Refute this: “Filioquism is Arian Subordinationism Applied to the Spirit”

[JackMorgan]

Jay Liar's latest attack on Catholic truth. Someome here care to wade through all this rambling sophistry and give him thorough rebuttal? I can hardly follow his argument...either Jay is talking incoherent nonsense, or I'm just not clever enough.

https://www.patristicfaith.com/orthodox-christianity/orthodox-christian-theology/filioquism-is-arian-subordinationism-applied-to-the-spirit/
Filioquism is Arian Subordinationism Applied To The Spirit

Recently reviewing some old Roman Catholic dogmatic manuals and catechisms, a strange position stood out to me which I had not previously seen. I have long been familiar with Augustine's speculations about the Trinity and the inter-Trinitarian relations based on the faulty analogy of human psychology and physiology, but as for their rising to the rank of being an official element of filioquism, I had not noticed. Naturally, Eastern Orthodox theology has officially rejected these faulty premises as leading to heresy, but exactly what kind of heresy was now made even more striking.

First, let's consider one of the crucial forms of argument St. Athanasius uses to defend Orthodoxy against the Arian heresy that the Son was a creation. Indeed, were this so, the argument goes, the Son would be a product of the Father's will. Were the Son a product of will, then His coming to being is not eternal, He is not the Logos, and generation is really no different from creation. All of these elements constitute the Athanasian apologetic, but consider the following from De Synodis where the Saint describes the Arian doctrine:

Blasphemies of Arius.
God Himself then, in His own nature, is ineffable by all men. Equal or like Himself He alone has none, or one in glory. And Ingenerate we call Him, because of Him who is generate by nature. We praise Him as without beginning because of Him who has a beginning. And adore Him as everlasting, because of Him who in time has come to be. The Unbegun made the Son a beginning of things originated; and advanced Him as a Son to Himself by adoption. He has nothing proper to God in proper subsistence. For He is not equal, no, nor one in essence with Him. Wise is God, for He is the teacher of Wisdom. There is full proof that God is invisible to all beings; both to things which are through the Son, and to the Son He is invisible. I will say it expressly, how by the Son is seen the Invisible; by that power by which God sees, and in His own measure, the Son endures to see the Father, as is lawful. Thus there is a Triad, not in equal glories. Not intermingling with each other are their subsistences. One more glorious than the other in their glories unto immensity. Foreign from the Son in essence is the Father, for He is without beginning. Understand that the Monad was; but the Dyad was not, before it was in existence. It follows at once that, though the Son was not, the Father was God. Hence the Son, not being (for He existed at the will of the Father), is God Only-begotten , and He is alien from either. Wisdom existed as Wisdom by the will of the Wise God. Hence He is conceived in numberless conceptions : Spirit, Power, Wisdom, God's glory, Truth, Image, and Word. Understand that He is conceived to be Radiance and Light. One equal to the Son, the Superior is able to beget; but one more excellent, or superior, or greater, He is not able. At God's will the Son is what and whatsoever He is. And when and since He was, from that time He has subsisted from God. He, being a strong God, praises in His degree the Superior. To speak in brief, God is ineffable to His Son. For He is to Himself what He is, that is, unspeakable. So that nothing which is called comprehensible does the Son know to speak about; for it is impossible for Him to investigate the Father, who is by Himself. For the Son does not know His own essence, For, being Son, He really existed, at the will of the Father. What argument then allows, that He who is from the Father should know His own parent by comprehension? For it is plain that for that which has a beginning to conceive how the Unbegun is, or to grasp the idea, is not possible.[1]

Thus, in Arianism because the definition of the Father is "ingenerate," divine simplicity in this case mandated, for Arius, that Paternity and ousia be synonymous (as Eunomius would later say against St. Gregory of Nyssa). For another to be introduced would be impossible, as the distinctions would imply divisions and time intervals into the "ingenerate" Father-essence. For both the Arian and Eunomian, the Father-essence is a Monad wholly enclosed within itself, while along with creation, this essence has emanated a secondary creation, the "Son." What is interesting is that St. Athanasius' response is based on Colossians and many other texts, that the Son is the express image of the Father's hypostasis, and this generation is from all eternity, and thus is not by will.

