Journal of Reformed Theology 3 (2009) 42-56 www.brill.

nl/jrt

The Trinity between East and West

Robert Letham
Senior Lecturer in Systematic and Historical Theology
Wales Evangelical School of Theology
e-mail: bobletham@west.org.uk

Abstract
Although—following contemporary interpreters—this article qualifies Theodore de Régnon’s
famous sharp distinction between Eastern and Western trinitarianism, it argues that the ‘acid
test’ of the liturgy makes clear that there simply is a contrast between Eastern and Western ways
of conceiving of the Trinity. Historically, this contrast found its focal point in the filioque
controversy. Therefore, after a sketch of the broader framework of the divergence between Eastern
and Western theology, the pros and cons of the addition of the filioque clause to the Creed are
discussed. It turns out that Augustine played an ambivalent role in this connection. Finally—
drawing on some recent proposals, a way forward in the filioque debate is suggested.

Keywords
De Régnon’s thesis, Eastern Orthodoxy, filioque, Western trinitarianism, Augustine, Trinity

Crucial Moments of Christian Reflection on the Doctrine of the Trinity

The fourth century crisis, initiated by the views of Arius, was crucial to the
articulation of the doctrine of the Trinity. Arius apparently held that the Son
was not co-eternal with the Father but another being, the agent used in crea-
tion but himself created. This meant he could neither be the revelation of
God, nor the savior of the church. The Council of Nicaea (325 AD) decisively
rejected these arguments. However, it did not resolve the question, for it lacked
the precise terminology to distinguish the way God is three from the way he is
one. Confusion followed.
With Athanasius asserting that the Son was the same identical being
(homoousios) as the Father, and Eunomius adopting arguments akin to Arius,
it required the Cappadocians—Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of
Nazianzus—to clear the way for a resolution of the problem. Basil was the first
to suggest that ousia be reserved for the one being of God and hypostasis for the

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2009 DOI: 10.1163/156973109X403714

 R. Letham / Journal of Reformed Theology 3 (2009) 42-56 43

three. As such, both the Son and the Holy Spirit were seen as fully God,
together with the Father; as the creator, the one object of worship. God is one
being, three persons; each person the whole God, equal in power and glory,
and mutually indwelling one another. The Council of Constantinople (381 AD)
declared this so. A generation later, in the West, Augustine unfolded his under-
standing of the Trinity, expressing his solidarity with the church’s doctrine
in his De trinitate and other writings, especially his Tractates on John. One
might have thought that the issue was definitively settled and that agreement
would reign unchallenged. However, over the years differences of outlook
on the Trinity have bedevilled relations between the Eastern and Western
churches. Why has this divergence occurred and is not the area of agreement
far greater?

Is De Régnon’s Twofold Scheme Artificial and Misleading?

Theodore De Régnon argued for a significant distinction between Eastern and
Western trinitarianism, a position widely accepted but which has come under
criticism in recent decades, spearheaded by M. R. Barnes.1 In fact, De Régnon’s
main thrust was a temporal distinction between what he called patristic and
scholastic trinitarianism, both categories encompassing both Greeks and
Latins. Those influenced by the paradigm of East and West developed it to
a far greater extent than he did. How far is such a distinction valid? Lewis
Ayres argues that it is inapplicable to the fourth century, stresses continuity
between Augustine and the Cappadocians, and dismisses its application to
later developments.2
These questions can be debated by theologians, but the acid test with the
Eastern church is the liturgy, which more than anything else is at the heart of
Orthodox belief and practice. The writings of individual theologians are con-
sidered simply as theologoumena—theological opinions. In contrast to the

1
Theodore De Régnon, Études de théologie positive sur la Sainté Trinité (Paris: Retaux, 1898);
Michel René Barnes, “De Régnon Reconsidered,” Augustinian Studies 26 (1995): 51-79; also
“Rereading Augustine on the Trinity,” in Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, S.J., and Gerald
O’Collins, S.J. eds., The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1999), 143-176.
2
Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
44 R. Letham / Journal of Reformed Theology 3 (2009) 42-56

