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AUGUST INE, AQUINAS, BARLAAM & PA LA MA S: THE

ROOT OF WEST ERN TH EOLOGIC AL ER R OR
Jay Dyer
St. Gregory Palamas

When
Western theology attempts to understand
and interact
with Eastern Orthodox theology’s
distinctions,
it is generally dismissed as “Palamism”
– some form of obscure, medieval
Byzantine
mysticism. Upon deeper reflection and the realization
the Eastern Fathers all
teach a distinction
between essence and energy in God, in our
watered-down ecumenical
morass, it has become an
exercise in seeing if oil and water can be mixed. As
a Roman
Catholic year back I tried to do this mixing
job, as well. Is there some way to reconcile the
two?
As a good friend once said, if the two communions
have argued against one another
on this issue for
hundreds of years, is it really plausible that a few
online bloggers can
reconcile the breach? No, it
isn’t, nor is it plausible the Eastern Church
desperately needs
the pope, when, by the mere fact
that the Eastern Church still expands and exists with
the
same “Palamite” dogma it had (before
St.
Gregory Palamas!) a thousand years ago, it
therefore does not “need the pope.”
Let’s look at some recent arguments given in attempt

to both prove the Thomistic doctrine
of God’s
absolute simplicity or reconcile it. Catholic apologist
Taylor Marshall, for
example, in trying to argue that
because St. John of
Damascus mentions “one energy” in
God in
his classic On the Orthodox Faith, somehow
believes this equates to Thomism.
This is incorrect for
two reasons. First, because Aquinas explicitly
rejects any distinction
between essence and energy,
and second, St. John says the energy of God is both
one and
multiple. Other Catholic apologists argue
this “oneness” of energy means that “in
God” all
actions and attributes are therefore one
and identified (following Aquinas again). Calvinist
apologist Steven Wedgeworth (who has no grasp of these
issues whatsoever) argues this
and has been responded to
here. A reading of the entire Book
I, however, is necessary to
grasp the full meaning of
what St. John is saying, as well as Book III where St.
John
applies the essence – energy distinction
at length to Christology. Indeed, what
Protestants
especially fail to grasp is that the
essence-energy distinction that is found in God is also
the sole foundation of Orthodox Christology as
explicated at the Ecumenical Councils.
St. John says the natural energy of God is one because

there is one God. There is one will
in God
because will is a property of nature. There is one divine
nature, so there can only
be one God operating. This is in
contrast to certain heretics who said that willing is a
property of a hypostasis, meaning there would then be
three wills in God and one in
Christ, the monothelite
heresy St. Maximos the Confessor combatted. This was also
applied to Christology by the post-Chalcedonian
Nestorians, who argued that since there
are two wills in
Christ, there must be two Persons, since they also assumed
will is a
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property of Person. Will is not a property of

Person, but of nature, as the Ecumenical
councils all
teach and as is ably demonstrated from Scripture in St.
Maximos’
Disputations with Pyrrhus (the
monothelite). Ironically, the argument these western
“apologists” make is the same heresy of the
monothelites who made the case that because
there were
some mentions of Christ operating with “one
theandric energy” by St. Cyril,
this meant there was
only one nature and energy in Christ. As St. Maximos
explained to
Pyrrhus, the statement applied to the fact
that, as Incarnate, the mode of willing and
operating was from one hypostatic subject, the Son of God.
This did not mean that the two
natures and distinct
energies proper to those natures, were confused.
St. John will make this abundantly clear in his Book III
on Christology. Since God has one
will, it is one God
operating, and that God, who is Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, operates
with one natural energy. However, this
does not mean that all of God’s actions are
isomorphically identified. St. John does not believe this
and makes it clear the operations
are also multiple. And,
contrary to the western apologists, are not strictly
“all one in Him.”
We can show this simply by
asking whether, when Christ was Incarnate, whether that
divine Person’s operation of Providence was the same
as His operation of foreknowledge.
Was Jesus’
raising of the dead man (a divine operation)
identically the same operation as
walking on
water? Of course not. They are manifestly two different
operations. It is one
God who is operating and it’s
one energy (because of One source) in that sense, but
it’s not
absolutely and identically the same
operation because the hypostatic mode is different.
It was not, for example, the Father who became Incarnate,

