B
ByzCathCantor
Guest
That’s a keeper! Well put
- Status
P
pdstor
Guest
I think earlier posts also include the proper idea that energia includes the emination of God, rather than simply the activity of God. For instance, your post is an activity, one which I can validly say “that’s Ghosty!” without meaning that the posting is essentially you. Similarly, the presentation of your looks, your habits, etc., are energetically you, but are “passive” characteristics, not active ones. They just flow from you without your willing to bring them into being. Energia encompasses both concepts.
Careful! An essence is not a definition, otherwise the atheists like Oppy win, in that since we cannot properly positively define God, God really literally is nothing (Oppy takes the only positive definition of God to be “the only god,” and proceeds to declare the little-g term to be nonsensical). If essences are simply definitions (nominalism, I think this is called) then not being able to inscribe God with positive words simply means He isn’t really there.
If His energies are His essence, then we get a whole hoard of problems: being/act/activity of created things are either Him essentially (pantheism) or are totally removed from Him (Deism), the fact that God can’t create the world otherwise since this presents an essential unworked possibility within Himself, the notion that grace has to be created and all the proto-Calvinism that follows, etc. To wit, from Palamas:
C
Cavaradossi
Guest
Yes, but it is not enough to quote St. Basil saying that God is simple, because what Basil means by divine simplicity is very different from what say Thomas Aquinas understood simplicity to be.
This passage, for example, from Basil is completely at odds with how many in this thread would understand divine simplicity: But God, he says, is simple, and whatever attribute of Him you have reckoned as knowable is of His essence. But the absurdities involved in this sophism are innumerable. When all these high attributes have been enumerated, are they all names of one essence? And is there the same mutual force in His awfulness and His loving-kindness, His justice and His creative power, His providence and His foreknowledge, and His bestowal of rewards and punishments, His majesty and His providence? In mentioning any one of these do we declare His essence? If they say, yes, let them not ask if we know the essence of God, but let them enquire of us whether we know God to be awful, or just, or merciful. These we confess that we know. If they say that essence is something distinct, let them not put us in the wrong on the score of simplicity. For they confess themselves that there is a distinction between the essence and each one of the attributes enumerated. The operations are various, and the essence simple, but we say that we know our God from His operations, but do not undertake to approach near to His essence. His operations come down to us, but His essence remains beyond our reach.
Basil, Epistle CCXXXIV
newadvent.org/fathers/3202234.htm
Following the Cappadocians and other Eastern Fathers, the East has consistently held that the names of God are not predicable of the unknowable essence of God. They proceed from the essence (whatever the essence of God is) as energies, but do not name the essence of God, nor are they identical with the essence.
G
Ghosty
Guest
Emination is definitely part of it, but not all of it. Emination is also an activity, especially with God, and is not at all passive as regards the essence. Every emination is energy, but not all energy is emination; I suppose the best analogical term from Latin theology would be “act”, but that carries a certain significance within Latin theology that is not present with the term Energy, and so I avoid it.
This just highlights how difficult the concept is to “translate”. For example, the cutting power of a knife is energy, but so is its heaviness.
This objection is only true if nominalism is assumed in the first place. Nominalism is actually the idea that there is no proper essence, but rather a description in our mind. Only a nominalist would say that if you can’t define something then it doesn’t exist.
In traditional Christian theology, which is essentialist as opposed to nominalist, the essence exists regardless of external description, and must exist before any description can be made. You are using “definition” in the nominalist sense (not saying you’re a nominalist) as opposed to the essentialist sense. I took it for granted that those in this discussion would be using the essentialist sense of words.
Saying that energy is essential is not the same as saying that it is Essence, but rather that it follows from the essence. A knife may be hot and may burn, this regards the energy of the knife, but heat and burning are not essential to the knife, while cutting is. This is why I used the term “definition” above, because it most easily illustrates the difference between essence and energy, IMO.
The Latin use of Essence actually incorporates the notion of Energy; the Latin term is broader, the Greek narrower. That is why it’s so difficult to translate these concepts back and forth between theological schools.
