A rather lengthy exposition, the video is about 2 hours long, but it's worth the watch for the wealth of information presented.
I don't usually share MHFM material but this one is very well done.
The Trinity & The Filioque: Catholicism Refutes Eastern "Orthodoxy"
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Rrzo55G364[/yt]
Funny how listening for hours to two fake Benedictine monks in a trailer park is not considered a waste of time.
Amusant. Like most of the Dimond's arguments, it is bogged down in philosophical presuppositions which are never questioned and just presumes Roman ideas of absolute divine simplicity and the Trinity, which are distortions and even inversions of those of the Greek fathers and incoherent, and ultimately boils down to an appeal to the supposedly infallible proclamations of the Roman church. If one accepts neither Thomism nor Roman dogma as given truths, it's rather uninteresting.
Trinity Doctrine, Catholicism Vs Orthodoxy & Palamas on Essence - Energy
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFKpCuH5-nw[/yt]
Eastern & Latin Theology & The Essence - Energy Distinction
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOrDKwtIweU[/yt]
Refuting Roman Catholicism & Ecumenism: Palamas, Aquinas & Augustine
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3hprH0oc_I[/yt]
Roman Catholics & Protestants Refuted by Nicea & St Basil
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ0aqqHxIWE[/yt]
Defense of Traditional Philosophy Ep 3 - Absolute Simplicity, Essence - Energy & the 6th Council
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmRgAFrWkOs[/yt]
I Am That I Am, Essence-Energy, St. Athanasius & Wandering Bishop Sedevacantist Cults (begins around 51:00)
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSFeArXy-S8[/yt]
Orthodox Critique of Aquinas' Divine Simplicity and Created Grace
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IOO5k7X1pA[/yt]
Debate Between An Orthodox & Barlaamite (R Catholic) - St. Gregory Palamas
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQR2kGoEy8Y[/yt]
Debating Roman Catholic Absolute Simplicity & Aquinas: Jay Dyer Vs. Dr. Francis Feingold
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LhOmqb95nM[/yt]
Classical Theist Refuted on Palamas & Thomas Aquinas - Uncreated Energies
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIi1VIg1HB8[/yt]
And no, I'm not Eastern Orthodox or enamoured of them. I have no reason to place as much faith in the Fathers and dogmas of post-Constantinian councils as Jay Dyer.
All this is hardly necessary being it takes, like with epistemological relativism, a three-line argument to show the incoherence of absolute divine simplicity. But as with epistemological relativists since the time of Plato and their burial with the "Is the proposition of epistemological relativism true?" question, arguments that destroy a world view before it can even get started are simply waved off.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 03, 2020, 09:29:22 PM
A rather lengthy exposition, the video is about 2 hours long, but it's worth the watch for the wealth of information presented.
I don't usually share MHFM material but this one is very well done.
I might take a look at it a little later, but I'm not too hopeful. As far as I know, the Filioque is a new teaching.
Quote from: The Theosist on September 04, 2020, 02:28:03 AM
All this is hardly necessary being it takes, like with epistemological relativism, a three-line argument to show the incoherence of absolute divine simplicity.
I see the problems with the Thomistic version of divine simplicity, but how does this refute the Filioque?
Quote from: Daniel on September 04, 2020, 04:56:48 AM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 03, 2020, 09:29:22 PM
A rather lengthy exposition, the video is about 2 hours long, but it's worth the watch for the wealth of information presented.
I don't usually share MHFM material but this one is very well done.
I might take a look at it a little later, but I'm not too hopeful. As far as I know, the Filioque is a new teaching.
The Filioque is a scriptural teaching (Luke 24:49; John 15:26; 16:7; 20:22; Acts 2:33; Titus 3:6) that was denied for the first time in Church history only in the 7th century. It has apostolic, patristic and ecumenical authority. The double procession of the Holy Spirit has been solemnly defined and proclaimed by the Fourth Lateran Ecumenical Council, the Second Ecumenical Council of Lyons and the Ecumenical Council of Florence that the Eastern Church participated in and accepted. There's really no way around it.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 04, 2020, 08:33:32 AM
Quote from: Daniel on September 04, 2020, 04:56:48 AM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 03, 2020, 09:29:22 PM
A rather lengthy exposition, the video is about 2 hours long, but it's worth the watch for the wealth of information presented.
I don't usually share MHFM material but this one is very well done.
I might take a look at it a little later, but I'm not too hopeful. As far as I know, the Filioque is a new teaching.
The Filioque is a scriptural teaching (Luke 24:49; John 15:26; 16:7; 20:22; Acts 2:33; Titus 3:6) that was denied for the first time in Church history only in the 7th century. It has apostolic, patristic and ecumenical authority. The double procession of the Holy Spirit has been solemnly defined and proclaimed by the Fourth Lateran Ecumenical Council, the Second Ecumenical Council of Lyons and the Ecumenical Council of Florence that the Eastern Church participated in and accepted. There's really no way around it.
It takes an idiot, a liar, or someone who doesn't understand the Filioque to say those verses imply the Roman doctrine that the Holy Spirit has his essence and subsistence from both Father and Son and proceeds from both as of a single principle by a single spiration. It was denied the first time it appeared.
Please learn the distinction of hypostatic procession, economic procession and eternal manifestation.
Quote from: The Theosist on September 04, 2020, 02:20:27 AMAmusant. Like most of the Dimond's arguments, it is bogged down in philosophical presuppositions which are never questioned and just presumes Roman ideas of absolute divine simplicity and the Trinity, which are distortions and even inversions of those of the Greek fathers and incoherent, and ultimately boils down to an appeal to the supposedly infallible proclamations of the Roman church. If one accepts neither Thomism nor Roman dogma as given truths, it's rather uninteresting.
Absolute divine simplicity is
de fide, it's not simply a philosophical presupposition. Not just for Catholics but even for Traditional Protestants who inherited the theological tradition of the Church. Palamism, that Dyer fastidiously defends in the videos you posted, is a heresy that resurrected polytheism from its grave. Fr. Joseph Pohle (1910) in his work
God: His Knowability, Essence, and Attributes: A Dogmatic Treatise, aptly summarizes the question:
"Two centuries later there arose among the schismatic Greeks the heresy of the Palamites - so called from its author, Gregory Palamas. This heresy two Constantinopolitan synods (A.D. 1341 and 1347) did not blush to proclaim as a schismatic dogma. The quintessence of the Palamite error may be stated as follows: Between the essence (?????) and the activity (????????) of God there is a real distinction, inasmuch as the latter radiates from the former as something inferior, though still, in a sense, divine (??????). [According to them] God's different attributes are merely radiations of the Divine Essence, and they solidify as it were by taking on the shape of an uncreated but visible light, which the Blessed in Heaven perceive by means of bodily vision. It is the same light that the disciples beheld on Mount Tabor. Here on earth this heavenly bliss is possible
per anticipationem [through anticipation] only, as the fruit of severe mortification, in the ?????? [stillness/quietness], that is, the repose of contemplative prayer. Hence the name Hesychasts; hence also the contemptuous nickname...Umbilicans, given to these heretics by Barlaam, the learned Abbot of St. Saviour's at Constantinople. Except between the Divine Hypostases [or Persons], no real distinction can be admitted to exist in the Godhead, because if there were in it any sort of real distinction, the Divine Essence would consist of distinct parts, which is repugnant. St. Bernard of Clairvaux justly traces this erroneous view to polytheism..."
