Talk:Filioque

A quick comment about LoveMonkey's writing style

I just want to point out that one of the problems with LoveMonkey's writing style is that he tends to edit as if he were speaking conversationally or giving a sermon. The problem here is that humans don't speak using correct grammar all the time nor do they necessarily speak in complete sentences. Unfortunately, the spoken style of sentence fragments is not appropriate encyclopedic style. I have seen LoveMonkey write quite well in certain contexts. I think what happens is that he gets caught up in the passion of explaining points of Orthodox theology and starts writing in a conversational/sermonizing style which then creates all sorts of heartburn among other editors. Another problem is that LoveMonkey sometimes gets on a roll and starts spinning out long sentences of theological points which make references to other theological concepts that are not always clear to the lay reader. These need to be untangled and clarified so that the average lay reader can make sense of it. In summary, it's not that LoveMonkey can't write well, it's that he sometimes gets carried away with what he's writing and forgets to do so. If we all (including LoveMonkey) could recognize that this is what is going on, we could be more collegial and collaborative in helping him get his ideas into articles with less heartburn for all of us. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 15:44, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

I completely agree with Pseudo-Richard. The language of the article is obviously more of a religious narrative then an academic, or encyclopedic text. --eiriklil 17:47, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Some further issues to attend to

My time is limited this morning but my review of the article this morning turned up some issues that we should look at and fix. Re - scope of content and organization of the article:

1. The article currently has section 1.3 Eastern Orthodoxy and 1.5 Theological contention. However 1.5 is mostly about the Eastern Orthodox view and, unless we think this section is likely to be expanded with the views of other churches, this amounts to two sections on the same topic. IMO, 1.3 and 1.5 could easily be merged.
2. We should consider whether all that is said in 1.5 needs to be in this article. As it stands, the article is heavily weighted in the direction of presenting the Orthodox view. One begins to wonder if there is enough material for an article titled Eastern Orthodox criticism of the Filioque. This is arguably a POV fork but it is one way to resolve the current imbalance. I just don't think the Roman Catholic and Anglican sections are going to be expanded to anywhere near the current size of the Theological contention section.
3. We ought to consider moving section 1.4 much earlier in the article (i.e. before any discussion of the views of differing churches)

Some other stylistic issues with the text in Section 1.5.1:

1. "In the hypostases of God as correctly expressed against the teachings considered outside the church." This is not a sentence.
2. "The Father hypostasis of the Nicene Creed is the origin of all." This sentence needs to be expanded. I know it means something but we need to spell it out for the reader.
3. "In the judgment of these Orthodox," - which Orthodox? the "Orthodox theologians (e.g. Michael Pomazansky)"? This is too vague. Is Pomazansky the leading proponent of a school of theologians who hold this view? I doubt it. So, we need to be more explicit as to which theologians we are talking about. We should probably mention Lossky and/or Romanides here. Aren't we really asserting that these views have been held by most Orthodox theologians through the centuries? If so, we need to make that explicit.
4. "They thus perceive the West as teaching through more than one type of theological Filioque a different origin and cause of the Holy Spirit." - This sentence needs help. It might help to put a comma between "theological Filioque" and "a different origin and cause of the Holy Spirit" but the meaning of the sentence is unclear and we should consider giving it a more substantial rewrite.
5. "That through the dogmatic Roman Catholic Filioque the Holy Spirit is subordinate to the Father and the Son and not a free and independent and equal to the Father as an hypostasis that receives his uncreatedness from the origin of all things, the Father hypostasis. Trinity expresses the idea of message, messenger and revealer, or mind, word and meaning." - Ouch. The first is not a sentence. Sentences should not start with "That" in the way that this and many other LoveMonkey non-sentences do. Also, even if that problem is fixed, we would wind up with a run-on sentence. This needs to be broken up into more digestible chunks.
6. "Eastern Orthodox Christians believe in one God the Father, whose person is uncaused and unoriginate, who, because He is love and communion, always exists with His Word and Spirit." - Uh, yeah... but so do most other Christians. The placement of this sentence here seems to be some kind of POV or polemic. Or, assuming good faith, it's just empty sermonizing. If we're going to say this, we need to actually make a point that links it to the topic of the section which is, after all, "Eastern Orthodox view of Roman Catholic theology". Is the text here arguing that Roman Catholics don't believe the same thing? We're skating on thin ice here.