Thanks for the (name removed by moderator)ut!
P
pdstor
Guest
IIRC Aquinas regards the persons as separable only in epistemological terms, which makes it hard to see how there are three ontic persons.
St. Basil’s gold analogy (posted earlier) does not work either; it has the problem of simply equating the three persons of God as three instances of the kind “Godness,” which makes them no different than we are as different persons of the kind “Humanity,” so tritheism would still follow.
Better, I think, would be to state that the “essence” of uncreatedness must present as three persons who are ontically (sp?) distinct but who necessarily reflect fully within one another. If we think of being/motion/logos of reality as a model and energia of the Trinity, then we can see this: created beings move in accordance to the Logoi representing their kind (kind of a Platonic Form, but also containing the full energia of each created particular). Thus motion, makes known the Logos and cannot be without it (even without created entities, the Logoi “moves” eternally toward the unity of Being, i.e. simply is the Wisdom or making known the fullness of the Logos); the Logos makes known the Wisdom; the image of the fullness of Being is within the unity of the many Logoi (the same way the image of a dad is in his son, but in the perfect way, hence Begotten); and Wisdom proceeds from Being with the Logos to make the Logos known. Being, Logos, and Wisdom thus appear in each other, and Being precedes Wisdom and “begats” the Logoi. They are all three separable ontically, as the Logoi are not Being and Wisdom, etc., but with one come all three, so there is one necessary presence of ousia, that of uncreatedness. And of course it is personal in that it moves things toward an end (the one Will shared by all three persons), and in that it has the Logoi of personal-ness itself, to put it in Tillich’s terms.
Being, Truth, Wisdom/Life are not God and the Persons essentially, but present as the necessarily unified uncreatedness that stands behind and fully within reality, and thus these notions are the Trinity in outward act (energia) as witnessed in creation. This is, I realize, semi-Panentheism; God is above Creation and is Creation, although it is not Panentheism proper because God is not essentially Creation, only Creation in the same sense that this post you made is you. These are well-known and are present in the theology of Athanasius, Maximus, Pseudo-D, the Cappadocian Fathers (despite the noted difficulties above w/Basil), Palamas, etc., and is supported by the Bible and the Creed - God the Father is the great “I AM” (Exodus 3), the Son is the Logos (John 1), and the Spirit is Wisdom and Giver of Life (Creed). But all three are uncreated, and neither can appear without the other, and thus are ontically distinct but necessarily inseparable - three persons in one essence.
G
Ghosty
Guest
Aquinas says the same thing, actually. He just uses “essence” in a broader sense that includes what we call energy. When speaking of what the Greek tradition calls “essence”, Aquinas is very clear that we can’t know it.
St. Basil is speaking here of “comprehension”, which Aquinas absolutely denies with regard to God, and this is why I use the term “definition” for Essence, because St. Basil is speaking about an encompassing understanding of God and that is the way “essence” is used in Eastern theology (it also carries the sense of nature, so it’s not merely a mental construct a la nominalism, but again we’re limited in translating the terms properly).
This is why St. Gregory Palamas can say that God is “beyond essence”.
Peace and God bless!
G
Ghosty
Guest
I’m not sure what you mean by these terms in this context. Aquinas unequivocally says that the three Persons are really distinct in and of themselves, and carry this distinction by their very nature.
This is also the position of Aquinas, who says that God is our being through participation. We exist because we participate in the being of God, according to Aquinas, but not in such a manner that God is a component part of us. We are, in essence, an activity of God.
Peace and God bless!
Are you telling me that you (and/or St Thomas Aquinas) believe that God is a composite Being?
“I answer that, The absolute simplicity of God may be shown in many ways. First, from the previous articles of this question. For there is neither composition of quantitative parts in God, since He is not a body; nor composition of matter and form; nor does His nature differ from His “suppositum”; nor His essence from His existence; neither is there in Him composition of genus and difference, nor of subject and accident. Therefore, it is clear that God is nowise composite, but is altogether simple.” - St Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Question 3, Article 7
Source: ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.FP_Q3_A7.html
C
Cavaradossi
Guest
I’m not really convinced that this reading of St. Basil is completely accurate. He does not, to my knowledge, ever work with the distinction between comprehending and knowing. Rather, he works with differing types of knowing, such as knowing that, and knowing what. Basil absolutely denies that we ever can know what God is, only saying that we can know that God is. Aquinas seems to posit that we can know what God is in an analogical sense, which is something the East has never really held.
