-
The Government Agent Who Promoted Cohabitation
We’re up on another 4 July, and frankly this one looks to be depressing. Many of us find ourselves in a country that doesn’t want us any more; we’ve even gotten to the point where we find a person like Edward Snowden a hero for exposing the NSA, even when he fled to places our government, for all practical purposes, considers enemies.
Thinking about this takes me back to something I’ve considered sharing for a long time. But I guess it’s now or never. It comes from the 1980’s, when Ronald Reagan was President and it was “morning in America”, a morning that has turned into a stormy afternoon and evening since.
I’ve always believed that the Christian sexual ethic is simple: the only licit conjugal relations are between a man and a woman in Holy Matrimony. I’ve also believed that it is unrealistic to expect non-Christian people to live up to this, although many do. I’ve always felt that the best way to state this truth is to live it in whatever state I found myself. That hasn’t always been easy or popular, especially growing up on the “leading edge” of our culture in 1960’s and 1970’s South Florida.
When I came into my family business on a full-time basis in 1978, it was never my desire to turn the business into its employees’ moral police. Concerning cohabitation and the children that resulted therefrom, we had a tradition of an even-handed approach which eschewed the moralistic punishment of the past and the sappy affirmation that was coming into vogue. So when one of my employees had a child out-of-wedlock with marriage following, it never occurred to me to make anything of it. His good performance continued and I never said anything to anyone else about it.
Unfortunately the company’s performance was another matter. The oil crash of the early 1980’s took many a good company in the oil patch into oblivion and our business suffered as well. He saw which way the wind was blowing and took a position with another organisation which required that he hold a security clearance. Security clearances were something I knew something about; I had one with my first employer. When the government examines a person who applies for one, they want to know everything about your whereabouts and everything else in your life.
Our government dispatched an agent to interview me as his supervisor. Armed with the knowledge and wanting to make the full disclosure I felt they were looking for, I mentioned his inauspicious start to married life. I figured that, if it meant anything to the government, they would take it into consideration and, if it did not, they would ignore it and move on.
Silly me: the agent started to push me about my own attitudes on the subject, with the unmistakable implication that I was being “judgemental” in my attitude. He was quite persistent in the matter and wasted a good deal of the time the taxpayers were paying for making an issue out of it. It never occurred to him that, had I been the judgemental ogre he was making me out to be, I would have fired the employee and been done with it. Finally he got the hint that he wasn’t going to change my convictions on the subject, finished the interview and left.
It was bad enough that the government was upset with me on the subject; a few years later, my family got into the same mode when we experienced some cohabitation of our own. Again I was cast as “judgemental” not because I took action against anyone but because of my beliefs. (In spite of this, no one would challenge my mother’s standing refusal to have any one of us stay in her house if they brought a companion they weren’t married to). My family was out of sorts with many of my Christian convictions, but their “Plan B” didn’t work out as advertised, and my poor brother took most of the blowback.
So when same-sex civil marriage floated to the top of the national debate, my first reaction was, “huh?” After all these years of trashing people who objected to cohabitation, how could these people turn around and insist that certain people needed to get married? Do they really expect all same-sex couples to get married? And doesn’t expanding marriage shame cohabiters? Yes, I know that we have a “try before you buy” attitude these days, but, if we remove the Christian sexual ethic from the discussion (which removes the “try” in any case) why the buy after the try?
My experience on a personal level with the cohabitation issue, and the stunning volte-face on same-sex civil marriage, have convinced me that those who lead this society are either insane or duplicitous or both. They remind me of Count Czernin’s description of the Bolsheviks. But to some extent we as Christians have painted ourselves into a corner on this issue. We’ve bawled for the last forty years that the reason for the breakdown of the family stems from lack of long-term commitment, but instead of focusing on Christian marriages we’ve obsessed with upgrading society. So our culture leaders have taken our obsession with long-term commitment and shoved it back into our face with same-sex civil marriage, even though we all know that there are some commitments in life that don’t need to be long-term or any term.
At this point the best we can hope for is that the relationship between state and church be a cat and mouse game, with the cat being hopelessly overweight. That’s not what our Founding Fathers fought our Revolution for, nor is it what the many men and women have fought for to defend our freedoms. But until we have yet another “new birth of freedom” on this continent, the dreams that many of our ancestors had when they came here will become just that.
