Defending Double Procession
The Nicene Creed asserts that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. At least in our Western version of the Creed. Eastern Orthodoxy rejects the so-called Filioque (Latin for “and the Son”). It may sound like quibbling over finer points of theology, but this difference played a significant role in the Great Schism of 1054.
One of the best explanations of why the West (including Reformed churches) maintains double procession comes from Sinclair Ferguson in his church history survey, In the Year of Our Lord:
- Jesus spoke of the Spirit as “proceeding from” (“going out from”) and being sent by the Father (John 15:26). But Scripture encourages us to see what God does in history as a revelation of who He is in eternity. The Spirit is sent by the Father, but He is also sent by the Son (John 14:16, 26; 15:26). By parity of reasoning, therefore, the Spirit must also proceed from the Son, or the Son would lack the necessary authority to send Him.
- The Spirit is described as the Spirit of God the Father (Rom. 8:14; 1 Cor. 2:14; 3:16). But he is also the Spirit of the Son (Gal.4:6). These genitives (“of”) are surely parallel to each other. The Spirit is “of” the Son in the same that He is “of” the Father. If “of” in relation to the Father means that the Spirit proceeds from Him, then the same must be true in relation to the Son.
- A further consideration here has to do with the logic of biblical theology. God has made Himself fully and finally known to us in Christ – insofar as our humanity can know Him. While the single procession doctrine is true (the Spirit does indeed proceed from the Father), it is not the whole truth. Otherwise, there would be an obvious but inexplicable gap in our knowledge of God: we would know how the Father relates to the Son and the Father to the Spirit in the Trinity. But we would not know how the Son and the Spirit relate to each other – if at all. We would, therefore, not really know God in terms of His intra-Trinitarian relations, despite the fact that we are invited into communion with God the Trinity. (pp.116-117)
