St. Augustine famously wrote: “seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe so that you may understand.” His comment is applicable to Trinity Sunday. If we say we understand the Trinity then we probably don’t, because the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit is at the heart of our faith, and the finite cannot, by definition, grasp the Infinite. At best we see “through a glass darkly.”
That is not to surrender reason. God gave it to us so that we might come to a better understanding of Him, but He gave us other senses to make up for what reason alone cannot do. The Trinity is no more, or less amenable to reason than the other cornerstones of our Faith: that God became man in Jesus; and that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day. If, as our secular culture demands, we have to give a scientific justification for our beliefs, Christians have tended to go in two directions: a fundamentalist insistence on the literal truth of Scripture and its inerrancy (or on the authority of the Church and its inerrancy) or a gradual yielding of ground to allow one method of perceiving the world primacy, as though Reason and Imagination are somehow opposed to each other, rather then being complementary ways of seeing the world.
If we yield to the view that “science” can make no “sense” of concepts such as the Resurrection and the Trinity, we are going down the wrong road.. That would be to give “science” a say in how we exercise our reason which leaves no place for Imagination, Experience and Emotion; it also attributes to “science” a place it does not claim for itself, that of the final arbiter over what life is for and what it means to be human.
In retreat, the Church has tended, in public, to emphasise morality. This is not to say that is a bad thing, and, at least while morality bore the marks of its origin in Christian belief, it was an easy place for the Church to proclaim its utility. But as Society withdraws from that inheritance, it gets more difficult, which is why the Church has such trouble in areas such as LGBT rights; those areas where Society is furthest away from the shared inheritance, create a problem which many in the Church think is solvable only by yeilding further ground.
But our faith is not “applied morality”. Its purpose is not to control us and make us behave. That is another secularist fantasy made real by those who fail to enter into an imaginative understanding of Faith. Our Faith has nothing to do with being good and everything to do with hope and love directed toward the Creator who made us because He loves us. The Trinity is Love. As St Isaac wrote:
In love did He bring the world into existence; in love does He guide it during this its temporal existence; in love is He going to bring it to that wondrous transformed state, and in love will the world be swallowed up in the great mystery of Him who has performed all these things; in love will the whole course of the governance of creation be finally comprised.
That is the point being missed. Moral goodness is the product of loving God and of trying to be with Him as He is with us. As Martyn Percy writes in the Church Times:
God chose to abide with us in our temporality and frailty, so that we might abide with God in eternity. This is the heart of revelation: God is “with” us. Indeed, that small word “with” may be one of the most underrated in the scriptures. God always chooses to stay with us: we do not walk alone. We are never abandoned or orphaned: we are loved and adopted.
The Resurrection speaks to us of hope and God’s promise that death is not the end. The Trinity is the source of all love and life. As Malcolm Guite puts it in a wonderful poem which I commend to you all:
The Triune Poet makes us for His glory,
And makes us each the other’s inspiration.
He calls us out of darkness, chaos, chance,
To improvise a music of our own,
To sing the chord that calls us to the dance,
Three notes resounding from a single tone,
To sing the End in whom we all begin;
Our God beyond, beside us and within.
None of this is to deny the place of reason, but it is to put it in its place as one of the ways we engage with the world. But it is to remind us of what the atheist poet, Philip Larkin divined in his “An Arundel Tomb:”
And as we were created in love, so will we survive in it. Science has nothing to say here where the poets, musicians and artists alone can help our understanding.
In previous generations many scientists were quite happy to talk about the sense of wonder that both led them into scientific endeavours and that rewarded them whenever they encountered some outstandingly beautiful aspect of this universe. I think the wonder that is generated by contemplating a star-filled night sky and the wonder that flows from contemplating the Blessed Trinity both proceed from the same pause in thinking and beginning of delight that spontaneously appears whenever we encounter the One who underlies the each and the everything.
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An attack on reason and intellect by people within the Church has brought me close to apostasy on several occasions. Indeed, some Christians might declare that I am an apostate or heretic, or both. How is one to contend against such hatred?
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I hope that what I have written here will help, Nicholas. Reason takes us so far, but is not all God gives us. Our society makes a false idol of it.
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Indeed – reason is no match for the ineffable transcendant splendour of the living God.
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Well, Nicholas – I’ve seen some of what you have written and some things do give me cause for concern. `Reason’ and `intellect’ are not the same thing. And when you apply your `intellect’ to things such as pre-millenialism, post-millenialism, a-millenialism (and then you decide that you are a pre-millenialist) that looks like intellect; it doesn’t look like `reason’ in the way that Paul means when he tells you to `be transformed by the renewing of your mind’ (Romans 12v1). I have particular concern about how many so-called `Christians’ look to God’s promises concerning Israel (when Paul, in Romans 9-11 is solely concerned with salvation from sin through faith – and not in any sort of national salvation or return to historical borders) and then they take this as an excuse to overlook what is basically a campaign of ethnic cleansing – and, more recently, Trump’s proposed two-state solution, which looks like apartheid pure and simple.