-
When It's Easier to Demolish Your House Than to Make the Code Police Happy
Two new residences will be going up while five old residences will be coming down, as approved Wednesday by the Architectural Commission…264 Bahama Lane: Owner Karl Wattenhofer is demolishing his house to cure a code-enforcement violation for unapproved window changes. He currently has fines that total more than $74,000.
For me personally, this is poignant: the house is down the street from where I grew up.
Mr. Wattenhofer’s house’s back yard faces the Palm Beach Country Club, the place where Bernie Madoff made off with both the funds of a large part of the membership and the club itself. Under U.S. law, those who choose to live next to a golf course take an assumed risk for the damage to person and property that errant golf balls inflict, so they can’t sue the club or the golfers for the damage.
Faced with this reality of American law, the Swiss Wattenhofer did a logical, defensive act: he installed bullet-proof glass in his windows. That, sad to say, fell afoul of Palm Beach’s dreaded Architectural Commission (“ARCOM”). The police discovered this installation–then ten years old–in May 2012 when they were making a routine security check nearby, and turned him into ARCOM, which cited him and started a $250/day fine.
Wattenhofer, faced with a $50,000 retrofit and unable to see his way clear to recoup the loss in selling the house, decided to take his leave from the land of the free and the home of the brave and petitioned ARCOM to demolish the house. ARCOM has now agreed to the demolition; his attorney can now move to have the fines reduced, destroy the house, and sell the land to someone else who can jump through ARCOM’s hoops and build anew. (That’s expensive, but keep in mind that, in Palm Beach, generally the value of the land far exceeds what’s sitting on it).
Bahama Lane is part of the old “Dodge Estate”, which I think was the last “major” estate to be broken up on the island. (I went to school with the son of same Dodge). The houses aren’t that old. The whole concept of demolishing a house to satisfy the prissy sensibilities of ARCOM, especially in view of the reality Wattenhoffer was facing, is absurd.
Although I’d be the first to admit that Palm Beach is an exceptional place on the edge of these United States, the sad truth is that all of our country, in varying degrees, has saddled itself with a morass of property regulations. Every day we hear of people fighting municipalities and associations regarding flags, political signs, basketball goals, mailboxes, Bible studies and the like. And that’s just the start; you get into environmental disputes such as wetland designations, and things really get rough.
Mr. Wattenhofer, for his part, has had enough. Perhaps when he’s back in Switzerland he can commiserate with Tina Turner, who gave up her U.S. citizenship to live in the land of Alps and muesli. In the meanwhile those of us who are left behind, as we celebrate our independence with swelling patriotic rhetoric,need to cut the platitudes and conventional wisdom and ask a simple question: independence from what?
-
Why Both Lewis and Tolkien Were Both Wrong on Marriage
Christianity Today’s piece on C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien on marriage is making the rounds, especially in the wake on SCOTUS’s boffo performance on same-sex civil marriage. CT’s take is that Lewis was wrong and Tolkien was right, but unfortunately things aren’t that simple.
CT’s analysis (coming as it does from an Evangelical publication) reminds me of my freshman and sophomore English teacher’s endless attempts to extract meaning from passages with absolutely no regard for the context of the author, time, etc. Given that Evangelicals are by and large unfamiliar with the intricacies of Anglicanism and especially Roman Catholicism, such a vacuüm is understandable but ultimately unhelpful.
Let’s start with Tolkien, the Roman Catholic. His description of the “dual marriage” system is as follows:
The last Christian marriage I attended was held under your system: the bridal pair were “married” twice. They married one another before the Church’s witness (a priest), using one set of formulas, and making a vow of lifelong fidelity (and the woman of obedience); they then married again before the State’s witness… using another set of formulas and making no vow of fidelity or obedience. I felt it was an abominable proceeding—and also ridiculous, since the first set of formulas and vows included the latter as the lesser. In fact it was only not ridiculous on the assumption that the State was in fact saying by implication: I do not recognize the existence of your church; you may have taken certain vows in your meeting place but they are just foolishness, private taboos, a burden you take on yourself: a limited and impermanent contract is all that is really necessary for citizens.
