What Does  Filioque Mean?

Hello, I'm Kevin DeYoung, pastor at Christ's Coven a Church in Matthew's North Carolina,

and you are listening to Doctrine Matters.

Each week on Doctrine Matters, we explore the rich doctrine of the Christian faith.

We'll pull from the Church's long history, complex debates, and over the course of the

year, the hope is that we'll begin to frame out what is a clear, accessible, systematic

theology, be looking at different Christian doctrines and their relationship to each

other.

And the hope Lord willing is we will grasp more and more the riches and the beauty of

God's Word.

Thanks for listening.

Let's turn to this week's Doctrine Matters.

Last week we began to talk about this doctrine of the Trinity.

Francis Turitan famously said that the two most difficult doctrines in his opinion, and

I would take his opinion very seriously, have to do with the one God and three persons,

the Doctor of the Trinity, and then the one person of Christ and the two natures will

come to that several weeks later with Christology.

So we are dealing with mysteries here.

But remember, a mystery is something that there are elements to it that belong to God.

Do it around me 29, 29, there are things that He has revealed that belong to us, and

there are things that are hidden that belong to God.

Mysteries that language does not mean irrationalities, but rather things that because we're not

God, we can't fully comprehend.

And the doctrine of the Trinity is one of them.

But theologians have spent a lot of time trying to give the right terms, often these are

Greek terms or Latin terms, to help us say what we want to say.

People can be impatient with these terms, but a big part of learning theology is learning

the right vocabulary.

And before you say, well, we just need the Bible, I don't need this vocabulary.

Well, you're going to be hard pressed to come up with better terms than the ones that

have served the church for 1500 years.

There's a reason that we still talk about these terms, because they're important to say,

but when we say three and one, we mean this, but we don't mean that.

So let's talk about a few of these technical terms.

One is the term Philly-OK.

Philly-OK is Latin for and the sun, so, OK, meaning and at the end, and then like Philly-O-Pi-A-T-Philly-O-The-Sun.

This is one of the main reasons why the Eastern Church and the Western Church split.

Now, there's lots of other reasons that have to do with geography and polity and politics

and history.

And even this theological debate was wrapped up in a lot of other things about who calls

the shots in the church.

But the Nicene Creed, as most of us probably listening to this, would recite it, has a

language that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Sun.

That's Philly-OK.

Now, it's true that that term was added later.

So the Council of Nicene Creed is 325, but what we really know as the Nicene Creed is

formulated at the next Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in 381.

And then this term, really a couple hundred years later, before this term is added Philly-OK.

When the Western Church added it, it likely didn't think that it was doing anything new

or novel.

It was using probably existing liturgies.

There were some translation issues.

They likely thought that this was already part of the Creed that they were passing on.

But the Eastern Church understandably thought, what are you doing?

You can't just mess with the Nicene Creed and add something to it.

And there were also differences of theology on whether this word should be there.

Philly-OK.

And you say, what's the big deal?

Whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Sun?

Well, in the Eastern Church, they were concerned that this would undermine the authority of the

Father.

That this would mean that the Sun was, you know, of course, equal with the Father in

terms of ontology, but that there would be sort of two heads of the Trinity, the Father

and the Sun, and then the Spirit proceeds from both of them.

Whereas the Western Church, dealing with Aryanism still and offshoots of it, was concerned

that, well, without this, are we sure that we really have the full deity of the Sun?

Now, the East, we ought to sympathize with its reasons for being wary of the clause, and

probably most people were motivated then, and for the most part now, to try to protect

true theological statements.

At the same time, as a good Western Christian, and here we're talking about Catholics and

Protestants who would both read the Creed in this way, I think there are good reasons

biblically and theologically for including that statement about the Spirit proceeds

from the Father and the Sun.

One, the Holy Spirit is sent from the Father and the Sun, John 167, and it stands to

reason that this mission, this sending in time, would reflect something of eternal procession.

So when we talk about proceeds from the Father and the Sun, we are talking about eternally.

So we're talking about this mystery, just like the Sun has begotten of the Father and

the essence of the Father communicated to the Sun, the essence, the godness of the Spirit

proceeds from the Father and the Sun.

That's what the West is saying, because in time, we know that the Spirit was sent by the

Father and the Sun, and that therefore stands to reason, reflected in some eternal procession.

A second reason, the Holy Spirit is often called the Spirit of Christ, and if he is the

Spirit of Christ, we should conclude he is the Spirit from Christ, not just in time,

but from eternity.

