Relating to the filioque debate is how the three persons of the Trinity are to be contrasted while each maintaining uniqueness. Many Eastern Orthodox today are of the opinion that the logical origins of the persons are sufficient for preserving the individual hypostases. Resorting to ‘relations of opposition,’ that is, differentiating the relations of each person, is a Latin invention, so they claim. It is not untrue that Latin West accepted this doctrine. For example, the 16th Council of Toledo professed:
296 Let the designation of this “holy will”-although through a comparative similitude of the Trinity, where it is called memory, intelligence, and will-refer to the person of the Holy Spirit; according to this, however, what applies to itself, is predicated substantially. For the will is the Father, the will is the Son, the will is the Holy Spirit; just as God is the Father, God is the Son, God is the Holy Spirit and many other similar things, which according to substance those who live as protectors of the Catholic faith do not for any reason hesitate to say. And just as it is Catholic to say: God from God, light from light, life from life, so it is a proved assertion of true faith to say the will from the will; just as wisdom from wisdom, essence from essence, and as God the Father begot God the Son, so the Will, the Father, begot the Son, the Will. Thus, although according to essence the Father is will, the Son is will and the Holy Spirit is will, we must not however believe that there is unity according to a relative sense, since one is the Father who refers to the Son, another the Son, who refers to the Father, another the Holy Spirit who, because He proceeds from the Father and the Son, refers to the Father and the Son; not the same but one in one way, one in another, because to whom there is one being in the nature of deity, to these there is a special property in the distinction of persons.[1]
However, even the Greek Fathers understood the difficulty is accurately describing the Trinity with the terms which have become common. Gregory the Theologian wrote:
What, then, is “proceeding?” You explain the ingeneracy of the Father and I will give you a biological account of the Son’s begetting and the Spirit’s proceeding–and let us go mad the pair of us for prying into God’s secrets. What competence have we here? We cannot understand what lies under our feet, cannot count the sand in the sea, “the drops of rain or the days of this world,” much less enter into the “depths of God” and render a verbal account of a nature so mysterious, so much beyond words.[2]
Greek Fathers felt it necessary to include the persons as opposing one another to expound on the Trinity more clearly. Gregory of Nyssa said:
The person of the Father, from whom the Son is begotten and from whom the Holy Spirit proceeds, is one and the same. Therefore, because the cause of the persons caused is properly one, we say that he is the one God and that he exists in eternity with the others. The persons of the Godhead do not differ in time, or in place, or in will, or in occupation, or in activity or in any of the emotions and passions that characterize the human race. The only difference between them is that the Father is the Father and not the Son, the Son is the Son and not the Father, and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son.[3]
Athanasius is another source for this doctrine: “But They are two, because the Father is Father and is not also Son, and the Son is Son and not also Father; but the nature is one.”[4] Gregory of Nazianzen wrote: “And He is Father in the absolute sense, for He is not also Son; just as the Son is Son in the absolute sense, because He is not also Father.”[5]
Therefore, relations of opposition are not confined to only Latins. It was one method among many to describe the Trinity in an orthodox way.
[2] https://meaningofcatholic.com/2019/05/27/the-filioque-again-and-again-on-bended-knee/
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