Palamian Theology go beyond his predecessors?

[Badaliyyah]

I’m not disputing that God knows Himself in a way we don’t know Him (God is a separate being than us), but that is not the same as not knowing at all and not fully knowing. What I am questioning is whether your description is what the Palamite model is saying.

If God cannot fully be known in the sense that we are finite and can only comprehend a finite amount, then I believe that fits fine. However, if it means an aspect of God cannot be known at all, as if there was a fence we could see but not what was behind it, I don’t believe that fits the notion “we shall see God as He is”.

This goes back to the “Names” of God. That link I keep mentioning gives this quote as an example:
9. “But He Who is beyond every name is not identical with what He is named; for the essence and energy of God are not identical.” (Gregory Palamas, TheTriads, p. 97)
The means that any Names we give to God (as imperfect as they are) never correspond to His Essence. Calling God anything only applies to the Energies while the Essence is beyond description.
11. “Now this union with the illuminations [which is the divinizing experience of the “saints”] – what is it, if not a vision? The rays are consequently visible to those worthy, although the divine essence is absolutely invisible, and these unoriginate and endless rays are a light without beginning or end. There exists, then an eternal light, other than the divine essence; it is not itself an essence – far from it! – but an energy of the Superessential.” (Gregory Palamas p. 100)
This is similar to that fence analogy I gave. We know “something” is behind the fence, but that’s about it. This is not “seeing Him as He is.”

The inadequacy and inapplicability of the Divine Names is not unique to Palamas and goes back a long way in the Greek tradition, through Maximus Confessor and John of Damascus, both of whom are dependent on Pseudo-Dionysius, who is the most thoughtful proponent, and the foundations for which can be found in the Cappadocians (who are themselves reading Origen and Philo of Alexandria and so on, and on). So the “superessential” (i.e., hyperousial … which is the origin, btw, by translation of the Latinate, supernatural) and unnameable character of God is certainly NOT an innovation on Palamas’s part. I know the word appears explicitly in Ps.D and then in Maximus, I am not sure if does in the Cappadocians or not, but even if it doesn’t the idea is certainly there. All that Palamas provides is some language to help think about that.

Other than Eunomios, who the Cappadocians attack viciously, and who was ultimately condemned, I cannot think of anyone who thinks our language and concepts correspond to God (I am not sure to what extent Barlaam is drifting back in this direction).

In Thomas of course, Divine Names, whether linguistic or conceptual) are analogous in this life and will disappear in the Beatific Vision.

Meanwhile, in PsDionysius, who Palamas has more in common with, the Divine Names are both affirmed and negated and neither affirmations nor negations are adequate to the God beyond Being. This dialectic of affirmation and negation, which are always joined together, is necessary because revelation is revelation of the hidden. This is what reference to the Mysterion means for the Greeks: the revelation of the unknowable God. This is what the Liturgy is all about: as Dionysius says, being raised up to suffer divine things divinely - i.e., in an unspeakable and unknowable way.

The entire Dionysian corpus is in translation in the Classics of Western Spirituality. But also take a look at Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses. On the Latin speaking side, one can take a look at Ambrose and especially Marius Victorinus, both of whom write in Latin but are, for all practical purposes, Greek fathers.

 

[anthony022071]

Anyone who says that the divine names are inadequate and inapplicable undermines the authority of revelation,and is not content with God’s Word. God has revealed himself as YHWH,
I Am,and Father. Who would say that what God has spoken about himself is inadequate and inapplicable?

 

[Badaliyyah]

Anyone who says that the divine names are inadequate and inapplicable undermines the authority of revelation,and is not content with God’s Word. God has revealed himself as YHWH,
I Am,and Father. Who would say that what God has spoken about himself is inadequate and inapplicable?

I realize that applicability and adequacy are words I used. Adequacy is easy. I can’t think of anyone who thinks our language or concepts are adequate. Thomas says they certain terms/concepts are analogous.

Applicability is tricker and depends on what you mean by it. I hope what I originally meant can be discerned from what I said subsequently (which was just a different way of talking about adequacy). If we go to Thomas again for a moment (I.13 is the place to look here), Thomas says that certain things we say about God do not properly apply to God (rock, lion) because they are metaphors and primarily apply to creatures. Other things we say (Good, Wise, Just, Being) apply first to God because God is Good essentially, while we are good finitely and by effect. BUT, even though the language is most proper to God, any meaning that the human can give the term is proper only to creatures and not to God. This is because all human concepts must begin in the senses for Thomas and are COMPOSED from experience by the power of abstraction. Thus they are in reality descriptions of created things, not of God, even though we might recognize that God is the Good.

There is an inherent displacement that necessarily takes place in our language about God that makes it analogous. Thomas even says that “I am” is the highest name we have of God, but even here, where it signifies Being/Actus Purus, the name is inadequate and analogous.

No matter how we try we are not capable of thinking the divine simplicity and the incapacity of human thought to achieve this renders human thought problematic in relation to God. As Thomas says at one point, it is not false for us to say that God is Good since God is Primal Good, but the concept we have of the Good is nonetheless false because it is composite and us knowing that God is not composite and that our concept is flawed does not thereby make the concept true; it means we recognize the helplessness of the concept.

