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To: Wyrd bið ful aræd
I do recall an Orthodox bishop (Bishop Ware(?)) stating the issue is more semantic than doctrinal, which I think unfortunately is the attitude of people who want this whole disagreement to just go away for the sake of unity...Were it only that easy.

I've heard Metropolitan Zizioulas make the argument. I doubt either he or Bishop Ware want the issue to "go away".

We shouldn't forget that there is a pre-Filioque Credo in the Latin Church. When the Creed is sung in Greek at Rome it is sung without the filioque.

The idea as I've heard it is that Greek ekporeuein and Latin procedere do not mean exactly the same thing. The Greek implies procession from an ultimate source, while the Latin can admit a procession through intermediates: similar to the old Greek formula "proceeds from the Father through (dia) the Son". If that proves to be the case, it has really been an issue of semantics all along.

3 posted on 10/09/2015 4:30:43 PM PDT by Claud
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To: Claud
"I've heard Metropolitan Zizioulas make the argument. I doubt either he or Bishop Ware want the issue to "go away"."

I suppose "want the issue to go away" is a poor choice of words. Rather, there are parties on both sides that want to resolve the dispute without either side having to admit grave theological error going back 1000-odd years, so saying that the Churches simply misunderstood each other's theology on the subject is an attractive solution. But considering the learned minds on both sides that have hashed this issue about down through the ages, were it really a simple matter of semantics rather than dogma you'd think that it would have been resolved long ago.

The idea that, "from the Father and the Son" and, "from the Father through the Son," are interchangeable statements (with the latter presumably being acceptable to the Orthodox Churches), seems to be the current approach to resolving the split in that light. CCC 248 states,

"At the outset the Eastern tradition expresses the Father's character as first origin of the Spirit. By confessing the Spirit as he "who proceeds from the Father", it affirms that he comes from the Father through the Son.77 The Western tradition expresses first the consubstantial communion between Father and Son, by saying that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque). It says this, "legitimately and with good reason",78 for the eternal order of the divine persons in their consubstantial communion implies that the Father, as "the principle without principle",79 is the first origin of the Spirit, but also that as Father of the only Son, he is, with the Son, the single principle from which the Holy Spirit proceeds.80 This legitimate complementarity, provided it does not become rigid, does not affect the identity of faith in the reality of the same mystery confessed."

To me, this seems like a muddling for the purpose of stating Catholic Dogma in a manner acceptable to the Orthodox, rather than a definitive statement, and I don't see it satisfying either party in the long run. I don't know if the Orthodox, by and large, would simply accept a re-wording of the Latin theology that the Spirit proceeds through the Son, in the sense that the Latin Church means, although I'd be glad to find out I'm wrong on that score.

4 posted on 10/09/2015 10:30:17 PM PDT by Wyrd bið ful aræd (Exsurge, Domine, et judica causam tuam)
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