Aco
Puritan Board Freshman
I‘m part of a Baptist church in a majority Eastern Orthodox country. One evening I gave a Bible Study and at the end there came up a question concerning the Filioque. Now, this question was asked by a fresh convert from EO (although nominal). It is the case that even nominal members of the EO-Church are aware of some doctrinal differences between the Western and Eastern tradition.
I answered from a Reformed standpoint and gave some biblical references. The first text which crosses my mind is always Romans 8,9 (You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. ESV).
I didn‘t delve deep enough into that issue yet. I read some EO-Theologians (like Sergey Bulgakov), because they seem to give most of the heed to the Filioque-Controversy nowadays, often followed with attacks on Augustine and Scholasticism or with silly arguments like "Augustine convinced me that the Filioque is wrong" (they do it also with Predestination and Election). The Western theologians seem to be more indifferent. The other difficulty is that it is much more a philosophical, creedal and ecclesiastical issue than really a biblical-exegetical one.
How important is it? Certainly for me its not a mark of biblical orthodoxy, but I also don‘t dismiss it as irrelevant.
I answered from a Reformed standpoint and gave some biblical references. The first text which crosses my mind is always Romans 8,9 (You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. ESV).
I didn‘t delve deep enough into that issue yet. I read some EO-Theologians (like Sergey Bulgakov), because they seem to give most of the heed to the Filioque-Controversy nowadays, often followed with attacks on Augustine and Scholasticism or with silly arguments like "Augustine convinced me that the Filioque is wrong" (they do it also with Predestination and Election). The Western theologians seem to be more indifferent. The other difficulty is that it is much more a philosophical, creedal and ecclesiastical issue than really a biblical-exegetical one.
How important is it? Certainly for me its not a mark of biblical orthodoxy, but I also don‘t dismiss it as irrelevant.