The Filioque Controversy Still Lives

I went to an Anglican Use Roman Catholic Church and to my surprise—I'm not sure why—the Filioque was not recited in the Creed. It isn’t invalid. I am certain of this. But I later discovered why and I think it is an interesting maneuver that is certainly political.

The words “and the Son” (Filioque) have been removed from the Nicene Creed in accordance with the Lambeth 1978 statement: "The Conference…requests that all member churches of the Anglican Communion should reconsider omitting the Filioque from the Nicene Creed…"

The General Synod [of the Anglican Church of Canada] meeting at Peterborough, in 1980 stated that the omission of the Filioque does not imply change of doctrine or belief on the part of the Anglican Church. The inclusion of the Filioque has driven Western and Eastern Christianity apart for centuries.

If the Filioque is removed, there may be a rich opportunity for dialogue amongst Christians. It, perhaps, was the motive of the General Synod in Canada. The request seems rather plain at first glance, but a closer examination leads to a more important question: if the Filioque is doctrinally sound, why remove it at all? The statement clearly reinforces the fact that the omission of the Filioque does not change the doctrine of the Anglican Church. Nevertheless, there seems to be a need to omit a phrase—and the Son—that is doctrinally legitimate.

The obvious reality is concern for Eastern Christianity. Christians of the East—the Eastern Orthodox—consider the Filioque to be a heretical insertion in the Nicene Creed. Even in reciting the old Creed (without “and the Son”) there still remains a tension in what is believed by the East and the West. The concern should be on whether or not the Filioque is theologically sound. For Western Christians it is certainly the case and the exact opposite is true of the East, except for those in communion with the Roman Catholic Church, e.g. Byzantine Catholics.

The inclusion of “and the Son” in the Nicene Creed rose in Western Christianity because of the Arian heresy that came from the East. The inserted phrase reaffirmed the full divinity of Christ, in an indisputable way, against the Arians. The East condemned the West for the inclusion of the Filioque. Scripture clearly states that the Spirit proceeds from the Father. The Orthodox interpret this to mean the Father alone, whereas Christians of the Latin tradition—who handed on the tradition of the Filioque to the Anglicans—believed that the omission doesn’t necessarily exclude the Son.

Scripture repeatedly refers to the “Spirit of Jesus” and Christ says that He will “send” the Spirit, as in, it would proceed from Him. The East believes that this procession of the Spirit from Christ is only a temporal procession, but it is not an eternal procession, that is, it isn’t the reality in the inner life of God. However, if the economic activity of God, that is, the economy of salvation reveals nothing about the Divine Reality, then nothing can be known about God. We only know God through His Revelation in human history, particularly in the Resurrection of Christ.

In Eastern Trinitarian theology, it is common to begin examining the Trinity from the fact that the Father is the source. St. Augustine picks up on this idea and uses the analogy of love. God is love according to Scripture. However, to love—Augustine argues—one must have an object to love. The Father, the lover, then generates His Son—the beloved—into being. The Son returns the love of the Father and the love between them is the Spirit.

The key to understanding Western Trinitarian theology is that the Father initiated the love, which implies the Spirit proceeds from the Father, but it is in the returned love of the Son that the Spirit proceed from the Son as well in the back and forth exchange of love. This is precisely the understanding of Eastern Catholics in communion with Rome reconciling their Eastern tradition of theology with the Latin West.

The Anglican Church having received most of its traditions from the Roman Catholic Church does not necessarily need to remove the Filioque. It is an understanding of the West that both versions of the Nicene Creed are valid. The Nicene-Constantinoplean Creed used today is significantly difficult than the one composed at Nicea I in A.D. 325. Moreover, the Council of Constantinople in A.D. 381 was merely a general synod of bishops that was not universally accepted until almost a century later. Therefore the inclusion of the Filioque in the West to defend orthodox is valid considering that the Creed itself was not written at a planned ecumenical council.

The necessity of the Filioque is debatable, for it has its place in one tradition and not the other. The Anglicans correctly point out the validity of the Creed either way. Therefore, the theological validity of the Filioque is and should be the primary concern.