nor the Spirit who underwent
crucifixion. Thus, while the
willing is one, the mode of that willing is multiple
because of
multiple hypostaseis. In Thomism and classical
Protestantism, these actions must all be
strictly
identified, since act, will and essence are all strictly
one in God. Furthermore, even
if St John taught that God
only has one action, it still would not support Thomism or
western simplicity, since this mischaracterization of St.
John still affirms a real distinction
between
essence and energy – the very thing the western
argument was intended to
refute.
St. John explains:
“Each then of the affirmations about God should be

thought of as signifying not what He
is in essence, but
either something that it is impossible to make plain, or
some relation to
some of those things which are contrasts
or some of those things that follow the nature, or
an
energy. ” (I.9)
A bit earlier he had written:
“The Deity being incomprehensible is also assuredly

nameless. Therefore since we know
not His essence, let us
not seek for a name for His essence. For names are
explanations of
actual things. But God, Who is good and
brought us out of nothing into being that we
might share
in His goodness, and Who gave us the faculty of knowledge,
not only did not
impart to us His essence, but did not
even grant us the knowledge of His essence. For it is
impossible for nature to understand fully the
supernatural. Moreover, if knowledge is of
things that are
, how can there be knowledge of the super-essential?
Through His
unspeakable goodness [an energy!], then, it
pleased Him to be called by names that we
could
understand, that we might not be altogether cut off from
the knowledge of Him but
should have some notion of Him,
however vague. Inasmuch, then, as He is
incomprehensible,
He is also unnameable. But inasmuch as He is the cause of
all and
contains in Himself the reasons and causes of all
that is, He receives names drawn from
all that is, even
from opposites: for example, He is called light and
darkness, water and
fire: in order that we may know that
these are not of His essence but that He is
super-
essential and unnameable: but inasmuch as He is the
cause of all, He receives names from
all His
effects.”
Notice that we do a version of analogia, as I

have continually argued, but not of His
essence. This is a
key quotation. St. John says that in deification, we do
not participate in
God’s essence, but in His energy
of “goodness.” The goodness of God is an
energy or
operation, not some attribute of an absolutely
simple essence. It’s an operation of a
Person. This
also refutes Steven Wedgeworth’s argument that the
”energy” is somehow
one of many attributes of
God’s essence. Furthermore, as Fr. Staniloae argues
in his
Orthodox Dogmatics Vol. I: The
Experience of God pages 108-110, the Orthodox
view is
analogia energeia, not Aquinas’
analogia entis (and certainly not the Protestant
analogia
fide).
Thus, St. John says:
“When, then, we have perceived these things and are

conducted from these to the divine
essence, we do not
apprehend the essence itself but only the attributes of
the essence: just
as we have not apprehended the essence
of the soul even when we have learned that it is
incorporeal and without magnitude and form…”
According to Aquinas, the attributes are real, substantial

(negative) predicates of God’s
essence, although not
exhaustive. St. John says the attributes are
notstatements of what
He is, but of his
energies/operations. Thomas explicitly rejects energies as
distinct from
essence, as well as these very arguments
from St. John, which demonstrates Aquinas
thought East and
West were not “saying the same
thing.”
Thomas writes in his work “On Divine

Simplicity,” Art. 4:
Are good, wise, just and the like are predicated of God as
accidents?
It seems that they are.
1. Whatever is predicated of something not as signifying

substance but what follows on
nature signifies an
accident. But Damascene says that good and just and holy
as said of
God follow nature and do not signify substance
itself.
On the Contrary:
Boethius says that God, since He is a simple form, cannot

be a subject. But every accident
is in a subject.
Therefore, in God, there cannot be any accident….
Moreover, Rabbi Maimonides says that the names of this

kind do not signify intentions
added to the divine
substance of God. But every accident signifies an
intention added to
the substance of its subject. Therefore
the foregoing do not signify an accident in God.”
(McInery, Selections From Thomas Aquinas, pg.
306-307).
In other words, everything must fit into the