The description–and his immediate take from it–is spot on. It’s a system in place in most parts of the world today. From this, however, he had already attacked Lewis’ idea of allowing things in civil marriage that Christian marriage does not. There is only one marriage, Tolkien argues, and the rules should not be changed for everyone else.
That conclusion, however, ignores two important facts.
The first is that the “dual marriage” necessity came out of the French Revolution. Until that time France and most Catholic countries had only church marriage. My ancestors in French and Spanish Louisiana, before either the introduction of American rule or the Napoleonic Code, signed contracts before receiving the sacrament of marriage. The First Republic and its immediate successors took that away from the Catholic Church, to put it bluntly, because they wanted the state to be god and not the Triune Deity represented by the Church. The situation in places like France and others which adopted this system is one which the church has been forced to accept by the brute power of the state, an unpleasant state of affairs but one which is ultimately not of the Church’s making.
The second is that marriage, in the Roman Catholic Church, is a sacrament. Everyone these days wants to emphasise the communitarian and social aspects of marriage, but in such a system marriage is between a man, a woman, and God, with the priest presiding because of the Church’s view of itself and its role in the dispensing of grace. Although I don’t agree with the Roman Catholic Church’s view of its own role, I think that Anglicanism didn’t do itself any favours by jettisoning marriage as a sacrament.
That, of course, brings us to the Anglican Lewis. Lewis’ idea of allowing unscriptural divorce in civil society is expedient but doesn’t make sense in a country which is (or was) supposedly a Christian country, complete with state church with a very definite position on the subject. Either the state needed to line its laws up with those of the church or the country needed to stop the pretence of being a Christian country. That fork in the road is very much in front of the UK today in the same-sex civil marriage debate.
Tolkien was right that there is only one marriage. But ultimately we must recognise that marriage for those who profess and call themselves Christians is different because they are different. That impacts many aspects of life together. Tolkien and Lewis fell out over the divorce issue. Easy and frequent divorce has done more to undermine the general acceptance of the Christian concept of marriage in general society than just about anything else. It has paved the way for same-sex civil marriage and the dilemma we are in today.
Beyond that, we must recognise that civil marriage, far from being “the deal” for tying the knot, is a form of “rendering unto Caesar” when Caesar in reality doesn’t deserve it. When Tolkien attended a “dual” marriage, he lamented that one ceremony presupposed that the other was a lie. But such is the way that things coming from the father of lies really are. There was a real marriage in the process, but it wasn’t the state’s.
-
"Open" Cubicle-free or Office-less Workplaces New? Hardly!
Not only is the “cool office” a myth, it isn’t a novelty either. Consider “the Open Office Space Panopticon” like this:
Trading in a cubicle for a shared desk not only encourages conformity — no more quirky puppy posters! — but also lets your boss see what you’re doing at all times. Or at least he or she wants you to think that. On top of that feeling of watchfulness that also exists in a cubicle plan, management has also made it so that your co-workers act as a surveillance state as well. Not only do workers internalize the ever-watching boss, but they have their nosy cube mates to keep them on track too.
But it’s not new, either. Consider the photo to the right of the “open office” of New Orleans based distributor-of-everything Woodard-Wight & Co., taken in 1973. Sure there are no computers and the furniture was old even then, but the concept is the same, especially for the bosses (with their closed offices in the corner) using the desk neighbours to keep tabs on each other. (Click on the photo for more background.)Whatever has happened before will happen again. Whatever has been done before will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9 GW)
-
Living on the Cheap at Starbucks is a Little More Expensive
The place that defined coffee bumps up the price, for some of us at least:
The Seattle-based coffee company says it’s hiking prices on average by 1 percent nationally starting on Tuesday. But it says the price for many drinks, such as medium and large brewed coffees and Frappuccinos, won’t change in most its 11,000 U.S. cafes.
For a small brewed coffee, the price will increase by 10 cents at most. Other drinks could increase by more than that.
We’ve been found out.
“We”, for those of you scratching your heads, are those who have taken advantage of Starbucks’ star system to the max. We have done this as follows:
- Signed up for the program, registered the card, etc.
