The Essence-Energies Distinction

[Ghosty]

In all fairness, if you haven’t read the writings of St. Gregory Palamas how can you begin to understand the subtext and foundational meaning of the terms “essence” and “energy” in this context? You want to address the ontological reality these terms refer to, but you don’t know what the terms mean yet, so you can only apply an outside understanding of the terms.

I recommend reading Gregory Palamas: The Triads, from the Classics of Western Spirituality series. I think it will give you a better insight into the nature of the debate between Palamas and Barlaam, which will better frame the terms and doctrine for you.

For instance it is critical to keep in mind that these doctrines were formulated to defend the Apostolic teaching that we participate in the Divine Nature through Grace, something Barlaam denied as he argued that to share the Divine Essence would mean to become another Person of the Trinity, as the Divine Essence is Simple and eternal. Palamas, using the language of Essence and Energy, was articulating how we as creatures can be raised to the level of Divinity through participation, while maintaining the unique and simple Divine Essence that is not taken up by creatures.

Aquinas himself addresses the same subject when he speaks of Grace and how creatures are conformed to the Divine Nature through Grace, enabling them to see God directly. Without this Divine Light creatures can’t see God, and this Divine Light is God Himself enlightening and empowering the creature. Indeed, Aquinas explicitely refers to Grace as a partaking of the Divine Nature (Summa Theologica, Part 1 of the Second Part, q112, art 2). Aquinas deals with the same question, and preserves the same Truth that we indeed partake of the Divine Nature without becoming the Divine Essence, but he navigates the question from a different road of argument and with different terminology.

Finally, it is absolutely critical to understand that when a distinction between Essence and Energy in God is spoken of, it is not being said that the Energy has its own “foundation of being” apart from the Divine Essence; it is being spoken of in the same way that we might say that there is a distinction between what I am and what I am doing. Reading Palamas’ own writings will likely help clear this up quite a bit, as you will become familiar with the relationship between Essence and Energy that he is working from.

Peace and God bless!

 

[PluniaZ]

In all fairness, if you haven’t read the writings of St. Gregory Palamas how can you begin to understand the subtext and foundational meaning of the terms “essence” and “energy” in this context? You want to address the ontological reality these terms refer to, but you don’t know what the terms mean yet, so you can only apply an outside understanding of the terms.

I recommend reading Gregory Palamas: The Triads, from the Classics of Western Spirituality series. I think it will give you a better insight into the nature of the debate between Palamas and Barlaam, which will better frame the terms and doctrine for you.

For instance it is critical to keep in mind that these doctrines were formulated to defend the Apostolic teaching that we participate in the Divine Nature through Grace, something Barlaam denied as he argued that to share the Divine Essence would mean to become another Person of the Trinity, as the Divine Essence is Simple and eternal. Palamas, using the language of Essence and Energy, was articulating how we as creatures can be raised to the level of Divinity through participation, while maintaining the unique and simple Divine Essence that is not taken up by creatures.

Aquinas himself addresses the same subject when he speaks of Grace and how creatures are conformed to the Divine Nature through Grace, enabling them to see God directly. Without this Divine Light creatures can’t see God, and this Divine Light is God Himself enlightening and empowering the creature. Indeed, Aquinas explicitely refers to Grace as a partaking of the Divine Nature (Summa Theologica, Part 1 of the Second Part, q112, art 2). Aquinas deals with the same question, and preserves the same Truth that we indeed partake of the Divine Nature without becoming the Divine Essence, but he navigates the question from a different road of argument and with different terminology.

Finally, it is absolutely critical to understand that when a distinction between Essence and Energy in God is spoken of, it is not being said that the Energy has its own “foundation of being” apart from the Divine Essence; it is being spoken of in the same way that we might say that there is a distinction between what I am and what I am doing. Reading Palamas’ own writings will likely help clear this up quite a bit, as you will become familiar with the relationship between Essence and Energy that he is working from.

Peace and God bless!

Because it didn’t take until the 14th Century for the Church to figure out the fundamental nature of God? If you are conceding that the statements I posted have no justification prior to the 14th Century, you aren’t giving me much incentive to shell out money for a book written by a potential heretic.

