Essence and energy

[Alvin Kimel]

I have just read Matthew's article "The Cappadocian Fathers on Essence and Energy and the Knowledge of God." My questions are directed to him primarily, but also to anyone else who knows anything on this subject.

1) What is the difference between the Cappadocian understanding of the distinction between the divine energies and essence?

2) Is this distinction present in Alexandrian theology--specifically, Athanasius and Cyril.

Thank you!

[Richard Leigh]

Dear Alvin,


1) What is the difference between the Cappadocian understanding of the distinction between the divine energies and essence? ?

I think it is safe to say that the essence of a being (the ousia of an ontos) is its energy or operation. Thus we could say that the essence of a Human is to learn (or think, or whatever). So the 'energy' or 'operation' defines what a being is by describing its essence in telling what it does. This is Greek and goes back to Homer. I think the explanation of it goes back to Aristotle in his Metaphysics.


2) Is this distinction present in Alexandrian theology--specifically, Athanasius and Cyril?

Simple answer, yes, for both. The distinction is in the language itself as shown above, and pretty much defines the essence of Hellenism, for my money. But, yes, the doctrine that "As God is one in will, so is He one in operation or 'energy.'....goes back to Athanasius where it forms a part of his proof of the deity of the Holy Spirit." God in Patristic Thought G.L. Prestige, London SPCK, 1959, p. 257 where he referrences Athanasius' epistle to Serapion on the Death of Arius, 1.19. The idea behind that statement is that one wills to action, which is 'operation' or 'energy' (or its expression), that all three hypostases, being of one 'ousia' (essence) put forth the same energy, operation, or effect, one might say. Similarly, "Cyril of Alexandria allows that the creative will of each on of the divine Pesons is indeed an activity of that Perso, but maintains nevertheless that it extends throughout the whole godhead and is a product of the supernatural ousia; thus the Father works, but through the Son in the Spirit..." etc. (Prestige, p. 261, citing Cyrils's dialogue 6 on the Trinity, 618E).

Richard

[Alvin Kimel]

Oops, I see that I left out a phrase in my first question. I intended it to say:

1) What is the difference between the Cappadocian understanding of the distinction between the divine energies and essence and the Palamite understanding of the distinction?

Richard, do you have any thoughts on this rephrased question? I'm especially interested in the differences, if any, between the two.

[Richard Leigh]

Dear Alvin,

LOL. So glad you clarified! I thought there was some kind of slip, as I couldn't see the "distinction between what?". I was going to ask but just decided it must have been meant as you see I took it. Better question! Sorry I don't have much of an answer, not being up on Palamas. I am just aware that he was combating Barlaam who brought hie western understanding of the terminology in with him at his "conversion" to Orthodoxy and so was not really converted. People were evidentily confused, couldn't tell the language usage was different.

We westerners don't make that linguistic distinction. I cannot imagine that Gregory Palamas would have a different view of the relationship between energies and essences than the Cappadocians. I think it was just that Barlaam did not understand the distinction.

The problem as I understand it has to do with "apophasis" i.e., the impossibility of describing, even knowing God other than by what He is not. (You wil no doubt remember this as well as that its opposite is cataphasis, speaking what we know of God positively).

Since God is "He Who Is" [means He Alone Who Is], nothing else "is" except by His creative action (energy here), and nothing that is mere creature (and what is there that that does not include?) can participate in the Utter "Isness" which is God in Essence. He can only be participated in through His Energies, in which He is entirely present in all three Persons! One could say, I think, that He comes to us through grace that way. Grace, then, would be His Energy.

Barlaam, like the rest of us westerners couldn't get that for lack of the concept. I suppose the scholastics talked a lot about it, we Lutherans have divorced ourselves from them (supposedly, I think we raised up our own generation of them, but that is grist for a different mill), and simply note that the Bible says that through Christ we will see God in His Glory (and I am sure we mean in Essence). Not the difficulty from the perspective of logical thought and the Orthodox solution which is, I think, beautiful.

Richard

[Fr John Wehling]

Richard et. al.,

>>I think it is safe to say that the essence of a being (the ousia of an ontos) is its energy or operation.<<

Begging to differ :>), this is not the Orthodox take on essence and energy. The Cappadocian's in particular (and generally all the fathers) say that the essence of God is unknowable to man and even to the angels. Not only do we not know it, we will never know it! The essence is forever transcendent. (St Gregory of Nyssa says we do not even know our own essence; it is a mystery.)

The essence is not simply the sum of the energies, in other words. The energies flow out of the essence, they are the activities, the life. St Gregory Palamas says that an essence without energies would not exist but would be an abstraction.

I'm not up on Aristotle, but I think what you are describing accords much more with the western essence-attributes approach than the eastern essence-energies theology, and they are not the same.

Peace,
Fr John

[Richard Leigh]

Dear Fr. John,

I am, to paraphrase Luther, like a drunken man careening from one edge of the path to the other as I stumble forward.

Yes, I see the logical consequesce you point out to the way I stated the case. I was trying to speak in terms of sentence structure to point to the Hellenistic linguistic basis of the concept. Not having it myself, I committed the very faux pas I most fitfully tried to avoid!

I highly appreciate Michael Rallis' comment, and thank you for yours as well. You are right, I am still stuck in the Western frame of referrence.

Richard

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Alvin and others,

Very interesting new thread here, and I've enjoyed reading the above messages. Alvin, you wrote:


What is the difference between the Cappadocian understanding of the distinction between the divine energies and essence and the Palamite understanding of the distinction?

