“By “sua sponte” do you mean without the East, or without a future Council?”
Without a future ecumenical council which necessarily means with the East since by definition the council must be of the Oecoumene, the commonwealth of God’s people on earth, The Whole Church. But even then, all such a council could do would be to elaborate, not change. Could “filioque” be an elaboration? If one is honest, of course not. To accept that the filioque means something other than what it clearly says is disingenuous, for example, to say that it means “from the Father through the Son”, which is of course true. It is also true that filioque doesn’t say that. Filioque, per se, denies the monacrhy of the Father and that’s heresy. Now we can all pretend that filioque in Latin and English or French means “...”from the Father through the Son”, but doesn’t that just bring contempt on The Church? Rome was wrong in the filioque formulation. It should simply admit it and scrap the fig leaf.
“we had always implicitly understood the filioque in the Creed to begin with—even when it wasn’t explicitly stated.”
I don’t believe that for a minute. Neither did centuries of popes, which is a good thing because, as I said, if filioque means what it actually says, as opposed to what one might wish it says, its a Trinitarian heresy.
Oh, I dunno all that. Look, I don't want to rehash this argument, particularly as I'm of absolutely no theological caliber to discuss it intelligently.
All I can speak to is the history of it. And there I can advise you to just take a look and see how may of the pre-schism Western Fathers taught the filioque, including Ambrose, Augustine, and others. You know, Kolo, that I'm always ribbing the Anglos for telling Greeks what Greek means. Greeks should be allowed to say what Greek means, and I would hope that we Latins could be extended the same courtesy with our own language. One simply cannot assume that the Latin terms we use have the exact same semantic boundaries and the exact same philosophical implications.
To wit, here's what St. Maximos the Confessor had to say about it:
Those of the Queen of Cities [Constantinople] have attacked the synodal letter of the present very holy Pope, not in the case of all the chapters that he has written in it, but only in the case of two of them. One relates to the theology [of the Trinity] and according to this, says 'the Holy Spirit also has his ekporeusis from the Son.'I agree with you that a Council cannot change the deposit of faith, but I submit that this wouldn't be a change. We have always understood the procession of the Spirit in this context, and that is the context in which the Latin half of the Church (and the Pope too I'll wager) originally ratified and accepted the language of the Creed.The other deals with the divine incarnation.With regard to the first matter, they [the Romans] have produced the unanimous evidence of the Latin Fathers, and also of Cyril of Alexandria, from the study he made of the gospel of St John.On the basis of these texts, they have shown that they have not made the Son the cause of the Spirit -- they know in fact that the Father is the only cause of the Son and the Spirit, the one by begetting and the other by procession -- but that they have manifested the procession through him and have thus shown the unity and identity of the essence.
They [the Romans] have therefore been accused of precisely those things of which it would be wrong to accuse them, whereas the former [the Byzantines] have been accused of those things it has been quite correct to accuse them [Monothelitism].
In accordance with your request I have asked the Romans to translate what is peculiar to them (the 'also from the Son') in such a way that any obscurities that may result from it will be avoided. But since the practice of writing and sending [the synodal letters] has been observed, I wonder whether they will possibly agree to doing this.It is true, of course, that they cannot reproduce their idea in a language and in words that are foreign to them as they can in their mother-tongue, just as we too cannot do.
Anyway, didn't the latest joint document advise all parties to specifically refrain from calling the other heretical while we sorted all this out?
I must admit I’ve never really understood how there’s a fundamental difference between the phrases “the Father and the Son” and “the Father through the Son”. At least when our understanding of the Triune God is applied.
After all, as Trinitarians, we don’t believe that the Persons of the Trinity were ever created. We believe they always existed. Thus, to say “proceeds from the Father through the Son” is the same thing as saying “proceeds from the Father and the Son”, as the Holy Spirit is the Person of the Love of the Father to the Son (and the Son to the Father). Thus, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father to and through the Son, and then back to the Father.
IOW, one way I think of the Trinity is as a circle, with two points at opposite ends of the diameter thereof representing the Father and the Son, and the circle itself is the Holy Spirit, flowing back and forth between the two. Thus, He (the Holy Spirit) “proceeds from the Father through the Son” and “from the Son to the Father”, (in the endless loop of the circle) and thus both notions are more accurately represented by the phrase “from the Father and the Son”. IOW, the phrase “from the Father through the Son” isn’t wrong, it’s just incomplete, since the Father is no more the “creator” of the Holy Spirit than the Son.
Kolokotronis:
I think the term “heresy” with respect to the filoque is a little strong. The Western/Latin Fathers even before St. Augustine (e.g. St. Ambrose, St, Hillary of Potiers) and going back to Tertullian while he was still an orthodox Catholic, all taught the filoque. The Filoque is consisent with Sacred Scripture (c.f. John 16: 1-15; Gal 4:6; Phil 1: 19; 1 Pet 1: 11) and is also clearly taught in the Athansian Creed (400 AD) in line 23, which suggests that the great Eastern Doctor St. Athanaisus taught the filoque.
http://www.ccel.org/creeds/athanasian.creed.html
While the Athanasian Creed is no longer used in Liturgy in the Catholic Church (Nicene and Apostles are the two Creeds used in Liturgy), it is still used as part of the dogmatic theology of the Catholic Church and is still recognized as such as the article from Cardinal Avery Dulles points out
http://www.ctsfw.edu/library/files/pb/1232
The article reminds us that at the Western Council of Toledo in 589, the filoque was first used. While it did not come to use in Rome till much later, there were no charges of heresy at this time by anyone in the East. Cardinal Dulles does an excellent job of summing up the issue on pp. 44-45. Dulles points out that the Eastern/Greek theologians argued that the filoque was an addition that violated the Council of Ephesus (431 AD) which said “no one should profess, or write, or compose any faith other than what was defined by the holy fathers gathered at Nicea with the Holy Spirt”. At the Council of Florence, the Latin Fathers responded that these words meant the faith could not be changed, not words. Dulles points out that the Latin Fathers intepretation was correct as the Nicene Creed which the council fathers at Ephesus were referring to did not have the words that “were added” at the Council of Constantinopile (381 AD) and this version of the Nicene Creed was not actually approved until the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD).
Dulles lays out a clear case that the Western Church was not wrong in doing what it did. Dulles states that the “filoque” is “not the only orthodox way of expressing the procession of the Holy Spirit”, it does communicate an important truth. He closes by stating “the one faith may be expressed in different formulations that are compatible and mutually complementary.”
God bless our Orthodox friends and I hope this Catholic’s post has helped the discussion in a positive and charitable way.
Regards
Exactly. At the very core, the filioque, taken as the "beginning" or "origin" (which is what the Greek wording means), is a Trinitarian heresy.
There is only one origin of everything and all, and that is the Father. The filioque, as you said, Kolo, destroys the monarchy of the Father.