Book Review - With Burning Hearts (Henri Nouwen)

With Burning Hearts – Henri Nouwen

Book review by Fr. Rand York

Harry Long (my friend and roommate in college, and today a Presbyterian minister in Virginia) wrote this song in 1974 from the perspective of the two men who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus. I added to it in 2005.

Men of Emmaus

©1974/2005 Harry Long & Rand York

Over there on the road

Who is this we behold

Being hailed as the king of the Jews

He has come to this place

To redeem his race

And to free us from Roman rule

And they say he’s the Lord

Let us draw out our swords

And establish Messiah rule

What is he waiting for

Lead us into our war

We will follow your every command

All the things we have heard

Let us act on your word

That the kingdom of God is at hand

Why does he hesitate

We can no longer wait

We must force him to take a stand

Over there on the cross

What a total loss

With the nails in his hands and his feet

My kingdom referred

To another world

So he said, being dragged down the street

He said now is my hour

But he lost all his power

And they nailed him upon a tree

Today as daylight loomed

Women went to his tomb

And found angels instead of a corpse

They had gone to anoint

But came back to the point

That their words just filled us with remorse

Because he’s gone for good

Have I misunderstood

I need answers direct from the source

So we set off for home

Two by two, not alone

Dreading what might lay in store

Over there on the road

Who is this we behold

Talking much of old prophecies

As we walk to our home

We invite him to come

To accept at our table a seat

Then he took up the bread

And he blessed it and said

Take and eat in remembrance of me

And the prints in his hands

I could not understand

Were the marks of a man who is dead

And suddenly this man

Didn’t look like the man

We had seen on the road up ahead

Now we know he’s alive

He has opened our eyes

And we know him in the breaking of bread

Yes we know him in the breaking of bread

Did our hearts not burn within us

Can you look at me Cleopas

And tell me that my heart has fooled my head?

No! I never will forget the words he said

Teaching us the scriptures that we’ve read

And we know him in the breaking of bread

Yes we know him in the breaking of bread

We receive him in the wine and the bread

Henri Nouwen has given us a book filled with reflections on the presence of Christ, in the setting of the Road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35). This book is not merely a “must read,” but is in fact a “must read slowly.” Here are a few highlights from it, along with my own commentary.

Nouwen (p. 19) – “They set out that instant and returned to Jerusalem.”

– see page 112.

Nouwen (p. 24) – “They had become two lost human beings…In many ways we are like them.”

– Perhaps in one sense their religion died when Jesus did. I spoke at length recently with a woman who had been the wife of a church planting pastor for many years. Today she is divorced, and at some point along the way, I believe her religion died. And the death of her religion made room for her to know Jesus as the lover of her soul, long after she spent decades teaching Sunday School, hosting women’s groups, and doing all the other things pastors’ wives do. Likewise these two men were emptied of their religion, of their cause, and of everything that would be a barrier, even be it a colored-lens barrier, to really meeting the risen Jesus just as they were and just as he is. Lord, may our religion not get in the way of our faith.

Nouwen (p. 26) – “It is this loss of spirit that is often hardest to acknowledge and most difficult to confess.”

– Nouwen goes on to say that we often endure loss in the hope of such loss bringing us closer to God. But what if our loss is God himself? That really is the gateway of despair. But as I commented earlier, what if our religion is our God? If my religion dies and my God rises, it makes everything clear, and I no longer must have any mastery, academic or otherwise, to attain that for which I am made.

Nouwen (p. 30) – “To grieve is to allow our losses to tear apart feelings of security and safety and lead us to the painful truth of our brokenness. Our grief makes us experience the abyss of our own life in which nothing is settled, clear, or obvious, but everything constantly shifting and changing.”

– Edward Mote’s words ring as clear today as when first he wrote them: “On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is shifting sand.”

Nouwen (p. 39) – “That’s how we generally approach the Eucharist. With a strange mixture of despair and hope.”

