“Who Proceeds from the Father and the Son”

Now the Lutheran World Federation, the global organization consisting largely of liberal and state churches–has issued a joint statement with representatives of Eastern Orthodoxy calling on churches to drop the filioque from the Nicene Creed.  Instead, according to the LWF, Lutherans should just say that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father.”

Now this might seem a small issue to split the universal church over.  And the LWF, of which most confessional Lutherans are not members, has become so ecumenical that its agreement with the Orthodox might not seem all that significant.

But what is at stake with the filioque is not so much the nature of the Holy Spirit but the nature of church authority:  Is it church councils?  The pope?  Or the Bible?

I would say that the Orthodox had good reason to split with Rome over the issue.  And yet, there is good reason to retain the filioque.

The original text of the Nicene Creed, as worked out in the Councils of Nicaea (325 A.D.) and Constantinople (381 A.D.), did not contain the filioque.  In the West, though, beginning in the 8th century, “and the Son” was sometimes informally added.  But in 1014, Pope Benedict VIII officially added the filioque to the creed.

But the original text had been approved by ecumenical councils.  That is, councils attended by representatives of the entire universal church, both west and east.  The eastern churches consider ecumenical councils to be authoritative.  (Later, Rome would call councils of its own, such as the Council of Trent and Vatican II, which invited the participation only of Catholic bishops, excluding both the Orthodox and Protestants.)

Now the Pope presumed to add the filioque, without so much as consulting the Eastern churches.  This was an assertion of papal authority over that of Ecumenical Councils!  It was also an assertion of Rome’s authority over the Eastern churches.  No wonder the Eastern churches could not abide the filioque.  They deny that they split the church.  The pope did when, of his own volition, he added to the creed.

To be sure, there are other aspects to the controversy, with some theologians arguing that different understandings of the Trinity are at stake.  That discussion, though, seems to have arisen mostly after the schism, with both sides giving theological reasons for their version of the creed.

So shouldn’t Protestants, particularly Lutherans, who, like the Orthodox, reject the authority of the Pope, reject his addition of the filioque?

Well, for Protestants, particularly Lutherans, the authority is neither the Pope (as it is for Roman Catholics) nor Ecumenical Councils (as it is for the Orthodox), but the Word of God.  So for us, the question is what does the Bible say about the source of the Holy Spirit?

Consider:

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, (John 14:22)

The Father will send the Spirit because the Son asks Him to.

“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.  (John 15:26)

Here the Son will send the Spirit, who “proceeds” from the Father.

All of this is to say, the Holy Spirit “proceeds
from
the
Father
and
 the
Son.”  (Other Biblical texts that apply to the filioque controversy are John 16:7, John 20:22, Romans 8:9, Galatians 4:6, Philippians 1:19, and Revelation 22:1.)

The original text of the Nicene Creed without the filioque, as used by the Orthodox, isn’t wrong.  The Holy Spirit does proceed from the Father.   The Orthodox aren’t being unorthodox when they say their version of the creed.  But including the filioque isn’t unorthodox either.  The Holy Spirit does proceed from the Son.

When reciting the Creed and we say “and the Son,” we are confessing not only the Trinity, but also that both creeds and councils are subordinate to the Word of God.

HT:  Steve Bauer, who also points to Jordan Cooper’s video An Explanation and Defense of the Filioque (Intro to Trinitarian Theology) (youtube.com).