The Real Identity of Essence and Will in God (Aquinas)

Originally posted 2/14/2011.

Excerpts from the Angelic Doctor’s answers to the following five questions:
1. Did Things Proceed from God of Natural Necessity or by the Decree of His Will? (by the Decree of His Will) [QDP 3:15]
2. Whether God wills things apart from Himself? (Yes) [ST I, q. 19, art. 2]
3. Whether whatever God wills He wills necessarily? (No) [ST I, q. 19, art. 3]
4. Whether the will of God is the cause of things? (Yes) [ST I, q. 19, art. 4]
5. Are the Generative and Creative Powers the Same? (Yes) [QDP 2:6]

Manuel Calecas: On Essence and Energies

Originally posted 1/11/2011.

A VERY rough translation from the Latin in PG 152:283-427, with the Latin paragraph separation. Finished sections will have a √ next to them. In short order I’ll try to translate at least the first sentence of each paragraph. I am almost illiterate in Latin (I haven’t taken any courses at Fordham but will try to teach myself Latin grammar when I have much more free time in summer 2011), so if you’d like to speed up this process and translate some for me, I would be extremely grateful!

I will let you know when I have posted the whole text (i.e., I will post the untranslated parts, too, so I don’t have to keep referring to the PDF file of PG 152:283-427). I’m putting all the Palamite quotes in red, since this is an anti-Palamite work in which the author attacks the Palamites for making what he believes is a real (as opposed to formal or virtual) distinction between God’s essence and energy. I’ll eventually put in PG references to writings Manuel quotes, and add glosses to certain parts of his work.

Palamas & Patristics 2

Originally posted 2/11/2011.

From Fr. Yves, Congar, O.P., I Believe in the Holy Spirit.

Congar III:64: It would, in my opinion, certainly be possible to dispute the meaning of the texts of the Cappadocian Fathers and John Damascene that have been quoted in favor of Palamas’ thesis.¹⁷ The ante-Nicene Fathers, and in particular Athanasius, always denied that there could have been any procession in God other than that of the Persons. According to them, apart from the hypostases, only creatures proceeded from God. …

¹⁷. G. Florovsky, “Grégoire Palamas et la patristique,” Istina, 8 (1961-1962), 115-125, especially 122 (only Basil of Caesarea, Ep. 234 ad Amphilochium, and John Damascene, De fide orthod., I, 14); G. Philips, op. cit. below (note 22), 254.

Did the Fathers postulate a kind of corona of divine energies which were active ad extra, which could be shared and which were ontologically and really distinct from the divine essence and the hypostases? E. von Ivanka, who is also a considerable expert, disputes this (see note 16 below). The problem has, in my opinion, not yet been fully cleared up, and I am in no position to decide.

Palamism & Patristics 1

Originally posted 2/8/2011.

Here is a translation of part Fr. Martin Jugie, A.A. (1878-1954), “Palamas, Grégoire,” in: M. Vacant et al., eds., Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, tome XI/2 (Paris 1932), cols. 1761-1763. Many thanks to Dr. Peter Gilbert of De Unione Ecclesiarum for sending me the French text. I added some references, e.g., to St. Thomas Aquinas.

N.B. This translation is finished, thanks be to God!

Did Palamas have a good game in the field of positive theology? Certainly not. But he could fight more easily there than in the field of philosophy, where he was beaten in advance. He could at first, as we said before, hide behind the anthropomorphisms of common language that the Fathers, just like everyone else, have employed, without always explicitly applying the correctives that they put in place. Also, he and his party composed Patristic florigelia full of vague and meaningless passages, which they pulled together by a sophistic and entirely subjective exegesis. These florigelia have no probative value for the system they are intended to support. We are astonished, when browsing through them, by the exegetical blindness of their authors and the aplomb with which they list a [large] number of texts that have nothing to do with their theories. Without doubt, certain Fathers spoke in a rather obscure manner about the Taboric Light. There are, for example, in the homilies of St. John Damascene and St. Andrew of Crete, in the writings of St. Maximus, and in others expressions which, at first glance, appear to favor the new theology in some way; but is only in appearance, and anti-Palamite theologians have had no trouble in dispelling these verbal ambiguities. They all could assemble a great number of passages in which the absolute simplicity of God is expressly taught and the Palamite distinctions are explicitly condemned. Note, for example, an extract from St. Nicephorus, given in the First Refutation of Constantine Copronymus, 41, P.G., t. C, col. 304-305, falsely attributed by both parties to St. Theodore Graptos, which recurs constantly in the polemical writings of the period and subjected to tortuous exegesis by Palamas and his followers; several passages from St. Maximus, Pseudo-Dionysius, and others, which Nicephorus Gregoras assembled in his discussion with Nilus Cabasilas, Hist. byzant., b. XXII-XXIV, P.G., t. CXLVIII, col. 1328-1433.

