by Richard Quist
Taken from my paper "Faith of Our Fathers", Pt. II. A Conversion to Orthodoxy, (e. The Roman problem - conclusion).
Many people don't believe that there is a significant difference between Orthodox Catholic and Roman Catholic theologies, and I must confess to having been one of those people until the Holy Spirit led me to take a closer look. The differences at first may seem to be subtle and only in details, but ultimately they produce different visions of God, of salvation, and of what our priorities should be in the practice of our Faith. In Orthodoxy, emphasis is placed upon the availability to us of the experience of the real presence of the Holy Spirit, this being what St. Isaac the Syrian refers to as the "third degree" of knowledge, right now in this world. We can transcend this world by being transfigured by the Holy Spirit through Christ. In Roman Catholicism, while it is acknowledged that the Holy Spirit works with us in this world, the emphasis is placed upon the need to have faith that He is working, since a tangible experiential confirmation of His real presence is not likely to happen in this world. Consequently, a greater emphasis is placed upon understanding the work of the Spirit in the abstract and intellectual sense, with an emphasis on the hope for salvation, and a direct experience of Him, after death. What we have here is the difference between knowing from our own experience that Christ has been resurrected and the fruits of that resurrection are within our grasp, and hoping that He will be resurrected to us. In a symbolic sense, the Orthodox faith reflects a post-Pentecost mentality, one filled with the Holy Spirit, while the Roman faith reflects a pre-Pentecost mentality, one that struggles to understand and maintain it's faith, one that needs more material confirmations of faith, such as the Papacy. This to me reflects the distance that the Romans have put between themselves and the Holy Spirit with their theological conceptions of the Trinity and Grace.
Attributing a limited passive cause to the Son can actually enhance our understanding of the distinctions of Persons within the Trinity if we understand this to mean simply that since the Son exists as a Person distinct from the Father, then the Holy Spirit must also exist distinctly, in order to fully establish the distinctive nature of the Son. With this view, the fact that the Holy Spirit proceeds from only the Father helps to establish the Son as distinct, while the fact that the Son is distinct from the Father necessitates that the Holy Spirit exist distinctly from the Father and the Son, and must proceed from the Father and to the Son. This concept is embodied in St. John of Damascus declaring that it is appropriate to say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, while it is not appropriate to say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. This concept of limited passive cause is much more limited than the Roman conception of cause (which I'll now refer to as semi-active cause).
This concept of limited passive cause can also be applied to the causing of the Son, and must be, if one applies it to the Holy Spirit. Only the Father actively causes the Son, but the Spirit can be considered to passively contribute to the causing of the Son simply by the fact of His, that is, the Holy Spirit's, distinct existence. In other words, it is necessary for the Holy Spirit to exist distinctly in order for the Son to exist distinctly, for in order for the Son to perceive His own distinction from the Father He must perceive the Holy Spirit as proceeding from the Father. This would then mean that it is possible to say that the Father begets the Son through the Spirit, meaning that the distinct existence of the Spirit contributes to the existence of the Son as a distinct Person.
The distinction between substance and persona in speaking of the Holy Spirit may be part of the problem with the filioque. It might be possible to state that the Father spirates the substance of the Spirit from the substances of the Son, but it is never appropriate to say that the Spirit's persona is spirated from the Son's. I believe that it is appropriate to say that in a limited sense the Spirit's persona is spirated through the Son since the simple fact of the existence of the Son contributes to the distinct nature of the Spirit. This though applies to each person of thr Trinity since each is defined relative to the other two. Intentionally or not, when Romans say that the Spirit proceeds from the Son, they are saying He receives His Persona from the Son, and this is completely inappropriate.
Active or sei-active cause of the Spirit by the Son cannot be reconciled with the views on the filioque as expressed in my previous writings. Although in those writings I did not directly address the issue of cause, if one understands my analysis of the Trinity correctly it can be seen that according to this analysis the Son could not in any way be a semi-active cause of the Holy Spirit because of the importance that I place upon the true nature of the relationship between the Person of the Son and the Person of the Holy Spirit and the concept that the Person of the Holy Spirit must have for Himself an appropriate degree of independence from the Person of the Son, and vice-versa. The essential point in my analysis is that while the Person of the Son is of one essence and always in union with the Holy Spirit, the Son must receive the Person of the Holy Spirit, and receive Him as a complete person, from the Father. As St. John of Damascus states, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and rests in the Son. The Holy Spirit must be defined as actively caused by only the Father in order for the Spirit and the Son to have this proper degree of independence, and for us to understand the true nature of the relationship between the Spirit and the Son.