That generation is done by will is a lynchpin of the Arian argument and its rejection is fundamental to the Orthodox dogma that the Son is homoousios with the Father. Inasmuch as there is one will in God, and will is a property of nature, the Father, Son and Spirit all share the same natural will. This basic fact should be known and admitted by all, but a devastating problem arises when we come to the enshrined dogma of Rome concerning the so-called "double" procession of the Spirit—not only does Rome erroneously claim the Father-Son operate as a "single principle" source, the Spirit's spiration is said to be from the will of the Father and Son.

Traditional Catholic systematic theologian Ludwig Ott explains:

"The Holy Ghost proceeds from the will or the mutual love of the Father and Son." (Sent. certa.).

The Roman Catechism teaches that the "Holy Ghost proceeds from the Divine Will, Inflamed, as it were, with love (a divine voluntate veluti amore inflammata)."

"Holy Ghost designates a ... Divine Person, the name pneuma indicates that the Holy Ghost, through an activity of the divine will, proceeds as the Principle of Divine Activity (per modum voluntatis)... the Holy Ghost proceeds as an act of love."

"The object of the Divine Will, by which the Father and Son produce the Holy Ghost is primarily that which God necessarily loves, namely the Divine Essence, and secondarily that which He freely loves, created things..."[2]

The absurdity of this should immediately be evident, and to be clear the citation is the Catechism of the Council of Trent, pages 93-4. Note as well this is sententia certa, the silly level of classification which makes this a Roman proclamation of what is part of revealed theology—functioning "higher" than common, ordinary teaching. We know, of course, this doctrine arose based on the Augustinian "analogy" of human psychology. To be even clearer, this teaching is explicit in Denzinger 296 where the erroneous Western Council of Toledo interjected the filioque because of a perceived guard against Arianism, while also mandating absolute divine simplicity. This means the doctrine in question is Roman Catholic dogma, and no mere opinion:

Profession of Faith Concerning the Trinity

Let the designation of this "holy will"—although through a comparative similitude of the Trinity, where it is called memory, intelligence, and will—refer to the person of the Holy Spirit; according to this, however, what applies to itself, is predicated substantially. For the will is the Father, the will is the Son, the will is the Holy Spirit; just as God is the Father, God is the Son, God is the Holy Spirit and many other similar things, which according to substance those who live as protectors of the Catholic faith do not for any reason hesitate to say. And just as it is Catholic to say: God from God, light from light, life from life, so it is a proved assertion of true faith to say the will from the will; just as wisdom from wisdom, essence from essence, and as God the Father begot God the Son, so the Will, the Father, begot the Son, the Will. Thus, although according to essence the Father is will, the Son is will and the Holy Spirit is will, we must not however believe that there is unity according to a relative sense, since one is the Father who refers to the Son, another the Son, who refers to the Father, another the Holy Spirit who, because He proceeds from the Father and the Son, refers to the Father and the Son; not the same but one in one way, one in another, because to whom there is one being in the nature of deity, to these there is a special property in the distinction of persons.

In a confused passage, purportedly refuting Eunomius, Augustine writes of the Son, Spirit and will:

It was certainly a sharp answer that somebody gave to the heretic, who most subtly asked him whether God begot the Son willingly or unwillingly, in order that if he said unwillingly, it would follow most absurdly that God was miserable; but if willingly, he would immediately infer, as though by an invincible reason, that at which he was aiming, viz. that He was the Son, not of His nature, but of His will. But that other, with great wakefulness, demanded of him in turn, whether God the Father was God willingly or unwillingly; in order that if he answered unwillingly, that misery would follow, which to believe of God is sheer madness; and if he said willingly, it would be replied to him, Then He is God too by His own will, not by His nature. What remained, then, except that he should hold his peace, and discern that he was himself bound by his own question in an insoluble bond? But if any person in the Trinity is also to be specially called the will of God, this name, like love, is better suited to the Holy Spirit; for what else is love, except will?[3]

