We see that the dogmatic doctrine of energies is not an abstract concept or an intellectual distinction: it is a concrete reality of a religious order, although it is difficult to grasp. Therefore, this teaching expresses itself in an antinomic way: the energies, by virtue of their procession, indicate an ineffable difference - they are not God in His essence, and at the same time, as inseparable from His essence, they testify to the unity and simplicity of the Divine being.

The opponents of St. Gregory Palamas, the Eastern theologians, who were strongly influenced by the teaching of Thomas Aquinas (these were the Calabrian monk Barlaam, who studied in Italy, and Akindinus, the translator into Greek of his "Summa theologiae"), saw in the real distinction between essence and energies an encroachment on Divine simplicity and accused Palamas of bitheism and polytheism. The apophatic and antinomic spirit of Eastern theology became alien to them, and they defended against such a theology the concept of God as a primarily simple essence, in which the Hypostases themselves become characteristic intra-essential relations.

The philosophical conception of God as a pure act cannot admit of something that would be God and would not be the very essence of God: here God is as it were limited by His essence. That which is not essence, does not belong to the Divine being, is not God. Consequently, according to Barlaam and Akindynos, the energies are either the essence itself, which is a pure act, or they are the results of external acts of essence, that is, created effects that have the essence as their cause, in other words, they are created. For the opponents of St. Gregory Palamas, there is a Divine essence, there are its created consequences, but there are no Divine actions, there are no energies. In response to their criticism, the Archbishop of Thessalonica confronted the Eastern followers of Thomas Aquinas with the following dilemma: either they must recognize the distinction between "essence" and "actions," but then, according to their philosophical understanding of essence, they must attribute to the created Divine glory, the light of Tabor, and Divine grace; or they must deny this distinction, which would lead them to identify the unknowable with the knowable, the incommunicable with the communicable, the essence with grace [115]. In both cases, real deification was impossible. Thus, such a defense of Divine simplicity, substantiated by the philosophical concept of essence, led to conclusions both inadmissible for piety and contrary to the tradition of the Eastern Church.

For St. Gregory Palamas, as for all the profoundly apophatic theology of the Eastern Church, Divine simplicity could not be justified by the concept of simple essence. The point of departure of his theological thought is the Trinity, a Trinity that is quite simple, despite the distinction between nature and Persons, as well as between Persons. This simplicity is antinomic, as is every statement in the doctrine of God: it does not exclude distinction, but does not admit of either excommunication or fragmentation in the Divine being. For St. Gregory of Nyssa could have asserted that the human mind remains simple, in spite of its various faculties: our mind, indeed, diversifies according to the objects known to it, but remains inseparable and does not pass in its essence into other substances. However, the human mind is not "above names" like the three Persons of the Holy Trinity, who possess in their common energies everything that could only be ascribed to the nature of God [116]. Simplicity does not mean uniformity or indistinguishability; then Christianity was not the religion of the Holy Trinity. In general, it must be said that we too often forget that the idea of divine simplicity, at least that taught in theological textbooks, derives more from human philosophy than from divine revelation. St. Mark of Ephesus, recognizing the difficulty of philosophical thought to admit in God a mode of being distinct from that of essence, to reconcile distinction with simplicity, paints us a picture of the wise economy of the Church, which, according to each epoch, is applied to the capacities of men to perceive the truth. "We should not be surprised," he says, "that we do not find in the ancients a clear and distinct distinction between the essence of God and His actions. If, in our time, after the solemn affirmation of the truth and the universal recognition of the Divine unity of command, the adherents of secular science have caused so much difficulty to the Church on this occasion and accused her of polytheism, what would not those in former times do who were proud of their vain wisdom and sought only an opportunity to catch the teachers of the Church in some errors? For this reason, theologians insisted more on the simplicity of the Godhead than on the distinctions available in Him. It was not necessary to compel those who could hardly admit the distinction of the Hypostases to recognize the distinction of energies. With wise caution the Divine dogmas were revealed in accordance with the times, and Divine Wisdom used for this purpose the insane attacks of heresy" [118].

