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ziapueblo
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The reason I posted these documents was to show that Eastern Catholics are to hold on to their Eastern tradition, which St Palamas is part of.
As usual, thanks for your insight!
ZP
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As usual, thanks for your insight!
ZP
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George720
Guest
What does Divine Simplicity mean and how is it experienced?
This would seem to be the case with the Catholic Encyclopedia article’s author… Although he gave a fair, if strained, accounting of it… His article will perhaps be supplanted with a more up-to-date one…
Essence vs Energies parallels Apophatic vs Cataphatic theology…
The main thrust is that only God understands God as God…
Man only encounters Him in His Divine Energies which ARE Him…
Moses was only shown His “Backward Parts” on the Mountain…
No man can see God’s “Face” and live…
geo
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OrbisNonSufficit
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Somehow there is a notion that we have to be skeptical about everything that comes from East “because they were in Schism and could possibly form heretical notions”. While that was historically somewhat correct approach, Church has already reviewed everything going on in the East. To deny Eastern Catholicism is to deny Catholic Church, and that is not something good Catholic (Latin or Eastern) would do.
Oh, I am glad I could be helpful in defending Catholic tradition. I actually saw that video before it was posted here and I was wondering if it has any basis, so I googled around and formed my opinion that I shared above. MHFM posts some very good videos (I especially liked their debates with Protestants and debates on Papacy), but they are in the end sedevacantist and that also leads to some errors. I was advised on another thread to stop watching them and so I stopped watching them. There is simply no way to know which is or is not biased.
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OrbisNonSufficit
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First, there is philosophical approach which suggests that since God is only thing that is indeed “real” or “source”, he can not be made of some other parts… so God can not have composition in Himself. Essentially, everything else is created by God and created composite but God himself is not created so he remains God. We can try to describe God with our parables and we can liken Him something, but that all comes short. God is God and without God nothing is (exists). One can not in reality divide God’s will from God’s nature nor his Omniscience from Omnipotence nor Omnibenevolence. God can not be without any of His “attributes”. If God was not omnibenevolent or omniscient, He would not be God. We do descriptively because we can not understand the Infinite Creator, but we do not believe there is “actual” difference in God. This is further supported by notion of Monarchy of the Father in the East as well as Hesychasm itself!
Now how is it experienced? How many times do we pray to each person in Trinity and how many times do we simply pray to God (Triune and undivided)? Other than that, silent contemplation and feeling God’s presence (hesychasm or even Sacraments/Mysteries themselves are great example of this) does lead into Divine Simplicity. It is said in Sacraments we receive grace and that we also receive God (in Baptism we receive Holy Spirit, in Eucharist we receive our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ…) hence distinction between such “actions” of God is indeed unreal.
Exactly, God IS his energies (actions). Hence God is simple and fully without distinction.
I am not sure if I understand “Backward Parts” thing, could you somehow rephrase? Meanwhile I’ll blame fact it is already night here
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Isaac14
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It’s a reference to Exodus 33:23.I am not sure if I understand “Backward Parts” thing, could you somehow rephrase? Meanwhile I’ll blame fact it is already night here
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George720
Guest
Exo 33:20 And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
Exo 33:21 And the LORD said, Behold, there is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock:
Exo 33:22 And it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by:
Exo 33:23 And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.
My bad - I said “backward” instead of “back”…
Face = Essence
Back = Energies
These energies are the Energies of God which created and sustain and are creating all that exists…
geo
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George720
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Indeed, and how is that event described…
Most do not talk about it at all…
It is not a common event…
It is not a gradual event…
What does it look like?
What does it feel like?
How did you respond to it?
What difference did it make?
The Simplicity of God is not a casual blush…
People speak of it as if it is a philosophic inference…
It is anything but a philosophical inference…
In it you will see the Power of Love that sustains the Cosmos…
It is Power experienced as Love that is almost unrecognizable as Love…
And in it, our loves almost become unrecognizable as love at all…
It is soul-transforming…
A personal event with universal coverage…
Approaching the Unapproachable God…
In purity of heart and conscience…
And God condescends to us…
And in His Embrace we experience Life Eternal…
And all this happens in profound hesychia…
In stillness of body, soul, heart and mind…
“Of God the Gift…” as Scripture reports…
Not by the will of man…
geo
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Margaret_Ann
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You found Orientalium Dignitas! I looked on the Vatican website and couldn’t find it.
