There has been an ecumenically-motivated renewal of attention to the filioque in the West, leading some to propose new mediating formulations for the relationship of the Spirit to the Father and the Son. While Moltmann maintains that ‘the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son’ and states that ‘the interpretation is correct which states that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father “alone”,’ he suggests instead that we should speak of ‘the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father of the Son.’ The Church of England, like many Reformed churches at the time of the Reformation, retained the filioque in its formularies in the sixteenth century, but in the Moscow Statement of 1976, emerging out of Anglican-Orthodox dialogue, the Anglican delegates agreed that the filioque should not be included in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, upon which the 1978 Lambeth Conference then acted, recommending that all member churches of the Anglican Communion should consider omitting the filioque altogether. Although this proposal was not subsequently adopted, its legacy still lingers in the provision of an alternative text of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed in Common Worship, which omits the phrase ‘and the Son’ for use ‘on suitable ecumenical occasions’.
The argument frequently made that the West liturgies added the filioque without the authorisation of an ecumenical council is important and should be addressed, but will not be explored further here. Instead this article considers arguments based on texts concerning the relationship of the Spirit to the Father and the Son in John’s Gospel, one of the most significant primary sources for the formulation of Trinitarian doctrine. Such arguments often place special emphasis on John 15:26, referring to ‘the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father’. It is further argued that the use of texts describing the relationship of the Spirit to both the Father and the Son makes ontological claims out of statements properly referring to the Spirit’s temporal mission. The Moscow Statement reads:
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