The Filioque and Its Current Status [Commentary on Browne: Article V] — The North American Anglican (with my comments)

Consult any pre-21st century English or American Prayer Book and you will find in the Nicene Creed that the Holy Spirit proceeds “from the Father and the Son.”[1] The phrase “and the Son” is a translation of the Latin term Filioque, with the opening words of Article V—“The Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and…

The Filioque and Its Current Status [Commentary on Browne: Article V] — The North American Anglican

This topic is one of those that never seems to run out of gas. I think the impulse for this is to promote unity, which is good but not at the expense of truth. I detail in the post Note on the Filioque Clause: St. Thomas Aquinas on the Procession of the Holy Spirit From the Son the best rationale for keeping this in the Nicene Creed.

Having said that, I’m not sure how much “unity” we’ll get out of this. The core problem is that the “400 kilogram gorilla” in the unity issue is Roman Catholicism, as I noted in my Book Review: Trevor Gervase Jalland’s The Church and the Papacy. I don’t see them budging on this issue (or many others.) Given the dicey state of the current Occupant of the See of St. Peter, the filoque clause is the least of our concerns.

I think the Anglicanism’s best course is to “be itself” (as soon as it sorts through what “itself” really is) and move forward with the Gospel. Recent events in Kigali have moved that process forward, although it remains to be seen whether the majority of the Communion has the nerve to formally vote the Church of England “off the island.”