Essence-Energies distinction
Encyclopedia
A real distinction between the essence (ousia) and the energies (energeia) of God
is a central principle of Eastern Orthodox theology
. Eastern Orthodox theology regards this distinction as more than a mere conceptual distinction. This doctrine is most closely identified with Gregory Palamas
, who formulated it as part of his defense of the practice of Hesychasm
against the charge of heresy brought by Barlaam of Calabria
. These teachings of Palamas were made into dogma in the Eastern Orthodox church by the Hesychast councils
.
Historically, Western Christianity has tended to reject the essence-energies distinction as real in the case of God, characterizing the view as a heretical introduction of an unacceptable division in the Trinity and suggestive of polytheism. Further, the associated practice of hesychasm used to achieve theosis
was characterized as "magic". More recently, some Roman Catholic thinkers have taken a positive view of Palamas's teachings, including how he understood the essence-energies distinction, arguing that it does not represent an insurmountable theological division between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.
"virtual distinction" and the Scotist
"formal distinction". Romanides suspects that Barlaam accepted a "formal distinction" between God's essence and his energies.)
Many writers agree that Palamas views the distinction between the divine essence and the divine energies as a "real" distinction. A few scholars argue against describing Palamas's essence-energies distinction in God as a "real" distinction. For example, David Bentley Hart expresses doubt "that Palamas ever intended to suggest a real distinction between God's essence and energies".
According to Aidan Nichols, Palamas's essence-energies distinction is not a mere "formal" distinction. By a "formal" distinction, Nichols means a distinction merely "demanded by the limited operating capacities of human minds".
G. Philips argues that Palamas's essence-energies distinction is not an "ontological
" distinction but, rather, analogous to a "formal distinction" in the Scotist sense of the term.
According to Roman Catholic theologian A.N. Williams's study of Palamas, which is more recent than Bentley's and Philips's, in two passages (only) Palamas explicitly says God's energies are "as constitutively and ontologically distinct from the essence as are the three Hypostases", and in one place he makes explicit his view, repeatedly implied elsewhere, that the essence and the energies are not the same; but Williams contends that not even in these passages did Palamas intend to argue for an "ontological or fully real distinction", and that the interpretation of his teaching by certain polemical modern disciples of his is false.
Western theologians admit no real distinction in God other than that between the three divine Hypostases or Persons. Neither between God's essence and the three Persons of the Trinity, nor between God's essence and his energies, do they admit a real distinction, but only a distinction that has a basis in reality or a formal distinction.
The concept of synergy used to express the relationship of God with man, which as taught in the East was not only in dogma and proper context the transcendence of the limitations of pagan society and pagan philosophy. In his comparative history of philosophical thought in the two halves of late-antiquity and mediaeval Christendom, David Bradshaw says that the word "synergy" would be the best with which to summarize in a single word the differences between the eastern and western traditions.
) and is distinct from his energies (energeia in Greek, actus
in Latin) or activities as actualized in the world. The ousia of God is God as God is. It is the energies of God that enable us to experience something of the Divine. At first through sensory perception and then later intuitively or noetically. The essence, being, nature and substance (ousia) of God is taught in Eastern Christianity as uncreated and incomprehensible. God's ousia is defined as "that which finds no existence or subsistence in another or any other thing". God's ousia is beyond all states of (nous
) consciousness and unconsciousness, being and non-being (like being dead or anesthetized), beyond something and beyond nothing beyond existence and non-existence. The God's ousia has not in necessity or subsistence needing or having dependence on anything other than itself. God's ousia as uncreated is therefore incomprehensible to created beings such as human beings. Therefore God in essence is superior to all forms of ontology
(metaphysics). The source, origin of God's ousia or incomprehensibliness is the Father hypostasis
of the Trinity, One God in One Father. The God's energies are "unbegotten" or "uncreated" just like the existences of God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) both God's existences and energies are experience-able or comprehensible. God's ousia is uncreatediness, beyond existence, beyond no existence, God's hyper-being is not something comprehensible to created beings. As St John Damascene states "all that we say positively of God manifests not his nature but the things about his nature."
.
