4

Distinguishing Essence and Energies

Introduction

In the previous two chapters, we attempted to penetrate what St Gregory Palamas means by the term energies, analyzing both the broader lexicon for speaking of God’s essential powers, perfections, and attributes, as well as the debate surrounding their definition as actualities, operations, and activities. In the present chapter, we turn to the ways that Palamas seeks to defend the distinction between essence and energies and how he attempts to prove that God’s energies cannot be identified with the divine nature or substance.

Although the distinction between God’s essence and energies formed but one element of a nexus of contested ideas in the prolonged contest between Gregory and his successive opponents, it was widely seen as the central and most important problem of the controversy. Given the opportunity, in 1355, to choose the starting point of a major public debate with Palamas in the presence of the emperor, Nikephoros Gregoras opted to begin the discussion not with the problem of the Thaboric light or the experience of the hesychasts but with the embattled distinction that has since become synonymous with the name of Palamas. “The Philosopher,” the report states, “began with the essence and energy of God, saying that there was no difference between them, since everything that is different from the essence is a creature.”¹ Yet how exactly did Palamas counter this position? Voluminous though the secondary literature on St Gregory Palamas has been, a complete overview of the logic and argumentation used by Palamas to establish and defend the distinction between essence and energies has not, to date, been undertaken by scholars. The present chapter therefore seeks to fill this gap by outlining and collating the many arguments, syllogisms, and proofs that Palamas articulates throughout his corpus to show that God’s essential attributes and powers cannot be identical to ‘what’ God is. Although it cannot pretend to offer a complete catalog of Gregory’s myriad arguments, it attempts to cover the main lines and themes that govern his discourse throughout his career.

The terminology for the ‘distinction’ between essence and energies centers, especially, on the language of difference (διαφορά, διαφέρειν, διενηνοχέναι)² as well as the language of otherness so that essence is one thing and energy another (ἕτερον καὶ ἕτερον, ἄλλο καὶ ἄλλο). For Palamas, the two are not identical, or one and the same thing (ταὐτόν), in the sense of being interchangeable or reducible one to the other. The majority of Gregory’s arguments for why this must be are repeated consistently, in one form or another, throughout his career. As a whole, they can be grouped into five categories, representing the primary motivations for distinguishing between God’s essential attributes and the essence in which they inhere. The first two categories center on the problem of antinomy, or the coincidence of opposites in God. The term antinomy itself is a modern designation and one that is not without controversy. Polycarp Sherwood, in his critique of Neo-Palamite theology notes that the term as it is used today “is current … only from the time of Kant.”³ Regardless of its genealogy, however, it has become a convenient and now commonplace appellation for the phenomenon, found in both scripture and Christian tradition, wherein statements are made about God that appear, on their face, to be contradictory. God is said to be one and yet somehow not one, participated and imparticipable. God is distributed and received in measure yet indivisible, known and yet unknown, named and yet unnamable. This coincidence of opposites in God is not merely explained by Palamas in terms of the essence–energies distinction, it constitutes, for him, one of the most important reasons that God must be something other than just a transcendent ousia.

The relevant antinomies can be subdivided into two categories: those that concern the unity-in-distinction of God, or the fact that God is both one and many, and those that concern the paradox of human engagement with the Divine, in which the transcendent and ever incomprehensible Divinity enters into communion with creatures and is known, seen, and experienced by human beings. This latter subset of antinomies gives us a second, distinct category of arguments for the essence–energies distinction, centering on the ‘contradictions’ of human experience and epistemology.

A third category of arguments focuses on the distinction between the necessary being of God and the unnecessary or contingent being of the world. For Palamas, the existence of creation cannot be explained solely with reference to the divine essence, whereby God is what he is, but requires something distinct from the category of ousia. This line of argumentation relies specifically on the existence of a divine will, whose effects are distinct from the essential products or emanations of the divine nature.

The fourth category of arguments is lexical or grammatical in character and relies on the way that human beings, and especially the writings of the Church Fathers, speak about the divine attributes in relation to God’s essence. These arguments rely, above all, on the fact that God’s energies are said to be ‘of’ and ‘from’ his essence. They appeal not only to the basic relationship between a substance and its attributes but also to the derivation of God’s powers from his nature and the transcendence of the essence, as cause, over the energies. If God’s energies are not in fact distinct from his essence, Palamas insists, then the way we speak about God becomes theologically problematic and even nonsensical.

Finally, a fifth category of arguments encompasses the various discussions of specific divine energies and the reasons these could not possibly be identical to God’s quiddity, or what God is. Several of these arguments have been encountered already, but further, illustrative examples are indicated here also.

The logic across all five of these categories relies, ultimately, on the absolute transcendence of God’s essence, not only over the capacities of human nature but even over eternity itself and the full spectrum of divine energies and properties. God, Palamas will argue, is able not only to create the world in freedom but to accomplish a wide variety of distinct acts, even giving himself fully to rational beings without confusion. This is possible because God remains distinct, in his nature, from the creatures who come to share in his divinity, and because the divine essence itself remains transcendent even over its operations and attributes.

Antinomy, or the Coincidence of Opposites

The discussion of ‘antinomy,’ or the coincidence of opposites, has featured widely in modern debates on the essence–energies distinction. Its popularity stems especially from the work of Vladimir Lossky, who places the term antinomy into the writings of Palamas himself. According to Lossky’s translation of a passage in the Theophanes,

the divine nature must be said to be at the same time both exclusive of and in some sense open to participation. We attain to participation in the divine nature, and yet at the same time it remains totally inaccessible. We need to affirm both at the same time and to preserve the antinomy as a criterion of right devotion.⁴

For Lossky, familiar with the longstanding criticisms of Roman Catholic scholars, this notion of antinomy, as the simultaneous affirmation of opposites, was especially important as an answer to the conundrum of divine simplicity. Although a God who possessed attributes distinct from his essence was commonly conceived, by critics, to be composed of metaphysical ‘parts,’ Lossky charged that such an understanding of divine simplicity flowed not from a Christian conception of God, but “from a philosophical concept of essence.”⁵ Lossky’s view would become a common trope among Orthodox theologians of the twentieth century, who increasingly opposed the essence–energies distinction to the ‘rationalism’ of its Western detractors. In 1977, Kallistos Ware asserted that modern anti-Palamites,

base themselves upon a rational, philosophical notion of divine simplicity, and fail to allow properly for the fact that in God the opposites coincide; he transcends our man-made conceptions of unity and multiplicity, which cannot be applied to him without qualification.⁶

This juxtaposition of ‘antinomy’ with a “rational” notion of divine simplicity is itself rooted in the deeper dichotomy that has long perdured between Western ‘rationalism’ and an Eastern penchant for ‘mystery.’⁷ It is also related to the presumption that Palamas never set out to do philosophy or explicate a metaphysical system, but only to defend the reality of contemplative, mystical experience.⁸ Thus, for some commentators, the theology of St Gregory Palamas in itself signals a transcendence of “human reason or logic.”⁹ In describing the relationship between essence and energies, therefore, Christos Yannaras reflects a dominant trend when he says, “The West rejected the distinction, desiring to protect the idea of simplicity in the divine essence, since rational thought cannot accept the antinomy of a simultaneous existential identity and otherness.”¹⁰

Yet in the actual writings of St Gregory Palamas, the coincidence of opposites in God is not presented as an affront to human reason, disrupting philosophical endeavor with a supernatural contradiction that can only be resolved by an appeal to mystery. Although God is certainly believed to transcend created intelligence, not only in his ineffable essence but even in the very powers and energies that make him known, Palamas does not treat apparent contradictions, as Lialine puts it, by “taking refuge in apophatics.”¹¹ Rather, the fact that scripture and Christian tradition sometimes affirm and sometimes deny one and the same statement about God indicates, for Palamas, that there are important distinctions to be observed in the Godhead precisely because, otherwise, one would fall into blatant contradiction and irrationality. As the fictional Theophanes explains to his disciple in the dialogue that bears his name,

We believe both that the Lord is one and that he is not one. Does not the Creed itself compel us and admonish us always to inquire and render an explanation—especially if someone is railing against these beliefs—how he is one and how he is not one, lest we play the role of nitwits (ἄτοποί τινες), thinking and speaking inconsistencies (ἀνακόλουθα)?¹²

Antinomy, then, if one is to apply this word to the thought of Palamas, is not the mere affirmation of opposites but a kind of aporia that presupposes, and indeed demands, nuance and explanation. If we were simply to say contradictory things about God without qualification, “This is not supernatural,” says Palamas, “or befitting God (perish the thought). Rather, it is unnatural and belongs to what is altogether impossible.”¹³ Palamas, in other words, does not dismiss the law of noncontradiction. Nor does he consider divine transcendence to be in any way enhanced by the violation of ‘rational’ thought. To say that the same reality, without qualification, admits of opposite and contradictory affirmations is not a ‘mystery’ but an absurdity:

For if the same thing, in the same sense (τὸ αὐτὸ κατὰ τὸ αὐτό), is participated and imparticipable, intelligible and beyond intellection, then it is completely incoherent (ἀσύμβατον) and incapable of subsisting (ἀσύστατον), being as far from real existence as possible on account of its extreme contrariety.¹⁴

Like the proverbial square circle, then, paradox as such has no place in Palamas’s theology. The Theophanes continues:

Whoever says this, affirming and denying the same thing, in the same sense (τὸ αὐτὸ κατὰ τὸ αὐτό), contradicts himself with his own words and denigrates what is supernatural in God to something unnatural, canceling each of the things he says by the other and completely doing away with the existence of God, thus numbering himself with the atheists.¹⁵

As Norman Russell points out, Palamas “vigorously rejected” contradiction in the attribution of opposites to God, along with any obscurantism that might result therefrom.¹⁶ It is precisely for this reason that Palamas believes that the doctrine of God requires an essence–energies distinction. For without such a distinction, there is simply no way of reconciling the opposite statements that are predicated of God. Although God is both one and not one, approachable and unapproachable, he is so, as Lossky clarifies, “under different aspects.”¹⁷ God is participable and imparticipable, visible and invisible, knowable and unknowable in different senses, one according to essence and the other according to energy.¹⁸ By denying this distinction, Palamas implies, it is the anti-Palamites who take refuge in apophatics, refusing to acknowledge how contraries can coexist in God.¹⁹ Palamas’s own distinction, on the other hand, is elaborated precisely to make sense of seeming conflicts and to ensure that theological truths are free of irrational incongruities, discrepancies, and basic dissonance.

