No, that is not actually what I look like

Yet.

Light to light, East to West

[Apolonio Latar has posted some thoughts and questions about the East-West energies-essence debate and has asked for input. I am obliging him.]

Hi Apolonio, always a pleasure interacting with you. Let me preface all this by saying I *highly respect* the Tradition of the East. A great deal of Palamism, including his life, inspires and humbles me. In no way do I mean to denigrate or caricature the light of the East. I want Palamism to work! Hence, any negative comments I have to make are genuine, fundamental reservations about Palamism, not, I hope, nit-picky complaints or theological xenophobia (“Unnghh...Eastern...different...stupid...bad...grunt...snort...”).

Let me throw up one more very important hedge: I am unworthy to believe in, let alone debate, the mystery of the Holy One, the Three-in-One, our Living God.

Have mercy on me, O Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as I dare tread on the mystery of Who you have shown yourself to be. May we not read, write or ponder your glory without fear and trembling and love. As your servant, Philoxenus of Mabbug, says, "[Keep] silence, trembling before the inexplicable, uncommunicable mysteries of the Godhead." Pardon my foray out of silence, O Lord. I ponder by grace what the heathen has not even enough light to reject. Te Deum.

Apolonio, since you are addressing the issue of predication so acutely, I will try to stick to that point and, therefore, my biggest reservation towards energy-theology. To wit: claiming God is his energies AND his essence seems to bifurcate the being of God. In response to the Eastern claim, “The Energies of God are God,” I take the meat of your post to be this:

If we are to say it [the above claim – EBB] is literal, then does not it mean that we are saying that the energies of God are of the same essence as that of God? When we say things like, "The computer is an apple," what we mean is that the computer is of the same essence as that of an apple if we are going to take the statement literally. This I believe is the problem we run into when we come into Eastern Christian theology.

The Eastern may say that there must be distinctions between God's energies and His energies just as we make distinctions with His essence and His Persons. The problem, however, is that when we speak of the Persons in the Trinity, we do identify them with essence. ... However, when we say "The Energies are God," aren't we saying that the energies of God is [sic] of the same essence as that of God, the predicate used in that statement?

It's agreed on all sides (I think!) God is God by and in his essence. That is, God “has” the God-essence, unlike anything else, and is therefore who is he is, and no one else. That which lacks the essence of God is and cannot be God. Fine so far ... unless I’m mistaken, in which highly probably case I welcome correction (as with all else I say here).

The hard question (which arises in the essence-energies debate) is whether God is God ONLY in and by his essence, or if he has some other "dimension" or "faculty" (or whatever) that equally and fully expresses his true being. I suspect some of the draw towards this view is – apart from its impressive Byzantine pedigree as awesome riches of the Eastern Tradition – how it seems to solve the Heraclitean flux problem. An apple is an apple because it has the essence of an apple. But what is that apple changes? It’s still an apple, but it’s a different sort of apple. How could this change in the same apple occur without making a new apple? Presumably (I think), the apple’s energies, in their ontological “freedom” towards multiple goods and changes, equally express the apple in the midst of changes while also somehow “protecting” the apple essence. Likewise, God’s energies are meant to help us understand how God can do so much so freely without ceasing to be the one, unchanging God. Hence, Palamism. (This is, by the way, one of the cool things I like about Palamism! The light of Tabor is really rad too!)

Nevertheless, despite its radness, my worry is that Palamism ultimately gains us little metaphysical ground over the “stiff,” “boring” Scholastic view that God is his essence in and by his essence alone. Further, as I said, “claiming God is his energies AND his essence seems to bifurcate the being of God.” So, I agree with how you closed your post: “What I want to show is that the East have their own problems too.”

You raise a key question or two here and so I will follow you. If the essence of God is to be his essence AND energies then are his energies – AS GOD – also equally comprised of the divine essence … and thus of other energies? If God’s energies are God, but not his essence, then are they not essentially God (and by essentially I don’t mean necessarily)? If they are not essentially (*in essentia*) God, then they are not God. I fail to see how such a basic claim – a metaphysical axiom, in fact – is open to dispute. God is essentially God; if his energies are also essentially (or in *their* essence) God, then his energies share the same divine essence; thus, his essentially divine energies really just collapse back into the essence of God, and God, in turn, “collapses” back into his being-as-pure-essence.