Eastern Orthodox theologians assert that Western Christianity treats God's ousia as energeia and dunamis
(Aristotle's Actus et potentia) as part of the scholastic method in theology. Which allows God's incomprehensibility to become comprehensible
, by not making a distinction between God's nature and manifestation of things about God's nature. As Aristotle and Pagan philosophy taught that God was the underlying substance, nature, being, essence (ousia) of all things (as the Monad
in substance theory
). Making the very thing that makes God, God (uncreated, incomprehensible) the same as God's created world and created beings. God's ousia then becomes detectable and experienced as a substance, essence, being or nature. Rather than God's hyper-being (ousia) as, infinite and never comprehensible to a finite mind or consciousness.
Therefore Pagan philosophy via Metaphysical
dialects sought to reconcile all of existence (ontology
), with Mankind's reason or rational faculty culminating into deification called henosis
. Where in Pagan henosis all of creation is absorbed into the Monad and then recycled back into created existence. Since in Pantheism there is nothing outside of creation or the cosmos, including God, since God is the cosmos in Pantheism. Or rather meaning no ontology outside of the cosmos
(creation). Where as Orthodox Christianity strictly seeks soteriology
as reconciliation (via synergeia
) of man (creation, creatures) with God (the uncreated) called theosis
. Mankind is not absorbed into the God's ousia or hypostases or energies in theosis. Ousia here is a general thing or generality, in this case ousia is the essence, nature, being, substance of the word God and concept of God. Various Orthodox theologians argue Western Christianity teaches that the essence of God can be experienced (man can have the same consciousness as God); they charge that Western Christianity's treatment is very much in line with the pagan speculative philosophical approach to the concept of God.
Since no distinction is made between God's essence and his works, acts (i.e. the cosmos) that there is no distinction between God and the material or created world, cosmos. Gregory Palamas' distinction is denied in favor of pagan Philosopher Aristotle
's Actus et potentia. Uncreated as that which has no first cause and is not caused, in Eastern Orthodoxy therefore being the basis for understanding outside the realm of science. Atheism here being a denial of the uncreated. Pagan philosophical metaphysics being a dialectical attempt to rationalize the uncreated.
writes, "[E]ssence, ... whether in the case of God or in the case of man, does not exist apart from the specific person who gives it subsistence. Persons hypostasize essence, they give it an hypostasis, that is, real and specific existence. Essence exists only “in persons”; persons are the mode of existence of essence."
God as infinite and hyper-being (as existent) is called the Father (hypostasis
) as origin of all things created and uncreated. God's hands that created the finite or material world are the uncreated existences (hypostases) of God named the Son (God incarnate Jesus Christ) and God immaterial and in Spirit (called the Holy Spirit). Since all of the existences of God as well as all things derive from the Father. What is uncreated as well as created also too, comes from God the Father (hypostasis). The God as uncreated in ousia
is infinite and is therefore beyond (not limited to) being or existence. The ousia of God is uncreated and is a quality shared as common between the existences of God. This in Eastern Christianity is called hyper-being, above being (hyperousia).
and redemption, but to all of God's dealings with, and interactions with, the world, including the Creation. In this sense, economy, as used in classical Orthodox doctrinal terminology, constituted the second broad division of all Christian doctrinal teaching. The first division was called theology (literally, "words about God" or "teaching about God") and was concerned with all that pertains to God alone, in himself — the teaching on the Trinity, the divine attributes, and so on, but not with anything pertaining to the creation or the redemption. "...The distinction between οικονομια and θεολογια ... remains common to most of the Greek Fathers and to all of the Byzantine tradition. θεολογια ... means, in the fourth century, everything which can be said of God considered in Himself, outside of His creative and redemptive economy. To reach this 'theology' properly so-called, one therefore must go beyond ... God as Creator of the universe, in order to be able to extricate the notion of the Trinity from the cosmological implications proper to the 'economy.'"
Ralph del Colle explains that the divine energies and the hypostases are not identical; however, it is through the energies that the three hypostases are active in the divine economy.
