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Theology Hesychasm - Icon Apophaticism - Filioque clause Miaphysitism - Monophysitism Nestorianism - Theosis - Theoria Phronema - Philokalia Praxis - Theotokos Hypostasis - Ousia Essence-Energies distinction Metousiosis This box: view • talk • edit

The Energies of God are a central principle of theology in the Eastern Orthodox Church, understood by the orthodox Fathers of the Church, and most famously formulated by Gregory Palamas, defending hesychast practice involving the vision of a "Divine Light" against charges of heresy brought by Barlaam of Calabria.

The principle is that God's essence (ousia) is distinct from his energies (energeiai) or activities in the world, and it is the energies that enable us to experience something of the Divine. These energies are "unbegotten" or "uncreated". These energies can not be created or destroyed. They are unbegotten or uncreated, because they are a natural by-product of something which is beyond existence. Orthodox theology holds that while humans can never know God's "Essence" and that direct experience of God would simply obliterate us (much as Moses could not survive seeing God's face), God's "Energies" can be directly experienced (as Moses could see God's back and live). These energies are considered to be uncreated in nature. The presence of the energies is not to be taken as denial of the philosophical simplicity of God. Therefore, when speaking of God, it is acceptable within Eastern Orthodoxy to speak of his energies as God. These would include kataphatic or positive statements of God like the list of St Paul's energies of God. God being love, faith and hope and knowledge (see 1Cor. 13:2 - 13:13).^[1]As is also the case of Gregory of Palamas that God is grace and deifying illumination.^[2]

The important theological and soteriological distinction remains that people experience God through his energies, not his essence. Traditionally, the energies have been experienced as light, such as the light of Mount Tabor that appeared at the Transfiguration. Orthodox tradition likewise holds that this light may be seen during prayer (Hesychasm) by particularly devout individuals, such as the saints. In addition, it is considered to be eschatological in that it is also considered to be the "Light of the Age to Come" or the "Kingdom of Heaven" which is the Christ.

Unlike the realities^[3], of the Trinity such as being the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit, the energies of God are not considered to be unique to a specific hypostasis of the Trinity. Instead, they are common to all three.

• Hesychasm
• Vladimir Lossky
• Archimandrite Sophrony
• Father John Meyendorff
• Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
• Uncreated Light

1. ^ Vladimir Lossky The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church pg 81
2. ^ Vladimir Lossky The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church pg 70
3. ^ Vladimir Lossky The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, SVS Press, 1997.

• Vladimir Lossky The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, SVS Press, 1997. (ISBN 0-913836-31-1) James Clarke & Co Ltd, 1991. (ISBN 0-227-67919-9)

• Theoria, Prayer and Knowledge by Dr M.C. Steenberg Theology and Patristics University of Oxford
• "Orthodox Psychotherapy" by Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos

'We ought at all times to wait for the enlightenment that comes from above before we speak; for there is nothing so destitute as a soul philosophising about God, when it is without Him'. — St Hesychios the Priest