The Taboric Light - 02 - The Palamite Doctrine of God

02 The Palamite Doctrine of God

Introduction

In this paper I will be examining the Palamite doctrine of God, but before beginning a proper treatment of St. Gregory Palamas' Triadology, I will first touch upon the experiential nature of his theology. Palamas, like the Eastern tradition as a whole, does theology by focusing primarily upon man's experience of God in the process of divinisation (theosis), and so it is this soteriological framework that forms the foundation for his understanding of God, both as it relates to what is given to man by grace, that is, a real ontological participation in the uncreated life and glory of the Trinity, and how this gracious mystery is accomplished by God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) through the gift of His presence as energy. [1] That being said, it is important to note that theosis is not a type of knowledge founded upon intellectual abstraction, in fact it is a knowledge that transcends man's intellect, because it is in fact an uncreated gift of God's grace, that is, it is a gift of God whereby He elevates man out of his own limited existence and gives him a share in the uncreated life of the Trinity.

Now, with that in mind, in the first part of this paper I will briefly touch upon the doctrine of theosis, and how it cannot be reduced to the profane knowledge acquired through intellectual abstraction from objects within the created world. Next, after giving a brief overview of his doctrine of theosis, I will examine the features inherent within St. Gregory's Triadology: first by highlighting the importance of the ontological distinctions he makes within the Godhead, that is, the distinctions of essence, energy, and hypostasis, and how these distinctions, which involve no separation within the Godhead, allow for a real knowledge of the incomprehensible God, who is simultaneously knowable and unknowable; and second, I will focus upon his theology of divine processions (both hypostatic and energetic), and how man gains a real experience of God through them; and finally, in the last section of the paper, I will examine St. Gregory Palamas' theology of the eternal manifestation of the Spirit through the Son, which itself is ultimately founded upon the doctrine espoused at the Blachernae Council in A.D. 1285. [2]

The Nature of Divine Knowledge within Palamite Theology

The experiential nature of Palamas' theology is focused, as was mentioned above, upon the doctrine of theosis, and what it really means to know, or to participate in, God. Thus, knowledge within the Palamite system is not reducible to intellectual or conceptual knowledge; in fact it involves transcending that type of knowledge in order to experience God in God. [3] That being said, St. Gregory distinguishes between what he sees as profane knowledge, that is, a knowledge which is merely abstracted by man from the objects present within his natural environment, and sacred knowledge, that is, a knowledge of the divine that involves a real gracious participation in the uncreated divine life, and which actually exceeds man's unaided abilities. [4]

In the middle of the 14th century a controversy broke out in the Byzantine Empire about the nature of knowledge, and which focused primarily on the nature of man's knowledge of God. The dispute became known as the "Hesychast controversy," and was centered upon the claims of the hesychastic monks, that is, that they could see the uncreated divine Light of glory. The two parties in the dispute had very different views about the nature of divine knowledge, as far as Barlaam of Calabria was concerned, man’s knowledge of God was based solely upon analogical reasoning and abstraction from the things present in the world, which, as he saw it, revealed to the human mind their Creator. [5] While St. Gregory Palamas held that natural or profane knowledge as he called it, was incapable of transcending the created world in order to bring about a real (participatory) knowledge of God, for as he put it, "By examining the nature of sensible things, these people [i.e., the Greek philosophers] have arrived at a certain concept of God, but not at a conception truly worthy of Him and appropriate to His blessed nature." [6] In other words, God in His essence completely transcends the world, and so, it is impossible for natural knowledge through intellectual abstraction to provide an understanding of the divine that permits of a true participation in the God's own uncreated life and glory. Only a gift of self that is communicated directly from the Tri-hypostatic God to man can bridge the gap between the created world and the uncreated God, who gave it being in the first place. [7] Thus, for St. Gregory natural knowledge can at most tell man that there is a God, but it cannot serve as a basis for a personal relationship with God, that is, it cannot enable man to become a partaker of the divine nature, [8] because only grace can achieve that end.

[1] A Theology of Distinctions

St. Gregory Palamas' theology can be called a theology of distinctions, because it involves making distinctions between the different modes of being within the Godhead, and it is only because of these ineffable distinctions, that it is possible for man to both know and not know God at the same time. [9] The distinctions made by St. Gregory pertain to three different realities within the Godhead: "essence, energy, and the triad of divine hypostases," [10] and these three distinct modes of being correspond in some sense to the type of language that can be used to describe God.

In the Palamite system, the essence of a being (including the divine being) is and remains utterly transcendent and unknowable, [11] and so discourse about the divine essence corresponds to apophatic (negative) theology, [12] while the divine energies, and the three divine hypostases correspond to both apophatic and kataphatic theological discourse. Now, it is important to emphasize the fact that these three ineffable distinctions (essence, energy, and hypostases) do not cause any kind of division or separation within the Tri-hypostatic God, because the divine essence is indivisibly divided among the three divine hypostases, and all of the energies that flow out from them into the world, and yet there is also no interval (diastema) of espacement between the three divine hypostases, or between the divine energies and their Tri-hypostatic source. [13] The divine energies are the enhypostatic and natural enactments of the divine essence by the three divine hypostases, and so there can be no gaps within the Godhead. St. Gregory of Nazianzen confirmed the doctrinal approach taken above in his Oration 28, when he spoke about the fact that Moses was able to see ". . . not the First and unmingled Nature, known to Itself — to the Trinity, I mean; not That which abides within the first veil, and is hidden by the Cherubim; but only that Nature, which at last even reaches to us," that is, that nature which scripture calls "the Back Parts of God, which He leaves behind Him, as tokens of Himself like the shadows and reflection of the sun in the water, which show the sun to our weak eyes, because we cannot look at the sun himself, for by his unmixed light he is too strong for our power of perception." [14]

Moreover, the divine essence, as the utterly transcendent and incomprehensible nature of the Tri-hypostatic God, is completely unknowable (as was indicated above), because it is in fact hyper-ousios, that is, it is beyond being, and so only apophatic language can be used when speaking about God’s super-essential essence. [15] Thus, for St. Gregory, God "is not nature, because He transcends every nature; He is not a being, because He transcends every being; and He is not nor does He possess form, because He transcends every form." [16] Clearly, from what has been said so far, the incomprehensibility of the divine essence is not to be seen merely an epistemological problem founded upon man's own finite nature and his limited intellectual capabilities; rather, it reflects the very reality of God Himself, that is, it reflects the way in which God exists. God is by nature incomprehensible in His essence, because He is hetero-essential in relation to the world that He has created, and so there can be no analogy between the divine essence and the created essences of the diastemic order. [17]

Now this lack of analogical predication between the uncreated and the created is reflected in the entire theological tradition of the Byzantine Church. In fact it can even be found in Johannes Scottus Erigena, a Westerner who was familiar with the Byzantine tradition, for as he explained in his treatise entitled the Periphyseon:

One branch of theology, named apophatiki, denies that

the divine essence (ousia) or substance (hypostaseis) is

one of the things that are, that is, of the things that can

be named or understood; the other branch, however,

namely kataphatiki, predicates of the divine essence all

the things that are and, for that reason, is named

'affirmative' not so as to establish that the divine essence

is any of the things that are, but to argue that all the

things that stem from it can be predicated of it. [18]

As is evident from Erigena’s comments, apophatic discourse emphasizes God's essential otherness in relation to the created world, while kataphatic theological discourse emphasizes God’s relationship to the world, [19] and in the Palamite system, kataphasis reflects upon the out flowing of the uncreated divine energies from the three divine hypostases into the creation, and the participation of created things in the divine energy, as the foundation of all created being. [20]

Once God’s essential transcendence in relation to the world is safeguarded, it becomes possible to speak about how God actually relates to and is known by created beings. This leads to the Palamite theology of the uncreated energies of God, because for St. Gregory, and the Eastern Fathers in general, it is only at the level of energetic being that God manifests Himself, both in the world, [21] but also mysteriously even before the world is created. The divine energies are the enhypostatic (personalized) manifestation within the world of the three divine hypostases. The divine energies, which flow out from the Godhead into the world, are the enactments of the divine essence by the three divine hypostases, and it is by participating in these activities that man comes into personal contact with the Tri-hypostatic God. In other words, the divine energies manifest the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the world, and not as some abstract essence, but as the tri-personal God of revelation. [22] Of course the energies do more than simply manifest the triad of divine hypostases, they also give man a real participation in the very life and glory of the Trinity.