I think it is perhaps helpful to understand how these two 'groups' -- the Cappadocians on the one hand and the Palamites on the other -- came to address the distinction.

For the Cappadocians, the notion of a distinction between the essence (ousia) of God and His energies (energeiai) came up predominantly as a means of refinement of their more fundamental battle with neo-Arian professions of knowledge of God. This latter group professed (or at least some of its more vocal members professed), following the thought of a certain Eunomius, that God was completely, rationaly knowable. Through the gift of logical analysis and detailed vocabulary (the key word for the neo-Arians was 'unbegotten', agennetos), God's being could be fully known by the human person. 'God does not know more about his own being than I do', is the rather unfortunate phrase once spoken to this effect.

In response and contradistinction to this, the Cappadocians felt obligated to assert that such a complete, rational knowledge of God could never be realised. The human mind can conceptualise and logically analyse much of God's being and nature; but there is always something of who He is that remains outside of this intellectual grasp. The Cappadocians talked and wrote about this at great length before eventually penning certain phrases that are key 'precursors' to a more developed essence/energies distinction, which for them was primarily a way to answer this division of what can be known from what cannot. For the Cappadocians, the notion of 'energies' encapsulates all those manifestations and workings of God in the cosmos, His own realised presence and activity in the world -- and these energies are discernable to the human intellect and reasonable items to put before its discursive power. The 'essence', on the other hand, represents that transcendent nature of God's own self-being as transcendent God, which simply cannot be known to or understood by the human mind. Thus when Eunomius, or Aetius, or anyone else says that we can fully know God, such a person is lying, or is at least confused.

When we look forward many centuries to the Palamites, we find them taking up the language found in the Cappadocians, including this distinction between essence and energies, but they do so for somewhat different ends. Here it was not so much the rational, logical knowledge of God's being that was being put forward or challenged by their opponants. Rather, the concept under debate in the era was the possibility of bodily, corporeal encounter with God. Is it reasonable to suggest that physical, material eyes can see God who is not physical, nor material, not even 'spiritual' in the sense that the spiritual powers (e.g. angels) are as such? Barlaam and others said no. Yet the Palamites, from the conviction of lived experience in accordance with the earlier witness of the Church, attempted to demonstrate that such bodily/corporeal encounter with God is possible, and this was done with recourse to the earlier distinction between essence and energy. While God's transcendent self-being (His 'essence') remains ever outside the grasp of human encounter, whether intellectual (as the Cappadocians defined it) or experiental (as Gregory Palamas used it), God's actualisation of His self in the cosmos and economy (His 'energy/energies') is accessible to man -- both intellectally (as per the Cappadocians), and experientially by the whole, and thus material/corporeal, human person (Gregory's use).

What we have between the Cappadocians and the Palamites is thus a common conception of a distinction between God's being in its essence and its manifest energies, though this distinction is explored and utilised by them in differing ways for different ends. For the Cappadocians, its primary use is to define the reasonable limits of the intellect. For the Palamites, it is to defend the possibility of corporeal encounter with the incorporeal.

We should also note that the essence/energies distinction is much more developed by Gregory Palamas than ever it was by the Cappadocians. For the latter it was a concept that helped defend a larger thesis and was, to some degree, a 'supplementary doctrine' in support of wider considerations. For the Palamites, it was at the very heart of theological consideration.

INXC, Matthew

[M. Rallis]

Dear Matthew:

Thank you for hosting this website, and for all the excellent articles which you have written yourself. What a joy encountering others wishing to spend time contemplating and discussing the one thing that is of importance in this life.

I wanted to explore, just a bit, one of the paragraphs in your recent post #470..

“What we have between the Cappadocians and the Palamites is thus a common conception of a distinction between God's being in its essence and its manifest energies, though this distinction is explored and utilised by them in differing ways for different ends. For the Cappadocians, its primary use is to define the reasonable limits of the intellect. For the Palamites, it is to defend the possibility of corporeal encounter with the incorporeal.”

My question/comment is: did the Cappadocians and Palamites consider that they had a “conception” about essence and energies, or rather, did they share a common experience of enlightenment by the uncreated grace of God, which each group tried to represent in words in order to correct erroneous concepts held by their contemporaries? So, then, the words chosen by the Cappodocians were words about the experienced Truth of enlightenment by God’s uncreated energies, but directed to contemporaries in need of instruction about what is knowable about God.. St. Gregory Palamas, speaking from the same experience of Truth, chose words to instruct his contemporaries on how things could be known about God. Any difference perceived between the Cappadocian and Palamite discussion of Divine Energies/Essence existed only in the needs of their contemporaries for instruction, and not in the nature of the Uncreated Grace experienced by the Holy Church Fathers from each time-period.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Michael,

You asked a very good question and raised an important point in your last post. In brief, you said:


Did the Cappadocians and Palamites consider that they had a “conception” about essence and energies, or rather, did they share a common experience of enlightenment by the uncreated grace of God, which each group tried to represent in words in order to correct erroneous concepts held by their contemporaries? [...] Any difference perceived between the Cappadocian and Palamite discussion of Divine Energies/Essence existed only in the needs of their contemporaries for instruction, and not in the nature of the Uncreated Grace experienced by the Holy Church Fathers from each time-period.