 – I must admit that there are times when I myself wonder if my faith is really founded on something real (that’s the hope), or if I have willingly allowed myself to be fooled (that’s the despair). Let me tell you what I mean by this. Like the Hebrew people, who saw sign after sign and miracle after miracle in their Exodus from slavery to Pharoah and yet made and worshipped a golden calf, I have seen sign after sign and miracle after miracle in my exodus from slavery to sin and yet I still find myself making idols and worshiping them. And as Bob Dylan says, “You’ve gotta serve somebody.” And this is why we need the Eucharist. To heal and reorient us. To rescue us from becoming lost in the mazes and alleys by lifting us back up to a view from 10,000 feet.

Nouwen (p. 49) – “We cannot simply expect that the little we see, hear, and experience will reveal to us the whole of our existence. We are too near-sighted and too hard of hearing for that. Someone has to open our eyes and ears and help us to discover what lies beyond our own perception. Someone has to make our hearts burn!”

– For our hearts to truly burn (and we are made for this), we need a direct encounter with Jesus. How appropriate that the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost in the form of fire to ignite the church. So must we ignited, rekindled, each time we come to worship.

Nouwen (p. 55) – “The word creates what it expresses.”

– One might say that the word creates what it expresses and expresses what it creates. Earlier on page 52, Nouwen noted that, “We live in a world where words are cheap.” Are such words a reflection or a cause of the increasing worthlessness of life as understood by the world? And yet God provides the way and the power for us to speak life and truth and hope into such a world. Even as God spoke in Genesis and it came to pass, so must we, being in his image and his image being restored in us, speak into our world so that the reality of which we speak might come to pass.

Nouwen (p. 67) – “But Jesus wants to be invited. Without an invitation he will go on to other places. It is very important to realize that Jesus never forces himself on us. Unless we invite him, he will always remain a stranger…”

– In Revelation 3:20, Jesus says to the church at Laodicea, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and sup with him and he with me.” It is important to remember that this verse is written to Christians. He wants to be invited in, each and every hour. “I Need Thee Every Hour” reminds us that we always need him, and that we will always need him. I need to answer the door each time he knocks. Or maybe I need a simple open-door policy that applies to Jesus alone.

Nouwen (p. 68) – “I have many memories of encounters with people who made my heart burn but whom I did not invite into my home.”

– Let me start now by responding to those who make my heart burn, through whom I might make a fresh and strong connection with Jesus.

Nouwen (p. 76) – “We are most vulnerable when we sleep or eat together. Bed and table are the two places of intimacy. Also the two places of greatest pain.”

– To lay ourselves bare is generally something we do not even do with ourselves. We love to fool ourselves and to think we have cleverly hidden from each other and/or from God. Bed and table are common earthly experiences of the divine gifts of marriage and communion, which in turn are expressed in the eternal realm by the church on earth as Baptism and Eucharist. And while all of creation is at all times and in all places laid bare to the creator, Baptism and Eucharist are uniquely sacramental places where we lay ourselves bare to him: “From you no secrets are hid. Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit…”

Nouwen (p. 81) – “Maybe we have forgotten that the Eucharist is a simple human gesture.”

– It is often the simplest things that contain the greatest miracles.

Nouwen (p. 84-85) – “As God becomes fully present for us in Jesus, so Jesus becomes fully present to us in the bread and the wine of the Eucharist…That is the mystery of the Incarnation. That too is the mystery of the Eucharist.”

– The consecrated elements are as much Jesus in us, as Jesus is God among us.

Nouwen (p. 89) – “…we are made with a heart that can be satisfied only by the one who made it.”

– Our creator is also the lover of our souls.

Nouwen (p. 92) – “But they had not yet entered into full communion with him. His body and blood and their body and blood had not yet become one…When they eat the bread that he hands them, their lives are transformed into his life. It is no longer they who live, but Jesus, the Christ, who lives in them. And right at that most sacred moment of communion, he has vanished from their sight.”

– I never before considered the theology of the disappearance at Emmaus. It is their first communion, and they no longer need to see his body once they become his body by having received his body.

Nouwen (p. 96-97) – “That is what we mean when we say, ‘Spirit speaks to Spirit, Heart speaks to Heart, God speaks to God.’ Our participation in the inner life of God leads us to a new way of participation in each other’s lives.”

