ENERGY AND ESSENCE

The teaching about the relationship between energy and the essence of God is developed especially much and in detail. For the theology of the Athonite hermits of the fourteenth century, ousia and energy are relative concepts, and in the literary monuments of that time, special attention was paid to the question of the involvement of energy and its uncreatedness. Ousia of St. The Trinity is the concept of God, Who exists in Himself, God transcendent to the world, but Who is directed to this world, and consequently to man, by His energy or power. This "inseparably divided" power of God is revealed in the world, reveals God to the world and is manifested either in His creative activity, or in individual Old Testament theophany, or in the grace-filled action of Providence and the management of the world. Certain actions of the unapproachable Divinity are accessible to the human eye and mind, and, by virtue of the above-mentioned correlation, it follows from this that the Divinity thereby exists in all His inaccessibility.

In this way no complexity is introduced into the Godhead. The unity of God is in no way diminished by His Triune Hypostasis, nor by the fact that grace and providential activity are inherent in God. (This cannot but be recognized by the Thomists, the critics of Palamism.) In the same way, the manifold energy of God does not introduce any multiplicity into the concept of God. Antinomic expressions about God, about the differences and various unions united in Him. Everything that the divinely enlightened consciousness of the mystics contemplated in Him, the language of theological formulations, due to its poverty, cannot put into any verbal symbols. Logic and rationalism are powerless here. And the mystical consciousness glorifies this in its ineffability. This is the holy "darkness" of the divinity, that "knowledge through ignorance," those words that sound in the reverent peace of the mental prayer quietly flowing in the heart...

"This divine Superessence has never been called plural," writes St. Gregory, "but divine and uncreated grace, inseparably distributed like a ray of sunshine, both warms and shines, gives life and grows, sends its own radiance to those who are illumined and appears to the gaze of those who see it. And in this, as it were, dark icon, the divine energy of God is not only one, but theologians, such as St. Basil the Great, call it multiple. "What," he asks, "are the energies of the Spirit? Ineffable in their greatness; innumerable in multitude. For how shall we understand that which is beyond the ages? What were the actions of the Spirit before the intelligible creature?" [1423]. "Divine energy and divine essence are inseparably present everywhere. The energies of God are also accessible to us, created beings, since, according to the teaching of theologians, they are inseparably separated, and the divine nature remains completely inseparable" (1424).

Grace shared with people does not mean that the Holy Spirit is divided. The Spirit is the Comforter. "In God there is an inseparable division and separate unity" [1425]. "God is inseparably divided and separately combined" [1426]. And because of this, "He does not tolerate plurality or complexity."

Let us recall what has been said about apophatics. The essence of God is the incomprehensible, that God is in Himself; It has nothing to do with our powers and our religious knowledge; and the energies are partakers of our knowledge.

The entire dialogue "Theophanes, or on the Divinity and on the partakers and non-partakers in Him" is devoted to this. All knowledge of God and communion with Him is accomplished according to the dignity of man, κατ' 'αναλογίαν, i.e. to the extent of his correspondence. Revelation is not a mechanical manifestation of God alone; man actively participates in Him, and since he has matured, he also perceives it. Below the line we will indicate (so as not to multiply quotations) the passages that speak of the hierarchy of cognition, i.e., of participation "by analogy" [1427].

Palamas writes: "We partake of and think of the whole God through each of the energies, for the incorporeal is indivisible bodily" (1428). It follows from this that, although the essence of the Absolute is not knowable, and there is no rational-cognitive communion with this essence, yet the mystical comprehension of even a partial truth unites us with universal consciousness. Thanks to his likeness to God and purifying himself spiritually through podvig and unceasing prayer, man in the energies of God communes with the Divinity that is unapproachable in His sense, and in this sense he really communicates with Him.

The relationship between God's essence and His energy should be, as Fr. Vasily Krivoshein rightly points out in his work, understood not as a belittling of God in His energies, but as the relation of cause to effect, to what is caused [1429]. As "the Father is the Cause, the Root and the Source of what is contemplated in the Son and the Holy Spirit. Spirit of the Divinity" [1430], so essence is the cause of the energy caused, as the Conciliar Tomos of 1351 [1431] teaches in detail, without in the least separating the Divine simplicity and unity, and not understanding cause and effect as something external to each other and divided spatially and temporally [1432].

The main attention in all these theologizations is paid to: 1. the non-participatory, inaccessible, and unknowable nature of the essence of God; 2. the participation of energy, and 3. the uncreated and eternity of energy. Palamas refutes in detail the arguments of his contemporaries. Admitting their propositions, he leads them to absurd conclusions, which fundamentally destroy the patristic teaching on the Holy Spirit. Trinity.

Palamas spoke many times about the unapproachable essence of God and Her non-participation in human powers, and about the participation and knowability of the Divine energy [1433]. In God His essence is unknowable, but His goodness, wisdom, power, majesty, i.e. everything that is visible "around God" in His creative and providential activity, are accessible to knowledge. In the same way, it is repeatedly said that, just as all energies in general [1434] and the Light of Tabor in particular [1435] are uncreated.

Distinguishing three concepts in God – essence, hypostases and energies, Palamas argues: according to the testimony of all the saints. of the fathers, in essence, God has no partakers; according to the Hypostasis, union took place only once in the person of the God-Man the Word; therefore, those who are worthy to unite with God remain only union in energy [1436]. The Spirit Himself descended upon the Ever-Virgin. and the Son, but the Son in Hypostasis, and the Spirit only in His energy, which is why only the Son, and not the Spirit, became incarnate [1437]. In addition to this communion, we can also speak of intellectual comprehension, of cognition. "One and the same God, incomprehensible in essence, is comprehended in His creations, by His Divine energy; in other words, it is comprehended by His pre-eternal will for us, the pre-eternal providence for us, the pre-eternal wisdom for us" [1438], by what is around Him [1439].

Admitting the knowledge of God in essence, the Barlaamites must fall into Eunomianism [1440], and in daring to partake of the essence of God, they repeat the heresy of the Messalians or Euchites [1441]. St. In his dialectics, Gregory wittily uses the method of "reductio ad absurdum," i.e., taking the point of view of his opponents, he brings it to absurdities that contradict dogmatic consciousness. In fact, if the divine energy does not differ in any way from the divine essence, then the creativity inherent in energy will not differ in any way from the birth of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit. Spirit, which are inherent in the essence. But if creation does not differ from birth and procession, then creation will not differ from Him who is born and proceeded. This means that there will be no difference between God and creation [1442].

From this it follows that if birth and procession do not differ from creation, then since God the Father creates through the Son in the Holy Spirit. Consequently, He both gives birth and brings forth through the Son in the Holy Spirit. [1443]. Then, from the same proposition that essence is not different from energy, it follows that it is not different from will (will), and then the One of the essence of the Father, Who is begotten of the Father's essence, will obviously also be created from will (1444). For this reason: since, on the basis of the teaching of the Holy Fathers, God has many energies (manifold energy), and if energy is the same as essence, then in God there will also be many essences [1445].