You've hit upon a point which requires some clarification, and this is, at its heart, the relationship between what 'happens' (a very inadequate term, but perhaps we can use it for now) to the theologians of the Church vis-a-vis their actual experience and encounter with God in theologia, and their relating of this experience and encounter to the world, friend or foe, in written word and theological argument. You've appropriately brought attention to my use of such terms as 'a theological conception', 'understanding', etc. If we as Orthodox people believe that the 'theology' wrought by the Fathers is the fruit of direct encounter, is such language really appropriate?

Perhaps I can offer a few points for consideration. Firstly, we Orthodox make a great deal, especially in the pages of 'anti-Western' polemic, of the special manner in which we understand the term 'theology'. True theologia is not simply knowledge of God, but direct experience with Him. To be a 'theologian' is to be a person of direct encounter, intimate union with the Holy Trinity. It is not, as in the throes of all things shamefully, horribly Western (please, please take note of my sarcasm here), to be a person of great erudition and knowledge of God and things religious.

This is our usual distinction. However, by being too militant in its profession, we actually lose sight of a great portion of genuine Orthodox heritage. As it goes, the above is quite correct, and it is in fact of great note that only the very smallest number of Fathers have received the title 'Theologian' for liturgical commemoration. Yet we must not let this reality overtake the fact, equally as true, that the experience of God as had by many of the Fathers was also wrought through the workings of an illumined intellect in rational, logical, even theological in the so-called 'Western' sense, ways. The simple fact of the matter is that this isn't a 'Western' sense at all: it is the common heritage of the Orthodox East as far back as the time of the Apostles. What the Eastern Church later condemned as flawed in the Western approach to theology was not the application of rational analysis and 'scholarship' (we must look no further than St Basil the Great, or St Gregory the Theologian to see the constant application of massive amounts of both), but rather it condemned a divorce of the experiential and encounter-based reality of theology from this rational, intellectual discursion.

If I might turn these rather general comments towards the specific example of our discussion on the Cappadocians and the Palamites in respect to the distinction between essence/energies. You are absolutely right to note that the profession by both groups of this reality was based upon the actual experience of the grace (i.e. the uncreated energy) of God. But we must not therefore shun the 'intellectual' from the scene. In the case of the Cappadocian Fathers in particular, this experience was not experienced then simply put forth: the fruits of experience were run through all the rigours of discernment and consideration, such that St Basil, for example, could identify precise theological 'points' (we would now call them doctrines) which could be argued and brought to debates as proof of the rightness of the Faith against heresy. With regard to the reality of the essence/energy distinction in God: yes, this did actually become a 'conception' in the sense that the Fathers took the reality of their experience and related it by way of elaborating and elucidating this aspect of reality in clear form. It could then be (and was) held up as a 'doctrine' about which one could have an 'understanding', but never were the experience of the reality and the understanding/exploration of the reality to be divorced one from the other.

This has all been rather long winded, but I think it important that we not create for the Fathers a kind of 'false world' of religious method that they did not inhabit. We are at times rightly nervous about over-intellectualism and scholasticism, but we should not (must not) allow this nervousness to eliminate all such activity from our interpretation of the Fathers, if we genuinely wish to understand them and be enlightened by them.

INXC, Matthew

[Owen Jones]

There is no such thing as a pure language of experience. There is always a "distance" between language and experience and the "relationship" is very complex. Without conceptualization, the experience is still real, but remains in a kind of lifeless state. One cannot get behind the language symbol to get at a pure experience. The two are inextricable, just as the consciousness of something is part of the reality of that something. Hence, we cannot speak of God apart from Man's consciousness of God. That does not make God dependent on human consciousness. What it does mean is that efforts to objectivize either God, Man, language or experience is doomed to failure. Whether a theologian or a "thinker" or anyone who uses language for that matter understands this process fully ( no one does fully ) is immaterial. The implication is that there is a sacredness to language, because it is not a separate reality. It is part of the revelatory process and part of the revelatory reality. Which I think the Fathers understood and why they were so meticulous in the words they used to talk about Divine-human things. The language expressed is part of the process of the deification of man. Since it is the Intellectual/Noetic/Rational aspect of consciousness(not love per se) that makes us most like God. The whole cosmos is infused with love. The animal kingdom is infused with love. But it is Reason that best reflects man in his deified state. If one doubts this, I refer to Athanasius "On the Incarnation." Reason, one might say, is God's love of his creation being incarnate in man. So the proper use of Reason, what is classically referred to as Right Reason, is a beautiful thing to behold, more beautiful than a mountain stream or a summer storm or a sunset. This is what the Fathers understood and why they went to such great lengths to get the conceptualization right.

[M. Rallis]

Dear Matthew:

Just a few more thoughts on our topic.


“You are absolutely right to note that the profession by both groups of this reality was based upon the actual experience of the grace (i.e. the uncreated energy) of God.”

This, then, was the main point I was trying to explore, that our Holy Fathers, Saints, and Theologians, though separated by centuries of time, and different cultures, are yet preserved in the unity of the faith and communion of the Holy Spirit. The experience of the uncreated energy of God by Saints Basil, Gregory (Nazianzus and Nyssa), and Chrysostom was no different than the experience of Saint Gregory Palamas. And, further, Saint Gregory Palamas verbalized his “concept” of the experience of Uncreated Light, not as a logical development through intellectual exercise, resulting in a “new” concept foreign to that of the Cappadocian fathers, but rather, as a most fitting description of the physical and intellectual illumination shared by all who have lived in the abundant Grace of the Holy Spirit. A conceptualization suited to the spiritual needs of his contemporaries. And to us, today.

