On the Universal Customs of the Universal Church

It's a moot point, because all of those dogmas have been stated (and re-stated multiple times) in our Formularies. It even goes deeper than that, because for example Article 1 compels us to believe in divine simplicity, impassibility, and other secondary-order convictions far removed from something primary like the Trinity. So the simple act of embracing the formularies already has us embrace all of the key doctrines, and even the 2nd order doctrines like divine simplicity.

Also, since we accept the first 4 Councils without reservation, that works out all of the Christological doctrines like the hypostatic union.

Thus, the Formularies combined with the first 4 Councils covers everything related to Christology and the nature of God.

 

I was thinking of East/West issues (since both claim to be following at least the first 4 councils but they can’t both be right), but that may need to be a separate thread.

 

Well like for example with the filioque, the ACNA formularies are not as strident as the Roman church is. And I totally support that, even if I believed that the filioque had good support on its side. The filioque is bracketed in the ACNA liturgies, so that those who want to say it, can do so, and those who wish not to, do not need to.

 

Yeah, that’s one aspect of it. There seems to be a growing reticence on the part of a lot of Anglicans, at least in the U.S. (Episcopalian and non-Episcopalian alike) to affirm some of those aspects of Trinitarian doctrine that are peculiarly Western. I find this to be both unfortunate and problematic: unfortunate, because I think the subsequent Western developments were actually correct and that the Eastern position is wrong; and problematic, because it’s not just the Creed that’s at stake, but also the Articles, Cranmer’s Litany in the 1662, etc. I don’t think those subsequent developments that are enshrined in the traditional Anglican liturgy are actually negotiable, yet there seems to be a willingness to treat them as such, largely, I would argue, as a result of a certain misguided ecumenism.

 

The problem with the Filioque is that it just is not in the councils and was added. I don't say it because of that reason.

 

That is not to say the theology behind it is wrong or anything but it was not in the original that came out of the councils so perhaps we should not be in the habit of just adding things in

 

I am not entirely sure what aspects of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity are 'peculiarly Western'.

One of course is the theology of double procession. In my mind this is often badly understood in the West, and many fail to recognize that both Augustine and Aquinas affirmed that where we speak of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Son, it is implicit that we understand the the Holy Spirit has of course proceeded from the Father. In the East they do not use this language, for they have a mind that sees that procession implies Source or Origin, and they are firm in understanding that the Creed affirms that the Father is the source and origin of all there is - the alpha point of all Creation.

The matter of the Filioque is a related but different issue. The Creed of the Council of Constantinople was ratified at the Council of Ephesus with the addition of anathemas on those who would add to or take away from the Creed. It was again affirms at the Council of Chalcedon. It seems that by about 800 the Filioque was used in Gaul and Iberia, and Charlemagne made an appeal for it to the Pope which was rejected, The Filioque was first used in Rome on the 14th of February 1014 for the Coronation of Henry II as HRE. This fed into the growing tension between East and West and in 1054 we have the mutual excommunications which were only lifted following Vatican Council II.

I find it complex to think that we affirm the four councils, and clearly see that the Creed of the Council of Constantinople was one of the great things to come from the first four councils, we acknowledge the anathemas of Ephesus as part of the work of the first four councils, and then we see fit to insert the filioque. For me it is simply an inconsistency.

 

This isn't quite correct. It was the original creed of Nicaea that was reaffirmed at Ephesus in AD 431. What we call "the Nicene Creed" in our Prayer Books (and which some refer to as the "Creed of Constantinople") was actually received at the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451. The so-called doctrine of the "double procession" had already been taught authoritatively by St. Leo the Great - the champion of Chalcedon - four years earlier, in AD 447, in his 15th Letter. This letter is included in all editions of Denzinger and is cited in the CCC as well. The relevant portion is:

The only thing of importance we need to conclude from this for our purposes here is that if Pope Leo had thought the adoption of the new Creed at Chalcedon contradicted what he had taught just 4 years earlier, he would most certainly have opposed it.