I would also point out that for Thomas there is no knowledge of God’s essence in this life. As he says, we know that, but we do not know WHAT God is. It was this insight of Thomas’ that I had in mind in the previous post. To borrow again from Thomas at the end of his life: our language – “It is all straw”.

…Allahu alam.

 

[Badaliyyah]

Thomas of course is only of interest on the an important medieval thinker on the one hand, and because of the important place that Thomas comes to posses for Latin thought in the centuries that follow. On the other hand he has little bearing on understanding Palamas except to serve as a contrasting and clarifying alternative.

Ps.Dionysius (PsD), unlike Thomas, is an extremely important figure for Palamas and for the Byzantine tradition as a whole. The two crucial texts for our issue would be the Divine Names (DN) and the Mystical Theology (MT).

Because God is beyond all knowing and being, we can only know God in God’s revelation and PsD’s corpus follows the path of that revelation as it simultaneously goes out and returns to the Unknowable God. In and through the divine processions, the Unknown God is made Known. PsD traces the manner in which God is known in material things, through images and symbols and most importantly through the Divine Names. When we name God we do so in the manner given in the revelation and PsD focuses on some fairly typical concepts: Good, Love, Being, One, etc. Because God has proceeded outward and revealed himself this way we affirm these divine names. But this is only half the story. The revelations of God, which proceed out into finitude, are also divinizing and raise creation up towards Divinity. In doing so the names are also negated as they turn on themselves leading back towards the unspeakable and transcendent one which they reveal. As a result there is a dialectic of affirmation and negation going on all the time with respect to our knowledge of God it discloses the Hidden and the Hidden remains Hidden in the disclosure. Revelations in effect deconstruct themselves so they might reveal the unrevealable. Make known the Unknowable.

Now PsD is very clear that it is not as if the negations are true and the affirmations are false. Both are inadequate and inapplicable to the Unknowable God and it is for PsD the dialectical play of both through which we ascend towards the God beyond Being. Here the contrast with Thomas for instance is fairly clear (and it is interesting to see Thomas in I.13 wrestling with PsD and John of Damascus esp. as he tries to lay out his own vision). For Thomas the path of ascent and purification is leading towards a highest human faculty which longs for fulfillment but is thwarted in this life: intellectual intuition of essence. For PsD no human faculty has a capacity for divinization. It is not just that the lower powers of knowledge are surpassed (e.g., soul and mind), but all intellect is surpassed because on must pass beyond Being itself. Likewise also (pace Bonaventure), with Love.

While the mind and eros drive us deeper and deeper into Revelation (which is ultimately contained within the Divine-Love-for-Humanity = Christ who is the arch and all-hierarch not only of the Liturgy in the conventional sense, but of a cosmic liturgy), the dialectic of affirmations and negations contained within revelation drives the intellect and desire to deconstruct themselves so that they come to stillness and the divine can mysteriously take us beyond ourselves. The MT does not end with a method by which divinization can be achieved but ends in the silence in which the Christian awaits the Divine-Love-for-Humanity who draws them up ecstatically. This ek-stasis, being drawn out of the self, is not a destruction of the self, says PsD, but is, its perfection (a principle Thomas has reference to on a number of occasions). Certainly at this point, for PsD, all language and concepts dissolve into inapplicability and inadequacy.

As a final note, I will point out that this whole thing has an unavoidable liturgical setting because it is the (cosmic) liturgy that is the way of Revelation (i.e., the way of Christ). It is through the liturgy that we are caught up to suffer divine things divinely. This is often lost in the Latin appropriators of PsD (though Eriugena and Bonaventure do a good job of keeping the cosmic aspect in view). In other words, the whole dynamic of the divine life is liturgic and we are caught up in the divine through our own participation in liturgical life. The cataphatic-apophatic nature of our language of God does not loosen our tie to the Revelation of the Unknown God, but strengthens it. God reveals God.

…Allahu alam.

 

[anthony022071]

I realize that applicability and adequacy are words I used. Adequacy is easy. I can’t think of anyone who thinks our language or concepts are adequate. Thomas says they certain terms/concepts are analogous.

Our language is adequate – people who use it are capable of understanding each other,though imperfectly. A language need not be perfectly accurate or perfectly intellectually satisfying to be adequate.

Applicability is tricker and depends on what you mean by it.

God applied names to himself for man to use,so we must consider them applicable.

Other things we say (Good, Wise, Just, Being) apply first to God because God is Good essentially, while we are good finitely and by effect. BUT, even though the language is most proper to God, any meaning that the human can give the term is proper only to creatures and not to God. This is because all human concepts must begin in the senses for Thomas and are COMPOSED from experience by the power of abstraction. Thus they are in reality descriptions of created things, not of God, even though we might recognize that God is the Good.

Wisdom 13,5
For from the greatness and the beauty of created things their original author, by analogy, is seen.

Romans 1:19-20
For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it evident to them.
Ever since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived in what he has made.

There is an inherent displacement that necessarily takes place in our language about God that makes it analogous. Thomas even says that “I am” is the highest name we have of God, but even here, where it signifies Being/Actus Purus, the name is inadequate and analogous.