– We are all made made in God’s image, and so we have his eyes to see him in each other. Not that we are very good at it, mind you.

Nouwen (p. 107) – “Can we really say that we have met him on the road, have received his body and blood and become living Christs? Everyone at home is ready to test us.”

– This is why someone who is Eastern Orthodox will say, “I have not become a Christian, but by God’s graceI am becoming one.” As each year goes by, I feel less like Christ, rather than more. I can only hope that this is rooted in the fact that as one gets to know another better, the more the differences stand out, even as the relationship deepens and shapes them. As each year goes by, I feel smaller and smaller. I can only hope that this is rooted in the fact that as one gets closer to him, he grows, like a mountain in the distance that can swallow you whole when you wind into its foothills. As each year goes by, I feel more and more sinful. I can only hope that this is rooted in the fact that as one gets closer to the light, the sharper and deeper the shadows become.

Nouwen (p. 112) – “I am deeply aware of my own tendency to want to go from communion to ministry without forming community.”

– Luke 24:33 records that after meeting Jesus in the breaking of bread, Cleopas and his friend made an about face and returned to the embryonic community of believers in Jerusalem. They might have gone on to mission, proclaiming Christ’s resurrection in towns that had not yet heard, but they didn’t. They went back to their community to hear news and to bring news and to be formed. It is in community that we are accountable. It is in community that we find support and nurture, both spiritual and practical. It is in community that we build the foundation for ministry. Ministry is too important and too dangerous to go it alone.

Nouwen (p. 116) – “When only one gives and the other receives, the giver will soon become an oppressor and the receivers, victims. But when the giver receives and the receiver gives, the circle of love, begun in the community of the disciples, can grow as wide as the world.”

– This is what some refer to as the divine economy. Christ pours into us, and Christ pours out of us. The Holy Spirit’s prayers envelop and penetrate us, and his prayers rise up again from us like precious incense.

Nouwen (p. 118) – “…to choose gratitude instead of resentment and hope instead of despair.”

– No one exemplified this better than did John Fawcett in his final weeks and days. He expressed gratitude in some of the simplest ways. I remember one night when Sally Miller helped him with his dinner, and as she lifted the spoon to his mouth, he interrupted what he had been saying to simply observe: “Oh look! I’m being fed.” Far from producing despair, John’s illness deepened his appreciation for all good things, and sharpened his awareness of and love for God and others.

Nouwen (p. 119) – “Jesus and his followers did not have great success.”

– The same might be said for George Bailey. You could never see the difference he made, until that difference was taken away. Bedford Falls was Pottersville, every soldier on Harry Bailey’s transport died, and Mary Hatch was an old maid. Jesus and his followers did not have great success, but he changed the world; actually it was a watershed for the entire created order. The darkness remains, but evil has been dealt its death blow. Death has been trampled down by death, and life is bestowed on those in tombs. In the Eucharist we receive his body and blood poured out in that death, and we are made alive.

Nouwen (p. 120) – “It happens in a living room…”

– For a few years in the late 1980s, Father Boris Zabrodsky would drive from Homewood all the way out to our farm in Big Rock and celebrate the Eucharist in our living room for the Eastern Orthodox from everywhere from Aurora to DeKalb who wanted to attend a service in English. I would often stand in wonder and awe at what was happening in our living room. That Jesus gave his body and blood to his loved ones. I felt it must have been something like this in the Upper Room. Not the ceremony, but the thing itself. “This is the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, given to you, for the healing of your soul and your body.”

©2011 Rand York

Movie Review - Groundhog Day

It’s Cold Out There: The Lessons of Groundhog Day

Movie review by Fr. Rand York

“You’re not a god, Phil. Take my word for it. This is twelve years of Catholic school talking.” -Rita

Phil Connors (Bill Murray) is a conceited, self-centered, rapacious TV weatherman from Pittsburgh who is assigned to cover Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney. He thinks the world revolves around him, and so this movie does just that. There is not a scene in which Phil Connors is not the central figure. The film moves through Phil’s narcissism to hedonism to nihilism to despair to purpose to redemption. The first wake up call to his egocentricity comes in the form of a blizzard he failed to predict, and Phil “I Make the Weather” Connors finds himself on the receiving end of poetic justice when he gets smacked in the head by a snow shovel.

