The Procession of the Holy Ghost

The Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father through the Son (or 'and' the Son - if one accepts the Western addition of the filioque to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed) as professed by the whole Catholic Church in the great Symbol of Faith of the First Council of Constantinople (AD 381) is in fact a divine revelation given directly to the Church from God and is recorded in Holy Scripture. In the Creed, the Church only expresses and codifies that truth of supernatural revelation, the Word of God, which was given by the Lord Jesus to the Apostles and in turn to the Apostolic Church. Anglican Catholics, like other Apostolic Christians, and in opposition to the claims of the Roman Church, unequivocally deny the possibility submitted by John Henry Newman of a 'development of doctrine' or 'progressive revelation.' The Faith Once Delivered to the Saints was totally complete in its content and revelation with the death of the last Apostle and has been transmitted indefectibly in the whole Catholic Church through the centuries by the Holy Scriptures and Holy Tradition, for Scripture and Tradition are two streams or modes of one revelation given by Christ to the Church, the primacy of revelation being given to Scripture, which alone is inspired. Rome's highly suspect theology of doctrinal development rejects the axiomatic Canon of Saint Vincent of Lerins in his Commonitorium, the famous Vincentian Canon, which stipulates that only that which has been believed 'everywhere, always and by all' is truly and properly called Catholic. The Creeds and the teachings of the Holy Fathers only explain, explicate, interpret and organise the unique revelation contained in Holy Scripture, but they do not innovate, they do not introduce new doctrine or seek to improve upon that which has been definitively revealed.

The language of the Constantinopolitan Creed uses Holy Scripture to describe the relationship of God the Holy Ghost to God the Father, Saint John 15.26: But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me.

The AD 381 Creed deliberately uses biblical language and concepts for the Holy Ghost in order to avoid the controversy which emerged at Nicea I (AD 325) when the non-biblical word homoousios 'of one substance' was introduced to explain the relationship of God the Son to God the Father. After the last row over terms not found in the New Testament, the Fathers of AD 381 settled for using more familiar terminology.