The Filioque doctrine

The Latin word Filioque, meaning "and from the Son,"
recited in the West in the part of the Nicene Creed
referring to the Holy Spirit, expresses a concept first
clearly enunciated by St. Augustine, the great Church
Father (354-430).

Augustine is careful to point out that there can be
no question of the Father and Son appearing as two
separate causes of the Holy Spirit: "It must be admitted
that the Father and Son are one God, and one Creator,
and one Lord relatively to the creature, so they are
beginning relatively to the Holy Spirit" [De Trinitate,
V,14].

This all has the very important consequence of
making the Holy Spirit— and that is to say divine
reason and love-wholly accessible to mankind, to
concrete human individuals. Through the action of Christ
on the one hand, and of the Holy Spirit on the other,
each human being can partake of divine wisdom ....

[In the area of epistemology and politics] the central
thesis of this concept of the Trinity and of this
theory of the procession of the Holy Spirit, which we
can refer to as the Filioque, asserts nothing less than
that every human being is endowed with reason, a
spark of divinity that imbues each one of us with powers
that are potentially divine. This potential can be
expressed through progressive changes in the order of
nature or good works. A human individual filled with
the Holy Spirit is capable of knowing the order of
nature and of acting upon it. Since the Son is a cause,
we too, who are made in the image of God, can be
efficient causes. In other words, we can assume the
role of helpers or assistants to God, in a process of
creation which was not completed and ended on the
Seventh Day, but which is still ongoing and open ended.

Augustine's concept of the Trinity brings man
where he belongs, near to God, and able to partake in
some degree of the Godhead. Any other concept of the
Trinity will not only explode the internal relations of
the Three-Person God, but will also increase the distance
between God and man, reducing the latter to the
status of a degraded beast, and mortifying the divine
potential of his reason.

-Adapted from "St. Augustine and the Trinity,"
by Webster G. TarpLey, in St. Augustine, Father of
European and African Civilization, Schiller Institute,
1985.

Source