West, for which originality refers to something new, in the East originality
means faithfulness to the originals.3
The Eastern liturgy—whether of St. Basil or St. Chrysostom—contrasts
widely to its Western counterparts. There is a profusion of trinitarianism;
prayers and doxologies abound, saturated in a repeated recognition of the
three persons in indivisible union. Worship and theology are inseparable; the
liturgy is the heart of its belief. In contrast is the well known separation of
the Trinity from the doctrine of God in Western theology since Aquinas,
and its relegation to a virtual appendage until the middle of the last century.
While to Eastern Christians trinitarian worship is axiomatic, to the vast major-
ity of Westerners the trinity is little more than an abstruse mathematical
conundrum.
Moreover, the claim that East and West diverged was not new with De
Régnon. It was firmly held over a millennium earlier by the Patriarch of Con-
stantinople, Photios. In his treatise on the Holy Spirit, he denounced Augus-
tine and his Latin followers as effective heretics by their modalistic blurring of
the distinctions between the Father and the Son. Later developments that
arose with Gregory Palamas, particularly the distinction between God’s essence
and energies, were not shared in the West. Eastern apophatic theology differs
radically from its Western counterpart, being at root a negation of rational
thought and an exercise in prayer and mystical contemplation, rather than
a cognitive positing of qualities in God differing from those in humanity.
Additionally, converts to Orthodoxy from Rome or Protestantism—before
their chrismation—have been required to renounce, inter alia, the filioque
clause. Together, these features demonstrate that East and West do not see the
Trinity identically, and that such differences as there are have been and are
matters of significant disagreement, affecting worship, thought, life, and eccle-
sial relations.
Certainly, this distinction can be overplayed. The West has had a strong
focus on the simplicity of God—in a very strong form in Aquinas—but the
Cappadocians also maintained it. Augustine may have proposed psychological
illustrations to help in grasping aspects of the Trinity—while Gregory of
Nazianzus ruled out attempts to seek created analogies—but his purpose was
to affirm his agreement with the trinitarian settlement reached in the East, not
to distance himself from it.

3
See Robert Letham, Through Western Eyes: Eastern Orthodoxy; A Reformed Perspective (Fearn:
Mentor, 2007).
 R. Letham / Journal of Reformed Theology 3 (2009) 42-56 45

Differences Between East and West

Communion was ruptured between the Eastern and Western churches in
1054 and confirmed after the collapse of the Byzantine empire in 1453. A
number of serious disagreements had developed, but by far the most impor-
tant single question of all was the filioque clause, which we shall consider
shortly.
The Eastern and Western churches have faced different tendencies to imbal-
ance on one side or other. The East early faced the danger of subordination-
ism, viewing the Father as the source of the Son and the Spirit, the guarantor
of unity in the Trinity, with the Son and the Spirit as somehow derivative.
The West, for its part, has tended more towards modalism, with the blur-
ring or eclipsing of the eternal personal distinctions. This can come either by
an excessive focus on the essence of God or by a reluctance to recognize God’s
revelation in human history as revealing anything about who he is eternally.
Generally, Western trinitarianism has had some difficulty in doing justice to
the distinctions of person.
Augustine’s impact looms large. In the second half of De trinitate, Augus-
tine introduced some illustrations for the Trinity, hesitantly and aware of their
serious limitations.4 His intent was to establish how three things, separately
exhibited, could be united in action. However, these illustrations appear to be
based on the primacy of God’s oneness over the three persons. Augustine
looked for trinitarian reflections in the human mind. He described the Trinity
in terms of a lover, the beloved, and the love that exists between them. Did
he reduce the Spirit to an attribute? The lover and the one loved are clearly
capable of being understood as distinct persons—but love is a quality, not a
personal entity.
Later, Aquinas separated discussion of de deo uno (the one God) from de deo
trino (the triune God). In his Summa contra gentiles, he held back discussion
of the Trinity until book 4, after considering the doctrine of God in detail in
book 1. In the Summa theologia, he discussed the existence and attributes of
God in Part One, qq. 1-25, turning to the Trinity only in qq. 27-43. This pat-
tern became standard in Western theological textbooks and was exacerbated
by the pressures of the Enlightenment, for which revelation and the super-
natural were problematic. Symptomatically of the malaise, Friedrich Schleier-
macher restricted his treatment of the Trinity to an appendix in his book, The
Christian Faith. The focus of attention from the eighteenth century shifted