--Pseudo-Richard (talk) 16:09, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree that 1.3 and 1.5 should be merged. Rwflammang (talk) 16:57, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

I think the article should also offer more details why Eastern Orthodox theologians (as early as the Patriarch Photius) have viewed the "Filioque" as leading to a form of modalism/sabellianism (although there are already a few mentions in the article about this, I think this issue should have a more detailed and clearer discussion). EO theologians believe that the Father (as hypostasis/person) is the only origin of existence, and they have seen the "Filioque" as implying either that there are two sources of existence (leading to "di-theism"), or that the Father and the Son are the same person/hypostasis, which leads to "modalism/sabellianism" (or as claiming that the Spirit proceeds from the Divine Essence, instead from the Father as hypostasis/person, since the west has also claimed that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from one principle). EO theologians have also stated that this western "modalist" view (about the Persons being just inner relations within the Essence) has its roots in the works of Augustine, and was further promoted by the scholasticism of Thomas Aquinas. Some details about this issue may be found in the following sources[1][2][3][4]. Cody7777777 (talk) 23:27, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Removed the word "instead" as John the Confessor was earlier than the 3 other saints

I removed the word instead from the text as it did not appear to make sense grammar wise. LoveMonkey (talk) 13:02, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

Major restructuring proposed

I humbly propose that that the Historical overview section come before the Present position of various churches section. This is for several reasons:

• The present position section is mess, while the historical section has recently been pruned. Let's put our best foot forward.
• Perhaps putting the historical section first might prove to obviate the felt need to have separate history sections for each church. Perhaps even the opinions of Eastern/Western saints could be moved into the historical section. This might prove to be an incentive towards cleaning up the article for the editors of the present position section.
• The contents of the present position section are the inevitable consequence of the events described in the historical section. Logic dictates that conclusions follow axioms.

Comments? Rwflammang (talk) 00:26, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

It would improve the article, however having a history of the filioque controversy article would be allot better so that this one could be a theologically based one. Also some of the copyeditors are just really good at what they do. This one might present a challenge but the need for a copyedit rewrite (a complete one BTW). It is very important and objective eyes would really push it to be crafted with much more frank, direct statements. LoveMonkey (talk) 02:36, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Not a Sentence

"As the Father is unique, as the Son is unique, as the Spirit is unique." This is not a sentence, but three clauses, with no subject or predicate. GeneCallahan (talk) 01:41, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, thank you for catching that and bringing it to our attention. There is an Orthodox editor who seems not to understand the idea that a well-formed sentence requires a subject and a predicate. He seems to get into a groove and write in a near "stream-of-consciousness" mode. I have gone after that section with a machete and hacked out stuff that is incoherent or otherwise poorly written. I'm sure there will be some ajidah about that. Many of the articles related to the Orthodox Church suffer from this problem and there aren't enough people policing those articles to find all of these issues, let alone correct them. BTW, next time, feel free to be bold and fix it yourself. --Pseudo-Richard (talk) 02:39, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Again how "through the Son" is understood in the East is MIA

The Nicene Creed states....

who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.

When the Eastern fathers are saying "through Christ" or "through the Son" they are referring to this teaching, passage from the actual creed. The West has this backwards. This is completely missing from this article. As most Greek Patristic quotations say "through", which is quite a different notion than "equally" "as from one principle". LoveMonkey (talk) 04:36, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

More editing warring behaviour

Why is Esoglou editing Eastern Orthodox material when he agreed not to?--Taiwan boi (talk) 01:10, 6 November 2011 (UTC)