Person, will, essence and act or energy are here fused and confused as will be the perennial norm for Western theology, but I cite this to show Augustine was quite aware of the Eunomian and Arian argument that the Son was a product of the Father's will. Though admittedly a bad argument, Augustine's response is that if any Person in the Trinity is the will (or a product of the will?) it is the Spirit! Why? Because in this Latin tradition, in God, His actions strictly are His essence—and not only that, they are also Persons. Rather than the Orthodox formulation of love as a natural divine energy all Three have in common, here "Love" is somehow more one Person than another. Is "Justice" also a divine Person? Foreknowledge? If the Spirit is the will, and is also a product of the will, the stupidity of this error becomes manifest, as the Spirit spirates Himself. This long, crazy train of confusion is ably refuted in the famous treatise of St. Photios the Great, the Mystagogy, which can be read here.

Briefly, though, let's look and see that this is also the teaching of Thomas Aquinas (following in the train of Augustine) in his conflated double procession argument:

"Furthermore, the order of the procession of each one agrees with this conclusion. For it was said above (I:27:4; I:28:4), that the Son proceeds by the way of the intellect as Word, and the Holy Ghost by way of the will as Love. Now love must proceed from a word. For we do not love anything unless we apprehend it by a mental conception. Hence also in this way it is manifest that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son." [4]

Because the divine essence is the hypostasis, will and action, all predicates of God blend into classical Eunomianism. Eunomius' modalism, as shown in the voluminous treatise of St. Gregory of Nyssa against him, was predicated on an isomorphic identification of various terms and names with the divine essence. Proclaiming to know what he did not, Eunomius, like Arius before him, foolishly imagined divine persons as products of the divine will. St. Athanasius and the rest of Orthodox theology would emphatically and dogmatically go on to reject these notions, and specifically the heresy of divine hypostases as products of the will.

Roman Catholicism, in its zeal to defend this error has merely transferred an old Arian subordinationist argument concerning the Son, to one about the Spirit! The irony here is filioquism is ignorantly touted as some response to Arianism, while foolishly making the very same argument the Arians did about the Son and applying it to the Spirit—that He is a product of will. On top of that, it is touted in their dogmatic manuals, everyday apologists and classic catechisms. To admit this to be in error is really the collapse of the entire edifice (which is already happening anyway).


In fact, in the very same work St. Athanasius rebukes speculations based on human analogies for terms like "begotten," and explains it is not by will:

Accordingly, as in saying "offspring," we have no human thoughts, and, though we know God to be a Father, we entertain no material ideas concerning Him, but while we listen to these illustrations and terms, we think suitably of God, for He is not as man, so in like manner, when we hear of "coessential," we ought to transcend all sense, and, according to the Proverb, "understand by the understanding what is set before us" (Proverbs 23:1); so as to know, that not by will, but in truth, is He genuine from the Father, as Life from Fountain, and Radiance from Light. Else why should we understand "offspring" and "son," in no corporeal way, while we conceive of "coessential" as after the manner of bodies? Especially since these terms are not here used about different subjects, but of whom 'offspring' is predicated, of Him is "coessential" also.[5]

The Spirit, too, manifestly possesses the same Godhead, Essence, Power, Glory and Will of the Father and Son, while not being the Will, Father or Son:

