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Hello all,
I do not know how familiar you are with this saint but I just found out some interesting things regarding his view on the topic of theosis. He says that God's energy (not substance/essence) participates with us in prayer and in the sacraments. This is what pope Shenouda has been advocating all along when he said we participate in the work of the Holy Spirit as apposed to His substance (essence) dwelling in us. I am really confused...someone explain!
Comments
http://monachos.net/content/patristics/specific-fathers/62-gregory-palamas-knowledge-prayer-and-vision
The funny thing is that the EO would accuse the RC of exactly the same.
I don't think it has anything (at least directly) to do with the size of the Church. I think it's purely that: the more institutionalised the Church, the more organised its teachings. The RC has a Pope with universal ordinary jurisdiction, the EO has an EP with some limited powers as primus inter pares as a result of their long imperial history, the OO as a whole have no such central authority.
Perhaps we could link the degree of institutionalisation with the size of the Church though, since a Church with a close relationship with the State would naturally become more institutionalised, as well as grow in numbers, being free from persecution, and even open its eyes to evangelism as the RCs did.
I know us OO like to say we accept all 7 except Chalcedon, but I'm not sure we can say that OO affirm mystery more than EO because of our Miaphysis formula...
For example of EO affirmation of mystery Fr Aidan writes:
"The Fathers of Chalcedon may not have had access to comic books or Hollywood; but they sure knew their pagan mythology, and they knew that the God of the Christian story was essentially different from the gods. And they knew that it was this transcendent and radical difference that made genuine incarnation possible, even though it can only be expressed through antinomy and paradox...The Chalcedonian definition does not impose an answer, for it does not seek to explain the mystery of the Incarnation but simply to state it. It certainly does not invite us to imagine a five-year old Jesus as consciously knowing quantum mechanics and calculus, while at the same time learning arithmetic. The Chalcedonian definition was formulated to exclude that kind of confusion and blending. The incarnate Word is not a hybrid god/man. He is the God-man."
https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/chalcedon-visits-wonderland-or-why-jesus-aint-thor/
Same actually with the 6th council. It did not solve much, only continued to become overbearing in semantic accuracy without consideration of other traditions that don't seem to theologically contradict it. If you read the latest article Fr. Peter Farrington wrote in dialogue with an EO monk, you will see how many arguments EOs make to maintain a strict "twoness" in their language is actually unfair.
Can Miaphysis be considered equally semantical? Yes! But we are willing to make concessions today over how our theologies are exactly the same. EOs on the other hand seem to have a systematic, almost scholastic approach to their theology: two natures, two wills, three persons, 7 councils, one emperor, 5 archbishops + Moscow + Miscellaneous...the pattern is quite telling, and it has been part of the hindrance in the dialogues to move forward (not that we are not at fault either; I'm sure we also have our issues).
Plain and simple when God fully dwells and allows us to partake of Him, they call that "energies", while we understand the distinction by the fact that we will never be equal or of one essence with God. We both agree that it is indeed God fully who dwells in us and we partake of Him. We also agree that while He gives us His all, we take in as much as we can handle. But even in that little much, that still is a fullness. Just as a piece of Orban and a sip of wine is not a piece of His body and blood, but His full person.
http://anorthodoxpriest.blogspot.com/2014/10/can-oriental-orthodox-receive-eastern.html
http://anorthodoxpriest.blogspot.com/2014/04/a-conversation-about-unity-with-eastern.html
http://anorthodoxpriest.blogspot.com/2014/04/a-preliminary-conversation-on-wiil-of.html
Why are you saying the energy dwells and not the essence? Is this not what pope Shenouda was teaching all along? Is it correct to say that the essence of God dwells in me (though I am not one with it) and I commune through the energy of the essence?
mina,
In the video I provided, the nun claims: "St. Gregory states that it is God's energy that comes down to us not His substance." She also said that if that were the case, it would be pantheism. You have concurred that this is correct. However, in the article you provided by Fr. Athanasius, he teaches the opposite. He even provides sources from the fathers that say otherwise. Explain yourself please.
Perhaps the best way to explain the Palamite distinction is two words every Christian theologian agrees: transcendence and imminence. God in Christian theology is both. He is both transcendent and imminent. In EO theology via Palamas, this is replaced with the terms "essence" and "energy" respectively, but I feel that this could be a re-inventing the wheel. Earlier Church fathers seem to have been looser with the term "essence".
It seems to me according to earlier Church fathers, the essence of God can be transcendent and imminent. This is what Alexandrian theology tended to hold, as far as I have read. Even as late as the 13th Century Coptic theologian, Al Safi ibn el Assal said quite clearly God imparts His essence to us. Therefore, he defined essence (gawhar in Arabic) differently than Palamas. Yes, some sort of distinction can be made, but the distinction, whether you call them "real" or "experiential" is still two sides of the same coin. EOs stress the two sides, and we stress the same coin.
Therefore, energy is also defined differently by Palamas than other theologians. That is why Palamas I feel can be misused and misunderstood, and the simplistic explanations given by Sister Vassa or other "10-minute" theologians do not give you the full picture. I invite you to read Palamas' writings himself and what some scholars say about his writings. You will still find quite a few disagreements with the way to interpret him. So he is still very complicated.