“But we must not therefore shun the 'intellectual' from the scene.”
“We are at times rightly nervous about over-intellectualism and scholasticism, but we should not ( must not) allow this nervousness to eliminate all such activity from our interpretation of the Fathers, if we genuinely wish to understand them and be enlightened by them”

I could not agree with you more! The intellect, most especially as it is capable of learning and teaching about the one thing important in this life, is truly a divine gift and a blessing. In my own personal life, I make my living and support my family through the use of my own intellect, and my life’s work would cease if I were to be afflicted with a stroke, brain tumor, Alzheimer’s, or any of the other maladies which damage our ability to function intellectually.

But, and maybe this is where Owen’s post joins the discussion, while in order to communicate with written or with spoken language, we must create through our use of language a “concept” that can lend itself to reflection and discussion, in our current reflection on divine essence/energies, I still have to maintain that any attempt at intellectually producing a concept falls short of even beginning to contain the reality of the knowledge by experience. An attempt by me would really fall short. The concepts produced by our Holy Fathers are living words that awaken in each of us a longing for Truth.

I have stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon at sunset and at dawn. I might try and exercise my intellect to construct a description of my experience to share with you the concept of this experience. I could take a still picture, or even make a videotape. Still, though I might inspire you with a sense of the awesome majesty of this scene, my strong desire would be for you to enjoy the experience for yourself, for only in this way could you begin to know the complete inability of words or images to truly convey the reality.

Likewise, my guess is that our Holy Fathers, while embracing us with their love in sharing with us their words about Truth, never-the-less, would also wish us to strive for our own knowledge by experience so that we could more fully be joined with them in the Trinitarian communion of His Love.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Michael,

I enjoyed reading your most recent post; and Owen, as always. I think that you (Michael) are quite right in your most recent comments, and would not wish to belabour them too much. On the notion that the experience of God's grace, as unchanging grace, is 'universal' among those who have attained to it, we may all certainly agree.

I would, however, wish to re-emphasise that the 'intellectual' or 'doctrinal/dogmatic' use to which one or another of the Fathers puts such experience can and does vary. It is in this regard that 'conceptions' or 'understandings' of an aspect of divine reality should be spoken of, and it does us well to realise the interaction of heart, mind, will and pen in these relationships. Gregory the Palamite and Gregory the Theologian (or Basil, or the Nyssan) all did experience the same reality of God, as you suggest; but that of which they spoke when talking about the essence/energies of God was in fact different. This does not mean that the reality of the experience was different, but that we cannot (as Owen suggests) speak of the reality of the experience -- it simply is not possible. What we speak of is the conceptualisation of God's being that comes from the experience and leads others to it. In this regard, if we look back to our present subject, the Palamites and the Cappadocians were indeed talking of something different, though manifest from the same experience of divine things.

INXC, Matthew

[M. Rallis]

Dear Matthew:

“This does not mean that the reality of the experience was different, but that we cannot (as Owen suggests) speak of the reality of the experience -- it simply is not possible.”

Which is one reason why we, as Orthodox, worship and live liturgically. When we enter into the Divine Liturgy, the Kingdom (Reign?) of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we share in the experience of God’s grace. So, while it is not possible to speak of the reality of the experience of God’s grace, it is possible to share the reality through experience, the experience of the life in Christ, lived in Orthodox liturgical worship and life.

In our parish, there are a few of the faithful who make the honest effort to attend all of the special, and beautiful services of Holy Week. This endeavor, of course, involves extra time away from the ususal demands of our hectic lives. Again, I cannot begin to describe in words the feeling of Christian love, the experience of a small portion of God’s grace, that blesses those God-loving souls who night after night fast from the worldly routine that we all are caught up in, by taking the pains to attend and worship together.

Unfortunately, one of the few drawbacks of this wonderful Monachos forum is that we all cannot be together, physically, in worship.

[Gilberto Andrade]

Dear Friends

I would like to understand more clearly what Saint Gregory Palamas exactly referred to when he instituted the difference between “essence” and “energies” of Divinity. All of us know he successfully attempted to respond the twofold troublesome aspects: how the Created reality (visible and invisible) could live in perfect communion with the Inaccessible and Uncreated Reality of Holy Trinity and, then, how “men become gods”, since “God became Man”. To the Orthodox theology and spirituality, we “become God” to an extent that we have a participation in the Divine Energies (am I right?)

However we do not mean, that is, we do not believe that “the energies of God became man”, rather we believe that ALL DIVINITY (ESSENCE and energies) became flesh in the womb of a Virgin. The Word of God became Man. So, if the Inaccessible Divinity (the Essence of Trinity) actually entered the Created realm by the Incarnation of the Son of God, is it correct to say that the created universe – as we, human beings - also reach the full communion with the Divine Essence?

So, what did Saint Gregory Palamas really mean “essences” and “energies”?

In XC
Acácio

[Theopesta]

till the knowledgable members response

[link] (http://www.pelagia.org/htm/b16.en.saint_gregory_palamas_as_a_hagiorite.10.htm #s13a)

[link] (http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/christou_palamas.html)

(Message edited by admin on 24 September, 2005)

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Mr Andrade (Acacius),

Firstly, welcome to the discussion community. It is nice to have you here.