And in One Lord Jesus Christ, His Son, Only-begotten God John (1:18), by whom are all things, who was begotten before all ages from the Father, God from God, whole from whole, sole from sole , perfect from perfect, King from King, Lord from Lord, Living Word, Living Wisdom, true Light, Way, Truth, Resurrection, Shepherd, Door, both unalterable and unchangeable; exact Image of the Godhead, Essence, Will, Power and Glory of the Father; the first born of every creature, who was in the beginning with God, God the Word, as it is written in the Gospel, and the Word was God? (John 1:1); by whom all things were made, and in whom all things consist; who in the last days descended from above, and was born of a Virgin according to the Scriptures, and was made Man, Mediator between God and man, and Apostle of our faith, and Prince of life, as He says, I came down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me (John 6:38); who suffered for us and rose again on the third day, and ascended into heaven, and sat down on the right hand of the Father, and is coming again with glory and power, to judge quick and dead.[6]

References
?1   De Synodis 2.15
?2   Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, pgs. 66-7
?3   On the Holy Trinity 20.38
?4   Summa Theologica, I. Q36, 3
?5   De Synodis 3.42
?6   Ibid. 2.23

[TerrorDæmonum]

Less polemic Orthodox writers will refute this without much effort.

That text was not written in good faith and it seeks to further divide. The Filioque if anything is specifically against the errors of the Arians.

The main argument written is to just claim that the doctrine is "absurd" and "silly" and should be "self evident". That is not an argument that can be refuted. If one finds the doctrines of the Church ridiculous, then one is outside the Church.

[Xavier]

Jay Dyer never begins with Patristic Proofs of Photian Monopatrism. I wonder why. Perhaps it's because the Fathers completely refute him.

"[1] Five Ecumenical Councils approved a letter of Patriarch St. Cyril of Alexandria that taught the Dogma of the Filioque!

Cardinal St. Robert Bellarmine gives a manifest proof establishing the doctrine from the authority of five ecumenical councils:

Omitting these things, then, let us bring forward the Councils that testify the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son. First the Council celebrated at Alexandria, from which Council Cyril writes a letter to Nestorius in which are these words, 'The Spirit is called the Spirit of Truth, and Christ is Truth, and so He proceeds from Him likewise as from the Father.' This letter was read in the Council of Ephesus and was approved both by the Council of Ephesus itself and by the fourth Synod, and by the fifth Synod and by the sixth and seventh Synods. We have therefore five general Councils celebrated among the Greeks which receive the most open and clear opinion that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son as from the Father. What then do they now seek? What do they demand?

Patriarch St. Cyril and the five ecumenical councils mentioned by Cardinal St. Robert Bellarmine give us the patristic and Church-authorized interpretation of the Word of Christ in Sacred Scripture. As we will see subsequently, Bishops like St. Hilary, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine had already done this in the West in the 4th century.

[2] Greek Orthodox Bishops and Patriarchs, at Nicene Ecumenical Councils, confess doctrine practically equivalent to the Filioque.

As if that were not enough, we have the testimony of two Eastern saintly bishops, one of whom was patriarch of the Greek Church and made a dogmatic confession.

Bp. St. Leontius of Caesarea, at Nicaea I, testifies that "the Spirit proceeds from the Father, and is proper to the Son and gushes forth from Him" [3]. This is the Faith of the 318 fathers gathered at Nicaea. As Cardinal St. Robert writes, it was not explicitly defined in Nicaea, because the necessity had not yet arisen, as the ancient fathers testified, "I for my part cannot sufficiently wonder with what boldness Jeremias, who calls himself Ecumenical Patriarch, dared to write recently in his censure of the confession of the Lutherans that it was defined by the Synod of Nicaea and all subsequent general Councils that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone[.] ... Let us then consult the Nicene Creed, and let us see whether it teaches in very expressive words that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone. The whole Nicene Creed is cited by Cyril among the Greeks, by Ruffinus among the Latins, but nothing else is read in that Creed about the Holy Spirit than this opinion 'and [I believe] in the Holy Spirit.' Now Nazianzen testifies that the Nicene Synod did not hand on the perfect doctrine about the Holy Spirit for the reason that the question about the Holy Spirit had not arisen. Let Jeremias see in which Nicene Creed he has read that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone."