One and Not One

Although the term antinomy does not actually appear in the Theophanes passage quoted by Lossky,²⁰ it is nevertheless true that Palamas states, with regard to the coincidence of opposites in God, that “we must preserve and affirm both things (ἀμφότερα) as the criterion of orthodoxy.”²¹ Although heretics, Palamas explains, are wont, in dealing with apparent contradictions, to defend one truth at the expense of another, Christians must maintain the royal path “and abide, through both, in the midst of orthodoxy.”²² This balance is a goal we have already encountered with respect to apophatic and cataphatic theology. In God, says Palamas, the negations do not cancel out the affirmations.²³ Evoking the Chalcedonian formula of unity-in-distinction, Palamas explains that the Divinity “is distinguished indivisibly, so to speak, and joined divisibly. Whoever holds these in this way is truly pious, believing both, and through both, abiding in the middle of an orthodox confession.”²⁴

The coincidence of opposites in God includes not only unity and distinction but also unity and plurality. Although the Divinity is one, in another way (τρόπον ἕτερον), it is not one.²⁵ This applies most obviously to the plurality of hypostases in God. Although the Divinity is one in essence, it is ‘divided’ (διαιρεῖται) in three Persons.²⁶ God can also be said to be ‘not one’ by supereminence (καθ’ ὑπεροχήν), being ‘more’ than the One in the same way that he is beyond essence and every other name that could be ascribed to him.²⁷ Yet the plurality of God is especially evident in the multiplicity and diversity of the divine energies and powers themselves. Although God is a single uncreated essence, God’s natural attributes and faculties are many, and this, for Palamas, constitutes an important argument that there are distinct things—essence and energies—that cannot be identical.

Many Energies

The dialectic between the unity of the divine essence and the plurality of the divine energies can be seen throughout Gregory’s corpus.²⁸ As Palamas summarizes the argument to Akindynos, “This is how we know that the energy differs (διενηνοκέναι) from the essence, because we have been taught that there are times when we express the energy in the plural, but the divine essence is always in the singular.”²⁹ Indeed, as Palamas points out, Akindynos himself will frequently speak of the divine energies in the plural even as he professes that they are identical with the unitary divine essence.³⁰ Gregoras, too, will assert that “nature (φύσις) and the things of nature (τὰ φυσικὰ) are one and the same (ἕν καὶ ἀδιάφορον),” prompting Palamas to point out: “The fact that the one is spoken of in the plural (πληθυντικῶς), while nature is always spoken of in the singular (ἑνικῶς), shows that they are different.”³¹

To demonstrate the contrast between the singularity of the divine essence and the multiplicity of its energies, Palamas draws attention to the various ways that patristic sources speak of God’s powers and idioms in the plural. St Cyril of Alexandria, for example, says that the life that inheres in God by nature (κατὰ φύσιν προσοῦσαν τῷ θεῷ) is “one of the attributes” (ἓν τῶν προσόντων), indicating that there are others.³² In much the same way, St Basil teaches that each of the divine names is drawn from a particular energy (ἐνέργειας τινὸς), implying, again, that there are more besides.³³ St Maximos likewise speaks of multiple divine energies in Christ:

According to the divine Fathers, in the one Christ we acknowledge many innumerable energies, those of his divinity and those of his humanity, but only one divine essence, from which the many and properly divine and boundless energies proceed.³⁴

The Contra gentes of Athanasios, too, speaks of multiple “powers” of the Father and the Son,³⁵ while St Basil affirms that the Holy Spirit “is simple in essence, but manifold (ποικίλον) in powers.”³⁶

Palamas finds this same language, with the same implications, in the scriptures themselves. There St Paul speaks of the ‘diversity’ or manifold character (τὸ πολυποίκιλον) of God’s creative energy and wisdom (Eph 3:10).³⁷ He also recounts the “invisible things” of God—namely, his goodness, wisdom, power, divinity, and majesty—known through the created order (Rom 1:19–20). These cannot be the divine essence, “since the energy is expressed not only in the singular, but also in the plural (μὴ ἑνικῶς αὕτη μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ πληθυντικῶς προάγεται).³⁸ Among Palamas’s favorite references, in this regard, is Isaiah 11:1–2, which speaks of ‘seven Spirits’ resting on the rod of the root of Jesse (ἐπαναπαύσεται ἐπ’ αὐτὸν ἑπτὰ πνεύματα).³⁹ According to the authoritative interpretation of St Gregory Nazianzen, these seven Spirits represent different divine energies, since “Isaiah is fond of calling the energies of the Spirit ‘Spirits,’” thereby indicating the distinction (διαφοράν) between them and the divine essence.⁴⁰ Likewise, “the finger of God” (Lk 11:20), identified in Matthew 12:28 with “the Spirit of God” through which the Lord casts out demons, is said by St Basil to be “one of the gifts” of the Holy Spirit.⁴¹ In Adversus Eunomium 5, these are explicitly called energeiai:

The Holy Spirit does not have any of these things by acquisition (ἐπίκτητον). Rather, it has all of them eternally, as the Spirit of God, being revealed from him. It [i.e., the Spirit] is enhypostatic, flowing from God, while they, which flow from it, are its energies.⁴²

Therefore, concludes Palamas, “the energies of the divine Spirit are many,” and so they cannot be identified with the singular divine essence or even the individual hypostasis of the Holy Spirit.⁴³

In a special way, the plurality and diversity of the divine energies can be seen in the processions of divine providence, whereby God is said to be multiplied and differentiated in his variegated will for all things.⁴⁴ As Palamas explains in his treatise On the Divine Energies,

This one God, worshipped in three hypostases and a single essence, is also divided indivisibly and without division (ἀμερῶς καὶ ἀμερίστως διαιρεῖται) in different energies. “For God is said to be multiplied (πληθύνεσθαι),” according to the divine Maximos, “in his individual counsel for the production of beings, becoming pluriform (πολλαπλασιαζόμενος) in his providential processions.”⁴⁵

The processions of providence, as described in Chapter 2, are God’s eternal ‘motion’ toward beings, distinct from their created effects but ultimately productive of those realities that participate in being, sentience, and life.⁴⁶ The multiplicity of these processions allows Palamas to speak of a “differentiation of the divine will”⁴⁷ and a plurality of providences and goodnesses.⁴⁸ Yet how, asks Palamas, could the transcendent essence of God be a procession or processions (πρόοδοι),⁴⁹ or “the movement of God towards beings”?⁵⁰ For Palamas, the processions of God, even as the uncreated motion of God himself, cannot be identified with the divine essence, not only because they are relative to creatures but also because they are plural, whereas “the essence is one and altogether indivisible.”⁵¹ The same logic applies to what Dionysios calls ‘illuminations’. Although the essence of God is one, the illuminations (ἔλλαμψεις) are many (πλείους).⁵² According to Dionysios, even the angels participate in not one, but multiple illuminations, and “by adducing these illuminations in the plural (πληθυντικῶς), he distinguishes them from the essence of God. For the essence is one and altogether undivided.”⁵³

For Palamas, the fundamental antinomy of unity and plurality in God confronts the Christian, once again, with a question that must be engaged rationally, even if human intelligence is incapable of ultimately comprehending God. “It is completely impossible and utterly irrational (ἀλόγιστον),” Palamas affirms, “for something to be both one and many in the same sense (κατὰ τὸ αὐτό).”⁵⁴ Thus, given the commitment of Christian tradition to speaking about God’s attributes, powers, energies, and processions in the plural, it cannot be the case that all human language about God refers specifically to the divine essence as such, which is absolutely one and undifferentiated. In order to account without contradiction or logical absurdity for the simultaneous unity and multiplicity of God, Palamas maintains that it is necessary to acknowledge both a divine ousia and a plurality of divine energeiai.

Difference among the Energies

It is sometimes asserted, contrary to this rhetoric we encounter in Palamas, that the divine ‘energies’ are not, in fact, a plurality but a single energeia that takes on different forms and modes of being, or which is divided only in proportion to creatures.⁵⁵ Indeed, as Palamas himself points out, the Sixth Ecumenical Council speaks not of many energies but of one energy per nature,⁵⁶ just as we speak of a single, common energeia of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.⁵⁷ Yet Palamas himself is unequivocal that the energy or activity that characterizes the divine nature is not ‘one’ in the sense of being undifferentiated.⁵⁸ Indeed, the juxtaposition of God’s many uncreated energies with the singular divine essence as an argument for their distinction requires that the energies possess a real plurality. As Palamas explains: “That they differ from one another is also proven, for how can there be many if they do not differ one from another?”⁵⁹ The opposing principle, that the divine energies are ultimately identical is, in turn, a crucial feature of the anti-Palamite doctrine that essence and energy are one and the same.⁶⁰ For if the various divine powers and attributes are to be reducible to the unitary essence of God, then they obviously cannot differ among themselves.⁶¹ Precisely for this reason, Palamas argues that the divine energies are distinct inter se. For if they are different one from another, they cannot possibly be identified with the singular divine substance. How, Palamas asks, can God’s creativity, providence, foreknowledge, and so on all be essence?⁶² Things that differ among themselves, he points out, cannot be mutually identical with a tertium quid. If A does not equal B, then A and B cannot both equal C: “For those things that differ one from another cannot refer without differentiation to one thing.”⁶³ It would be the equivalent, in other words, of saying that Peter and John are both Paul even though Peter is distinct from John.

In defending the diversity of the divine energies, Palamas is particularly concerned to forestall any implication that the divine names, which signify the energies, are themselves interchangeable and synonymous. For if the various divine properties and ‘things around the essence’ are really identical, then the names that represent them would also be convertible with one another and mutually defining. In this way, the answer to the question, ‘What is justice?’ could reasonably be said to be ‘incorporeality,’ or any number of other absurd equivalences.⁶⁴ This, for Palamas, is the heresy of Eunomios, whose reputation in Byzantium was associated precisely with the idea that the divine names were interchangeable one with another.⁶⁵ Palamas summarizes his own position in the One Hundred and Fifty Chapters:

In the case of the energies, each of the names has a different signification. For who does not know that creating, ruling, judging, providing, and God’s adoption of us by his grace, differ from one another?⁶⁶

Palamas is particularly keen to draw attention, therefore, to the specific realities that his opponents seek to identify with one another when they elide all of them with essence. Lordship, for example, he points out, is not holiness, holiness is not simplicity, and simplicity is not incorruptibility.⁶⁷ Neither is eternity simplicity nor goodness immutability nor incorruption philanthropy.⁶⁸ How, Palamas asks, can there be no difference between justice and wisdom, simplicity and eternity, goodness and immutability?⁶⁹ Indeed, how can attributes like ‘being without a beginning’ and ‘being without an end,’ or just-judgment (δικαιοκρισία) and mercy (συμπαθεία) be identical?⁷⁰ But if God’s attributes are not interchangeable with one another, neither can they be identified collectively with the simple divine essence.