The story is premised on Phil waking up each morning to the same day as the one before. Every day is Groundhog Day, February 2, and Phil finds himself trapped in a cycle he does not understand and has no idea how to turn off. Punxsutawney becomes Phil Connors’ own personal Twilight Zone.

Michael Foley, in his brilliant film review “Phil’s Shadow,” makes a number of perceptive observations on the names used in the movie. Connors and the groundhog are both named Phil (and are both employed as weather forecasters). Rita is a nickname for Margarita which is Latin for “pearl,” making her the true “pearl of great price” in Phil’s life. Foley even notes that the local, who upon learning Phil’s name warns him to look out for his shadow, is actually named Gus, a most appropriate moniker for someone delivering such an Augustinian message.

NARCISSISM AND HEDONISM

            Upon the discovery that for the foreseeable future he will be waking up to the same day, Phil begins to try to make sense of the situation. He asks Ralph (Rick Overton) and Gus (Rick Ducommun), with whom he spends an evening at the bowling alley, what it would mean if every day was the same and nothing you did ever mattered.  While Ralph replies in comic despair, “That about sums it up for me” Gus recognizes that actions would no longer carry consequences and that, “We could do whatever we want!”

            So Phil turns to a life of pure hedonism, beginning with a breakfast of junk food at the Tip Top Café during which he explains to Rita (Andie MacDowell) that he no longer worries about his health or anything else. The other bookend of this new carefree life is a one-night stand with Nancy Taylor (Marita Geraghty), an attractive local woman he has singled out for seduction.

           

NIHILISM AND DESPAIR

            Every morning, Phil wakes up to the same radio commentary: “It’s cold out there.” And for Phil, it really is. Regardless of how many or what kind of connections he will make that day, by tomorrow they will all be forgotten, and this is the worst part of Phil’s experience. He really is alone. Whatever warmth of human companionship he may experience is fleeting, and ultimately unreal. It’s cold out there, and Phil finally acknowledges it in a broadcast in which he notes that it is, “cold and grey and will last the rest of your life.” Phil tries to destroy the message he so hates by destroying the messenger (in this case the bedside clock-radio), over and over and over again.

            He then tries to stop it by stopping the groundhog: “There is no way this winter is ever going to end as long as that groundhog keeps seeing his shadow every day. I don’t see any other way out. He’s got to be stopped, and I’ve got to stop him. For Channel 9 News, this is Phil Connors.”

            Phil kidnaps the groundhog and leads a merry chase to the local rock quarry, all the while putting the groundhog in front of him at the wheel and telling him not to drive angry. The chase ends with the two Phils driving over a precipice to a fiery death.

            Needless to say, Phil Connors awakens to yet another Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, and proceeds to court death by toaster, truck, belltower, etc., ending up at the end of the day in the morgue to be identified by Rita and Larry (Chris Elliott), and at the beginning of the next morning right back where he began. As he confides to Rita, “I’ve killed myself so many times, I don’t even exist anymore.”

            In a weird way, Phil is finally experiencing what everyone must to be saved…the need to die to self (Romans 6:5-11). One of the most successful songs by the band Petra followed this theme, entitled: “Killing My Old Man.”          

            Dante portrayed the Devil on a block of ice, the place of lifeless cold where there is no more becoming. Punxsutawney (where “it’s cold out there”) has become for Phil that place of no more becoming. As he kills himself (repeatedly) Phil destroys the barriers to becoming, and begins a journey that takes him out of the land of easy vice and into the world of hard-won virtue.

PURPOSE AND REDEMPTION

            Phil finds everything he has done to be meaningless, discovering for himself the emptiness described in Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity…There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.” (Ecclesiastes 1:2; 1:11)

Having reached a dead end, Phil turns to the pursuit of something real…he begins to pursue Rita. The first evening of their courtship is replete with them dancing to the aptly titled: “You Don’t Know Me,” and ends with Rita responding to Phil’s protestations of love with: “You love me; you don’t even know me…I could never love you because you could never love anyone but yourself.”