Patriarch St. Tarasius of Constantinople, at Nicaea II, declared, in the Creed, "And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, Who Proceeds from the Father through the Son, and is acknowledged to be Himself God" [4]. Just as the 150 fathers at Constantinople I added to the Creed of Nicaea the words, "the Lord and Giver of Life, Who Proceeds from the Father," etc., Patriarch St. Tarasius here adds the words "through the Son," etc. This shows the Faith of the Universal Church at Nicaea II.

[3] Great Latin bishops and fathers exegete and interpret the words of Sacred Scripture in favor of the Filioque doctrine.

Bishop St. Hilary of Poitiers says it is one and the same thing to proceed from the Father, receive from Him and from His Son:

"Now I ask whether to receive from the Son is the same thing as to proceed from the Father. But if one believes that there is a difference between receiving from the Son and proceeding from the Father, surely to receive from the Son and to receive from the Father will be regarded as one and the same thing. For our Lord Himself says, Because He shall receive of Mine and shall declare it unto you. All things whatsoever the Father has are Mine: therefore said I, He shall receive of Mine and shall declare it unto you. That which He will receive — whether it will be power, or excellence, or teaching — the Son has said must be received from Him, and again He indicates that this same thing must be received from the Father. For when He says that all things whatsoever the Father has are His, and that for this cause He declared that it must be received from His own, He teaches also that what is received from the Father is yet received from Himself, because all things that the Father has are His." [5]

Our Lord Jesus teaches about this in detail in Gospel of St. John, chapters 14–16. The Lord Himself, the apostles, and the fathers, explain that the Spirit proceeds from the Son.

Bishop St. Ambrose says St. John was a witness even in Heaven that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son [6]:

53. And this, again, is not a trivial matter that we read that a river goes forth from the throne of God. For you read the words of the Evangelist John to this purport: "And He showed me a river of living water, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street thereof, and on either side, was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruits, yielding its fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of all nations" (Revelation 22:1–2). 154. This is certainly the River proceeding from the throne of God, that is, the Holy Spirit, Whom he drinks who believes in Christ, as He Himself says: "If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink. He that believes in Me, as says the Scripture, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this spoke He of the Spirit." (John 7:37-38) Therefore the river is the Spirit. [5]

Such an amazing testimony hidden in the Sacred Scriptures should fill us with amazement. It is the Holy Spirit Himself Who assures us whence He proceeds.

Bishop St. Augustine says Jesus breathed forth the Holy Spirit to show that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son. St. Augustine has written much on the Filioque.

St. Augustine says Jesus bears witness to Filioque in countless ways:

And it is proved by many other testimonies of the Divine Word, that the Spirit, who is specially called in the Trinity the Holy Spirit, is of the Father and of the Son: of whom likewise the Son Himself says, "Whom I will send unto you from the Father"; and in another place, "Whom the Father will send in My Name". And we are so taught that He proceeds from both, because the Son Himself says, He proceeds from the Father. And when He had risen from the dead, and had appeared to His disciples, He breathed upon them, and said, Receive the Holy Ghost, so as to show that He proceeded also from Himself[.] ... Wherefore let him who can understand the generation of the Son from the Father without time, understand also the procession of the Holy Spirit from both without time. And let him who can understand, in that which the Son says, "As the Father has life in Himself, so has He given to the Son to have life in Himself", not that the Father gave life to the Son already existing without life, but that He so begot Him apart from time, that the life which the Father gave to the Son by begetting Him is co-eternal with the life of the Father who gave it: let him, I say, understand, that as the Father has in Himself that the Holy Spirit should proceed from Him, so has He given to the Son that the same Holy Spirit should proceed from Him, and be both apart from time: and that the Holy Spirit is so said to proceed from the Father as that it be understood that His proceeding also from the Son, is a property derived by the Son from the Father. For if the Son has of the Father whatever He has, then certainly He has of the Father, that the Holy Spirit proceeds also from Him. But let no one think of any times therein which imply a sooner and a later; because these things are not there at all. How, then, would it not be most absurd to call Him the Son of both: when, just as generation from the Father, without any changeableness of nature, gives to the Son essence, without beginning of time; so procession from both, without any changeableness of nature, gives to the Holy Spirit essence without beginning of time? [7]

