St. Gregory Palamas Theology

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

  • If you watch at the 5:30 min mark in this video, it is explained: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyyDafSDPXc
  • If you read this:

    http://monachos.net/content/patristics/specific-fathers/62-gregory-palamas-knowledge-prayer-and-vision

    You realize Palamas was a lot more complicated than the cliche of "energy/essence" we discuss.  Energies are not "parts of God", but the fullness of God, the full presence of God, not separate from His essence, but a way to communicate His essence to us.  If you are confused, good, because even some EO scholars get confused as well, David Bentley Hart being one of them.

    In the end, it's not that there is a distinction within God, but a distinction within how we communicate with God.  His essence is communicable to us, just not in the same way as God knows His own essence.  If that were the case, we would be equal and of the same essence as God.  

    His whole person dwells within us as well.  Palamas believed that you can't talk about energies without talking about the hypostasis of each of the Trinity.  When an energy is indwelt, it's really the FULL hypostasis of the Holy Spirit, as well as the FULL hypostases of the Father and the Son.  That's how complicated Palamas is.

    EOs have a tradition of liking to "break things down" to a science.  "Two natures", "energies/essences", "two wills", all while explaining them with a framework that increases confusion and shows a mystery within these teachings.  They don't necessarily contradict our theology, but we seem to just explain that there is a mystery without trying to go deeply into distinctions.
  • edited March 2015
    "EOs have a tradition of liking to "break things down" to a science.  "Two natures", "energies/essences", "two wills", all while explaining them with a framework that increases confusion and shows a mystery within these teachings."

    The funny thing is that the EO would accuse the RC of exactly the same.
  • It seems that the larger the church, the more institutionalized and organized its teachings become. Hence why RC seem more scientific than EO who seem more scientific than us OO's. I suppose Assyrian Church of the East is even less nuanced.
  • edited March 2015

    It seems that the larger the church, the more institutionalized and organized its teachings become. Hence why RC seem more scientific than EO who seem more scientific than us OO's. I suppose Assyrian Church of the East is even less nuanced.




    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.
  • It seems that the larger the church, the more institutionalized and organized its teachings become. Hence why RC seem more scientific than EO who seem more scientific than us OO's. I suppose Assyrian Church of the East is even less nuanced.

    On the contrary, Nestorianism is guilty of pretty much the same thing, which is a stringent follower of linguistic accuracy and inflexibility that would essentially lead him to think of two prosopa in Christ, rather than allow for some flexibility in language and use a sense of mystery in theological explanation.
  • minasoliman, watch the video I posted....it contradicts what you are saying
  • EOs have a tradition of liking to "break things down" to a science....They don't necessarily contradict our theology, but we seem to just explain that there is a mystery without trying to go deeply into distinctions.
    Hi minasoliman I like how you mention how we maintain the mystery of Incarnation. However I would suggest that EO also maintain a strong sense of mystery and would point towards Chalcedon (and the later councils that fine tuned the language) as a means of doing so. There's a sense that the language about the two natures provided a poetic shorthand to describe that which cannot be described. The formula allows later theologians and fathers to speak and expand on our wonder of the mystery of the incarnation. What's interesting is the preCalcedonian use of the terminology for nature and person. For example it seems that before Ephesus and Chalcedon, the fathers can speak about the mystery of the union but they often have to speak about it with a great deal of correcting and explaining. The terms were not fully established and so we even see St Cyril use person and nature interchangeably. Many EO I think would state that Chalcedon creates the initial framework of clarifying those terms and that any crypto-Nestorianism gets resolved by the 5th council.

    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/
  • Amoussa01 said:

    minasoliman, watch the video I posted....it contradicts what you are saying

    I watched the video; now read the article I sent you. There is no contradiction. Do you think she is going to give you a lecture about Palamite theology, or only a taste so that you can go on to read the rest?
  • cyril said:

    EOs have a tradition of liking to "break things down" to a science....They don't necessarily contradict our theology, but we seem to just explain that there is a mystery without trying to go deeply into distinctions.
    Hi minasoliman I like how you mention how we maintain the mystery of Incarnation. However I would suggest that EO also maintain a strong sense of mystery and would point towards Chalcedon (and the later councils that fine tuned the language) as a means of doing so. There's a sense that the language about the two natures provided a poetic shorthand to describe that which cannot be described. The formula allows later theologians and fathers to speak and expand on our wonder of the mystery of the incarnation. What's interesting is the preCalcedonian use of the terminology for nature and person. For example it seems that before Ephesus and Chalcedon, the fathers can speak about the mystery of the union but they often have to speak about it with a great deal of correcting and explaining. The terms were not fully established and so we even see St Cyril use person and nature interchangeably. Many EO I think would state that Chalcedon creates the initial framework of clarifying those terms and that any crypto-Nestorianism gets resolved by the 5th council.