Moreover, it is only through the divine energies, which as St. Basil said, "come down to us," [23] that we come to know God, and to experience Him personally. The knowledge man receives from the divine energies, is not simply an intellectual abstraction of the unknowable divine essence; instead, it is a personal encounter with, and sharing in, the uncreated life of the Tri-hypostatic God. Thus, the incomprehensibility of the divine essence does not lead to a type of agnosticism in connection with God, because although He is essentially unknowable, He is simultaneously energetically knowable, that is, He can be known in His gracious activities which flow down to us from the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as manifestations of their life and communion.

[2] A Theology of Divine Processions

Palamite theology, in keeping with the entire Byzantine tradition, sees God the Father as the pegaia theotes, [24] that is, it sees Him as the source and origin of the divine being itself, "for the Son and the Spirit receive the divine essence from Him." [25] Clearly, the divine essence is common to all three of the divine hypostases, but it is common to the Son and the Spirit in a derivative sense, because they are homoousios with the Father, receiving their hypostatic existence from Him. That being said, it is not proper to say that the Father is homoousios with the Son and the Spirit, because the term homoousios is a relational term of dependency, that is, it is a term that indicates derived origin, and the Father derives His being from no one. Thus, the Father is the sole source, cause, and principle of the hypostasis of the Son, and He is the sole source, cause, and principle of the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit; and as a consequence, both the Son and the Spirit receive the divine essence from their derived existential origin from the hypostasis of the Father, who is the sole source and font of divinity. [26] The consubstantial communion of the hypostases involves a flowing of the divine essence from the Father to the Son, and through the Son to the Spirit, but the divine essence, as divinity, has its origin in the Father alone, and so neither the Son nor the Spirit is a cause within life of the immanent Trinity.

Now the order of the divine hypostases which is revealed in sacred scripture, and which I have related above, that is, Father (as cause), Son (as begotten), and Holy Spirit (as processed), is also reflected in the divine energy, because the divine energies as enhypostatic (personalized) gifts of God's presence to man, flow out in the same divine order, from the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit, and finally reaching mankind. [27] It should also be noted that man returns up this chain in the process of theosis. To put it another way, the order of revelation involves the condescension of God as He moves down to meet man, while man is drawn up into God in the process of his divinisation by grace in reverse order, by his deep intimacy with the Spirit man is conformed to the likeness of the Son of God, and this likening brings him into union with God the Father.

Now, as noted above, man experiences the divine energies through close intimacy with the God the Holy Spirit, and that is why the energies are often called the "energies of the Spirit," and in fact, the Spirit Himself is sometimes called divine energy. This is confirmed by what St. Gregory Palamas said when speaking about the divine energy, for:

. . . 'It is not by measure that the Spirit is given to Christ

by God the Father' (cf. John 3:44). [And] St. John

Chrysostom explains this passage when he states: 'Here

Spirit means the energy of the Spirit. For all of us receive

the energy of the Spirit by measure, but Christ possesses

the Spirit's entire energy in full and without measure. But

if His energy is without measure, how much more so is His

essence.' By calling the energy Spirit – or, rather, the

very Spirit of God – as the Baptist did, and by saying that

the energy is without measure, Chrysostom showed its

uncreated character. Again, by saying that we receive it

by measure he indicated the difference between the

uncreated energy and the uncreated essence of God. For

no one ever receives the essence of God, not even if all

men are taken collectively, each one receiving in part

according to his degree of purity. Chrysostom then goes

on to reveal another difference between the uncreated

essence and the uncreated energy, for he says, 'If the

energy of the Spirit is without measure, how much more

so is His essence. [28]

Nevertheless, calling the Holy Spirit energy does not mean that he is somehow de-hypostasized; rather, it involves the recognition of the close intimacy established between the Spirit and man through the life of grace. Therefore, the Spirit can be spoken of in a unique way as divine energy, even though the divine energy is common to the three divine hypostases, because when the Spirit is imparted to the saints, He is not received as hypostasis, but as energy. [29] Besides, it is not possible for two hypostases (that is, the hypostasis of the Spirit and the hypostasis of a man) to become one hypostasis, because that would involve the annihilation of man, and not his salvation. [30]

As is clear from what has been said above, the Holy Spirit, as He is manifested by Christ, is often called divine energy, because this is how the Spirit is received by the Son from the Father, and how He is received by the saints through the Son, for no one can receive the Spirit's hypostasis itself, and to even suggest that this is possible is to fail to grasp the nature of the distinctions between essence (ousia), person (hypostasis), and energy (energeia) within the Godhead. Therefore, the Spirit does not shine forth as hypostasis through the Son, but is manifested energetically through the Son, and that is why the manifestation of God's Spirit through the Son is properly called an eternal energetic manifestation or theophany.

The Filioque Controversy: From Blachernae to Florence

[1] The Conflicting Councils of Blachernae and Florence

In this part of the paper I will examine the filioque controversy, but to recapitulate the entire history of this controversy is beyond the scope of this essay, and so, I will not do that here; instead, I will focus on the theological differences that exist between the East and the West on the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit. In order to do this I will briefly set out the theology of the West as exemplified in the decree of the Council of Florence (A.D. 1438), with due consideration given to the recent clarification on the filioque issued by the Holy See, [31] then I will explain the Byzantine doctrine of procession, especially as it is proclaimed in the dogmatic tome of the Council of Blachernae (A.D. 1285), and in the subsequent teaching of St. Gregory Palamas himself.

