On the Filioque: A Refutation of a Hypostatic Property Objection (Part I)
Prolegomena
Just yesterday I had came across an Instagram video attempting to refute the Doctrine of the Filioque by way of Syllogism; this syllogism was undergirded by the intention of the Eastern Orthodox author in appealing to the hypostatic properties of the Divine Persons.
You shall see his premises and conclusions one by one as you traverse this post, but allow me to summarize it. This Eastern argument, which I will now call the Hypostatic Property Objection to the Filioque, rests on the following schema:
Divine hypostases must be distinguished by relational properties.
The Father’s hypostatic distinction must be either unbegottenness or causality.
If unbegottenness is not relational, it cannot serve as a hypostatic property.
If causality is shared with the Son (as the Filioque teaches), then there is no relational distinction left between the Father and Son.
Therefore, the Filioque collapses the Father-Son distinction, and must be rejected.
But this entire construction is a sophistical house of mirrors—one built on misdefining Western doctrine, abusing relational logic, and misreading patristic sources. Rest assured that I will expose each layer; but before this can take place, I must clarify what we do indeed Profess. For more articles like these, do subscribe to know when I publish.
What the Reformed (and Western) Church Actually Confesses
1. Aseity is an Essential, Not a Hypostatic, Property. Aseity (self-existence) belongs to the divine essence, and therefore is shared fully and indivisibly by Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
“As the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself” (John 5:26). This does not mean the Son is not autotheos. As Calvin rightly says:
“We say, then, that the Godhead is absolutely of itself. And hence also we hold that the Son, regarded as God, and without reference to person, is also of himself; though we also say that, regarded as Son, he is of the Father. Thus his essence is without beginning, while his person has its beginning in God. ” (Institutes, I.13.25)
This is not a contradiction, but a harmony: the essence is self-existent and simple; the person of the Son has it by eternal communication, not by derivation of essence, but by personal relation (generation).
2. Hypostatic Properties Are Positive Relations of Origin. The divine persons are distinguished solely by their relations of origin:
The Father is unbegotten (ἀγέννητος) — not as a property in itself, but as the logical opposite of generation and spiration.
The Son is begotten of the Father.
The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
These relations are real, eternal, and intrinsic. They are not created, not economic, and not metaphorical. Hence: The Father is distinguished as the one who begets and spirates; not merely as “unbegotten.”
3. The Filioque Teaches that The Spirit Proceeds from the Father and the Son as from One Principle. The Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son tamen non duabus spiratio causis, sed uno principio — not by two causes, but by one principle.
The Son receives from the Father the power of spiration, just as He receives the divine essence. Therefore, the Father remains the fount of deity, the archē, the monarchia. But the Son, being eternally begotten and having the same essence, spirates the Spirit with the Father, not apart from Him. Turretin states it concisely:
“VI. The Father and the Son breathe the Holy Spirit not as two diverse principles (since the breathing power is the same in both), but as two self-existent (supposita) concur in that procession by the same power.
VII. Although the Spirit may be said to proceed from the Father (Jn. 15:26), it is not denied of the Son. Indeed it is implied because the mission of the Spirit is ascribed to him and whatever the Father has, the Son is said to have equally (Jn. 16:15). ” (Institutes, I.31.6-7)
Official Refutation
Premise 1: “The Father’s hypostatic property is either unbegottenness or causality.”
Response:
This is a false dichotomy and category error. The Western tradition never says that “aseity” is a hypostatic property. It is essential, and therefore not what distinguishes the Father.
“Unbegottenness” is a negative marker, but not a full hypostatic descriptor. The Father’s positive hypostatic markers are that He begets the Son and spirates the Spirit.
The Eastern Orthodox collapses the difference between negative metaphysical descriptions and positive hypostatic relations. This is metaphysical confusion disguised as patristic precision.
Premise 2: “Unbegottenness is not relational, therefore cannot be a hypostatic property.”
Response:
First, this premise rests on an artificial rule: that all hypostatic properties must be mutually opposed relations. But unbegottenness is not a “relation” in the same way as begetting or being begotten—yet it has always served in the Church’s theology to designate the Father’s hypostatic peculiarity.
Even the Cappadocians used “unbegottenness” (agennetos) to distinguish the Father. But more importantly: the Western church does not base hypostatic distinction solely on “unbegottenness.” We say: the Father is He who begets the Son and spirates the Spirit—this is real relation of origin.
Thus, the premise collapses by attacking what the West does not claim, and by deriving its flow and form from a false dichotomous premise already refuted.
Premise 3: “If the Son is a cause of the Spirit, He shares the Father’s property; no hypostatic distinction remains.”
