Monday, December 13, 2021

Consubstantiality as a relative property

One of the persistent logical difficulties in discussing filioque is that Latin theology has two senses of the term "consubstantial" and Greek theology has only one. The shared sense is what I would call the absolute sense of consubstantiality; namely, that there are three divine Persons with one divine substance. This emerges immediately in the creature-Creator relation, in which the consubstantial Trinity stands on one side of the divide and creation on the other. The exact metaphysics of the connection across that boundary can vary considerably. 

There is a Latin tradition in which the category of relation is used to explain how God can create and act in creation without being changed by it, and that is to say that we are only relatively real to God, which is metaphysically real as a relation in us but requires no real distinction in God as object of that relation. Among other things, this prevents modal polytheism, in which God is really different in various possible worlds. The creature-Creator relation is explicitly analogized to the procession of the Holy Spirit in the context of the filioque by the Council of Florence as follows: "But the Father and the Son are not two principles of the holy Spirit, but one principle, just as the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit are not three principles of creation but one principle."

As indicated by the conciliar statement, this is not the only unique use of relations in the West, and it is the use of consubstantiality in the relational context that continues to be problematic. If absolute consubstantiality is the metaphysical use identified previously, let relative consubstantiality refer to the use of consubstantiality in the relational context. That happens in exactly one place: the relation of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son. Because there is no relation of opposition of the Holy Spirit to Paternity or Filiation, the Holy Spirit's relationship "sees" the Father and the Son as a single object, since they are consubstantial where no relation of opposition intervenes. While that concept may be implicitly be used by a number of Eastern Fathers who see the Holy Spirit as the completion of the Trinity, I know of only Gregory of Nyssa explicitly identifying a unique relational property of the Holy Spirit as the syndetikon (bond) of the Father and the Spirit or as the bond of unity between them. And even then, the Eastern authors do not expressly state that the defining relation of the Holy Spirit "sees" the Father and the Son as consubstantial. While some Orthodox Christians will accept the implicit concept of relative consubstantiality, many will reject it outright.

This usage of relative consubstantiality, consubstantiality seen as object of the Holy Spirit's relative property, appears constantly and repeatedly in the 1995 clarification without a word of qualification:

The Latin processio, on the contrary, is a more common term, signifying the communication of the consubstantial divinity from the Father to the Son and from the Father, through and with the Son, to the Holy Spirit
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In the West, the Filioque was confessed from the fifth century through the Quicumque (or "Athanasianum", DS 75) Symbol, and then by the Councils of Toledo in Visigothic Spain between 589 and 693 (DS 470, 485, 490, 527, 568), to affirm Trinitarian consubstantiality.
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As in the Latin tradition, it was expressed by the more common term of procession (proienai) indicating the communication of the divinity to the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son in their consubstantial communion
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the Father and the Son are consubstantial source of the procession (to proienai) of this same Spirit
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According to St Maximus, echoing Rome, the Filioque does not concern the ekporeusiV of the Spirit issued from the Father as source of the Trinity, but manifests his proienai (processio) in the consubstantial communion of the Father and the Son, while excluding any possible subordinationist interpretation of the Father's monarchy. 
[NOTE: This assumes that Maximus's statement that "[The Latins] know, indeed, that the Father is the sole Cause of the Son and of the Spirit, of one by generation and of the other by ekporeusiV — but they explained that the latter comes (proienai) through the Son, and they showed in this way the unity and the immutability of the essence" refers to relative consubstantiality of the Father and the Son.]
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The fact that in Latin and Alexandrian theology the Holy Spirit, proceeds (proeisi) from the Father and the Son in their consubstantial communion does not mean that it is the divine essence or substance that proceed in him, but that it is communicated from the Father and the Son who have it in common.
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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).
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Even if the Catholic doctrine affirms that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son in the communication of their consubstantial communion, it nonetheless recognizes the reality of the original relationship of the Holy Spirit as person with the Father, a relationship that the Greek Fathers express by the term ekporeusiV
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[FN 2] It is Tertullian who lays the foundations for Trinitarian theology in the Latin tradition, on the basis of the substantial communication of the Father to the Son and through the Son to the Holy Spirit.... This communication of the divine consubstantiality in the Trinitarian order he expresses with the verb "procedere"[.] ... St Augustine, however, takes the precaution of safeguarding the Father's monarchy within the consubstantial communion of the Trinity: "The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father as principle (principaliter) and, through the latter's timeless gift to the Son, from the Father and the Son in communion (communiter)"
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In the entire clarification, I found exactly one reference to absolute consubstantiality (from the Fourth Lateran): "Although other (alius) is the Father, other the Son, other the Holy Spirit, they are not another reality (aliud), but what the Father is the Son is and the Holy Spirit equally; so, according to the orthodox and catholic faith, we believe that they are consubstantial." All of the other references were to the relative consubstantiality of the Father and the Son! It's certainly not uncommon in religions dialogues like this for one side to just use a disputed term as if it's the only usage ("justification" comes to mind), but this seems tin-eared in a way that makes the whole effort seem wasted. When you know that the other side doesn't even accept something called "the consubstantial communion of the Father and the Son," why would you refer to the disputed concept over a dozen times without even remarking on it?

The 2002 statement The Filioque: A Church Dividing Issue? at least had the virtue of not doing that, but it also didn't address the issue. The relevant statement is as follows: "The Greek and Latin theological traditions clearly remain in some tension with each other on the fundamental issue of the Spirit’s eternal origin as a distinct divine person. By the Middle Ages, as a result of the influence of Anselm and Thomas Aquinas, Western theology almost universally conceives of the identity of each divine person as defined by its 'relations of opposition' – in other words, its mutually defining relations of origin - to the other two, and concludes that the Holy Spirit would not be hypostatically distinguishable from the Son if the Spirit 'proceeded' from the Father alone. In the Latin understanding of processio as a general term for 'origin,' after all, it can also be said that the Son 'proceeds from the Father' by being generated from him." This is all well and good, but it doesn't say a word about the Father and the Spirit being relatively consubstantial in the Holy Spirit's relation of opposition.

If one side says "what is not individual is common" and the other side says "yes, but we can view common properties both absolutely and relatively," then why isn't that the discussion?