If, however, his energies are not *essentially* God, but somehow metaphysically distinct from his essence – “God = essence + (or x?) energies” – then they lack the *essence* of divinity and are therefore not God. If there is a strictly and technically *essential* difference between what the energies of God are and what his essence is, then they fail to co-inhere in the same being (ie., God). His essence has not “trouble” being God; it is God by essence. His energies, however, seem to be in an awkward position. In, so to speak, separating themselves (in our Palamite schema) from God’s essence, they stand in great need being identified. If they are not his essence, then what really are they? If they are (or share) his essence, then how can we even begin to claim are distinct from his essence? Whatever they may *be*, if the energies are not, in essentia, God, then they are not God, and Palamism is a sham. If they are, however, God *in essentia*, then, well, God is his essence through and through, regardless how diaphanously and dynamically his essence may move through his energies.

A further problem I have with energies-theology, in all my benighted glory, is the supposed “leverage” they give us towards the necessity-of-creation issue. Fr. Georges Florovsky writes:

The ultimate purpose of the Palamite distinction between the "essence" and "energy" in God was exactly to safeguard the Divine freedom and aseity. Denial of this difference seems to imply that the whole "economy" of God is but His "natural" act, i.e. to say "necessary," or constitutive of His own being, as it were, imposed upon Him. The difference between "Generation" and "creation" would be then obscured, the one and the other being equally acts of the essence or nature. Again, the difference between the ουσια and the θελυσις of God would be obscured also. There would be no clear distinction between the Divine Prescience and the actual Creation: would not the actual creation itself become eternal or sempiternal? Briefly, the Freedom of God will be dangerously compromised....

If I may: I fail to see how “wedging”, as it were, energies between the intra-Trinitarian necessity of Generation and the extra-Trinitarian contingency of Procession (and Creation) really solves anything. If God necessarily, and by essence, exists in his energies, then what determines *which* energies, and thus which actions, God manifests? ‘Tis to say, if God necessarily generates energies X, Y and Z (pardon the hamminess) which themselves produce actions P, Q and R, then it all really is just an essential manifestation of P, Q and R, albeit as mediated through X, Y and Z.

As I said in an earlier post on this same topic:

What's necessary for the Thomist goose is necessary for the Palamite gander. The energies seem to me just as necessary in Palamism as creation allegedly is in Thomism. Certainly, creation is not God Himself in the way the energies are described to be God Himself. Nonetheless, one of the key points about the energies is that they are necessary to God's being. God is not God without them. Further, they allegedly free God from any (Thomistic) necessity based on His essence. On account of his "enhypostatic" energies, God is not bound by His own essence but can *freely* extend Himself in creation and in man. The Palamite claim is that Thomism forces God to create (or to redeem) since His action and will co-inhere in one absolutely simple essence.

The fundamental problem for Palamism is that the energies are, like creation and redemption, inherently exterior acts of God -- they are "God for us" -- yet they also derive directly from God’s pure essence. How then, after all, are they and their effects so free from the necessity of essence? Indeed, I’ve had a leading proponent of Palamism admit this is a huge bugbear of a problem, so decisive in fact that he says it would discredit all of Christian theology. That being the case (in his eyes) I think he and any other Palamist needs to cool his jets while the work of ecumenism continues this side of the eschaton.

The objection to this is, of course, that in considering his manifold, omnibeneficent energies (his will) and his self-sufficient Goodness as the Trinitarian God, God was free to choose among his energies, whereas the God of St. Thomas necessarily had to act according to his essence ,since that is all he is. As Florovsky says (op. cit.),

We cannot say that God created the world with the same "necessity" with which He loves Himself. The Love of God, His blessed goodness, cannot be augmented by the contemplation of all the finite existences which can be brought out of nothingness to participate in the Divine grace. No more can the superabundant beatitude of God be limited by the absence of these existences, or even by the absence of the idea of their essence. God is supremely αυταρκης. ... There is no cause weighing down His will. God is eminently free in regard even to the very possibility of creatures. There is then a clear distinction between the necessity of the Divine nature and the absolute freedom of His beneficent will. Or else, there is a distinction between His being and His will.

But assuming God, in the perfect sufficiency of his essence, views himself in his perfectly free energies and considers in his eternal wisdom how they may or may not manifest themselves, what is it that decides among all those energies how they operate? If it is the energies themselves that determine which manifests itself how (and which “lose out” in the jamboree of Trinitarian freedom), then whatever their essences are, they operate necessarily, according to their own essences. If, on the other hand, God’s essence decides among the energies, then how can it not do so necessarily and, *as* pure essence, *by essence*? My point is that Palamism seems to be stuck with the same dilemma of necessary creation, only less obviously so and only after a lot more “energetic” more dialectical turns.

Does this problem bother me? No. Not to be trite, but for me this all comes down to faith. Does either the East or the West deny the freedom of God in creation and redemption? No. Do both affirm God’s radical freedom? Yes. Beyond that, at a doctrinal level, we have no good reason to keep fighting at such abstract heights in a divided house (so much to better to fight under one roof!) The theological details between us all about *how* we can say this -- "God is free" --are just that, theological details. At the end of the day, both East and West are left holding empty hands, proclaiming in faith God, in his essence and in his many modes/energies of being, owes us nothing, but has freely and fully offered himself to us in Christ.