An aspect of this proper understanding of the relationship between the Son and the Spirit directly influences our understanding of both's relationship with the Father. Both the Son and the Spirit each have their own unique connection to the Father, the Son through His being generated by the Father, and the Spirit by His being spirated, or being given procession, by the Father. This gives them each a unique access to the Father, an access that the other does not have, except through the other. Thus, while the Son has an awareness of the Father through His unique connection, He must gain other awareness of the Father through the Holy Spirit, and while the Spirit gains certain awareness from the Father through His unique connection, He must gain other awareness of the Father through the Son. This type of symbiotic relationship cannot exist unless the Son receives the completed Person of the Spirit from the Father.
There are a variety of problems resulting from attributing an active or semi-active cause to the Son, and even if Rome does not concede that it's doctrine on the filioque embraces a type of active cause, there are indications in a variety of it's doctrines that it treats the Son as a semi-active cause of the Spirit and does not comprehend the negative consequences resulting from not keeping in mind that the Spirit proceeds from only the Father and is received by the Son. One of the confusing points brought about by the filioque is the issue of source, or origin, of the Spirit. Rome does maintain that the Father is the origin of the Spirit. However, there are some who then go on to say that what this means is that the Spirit originates from the combined essence of the Father and the Son, but since the Father is the origin of the Son, in a sense the Father can be considered to be the sole origin of the Spirit. It is this type of flawed reasoning that undermines the very important concept that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father to the Son, and rests in the Son. Obscuring this truth is the most damaging consequence of the filioque because ultimately this obscures our sight of both the Son and the Spirit, especially since it suggests that the Son does not receive the completed Person of the Spirit from the Father, but instead assists the Father in spirating the Spirit and then projects the Spirit from Himself.
A major problem with attributing semi-active cause to the Son is that there is an absolute necessity for understanding that the Person of the Holy Spirit must have a proper degree of independence from the Person of Christ, and Christ from the Holy Spirit, as this is essential to the concept of the Incarnation. Attributing semi-active cause to the Son destroys this proper independence, and ancient Roman theologians seemed to have a preference for emphasizing the unity of the Godhead, this leading to a tendency to diminish the importance of the distinctions between the Persons of the Trinity. Besides undermining the balance between the distinction of Persons and unity, this can lead to an undermining of the concept of the Incarnation because it can destroy the balance in the perfect hypostatic union of Christ's divine and human natures. If one does not correctly define the nature of Christ's divinity, one can make it impossible to define Him as fully human. This is what happens when one attributes semi-active cause to the Son. If Christ is a semi-active cause of the Spirit then He cannot fully "empty" Himself, as St. Paul puts it, to become man, even unto death. It is only because of the Triune nature of the Godhead and this inherent degree of independence of the Person of Christ from the Person of the Holy Spirit that God, in the person of the Son, is able to become fully human.
The Roman doctrine of grace also reveals this lack of participation in the interior life of the Trinity. As was pointed out earlier, to fully experience the Person of the Holy Spirit one must be able to experience the uncreated energies of God, since the Holy Spirit is fully uncreated and not incarnate. Without this capacity to experience the uncreated energies of God man is left to only an indirect experience of the Spirit.
The following is taken from "Faith of Our Fathers", Pt. II. A Conversion to Orthodoxy, c. The consequences.