The Latin Church's Florentine decree states the following about the procession of the Holy Spirit:

In the name of the Holy Trinity, of the Father, and of the

Son, and of the Holy Spirit, with the approbation of this

holy general Council of Florence we define that this truth

of faith be believed and accepted by all Christians, and

that all likewise profess that the Holy Spirit is eternally

from the Father and the Son and has His essence and His

subsistent being both from the Father and the Son, and

proceeds from both eternally as from one principle and one

spiration; we declare that what Holy Doctors and Fathers

say, namely, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father

through the Son, tends to this meaning, that by this it is

signified that the Son also is the cause, according to the

Greeks, and according to the Latins, the principle of the

subsistence of the Holy Spirit, as is the Father also. [32]

This decree is pregnant with information, and so I will have to highlight a few of the principles of the Latin theology of procession in order to explain later why the Eastern Orthodox Churches cannot accept this definition as authoritative and binding. First, the decree proclaims the idea that the Father and the Son together give the Holy Spirit His subsistent being. Now in doing this, as the decree itself emphasizes, the Father and the Son act, not as two principles, but as a single principle, and this is important because there cannot be two principles within the Godhead, at least not without admitting that there are two gods. In other words, there can only be one source of divinity, and in the case of the procession of the Holy Spirit, the Latin Church holds that the Father and the Son together are this single principle or source (that is, for the spiration of the Spirit). Moreover the decree itself draws an equivalency between the terms cause and principle, asserting that the Latin understanding of the term principle is roughly the same as the term cause (aitia) in Greek Trinitarian theology, and of course the Greek Church uses the word cause in connection with the Father alone, because it signifies His monarchy. [33]

Now it is hard to see how Byzantine – particularly Palamite – Triadology can be reconciled with the above formulation of the procession of the Holy Spirit. In Eastern Triadology the focus is always placed upon the monarchy of the Father, who, as the sole source of divinity, causes the hypostasis of the Son through generation, and the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit through procession (ekporeusis). Now, in fairness it must be admitted that the Latin tradition also holds that the monarchy of the Father is important, and it tries to safeguard this theological truth by saying that the Father is the "principle without principle" in the Trinity, [34] but this formulation opens up the possibility, and can even be said to imply the necessity, of a "principle with principle" in the Godhead, that is, the Son. This idea of a secondary cause in the Trinity is foreign to the Eastern theological tradition, which has always focused upon the idea that there is, and only can be, one cause in the Trinity, the hypostasis of the Father. In other words, the idea that there could be two causes within the Godhead, an uncaused cause, and a caused cause, is utterly foreign to Byzantine Triadology; and moreover, within the light of Byzantine tradition the assertion of two causes in the Trinity smacks of polytheism, because there would be as many gods as there are causes of divinity.

The Latin Church's solution to the problem of two principles or causes within the Godhead is to assert that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son – in the words of the Florentine decree – ". . . as from one principle and one spiration." [35] But this solution causes additional problems, because as St. Gregory Palamas taught, the ability to generate a person or to cause the procession of a person within the Godhead are hypostatic properties of the Father alone; and so, to posit the idea that the Son somehow shares in the existential procession of the Holy Spirit confounds the hypostases of the Father and the Son, collapsing them into one and the same hypostasis. [36] The Latin Church, by asserting the idea that the Father and the Son form a single principle in the spiration of the Holy Spirit has fallen into a form of Sabellian modalism, because both begetting and spiration are personal properties of the Father alone, and as personal (hypostatic) properties, they cannot be shared with any other person in the Trinity, or the real distinction between the hypostases collapses.

One further difficulty results from the Latin doctrine which holds that the Father and the Son form a single principle in the spiration of the Spirit, and it is focused upon the nature of the unity of the Godhead. It is an ancient principle of Catholic Triadology that anything that is common to two of the hypostases of the Trinity, is common to all three hypostases, because of their common essence (ousia); in other words, if the Father and the Son are a "single principle" in the spiration of the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit, it follows that the Spirit must also be a "single principle" with them in His own spiration, and that is clearly nonsensical. The hypostases of the Trinity are only distinguished by their unique hypostatic properties (idiotes), and so anything that is common to the Father and the Son, must also be common to the Holy Spirit. As St. Basil said, "The Spirit shares titles held in common by the Father and the Son; He receives these titles due to His natural and intimate relationship with them." [37]

Thus, the idea that the Father and the Son can be a "single principle" in the spiration of the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit involves a confusion of hypostasis and essence (ousia) within the Godhead, because anything common to the hypostases is founded upon the one divine essence (ousia) that they share, and that is why the Western notion that the Father and the Son can be a "single principle" in the procession of the Holy Spirit's hypostasis is theologically unworkable. Therefore, to hold that the Father and the Son can be a "single principle" of origin in relation to the hypostasis of the Holy Spirit involves either Sabellian modalism, or an essential subordination of the Spirit to the Father and the Son, because He does not possess a common quality shared by the Father and the Son, and consequently must be essentially distinct and subordinate in relation to them.

Now, it should also be noted that the Eastern Fathers do not reduce the hypostases to mere relations within the divine essence, nor do they reduce them to psychological categories; rather, the hypostases are different in their manner of subsistence (tropos hyparxeos). That is, the Son, as only begotten, receives his subsistence from the Father through generation, while the Spirit receives His subsistence from the Father alone by procession (ekporeusis), and these distinctions are truly subsistent. That being said, there is no danger of division within God, because St. John Damascene's doctrine of perichoresis allows the distinct hypostases to indwell each other, while remaining truly distinct, and that is why the Spirit, which is properly the Spirit of the Father, is also the Spirit of the Son, but as St. John goes on to say, ". . . we do not speak of the Spirit as from the Son." [38] There is no filioque in the theology of St. John Damascene, nor is there one in the theology of St. Gregory Palamas, and in fact both men directly reject the filioque as can be seen in the case of St. John from the quotation just given.

Moreover, St. John Damascene does not reduce the hypostases to mere relations within the divine essence as do most Western theologians (for example Thomas Aquinas), nor does he fail to distinguish between essence (ousia) and hypostasis as Westerners since the time of Augustine have tended to do. [39] Now as far as the Spirit's existential origin is concerned, both St. John and St. Gregory hold that it comes from the Father alone, proof of this can be found by looking at what Andrew Louth wrote in his book on Damascene, because as he indicates, St. John ". . . speaks of the Holy Spirit as 'the Holy Spirit of God the Father, as proceeding from Him, who is also said to be of the Son, as through Him manifest and bestowed on the creation, but not as taking His existence from Him' (St. John, Sabbat. 4:21-23)." [40] St. Gregory Palamas also teaches this, for as he put it, the ". . . pre-eternal rejoicing of the Father and the Son is the Holy Spirit who, as I said, is common to both, which explains why He is sent from both to those who are worthy. Yet the Spirit has His existence from the Father alone, and hence He proceeds as regards His existence only from the Father." [41] Thus, the Father alone gives existence to the hypostasis of the Spirit, and there can be no existential filioque. [42]

The East's negative view of the filioque as it is formulated in the West, does not mean that the East rejects the idea that the Spirit is manifested through the Son. In fact, at the Blachernae Council (A.D. 1285) the Byzantine Church taught that the Holy Spirit is manifested as (or in the) divine energy through the Son, but that this manifestation of the Spirit does not involve the existential hypostastic origin of the Spirit, since that comes only from the Father. [43] This distinction (that is, between hypostatic origin and manifestation) is made by St. John Damascene, and other Eastern Fathers, but was clarified by St. Gregory of Cyprus at the Council of Blachernae. [44] In the dogmatic tome of the Council eleven anathemas were pronounced, but in my paper I am only going to briefly examine one of those definitions:

[Those] who affirm that the Paraclete, which is from the

Father, has its existence through the Son and from the

Son, and who again propose as proof the phrase "the Spirit

exists through the Son and from the Son." In certain texts

[of the Fathers], the phrase denotes the Spirit's shining

forth and manifestation. Indeed, the very Paraclete shines

form and is manifest eternally through the Son, in the same

way that light shines forth and is manifest through the

intermediary of the sun's rays; it further denotes the

bestowing, giving, and sending of the Spirit to us. It does

not, however, mean that it subsists through the Son and

from the Son, and that it receives its being through Him

and from Him. For this would mean that the Spirit has the

Son as cause and source (exactly as it has the Father), not

to say that it has its cause and source more so from the Son

than from the Father; for it is said that that from which

existence is derived likewise is believed to enrich the source

and to be the cause of being. To those who believe and say

such things, we pronounce the above resolution and

judgment, we cut them off from the membership of the

Orthodox, and we banish them from the flock of the Church

of God. [45]