A testimony so clear as this should suffice to put an end to the later heresy of Photian Monopatrism [Filioque denialism] once and for all." Taken from: https://onepeterfive.com/filioque-separated-east/

Contrary to Dyer's claims, all these Church Fathers resoundingly rejected Arianism, and taught the Filioque as a Rejection of Arianism. For that matter, St. Athanasius, hero against Arianism, clearly taught the Filioque in his dogmatic Creed rejected by Orthodoxy today.

"[5] The Latin fathers are absolutely unanimous in teaching the doctrine of the Filioque. Bishops and several councils do the same.

This is a fact so clear that it will hardly be doubted. It is explicitly stated by St. Maximus [11], and further evidence for the same can be read in Dr. Henry Barclay Swete's monumental work on the subject [12]. The evidence documented in point [3] already establishes this, and in St. Robert's treatise, the doctor explicitly cites much proof; but we will cite the Athanasian Creed, which even secular scholars do not doubt was the widely accepted faith of the Western Church by at least the 5th century.

As St. Robert adduces it, "blessed Athanasius who says in his Creed, 'The Holy Spirit is not made nor created nor generated by the Father and the Son, but proceeds.'"

To this testimony an objection might be made — namely, that this creed is not really from Athanasius. This is easily refuted, both by Nazianzen, where he says in praise of Athanasius that he composed a most perfect confession of faith that the whole West and East venerate, and also from Augustine, who by name cites Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria and adduces a complete section of this creed, and he uses whole sentences from it, with the name of Athanasius, as if it were well known in the Church.

The Third Council of Toledo (589) is also evidence of the universal acceptance of this doctrine: "Credo in Spiritum Sanctum qui ex patre filioque procedit" (I believe in the Holy Spirit Who Proceeds from the Father and the Son). Both Archbishop St. Leander of Seville, who presided, and his brother, St. Isidore, teach the Filioque dogma."

[Justin Martyr]

Jay also thinks Absolute Divine Simplicity = Eunomianism (guess according to his logic Saint Irenaeus is a Eunomian too now?) and is perpetually unable to realize that God's energies ad extra are not the same as his energies ad intra. Which is why he says retarded nonsense like "Catholics think that the act of creating the world and the act of destroying it are identical and both are the divine essence".

As for the objection itself, its because Jay thinks Catholics believe in a double procession of the Holy Spirit. We do not, and Florence dogmatically defined that we do not. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son by a single spiration and single procession. The Father is Principle without principle in this procession, the Son is Principle with Principle in this procession. This is why "from the Father through the Son" is also a valid formula.

I spent way too long a while back (this was back in August or September I think) watching a ton of Jay's material trying to get a feel for where his errors lie. For a sophist, he's quite clever. Unless you have a good grounding in trinitarian theology, christology, Epistemology, metaphysics, Church history, magisteriology, and Church teaching in general I dont recommend interacting with his stuff. His errors (his logical errors, I mean) are extremely subtle and they rely on his audience not knowing as much about those topics as he does. Even most Catholics don't, which is why (along with his rhetorical style) he is able to crush most Catholics he debates.

The Ybarra debate was very painful; the two weren't even debating the same topic. Erick was still stuck on providing evidences from the Fathers for papal claims while Jay's whole argument was that the Fathers require interpretation and therefore we should compare the worldviews at a paradigmatic level, at which point Jay would have machine gun blasted Erick with Trad talking points to make Catholicism look self-contradictory. Of course, Erick was unable to think outside the box long enough to actually get to a debate on Jay's main objection.

Trent Horn held his own though. That debate was the only time I've seen a Catholic debate Jay and not feel embarrassed at my own side throughout the whole thing. Not that Trent didn't have his blunders, but he at least came out slightly on top.