Aristotelian-Platonic scheme that
“differentiation” or distinction in God must
somehow mean “composition” or division.
Instead of looking to what had been declared already in
the Ecumenical Councils
regarding God’s operations
distinct from His essence (as the 6th Council mandates
concerning Christology), Thomas relies on Rabbi Maimonides
and the absolute simplicity
doctrine of Boethius. Note
also that he explicitly rejects this argument in
St. John:

is in essence, but
some relation to
an
energy. ” (I.9)
St. Thomas Aquinas

That is the distinction between essence and energy and

Thomas explicitly states it’s
impossible because, in
his Aristotelian dialectical mind, distinction
necessitates division
or composition. This is why, as I
showed elsewhere, for Aquinas the “many” is
naturally
opposed to the “one.” This
error originates in the Greek-Platonic philosophical
assumption of what “absolute simplicity” or
numerical oneness is. God must then conform
to this scheme
in almost all western theology, and whatever
doesn’t, must mean
composition and
division. Yet no Eastern Father thought different
operations of God
distinct from His unknowable nature
implied any kind of composition. There is absolutely
no
need to think that it does. For example, everyone admits
the Father really is not the
Son – but does that
imply composition? Of course not, and neither does a real
distinction
between what God is and what God
does.
Another example of how these ideas are not reconcilable is

Thomas’ doctrine of analogis
entis telling
us something about the divine essence itself, compared
with his doctrine of
exemplarism, or divine ideas. Aquinas
writes:
“Therefore we must hold a different

doctrine–viz. that these names signify the divine
substance, and are predicated substantially of God,
although they fall short of a full
representation of Him.
Which is proved thus. For these names express God, so far
as our
intellects know Him. Now since our intellect knows
God from creatures, it knows Him as
far as creatures
represent Him. Now it is shown above (Question 4, Article
2) that God
prepossesses in Himself all the perfections of
creatures, being Himself simply and
universally perfect.
Hence every creature represents Him, and is like Him so
far as it
possesses some perfection…” (ST,
I.13.2)
The idea here is that creatures teach us something of

God’s essence (since God is His
essence), even if
this is a negative, apophatic notion. Yet recall what St.
John wrote:
“The Deity being incomprehensible is also assuredly

nameless. Therefore since we know
not His essence, let us
not seek for a name for His essence. For names are
explanations of
actual things. But God, Who is good and
brought us out of nothing into being that we
might share
in His goodness, and Who gave us the faculty of knowledge,
not only did not
impart to us His essence, but did not
even grant us the knowledge of His essence.”

is in essence, but
some relation to
an
energy. ” (I.9)
These are therefore two different views:
Aquinas : “Therefore we must hold a different

doctrine–viz. that these names signify the
divine
substance, and are predicated substantially of God,
although they fall short of a full
representation of
Him.”
St. John: ”[God] gave us the faculty of knowledge,

not only did He not impart to us His
essence, but did not
even grant us the knowledge of His essence.”
One states we can substantially predicate of God’s

essence. The other says we cannot. So
much for
reconciliation, and, I want to stress (as I showed above)
Aquinas explicitly
rejects St. John’s very argument
on a distinction.
The other path of demonstrating this (before getting to

divine ideas) is to consider what
St. John says of
Christology and the two energies in Christ. St.
John writes in Book III:
“We hold, further, that there are two energies in

our Lord Jesus Christ. For He possesses
on the one hand,
as God and being of like essence with the Father, the
divine energy, and,
likewise, since He became man and of
like essence to us, the energy proper to human
nature.
But observe that energy and capacity for energy, and the
product of energy, and the agent
of energy, are all
different. Energy is the efficient
(δραστική) and
essential activity of
nature: the capacity for energy is
the nature from which proceeds energy: the product of
energy is that which is effected by energy: and the agent
of energy is the person or
subsistence which uses the
energy. Further, sometimes energy is used in the sense of
the
product of energy, and the product of energy in that
of energy, just as the terms creation
and creature are
sometimes transposed. For we say all creation, meaning
creatures.
Note also that energy is an activity and is energised