Another reason, for Palamas, that the divine energies cannot be identical with one another is the fact that the operations and manifestations of the various divine powers are themselves clearly differentiated. Although the attributes and powers of the Godhead are eternally active in God, they have diverse actualizations. There is a clear difference, for example, between God’s eternal contemplation of all things and his deification of them. The one is actualized from all eternity, while the other is contingent not only on the existence but even the virtue of creatures. Yet if seeing (τὸ θέασθαι) and deifying (τὸ θεοποιεῖν) were identical, then everything would be deified, since God sees all things from eternity.⁷¹ It is impossible, therefore, to identify the deifying energy (ἡ θεοποιὸς ἐνέργεια) with the power of vision (ἡ θεατικὴ ἐνέργεια), since they are actualized differently.⁷² Likewise, the divine foreknowledge cannot be identified with the divine will, since God knows and sees all things from eternity yet does not will all things that occur. If these two energies were indeed identical, then either God would be the author of evil, since he knows all things, or he would lack omniscience, since many things occur in the world that are contrary to the divine will. One would therefore have to choose between a scenario in which God is not God (since he is θεός from beholding all things), or one in which God is not good, which would also end in denying his divinity.⁷³ In either case, it is plain for Palamas that the energy whereby God foreknows all things cannot be identified with the energy whereby God wills only what is good. In the same way, and for much the same reason, God’s foreknowledge cannot be identified with his creative power. For whereas God knows and sees all things from eternity, he does not bring them into being from eternity, but at a given moment in time, in accordance with his will.⁷⁴ Yet if God’s foreknowledge is identified with his creative power, then either God does not foreknow all things eternally, “since God began to create at a certain time (ποτε),” or created things are necessarily eternal and coextensive with God’s knowledge of them.⁷⁵ Thus, the energy whereby God creates the world in time must be different from the energy whereby God foreknows all things, since the world both has a beginning and comes into being by the free decision of God.⁷⁶ And if the energies are not identical to one another, neither can they be identical to the divine essence.

The Experience of God

Known and Yet Unknown

The coincidence of opposites in God is not, of course, restricted to the dialectic of unity and multiplicity. Palamas also argues for the distinction between essence and energies on the basis of human experience or engagement with God. God is not only one and not one; he is also known and unknown, hidden and revealed, participated and unparticipated, seen and unseen. Once again, such antinomies could not stand if the two contrary postulates were expressed univocally and without qualification. Beginning with the problem of the knowledge of God, Palamas points out that God is known in his energies or ‘according to energy’ (κατ’ ἐνέργειαν), while his essence remains beyond all creaturely comprehension.⁷⁷ Although his energies are objects of intellection (νοούμενα), the latter is not conceived (νοεῖται) at all.⁷⁸

Among the ways that God is known in his energies is through created artifacts, which manifest the attributes and properties of God himself. Palamas, like so many before him, finds this expressed in Romans 1:20:

The great Paul, the mouth of Christ, the vessel of election, the celebrated vehicle of the divine name, says that, The things known of God (νοούμενα) from the creation of the world, namely his eternal power and divinity, are seen (καθoρᾶται) in the things he has made.⁷⁹

The “things known of God,” however, for reasons already stated, could not possibly be the divine ousia.⁸⁰ To claim otherwise was yet another feature of the heresy of Eunomios, who was widely held to have said that we know the very essence of God from creatures (ἐκ τῶν κτισμάτων).⁸¹ Palamas will make extensive use of the anti-Eunomian writings of St Basil and St Gregory of Nyssa to defend the contrary position that “from the effects (τὰ ἀποτελέσματα), God is seen (ὀρᾶται) at the level of his energies, but not at the level of essence.”⁸² Creatures (τὰ ποιήματα), these Fathers tell us, are indicative (ἐνδεικτικά) of God’s wisdom, skill, and power.⁸³ From created things we know God’s grandeur, goodness, providence, justice, creativity, foreknowledge, and retribution,⁸⁴ even if only indistinctly (ἀμυδρῶς).⁸⁵ Indeed, the divine names themselves are drawn from creatures, such that we call God ‘Creator’ (τὸ κτίστης) from the fact that the world, as his handiwork, points to his existence.⁸⁶ Yet the knowledge of God that comes from creatures is not a revelation of God’s nature (it is not a φυσικὴ ἔμφασις). For we know “that the divine nature is, not what it is.”⁸⁷

Without the distinction between essence and energies, therefore, it becomes impossible to maintain the simultaneous confession of God’s unknowability and his revelation in and through creatures. If all language about God referred to the ousia, then it would be impossible to speak about knowing God without simultaneously affirming knowledge of the divine essence, or ‘what’ God is.⁸⁸ If everything that belongs to nature (πᾶν τὸ φυσικὸν), as Gregoras said, were simply identical to the divine nature, then things like the Incarnation, Palamas points out, which reveal the pre-eternal counsel of God, would actually be a revelation of the transcendent and unknowable divine essence.⁸⁹

Alternatively, the identity of essence and energy would mean that there was no means or possibility at all for human beings to know God, since the essence of God is completely ineffable. If the energies, as “what is known of God,” are collapsed into the unknowable ousia, then how could God really be known or encountered at all?⁹⁰ The logic of Akindynos therefore results, for Palamas, in the idea that God, “by being simple, is either perfectly inconceivable (τελέως ἐστὶν ἄληπτος) or perfectly conceivable.”⁹¹ He is “either wholly unknown or perfectly known.”⁹² Without an essence–energies distinction, there can simply be no middle ground. In this way, according to Palamas, to abolish the distinction between essence and energies is to abolish all foundation for speaking either of the knowledge of God or of his absolute ineffability. God would remain either completely unknown to us or completely within the reach of created intelligence.

Seen and Unseen

Directly connected to the theme of ‘knowing’ God is the language of ‘seeing’ or beholding God. This theme, too, lies at the center of an important antinomy in Christian tradition that Palamas maps on to the distinction between essence and energies. It includes the affirmations in scripture that God is both seen and not seen and that in different ways. “To see God,” Palamas points out, “is both forbidden and promised.”⁹³ The angels, we are told in the Gospel of Matthew “behold the face of God” (Mt 18:10), while Moses is told that the face of God will not be shown to you. Instead, Moses was allowed to see “the things behind” God (Ex 33:23). Indeed, Moses is told, You will not be able to see my face, for man may not see (μὴ ἴδῃ) my face and live (Ex 33:20), whereas St Paul states that now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face (1 Cor 13:12). In the Beatitudes, too, it is said that the pure in heart shall see God (τὸν θεὸν ὄψονται) (Mt 5:8), although in the Gospel of John it is said that no one has ever seen God (ἑώρακεν πώποτε) (Jn 1:18).⁹⁴ St Paul also insists that no one is able to see God (ἰδεῖν δύναται) (1 Tim 6:16), although Solomon declares that the Creator is seen (θεωρεῖται) proportionally from the magnitude and beauty of creatures (Ws 13:5). In Genesis, Jacob likewise proclaims that he has seen God (εἶδον γὰρ θεὸν) face to face (Gen 32:31).⁹⁵ Especially in the context of the hesychast controversy, the explanation that God could, in fact, be seen is of central importance for Palamas.

Although some of these biblical texts in question seem to be in tension with one another, if not outright opposition, still, according to Palamas, “these things do not contradict one another.”⁹⁶ Rather, the nuances introduced by the seemingly inconsistent language point to the distinction between God’s incomprehensible essence, on the one hand, and the energies or attributes that are manifested in and through the created order, on the other. The fact that God is not and cannot be seen refers to God’s unapproachability at the level of essence (κατ’ οὐσίαν),⁹⁷ since God is “invisible in his ousia.”⁹⁸ Yet it is also the case that God is seen. He is the object of mystical visions, for example, and is beheld in his illuminations (ἐλλάμψεις)⁹⁹ so that he becomes visible “according to energy and grace to those who have become Godlike.”¹⁰⁰ Thus, it is necessary to conceive of God beyond the category of his invisible essence. Without this distinction, it would certainly be a mere contradiction to say that the same thing is both invisible and visible in itself.¹⁰¹ Yet Palamas affirms that God is both seen in his energies and not seen in his essence so that the antinomy of scripture might be maintained and the simultaneous revelation of transcendence of God might be upheld.

Participated and Unparticipated

Another dimension of this antinomy expresses itself in the fact that God is simultaneously participated and imparticipable. As Palamas explains to Gregoras:

God has the following: being named and being beyond names, being known and being beyond knowledge, being participated in (μετέχεσθαι) and unparticipated (ἀμέθεκτος), as being beyond participation (ὑπὲρ μέθεξιν), yet without being divided (μεριζόμενος), compounded, or created, as Gregoras, Akindynos, and Barlaam absurdly think.¹⁰²

Alongside the topic of divine simplicity, the philosophical problem of participation has been among the most widely discussed features of the essence–energies distinction.¹⁰³ For Palamas, there are many different kinds of participation in God,¹⁰⁴ although they fall into two basic categories. The first kind of participation is the participation of all created things in God’s providential and creative energy.¹⁰⁵ The second is the participation of the saints in God’s uncreated grace, or deification.

Palamas points out, however, that neither creatures, in general, nor the saints, in particular, are united to God at the level of essence (κατ’ οὐσίαν), since “all the theologians bear witness to this and say that God is imparticipable in essence.”¹⁰⁶ Although this is a point that Palamas largely takes for granted, he does explain that participation in an essence amounts to an essential identity between the thing that participates and the substance in which it participates. Thus, to participate in God according to essence is to be consubstantial with God, resulting in a plurality of Gods and involving those who affirm this in a profession of polytheism.¹⁰⁷ For, “whoever participates according to essence necessarily has the essence in common with what it participates in, and is, to that extent, the same essence.”¹⁰⁸ To profess that participation is in the essence, in other words, is to affirm that the deified become God ‘by nature,’ rather than ‘by grace,’ a doctrine associated in this period with Messalianism. It would also lead to pantheism, since all things, by virtue of their natural participation in God, would simply be God.¹⁰⁹ Essence thus represents for Palamas what human beings, and every other creature, can never become without being confused with God himself. If creatures are to participate in God, they must partake of him in something other than his essence.¹¹⁰ Thus, even ‘being God’ (τὸ θεὸς εἶναι), to the extent that this names a reality shared with human beings, is not nature, since it is participated in.

Along these same lines, Palamas further explains that to ‘participate’ in an essence could only mean that one is a hypostasis of that essence. This point, which features in the Chapters, the Theophanes, and the Triads, is among the more well-known arguments for the essence–energies distinction.¹¹¹ Consistent with the identification of ousia as quiddity, or ‘what’ a thing is, Palamas asserts that whatever shares an essence is a particular hypostasis or Person of that essence. Thus, if human beings were to share the divine ousia, they could only do so as Persons of the Godhead, numbered among the divine hypostases. Indeed, the number of hypostases that a given essence has is commensurate with the number of Persons who share that essence. For this reason, human participation in the divine essence would render the Godhead much more than a Trinity, since it would include all of the Persons who partake of the divine essence. “To the extent that essence is participated, that many hypostases does it have. Thus the divine essence would be not tri-hypostatic but a myriad of Persons (μυριοϋπόστατον).”¹¹² Participation, therefore, must be in something other than essence if creatures, which participate in God, are to be distinguished from God himself.