Remember: gold stars are for official Sneetches only

Group shuns Filipino mother of slain soldier -- Gold Star organization rejects woman because she's not a citizen
(AP - Updated: 4:36 p.m. ET May 28, 2005)

Everyone agrees that Ligaya Lagman is a Gold Star mother, part of the long line of mournful women whose sons or daughters gave their lives for their country.

Her 27-year-old son, Army Staff Sgt. Anthony Lagman, was killed last year in Afghanistan when his unit came under fire during a mission to drive out remnants of Taliban and al-Qaida forces.

But the largest organization of these women, the American Gold Star Mothers Inc., has rejected Lagman, a Filipino, for membership because — though a permanent resident and a taxpayer — she is not a U.S. citizen.

The spirit of citizenry falls to the letter of citizenship.

“There’s nothing we can do because that’s what our organization says: You have to be an American citizen,” national President Ann Herd said Thursday. “We can’t go changing the rules every time the wind blows.”

But you can and do motivate non-citizens into military service? Is the expectation to serve as a citizen really so incompatible with being honored as one?

A past president of the mothers’ group, Dorothy Oxendine, of Farmingdale, said, “There’s no discrimination in a national cemetery. There’s no discrimination when they get killed side by side. So how can we discriminate against a mother?”

Another past president, Ann Wolcott, of York, Pa., said, “Times have changed since this organization was started, and there are a lot of men and women serving today whose parents are not citizens. I think they deserve every honor and privilege that we have as Gold Star mothers.”

One can only hope offering your son for a country would merit being offered citizenship by that country. But that's just the plainbelly Sneetch in me.

Light seeks light!

Benedict Pledges to Mend Orthodox Rift
(Netscape News with CNN, by Nicole Winfield, 05/29/05 08:24)

Benedict made the pledge in a city closely tied to the Orthodox church. Bari, on Italy's Adriatic coast, is considered a ``bridge'' between East and West and is home to the relics of St. Nicholas of Myra, a 4th-Century saint who is one of the most popular in both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. ...


-- St. Nicholas of Myra

Words aren't enough, he said, adding that ``concrete gestures'' were needed even from ordinary Catholics to reach out toward the Orthodox.

``I also ask all of you to decisively take the path of spiritual ecumenism, which in prayer will open the door to the Holy Spirit who alone can create unity,'' he said.

Benedict has said previously that reaching out to the Orthodox and other Christians would be a priority of his papacy, and his call to ordinary Catholics to take the charge as well built on that agenda. ...

In his greetings at the start of the Mass, Archbishop Francesco Cacucci of Bari referred to the city's Orthodox ties, saying the arrival of St. Nicholas' bones in 1057 ``built a bridge between the East and West that neither time nor divisions have ever demolished.''

This charge is, of course, but the continuation of Pope John Paul II's own commitment to ecumenism. As he said in Orientale Lumen [1]:

Since, in fact, we believe that the venerable and ancient tradition of the Eastern Churches is an integral part of the heritage of Christ's Church, the first need for Catholics is to be familiar with that tradition, so as to be nourished by it and to encourage the process of unity in the best way possible for each.

Our Eastern Catholic brothers and sisters are very conscious of being the living bearers of this tradition, together with our Orthodox brothers and sisters. The members of the Catholic Church of the Latin tradition must also be fully acquainted with this treasure and thus feel, with the Pope, a passionate longing that the full manifestation of the Church's catholicity be restored to the Church and to the world, expressed not by a single tradition, and still less by one community in opposition to the other; and that we too may be granted a full taste of the divinely revealed and undivided heritage of the universal Church which is preserved and grows in the life of the Churches of the East as in those of the West.

As I mentioned earlier, this apostolic letter was very encouraging and inspiring for me. I hope soon to share with you my experience today about fulfilling this eminently Catholic duty in my own small way. Can you say, "Orthodox field trip!"?

Dear Saints Cyril and Methodius, pray for us to the Lord, that we all may be brothers in the faith, East and West, just as you were!

"No, no, officer, it's really quite simple...

one pusher on that apartment complex roof fired an empty liquor bottle through my window, while a second pusher on that verdant bluff just behind us fired a bag of drugs through my passenger window, which then bounced off my forehead, rolled over my shoulder and landed in my blazer pocket just as you found it."

Oliver Stone arrested on drink and drug charges
(DeHavilland, Entertainment News, 29/05/2005)

More from Elliam

"Faith means wanting God to do what He wants; holiness means wanting to do what God wants; love means doing what God does."