rather than energises; as Gregory the
Theologian says in
his thesis concerning the Holy Spirit : If energy exists,
it must
manifestly be energised and will not energise: and
as soon as it has been energised, it will
cease.
Life itself, it should be observed, is energy, yea, the

primal energy of the living creature
and so is the whole
economy of the living creature, its functions of nutrition
and growth,
that is, the vegetative side of its nature,
and the movement stirred by impulse, that is, the
sentient
side, and its activity of intellect and free-will. Energy,
moreover, is the perfect
realisation of power. If, then,
we contemplate all these in Christ, surely we must also
hold
that He possesses human energy….
And with regard to the effect, the touching and handling

and, so to speak, the embrace of
what is effected, belong
to the body, while the figuration and formation belong to
the soul.
And so in connection with our Lord Jesus Christ,
the power of miracles is the energy of
His divinity, while
the work of His hands and the willing and the saying, I
will, be thou
clean Matthew 8:3, are the energy of His
humanity. And as to the effect, the breaking of
the loaves
John 6:11, and the fact that the leper heard the I will,
belong to His humanity,
while the multiplication of the
loaves and the purification of the leper belong to His
divinity. For through both, that is through the energy of
the body and the energy of the
soul, He displayed one and
the same, cognate and equal divine energy. For just as we
saw
that His natures were united and permeate one another,
and yet do not deny that they are
different but even
enumerate them, although we know they are inseparable, so
also in
connection with the wills and the energies we know
their union, and we recognise their
difference and
enumerate them without introducing separation. For just as
the flesh was
deified without undergoing change in its own
nature, in the same way also will and energy
are deified
without transgressing their own proper limits. For whether
He is the one or the
other, He is one and the same, and
whether He wills and energises in one way or the
other,
that is as God or as man, He is one and the same.”
With this in mind, let’s take both our Catholic and

Protestant opponents’ argument to it’s
fullest
absurdity. The claim is that since St. John says in one
section the energy is one, it
must mean all actions of God
are strictly identified and one “in Him,” as
“substantial
predicates” of His essence. So,
when Jesus worked one miracle, and then worked another
miracle, these are two numerically different actions are

really numerically the same
actions “in His
essence.” Such absurdities must be the conclusion of
their confused claims.
Jesus’ walking on water was
then the same act as His multiplying the loaves,
as divine acts
in His essence (since they show forth the
Divine operation as miracles).
St. Augustine

This grasping at straws to save a ridiculous argument is

all done to maintain the
presuppositions of western
simplicity, but don’t expect much consistency out of
these
“apologists.” Thomism and St. John (and
by extension all of Eastern Orthodox Dogma)
are not
reconcilable on Aquinas’ own terms. In regards to
Thomas’ doctrine of divine
ideas, we see similar
confusion and nonsense. This doctrine is also intimately
tied to
absolute simplicity. For example, according to the
Catholic Encyclopedia, we read of the
divine ideas:
“For them (the Fathers) the ideas are the creative

thoughts of God, the archetypes, or
patterns, or forms in
the mind of the Author of the universe according to which
he has
made the various speciesof creatures.
“Ideæ principales formæ quædam vel
rationes
rerum stabiles atque incommutabiles, quæ in
divinâ intelligentiâ continentur” (St.
Augustine, “De Div.”, Q. xlvi). These Divine
ideas must not be looked on as distinct
entities, for this
would be inconsistent with the Divine simplicity. They are
identical with
the Divine Essence contemplated by the
Divine Intellect as susceptible of imitation ad
extra.”
For St. Maximus, these divine archetypes are uncreated

energetic logoi or patterns or
predeterminations
of creatures, and are appropriately labeled and
analogia energeia, but
do not subsist in
the divine ousia. In Thomas and Augustine,
because of their doctrine of
simplicity, these divine
ideas all subsist in the absolutely simple essence (and
thus are not
really distinct at all, except in human
conception, which supposedly, in Platonic fashion,
mirrors
the divine conception). In fact, according to Thomas, God
does not directly relate
to the world at all, but only
indirectly through the archetypes in His essence [!].
Aquinas writes:
“7. In the Gospel according to John (1:3-4), we

