Holy Spirit "proceeding from one source"?

[TryingToLearn]

The classic Western doctrine of the filioque states that, as Matthew Barrett puts it in his book, "Simply Trinity":

The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from one, single source or principle (not two), since the Father and Son are both subsistences of the same, simple essence.

This, however, doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. This seems confused to ground the generation of persons in the essence and not in the persons. Should not we say that the Spirit proceeds from two persons instead of one source? Why is the essence generating a person? In other words, if the essence is what is generating persons, and the essence is common to all persons, should not each person be generating the other persons?

If the argument is that the Spirit must proceed equally from both the Father and the Son due to them sharing in the same essence, and yet the essence is shared by all 3 persons, then why not also argue that the Son must proceed from the Spirit since they share in the same essence? It seems to me that the modes of origins must be grounded in the persons and thus the Spirit would proceed from two persons, not one essence.

Also, per Calvin's autotheos, shouldn't the essence not be generating any persons in the first place, since the essence is incommunicable? As regards the essence, the Son and Spirit do not receive it from any person, yet as regards their persons, they find their origins in other persons. It seems to me that it would necessarily follow that if you hold to an autotheon view of divine personhood, that the Spirit has to be generated from two distinct persons, and not one common essence.

Anyways, those are just my thoughts and I'd appreciate any of your guys' thoughts here and any corrections and clarifications that I might need.

 

[Eyedoc84]

The classic Western doctrine of the filioque states that, as Matthew Barrett puts it in his book, "Simply Trinity":


This, however, doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. This seems confused to ground the generation of persons in the essence and not in the persons.

I haven’t read the book, but I don’t know your interpretation of the quote you cited necessarily follows. @BayouHuguenot ?

 

[RamistThomist]

I haven’t read the book, but I don’t know your interpretation of the quote you cited necessarily follows. @BayouHuguenot ?

I'll think about it.

 

[RamistThomist]

We say that the HS proceeds as from one source because there can't be two independent sources in the Trinity.

Barrett, and the tradition, says that the Father generates the Son by communicating his entire essence to him. It's not quite as simple as "is he begotten from the essence or the person?"

Why can't the Son proceed from the Spirit? The simple answer is that the Spirit doesn't have the hypostatic characteristic of paternity. The distinguishing mark of the Spirit is procession.

 

[TryingToLearn]

Barrett, and the tradition, says that the Father generates the Son by communicating his entire essence to him.

Yes, but given Calvin's doctrine of autotheos, there can be no communication of the essence. So, how would this work out in a Calvinian scheme?

 

[RamistThomist]

Yes, but given Calvin's doctrine of autotheos, there can be no communication of the essence. So, how would this work out in a Calvinian scheme?

Calvin isn't the same thing as Calvinian scheme. We are bound to the Confession, not to an individual theologian.

 

[Eyedoc84]

I haven’t dug deeply into Calvin’s autotheos but it seems to me if the Son is autotheos without respect to His eternal generation from the Father, you end up with tritheism. Obviously that’s not where Calvin went with it. But the Son is autotheos because of the undivided essence derived from the Father eternally.

 

[RamistThomist]

I haven’t dug deeply into Calvin’s autotheos but it seems to me if the Son is autotheos without respect to His eternal generation from the Father, you end up with tritheism. Obviously that’s not where Calvin went with it. But the Son is autotheos because of the undivided essence derived from the Father eternally.

Precisely. I think Calvin intended the latter, and even his Roman Catholic opponent, Cardinal Bellarmine, charitably interpreted him as such. I think autotheos language is generally unhelpful.

 

[TryingToLearn]

His doctrine of autotheos is thoroughly Biblical; as regards the Son's person, "the Father has granted to the Son...", yet as regards His essence, the Son has "life in Himself". The doctrine is committed to divine simplicity, as it argued that a simple essence cannot be communicated. The communication of the essence was central to Catholic theology because the essence needed to be able to be communicated in order for men to partake of the donum superadditum, but Calvin's doctrine removed that possibility. Brannon Ellis is helpful here: https://credomag.com/2013/04/calvin-classical-trinitarianism-and-the-aseity-of-the-son/

 

[RamistThomist]

His doctrine of autotheos is thoroughly Biblical; as regards the Son's person, "the Father has granted to the Son...", yet as regards His essence, the Son has "life in Himself". The doctrine is committed to divine simplicity, as it argued that a simple essence cannot be communicated. The communication of the essence was central to Catholic theology because the essence needed to be able to be communicated in order for men to partake of the donum superadditum, but Calvin's doctrine removed that possibility. Brannon Ellis is helpful here: https://credomag.com/2013/04/calvin-classical-trinitarianism-and-the-aseity-of-the-son/

I'm not attacking autotheos as such. I think it is unwieldy and there are probably reasons why the historic church didn't seem to use it.