Response:
This is the crux of the argument—and it is entirely false. The Son does not cause the Spirit independently of the Father. The Father communicates to the Son the divine essence and the spirative power. Therefore, the Father and Son spirate the Spirit as from one principle (una spiratio), not as two causes.
This is the very doctrine stated at the 1274 Council of Lyons and 1439 Council of Florence, and expounded by Augustine, Hilary, Ambrose, Leo, Aquinas, Calvin, and Turretin. Further, if the Spirit proceeds only from the Father, then:
The Son has no internal relation to the Spirit (of which horrid consequence see Thomas Aquinas in his Prima Pars, Topic 36, Question 2, and Antonius Thysius in disputation 9 on the Holy Spirit contained in the Dutch Synopsis).
The Spirit is not the Spirit of the Son (contra Gal. 4:6; Rom. 8:9).
The Spirit is ontologically alien to the Son, and subordinated in the divine order.
Premise 4: “If the Son shares causality, the only distinction between Him and the Father is apophatic.”
Response:
This is again false. The Son is begotten, the Father is unbegotten—these are not apophatic shadows, but real, eternal relations.
The Son spirates from the Father, and with the Father, the Spirit—this is a hypostatic relation of origin.
There is nothing “apophatic” in asserting that the Son is Son because He is begotten, and that the Father is Father because He begets.
To assert that this yields “only apophatic distinction” is either ignorance of Western theology or willful misrepresentation.
Conclusion: “Therefore, the Father must be the sole cause, as the Cappadocian Fathers teach.”
Response:
To put us bluntly, and simply, this is a non sequitur built on multiple false premises. Yes, the Father is the only one without origin. Yes, He is the fount of deity. But He communicates the fullness of that deity to the Son.
That fullness includes the power of active spiration. Therefore, the Son participates in the spiration of the Spirit, not as a separate source, but as one with the Father.
This is not a denial of the Father’s monarchy. It is its perfection: the Father communicates all but His paternity to the Son, who then shares in all divine operations, including the eternal breathing forth of the Spirit.
Conclusion
In closing, the Eastern Orthodox writer presumptuously lays claim to the Cappadocian Fathers, as though they asserted the Father as sole cause of the Spirit to the express exclusion of the Son. I suspect he would, by the same token, enlist the entire Eastern tradition in his cause.
But even if he does not go so far, it is no overstep to bring forward the voice of many Eastern Fathers—together with the Cappadocians—to correct the record.
Due to the considerable length of my examination, I have resolved to divide the material into two Articles: the first (this one), corresponding to the content of my post published on Instagram (containing a definition of the Filioque and a refutation of the Eastern Orthodox’s argument); the second, a comprehensive review and defense of the Eastern Fathers. That article shall be out soon after this one.
May this offering prove edifying to all who read it. Whether it has done so, I leave to the discerning and upright judgment of my readers. May the Lord keep us steadfast in His truth.
'the essence is self-existent and simple; the person of the Son has it by eternal communication, not by derivation of essence, but by personal relation (generation).'
What do you think of Warfield's comments here? 'Although [Calvin] taught that the Son was begotten of the Father, and of course begotten before all time, or as we say from all eternity, he seems to have drawn back from the doctrine of "eternal generation" as it was expounded by the Nicene Fathers. They were accustomed to explain "eternal generation" (in accordance with its very nature as "eternal"), not as something which has occurred once for all at some point of time in the past - however far back in the past - but as something which is always occurring, a perpetual movement of the divine essence from the first Person to the second, always complete, never completed. Calvin seems to have found this conception difficult, if not meaningless. In the closing words of the discussion of the Trinity in the "Institutes" (I, xiii. 29, ad fin.) he classes it among the speculations which impose unnecessary burdens on the mind. "For what is the profit," he asks, "of disputing whether the Father always generates (semper generet), seeing that it is fatuous to imagine a continuous act of generating (continuus actus generandi) when it is evident that three Persons have subsisted in God from eternity?" His meaning appears to be that the act of generation must have been completed from all eternity, since its product has existed complete from all eternity, and therefore it is meaningless to speak of it as continually proceeding. [...] We have thought it worth while to dwell with some fulness on this matter, because, as we have suggested already, it is precisely in this peculiarity of Calvin's doctrine of the Trinity that the explanation is found of the widespread offense which was taken at it. Men whose whole thought of the Trinity lived, moved and had its being in the ideas of generation and procession, that is, in the notion of a perpetual communication of the Divine essence from the Father as the fons deitatis to the Son, who is thereby constituted the Son, and from the Father and Son to the Spirit, who is thereby constituted the Spirit, could not but feel that the Trinity they had known and confessed was taken away when this conception was conspicuous only by its absence, or was at best but remotely suggested, and all the stress was laid on the absolute equality of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.' (https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/warfield/warfield_calvintrinity.html)