A Part of God

The conclusion that participation in God’s essence would amount to becoming God himself cannot be avoided, for Palamas, by appealing to the ‘partial’ character of participation. According to Palamas, there can be no partial sharing in the divine essence, since there is no ‘part’ of essence that is not simply the essence, characterized by the fullness of its essential attributes. Thus, one who participates in the divine essence is necessarily all that God is. “A part (τὸ μέρος) of the essence—even the smallest part—possesses all of its powers.”¹¹³ Thus, the human being who partakes of God’s essence would have every single one of God’s properties, making that person omnipotent (παντοδύναμος). Yet no one person could ever be said to possess the fulness of divine being.¹¹⁴ The ‘part’ of God in which creatures share must therefore be something distinct from the divine ousia as such.

That ‘participation’ in God is indeed ‘partial,’ and involves a literal (if not material) ‘part’ of God is a point that is stressed repeatedly by Palamas in order to prove that it cannot be the divine essence that is shared with creatures. Palamas points out that the word participation itself denotes not the possession of an essence or totality of essential attributes but precisely the possession of a part:

What participates … has part of what it participates in. If it partook not of a part but of the whole, it would properly be said to have it (ἔχειν), not to partake of it (μετέχειν). If what partakes necessarily partakes of a part, then what is participated in is partial (μεριστόν).¹¹⁵

The ‘part’ of God that most concerns Palamas in his polemics is the grace of the Holy Spirit, meted out to the saints. Palamas draws heavily for this point on the writings of St John Chrysostom, who speaks of the energy poured out on the deified as a ‘drop’ (ῥανίς)¹¹⁶ or ‘speck’ (σταγών)¹¹⁷ of God’s grace. Not only is this not the divine essence, or the totality of God’s attributes, but it is also not even the fullness of grace itself:

For this speck and drop of the Spirit has filled the entire world. Through it signs have appeared and sins have been loosed. But, at the same time, the grace that has been given in such degrees is but a part (μέρος τι) and pledge of the gift. For, ‘I have given,’ he says, ‘a pledge of the Spirit in your hearts,’ meaning a part (τὸ μέρος) of the energy. For of course the Paraclete is not divided (μερίζεται).¹¹⁸

Not all the divine energy, then, dwells in the deified, whether angels or human beings, “but some small part and drop, as a driplet compared to that immense ocean.”¹¹⁹ Palamas compares this partial reception of grace to the way a musical instrument (ὄργανον) channels and contains human energy. The musical instrument is not receptive (χωρητικόν) of all human power, or of the human essence, but expresses the performer’s skill and potencies in a specified and limited manner. In the same way, human beings become temples and organa of God’s grace not by containing the whole of God’s uncreated power or nature but by appropriating the divine energy in a manner appropriate to themselves.¹²⁰ In this way, grace is ‘apportioned’ and distributed according to the capacity and merits of its recipients.¹²¹ “The energy is given,” Palamas says, “in measure (μέτρῳ) according to the worthiness of those who receive it. But the essence is completely imparticipable.”¹²² As Palamas elaborates to Gregoras,

The common divine power and energy of the trihypostatic nature, perfects those things outside itself and, in a God-fitting manner, divides (μερίζεται) the Divine, which is all-powerful, into a myriad. And in this way, many are united by it to God, participating in him in a variegated and diverse manner, so that the divine energy of God is indivisibly divided, since, according to our Golden-mouthed Father, a part of it (τὸ μέρος) is distributed (μερίζεται).¹²³

Citing Chrysostom again, Palamas explains that the divine energy “is divided into a myriad … and even the part of the energy is divided again.”¹²⁴

That it is only a part, a speck, and a drop of the Spirit indicates, for Palamas, that it cannot be the substance or hypostasis of the Spirit, which cannot be meted out.¹²⁵ The divine nature in itself is indivisible (ἀμέριστος), while the divine energy is divided, albeit indivisibly (μερίζεται ἀμερίστως), in the sense that it is imparted, since it given and distributed to creatures.¹²⁶ Drawing again on Chrysostom, Palamas notes that the apostles on Thabor did not receive God completely (οὐχὶ τελείως) but only according to their capacity (ὅσον ἐδύναντο). This, for Palamas, shows again that it could not have been the ousia of God but only his energy.¹²⁷

If someone tells us that the divine power and the divine energy are imparted (μερίζεσθαι), let him learn from this that the difference between the divine essence and the divine energy. For the divine essence is not imparted (μερίζεται) to us.¹²⁸

Conversely, if the divine energy were to be identified with the divine essence, then, one could only conclude that God did not impart his energy at all. “Since, according to them, the energy does not differ at all from the essence, then according to them the energy, too, will be completely undivided (ἀμέριστος).”¹²⁹ If we do not have communion with God’s uncreated energy, then we cannot have communion with divinity, since communion with the divine essence and hypostases (i.e., at the level of essence or hypostasis) is not possible.¹³⁰

The reception of the Spirit by human beings ‘in measure’ contrasts with the possession of the divine energy by Christ, whose humanity received the divine energy in its fulness by virtue of the hypostatic union. Palamas, still following Chrysostom, roots the difference in John 3:34, which states that Christ was not given the Spirit in measure (ἐκ μέτρου).¹³¹ In treating this subject, Palamas will consistently refer also to St Gregory the Theologian’s Fourth Theological Oration:

He is Christ by virtue of the divinity. For this is the very anointing (χρίσις) of his humanity, which sanctifies it not by energeia, as is the case with the alteri Christi, but by the presence, in his fulness, of the one who anoints.¹³²

If essence and energy were identical, however, there would be no way of differentiating the partial grace possessed by ordinary human beings and the grace possessed hypostatically by Christ. There would also be no way of differentiating how different human beings appropriate divine grace. All persons would simply be sanctified in the same way, by the presence of ‘the whole God’ so that God’s grace, once again, remained completely ‘undivided’ (ἀμέριστος):¹³³

For we, for our part, all receive the energy of the Spirit in measure (μέτρῳ) (since there [in Jn 3:34] he calls the energy ‘Spirit’), for it is meted out (μεριζόμενη). Yet Christ, for his part, has the whole energy without measure (ἀμέτρητον) and entire (ὁλόκληρον). If, then, his energy is without measure, how much more his essence?¹³⁴

Human beings, on the contrary, can only receive from (ἐκ) his fulness (Jn 1:16),¹³⁵

‘We have some small fragment and drop (ῥανίδα) of that grace. For from his fulness,’ [Chrysostom] says, ‘we have all received, as, one might say, from a gushing overflow.’¹³⁶

This is confirmed by Joel 3:1, which says, I will pour out from my Spirit (ἀπὸ τοῦ πνεύματός μου ἐκχεῶ) upon all flesh. Palamas is careful to highlight the fact that the prophet does not say ‘I will pour my Spirit,’ but ‘from my Spirit,’ indicating once again that this could not be divine essence, which is not meted out or given in measure.¹³⁷

Such, then, are the main lines of the argument from ‘antinomy’ or the coincidence of opposites in God, which Palamas believes can only be explained with a distinction between God’s essence and energies.

Nature and Will: The Necessary and the Contingent

In addition to the arguments from theological antinomy, Palamas also develops a subset of arguments for the essence–energies distinction that center on the specific distinction between God’s nature and will. This distinction is one that has been encountered already, since it corresponds to the difference between those things that proceed from God essentially and necessarily, namely, the things ‘around’ the divine essence, and those things that proceed from God unnecessarily or non-essentially, as products of the divine will, namely, creatures.¹³⁸ The distinction between nature and will has been one of the more commonly discussed features of Palamite theology.¹³⁹ It is associated especially with the anti-Arian theology of St Athanasios and, for Palamas, St Cyril of Alexandria.¹⁴⁰ For Palamas, it will be remembered, the divine will itself is numbered among God’s uncreated energies so that, if the divine essence is identified with the divine energies generally, this would also make the divine will indistinguishable from God’s essence and nature.¹⁴¹

In the patristic sources upon which Palamas relies, God’s essence and will are said to have different products (ἑκατέρας ἕτερον ἔργον).¹⁴² From the divine essence flow the Persons of the Son and the Spirit so that the Son is an offspring and the Spirit a projection (πρόβλημα) “of the essence.”¹⁴³ Creatures, on the other hand, or what God has made (ποιήματα, κτίσματα), derive not from God’s essence but from his will.¹⁴⁴ This distinction is born of the recognition that creatures are not necessary and need not exist at all. They come to be and exist not by virtue of what God is but by his free choice to bring them into being. “God creates by deciding to (τῷ βούλεσθαι), and not simply because it is his nature to do so (οὐκ ἁπλῶς τῷ πεφυκέναι).”¹⁴⁵ Otherwise, creatures would be necessary emanations of God, proceeding eternally from the divine essence by necessity, or by virtue of what it is to be God.¹⁴⁶ Generation (γέννησις), then, is a product (ἔργον) of the divine nature, while creation (ἡ κτίσις) is a product of the divine will (θελήσεως).¹⁴⁷ But if essence were identical to energy, there could be no difference between creating, on the one hand, and generating the Son or producing the Spirit, on the other.¹⁴⁸ Indeed, if energy is identical with essence, then (to the extent that everything created is a product of God by way of his providence) all created things would be ‘from the essence.’¹⁴⁹ In his debate with Gregoras, Palamas lays out the fundamental problem by drawing an analogy with human reproduction and the way it differs from human creativity:

Both God and man, as fathers, possess by nature (φυσικῶς) the ability to beget a child in conformity with themselves. But they also possess by nature the ability to create—man from underlying matter and God from non-existent things. Each begets naturally what is consubstantial with himself, but he creates what is not consubstantial. Thus, what is begotten is the same nature (φύσις ἐστὶν ἡ αὐτή) as the begetter and is called natural to the father (φυσικόν τοῦ πατρός). Βut he is called an offspring and son, not simply ‘of the nature,’ but ‘of the father’ that begot him. … Yet the things created are not of the very nature of the creator—God forbid!¹⁵⁰

Without a distinction between nature and will, in other words, creatures would become coeternal members of the Godhead, lacking any distinction with the divine Persons. They would be products (ἔργα) or even offspring (γεννήματα) of nature.¹⁵¹ In this sense, creatures would be consubstantial Sons of God,¹⁵² and creation as a whole would simply be coterminous and connatural with God himself.¹⁵³ Palamas argues, therefore, that in identifying essence and energy, the divine creativity is completely abolished, since all creation would simply be a natural effusion of the divine nature.¹⁵⁴ Where will is indistinct from essence, creatures come into being involuntarily, since they would simply come into being and exist according to the nature of God (κατὰ φύσιν θεοῦ).¹⁵⁵ As articulated by Lossky, “The being and the action of God would then appear to be identical and having the same character of necessity.”¹⁵⁶

For Palamas, then, the distinction between nature and will shows that there is something in God other than essence (ἔχει ὁ θεός καὶ ὃ μὴ ἔστιν οὐσία).¹⁵⁷

If God creates by deciding to, and not simply because it is his nature to do so, then deciding and being of a certain nature are two different things (ἄλλο τὸ βούλεσθαι καὶ ἕτερον τὸ πεφυκέναι). And if so, then the divine counsel (βουλή) is different (ἕτερον) than the divine nature.¹⁵⁸

Following St Cyril of Alexandria, Palamas therefore explains that while something like begetting belongs to God’s nature, creating belongs, rather, to the divine energy (τὸ ποιεῖν ἐνεργείας ἐστί)¹⁵⁹ so that God has an activity that is distinct from his essence and from simply being what God is.

