www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Hesychasm

Dear Photios,

The book I'm referring to is 'Saint Gregory Palamas As A Hagiorite' by Metropolitan Nafpaktos Hierotheos. It's translator is Esther Williams, (not the movie star).

I believe it is a recent book and my suspicions are that it was translated in order to combat the subtle 'heresies' that have been entering into the GOA during this past decade. Of course these are only my suspicions so take it as you will.

Zenovia

Harmon read my paper that I linked to above and you'll see why.

One of the advantage points at looking at this issue from the stand-point of free-choice instead of participation is that it gives you some theological traction of just why the distinction is necessary.

A direct participation in the essence of God renders the mode of one's willing inevitable (i.e. predestinarian). Hence, it's not difficult to see how God is impossible without creation and creation impossible without God. The distinction between person and nature is lost, where all of man's acts are rendered inevitable by a simple will of God.

Daniel

I posted the following explanation at another forum, and it, along with some other brief essays I've written can be found on my website by clicking on the link entitled The Doctrine of Theosis [geocities.com] .

Here is the explanation:

As a graduate student at Franciscan University I can access the UMI Dissertation Services website through the university library webpage. In order to find dissertations that might interest me or which might be helpful in my own research projects, I do a search based on various theological topics, and that is how I found Fr. Hussey's dissertation and then I ordered a copy of it. I've ordered several other dissertations including but not limited to: "Methexis" by Eric David Perl, "The Quest for the Divine Presence" by Scott Pentecost, "Perichoresis in the Context of Divinization" by Elena Vishnevskaya, and many others.

God bless,
Todd

Todd,

Thanks. I have also obtained Perl's dissertation on Maximus through UMI, so if that is the proper protocol for obtaining Hussey's dissertation, I will go there.

Daniel

John (Harmon3110),

I think the following explanation may also be of some help in understanding the nature of theosis:

Daniel,

I wanted to let you know that I agree with what you have said about St. Athanasius in your paper, and I recommend Khaled Anatolios' book Athanasius: The coherence of his Thought, if you haven't already read it. If my memory serves me, he deals with the issue of the distinction between what is natural, i.e., proper to the Father, and the free creative activity of the divine will.

Than you both, Todd and Daniel, for your responses.

Your level of knowledge is way out of my league, and I withdraw my question.

All I can say is this, in reference to my simplistic understanding: God reaches out to us in Christ and the Holy Spirit, and in that is our salvation and sanctification.

--John

John,

I apologize if I came on too strong in my other posts. I am a rather zealous person.

My main interest is in ensuring that man's participation in God is real, and that is what ultimately attracted me to the theology of St. Maximos the Confessor and St. Gregory Palamas.

The trouble I have had with the Western view of grace is centered on the belief that grace is a created reality. I do not see how a created reality can deify a man.

The Eastern doctrine of the uncreated energies bridges the gap between the uncreated and the created, and does so without falling into pantheism, because man does not change in his essential reality, but comes into direct contact with God in a true synergy of activity.

Moreover, the Eastern teaching guarantees that man's encounter with God is always, and by definition, "personal," because the divine energies are the personalized (enhypostatic) enactments of the divine essence by the three divine persons: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thus, when a man participates in the uncreated divine energies, he comes into direct personal communion with the tri-hypostatic God.

Now, if grace is simply a created thing, it follows that it becomes a mere created effect of God, and so it cannot be a real personal participation in God's own uncreated life and glory.

I hope this post is helpful,

God bless,
Todd

Todd, here's the next issue to work out. How is Rome the Church if she doesn't have continuity with the Nicene tradition or perhaps lost this continuity with the advent of the Frankish theologians in their battle with Photius over the Filioque. The issue of the filioque is tied up with absolute divine simplicity by my lights. If the filioque and absolute simplicity are dogma (ADS @ Lateran IV and Vatican I; and the filioque @ Lyons and Florence) , that would be a big problem, and the Orthodox would have the continuity with Tradition and not Rome.

Thoughts?

Daniel

Dear Apotheoun,

In your last post you stated that the West believes Grace as being created, yet Myles stated the following in a previous post:

" Uncreated grace is sanctifying grace, created grace is gratitous grace. The use of the terms of uncreated and created grace are particularly confusing to me as a student of the Doctor of the Schools. Alex makes an important point that the Roman theological system is not understand within the contemporary Roman Catholic Church at large."

Zenovia

I confess my ignorance as to whether or not the Roman Church does confess that God is absolutely simple. However, if she does she will be doing little more than following the Thomist line and I see little problem with that.