And third, Jesus tells the disciples that the Spirit glorifies him.

He takes what is his, will declare it to them.

If the Sun glorifies the Father, speaks only with the Father, gives him, and the Sun

is generated from the Father, not created, be careful there, but eternal generation

from the Father, then the Spirit who glorifies the Sun, and speaks only with the Sun gives

him, must know it's origin in some respect, again, not a created being, but it's, it's

origin.

It's the communication of its essence from the Father and the Sun.

And then a fourth reason, Christ breathed out the Spirit on his disciples.

So if he has done that in time, breathing out the Spirit, shouldn't we think he breathed

out the Spirit?

That's what procession, or sometimes, spirition means, now it's true, John 1526 is

the Spirit proceeds from the Father, and it does not save there, proceeds from the Sun.

But the latter truth is implied by the teaching in John 16, that whatever the Father has,

the Sun has as well.

Spirit does not proceed from the Father and the Sun as if they were two separate principles,

nor does the Spirit proceed from both as if the Father breathes into the Sun and then

the Sun breathes again.

So when we say that, it's not like passing a baton, the Father passes the Spirit to

the Sun and then the Sun passes the Spirit on.

No, the breathing power, as turrets and puts it, is numerically one.

The language of through the Sun means the Father is the fountain of deity.

So proceeds, that's another way to put it, that was trying to find some common ground

between East and West, is to say, well, the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the

Sun.

So not two principles here, but from the Father through the Sun.

This is called the double procession of the Spirit, Father and Son, Philly, Ok and

the Sun.

Yes, it's complicated, you're driving in the car or folding laundry.

It's hard to grasp this reading the page, let alone listening to a five minute explanation,

but it does matter.

It does tell us something that the Spirit is the Spirit of Christ and that means our theology

is according to the Word and our worship by the Spirit are always connected.

There is a profound truth there of connecting the Word and Spirit in teaching this double

procession that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Sun.

Let's see if we have time for a couple other mind bending terms.

Here's the second one, Greek term, paracaresis.

Jesus says, I am in the Father and the Father is in me.

What does it mean?

I am in the Father, the Father is in me.

We usually understand these verses to be about Christ's deity, and that's true, but

they also speak to the mutual indwelling.

That's what we mean, paracaresis, the mutual indwelling, not just Father and Son, but

Father, Son and Holy Spirit, distinct persons, and yet, here to use an analogy, we don't

want to think of them as three faces in the yearbook that you turn to the divine yearbook

and say, oh, that's the Father and then that's the Son.

And then here's a third picture and you can line them all up and there they are.

Paracaresis reminds us that the Father in dwells the Son, the Son in dwells the Spirit,

the Spirit in dwells the Father and you can reverse the order in each pair.

The Greek term is paracaresis in Latin, circuminsession.

Another word, circulatio, is also used.

You hear our English word of circulation.

It's metaphorically a way to describe the unceasing circulation of the divine essence

that each person is in the other two while the others are in each one.

So at risk of putting this in physical terms, but we have to just grasp it some concrete

way of understanding this, you might say that paracaresis means all three persons occupy

the same divine space.

Think of the yearbook analogy.

We cannot see God without seeing all three persons at the same time.

But the three persons at the Trinity are all fully in one another and each person at

the Trinity is in full possession of the divine essence.

Now again, let's remember what we've said before.

The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, Spirit is not the Father.

So paracaresis does not deny any of that.

It wants to uphold that.

But what paracaresis wants to maintain is you cannot have one person, though distinct,

without having the other two.

And you cannot have any person of the Trinity without having the fullness of God.

Here's how a gustan put it.

Each are in each and all in each and each and all in all are one.

Very profound.

Here it is again from a gustan, each talking about the three persons, each are in each.

So each person is in each person and all in each and each and all in all are one.

So we have to rely on these careful distinctions.

We don't want to think of paracaresis, some have wrongly said this before,

as a kind of trinitarian dance that has social trinitarian implications.

And it really undermines the truth that paracaresis is meant to protect.

Because some people have said, oh, that word, choreography, doesn't that come?

They're related and this is like a dance.

And the three persons are doing a waltz or a jig together.

But that's really the opposite because that very picture is of three, you know,

faces in the yearbook, three people that are so close that they're doing the waltz together

when this is saying really something different that they circulate in one and another.