C
Cavaradossi
Guest
No, I am saying that even the affirmation ‘God is simple’ means very different things to different people. Everybody, from Eunomius to Basil affirmed that God is simple. But Eunomius and Basil meant two incredibly different things by saying God is simple, and both of them mean something different by simplicity than Aquinas did. It is a terrible mistake to think that the most common definition of divine simplicity in the West can be read back on the Cappadocians, like Basil, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory the Theologian.
I see. I guess it’s similar to how Theological terms evolve (and diverge) and what not. I saw simple as meaning “a simple being not a composite being.” I understand that other things like energies and such may differ between people who both teach a simple God.
C
Cavaradossi
Guest
Gregory of Nyssa actually touches on this problem of language pretty well, I think. He points out that Eunomius’ preferred term for naming the essence of God, agenneton (ingenerate) has multiple meanings, and in some senses, the word could apply to the Son as well, even though we would hold that he is genneton (generate). This same critique applies to the term simple. Some look at an ontological distinction between essence and energy as if it somehow violates simplicity, but this is untrue, it only violates the way that certain people understand simplicity.
For example, a Neoplatonist might say that God cannot be trihypostatic because the One is simple and can have no ‘other’ which would threaten its unity. No Christian, of course, would accept that argument, because we don’t understand simplicity and unity in that manner. Many Thomists would say that a distinction between the essence and energies threatens the ‘simplicity’ of God, but few if any seem able to explain why this must be the case, and that is the weakness of the critique I so often see.
Somewhat amusingly (and unbeknownst to most Neo-Thomists, who seem to all think Duns Scotus was a Nominalist anyway), Duns Scotus seemed to posit a formal distinction between the essence of God and the divine names, so it is not entirely impossible for the essence-energies distinction to fit in a scholastic framework (Gennadios Scholarios was in fact the one who made this claim). It seems rather unfortunate, in light of this, that Scotus has gone neglected in favor of Thomas Aquinas.
G
Ghosty
Guest
Aquinas says quite explitly that we can’t know what God is as well. Remember that he derived most of his arguments from Eastern Fathers. When Aquinas says that God is named analogically, he never says that we can directly speak of the Divine Nature.
Remember, Basil speaks of God analogically as well, speaking of God being good and such.
Peace and God bless!
V
Vico
Guest
Bishop Kallistos Ware thought it may be a mere semantic difference on this issue.I tell you, this is the most challenging concept I’ve ever dealt with! I thought I finally got it with the immanence-transcendence thing, but it appears I still don’t
We have from the Eastern Orthodox Council of 1341-1351 (the condemned of Barlaam the Calabrian and Acindynus) that the energia is uncreated Grace that energises, and energima is the created effect.
M
Marybeloved
Guest
But uncreated grace to us is God himself and the act by which God gives it to us, is not God perse (it’s temporal). Yet the East seems to mean that acts of God are all energy-God.
M
Marybeloved
Guest
This is how Aquinas teaches that God can be ‘‘known’’ by us by analogy
You also said: …
I would ask you, then, how else except analogically, do we know anything about God? That he exists, is one, is love, good, truth etc? We all know that God is one- we don’t have any direct knowledge of what this oneness or love or goodness is in itself, only by analogy. Are you saying that St. Thomas teaches that our anaogy can lead us to this knowledge of all these things as they really are in themselves? That is an unfounded objection to make against St. Thomas’ teaching. The analogy remains a concept in our mind about God- it does not transform into God.
M
Marybeloved
Guest
In fact, St. Thomas’ meaning of ‘‘simplicity’’ is precisely non-composition, so to say that the Fathers meant something else is to say that they believed ‘‘composition’’ which cannot be true.