Now this anathema mentions an analogy that was very important to St. Gregory of Cyprus in describing the manifestation of the Spirit through the Son, that is, the comparison of this manifestation of divine energy to the transmission of light through the rays of the sun. In the analogy the solar disk itself stands for the Father, while the rays emanating from it represent the Son of God, and the light or radiance is an image of the Holy Spirit. Now, as Patriarch Gregory points out, the rays transmit the light of the sun, but they are not the source of the light, that is, they do not cause the existence of the light, nor do they add anything to it, because only the solar disk causes the light. [46] Moreover, the doctrine of the eternal manifestation of the Spirit through the Son is connected to a distinction made in Byzantine theology between existing (hyparchei) and having existence (hyparxin echein), the former concerns the temporal and eternal manifestation of the Spirit through the Son, while the latter concerns the hypostatic origin of the Spirit from the Father alone. [47] Sadly, this distinction is not present within medieval or modern Catholic theology, but perhaps this distinction could form the basis for a rapprochement between the two traditions.

[2] An Eastern Christian Appraisal of the Vatican's "Clarification of the Filioque"

The Vatican's "Clarification on the Filioque" is an attempt to resolve the problem of the filioque, but sadly the text of the "Clarification" is theologically ambiguous as far as the monarchy of the Father is concerned. Here are a few examples of the problems present within the Vatican's "Clarification."

First, the document says that: "The Father alone is the principle without principle of the two other persons of the Trinity." [48] Now, the problem with this statement is that the Father, rather than being described simply as the "principle of the two other persons of the Trinity," is described as the "principle without principle," which can imply that the Son is a "principle with principle" within the Trinity (i.e., that the Son is a secondary principle within the Godhead). The idea that there can be a "secondary" principle in the Godhead is contrary to the teaching of the Eastern Church, and would ultimately destroy the monarchy of the Father, replacing it with a diarchy of the Father and the Son.

Second, the "Clarification" states that: "The Holy Spirit, therefore, takes his origin from the Father alone (ek monou tou Patros) in a principal, proper, and immediate manner." [49] The problem with this statement is centered upon the concluding portion of the formula, that is, the part of the text that says that the Spirit comes from the Father alone in a "principal, proper, and immediate manner," because this modifying phrase implies, or at least allows for the possibility, that the Son is involved in the existential origin of the Spirit in a secondary, received, and mediate manner. This kind of secondary or mediate causation is incompatible with the Triadology of the Eastern Fathers, and in particular with the doctrine of the Cappadocians, because as St. Gregory Nazianzus said, ". . . all that the Father has belongs likewise to the Son, except Causality." [50] Now, in order for the ecumenical dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches to advance, the Latin Church is going to have to issue a document that cannot be read in an equivocal manner on these issues. In other words, it must say that the Father is the principle of divinity, period, end of sentence, and with no modifying phrases or clauses added on. Thus, the West will need to say that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, without adding modifiers like "principally, immediately, properly, etc.," which can imply that the Son Himself participates in the hypostatic origination of the Spirit.

Third, the document continues to support the idea put forward at the Second Council of Lyons, which ". . . confessed that 'the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son, not as from two principles but as from one single principle.'" [51] Clearly, the Western theory that says that the Father and the Son are a "single principle" in the spiration of the Spirit is unworkable in Eastern Triadology, because the fact that the Father is the principle of divinity is held to be a hypostatic characteristic of His person, and so it cannot be shared with the Son, for as St. Gregory Palamas explained:

We do not say that the Son is from the Father in as much

as He is begotten by the divine essence, but rather in as

much as He is begotten by the Father as person. For the

essence is common to the three persons, but begetting is

proper to the Father personally. That is why the Son is not

begotten by the Spirit. Consequently the Spirit is also from

the Father; He possesses the divine essence, proceeding

from the person of the Father. For the essence is always

and absolutely common to the three persons. Therefore

the act of spiration is proper to the Father as a person and

the Spirit does not proceed from the Son, for the Son does

not have the personal properties of the Father. [52]

Now, in saying this St. Gregory Palamas is simply following in the tradition of the Cappadocian Fathers, because within their Triadology it is not possible to call the Father and the Son a "single principle," since that would involve confounding the person of the Father with that of the Son, which would entail falling into the heresy of Sabellian modalism. Thus, the Western notion that the Father and the Son are a "single principle" is incompatible with the doctrine of the Eastern Church.

Sadly, the insertion of the filioque into the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed shows that the West has confused two distinct – but inseparable – divine realities: (1) the existential procession of the Holy Spirit as person (hypostasis), which is from the Father alone; and (2) the Spirit's eternal manifestation as divine energy (i.e., as uncreated grace), which is from the Father through the Son. In other words, in the theology of the Eastern Fathers the Holy Spirit proceeds as hypostasis from the Father alone, but He is manifested – both temporally and eternally – from the Father through the Son, not as hypostasis, but as divine energy; and this energetic manifestation expresses the consubstantial communion of the three divine hypostases within the Godhead. Now, as is clear from what has been said, it is vital that the Spirit's energetic manifestation through the Son not be confused with His hypostatic procession of origin from the Father alone, because that would ultimately lead to Sabellian modalism.

It should be noted, of course, that these are only a few of the problems with the Vatican's "Clarification of the Filioque," and so, although it is a valiant attempt by the Western Church to make the filioque more acceptable to the East, it ultimately highlights the differences between the two sides as it concerns the doctrine of the hypostatic procession of origin of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, I do not want to give the impression that the document is an utter failure, because it at least shows that the West realizes that the filioque is a true obstacle to the restoration of communion, and that further dialogue on this issue will have to be carried out if there is to be any chance at all of resolving this doctrinal disagreement.

Clearly, the best solution put forward so far to resolve the problem of the filioque can be found in the Agreed Statement of the North American Orthodox / Catholic Theological Consultation, which put forward the recommendation that the Latin Church remove the filioque from all liturgical and catechetical documents. [53] The use of the original creed by the Latin Church in its liturgical celebrations, and catechetical instructions, would facilitate ecumenical dialogue, while simultaneously removing one of the major obstacles to the restoration of communion between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches.