Lossky summarizes the working of the divine economy in relationship to the revelation of the hypostases in the energies:
The presence of the energies is not to be taken as denial of the philosophical simplicity
of God. Therefore, when speaking of God, it is acceptable within Eastern Orthodoxy to speak of his energies as God. These would include kataphatic or positive statements of God like the list of St Paul's energies of God. God being love, faith and hope and knowledge (see 1 Cor. 13:2 - 13:13). As is also the case of Gregory of Palamas that God is grace and deifying
illumination
.
and soteriological
distinction remains that people experience God through his energies, not his essence. Traditionally, the energies have been experienced as light, such as the light of Mount Tabor
that appeared at the Transfiguration
(called photimos). The light that appeared to St Paul on the Road to Damascus
. The light that appeared to the apostles in the book of Acts 2:3. Orthodox tradition likewise holds that this light may be seen during prayer (Hesychasm
) by particularly devout individuals, such as the saint
s. In addition, it is considered to be eschatological in that it is also considered to be the "Light of the Age to Come" or the "Kingdom of Heaven" the reign of God, which is the Christ. It is this light that is proper to understanding the Eastern Orthodox miracle called Halo
as a person whom is defied will omit the uncreated light of God.
, for its alleged incompatibility with the essence-energies distinction. Christos Yannaras writes, "The West confuses God's essence with his energy, regarding the energy as a property of the divine essence and interpreting the latter as "pure energy" (actus purus)" According to George C. Papademetriou, the essence-energies distinction "is contrary to the Western confusion of the uncreated essence with the uncreated energies and this is by the claim that God is Actus Purus".
and Byzantine mysticism
. Which then led to the formation of Russian philosophy
. Where the God of the Pagan philosophers was a deterministic God who was based on a rational Good called order. The Christian God was Uncreated in essence and brought meaning to existence through reconcillation of the individual to the God while not absorbing the individual into God (in contrast to Pagan deification
).
This understanding was over time articulated as God in his ousia as incomprehensible, God is however immanent in the material world as both finite, creation (ordered and limited) and infinite (beyond order understanding and limitation). Unlike the various dualist concepts of creation and divinity the Christian God is not in essence, nature, being and substance, order or chaos for example but is beyond these concepts of created beings. Created and Uncreated are complementary and not in opposition to one another. As the God of Christianity (unlike the Pagan creator) creates ex-nihilo it is also this God who is experienced logically (dianoia) and intuitively, noetically (noesis). Evil in Christianity is not strictly the agent of chaos (misfortune
) who manifests in the material world causing hardship, tragedy called the absences of Good. Evil in Christianity is the rebellion to and vilification of life. Evil culminates into the active pursuit of the destruction of existence. In Orthodox Christianity mankind has chosen to use his freewill for selfish aims (to have a separate being from God
) and therefore caused the fall of man.
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
is a central principle of Eastern Orthodox theology
Eastern Orthodox theology
Eastern Orthodox Christian theology is the theology particular to the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is characterized by monotheistic Trinitarianism, belief in the Incarnation of the Logos , a balancing of cataphatic theology with apophatic theology, a hermeneutic defined by Sacred Tradition, a...
. Eastern Orthodox theology regards this distinction as more than a mere conceptual distinction. This doctrine is most closely identified with Gregory Palamas
Gregory Palamas
Gregory Palamas was a monk of Mount Athos in Greece and later the Archbishop of Thessaloniki known as a preeminent theologian of Hesychasm. The teachings embodied in his writings defending Hesychasm against the attack of Barlaam are sometimes referred to as Palamism, his followers as Palamites...
, who formulated it as part of his defense of the practice of Hesychasm
Hesychasm
Hesychasm is an eremitic tradition of prayer in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches, such as the Byzantine Rite, practised by the Hesychast Hesychasm is an eremitic tradition of prayer in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches,...
against the charge of heresy brought by Barlaam of Calabria
Barlaam of Calabria
Barlaam of Seminara , ca. 1290-1348, or Barlaam of Calabria was a southern Italian scholar and clergyman of the 14th century. Humanist, philologist, and theologian. He brought an accusation of heresy against Gregory Palamas for the latter's defence of Hesychasm...
. These teachings of Palamas were made into dogma in the Eastern Orthodox church by the Hesychast councils
Fifth Council of Constantinople
Fifth Council of Constantinople is a name given by some to the Quinisext Council of 692, and by others to a series of six patriarchal councils held in Constantinople between 1341 and 1351 to deal with a dispute concerning hesychasm...
.