This has support from `Christians’, who read their bible, believe that God has promised x,y and z for the future, are quite happy to see the USA/UK military giving God a helping hand – and these `Christians’ totally ignore the carnage going on on the ground to bring this about.
In recent years I have come to the conclusion that `Christians’, particularly the American variety who have influence over the White House, are responsible for much of the evil in the world – and, in particular, much of the carnage in the Middle East.
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Unfortunately, this Augustinian comment is pure hypocrisy, for my positing as intellectual speculation a tradition not found in Scripture, not found in John 15:26 or in Acts 2:33, Augustine of Hippo (354-430) said FILIOQUE, and Augustine was innocent in this, he intended it merely as a philosophical thought experiment, not an infallible dogma, to fully defend the full divinity of Jesus Christ and the consubstantiality of Jesus Christ with the Father and with the Holy Spirit; but the heretical non-Orthodox German (Carolingian) West, Charlemagne (742-814) at the most evil event in all of Church history, the evil Council of Aachen (809), King Charlemagne made FILIOQUE necessary infallible dogma necessary for salvation, on the basis of Augustine’s philosophy, not on the basis of the NT, and he made a religion out of the false and spurious, non-Catholic Athanasian Creed, which also make belief in FILIOQUE necessary for salvation: but this FILIOQUE clause of the Athanasian Creed is a GREAT SIN AGAINST JESUS CHRIST, while the REST of the Athanasian Creed is FULLY ORTHODOX and FULLY CATHOLIC. GOD save us all. AMEN. God save us from the heretical Carolingian Frankish West of the EVIL CHARLEMAGNE (742-814). AMEN.
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If your experience of the love of God has led you to this position, I think it might be time to consider your spiritual journey. Read, and reread Galatians 5:22-23 and ask whether anything in what you have written exhibits those fruits. John 13:35 might also give you pause for thought.
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Those verses in the NT have nothing to with Filioque or Augustine so your words are meaningless. John 15:26 and Acts 2:33 prove Filioque is not in the NT.
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No one is saying it is. My point is that the spirit animating you appears to be far distant from that SS Paul and John describe. Ask yourtself whether anyone would think what you say a good reason to listen to you as a disciple of Christ.
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This is an old dispute. You seem to be siding with Charlemagne (Council of Aachen, 809), instead of with Christ (and the Catholic Church, Rome included), 381 AD. I am disciple of Christ, not of Charlemagne. Anyone who is of Charlemagne is not of Christ, or Paul and John. Romanides, Fr. John Samuel. (1982). Franks, Romans, Feudalism, and Doctrine: An Interplay of Theology & Society. Brookline, Massachusetts: Holy Cross Orthodox Press.
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I think Chalcedon is pointing out that your choice of rhetoric, even if it were correct, isn’t going to win anybody over to your position.
Is your goal to win arguments or win souls?
If Chalcedon were to bring up proof texts or explanations why your interpretations of Sacred Scripture are incorrect, instead of conversing, you talk at him. And he’s forced to conclude, “what’s the point,” and move on.
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What’s your point? You say I am talking at him. But your whole response to what I wrote was not to engage with what I said, but to ignore the substance of what I said, and give a counter argument or refutation of what I said, with evidence from history, or some kind of logical arguments. Instead, you deliberately chose to talk about, and didn’t even mention anything what I said. You talked with your mouth open about me, and with your ears closed with what I said about Charlemagne. If you are going to win anyone to your point of view, you are going to have to stop talking against other people, and making ad hominem responses. God gave us two ears for a reason. To listen. Rather than to speak. My typical response to other people is never to make statements about them personally. If I disagree with their doctrines and traditions, I give evidence from the NT for my doctrines and traditions. Instead, you immediately jump into many word about me, and don’t actually mention what I said in the quote when you quote me. If you wish to defend Charlemagne, then give evidence. I wasn’t attacking you. I point out the fact that Catholicism has defended the doctrines of Charlemagne, and it is on this basis it goes astray. They are ignoring their own Popes, Leo III, and John VIII, who stood up to Charlemagne and his Filioque. Jonn VIII, who came after the time of Charlemagne, also refused the Filioque, but earlier, in 867, Nicholas I relied on the Filioque. Why can’t your earlier Popes of Rome agree on this matter. If you actually listen to me in this, maybe I will feel better on listening to you. After all, I am not against the earlier Popes of Rome; I am only against Filioquism. And not all early Popes of Rome allowed Filioque.