Subsequent Western teaching, building on the work of St. Augustine, did not in fact teach a "double procession", but rather taught that there was a single procession, and that as the source of the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son "spirated" as one, single principle or source. No amount of irenic ecumenism can obscure the fact that this is most emphatically not what Eastern Orthodoxy teaches on the subject. The reasons for this go back to the further clarifications the Western Church was forced to make in the ongoing confrontation with Arianism that really had no counterpart in the East after the end of the 4th cent. By the end of the 5th cent., the Western half of the Empire had fallen and was ruled by various Germanic tribes who had professed Arianism, while the Eastern Empire remained under 'orthodox' rule and was facing all new controversies of its own. The Eastern development of Trinitarian doctrine was thus frozen in 4th cent. terms, and further attempts to clarify it in the face of continually developing Western doctrine resulted in denialism and ultimately in the rejection of logic to refine doctrine. The Eastern view and the Western view are neither compatible nor reconcilable and they cannot both be right. One of them is a legitimate development of what was defined within the first 5 centuries and the other one is not. The Church of England inherited the Western position on this issue, and since it was not disputed at the Reformation, my contention is that those subsequent conciliar developments in AD 1274 and 1439 collectively represent the 'default' position, even if we do not accord infallibility to them. Otherwise we are in the unenviable position of arguing that Cranmer composed his liturgy in unmistakably Western terms (that the East explicitly rejected), yet nevertheless intended throughout an Eastern meaning.

 

Do you say "God from God" when reciting the Creed? That wasn't in the original, either. The West added that clause, too. Nothing wrong with that theology either, so what's the difference?

It also seems a bit odd to pick and choose which parts of the liturgy to say based on personal opinion. It's not really liturgy in that instance, is it? The Councils after all are only the beginning of the Church's definition of its faith, not the end. That aside, it's doubtful what we call the "Nicene" Creed ever existed in the West without the additions in the first place. The Eastern position is thus based on multiple historical errors, viz., that it was promulgated by the 2nd Ecumenical Council (when in fact it wasn't), and that there was one and only one authoritative received text of that Creed about which there was original agreement across all jurisdictions. Furthermore, the Western Church continued to use the Apostles' Creed, which contains none of the peculiarly Nicene or post-Nicene language, and which any Arian could recite without pang of conscience, since there are no references in it to eternal generation. Yet that is not considered running afoul of the canons promulgated at Ephesus. If the continued post-conciliar use of the Apostles' Creed in the West constituted no such transgression, then neither did the Western recension of the Creed of Constantinople.

 

I did not nkow that about the God from God part. In the ACNA we are given the option to say the Filioque or not. I choose to not as it is not in the original version and was added later. We are not given that option from the God from God part although I have never seen nor heard that being an issue before so I will have to look more into it

 

I didn’t realize that was an option in the ACNA. I do think that when the Creed is recited in Greek that any clause occurring only in the Latin recensions should be omitted. But in English it seems a bit arbitrary to use the Latin version and then omit parts of it. And for what purpose?…the Orthodox aren’t going to come begging for reunion just because Western Churches stop reciting the disputed clause. The filioque is just an excuse. The denial of it serves no properly theological function. On the other hand, if the additions are true and have centuries of continuous use behind them, why omit them now, especially when they are confirmed elsewhere in the classic formularies? It’s a solution in search of a problem.

 

Because if we are to fulfill the high priestly prayer, we will have to become one Church again. Even if it takes another thousand years, steps have to be taken somewhere.

 

But if the Greek rejection is indeed rooted in error, then the schism is theirs to repair. No one suggests that we drop “one God” to bring in, say, the Mormons.

 

To me it's not a matter of bringing in "everyone" like the Mormons or the Adventists. The only ones that matter are the actual particular catholic Churches, shards of the One True Church, and only those that need to be brought in. And to that extent, yes absolutely all of those churches must work tirelessly to overcome pride and foolishness and centuries of error on all sides, to return to our original state.

That is how I understand the impetus behind bracketing the Filioque. Not that we choose one side as more right than another; but rather, we have a process for deciding doctrinal questions. That process was not followed when the filioque was added. It's simple. Now that doesn't mean the doctrine is wrong, because as I said it's not about figuring out who's right. It doesn't matter who's right; the text of the council in this case was altered, so let's bring it back, and erase that source of schism. Are there others remaining? Yes, and next let's work on fixing those.