Finally, Latin Catholics will often bring up the concept of the per filium (i.e., the idea that the Spirit proceeds through the Son), and will say that this Eastern concept is the equivalent of the Western filioque, but that is simply not the case, because the per filium is not referring to the existential origin of the Holy Spirit as person (hypostasis), since as person the Spirit proceeds (ekporeusis) only from the Father, Who is the sole source of divinity. Instead, what the per filium is referring to is the manifestation (phanerosis) or progression (proienai) of the Spirit as energy from the Father through the Son, but this manifestation must never be confused with the Spirit's hypostatic procession of origin from the Father alone, because that would involve confounding the person of the Father with the person of the Son. Moreover, the failure of the West to recognize this important distinction is what led to the rejection of the so-called "union" council of Lyons II by the Council of Blachernae (A.D. 1285), which in its Tomus emphasized the importance of distinguishing between the procession (ekporeusis) of the Spirit from the Father alone, and His manifestation or progression as energy through the Son. This important doctrinal distinction is supported by St. John Damascene, who, in his treatise De Fide Orthodoxa, said that the Holy Spirit is of the Son, but "not from the Son", [54] and he confirmed this distinction yet again when – in another treatise – he wrote that, we speak of ". . . the Holy Spirit of God the Father, as proceeding (ekporeuomenon) from Him, who is also said to be of the Son, as through Him [i.e., the Son] manifest (phaneroumenon) and bestowed on the creation, but not as taking His existence (hyparxin) from Him", [55] and elsewhere he said that, ". . . the Word is a real offspring, and therefore Son; and the Spirit is a real procession and emanation from the Father, of the Son but not from the Son, as breath from a mouth, proclaiming God the Word." [56]

Conclusion

In St. Gregory Palamas' theology experience of the divine is the focus, because it is only through participation in the divine energies that a man can have true knowledge of God, not an intellectual or conceptual knowledge, but a living and personal knowledge of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In Orthodox teaching salvation is participation in God's own existence, not in His essence, because the latter would involve the destruction of the human subject, while the former involves a communication of God's personal enhypostatic energies, which makes man a "partaker of the divine nature." [57] Moreover, by participating in the uncreated Light of Mt. Tabor, a man becomes what he sees, for he sees God in God and becomes completely divine in his activity. This is what Barlaam could not understand, because he wanted to reduce the personal encounter with the incomprehensible God to a form of intellectual abstraction. In response to Barlaam, St. Gregory Palamas, as a monk, bishop, and mystic, proclaimed the God of revelation, and resisted every attempt to turn Christian faith into a pursuit of profane knowledge and philosophy. [58]

APPENDIX

(This appendix includes an idea that I was unable to complete, and which I deleted in order to keep the paper to a manageable length):

In making the distinction between the incommunicable divine essence and the uncreated divine energies, St. Gregory Palamas was following in the footsteps of St. Athanasios the Great, who, in order to safeguard the divinity of the Logos, made a distinction between God's essence and His will. As Palamas explains, "If the divine essence does not in any respect differ from the divine energy, then the act of generation and of procession will in no respect differ from the act of creating." [Philokalia, 4:392] In other words, the failure to distinguish between the divine essence and the divine energies (including the divine will) leads to Arianism, because the act of generation (and of procession), which are natural acts of the Father, would be confused with acts of His will. The effect of failing to make this theological distinction would be either the formulation of an Arian Christology or a view of the world that involves pantheism.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Works Cited:

Thomas L. Anastos. "Gregory Palamas' Radicalization of the Essence, Energies, and Hypostasis Model of God." The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 38:1-4 (1993): pages 335-349.

John Behr. Formation of Christian Theology: The Nicene Faith. (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2004).

David Bradshaw. Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

Roy J. Defarrari (Editor). The Sources of Catholic Dogma. (St. Loius: B. Herder Book Company, 1957).

Scot Douglass. Theology of the Gap. (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2005).

Georges Florovsky. Creation and Redemption. (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Company, 1976).

Richard Haugh. Photius and the Carolingians: The Trinitarian Controversy. (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Company, 1975).

Christopher Hughes. On a Complex Theory of a Simple God. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989).

M. Edmund Hussey. The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Theology of Gregory Palamas. (Ann Arbor: UMI Dissertation Services, 1972).

Vladimir Lossky. The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1998.

Andrew Louth. St. John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Page 110.

Fr. George A. Maloney. A Theology of Uncreated Energies. (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1978).

Willemien Otten. The Anthropology of Johannes Scottus Eriugena. (New York: E.J. Brill, 1991).

G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, Kallistos Ware (Editors). The Philokalia: The Complete Text compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth. (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1984). 4 Volumes.

Aristeides Papadakis. Crisis in Byzantium. (New York: Fordham University Press, 1983).

George C. Papademetriou. Introduction to Saint Gregory Palamas. (New York: Philosophical Library, Inc., 1973).

Archbishop Joseph Raya. Transfiguration of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. (Combermere, Ontario: Madonna House Publications, 1992).

Philip Schaff (Editor). The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994). 28 Volumes.

Dimitru Staniloae. "The Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and His Relation to the Son, as the Basis of our Deification and Adoption," in Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ: Ecumenical Reflections on the Filioque Controversy. Lukas Vischer (Editor). (London: SPCK, 1981).

Norman P. Tanner, S.J. (Editor). Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils. (London: Sheed and Ward, Ltd., 1990). 2 Volumes.

Christos Yannaras. "The Distinction Between Essence and Energies and its Importance for Theology." St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 19 (1975): pages 232-245.

St. Basil the Great. On the Holy Spirit. Translated by David Anderson. (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1980).

St. Gregory Palamas. The Triads. Translated by Nicolas Gendle. (New York: Paulist Press, 1987).

Works Consulted:

Khaled Anatolios. Athanasius: The Coherence of His Thought. (New York: Routledge, 1998).

David Coffey. "The Palamite Doctrine of God: A New Perspective." St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 32:4 (1988): Pages 329-358.

David Coffey. "The Roman 'Clarification' of the Doctrine of the Filioque." International Journal of Systematic Theology 5:1 (March 2003): Pages 3-21.

Brian E. Daley. "Revisiting the Filioque: Part One: Roots and Branches of an Old Debate." Pro Ecclesia 10:1 (2001): Pages 31-62.

Brian E. Daley. "Revisiting the Filioque: Part Two: Contemporary Catholic Approaches." Pro Ecclesia 10:2 (2001): Pages 195-212.

Brian E. Daley. Gregory of Nazianzus. (New York: Routledge, 2006).

Reinhard Flogaus. "Palamas and Barlaam Revisited: A Reassessment of East and West in the Hesychast Controversy of 14th Century Byzantium." St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 42:1 (1998): Pages 1-32.

M. Edmund Hussey. "The Persons – Energy Structure in the Theology of St. Gregory Palamas." St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 18:1 (1974): Pages 22-43.

J. N. D. Kelly. Early Christian Doctrines. (Peabody, MA: Prince Press, 2003).

Scott F. Pentecost. Quest for the Divine Presence: Metaphysics of Participation and the Relation of Philosophy to Theology in St. Gregory Palamas's Triads and One Hundred and Fifty Chapters. (Ann Arbor: UMI Dissertation Services, 1999).

Anna M. Silvas. Gregory of Nyssa: The Letters. (Lieden: Brill Publishers, 2007). Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae, Volume 83.

St. Maximus the Confessor. On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ. Translated by Paul M. Blowers and Robert Louis Wilken. (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2003).

Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas. Translated by the Fathers of the English Domincan Province. (Christian Classics, 1981). 5 Volumes.