C
Cavaradossi
Guest
I don’t feel that analogy works well with the Cappodocians. The way that they understand the cosmos as diastemic (that is, across the gap), and completely different from God ontologically means that they do not work by analogy, but that they take a detour of sorts, describing the energies (that would be God’s manifestation in the world) exactly as we experience them (or as the authors of the Scriptures experienced them). They scoff at Eunomius’ claim to know that the essence of God is ingenerate, not because they feel that God can only be known by analogy, but because they are committed to the alternative that God’s essence cannot be named at all either by analogy or directly. They are in fact so committed to this framework that they would say that they are ignorant of any essence, whether it be God’s essence, Timothy’s essence (one example Basil gives), or even one’s own essence. St. Basil writes in his letter 235Aquinas says quite explitly that we can’t know what God is as well. Remember that he derived most of his arguments from Eastern Fathers. When Aquinas says that God is named analogically, he never says that we can directly speak of the Divine Nature.
Remember, Basil speaks of God analogically as well, speaking of God being good and such.
Peace and God bless!
o you know Timothy? Oh, if you know Timothy you know his nature. Since you have acknowledged that you know Timothy, give me an account of Timothy’s nature. Yes; but I at the same time both know and do not know Timothy, though not in the same way and in the same degree. It is not that I do not know in the same way in which I do know; but I know in one way and am ignorant in one way. I know him according to his form and other properties; but I am ignorant of his essence. Indeed, in this way too, I both know, and am ignorant of, myself. I know indeed who I am, but, so far as I am ignorant of my essence I do not know myself.newadvent.org/fathers/3202235.htmNotice how he says that he does not know Timothy in a different manner than how he does know Timothy, confessing that while he knows Timothy’s form and properties, he does not know his essence. This basically maps onto Basil’s understanding of knowledge of God as well. What we know of God, we know to be true, not in the sense of analogy, but that it is true because it describes Him as he makes Himself manifest to us. Going back to his letter 234, we find:No man has seen God at any time, the Only-begotten which is in the bosom has declared him. What of the Father did the Only-begotten Son declare? His essence or His power? If His power, we know so much as He declared to us. If His essence, tell me where He said that His essence was the being unbegotten? When did Abraham worship? Was it not when he believed? And when did he believe? Was it not when he was called? Where in this place is there any testimony in Scripture to Abraham’s comprehending? When did the disciples worship Him? Was it not when they saw creation subject to Him? It was from the obedience of sea and winds to Him that they recognised His Godhead. Therefore the knowledge came from the operations, and the worship from the knowledge. Believest thou that I am able to do this? I believe, Lord; and he worshipped Him. So worship follows faith, and faith is confirmed by power. But if you say that the believer also knows, he knows from what he believes; and vice versa he believes from what he knows. We know God from His power. We, therefore, believe in Him who is known, and we worship Him who is believed in.This understanding of knowledge works is a double-edged sword of sorts. By acknowledging that essences cannot be known, we give up entirely when it comes to knowing anything about the being of some thing, but then on the level of energy we are able to overcome this ontological estrangement by coming to an understanding of how this thing manifests itself to the world, without ever having to know in the process what the thing is. But because of this framework, saying that we know something by analogy is unnecessary, because we do not know God’s energies by analogy, and we have already admitted that essence cannot be known.
G
Ghosty
Guest
Cavaradossi: While your post is very good and informative, it doesn’t contradict, or even address, what I said about Aquinas’ belief. Aquinas does not say that the essence of God is known by analogy, he says It is entirely unknown. He says that we speak of God analogically, not that we know His essence analogically. So when we see goodness, we say “God is like that”, and we know the Goodness of God through creatures and Grace, but this is not at all the same as saying that we know the essence of God, even analogically.
We can speak of something that is remote and hidden because we know of it through its effects, and this is how we can say that there is a Divine Essence at all. Furthermore we can signify this hidden thing with names without having direct knowledge of it, just as we speak of the Divine Essence when we only know the Divine Energy; we know it is there because of the effects, and we know it is the source of these effects. Aquinas is only speaking about this kind of signification, such as when Scripture says “God is Love”, he is never speaking of knowledge of the Divine Essence.
