Essence energy distinction

1. Description and Theology

The essence energy distinction is the dogmatic theological formula of the Orthodox Church, in accordance with the Sixth (Seventh Century) and Ninth (Fourteenth Century) Ecumenical Councils. Such a dogmatic teaching is in regards to the one, eternal, and absolute Godhead being distinguished by the one divine and eternal essence by which the three Hypostases/Persons in Triune unity share and the uncreated energy of the essence. There logically can be no communication between God and man without the essence energy distinction, for both the Fathers and the Councils, and even the scripture, defines the essence of God as incommunicable and therefore, apothéōsis (participating in the essence) would be regarded as heresy within Orthodoxy. Without the essence energy distinction, God is only communicable and participable in regards to his relation with man, by his created effects, yet that which is created cannot be perfect according to St.Maximus of the Confessor in the Tenth Ambigua to John, for coming into being from non-being in of itself is an actualization/operation, and thus, and alteration within time and that which can be altered cannot be perfect, for it would rather make no sense for God to recreate his virtues and infuse them into man as a 'created effect' formally caused by divine grace, as asserted by the impious Post-Schism Western Theologian, Thomas Aquinas, in the Summa Theologiae Prima Secundae Partis, Q.110-114. Therefore, according to the holy Theologians and Fathers in the Church, such as St.John the Apostle, St.Basil the Cappadocian, St.Maximus the Confessor, and St.Gregory Palamas; we participate in the uncreated grace and therefore, the eternal love of God, by which we also participate in the divine and uncreated virtues, for all of such things are predicative on energy. For the holy Apostle and Theologian, St.John, in his First Epistle, Chapter IV, states,

"Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us." -- First Epistle of St.John the Theologian, Chapter IV.

It would be rather incoherent, for one to make such a claim that an accident (that which has a beginning and end within time, being a product of a causational relation) can truly be 'perfect' and lacking in flaw. How necessarily, could an accident be perfect? How could that by which was created in operation, being altered from non-being to being be sufficient and perfect? That which is perfect cannot be subject to alteration, for if such had non-being before being, therefore, it rather was never necessary for it to exist in the first place, in reality, for it's existence is just as needed as it's non-existence. For how would God recreate his attributes, by that which is an accident, coming into being, such as love, is created in perfection with no participation in a foreign agent? Why would these advocates truly believe the eternal love of God creates a new and accidental temporal love within us that is 'created in perfection'?

This is why we must relay back to the true faith, by which is stated by the holy Fathers, in regards to this 'eternal love'. As stated by St.Maximus in the Chapters on Knowledge, we participate in the uncreated workings of the divine and eternal virtues by the divine grace of God, which is defined as 'uncreated' in the Tenth Ambigua to Maximus in his Contemplation of Melchizedek. As stated in the Chapters on Knowledge by the holy and divine participant, St.Maximus the Confessor,

"Zealous people should look among God's works to know which of them he began to create and which, on the contrary, he did not begin. Indeed, if he has rested from all the works that he began to create, it is clear that he did not rest from those which he did not create. God's works which began in time are all beings which share, for example, the different essences of beings, for they have nonbeing before being. For God was when participated beings were not. The works of God which did not happen to begin to be in time are participated beings, in which participated beings share according to grace, for example, goodness and all that the term goodness implies, that is, all life, immortality, simplicity, immutability, and infinity and such things which are essentially contemplated in regard to him; they are also God's works, and yet they did not begin in time. For what does not exist is not older than virtue nor than anything else of what was just listed, even if beings which participate in them in these things began their existence in time. For all virtue is without beginning, not having any time previous to itself. Such things have God alone as the eternal begetter of their being. God infinitely transcends all things which participate or are participated. For everything claiming to have the term attributed to it happens to be a work of God, even if some begin their existence through becoming in time and others are implanted by grace in creatures, for example, an infused power which clearly proclaims that God is in all things. All immortal things and immortality itself, all living things and life itself, all holy things and holiness itself, all virtuous things and virtue itself, all good things and goodness itself, all beings and being itself, are clearly found to be works of God. But some began to be in time, for there was a time when they were not, and others did not begin to be in tIme. Thus there was never a time when there existed neither virtue nor goodness nor holiness nor immortality. What began in time is and is said to be what it is and is said, by participation with what did not begin in time. God is the creator of all life, immortality, holiness, and virtue, for he transcends the essence of all which can be thought and said." -- The Chapters on Knowledge by St.Maximus the Confessor, Chapters 48-50. (Maximus Confessor: Selected Writings (Classics of Western Spirituality) George C. Berthold)

And as the holy St.Gregory Palamas states in regards to the divine illumination,

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