Distinguishing in God three hypostases, one nature and natural energies, Orthodox theology does not allow any complexity in Him. Like the Persons, the energies are not elements of the Divine essence, which could be considered separately, separately from the Most Holy Trinity, for they are Its common manifestation and Its pre-eternal radiance. Nor are they "accidents" (??????????) of nature as pure energies, nor do they presuppose any passivity in God. Nor are they hypostatic beings like the three Persons [120]. It is not even possible to ascribe any energy exclusively to one of the Divine Hypostases, although we speak of the Son as the "Father's Wisdom and Power." One might say, to use the common term, that the energies are attributes of the Deity; however, these dynamic and concrete attribute-properties have nothing in common with the attribute-concepts that are ascribed to God by the abstract and sterile theology of school textbooks. According to the teaching of Dionysius the Areopagite, the energies reveal the innumerable names of God: Wisdom, Life, Power, Justice, Love, Being, God, and an infinite number of other names that remain unknown to us, for the world cannot contain the fullness of the Divine manifestation revealed in the energies, just as, according to the words of the Evangelist John, it could not contain the books in which all that is written what Jesus did (John 21:25). Divine names, like anergia, are innumerable; but the nature which they reveal remains unnameable, unknowable; darkness hidden by the abundance of light.

For the Orthodox contemplation of God, the energies signify the manifestation of the Holy Trinity outwardly, which cannot be introduced or "implanted" into the Divine being as his natural predisposition. This was the starting point of theology and the main mistake of Father Sergius Bulgakov, who saw in the energy of Wisdom (Sophia), which he identified with essence, the very beginning of the Divine. God is indeed not defined by any of His attributes (properties). All definitions are below Him, they logically follow His being in Himself, His essence. When we say: "God is Wisdom, Life, Truth, Love", we are talking about His energies, about what is "after" the essence, about His manifestations that are natural, but in relation to the Trinitarian being itself - external. Therefore, in contrast to Western theology, the teaching of the Eastern Church never defines the relationship between the Persons of the Holy Trinity by the name of any of Its attributes. It will never be said, for example, that the Son proceeds in the image of reason, and the Holy Spirit in the image of the will. The Holy Spirit is never likened to the love between the Father and the Son. In the Trinitarian psychologism of Blessed Augustine, one can see a figurative analogy rather than a positive theological teaching expressing the relationship of the Divine Persons. St. Maximus the Confessor refused to apply to the Holy Trinity definitions of a psychological nature relating to the will; he saw in them what the nature of the Godhead would follow, as external determinations, its manifestations [121]. When they say: "God is Love," or "The Divine Persons are united by mutual love," they mean their common manifestation, love-energy, which is possessed by all three Hypostases, for the unity of the Three is higher even than love itself. St. Gregory Palamas sometimes applies to the energies - the real properties of the Divinity, which will follow the Holy Trinity, the name of "Lower Divinity" (???????????????) in contrast to the essence - "Higher Divinity" (??????????), which greatly tempted his opponents. Nevertheless, the expression is quite legitimate, since it refers to a manifestation logically following Him who manifests Himself, "for God signifies Him who acts, Divinity (as energy) signifies His action" (122).

As we have already said, the Holy Trinity can be contemplated in Itself, which, according to the terminology of the Fathers, is "theology" in the proper sense of the word. But it can also be contemplated in its relation to the created: it is the realm of oikonomia, of divine action or distribution. The eternal origin of Persons is the subject of theology taken in its definite meaning, while Their manifestation in the act of creation or in providence, the mission in the time of the Son and the Holy Spirit, belong to the realm of "oikonomia" or "economy"; it is the "House-building Trinity," according to the rather inaccurate expression of some modern theologians. The energies, in accordance with this division of the dogmatic order, occupy a kind of middle place: on the one hand, they belong to the realm of their own theology, as eternal and inseparable from the Holy Trinity, existing independently of the act of creation of the world; but, on the other hand, they also belong to the realm of oikonomia, for God reveals Himself to the created world in His energies, which, as St. Basil the Great says, "condescend to us."