- Get at least green status, gold is obviously better.
- Go to Starbucks and buy tall a brewed coffee.
- Obtain free refills of same, no longer necessary to buy a larger size.
- Earn one star for each visit, just as you would for your Frappuccino, cappuccino, etc.
- When you meet the quota (which was recently lowered from 15 to 12) splurge. Big time.
- Avoid the calories of the expensive drinks, which makes weight control simpler.
Evidently Schultz and Co. have had their canful of this but don’t want to admit it, so they bump up the price of the tall coffees while leaving the grande and venti sizes alone. But even at that, if you have the discipline for this program, it will pay off.
And, to address the issue of the day both for Starbucks and its opponents, there is only one real civil marriage equality and that is in its abolition. Period. Anything else just doesn’t cut it.
-
If the NSA Were an Anglican Organisation…
…their motto would be “all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid”.
This, of course, is from the opening Collect of the Holy Communion in the 1662 and 1928 Books of Common Prayer, which is why we jettison Cranmer’s lovely prose at our peril.
Since, at least for now, the CoE is still England’s state church, the British intelligence services may have already adopted this as their watchword, particularly in view of their performance at the recent G20 summit.
The difference between the NSA (and the government in general) and our Heavenly Father is that the latter has a much lovelier way of obtaining forgiveness, which is also outlined in the Holy Communion with these comfortable words:
COME unto me all that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you. St. Matth. xi. 28.
So God loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, to the end that all that believe in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. St. John iii. 16
Hear also what Saint Paul saith.
This is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be received, That Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. I Tim. i. 15.
If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins. 1 St. John ii. 1. -
At Last, the Mystery of "A City Set Upon a Hill Cannot Be Hid" is Revealed
Back in 2011 I posted (or more accurately reposted) the unique “Jesus Music” album A City Set Upon a Hill Cannot Be Hid. At the time I characterised it as “the mystery album of 1970′s Christian music”.That mystery is now at an end, thanks to Paul Griffo, who was a member of the group. He has given a detailed history of the album and the people who were involved in its making, and I urge you to read his extensive comments on the subject.
Those comments lead me to a few of my own:
- Although both Paul Griffo and I agree that the concept of “the music came directly from God” is a stretch, it comes closer to making that claim than a good deal of Christian music that came out at the time, and certainly most of what has come out since.
- Even though the composition and performance was very much a composite business, the basic unity of the album is amazing. Even more amazing, especially in view of the current concept of everything being done by a “specialist”, is that the composition and performance of the album was largely done by people who were not professional musicians and did not pursue a career/ministry in same. For someone like myself who has laboured to promote and guide lay ministries for most of his ministry career, this is extremely gratifying.
- It’s interesting to muse what would have become of the album’s later reputation if Maranatha had released it. Maranatha certainly could have used a work like this; even with strong groups like Parable and Daniel Amos, the label struggled to keep up with the rapidly expanding and changing field of contemporary Christian music, which is one reason it went to praise and worship music before the end of the 1970’s.
- I still think this deserves a revival as a church production. I’ve needled my church people along these lines for a long time; perhaps these revelations will be the first step towards making that possible.
In any case it is a magnificent album, and I am grateful to Paul Griffo for his help in telling its back story.
-
Note on the Filioque Clause: St. Thomas Aquinas on the Procession of the Holy Spirit From the Son
Since the ACNA is dickering with the Creed re the “filioque” clause, it’s informative to look at Thomas Aquinas’ analysis of the problem. I reproduce same below, but the upshot of his argument is that, if the Holy Spirit does not proceed through the Son from the Father, it would be impossible to differentiate the Son and the Spirit. He also has his own view of the origin of the denial of filioque and its conciliar history as well.
My guess is that ACNA is looking towards unity with the Orthodox, but as long as WO is out there this isn’t going to do it.
From Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars, q. 36 Art. 2:
Article 2. Whether the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son?
Objection 1. It would seem that the Holy Ghost does not proceed from the Son. For as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. i): “We must not dare to say anything concerning the substantial Divinity except what has been divinely expressed to us by the sacred oracles.” But in the Sacred Scripture we are not told that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son; but only that He proceeds from the Father, as appears from John 15:26: “The Spirit of truth, Who proceeds from the Father.” Therefore the Holy Ghost does not proceed from the Son.
