The Energies of God
by Megas L. Farandos, Athens University Professor. From the book: «The Orthodox Teaching on God» Athens 1985. Chapter 7, pages 423 – 478.Energies comprise the third “difference” in God, according to the terminology of Saint Gregory of Nyssa (“Against Eunomius”, A’ I’ 107).
The Orthodox teaching on the energies of God essentially constitutes a reliable evolvement of the New Testament witness regarding the reality of the God who is revealed in Jesus Christ. This God does not manifest Himself only as a trinity of hypostases - that is, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He also manifests Himself as the One who has (the congenital and not acquired) fullness of all good things - of “power, glory, wisdom, philanthropy” etc.; in other words, “all the good things that the Son has are the Father’s, and everything that the Father has, is made visible in the Son” (Gregory of Nyssa, “Against Eunomius”, A’ I’ 126). This means that God is not only a triple-hypostasis reality, but that He also has essence and “circum-essence”, which are essential virtues and distinctive features. God is a reality that exists, as well as one that possesses. He is a reality “in person”, who possesses the fullness of life and its bounties, in other words, “the true life” (Gregory of Nyssa, “Against Eunomius”, A’ I’ 126). “For, just as the Father has life within Him, thus did He also give the Son to have life within Him” (John 5:26). As we have already said, God is a reality “in person”, Who has life (or, as otherwise called, “essence”) and Who also has the fullness of all the good things peripherally related to this essence, that is, the “circum-essence”.
These “differences” of God that exist within Himself are apparent in the Holy Bible. The Bible does not make mention of the three Hypostases only - that is, of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit – but also of a multitude of qualities that the divine hypostases have and transmit; for example the power, the wisdom, the love, the grace of God etc., through which qualities God acts and transmits to the world all good things (otherwise known as “charismas” (Greek=gifts)). We must not construe these qualities as being a neutral or impersonal reality, existing in parallel to the hypostases within God. We should preferably see them in an ”inter-embracing” with the divine hypostases, or, rather, as a sublime unity, identity and coincidence, in the following context: “The triunal God IS life, truth, love, wisdom,” etc. That is, by coinciding the “being” and the “possessing” in the person of God, the Bible often represents God not only as a reality “in person”, but also as an impersonal reality, -that is, as “something Divine” - thus denoting the grace, the justice, the wisdom etc. that are manifested upon mankind. Besides, the very Bible itself distinguishes between the divine hypostases and their qualities – something that gives a legal right to have a theology on the qualities or energies of God. Even the theology of the West has not omitted to include chapters on the “attributes” of God in its Dogmatics, which by Orthodox Theology however are seen as unusual and extremely “human-prone” portrayals of the Triadic God. Orthodox dogmatics however has never developed any teaching on God’s “attributes”. Any relative chapters that may perhaps be found in Orthodox Dogmatics have originated from the influence of Western theology.
As mentioned previously, the “personal” and the “impersonal” element – or, rather, (as we shall see further along) – the “hypostatized” element are interwoven and inter-embraced in God in such a way, that God at times appears as “the One acting within us” (Phil. 2:13) and elsewhere as “His energy, that is potentially acting within me” (Colos. 1:29)
However, the Bible at times relates the divine hypostases to their qualities, as in the familiar verse of 1 Cor. 1:24: “Christ : the power of God and the wisdom of God”. The fact that Christ Himself is not that wisdom per se, but that He contains within Himself the wisdom of God, is educed from other relevant Scriptural passages, such as Coloss.2:3, where mention is made of “Christ, in Whom all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge are hidden."
The theology of the first Christian centuries did not preoccupy itself particularly with the matter of divine energies and their association to the divine hypostases, instead, it conveyed in its works the relative testimonies of the Bible, more or less without suspecting that a problem existed. [Compare with article «Energeia» by Ε. Fascher, in the “Reallexikon fur Antike und Christentum”, V (1962), 4-51]. A formulated teaching on the energies of God did not exist in the theology of the ancient Church. (P. Martin Strohm had a different opinion, in his article: “Die Lehre von der Energeia” (Gottes. Eine dogmengeschichtliche Betrachtung, in the volume Kyrios, VIII (1968), p. 63 onward).