The matter of distinguishing between the 'essence' and 'energies' of God is far more complex and mystical than it is usually taken to be. A form of this manner of distinction dates back almost to the earliest days of Christendom; and by the time of the Cappadocian fathers (mid- to late-fourth century) was being employed to distinguish between the knowable and unknowable of the divine (as part of a direct response to Eunomius, who claimed, essentially, that God was entirely knowable). The basic usage of the distinction there is that there are aspects/actions/operations (roughly equivalent to early usages of 'energies') by which God is knowable, but the full reality of who God is (roughly the early usage of 'essence') remains beyond human conception. But already in the Cappadocians and others of their era, there is a move beyond this: those knowable aspects/actions/operations of God ('energies') are also the means by which God sanctifies and deifies the human person. As such, even the earliest usage of the distinction is not wholly about knowable versus unknowable characterisations; it also speaks of the question of deification.

The key insight even of these early uses is that the deification wrought by these 'energies', generally defined as operations or actions in the early period, is in fact a deification into the full reality of God. While God is unknown and unknowable in his 'essence', the full 'who' of who God is, it is nonetheless this full God into whom man is brought to encounter through the 'energies'. The two are distinct, yet wholly interrelated. When the person encounters an 'energy' of God, this is not simply an 'act' or economic activity of God -- a 'side-effect' of his being -- but an act of encounter with God directly, who nonetheless remains unknown and transcendent in his own being.

This is one of the most common 'popular misconceptions' about the essence/energies distinction as elaborated later, more fully and thoroughly, by Gregory Palamas: that God is his 'essence' which is never encountered, but acts or makes himself known through his 'energies', which are rather like the mediating arms of the essence into the economy. This is not Gregory's point. The energies of God are the encounterable realities of the essence of God. In the energies the human meets and encounters God who is God by essence, but encounters this essence energetically. God's nature remains ever transcendent in itself, but brings into encounter and relationship with himself the creation sanctified by his own being-in-energies.

The incarnation is a chief example of this. The one born in Bethlehem is Son of God by nature, by 'essence'; but even in the full revelation and union of the incarnation, the creature never knows and never can know fully or directly God by nature. Transcendence always transcends. In the incarnate Christ, one encounters the full essence of God energetically, through the energies of his being that are the means of encounter with the essence of his being. One encounters God by nature, in his energies.

INXC, Matthew

[Leandros Papadopoulos]

Dear Gilberto Andrade,

You can find the answer, in your question, in the links submitted by sister Theopesta and in the message of Dr M.C. Steenberg.

Let me also add my personal point of view, in a more practical way. To do that I will use explanations provided by Professor of dogmatics J. Zizioula, Metropolitan of Pergamos.

St Gregory the Theologian, in his third theological oration, defines the “essence/nature” as “in itself being” &#40;in greek:<font face="symbol">twn kaqe autvn ufestikotwn</font>/ twn kaqe autvn ufestikotwn&#41;. The essence is something that is self-existent. Therefore, the essence of God exists by itself. The essence may be simple, or compound, created or uncreated, shared or exclusive but its main characteristic is the “self-existence”. The self-existence of the nature does not refer to its origin or mode of existence. Nature may be generated, or may need maintenance like it is the case for the human nature, but the substance of the human nature is defined by itself in the sense that all that is needed is its presence and by its presence alone the whole specific essence exists in itself. The human essence is not depended on anything else, nor is it in need of something else to be defined. So, we can say that also the essence of human exists by itself; the essence of iron exists by itself and so forth.

Then, St Gregory the Theologian defines the “person” as a part of a relation, but at the same time as a separate and independent and singular way of being. For instance there is one human nature, which is shared but many separate, independent, singular ways of being human, in the multitude of human persons who are becoming separate independent singular persons through relations. For example, the names “father” and “son” refer to two persons that share the same human nature. The two persons share the same human nature, but their ways of being are separate and independent and singular &#40;compared to each other&#41; as the way of being of the one person is to generate his son and way of being of the other person is to be generated by his father. In this context, without the specific father-person there can not be the specific son-person and without the specific son-person there can not be the specific father-person. Of course a human being can exist without being father or son, but then he can not be named with the name of a person in father-son relation. In this context, the personhood of beings exists only within relations and can only exist if two different, separate, independent persons experience the same relation in absolutely different ways of being in relation with each other. For example, a relation between two sons, or between two fathers, or between two identical ways of being is NOT a personal relation. The personal relation of one person with another person necessitates the related person to be “distinct”, that is, to be “other” than the first one, or else the relation is not a personal relation but a self-relation.

Afterwards, St Gregory the Theologian, defines the “energy/act/operation” to be as what is “beholded in otherness” &#40;in greek:<font face="symbol">twn en eterw qewroumenwn</font>/ twn en eterw qewroumenwn}&#41;. The classical philosophy names the “energy” as “existed fact/event” &#40;in greek:<font face="symbol">symbebhkws</font>/sumbebhkws&#41;. So, “energy” is what is being observed in otherness. For example, I see my father to be happy, or I see my father being embraced. The energy is a common – a communed – event. An event that happens in otherness but it is simultaneously observed/communed by the being.