 

[Ghosty]

Because it didn’t take until the 14th Century for the Church to figure out the fundamental nature of God? If you are conceding that the statements I posted have no justification prior to the 14th Century, you aren’t giving me much incentive to shell out money for a book written by a potential heretic.

If you want to understand what you’re talking about you are going to have to actually read the material in question. If you aren’t going to read it then no discussion, and certainly no debate, is going to happen.

This Council arose out of a theological debate in the Byzantine Empire that occured during that particular time period. Up until that point the debate had not had such public consequences. Would you concede that the Church took almost 2000 years to figure out that the Pope was the center of unity in the Faith? To decide that Mary was Assumed into Heaven? Such an argument fails immediately.

Read the material that is available so you can discuss the points being made by the Council. I assure you that you won’t understand the concepts and context without some of that knowledge.

Furthermore, St. Gregory Palamas is a Saint of the Catholic Church, and we celebrate his Feast Day. It is silly to call him a potential heretic.

Peace and God bless!

 

[PluniaZ]

In all fairness, if you haven’t read the writings of St. Gregory Palamas how can you begin to understand the subtext and foundational meaning of the terms “essence” and “energy” in this context? You want to address the ontological reality these terms refer to, but you don’t know what the terms mean yet, so you can only apply an outside understanding of the terms.

I recommend reading Gregory Palamas: The Triads, from the Classics of Western Spirituality series. I think it will give you a better insight into the nature of the debate between Palamas and Barlaam, which will better frame the terms and doctrine for you.

For instance it is critical to keep in mind that these doctrines were formulated to defend the Apostolic teaching that we participate in the Divine Nature through Grace, something Barlaam denied as he argued that to share the Divine Essence would mean to become another Person of the Trinity, as the Divine Essence is Simple and eternal. Palamas, using the language of Essence and Energy, was articulating how we as creatures can be raised to the level of Divinity through participation, while maintaining the unique and simple Divine Essence that is not taken up by creatures.

Aquinas himself addresses the same subject when he speaks of Grace and how creatures are conformed to the Divine Nature through Grace, enabling them to see God directly. Without this Divine Light creatures can’t see God, and this Divine Light is God Himself enlightening and empowering the creature. Indeed, Aquinas explicitely refers to Grace as a partaking of the Divine Nature (Summa Theologica, Part 1 of the Second Part, q112, art 2). Aquinas deals with the same question, and preserves the same Truth that we indeed partake of the Divine Nature without becoming the Divine Essence, but he navigates the question from a different road of argument and with different terminology.

Finally, it is absolutely critical to understand that when a distinction between Essence and Energy in God is spoken of, it is not being said that the Energy has its own “foundation of being” apart from the Divine Essence; it is being spoken of in the same way that we might say that there is a distinction between what I am and what I am doing. Reading Palamas’ own writings will likely help clear this up quite a bit, as you will become familiar with the relationship between Essence and Energy that he is working from.

Peace and God bless!

You are skipping over the question posed by the thread (what exists?) to a different question (how do the things that exist relate to each other?). Before we talk about relations between what exists (in this case, between God and man), we need to establish what exists.

So I will pose the question very simply. Please answer yes or no to the following:

1. Does God’s essence exist?
2. Does creation exist?
3. Does anything else exist?

 

[Ghosty]

You are skipping over the question posed by the thread (what exists?) to a different question (how do the things that exist relate to each other?). Before we talk about relations between what exists (in this case, between God and man), we need to establish what exists.

So I will pose the question very simply. Please answer yes or no to the following:

1. Does God’s essence exist?
2. Does creation exist?
3. Does anything else exist?

It isn’t clear to me that you have the understanding of this particular Palamite theological language necessary to engage in such a discussion. Unless we are on the same page then any answer I give you can be easily misconstrued as you process it through different categories and definitions than the ones I am using.

The best I can say is that only God and creatures exist, and that the Divine Energy is God. Anything more than that will require you to do some reading. For example, in Palamite theological language you would not say that God’s essence “exists”, because that term carries connotations that can’t apply to an infinite essence.