Whenever the ancient ecclesiastic authors made use of the excerpt 1 Cor. 1:24 (and they used it frequently), they aspired to one thing only: to show that the Son is not a creation, but that He in fact belongs to the Divine reality. However, they never posed the question, nor did they confront the problem, regarding the association between hypostases and energies in God. This problem had not as yet appeared. What had preoccupied the theologians of the three first Christian centuries was mainly the divinity of the Son and His association to God the Father. The problem of an association between the divine hypostases and energies appeared particularly during the era of the major Cappadocian Fathers who, after the divinity of the Son had been formally secured by the 1st Ecumenical Synod in Nice, found themselves in the need to confront the equally huge heresy (as compared to the Arian one) of Eunomius, who maintained precisely this: that the Son is the work of God’s energy, and that the Spirit is the work of the Son’s energy [ (Gregory of Nyssa), “Against Eunomius”, A’ I’ 123: «the Son is the work of the precedent essence’s energy, and the Spirit is likewise another work of that work». Similarly on p.72 onwards ]. In this way, he was alienating the Son from the essence of the Father and the Spirit from the essence of the Son, by accepting three beings just as Arius had, except that each being was supposedly of “another essence”. [ (Gregory of Nyssa), “Against Eunomius”, A’ I’ p.92, according to which, Eunomius maintained the following with regard to the three hypostases: “instead, the essences are rent apart from each other, disintegrated into a sort of isolated nature”. And on p.91: Eunomius accepted that “the Son is different in nature and dissimilar to the essence of God and thus in every way does not partake of the Father through any natural familiarity."]
In view of the introduction of the term “energy” by the heretic Eunomius in his speculations regarding God, the major Cappadocian Fathers were forced to focus on the term “energy” in more depth and to determine the relationship between this divine aspect and the essence and the hypostases of God. Thus, all the Cappadocian Fathers (that is, Gregory the Theologian, Basil the Great and John the Chrysostom) came to refer to the energies of God as “divine attributes”; but the one who preoccupied himself especially with the matter of divine energies was saint Gregory of Nyssa in his series of works “against Eunomius”, whom we shall mainly follow here. However, it is not a true assertion that Gregory of Nyssa was the one who introduced the teaching on the energies of God, given that the main theologian on divine energies is in fact Basil the Great. Gregory of Nyssa merely developed this teaching of his brother more systematically. The subject of divine energies constituted both an opportune and a central chapter during the time of the major Cappadocian theologians, and for some time thereafter. This is testified, not only by the works of these theologians, but also by the texts of the great theologians who followed, whose texts were attributed to predominant theological and ecclesiastic personalities so that they could claim a greater prestige. Such personalities were: Dionysios the Areopagite, Athanasius the Great, Basil the Great, Justin, etc.. (Check against Library of Hellenic Fathers, 4, 11 onwards, 36, 11 onwards). It is in these works – which quite possibly came from the same school – that the subject of Divine Energies is posed most vividly.
Consequently, the conflict regarding the divine and uncreated energies which appeared during the 14th century between the Latin monk Varlaam and his student Akindynus on the one hand and St. Gregory Palamas on the other, was not the first instance where the issue of divine energies was brought up. On the contrary, it was rather a rekindling of the very ancient quarrel regarding the Holy Trinity – naturally now in a new form and a different variation thereof. Gregory Palamas had undertaken the heavy burden of completing and systematizing the teaching on energies, based on the overall Orthodox dogmatic tradition which was precedent to his time. The existence, therefore, of divine energies – which are distinguished apart from the essence and the hypostases of God – constitutes a teaching that has existed from the time of the major Hellenic Fathers. And this is the teaching that is recognized, at least by Orthodox Tradition.