We must point here, that energy does not lead to a personal relation. The “person” is absolutely distinct from the “essence” and from the “energy”. The person is neither the essence nor the energy. Let me put it in this way, the person is not identical to the essence because then in the relation father-son, the person father would have been father in a natural way in being identical to his own essence and he would have no need for the person son at all, but he would have been the specific father without the specific son, which is absurd, thus person is not identical to essence. Then, if we would accept that person is identical to energy, we would accept also that the communed energies between a father and a son are the specific respective sonship and the specific fathership, but then the son would have been also his father and the father would have also been his son, because the energy in the relation is mutually communed and it is singular: If the father loves the son and the son is loved by the father, the energy is one as it takes place and it is being realized by the two persons. If the personhood was the same with the energy then the two persons would have identical personhoods, but they are absolutely distinct, one being the specific father and the other being the specific son.

In philosophical terms, the essence is a producer and the energy is a consumer. In simple words, a being in its essence produces “products” that originate from its self-existent essence and in its energies consumes otherness as “product” by observing/consuming everything that exists as externally &#40;compared to its essence&#41; produced events/products.

A person is neither a producer, nor a consumer of the relation, which the person takes part. A person is not a producer &#40;in the absolute sense of the producer that essence is&#41; of the relation, because it can not produce a relation by itself as there is always a need for another person to co-produce the relation, nor is it a consumer of the relation in consuming it as an external product/event produced by otherness as itself is a co-producer and the relation is not produced externally compared to absolute personal self participation in its production.

Now, applying these theological definitions in describing God and human beings St Gregory Palamas introduced another term: the term “uncreated”. Not that he did something new, because the Church Fathers had always used the terms Uncreated essence, and Uncreated persons when they talked about God and Trinity Persons. But he clarified that the term “uncreated” is also valid for the energies of God and that also the Fathers before him had explicitly or indirectly presented this proposal. St Palamas, farther, testified that the uncreated energies of God are realities and that they are experienced by the members of the Church, in being members of the body of Christ.

Let’s see what the uncreated energies of God are in a simple explanation. The energy is what is being observed of the energy/act/operation that takes place in otherness. In this context, there is a great problem: what is otherness for God? Is there anything that is external compared to Him? For example when we say that God created the World, we define the creation as an external event and the World as an external essence, compared to God’s essence. In this context, God is presented as a producer of World and as a consumer of the world &#40;consumer here does not has the meaning of eater, but the meaning of otherness that can not be identical with self and remains extraneous to self&#41;. Therefore, the World becomes a distinct entity from God that is produced by Him and can only be consumed by God and in its turn the World also can only consume God as knowledge and experience of otherness. This is the theology of the papal-catholic Church. St Gregory Palamas insisted that this theology is false. The papal church made this false because it failed to participate into the uncreated energies of God, after becoming alienated from practicing the orthodox worship of God, which was and it is still preserved until our days in the Orthodox monasticism.

In order to understand St Gregory Palamas theology, we must understand the concept of “uncreated” in an ontological sense. Let’s try to define this term, and then we will return to St Gregory.

St Athanasius of Alexandria, says that we, humans, are acting in a created fashion and God is acting in an uncreated fashion. The created fashion means that as a created being I have to choose between &#123;given/preexisted} options. I have the freedom to do something or not to do it. The created freedom is a freedom of choice. The choice is about pre-existed options. I can not act in a non pre-existed way. Of course I am a producer according to my essence/nature and I am a consumer of otherness that exist beyond/external my essence, but my created essence is a physical limitation which defines and restricts both my consuming as well as my producing faculty. The limitation of created beings is the limited freedom of choosing among preexisted options. For instance, I have the freedom to become a father, or not. This is a choice of a preexisted created options, that are given to me and I just have to choose one of them. Then I will become a producer and a consumer of the existence or of the non-existence of my child. In any case I do not have any other given options.

When St Athanasius confronted the heresy of Arius, regarding the generation of the Son by the Father, he said that “the Son is not generated by the will of the Father”. And He explains what he means: “If we say that He was generated as a Son from the will of the Father, first of all it means that there was a time that the Son did not exist, and then it means that the Father had both inclinations, that is, to either will to have His Son, or not to will to have Him”. This proposition is unacceptable by St Athanasius. St Athanasius presents the Orthodox objection to this kind of divine freedom of choice and explains the Orthodox position: God is eternally, before and beyond time Free, in a freedom that has no choices! For St Athanasius the problem is not in the freedom itself, but in the freedom of choices. St Athanasius even avoided saying that the Father have an uncreated will for His Son, as an eternal uncreated choice, because he does not want to let room from an unpicked choice in God’s freedom. The Freedom of God is not a freedom of choice!

How then an eternal Freedom and Will of God are to be accepted if the opposite and the contrary are missing. This seems like a mandatory mode of existence and not like a free mode of existence. St Gregory Palamas explains that what we experience as created freedom, as humans, is a freedom to choose between preexisted options. These options are not made by us but they are made by someone who preexists before us. Actually this is the definition of created reality: to come in existence facing a preexisted reality. Because creation is created by someone else, this “someone else” precedes the created being. So the created being, if freedom is given to it, has the choice to accept or to deny the preceded preexisted being, just like Adam was given this freedom. Adam was found in this position of freedom-choice, to accept or to deny God, because God preexisted and everything that preexists challenges our freedom, as a freedom of choice: we have in front of us a specific monitor in which we read this message; we have the freedom to destroy the monitor or to use it, to accept it or to reject it. The existence of otherness challenges our created freedom, to take a position regarding it. This is the created way of being, facing preexisted and coexisted options from which to choose one as an act of freedom.