4
Augustine, De Trinitate, 8-15.
46 R. Letham / Journal of Reformed Theology 3 (2009) 42-56

from God to this world. Alexander Pope’s famous lines sum it up: “Know then
thyself, presume not God to scan, the proper study of mankind is man.”5 A
batch of new academic disciplines emerged devoted to the study of humanity,
psychology, sociology, and anthropology as the most prominent, with a strik-
ing development of the historical consciousness. Biblical theology tended to
restrict the reference of biblical statements about the Father and the Son to
the historical dimension only. The problem with this line of thought is that, if
the reference of biblical statements is exclusively this-worldly and restricted to
human history, then God as he has revealed himself does not necessarily reveal
God as he is eternally in himself.
Colin Gunton argued that this overall tendency towards modalism lies at
the root of the atheism and agnosticism that has confronted the Western
church in a way that it has not done in the East. Whatever the validity of his
claim, Western trinitarianism has found it difficult to break these shackles.
Both Barth and Rahner, to cite but two examples, are strongly biased in that
direction. In particular, Barth’s statement on the Trinity as “God reveals him-
self as the Lord” and his triad of revealer, revelation, and revealedness has the
flavor of unipersonality, although in fairness we must recognize that, as Rah-
ner, he distances himself from modalism as such.6

The filioque Clause

The East has clearly seen the modalistic tendency of the West. As a prime
example, the filioque clause7 itself has, in their eyes, blurred the distinction
between the Father and the Son by regarding them as sharing identically in the
procession of the Spirit (Augustine wrote of the Spirit proceeding from both
“as from a single source”).8
The Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed (C) states that the Holy Spirit “pro-
ceeds from the Father.” There is no mention of his proceeding from the Son as
well. However, in Spain due to the threat of a continued Arianism, in localized
liturgies an addition crept in—a patre filioque—“from the Father and the Son.”
This addition spread and was adopted by local councils, particularly the Council

5
Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man, II:1 (London : MacMillan, 1954).
6
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I/1, (Edinburgh : T&T Clark, 1967-1977), 295ff.
7
This is the Western addition to the Nicceno-Constantinopolitan creed: “and the Son”
( filioque).
8
Augustine, De Trinitate, 15:17:27, 15:26:47; PL 42:1079-80, 1092-96.
 R. Letham / Journal of Reformed Theology 3 (2009) 42-56 47

of Toledo (589),9 and was accepted by the French church in the late eighth
century, but was not inserted into the Creed by Rome until 1014 under
Pope Benedict VIII. The fourth Lateran Council of 1215 mentioned it,
and the Council of Lyons in 1274 proclaimed it as dogma. The East objects
to this development on ecclesiastical grounds. Such a change should require
an ecumenical council akin to Nicaea, Constantinople, and Chalcedon, it
maintains.
The East also objects on theological grounds. The dominant influences in
Eastern trinitarianism—the Cappadocians and John of Damascus—stressed
the Father as the source of the personal subsistence of the Son and the Holy
Spirit, as the guarantor of unity in the Godhead, the sole principle, source,
and cause of the Son and the Spirit. Thus the Holy Spirit proceeds from the
Father. Photios, Patriarch of Constantinople (858-867, 880-886), confused
the situation further.10 He insisted that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the
Father alone, the Son having no part to play, although he did not require
acceptance of this by Rome.
The main Eastern concern is that the filioque compromises the monarchy
of the Father. The Greek Fathers held that the Holy Spirit is the treasure and
the Son is the treasurer—the Son receives and manifests the Spirit but he does
not cause its existence as such, since only the Father is the source or origin
or cause of both the Son and the Holy Spirit through ineffably different but
united acts.
Another related problem is that the clause confuses the Father and the Son.
The Father is not the Son. Thus, the relation between the Spirit and the Father
differs from the relation between the Spirit and the Son. Since the Son and the
Father are not the same, their respective relations to the Holy Spirit cannot be
the same either. Therefore to talk of the Spirit proceeding from the Father and
the Son without differentiation is to confuse the two. This is underlined by

9
But see R.M. Haugh, Photius and the Carolingians: The Trinitarian Controversy (Belmont:
Norland, 1975), 160-61, who questions this explanation and argues that it “first entered the
Ecumenical Creed in the Latin West by a simple method of transposition and not by any willful
act of interpolation in conscious violation of the Ecumenical decrees.” Sergei Bulgakov rightly
argues that the phrase was unnecessary, for Arianism could have been rebutted quite readily
without it; “pour rejeter l’arianisme et reconnaître l’équi-divinité et la consubstantialité du Fils
au Père, on n’a nul besoin de cette surérogation” (“for rejecting Arianism and acknowledging the
equal divinity and consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, one does not need this
superfluity”). Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov, Le Paraclet, Constantin Andronikof, ed. (Paris:
Aubier, 1946), 125.
10
Photios, On the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, PG 102:280-391.
48 R. Letham / Journal of Reformed Theology 3 (2009) 42-56