    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/
    I beg to differ. It sounds nice if all we had was just the definition. But we also have the minutes of Chalcedon, and it paints a seriously sad picture of semantic accuracy without consideration to other traditions of the same language. This had to be corrected over a century later, and by that time, it seemed already too late.

    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.

  •  When an energy is indwelt, it's really the FULL hypostasis of the Holy Spirit, as well as the FULL hypostases of the Father and the Son.  That's how complicated Palamas is.



    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?

  • edited March 2015
    Again, I usually don't like using that language "energy of the essence" because that's a misuse of the theology.  It is a very complicated system, and its simplification leads to misuse and misunderstanding.  It is a description of our limitations in reference to God, but God fully is still present in us.

    Check out Abouna Athanasius' refutation of HE Metropolitan Bishoy's beliefs:


    Also this quote from St. Cyril:

    “We are called ‘temples of God’ and indeed ‘gods’, and so we are. Why is that? Enquire of our opponents whether we are really sharers in a bare grace without subsistence. But that is not the case. For we are temples of the real and subsisting Spirit. And it is through him that we are called ‘gods’, since by union with him we have become partakers of the divine and ineffable nature (cf. 2 Pet. 1: 4)." (taken from a translation in a book from "Dialogues on the Trinity 7")
  • H. H Pope Shenouda is correct 100%. 

    Look - even the video the Greek nun explains it! 

    We do not deal/touch God's divine substance. We interact with God through His Uncreated Energies. Do we touch the Sun, or do we interact with the Sun through the Sun's rays?? 

    The pope is merely saying the same thing. These uncreated energies are what we term Grace also. I know protestants don't see that, but they don't have sacraments, hence they're stuck. 
  • edited March 2015
    If HH Pope Shenouda said what Palamas said, great!  But my impression he said that these energies or gifts were created.

    Furthermore, Palamite theology is not necessarily what Alexandrian theology holds.  It may be loosely interpreted as such, but it can be, if understood incorrectly, can lead to heretical understandings.  Energy is essence in a limited fashion.  Palamas writes this elsewhere in his writings in very evocative language.

    Now there is talk that HH Pope Shenouda changed his views towards the end of his life, but until then, we still have many who use his older writings to teach something that does not seem to be consonant with the Church fathers.
  • Now there is talk that HH Pope Shenouda changed his views towards the end of his life, but until then, we still have many who use his older writings to teach something that does not seem to be consonant with the Church fathers.
    Who is claiming this this and is there any evidence?  Do you think this could be paving the way for HH's canonization?
  • edited March 2015
    qawe said:

    Now there is talk that HH Pope Shenouda changed his views towards the end of his life, but until then, we still have many who use his older writings to teach something that does not seem to be consonant with the Church fathers.
    Who is claiming this this and is there any evidence?  Do you think this could be paving the way for HH's canonization?
    I hear it from some people, particularly when there was this idea that towards the end of his life, he was seeking reconciliation with the monks of St. Macarius, and perhaps might have understood arguments then that he was not able to understand before.  He also had a sermon on John 17, where He contemplated on Christ praying to the Father, "I have glorified You," and describes this passage as acknowledging God's glory, which ultimately lies on His Godhead.  Towards the end of that first part of his musings, he ends with an amazing bang, that is if we glorify God here, God will glorify us and "called us to His very own eternal glory."  In part 2 of his contemplation, he talks about how God's works is ascribed to us because we are in communion with the Holy Spirit who dwells in us and works through us, and continues to use the examples of Christ manifesting the name of God as if we should also follow suit, manifesting the name of God in the way Christ did.  It seems all of this is just one step closer to confessing deification, but instead using the term "glorification".  To sum, HH Pope Shenouda pretty much would say:  God manifested His glory (which is His Godhead) to us through Christ so that His glory may also be manifest in us and that we may also be glorified in Him.

