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,

"This light, then, is not a knowledge, neither does one acquire it by any affirmation or negation. Each evil angel is an intelligence, but, as the prophets say, an "Assyrian" intelligence, which makes a bad use of knowledge. Indeed, it is impossible to make a bad use of this light, for it instantly quits anyone who leans towards evil, and leaves bereft of God any man who gives himself over to depravity. This light, then, is not a knowledge, neither does one acquire it by any affirmation or negation. Each evil angel is an intelligence, but, as the prophets say, an "Assyrian" intelligence, which makes a bad use of knowledge. Indeed, it is impossible to make a bad use of this light, for it instantly quits anyone who leans towards evil, and leaves bereft of God any man who gives himself over to depravity. them; just as one may call them "Divinity" because of Him who mysteriously energises this grace. For it is a divinising energy which is in no way separate from the energising Spirit. The man illuminated by purity has a beginning, in that he has received illumination—the Fathers for this reason call it "purity"—but the light and the illumination have no beginning. We see this particularly in the case of those men who have been illuminated in the manner of the angels, and have received deification; as Maximus says, 'Contemplating the light of the invisible and more-than-ineffable glory, they themselves also receive the blessed purity, together with the powers on high.'" -- Triads of St.Gregory Palamas, Section F. Essence and Energies in God, Chapter 17; Gregory Palamas: The Triads (Classics of Western Spirituality) published by Meyendorff

The divine and uncreated energies are also reviewed both by the holy Apostles and the Fathers, as a singularity of a energy and as a multiplicity/diversity of energies. As in, the Godhead by energy, is monad in immobility, and myriad in mobility, as stated by St.Maximus the Confessor in Quaestiones Ad Thalassium Response 55. The most basic illustration of the this doctrine is revealed by the Apostle, St.Paul, himself within the scripture in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, in regards to the divine gifts. As stated,

"And there are diversities of operations (ἐνεργημάτων/energēmatōn), but it is the same God which worketh (ἐνεργῶν/energōn) all in all." -- First Epistle of St.Paul to the Corinthians Chapter XII.

This same "energōn" is also used by the holy Apostle in his Epistle to the Philippians,

"Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh (ἐνεργῶν/energōn) in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." -- The Epistle of St.Paul to the Philippians Chapter II.

Therefore, it can be necessarily demonstrated that 'energōn' necessarily implies an energisational context, as when used by the holy Apostle, St.Paul.

This singularity and multiplicity is yet also revealed in the Ambigua of the blessed Father, St.Maximus the Confessor. As is stated,

" For different things would not be different from each other if their logoi, according to which they came into being, did not themselves admit of difference. If, then, just as when the senses apprehend material objects in a natural manner, they must, in receiving them, necessarily recognize that the perceptions of these objects (which underlie and are susceptible to their grasp) are many and diverse— so, too, when the intellect naturally apprehends all the logoi in beings and contemplates within them the infinite energies of God, it recognizes the differences of the divine energies it perceives to be multiple and—to speak truly— infinite. Then, as regards scientific inquiry into that which is really true, the intellect—for reasons one may readily appreciate—will find the power of any such inquiry ineffective and its method useless, for it provides the intellect with no means of understanding how God—who is truly none of the things that exist, and who, properly speaking, is all things, and at the same time beyond them— is present in the logos of each thing in itself, and in all the logoi together, according to which all things exist. If, therefore, consistent with true teaching, every divine energy indicates through itself the whole of God, indivisibly present in each particular thing, according to the logos through which that thing exists in its own way, who, I ask, is capable of understanding and saying precisely how God is whole in all things commonly, and in each being particularly, without separation or being subject to division, and without expanding disparately into the infinite differences of the beings in which He exists as Being." -- Ambigua of St.Maximus the Confessor to John, 22(On the Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua, published by Nicholas Constas) Volume I

Therefore, it is rather justified, when Palamas states,

"In the first place, that essence is one, even though the rays are many, and are sent out in a manner appropriate to those participating in them, being multiplied according to the varying capacity of those receiving them. This is what Paul means when he speaks of "the parts of the Holy Spirit". Furthermore, the essence is superessential, and I believe no one would deny that these rays are its energies or energy, and that one may participate in them, even though the essence remains beyond participation." -- Triads of St.Gregory Palamas, Section F. Essence and Energies in God, Chapter 13 Gregory Palamas: The Triads (Classics of Western Spirituality) published by Meyendorff

And as stated by the same Apostle in the same First Corinthians, later in the Epistle,

"But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured (ἐκοπίασα/ekopiasa) more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." -- First Epistle of St.Paul to the Corinthians Chapter XV

This same "ekopiasa" is used in the same Epistle to the Philippians, as mentioned earlier.

"Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured (ἐκοπίασα/ekopiasa) in vain." -- The Epistle of St.Paul to the Philippians Chapter II.

Therefore, it can be necessarily demonstrated, that 'ekopiasa' is always, within scripture, used by the blessed Paul in the context of working.