 

Yet it was the Nestorian Creed that was rejected, which was clearly an adaptation of the Creed of the 1st Council of Constantinople.

Let me be clear, I do support a theology of double procession (though not any such theology). I am under no illusion that dropping the theology of double procession, or dropping the Filioque will achieve closer relations with the East, though it certainly would not hurt.

I have read and studied the filioque, it's origins and purpose, I would be more inclined to think that the Western Insistence is more likely rooted in error than the Eastern Resistance.

The three key areas of the concern in relation to the Filioque are

• Process - by which I refer to the process of steps that led to its incremental adoption in the west between mid 8th century and the 14th if February 1014
• Procession - by which I refer to the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit, given that we would want to ensure that any doctrine of double procession did not imply a subordination of the Holy Spirit or and hierarchical notion of the Holy Trinity.
• Primacy - by which I refer to nature of the authority of the Bishop of Rome, especially in relation to the authority of the Councils.

 

Oh, but how exactly was I proselytizing when I presented the facts of Anglican Church history and Anglican Church worship that I did?

 

We are one church in the sense that all true Christians are united in and through Christ. But as for becoming one church in the way you mean it, that just isn't going to happen short of Jesus' return to earth. People are people, if you know what I mean... people are like the sheep in the parables.

Or do you think it is the role of Christians to bring about a golden, somewhat utopian Christian age on earth in order to pave the way for Christ's return? I know there are some who think that, but I haven't thought you were one of them.

 

I understand what you’re saying. I don’t necessarily want to do a deep dive into the filioque as such. Heaven knows I did enough of that when I was Orthodox. In my view, that theological ship has sailed and it’s never returning to port. It is curious that one sees Anglicans and Roman Catholics bending over backwards to find some way to somehow square the circle and read the Eastern doctrine back into the Western formulations (or even drop the offending clause altogether), when it is abundantly clear that the Orthodox have no intention of doing the same soul searching or having any openness toward revision on their part, and in fact their traditional objections turn out on further inspection to be disingenuous where they don’t turn out to be based upon faulty premises outright. We do not refuse communion with them; they refuse it with us. So who’s really in ‘schism’?

In a way this mirrors somewhat the “Is Anglicanism ‘Reformed’?” discussion some of us had on another thread. On the one hand, if the Church of England had intended to explicitly adhere to any councils designated “Ecumenical” after the Sixth, it could have done so. And yet, much of the theology that made its way into the official formularies assumes the truth of those developments of which some of the later councils were the concrete expression. Barth - although not an Anglican - seemed to assume that those developments had some normative value for Protestants generally, today. In his account, one could discuss, clarify, critique, or reinterpret them afresh, but one could not simply ignore them.

 

Nor I especially. I don't say it. I do have a great respect for the East, and I understand why the Great Schism might be seen as the meeting of an immovable object and an irresistible force. I am sure that there would be a further, 1500, at least theological obscurities to be covered off before Anglicans dropping the filioque would make a difference. I understand that for the Orthodox Oecumenical means everybody becomes Orthodox, and for the RCC Ecumenical means everybody becomes a Latin Catholic. To my mind neither approach is especially engaging.

I take the point about what simply slid into Anglicanism from what had gone before. None the less there was a view that held that they were seeking to return to what they described as 'The Primitive Church' which I take to mean without medieval embellishments. Accordingly some doctrines were rolled straight out the door, including the Romish doctrine of Purgatory and Transubstantiation. Whilst there were those of a ore reformed mindset, there were those who saw that this was simply 'the Church in England' unshackling itself from Papal interference in the affairs of state. Interesting the work of the schoolmen was not ignored, and I think that some of the articles are influenced by them, especially Anselm, and perhaps to a lesser extent Aquinas.

One case in point, I guess, is that the omitted 2nd note of the church has been restored, as far as I can see it in modern Anglican liturgies. It is hard to see why you would argue for that to be returned, and at the same time argue for a variation in the case of procession not to also be restored.

Mind you I am not arguing, just reflecting.

 

I am not entirely sure I understand your meaning, but I would like to explore the train of thought further, if you don’t mind. Can you clarify what you mean by this? I gather a certain argument is being derived from something said earlier; I’m just not sure what that is.