Historically, Western Christianity has tended to reject the essence-energies distinction as real in the case of God, characterizing the view as a heretical introduction of an unacceptable division in the Trinity and suggestive of polytheism. Further, the associated practice of hesychasm used to achieve theosis
Theosis (Eastern Orthodox theology)
The teaching of deification or theosis in Eastern Orthodoxy refers to the attainment of likeness to or union with God, as deification has three stages in its process of transformation...
was characterized as "magic". More recently, some Roman Catholic thinkers have taken a positive view of Palamas's teachings, including how he understood the essence-energies distinction, arguing that it does not represent an insurmountable theological division between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.
Nature of the essence-energies distinction in God
According to John Romanides, Palamas considers the distinction between God's essence and his energies to be a "real distinction". Romanides distinguishes this "real distinction" from the ThomisticThomism
Thomism is the philosophical school that arose as a legacy of the work and thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, philosopher, theologian, and Doctor of the Church. In philosophy, his commentaries on Aristotle are his most lasting contribution...
"virtual distinction" and the Scotist
Scotism
Scotism is the name given to the philosophical and theological system or school named after Blessed John Duns Scotus. The word comes from the name of its originator, whose Opus Oxoniense was one of the most important documents in medieval philosophy and Roman Catholic theology, defining what would...
"formal distinction". Romanides suspects that Barlaam accepted a "formal distinction" between God's essence and his energies.)
Many writers agree that Palamas views the distinction between the divine essence and the divine energies as a "real" distinction. A few scholars argue against describing Palamas's essence-energies distinction in God as a "real" distinction. For example, David Bentley Hart expresses doubt "that Palamas ever intended to suggest a real distinction between God's essence and energies".
According to Aidan Nichols, Palamas's essence-energies distinction is not a mere "formal" distinction. By a "formal" distinction, Nichols means a distinction merely "demanded by the limited operating capacities of human minds".
G. Philips argues that Palamas's essence-energies distinction is not an "ontological
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
" distinction but, rather, analogous to a "formal distinction" in the Scotist sense of the term.
According to Roman Catholic theologian A.N. Williams's study of Palamas, which is more recent than Bentley's and Philips's, in two passages (only) Palamas explicitly says God's energies are "as constitutively and ontologically distinct from the essence as are the three Hypostases", and in one place he makes explicit his view, repeatedly implied elsewhere, that the essence and the energies are not the same; but Williams contends that not even in these passages did Palamas intend to argue for an "ontological or fully real distinction", and that the interpretation of his teaching by certain polemical modern disciples of his is false.
Western theologians admit no real distinction in God other than that between the three divine Hypostases or Persons. Neither between God's essence and the three Persons of the Trinity, nor between God's essence and his energies, do they admit a real distinction, but only a distinction that has a basis in reality or a formal distinction.
Synergy
The concept of synergy used to express the relationship of God with man, which as taught in the East was not only in dogma and proper context the transcendence of the limitations of pagan society and pagan philosophy. In his comparative history of philosophical thought in the two halves of late-antiquity and mediaeval Christendom, David Bradshaw says that the word "synergy" would be the best with which to summarize in a single word the differences between the eastern and western traditions.
Eastern Orthodox perspective
Robert E. Sinkewicz describes Palamas' ultimate perspective as being the "preservation of the reality of God's self-revelation and the divine economy of creation and salvation."The Essence of God
The concept of God's essence in Eastern Orthodox theology is called (ousiaOusia
Ousia is the Ancient Greek noun formed on the feminine present participle of ; it is analogous to the English participle being, and the modern philosophy adjectival ontic...
) and is distinct from his energies (energeia in Greek, actus
Actus
Actus can refer to the following:* An ancient Roman unit of length* Actus purus, a term employed in scholastic philosophy to express the absolute perfection of God....
in Latin) or activities as actualized in the world. The ousia of God is God as God is. It is the energies of God that enable us to experience something of the Divine. At first through sensory perception and then later intuitively or noetically. The essence, being, nature and substance (ousia) of God is taught in Eastern Christianity as uncreated and incomprehensible. God's ousia is defined as "that which finds no existence or subsistence in another or any other thing". God's ousia is beyond all states of (nous
Nous
Nous , also called intellect or intelligence, is a philosophical term for the faculty of the human mind which is described in classical philosophy as necessary for understanding what is true or real, very close in meaning to intuition...