read: “What was made in him was life…”
This means, as Augustine says,”, that all creatures
are in the divine mind as a piece of
furniture is in the
mind of a cabinetmaker. Now, a piece of furniture is in
the mind of a
cabinetmaker by means of its idea and
likeness. Therefore, ideas of all things are in God.
8. A mirror does not lead us to the knowledge of things

unless their likenesses are
reflected in it. Now, the
uncreated Word is a mirror that leads to the knowledge of
all
creatures, because by the Word the Father utters
Himself and all other things. Therefore,
likenesses of all
things are in the Word.
9. Augustine says: “The Son is the Father’s

art, containing the living forms of all things.”
Now, those forms are nothing other than ideas. Therefore,
ideas exist in God.
10. Augustine says that there are two ways of knowing

things: through an essence and
through a likeness. Now,
God does not know things by means of their essence,
because
only those things which are present in the knower
are known in this manner. Therefore,
since He does know
things, as is clear from what has been said previously, He
must know
them by means of their likenesses. Hence, our
conclusion is the same as before.” (citation)
This sounds fine at first, except that what is meant is

later explained in the Summa and is
not what St.
Maximus means, but rather that the ideas are all
“stuck” the absolutely
simple essence:
“Reply to Objection 1. Creatures are said to be in

God in a twofold sense. In one way, so far
are they are
held together and preserved by the divine power; even as
we say that things
that are in our power are in us. And
creatures are thus said to be in God, even as they exist
in their own natures. In this sense we must understand the
words of the Apostle when he
says, “In Him we live,
move, and be”; since our being, living, and moving
are themselves
caused by God. In another sense things are
said to be in God, as in Him who knows them,
in which
sense they are in God through their proper ideas, which in
God are not distinct
from the divine essence. Hence things
as they are in God are the divine essence. And since
the
divine essence is life and not movement, it follows that
things existing in God in this
manner are not movement,
but life.” (ST, I.18.4)
Aquinas’ doctrine (and Rome’s official dogma)

is that all the divine ideas arethe absolutely
simple essence, as well as His attributes. The absurdity
here is obvious, since God doesn’t
relate directly
to us through any energy, but rather He relates only to
the divine ideas of
us “in His
essence.” As Fr. Romanides points out, this system
comes close to denying that
God has any real love for the
world. Thomas writes:
“Objection 2. Further, the love of God is eternal.

But things apart from God are not from
eternity; except in
God. Therefore God does not love anything, except as it
exists in
Himself. But as existing in Him, it is no other
than Himself. Therefore God does not love
things other
than Himself.”
And the response to this good question:
Reply to Objection 2. Although creatures have not existed

from eternity, except in God, yet
because they have been
in Him from eternity, God has known them eternally in
their
proper natures; and for that reason has loved them,
even as we, by the images of things
within us, know things
existing in themselves.” (ST, I.20.2)
If God has no direct relation with creatures, then how did

the Incarnation occur?
Remember, in this scheme God does
not act within time, as this would mean the divine
essence
has direct relation with creatures, which is impossible in
Thomism. In other
words, as St. Gregory Palamas said,
atheism would be the result: St. Gregory wrote in
response
to the Barlaamite [Western] arguments on simplicity:
“Barlaamite. They [Westerns] claim that God is

active essence but that he has no other
activity besides
His essence lest He be a composite being.
XXXI. O[rthodox]. Take caution that they do not bestow