 

[PluniaZ]

It isn’t clear to me that you have the understanding of this particular Palamite theological language necessary to engage in such a discussion. Unless we are on the same page then any answer I give you can be easily misconstrued as you process it through different categories and definitions than the ones I am using.

The best I can say is that only God and creatures exist, and that the Divine Energy is God. Anything more than that will require you to do some reading. For example, in Palamite theological language you would not say that God’s essence “exists”, because that term carries connotations that can’t apply to an infinite essence.

I can think of no other theological question where direct questions are avoided to such an extant as this one, where an appeal is made to the special language of a doctrine’s author rather than to the plain statements of a church council, where there is such refusal to discuss basic terms such as what exists, and where there is such desperation to divert the topic to any question other than the one being asked.

 

[Ghosty]

I can think of no other theological question where direct questions are avoided to such an extant as this one, where an appeal is made to the special language of a doctrine’s author rather than to the plain statements of a church council, where there is such refusal to discuss basic terms such as what exists, and where there is such desperation to divert the topic to any question other than the one being asked.

The problem is that without understanding the context you can’t understand the “plain statements” of the council.

Sometimes translation is simple, and sometimes it is very difficult. In all cases you must have common ground between the languages.

What specifically is your concern about Divine Energy? It is the living activity of Divinity, not some separate thing that has its own existence. Without understanding what is meant by “essence” in Palamite language, and specifically the debate between Barlaam and St. Gregory, you won’t get much further in understanding why the distinction is emphasized by the Council of Constantinople. The term essence is broader in Latin theology, and includes what is termed “energy” in the Palamite tradition.

 

[Wesrock]

The problem is that without understanding the context you can’t understand the “plain statements” of the council.

Sometimes translation is simple, and sometimes it is very difficult. In all cases you must have common ground between the languages.

What specifically is your concern about Divine Energy? It is the living activity of Divinity, not some separate thing that has its own existence. Without understanding what is meant by “essence” in Palamite language, and specifically the debate between Barlaam and St. Gregory, you won’t get much further in understanding why the distinction is emphasized by the Council of Constantinople. The term essence is broader in Latin theology, and includes what is termed “energy” in the Palamite tradition.

If the Essence is not the Energy, and the Energy is not the Essence, and they are both uncreated and both God, and these are not just relational differences of the same nature (otherwise we’d have a fourth person of the Trinity), how do we not call it a composition and a denial of divine simplicity?

 

[PluniaZ]

The problem is that without understanding the context you can’t understand the “plain statements” of the council.

Sometimes translation is simple, and sometimes it is very difficult. In all cases you must have common ground between the languages.

What specifically is your concern about Divine Energy? It is the living activity of Divinity, not some separate thing that has its own existence. Without understanding what is meant by “essence” in Palamite language, and specifically the debate between Barlaam and St. Gregory, you won’t get much further in understanding why the distinction is emphasized by the Council of Constantinople. The term essence is broader in Latin theology, and includes what is termed “energy” in the Palamite tradition.

Constantinople said that the energy proceeds from the essence. No Church Father ever spoke of any kind of procession in God other than the generation of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit. And both the Son and the Holy Spirit exist … in fact they are beyond existence as Saint John of Damascus would say. So it would be quite odd if the third procession did not also exist.

Moreover, you are giving evasive answers when you say the energy does not have “its own separate existence.” I acknowledged in my original post that Constantinople considers the essence and the energy to be “undivided” and in a “union”, i.e. inseparable. The problem is that you can say the same thing about our Lord’s human nature and divine nature - they are inseparable, and yet they result in composition, as Saint John of Damascus explicitly says. So simply saying"not separate" doesn’t get you to “not composite”. To get out of composite, you have to address Constantinople’s claim that there is no composition between a nature and its properties, and reconcile this with the Synod of Rheims.

Finally, if the meaning of these terms is so obscure, so hard to explain, and so easily misunderstood as claiming the existence of two uncreateds, then Constantinople was wrong to authoritatively state them as authoritative church doctrine. Constantinople should have simply said, “Gregory Palamas wrote some insightful things, and we encourage people to study his writings under proper theological supervision.”