            The first time she slaps him, she does so with the explanation, “That’s for making me care about you.” Like a lab rat, Phil learns by experience, day after day after day, slap after slap after slap.

            Phil emerges into a life of purpose, beginning with piano lessons and learning to sculpt ice, and moving on to developing his best report ever from Gobbler’s Knob (Larry: “You move me, man”), saving a little boy falling from a tree (“You’ve never thanked me!”), fixing a flat tire for a car full of old ladies, saving Buster from choking, and playing piano a la Ray Charles at the evening gala. It is at the end of this “purpose driven life” that Phil finds himself on the auction block, subject to bidding by the ladies of Punxsutawney. Rita, the only lady present who is not a Punxsutawney local, jumps in with her own bid, eclipsing all the others by offering everything she has (specifically $339.88). Once Rita, the pearl of great price, has herself purchased Phil, the evening culminates in an ice sculpture of her face, crafted by Phil.

As Phil’s humility increases, so does Rita’s receptiveness.  Rita becomes Phil’s salvation, but on her terms, not his. She is unattainable until Phil sees her as someone to be cherished rather than conquered. No matter how hard he tries, Phil cannot receive what he so desperately needs until he no longer lives for himself. Not until then is he ready for Rita, and that is when she chooses him.

PHIL: “What are you doing here?”

RITA: “You’re mine; I own you.”

The parallel is strong here as an image of Christ buying us with everything he has and the church receiving us with everything she is. As Paul reminds us, “You have been bought with a price.” (I Corinthians 6:20)

The final scene plays with our expectations by playing “I Got You Babe” the song to which Phil hopelessly awakens every morning. But this time, it’s different. Every time before, the song starts playing with the line, “Put your little hand in mine…,” something Phil has been trying to do with Rita throughout the movie. This time, it begins with, “Babe. I got you babe.” Foreshadowing? I think so, and in a very immediate way. Phil has finally “got you babe.” He has got not just Rita, but the pearl of great price…his own salvation. They both wake up in bed together, having slept the night away in innocence, and Phil becomes playfully passionate. Rita asks him why he wasn’t like this the night before, and he responds that, “Yesterday was a very long day.” From the standpoint of sex in the movies, this is one that Hollywood gets right.

An earlier version of Danny Rubin’s script (the second revision by Harold Ramis) included a rather interesting alternate interpretation of Groundhog Day, given by Phil Connors live from Gobbler’s Knob:

PHIL: Groundhog Day, February second, also known as Candlemas Day or the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary, the day Mary first came to the temple for ritual blessings following the birth of the infant Jesus, and celebrated since the Middle Ages by the sacramental lighting of candles. Hence the old Scottish couplet which long predates the American groundhog tradition: "If Candlemas dawns bright and clear, there'll be two winters in the year."

(Larry whispers an aside to Rita.)

LARRY: Is he making this stuff up?

RITA (riveted): Shhhhh.

For some reason, this piece was deleted from the final screenplay. Perhaps Ramis believed he had already given enough of a nod to Christianity in Rita’s earlier comment about twelve years of Catholic school, and did not want to feel pressure from other religions clamoring for equal time. Still, it is a pity this scene never made it into the movie.

Just as Phil experiences the same day again and again, learning something new each time, a viewer can experience this film again and again, learning something new each time. Few movies are able to pack into a space of less than two hours as much as this one does, and a decent review of it would have to be book-length.

“Teach us to count the days; teach us to make the days count.”

-Chris Rice

©2011 Rand York



The Filioque

The Filioque

 Fr. Rand York

Background

“And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified.”

So reads the Nicene Creed in its original universally adopted form. In 589, the Third Council of Toledo, in Spain, added the words, “and the Son,” (commonly referred to as the filioque) to the passage regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit, igniting one of the most ancient running theological battles to plague the church.[1] The Spanish bishops did it, however, with the best of intentions.