How can three persons simultaneously share the same undivided essence?

That's the question.

And the answer we want to give is not that the father, son and holy spirit

waltz and step with each other.

But the answer is that father, son and holy spirit co-in here in such a way

that the persons are always and forever with and in one another,

yet without merging, without blending, without confusion.

That's the doctrine of paracaresis now really quickly, just one more

because your heads aren't full already.

And this is the Greek word taxis.

It looks like the English word taxis, T-A-X-I-S.

Taxis is the Greek word for order.

In trinitarian theology, taxis is not meant to suggest a hierarchy of persons,

but an order of relations whereby God's inner and outer life is from the father

through the son by the spirit.

That's an order.

It's never in the reverse order.

It's never from the son through the father, from the spirit by the son.

No, there is an order.

No, this was a big debate eight or nine years ago.

And I really think that though there was a lot of heat, there was a lot of light too.

In this debate about how do we understand the persons of the Trinity?

Are they distinguished by eternal relations of authority and submission?

In what way might we say that the son is subordinate to the father?

And like so many things, especially in trinitarian theology,

we have to just slow down and say, okay, what do you mean?

Because there are plenty of good theologians who talk about the son as subordinate to the father.

But we have to be careful what we mean.

We don't want to mean any ontological subordination.

That's Aryanism, that they're not somehow equal in power, rank, and glory.

Nor do we want to suggest that the way we distinguish among them is by an eternal relation

of authority and submission.

We've already seen that the tradition of the church says we distinguish by their personal

properties, which is that the father is unbegotten of none.

The son is begotten in the spirit proceeds from the father and the son.

But there is a way properly to say the son is subordered.

That just means ordered under, not in rank, power, glory, or essence under the father

and then the spirit.

So this is the doctrine of taxes that there is an order, Zacharias or Sinus, for example,

author of the Heidegger-Ketakism says the father, therefore, is greater than the son,

not as to his essence, in which the son is equal with the father, but as to his office.

And human nature, so that the son took on the human nature.

In other words, we can speak of an order, so long as we understand, we're not talking

about, we are talking about Christ's mediatorial office and his earthly mission, not about his

divine person being inferior or subjugated to the father.

So her Sinus says that we can talk about the persons of the Godhead being distinguished

by their works add intra, it's Latin for, on the inside and by their mode of operating

add extra that is on the outside.

So that first distinction there add intra has to do with the way in which the three persons

relate to one another.

The father, we call the first person of the Trinity because he's the fountain of divinity.

The son is the second person because the divine essence is communicated to him from the

father and the spirit we call the third person, not because he's in third place, but because

the divine essence is communicated from the father through the son.

So that's what we mean add intra, the Trinity inside and then add extra how they relate

to their creatures or Sinus argues that while all the works toward their creatures come

by the common will and power that is inseparable operations, yet they are inflected in certain

ways.

The father works through the son, the son works by the Holy Spirit, it would not make

sense say the son sent the father or that the spirit breathed out the son, no, there

is an order to it.

Father sends the son, the son saves and sanctifies by the spirit.

That's what we mean by taxes and so when a qualified new on since we can talk about

the father, just again, very carefully, in a certain sense and not in another as being

greater than the son or the son being subordinate to the father, but we must be careful

because it's easily misunderstood and we never want to undermine the unity of persons,

one essence, one will, sharing in the same perfections.

So the three persons are not distinguished by roles of authority and submission, they

are distinguished at extra, that is by their mode of operating, by their workings, one

work of the Triune God, the father works by the son, the son works together with the

father, then through the spirit, they're distinguished at intra and that's reflected at extra

and the word that helpfully highlights what this doctrine is about is this word, taxes.

So an order in how their generation and procession works and then toward the outside world,

how they work in the world, that the father sends the son and the son then breathes out

the Holy Spirit.

Thanks again for joining us on Doctrine Matters, I'm your host, Kevin D. Young, our hope

and prayer is that this has been helpful to you as you look at scripture and try to understand

the best of our theological tradition as Christians.

Please consider subscribing to Doctrine Matters and if this has been encouraging, consider

passing it on to others.

If you'd like to learn more about this week's Doctrine, can ask your pastor for good resources

or check out my year-long mini-systematic theology book called Daily Doctrine, it's available

at printeraudiofromcrossway.org, The Doctrine Matters podcast is produced by Crossway.

To learn more, visit crossway.org.