) consciousness and unconsciousness, being and non-being (like being dead or anesthetized), beyond something and beyond nothing beyond existence and non-existence. The God's ousia has not in necessity or subsistence needing or having dependence on anything other than itself. God's ousia as uncreated is therefore incomprehensible to created beings such as human beings. Therefore God in essence is superior to all forms of ontology
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
(metaphysics). The source, origin of God's ousia or incomprehensibliness is the Father hypostasis
Hypostasis
Hypostasis may refer to:* Hypostatic abstraction * Hypostasis , personification of entities* Hypostatic gene* Hypostasis , an Australian-based not-for-profit organization...
of the Trinity, One God in One Father. The God's energies are "unbegotten" or "uncreated" just like the existences of God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) both God's existences and energies are experience-able or comprehensible. God's ousia is uncreatediness, beyond existence, beyond no existence, God's hyper-being is not something comprehensible to created beings. As St John Damascene states "all that we say positively of God manifests not his nature but the things about his nature."
Distinction between created and uncreated
For the Eastern Orthodox, the distinction as the tradition and perspective behind this understanding, is that creation is the task of energy. If we deny the real distinction between essence and energy, we can not fix any very clear borderline between the procession of the divine persons (as existences and or realities of God) and the creation of the world: both the one and the other will be equally acts of the divine nature (strictly uncreated from uncreated). The being and the action(s) of God then would appear identical, leading to the teaching of PantheismPantheism
Pantheism is the view that the Universe and God are identical. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal, anthropomorphic or creator god. The word derives from the Greek meaning "all" and the Greek meaning "God". As such, Pantheism denotes the idea that "God" is best seen as a process of...
.
Eastern Orthodox theologians assert that Western Christianity treats God's ousia as energeia and dunamis
Dunamis
In philosophy, Potentiality and Actuality are principles of a dichotomy which Aristotle used throughout his philosophical works to analyze motion, causality, ethics, and physiology in his Physics, Metaphysics, Ethics and De Anima .The concept of potentiality, in this context, generally refers to...
(Aristotle's Actus et potentia) as part of the scholastic method in theology. Which allows God's incomprehensibility to become comprehensible
Understanding
Understanding is a psychological process related to an abstract or physical object, such as a person, situation, or message whereby one is able to think about it and use concepts to deal adequately with that object....
, by not making a distinction between God's nature and manifestation of things about God's nature. As Aristotle and Pagan philosophy taught that God was the underlying substance, nature, being, essence (ousia) of all things (as the Monad
Monad (Greek philosophy)
Monad , according to the Pythagoreans, was a term for Divinity or the first being, or the totality of all beings, Monad being the source or the One meaning without division....
in substance theory
Substance theory
Substance theory, or substance attribute theory, is an ontological theory about objecthood, positing that a substance is distinct from its properties. A thing-in-itself is a property-bearer that must be distinguished from the properties it bears....
). Making the very thing that makes God, God (uncreated, incomprehensible) the same as God's created world and created beings. God's ousia then becomes detectable and experienced as a substance, essence, being or nature. Rather than God's hyper-being (ousia) as, infinite and never comprehensible to a finite mind or consciousness.
Therefore Pagan philosophy via Metaphysical
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
dialects sought to reconcile all of existence (ontology
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
), with Mankind's reason or rational faculty culminating into deification called henosis
Henosis
Henosis is the word for "oneness," "union," or "unity" in classical Greek, and is spelled identically in modern Greek where "Enosis" is particulary connected with the modern political "Unity" movement to unify Greece and Cyprus....
. Where in Pagan henosis all of creation is absorbed into the Monad and then recycled back into created existence. Since in Pantheism there is nothing outside of creation or the cosmos, including God, since God is the cosmos in Pantheism. Or rather meaning no ontology outside of the cosmos
Cosmos
In the general sense, a cosmos is an orderly or harmonious system. It originates from the Greek term κόσμος , meaning "order" or "ornament" and is antithetical to the concept of chaos. Today, the word is generally used as a synonym of the word Universe . The word cosmos originates from the same root...
