According to the Nicene Creed, BCP p. 358, the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son." The phrase "and the Son" is called the "filioque," and it was not a part of the original Creed. The original simply said that the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father." The filioque was in use in the western church as early as the sixth century, and officially ratified by Pope Benedict VIII in 1014. The eastern church did not accept this change. They have maintained the original wording as accepted by the universal church, East and West, in the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon in 431 and 451. No ecumenical council has authorized any changes since Chalcedon.
Although rejecting the filioque, the eastern church does not deny that the Spirit is intimately related to the Son. For example, they would accept the phrase that the "Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son." Their only desire is to maintain the priority of Father as origin, and to remain true to the original consensus. They have no desire to denigrate the Son or separate the Son from the Spirit.
In our last national convention the Episcopal Church voted to drop the filioque in our next prayer book revision. Among other things, the intent was to strengthen relations with the Eastern Orthodox Church. We might ask ourselves, however, does this change in our Creed mean anything? Is this a trifling theological detail? and what has this to do with violence?
Scripturally, the word "spirit" comes from a word meaning "wind," or "breath," and spirit animates people with life, power, energy. Any reality which animates people is spiritual, such as "school spirit," "mob spirit" or a "spirit of violence." According to the Creed, God the Father is the "Creator of heaven and earth." If the Spirit is understood as proceeding from the Father alone, it is then natural to think that Spirit reflects the spiritual energy of the created world. Every powerful animating destructive doctrine I've ever known, from Aristotle's denigration of women, to Marx's doctrine of world revolution, to Hitler's mad belief in the superiority of the German people, has claimed creation or nature as its starting point. This is not surprising. Violence and dominance are part of the natural order. Any student of nature or human societies can see this at once. Theologically, Genesis makes sense of this terrible perversion of nature by seeing it as the consequence of human sin, and not as God's original intent for creation.
If, however, the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, then the Spirit empowers us to live as God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. Christ confronted people, but he was not destructive. In fact, he suffered violence for our sake. He was and is the Prince of Peace. But if the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, and has no connection to the Son, then the spiritual power that drives us would not come from the Lord Jesus, but rather, from what Paul calls the "powers of this dark world, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (Eph. 6:12)
I offer this essay for three reasons. First, creation spirituality is the fashion in the Church. To the degree that this spirituality ignores Jesus Christ, or merges him with creation, it opens the door to the ethic of a violent world. Secondly, it is strange that the filioque, a tradition of some 1500 years, can be abandoned by the Episcopal Church with scarcely a ripple of concern. Thirdly, theology matters. The Creed matters. Its words are directly relevant to matters of life and death. If ancient practices can be changed with little notice, then there is nothing to stop the advancement of theologies and norms that have little to do with the gospel, for the simple reason that so few find the Creed and its theology of any present relevance. (Plenteous Harvest, April, 1995)
Comments
As seen in Genesis one and two, God intends the world to be good, an ordered creation, a garden of Eden in which all things work together for the welfare of all God's creatures. Now, however, we live in a world invaded by plagues, earthquakes, violent storms, and chaos of all forms. That is our world. Genesis tells us that God did not originally will this, that his original creation was good. Creation has been invaded by chaos due to the work of Satan and human sin. Genesis three makes this clear.
If we say that the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, and that creation in its present state reflects the Creator's will, then it is only natural to think that the horrors of creation are normative for life. For example, a brutal form of Darwin's survival of the fitness informed, at least in part, the Nazi ideology. More specifically, that ideology was a return to the Norse religion with its god and goddess as personifications of nature's powers. These powers are the "powers of this dark world, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."
Against this, the filioque claims that the Spirit comes from the "Father and the Son." This statement appears in the third article of the Creed. The second article states that Jesus Christ is "the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father." Athanasius lies behind this phraseology, and it means that the saving character of the Father is revealed in the Son and not in creation. Therefore, when the Creed states that the Spirit comes from the Father and the Son, it is not claiming that the Spirit comes from two unrelated sources. Rather, it is said that the Spirit works to make effect upon earth the revelation of the Father given in the Son. In other words, the filioque denies that there is a saving work in creation alone. In this way, the filioque stands against all ideologies based on a corrupted nature. These ideologies inevitably destroy and enslave because nature in its present form is enslaved to chaos.
Someday, however, to quote the Creed, the Holy Spirit will bring "the life of the world to come." On that day the horrors of this world will past away. We shall see God face to face, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. Our God will make a new heaven and a new earth, and there will be no more crying, or pain, or trouble anymore. God will be all in all. These are the promises of God.
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it in hope. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. Romans 8:18-23.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. Rev. 21:1-4.
The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D.
April, 1995
An Egregious Theological Failure
Anglicanism and Justification - Introduction to Anglicanism
Barth - Reconciliation and Economic Life Chapter Three
Barth's Creation and Economic Life Chapter Two
Barth's Doctrine of the Trinity - Chapter One
Capitalism and Paganism--An Intimate Connection
Creation, Science, and the New World Order
Introduction to Anglican Theology - Anglicanism and the Prayer Book
Introduction to Anglicanism - Anglicanism and Justification
Introduction to the Theological Essays
John Jewel and the Roman Church
Karl Barth, the German Christians, and ECUSA - Introduction
Mathematics, Science, and the Love of God
One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Some Reflections On Evil and the Existence of God
The Historical Jesus and the Spirit
