An interesting point from the first linked article that reviews Bradshaw:
There is only one other way that I know of that will allow Palamas’s theology to make sense in philosophical terms, and that is to employ the Scotistic distinctio formalis a parte rei, whereby the various divine attributes, such as wisdom, love, joy, beauty, intellect, etc., are properties both real (and thus eo ipso distinct) and inseparable, owing to the divine infinity, which does not allow of any limitation of any divine attribute. Since infinity is a mode of a property and not a property, wisdom in God is not fundamentally different in creatures, except that it is experienced by the latter in the mode of finitude and by way of imitation (created grace) and quasi-formal causality (uncreated grace). The essence is then the collection of formally distinct, really identical divine attributes, which is imparticipable in the mode of infinity, but participable ad extra as explained above. I do not see anything in this account that would jeopardize the understanding Palamas was attempting to explicate during the Hesychast controversy.
This is exactly the distinction that is used in Latin theology to differentiate between the Divine Essence and our sharing in the Divine Essence (since Latin theology doesn’t explicitely make the energy/essence distinction). Basically, when we participate in pure, simple Divinity by Grace, we do so according to our mode and manner of existing which is composite and with distinctions. God, on the other hand, “possesses Divinity” simply and infinitely, and also the “Divine Existence” (so to speak) is the same as the Divine Essence; this is why we can say “God
is Love (Charity)”, but that we
possess Charity. We have the same “thing” as God, directly and really, but according to a different mode (we receive, and are composite; God is, and is simple).
To put it another way, Latin theology makes the distinction between Essence and Energies (and between the different Divine Energies) on the side of creatures, not on the side of God. In God the “energies” are simple, and one, and infinite. In us, when Divinity is shared with us, they are distinct not because they lack anything, but because we are composite things by definition. We don’t, and can’t, exist in pure simplicity without being identical with God; at the very least our essence and our existence (or being, or actuality, to use Latin terms) are distinct, to say nothing of the distinctions between our various “parts” or powers. On the other hand, God is purely “simple” (without composition, not made up of parts), and to say “God is God” and “God exists” is to say the same thing, so even His essence is not distinct from His existence (hence “I Am that Am”).
An analogy I often use is that of invisible white light and the colors we see. White light fills up the darkness of space, but we only see it when it hits something and “part” of it is reflected; we see blue, or red, or green, or some other single color. In white light, however, these colors are simple and one, with no distinction until they are received by an object and reflected individually. Interestingly they are also unknown and invisible when in this “pure” form, kind of like God’s simplicity which is incomprehensible to us.
Since Latin theology makes the distinction in this way, it doesn’t need to make an overt distinction between Essence and Energies in order to explain how we can share in Divinity without becoming the same as the Trinity.
As to the “created” and “uncreated Grace”, which is often brought up as a difference between East and West, the terms (as used in Latin theology) are vastly misunderstood and misapplied by just about every Eastern writer I’ve
ever read.
In Latin theology, “created Grace” doesn’t refer to imitation, but to the actual and real sharing of Divinity with creatures, while “uncreated Grace” refers to the eternal “graciousness” of God, or predestining and providence. The sharing of Divinity is called “created” not because it’s not a share of the uncreated, but because the
sharing itself is “created”, made to happen within the creature. Since this sharing has a beginning, and is not made from within the natural powers of the creature (it’s not natural to a creature to be Divine, by definition) it is “created” (it comes to exist from nothing). The Latin theology understands this as parallel to St. Paul saying “we are new creatures in Christ”; we are
made Divine.
Since grace, in Latin, can also refer to the disposition of the one giving (being gracious), and not merely to the gift, the term “uncreated Grace” is used to refer to God’s eternal disposition to give Himself to creatures. It does
not refer to what St. Gregory Palamas would define as “uncreated Grace”, which is simply Divinity.
Sometimes the term “uncreated Grace” can also refer to the Holy Spirit Himself as a Divine Person, since He is both uncreated and the “eternal Gift” of the Father, even without a created receiver. Us receiving the Holy Spirit, and therefore sharing in Divinity by Grace, would always be called “created Grace” in order to distinguish orthodox belief from any Pelagian ideas (we’re
made Holy and Divine by God’s Grace, not simply naturally Holy and Divine with only the wake up call of Jesus’ example to point the way for our development).
Long and technical, I know, but I hope it clears up some things!
Peace and God bless!
).