Does the Holy Spirit Proceed From the Father AND the Son?

All orthodox Christians–Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox–believe in the doctrine of the Trinity: that there is one God who exists eternally as three distinct “Persons”: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Although implicit in the New Testament, the doctrine of the Trinity was not fully formulated and articulated by the Church until the fourth century. The Ecumenical Church Councils of Nicea (325 A.D.) and Constantinople (381 A.D.) created a Trinitarian statement of faith known as the Nicene Creed, which is confessed by virtually all Christian churches down to the present day. 

The original text of the Nicene Creed states that the Son is “begotten of the Father” and that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father.” However, in later centuries, the Western part of the Church started making a small addition to the Creed, saying that the Holy Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son.” This Western alteration of the Creed of an Ecumenical Council, among other things, led to tensions between the Eastern and Western parts of the Church that eventually led to the Great Schism between the Eastern and Western Churches in 1054 A.D. To this day, this difference in Trinitarian doctrine remains a significant point of contention between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Western Church. Eastern Orthodox Christians believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, while most Western Christians believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. 

Who is correct? Does the Holy Spirit proceed only from the Father, or from the Father and the Son?

Eastern Orthodox Christians are right to criticize the Western Church for unilaterally making an alteration to the Creed of an Ecumenical Council without the authorization of another Ecumenical Council. However, this does not mean that this Western alteration to the Creed is theologically incorrect. The original Creed of the Council of Nicea said very little about the Holy Spirit, merely stating that we believe “in the Holy Spirit.” The Council of Constantinople expanded this part of the Creed, stating that we believe “in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, Who proceeds from the Father; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.” If it was appropriate for the Council of Constantinople to expand on what the Council of Nicea said about the Holy Spirit, then it very well may have been appropriate for the Western Church to expand on what the Council of Constantinople said about the Holy Spirit. And indeed, there are good biblical and theological reasons for thinking that the Holy Spirit does proceed from the Father “and the Son.”

The Procession of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament

The New Testament teaches that the Father sends the Son into the world, and that the Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit upon the Church, empowering her for God’s mission in the world. In the Gospel of John, Jesus tells His disciples, “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me” (John 15:26). Later, after His resurrection, Jesus breathes on His disciples and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). In the book of Acts, after the Holy Spirit is poured out on the Church at Pentecost, the apostle Peter states that Jesus “has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear” (Acts 2:33). This is the basis of the Western Christian belief that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

Acknowledging that Jesus is depicted as sending the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, Eastern Orthodox theologian Kallistos Ware writes, “We note that there is a distinction between the “eternal procession” of the Spirit and his “temporal mission.” The Spirit is sent into the world, within time, by the Son; but, as regards his origin within the eternal life of the Trinity, the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone.”^[1]Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1995), page 33. But such a separation between the “eternal procession” and the “temporal mission” of the Holy Spirit contradicts one of the basic principles of Christian Trinitarian theology, that “the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity”: God’s Trinitarian nature as revealed in salvation history is the Trinitarian reality of God’s eternal existence. If this were not the case, it would mean that God has not actually revealed Godself to us, and that we cannot actually know God. If, in salvation history, the Father sends the Son and the Father and the Son send the Spirit, then we should believe that the Son is eternally begotten of the Father and that the Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son.

The Procession of the Holy Spirit in Christian Theology

According to Christian Trinitarian theology, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are one Being, one “Substance.” Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are qualitatively identical; the only distinction between them is a relational distinction. In Western Trinitarian theology, this distinction is clear: the Father has no origin, the Son eternally originates from the Father, and the Holy Spirit eternally originates from the Father and the Son. In Eastern Trinitarian theology, though, there is a problem: what is the distinction between the Son and the Holy Spirit? If Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God and are qualitatively identical, and the Son and the Spirit both have their origin in the Father alone, what makes the Son and the Holy Spirit distinct?

The Eastern Orthodox answer to this question is that the only difference is that the Son is “generated” of the Father, while the Spirit “proceeds” from the Father, even though we do not know what the difference between “generation” and “procession” is. “What precisely is the difference between the “generation” of the Son and the “procession” of the Spirit?” wrote St. John of Damascus, “The manner of the generation and the manner of the procession are incomprehensible. We have been told that there is a difference between generation and procession, but what is the nature of this difference, we do not understand at all.”^[2]St John of Damascus: On the Orthodox Faith i, 8, ed. Bonifatius Kotter, Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos, vol. Ii (Patristische Texte und Studien 12: Berlin, 1973), pp. 24, 26. Quoted in … Continue reading This is a non-answer. “Generation” and “procession” are merely different human words that both indicate that the Son and Spirit have their origin in the Father. If Father, Son, and Spirit are one Being and are qualitatively identical, then there cannot be a qualitative difference between the “generation” of the Son and the “procession” of the Spirit from the Father. They must mean the same thing. If both Son and Spirit have their origin in the Father alone, then there would be nothing that makes them relationally distinct, and so Son and Spirit could not be distinct “Persons.” Eastern Trinitarian theology thus ends up being incoherent.

Of course, Eastern Orthodox theologians have some arguments of their own against Western Trinitarian theology. A common argument Eastern Orthodox theologians make against Western Trinitarian theology is that claiming that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son in a “double procession” makes the Spirit subordinate to, rather than coequal with, the Father and the Son. This is a strange argument. If the Son being begotten of the Father does not make the Son subordinate to the Father, then the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Son does not make the Holy Spirit subordinate to the Son.

Another Eastern Orthodox argument against Western Trinitarian theology is that, if Western Trinitarian theology is true, then the Father and the Son would share something that the Spirit does not: the sending forth of the Spirit. Again, this is a strange argument. One could just as well argue that, if Eastern Trinitarian theology is true, then the Son and the Spirit would share something that the Father does not: having their origin in the Father. 

So, in spite of attempted Eastern Orthodox critiques, Western Trinitarian theology is more coherent than Eastern Trinitarian theology. While agreeing fully with the original Nicene Creed, it adds an additional claim about the procession of the Holy Spirit that clarifies and explains the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in a more coherent fashion.