Karl Barth on the Filioque

David Guretzki

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317109501
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Despite the burgeoning literature on Karl Barth, his doctrine of the Holy Spirit continues to be under-appreciated by his friends and critics alike. Yet, while Barth's commitment to the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son (Filioque) is well-known, many scholars dismiss his stand as ecumenically untenable and few have bothered to subject his stance on the Filioque to close theological analysis. For those interested in this long-standing ecumenical point of contention between Eastern and Western trinitarian theology, this book will show how Barth's doctrine of the Filioque may still have something to contribute to the debate. The work traces the origin of Barth's commitment to the Filioque in his early career (particularly in Romans and the Göttingen Dogmatics), and then analyzes how the doctrine functions throughout the Church Dogmatics. Guretzki concludes that Barth's doctrine of the Filioque, while clearly standing within the Western trinitarian tradition, is atypical in that he refuses to speak of a "double-procession" in favour of a "common procession" of the Spirit"a position that has more affinity with the Eastern position than many of Barth's critics may have thought

Chapter One
Karl Barth and the Filioque: History and Literature

During the last quarter of the twentieth century, some significant attempts were made to bring resolution to the centuries-old theological debate concerning the doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit, more commonly known as the filioque controversy. For example, in an effort to bring about a healing of the millennium-old schism between Orthodox and Catholics, Pope John Paul II called for a Roman clarification on the filioque clause in 1995. The resulting document provided helpful elucidation of similarities and differences between Catholic and Orthodox positions on the matter.1 Despite the signs of encouraging ecumenical progress, however, a definitive solution to the filioque controversy that is theologically and ecumenically acceptable to Eastern and Western ecclesiastical parties has not yet been formally reached.

However, the recent Roman clarification on the filioque is illustrative of how even longstanding theological traditions are in need of persistent revisitation in hopes of positive theological advance. Attempts at theological rapprochement, as important as they may be, can tend to rush impatiently ahead of the necessary work of clarifying respective theological traditions. By analogy to the Catholic clarification of the filioque, Protestants, who have generally shared the Roman Catholic acceptance of the clause, could potentially benefit from a “clarification” of their own. Few have bothered to ask how a deeply embedded tradition such as the filioque has functioned throughout the rest of Protestant theology. Consequently, this study might be viewed as a preliminary contribution to such a “Protestant clarification” by analyzing and evaluating the doctrine of the filioque as defended by one of the most widely influential Protestant theologians of the twentieth century, the Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth (1886-1986). Though it will be necessary to identify when, how, and where Barth adopted his support for the filioque and its attendant theology, this study pays special attention to Barth’s defense and use of the filioque in the Church Dogmatics (CD).2

Before launching directly into the study, however, it will be helpful to review briefly the history of the filioque controversy. This is especially important because the historical and doctrinal aspects of the filioque are rarely discussed amongst Protestants; indeed, the filioque controversy is often perceived by Protestants as an obscure chapter in Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox history. Consequently, the following brief historical overview will serve to set Barth into the context of the debate.

The Filioque Controversy: A Brief History

Early in the fifth century AD, certain Spanish churches began including the word “filioque” [Latin, “and the Son”] in the third article of the Latin text of the Nicœno-Constantinopolitan Creed (AD 381).3 Whereas the original text of the third article read, “in the Holy Spirit … who proceeds from the Father”,4 the interpolation of “filioque” [Et in Spiritum Sanctum … qui ex Patre (Filioque) procedit] altered the Creed explicitly to teach a procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son.5

Despite the affirmation given to the filioque by the third and fourth Councils of Toledo (AD 589 and 633 respectively), the addition itself remained relatively uncontroversial for nearly three centuries. It was only in 808 that the theological and ecclesiastical significance of the interpolation first began to be recognized.6 At that time, some Frankish monks arrived in Jerusalem and innocently recited the Creed with filioque included, just as they had been taught to do so in Emperor Charlemagne’s chapel. Shocked by this novelty, the Eastern monks of St Sabas rebuked the alien inclusion as an unauthorized and dangerous teaching. Their opposition, in fact, was so strong that they petitioned Pope Leo III for a judgment on the matter. By 810, he ruled that the filioque should not be included in the text of the Creed, despite the fact that he personally appeared to uphold the doctrinal truth which the filioque seemed to uphold. But in order to ensure that his ruling was taken seriously, he ordered the Creed—in the original Greek form—to be engraved upon two silver tables and deposited at St Peter’s in Rome.7

The real watershed for the emerging filioque controversy, however, was not the Council of Toledo, or resistance to Leo III’s ruling against the interpolation. Rather, the point at which the filioque became significant as both a theological and an ecumenical problem was the Photian-Carolingian exchanges in the ninth century.8 Though several Eastern fathers prior to the ninth century had disputed the dogmatic truth of the filioque, it was Patriarch Photius9 who was largely responsible for bringing about a clarification and consolidation of the Eastern theological position. Unlike his predecessors, who were content to affirm only what the Nicene Creed itself affirmed—i.e., that the Spirit proceeds from the Father10—Photius, in 867, advanced the argument a crucial step (though some judge it to be a fatal step leading to the Great Schism) by affirming that the Spirit proceeds “from the Father alone” [ἐκ μóνου το