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ziapueblo
Guest
I’m glad I was able to provide it 
ZP
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OrbisNonSufficit
Guest
I remember that part but I was unsure what would qualify as backward part… I read into it too literally and didn’t realize Geo means back of God.
I see. For more Western terminology I found this book
And this is relevant part from it
Screenshot_20200405_131113|509x500
I do believe this is essentially essence-energies descriptive distinction in God and not real distinction.
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George720
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Well, it is a very REAL distinction…
eg Life and death to Moses, for instance…
God creating creation is one thing, and the same God with regard to Himself is very much quite another… The difference is similar to that between Henry Ford and his cars vs Henry Ford and his family… The cars cannot know Henry, except insofar as he is working on them… Likewise, we KNOW God only insofar as He relates to us as His creation… We cannot know Him according to His Essence, because such knowledge would, due to the Marriage Union’s nature, make us to actually BE God…
It is a huge difference, for we are lower case-g gods. by His Grace
(only when all goes well,) but we are never God…
geo
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OrbisNonSufficit
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Not in what God is “made up from” though… tho yes distinction exists in how we react and how God acts, but not in God himself.Well, it is a very REAL distinction…
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George720
Guest
I do not see much speculation in Orthodoxy about what it is that “makes up” God’s existence… We simply see His creation Energy creating creation… John writes “God IS Love”… But when it comes down to what God is in Himself, we become apophatic… But we will talk about Him all day long as Creator of all creation…George720:
Not in what God is “made up from” though… tho yes distinction exists in how we react and how God acts, but not in God himself.Well, it is a very REAL distinction…
And perhaps I do not understand much of what this “simplicity” of God actually is - Does it simply mean that He is the same in all places and at all times? Or does it mean that His nature has but a single “Substance” of some kind… I mean, could you, in ordinary terms of human experience, describe this “Simplicity” of God so that an old and sinful man like me might somehow have a clue as to what is meant with God?
For you see, to say that God is One simply rules out the Pantheon… eg It means that God is not “Many”… It thereby ascribes a unity of Being, rather than a complexity of Beings, even though there is a Trinity of Persons, yet One Will… Is there a parallel for this in the make-up of a human being so that we can describe what is meant of God?
Thank-you for tagging along on this excursus…
I think the issues matter…
And I could be wrong…
geo
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OrbisNonSufficit
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Yes, exactly this. It basically means that God is inseparable form His actions and His attributes.
I don’t know… after all we are creations, not the Creator. Describing the Trinity is impossible for us… and thank God for that!
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George720
Guest
That is “Divine Simplicity”???
eg “Inseparability”?
I haven’t read much in the fathers of it, but I would be stunned if that is all it means…
Which Palamas affirms, btw…
eg - We encounter and become One with God, just not with His Essence…
Thank-you…
geo
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OrbisNonSufficit
Guest
When talking about God being simple no one is denying He is infinite or unknowable… but that in fact He is not composite. That is my understanding of it at least.
What a great man! What a great Saint!
I thank you.
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OrbisNonSufficit
Guest
Where did you hear this? That’s nonsense.
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Isaac14
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One poster in particular has adamantly told me exactly this. I pressed because it doesn’t jive with what other Catholics say, the Pope included, regarding non-Catholic Christians. Despite giving him many opportunities to clarify his statements, he claimed all his properly referenced sources assert the Orthodox are definitely in mortal sin for schism.
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OrbisNonSufficit
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Well, objectively Orthodox are in Schism … nevertheless, mortal sin of Schism requires more than “not being in communion with Rome”. It would require someone to actively participate in doing so willingly.
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PilgrimMichelangelo
Guest
To fall into mortal sin on a personal level would not each Orthodox Christian have had to be a Roman or Eastern Catholic first? The penalty of mortal sin would only apply to those who first began the schism (Patriarch Michael Cerularius et al) and not extend down to the generations of those born or converted to Orthodoxy, unless those who converted came from the Catholic Church?
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