The Catholic Encyclopedia echoes the same sentiments: "Palamas taught that by asceticism one could attain a corporal, i.e. a sense view, or perception, of the Divinity. He also held that in God there was a real distinction between the Divine Essence and Its attributes, and he identified grace as one of the Divine
propria making it something uncreated and infinite. These monstrous errors were denounced by the Calabrian Barlaam, by Nicephorus Gregoras, and by Acthyndinus. The conflict began in 1338 and ended only in 1368, with the solemn canonization of Palamas and the official recognition of his heresies. He was declared the "holy doctor" and "one of the greatest among the Fathers of the Church", and his writings were proclaimed "the infallible guide of the Christian Faith". Thirty years of incessant controversy and discordant councils ended with a resurrection of polytheism." (Greek Church,
Hesychasm)
QuoteAnd no, I'm not Eastern Orthodox or enamoured of them. I have no reason to place as much faith in the Fathers and dogmas of post-Constantinian councils as Jay Dyer.
Sadly, your newly-found philosophical hero is another internet fraud with a foul mouth, a style that you're fond of replicating:
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRLOQUnw-FY[/yt]
Quote from: Daniel on September 04, 2020, 04:56:48 AM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 03, 2020, 09:29:22 PM
A rather lengthy exposition, the video is about 2 hours long, but it's worth the watch for the wealth of information presented.
I don't usually share MHFM material but this one is very well done.
I might take a look at it a little later, but I'm not too hopeful. As far as I know, the Filioque is a new teaching.
Quote from: The Theosist on September 04, 2020, 02:28:03 AM
All this is hardly necessary being it takes, like with epistemological relativism, a three-line argument to show the incoherence of absolute divine simplicity.
I see the problems with the Thomistic version of divine simplicity, but how does this refute the Filioque?
It forms the basis for the Western trinitarian theology which underlies the Filioque. Its refutation, apart from pulling up Western theology by the root, undermines the Filioquist argument and removes the motivation. See hypostatic versus economic procession, eternal manifestation versus economic mission.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 04, 2020, 09:19:39 AM
Quote from: The Theosist on September 04, 2020, 02:20:27 AMAmusant. Like most of the Dimond's arguments, it is bogged down in philosophical presuppositions which are never questioned and just presumes Roman ideas of absolute divine simplicity and the Trinity, which are distortions and even inversions of those of the Greek fathers and incoherent, and ultimately boils down to an appeal to the supposedly infallible proclamations of the Roman church. If one accepts neither Thomism nor Roman dogma as given truths, it's rather uninteresting.
Absolute divine simplicity is de fide, it's not simply a philosophical presupposition. Not just for Catholics but even for Traditional Protestants who inherited the theological tradition of the Church. Palamism, that Dyer fastidiously defends in the videos you posted, is a heresy that resurrected polytheism from its grave. Fr. Joseph Pohle (1910) in his work God: His Knowability, Essence, and Attributes: A Dogmatic Treatise, aptly summarizes the question:
ADS is an incoherent nonsense lifted from Neoplatonism, that entered "orthodox" Christianity through Augustine. I'm well-aware of Protestants and theists in general sharing this nonsense with you. So do the Muslims, which further explains your fury.
Quote from: The Theosist on September 04, 2020, 09:11:52 AM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 04, 2020, 08:33:32 AM
Quote from: Daniel on September 04, 2020, 04:56:48 AM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 03, 2020, 09:29:22 PM
A rather lengthy exposition, the video is about 2 hours long, but it's worth the watch for the wealth of information presented.
I don't usually share MHFM material but this one is very well done.
I might take a look at it a little later, but I'm not too hopeful. As far as I know, the Filioque is a new teaching.
The Filioque is a scriptural teaching (Luke 24:49; John 15:26; 16:7; 20:22; Acts 2:33; Titus 3:6) that was denied for the first time in Church history only in the 7th century. It has apostolic, patristic and ecumenical authority. The double procession of the Holy Spirit has been solemnly defined and proclaimed by the Fourth Lateran Ecumenical Council, the Second Ecumenical Council of Lyons and the Ecumenical Council of Florence that the Eastern Church participated in and accepted. There's really no way around it.
It takes an idiot, a liar, or someone who doesn't understand the Filioque to say those verses imply the Roman doctrine that the Holy Spirit has his essence and subsistence from both Father and Son and proceeds from both as of a single principle by a single spiration. It was denied the first time it appeared.
Please learn the distinction of hypostatic procession, economic procession and eternal manifestation.
The Double Procession of the Holy Spirit has been dogmatically defined and solemnly proclaimed by three ecumenical councils of the Church.
The apostolicity of the doctrine is unquestionable. You and Dyer are grasping at straws and vomiting slurs doesn't change that.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 04, 2020, 09:19:39 AM
Sadly, your newly-found philosophical hero
This is just another dumb claim to add to the list of dumb claims by SD's resident Dunning-Kruger effect.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 04, 2020, 09:19:39 AM
Absolute divine simplicity is de fide, it's not simply a philosophical presupposition.
When did the Catholic Church ever declare Thomistic simplicity to be a dogma? I find that hard to believe, seeing as Thomistic simplicity leads to absurdities:
If God's act of creating is the same thing as God, then it follows that God couldn't have not-created the world. And if God couldn't have not-created the world, then the world emanates from God. And if world emanates from God, then the world is God. This is all wrong. The Church teaches that God is a person who can make real choices, who chose to create the world, and that the world is not the same thing as God.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 04, 2020, 09:19:39 AM
Quote from: The Theosist on September 04, 2020, 02:20:27 AMAmusant. Like most of the Dimond's arguments, it is bogged down in philosophical presuppositions which are never questioned and just presumes Roman ideas of absolute divine simplicity and the Trinity, which are distortions and even inversions of those of the Greek fathers and incoherent, and ultimately boils down to an appeal to the supposedly infallible proclamations of the Roman church. If one accepts neither Thomism nor Roman dogma as given truths, it's rather uninteresting.
Absolute divine simplicity is de fide, it's not simply a philosophical presupposition. Not just for Catholics but even for Traditional Protestants who inherited the theological tradition of the Church. Palamism, that Dyer fastidiously defends in the videos you posted, is a heresy that resurrected polytheism from its grave. Fr. Joseph Pohle (1910) in his work God: His Knowability, Essence, and Attributes: A Dogmatic Treatise, aptly summarizes the question:
"Two centuries later there arose among the schismatic Greeks the heresy of the Palamites - so called from its author, Gregory Palamas. This heresy two Constantinopolitan synods (A.D. 1341 and 1347) did not blush to proclaim as a schismatic dogma. The quintessence of the Palamite error may be stated as follows: Between the essence (?????) and the activity (????????) of God there is a real distinction, inasmuch as the latter radiates from the former as something inferior, though still, in a sense, divine (??????). [According to them] God's different attributes are merely radiations of the Divine Essence, and they solidify as it were by taking on the shape of an uncreated but visible light, which the Blessed in Heaven perceive by means of bodily vision. It is the same light that the disciples beheld on Mount Tabor. Here on earth this heavenly bliss is possible per anticipationem [through anticipation] only, as the fruit of severe mortification, in the ?????? [stillness/quietness], that is, the repose of contemplative prayer. Hence the name Hesychiasts; hence also the contemptuous nickname...Umbilicans, given to these heretics by Barlaam, the learned Abbot of St. Saviour's at Constantinople. Except between the Divine Hypostases [or Persons], no real distinction can be admitted to exist in the Godhead, because if there were in it any sort of real distinction, the Divine Essence would consist of distinct parts, which is repugnant. St. Bernard of Clairvaux justly traces this erroneous view to polytheism..."
The Catholic Encyclopedia echoes the same sentiments: "Palamas taught that by asceticism one could attain a corporal, i.e. a sense view, or perception, of the Divinity. He also held that in God there was a real distinction between the Divine Essence and Its attributes, and he identified grace as one of the Divine propria making it something uncreated and infinite. These monstrous errors were denounced by the Calabrian Barlaam, by Nicephorus Gregoras, and by Acthyndinus. The conflict began in 1338 and ended only in 1368, with the solemn canonization of Palamas and the official recognition of his heresies. He was declared the "holy doctor" and "one of the greatest among the Fathers of the Church", and his writings were proclaimed "the infallible guide of the Christian Faith". Thirty years of incessant controversy and discordant councils ended with a resurrection of polytheism." (Greek Church, Hesychasm)
I don't know anything about Palamas or Palamism, so this is an honest question: If Palamas was a heretic and/or taught heresy, then why is he venerated as a saint in some of the eastern
Catholic churches? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Palamas
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 04, 2020, 09:43:11 AM
The Double Procession of the Holy Spirit has been dogmatically defined and solemnly proclaimed by three ecumenical councils of the Church.