Some three hundred years earlier, there was a presbyter in Alexandria, Egypt who denied the divine nature of Jesus Christ, saying of him, “There was a time when he was not.” This presbyter’s name was Arius, hence his doctrine became known as Arianism. He was condemned by the Council of Nicaea in May of 325 upon his refusal to sign a statement of faith that Christ is of the same divine substance as God the Father. His doctrine split the church, with powerful politicians, clergy, and theologians lining up on both sides of the issue. Arianism was ultimately defeated by allies of the indefatigable St. Athanasius, followed up by the great Cappadocians, St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian, and St. Gregory of Nyssa.[2]

But lingering in the distant corners of the Christian world, Arianism continued to pose a threat to a true understanding of Christ and his divinity. Enter the Spanish bishops at the Third Council of Toledo. In an effort to emphasize the inherent divinity of Christ as God the Son, they included him in their recitation of the Nicene Creed as a source for the procession of the Holy Spirit, in contravention of the creed as it then existed. While Arianism died out as a serious threat to the Faith throughout Christendom, the filioque was retained in Spain and spread to Gaul, as the next great threat to Christianity emerged: the Moslem, or Moorish, invasion, lasting from the 8^th to the 13^th centuries. The filioque proved to be an effective weapon against the Moslem charge that Christians worshipped not one, but three gods, by further integrating the distinctive persons of the Holy Trinity. Spain was finally and permanently united as a Christian kingdom in 1479 through the marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castille, the same couple who financed Christopher Columbus, and the last Moorish stronghold was eliminated in 1492, the year Columbus sailed.[3]

Originating in Spain, and supported by the Frankish kings, the filioque still failed to gain acceptance in Rome, even four centuries after its introduction. Pope Leo III supported the doctrine, but rejected the addition.[4] By the year 1000, silver plates were in place at the doorposts of St. Peter’s in Rome, engraved with the original Nicene Creed, sans filioque, lest anyone be in doubt regarding the position of the church on this matter. A century later, following the final break with the Eastern Church in the Great Schism of 1054, Rome finally accepted the filioque as part of the Nicene Creed, and the Western Church, both Catholic and Protestant, retain the amended form of the creed to this day.

We must not, at this point, overlook the earlier “Schism of Photius” in 867.[5] Photius became patriarch of Constantinople upon the overthrow of Patriarch Ignatius. They both turned to Rome to settle the matter once and for all, as an objective and disinterested party, which had been the role of the Bishop of Rome many times in the past in settling disputes between Eastern sees. When Pope Nicholas sided with the deposed Ignatius, Photius countered that the verdict was tainted because the West held to a heretical version of the Nicene Creed (i.e. it included the filioque). One result of this was that Rome dusted off an old Roman creed that we know as the Apostles Creed, and began using it instead, so as not to offend the East. In the end, Ignatius and Photius patched things up between them so that Photius would be successor to Ignatius, but the relationship with Rome was irreparably damaged.

The scope and size of this paper necessarily limits any extended discussion of pre-Nicene Trinitarian debate, other than to say that the church owes much to Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and Tertullian for their dual approach in understanding the Trinity: “(a) as He exists in His eternal being, and (b) as He reveals Himself in the process of creation and redemption.”[6] In the second sense, filioque is backed by Scripture in John 15:26 & 16:7,[7] but even there the Holy Spirit “proceeds” from the Father and is “sent” by the Son.

Additionally, Origen greatly impacted the foundation of the later debate through his insistence that the Father is the sole fountain-head of deity, from whom the Son is eternally begotten and the Spirit eternally proceeds.[8] Other teachings, such as the modalism expressed by Sabellius,[9] will not be considered here, though variants of modalism continue to be taught in Sunday Schools across America to this day.