Roman theology does not even provide for the possibility of a direct, tangible experience with the actual Holy Spirit within this world, as it does not accept the Orthodox conception of the "energies" of God. Instead of a direct experience of the grace of the Holy Spirit, it allows for what it calls "habitual" grace, a grace that is created. However, the only aspect of grace that can be considered to be created is that aspect of grace which is the Body and Blood and Mind and Soul of Jesus Christ. Since Jesus is fully human and He receives His humanity from Mary, these are the created aspects of His being, though they are in hypostatic union with His divine nature. The Eucharist, also the Body and Blood of Christ, can also be considered to have a created aspect to it. Thus, the concept of created grace is valid only if it is understood to mean the corporeal mind, soul, and body of Christ, which is hypostatic union with His uncreated divinity. However, the Holy Spirit is not an incarnate Person, as is Christ, thus there is no created aspect to Him. Without the concept of divine energies as expounded by the Orthodox Church there can be no direct experience of the Holy Spirit within this world. Consequently, following the Roman view, man can never develop a complete relationship with God within this world. This is a de facto denial of Christ's promise to send the Holy Spirit to His followers, and is definitely an impediment to understanding what salvation truly is, and to acquiring it. Habitual grace as Rome defines it is not sanctifying grace because Rome does not allow that man can experience uncreated grace within this world, and true grace, while having the created element of Christ's human nature, must also be considered to posses His uncreated divine nature. As habitual grace is defined by Rome, it is but a created manifestation of man's positive reaction to God's sustaining grace. It seems to me that what Rome is defining as created grace is actually the created reflections of the platonic universal ideals which we are called to model our actions upon, which, when we do, are then deemed to be "created grace". However, these universal ideals should not themselves be considered to be attributes of grace unless they are considered to be thoughts of the created mind of Christ, for they then would be in hypostatic union with His divinity, thus fully in union with uncreated grace. Otherwise, they should be considered to be grace inspired concepts that are created within the human mind and soul, by way of Adam, and which are meant to guide us to correct thought and actions. I think that Rome's explanation of habitual grace is in fact a good explanation of how God's sustaining grace operates in this world. God's sustaining grace has always existed in this world and is meant to lead people to a fuller awareness of God and His truths. Platonic ideals are the result of the affect of God's sustaining grace upon the human mind, and actually reflect concepts created by God within Adams mind and soul which are meant to guide him and us to a fuller knowledge of God's truth and will. Since we are free-willed beings, however, we freely choose our response to grace inspired ideas. If we react properly, we will eventually come to know and accept Jesus Christ as the Son of God, become a member of His True Church, and, through sacramental grace, have the opportunity to fully and directly experience the Holy Spirit. Without the sacramental grace offered to us by God through His Church, however, we cannot respond perfectly to the Holy Spirit because our experience of the Spirit is indirect and incomplete. Even with sacramental grace there still needs to be a growth in one's capacity to experience the fullness of grace, this then culminating in a complete experience with the fully uncreated Holy Spirit. Otherwise, we will have a tendency to view the Holy Spirit as an abstract concept rather than as an actual person whom we can experience.
The roots of the barrier created by Rome between God's grace and man again can be traced back to ancient Roman teachings which emphasize the unity of the Trinity to a great degree and which do not emphasize the difference between uncreated and created sufficiently. This tendency is reflected in the acceptance of the filioque, which partially resulted from assuming that since Christ sends the Holy Spirit to created man He must also give procession to the Spirit, and also in some interpretations of St. Augustine's attempts to describe man's nature as being modeled after the Trinity, these sometime revealing an inappropriate confusing of the created with the uncreated. These problems reflect limitations in Rome's ontology. Rome doesn't properly distinguish between the essence of God and His operations and thus cannot provide an adequate explanation as to how the Holy Spirit can be directly experienced within this world, then claims that He can't be, and is experienced only in the form of a created grace. But according the Orthodox view, since the Holy Spirit is fully uncreated He cannot be experienced as a created grace. If one then says that this created grace is the created soul of Christ, this is fine, but, if one says that even when experiencing the soul of Christ one cannot experience the uncreated energies of the Holy Spirit but instead simply experiences the Holy Spirit in Christ, then one is inappropriately confusing Christ and the Spirit in such a way as to not allow the Spirit His own Personhood, while simultaneously creating a barrier between Christ's soul and the uncreated Holy Spirit, since in this case experiencing Christ's soul does not enable one to experience the Person of the Holy Spirit. This is the deficiency that leads Rome to keep man separated from the Holy Spirit within this world. Rome then claims that in Heaven man will experience the essence of God, which, according to Orthodox understanding is impossible, since the essence of God is unapproachable, even in Heaven. But since Rome does not distinguish between God's essence and His operating energies, it has no choice but to believe that the essence of God is experienced in Heaven, otherwise there would never be a direct experiencing of the Spirit for man, not even in Heaven. Again this line of reasoning reflects Rome's emphasis on the separation of God and man, a separation that cannot be overcome in this world, even through Christ, and, because it has redefined Christ with the filioque, it does not see Christ accurately, so it does not understand that through Christ the Person of the Holy Spirit can be fully experienced. It is through our unity with Christ that we are able to directly experience the Holy Spirit as He proceeds from the Father, but to know this one must experience this, and to experience this one must know the true Christ.
Not understanding the distinction between God's essence and His operations is one factor that has helped led Rome to confuse created and uncreated reality. This is true in it's understanding of grace, and is also true in it's understanding, or lack of understanding, of the relationship between supernatural and natural reality. Rome has a tendency to treat certain aspects of supernatural reality, such as Heaven, Hell, and souls, and this includes Christ's soul, as if they are uncreated, when in fact, they are created, and though invisible, corporeal. As pointed out by St. John of Damascus, only the uncreated Trinity is truly incorporeal. Again, the heart of Rome's problem is that it doesn't emphasis the importance of distinguishing between created and uncreated as they should. This then leads them to sometimes confuse the two, as in the case of grace, and also, in not seeing that supernatural and natural reality are actually a single created reality. A few years ago Pope John Paul II claimed that Heaven and Hell are not physical places. This reveals to me that he is neglecting the fact that Heaven and Hell are created, not uncreated, realities that could well have physical attributes that are not unrelated to the physical attributes of this world. After all, if man is made in the image of God, and if God becomes incarnate as a human being in this world, and if there is to be a bodily resurrection, then why wouldn't the Heaven that God creates resemble in some ways the world which we, including the Incarnate Son, already inhabit? Here again we have the Roman tendency to separate man from God, defining God's dwelling place, Heaven, as completely detached from man's.