An alternative consequence of blurring this distinction between nature and will, or between natural derivation and creation, is that the Son and the Holy Spirit would be reduced to the status of creatures.¹⁶⁰ If everything uncreated is simply the divine ousia, then the divine will is itself the divine essence, making the Son, as a product of essence, a product of the will. As John of Damaskos teaches, the product of the will is by definition a creature. Thus, if essence and energy are identified, not only could creation be called an offspring of God, but the Son himself could be ranked among creatures.¹⁶¹ Yet, “Even those [namely, the Arians] who say that the Word of God is a Son of the will,” Palamas points out, “do not dare to say that will is the essence.”¹⁶²

Alongside the arguments from antinomy, the differentiation of essence and will forms one of the central pillars on which Palamas constructs the essence–energies distinction, and scholars have rightly drawn attention to it from the beginning of the modern debate on Palamas. We now turn to a less celebrated category of arguments, stemming from the language used to talk about essence and energies.

Lexical Arguments: The Energies ‘of’ the Essence

The fourth category of arguments for the essence–energies distinction centers on lexical, grammatical, and semantic evidence. It stems from a number of features of the way that Christians speak about the divine ousia or nature, on the one hand, and God’s energeiai, attributes, or powers, on the other. This is an area of Palamas’s theology that has not received significant attention. And while it does not rise in importance to the level of the arguments from participation, the vision of God, and epistemology, it is of special concern especially for the way it relates to the problem of divine simplicity.¹⁶³ Throughout his polemical career, Palamas contends that the very language that Christians use to speak about the divine energies, and the word choices whereby they are related to the divine essence, show that the two cannot be interchangeable; God’s essence must be distinct from his energies.

One particular argument that dominates Gregory’s writings, encountered already, is the claim that the energies cannot be the divine ousia because the essence of God is said to have (ἔχειν) these energies. For one thing to have or possess another, the two must be distinct, and therefore, the divine essence cannot simply be identical to the divine energies. This line of argumentation is especially prominent in Gregory’s polemic with Akindynos. In his Letter to Dionysios, Palamas notes that if energy and essence are identical, then saying that ‘God has essence and energy’ is tantamount to saying ‘God has both essence and nature,’ which no one says.¹⁶⁴ Likewise, to say that the divine essence has an energy, as one hears consistently in the dogmatic tradition of the Church, would be the same as saying that essence has a nature, which is, at best, a redundancy.¹⁶⁵ These same arguments are recycled at the end of Gregory’s career in the polemic with Nikephoros Gregoras, who had argued for the semantic equivalence of nature (φύσις) and what is natural in God (φυσικά).¹⁶⁶ Yet, according to the logic of Gregoras, Palamas argues, when we say that God has existence, power, and energy, we would, in each case, be saying, without any sort of qualification, that ‘God has God.’¹⁶⁷

The same line of reasoning, stemming from lexical formulations, can also be seen in a slightly different but related argument, which centers on the fact that the divine energies are said to be energies ‘of’ the essence. This kind of language is particularly apparent in the description of the uncreated light as “the brilliance of nature” or the “radiance of God’s essence.”¹⁶⁸ Yet even more generally, the divine energies are said not only to ‘characterize’ the divine essence; they are also specifically predicated of the divine essence using the genitive case. Thus, the divine energies are literally the energies “of the essence” (τῆς οὐσίας).¹⁶⁹ Once again, Palamas argues that such a formulation would be nonsensical if essence and energies were identical.¹⁷⁰ The two terms would simply be synonymous so that, by affirming that the divine energies are ‘of the essence,’ one would be saying that the nature is of the essence.¹⁷¹ The use of the genitive case must therefore point to the fact that essence and energies are different from one another (ἕτερον ἑτέρου).¹⁷²

Along similar lines, Palamas also draws attention to the fact that the divine energies stand in relation (anaphora) to essence and cannot be understood at all on their own. “For if it is devoid of nature, from which and in which it is, it will lack existence altogether.”¹⁷³ Just the as Son and Spirit stand in relation to the Father but are not identical to him, so the divine energies are relative to the essence without being identified with it.¹⁷⁴ This relationship is expressed particularly through the language of derivation. The divine energies not only belong to the divine essence, but they are also “from” it (ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας). Although the essence is ‘being itself’ (αὐτὴ ἐστι τὸ εἶναι) and does not have its being ‘from anything’ (οὐδαμόθεν ἔχει τὸ εἶναι), the energies, on the contrary, are said to be ‘from God’ (ἐκ θεοῦ) and from the essence. Thus, if energy was ousia, this would mean that there were two essences and thus two Gods, one self-existent and one derived.¹⁷⁵ “Who,” then, asks Palamas, “of those who think rightly, will not understand that the grace and energy of God differs (διενηνοχυῖαν) from his essence, since it is from it, even if it is not separated (διασπᾶται) from it?”¹⁷⁶ In the same way, the divine energy is often spoken of as being ‘from the Spirit’ (ἐκ τοῦ πνεύματος). But if this energy was simply the essence, then it would be the divine essence that was said to derive ‘from’ the Spirit, which is an obvious error.¹⁷⁷ Likewise, to the extent that divine grace is “from him who ever is,” the identification of God’s nature with grace would mean that neither the divine nature nor the Father are uncaused (ἀναίτιος), as Christians profess.¹⁷⁸ For the same reason, one cannot identify the grace that ‘goes forth’ (ἐξιούσα) “from” Christ with the essence of God, which is entirely unoriginate and underived.¹⁷⁹

All of these ways of speaking reveal for Palamas that essence and energies cannot be identified, since even the attempt to conflate God’s nature with its attributes testifies to the differentiation of the transcendent ousia from the properties that it possesses.

The Appeal to Specific Energies

In addition to the foregoing arguments, Palamas will also appeal to specific divine energies which he believes are obviously and demonstrably distinct from ‘what’ God is. Among the most important of these is a point that we have encountered already, namely, that some of the divine energies are not positive attributes but negations. Precisely as negations, which express what God is not, they cannot, Palamas observes, be equated with the substance or quiddity of God. If they tell us what God is not, they cannot tell us what God is. Such ‘energies’ include God’s incorruptibility, invisibility,¹⁸⁰ beginninglessness, endlessness, infinity,¹⁸¹ and the fact that God is unchanging, immutable, incorporeal, and invisible. These are the ἀφαιρεμάτικα.¹⁸² Although real, eternal features of the Godhead, such attributes cannot be identified with the subsistent essence of God.¹⁸³

Still other energies and divine names cannot be equated with the transcendent essence of God because they are relative, such as the fact that God is king, Lord, and Pantokrator.¹⁸⁴ As the ‘energies’ whereby God exercises kingship, dominion, and absolute rule over creatures, such names could not possibly express God’s substance because they do not tell us what he is in absolute terms but only something about his relationship to creatures. Thus, even though they characterize the divine essence eternally, so that God is king, Lord, and ruler of all by nature (and not by acquisition, addition, or change), they are nevertheless distinct from the substance and quiddity of the transcendent God. Among the most important of the divine energies in this regard is divine providence (πρόνοια).¹⁸⁵ Although human beings truly experience God as providence, still providence is not ‘what’ God is, since the divine essence as such is unnamable and absolutely unconditioned by creatures.¹⁸⁶

Conclusion

Gregory’s many arguments for the distinction between essence and energies over his long polemical career are not static or easy to summarize. Yet they center on a few core themes. These include especially the need to predicate contraries of God, the need to differentiate human experience and knowledge of God from the unconditioned and absolute being of ‘what’ God is, the need to distinguish God’s being from his production of creatures, and the need to make sense of traditional Christian idiom for talking about God’s nature and energies. Through these arguments, Palamas attempts to show that the manifold divine energies could not possibly be a kind of definition of God’s essence. The essence is not ‘from’ anything. It is self-existent (αὐθοπόστατος) and cause (αἰτία), while his energy, on the other hand, is caused (αἰτιατή) and derived ‘from’ or ‘out of’ the essence. The divine energy or power “descends in a God-fitting manner toward creation without being separated from essence. It is known and named from creatures, as the great Basil says.”¹⁸⁷ Thus, God’s infinite power to do all things (τὸ δύνασθαι) is not itself essence but surrounds the essence (περὶ τὴν οὐσίαν).¹⁸⁸ Palamas asks how such things as procession (πρόοδος) and being unmoved (ἡ ἀκινησία), imparticipability (τὸ ἀμέθεκτον) and participation (μέθεξις), hiddenness and manifestation can be the same? “For these differ from one another necessarily.”¹⁸⁹ God is both intelligible and inconceivable, seen and invisible, imparticipable yet shared.¹⁹⁰ But if the coincidence of these opposites in God is to be anything other than irrationality, and if they are to avoid violating the law of contradiction, then they cannot be true in the same way and at the same level. For all of these reasons, Palamas maintains, it is necessary to posit a difference between the transcendent essence of God and his communicable energies, powers, and divine names.

In the following chapter, we turn from these arguments for the distinction of essence and energies to the arguments for their unity in God. Though the theology of St Gregory Palamas is associated especially with the difference between ousia and energeiai, Palamas takes great pains to show that God is absolutely one in his essence and energies and that the distinction between essence and energies does nothing to harm the traditional simplicity of the Godhead, which he vehemently seeks to uphold.

Notes

1. Phakrases, Debate 3 (ed. Candal, 330.14–16).

2. To a lesser extent, Palamas will also use the term διάκρισις; see, for example, Athan. 6 (PS 2:415.30); Akind. 1.14.65 (PS 3:84.15); Cyr. 1 (PS 4:102.18). Often, this is in the context of the ‘unions and distinctions’ of Dionysios (see Cap. 85–86; ed. Sinkewicz, 182–184) and the self-multiplication of God in his outpouring and processions (see Akind. 3.22.102 [PS 3:235.2–3] Tr. 1.3.23, 3.2.4 [ed. Meyendorff, 159.20, 651.11–12]; Ep. Akind. 3.14 [PS 1:306.9]; Athan. 43 [PS 2:452.10–14]. At times, it also parallels the diakrisis of the Trinity, which is said to be ‘divided’ (μερίζεται, διακρίνεται) in three Persons; see Akind. 5.27.113 (PS 3:373.13–374.1).

3. “The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church by Vladimir Lossky,” ECQ 12 (1958): 308.

4. Mystical Theology, 69; citing Theophanes (PG 150:932D).

5. Mystical Theology, 77. “Too often,” Lossky writes, “it is forgotten that the idea of the divine simplicity—at least in the way in which it is presented in the manuals of theology—originates in human philosophy rather than in the divine revelation” (ibid., 78). Lossky speaks here of the “simpliste notion of the divine simplicity,” with which he associates the work of Guichardan, “a striking example of this theological insensibility before the fundamental mysteries of the faith,” that is to say, the mystery of the Trinity (ibid., n. 2).

