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?
By the 7th century Rome was being excoriated throughout the East because of the filioque. It was at that point that the “explanation” that Filioque didn’t mean “and the Son” but rather “through the Son” started to gain currency. There never has been any explanation as to why Rome simply didn’t just say “through the Son”, which of course Latin, with all due respect to +Maximos the Confessor, is quite capable of expressing clearly and directly. I have my own ideas as to why but they are neither here nor there.
What thgey wrote is not binding. The pronoucements of an Ecumenical Council are.
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.
So have wee. Read +Greagory Palamas (13th century). There is no doubt that the Spirit proceeds through the Son, but, as +Palamas puts it, as regards His existence, the Spirit proceeds from the Father. Remember, although the Word and the Spirit are co-eternal with the Father, it is the Father who gave rise to everything and all, including the divivity, and is the only one without a cause.
Filioque disregards thre fundamental statement of the source from which He proceeds, as regards His existence.
I am confident that while the Pope will defend the Catholic faith, he is very much aware of the correctness of the Greek position. If a language cannot adequately translate the original, then the language is inadequate to use in translation.