The apostolicity of the doctrine is unquestionable. You and Dyer are grasping at straws and vomiting slurs doesn't change that.
I'm well-aware that the ultimate defense of your claim is Roma locuta est, making it unfalsifiable, regardless of any actual facts or sound arguments that demonstrate its contrary.
The idea of absolute divine simplicity has its origin in Neoplatonism and doesn't appear in "the Church" before , surprise, a Neoplatonist convert becomes one of its "Fathers". Your appeals to authority don't change that.
Quote from: Daniel on September 04, 2020, 09:48:15 AM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 04, 2020, 09:19:39 AM
Absolute divine simplicity is de fide, it's not simply a philosophical presupposition.
When did the Catholic Church ever declare Thomistic simplicity to be a dogma? I find that hard to believe, seeing as Thomistic simplicity leads to absurdities:
If God's act of creating is the same thing as God, then it follows that God couldn't have not-created the world. And if God couldn't have not-created the world, then the world emanates from God. And if world emanates from God, then the world is God. This is all wrong. The Church teaches that God is a person who can make real choices, who chose to create the world, and that the world is not the same thing as God.
Then you're going to have to find a theology of God as being "one, singular, completely simple and unchangeable spiritual substance" with a respectable pedigree that doesn't lead to that argument.
https://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/ecum20.htm (https://www.papalencyclicals.net/councils/ecum20.htm)
Here is Ed Feser's take on that:
QuoteAs I have indicated in earlier posts, the doctrine of divine simplicity is absolutely central to classical theism. To say that God is simple is to say that He is in no way composed of parts – neither material parts, nor metaphysical parts like form and matter, substance and accidents, or essence and existence. Divine simplicity is affirmed by such Christian, Jewish, and Muslim thinkers as Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Maimonides, Avicenna, and Averroes. It is central to the theology of pagan thinkers like Plotinus. It is the de fide teaching of the Catholic Church, affirmed at the fourth Lateran council and the first Vatican council, and the denial of which amounts to heresy.
The doctrine of divine simplicity has a number of crucial implications, which are, accordingly, also essential to classical theism. It entails that God is immutable or changeless, and therefore that He is impassible – that is, that He cannot be affected by anything in the created order. It entails that he is eternal in the sense of being altogether outside of time and space. It entails that He does not "have" existence, or an essence, or His various attributes but rather is identical to His existence, His nature and His attributes: He is His existence which is His essence which is His power
QuoteI don't know anything about Palamas or Palamism, so this is an honest question: If Palamas was a heretic and/or taught heresy, then why is he venerated as a saint in some of the eastern Catholic churches? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Palamas
And why does Rome allow it? It makes as much sense as ADS itself.
If Vetus were logically consistent in his appeals to Roman authority, he'd have to accept that Palamas was not a heretic and, given the date of his writings and confrontations with Rome, Palamism not a heresy. But, regardless of the Filioque, Palamas contradicts and denies absolute divine simplicity, which Vetus declares a dogma of the faith. Go figure. Once a person can accept that ADS is coherent and meaningful, and must be because Rome teaches it, belief in square circles is possible.
I did research and wrote an article on the Filioque for 1P5. It is the clear consensus of the Latin Fathers. Per Filium or through the Son is the clear consensus of the Greek and Eastern Fathers. Florence decreed that the two formulas are equivalent and both acceptable. The Holy Father proceeds from the Father and the Son, which is the same as saying He proceeds from the Father through the Son. Thus St. Thomas also.
From: https://onepeterfive.com/filioque-separated-east/
[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 ...
Let's be clear again:
The proposition that the Holy Spirit has his essence and subsistence from both Father and Son and proceeds from both as of a single principle by a single spiration, which is the def fide teaching of Rome on the Filioque, is heresy to the Eastern Orthodox and absolutely irreconcilable with their dogmatic theology. It doesn't matter if one can reconcile by with through the Son in some sense.
Hi Theosist. Its a difficult issue because of the history. But it can be resolved imo. From the article:
"This letter of Pope St. Leo I is cited in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Is there another Pope, saint, and great who teaches Filioque? Yes: Pope St. Gregory the Great in the 6thcentury shows the dogmatic Roman and universal tradition when he confesses, "We can also understand His being sent in terms of His divine nature. The Son is said to be sent from the Father from the fact that He is begotten of the Father. The Son relates that He sends the Holy Spirit[.] ... The sending of the Spirit is that procession by which He proceeds from the Father and the Son. Accordingly, as the Spirit is said to be sent because it proceeds, so too it is not inappropriate to say that the Son is sent because He is begotten" [17]. This statement shows that, contra the Greeks, sending reveals hypostatic relation. That is why, throughout the Holy Scriptures, we never read that the Father is sent. The Father does not proceed from anyone. The Son proceeds from the Father alone, by generation, therefore He is said to be sent by the Father. The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, therefore the Son explicitly says many times, "But I tell you the truth: it is expedient to you that I go: for if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you" (Jn. 16:7) that we may understand the eternal relation implied here.
3 Objections of the Greek Church and a brief response to them — is the Filioque doctrine true, certain, established from Scripture, fathers and the early councils?
Objection I: It seems the texts cited refer not to the eternal procession of the Holy Ghost, but to His temporal mission — i.e., He is sent by the Son only in time.
This is an expected objection — one the texts themselves anticipate and answer. When the Fathers say (1) the Father gave it to the Son, in begetting Him, that the Holy Spirit proceeds from Him, they show that the procession from the Father through the Son is eternal as the generation of the Son is eternal. (2) When the Fathers say He proceeds from the Father just as He proceeds from the Son, they show that just as the procession from the Father is eternal, so it is from the Son.
Objection II: Even if the Holy Spirit's eternal procession from the Father is mediated through the Son, it doesn't seem to follow that He proceeds through the Son. It could be that it is merely His energetic manifestation that happens through the Son, but not that His divine hypostasis receives essence from Father through Son.
There are only two processions in the Holy Trinity, using "procession" in a broad sense (as both St. Augustine and St. Cyril do) to explain it.
(1) The eternal procession specifically called generation, by which the Person of the Father is distinguished from the Person of the Son, so that He Who begat is one Person, and He Who is begotten is another. (This second objection is almost like someone saying the Son's hypostasis is not eternally begotten of the Father.)
(2) And the eternal procession specifically called spiration, by which the Person of the Holy Spirit is distinguished from both the Person of the Father and the Person of the Son. For He from Whom He proceeds is One Person, He through Whom He proceeds is the Second Person, and He Who proceeds is the Eternal Third Person.
This is the sense in which Pope St. Leo the Great explains it in the source cited above. Since the hypostases are distinguished, it is clearly hypostatic procession.
The answer to energetic procession is as follows: there is only One Grace and One Energy of the Three Divine Persons. For, e.g., the Grace of the Holy Spirit is not distinct from the Grace of the Son, but is identical to it. Therefore, when Son and Spirit are distinguished, as by St. Cyril, it must be Persons Who are spoken of."
Quote from: The Theosist on September 04, 2020, 10:23:25 AM
Let's be clear again:
The proposition that the Holy Spirit has his essence and subsistence from both Father and Son and proceeds from both as of a single principle by a single spiration, which is the def fide teaching of Rome on the Filioque, is heresy to the Eastern Orthodox and absolutely irreconcilable with their dogmatic theology. It doesn't matter if one can reconcile by with through the Son in some sense.