Why did Thomas think it was inadequate? Inadequte for what?
God is the ultimate Being,which means he is the cause of all existence. Since I Am signifies Being,it is a name which expresses the ultimate fact. So it is not inadequate if all of the implications of God as Being are remembered. With the idea of God as Being goes every other reality of God – Creator,Life,Truth,Love,Goodness,Wisdom,Justice,Perfection.

No matter how we try we are not capable of thinking the divine simplicity and the incapacity of human thought to achieve this renders human thought problematic in relation to God.

Human thought has been given enlightened by revelation,and the Holy Spirit gives wisdom,especially to those who pray for it.

As Thomas says at one point, it is not false for us to say that God is Good since God is Primal Good, but the concept we have of the Good is nonetheless false because it is composite and us knowing that God is not composite and that our concept is flawed does not thereby make the concept true; it means we recognize the helplessness of the concept.

We have been taught by God what is good,so it is not a helpless concept.

I would also point out that for Thomas there is no knowledge of God’s essence in this life. As he says, we know that, but we do not know WHAT God is.

The apostle John said “God is love”. I understand that to be the essence of God.

See post 58.

 

[Badaliyyah]

The apostle John said “God is love”. I understand that to be the essence of God.

This pretty much misses the point and makes me think that maybe we are just talking past one another here. Thomas had read John and liked John just as much as anyone. And, the Good plays an important role in Thomas, though he actually thinks Being is the highest of the divine names. It is even in a very important sense true to say that God is Being (or Love) (as mentioned above in the post on Thomas).

BUT, all this is knowledge about God. It is ratio not intellectus. The concepts we use to think/speak about God are all abstracted from our experience of creation. These concepts, however, even when used in as appropriate a way as humanly possible, are inadequate to their object (God). A concept does not and absolutely cannot, in the case of God, provide the kind of knowledge that human beings long for: actual living knowledge of the object. We do not know God because real knowledge involves an intuition of essence. This is unavailable to us in this life. Concepts provide a kind of substitute for human beings in the absence of the intellectual intuition that will be attained by the Christian in beatitude.

So this is why Thomas says we know THAT but not WHAT God is. We can only know what God is if we have an intuition of essence.

To think that concepts are adequate to God is rationalism (as opposed to Thomas’s own intellectualism) and Thomas rejects this flat out. Since language and concepts are all tied to ratio, they pass away and are no longer needed once there is intellectual intuition in the beatific vision.

For a discussion of the types of knowledge in Thomas and other Scholastics and what constitutes real knowledge of God for them, see Post #51. Sum.Th. I.13 is worth a read as Thomas spells out a lot his understanding of the divine names there: he is attempting a balancing act (as is most theology) where he wants to admit that our language is inadequate to the object while denying that is, for that reason, completely equivocal…hence analogy.

salaam.

 

[Ghosty]

Badaliyyah: So, is intuition of essence ***ever ***possible for us? If it is, how does Palamas’ theology fit in? If not, then how do we see God “as He is”?

I intend these questions as friendly invitations to continue, not as an assault.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Catholic_Dude]

---

I don’t know what you are looking for in terms of Church documents. I have used VERY mainstream Latin theologians as examples in all cases. I suggest you look at Thomas on the Trinity (which occurs fairly early in the Summa), Thomas’s Christology, which includes includes his account of Christ’s knowledge of God (which is of course unique) (this occurs towards the end of the Tertia Pars) and probably his treatment of the knowledge of God in angels (since this is where he treats the intellectus in most detail).

I have also given examples from Bonaventure and Anselm who deny that beatitude can be fulfilled in the intellectus, in contrast to Thomas.

If Thomas is not Catholic enough for you, and you don’t like the positions of Bonaventure or Anselm (which are by no means identical), I don’t know who else to point you to that would be relevant.

It might also be helpful to take a sec and see what it is that the Latins are working with. For most medievals, including Thomas, types of knowledge can be broken down into more or less 3 kinds…

1. sensory knowledge: our experience of material things through the senses. For Thomas this is the necessary starting point for all knowledge in this life. This is not true for Anselm at all (who has very little time for sensation), and true in a modified way in Bonaventure. In any case you still need to do something with sensation to make it meaningful, and that is where ratio comes in.
2. ratio: this is discursive knowledge. This is what human beings actually use to reason about most things, though it is found in animals in a lesser degree (a squirrel problem solving about how to get food out of your bird feeder for instance). Discursive knowledge relies on distinctions and contrasts, division and definition, etc. It provides us with knowledge about an object, but it is not, in reality, full knowledge.
3. intellectus: human beings have intellect, but it is weak and mostly thwarted in its desire for fulfillment in this life according to Thomas. Intellect provides an immediate intuition of the essence of an object. We do not have intuitions of essences in most cases and certainly do not have it of God in this life. For Thomas this is the highest of human faculties and an intuition of essence is analogous to the way in which humans experience sensation. It is immediate, direct and lived. We do not know about red, we have a lived sensation of red. So also intuition would provide a lived sensation of the essence (it is thus probably not surprising that one of the few intellections that Thomas does think we have is of “human being”).

…

now the medievals contrast this understanding of the hierarchy of knowledge with the will. The will is the faculty of desire and act. For Bonaventure , the will is the highest human faculty because it is that by which we love.

…

For Thomas beatitude is given in the intellectus. That is to say, Thomas thinks we have knowledge of the Divine Nature in a full and meaningful sense. For Bonaventure, beatitude is a matter of the will: our relationship with Divinity is fulfilled in the ecstasy of Love, which is beyond any form of knowledge.