Why is it that Sister Vassa thinks that partaking of essence makes one pantheistic? She'll say because that would mean we would know God in His essence. But here is where I feel there is a nuance. Just because I partake of the essence does not mean I know God in His essence. I am not co-essential with the Father. If He gives me from His essence, that means I am not co-essential with Him. But to EOs, to be given the essence means just that. And so they say that nature is composed of "essence and energy", whereas for us we say the essence is "transcendent and imminent". See how already, they take the word nature and make a scientific distinction? That distinction really was not what the Cappadocian fathers meant, the more I read them. The Cappadocians talked about how we experience God. We see His energies, or His actions in all things, and this stems from the fact that we participate in His nature, also known as essence. He dwells in all things and fills all things, and so His essence dwells in all things and fills all things. And yet we do not know God in His essence, and knowledge is different than participating. Heck, I think one of the Cappadocians said we do not even know our own essence, so that in itself should say a lot about how they used "ousia".
I don't despise Palamite theology. I don't think it's wrong (and in some ways I do like his theology), but I do think it's misunderstood and misused. There's a much simpler manner of understanding how we partake of God, and I recommend Fr. Tadros Malaty's book "The Divine Grace", who gives us what the Alexandrian fathers said.
So in the end, Palamas would say that which is transcendent is "ousia" and that which is imminent is "energy". If God dwells in us, it is through energy, but energy is also His "full presence". We say God is both transcendent and imminent, is both everywhere and dwells in all things. So the distinction is understood, but we don't use "essence/energy". We say essence to mean the Godhead, and the Godhead is both everywhere and in all things. For Palamas the Godhead, when it is everywhere, it is call "essence", and when it is in all things, it is called "energy." And yet they are both (essence and energy) "two modes" of the infinite Godhead, where God is fully present in both. Just as we would say we are not in the transcendent state of God to know God in His very own nature (essence in Palamas), but we still partake of His nature in a manner that allows Him to condescend to our level, although He fully gives us His whole self (energy in Palamas).
So remember, if you want to understand Palamas correctly, energy is:
1. Not pieces of God, but STILL a distinct "mode" of the fullness of God condescended to us
2. Not a created gift of God, but the full uncreated presence of Him as a gift to us
Aquinas in the Orthodox Church
by Fr Andrew Louth
also
"The oppositional theologizing that had dominated Orthodox discourse in the twentieth century is...a sign of weakness rather than strength - in Plato's words, a 'failing of the wing' (Plato, Phaedrus, 248c; cf. Plotinus, Enneads, 4.8.1). A self-confident Orthodoxy has no need of a caricature of the West against which to model itself in reaction. A self-confident Orthodoxy need not fear the corrupting 'influence' of the West, nor be afraid to learn from and embrace the best of the West - Aquinas in particular. A self-confident Orthodoxy can afford to be generous..."
"...The largely negative take on Aquinas in recent Orthodox theology has certainly had its upside. It has tended to go hand-in-hand with a welcome re-affirmation of the patristic tradition, with the accent on its mystical and ascetic dimensions. All this is profoundly salutary and its importance must not be underestimated. But there is a very grave risk that in this process of re-affirmation and retrieval such essential elements of the Orthodox experience may be taken to stand for the whole. Mysticism has an essential role to play within Orthodox theology, but so does reason. The apophatic and cataphatic ways are not opposites, but complementary and interdependent; pure apophaticism, if such a thing were possible, is tantamount to obfuscation. Asceticism, too, is a vital and distinctive manifestation of Orthodox tradition but it is not, and has never been, the sole reference point for Orthodox theology. Modern Orthodoxy too often presents a rather partial account of itself, one that fails to do justice to its own substantial scholastic inheritance, an inheritance going back almost a thousand years before 1354 and which enabled many Byzantines to recognize Thomas as one of their own..."
"...Such an appropriation would serve to explode the very human and time-bound construct of an East-West dichotomy and to demonstrate the fundamental congruity and, so to say, consanguinity of Greek and Latin theological traditions. Such an appropriation would, in so doing, enable Orthodoxy to be true to itself, true to its inherent catholicity and to an orthodoxy neither occidental nor oriental but 'one in Christ Jesus.'"
In Marcus Plested's "Orthodox Readings of Aquinas" pages 226 to 228
And yet the separate substance, through its own substance, knows of God that He is, that He is the cause of all things, that He is above all and far removed from all, not only from the things that are, but even from those that can be conceived by the created mind. This knowledge about God we also are able somewhat to obtain, because from His effects we know of God that He is, and that He is the cause of other things, surpassing all and remote from all. And this is the limit and the highest point of our knowledge in this life where, as Dionysius says, we are united to God as to something unknown. This happens when we know of Him what He is not, while what He is remains utterly unknown. Hence in order to indicate the ignorance of this most sublime knowledge, it was said to Moses (Exod. xx. 21) that he went to the dark cloud wherein God was. (CG 3.49)
When the existence of a thing has been ascertained there remains the further question of the manner of its existence, in order that we may know its essence. Now, because we cannot know what God is, but rather what He is not, we have no means for considering how God is, but rather how He is not. Therefore, we must consider: (1) How He is not; (2) How He is known by us; (3) How He is named. (ST I.3)