Yeah. That's why we are Catholics here and not EO.
Quote from: truly-a-philosofan on September 04, 2020, 11:05:10 AM
Quote from: The Theosist on September 04, 2020, 10:23:25 AM
Let's be clear again:
The proposition that the Holy Spirit has his essence and subsistence from both Father and Son and proceeds from both as of a single principle by a single spiration, which is the def fide teaching of Rome on the Filioque, is heresy to the Eastern Orthodox and absolutely irreconcilable with their dogmatic theology. It doesn't matter if one can reconcile by with through the Son in some sense.
Yeah. That's why we are Catholics here and not EO.
The contention that the Filioque is "absolutely irreconcilable" with Eastern Orthodox dogmatic theology has been factually disproven by the decrees of the Ecumenical Council of Florence that were accepted by the Eastern Church.
An Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church cannot solemnly teach heresy, much less about the very nature of God. This is self-evident. Florence
was an Ecumenical Council even by the standards of the Eastern Orthodox since it fulfilled all the conditions that they require. The
a posteriori rejection of said council by an unspecified number of people during an unspecified period of time simply demonstrates the abject failure of their epistemological edifice. The Church has the authority to teach and rule all nations. She does not require the democratic consent of anyone before passing her judgments, nor is an Ecumenical Council subject to the subsequent approval of the laity or of individual priests and bishops in order to be valid and binding. Such paradigm would effectively divest the Church of God of any authority and render void her role as mother and mistress of truth.
The Council of Florence forever sealed the question of the Filioque.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 04, 2020, 09:19:39 AM
Sadly, your newly-found philosophical hero is another internet fraud with a foul mouth,
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRLOQUnw-FY[/yt]
:thumbsup:
Quote from: The Theosist on September 04, 2020, 09:47:38 AM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 04, 2020, 09:19:39 AM
Sadly, your newly-found philosophical hero
This is just another dumb claim to add to the list of dumb claims by SD's resident Dunning-Kruger effect.
The YouTube star "trained in Western academic philosophy," whose 10 anti-Catholic videos you just spammed this thread with, has been exposed as a fraud.
Here's a quick summary of the video in question:
Quote• Dyer has changed his religion at least five times, including apostasy from Christianity around 2010 and a repudiation of Eastern Orthodoxy after having embraced it the first time;
• Dyer lied about the number of his religious changes, saying there were only three when there have been at least five. He also failed to clearly tell people about the first time he embraced Eastern Orthodoxy and then rejected it to return to Catholicism;
• When Dyer apostatized from Christ, he embraced various non-Christian religions to some extent, including the Kabbalah, Esotericism, Perennialism, etc. Dyer also publicly argued against the Incarnation and the Trinity after having spent many years involved with what he deemed to be Christianity;
• Dyer was a drug user who smoked a lot of weed. He thought that he got insights about God from his drug use;
• In 2019 Dyer featured an image of himself in front of an inverted cross alongside a musician that promotes the occult;
• Dyer misrepresents Catholic teaching on divine simplicity;
• Dyer completely contradicts himself on whether the 'uncreated energies' are the divine nature (his core position), demonstrating that he has no idea what he's talking about and that he makes it up as he goes along;
• Dyer completely contradicts himself on whether a divine person is the divine essence/nature;
• When cornered, Dyer says that "God transcends such logical categories" to argue that contradictions in his position don't matter, which means that God's reality can be contrary to the law of non-contradiction;
• Dyer rejects and mocks Actus Purus and thus rejects and mocks God's immutability – a dogma affirmed by the councils;
• Dyer's stupid argument that if the act of creation is eternal in regard to God as Agent that means that the creation must be eternal is refuted;
• Dyer's huge and revealing blunder, in which he falsely claims that according to Thomism and Actus Purus the act of walking on water and the destruction of the world are the same thing as the divine essence. This further demonstrates that he has no idea what he's talking about;
• Dyer's false claim that the Catholic position would make creation necessary is refuted;
• Dyer's false argument that real distinctions between the Three Divine Persons are comparable to, or somehow provide a basis for, the 'Palamite distinction' is refuted;
• An important quote from the Second Council of Nicea contradicts Palamism;
• Dyer blatantly misrepresented the content of MHFM first video on Eastern Orthodoxy, further establishing his dishonesty or ineptitude;
• Dyer's specious arguments concerning Agatho's letter are refuted. Agatho's letters actually crush Dyer's position and Palamism. Dyer calls Agatho's letter a "damned letter" in a revealing demonic utterance;
• Dyer teaches that God's 'uncreated energies' are really plural and many, which is heresy against Agatho's letter;
• Dyer argues that God's energy can be both one and many in the same respect. That's heresy and literally nonsense. Nothing can be both one and many in the same respect, but only in different respects;
• Dyer's false argument with regard to the synodical letter of Sophronius of Jerusalem is refuted;
• Dyer publicly endorses a video that calls the Son and the Holy Spirit 'accidents', which is modalism (denying that they are true hypostases). The same video heretically asserts that the divine essence has 'parts';
• Briefly revisiting Dyer's false claim that Ex. 3:14 is not about the divine essence, directly contrary to what Eastern fathers say;
• Dyer admits that he has no objective standard by which to determine that a council is ecumenical or binding;
• Dyer argues that knowing that a council is true comes down to each individual person "knowing God" – which is akin to sola scriptura subjectivism;
• More on Dyer's public immorality, wickedness, astounding hypocrisy, etc;
• About three years ago Dyer publicly endorsed the use of Tarot cards and pagan nature religion.
One should have nothing to do with those who deny God?s Simplicity and Immutability, such as those obnoxious palamites. God?s Existence, Essence, Omniscience, Omnipotence, and His other attributes are identical in reality. We believe in the Trinity because God, who is Truth Himself, had revealed the doctrine. And it is not contradictory with the Catholic doctrine of Divine Simplicity because God Himself had also revealed that the Trinity cannot be arrived at or comprehended by natural human reason alone.
Who dares question these doctrines revealed by God, Who?s Truth? Fallible, mutable, wretched mortals who, in their pride, daily inflict upon themselves their own miseries?
Quote from: The Theosist on September 04, 2020, 09:58:04 AM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 04, 2020, 09:43:11 AM
The Double Procession of the Holy Spirit has been dogmatically defined and solemnly proclaimed by three ecumenical councils of the Church.
The apostolicity of the doctrine is unquestionable. You and Dyer are grasping at straws and vomiting slurs doesn't change that.
I'm well-aware that the ultimate defense of your claim is Roma locuta est, making it unfalsifiable, regardless of any actual facts or sound arguments that demonstrate its contrary.
The idea of absolute divine simplicity has its origin in Neoplatonism and doesn't appear in "the Church" before , surprise, a Neoplatonist convert becomes one of its "Fathers". Your appeals to authority don't change that.
Two centuries before the birth of the Doctor of Grace, St. Irenaeus already spoke of divine simplicity. It is part of the deposit of faith:
But if they had known the Scriptures, and been taught by the truth, they would have known, beyond doubt, that God is not as men are; and that His thoughts are not like the thoughts of men. (Isaiah 55:8 ) For the Father of all is at a vast distance from those affections and passions which operate among men. He is a simple, uncompounded Being, without diverse members, and altogether like, and equal to himself, since He is wholly understanding, and wholly spirit, and wholly thought, and wholly intelligence, and wholly reason, and wholly hearing, and wholly seeing, and wholly light, and the whole source of all that is good— even as the religious and pious are wont to speak concerning God. (
Against Heresies, Book II, Chap. 13, 3 (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103213.htm))
Here's the cannon ball that destroys both arguments.
Both Absolute Divine Simplicity and the Energies-Essence distinction are illogical.
Absolute Divine Simplicity is incoherent because it's logical conclusions are absurd; if there is no distinction between the acts of God and the substance of God, God's eternal begetting of the Son is identical with God creating Adam and Eve; or God's permissive and active Will, God actively willing babies to get cancer and die.