Objection 2. Further, In the creed of the council of Constantinople (Can. vii) we read: “We believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Life-giver, who proceeds from the Father; with the Father and the Son to be adored and glorified.” Therefore it should not be added in our Creed that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son; and those who added such a thing appear to be worthy of anathema.
Objection 3. Further, Damascene says (De Fide Orth. i): “We say that the Holy Ghost is from the Father, and we name Him the spirit of the Father; but we do not say that the Holy Ghost is from the Son, yet we name Him the Spirit of the Son.” Therefore the Holy Ghost does not proceed from the Son.
Objection 4. Further, Nothing proceeds from that wherein it rests. But the Holy Ghost rests in the Son; for it is said in the legend of St. Andrew: “Peace be to you and to all who believe in the one God the Father, and in His only Son our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the one Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father, and abiding in the Son.” Therefore the Holy Ghost does not proceed from the Son.
Objection 5. Further, the Son proceeds as the Word. But our breath [spiritus] does not seem to proceed in ourselves from our word. Therefore the Holy Ghost does not proceed from the Son.
Objection 6. Further, the Holy Ghost proceeds perfectly from the Father. Therefore it is superfluous to say that He proceeds from the Son.
Objection 7. Further “the actual and the possible do not differ in things perpetual” (Phys. iii, text 32), and much less so in God. But it is possible for the Holy Ghost to be distinguished from the Son, even if He did not proceed from Him. For Anselm says (De Process. Spir. Sancti, ii): “The Son and the Holy Ghost have their Being from the Father; but each in a different way; one by Birth, the other by Procession, so that they are thus distinct from one another.” And further on he says: “For even if for no other reason were the Son and the Holy Ghost distinct, this alone would suffice.” Therefore the Holy Spirit is distinct from the Son, without proceeding from Him.
On the contrary, Athanasius says: “The Holy Ghost is from the Father and the Son; not made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.”
I answer that, It must be said that the Holy Ghost is from the Son. For if He were not from Him, He could in no wise be personally distinguished from Him; as appears from what has been said above (28, 3; 30, 2). For it cannot be said that the divine Persons are distinguished from each other in any absolute sense; for it would follow that there would not be one essence of the three persons: since everything that is spoken of God in an absolute sense, belongs to the unity of essence. Therefore it must be said that the divine persons are distinguished from each other only by the relations. Now the relations cannot distinguish the persons except forasmuch as they are opposite relations; which appears from the fact that the Father has two relations, by one of which He is related to the Son, and by the other to the Holy Ghost; but these are not opposite relations, and therefore they do not make two persons, but belong only to the one person of the Father. 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. Now there cannot be in God any relations opposed to each other, except relations of origin, as proved above (Question 28, Article 44). And opposite relations of origin are to be understood as of a “principle,” and of what is “from the principle.” Therefore we must conclude that it is necessary to say that either the Son is from the Holy Ghost; which no one says; or that the Holy Ghost is from the Son, as we confess.
Furthermore, the order of the procession of each one agrees with this conclusion. For it was said above (27, 2,4; 28, 4), that the Son proceeds by the way of the intellect as Word, and the Holy Ghost by way of the will as Love. Now love must proceed from a word. For we do not love anything unless we apprehend it by a mental conception. Hence also in this way it is manifest that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son.
We derive a knowledge of the same truth from the very order of nature itself. For we nowhere find that several things proceed from one without order except in those which differ only by their matter; as for instance one smith produces many knives distinct from each other materially, with no order to each other; whereas in things in which there is not only a material distinction we always find that some order exists in the multitude produced. Hence also in the order of creatures produced, the beauty of the divine wisdom is displayed. So if from the one Person of the Father, two persons proceed, the Son and the Holy Ghost, there must be some order between them. Nor can any other be assigned except the order of their nature, whereby one is from the other. Therefore it cannot be said that the Son and the Holy Ghost proceed from the Father in such a way as that neither of them proceeds from the other, unless we admit in them a material distinction; which is impossible.