The Palamite Doctrine of God

by Steven Todd Kaster

Franciscan University of Steubenville

Theology 740: Directed Study on St. Gregory Palamas

Dr. Stephen Hildebrand

14 December 2005 (minor revisions were made to this paper on 19 October 2023)

_____________________________________

End Notes:

[1] St. Gregory Palamas, in line with the entire Byzantine theological tradition, holds that God is known by man through personal experience, i.e., through a personal encounter with the uncreated energies of the Tri-hypostatic God, which flow out from the three divine hypostases to man as a pure gift of grace. This participation in the divine energies must not be confused with a participation in the ineffable essence of God, because in Byzantine theology it is impossible for man to participate in, or know about God’s superessential essence. As Christos Yannaras explained, "In Orthodox theology . . . the problem of the energies is put exclusively in terms of existential experience. The experience of the Church is the knowledge of God as an event of personal relationship, and the question raised is one of witness to and defense of that event, the question of how we come to know God, who is neither intelligible nor sensible, nor at all a being among the other beings. The knowledge of God as an event of personal relationship reveals the priority of the truth of the person in the realm of theological knowledge. There is no room for bypassing the reality of the person by means of an intellectual leap directly to the essence: Truth for us is in realities, not in names. The person recapitulates the mode of existence of nature; we know the essence or nature only as the content of the person. This unique possibility of knowing nature presupposes its ecstatic recapitulation in terms of a personal reference, i.e. the possibility for nature to stand outside of itself, to become accessible and communicable not as an idea, but as personal uniqueness and dissimilarity. The ecstasis of nature, however, cannot be identified with nature itself, since the experience of relation is itself an experience of non-identification: the ecstasy is the mode, the manner by which nature becomes accessible and known in terms of personal otherness; it is the energy of nature which is identified neither with its bearer nor with its result: The energy is neither the active cause nor the resultant effect." [Christos Yannaras, "The Distinction Between Essence and Energies and its Importance for Theology," St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 19 (1975): pages 232-245]

[2] The dogmatic tome issued by the Council of Blachernae is the official response of the Byzantine Church to the Second Council of Lyons (A. D. 1274). The tome clearly rejected the definition on the procession of the Holy Spirit put forward by the Western Church at Lyons II, holding that the Western definition was foreign to the tradition of the Fathers of the East, and as such it could not be accepted.

[3] See Archbishop Joseph Raya, Transfiguration of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, (Combermere, Ontario: Madonna House Publications, 1992). As Archbishop Raya explains, quoting St. Gregory, "Sensible light shows things to our senses. The intellectual light is to manifest the truth which is contained in thoughts. But those who receive the spiritual or supernatural life, perceive what is beyond all intellect. They participate in the divine energies and become themselves, in a sort, light. When they unite to the Light they see with it in full all that is hidden from those who have not seen the grace of light. The uncreated Light is the Light where God makes Himself manifest to those who enter into union with Him." [Pages 52-53]

[4] See Thomas L. Anastos, "Gregory Palamas' Radicalization of the Essence, Energies, and Hypostasis Model of God," The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 38:1-4 (1993), page 336: as Dr. Anastos explains, there is a baseline apophaticism that governs the entire Palamite theological synthesis, and the "first imprint of [this] . . . apophaticism is the distinction between profane knowledge and the true knowledge of God which can be acquired through man's natural faculties with divine assistance. Profane knowledge can be acquired by anyone and its object is exclusively the natural world. [But] no worthy conception of God can be attained through intellect alone, as true knowledge of God comes from God, leads to God, and conforms to God the one who acquires it."

[5] See St. Gregory Palamas, The Triads, Translated by Nicolas Gendle, (New York: Paulist Press, 1987). John Meyendorff in his introduction to the English translation of The Triads points out that "Barlaam . . . seems to have clung to the Aristotelian approach, defining all human knowledge as being based on perception by the senses, also admitting the possibility of positive illumination of the mind, transcending the senses, but remaining within 'the nature of the mind,'" [page 13] but this type of knowledge remains, at least for St. Gregory Palamas, a natural vision, and as such it is impossible for it to reach up to God, to God as He really is, because only an uncreated gift of grace can truly draw man up into the Trinity, so that he can know God in God [see page 69].

[6] St. Gregory Palamas, The Triads, page 26.

[7] See Dr. Scot Douglass, Theology of the Gap, (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2005). Dr. Douglass, quoting St. Gregory of Nyssa, highlights the fact that man cannot ascend to God through intellectual conceptions, because ". . . the whole created order is unable to get out of itself through a comprehensive vision, but remains continually enclosed within itself, and whatever it beholds, it is looking at itself. And even if it somehow thinks it is looking at something beyond itself, that which it sees outside itself has no being. One may struggle to surpass or transcend diastemic conception by the understanding of the created universe, but he does not transcend. For in every object it conceptually discovers, it always comprehends the diastema inherent in the being of the apprehended object, for diastema is nothing other than creation itself."

[8] See 2 Peter 1:4.

[9] The distinctions in God found within Palamite theology do not involve a denial of the divine simplicity, because as Vladimir Lossky said, "Simplicity does not mean uniformity or absence of distinction – otherwise Christianity would not be the religion of the Holy Trinity. Speaking generally, we must remark that it is too often forgotten that the idea of the divine simplicity – at least in the way in which it is presented in the manuals of theology – originates in human philosophy rather than in the divine revelation,"and as Lossky goes on to point out, "Orthodox theology does not admit any kind of 'composition' in Him [i.e., God]. The energies, like the persons, are not elements of the divine being which can be conceived of apart, in separation from the Trinity of which they are the common manifestation, the eternal splendor. They are not accidents (sumbebhkoi) of the nature in their quality as pure energies, and they imply no passivity in God." [Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1998), pages 79-80] It is important to remember that through perichoresis, the whole of the divine essence is simultaneously present in each of the three divine hypostases, and in the divine energy, and so, there can be no division in the Godhead.

[10] G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, Kallistos Ware (Editors), The Philokalia: The Complete Text compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth, (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1984), 4:380.

[11] See George C. Papademetriou, Introduction to Saint Gregory Palamas, (New York: Philosophical Library, Inc., 1973), pages 32-33. Fr. Papademetriou gives an explanation of this idea in a quotation from an article by Fr. Romanides, in the original article Fr. Romanides said that, "In both the Cappadocian and Alexandrian traditions the ousia of God is beyond all categories of thought in a radical manner and therefore not only beyond definition of any kind, but also beyond the predication of any name whatsoever, to such an extent that God is hyper-onymos, hyper-ousios, and even hyper-theos. Within this Biblical tradition the ousia of man also remains a mystery. Only the energies and powers of both God and man can be known. In this sense the term ousia is used not in the Greek philosophical sense of the definable and knowable immutable inner reality of a thing, but as a concrete unknowable reality known only in its acts. In contrast to Antiochene and Latin tradition (the Augustinian one), the term ousia as applied to the Holy Trinity by the Cappadocian and Alexandrian Fathers is neither a Platonic superstratal genus, nor an Aristotelian substratal material in which the hypostases or persons of the Holy Trinity participate." [Taken from Fr. Romanides, Greek Orthodox Theological Review 10:2 (Winter 1964-1965), page 103]

[12] The balance between apophatic and kataphatic language in speaking about God is necessary, because God transcends human language, and so He cannot be contained by it, as Dr. Douglass has explained: “. . . language as diasthma and kinhsiz subverts the possibility of ever using the superlative mode of adjective in appraising the choice of any particular word, [thus] one is always limited, like Christ, to that which is oikeioteron [most appropriate].” [Dr. Scot Douglass, Theology of the Gap, page 83] In other words, language, both in the sense of apophasis and kataphasis, cannot communicate God’s essential being; instead, it can only express something about Him by reference to His energies, that is, by reference to how He acts in the world.

[13] See Dr. Scot Douglass, Theology of the Gap, (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 2005), page 34.

[14] St. Gregory of Nazianzen's Oration 28, in Philip Schaff (Editor), The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), Series 2, Volume 7, page 289.

[15] See note number 9.

[16] Philokalia, 4:382.