The Energies-Essence distinction is incoherent because it implies a literal distinction within the divine essence per se, which contradicts the Council of Nicaea.
When confronted with both these incoherencies, both Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics alike appeal to "God transcending logic," "God is incomprehensible," "It's a mystery, shut up"
To me, it's absurd that people are debating over which belief system of God's essence is more logical when both admit that both beliefs systems transcend logic and can't be explained by logic.
Quote from: truly-a-philosofan on September 04, 2020, 12:07:48 PM
One should have nothing to do with those who deny God's Simplicity and Immutability, such as those obnoxious palamites. God's Existence, Essence, Omniscience, Omnipotence, and His other attributes are identical in reality. We believe in the Trinity because God, who is Truth Himself, had revealed the doctrine. And it is not contradictory with the Catholic doctrine of Divine Simplicity because God Himself had also revealed that the Trinity cannot be arrived at or comprehended by natural human reason alone.
Who dares question these doctrines revealed by God, Who's Truth? Fallible, mutable, wretched mortals who, in their pride, daily inflict upon themselves their own miseries?
If God's essence is beyond logic and cannot be comprehended, why are you arguing about how illogical and incomprehensible the Eastern Orthodox's position on God's essence is?
Any argument you make at them, they will shoot back at you with the same exact response "Mysterium Fidei"
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on September 04, 2020, 08:34:52 PM
If God's essence is beyond logic and cannot be comprehended, why are you arguing about how illogical and incomprehensible the Eastern Orthodox's position on God's essence is?
Any argument you make at them, they will shoot back at you with the same exact response "Mysterium Fidei"
It is one of the essential components of the official doctrine of the Trinity itself that the relational-yet-real distinctions between the Divine Persons and how they reconcile with Divine Simplicity are fully comprehended only in the Divine Mind. And considering the fact that the First Vatican Council officially taught that the
Mysteria Fidei cannot ever be fully comprehended by natural human reason alone at least in this mortal life, describing the Holy Trinity to be humanly incomprehensible is not a mere rationalization due to apologetics.
Relations of opposition in God, such as God-as-Knower-of-Himself and God-as-Known-by-Himself, can be discovered through natural human reason alone. But, these same relations
being truly distinct cannot be naturally discovered by the same natural human reason alone. God had to reveal this fact in a supernatural manner (and we have to believe Him since He?s Truth Himself). If this naturally undiscoverable aspect had never been supernaturally revealed, we would have continued to regard those same relations of opposition to be merely logically distinguished.
And God wouldn?t have revealed the doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testament anyway if He first had not revealed in the Old Testament that there are aspects about Him that are not discoverable by natural human reason alone. Hence the words of God written by the Holy Prophet Isaias [55:8-9]:
QuoteFor my thoughts are not your thoughts: nor your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts.
The doctrine of the Palamites on the other hand, affirm ideas that are contradictory to the first ecumenical council, as you just apparently admitted. So even if they excuse their heresy with
Mysterium Fidei, it wouldn?t stand due to the doctrines of Nicaea I being chronologically prior. Divine Simplicity, Divine Immutability, and the Trinity are doctrines held by the early Church. Palamites deny the first two a millennium after Nicaea I.
QuoteThe doctrine of the Palamites on the other hand, affirm ideas that are contradictory to the first ecumenical council, as you just apparently admitted. So even if they excuse their heresy with Mysterium Fidei, it wouldn't stand due to the doctrines of Nicaea I being chronologically prior. Divine Simplicity, Divine Immutability, and the Trinity are doctrines held by the early Church. Palamites deny the first two a millennium after Nicaea I.
The Palamites do not admit that their ideas are contradictory to the First Ecumenical Council; rather they affirm one divine essence, but a distinction between the energies and the essence, and they hold that this real distinction yet being one divine essence is beyond human comprehension.
Jay Dyer in all his videos and apologia literally argues this.
Once you admit that God is incomprehensible via logic, you cannot belittle another person's faith system on what God is in His essence on the grounds that it is illogical, otherwise ADS would fall apart. The only thing you can really argue is which Faith system is more consistent with what came prior, because both are absolutely developments in theology.
Also, if you truly believe that the Fathers of the First 6 or so Ecumenical Councils held to an understanding of God's Essence that is identical to what Thomas Aquinas taught in the Summa, boy do you have another thing coming; Saint Thomas Aquinas had to refute Saint John Damascus who explicitly taught distinction between God's essence and energies and cites Maimonides as an authority in doing so.
Also, Vatican I being absolutely correct by virtue of coming from the Papacy is not a logical or persuasive argument for the Eastern Orthodox.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 04, 2020, 06:29:05 PM
But if they had known the Scriptures, and been taught by the truth, they would have known, beyond doubt, that God is not as men are; and that His thoughts are not like the thoughts of men. (Isaiah 55:8 ) For the Father of all is at a vast distance from those affections and passions which operate among men. He is a simple, uncompounded Being, without diverse members, and altogether like, and equal to himself, since He is wholly understanding, and wholly spirit, and wholly thought, and wholly intelligence, and wholly reason, and wholly hearing, and wholly seeing, and wholly light, and the whole source of all that is good— even as the religious and pious are wont to speak concerning God. (Against Heresies, Book II, Chap. 13, 3 (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103213.htm))
Wasn't it you who told me that citing the Fathers is a fruitless effort because you will inevitably read into it your current belief system and any Patristic citation can be dismissed on the grounds of "oh Church Fathers aren't infallible"?
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 04, 2020, 09:19:39 AM
Sadly, your newly-found philosophical hero is another internet fraud with a foul mouth, a style that you're fond of replicating:
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRLOQUnw-FY[/yt]
While I fully agree Jay Dyer is an absolute fraud, especially as it pertains to his conspiracy garbage, as he clearly doesn't believe in the nonsensical conspiracy snake-oil he sells to the masses, and he has more of a cult of personality rather than actual, produced, substantive content,
delegitimizing someone because of their past, or because they have a "foul mouth," is fucking retarded.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 04, 2020, 11:36:25 AM
Quote from: truly-a-philosofan on September 04, 2020, 11:05:10 AM
Quote from: The Theosist on September 04, 2020, 10:23:25 AM
Let's be clear again:
The proposition that the Holy Spirit has his essence and subsistence from both Father and Son and proceeds from both as of a single principle by a single spiration, which is the def fide teaching of Rome on the Filioque, is heresy to the Eastern Orthodox and absolutely irreconcilable with their dogmatic theology. It doesn't matter if one can reconcile by with through the Son in some sense.
Yeah. That's why we are Catholics here and not EO.
The contention that the Filioque is "absolutely irreconcilable" with Eastern Orthodox dogmatic theology has been factually disproven by the decrees of the Ecumenical Council of Florence that were accepted by the Eastern Church.
Stop lying. The Eastern Orthodox never accepted Florence. Mark of Ephesus refused to sign for Alexandria, and Jersualem and Antioch refused to ratify the actions of their delegates. Only Constantinople "accepted" it. We needn't even go in to the politcal nature of that "council" and the monetary blackmailing of the East.
Mark of Ephesus on how the correpondence between St. Cyril and Theodoret show the Filioque was alreayd considered heretical in the 5th century:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWOV-71WAAY-vRs?format=png&name=small)
QuoteAn Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church cannot solemnly teach heresy, much less about the very nature of God. This is self-evident.
This is not "self-evident" to anyone; it's an article of your faith.
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on September 04, 2020, 08:28:12 PM
The Energies-Essence distinction is incoherent because it implies a literal distinction within the divine essence per se, which contradicts the Council of Nicaea.