Augustine’s teaching that the Spirit proceeds from both as from a common
source.
According to the West, the Eastern repudiation of the filioque leaves no
clear relation between the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is in odd contrast to
the patristic teaching of perichōrēsis, whereby the persons of the Trinity indwell
and interpenetrate one another. The West holds that this exhibits subordina-
tionist tendencies reaching back as far as Origen, for in the East the Son and
the Holy Spirit are commonly said to receive their deity from the Father and
so both seem to be derivative. In contrast, the filioque affirms the intimate
relation between the Son and the Spirit. This, the West claims, has led to a gulf
in the East between theology and piety. Speculative theology, grounded on the
Logos, has been separated from worship and mediated by the Holy Spirit.
Thus Eastern piety, so Western observers like Bavinck claim, is unduly domi-
nated by mysticism.11
Neither of these arguments is sustainable. The claim that the East holds
apart the Son and the Holy Spirit is wrong. Throughout, the Eastern church
has accepted terminology such as “from the Father through the Son” as a valid
expression of the intent of C. It maintains a mediating role for the Son in the
procession of the Spirit, while insisting that the Father is the sole source, cause,
or origin. Again, the East argues the Holy Spirit rests on the Son (as at Jesus’
baptism) and is received by him, and in turn is sent by the Son.12 In saying
that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, the East presupposes the relation
existing in the Trinity between the Father and the Son, for the Father is the
Father of the Son, the Son is eternally in and with the Father, and the Father
is never apart from the Son.13 For Western theologians to make this claim
ignores the Cappadocian teaching on mutual indwelling, first taught by Gre-
gory of Nyssa. This is a crowning affirmation of the close relations of the Son
and the Holy Spirit, as we shall see in a moment. Besides, C is not silent on
the relation of the Holy Spirit and the Son, for the Spirit is worshiped and
glorified together with the Father and the Son, and with them is the author
and giver of life, “by whom [the Father] made the worlds.” In short, the East
consistently affirms that the Son participates in the Holy Spirit’s procession
from the Father both immanently and economically.

11
Herman Bavinck, The Doctrine of God (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, rpr, 1977), 313-17.
12
Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 1:317-19.
13
See the references to Athanasius below. Jürgen Moltmann’s proposal that the Spirit proceeds
“from the Father of the Son” assumes a consensus would form in the East in support; see his
volume Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom: The Doctrine of God (London: SCM,
1991), 185-87.
 R. Letham / Journal of Reformed Theology 3 (2009) 42-56 49

On the second point, one of the most famous elements of Eastern piety, the
Jesus prayer, is thoroughly Christocentric—“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God,
have mercy on me a sinner.” That the East has no monopoly on unbridled
mysticism is evident by the Toronto blessing and other similar phenomena,
which are distinctly Western.
A third objection carries greater weight. Following John of Damascus, the
East tends to consider that the essence of God is unknowable, only God’s
energies or operations being revealed, the things around him (“all that we can
affirm concerning God does not shew forth God’s nature, but only the quali-
ties of his nature”).14 This dichotomy is used to offset some of the biblical
evidence for the joint and co-ordinate involvement of the Son in relation to
the Holy Spirit. As a sympathetic critic like T.F. Torrance argues, it drives a
wedge between the inner life of God and his saving activity in history, ruling
out any real access to knowing God in himself.15 It also departs from earlier
Greek patristic thought, which rejected this distinction.16 Besides opening a
yawning chasm between the economic Trinity and the ontological Trinity, the
tendency seems to be towards a quaternity rather than a Trinity—the unknow-
able divine essence plus the three revealed persons.