After Nicaea, it was St. Augustine who first went beyond the Nicene Creed to teach that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son,[10] and since the creed itself does not refute this by saying the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, Augustine was not at that time (and the western church would say not at any time) treading on heretical ground by teaching a double procession of the Spirit. It is in Augustine that we see more emphasis on the Holy Spirit as love or as activity or as relationship, and less emphasis on the Holy Spirit as person.[11]

It is this Augustinian understanding that lies behind what the Eastern church sees as the devaluing of the Holy Spirit. +Kallistos Ware covers this ground succinctly in laying out the Orthodox position (all italics are Ware’s):[12]

·         “First, the Spirit is a person. He is not just a ‘divine blast’…”

·         “Secondly, the Spirit as the third member of the Holy Triad, is coequal and coeternal with the other two; he is not merely a function dependent upon them or an intermediary that they employ. One of the chief reasons why the Orthodox Church rejects the Latin addition of the filioque…is precisely our fear that such teaching might lead men to depersonalize and subordinate the Holy Spirit.”

Ware’s fear is well founded. I remember taking a class in Trinitarian theology in which we were assigned five books to read. Of the five, only two authors emphasized the personhood of the Holy Spirit, both of them professors at Asbury Theological Seminary. The other three, a Roman Catholic from St. John’s Seminary, an Evangelical from Fuller Theological Seminary, and a Calvinist from the University of Aberdeen, all presented the Holy Spirit as activity or force or love. Of course, one might expect the Methodists of Asbury to be more in line with their Anglican forbears (and therefore with the Orthodox), and so they are.

Both Eastern and Western churches are in agreement that the filioque was not explicitly a part of the original Nicene Creed. However, Roman Catholicism understands an implicit presence of such a doctrine from the time the creed was formulated. According to this understanding, when Council III of Toledo adopted it, the bishops there were simply giving expression to what was understood as already being present in the Christian faith, and so, implicitly in the Nicene Creed.[13]

If such an understanding was indeed present at the formation of the Nicene Creed, it was never spelled out, and that at a time when every other article of the Faith was being spelled out. The Eastern church never recognized this “mutual understanding,” though Rome would say it was they (the Eastern church) who had deviated from the Faith. In fact, according to Roman Catholic historian Paul Johnson, “In 1054, when the final breach with the East came, the papal legates were so ignorant of the true story that they accused the Greeks of having deliberately omitted the filioque from their creed centuries before.”[14]

Implications

Given that the entire Eastern church, as well as many in the West, saw this addition as a new development in the understanding of the nature and role of the Holy Spirit, what are some of the implications of this development?[15]

1.      The Nicene Creed can be changed only by another Ecumenical Council. This would imply that no part of the church has the authority to change a statement of faith adopted by the whole. For the Roman church, this is not a problem because they see themselves as the universal church. For them, councils such as Vatican I and Vatican II have standing as representative of the whole church on earth. For the Eastern Orthodox, no church council is complete without representation from the Roman church, and so there has never been a post-Schism Ecumenical Council, and there never will be until: a) the Orthodox change their view on what constitutes an Ecumenical Council, or b) communion between the Eastern and Western churches is restored.

2.      The filioque depersonalizes the Holy Spirit by making him dependent on the other two persons of the Trinity for existence, implying a Holy Spirit that is an emanating function of the love between the Father and the Son, rather than a person coexisting with them.

3.      The filioque de-emphasizes  the Holy Spirit by making the Father and the Son each an eternal source of the Holy Spirit’s existence, but making the Holy Spirit a source of nothing within the Godhead. Over the centuries, this diminishing of the Spirit has resulted in a greater emphasis in the West of the church becoming increasingly institutional in its basis, and looking increasingly to earthly power for its authority.

4.      Unity triumphs over diversity in the Western Creed and is reflected in Roman Catholicism through power and authority shifting from the diversity of bishops to the monolith of the Papacy.

5.      If each person of the Trinity is unique, how are they unified into one God? The Cappadocian fathers teach that unity is to be found in the Father, as the single source of the Godhead, from whom the Son is eternally begotten and the Spirit eternally proceeds. Under this original understanding of the source of the Godhead as personal, the addition of filioque results in a Godhead that suddenly has two sources, the Father and the Son. Thus, Roman Catholicism must find a new, single source for unity. They find it in “divine essence,” which is shared by all three persons in the Trinity. So that, “In Orthodoxy, the principle of God’s unity is personal, in Roman Catholicism it is not.”[16] It should be noted here that the Anglican Communion specifically rejects the notion of divine essence as the source of Trinitarian unity.