When confronted with both these incoherencies, both Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics alike appeal to "God transcending logic," "God is incomprehensible," "It's a mystery, shut up"
The problem, as usual, is that everyone confuses the Western idea of "essence" with the Cappadocian "ousia". It's similar to how the West, and Jay Dyer himself, use the modern idea of "person" to conceptualise "hypostasis", which ir erroneous, as Karl Barth showed, and leads to a de facto tritheism. The distinction of ousia and energeia does not imply a distinction in the ousia; if ousia and energia can really be distinguished in the first place, the very claim is absurd.
Question: how many "I's" are there in God? If you answered "Three!", you're a tritheist.
But yes, its one thing to claim God cannot be grasped by logic and to leave him as a mystery; it is quite another to claim he transcends logic and that therefore logical contradictions are permissible in ones conceptualisation and theological dogmas of him! That's absurd! Dyerites have some strange ideas about logical inferences being dependent upon unprovable presuppositions for their truth, though this is no more erroneous than classical foundationalist ideas fo logic which dominate Scholasticism and end in the worst kind of rationalism. My rejection of ADS and Scholasticism doesn't mean I'm a Dyerite or Eastern Orrthodox.
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 04, 2020, 06:29:05 PM
Quote from: The Theosist on September 04, 2020, 09:58:04 AM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 04, 2020, 09:43:11 AM
The Double Procession of the Holy Spirit has been dogmatically defined and solemnly proclaimed by three ecumenical councils of the Church.
The apostolicity of the doctrine is unquestionable. You and Dyer are grasping at straws and vomiting slurs doesn't change that.
I'm well-aware that the ultimate defense of your claim is Roma locuta est, making it unfalsifiable, regardless of any actual facts or sound arguments that demonstrate its contrary.
The idea of absolute divine simplicity has its origin in Neoplatonism and doesn't appear in "the Church" before , surprise, a Neoplatonist convert becomes one of its "Fathers". Your appeals to authority don't change that.
Two centuries before the birth of the Doctor of Grace, St. Irenaeus already spoke of divine simplicity. It is part of the deposit of faith:
But if they had known the Scriptures, and been taught by the truth, they would have known, beyond doubt, that God is not as men are; and that His thoughts are not like the thoughts of men. (Isaiah 55:8 ) For the Father of all is at a vast distance from those affections and passions which operate among men. He is a simple, uncompounded Being, without diverse members, and altogether like, and equal to himself, since He is wholly understanding, and wholly spirit, and wholly thought, and wholly intelligence, and wholly reason, and wholly hearing, and wholly seeing, and wholly light, and the whole source of all that is good— even as the religious and pious are wont to speak concerning God. (Against Heresies, Book II, Chap. 13, 3 (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103213.htm))
This is typical Roman Catholic apologetics when it comes to Patristics: switch the goal posts, and then switch them back. The issue is not simplicity of the divine ousia, which no Eastern Orthodox denies; the issue is the doctrine of absolute divine simplicty, essence = existence = energies = attributes = God = anything at all that can be predicated of God. Nowhere is this taught or implied by Ireneaus. You're a fraud.
.
Ok, I watched the video and it was better than I had hoped for. I still need to look into the history a little more, but I'm fairly convinced. I really liked where St. Thomas argues that if the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, then the Holy Spirit and the Son are the same person. Not sure how anyone can argue against that, without rejecting the simplicity of the divine ousia.
Quote from: TheReturnofLive on September 05, 2020, 01:46:24 AM
or because they have a "foul mouth,"
I'd say it has very much to do with it, as a "foul mouth" is indicative of a character defect, ill will, satanic inspiration, or sophistry.
Quote from: The Theosist on September 05, 2020, 05:55:40 AMQuoteAn Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church cannot solemnly teach heresy, much less about the very nature of God. This is self-evident.
This is not "self-evident" to anyone; it's an article of your faith.
It is an article of the Eastern Orthodox faith (http://orthochristian.com/107440.html) as well:
We do not believe that everything that anyone happened to say at an Ecumenical Council is infallible, but we most certainly do believe that the canons and decrees of the Ecumenical Councils are infallible, and this is because we believe that the Church as a whole, is infallible. Individual members, and even local Churches may err, but it is not possible for the entire Church to teach that which is erroneous—and Ecumenical Councils are certainly an example of what the Church as a whole teaches. Fr. George Florovsky observed: "The teaching authority of the Ecumenical Councils is grounded in the infallibility of the Church. The ultimate 'authority' is vested in the Church, which is forever the Pillar and the Foundation of Truth."By their own criteria, Florence
was an Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church and its solemn proclamations on the Filioque, Papacy,
etc., were, thus, infallible.
Quote from: Daniel on September 05, 2020, 07:43:20 AM
Ok, I watched the video and it was better than I had hoped for. I still need to look into the history a little more, but I'm fairly convinced. I really liked where St. Thomas argues that if the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, then the Holy Spirit and the Son are the same person. Not sure how anyone can argue against that, without rejecting the simplicity of the divine ousia.
I hope you realise, firstly, that this argument presupposes the Thomistic doctrine of the Trinity that reduces the "persons" and their distinctions to "relations of opposition" of the divine "substance". Without that presupposition, it in no way follows that the negation of the Filioque annihilates any distinction between Son and Holy Spirit and reduces them to the same "person".
Further to that, if this does annihilate the distinction between Son and Holy spirit, then it's clear that to Aquinas "generation" and "spiration" have no meaning other than as relations in his logical game, for if they did have more meaning that that, we would in being able to distinguish them also distinguish Son and Holy Spirit regardless of the Filioque. If nothing else, this is laughable from the point of view of scripture and the Christian experience, in which the Son incarnates as a human being and the Holy Spirit serves as the literal
inspiration of Christians, and we would distinguish them from this fact, which depends in no logical way upon the Filioque and would distinguish these in reality regardless of it.
But let's try an unpack this. Bear with me, as I'm attempting this on the fly.
Say we have a, b, c (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) and d (the divine essence), and we have an idea of what d is. Further, we have a binary relation "=" that is not transitive, for which hold at least a=d, b=d, c=d (each person "is" the essence) and a!=b!=c!=a!=c!=b!=a (none of the persons "is" any other). We should see right away that this relation is
not the ordinary one of identity, which is reflexive (a=a), symmetric (a=b implies b=a) and transitive (a=b and b=c imply a=c) . But this is what Aquinas posits here. He uses "identity" equivocally. That in itself is a problem for any further discussion of his trinitarian theology, because it's really not clear what "identity" is supposed to mean given these relationships. Are the persons identical to the essence in the same sense the persons are not identical with each other? He uses "identity" equivocally, so I'm just going to go with that. But in any case, we want to know how and why these statements all hold and can hold. In fact, Aquinas wants to derive them from "relations of opposition".
Say we introduce three binary relations, let us call them ~1, ~2 and ~3, which are, expressed as sets,
~1 = {(a,b)} (generation)
~2 = {(a,c),(b,c)} (spiration in the filioquist position) (or if you prefer {((a,b),c)}, but for simplicity let's ignore such finer details)
and
~3 = {(a,c)} (spiration in the anti-filioquist position)
We can't have reflexivity or symmetry here, because, e.g., the Father does not generate himself and the Son does not generate the Father.
I emphasise from the start that even if we know what "=" means independently of a, b and c , we don't know what a, b and c are or why "=" doesn't hold between them. These binary relations are supposed to clarify that, but they are themselves defined in terms of a, b and c. Aquinas's position is equivalent to ~1 plus ~2 allow us to define "=" so that the aforegoing relationships hold, but ~1 plus ~3 not only do not allow this but lead to b=c. Let's try that, shall we?
Let S = {a,b,c,d} and define "=" by
x = y if ¬(x ~1 y or x ~2 y) for all x,y ? S,
We have a ~1 b, so a!=b; a ~2 c, so a!=c; b ~2 c, so b!=c; but it doesn't work for, e.g., b!=a because ~1 is not symmetric. Well, we can't just tack on some special rules here, because the relations of opposition are supposed to be sufficient to define "=". So let's just drop the directional information in "generation" and "spiration" and have the binary relations denote that there exists a relation of opposition, so
~1 = {(a,b),(b,a)} etc.