The Influence of Augustine

The assumption that Augustine was influenced by neoplatonism has, until
recently, been almost axiomatic. From this, it is claimed, comes his over-
whelming stress on the unity of the divine essence and his great difficulties
recognizing real distinctions for the three persons. In turn, this has left a legacy
for the Western church, for which modalism is an ever-present threat. Colin
Gunton made a devastating attack on Augustine’s trinitarianism along these
lines.17 Prestige recognized that his “attention [is] firmly riveted on the essen-
tial unity” so he has an “essentially different” doctrine from that of the Greeks.18
Bray argued for the influence of the neoplatonism of Porphyry, although he

14
John of Damascus, The Orthodox Faith, 1:4.
15
Thomas F. Torrance, The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being, Three Persons (Edinburgh:
T.&T. Clark, 1996), 187.
16
Athanasius, On the Decrees of the Synod of Nicea, 22 in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers,
(NPNF ), vol. 4, St. Athanasius: Selected Works and Letters, ed. P. Schaff, H. Wace, (2nd printing,
Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 1995).
17
Colin Gunton, “Augustine, the Trinity, and the Theological Crisis of the West,” SJT 43
(1990): 33-58.
18
G.L. Prestige, God in Patristic Thought (London: SPCK, 1952), 237.
50 R. Letham / Journal of Reformed Theology 3 (2009) 42-56

did not rule out impact from the Cappadocians mediated by Hilary. Augus-
tine, he says, is contradictory and confusing, moving close to modalism, with
“a trinitarianism quite different from the Cappadocians.”19
In contrast, Basil Studer is more positive.20 M.R. Barnes carefully under-
mines the received idea of neoplatonic influence. Read in context, Augustine
should be understood in terms of Nicene theology. He calls the received view
“dead wrong.”21 Augustine has been read in dismembered form, with bits and
pieces extracted from his writings and read piecemeal, without regard to the
historical and theological context. There are few proper scientific historical-
theological studies of Augustine’s trinitarianism yet “this lack of productivity . . .
has not visibly stopped anyone in the field of Systematics from saying what-
ever they wanted to say about Augustine’s trinitarian theology.”22 Seeing his
stress on unity as due to neoplatonic influence stems from an understanding
of neoplatonism that is no longer viable. It also fails to reflect the doctrinal
content of the texts.23 Moreover, Studer’s point is well taken that those books
are “a dogmatic description of what is believed about the Trinity as this emerges
from the traditional understanding of the biblical passages in question. In any
case, it is the Nicene faith in the identical essence of the Father, Son, and Spirit
and in their common action that Augustine made his starting point.”24
Moreover, in Letter 169 to Bishop Evodius, Augustine discussed the unique-
ness of the Incarnation.25 In De trinitate he explained this further. The Spirit
did not beatify the wind, the fire, or the dove—any of the material elements
in which he appeared—nor did he join them forever to himself and to his
person. We cannot call the Spirit both God and a fire, or God and a dove.
However, we call the Son both God and man. Moreover, the fire and the dove
appeared simply for the purpose of signifying the Holy Spirit, then to disap-

19
Gerald Bray, “The Filioque Clause in History and Theology,” TB 34 (1983): 115-16;
Bertrand de Margerie S.J., The Christian Trinity in History, Trans. E. J. Fortman S.J. (Petersham:
St. Bede’s Publications, 1982).
20
Basil Studer, Trinity and Incarnation: The Faith of the Early Church, Matthias Westerhoff,
Andrew Louth, eds. (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1993), 167-85; idem, The Grace of Christ and
the Grace of God in Augustine of Hippo: Christocentrism or Theocentrism? (Collegeville: Liturgical
Press, 1997).
21
Michel René Barnes, “Rereading Augustine on the Trinity” (see footnote 1), 145.
22
Barnes, “Rereading Augustine,” 152.
23
Michel René Barnes, “Rereading Augustine on the Trinity,” in Stephen T. Davis, Daniel
Kendall & Gerald O’ Collins, eds. The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity,
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 145-53.
24
Studer, Grace of Christ, 106.
25
Augustine, Letter 169, 2:7, NPNF 1:540-41, PL 33:745.
 R. Letham / Journal of Reformed Theology 3 (2009) 42-56 51

pear. The Incarnation is both real and permanent.26 In view of passages like
this, Gunton’s strictures are surprising. It hardly appears that Augustine had
little interest in the distinctions of the persons nor that he was averse to the full
import of the Incarnation.

