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[quote=mardukm]
The Essence/Energy distinction is part of the patrimony of the Oriental Churches, but as noted by my fellow Oriental, Michael Thoma, it is not dogma, so it is not on the forefront of an Oriental's spirituality or mental process. As stated earlier, from my experience, the terms "sanctification" and "grace" are much more common parlance among Orientals than the terms "theosis" and "energy."[quote]
Just to clarify, when you say that the Essence/Energy distinction is part of the OO patrimony, you mean specifically as an epistemological or noetic distinction, not as an ontological distinction, correct?
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Father,
I think it is what I would call "implicit" rather than "explicit" in Oriental Orthodox theology. Gregory Palamas was sui generis, his terminology and mode of expression uniquely his own (though owing much to St. Symeon the New Theologian); he "systematized" hesychia (to the extent that it can be systematized), largely in response to the challenge posed by Barlaam the Calabrian and his followers. In the Oriental Orthodox Churches, the absence of a Palamas--to say nothing of the absence of the challenge of a Barlaam--meant elements spelled out by Gregory remain "assumed" or inherent in Oriental Orthodox discourse, but without using the unique language of Palamas himself.
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Stuart, you may be correct that the Byzantine construal of the essence and energies is implicit in the Oriental Orthodox theology; but I'd like to raise a question. At least according to the reading of Thomas F. Torrance, the Basilean claim that we can only know God in his energies represents a departure from the Anthanasian insistence that in Jesus Christ by the Spirit we truly know the Father in his divine being. For Torrance this is the epistemological significance of the homoousion--not of course that we can comprehend the divine essence, but because the incarnate Son is homoousios with the Father, we are given access to the inner life of the Holy Trinity. In the Son and in the Spirit, God reveals himself through himself in himself: The Athanasian view of God was one in which activity and movement were regarded as intrinsic to his very being as God (enousios energeia). The act of God is not one thing, and his being another, for they coinhere mutually and indivisibly in one another. Hence far from God being inactive in his inner being, it belongs to the essential and eternal nature of his being to move and energize and act. It was this dynamic conception of God that marked so distinctively the Christian understanding of the incarnation as the personal embodiment in space and time of God's providential and redemptive interaction with mankind. Thus the Nicene theologians thought of Jesus Christ as one with God the Father in act as well as in being, for he incarnated the active presence of God himself in human history, and constituted in all he was and did the free outgoing movement of the divine being in condescension and love toward mankind. [The Trinitarian Faith, pp. l73-74] According to Torrance what is at stake is our knowledge of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To know God in Jesus Christ is truly to know God. If the Word (logos) and activity (energeia) of God manifest in the Gospel are not inherent (enousioi) in his eternal being, as Athanasius had insisted, then we cannot relate what God is toward us in his economic self-revelation and self-giving to what he ever is in himself or vice versa. That was the danger that lurked in the Basilian distinction between the divine being and the divine energies, which had the effect of restricting knowledge of God to his divine energies, and ruling out any real access to knowledge of God in the intrinsic relations of his eternal triune being. [p. 336] I lack the competence to adjudicate the dispute, but I think it is important to raise Torrance's concerns at this point, especially since he is well read in the Alexandrians and believes himself to be standing within that tradition.
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While it may be that some OO are adopting the essence/energies distinction, my guess, and it's only a guess, is that this is a recent development. When one reads Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria, one does not find this distinction employed to explain theosis. They seem to be content simply to assert that in Christ and by the Spirit we partake of the divine nature of God. What I do not know is how these two theologians understood the divine energies and their relation to the divine ousia. Dear Fr. Kimel, I am of the belief that your suspicion is right on. It seems to me that many of us Copts have easily adopted the language of Eastern Orthodoxy in many areas including the essence/energies discussion. I really don't know how much it is part of our "own" tradition though. I once asked a well known Greek Orthodox priest, author, professor and former seminary dean if there was a real difference between the concept of the "grace" and "energies" of God and he seemed to indicate that the bottom line was that they were both the same. I agree with your comments on Sts. Athanasius and Cyril. If in effect the fragrance of aromatic plants impregnates clothing with its own virtue and in some way transforms into itself that in which it finds itself, how does the Spirit not have the power, since it issues from God by nature, to give, by itself to those in which it finds itself the communication of the divine nature? (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of St. John) In Christ, Fr. Kyrillos
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