"You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd." ~Flannery O'Connor

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

That spirituque show

A subset of my vast readership follows my posts on Trinitarian theology with considerable interest. My main effort has been to construe the Catholic dogma of the filioque in such a way that its compatibility with the monarchy of the Father is made clear, so that the chief Orthodox objection to the filioque is thereby obviated, and the compatibility of the Eastern and Western traditions is thereby clarified. Yet the most interest seems to have been drawn by a logical corollary of that effort: what I called the spirituque. On my account, just as there is a certain real sense in which the Holy Spirit can be said to come forth from the Father and the Son, there is another sense in which the Son can be said to come forth from the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Most of the attention to that corollary has been from Catholics, and most of that attention has been negative. I find that ironic in a way. The purpose of my effort has been to show that the filioque, as a doctrinal development, is compatible with what has always been affirmed in common by East and West; yet the main objection to my effort seems to be that the spirituque corollary, as a candidate for doctrinal development, is incompatible with what the West in particular has affirmed. Obviously I don't agree; it seems to me that the spirituque, which is not the main focus of my proposal anyhow, is being misunderstood to say more than it really says.

That's why it comes as a relief to me that Jonathan Prejean has now "got it." The amateur triadologists among my readers out there would do well to read his post. If you want to resume the discussion, we can all do it here, where its background is more easily accessible.
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