St. John of Damascus and Filioque

Originally posted 10/22/2010.

East: Hieromonk St. John of Damascus (Doctor of the Assumption) (676-749; December 4)
*An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 1:12 in PG 94:849B: “And we speak also of the Spirit of the Son, not as though proceeding from Him, but as proceeding through Him from the Father. For the Father alone is cause.”
WRH: It is one thing to say that the Holy Spirit does not have existence from the Son simply and absolutely, and another to say that the Holy Spirit does not have existence from the Son as from the προκαταρτικὴν αἰτία/αἰτίας ἀχρόνως/principium primordiale/principium originale/principium primum (Fr. Jugie, p. 190). A priori, it is highly likely that St. John writes in the latter sense, or else he would be at odds with the consensus of the saintly Fathers before him.

*An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 1:12 in PG 94:848D: The Father “is, … through the Word, the Producer of the revealing Spirit.”
WRH: What does this formula mean? Three of the saint’s other statements indicate that the Holy Spirit, qua hypostasis, indeed proceeds from the Son:

(1) An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 1:13 in PG 94:856B: “The Son is the Father’s Image, and the Spirit the Son’s, through which Christ dwelling in man makes him after His own Image.”
WRH: There is a relationship of origin between an image and its prototype; see St. John of Damascus, Dialectics 6 in PG 94:548C; qtd. in Fr. Jugie, p. 189.

(2) On Heresies in PG 94:780B; qtd. in Fr. Jugie, p. 125: “The Father is the root, the Son is the branch, the Spirit is the fruit.”

(3) An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 1:13 in PG 94:856B: “The Holy Spirit is God, being between the unbegotten and the begotten, and united to the Father through the Son.”

*An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 1:8 in PG 94:832B: “And we do not speak of the Spirit as from the Son: but yet we call Him the Spirit of the Son.”
WRH: Thus when St. John of Damascus says that the Spirit does not proceed ἐκ (from) the Son, the great defender of icons is not rejecting Filioque, because εκπόρευσις (ekporeusis) can, in its general definition [cf. Rev 22:1], characterize only the relationship of origin to the principle without principle of the Holy Trinity, viz., the Father; to say that το εκ του Πατρος εκπορευομενον και του Υιου confuses the hypostases of the Father and the Son. The Son is not the αἰτία because He receives His fecundity from the Father, to paraphrase Fr. Congar, p. 136. explanation is that of the most learned theologians and historians of dogma regarding St. John’s statements like “non tamen ex ipso existentiam habens“ from his Homily on Holy Saturday [Greek in PG 96:605B]. See Fr. Dionysius Petavius, S.J. Dogmata theologica, vol. II: De Trinitate, Book VII, Chapter 17, §8, p. 763 and Fr. Jugie, De Processione, p. 190. Basilios Cardinal Bessarion (1403-1472) says the following in his Refutation of the Syllogistic Chapters of Mark of Ephesus, Chapter 37 [PG 161:240AB], qtd. in A. Edward Siecienski, Filioque: History of a Doctrinal Controversy, p. 164: “That the Son is not the cause of the Spirit we can also say, for we understand the meaning of cause in the strictest sense, as used in the Greek idiom, whereby cause always is understood as the primordial first cause.” In other words, several Eastern Fathers rightly say that the Son is not the cause because they use “cause” in the sense of προκαταρτικὴν αἰτία or αἰτίας ἀχρόνως, which can only be the Father; cf. Fr. Jugie, De processione, p. 148.