6. “The Debate about Palamism,” 51. Cf. Lévy, “Lost in Translation,” 431, who gives a lengthy and representative quote from Joost van Rossum, “Deification in Palamas and Aquinas,” 368. The essay by Lévy is largely governed by this basic hermeneutical question as a dividing line between the Western Christian and Neo-Palamite paradigms.

7. See Ehrhard, “Theologie,” 101; Jugie, Theologia Dogmatica 2:57; Lossky, Mystical Theology, 76–77.

8. See the Introduction, pp. 2–4. Cf. De Halleux, “Palamisme et Scolastique,” 427.

9. Damian, “A Few Considerations on the Uncreated Energies,” 112. De Halleux will even eschew any attempt to reconcile the essence–energies distinction with divine simplicity, arguing that, for Palamas, God is beyond such categories; see “Palamisme et Scolastique,” 421. Ivánka, following Lossky, therefore accuses Palamas of answering the philosophical objections of his opponents by arguing that dialectic has no place in theology and by excluding “conceptual reflection” from the domain of religion; see Plato Christianus, 392.

10. Yannaras, “The Distinction between Essence and Energies,” 242.

11. “Gregory Palamas and the Divine Simplicity,” 276; cf. H. Gunnarsson, Mystical Realism in the Early Theology of Gregory Palamas: Context and Analysis, 255. In a related way, Lialine observes that Gregory’s “theology of light” is not one that “makes use of rational concepts to express abstract realities” (“Gregory Palamas and the Divine Simplicity,” 282).

12. Theo. 4 (PS 2:224.18–19).

13. Theo. 22 (PS 248.20–23): οὐχ ὑπερφυὲς τοῦτ’ ἐστίν, οὐδὲ θεοπρεπές, ἄπαγε· παρὰ φύσιν δὲ μᾶλλον καὶ τῶν ἀδυνάτων πάντῃ.

14. Theo. 22 (PS 2:248.27–249.5).

15. Theo. 22 (PS 2:249.5–10).

16. Citing Phil. 7 (PS 2:523); see Gregory Palamas and the Making of Palamism, 3 n. 9. Georgi Kapriev has also stressed this point; see Byzantica Minora, 178. Cf., also, the discussion in Lévy, “Lost in Translatio,” 436, which focuses on this theme in John Kantakouzenos’s reply to the papal legate Paul.

17. Mystical Theology, 70. Lossky was well aware that ‘antinomy’ in Palamas did not mean overt paradox or contradiction. For this reason, he grounds the notion of antinomy in the doctrine of the Trinity, which confesses the unity of the Trinity in essence and the plurality of the Trinity in Persons; see ibid., 69. Although Orthodox scholars of Palamas in the twentieth century knew the relevant texts from the Theophanes, there seems to have been a reticence to draw the obvious conclusions from them, perhaps in fear of acquiescing to rationalistic or Scholastic categories; see, for example, Kiprian Kern, who, even while citing the relevant passages about logical contradictions, falls back on “the living experience of the liturgy” as a way of resolving “these conflicts of reason” (“Les éléments de la théologie,” 22).

18. See Akind. 4.18.50 (PS 3:278.29–279.5).

19. See Akind. 4.13.33 (PS 3:265.13–266.2): Palamas says that Akindynos “flees” the conversation, being unwilling to explain how opposites can be predicated of God without contradiction.

20. This was noted already by Sherwood, “The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church,” 308.

21. Theo. 13 (PS 2:238.11–12).

22. Dan. 5 (PS 2:378.21–31).

23. See Chapter 3, p. 87.

24. Akind. 2.8.25 (PS 3:102.22–27), paraphrasing Dan. 5 (PS 2:378.21–31).

25. Theo. 8 (PS 2:230.24–25); cf. Theo. 9 (231.1–2). Μία καὶ οὐχ ἡ οὐσία μονή (Theo 9; PS 2:231.9).

26. Energ. 3 (PS 2:97.19–27).

27. Energ. 3 (PS 2:97.18–19). Palamas actually says that God ‘defines’ unity in the sense of defining or bounding ‘the One’ (αὐτὸ τὸ ἓν ὁρίζον). Here the point is obviously not that there is a One distinct from God but that the divine essence is the very ground and foundation of unity. Thus, God necessarily transcends the oneness ‘around him,’ which he is also able to impart, for example, to the deified who are joined to him, even though the unity they receive exists in God and flows eternally from the divine essence.

28. See, for example, Greg. 1.36 (PS 4:259.6), 2.17 (PS 4:277.14–15); Dan. 7 (PS 2:380.25–381.7); Energ. 15 (PS 2:108.7–14); Union 28 (PS 2:90.1–2), 31 (PS 2:92.5–6); Akind. 6.9.22 (PS 3:400.25–27).

29. Akind. 6.14.51 (PS 3:425.2–4).

30. Akind. 6.14.51 (PS 3:425.2–4). Palamas contrasts the multiplicity of the divine powers not only with the unity but also with the simplicity of the divine essence; see Energ. 13 (PS 2:106.21–24).

31. Phakrases, Debate 4 (ed. Candal, 331.27–30). Cf. Akind. 2.8.21 (PS 2:100.8–18).

32. Theo. 32 (PS 2:262.1–14); see Cyril, Thesaurus 14 (PG 75:236C). Cf. Cap. 117.4–6 (ed. Sinkewicz, 218).

33. Akind. 3.13.44 (PS 3:196.25–26); Greg. 2.49 (PS 4:300.7–8); see Basil, Ep. 234 (LCL 243:372).

34. Phakrases, Debate 15 (ed. Candal, 344.1–4). The text cited by Palamas, To John Symponos, is not found among the extant writings of St Maximos. For discussion, see Biriukov and Makarov, “Kомментарии,” 91.

35. Phakrases, Debate 15 (ed. Candal, 344.5–7), citing Athanasios, Contra gentes 46.60–47.2 (ed. Thomson, 130).

36. Theo. 9 (PS 2:232.10–11); Phakrases, Debate 15 (344.8–9). See Basil, On the Spirit 9.22 (SC 17:147.1).

37. Energ. 40 (PS 2:125.7).

38. Cap. 82.13–24 (ed. Sinkewicz, 180); cf. Ep. Akind. 3.2 (PS 1:297.8–13).

39. Akind. 5.15.58 (PS 3:330.9–11); Cap. 70.1–17 (ed. Sinkewicz, 164); ἐπαναπαύσεται ἐπ’ αὐτὸν ἑπτὰ πνεύματα· πνεῦμα σοφίας, συνέσεως, γνώσεως, εὐσεβείας, βουλῆς, ἰσχύος, φόβου. Although the phrase ‘seven spirits’ is absent from printed versions of the Septuagint, Isaiah 11:2 is often cited in this form in Greek patristic texts; see, for example, Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 41 (SC 358:344.1); Maximos, Questions to Thalassios 54 (CCSG 7:461.309); Zygabenos, Commentary on the Psalter, Proem (PG 128:68D). Moreover, it is explicitly linked in Palamas to the ‘seven spirits’ of Revelation (Rv 1:4, 3:5, 4:5, 5:6).

40. Cap. 100.9–13 (ed. Sinkewicz, 164), citing Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 41 (SC 358:319.3–4). Cf. Akind. 5.15.58 (PS 3:330.29–30).

41. Adversus Eunomium 5 (PG 29:716D). See Cap. 71.12–13 (ed. Sinkewicz, 166). These are identified with the “fruits” of the Spirit in (Gal. 5:22) and are generally equated with the seven Spirits of Isaiah as well as the seven eyes of the Lord that look over the earth (Zec 4:10; cf. Rv 5:6); see Akind. 5.15.59 (PS 3:331.6–26).

42. Adversus Eunomium 5 (PG 29:772C).

43. Akind. 5.15.59 (PS 3:331.24–26).

44. See Energ. 3 (PS 97.27–98.1).

45. Energ. 3 (PS 2:97.25–98.1), citing the Scholia to the Divine Names 2.11, 232C (ed. Suchla 4:196.4–6). Shortly after this Palamas cites DN 2.5, 641D-644A (ed. Suchla 1:128.16–17), where the same words (πληθηνούσης and πολυπλασιαζούσης) are found.” ‘Counsel’ (βούλημα) is glossed a few lines later as θέλημα; Energ. 3 (PS 2:98.19–20).

46. Cf. Greg. 2.12 (PS 4:272.27–273.1) and, especially, Union 28 (PS 2:89.1–90.4). On the division of participated being, see Cap. 91.2–5 (ed. Sinkewicz, 190).

47. Cap. 91.12 (ed. Sinkewicz, 190).

48. Cap. 91.14–15 (ed. Sinkewicz, 190). Cf. Chapters 94 (ed. Sinkewicz, 194–195), where Gregory uses the distinction between the sun’s light and warmth as an analog for the distinction between the creative and deifying energy of God. Although the two activities of the sun’s rays are inseparable, they are not fully enjoyed by all, depending on their capacities. On the distinction between the creative and deifying energies in Palamite theology, see Biriukov, “Neilos Kabasilas’s Rule of Theology and the Distinction between the Light and Warmth of Fire in Neilos Kabasilas and Gregory Palamas,” Scrinium 14 (2018): 373–391.

49. Akind. 5.13.49 (PS 3:324.13–17).

50. Union 17 (PS 2:81.5–7). Cf. Greg. 2.58 (PS 4:305.19–306.1).

51. Union 14 (PS 2:78.29–31). Cf. Cap. 129.7–8 (ed. Sinkewicz, 232).

52. Tr. 3.2.13 (ed. Meyendorff, 667.28–669.3).

53. Cap. 65.14–17 (ed. Sinkewicz, 160).

54. Cap. 117.11–13 (ed. Sinkewicz, 218).

55. See, for example, Lossy, Mystical Theology, 73, 86–90; Kern, “Les éléments de la théologie,” 31; Lialine, “Gregory Palamas and the Divine Simplicity,” 274. Cf. Tollefsen, Activity and Participation, 76–81.

56. See Greg. 2.72 (PS 4:314.29).

57. See, for example, Cap. 132.10 (ed. Sinkewicz, 236); Greg. 23 (PS 4:248.28–30); and the discussion in Chapter 2, pp. XX–XX.