Just as a side note, Barlaam does not seem to rise up to the level of either of these. Barlaam’s thought seems stuck at the level of ratio. This is not surprising at the time and suggests the degree nominalism’s emergence in the 14th c. If there is no such thing as an essence then one does not need an intellectus in order to know it. On the other hand, many nominalists were influenced by Franciscan thought so the highest faculty in both God in humans was the will and human life was still fulfilled in love and act. Barlaam does not go that way either, trying to hold on to a form of rationalism (as opposed to intellectualism, which would be Thomas). And so he ends up with something repugnant to everyone. This is my understanding of Barlaam, but obviously I do not know his stuff first hand, though you see pieces of it in Palamas’s response.

salaam.

I am trying to follow this the best I can, but I don’t see how it answers the issue of the Father being unknowable while the Son and Holy Spirit are.

In fact God [Divinity] is Unknowable and Knowable at the same time which is why God is essence/energy. This goes right along with the affirmation that God is transcendent and immanent, hidden and revealed…essence and energy. The essence/energy distinction is not a way of avoiding this, its a way of affirming it.

I’m beginning to think more and more that this is a flat out contradiction. Though God is beyond our comprehension we know we can never attribute a contradiction to Him. Taking the terms STRICTLY we cannot say God is knowable and unknowable at the same time, that is a contradiction. We cannot built theology on this kind of foundation. Those terms must be applied relatively, in that God is knowable to a degree but ultimately beyond full/exhaustive comprehension of a finite mind. The only way God can be knowable and unknowable at the same time, taking the terms strictly, is if God were a box. Knowable on the “outside,” unknowable on the “inside,” but that is just the problem we were trying to avoid.

As for the claim that what is Unknown must be higher than what is Known that is your issue, it does not belong to Palamas. Palamas is very clear that the revelations and divinizations of God are just as much God as God in the Unknowable stillness. Divinity is both.

It is higher in the level of transcendence, what can be comprehended by a finite creature is “less transcendent” (for lack of a better term) than what cannot be.

God is known because God reveals Godself. We know God because God is dynamic. If God remained solely in the stillness, not only would we not know God, we would not be here to know God. God is known because God gives Godself to be known. The Unmoved stillness is not and cannot be given; what is given are the energies. If the Stillness of God were given to us, it would not be the stillness of God any longer. But, again, God is just as much God in the capacity for revealing and divinizing as God is in the stillness.

But is God really revealing Himself? If the Essence is unknown and unknowable then God did not actually reveal Himself; what is unknowable leaves no room for distinction. Rather, it would be akin to mediation by Angels.

The inadequacy and inapplicability of the Divine Names is not unique to Palamas and goes back a long way in the Greek tradition

Other than Eunomios, who the Cappadocians attack viciously, and who was ultimately condemned, I cannot think of anyone who thinks our language and concepts correspond to God.

In Thomas of course, Divine Names, whether linguistic or conceptual) are analogous in this life and will disappear in the Beatific Vision.

Meanwhile, in PsDionysius, who Palamas has more in common with, the Divine Names are both affirmed and negated and neither affirmations nor negations are adequate to the God beyond Being.

As I was reading this a new thought came to mind. If this is so, then what business do you have putting Names to even the Energies in the first place? Isn’t the point of the Essence/Energies distinction in the first place to not describe what is indescribable?
If the Energies are transcendent then that fits with the Catholic model of human language being infinitely imperfect yet in some sense true in its description of God. The problem at that point is that it would be illogical to have a Super-Transcendent Essence and a “regular” Transcendent Energies. All is wholly Transcendent, and thus no need for the Essence/Energies distinction in the first place.

 

[Badaliyyah]

Badaliyyah: So, is intuition of essence ***ever ***possible for us? If it is, how does Palamas’ theology fit in? If not, then how do we see God “as He is”?

When it comes to Palamas, I would not use the language of intellectual intuition (i.e., Thomas’s language) as it does seem that this is what he is trying to avoid. Nonetheless, through the energies we participate the Divine Nature. This participation engages the totality of our existence - not only the spiritual, but also the physical, drawing it out of itself (ecstasy) and transfiguring it. So, for Palamas, our participation in Divinity is not withheld until beatitude, but is already ongoing now, through the divine energies. This union, theosis, is what it means to ‘know’ God.

I’m not sure if that answered the question you were asking?

salaam.

 

[Badaliyyah]

I’m beginning to think more and more that this is a flat out contradiction. Though God is beyond our comprehension we know we can never attribute a contradiction to Him. Taking the terms STRICTLY we cannot say God is knowable and unknowable at the same time, that is a contradiction. We cannot built theology on this kind of foundation. Those terms must be applied relatively, in that God is knowable to a degree but ultimately beyond full/exhaustive comprehension of a finite mind. The only way God can be knowable and unknowable at the same time, taking the terms strictly, is if God were a box. Knowable on the “outside,” unknowable on the “inside,” but that is just the problem we were trying to avoid.

…

But is God really revealing Himself? If the Essence is unknown and unknowable then God did not actually reveal Himself; what is unknowable leaves no room for distinction. Rather, it would be akin to mediation by Angels.