(creation). Where as Orthodox Christianity strictly seeks soteriology
Soteriology
The branch of Christian theology that deals with salvation and redemption is called Soteriology. It is derived from the Greek sōtērion + English -logy....
as reconciliation (via synergeia
Synergy
Synergy may be defined as two or more things functioning together to produce a result not independently obtainable.The term synergy comes from the Greek word from , , meaning "working together".-Definitions and usages:...
) of man (creation, creatures) with God (the uncreated) called theosis
Theosis
In Christian theology, divinization, deification, making divine or theosis is the transforming effect of divine grace. This concept of salvation is historical and fundamental for Christian understanding that is prominent in the Eastern Orthodox Church and also in the Catholic Church, and is a...
. Mankind is not absorbed into the God's ousia or hypostases or energies in theosis. Ousia here is a general thing or generality, in this case ousia is the essence, nature, being, substance of the word God and concept of God. Various Orthodox theologians argue Western Christianity teaches that the essence of God can be experienced (man can have the same consciousness as God); they charge that Western Christianity's treatment is very much in line with the pagan speculative philosophical approach to the concept of God.
Since no distinction is made between God's essence and his works, acts (i.e. the cosmos) that there is no distinction between God and the material or created world, cosmos. Gregory Palamas' distinction is denied in favor of pagan Philosopher Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
's Actus et potentia. Uncreated as that which has no first cause and is not caused, in Eastern Orthodoxy therefore being the basis for understanding outside the realm of science. Atheism here being a denial of the uncreated. Pagan philosophical metaphysics being a dialectical attempt to rationalize the uncreated.
The existences of God
Christos YannarasChristos Yannaras
Christos Yannaras is an important Greek philosopher and writer of more than 50 books, translated into many languages.- Biography :Christos Yannaras is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens...
writes, "[E]ssence, ... whether in the case of God or in the case of man, does not exist apart from the specific person who gives it subsistence. Persons hypostasize essence, they give it an hypostasis, that is, real and specific existence. Essence exists only “in persons”; persons are the mode of existence of essence."
God as infinite and hyper-being (as existent) is called the Father (hypostasis
Hypostasis
Hypostasis may refer to:* Hypostatic abstraction * Hypostasis , personification of entities* Hypostatic gene* Hypostasis , an Australian-based not-for-profit organization...
) as origin of all things created and uncreated. God's hands that created the finite or material world are the uncreated existences (hypostases) of God named the Son (God incarnate Jesus Christ) and God immaterial and in Spirit (called the Holy Spirit). Since all of the existences of God as well as all things derive from the Father. What is uncreated as well as created also too, comes from God the Father (hypostasis). The God as uncreated in ousia
Ousia
Ousia is the Ancient Greek noun formed on the feminine present participle of ; it is analogous to the English participle being, and the modern philosophy adjectival ontic...
is infinite and is therefore beyond (not limited to) being or existence. The ousia of God is uncreated and is a quality shared as common between the existences of God. This in Eastern Christianity is called hyper-being, above being (hyperousia).
The realities of God
Orthodox doctrine teaches that there are three distinct realities of God. According to Clayton and Peacocke, Palamas does not employ a simple "dyadic contrast between essence and energy within God, nor yet a dyadic contrast between essence and hypostases but... deliberately insists upon a three-pointed contrast between essence, energy and hypostasis. In Palamas' words, "Three realities pertain to God: essence, energy and the triad of divine hypostases."Economy of God
The divine economy, in the broadest sense, refers not only to God's actions to bring about the world's salvationSalvation
Within religion salvation is the phenomenon of being saved from the undesirable condition of bondage or suffering experienced by the psyche or soul that has arisen as a result of unskillful or immoral actions generically referred to as sins. Salvation may also be called "deliverance" or...
and redemption, but to all of God's dealings with, and interactions with, the world, including the Creation. In this sense, economy, as used in classical Orthodox doctrinal terminology, constituted the second broad division of all Christian doctrinal teaching. The first division was called theology (literally, "words about God" or "teaching about God") and was concerned with all that pertains to God alone, in himself — the teaching on the Trinity, the divine attributes, and so on, but not with anything pertaining to the creation or the redemption. "...The distinction between οικονομια and θεολογια ... remains common to most of the Greek Fathers and to all of the Byzantine tradition. θεολογια ... means, in the fourth century, everything which can be said of God considered in Himself, outside of His creative and redemptive economy. To reach this 'theology' properly so-called, one therefore must go beyond ... God as Creator of the universe, in order to be able to extricate the notion of the Trinity from the cosmological implications proper to the 'economy.'"