Having read your essay I see little if any divergence from what I have learnt from St Thomas Aquinas about God. We have gone over this previously and I confess my slowness of intellect in saying I cannot see how the Doctor of Schools' teaching fundamentally diverges from that of St Maximus the Confessor. Evidently, Von Balthasar didnt see it either because he was an enthusiastic support of the filioque and St Maximus.

Moreover, St Thomas when dealing with the question "whether essence and existence are the same in God?" (Summa Theol.I.3.4) [newadvent.org] raises the objection:

To which he responds:

Is there that much distance between St Thomas' doctrine of God's essence and existence and the Greek school of thought on the same issue?

PS) Thank you to all the people who kindly responded to my supplication for prayer and enjoined me to stay here. For the time being I'll stay put

PPS) Zenovia the West's view on the division of grace [newadvent.org] is treated fully here.

Zenovia,

Let me begin by saying that my own views on the nature of grace have been in flux for many years now. I was after all a member of the Roman Rite for 17 years, but it is also important to note that I changed rites primarily because of this very issue.

That being said, I agree that the West speaks of grace (at least at times and in certain conditions) as uncreated, and that the difference between East and West, at least in my opinion, is centered more on the nature of grace after it is infused into man.

The West tends to see grace as being configured, for lack of a better word, to the nature of the person into whom it is infused, and so, once grace is infused into man it takes on the characteristics of its recipient. Now, this idea is foreign to the Eastern conception of grace and how it operates, for grace can never be thought of as "created," since it is God Himself outside of His essence.

In opposition to the Western notion, St. Gregory Palamas holds that man takes on the characteristics of grace, so that rather than grace becoming in some way created after being infused into man, it is instead man himself who becomes uncreated by grace. In other words, it is not grace that is changed, but man himself who is changed by his encounter with the uncreated God, not of course at the level of essential nature, but at the level of energy. For as Fr. Hussey put it:

"When we are deified, we are truly united to God; we share in His life; we become, in a sense, �uncreated� by our participation in the divine uncreated energy. Yet we do not cease to be creatures; we do not lose our natural identity; we are not swallowed up by God or absorbed into Him. Rather, the three divine persons communicate their natural energy to us in such a way that we possess it personally but not naturally. Our nature and our natural energy remain intact. Yet the divine energy is a personalized energy for us since it becomes an enhypostaton of our persons. Because the energy is transmissible from one person to another, there exists for man the possibility of a personal communion with God that does not confuse natures." [Hussey, The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Theology of Gregory Palamas, page 41]

I am not sure that Thomas, and the Scholastic theologians in general, could assent to this understanding of the nature of grace and deification. But perhaps I have not properly understood Thomas' views on theosis.

These are rather complex theological issues.

As far as the Catholic teaching on absolute divine simplicity is concerned, I agree with what you said in the comments section of the "Energies of the Trinity" blog, where you compared the teaching of Lateran IV and St. John Damascene. I do not believe that the Roman Church has endorsed a philosophical conception of divine simplicity as a dogma of divine and catholic faith. Certainly, the Augustinian tradition, which clearly pushes this idea, is very important in the Western Church, but I would not reduce the teaching of the Western Church to what St. Augustine taught.

On the filioque issue, I hold a nuanced position that permits an eternal manifestation of the Spirit from the Son, not at the level of essence or hypostasis, but at the level of the uncreated divine energy. Fr. Hussey explains this idea in the second, fourth, and fifth chapters of his dissertation, and I think he is correct in his understanding of St. Gregory Palamas' doctrine on the eternal energetic procession (or manifestation) of the Spirit from the Son.

Moreover, the Vatican's clarification on the filioque issued back in the mid-1990s is helpful here, because it is an admission by the Western Church, at the highest level of its Magisterial authority, that the Father alone is the cause of both the hypostasis of the Son, and the hypostasis of the Spirit. Thus, it is an admission that the Son does not participate in the origination of the hypostatic reality of the Spirit.

There are many other things that I could say on these topics, but I need to eat dinner.



God bless,
Todd

Myles,

Maximus believes that all the names we predicate of God are true, but none of them are the divine essence. In fact, for Maximus, they are metaphysically distinct. To be blunt, Existence is not essence in God for Maximus. For Thomas, all the names we predicate of God say something about his essence, except that their mode of employment is faulty, but still true about the essence of God. For example, God's will is identical to His essence, as is his knowledge, and so on. For Maximus they are not his essence, because God is essentially no Being at all for Him: He's on the other side of Being or Beyond Being.

They couldn't possibly anymore different.

Daniel