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The way I see it is Orthodoxy is a lot like Protestantism. There’s no magisterial authority. So, the conversations depend on which ethnic version shows up. Again, not only is there scriptural evidence for the filioque but there’s a thing called development of doctrine of understanding. But atlas, when you have no authority to call an ecumenical council and can be your own Pope to decide what Sacred Scripture says you can decide the original meaning of said texts because you’re your own council and Pope. Sounds, like Luther… I supposedly there’s a reason why many Orthodox converts tend to be former protestants.
At any rate, the above is the reason why no one engages with your points. You’d simply move the goal posts when needed.
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Ummm …. could someone explain what FILIOQUE means? I’d like the explanation in words of at most 5 letters and without subordinate clauses – if at all possible.
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OK – I looked it up on Wikipedia (a resource known for its theological excellence) and discovered that FILIOQUE is a controversy that ordinary Christians actually don’t need to bother about – although since the football season is suspended and I can’t get to watch Peterhead playing Stranraer, watching the FILIOQUE bun-fight from the side-lines is a reasonable substitute.
The important thing for us (as Christians) is stated beautifully and succinctly in 1 John 2v27 ‘As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. ‘ This `anointing’ refers to the Holy Spirit; John 14v26 `But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things’
So, going back to the title of the original post, Faith and Reason, Christianity is a moral issue (and not an intellectual issue). So we’re in the framework of moral issues and not intellectual issues. The Good Lord equipped us with brains to think through these moral issues – and equipped us with the Holy Spirit, so that we basically develop `sanctified common sense’; through the Holy Spirit which is working within us, our reason becomes in tune with the will of God.
Where the Holy Spirit proceeds from – well, technically yes – the Father sends the Holy Spirit – he does so in the name of the Son, so the whole FILIOQUE controversy looks like the sort of thing that Jonathan Swift was writing about in the dispute between the big-endians and the little-endians.
Importantly for people like SCOOP – if you’re a Catholic, it shouldn’t make so much difference to you if your pontiff is talking bollox or not – the Good Lord has anointed you with the Holy Spirit in such a way that you should be able to see through all bollox without much difficulty. In fact, having a duff pope may be good for you – figuring out precisely why what he says is bollox – and figuring out how to respond to it are good exercises for you. This helps to sharpen you up and is a good exercise for the mind, guided by the Holy Spirit.
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The filioque controversy was the proximate cause of the split between the Catholic and the Orthodox Church in 1054. The latter argued that the adoption of the word changed the ancient creed and should not have been done without an ecumenical council. The Catholics argued that as with so much of the original creed, it came from custom and practice and did not add anything heretical. The Orthodoc disagreed. 400 years later the Ottomans shut down most of the Orthodox Church and for another 400, no one much cared what the Orthodox thought.
In these more ecumenical times, of course everyone cares, but no one can agree what to do.
It is, of course, possible that this is another example fo the brotherly love shown by Christians to each other which has so impressed the world that secularism is rampant in the West.
Other explanations are available according to taste.
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Chalcedon – thanks for this. Well – I’m neither Catholic nor Orthodox – and it looks like an unedifying storm in a teacup to me.
I think that Christians are certainly responsible for the fact that secularism is so rampant in the West, but I doubt if the Filioque controversy has much to do with this, since it really is a very esoteric debate that very few people (Christians included) have ever heard of. I hadn’t heard of it until I saw scottrobertharrington getting his water heated over it.
Perhaps I simply haven’t understood what Catholic and Orthodox people consider to be the implications of their respective positions and what they actually mean by `proceeds from’.
For me, the most striking example of *extremely* bad behaviour by Christians is the belief among a lot of them that God has ordained in Scripture that the State of Israel will be re-constituted within the historical borders. In (for example) Romans 9-11, Paul seems to be talking about – and only about – salvation from sin through Jesus Christ and nothing to do with any `national’ salvation or return to Israel’s historic borders.
Yet `Christians’ do not think through the moral issue with the God-given sanctified mind that John talks about (1 John 2v27 for example). Instead, they seem to take the view `God has promised this, that and the other – and isn’t it great that the USA/UK military are giving him such a helping hand in fulfilling his promises’ while, at the same time completely overlooking the fact that the 1947/48 war contained a heavy dose of ethnic cleansing and can hardly be justified according to any reasonable moral principles.
If the Muslim community of the Middle East consider the `Christians’ of the West to be a bunch of morally bankrupt hypocrites, then I think that I’m more or less in agreement with them – they have very good reason to take this view.
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Those wanting more can find it on this site here: https://jessicahof.blog/2017/06/30/the-papacy-an-historical-perspective/
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