upon God “active” as an empty
sound of a word,
while they contrive precisely by that fact to lead astray
those who are in
dialogue with them. For the divine
Maximus says: “Just as it is impossible to be
without
being, so is it not possible to be active without
activity.” [To Marinus200C] Hence, by
taking away
the divine activity and by fusing it with essence by
saying that the activity
does not differ from that
essence, they have made God an essence without activity.
And
not only that, but they have also completely
annihilated God’s being itself and they have
become
atheists in the universe [a world without god]; for the
same Maximus says: “When
the divine and human
activity is taken away, there is no God, nor man.”
[To Marinus 96B;
cf. 201AB] For it is absolutely necessary
that the person who says that the activity in God
is not
different from his essence falls into the trap of atheism.
For we know that God is
only from His proper activities.
Hence, for him who destroys God’s activities and
does not
admit that they differ from His essence, the
necessary consequence is that he does not
know that God
is. Furthermore, because the great Basil has revealed
everywhere in his
writings that “no activity can
exist independently,” [Against Eunomius4] those who
contend that the essence of God does not differ from His
activity, have surpassed even
Sabellius in impiety. For he
made only the Son and the Spirit without existences
(hypostasis), but those people make the essence of God,
which has three hypostases,
without existence
(hypostasis).
–St. Gregory Palamas, Dialogue between an

Orthodox and a Barlaamite which
Invalidates in Detail the
Barlaamite Error, XXX-XXXI (Global
Publications/CEMERS,
n.d.; tr. Rein Ferwerda).
In other words, if God has no operations different from

His simple essence, which
Aquinas says that the
“attributes” are only human intellectual
descriptions of causal
effects we experience in time (and
never really God directly), then God cannot be known.
Only
the causatory “effects of God” are known in
this life (short of the “Beatific Vision” of
God’s essence in Thomism!), of an
absolutely simple monadic essence–and even these
cannot be known truly, as they are all really the same!
One does not know whether he is
experiencing wrath, love,
justice, etc., as all “actions” of God are
merely causal, created
effects in history.
St. Basil
This
is why St.
Basil said the following in
response to Eunomius
(who identified
essence and attribute in
God) which applies word-for-word to Thomas:
“Letter 234
To the same, in answer to another question.
Do you worship what you know or what you do not know? If I

answer, I worship what I
know, they immediately reply,
What is the essence of the object of worship? Then, if I
confess that I am ignorant of the essence, they turn on me
again and say, So you worship
you know not what. I answer
that the word to know has many meanings. We say that we
know the greatness of God, His power, His wisdom, His
goodness, His providence over us,
and the justness of His
judgment; but not His very essence. The question is,
therefore,
only put for the sake of dispute. For he who
denies that he knows the essence does not
confess himself
to be ignorant of God, because our idea of God is gathered
from all the
attributes which I have enumerated. But God,
he says, is simple, and whatever attribute of
Him you have
reckoned as knowable is of His essence. But the
absurdities involved in this
sophism are innumerable. When
all these high attributes have been enumerated, are they
all names of one essence? And is there the same mutual
force in His awfulness and His
loving-kindness, His
justice and His creative power, His providence and His
foreknowledge, and His bestowal of rewards and
punishments, His majesty and His
providence? In mentioning
any one of these do we declare His essence? If they say,
yes, let
them not ask if we know the essence of God, but
let them enquire of us whether we know
God to be awful, or
just, or merciful. These we confess that we know. If they
say that
essence is something distinct, let them not put
us in the wrong on the score of simplicity.
For they
confess themselves that there is a distinction between the
essence and each one
of the attributes enumerated. The
operations are various, and the essence simple, but we
say
that we know our God from His operations, but do not
undertake to approach near to
His essence. His operations
come down to us, but His essence remains beyond our reach.
2. But, it is replied, if you are ignorant of the essence,

you are ignorant of Himself. Retort,
If you say that you
know His essence, you are ignorant of Himself. A man who
has been
bitten by a mad dog, and sees a dog in a dish,
does not really see any more than is seen by
people in
good health; he is to be pitied because he thinks he sees
what he does not see.
Do not then admire him for his
announcement, but pity him for his insanity. Recognise
that the voice is the voice of mockers, when they say, if
you are ignorant of the essence of
God, you worship what
you do not know. I do know that He exists; what His
essence is, I
look at as beyond intelligence. How then am
I saved? Through faith. It is faith sufficient to
know
that God exists, without knowing what He is; and He is a
rewarder of them that seek
Him. Hebrews 11:6 So knowledge
of the divine essence involves perception of His
incomprehensibility, and the object of our worship is not
that of which we comprehend
the essence, but of which we
comprehend that the essence exists.
3. And the following counter question may also be put to

