Trinity and Filoque

There are two ways of looking at the trinity. One is by looking at the Actions of God.(Economical) The other is by looking at the being of God. (Ontological)

There are three persons in the trinity. Yet, There is one God and substance of the Trinity. Furthermore, the trinity is balanced. No one is any less than who God is or are subordinate to the other two. Many also believe that their is no imbalance in what each person in the trinity does. (That is its economy) This means that Christ's, The Father's, or The Holy Spirit's individual actions are all necessary to bring about a overall single action of God.

In this an action has different parts ascribed individually to the persons of the trinity. While the whole is made up of those parts is done by God, who is singular in his will. The three persons are also united but distinct in this will. An example of this is Salvation. It is ordained in time by the Father. It is obtained by the Son on the Cross. It is applied by the Holy Spirit in regeneration. Overall it is a single action of God in saving man despite the three appearant actions. These three actions are all important, interrelated, and necessary. It is to say each action is in balance with the others for a single purpose. The trinity acts when God collectively saying, without internal debate "It shall be done." and by the power of God's word it is done. There is also the idea that two never act or are, independant of the third, to be or do so is to break the trinity and subordinate the other. Yet, they can be refered to all collectively or singlely in part.

The only mysterious question is how these persons in the Godhead determine how to relate to each other, in the execution of God's will being that their substance is the same. The trinity is united by its very substance. The Son could ordain time. The Holy Spirit could have come to die. And the Father could have applied the Spirit's sacrifice. Each is capable of doing another's duty by nature. Yet, there is a real reason that the father is seen as the eternal. The Son is eternally begotten from the father. The Holy spirit is eternally proceding from the Father. The distinctions, actions, and even names for the distinctions, are divinely there for a reason. They should be respected as three persons. He should be respected as one God.

Now, there is something called the Filoque clause. One thought to add that the Holy Spirit procedes from the Son also. It makes some sense in that He was sent due to Christ or through Christ who is seated on the throne with the father. Yet, the wording of this clause does not establish this as an action. It rather establishes something about the Holy spirit's being. In altering, this statement about the being of the Holy spirit with "proceding from the father and the son" which is true only in Christ's actions, not his being. This appearantly reduces the Holy Spirit's divinity by making him subordinate to the other two.

This was what the split between Orthodox and Roman Catholicism. The Orthodox claim that the Pope with his papal infallibility was proclaiming a heresy that denegrated the Holy Spirit. They also reject his authority in being able to do so and excommunicated him. Whoops! Perhaps the See of Peter is wrong. Once Again.