I am pushed for time, so I am just going to give a quick response. I will come back to it if I can, or maybe you can reframe the question:

In both the case of the Trinity and the Divine Nature, Christians avoid a total collapse of the Revealer into the Revelation while at the same time affirming their identity. In the Trinity we do this by talking of the Father and the Son (who is the Word/Mind/Logos) of the Father. The Father is known in the Logos. So we say, the Logos is the Revelation of the Father, but we do not mean by this that the Logos is strictly equivalent to the Father.

Something similar (and parallel) is going on in the Divine Nature with respect to Essence and Energies. The Energies really do reveal the Divine Nature, even though the Essence (the Hidden Stillness of Divinity) itself is not directly given. The Divine Nature reveals itself through the energies while remaining transcendent as essence. God reveals God.

Passing beyond Palamas for just a moment, if either of these were not true, Christianity would become a strict, flat and dead monotheism and revelation would be impossible. But as PsD says, God is (not) One. Christianity transcends monotheism, surpassing it, towards a God who really does reveal Godself. Because of this, while human reason may strive for the unity of system and non-contradiction (and of course it does do this), it inevitably fails.

I have to go. Have a good evening, I will be back later,

…Allahu alam.

 

[Ghosty]

When it comes to Palamas, I would not use the language of intellectual intuition (i.e., Thomas’s language) as it does seem that this is what he is trying to avoid. Nonetheless, through the energies we participate the Divine Nature. This participation engages the totality of our existence - not only the spiritual, but also the physical, drawing it out of itself (ecstasy) and transfiguring it. So, for Palamas, our participation in Divinity is not withheld until beatitude, but is already ongoing now, through the divine energies. This union, theosis, is what it means to ‘know’ God.

I’m not sure if that answered the question you were asking?

salaam.

The notion of participation in the Divine Nature (Grace) in this life is universal to Apostolic Christianity, so that’s not quite what I’m asking about.

Obviously Palamas isn’t using terms or concepts like intellectual intuition, but what I’m asking is whether or not his theology is open to such an understanding of God.

The problem with participation in the Energies being the “knowing God” is that this approach contradicts Scripture, which teaches that we participate in Divinity now, but we will have a new kind of full knowledge in the life to come, a knowledge that is so utterly transforming of us that we can’t even comprehend what we will be like. Such a notion is pretty impossible to dismiss from Apostolic Tradition, and I think dealing with that aspect in Palamas’ terms might make it easier for others to understand.

I do know from experience that Latins, particularly Thomists, have an aversion to theologies that reduce the experience of God to something less that God sharing Himself fully (according to our mode and capacity to receive). I’ve even heard Palamite understandings of the next life being dismissed precisely because it comes across as saying exactly what Palamas was trying to avoid, namely that we don’t have a true participation in Divinity but only experience theophanies.

Ironically, Latin theology is sometimes erroneously criticized by Byzantines on the grounds that it denies real participation in the Divine due to the use of the term “created Grace”; the fact is that “created Grace” refers to the creation of our sharing in Divinity, not of a kind of Grace which is a creature, or from creatures. The Latin tradition is very, very intent on guarding this participation in Divinity; I would argue that it’s primarily this insistence that led to the theological split with the Reformers (who tended to take the nominalist approach).

Peace and God bless!

 

[Badaliyyah]

The notion of participation in the Divine Nature (Grace) in this life is universal to Apostolic Christianity, so that’s not quite what I’m asking about.

Obviously Palamas isn’t using terms or concepts like intellectual intuition, but what I’m asking is whether or not his theology is open to such an understanding of God.

The problem with participation in the Energies being the “knowing God” is that this approach contradicts Scripture, which teaches that we participate in Divinity now, but we will have a new kind of full knowledge in the life to come, a knowledge that is so utterly transforming of us that we can’t even comprehend what we will be like. Such a notion is pretty impossible to dismiss from Apostolic Tradition, and I think dealing with that aspect in Palamas’ terms might make it easier for others to understand.

I do know from experience that Latins, particularly Thomists, have an aversion to theologies that reduce the experience of God to something less that God sharing Himself fully (according to our mode and capacity to receive). I’ve even heard Palamite understandings of the next life being dismissed precisely because it comes across as saying exactly what Palamas was trying to avoid, namely that we don’t have a true participation in Divinity but only experience theophanies.

Ironically, Latin theology is sometimes erroneously criticized by Byzantines on the grounds that it denies real participation in the Divine due to the use of the term “created Grace”; the fact is that “created Grace” refers to the creation of our sharing in Divinity, not of a kind of Grace which is a creature, or from creatures. The Latin tradition is very, very intent on guarding this participation in Divinity;

Peace and God bless!

From Palamas’s standpoint, Thomas’s concern that human nature be fulfilled with an intellectual intuition aims too low and falls far short of theosis. Every aspect of the human is engaged, lifted up and transcended, so this would obviously include the powers of knowing, but this also exceeds Thomas’s intellectualism. Bonaventure comes closer perhaps, but even here, even desire is overcome.

I am much more comfortable talking about the essence and energies than I am about hesychasm, and someone who knows the hesychastic discipline better may be able to say more than I.