This eliminates the previous problem and still leaves us with a=d etc. So far, so good. So what if we replace ~2 with ~3 = {(a,c),(c,a)}? Yes, that indeed leaves us with b=c, unless I've made an error somewhere.
Yes, the manipulation of symbols works, but what does any of this mean? Why should we take "=" to be defined by x = y if ¬(x ~1 y or x ~2 y) for all x,y ? S or anything else that might work? That's surely
not what we mean by identity in general or a "real distinction", and not why we're supposed to have a=d, b=d and c=d! Certainly there's no evidence this is what the Nicene-era church meant by three distinct hypostases. Indeed, the usual anti-filioquist doesn't even accept a=d, b=d, c=d and has no reason to define non-identity of hypostases in terms of relations of opposition. And we cannot escape what I said earlier, that "Father", "Son", "Holy Spirit", "generation" and "spiration" are reduced by circularity to mere relations of symbols in his logical game; but if any of these terms have meaning outside of that, then the argument that reduces the Son and the Holy Spirit to each other without the Filoque fails.
This kind of game is a fundamental problem of Scholasticism and its extreme form of rationalism. And what could be a more extreme form of rationalism than thinking that thsi kind of analytic a priori reasoning, which fails miserably in producing truths about the world, can dissect and analyse God!
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 05, 2020, 10:23:01 AM
Quote from: The Theosist on September 05, 2020, 05:55:40 AMQuoteAn Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church cannot solemnly teach heresy, much less about the very nature of God. This is self-evident.
This is not "self-evident" to anyone; it's an article of your faith.
It is an article of the Eastern Orthodox faith (http://orthochristian.com/107440.html) as well:
And still not self-evident.
QuoteBy their own criteria, Florence was an Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church and its solemn proclamations on the Filioque, Papacy, etc., were, thus, infallible.
No. Florence was not an
Ecumenical Council at all by the criteria of the Orthodox church. Which is why the Orthodox do not accept it as such, do not commemorate it in their liturgies, and do not accept the Flioque. Roman Catholics presuming to dictate to the Eastern Orthodox what their own ecclesiology and theology is, now that goes beyond audacity into stupidity. To quote the Eastern Orthodox at the "Council" of FLorence itself, "we could on no account be asked to number among the ecumenical councils a synod
which not only was never approved,
but was even condemned, for the synod mentioned by Your Holiness drew up Acts against Photius". Florence was never
approved and was condemned.
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfYJsQAhl0[/yt]
Quote from: The Theosist on September 05, 2020, 06:07:04 AM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 04, 2020, 06:29:05 PM
Quote from: The Theosist on September 04, 2020, 09:58:04 AM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on September 04, 2020, 09:43:11 AM
The Double Procession of the Holy Spirit has been dogmatically defined and solemnly proclaimed by three ecumenical councils of the Church.
The apostolicity of the doctrine is unquestionable. You and Dyer are grasping at straws and vomiting slurs doesn't change that.
I'm well-aware that the ultimate defense of your claim is Roma locuta est, making it unfalsifiable, regardless of any actual facts or sound arguments that demonstrate its contrary.
The idea of absolute divine simplicity has its origin in Neoplatonism and doesn't appear in "the Church" before , surprise, a Neoplatonist convert becomes one of its "Fathers". Your appeals to authority don't change that.
Two centuries before the birth of the Doctor of Grace, St. Irenaeus already spoke of divine simplicity. It is part of the deposit of faith:
But if they had known the Scriptures, and been taught by the truth, they would have known, beyond doubt, that God is not as men are; and that His thoughts are not like the thoughts of men. (Isaiah 55:8 ) For the Father of all is at a vast distance from those affections and passions which operate among men. He is a simple, uncompounded Being, without diverse members, and altogether like, and equal to himself, since He is wholly understanding, and wholly spirit, and wholly thought, and wholly intelligence, and wholly reason, and wholly hearing, and wholly seeing, and wholly light, and the whole source of all that is good— even as the religious and pious are wont to speak concerning God. (Against Heresies, Book II, Chap. 13, 3 (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103213.htm))
This is typical Roman Catholic apologetics when it comes to Patristics: switch the goal posts, and then switch them back. The issue is not simplicity of the divine ousia, which no Eastern Orthodox denies; the issue is the doctrine of absolute divine simplicty, essence = existence = energies = attributes = God = anything at all that can be predicated of God. Nowhere is this taught or implied by Ireneaus. You're a fraud.
Irenaeus taught divine simplicity which, of course, is
de fide. The maturing and the logical refinement of the dogma over time shouldn't trouble you since it is the same process that led to the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity, for instance. Ott aptly summarizes the question:
The Divine Attributes are really identical among themselves and with the Divine Essence. (De fide.)The reason lies in the absolute silnplicity of God. The acceptance of a real distinction (
distinctio realis) would lead to acceptance of a composition in God, and with that to a dissolution of the Godhead. In the year 1148, a Synod at Rheims in the presence of Pope Eugene III, condemned, on the instance of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the doctrine of Gilbert of Poitiers, who, according to the accusation of his opponents, posited a real distinction between God and Godhead (
Deus-Divinitas), between the Divine Persons and Their properties (
Pater-paternitas), and, according to the accounts of his opponents, also, between the Divine Essence and the Divine Attributes. This accusation can hardly be demonstrated from Gilbert's writings. Against this doctrine, the Synod asserted the factual identity of God with the Godhead, that is with the Divine Nature and the Persons, as well as of God and His Attributes:
Credimus et confitemur simplicem naturam divinitatis esse Deum nec aliquo sensu catholico posse negari, quin divinitas sit Deus et Deus divinitas . . .credimus, nonnisi ea sapientia, quae est ipse Deus, sapientem esse, nonnisi ea magnitudine, quae est ipse Deus, magnum esse est (We believe and confess that the divine nature in itself is (identical with) God nor, in any way consonant with Catholic doctrine, can we deny that the divinity is God and God is the divinity. . . . We believe that God is wise by that wisdom which is God Himself, that God is great by that greatness (which is God Himself). D 389. The Union Council of Florence explained in the
Decretum pro Jacobitis (1441): "(in God) all is one, where an opposition of relation does not exist." D 703.
In the Greek Church, the 14th century mystic-quietistic Sect of the Hesychasts or Palamites (so-called after the monk Gregory Palamas (+1359) taught a real distinction between the Divine Essence (?????) and the Divine Efficacy or the Divine attributes (????????). While the former was claimed to be unknowable, the latter was claimed to be vouchsafed to humanity in a condition of contemplative prayer (??????) through an uncreated Divine light ("Taborlight"). With this they distinguished a higher and a lower, an invisible and a visible side of the Godhead.
Holy Scripture indicates the identity of the Essence and the attributes of God, when it says: "God is charity" (John 4, 8 ). St. Augustine teaches: "What God has, that He is" (
Quod habet, hoc est: De civ. Dei XI 10, I). Gilbert's opponents summed up the ecclesiastical doctrine advanced against his error in the words attributed to St. Augustine:
Quidquid in Deo est Deus est. Again, the distinction is not a mere mental distinction, as the Eunomians in the 4th and 5th centuries, and the Nominalists in later medieval times taught. According to the Eunomians, all names and attributes of God are synonyms, which express nothing other than
agennesie (ingeneratedness) in which we apparently adequately comprehend the Essence of God. According to the Nominalists the distinguishing of several qualities has no basis in the Divine Essence itself, but only in the various operations of God (
distinctio cum connotatione effectuum -a distinction connoting effects).