    As for canonization, I think he deserves canonization regardless, because he lead a generation to continue and advance in deeper theological study and ecumenical dialogues that perhaps helped us rediscover our Orthodox faith, even if it may have conflicted with some of his views, which would be considered a time of still trying to put together the pieces of long-lost generations of lack of theological and patristic study due to centuries of "survival mode" of our church.
  • edited March 2015

    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.

  • edited March 2015
    "Explain yourself please."

    At least you said please :P

    Yes, I know about that part.  The question then one can next ask is this:  how does Gregory Palamas (and subsequently she) define "ousia"?  How did the Church fathers define "ousia"?






    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

  • edited March 2015
    Furthermore, EOs are always looking for terminological consistency.  OOs are not interested in terminological consistency.  Just because we say Christ is "one nature" does not mean we use the same terminology in the same way when it comes to the Trinity.  I have had discussions with EOs that just don't understand that.  They would refute "Miaphysis" by saying, "Either the Trinity is 3 natures, or Christ is the Trinity incarnate."  That shows how silly they are and how ironically scholastic they seek to become.

    The Palamite distinction is a logical outcome of Chalcedonian Christology.  In the sixth imperial council, the council that condemned Monotheletism and exonerated Maximus the Confessor, they took the logical conclusion of "two natures" and furthered that approach to confess "two wills" and "two energies".  So now, instead of defining "two natures" as "two essences", Christ now has "two natures", each nature (and in fact all "nature") is made up of "essence, will, and energy".  

    After the East/West divide, Thomas Aquinas defined the essence of God as "pure act", which is will and energy (so a "theoretical" distinction), and so he would mention the idea of theosis as partaking of the divine nature/essence.  Gregory Palamas defined the nature of God as made up of "essence and energy/will", two modes of His divine nature, fully present in each, and yet a "real" distinction, and so partaking of the divine nature through the energetic mode.

    Miaphysis maintained that Christ is not only one nature incarnate, but one divine will incarnate, and one divine energy incarnate.  This is so that we have the divine nature fully dwell in us and fill every fiber our being so that we may also reveal to others the divine will, and subsequently we become divine.  Miaphysis maintains a certain practicality without going into depth explanation of terminology.  Does that mean all human properties in Christ (and in us) are destroyed or done away with?  Absolutely not!  Does that also mean we become co-essential or equal to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!  Absolutely not!  If our goal is to be one with Him, it is impossible to say we are co-essential with Him, and we take for granted that we are not absorbed into Him so as to lose our very own essence.  And this is the problem with EOs.  They want concrete explanations to everything experiential, to count up all the properties, and total number of this counting becomes dogma.  Otherwise, we somehow are accused of some sort of docetic heresy.  Theosis for us is oneness with God, God made humanity one with Him that we may also be one with Him and that we all may be one with one another.  "One" is not a number, but a mode of existence we strive for.  We avoid terminologies of distinction to stress this oneness, which is why you might find us very much comfortable with the idea that the divinity is united to all of humanity through Christ, as St. Severus in his 10th homily on the Epiphany:

    The Spirit also descends upon him because of us. Now this Spirit is not one of the ministering spirits, but it is the Spirit of God, the consubstantial Spirit who reigns at the same time with him and with the Father. It is why, indeed, the evangelist himself said in a demonstrative manner: the Spirit of God, this Spirit who had abandoned the human race, on the subject of which the Lord God said: My Spirit will not remain eternally among men, because they are flesh. But this charitable being, who, by the generosity of his grace, as he himself willed to modify his own decree, abolishing for us this sentence, after also being made flesh without change himself, draws the Spirit upon the flesh, at the moment when he united his divinity with the creature who had been condemned and thus sends grace to all our race.
     

  • Thanks for the response!

    Me: :O
  • Since this thread is on St Gregory Palamas, this video with Dr Marcus Plested might be relevant:

    Aquinas in the Orthodox Church

  • Aquinas and Orthodoxy
    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
  • We also tend to think of "kataphatic" West vs "Apophatic" East, or Scholastic West vs Mysterious East. St Thomas also gets a bad rep for "Scholasticism" but here are two quotes that show that he was not ignorant of apophatic theology:



    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)
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