 

[Ghosty]

If the Essence is not the Energy, and the Energy is not the Essence, and they are both uncreated and both God, and these are not just relational differences of the same nature (otherwise we’d have a fourth person of the Trinity), how do we not call it a composition and a denial of divine simplicity?

Energy and Essence aren’t two “things”. We can’t speak of the Divine Energy as an object of inquiry that exists apart from the Divine Essence. The Divine Energy is the Divine Nature as it is active and communicable to creatures. It is not the Essence because, in Eastern terminology, the Essence is explicitely that which is utterly incommunicable.

God Communicates His Divine Nature to us, but the Essence refers to that which is uniquely God and uncommunicable. So another aspect of speaking of the Divine Nature must be used to refer to the communicable aspect of the Divine Nature, and this is the Divine Energy.

 

[Ghosty]

Constantinople said that the energy proceeds from the essence. No Church Father ever spoke of any kind of procession in God other than the generation of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit. And both the Son and the Holy Spirit exist … in fact they are beyond existence as Saint John of Damascus would say. So it would be quite odd if the third procession did not also exist.

Moreover, you are giving evasive answers when you say the energy does not have “its own separate existence.” I acknowledged in my original post that Constantinople considers the essence and the energy to be “undivided” and in a “union”, i.e. inseparable. The problem is that you can say the same thing about our Lord’s human nature and divine nature - they are inseparable, and yet they result in composition, as Saint John of Damascus explicitly says. So simply saying"not separate" doesn’t get you to “not composite”. To get out of composite, you have to address Constantinople’s claim that there is no composition between a nature and its properties, and reconcile this with the Synod of Rheims.

Finally, if the meaning of these terms is so obscure, so hard to explain, and so easily misunderstood as claiming the existence of two uncreateds, then Constantinople was wrong to authoritatively state them as authoritative church doctrine. Constantinople should have simply said, “Gregory Palamas wrote some insightful things, and we encourage people to study his writings under proper theological supervision.”

Seriously, read the actual material and this will be much, much simpler to understand. Since you aren’t used to working with terms like procession in this context and don’t know how it is being used you are reading meaning into it that simply isn’t there.

The Council of Constantinople wasn’t using Latin theological terminology and definitions, and you are merely reading an English translation of them. If it makes a difference, the filioque is utterly heretical in Greek, so this does go both ways.

 

[PluniaZ]

Seriously, read the actual material and this will be much, much simpler to understand. Since you aren’t used to working with terms like procession in this context and don’t know how it is being used you are reading meaning into it that simply isn’t there.

The Council of Constantinople wasn’t using Latin theological terminology and definitions, and you are merely reading an English translation of them. If it makes a difference, the filioque is utterly heretical in Greek, so this does go both ways.

I will certainly read the Triads - I have them on order. But if you have read them, and are probably more expert in them than I will ever be, and yet you can’t explain their argument, then I have doubts as to how fruitful my reading of them will be.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria and Saint John of Damascus did not write in Latin. In fact, none of the Greek fathers said anything like that which was declared by the 14th century councils in Constantinople. The fact that you can’t cite anyone prior to Gregory Palamas for this doctrine is troubling. It’s like a Protestant saying, “Just read Martin Luther and it will all make sense.”

 

[PluniaZ]

Energy and Essence aren’t two “things”. We can’t speak of the Divine Energy as an object of inquiry that exists apart from the Divine Essence. The Divine Energy is the Divine Nature as it is active and communicable to creatures. It is not the Essence because, in Eastern terminology, the Essence is explicitely that which is utterly incommunicable.

God Communicates His Divine Nature to us, but the Essence refers to that which is uniquely God and uncommunicable. So another aspect of speaking of the Divine Nature must be used to refer to the communicable aspect of the Divine Nature, and this is the Divine Energy.

Again with the vague language - “exists apart from”. I have acknowledged from the first post that Constantinople does not claim the energy has an existence “apart from” the essence. The question is whether it has a distinct existence.