Against the acceptance of a mere logical distinction there is the fact that Holy Scripture refers to many attributes of God. To explain these away as mere synonyms is incompatible with the dignity of Holy Writ. Again the perfections appearing in the "works of God presuppose that God as their Originator Himself possesses them. God is not good because He does good, but He does good
because He Himself is good.
c) According to the Scotists, the difference between God and His attributes is formal (
distinctio formalis). A formal difference lies between a real and a purely mental difference. But the acceptance of the notion of various formalities of being which are (
actualiter) present in God, previous to and independent of our thinking, is contrary to the absolute simplicity of the Divine Substance.
d) According to the general teaching, the difference is to be conceived as a virtual difference (
distinctio virtualis or
rationis ratiocinatae sive cum fundamento in re - a virtual distinction, a distinction of ratiotinative reason with a foundation in reality). The distinguishing of many attributes in God has a factual basis in the infinite fullness of the Divine Being. Even if God's Nature is in itself absolutely simple, yet we can only know it in a multiplicity of concepts. Cf. S. tho I 13, 4 :
nomina Deo attributa licet significent unam rem, tamen quia significant eam sub rationibus multis et diversis, non sunt synonyma (although the names attributed to God signify the same reality, yet because they signify it under many and diverse aspects, they are not synonymous). The assumed virtual difference is to be more exactly determined as distinctio virtualis minor, since one Divine perfection implicitly includes the other.
(...)
God is absolutely simple. (De fide.)The 4th Lateran Council and the Vatican Council teach that God is an absolutely simple substance or nature (
substantia seu natura simplex omnino). D 428, 1782. The expression
simplex omnino asserts that with regard to God any kind of composition, whether physical or metaphysical, is out of the question. From this it follows that:
1. God is a pure spirit, that is, God is neither a body nor a composition of body and spirit. The Old Testament, it is true, represents God in a visible human form by the employment of many anthropomorphisms and anthropopachisms. Indirectly, however, it expresses God's spirituality by representing Him as supreme over matter and as the ruler of matter. Men, in distinction to God, are often called" flesh" (cf. Is. 31, 3). The New Testament designates God explicitly a Spirit. John 4, 24: "God is a spirit." 2 Cor. 3, 17: "The Lord is a spirit."
The viewpoint of the Audians or Anthropomorphists, who, in a false interpretation of Gn. I, 26 held God to be a psycho-physical Being, as men are, was rejected by the Fathers as a foolish heresy (
stultissima haeresis; St. Jerome). Tertullian, under Stoic influence, and starting from the assumption that everything actual is corporeal, ascribes to the spiritual essences, to God and to the
soul a certain corporeality. Adv. Praxeam 7:
Quis enim negabit Deum corpus esse, etsi Deus spiritus est? Spiritus enim corpus sui generis in sua effigie. Speculatively, the immateriality of God is implied by His pure actuality. Since there exists in God no potency, and since for matter potentiality is essential, there can therefore be no matter in God. Cf. s. tho I ,1. I and 2.
2. God is an absolutely simple spirit, that is, in God there is no composition of any kind, of substance or accidents, of essence and existence, of nature and person, of power and activity, of passivity and activity, of genus and specific difference. Holy Writ indicates the absolute simplicity of God when it equates the Essence of God with His Attributes. Cf. I John 4, 8: "God is charity." John 14, 6: "I am the way, the truth and the life." St. Augustine says of the Divine Nature: "It is called simple because it is that which it has, except that which is said of one Person in relation to the Other" (De civ. Dei XI 10, I).
Speculatively the absolute simplicity of God may be derived from His pure actuality. Pure Act is incompatible with any kind of composition, for the composed thing comes later than the composing parts and is dependent on these. Further, a composed thing presupposes an origin, which brings the parts together and thus the parts are in potency to the whole. Cf. S. tho I 3, 7. The existence of virtual differences between the essence and the attributes of God and between the attributes themselves does not controvert the absolute simplicity of God, because the individual attributes do not designate parts of the Divine Essence, but the whole Divine Essence, although from different points of view.
Quote from: The Theosist on September 05, 2020, 11:24:48 AM
And still not self-evident.
It is self-evident for Catholics or the Eastern Orthodox that the Church of God cannot solemnly teach heresy.
QuoteNo. Florence was not an Ecumenical Council at all by the criteria of the Orthodox church. Which is why the Orthodox do not accept it as such, do not commemorate it in their liturgies, and do not accept the Flioque. Roman Catholics presuming to dictate to the Eastern Orthodox what their own ecclesiology and theology is, now that goes beyond audacity into stupidity. To quote the Eastern Orthodox at the "Council" of FLorence itself, "we could on no account be asked to number among the ecumenical councils a synod which not only was never approved, but was even condemned, for the synod mentioned by Your Holiness drew up Acts against Photius". Florence was never approved and was condemned.
The
a posteriori refusal to accept a valid Ecumenical Council is not an argument against it. The Arians refused Nicea, the Nestorians refused Ephesus,
etc.The council was lawfully convened, it was attended by all five patriarchal sees and the reigning Eastern Roman emperor, it issued solemn canons that were ratified by the Church and the Eastern sees were effectively brought into communion. This is a historical fact.
Laetentur Coeli happened and the schism was formally healed. The failure of Mark of Ephesus to sign the documents and accept the canons, as well as his subsequent crusade against an Ecumenical Council of the Church, is irrelevant. The refusal to implement Florence in the East and then to condemn it after Byzantium fell to the Turks is also irrelevant, as I already explained.
The Eastern Orthodox condemning Florence has the same meaning as the Old Catholics condemning Vatican I. The teaching authority of the Church, entrusted by Christ to teach and rule all nations, is not dependent upon group A or B accepting its solemn judgments. It is what it is.
The MHFM is nutty and this debate is too complicated for me. But has anyone noticed that MHFM is the only trad Catholic group to attempt to convert Prots and "Orthodox" to the traditional Catholic faith?
Quote from: GiftOfGod on November 13, 2020, 05:41:31 PM
The MHFM is nutty and this debate is too complicated for me.
Same here.
QuoteBut has anyone noticed that MHFM is the only trad Catholic group to attempt to convert Prots and "Orthodox" to the traditional Catholic faith?
I think I could sort of sense it, but I didn't really notice until now that you've pointed it out. Beats me.
Quote from: Daniel on November 13, 2020, 06:31:34 PM
I think I could sort of sense it, but I didn't really notice until now that you've pointed it out. Beats me.
I will chalk it up to the fact that other organizations have high overhead. For example, the SSPX: they have to operate schools, chapels, seminaries, etc. The Diamonds, as a detractor pointed out, are two brothers in a mobile home (on tax-free donated land). Despite the fact that they have condemned me as schismatic, I am glad they are there and there is a place for them. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have converted to the traditional Catholic faith.
Quote from: GiftOfGod on November 13, 2020, 06:43:56 PM
Quote from: Daniel on November 13, 2020, 06:31:34 PM
I think I could sort of sense it, but I didn't really notice until now that you've pointed it out. Beats me.
I will chalk it up to the fact that other organizations have high overhead. For example, the SSPX: they have to operate schools, chapels, seminaries, etc. The Diamonds, as a detractor pointed out, are two brothers in a mobile home (on tax-free donated land). Despite the fact that they have condemned me as schismatic, I am glad they are there and there is a place for them. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have converted to the traditional Catholic faith.
MHFM has the look and proportions of a small farm (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Most+Holy+Family+Monastery/@42.4397727,-77.98219,191m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x89d2291420b4e2f7:0xa0ada9cff6487745!8m2!3d42.4409554!4d-77.9822302). Fillmore, New York is itself a pleasant looking spot. They certainly have the physical means for a dignified and useful monastic life, but reportedly it has not happened. The name is spelled Dimond. I know an troublesome person of that surname, no connection whatsoever to the video bros.
Quote from: Prayerful on November 13, 2020, 07:16:35 PM
They certainly have the physical means for a dignified and useful monastic life, but reportedly it has not happened.
What do you mean?