Now, if we try to implement this notion of created freedom to God, who is uncreated and He exists actually before even the creation of time, we face a great problem. What options does one uncreated being have when there is absolutely nothing else but itself ? Then, it either becomes servant of its nature/essence or it practices its freedom in an affirmative mode, in saying YES. Because there is nobody or anything else, but itself, to say no. And it can not deny itself, because this is a privilege of the created beings, for the created beings are having a given self, the existence is given to the created beings by a preexistent generator without being asked. But the uncreated being was not offered a self by someone preceding it. Only what it is offered can be denied. And God, as uncreated being, can not deny not even Himself, nor can He practice His freedom in a negative way because there is nothing given to Him in order to be in a position to deny it.

So for the supreme uncreated being, that is God, there two modes of existence, either to exist as a necessity, or to exist in freedom by saying yes in His existence - in a way of practicing affirmative freedom, since He does not have a negative freedom inasmuch there is nothing beyond Himself to deny.

Now, returning to our main subject, St Gregory Palama says that God, in being in existence, is not alone. His existence is an ontological YES. Therefore His freedom is identical with His existence substantially. The affirmation in His existence it is the same and coincides with the affirmation in His Freedom and this affirmation is the affirmation to His Trinitarian way of personal way of being. When the Father consents in His own existence and in the existence of the Son and of the Spirit, He practices His freedom, which is a freedom of an affirmative will. The affirmative will is not another option, in contrast to the negative will. The negative will of God is inconceivable for He is uncreated Being. The affirmative will of God is what we call His LOVE.

St Maximus, the confessor, in the same context, defines freedom as one single road and not as a choice between many roads. So, in deification of man the freedom is not acknowledged as a choice of preexisted options, but as an affirmative way of being. After the second coming of Christ, everyone will be restored in an immortal perfect nature, and the whole World will be restored also in perfection. So, if I want to kill someone but there will be no way to put him to death, for he would be immortal, what choices do I have afterwards? Only to accept him, only to say YES. If I want to commit any practical destruction or physical distortion, the incorruptness of humans and of nature would not allow me to do this, so again I would have only one “choice” to practice my freedom: to accept their existence and my inability to act against them, to say YES to them.

St Paul presents this reality in his letter &#40;2 Corinthians 1:15-19&#41;: And in this confidence I intended to come to you before, that you might have a second benefit— to pass by way of you to Macedonia, to come again from Macedonia to you, and be helped by you on my way to Judea. Therefore, when I was planning this, did I do it lightly? Or the things I plan, do I plan according to the flesh, that with me there should be Yes, Yes, and No, No? But as God is faithful, our word to you was not Yes and No. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us—by me, Silvanus, and Timothy—was not Yes and No, but in Him was Yes. (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Corinthians%201:15-19;&version=50;) St Paul, says that his free decision to go to the city of Corinth was not a decision based on choice but it was based in the participation of the Church to the uncreated energies of God.

Now, returning to our earlier question: “what is otherness for God? Is there anything that is external compared to Him? For example when we say that God created the World, we define the creation as an external event and the World as an external essence, compared to God’s essence.” But, this is not so, because we have to distinguish the energies of created beings and the energies of God. God’s energies are always personal, while the energies of created beings are existential.

God created man as an affirmative act of the freedom of the Trinity Persons. The Father, the Son and the Spirit did not choose to create the World, against the choice not to create it. Their “act” of creation was not a unanimous decision of the Trinity Persons, it was an affirmative common single will of the Trinity Persons to say YES to the creation in the context of Their Personal relation. This mode of creation is expressed by the science of physics as “singularity, (http://ssscott.tripod.com/BigBang.html)”. The “singularity” is the term of physics that expresses that the physical state of creation at the time zero was never repeated, neither before, nor afterwards. So the creation of the World is an uncreated energy of God as a “singularity”, not because the science of physics says so, but because we live this experience in the Church as members of the body of Christ.

So, the World was created by the Father, through the Son, perfected in the Spirit. There was not a question of creating or not, but an affirmative statement “The God said….The God said… The God said…” &#40;Genesis&#41; (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis%201;&version=50;). Many Christians fail to understand the significance of the personal way of Creation. The Creator is the Trinity, the Trinity Persons: the Father, through the Son, in Spirit. In an analogy, this is like saying that I and my wife created something. If we had created a house, or a business, then our relation is irrelevant, but if we had created a son then our definition as husband and wife is not irrelevant but it is the explanation of the new created being. Our personal creation as “husband” and “wife” is the explanation of our creation, which will introduce a “singularity”, which is our child. If someone will try to inquire the origins of our child by analyzing our child’s natural functionality and growth and by rolling back to its embryonic and cell origin arrives at the time zero of our child’s generation, then he will face a “singularity”, an unrepeated moment, where a relation &#40;between a specific husband and a specific wife&#41; creates a new existence that is being called from nothingness to take part in their relation in a new singular way of being, which is being called “child”. Likewise, the names Father, Son and Spirit are not just definition of the respective creative Persons but they are the names of the relational explanation of Creation.

The uncreated energies of God is the singularity of the incarnation of the Son, as God-man, thus bringing into the sphere of creation the Personal way of being of the Trinity Persons, in being related between them as the specific Father, the specific Son and the specific Spirit. This is not a decision, made by the Father, but it is the affirmative way of being of the Supreme uncreated BEING, as singular will of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, expressed as a Personal freedom with no options, but as a freedom of Persons for whom “NO” is meaningless and unsubstantial and “YES” is self-existed. As St Paul says: to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.<font size="-2">&#40; Ephesians 3:10-12&#41;</font> (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians%203:10-12;&version=50;)

May God bless us, all.

