Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.
-- John 20:21ff.
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| Rev. Anne Burghardt, General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation |
The Lutheran World Federation just resolved the problem of the insertion of the filioque with a reactionary surrender to the Orthodox, jettisoning reason for emotion.
"Let's just recite The Nicene Creed without 'and the Son' and then we can be friends".
. . . we suggest that the translation of the Greek original (without the Filioque) be used in the hope that this will contribute to the healing of age-old divisions . . ..
Here.
Is there a better example in the long history of Christian theology of the failure of the church to be guided into all the truth?
The Protestant schism is only 507 years old, the East-West now 970.
The filioque was a reasonable development within Trinitarianism, stubbornly resisted by the church in the East because it wasn't explicitly Nicene (325). Its first known promulgation at the Third Council of Toledo in 589 in a context of Arianism, the primarily Eastern heresy from the early fourth century, spread in the West but rankled the East, so much so it became a red line by 1054.
They got tired of their reputation for mistakes, I guess.
The first Protestant Reformers insisted generally on the text of Scripture to guide into all the truth, in keeping with the thinking of ancient fathers of the church such as Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria, and Epiphanius of Salamis, who specifically on the subject of the procession of the Holy Spirit from both the Father "and the Son" thought it was the plain teaching of the New Testament.
The Reformers thought that the New Testament Scriptures were the result of that process described by Jesus in the Gospel of John, that the Spirit would guide into all the truth. To them the filioque was obvious.
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.
-- John 16:13ff.
To contemporary Lutherans? Not so much.
Intellectually, if we may use that term elastically, the liberal Lutherans now have more in common with the enthusiasts, the Schwärmer, the 16th century's charismatics and radicals, than they do with the Protestant Reformation.
To them the Spirit is still revealing truths to all and sundry: His truth, her truth, my truth, your truth, hir truth, their truth, but the more important thing is the feeling of unity. Besides, most Christians today have no clue about an obscure topic like the filioque. It's a speedbump, not a roadblock.
The way for this in liberal Lutheranism was prepared for by their enthusiastic embrace of modern critical scholarship of the Bible, with the result that everything has been up for grabs: The theory of evolution, women's ordination, homosexuality, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Hey, why not the filioque? "Just take it . . . to the limit . . . one more time."
The origins of that, however, ironically enough, are in the Enlightenment rediscovery of . . . reason. What goes around, comes around, you might say, as the phonograph needle scratches across the vinyl.
Ultimately speaking, neither the well of human reason nor the well of human feeling produces rivers of living water.
I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
-- Ecclesiastes 1:14