Like I said, you're not a trial lawyer. Lying or insanity has nothing, usually, to do with what people see and hear and then recall even minutes later, let alone months or years later. Sometimes the differences can be dramatically different, not just in trivial matters but also in material ones.
"Whatever the precise meaning of "proceeded" is, I wouldn't think it would infringe on the Three being co-eternal and co-equal."
That's the problem, FK. You don't know the meaning of ἐκπορευόμενον. BTW, in the confusing English translation, it's "proceeds" not proceeded and the word has nothing to do with "sending" but, as Kosta points out, with origin. This makes a difference because we are trying, in the Creed, to describe the Triune God we worship. It is not bad theology to say that the Spirit is sent by the Father or by the Father through the Son but that is not what the Creed is taking about.
[Kolo to FK] Lying or insanity has nothing, usually, to do with what people see and hear and then recall even minutes later, let alone months or years later. Sometimes the differences can be dramatically different, not just in trivial matters but also in material ones.
Back in the early 1970's when the IRA and the British troops were in a real shooting war im Northern Ireland, a British reporter David Tereshchuk was narrating his own experience of an incident known as the Bloody Sunday (1972). He said he distinctly remembered a British paratrooper in a red beret (which is worn by British "paras" in garrison and nonocmbat situations) pointing a rifle directly at him. This terrifying moment was apparently indelibly burned into this reporter's memory as he could vividly recall the details.
Unfortunately, someone came up with a photograph of that moment taken by another reporter, which clearly shows the paratrooper had a steel helmet and it wasn't red! The only thing that was more bizarre is that the Tereshchuk admitted that even after seeing the photograph his brain refused to accept it and when he closes his eyes he still sees a paratrooper in a red beret!
Eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable, especially with passage of time. Just as people believe what they want to believe, what they are comfortable with, they also remember what they want to remember, consciously or unconsciously. This is a fact that has been established by countless repeated experiments and anyone who doubts is welcome to do their own research.
Now, someone will come up with "Yeah, but John was 'inspired' and God woldn't let him remember incorrectly," or something to thast effect. Of course there is no evidence that John was "inspired" suggesting any type of error-protection, writing almost 70 years after the alleged events, quoting supposedly verbatim what Jesus said.
Maybe he was inspired (moved, motivated) to write about his faith, and his own personal experience, as best as he could remember, which of course is not lying or seeking to deceive.
Besides, the Gospel of John is so heavily interpolated that one can't even be sure which of the authors was "remembering." And then there are copyists who added and erred all over the place with each successive hand made copy, it is pointless to even talk about what John & al originally wrote.
Considering that the earliest complete copies of John's manuscripts are almost a century removed from the purported original manuscript and that they exist in numerous variants, just think how many hand-made copies were made in that century, each carrying its own errors and omissions and deletions and additions and "harmonizations" and doctrinal "adjustments" as each scribe saw fit!
Here is the hint, FK, to understanding the original language in this case: εκ or εξ. It means from, or out of. :)
Ekporeuomai (see Matthew 3:5; Matthew 4:4; Matthew 15:11; Matthew 15:18; Matthew 17:21; Matthew 20:29, John 15:26 Luke 4:37, etc. [KJV]) in all instances signifies the origin, like "welling from." Pouremai means a movement of some kind, a departure, but ek places it at the origin.
As Kolo observes, ti has nothing to do with "sending" but originating. Given that both the Word and the Spirit are caused by the Father, and only the Father is without a cause, the Father is the source of everything and all, including the Godhead, i.e. the so-called "monarchy" of the Father, the essentuial part of orthodox Triniarian dogma. From what Protestants, at least on these forums, write about the Holy Trinity, the monarchy of the Father doesn't exit in their "trinitarian" ideation.
Like I said, you're not a trial lawyer. Lying or insanity has nothing, usually, to do with what people see and hear and then recall even minutes later, let alone months or years later. Sometimes the differences can be dramatically different, not just in trivial matters but also in material ones.
I think we must not be hearing each other on this one. :) Everything you say above is very basic and of course correct. Perhaps I should not have commented on a result based on an impossible premise. I am fine with leaving it that I agree with you that very often eyewitness testimony makes lousy evidence.
BTW, in the confusing English translation, it's "proceeds" not proceeded and the word has nothing to do with "sending" but, as Kosta points out, with origin. This makes a difference because we are trying, in the Creed, to describe the Triune God we worship. It is not bad theology to say that the Spirit is sent by the Father or by the Father through the Son but that is not what the Creed is talking about.
Assuming you would say that "origin" does not negate the concept of "eternalness", of what import is origin in describing a co-eternal and co-equal God? If it is purely extra-scriptural then we may well ascribe different meanings to the Creed we jointly recite. That wouldn't be the end of the world for me since Creeds are only human summaries of what I consider authoritative, they don't have authority on their own.