In the order of the house-building manifestation of the Holy Trinity in the world, each energy proceeds from the Father and is communicated through the Son in the Holy Spirit (?????????????????????????????????????). For this reason it is said that the Father creates all things through the Son in the Holy Spirit. This proposition is very clearly expressed by St. Cyril of Alexandria: "The action of an uncreated essence," he says, "is something common, although it is peculiar to each Person, so that according to the triune hypostasis the action relates to each of them, as a property of a perfect Person. Thus, the Father acts through the Son in the Spirit. The Son acts in the same way, but as the power of the Father, inasmuch as He is from Him and in Him according to His own Hypostasis. And the Spirit works in the same way: for He is the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, the Spirit almighty, the mighty" [123]. In the order of sending down the manifesting energies that manifest the Godhead, the Father is the possessor of the manifested attribute, the Son is the manifestation of the Father, the Holy Spirit is the One who manifests. Thus, for St. Gregory the Theologian, the Father is the True, the Son is the Truth, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth: ????????????????????????????????????????????????? [124]. According to the teaching of St. Gregory of Nyssa, "The source of power is the Father, and the power of the Father is the Son, and the Spirit of power is the Holy Spirit" [125]. Therefore, the attribute of Wisdom common to the Trinity in the order of the Divine economy designates the Son; "The Son is the hypostatic Wisdom of the Father." The very name - the Word - ????? - applied to the Son, there is also the name "oikonomic" proper, peculiar to the second Hypostasis, inasmuch as She reveals the nature of the Father. This is precisely what St. Gregory the Theologian has in mind: "It seems to me that the Son is called the Word not only because of His passionless birth, but also because He is united with the Father and because He reveals Him. It could also be said that He relates to the Father as a definition to the defined. For "logos" also means "determination," and he who knows the Son also knows the Father" (John 14:7). Thus, the Son is a brief and clear expression of the nature of the Father; for every generation is a silent determination of the one who begotten. Finally, if by "logos" we mean the cause of the essence of every thing, we shall not be mistaken in attributing this name to the Son. For can there be anything that is not the Logos, the Word?" [126] It is impossible to express more clearly the house-building character of the very name "Logos", the external manifestation of the nature of the Father through the Son. St. Irenaeus of Lyons expressed a similar judgment, characteristic especially of the Christian thought of the first centuries: "The invisible of the Son is the Father, and the visible of the Father is the Son" (127). The Son, who manifests the hidden nature of the Father, is here almost identified with the energies of Deity. Likewise, when St. Basil the Great says: "The Son manifests in Himself the whole Father, as having shone forth from all His glory" [128], he emphasizes the energetic character (glory, radiance) of the appearance of the Father through the Son.

The teaching of the Fathers about the Persons of the Word and the Spirit, considered as perfect images of God, can only be explained in the same sense, that is, in the external aspect of the Holy Trinity, which manifests Itself in the world by Its energies. Developing the idea contained in the text of the Apostle Paul: "the radiance of glory and the image of the Hypostasis" (Heb. 1:3), St. John of Damascus says: "The Son is the image of the Father, and the image of the Son is the Spirit." Thus, for Damascene, the image (?????) is a manifestation and an indication of that which is hidden. And he clarifies his idea in the following way that the Son and the Holy Spirit, proceeding from the Father, manifest Him: "The Son is the natural, unchanging image of the Father, in all things similar to the Father, except the unborn and the patronymic. For the Father is the unborn parent. But the Son is begotten, and is not the Father" [130]. "And the Holy Spirit is the image of the Son, for "no man can call Jesus Lord, but by the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 12, 3). Therefore we know Christ the Son of God and God through the Holy Spirit, and in the Son we behold the Father" [131]. Thus, the consubstantial Persons of the Son and the Holy Spirit, acting in the world, do not reveal Themselves, for They do not act according to Their own will, but the Son makes the Father known, and the Holy Spirit bears witness to the Son. An important point to note here is that the Person of the Holy Spirit remains unrevealed. He does not have His image in another. We will return to this question when we speak of the Holy Spirit and grace. For the time being, let us note the following: the Eastern Church accused Western theology of confusing the aspect of external active manifestation in the world, in which the Holy Spirit, as a consubstantial Person sent into the world by the Father and the Son, reveals the Son, with the aspect of the inner being of the Holy Trinity in Itself, where the perfect Person of the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone and has no "related" relation to the Son. The difference between these two aspects is that, according to the teaching of the Eastern Church, the intra-Trinitarian relationship is not determined by the will, but the will determines the external actions of the Divine Persons in relation to the created. This will is the common will of the three Persons; therefore, in the mission in the world of the Son and the Holy Spirit, each of the three Persons acts together with the other two: the Son is incarnate, but as sent by the Father, and is clothed in flesh with the assistance of the Holy Spirit; The Holy Spirit proceeds, but is sent down from the Father through the Son. About the love of the Most Holy Trinity, which is manifested in the plan of the Divine economy as the mystery of the cross, Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow says the following: "The love of the Father is crucifying, the love of the Son is crucified, the love of the Spirit is triumphant by the power of the Cross" [132].