58. Akind. 3.13.43 (PS 3:196.2–5). Cf. Akind. 3.13.50 (PS 3:199.30). Palamas says that God’s energy is “not one as the … acquired (ἐπίκτητον) energy of an artisan” (Union 21; PS 2:84.28–85.2). The divine energy is one in that it works all things (τὰ πάντα ἐνεργεί). But it is also spoken of as one in that it encompasses the totality of diverse powers and the full range of faculties and perfections that characterize God (Akind. 1.7.24; PS 3:56.12–18). “When we say that there is only one energy in God, we understand the [one] that encompasses (περιέχουσαν) all of them” (Energ. 7; PS 2:101.20–21). Palamas draws an analogy for this with the sun, which has multiple energies in that it warms, illumines, enlivens, and gives growth. Yet it has one activity in the sense that when one refers to its energeia in the singular, one refers to the activity that encompasses (περιεκτικήν) all, just as when one lists them all, one refers to ‘one activity.’ Thus, in speaking, with reference to the sun, of “that [energy] that encompasses (τὴν περιεκτικὴν ἐκείνην) and actualizes the others (τὰς ἄλλας ἐνεργούσαν), you say all of them” (Energ. 7; PS 2:101.24–27). Indeed, this is also common parlance when speaking of ‘human activity,’ which encompasses and actualizes the diverse powers and attributes of a human person.

59. Greg. 1.32 (PS 4:255.8–9).

60. See Akind. 2.17.80 (PS 3:142.27–143.2).

61. Palamas also notes that if Akindynos is correct that there is a single energy that is identical to the divine essence, then all the other divine energies, that is, any of the divine attributes that differ among themselves, would be created; Energ. 6 (PS 2:101.13–16).

62. Greg. 4.47 (PS 4:365.29–366.2); see Adversus Eunomium 1 (SC 299:194.22–25).

63. Union 28 (PS 2:90.3–4): οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐστι πρὸς ἓν ἀδιαφόρως ἔχειν τὰ διαφέροντα πρὸς ἄλληλα. Cf. Greg. 2.39 (PS 4:293.16).

64. Akind. 5.26.107 (PS 3:369.9–10).

65. See Greg. 2.9 (PS 4:270–271); Akind. 5.26.107 (PS 3:369.7–15), 2.17.80 (PS 3:143.2–9).

66. Cap. 144.7–9 (ed. Sinkewicz, 248).

67. Akind. 2.17.84 (PS 3:145.11–17).

68. Dam. 17 (PS 2:474.3–8). Here these are all called ‘energies.’

69. Akind. 5.26.106 (PS 3:368.21–24).

70. Akind. 4.7.13 (PS 3:251.4–10).

71. Dan. 22 (PS 2:394.10–11); Akind. 2.5.14 (PS 3:95.1–5). For Grumel, this is one possible interpretation of the ‘formal finitude’ appropriated by Gennadios Scholarios from Scotus. “To say that the operation is formally finite could simply be to say that intellection, for example, formally and of itself, is not will, and vice versa; that justice, formally and of itself, is nothing more than justice, and not mercy, and vice versa; that each of the divine perfections is nothing more than that perfection, and not every single perfection” (“Grégoire Palamas,” 92).

72. Ref. int. Kal. 26 (PS 2:667.26–28).

73. Ep. Ign. 29 (PS 2:644.26–645.14); Akind. 1.7.32 (PS 2:63.10–12); Cap. 100.2–5 (ed. Sinkewicz, 198). Palamas notes that, in this way, goodness would be the cause (αἰτίον) of evil, making Akindynos, who espouses this reasoning, worse than Manes, who, even in attributing evil to God did not deprive God of his omnipotence; Akind. 1.7.32 (PS 2:63.10–13). The fact that evil lacks any ontological content is not, of course, at issue here, since the argument of Palamas relies on the fact that God foreknows sinful human events and actions (which he does not will) even before they occur, regardless of the ontological status of evil per se.

74. Cap. 103.1–5 (ed. Sinkewicz, 200).

75. Cap. 101.1–4 (ed. Sinkewicz, 198), 102.1–6 (ed. Sinkewicz, 198–200).

76. Ep. Ign. 29 (PS 2:644.26–645.14).

77. There is no distinction, in Palamas, between saying that “we know God from his energies” and “we know God’s energies” (cf. Demetracopoulos, “Palamas Transformed,” 268). The consequence for Palamas of believing that the uncreated energies are God himself is that knowing the divine energies is not different from knowing God; see, for example, Akind. 5.14.12–13 (PS 3:296.1–33).

78. Greg. 2.17 (PS 4:277.14–15).

79. Cap. 82.1–4 (ed. Sinkewicz, 178).

80. Cap. 82.5 (ed. Sinkewicz, 178).

81. Asan. 4 (PS 2:366.4–8); Ekth. 15 (PS 2:582.11–14). For the Byzantine belief that Eunomios claimed to know the divine essence, see, for example, Socrates, Ecclesiastical History 4.7.13 (SC 505:38); St Gregory of Nyssa, CE 2.61 (GNO 1:243–244); id., On the Divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit, 557D (GNO 10.1:121–122). The idea that the divine essence itself was an object of knowledge or vision was also associated with the Messalian heresy, imputed in the fourteenth century to the Bogomils; see Greg. 4.31 (PS 4:358.4). Cf. Chapter 2, p.75, n. 27.

82. Barl. 9 (PS 2:269.2–4).

83. Akind. 5.3.9 (PS 3:293.24–25), 4.13.31 (PS 3:264.17–18); Barl. 9 (PS 2:269.4–7). Cf. Akind. 5.3.8 (PS 3:293.14–18). See Loudovikos, “Being and Essence Revisited,” 138; cf. id., “Striving for Participation,” 140–142.

84. Akind. 5.4.13 (PS 3:296.29–30).

85. Dan. 22 (PS 2:393.28).

86. Akind. 5.3.8 (PS 3:293.14–18). As noted early on, God is one and unnamed (ἀνώνυμος) according to essence, but he has many names (πολυώνυμος) from his many divine powers (Energ. 15; PS 2:108.13–14). Nevertheless, as already noted, the fact that God is named ‘from creatures’ (Dan. 22; PS 2:393.28) does not mean that the divine energies themselves are not eternal. “Not because we name them do we also know them as coming into existence after the fact (ὑστερογενῆ)” (Dan. 22; PS 2:393.22–394.2).

87. See Akind. 4.8.18 (PS 3:254.26–255.6). Cf. Akind. 4.8.20 (PS 3:256.25–29). Thus, when Gregory’s opponents point to a passage in Adversus Eunomium 5, which states, “In the simple and bodiless nature, the energy admits the same ‘definition’ as the essence (τὸν αὐτὸν τῆς οὐσίας λόγον ἐπιδέχεται ἡ ἐνέργεια),” Palamas is careful to point out that this cannot refer to a definition in the sense of an ὁρισμός, since the divine ousia admits no definition whatsoever (Greg. 2.74; PS 4:315.24–27). See Adversus Eunomium 5 (PG 29:716B). Cf. Akind. 3.11.32–3.13.41 (PS 3:187–194); Greg. 2.73–75 (PS 4:315.15–25). For the anti-Palamite reliance on this passage, see Akindynos, Refutatio magna 1.18, 3.15, 4.19 (CCSG 31:20.49–51, 189.19–20, 345.9–10); id., Short Refutation 295–296 (CCSG 31:421); Gregoras, Historia 30.58 (Bonn 3:309.10–11); Arsenios, Against the Palamites (ed. Polemis, 271.548–549). Cf. Gregoras, Historia 30.59 (Bonn 3:309.11–15): Ἐπεὶ δ’ ὁ τῆς οὐσίας ὅρος καὶ λόγος (ταὐτὸν γὰρ ὅρος καὶ λόγος) πρᾶγμά ἐστιν αὐθύπαρκτον, μὴ δεόμενον ἑτέρου πρὸς ὕπαρξιν, εἴη ἂν πάντως καὶ ὁ τῆς ἐνεργείας λόγος ὁ αὐτός, κἂν τοῖς ὀνόμασι διαφέρωσι. Cf. Greg. 4.73 (PS 4:315.18–22).

88. Akind. 4.13.32 (PS 2:265.8–11).

89. Phakrases, Debate 5 (ed. Candal, 332.13–22).

90. Union 9 (PS 2:76.1–6). Cf. Cap. 141.1–11 (ed. Sinkewicz, 246).

91. Barl. 15 (PS 2:274.5–6). Cf. Ekth. 13 (PS 2:582.1–3).

92. Akind. 4.13.32 (PS 2:265.8–11).

93. Akind. 5.3.7 (PS 3:292.15–16).

94. Theo. 27 (PS 2:254.17–27).

95. Akind. 5.3.7 (PS 3:292.15–16).

96. Akind. 5.3.7 (PS 3:292.26–29).

97. Athan. 8 (PS 2:419.14–18); Akind. 5.5.15 (PS 3:297.27–29).

98. Theo. 27 (PS 2:255.12); cf. Tr. 3.2.4 (ed. Meyendorff, 669.12–16).

99. Tr. 3.2.4 (ed. Meyendorff, 669.12–16). This is not to say that the divine energy is not also ‘invisible’ in the sense of being immaterial and beyond sensation; cf. Introduction, p. 8, n. 20, and Chapter 1, p. 56.

100. Theo. 27 (PS 2:255.2–3).

101. Asan. 4 (PS 2:366.10–12): ἀόρατον καθ’ ἐαυτὴν καὶ ὁρατὸν καθ’ ἐαυτήν.

102. Greg. 2.70 (PS 4:313.15–19).

103. The most important study of this question remains that of Ivánka, Plato Christianus, especially 391–392. See, also, Loudovikos, “Striving for Participation,” 122–148; Tollefsen, Activity and Participation; Russell, “The Christological Context of Palamas’ Approach to Participation in God,” 190–198; Milbank, “Christianity and Platonism in East and West,” 74–114; D. Costache, “Experiencing the Divine Life: Levels of Participation in St Gregory Palamas’ On the Divine and Deifying Participation,” Phronesis 26.1 (2011): 9–25; S.F. Pentecost, “Quest for the Divine Presence: Metaphysics of Participation and the Relation of Philosophy to Theology in St. Gregory Palamas’s Triads and One Hundred and Fifty Chapters.” The name of Palamas also comes up frequently in discussions of participation generally; see, for example, B. McCormack, “Participation in God, Yes, Deification, No: Two Modern Protestant Responses to an Ancient Question,” in I.U. Dalferth (ed.), Denkwürdiges Geheimnis: Beiträge zur Gotteslehre, 373–374; H.U. Von Balthasar, Theo-Logic: Volume 2, Truth of God, 204.

104. Theo. 11 (PS 2:235.1–2).

105. See Theo. 30 (PS 2:258.4); cf. Akind. 5.27.116 (PS 3:375.20–21). The variety of participations correspond not only to the multiplicity of creatures but also to the diversity of God’s energies. “Things that simply exist participate in the essence-making power, things that live in the life-creating power, and the others in the powers that correspond to them;” Gabr. 23 (PS 2:349.29–30), Akind. 2.13.57 (PS 3:126.16–17); cf. DN 11.6, 956A (ed. Suchla, 222).

106. Cap. 75.4–6 (ed. Sinkewicz, 170).

107. Tr. 3.2.19 (ed. Meyendorff, 677.24–26).

108. Theo. 21 (PS 2:247.30–248.2).

109. Akind. 1.7.19 (PS 3:52.19–28); Ref. int. Kal. 27 (PS 2:668.26–28); Theo. 1 (PS 2:220.16).

110. The uncreated being (ὀντότης/ τὸ εἶναι), for example, in which creatures participate and from which they have their own created being, must be something other than the ousia of God; see Tr. 3.2.23 (ed. Meyendorff, 683.10–685.17).

