www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Joint Declaration - JPII and Bartholomew I about the Filioque?

There is no need to apologize; but sadly, since these unnamed individuals are unwilling to dialogue on this issue, I cannot really accept an anonymous "critique" of my position. Thus, I will simply have to stick with the teaching of St. Maximos, St. Gregory Palamas, and the other Fathers who clearly teach this doctrine. Moreover, Fr. Meyendorff, along with the other modern Orthodox authors that I mentioned in my previous post, are hardly what one would call "radical" or "fringe" theologians; and so, I will -- until it is proven that they are wrong -- have to stand with them as far as the doctrine of uncreated theosis is concerned.

God bless,
Todd

Mary,

When a man participates in the uncreated energies he becomes uncreated because divinity itself (i.e., the divine energy) is uncreated. In other words, if a man has been truly divinized, he has also become uncreated.

Now, just as the eternal Logos became man without ceasing to be God; so too, the man divnized by the gift of uncreated theosis becomes uncreated without ceasing (in his own nature) to be a creature. Like the incarnate Logos the divinized man is both created and uncreated.

That said, do you believe that there is such a thing as "created" divinity?

God bless,
Todd

Oh good heavens no!! Nobody has suggested that you not pursue things in whatever direction you are led. It was not a good idea to do that blind but as I said I really was curious to know if I had been missing something all these years. The modern scholars and contemporary scholars, and their various interpretations of the Fathers, may not fully express the mind of the Church, but their work is not worthless, and no one is suggesting that it is at all. I have only bookmarked the Mirobilis article that you sent but I'll have a look at it tomorrow.

Good night and thanks for your efforts and the update on your schooling and current activities.

Mary

Mary,

I will still post the sources and quotations for you, but I will not be able to begin doing that until tomorrow.

God bless and sleep well,
Todd

No. Not like the Incarnation.

The Incarnate one is not Incarnate by grace.

He is not created at all.

He takes on creatureliness which is something entirely other. In no way does he come to his humanity as the rest of humanity does.

Birds and bees for the rest of us, and all that ya know....

The divinized man has a share in the divine life by grace.

There is a huge difference, not just distinction, between the Incarnate Logos, truly God, truly Man, and the divinized creature, divinized by grace.

These are the kinds of things that had my anonymous friends a tad concerned.

Mary

I would like that very much. If I can help let me know. Take your time. I'm not going anywhere and I am not going to loose interest.

I know you are logged off, but I wish you pleasant dreams and God's blessings.

Mary

Dear Otsheylnik,

Actually, yes - the impediment to union would not then be the Filioque itself. IF the Orthodox can accept the Filioque as a product of the Western scholastic tradition (and in that sense, "necessary' for the West) as long as it is not imposed on the East AND as long as the universal Creed the entire Church would use adheres to the original, then there should be no problem.

Good night - and good night to Mary and Todd as well! I must say that I was very impressed by the warm and cordial exchange between Mary and Todd just now.

I will sleep better for it too . . .

Alex

Dear Alex,

I think the subtle difference between us, having thought about it, is I think that by saying the west means different things is in effect a statment of "meaning to emphasise different things". I affirm that I believe that the West means different things but do not think that they are contradictory or exclusive empahses; the Trinity is big enough for different usages and emphases.

I agree absoloutely with your thrust that once the orthodox accept the Filioque as representative of scholastic tradition, etc, union is possible. I'm also comfortable with the idea that VERY different emphases can mean that in effect they state different things, but that the all encompassing nature of the Trinity can render these emphases non-conflicting.

Ned

A quotation about becoming uncreated from the book called, Person in the Orthodox Tradition, by Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos.

"What has been said is needed in order for us to understand the limits of human freedom and also to understand how freedom, independence, functions in the saints. As we shall see in what follows, the saint's independent will, precisely because he is favored with divine grace, always moves naturally towards the good. When I speak of a saint I mean the deified person who partakes of God's deifying energy. The Apostle Paul offers this witness: 'It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.' (Gal. 2:20) He has the certainty that Christ lives in him, and so elsewhere too he says: 'Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.' (1 Cor. 11:1) St. Gregory Palamas, bearer of the same Revelation, interpreting this teaching of the Apostle, says: 'Do you see clearly that grace is uncreated? Not only is such grace uncreated, but also the result of this sort of energy of God is uncreated; and the great Paul, no longer living the temporal life but the divine and eternal life of the indwelling word, came to be without beginning and without end by grace.' And a little further on: 'Paul was a created being until he lived the life which had come about by God's command; then he no longer lived this life but a life which had become indwelt by God, become uncreated by grace: and wholly possessing only the living and acting word of God.' In the Apostle's words and in the interpretation by St. Gregory Palamas, champion of the theologians, it is clear that a man who has been united with Christ, who has attained illumination and deification, by grace becomes uncreated and without beginning, because he has the living Christ within him. And St. Maximos the Confessor, interpreting the words of the Apostle Paul that Melchizedek, who is a type of Christ, was 'without father, without mother, without genealogy' (Heb. 7:3), writes: 'The person who has mortified the earthly aspects of himself, thoroughly extinguishing the will of the flesh within him and repudiating the attachment to it which splits asunder the love we owe to God alone; who has disowned all the modalities of the flesh and the world for the sake of divine grace . . . -- such a person has become, like Melchizedek, without father, without mother, without descent. For because of the union with the Spirit that has taken place within him he cannot now be dominated by flesh or by nature.'" [Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos, Person in the Orthodox Tradition, (Birth of the Theotokos Monastery, 1999), Chapter VI, Section 1e]