Thomistic Glosses on Greek Church Fathers

Originally posted 9/20/2010.

N.B. St. Thomas does not address all of these quotes directly or in their entirety.

St. Dionysius the Areopagite
Whether any created intellect can see the essence of God? (Yes)
On the Divine Names 1:4: the superessential Illimitability is placed above things essential, and the Unity above mind above the Minds; and the One above conception is inconceivable to all conceptions; and the Good above word is unutterable by word—Unit making one every unit, and superessential essence and mind inconceivable, and Word unutterable, speechlessness and inconception, and namelessness—being after the manner of no existing being, and Cause of being to all, but Itself not being, as beyond every essence…
ST I, q. 12, art. 1, ad 3: God is not said to be not existing as if He did not exist at all, but because He exists above all that exists; inasmuch as He is His own existence. Hence it does not follow that He cannot be known at all, but that He exceeds every kind of knowledge; which means that He is not comprehended.

How Can Filioque Be False?

Originally posted 9/4/2010.

How can the Filioque clause be heretical when all the Latin Fathers from St. Hilary onward{1}–with whom the Greek Fathers were in communion over the centuries and with whose consensus the Greek Fathers cannot, as a whole, disagree on a matter of divine and Catholic faith–taught that the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds, qua hypostasis, from the Father and the Son?{2}

Notes & References
{1} Gill, Fr. Joseph, and B. L. Marthaler “Filioque.” New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 5, 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003. p. 720. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Gale. Fordham University Libraries. 4 Sept. 2010.
{2} For fairly detailed proof that the Latin Fathers unanimously teach a hypostatic, not merely energetic, procession from the Father and the Son, see Huysman, Will R. “Filioque.” Catholic Patristics. 7 Oct. 2010. 10 Jan. 2011 <http://catholicpatristics.blogspot.com/2010/10/filioque.html>.

The Protestant Mutilation of Sacred Scripture

Originally posted 5/11/2010.

From a recent paper of mine (“Reflections on the ‘Life and Letters of Paul’ Class”):

Many authoritative Church councils prior to the Reformation defined the same canon as the canon of Scripture defined by the Ecumenical Council of Trent in 1546; they include the 393 Synod of Hippo and three Carthaginian councils in the years 393, 397, and 419 (Reid). The canon of the Council of Trent is the same as the Canon of Pope St. Innocent I from the year 405, which was sanctioned by Pope Adrian I and, in 865, by Pope St. Nicholas I the Great (ibid.). I quickly found strong support for the Catholic view among the Fathers of the Church; we are bound to accept their unanimous consent on any matter of faith and morals, or we are forced to say that they, the best witnesses to the traditions handed down by the Apostles, were deceived en masse.

St. Paul’s Rebuke of St. Peter

Originally posted 5/11/2010.

From a recent paper of mine (“Reflections on the ‘Life and Letters of Paul’ Class”):

The class handout “Peter and Barnabas’s ‘Hypocrisy’ (Gal 2:11–14)” prompted me to examine the implications of the “Antioch incident” for the primacy of St. Peter. St. Paul recounts the incident as follows:

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood self-condemned; for until certain people came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But after they came, he drew back and kept himself separate for fear of the circumcision faction. And the other Jews joined him in this hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I say that they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?” (Galatians 2:11-14).

The Writings of St. Dionysius the Areopagite

Originally posted 3/17/2010.

Popular but Faulty Arguments Against Genuineness
1. Most articles on “Pseudo-” Dionysius the Areopagite state that the Monophysite Patriarch Severus of Antioch was the first person to allude to or quote the Corpus Areopagitum. Because the writers of those articles date the Dionysian Corpus to around the time of Severus, they assume that it was the Areopagite who plagiarized from Proclus (412-485) and Plotinus (204-270), not the other way around. They make the author to be writing after the Fourth Ecumenical Council, Chalcedon (451) just because he uses one eminently Chalcedonian term to describe the union of the two natures. They also accuse him of the heresy of Monoenergism, when in fact the expressions of the Areopagite about the “new theandric operation” are in perfect harmony with the Catholic faith, and were treated as such by many Fathers, Doctors, and saints.