πατρóζ]. Spurred on by Photius’s treatise against the theology of the filioque,11 the Eastern resistance to the credal addition began to escalate during the ninth and early tenth centuries. Interestingly enough, Western opinion during this time generally did not approve of a Greek equivalent to “filioque” as an interpolation into the Creed, despite the fact that local Latin liturgies included the filioque and received limited polemical defense from some Western theologians. The force of Western appreciation for the filioque was also reflected in the so-called Athanasian Creed (Quicumque vult) which likely appeared in France shortly before or during Charlemagne’s (d. 814) reign.12

If the contribution of Photius solidified the Eastern theological position, it was Pope Benedict VIII who officially endorsed the filioque clause for use in the Latin liturgy, thus making the filioque a Catholic dogma in 1014. However, it should also be noted that, even in 1014, the filioque clause was still restricted to the liturgical Latin version of the Creed; the Greek version remained untouched.

Unfortunately, by the beginning of the eleventh century, the political and theological positions on both Eastern and Western fronts had hardened to the point where reaching a mutually acceptable resolution would have been nearly impossible.13 Consequently, on 16 July 1054, three papal legates, led by Cardinal Humbert, entered the Church of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople and placed a sentence of excommunication against Patriarch Michael Cerularius, after which the legates exited the Church.14 In an immediate act of ecclesiastical retaliation, Patriarch Cerularius “refused to recognise the credentials of the legates and excommunicated them as impostors.”15 Though it is probable that the legates did not intend to excommunicate the entire Eastern Church,16 the historical consequence was an ecclesiastical break between the Greek and Latin Churches, the formal beginnings of what were to become The Holy Orthodox Church of the East and The Catholic Church of the West.17 Apart from various attempts at reunification since the Schism—most notably the Councils of Lyons (1274)18 and Florence (1438-9)19—the division between Eastern and Western Christendom formally remains to this day.20

Once Photius introduced what is now formally identified as the “monopatrist” position, the Western response to monopatrism was also formalized in the centuries to follow.21 One of the more notable Western defenses of the double procession came from the pen of St Anselm in his De Processione Spiritu Sancto22 (1102). Anselm’s primary argument in favor of the double procession of the Spirit rests on his contention that the Father gives all that is his own to the Son, including the ability to participate in the breathing of the Spirit. Therefore, Anselm reasoned, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son tamquam ab uno principio [“as from one principle”]. Berthold also notes that, prior to Anselm’s formal written defense of the filioque, he was asked by Pope Urban to present the Western arguments in favor of the filioque at the Council of Bari in October 1098. It was there that the Greek bishops present at the council gave their assent to the acceptability of the Western formula as Anselm had presented it.23

Thomas Aquinas also articulated a defense of the filioque in the article on the Holy Spirit in his magnificent Summa Theologica. Aquinas, in a line of reasoning similar to that of Anselm, contended that the Son shared all with the Father, including the ability to spirate the Spirit. However, Aquinas also argued that it was necessary to understand the Spirit as proceeding from the Father and the Son on the basis of what Aquinas called “relations of opposition.” That is, for Aquinas, the Father and the Son, though sharing a common essence, nevertheless are related to one another in an opposing relation—i.e., the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father. However, Aquinas reasoned, if the Son and the Spirit are likewise in a relation of opposition to the Father, then there is no way to distinguish between the Son and the Spirit, for their relation to the Father would be identical. As Aquinas argues,

If therefore in the Son and the Holy Ghost there were two relations only, whereby each of them were related to the Father, these relations would not be opposite to each other, as neither would be the two relations whereby the Father is related to them. Hence, as the person of the Father is one, it would follow that the person of the Son and of the Holy Ghost would be one, having two relations opposed to the two relations of the Father. But this is heretical since it destroys the Faith in the Trinity. Therefore the Son and the Holy Ghost must be related to each other by opposite relations.24

Beyond the faltering efforts at Lyons and Florence, few attempts were made for centuries thereafter to seek reconciliation between the Eastern and Western churches. The Reformers, many of whom simply assumed the theology of the filioque, diverted their theological energies to voicing their disagreements with many of the entrenched practices and doctrines of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, though there were some notable defenses of the filioque by both Lutheran and Calvinist schoolmen even up to the seventeenth century.25 Nevertheless, as the Western and Eastern parts of Christendom drifted apart culturally, politically, and theologically, the filioque was, at best, conceptually absorbed by Western thinkers,26 or at worst was considered to be little more than an ancient theological controversy of little or no relevance.

Beginning in the latter part of the nineteenth century, however, conversations among Orthodox, Catholics, Anglicans and Protestants were undertak...