Conclusion

            The Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue held in Dublin in 1984 reaffirmed their 1976 Moscow agreement, “that (the filioque) should not be included in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. Certain Anglican churches have already acted upon this recommendation, whilst others are still considering it.”[17] In the dialogues between the Anglicans and the Orthodox, the Anglicans in 1976 recognized the validity of the Orthodox position and adopted it as their own. Putting it into practice in the churches, however, would be another thing altogether. So, in 1984, the Orthodox returned the favor by finding a way to understand the Creed in an Orthodox and Nicene way while allowing the filioque to stay in it. This requires hearing the word “proceeds” in two different ways at the same time. With regard to the Father, proceeds refers to emanation; with regard to the Son, proceeds refers to shining forth.[18] This elegant solution put the disagreement to bed without disturbing the worship experience of the average parishioner.

            Since the original Nicene Creed does not say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father “alone,” it should be acceptable to the Western church. If at some time in the future a genuine Ecumenical Council is held, satisfying the churches of both the West and the East, and it is the will of the Holy Spirit to move upon those assembled to include the filioque in the creed, at that time it will be appropriate to add it. Until then, the original Nicene Creed should stand as written. That being said, in churches where such a change would be disruptive, education is appropriate to help people understand the filioque in a Nicene and Orthodox sense.

Bibliography

Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue: The Dublin Agreed Statement 1984. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985.

González, Justo L. The Story of Christianity (Volume I). San Francisco: Harper, 1984.

Grenz, Stanley J. Theology for the Community of God. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000.

Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000.

Harakas, Stanley+. The Orthodox Church: 455 Questions and Answers. Minneapolis: Light & Life, 1988.

Hardon, John A.+, S.J. The Catholic Catechism. New York: Doubleday, 1981.

Johnson, Paul. A History of Christianity. New York: Atheneum, 1976.

Kelly, J.N.D. Early Christian Doctrines. New York: Harper & Row, 1960.

Schmemann, Alexander+. The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1977.

Ware, +Kallistos. The Orthodox Way. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1986.

Ware, Timothy (before becoming +Kallistos). The Orthodox Church. London: Pelican, 1964.

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[1] Stanley Harakas+ (The Orthodox Church: 455 Questions and Answers. Minneapolis: Light & Life, 1988) 92.

[2] Alexander Schmemann + (The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1977) 93.

[3] It is interesting to note that where the filioque was added to the Nicene Creed, Islam receded; where the Nicene Creed remained in its original form, Islam spread like wildfire. How much this may have had to do with the creed vis-à-vis other factors would be an interesting topic for a dissertation.

[4] Timothy Ware (The Orthodox Church. London: Pelican, 1964) 59.

[5] Justo L. González (The Story of Christianity (Volume I). San Francisco: Harper, 1984) 264-265.

[6] J.N.D. Kelly (Early Christian Doctrines. New York: Harper & Row, 1960) 110.

[7] Wayne Grudem (Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000) 246.

[8] J.N.D. Kelly. Op. cit. 128-131.

[9] E.g. ice, water, steam / the sun gives light and warmth / etc.

[10] Stanley J. Grenz (Theology for the Community of God. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000) 63.

[11] Stanley J. Grenz. Op. cit. 70.

[12] +Kallistos Ware (The Orthodox Way. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1986) 121-122.

[13] John A. Hardon+, S.J. (The Catholic Catechism. New York: Doubleday, 1981) 64-65.

[14] Paul Johnson (A History of Christianity. New York: Atheneum, 1976) 180.

[15] Please note that here we are speaking here of the eternal relationship within the Godhead, not the Trinity’s expression in relation to the created order.

[16] Timothy Ware. Op. cit. 219.

[17] Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue: The Dublin Agreed Statement 1984. (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1985) 26.

[18] Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue: The Dublin Agreed Statement 1984. Op. cit. 27.

©2011 Rand York