Augustine’s Legacy and the Focus on the Divine Essence

However, succeeding generations in the West developed a powerful focus on
the divine essence. Here Gunton’s criticisms have weight. Augustine’s trinitar-
ian illustrations were inherently modalistic—all are within the human mind—
and make the one being primary and the three persons problematic. Gunton
claims that this was based on an assumption that the mind is specially privi-
leged compared to the body, combined with a corresponding distance between
God and the material creation.27 Bobrinskoy points to “what, in Augustine,
only had an illustrative character, became a systematic criterion of later theo-
logical thought, with Anselm and in Thomism.”28 This problem is present in
Augustine himself when, beginning with the essence, he admits a difficulty of
thinking of the persons. “When the question is asked, ‘What three?’ human
language labours under great poverty of speech. The answer, however, is given
‘three persons’ not that it might be completely spoken, but that it might not
be left wholly unspoken.”29 The persons are relations, and the Father is real only
in relation to the Son and the Spirit. On the other hand, the essence is simple
and is not problematic, but for that reason it tends towards the impersonal.
Whereas the Cappadocians began with the Bible and the Christian experience
of salvation, Augustine is driven by the Aristotelian category of relations.30

The Way Forward

(1) The Eastern split between God’s essence and his energies, after John of
Damascus and particularly Palamas, poses problems—Eastern apologists arguing
26
Augustine, Trinity, 2:6:11, PL 42:851-52.
27
Gunton, “Augustine,” op. cit.
28
Boris Bobrinskoy, The Mystery of the Trinity: Trinitarian Experience and Vision in the Biblical
and Patristic Tradition, Anthony P. Gythiel, ed. (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press,
1999), 284.
29
Augustine, Trinity, 5:9:10, PL 42:894-95.
30
R.M. Haugh, Photius and the Carolingians: The Trinitarian Controversy (Belmont: Norland,
1975), 198-200.
52 R. Letham / Journal of Reformed Theology 3 (2009) 42-56

that references to the Son sending the Spirit apply only to the energies, to the
purely economic. Jürgen Moltmann answers this in saying we can speak of
only one Trinity and so “the divine Trinity cannot appear in the economy of
salvation as something other than it is in itself. Therefore one cannot posit
temporal trinitarian relations within the economy of salvation which are not
grounded in the primal trinitarian relations.” Thus, he continues, this relation
between the Son and the Holy Spirit cannot be restricted to the temporal
sending. If this were so, there would be a contradiction in God. This cannot
be, for God remains true to himself. What holds true in his revelation is true
in his being.31

(2) In the West, the danger of modalism is real. If we start with the divine
unity, the persons become problematic as real, personal, permanent, irreduci-
ble, and eternal ontological distinctions.

(3) The filioque clause is misleading for three possible reasons. First, if the
Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as a single source, the distinction
of the Father and the Son is blurred. Second, there appears some evidence of a
tendency to subordinate the Holy Spirit if the filioque is needed to support
the consubstantiality of the Son. If the deity of the Son requires him to be the
spirating source of the Holy Spirit, where does that leave the Spirit, who is the
source of no other hypostasis? Third, a basic principle of trinitarian theology
is flouted by the West. The attributes of the divine nature are shared by all
three persons while the divine properties are held by one person, but here a
property (spiration) is shared by two persons while the third is excluded.32

(4) For a resolution of this problem, the East must recognize that the filioque
was used in support of teaching the East fully accepts—the consubstantial
unity of the Trinity, the deity of the Son, and the intimacy between the Son
and the Holy Spirit. For its part, the West must recognize that Augustine’s
teaching that the Father and the Son are the common cause of the eternal

31
Jürgen Moltmann, “Theological Proposals Towards the Resolution of the Filioque
Controversy,” in Lukas Vischer, ed. Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ: Ecumenical Reflections on the
Filioque Controversy, (London: SPCK, 1981), 165-166.
32
Photios argues “everything not said about the whole, omnipotent, consubstantial, and
supersubstantial Trinity is said about one of the three persons. The procession of the Spirit is not
said to be common to the three, consequently it must belong to one of the three.” Photios, On
the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit (n.p.: Studion, 1983), 36.
 R. Letham / Journal of Reformed Theology 3 (2009) 42-56 53

being of the Holy Spirit unintentionally compromises the monarchy of the

Father in the eyes of the East.