[17] See Philokalia, 4:382, as St. Gregory Palamas said, "Every created nature is far removed from and completely foreign to the divine nature. For if God is nature, other things are not nature; but if every other thing is nature, He is not a nature, just as He is not a being if all other things are beings. And if He is a being, then all other things are not beings." In other words, at the level of essential being there is no analogy between the uncreated and the created natures, but although there is no analogy between the divine essence and created essences, there is a connection between created beings and the divine energies, for as Palamas went on to say, "God both is and is said to be the nature of all beings, in so far as all partake of Him and subsist by means of participation: not, however, by participation in His nature – far from it – but by participation in his energy." See also Georges Florovsky, Creation and Redemption, (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Company, 1976), page 48. ". . . there is no similarity between that which comes forth from nothing and the Creator Who verily is, Who brings creatures out of nothing."

[18] See Willemien Otten, The Anthropology of Johannes Scottus Eriugena, (New York: E.J. Brill, 1991), page 50.

[19] It is important to note that Johannes Scottus Erigena did not fully work out the distinction between the divine essence and the uncreated divine energies, and so his theological system tends to fall into a form of pantheism.

[20] See Philokalia, page 382; as Palamas said, "God both is and is said to be the nature of all beings, in so far as all partake of Him and subsist by mean of this participation: not, however, by participation in His nature – far from it – but by participation in His energy."

[21] See Fr. George A. Maloney, A Theology of Uncreated Energies, (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1978), page 74. The divine energies can be described as "God for us."

[22] See John Behr, Formation of Christian Theology: The Nicene Faith, (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2004). As Behr says, "Gregory [of Nyssa's] position is that the divine nature does not exist in the abstract, but only in the three persons, and that in them that we behold no variation in nature, but 'a certain continuous and uninterrupted communion,' a continuity which is qualified ('a certain') because it pertains only to their natural properties rather than their particular hypostatic expression of that nature." [page 421, note35]

[23] St. Basil's Letter 234, in Philip Schaff (Editor), The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), Series 2, Volume 8, page 274.

[24] See Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1998), page 59.

[25] M. Edmund Hussey, The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Theology of Gregory Palamas, (Ann Arbor: UMI Dissertation Services, 1972), page 29.

[26] For St. Gregory Palamas, as Fr. Hussey explains, ". . . the person of the Father is the origin of the divine essence itself. If that were not so, he suggests, Christian personalism would yield to the essentialism of the ancient philosophers: 'The essence of God would produce itself, and God would be His own Father, as the boasting of men famous among the Hellenes formerly proclaimed; in fact, God Himself exists and to Him belongs the divine essence and the divine energy.'" [Hussey, page 29]

[27] See Dr. David Bradshaw's treatment of divine processions in both the Cappadocian and Dionysian traditions. Dr. David Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pages 153-186.

[28] Philokalia, 4:391.

[29] As the dogmatic tome of the Blachernae Council (A.D. 1285) states, "This grace of the Spirit is poured forth, and it is neither novel nor alien to Scripture, were it to be called by the same name as Holy Spirit. For, sometimes, an act (energeia) is identified by the name of the one who acts, since frequently we do not refuse to call 'sun' the sun's own luster and light." [Aristeides Papadakis, Crisis in Byzantium, (New York: Fordham University Press, 1983), page 162]

[30] St. Gregory often refers to Spirit as energy, but when he speaks of the Spirit, he normally is referring to the Holy Spirit as hypostasis.

[31] It is important to note that the clarification on the filioque issued by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity almost entirely ignores the decree of Florence on the procession of the Spirit, and only makes brief mention of Second Lyons. For a critique of the Vatican clarification, see David Coffey's, "The Roman 'Clarification' of the Doctrine of the Filioque," International Journal of Systematic Theology 5:1 (March 2003), pages 3-21.

[32] Roy J. Deferrari (Editor), The Sources of Catholic Dogma, (St. Loius: B. Herder Book Company, 1957), page 219. See also Norman P. Tanner, S.J., (Editor), Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, (London and Washington, D.C.: Sheed & Ward, and Georgetown University Press, 1990), pages 526-527.

[33] It should be noted that St. Maximos the Confessor (in the 7th century) defended the Latin Church's use of the filioque, and held that it in no way harmed the sole causality of the Father, but that does not mean that St. Maximos would have accepted the Florentine decree on the filioque. In fact, it is likely that he would have had problems with the Florentine definitino, because it appears to be contrary to what he said the Latins meant by the term in his own century. As Richard Haugh has pointed out, "When Maximos questioned the Latins about this, they appealed to the Latin Fathers and 'even to St. Cyril of Alexandria's Commentary on the Gospel of John.' Maximos, however, does his best to interpret the Latin doctrine of the Filioque along the Greek patristic lines, claiming that the Latins were 'far from making the Son the cause of the Spirit, for they recognize the Father as the one cause of the Son and of the Spirit; the former by generation, the latter by procession.' Maximos then states that the Latin Filioque was an attempt 'to express the Spirit's going forth through the Son' and thus to establish the oneness and inseparable unity of their substance. Maximos also states that he admonished the Romans to be more careful in the usage and meaning of their expressions, adding that he thought the reaction from Constantinople would cause the Romans to be more cautious in the future." [Richard Haugh, Photius and the Carolingians: The Trinitarian Controversy, (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Company, 1975), page 33] Now of course it appears that by the 15th century the Latins had forgotten the importance of making the distinction between the existential procession of the Holy Spirit, which is from the Father alone, and His manifestation or shining forth in the divine energy, which takes place through the Son, and that is why the Council of Florence went so far as to say that ". . . the Holy Spirit eternally from the Father and the Son and has His essence and His subsistent being both from the Father and the Son, and proceeds from both eternally as from one principle and one spiration; we declare that what Holy Doctors and Fathers say, namely, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, tends to this meaning, that by this it is signified that the Son also is the cause, according to the Greeks, and according to the Latins, the principle of the subsistence of the Holy Spirit, as is the Father also." [Roy J. Defarrari, page 219] St. Maximos, almost eight hundred years before the Council of Florence, insisted that the Latins were not making the Son a cause of the Holy Spirit with the filioque, but ironically enough, that is exactly what the Florentine definition insists is the case, for it declares that the Son is a cause of the Holy Spirit, just like the Father.

[34] See the Vatican's Clarification of the Filioque.

[35] Roy J. Defarrari, page 219. See also Norman P. Tanner, S.J., (Editor), Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, (London and Washington, D.C.: Sheed & Ward, and Georgetown University Press, 1990), page 526.

[36] St. Gregory, in his treatise Logoi Apodeiktikoi (I, 6), says that, "We do not say that the Son is from the Father in as much as He is begotten by the divine essence, but rather in as much as He is begotten by the Father as a person. For the essence is common to the three persons, but begetting is proper to the Father personally. That is why the Son is not begotten by the Spirit. Consequently the Spirit is also from the Father; He possesses the divine essence, proceeding from the person of the Father. For the essence is always and absolutely common to the three persons. Therefore the act of spiration (to ekporeuein) is proper to the Father as a person and the Spirit does not proceed from the Son, for the Son does not have the personal properties of the Father." [Hussey, page 25]

[37] St. Basil, "On the Holy Spirit," ch. 19, no. 48

[38] St. John Damascene, "De Fide Orthodoxa," Book I, Ch. 8, in Philip Schaff (Editor), The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), Series 2, Volume 9.