Thus, the theology of the Eastern Church distinguishes in God: three hypostases, which occur personally; nature or essence; Energies that occur naturally. Energies are inseparable from nature, nature is inseparable from the three Persons. In the tradition of the Eastern Church, this is of particular importance for the mystical life:

1. The doctrine of energies inexpressibly different from nature is the dogmatic basis of the reality of all mystical experience. God, unapproachable by nature, is present in His energies "as in a mirror" while remaining invisible in what He is. "Thus our face becomes visible in the mirror, while remaining invisible to ourselves," says St. Gregory Palamas [133]. Wholly unknowable in His essence, God reveals Himself wholly in His energies, which do not divide His nature into two parts, the knowable and the unknowable, but point to two different modes of Divine being, in essence and without essence.

2. This teaching explains how the Holy Trinity can dwell in Its incommunicable essence and at the same time, according to the promise of Christ Himself, can make a dwelling place in us (John 14:23). It is not a causal presence like God's omnipresence in creation; nor is it an essential presence, for communion by its very definition is incommunicable. This is a certain mode by which the Holy Trinity really dwells in us in that which is communicated to Him, in His energies common to the three Hypostases, that is, by grace; for this is the name given to the adoring energies communicated to us by the Holy Spirit. He who has in himself the Spirit that gives, also has the Son, through Whose mediation every gift is given to us, also has the Father, from Whom "every gift is perfect" (James 1:17). By receiving the gift of adoring energies, we become the abode of the Holy Trinity, inseparable from His natural energies, present in them in a different way, but as real as in His own nature.

3. The distinction between essence and energies – the basis of the Orthodox teaching on grace – makes it possible to preserve the true meaning of the expression of the Apostle Peter: "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4). The union to which we are called is neither a hypostatic union, as for the human nature of Christ, nor an essential union, as for the three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity. It is union with God in His energies, or union by grace, which "communes" us with the Divine nature without our nature becoming Divine nature because of this. According to the teaching of St. Maximus the Confessor,[134] in the state of deification we possess by grace, that is, by means of Divine energies, all that God possesses by His nature, except identity with His nature ?????????????????????????????? ). By becoming gods by grace, we remain created, just as Christ, having become man by incarnation, remained God.

The distinctions that the theology of the Eastern Church allows in God do not contradict his apophatic position in relation to the truths of Revelation. On the contrary, these antinomic distinctions are dictated by religious concern to preserve the mystery by expressing the data of Revelation in dogma. Thus, as we have seen with regard to the dogma of the Holy Trinity, the distinction between Persons and nature sought to represent God simultaneously as a monad and a triad, so that the unity of nature would not prevail over the trinity of hypostases, so that the original mystery of this identity, difference, would not be eliminated or weakened. In the same way, the distinction between essence and energies is explained by the antinomy of the unknowable and the knowable, the incommunicable and the communicable, the antinomy with which religious thought and experience of Divine things come into contact. These real distinctions do not introduce any complexity into the Divine being, but speak of the mystery of God, absolutely one in nature and absolutely triune in Persons, of the Trinity, one-reigning and unapproachable, living in His abundant glory, which is the uncreated Light, Her eternal Kingdom, into which all those who will inherit the deification of the age to come must enter.