Ralph del Colle explains that the divine energies and the hypostases are not identical; however, it is through the energies that the three hypostases are active in the divine economy.
Lossky summarizes the working of the divine economy in relationship to the revelation of the hypostases in the energies:
In this dispensation, in which the Godhead is manifested in the energies, the Father appears as the possessor of the attribute which is manifested, the Son as the manifestation of the Father, the Holy Spirit as He who manifests.
The presence of the energies is not to be taken as denial of the philosophical simplicity
Simplicity
Simplicity is the state or quality of being simple. It usually relates to the burden which a thing puts on someone trying to explain or understand it. Something which is easy to understand or explain is simple, in contrast to something complicated...
of God. Therefore, when speaking of God, it is acceptable within Eastern Orthodoxy to speak of his energies as God. These would include kataphatic or positive statements of God like the list of St Paul's energies of God. God being love, faith and hope and knowledge (see 1 Cor. 13:2 - 13:13). As is also the case of Gregory of Palamas that God is grace and deifying
Theosis
In Christian theology, divinization, deification, making divine or theosis is the transforming effect of divine grace. This concept of salvation is historical and fundamental for Christian understanding that is prominent in the Eastern Orthodox Church and also in the Catholic Church, and is a...
illumination
Theoria
For other uses of the term "contemplation", see Contemplation Theoria is Greek for contemplation. It corresponds to the Latin word contemplatio, "looking at", "gazing at", "being aware of".- Introduction :...
.
In the life of the believer
The important theologicalTheology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
and soteriological
Salvation
Within religion salvation is the phenomenon of being saved from the undesirable condition of bondage or suffering experienced by the psyche or soul that has arisen as a result of unskillful or immoral actions generically referred to as sins. Salvation may also be called "deliverance" or...
distinction remains that people experience God through his energies, not his essence. Traditionally, the energies have been experienced as light, such as the light of Mount Tabor
Tabor Light
In Eastern Orthodox theology, the Tabor Light is the light revealed on Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration of Jesus, identified with the light seen by Paul at his conversion.As a theological doctrine, the uncreated nature of the Light of...
that appeared at the Transfiguration
Transfiguration of Jesus
The Transfiguration of Jesus is an event reported in the New Testament in which Jesus is transfigured and becomes radiant upon a mountain. The Synoptic Gospels describe it, and 2 Peter 1:16-18 refers to it....
(called photimos). The light that appeared to St Paul on the Road to Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
. The light that appeared to the apostles in the book of Acts 2:3. Orthodox tradition likewise holds that this light may be seen during prayer (Hesychasm
Hesychasm
Hesychasm is an eremitic tradition of prayer in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches, such as the Byzantine Rite, practised by the Hesychast Hesychasm is an eremitic tradition of prayer in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and some of the Eastern Catholic Churches,...
) by particularly devout individuals, such as the saint
Saint
A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...
s. In addition, it is considered to be eschatological in that it is also considered to be the "Light of the Age to Come" or the "Kingdom of Heaven" the reign of God, which is the Christ. It is this light that is proper to understanding the Eastern Orthodox miracle called Halo
Halo (religious iconography)
A halo is a ring of light that surrounds a person in art. They have been used in the iconography of many religions to indicate holy or sacred figures, and have at various periods also been used in images of rulers or heroes...
as a person whom is defied will omit the uncreated light of God.
Orthodox criticism of Western theology
Eastern Orthodox theologians have criticized Western theology, and especially its traditional claim that God is actus purusActus purus
Actus Purus is a term employed in scholastic philosophy to express the absolute perfection of God. It literally means, "pure act."Created beings have potentiality that is not actuality, imperfections as well as perfection. Only God is simultaneously all that He can be, infinitely real and...
, for its alleged incompatibility with the essence-energies distinction. Christos Yannaras writes, "The West confuses God's essence with his energy, regarding the energy as a property of the divine essence and interpreting the latter as "pure energy" (actus purus)" According to George C. Papademetriou, the essence-energies distinction "is contrary to the Western confusion of the uncreated essence with the uncreated energies and this is by the claim that God is Actus Purus".