[39] For an example of this Western tendency, see the Summa Theologica, Prima Pars, Q. 39, Art. 1 and 2; Q. 40, Art. 1. See also, Christopher Hughes, On a Complex Theory of a Simple God, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989), page192; the failure to make a real distinction between ousia and hypostasis, as Thomas Aquinas fails to do, inevitably leads to Sabellianism, as Christopher Hughes puts it in his critique of the Thomist Triadology, "Surely if (a) the essence of x = the essence of y, and (b) the essence of x = x, and the essence of y = y, it follows as the night does the day that x = y. And Aquinas maintains both that the divine persons are not distinct from their essences, and that they all have the same essence." In other words, the Father (x) is the Son (y), and the Son is the Father, and the same holds in relation to the Spirit. Now it should be noted that the first point (a) of Aquinas' theory conforms to the teaching of the Cappadocian Fathers, but that the second point (b) does not; in fact, the second point conforms to the teaching of Sabellius and not to the theological doctrine of the Cappadocians. Moreover, Aquinas' error is confirmed by what St. Basil said in Letter 236, where he called those who fail to distinguish between essence (or nature) and hypostasis in God, "Sabellians"; for as St. Basil said, "On the other hand those who identify essence (ousian) or substance and hypostasis are compelled to confess only three persons (prosopa), and, in their hesitation to speak of three hypostases, are convicted of failure to avoid the error of Sabellius, for even Sabellius himself, who in many places confuses the conception, yet, by asserting that the same hypostasis changed its form to meet the needs of the moment, does endeavour to distinguish persons (prosopa)." [St. Basil, Letter 236] Thomas Aquinas, in certain sense, is even more of a modalist than Sabellius, because Sabellius could at least admit that there are prosopic distinctions in God, while Thomas' theory of divine simplicity does not admit of any real distinctions.

[40] Andrew Louth, St. John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), page 110.

[41] Philokalia, page 4:362.

[42] There cannot be an existential filioque because the Spirit proceeds from the Father to the Son. Nevertheless, the Spirit is manifested through the Son, but this manifestation does not involve the existential origin of the Spirit as hypostasis.

[43] See Dimitru Staniloae, "The Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and His Relation to the Son, as the Basis of our Deification and Adoption," in Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ: Ecumenical Reflections on the Filioque Controversy, Lukas Vischer (Editor), (London: SPCK, 1981), page 183. As Staniloae points out, "The accompaniment of the begetting of the Son by the procession of the Spirit is a manifested accompaniment. For, without doubt, it is only if the begetting of the Son by the Father is accompanied by the procession of the Spirit from the Father, that the begetting of the Son can also be accompanied by the manifestation or shining forth of the Spirit. But if the accompaniment of the begetting of the Son by the procession of the Spirit from the Father is on the one hand the more profound fact, on the other it leaves it possible for us to think in terms of certain parallelism between the two cases. But the accompaniment of the begetting and in general of the Person of the Son by the manifest shining out of the Spirit demonstrates that there is an inner dynamic presence of the Spirit in the Son. That is why it employs the expressions 'through' or 'from' the Son, words which cannot be used of the procession itself. At the same time the shining out of the Spirit through or from the Son constitutes the basis for the shining out of the Spirit through or from the Son to the created world."

[44] St. Gregory of Cyprus was the Patriarch of Constantinople from 1283 to 1289.

[45] Aristeides Papadakis, page 160.

[46] See Aristeides Papadakis, page 92; as St. Gregory of Cyprus explains in his Confession, "Indeed, we affirm the immediate procession, because the Spirit derives its personal hypostatic existence, its very being, from the Father Himself and not from the Son, nor through the Son. Were this not the case, the Son would also be indisputably the cause of the Paraclete, a fact which is impious and which was never said or written by any of the Father. For all that, we say that the Spirit proceeds through the Son, and this without destroying our faith in the immediate procession. For, on the one hand, it proceeds and has its existence from the Father, of whom is born the Son Himself; while, on the other, it goes forth and shines through the Son, in the same manner as the sun's light is said to go forth through its rays, while the sun remains the light's source, the cause of its being, and the natural principle of its origin; and yet, the light passes forth, emanates, and shines through to rays from which it derives neither being nor existence. And, although the light passes through the rays, it in no wise derives the origin of its being through or from the rays, but immediately and exclusively from the sun – whence the rays themselves, through which the light is made manifest."

[47] See Aristeides Papadakis, page 90; see also Dr. David Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pages 215-220.

[48] A quotation taken from the Vatican's Clarification of the Filioque.

[49] A quotation taken from the Vatican's Clarification of the Filioque.

[50] St. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 34:10 in Philip Schaff's (Editor), The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), Series 2, Volume 7. As St. John Damascene explained in the De Fide Orthodoxa, "we do not speak of the Son as Cause," because ". . . the Father alone is cause." [St. John Damascene, De Fide Orthodoxa, Book I, Chapter 8 and Chapter 12, in Philip Schaff's (Editor), The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), Series 2, Volume 9] See also St. Gregory Nazianzen's Oration 20:10, where he says: "[T]he begottenness of the Only-begotten runs parallel with the being of the Father; he has his existence from him and not after him, except in respect of the concept of source – source, that is, in the sense of cause." [Brian E. Daley, Gregory of Nazianzus, (New York: Routledge, 2006), page 103] In addition to the quotations above in this note, I would also refer those interested in this topic to a text translated by Anna M. Silvas in her book, Gregory of Nyssa: The Letters, where in Letter 32, while asking a question about the relationship between the Father and the Son, St. Gregory of Nyssa clearly asserts that the Son does not possess the power of causality in the Godhead, for as he put it: "Since in truth the Father does not precede the Son, but is co-equal with him in all things except causality, how can we in view of this speculate whether there was a time when the Father was unoccupied with being Father, and the Son unoccupied with being Son?" [Anna M. Silvas, Gregory of Nyssa: The Letters, (Lieden: Brill Publishers, 2007), Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae, Volume 83, page 230]

[51] A quotation taken from the Vatican's Clarification of the Filioque.

[52] St. Gregory Palamas, Logos Apodeiktikos I, 6; this quotation from Palamas' writings was taken from M. Edmund Hussey's dissertation, The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Theology of Gregory Palamas, page 25.

[53] See the concluding recommendations of North American Orthodox / Catholic Theological Consultation's document, entitled: The Filioque: A Church Dividing Issue?

[54] St. John Damascene, De Fide Orthodoxa, Book I, Chapter 8, in Philip Schaff's (Editor), The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), Series 2, Volume 9.

[55] St. John Damascene, Sabbat. 4:21-23.

[56] St. John Damascene, Trisagion 28:40-43.

[57] 2nd Peter 1:4.

[58] See St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses, (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), page 57. Just as St. Gregory Palamas rejected the carnal teachings of Aristotle as a type of poison in theology, which was an approach so readily accepted by the Western Scholastics, so too St. Gregory of Nyssa referred to profane philosophy as being devoid of life. In fact, he used Pharaoh's daughter as a type when speaking about the philosophy of the Greeks, for as he put it: "[T]he daughter of the king, being childless and barren (I think she is rightly perceived as profane philosophy), arranged to be called [Moses'] mother by adopting the youngster, Scripture concedes that his relationship with her who was falsely called his mother should not be rejected until he had recognized his own immaturity. But he who has already attained maturity, as we have learned about Moses, will be ashamed to be called the son of one who is barren by nature. For truly barren is profane education, which is always in labor but never gives birth."