(5) Help can be found from Alexandria. In his Letters to Serapion on the Holy
Spirit, Athanasius deals at length with the trinitarian relations. The Son is
consubstantial with the Father, out of the being of the Father. Whatever the
Father has, the Son has.33 The Trinity is indivisible, so wherever the Father is
mentioned the Son is also understood and—by the same token—where the
Son is the Holy Spirit is in him.34 The Spirit is never apart from the Son, a
point Athanasius repeats time and again.35 The Son is the image of the Father,
but so also the Holy Spirit is the image of the Son.36 The Son is in the Father,
and the Father is in the Son, and so also the Holy Spirit is in the Son, and the
Son is in the Holy Spirit. Thus, the Spirit cannot be divided from the Word.37
As the Son comes in the name of the Father, so the Holy Spirit comes in the
name of the Son.38 Nothing could be clearer than the intimate, unbreakable
relation between the Son and the Holy Spirit in Athanasius’ thought. The
three persons indwell one another, are in each other. This applies as much
to the Son and the Spirit as to the Son and the Father or the Father and
the Spirit. Similar lines of thought are evident in Cyril, in the Dialogus II
de SS. trinitate 39 and in his Thesaurus de sancta et consubstantiali trinitate.40
The Spirit is not alien from the divine essence, for he is of the essence, for he
inexists (enhypostatos), proceeding from it and remaining in it.41 So the Spirit is
from the Father and the Son, since he is of the divine being, proceeding in it
and from it.42 Hence, the Spirit is from the being of the Son as well as the being
of the Father.43 While he naturally proceeds from the Father,44 because of his
enhypostatic relations he is in the Son and from the Son45 and so can be said

33
Athanasius, Letters to Serapion on the Holy Spirit, 2:5, PG 26:616.
34
Athanasius, Serapion, 1:14, PG 26:566.
35
Athanasius, Serapion, 1:14, 17, 20, 31, 3:5, 4:4; PG 26:565-6, 572, 576-7, 601, 632-3, 641.
36
Athanasius, Serapion, 4:3, PG 26:640-1.
37
Athanasius, Serapion, 1:20-21, PG 26:580.
38
Athanasius, Serapion, 1:20, PG 26:580.
39
Cyril of Alexandria, Dialogue on the Most Holy Trinity, PG 75:721-3.
40
Cyril of Alexandria, Thesaurus on the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity, PG 75:565.
41
Cyril of Alexandria, Thesaurus on the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity, PG 75:577.
42
Cyril of Alexandria, Thesaurus on the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity, PG 75:585.
43
Cyril of Alexandria, Thesaurus on the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity, PG 75:587, 589
44
Cyril of Alexandria, Thesaurus on the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity, PG 75:597.
45
Cyril of Alexandria, Thesaurus on the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity, PG 75:581.
54 R. Letham / Journal of Reformed Theology 3 (2009) 42-56

to proceed from the Father in the Son.46 Cyril also says that the Spirit is sent
from the Father through the Son (citing both John 15:26 and 14:26!)47 and
that he proceeds from the Father and the Son.48

Recent Proposals
Moltmann proposes that the Spirit proceeds from the Father of the Son. He
points to the Son’s conception by the Spirit and baptism by the Spirit. Here
the Spirit precedes the Son. Moltmann stresses the reciprocal relations of the
persons, preserving the procession of the Spirit from the Father while recog-
nizing the Son’s participation. He seems to concede the case to the East, and
from the West’s perspective does not adequately express the Son’s role.49 Pan-
nenberg rejects the filioque on the grounds that it implies the subordination of
the Holy Spirit, and since scripture says the Son receives the Spirit from the
Father, so undermining the idea that the relation of the Son and the Spirit is
unilateral.50
On the other hand, Gerald Bray defends the filioque. Different views of
salvation underlie the question. The East has inadequately expressed the con-
nection between the Spirit and the Son. This is directly related to its soteriol-
ogy, in which deification by the Spirit is primary, while for the West the death
and resurrection of Christ is central, applied by the Holy Spirit.51 Under West-
ern eyes the East fails to place the atoning work of Christ in center stage and
to integrate it with the work of the Spirit. For the East, death is the great
enemy, bringing about the disorder of sin. Sin is subordinate to death. Christ’s
resurrection defeats death. Salvation is a conquest of mortality, the risen Christ
bringing life in its place. The cross is not ignored, but is seen from the stand-
point of the resurrection. The idea of sin as a transgression of the law of God,
for which Christ on the cross makes atonement, is hardly found. Whereas for
the West salvation is at root moral and ethical, for the East it is cosmic. For the
West a holy God delivers his people from sin; for the East the risen Christ
delivers the human race from death.52 The gulf between East and West, accord-