Moreover, claiming that the energy has the property of being communicable, while the essence is not communicable, means that God has two conflicting properties. This simply doesn’t make sense. God is either communicable, or He isn’t.

Finally, I have observed in other discussions that everything Constantinople says about the energy can be applied to how Rome describes the divine essence - the one difference is that Rome does not believe there is an apophatic cause. The notion of cause and effect in God (other than in the sense of the generation of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit) is yet another doctrine completely absent in the Church before the 14th century. But it is explicit in the Neoplatonists’ teachings on God.

The real difference between Rome and Constantinople seems to be that Constantinople declared in the 14th century that there exists a hidden, unknowable apophatic cause of God’s energy, whereas Rome maintains that God’s energy has no cause - God’s energy is God’s essence and is without cause.

 

[Ghosty]

I will certainly read the Triads - I have them on order. But if you have read them, and are probably more expert in them than I will ever be, and yet you can’t explain their argument, then I have doubts as to how fruitful my reading of them will be.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria and Saint John of Damascus did not write in Latin. In fact, none of the Greek fathers said anything like that which was declared by the 14th century councils in Constantinople. The fact that you can’t cite anyone prior to Gregory Palamas for this doctrine is troubling. It’s like a Protestant saying, “Just read Martin Luther and it will all make sense.”

I can certainly explain the ideas, but we need a foundation of understanding first. Reading the Triads will help with that, then we can discuss what the teaching means. Without that foundation we simply don’t have the tools to work with, like trying to explain accidents and substance to someone with a highschool vocabulary and a nominalist philosophy.

Honestly, the material isn’t hard to grasp, it’s just foreign and extremely non-technical in orientation. It’s like trying to understand Thomism by reading the Interior Castle (St. Theresa of Avila) and Ascent of Mt. Carmel (St. John of the Cross). The Hesychast controversy is like a theological debate between a late Thomist and a mystic Carmelite, as it arose from a disagreement between a “school” theologian with nominalist tendencies (Barlaam) and a mystic that relied on flowery descriptives (St. Gregory).

In short, Barlaam was perturbed by the claims of mystic monks to “see the Divine Light”, and denied that a direct vision of God was possible. St. Gregory attempted to explain how it could be possible, and how the Divine Nature is truly shared with creatures in a supernatural way without creatures becoming Divine in essence (after all, if the Divine Nature is infinite and simple, isn’t sharing it in any way a swallowing up of created essence and elevation to Divine Personhood; not saying this is necessarily the case, but rather that this is the type of difficulty that must be explored and explained). In the West this debate didn’t have the same Church-shaking fallout that it did in the Byzantine East, but you can see the same knotty problems addressed by brilliant theologians like St. Thomas Aquinas (who gives the best Western explanation I can imagine).

I have no doubt you will understand it. It isn’t a matter of intelligence, just exposure to the information.

 

[Ghosty]

Maybe an imperfect but easy analogy might help put some context on these ideas. Thought can be understood as the effect of the mind, to proceed from the mind, but it isn’t something distinct from the mind, and the mind has thought practically by definition. Even though thinking and mind can be considered distinctly, they can’t be said to be truly seperate. Thought is literally an essential, natural energy of mind, as is in a certain sense defining of the mind (there is no mind without thought), but it also follows from the mind and not the other way around.

The distinction between Essence and Energy is a bit like this; we can share in God’s Thought (Sanctifying Grace, Beatific Vision) but the Mind of God belongs to the Trinity in a unique and special way that we can not possess. It is an imperfect analogy, but hopefully it helps illustrate the concepts a bit better.

The distinction preserves the uniqueness of God, but the unity highlights the true sharing of Divine Nature with creatures. The West simply approached this conundrum from a different angle.

 

[Wesrock]

Energy and Essence aren’t two “things”. We can’t speak of the Divine Energy as an object of inquiry that exists apart from the Divine Essence. The Divine Energy is the Divine Nature as it is active and communicable to creatures. It is not the Essence because, in Eastern terminology, the Essence is explicitely that which is utterly incommunicable.