A quotation about becoming uncreated from Fr. John Meyendorff's book entitled, A Study of Gregory Palamas.

"The miraculous power of the Saints, which in potentiality belongs to all the baptized, is an uncreated power, otherwise it would not be divine but only a simple natural manifestation: 'All that which flows from the Spirit towards those who are baptized in Him according to the Gospel of grace and who have become spiritual men, still remains attached to its source; from Thence it comes and Therein it dwells in its present and its past existence.' Divine grace is not distinct from God, but is divine life granted to man; that is the basis of Palamas's teaching about the inseparability of essence and energies. It is therefore an uncreated life which man receives in Jesus Christ: 'Those who share in the energies and act in conformity with them, are by God made gods without beginning or end through grace.' The idea that the deified man becomes 'uncreated through grace' is frequent in Palamas's writings; it constitutes one of the essential proofs of the uncreated character of the energies: 'The gifts which lead us to be one single body -- the body of Christ -- and one spirit with the Lord (cf. 1 Cor. 6:15-17) are not created.' In Christ and in the baptized there is one sole indivisible Spirit and, in Him, all distinction between created and uncreated is inadmissible." [Fr. John Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas, Trans. George Lawrence. (London: Faith Press, 1974), pages 176-177]

A quotation about becoming uncreated from Fr. J. M. Hussey's dissertation entitled, The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Theology of Gregory Palamas.

When we are deified, "we become 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. God's energy, which is naturally His, becomes a gift to our persons. 'The saints clearly say that this adoption which has become a reality through faith, this deifying gift, is enhypostasized. Barlaam alone considers the principle of deification and the deifying gift to be merely the imitation of God and he affirms that it is not enhypostasized; but this is quite different from the deification which the fathers knew and professed. The divine Maximus says that this deifying power is not only enhypostasized, but also uncreated; that it is not only uncreated, but also beyond the limits of space and time; and that those who possess it become thereby uncreated and beyond the limits of space and time, although in their own proper nature they are still creatures who have come from non-being.'" [J. M. Hussey, The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Theology of Gregory Palamas, (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Publishing, 1972), pages 41-42]

[b]A quotation about becoming uncreated from Dr. Joost van Rossum's article entitled, Palamism and Sophiology.

"Palamas' theology should be seen as a clarification of the patristic notion of theosis, deification. The well-known phrase of St. Athanasius and other Church Fathers: 'God became man in order that man might become god,' needed to be explained. What exactly does it mean: to 'become god'? First of all, according to Palamas, it has to be understood in a realistic sense. The defender of the Hesychasts does not hesitate to say that man in this glorified state becomes uncreated by grace. This is a daring expression, indeed, which was also used by St Maximus the Confessor (cf. Maximus the Confessor, Ambigua, PG 91, 1140A; 1144BC). However, St Gregory (with St Maximus) stresses that God always remains transcendent. It is impossible for man to become identical with God or one-in-essence, homo-ousios, with Him. For in that case, Palamas says, God would no longer be three Hypostases, but countless Hypostases, μυριϋπόστατος (cf. Gregory Palamas, Against Gregoras IV, 58)."

"Palamism and Sophiology" by Dr. Joost van Rossum [krfo.org.ua]

Yes, like the incarnation, not hypostatically of course, but energetically.

That said, nowhere in my post did I reduce the Hypostatic Union to a union of grace, although the divine energy does deify Christ's humanity from the first instant of the incarnation; as Fr. Meyendorff explains: "Palamas . . . following St. Maximus, admits that participation in the divine is always a participation in the uncreated, and therefore that there is no 'created grace,' that the human nature of Christ, created by nature, is 'uncreated by participation,' and that it becomes in this way the 'source of deification' and of 'uncreated life.'" [Fr. John Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, (Washington: Corpus Books, 1969), page 159] Nevertheless, this energetic divinization of Christ's created humanity is not the same thing as the Hypostatic Union, although clearly it is brought about by the union that takes place in the hypostasis of the eternal Logos.

