, but it's important to realize that his anti-trinitarian subordinationism and subjugation of the Son as the Father's ontological inferior is foundational to his racism. Then again, nothing Drake writes is worth discussing.

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