Right, I agree. This is what I see.
Not only does it depersonalize grace, but it also turns grace into something other than God Himself, and only God, i.e., His very uncreated life and energy, can divinize a man. Nothing created can make a man energetically eternal and uncreated.
St. Paul is transformed by the uncreated deifying energy instantly and completely, in a neverending fashion, into a new man. To put it another way, St. Paul takes on the divine energies and they, in synergy with his own natural energies, become personally his own, and his state of existence, but not his essence, is change and continues to change (into eternity) as he is more and more divinized moving from glory to glory.
And that “aura” as you call it, is itself uncreated because it is God Himself enhypostatically infused into St. Paul’s own being.
I disagree that St. Paul’s acts are “created”; instead, because they are acts of the uncreated deifying energy within St. Paul, they are uncreated. There is nothing created about grace. So St. Paul is just as God Himself is just, for he possesses and lives the very uncreated justice of God. St. Paul loves as God loves, that is, with the very uncreated love of God which he has received through the eternal and uncreated divine energy of love, etc., and none of these “effects” in St. Paul can be called created, because they are the uncreated charismata of the divinity.
The question of whether or not grace - as it is operative in man - is created or uncreated is not merely an academic debate. The Eastern Churches say - as they have always said - that nothing uncreated can divinize a man; while the West - since the time of the Medieval Scholatistics - has said that grace, as an effect in man, is created. These two viewpoints are not compatible.
The souls (and bodies) of the mystics, like the souls (and bodies) of all the saints becomes uncreated by grace (i.e., by the reception of the divine energy), for all of their activities in the spiritual order have have an uncreated source, and as a consequence are themselves uncreated.
I agree, God is not creating grace, and His gift of the eternal and uncreated energies produces uncreated and eternal effects in each of the persons redeemed by Christ incarnation, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension into glory.
All sounds AOK to me, yes I’m following you. You have solid insight. Much to think about. I happened to be looking at the CC teaching and you don’t see Thomas Aquinas teachings in the Catechism on this, less I overlooked something which is also a reality.
I acknowledge that you believe and accept what you are teaching here. I am not certain that what you say is accurate. I have to go with what the Church teaches and not with what you have “already said”.
Could you link me to the text of the dogma? If you cant find a translation Latin will suffice.
google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CFgQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vatican.va%2Farchive%2Fccc_css%2Farchive%2Fcatechism%2Fp3s1c3a2.htm&ei=LSsDUN3cCanB0QHU4enhBw&usg=AFQjCNEm2y9QPxyixb39EXOVftuz0alyHQ&sig2=2cWQc5l2Vf0JbdZHTnFYfw
The reception of the uncreated energies happens in time but is in itself timeless, and makes the man who receives them eternal and uncreated by grace. Moreover, no “created grace” can make the Holy Spirit, who is by nature, hypostasis, and energy, uncreated dwell within a man. There is no such thing as a “created grace” or a “created God.”
Bishop Kalistos Ware is free to have his own opinion on the matter, but based upon what I have read from saints, like Mark of Ephesus, Gregory Palamas, Basil the Great, et al., he is in error. Only the uncreated can make man uncreated, which is why I reject the teaching of the Western Council of Trent about justification when it says that man is justified by a justice that is not God’s own justice. To be just, or holy, or merciful in the Christian sense requires participation in God’s own energy of justice, holiness, and mercy, and not created habitus can make a man energetically divine.
That is a lovely quotation from St. John Chrysostom’s Baptismal Homilies, and it conforms wonderful with the teaching of the Eastern Church that grace is uncreated, because it does not speak about receiving “created” graces, but speaks about receiving gifts of sanctification, justice, filial adoption, etc., and all of these things are gifts of God’s own being to man, which have the effect of uniting man to God. Nothing created can make a man divine.
That is lovely quotation from scripture that speaks of the energies of God. Thanks for helping to prove my point.
I will have to look through Denzinger, later.
I can’t find where it talks about grace being created, which paragraph is it?
Its not Dogma or in the CCC.
Point "It is impossible to know anything about “Essence” Here I disagree. it is impossible to fully understand Essense.
I don’t know why I ignored this thread before, but I want to say the statement above is beautiful!
The term created is not used specifically, what is used is inhaeret (inheres). The certain dogmatic statement on gratia inhaerens et informans, from the Church, is from the Council of Trent: the permanent state of grace is the same in baptized children and adults. Peter Lombard’s opinion, which was opposed to St. Thomas Aquinas opinion (Summa Theologica 2a 2ae, qu. 23, art. 2), was that sanctifying grace is gratia increata (the Holy Ghost). The Council of Trent settled it saying that sanctifying grace inheres in the soul and may be increased by good works (See Session VI, can 11 ‘inheres’ and can 24 ‘preserved’ ):Session VI, CANON XXIV. - If any one saith, that the justice received is not preserved and also increased before God through good works; but that the said works are merely the fruits and signs of Justification obtained, but not a cause of the increase thereof; let him be anathema.
Very highly appreciated! That paragraph was NOT easy to write…