It is my opinion that the main problems in today's Roman Church can be traced directly back to a weak Roman ontology which helped to bring about the filioque. The filioque inevitably defines either a monophysitic Christ, because it undermines the possibility that Christ takes on a truly human nature, or, a nestorian Christ, if one attempts to say that His divine nature, separate from His human nature, causes the Holy Spirit. The former gives us a Christ, and a God, who is so distant from us in both body and spirit that we have difficulty in relating to Him, and this, I believe, is reflected in the early Roman Church and in some aspects of the Church even today. As stated earlier, it is my belief that Thomas Aquinas attempted to bring humanity closer to God with his theological approach, but it was a flawed attempt because it did not recognize the fundamental problem of Roman doctrine, which is the barrier that it had created between man and God with it's Trinitarian doctrine and it's doctrine of grace. Ironically, though, his approach to theology helped to bring about a new modern day Roman Christ, a humanist Christ, developed as a model for Christians to follow while living out their lives in this world. This is a Christ who is created in the image of man, one who uses all the same attributes that we as human beings use in partaking in life. This would be good if it weren't for the fact that the barrier between man and God found in the early Roman theology still exists, but now also becomes manifested as a barrier between Christ's human nature, as defined by modern Roman theology, and His divine nature, as defined by ancient Roman theology. Consequently, the early Roman Christ evolves into a nestorian Christ, one in which His divine nature is detached from his human nature because His human nature, living in the world through humanity, is uninformed, or indirectly informed, by His divine nature.
This nestorian Christ is reflected in many ways in the modern Roman Church, but it's seeds are clearly seen in the Roman conception of grace. Since according to Roman doctrine uncreated actual grace is not physically available to us in this world, as all grace which we directly experience is a created grace, would not this then mean that when we partake of the Eucharist we only directly experience the created aspect of Christ's being, His humanity, comprised of His Body, Blood and Soul? Also, when Christ walked the Earth two thousand years ago and a person touched Him, was that person touching both His created body and His divinity or was he touching just His created body? If we say that he was touching only Christ's created human body then are we not inappropriately separating His divinity from His humanity. Are we not called by the Council of Chalcedon to neither separate nor confuse Christ's humanity and divinity? I suppose that the Roman response to this would be that when one touches the body of Christ one also touches His created grace, thus His divinity. Then the issue becomes whether or not it is true that to function in this world as a human being God must create not only a human body and soul for Himself, but also a new form of grace. But at Chalcedon, where did the Fathers explain that the perfect hypostatic union between Christ's divinity and humanity includes the creation of a new form of grace? When it is said that Christ is incarnate as a human being, does this not mean that He becomes human as we are human, though without sin. Is Christ's humanity not sufficient to enable us to experience His divinity, or must there also be some type of addition to the Incarnation, an }incarnation of grace"? With the Roman approach, it seems that Christ's grace needs to be considered as created more and above His created body and soul. This is not what Chalcedon says.
This problem of needing to define an additional "incarnation of grace" over and above that of Christ's incarnation as a human being is the same problem that exists when one considers the Holy Spirit from the Roman perspective. The Roman view necessitates that if we are to experience the Holy Spirit He must have a created element to Him; but He is not an incarnate person so one cannot say that He has a created element to Him, except in His relationship to the created body, soul and mind of Christ. If one accepts that the created aspect of His grace is the body and soul of Christ, then why don't they give us access to the uncreated Spirit? These problems all reflect an unclear understanding of the relationship between Christ's divinity and humanity, and the resulting separation of His humanity from ours that inevitably comes about in a Roman approach to the Trinity which incorrectly defines Christ's divinity with the filioque.