To use St. Basil’s example, we can speak of Timothy, we can speak of Timothy’s essence, and we can know something of the essence without knowing the essence itself, such as Timothy’s essence exists, and that it is human. All of these things can be said of the essence without having to know the essence itself. If we could not say these things of the essence then we couldn’t even speak of an essence of Timothy in the first place; if we are absolutely ignorant of the essence in every way, then we can not even acknowledge the existence of the essence.
I will point out, however, that even St. Basil (in your second quote) shows that he’s speaking of comprehension, not the indirect knowledge spoken of in Latin theology. In the Greek Fathers this is often the case, as “knowing the essence” involves comprehension in their terminology and approach. In Latin theology a distinction is made between “knowing” (which can refer to indirect knowledge, as knowing that there is an essence is, in a certain sense, knowing something of the essence) and “comprehending” (truly knowing the essence in the most proper sense), which is not always clearly made by the early Greek Fathers.
Peace and God bless!
We can speak of something that is remote and hidden because we know of it through its effects, and this is how we can say that there is a Divine Essence at all. Furthermore we can signify this hidden thing with names without having direct knowledge of it, just as we speak of the Divine Essence when we only know the Divine Energy; we know it is there because of the effects, and we know it is the source of these effects. Aquinas is only speaking about this kind of signification, such as when Scripture says “God is Love”, he is never speaking of knowledge of the Divine Essence.
To use St. Basil’s example, we can speak of Timothy, we can speak of Timothy’s essence, and we can know something of the essence without knowing the essence itself, such as Timothy’s essence exists, and that it is human. All of these things can be said of the essence without having to know the essence itself. If we could not say these things of the essence then we couldn’t even speak of an essence of Timothy in the first place; if we are absolutely ignorant of the essence in every way, then we can not even acknowledge the existence of the essence.
I will point out, however, that even St. Basil (in your second quote) shows that he’s speaking of comprehension, not the indirect knowledge spoken of in Latin theology. In the Greek Fathers this is often the case, as “knowing the essence” involves comprehension in their terminology and approach. In Latin theology a distinction is made between “knowing” (which can refer to indirect knowledge, as knowing that there is an essence is, in a certain sense, knowing something of the essence) and “comprehending” (truly knowing the essence in the most proper sense), which is not always clearly made by the early Greek Fathers.
Peace and God bless!
M
Marybeloved
Guest
Right. And knowing about something through analogy is not the same as knowing it as it really is in itself, which is what St. Thomas and the earlier fathers are denying can be done.
If you tell me that you’re sad, I’ll know something of it by referring it to my own experience of sadness, so that I have an idea about what you may be going through. But this idea I have is only by relating to my own direct or real knowledge of my own experience of sadness (that is, by rlating it to some real knowledge I already have)- it cannot transform into a direct or real knowledge of your own sadness the way you know it. Only my own experience of my own sadness gives me some idea about yours through relating it to my own (which is what I understand analogy to mean). Since we’re both human, my idea of your sadness will be a pretty good idea about it. Yet it still will not be a real knowledge of that sadness (yours) all the same.
At the end of the day, these words ‘‘God is he who is (YHWH)’’ ‘‘One God’’ ‘‘God is love’’ ‘‘God is eternal’’ ‘‘God is Trinity’’ etc remain ideas in human minds about a being who is beyond human comprehension. These ideas have no power of becoming themselves God, or his oneness, or his love, or his infinity, or his eternality etc, so that having these ideas about him would equate to knowing these realities of God as they really are.
No one in the West seems to claim that they (the ideas we have) can give us this knowledge claimed, certainly not St. Thomas. Even the beatific vision involves possessing God but not ‘‘containing’’ him in the mind or will, which is what comprehension or the kind of knowing that Cavaradossi is speaking means, and which is what Beatific Vision would mean if this is what was believed in the West.
- Status