God Communicates His Divine Nature to us, but the Essence refers to that which is uniquely God and uncommunicable. So another aspect of speaking of the Divine Nature must be used to refer to the communicable aspect of the Divine Nature, and this is the Divine Energy.

So, this may be butchery, but if I were to think of this in more western terminology, the eastern “essence” and “energies” are actually one in the divine nature/essence, but we distinguish between what humans can receive/comprehend in some fashion, not as separate substances stricttly delineated between receivable and unreceivable, but simply referring to what comprehension humans have and what they don’t? The distinction is entirely between what humans experience of the (western) essence and what they don’t?

 

[Ghosty]

So, this may be butchery, but if I were to think of this in more western terminology, the eastern “essence” and “energies” are actually one in the divine nature/essence, but we distinguish between what humans can receive/comprehend in some fashion, not as separate substances stricttly delineated between receivable and unreceivable, but simply referring to what comprehension humans have and what they don’t? The distinction is entirely between what humans experience of the (western) essence and what they don’t?

That would be a good way to translate it into “Westernese”, I believe. The difficulty arises in the fact that the term “essence” isn’t being used univocally. In the Palamite usage of the term one can’t participate in an essence without becoming that essence, and in the case of participating in a simple and infinite essence this would annihilate the composite and finite essence of the creature.

It isn’t that this difficulty isn’t recognized in the West, just that it is handled differently. Where in the West one might say that there are aspects of the simple Divine Essence that a creature may participate in directly without becoming the Divine Essence, the Palamite distinction is drawn between the unsharable (outside of the Trinity) Divine Essence, the root and foundation of Divinity as Divinity, and the active “flowing forth” of Divinity that is communicable like the heat of a fire, which is understood as the Divine Energy. They are both the Divine Nature, but are related as cause and effect in the same manner we might say “the heat of the fire” and not “the fire of the heat”.

So while Aquinas might say that we participate in the Divine Essence in a non-comprehensive manner, Palamas would say that we don’t participate in the Divine Essence, but in Its natural, Divine Energy. Both approaches preserve the logical boundary between the finite created essence and the infinite Divine Essence while also preserving Truth that we do indeed share in the Divine Nature directly, something Barlaam denied and Palamas defended.

The important thing to understand is that the Divine Energy isn’t some seperate entity, it’s the Energy of the Divine Essence. One might say it is they activity and accessibility of the Divine, and it is simple and shared between all Persons of the Trinity naturally, and shared with creatures in Grace.

 

[Expatreprocedit]

First of all, this topic does NOT belong in “Philosophy”. It is a matter of Theology, not Philosophy. When you are citing fathers and church councils, you are not in the realm of pure philosophy anymore.

Second, I gave a detailed answer on the scriptural bases for the essence/energies distinction back on the Eastern Catholicism forum that the OP chose to ignore. It goes all the way back to Moses on Mt. Sinai not being able to look God “in the face”, but being able to look upon God’s “back”. Plenty of verses in the NT confirm this.

 

[Ghosty]

First of all, this topic does NOT belong in “Philosophy”. It is a matter of Theology, not Philosophy. When you are citing fathers and church councils, you are not in the realm of pure philosophy anymore.

Point us to the Theology forum and we will take it there.

Second, I gave a detailed answer on the scriptural bases for the essence/energies distinction back on the Eastern Catholicism forum that the OP chose to ignore. It goes all the way back to Moses on Mt. Sinai not being able to look God “in the face”, but being able to look upon God’s “back”. Plenty of verses in the NT confirm this.

None of those citations really address the question being asked, however. There are many ways to say the same thing without the wording the OP finds problematic.

He has a fair question, even if hos approach is off-putting.

 

[Expatreprocedit]

Point us to the Theology forum and we will take it there.

None of those citations really address the question being asked, however. There are many ways to say the same thing without the wording the OP finds problematic.

He has a fair question, even if hos approach is off-putting.

It was in the Eastern Catholicism forum, where it probably belonged, bu the OP did not like the way the discussion was going, so moved it here. I guess it doesn’t matter that much where it is. But this ISN’T a matter simply of philosophy. It can’t be settled by purely rational analysis, because it is a matter of Revelation. I think you would agree with me there.