St. Casimir Times

ANDRIUS J. YAGMINAS

 

 The Filioque is a much debated topic, but even taking the Filioque as it is described, the Trinity remains unchanged. The Filioque has, at it’s root, a hierarchy of procession, or the manner in which essence is gained or sent forth. 

 Much like how when Christ Jesus is in his human form, he must go to the Father for power because he forgoes divine nature to fully engrain himself in humanity.

 

 The Holy Ghost, being the third person of the Trinity takes on a near manifestation of the operation of the human bodily spirit. Without your Body and the Soul, your Spirit has little essence and operational power whilst still remaining wholly you, and it has always been you. The Holy Ghost is eternal, but in the manner of coming forth into the world, essence is drawn from both the Father and the Son in a cooperative act, similar to how the eternal Word of God, the Son, proceeded from and drew power from the Father during his earthly ministries. Keep in mind, a cooperative act does not mean they had equal tasks.The Holy Ghost proceeding through the Son would still be considered from the Son. 

 

 To say that the idea of a procession would demean or strip divinity of the Holy Ghost is misguided, as those same ideas would undermine the identical procession of the Word of God as well. We must keep in mind that the terms we use, when ascribed to God, take on a Godly manner, meaning the procession of the Son and the Ghost are eternal, they are not physical or temporal. 

 

 The last note I would like to make is- if the Son Proceeds from the Father, and the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and through the Son, how are they not created?

Simply put, the only thing that the Son and the Holy Ghost gain from their procession is their divine personhood. Nothing is added, but a relational identity that is their very being is ascribed to them. The son and the Holy Ghost do not lack anything that the Father has, except that they are not the Father nor the source of eternal generation. Just as the Holy Ghost is not the Word of God sent forth on to earth, the Son is not the source of divine essence and eternal generation. 

 

The Filioque affirms perfect Trinitarian hierarchy, maintains respect to the form of precedence in the Godhead, and maintains that the Holy Ghost is God, sent forth from the Father and through the Son. From the Father and From the son is equal to From the father and through the son. 

 

 

Galatians 4:6 – “And because you are sons, God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying: Abba, Father.”

Romans 8:9 – “But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.”

Acts 2:33 – “Being exalted therefore by the right hand of God and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath poured forth this which you see and hear.”

 

Catechism of the Catholic Church 264 – “The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father as the first principle and, by the eternal gift of this to the Son, from the communion of both the Father and the Son” (St. Augustine, De Trin. 15, 26, 47: PL 42, 1095).