Is grace the communication of the divine essence in Thomas? My understanding is that by definition grace is a work of God ad extra and thus outside the Divine Nature. Grace is the external help that God gives the soul. It is the form (in the sense of “formal cause”) of the soul’s movement towards the Good. It works in tandem with the Law by which God instructs humanity. This does not mean it is not the activity of God, but it does mean that it isn’t the Divine Nature (i.e., what Thomas but not Palamas means when he says “essence”).

{BIG DISCLAIMER: this is not a point where I am very comfortable with my knowledge of Thomas, so it is possible I am botching it badly…it is possible I am engaging in Byzantine misreading…the definitions of grace show up, if I recall, at the end of the Prima Secunda and I will go back and look when I get the chance. Right now I am doing this off the cuff and I apologize for any errors and invite correction. I have said as much as I can say without going back and doing a quick reading of the relevant questions, and as accurately as I could.}

One approximation by which one might understand what Palamas is doing, is that Palamas is insisting that all these activities of God towards creation belong to the Divine Nature. Until the resurrection we suffer under sin and death, but we do participate the Divine Nature in this life and we await the full and final consummation of this union in the life to come.

I would be very interested how you understand Thomas!

…Allahu alam.

 

[Ghosty]

For Aquinas, Grace can mean both the outside assistance of God, and the sharing of the Divine Nature by participation. This is the distinction between actual Grace (Divine movement of the soul) and Sanctifying Grace (the Divine Nature added to the soul).

Both are the action of God, but the former is an “action” in the sense of help and motion, while the latter is an abiding presence and Divine quality shared with the soul. They aren’t seperate, per se, but they are quite distinct on the human level.

A quick quote from the Summa which illustrates this point:

Part One of the Second Part, Q110, A2

Now what is substantially in God, becomes accidental in the soul participating the Divine goodness, as is clear in the case of knowledge. And thus because the soul participates in the Divine goodness imperfectly, the participation of the Divine goodness, which is grace, has its being in the soul in a less perfect way than the soul subsists in itself.

In this article he’s explaining how something which is absolutely greater than created nature (namely, the Divine Nature) can yet be “less” than the soul, in the sense that it’s a trait of the soul and not visa-versa. Another good quote, from his articles on Charity, is in the Second Part of the Second Part, Q23, A2:

The Divine Essence Itself is charity, even as It is wisdom and goodness. Wherefore just as we are said to be good with the goodness which is God, and wise with the wisdom which is God (since the goodness whereby we are formally good is a participation of Divine goodness, and the wisdom whereby we are formally wise, is a share of Divine wisdom), so too, the charity whereby formally we love our neighbor is a participation of Divine charity.

The real money quote, however, is from Article 4 of the Question 110 I quoted above:

For as man in his intellective powers participates in the Divine knowledge through the virtue of faith, and in his power of will participates in the Divine love through the virtue of charity, so also in the nature of the soul does he participate in the Divine Nature, after the manner of a likeness, through a certain regeneration or re-creation.

As for the intellect, Aquinas doesn’t limit Divine participation to that at all. On the contrary, Divine participation affects all the aspects of the soul, and actually “takes root” in the soul at the foundation, in the essence of the soul, not at the intellect. As can be seen by the quotes above, it is by our participation in the Divine Nature that we can act with Charity (which is distinct from knowledge, which is part of the virtue of Faith), and Charity governs all of our actions. It is because the Divine Nature is shared with us at the very “root” of our soul, a quality of our essence, that our entire being is transformed by Grace.

As for “bodily participation”, that comes with the Glorification after the Resurrection according to Aquinas. Since at that time the body will be fully subject to the soul (we will have a “spiritual body”), the Grace of the soul will spill over into the body. What that means precisely is not yet revealed, but he makes a few conjectures, and they can be found gathered in the Supplement compiled by his students after his death, in the sections concerning the Resurrection. I think this aspect of Aquinas’ teaching is the most divergent with Palamas, since Aquinas doesn’t deal with (or even apparently accept) bodily manifestations of Divine Grace in this life (which is not the same as bodily manifestations that are signs of Divine Grace, like stigmata and halos and the like, but those are understood to be seperate miracles, rather than direct manifestations of participation in the Divine Nature).

Hope that clears up more than it muddies! Perhaps it will give a better understanding of why I don’t view these two great theologians as being very far off from one another at all.

I definitely gained a lot studying the Summa with the local Dominicans.

Peace and God bless!

 

[anthony022071]

This pretty much misses the point and makes me think that maybe we are just talking past one another here.

How does it miss the point? John says “God is love”,and the word “is” suggests essence. And since we know God is not merely the attribute of love but exists as person,John must have been equating God’s person with love. Love is a person. And a person is an essence.

BUT, all this is knowledge about God. It is ratio not intellectus. The concepts we use to think/speak about God are all abstracted from our experience of creation.

The idea that God is love was not abstracted from the experience of creation,but was revealed to John by his experience of Jesus.

These concepts, however, even when used in as appropriate a way as humanly possible, are inadequate to their object (God).

The names of God that God has given us to use are not inadequate.

A concept does not and absolutely cannot, in the case of God, provide the kind of knowledge that human beings long for: actual living knowledge of the object.

We get that through prayer,obedience,the infusion of the
Holy Spirit,and the Eucharist.

We do not know God because real knowledge involves an intuition of essence. This is unavailable to us in this life.

