Lecture 15: Atonement and the Procession of the Spirit

Atonement and the Procession of the Spirit .....................................

Lecture 15

Western Christianity—which becomes the Roman Catholic and

Protestant traditions—and Eastern Christianity—which is most

powerfully represented by the Eastern Orthodox tradition—begin to

diverge in the early Middle Ages, and they reach a real dividing point

in the 11th century in 1054.

T

he schism between Eastern Orthodoxy and the Western church

took place in 1054 because of the doctrine of double procession.

The Western version of the Nicene Creed came to say the Holy

Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father “and the Son.” This Western

doctrine that the Spirit proceeds from the Father “and the Son” is called

“double procession.” Filioque is Latin for “and the Son” and was

gradually and almost inadvertently added to the creed in the West, not by

decision of a council. One major Eastern objection to the ¿ lioque is simply

procedural: Nothing can be added to the creed without the decision of an

ecumenical council.

A generous Eastern Orthodox view can accept ¿ lioque but only in a sense.

Both East and West can af¿ rm the formula that the Spirit proceeds from

the Father through the Son, and both af¿ rm that the Father is the principle,

the source, and origin of the whole deity. The East objects that the double

procession undermines the monarchy of the Father, the doctrine that the

Father is the sole source of the divinity.

The double procession is an Augustinian doctrine that the Western church

of¿ cially defended. Augustine argued that because the Holy Spirit is the

Spirit of the Father and of the Son, he proceeds from the Father and the

Son together. The only thing the Father does not give to the Son is being the

Father. But the Father gives the Son the capacity to be a source of the Holy

Spirit. Furthermore, the West insists that the Spirit proceeds from the Father

and the Son from one principle, not two. The West will af¿ rm the Son is a

source or principle within the Trinity, but the East disagrees. They say there

is only one source in the Trinity, that is, the Father. In favor of the Western