[Tim Grass]

I guess someone should point out that Metropolitan John Zizioulas&#39;s conception of these things which has been described above, is today accepted by very few Orthodox theologians.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Leandros, Tim, Gilberto and others,

It is going to take me some time to read through your last message, Leandros, as it is rather phenomenally long! But I will do, and perhaps respond more once I have done. The essence/energies distinction is a matter very difficult to understand, yet more difficult to describe.

The matter of Metr. John Zizioulas&#39; conception of related ideas, specifically as collected in the volume Being as Communion &#40;republished by St Vladimir&#39;s Seminary Press some years ago, still in print&#41; is interesting, precisely because, as has been hinted at above, it is coming under ever more criticism in Orthodox theological circles. This might lead to an interesting discussion as well &#40;though perhaps better over in the &#39;Texts and Authors&#39; area, if it starts leaning solely towards that work&#41;.

INXC, Matthew

[Leandros Papadopoulos]

Dear friends,

There is no period in Church history, in which the theologians were not debating in their effort to word the inexpressible; this is wisely underlined by Dr M.C. Steenberg. The theological search will never come to an end. As St Gregory the Theologian said: “to phrase God is impossible and to understand Him is even more impossible” &#40;in greek: <font face="symbol">Qeon frasai adunaton, nohsai de adunatoteron</font>/Qeon frasai adunaton, nohsai de adunatoteron&#41;.

The message by brother Tim, implies – at least this is the way I read it – that there has to be only ONE “official” way to express the Christian point of view, that is, within an unanimous acceptance of a single utterance.

Of course, the Church has framed her dogmas/doctrines in a singular unanimously accepted formation, in a period of time, after “endless” debates. So the &#34;debate&#34; itself is not a pathology of theology but the most vivid sign of a healthy function &#40;though, not all of the theological positions will get through this scrutiny&#41;.

But the point that a theological presentation of the doctrines of the Church is “accepted by very few Orthodox theologians” is not negating the presentation itself. Metropolitan Zizioulas, did not make another Christian doctrine, nor did he introduced novelties in the worship. He just presented in a scientific theological formation, as an acting teacher of the faith and academic instructor, “a point of view” of the ONE Orthodox Christian doctrine.

In the same context, there are differences, in the points of view of the ONE doctrine, in the respective presentation of St Paul compared to the presentation of St John the Theologian, or compared to the presentation of St Peter, because every distinct person has distinct faculty and talent to express himself, and a different “mission” to fulfil. Of course there is always a potential danger, as St Peter writes in his 2nd letter: “and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them about these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.” <font size="-2">&#40;2 Peter 3:15-16&#41;</font> (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Peter%203:15-16;&version=50;)

Please, accept my apology for posting this message in this thread.

[Gilberto Andrade]

Dear Dr. Steenberg, Leandros Papadopoulos, Theopesta and others

Thank you so much for responding my questions!

In XC Gilberto &#40;Acácio&#41;

[Tim Grass]

Leandros said: &#34;The message by brother Tim, implies – at least this is the way I read it – that there has to be only ONE “official” way to express the Christian point of view, that is, within an unanimous acceptance of a single utterance. &#34;

Actually, this isn&#39;t what I said. What I said was that Metropolitan John Zizioulas&#39;s conception of these things which have been described above, is today accepted by very few Orthodox theologians. Not that everyone has to say the same thing, but that this particular way of trying to talk about the Trinity is not accepted by many Orthodox theologians today. It was popular for a while, but most Orthodox theologians realize that it doesn&#39;t really represent accurately a way of talking about patristic views. So if it&#39;s going to be used as a main reference point in this thread, someone should point out that it is rejected by most Orthodox theologians. Not that the project of interpreting shouldn&#39;t have many voices and attempts... that that _this one_ is generally now seesn as inadequate.

--tim

[Daniel Jones]

Dr. Steenberg,

It sounds to me that you are making an identity relation between the energies and the essence when you say, &#34;In the energies the human meets and encounters God who is God by essence, but encounters this essence energetically.&#34; Am I understanding you correctly? Are you saying that the energies just are the essence, that, an energy is an active essence?

Photius

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Photius (please call me Matthew),

You wrote:


It sounds to me that you are making an identity relation between the energies and the essence when you say, "In the energies the human meets and encounters God who is God by essence, but encounters this essence energetically." Am I understanding you correctly? Are you saying that the energies just are the essence, that, an energy is an active essence?

Thank you for the question, based on my comments in a post earlier in this thread. No, my intention there was not to equate energy and essence (i.e. to say that 'an energy is an active essence'), for then the whole point of the distinction St Gregory wishes to draw is abolished. I was attempting to point out that there is a common misconception of the essence/energies distinction, which seems to 'compositionalise' it: making God two 'parts' -- essence and energies. That in mind, I do rather like your phrase 'an identity relation between the energies and the essence'. This actually seems appropriate, not in equating essence and energy, but in stressing the identity of God in his being as essence and energy.

The example I used in my previous post might be worth re-stating:


The incarnation is a chief example of this. The one born in Bethlehem is Son of God by nature, by 'essence'; but even in the full revelation and union of the incarnation, the creature never knows and never can know fully or directly God by nature. Transcendence always transcends. In the incarnate Christ, one encounters the full essence of God energetically, through the energies of his being that are the means of encounter with the essence of his being. One encounters God by nature, in his energies.

INXC, Matthew