Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 87:1 (Spring 2025)
Article: Bullinger And The Reformers And The "Filioque"
Author: Joe Mock

WTJ 87:1 (Spring 2025) p. 35

Bullinger And The Reformers And The Filioque

Joe Mock

Joe Mock ministers in the Presbyterian Church of NSW in Sydney, Australia.

Compared to some other Reformers—in particular Luther, Chemnitz, Calvin, Oecolampadius, Bucer, and Vermigli—the Swiss Reformer Heinrich Bullinger surprisingly wrote in some detail concerning the filioque. This partly arose from his Christology. But it was also necessitated to counter the emergence of various Trinitarian controversies that plagued the evangelical church throughout Europe during Bullinger’s many years as Antistes in Zurich. As was his usual practice, Bullinger cited the testimony of the creeds of the church and the writings of church fathers where, in his estimation, they faithfully conveyed what Scripture teaches. This was to affirm the orthodoxy and catholicity of Reformed faith. Bullinger also indicated that he was aware of what Lombard and Aquinas had written on the filioque. His detailed exegesis of key scriptural passages, particularly in his commentary on John and his sermons on The Apocalypse, demonstrated that the received teaching on the filioque was firmly based in Scripture. The Decades contain insightful discussion on the filioque where Bullinger indicates that he was abreast of the debate between the Western and the Eastern churches concerning the filioque. Nonetheless, for his intended audience, he restrained from writing in a theological or philosophical manner. Bullinger was by no means a systematic theologian. Although he did not employ the terminology of perichoresis, Bullinger nonetheless considered that the economic Trinity revealed in the canon of the Old and New Testaments was like a lens through which to view the immanent Trinity.

WTJ 87:1 (Spring 2025) p. 36

In an earlier article in this journal, Marc Pugliese examined the importance of the filioque for Reformed orthodoxy.1 Pugliese concluded that the filioque is not “like another quodlibetal case of theological hair-splitting”2 but, rather, “the only way of preserving the full deity and Godhead of the Son.”3 This article seeks to compare and contrast how Bullinger and some of the Reformers understood the significance of the filioque. Did, for example, Bullinger and the other Reformers continue to hold to the filioque as stated in the Niceno-Constantinople Creed (as revised by the Third Council of Toledo in 589) in order to affirm catholicity with the Western church or were they convinced that the filioque was a true expression of what Scripture teaches?

The Westminster Co...