Real knowledge of God involves partaking of the divine nature,and that is available to us in this life. If we partake of the divine nature,we also partake of the divine essence.

So this is why Thomas says we know THAT but not WHAT God is.

That may be true with natural reason,unaided by revelation and grace,but it is not true with Christian faith. It was not even always true with pagans. Even the Native Americans knew that God was spirit.

We can only know what God is if we have an intuition of essence.

Mankind always did have an intuition of essence. Mankind was
created in God’s image,given God’s breath,taught by God,and
lived in perfect communion with God in Paradise.
Knowledge of God is in mankind’s collective memory.

To think that concepts are adequate to God is rationalism (as opposed to Thomas’s own intellectualism) and Thomas rejects this flat out.

It depends on what he means by “adequate”. The concepts that God has given us are not inadequte. They are useful and truthful.

Since language and concepts are all tied to ratio, they pass away and are no longer needed once there is intellectual intuition in the beatific vision.

There is language in heaven. God’s Word will not pass away or become unnecessary.

 

[Badaliyyah]

For Aquinas, Grace can mean both the outside assistance of God, and the sharing of the Divine Nature by participation. This is the distinction between actual Grace (Divine movement of the soul) and Sanctifying Grace (the Divine Nature added to the soul).

Both are the action of God, but the former is an “action” in the sense of help and motion, while the latter is an abiding presence and Divine quality shared with the soul. They aren’t seperate, per se, but they are quite distinct on the human level.

I glanced quickly at 109-114 this morning before Liturgy, but will try to give it closer reading this afternoon or this evening. In any case, this was helpful, thank you.

I have also been trying where possible to minimize the differences between Palamas and Thomas, trying to emphasize that Palamas insists that we do know the Divine Nature.

Will have to come back to this question of grace in Thomas.

Thanks again
salaam.

 

[Allyson]

How does it miss the point? John says “God is love”,and the word “is” suggests essence. And since we know God is not merely the attribute of love but exists as person,John must have been equating God’s person with love. Love is a person. And a person is an essence.

Hello again Anthony,

Funny, I don’t remember learning that person is an essence when studying the Fathers of the Church, etc. Essence (ousia) is not the same as* hypostatsis* or persona. I think that it is fair to say that what we mean by “person” in English when talking about the Tirinity is hypostasis. Persona and its problems I will leave aside, for the sake of simplicity. What is for sure is that the Fathers of the Church described as 3 in 1 is that there were 3 hypostases that are participating in the 1 ousia, so person is not the same as essence. Even when you speak of men, and use the Scholastic meaning of essence (essentia), i.e. essence is the definition of what a thing is; all men have in common an essence, which I will call “man,” and this is individuated into men and women, who as is happens are persons. In this case, each person has his or her own essence, however, person is still not the same as essence. [NOW: switching back to the Fathers language, since *essentia (a Latin word) is not the same as ousia (a Greek word)] However, in God there is only ONE essence (ousia), that is common to and the same for all three Divine hypostatsis.

As for “God is Love,” what that means all depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is . At least we know that He IS and is Love. Relating this back to person and essence. You say: “John must have been equating God’s person with love.” God has three persons. Which one is Love? (Shooting from the hip,) I would rather say that Love, being in the Divine Nature, is common to all three persons.

God Bless,
R.

 

[anthony022071]

Hello again Anthony,

Funny, I don’t remember learning that person is an essence when studying the Fathers of the Church, etc. Essence (ousia) is not the same as* hypostatsis* or persona. I think that it is fair to say that what we mean by “person” in English when talking about the Tirinity is hypostasis. Persona and its problems I will leave aside, for the sake of simplicity. What is for sure is that the Fathers of the Church described as 3 in 1 is that there were 3 hypostases that are participating in the 1 ousia, so person is not the same as essence.

[NOW: switching back to the Fathers language, since *essentia

(a Latin word) is not the same as ousia (a Greek word)] However, in God there is only ONE essence (ousia), that is common to and the same for all three Divine hypostatsis.

I didn’t say that person meant the same as essence,I said that a person is an essence,meaning,in itself. An essence is not only a universal,but can also be individualized,just as with human nature.

As for “God is Love,” what that means all depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is . At least we know that He IS and is Love. Relating this back to person and essence. You say: “John must have been equating God’s person with love.” God has three persons. Which one is Love?

They are one God,eternally one in being,so it isn’t a question of which one. Although,Augustine described the Holy Spirit as the love between Father and Son.

God has three persons,but God is still called “He”,not “they”. “He” refers to one person. The “He” is one and also three. Since we are talking about eternally consubstantial,spiritual persons,we can call God a person.

(Shooting from the hip,) I would rather say that Love, being in the Divine Nature, is common to all three persons.

God Bless,
R.

The essence is also common to all three persons. I don’t think there is a distinction between God’s nature and God’s essence. And I would say that not only is love in the divine nature,but that love is the divine nature,and therefore the essence.

 

[Badaliyyah]

How does it miss the point? John says “God is love”,and the word “is” suggests essence…

The idea that God is love was not abstracted from the experience of creation,but was revealed to John by his experience of Jesus.
…

The names of God that God has given us to use are not inadequate.
…

We get that through prayer,obedience,the infusion of the
Holy Spirit,and the Eucharist.