Now, I am sure that you, as an Eastern Christian, understand that the three modes of existence (essence, hypostasis, and energy) correspond to three modes of union. As Fr. Meyendorff explains:

"The union according to essence is proper to the three Persons of the Trinity; it is inaccessible to creatures, for if God could be communicated by essence, He would become multi-hypostatic; but created human nature can never enter in essential or natural union with God. The union according to the hypostasis was realized in Christ. The human nature of Jesus is therefore one hypostatically with the Logos, and in it the divine energies that have the Logos as their source penetrate created nature and deify it. This union 'according to energy' becomes in this way accessible to all those who are in Christ. For Palamas, the union 'according to the energy' (or 'by grace') is a union with God Himself. This union with God is what he seeks to preserve when he insists that the partakable divine energies are uncreated. For God is not limited to the concept of essence, transcendent and absolutely inaccessible: He acts, reveals Himself and communicates Himself; and man, as the patristic tradition unanimously asserts, was created in the beginning in order to participate in God without, however, becoming 'God by essence.'" [Fr. John Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, (Washington: Corpus Books, 1969), page 158]

I hope you are not denying that the Logos assumed a created human nature. Certainly this assumption of humanity was accomplished in a supernatural manner (i.e., the virginal conception and birth from the Holy Theotokos), but Christ's human nature is like that of all other men, because if it is not, He has saved no one. As the ancient Fathers said, what is not assumed is not saved.

Thus, the human nature assumed by the Logos is created, but -- of course -- He does divinize His humanity by actualizing it in His eternal and uncreated hypostasis, thus causing it to be penetrated by the divine energies [cf. Fr. John Meyendorff, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, (Washington: Corpus Books, 1969), pages 157-158].

Where have I said that He comes to his humanity in a purely natural manner (i.e., like everyone else)? I have not said that in any of my posts.

If the divinized man shares in the divine life by grace, and the divine life is by definition uncreated, it follows that man has become uncreated by grace, just as he has become divine by grace.

The fact that the divinized man becomes an icon of Christ is the whole point of the incarnation. Thus, everything that Christ is by nature, man becomes by grace. If you deny the symmetry of the incarnation and theosis, you ultimately destroy both because the mystery of the incarnation brings about the mystery of theosis.

The Hypostatic Union of Christ brings about the energetic union of man with God in theosis, and through the process of theosis man becomes a true icon of the incarnate Logos. Thus, just as the incarnate Logos is both God and man, uncreated and created, infinite and finite; so too, the deified man is human and divine, he is created in his essential humanity and uncreated by his participation in the uncreated divine energies, he is finite as a creature and infinite as God, stretching forever into eternity as St. Gregory of Nyssa taught. Finally, to deny the reality of man's participation in the divine energies is to ultimately deny the reality of the incarnation.

God bless,
Todd

I would just like you to be clear about this. Does your statement above mean that since the West does not hold to the energies/essence distinction, the West ultimately denies the reality of the incarnation?

Frankly, this is the sort of thing that disturbs me in these conversations. One becomes wedded to a particular term, a theological mode of expression, and then asserts that all those who do not accept this terminology are heretics.

To deny the reality of man's participation in God is to deny the incarnation, but to deny, or to fail to use, the term "energeia" is not necessarily to deny the incarnation. If, after all, God is "utterly beyond human language," (a statement that I don't think Todd has clarified his meaning for) then it is possible that others teach the same truth in different words. It seems to me that the proper attitude is to be wary of denunciation.

Now, as to the subject of divine energies, let me point (courtesy of A.N. Williams, to a passage about grace, and how it is that the blessed see God (which is the customary way Thomas Aquinas talks about deification, which term he also uses a few times): "The vision of the Divine Essence is granted to all the blessed by a partaking of the Divine light which is shed upon them from the fountain of the Word of God, according to Sirach 1:5: "The Word of God on high is the fountain of Wisdom." "

The quick and casual reader will read this and say "Aha! Western Heretics think the essence of God may be seen!" if they are not careful enough to determine how it is that Aquinas uses the term "essence." They will think "essentia" in its uses equals "ousia" in its uses and then issue denunciations. But it doesn't. If they were more eager to find common ground than to denounce, they would find that the doctrine of the beatific vision does _not_ compromise the transcendence of God, since this vision is something created within us by the grace (energies?) of God, and that God may never be circumscribed with such a vision.

I deny that it is the case that the Catholic Church denies the reality of man's participation in the divine energies. They just usually do it in different terms. Which, God being utterly beyond human language, is perfectly acceptable.