One might ask that if it is true that the only created element of God's grace is the body and soul of Christ and this is the only way through which the uncreated energies of God operate and are experienced in Creation, then how did God operate in Creation before the Incarnation of Christ? I think the answer to this lays in understanding the purpose of Creation. Some people have the mistaken notion that Christ's Incarnation is a response to Adam's sin, but this is not true. Whether Adam sinned or not, Christ was destined to be incarnated in the body (This idea was also expressed by St. Maximos the Confessor). It must be understood that the purpose of Creation has always been to the Incarnation of God; the two cannot be separated. The consequence of Adam's sin was the Crucifixion of Christ, not His Incarnation. It can be said that in a particular manner the Incarnation of Christ really begins with the creation of Creation, for it is here where the substances that were to become His body and soul were created. After all, according to a present-day scientific understanding of the creation of the Universe, the substances, matter and energy, that were to become His body, as was all matter and energy in an altered form, were created at the creation of the Universe. Of course, this is even true for Adam's body according to Genesis, since it is formed from pre-existing clay. So isn't it also reasonable to assume that the substance that was to comprise created souls was also created at Creation. Doesn't psalm 138 in the Septuagint state, "you knew my unwrought substance", indicating that the substance of a body and soul exists before it is formed? Consequently, the created element through which the uncreated energies of God operated before the physical Incarnation of Christ could well be the substance that was to comprise His soul.
This concept of pre-existence can also be understood in terms of the creation of Adam. The creation of the body and soul of Adam embodies and includes the creation of all his descendant's bodies and souls, including Christ's, who becomes one of his descendants. But in reality it is the creation of Christ's body and soul, or at least the substances'that are to comprise His body and soul, that embodies the creation of all men/s souls, and the Incarnation of His physical body and soul are simply the culmination of His entering into Creation, this having begun with the Creation. It is then through the substances that comprise Christ's created body and soul, this substance included in Creation from the beginning within the Universe and within Adam's soul, by which sustaining grace operates. After all, it is through Christ that all things are made, and, man is made in the image of God, so God's image and substance must exist before or simultaneously with man's.
Evidence in Scripture that the soul is created before it's physical conception in the womb is in Jeremiah, Ch. I, line 5, where God says to Jeremiah, "before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee". Also psalm 138 in the Septuagint states, "you knew my unwrought substance", thus implying that there is something to know of a person before a person is formed. If one disagrees with the concept that Christ's soul, or at least the substance of His soul, must have been created at Creation, then one must accept the Roman concept of created grace, but with this grace being created at Creation. This is because if after the Incarnation it is required by man to have the created soul and body of Christ incorporated within him in order to interact with the uncreated energies of God, then surely man must have required some type of created element of grace in order to experience these uncreated energies before the Incarnation. Of course, I believe that what Rome actually means by created grace is the created soul and mind of Christ, though they themselves might not be to clear on this. It is my view that it is only through the created soul of Christ that any man can interact with the uncreated energies of God, since Christ is the bridge between the created and the uncreated. Thus, Christ's soul, or at least it's substance, must be created at Creation. This then would be the only way, for example, by which Moses, even though he lived in this world before Christ was born, could see God in the burning bush, this made possible by the intrinsic unity that would exist between the soul of Moses and the created substance that would become Christ's soul, this unity reflected in the fact that both Moses and Christ are descendants of Adam. Otherwise one could say that Moses interacted with the uncreated energies of God through His own created faculties and did not need the created soul of Christ to do so. This then undermines the Incarnation, and Christianity itself, as it denies that Christ is the only bridge between the uncreated and created.
It is also my belief that the early Church's tendencies toward a monophysitic Christ contributed to the development of the modern Papacy. Since man is defined as thoroughly detached from God, he needs the Pope to know God, and the Pope lays claim to being the bridge between God and man. In the post Aquinas Church, the Pope then also becomes the definer of the humanist Christ. This has also led to the development of a Church in which it's worldly structure has to a degree become a substitute for the Holy Spirit, who has become somewhat alienated from the Roman Church through it's theology. While this may be an overly simplified and exaggerated characterization of the Roman Church, none the less it points out the problems that can result when a church does not stay strictly loyal to the true spirit of apostolic authority in defining it's doctrines It is my view that today the Roman Church has two different Christs; a monophysitic Christ, created by early Roman theology and the filioque, and a nestorian Christ, created by the grafting of a humanist Christ onto the monophysitic Christ, a graft that didn't quite take. The net result is a schizophrenic Christ. Today the modern Roman Church struggles to reconcile these two Christs, as the conservatives in the Church, who prefer a monophysitic Christ who depends upon them to keep the unholy masses in line, seek to maintain a tight centralized control over the Church, while the humanists in the Church struggle to open it to new ideas, but don't seem to realize that without the proper method of discerning the Holy Spirit's intent this could lead to serious errors, and that the Church has already impeded it's ability to discern the Spirit with the filioque and it's notion of papal infallibility.