Real knowledge of God involves partaking of the divine nature,and that is available to us in this life. If we partake of the divine nature,we also partake of the divine essence.

I am trying to avoid turning a Palamas thread into a Thomas thread, so I will try to keep it brief. It misses the point because you are ignoring all the careful distinctions that Thomas makes with regards to forms of knowledge. Thomas in fact says that God is Love. And God is Love because God is the Good. Thomas even says that, yes, God is essentially the Good (and Being, etc.) since the divine attributes are the divine essence.

None of that means that we have knowledge of the Divine Nature (i.e., the essence) on Thomas’s terms. Even where this knowledge is revealed, it is given to us as information about God, or through the experience of certain effects in creation (providence for instance). Being told that God is Love, even by Jesus himself in person while you are having dinner with him, is NOT knowledge in the full sense of the term for Thomas because it is not an intuition of essence. Even revelation relies on our experience of creation in order to be understood since the concepts that we use to interpret revelation are abstractions arising from the history of human experience (i.e., if I John tells us that God is love, that is a meaningful statement because we have an experience of love. We then try to remove the limitations of finitude from the concept as much as possible, but this is not completely possible because the origin of the knowledge is diverse and complex (not simple)). Moreover Thomas is pretty clear that we do not have such an intellectual intuition in this life.

Your reference to the way in which we “know” things in and through our actions is a good one relative to Thomas. Thomas like most medievals thinks that the practical knowledge of the holy person generally surpasses human ratio, even of the most knowledgeable theologian. [There is the famous example of Br. Elias shouting from St.Bonaventure’s balcony that the pious little old grandmother in Paris knew God better than the mighty Bonaventure.] This is because, to a certain degree, habitus is an even better approximation of intellectual intuition than is discursive ratio (it is more immediate and unreflected than ratio). Yet even here, what the holy person knows in habitus is the creature. They have a knowledge of human virtue, the proper shape of the human soul, the human will and so on, that allows them to speak (if only through their actions) of God (i.e., the Primal Good) by analogy. It is still NOT knoweldge of God in a full sense, and all the language used will still be inadequate. [This will also serve as my comments on grace in Thomas, and the manner in which, it seems to me, that in contrast to Palamas, the Divine Nature remains unknown in this life according to Thomas. Ghosty’s comments are deeply appreciated.]

In all cases, knowledge of God in its most proper sense remains reserved, according to Thomas, for the Beatific Vision.

…Allahu alam.

 

[Allyson]

Hello again Anthony,

Funny, I don’t remember learning that person is an essence when studying the Fathers of the Church, etc. Essence (ousia) is not the same as* hypostatsis* or prosopon. I think that it is fair to say that what we mean by “person” in English when talking about the Tirinity is hypostasis. prosopon and its problems I will leave aside, for the sake of simplicity. What is for sure is that the Fathers of the Church described as 3 in 1 is that there were 3 hypostases that are participating in the 1 ousia, so person is not the same as essence. Even when you speak of men, and use the Scholastic meaning of essence (essentia), i.e. essence is the definition of what a thing is; all men have in common an essence, which I will call “man,” and this is individuated into men and women, who as is happens are persons. In this case, each person has his or her own essence, however, person is still not the same as essence. [NOW: switching back to the Fathers language, since *essentia

(a Latin word) is not the same as ousia (a Greek word)] However, in God there is only ONE essence (ousia), that is common to and the same for all three Divine hypostatsis.

As for “God is Love,” what that means all depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is . At least we know that He IS and is Love. Relating this back to person and essence. You say: “John must have been equating God’s person with love.” God has three persons. Which one is Love? (Shooting from the hip,) I would rather say that Love, being in the Divine Nature, is common to all three persons.

God Bless,
R.

Okay, so when I wen to be I realized that I made a more than silly misnomer here. I typed *persona *rather than prosopon! doh!:banghead:

The above text has been corrected. I intended to use the greek words.

God Bless,
R.

 

[Taboric_Light]

In the end, all theology is apophatic; yet we are able to say real true things about God. The essence/energy distinction accounts for this seeming contradiction. This is not just about knowledge though. We are made for communion with God, so this is also about living.

Barlaam, against whom St. Palamas was defending orthodoxy, basically denied God’s immanence because of His absolute transcendence. Not only does this mean that we cannot know God, it also means that we cannot partake of the Divine Nature. The essence/energy distinction upholds God’s absolute transcendence while maintaining His immanence.

Regarding the Divine Names, they are adequate in a sense. Yes, we can say real things about God: He is love, mercy, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, infinite, etc. In the Eastern approach these are energies; these are God’s attributes, operations, actions, and manifestations. We must hold though that they are also inadequate, for God is more than all of these things. He is more than love, more than mercy, more than omnipotent. He is beyond all of our categories. This was taught by the Cappadocians (Capp.), Pseudo Dionysius (PsD.), and many other Fathers of the Church. Though St. Thomas does not, to my knowledge, say it this way, he too affirms this same truth: “In this way therefore He can be named by us from creatures, yet not so that the name which signifies Him expresses the divine essence in itself;” and “The reason why God has no name, or is said to be above being named, is because His essence is above all that we understand about God and signify in word” [as was referenced earlier (1.13.1)].

In Christ through Mary