Hence also the Greeks themselves recognize that the procession of the Holy Ghost has some order to the Son. For they grant that the Holy Ghost is the Spirit “of the Son”; and that He is from the Father “through the Son.” Some of them are said also to concede that “He is from the Son”; or that “He flows from the Son,” but not that He proceeds; which seems to come from ignorance or obstinacy. For a just consideration of the truth will convince anyone that the word procession is the one most commonly applied to all that denotes origin of any kind. For we use the term to describe any kind of origin; as when we say that a line proceeds from a point, a ray from the sun, a stream from a source, and likewise in everything else. Hence, granted that the Holy Ghost originates in any way from the Son, we can conclude that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son.
Reply to Objection 1. We ought not to say about God anything which is not found in Holy Scripture either explicitly or implicitly. But although we do not find it verbally expressed in Holy Scripture that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son, still we do find it in the sense of Scripture, especially where the Son says, speaking of the Holy Ghost, “He will glorify Me, because He shall receive of Mine” (John 16:14). It is also a rule of Holy Scripture that whatever is said of the Father, applies to the Son, although there be added an exclusive term; except only as regards what belongs to the opposite relations, whereby the Father and the Son are distinguished from each other. For when the Lord says, “No one knoweth the Son, but the Father,” the idea of the Son knowing Himself is not excluded. So therefore when we say that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father, even though it be added that He proceeds from the Father alone, the Son would not thereby be at all excluded; because as regards being the principle of the Holy Ghost, the Father and the Son are not opposed to each other, but only as regards the fact that one is the Father, and the other is the Son.
Reply to Objection 2. In every council of the Church a symbol of faith has been drawn up to meet some prevalent error condemned in the council at that time. Hence subsequent councils are not to be described as making a new symbol of faith; but what was implicitly contained in the first symbol was explained by some addition directed against rising heresies. Hence in the decision of the council of Chalcedon it is declared that those who were congregated together in the council of Constantinople, handed down the doctrine about the Holy Ghost, not implying that there was anything wanting in the doctrine of their predecessors who had gathered together at Nicaea, but explaining what those fathers had understood of the matter. Therefore, because at the time of the ancient councils the error of those who said that the Holy Ghost did not proceed from the Son had not arisen, it was not necessary to make any explicit declaration on that point; whereas, later on, when certain errors rose up, another council [Council of Rome, under Pope Damasus] assembled in the west, the matter was explicitly defined by the authority of the Roman Pontiff, by whose authority also the ancient councils were summoned and confirmed. Nevertheless the truth was contained implicitly in the belief that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father.
Reply to Objection 3. The Nestorians were the first to introduce the error that the Holy Ghost did not proceed from the Son, as appears in a Nestorian creed condemned in the council of Ephesus. This error was embraced by Theodoric the Nestorian, and several others after him, among whom was also Damascene. Hence, in that point his opinion is not to be held. Although, too, it has been asserted by some that while Damascene did not confess that the Holy Ghost was from the Son, neither do those words of his express a denial thereof.
Reply to Objection 4. When the Holy Ghost is said to rest or abide in the Son, it does not mean that He does not proceed from Him; for the Son also is said to abide in the Father, although He proceeds from the Father. Also the Holy Ghost is said to rest in the Son as the love of the lover abides in the beloved; or in reference to the human nature of Christ, by reason of what is written: “On whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, He it is who baptizes” (John 1:33).
Reply to Objection 5. The Word in God is not taken after the similitude of the vocal word, whence the breath [spiritus] does not proceed; for it would then be only metaphorical; but after the similitude of the mental word, whence proceeds love.
Reply to Objection 6. For the reason that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father perfectly, not only is it not superfluous to say He proceeds from the Son, but rather it is absolutely necessary. Forasmuch as one power belongs to the Father and the Son; and because whatever is from the Father, must be from the Son unless it be opposed to the property of filiation; for the Son is not from Himself, although He is from the Father.
Reply to Objection 7. The Holy Ghost is distinguished from the Son, inasmuch as the origin of one is distinguished from the origin of the other; but the difference itself of origin comes from the fact that the Son is only from the Father, whereas the Holy Ghost is from the Father and the Son; for otherwise the processions would not be distinguished from each other, as explained above, and in 27.
Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Positive Infinity 