65. Augustine’s approach, according to Badcock, “suggests a certain priority of the Father-Son relation over everything else; indeed, strictly speaking, the Spirit is this Father-Son relation” (Badcock, Light of Truth and Fire of Love, 77–78).
66. Augustine, “De Trinitate,” VI:7–9.
67. Gregory of Nazianzus developed the concept of “divine procession.” Referring to such Scriptures as John 15:26, Gregory says that the Spirit is neither Father nor Son; he is neither unbegotten (as is the Father), nor begotten (as is the Son), but proceeds—and none of these three concepts can be understood rationally. Thus, the Spirit is not a “second son” or a “grandson.” See Gregory, Select Oracles, 31:8.
68. Augustine, De Trinitate, XV:17, 27.
69. See Congar, The Word and the Spirit, 1:107–8. See Anselm for further detail.
70. Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 3:81.
71. Therefore, an Augustinian conception of the Trinity contains both relational and absolute aspects, and each Person exists by a relationship of “eternal source” or “eternal procession.” Defining “Person” in terms of relationship actually coincides closely with the theology of the Cappadocian Fathers, on whom Augustine was possibly dependent. There are, however, important differences. Basil, for example, deduces from the divine relationships the unity of the divine essence, while Augustine begins with the divine identity and then deduces from this the divine relationships (See Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 3:82–83).
72. Augustine, Sermo 71:18.
73. Augustine, Commentary on John the Evangelist, XCIX:8–9.
74. John of Damascus, De fide orthod. I:8 (emphasis mine).
75. “In his essence, God remains the unattainable, incomprehensible mystery; and at the heart of that mystery lies the generation of the Son and the sending forth of the Sprit, both issuing in their different modes from the Father. But God also reaches out by activity of his uncreated energies to create and to involve the creation in participation in the movement of his triune being. At the level of the energies . . . the Spirit shines out in the Son, reflects the Son, and manifests the glory incarnate in him. And what enables and underlies this activity of imaging and displaying the Son is the primal springing of the Spirit from the same One who is Father of the Son, not a procession of the Spirit from both. The abyss of the divine nature overflows doubly in the begetting of the Son and the sending forth of the Spirit, the Lord, the Life-giver, who proceeds from the Father” (Heron, The Holy Spirit, 85, emphasis his).
76. This term provides balance to the Eastern conception of the Trinity. Eastern theology argues that the Nicene Creed speaks of the Spirit as a distinct Person within the trinitarian Godhead, rather than as a subordinate agent of the Son. Eastern Churches have particularly emphasized the uniqueness of function of the three divine hypostases. The Trinity is not to be viewed, however, as a sort of tritheism, because of the balance provided by the concept of perichoresis, which implies that each member of the Trinity functions in vital correspondence and involvement with the other two.
77. Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 3:37.
78. John of Damascus, De fide orthod, I:8.
79. Ibid.
80. Ibid.
81. Gaybba, The Spirit of Love, 74.
82. See Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 3:98–110; Gaybba, The Spirit of Love, 74–75.
83. As we shall see, some Western theologies—such as Augustine’s—do bring the Spirit’s divine authority with respect to the immanent Trinity into question. However, there is no prominent Western theologian who is both orthodox and has actually denied the fact that the Spirit possesses divine authority of some sort.
84. In the previous chapter we identified “executive authority” as simply “the right or the power to act in certain ways” (DeGeorge, The Nature and Limits of Authority, 62). This definition contains no specific limitations regarding the right or power to act.
85. Eastern Orthodoxy’s mindset is grounded in the ideas that there exists a substantial continuation of the Spirit’s authority from the days of the early Church until now. This idea is described well by Hryniewicz, “The early Church often appropriated to itself the conviction that she was controlled by the Holy Spirit, and for this reason the identity and continuity of her sacramental nature was preserved. The Holy Spirit, which takes effect in the community of believers, was the highest authority for the early Church and the only real security. Very early on, conscious decision was affirmed in the conviction: ‘the Holy Spirit and us’ (Acts 15:28). . . . The authority and rule of the Holy Spirit in the early Church, however, was placed far ahead of all individualism and subjectivism” (Hryniewicz, “Der Pneumatologishe Aspekt der Kirche aus Orthodoxer Sicht,” 137–38).
86. Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, 1:188.
87. Berman, Law and Revolution, 176–77.
88. Ibid., 178.
89. Gunton, Theology through the Theologians, 109.
90. Ibid., 110.
91. Jensen, The Holy Spirit, 2:126–27.
92. Inch, Saga of the Spirit, 224 (emphasis mine).
93. Barth, Church Dogmatics, 1/1:481.
94.