Byzantine and Russian philosophy
After the conversion of Pagan Greek society to Christianity many of the pagan philosophical concepts where re-imaged to conform to Christian concepts. The philosophical concepts where changed to reflect the Christian understanding of the Roman and then Byzantine society and by proxy Byzantine philosophyByzantine philosophy
Byzantine philosophy refers to the distinctive philosophical ideas of the philosophers and scholars of the Byzantine Empire, especially between the 8th and 15th centuries...
and Byzantine mysticism
Gnosiology
The term gnosiology is a term of 18th Century aesthetics, currently used mainly in regard to Eastern Christianity.-Etymology:...
. Which then led to the formation of Russian philosophy
Russian philosophy
Russian philosophy includes a variety of philosophical movements. Authors who developed them are listed below sorted by movement.While most authors listed below are primarily philosophers, also included here are some Russian fiction writers, like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, who are also known as...
. Where the God of the Pagan philosophers was a deterministic God who was based on a rational Good called order. The Christian God was Uncreated in essence and brought meaning to existence through reconcillation of the individual to the God while not absorbing the individual into God (in contrast to Pagan deification
Henosis
Henosis is the word for "oneness," "union," or "unity" in classical Greek, and is spelled identically in modern Greek where "Enosis" is particulary connected with the modern political "Unity" movement to unify Greece and Cyprus....
).
This understanding was over time articulated as God in his ousia as incomprehensible, God is however immanent in the material world as both finite, creation (ordered and limited) and infinite (beyond order understanding and limitation). Unlike the various dualist concepts of creation and divinity the Christian God is not in essence, nature, being and substance, order or chaos for example but is beyond these concepts of created beings. Created and Uncreated are complementary and not in opposition to one another. As the God of Christianity (unlike the Pagan creator) creates ex-nihilo it is also this God who is experienced logically (dianoia) and intuitively, noetically (noesis). Evil in Christianity is not strictly the agent of chaos (misfortune
Misfortune
Misfortune is an Italian fairy tale, from Palermo, collected by Italo Calvino in his Italian Folktales.Another telling of the tale appears under the title Unfortunate in A Book of Enchantments and Curses, by Ruth Manning-Sanders.-Synopsis:...
) who manifests in the material world causing hardship, tragedy called the absences of Good. Evil in Christianity is the rebellion to and vilification of life. Evil culminates into the active pursuit of the destruction of existence. In Orthodox Christianity mankind has chosen to use his freewill for selfish aims (to have a separate being from God
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
) and therefore caused the fall of man.
See also
- Vladimir LosskyVladimir LosskyVladimir Nikolayevich Lossky was an influential Eastern Orthodox theologian in exile from Russia. He emphasized theosis as the main principle of Orthodox Christianity....
- Archimandrite SophronyArchimandrite SophronyArchimandrite Sophrony , also Elder Sophrony, was best known as the disciple and biographer of St Silouan the Athonite and compiler of St Silouan's works, and as the founder of the Patriarchal Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights, Maldon, Essex, England...
- Father John MeyendorffJohn MeyendorffJohn Meyendorff was a modern Orthodox scholar, writer and teacher. He was born into the Russian nobility as Ivan Feofilovich Baron von Meyendorff , but was known as Jean Meyendorff during his life in France.Fr John Meyendorff retired as Dean of St Vladimir's Seminary on June 30, 1992...
- Pseudo-Dionysius the AreopagitePseudo-Dionysius the AreopagitePseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, also known as Pseudo-Denys, was a Christian theologian and philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century, the author of the Corpus Areopagiticum . The author is identified as "Dionysos" in the corpus, which later incorrectly came to be attributed to Dionysius...
- Uncreated Light
- PlethonGemistus PlethoGeorgius Gemistus — later called Plethon or Pletho — was a Greek scholar of Neoplatonic philosophy. He was one of the chief pioneers of the revival of Greek learning in Western Europe...
External links
- Theoria, Prayer and Knowledge by Dr M.C. Steenberg Theology and Patristics University of Oxford
- "Orthodox Psychotherapy" by Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos
- Excerpt from "Byzantine Theology, Historical trends and doctrinal themes" by John Meyendorff
- Partial copy of V. Lossky's Chapter in Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church dedicated to the Essence and Energies distinction