How can I understand, unless someone instructs me?

Pope Leo I once said, "A man who has not the most elementary understanding even of the creed itself can have learnt nothing from the sacred texts of the New and Old Testaments." This is quoted in Pelikan's, Acts, in the Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. The East and West affirm the vital nature of the apostolic witness, as it has been transmitted through the Church's traditions and liturgies, in guiding Christians in their interpretation of Scripture. As Kallistos Ware has said in a CT interview, there are not two sources of authority, Scripture and Tradition; they are inseparably united. I would even suggest that to take away one of these is to try and walk on one leg.

the filioque clause

Two interesting Johannine passages:

John 15.26: But when the Helper comes, whom I will sent to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me."

John 16.7: Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you."

According to Jaroslav Pelikan, who is presumably drawing upon the Orthodox tradition, the sending of the Spirit by the Son is an "economic" reality, while the Spirit's "proceeding" from the Father is an eternal proceeding that does not also flow out of the Son. The East has affirmed the monarchy of the Father as an important element of trinitarian theology. The term "monarchy" probably brings a lot of baggage, but they believe that there is biblical warrant for a unique diversity among the unity of the persons of the Trinity. Jesus himself says in John 14.28, "If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I." In the context of John's gospel, "greater" probably means something more than ontological greatness; I suggest it points to a difference between a greatness that is derivative and a greatness that is non-derivative. This is exactly the kind of difference that the East (and West?) has always affirmed, namely that the Son is eternally begotten of the Father and not the other way around. This similar type of unidirection relationship is then applied to the Spirit's relationship with the Son and the Father. The Spirit proceeds from the Father, and not from the Son. I think this is what the East means by the monarchy of the Father: the Father is the source of both the Son and the Spirit in such a way that maintains their divine unity without eliminated the uniqueness of each relationship. The likes of Gregory of Nazianzus affirmed that John was the first "theologian" because he understood the ultimate genealogy of Jesus, and thus John played a vital role in the trinitarian theology of the 3rd and 4th centuries.

This is a significant case where the Church's reading of Scripture becomes a hermeneutical guide to contemporary biblical interpretation. It is also a reminder that the addition of the filioque clause was, despite the political sins of both sides, an important theological issue: these are not two statements that are essentially saying the same thing.

language and mankind

I intend (key word) to expand on this a bit more soon, but I'll simply give a quote that is at the heart of what I've been reflecting on lately, namely the inability of scientific definitions to adequately explain the varied phenomena of human and natural activity and to actually arrive at the bottom of things. The quote is from Walker Percy's chapter, "The Delta Factor" in The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, and What One Has to Do with the Other. He is trying to use mankind's innate ability to use and understand language as a starting point to help us towards a theory of man. He starts here not only because he doesn't think that people have spent enough thinking through what happens when people are actually able to communicate (it's more than the formation of sounds when air passes through your mouth, that's physics; it's more than how to put a meaningful sentence together, that's syntax; and it's more than a series of stimuli and responses, that's behavioral analysis), but because the uniqueness of man's use of language is a phenomena about which most people agree. Thus, the quote:

"Start with God and man's immortal soul and you've lost every reader except those who believe in God and man's immortal soul.

Start with B. F. Skinner and man decreed as organism who learns everything he does by operant conditioning and you've lost every reader who knows there is more to it than that and that Skinner has explained nothing. Skinner explains everything about man except for what makes him human, for example, language and his refusal to behave like an organism in an environment."

Personally, I adhere to the first group who begin with "God and man's immortal soul", but I appreciate Percy's desire to find a common ground from which to work and see if we might not come to an appreciation, if not agreement, on the unique status and nature of that species to which we belong. At least, perhaps, we can even agree on what being a human being is not: decreed organisms bound by conditions who respond according to behavioral patterns, etc. For a very interesting literary vignette that runs parallel to this see the beginning of the second chapter of Charles Dickens's Hard Times, where Thomas Gradgrind, the teacher, probes "Girl number twenty" to provide a definition of a horse. I'm grateful to Jon McCord for this wonderful reference.