them. No man has seen God at
any time, the Only-begotten
which is in the bosom has declared him. John 1:18 What of
the Father did the Only-begotten Son declare? His essence
or His power? If His power, we
know so much as He declared

to us. If His essence, tell me where He said that His
essence
was the being unbegotten? When did Abraham
worship? Was it not when he believed?
And when did he
believe? Was it not when he was called? Where in this
place is there any
testimony in Scripture to
Abraham’s comprehending? When did the disciples
worship
Him? Was it not when they saw creation subject to
Him? It was from the obedience of sea
and winds to Him
that they recognised His Godhead. Therefore the knowledge
came from
the operations, and the worship from the
knowledge. Believest thou that I am able to do
this? I
believe, Lord; and he worshipped Him. So worship follows
faith, and faith is
confirmed by power. But if you say
that the believer also knows, he knows from what he
believes; and vice versa he believes from what he knows.
We know God from His power.
We, therefore, believe in Him
who is known, and we worship Him who is believed
in.”
Jay Dyer
Soul of the East
27 октября 2016 г.
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Augustine, Aquinas, Barlaam & Palamas - The Root of Western Theological Error - Православие

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11/6/21, 3:08 AM Augustine, Aquinas, Barlaam & Palamas: The Root of Western Theological Error / Православие.

AUGUST INE, AQUINAS, BARLAAM & PA LA MA S: THE

St. Gregory Palamas

Let’s look at some recent arguments given in attempt

St. John says the natural energy of God is one because

property of Person. Will is not a property of

It was not, for example, the Father who became Incarnate,

St. John explains:

“Each then of the affirmations about God should be

A bit earlier he had written:

“The Deity being incomprehensible is also assuredly

Notice that we do a version of analogia, as I

Thus, St. John says:

“When, then, we have perceived these things and are

According to Aquinas, the attributes are real, substantial

Thomas writes in his work “On Divine

It seems that they are.

1. Whatever is predicated of something not as signifying

Boethius says that God, since He is a simple form, cannot

Moreover, Rabbi Maimonides says that the names of this

In other words, everything must fit into the

“Each then of the affirmations about God should be

St. Thomas Aquinas

That is the distinction between essence and energy and

Another example of how these ideas are not reconcilable is

“Therefore we must hold a different

The idea here is that creatures teach us something of

“The Deity being incomprehensible is also assuredly

“Each then of the affirmations about God should be

These are therefore two different views:

Aquinas : “Therefore we must hold a different

St. John: ”[God] gave us the faculty of knowledge,

One states we can substantially predicate of God’s

The other path of demonstrating this (before getting to

“We hold, further, that there are two energies in

Note also that energy is an activity and is energised

Life itself, it should be observed, is energy, yea, the

And with regard to the effect, the touching and handling

With this in mind, let’s take both our Catholic and

miracle, these are two numerically different actions are

This grasping at straws to save a ridiculous argument is

“For them (the Fathers) the ideas are the creative

For St. Maximus, these divine archetypes are uncreated

“7. In the Gospel according to John (1:3-4), we

8. A mirror does not lead us to the knowledge of things

9. Augustine says: “The Son is the Father’s

10. Augustine says that there are two ways of knowing

This sounds fine at first, except that what is meant is

“Reply to Objection 1. Creatures are said to be in

Aquinas’ doctrine (and Rome’s official dogma)

“Objection 2. Further, the love of God is eternal.

And the response to this good question:

Reply to Objection 2. Although creatures have not existed

If God has no direct relation with creatures, then how did

“Barlaamite. They [Westerns] claim that God is

XXXI. O[rthodox]. Take caution that they do not bestow

–St. Gregory Palamas, Dialogue between an

In other words, if God has no operations different from

To the same, in answer to another question.

Do you worship what you know or what you do not know? If I

2. But, it is replied, if you are ignorant of the essence,

3. And the following counter question may also be put to