111. See Meyendorff, Introduction, 253–254; Lossky, Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 70; Krivoshein, “The Ascetic and Theological Teaching,”144; Loudovikos, “Narcissism beyond Pleasure,” 49.

112. Theo. 19 (PS 2:245.9–16). Cf. Greg. 4.57–58 (PS 4:371.22–26).

113. Theo. 18 (PS 2:243.31–33).

114. Theo. 18 (PS 2:244.8–20); Greg. 4.56 (PS 4:371.1–5). On the various divine energies as features of the ‘fullness’ of divinity, see Greg. 4.53–4.64, especially 4.59 and 4.64.

115. Theo. 21 (PS 2:247.8–12); cf. Greg. 4.62 (PS 4:374.27–375.2); Cap. 110.1–4 (ed. Sinkewicz, 208).

116. Cap. 74.5–6 (ed. Sinkewicz, 168); see Chrysostom, On the Psalms 44.3 (PG 55:186). The extent to which Chrysostomic material on the subject of divine grace dominates Gregory’s writings has been largely overlooked.

117. Greg. 4.60 (PS 4:373.23–24).

118. Greg. 4.60 (PS 4:373.23–29). Cf. Cap. 74.11–12 (ed. Sinkewicz, 168–170). See Chrysostom, On the Psalms 44.3 (PG55:186).

119. Akind. 1.7.37 (PS 3:66.10–12); cf. Chrysostom, On the Psalms 44.2–3 (PG 55:186).

120. Akind. 5.27.117 (PS 3:376.10–13).

121. Cap. 74.2–5 (ed. Sinkewicz, 168). In the same way, the uncreated light seen by the saints in this life is but “a certain portion (ἔξαλμα) of that brilliance” (Akind. 4.16.43; PS 3:273.2–3). In this sense, the uncreated light is a ‘symbol,’ ‘mirror,’ and first-fruits (ἀπαρχή) of the light seen in eternity, since it is proportionate to the righteousness of its recipients. In the next age, it will be fuller and more complete (Akind. 7.6.15; PS 3:472.9–12).

122. Greg. 4.60 (PS 4:373.13–15).

123. Greg. 4.59 (PS 4:372.21–27). The ‘measure’ of grace is therefore a kind of applied analogia, since it relates to differences not in God but in the deified; see Akind. 3.6.13–16 (PS 3:170–174).

124. Theo. 20 (PS 2:246.20–23). This applies not only to deifying grace but also to providence, which is differentiated in relation to its recipients.

125. Greg. 4.60 (PS 4:374.23–27).

126. Cap. 74.3–15 (ed. Sinkewicz, 168–170); cf. Greg. 4.62 (PS 4:375.2).

127. Akind. 4.15.42 (PS 3:271.17–24).

128. Debate 16 (ed. Candal, 18–21). Cf. Theo. 20 (PS 2:246.12–16): the essence of the Spirit is neither imparted (μερίζεται) nor given out (μεταδίδοται).

129. Greg. 4.59 (PS 4:372.10–12).

130. See Akind. 3.6.16 (PS 3:174.4–5).

131. Cap. 95.6–7 (ed. Sinkewicz, 194). Cf. Greg. 4.59 (PS 3:373.2–5); Gabr. 28 (PS 2:356.19–28); Akind. 3.7.17 (PS 3:174.24–29).

132. Greg. 4.59 (PS 4:372.14–17); cf. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 30.21 (SC 250:272).

133. Greg. 4.59 (PS 4:372.10–12).

134. Greg. 4.59 (PS 4:373.5–9); cf. Chrysostom, Homilies on John 30.2 (PG 59:174).

135. Akind. 3.7.19 (PS 3:176.15–16).

136. Greg. 4.60 (PS 4:373.16–19); cf. Chrysostom, On the Psalms 44.3 (PG 55:186).

137. Cap. 75.13–14 (ed. Sinkewicz, 170); Greg. 4.60 (PS 4:19–21).

138. See Chapter 2, pp. XX–XX.

139. See Lossky, Mystical Theology, 85. Florovsky, “Grégoire Palamas et la patristique,” 124; Loudovikos, “Narcissism beyond Pleasure,” 43.

140. See Ep. Ign. 28 (PS 2:644.7–23). Cf. Akind. 2.11.39 (PS 3:113.21–114.9). On the nature-will distinction in Trinitarian theology, see Ayres, Nicaea and its Legacy, 27–28, 53–58, 90, 129, 146–148, 197–198; Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine, 41–98.

141. See Chapter 2, p. 79, nn. 124 and 126.

142. Dion. 8 (PS 2:485.17–25).

143. Greg. 2.40 (PS 4:293.32). Palamas explains that the Son is not a product of the divine will because this same will is in him. If the Son were to come from the divine will, then the Godhead would require another Logos in whom the will exists; Akind. 6.17.66 (PS 3:436.13–18).

144. See Ep. Ign. 28 (PS 2:644.7–23).

145. Cap. 135.16–17 (ed. Sinkewicz, 240).

146. This is not to say that the Son and the Spirit, and the energies themselves, derive from God “unwillingly.” When Gregoras implies as much, in order to abolish the distinction between essence and energy, Palamas accuses him of imitating the early Trinitarian heretics, who asked whether the Father begot the Son “willingly” or “unwillingly.” See Greg. 4.3 (PS 4:342.28; 343.5), 4.7 (PS 4:354.10). According to Palamas, if everything done “willingly” is a creature, then this would make the Spirit a creature, since he is also sent in accordance with God’s will; Greg. 4.18 (PS 4:350.15–20).

147. Cap. 143.7–8 (ed. Sinkewicz, 248), citing John of Damaskos, Exact Exposition 8 (1.8) (ed. Kotter, 21.67–70).

148. Cap. 96.1–97.5 (ed. Sinkewicz, 196); Gabr. 16 (PS 2:343.10–20).

149. Ref. int. Kal. 27 (PS 2:668.29–30).

150. Phakrases, Debate 19 (ed. Candal, 348.15–18).

151. Gabr. 16 (PS 2:343.10–21).

152. Ep. Ign. 28 (PS 2:644.7–23).

153. Akind. 1.7.20 (PS 3:53.28–54.8). Palamas numbers this species of emanationism among the three kinds of Greek atheism; see Dam. 2 (PS 2:480.3–10). Akindynos is therefore a ‘Hellene,’ like Julian the Apostate, for believing in the ingeneracy of the world (Akind. 1.7.16–17; PS 3:51.3–26; 52.4–8). As Palamas asks in his Letter to Gabras, how could God be Creator from his creative faculty (τὸ δημιουργεῖν) if this is nature and not a property of the divine nature (πρόσεστι τῇ θείᾳ φύσει)? (Gabr. 25; PS 2:353.14–18). Chapter 3. Chapter 4, pp. 98–99.

154. Gabr. 16 (PS 2:343.21–344.2).

155. Ekth. 31 (PS 2:584.21–26).

156. Mystical Theology, 74. Cf. Tr. 3.3.7: God would be either constrained (ἀναγκαθεὶς) or changed (μεταβουλευθεὶς) in acting (ed. Meyendorff, 709.3).

157. Cap. 135.1 (ed. Sinkewicz, 240); cf. ibid. 135.24–25.

158. Cap. 135.17–18 (ed. Sinkewicz, 240). Palamas uses βουλή and θέλησις more or less interchangeably when speaking of the divine will.

159. Dion. 8 (PS 2:485.20–21); Akind. 5.12.43 (PS 3:320.10–12); Cap. 73.10–11, 143.5–6 (ed. Sinkewicz, 168, 248); Greg. 1.33 (PS 4:256.12).

160. Ep. Ign. 28 (PS 2:644.7–23). Cf. Dam. 5 (PS 2:459.17–22).

161. Greg. 2.39 (PS 4:260.30–261.16); cf. Cap. 98.1–4 (ed. Sinkewicz, 196).

162. Tr. 3.2.6 (ed. Meyendorff, 655.1–3).

163. See the discussion in Chapter 5, pp. 145–149.

164. Dion. 2 (PS 2:480.17–29).

165. Akind. 1.3.4 (PS 3:49.15–50.2).

166. See, for example, Greg. 1.42 (PS 4:263.10–14). Greg. 2.65–2.68 is devoted to the use of the verb ἔχω. Cf. Phakrases, Debate 17–18 (ed. Candal, 347.23–348.2). Chapter 4.

167. Greg. 2.52 (PS 4:301.16–20). The language of possession here is meant to mirror Trinitarian theology, where that which possesses (τὸ ἔχον) and that which is possessed (τὸ ἐχόμενον) differ in spite of their unity and identity in essence; Greg. 2.67 (PS 4:311.8–23). The Father is said to ‘have’ the Son and the Holy Spirit, and this shows that they are different in spite of their essential unity and consubstantiality; Greg. 2.52 (PS 4:300.23).

168. Greg. 1.42 (PS 243.18–28)

169. See Tr. 3.1.8, 24 (ed. Meyendorff, 571.26, 603.27).

170. The fact that the energies belong to the divine essence is, of course, an argument for their being uncreated. This is duly noted by Damian, “A Few Considerations,” 103.

171. Dion. 2 (PS 2:480.17–29).

172. Greg. 2.42 (PS 4:295.27).

173. Akind. 6.13.47 (PS 3:422.33–34).

174. Greg. 2.14 (PS 4:274.22–30).

175. Energ. 38 (PS 2:123.30 -124.1). Cf. Akind. 5.12.44 (PS 3:320.24–25); Union 31 (PS 2:92.5–6).

176. Akind. 7.4.6 (465.24–27).

177. Ekth. 35 (PS 2:585.16–18); Akind. 1.4.9 (PS 3:45.8–9).

178. Akind. 1.7.36 (PS 3:66.4–8). Cf. ibid. (PS 3:65.16–66.8).

179. Akind. 3.7.18 (PS 3:175.14–19). This is indicated in Lk 4:22 (ἐκπορευόμενοι) as well as Lk 6:19 (ἐξήρχετο).

180. Cap. 118.11–12 (ed. Sinkewicz, 218).

181. Phakrases, Debate 23 (ed. Candal, 352.26–27).

182. Greg. 2.7 (PS 4:269.20–21).

183. Greg. 1.36 (PS 4:259.3–4).

184. Ibid.

185. See Union 17 (PS 2:81.17–20). Cf. the discussion on p. 112.

186. Gabr. 25 (PS 2:351.32–352.4).

187. Akind. 2.8.26 (PS 3:103.29–104.3).

188. See Phakrases, Debate 14 (ed. Candal, 342.16–17).

189. Theo. 12 (PS 2:235.20–22).

190. Theo. 10 (PS 2:234.8–11). Here intelligible and inconceivable render νοητή and ἀπερινόητος.