46
Cyril of Alexandria, Thesaurus on the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity, PG 75:577.
47
Cyril of Alexandria, Thesaurus on the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity, PG 75:581.
48
Cyril of Alexandria, Thesaurus on the Holy and Consubstantial Trinity, PG 75:585.
49
Moltmann, Trinity, 178-90.
50
Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1:319-21.
51
Bray, “Filioque,” 139-44.
52
Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (London: Penguin, 1969), 230-34; John Meyendorff,
 R. Letham / Journal of Reformed Theology 3 (2009) 42-56 55

ing to Bray, is wider than the filioque. Referring to Calvin, he suggests that the
clause is integral and necessary to Reformed and evangelical Christianity.53
Clearly, both atonement for sin and conquest of death should feature in any
theology and so the entail of the filioque cannot be discarded.54 Discussions
must extend further afield. However, Bray overlooks the rich reflection in the
East on the baptism of Jesus. Here the Spirit descends from heaven, from
where comes the Father’s voice, and rests upon the Son who, in turn, breathes
him out on his disciples.
The 1991 Agreement between Orthodox and Reformed churches55 is his-
toric but limited in scope. The Western representatives were from the World
Alliance of Reformed Churches. There was neither representation of other
Protestant bodies, nor any from Rome, nor an adequate advocacy of Augus-
tinian trinitarianism. The Reformed participants were already sympathetic—
though not uncritically—to the East. That said, the agreement does represent
progress. Torrance’s commentary indicates a thorough recognition of all the
main theological parameters.
Bobrinskoy points to the perichoretic relations of the three as providing
a way out of the dilemma.56 The alternative phrase from the Father through
the Son has the merit of a biblical foundation and is acceptable to the East,
but can still imply ideas of pre-Nicene subordination, the Father the prime
source, the Son secondary if improperly understood. Moltmann suggests from
the Father of the Son, since the Father is the Father only in relation to the Son.
He reveals himself as the Father of Jesus Christ, not as a universal father of all
creation. Neither is he the Father of the Spirit, for he is the Father in relation
to the Son. Therefore the eternal procession of the Spirit from the Father pre-
supposes the eternal begetting of the Son by the Father. Hence the Spirit’s
procession occurs in the eternal presence of the Son.57 The Cyrilline phrase
from the Father in the Son seems to me to express the mutual indwelling of the

Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (New York: Fordham University
Press, 1979), 159-65.
53
Bray, “Filioque,” 142-43.
54
See Robert Letham, The Work of Christ (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1993), especially ch 7.
55
For the official text, see Thomas F. Torrance, Theological Dialogue Between Orthodox and
Reformed Churches, Volume 2 (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, Ltd, 1993), 219-32; or
“Agreed Statement on the Holy Trinity Between the Orthodox Church and the World Alliance
of Reformed Churches,” Touchstone 5, no. 1 (1992 Winter 1992): 22-23. For commentary
on the agreement, Thomas F. Torrance, Trinitarian Perspectives: Toward Doctrinal Agreement
(Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark, 1994), 110-43.
56
See Bobrinskoy, Mystery, 65-72.
57
Moltmann, “Proposals,” 167-69.
56 R. Letham / Journal of Reformed Theology 3 (2009) 42-56

three, avoids any residual subordination, and also directs us to Jesus’ baptism.
It also avoids a focus on the Spirit apart from Christ, for we receive the Spirit
in Christ. The West’s concern for the relation between the Son and the Spirit
is maintained, and the confusion of the filioque avoided. The monarchy of
the Father is also clear. Moreover, the focus avoids the West’s tendency to
the impersonal. Moreover, it has explicit biblical support based on Jesus’ own
reference to the inseparable relations and mutual indwelling of the Father and
the Son (Jn. 14:17-20, 17:20-23). In view of the weaknesses of both Western
and Eastern models, a focus on the persons in the context of indivisible peri-
choretic union in a manner such as this can gain the benefits claimed by social
trinitarianism without the pitfalls of its apparently tritheistic tendencies.58

58
See the criticisms of Moltmann in Robert Letham, The Holy Trinity: in Scripture, History,
Theology, and Worship (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian & Reformed, 2004), 298-312; Paul Molnar,
Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity: In Dialogue with Karl Barth and
Contemporary Theology (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2002), 201-2; George Hunsinger, Review of
Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, in The Thomist 47 (1983): 129-39.