Prior to the Cappadocian Fathers, theology was rife with commentaries on divine energies; nevertheless, the issue of how they related to the divine hypostases was never brought up. The authors of this period made references to the Divine Energies, without concerning themselves with whether the energies related to the divine hypostases or if they comprised a separate kind of reality in God, or in what kind of relationship they were to the essence and the hypostases of God. One such example is Makarios the Egyptian, who, in his homilies made frequent references to divine energies and to other meanings that relate to energies (for example, Grace). Makarios the Egyptian would present divine energies personified, as though acting on their own [ for example in one place he says: “in various ways does Grace mingle with them and in many ways does it guide the soul” (Library of Hellenic Fathers 41, 252) ] and elsewhere, he presents the divine energies as though dependent on the divine hypostases [ example: “the Lord gives Grace, when He comes and dwells within us” (Library of Hellenic Fathers 42, 87)] and elsewhere he presents them as “one” energy [example: “…by the three hypostases of the one godhood…” (Library of Hellenic Fathers 42, 144) etc.] This is why Gregory Palamas rightly acted, by never (or at least rarely) making mention of any authors prior to the Cappadocian theologians, when consolidating the teaching on Divine Energies.
The sole exception in this case was Athanasius the Great, who albeit not making any special mention on divine energies, nevertheless speaks very clearly on discerning not only between the three hypostases, but also between nature and its volition (compare with Athanasius’ “Against Arians” B’ 2,3, C’ 62, Library of Hellenic Fathers 30, 180-181, also “On the Nicene Synod, 31, Library of Hellenic Fathers 31, 171). Thus, according to Athanasius the Great, the “sequels” and the works of nature and those of volition are entirely different things. That which is “born” belongs to nature, and that which is “made” belongs to volition.
Without any actual discerning between divine nature and its volition, it would not be possible to discern between the “products” of nature and the “products” of God’s volition, that is, between the Son and the Spirit on the one hand and the works of nature on the other. Volition, however, does not relate to nature, but differs from it and is discernible. It is “the energy and the power of nature” (Patrologia Graeca C’, 127). The “difference” between nature and volition in God constitutes one of the foremost arguments in Orthodox theology, whenever it supports the true distinction (between divine essence and its energy) that it professes. [ Basil the Great (MB), “Against Eunomius” B’ 32, Library of Hellenic Fathers 52, 216-217 ]. Volition is not an essence; it is something “instrumental to the essence” (“On the Holy Spirit”, H’21, Library of Hellenic Fathers 52, 248). Similarly, Cyril of Alexandria: “to make belongs to energy, whereas to give birth belongs to nature. Nature and energy are not the same thing” (“Treasures” 18, Patrologia Graeca 75, 312C). Also, (Athanasius the Great, pseudepigraphed), “Dialogue on the Trinity”, Library of Hellenic Fathers 36, 48, 49, 70-73. An extremely in-depth, philosophical-theological analysis of the “difference” between essence and volition is made by the unknown author of the texts which have been attributed to the apologete Justin: “Christian Questions addressed to Hellenes” C’1, Library of Hellenic Fathers 4, 160 onwards; also John the Damascene, in: “Precise edition of the Orthodox Faith”, I 8, published by B. Kotter, 1973, 18 onwards. Finally, also according to Gregory Palamas: “energy is the volition of nature” (C’ 53; compare with B’ 167).
However, the theology on the existence of Divine Energies, which are truly discerned from the divine essence and the hypostases, is based exclusively on the Oros of the 4th and 5th Ecumenical Synods, where mention is made of the two natures and the two volitions and the two energies of Jesus Christ – that is, the divine and the human (compare to the Oros of the 4th, 5th and 6th Ecumenical Synods, in the work “Monuments” by John Karmiris, 1 (1960), pp.175, 185-200, 222-224). This was expressed by saint John the Damascene as follows: “Thus, when referring to the one, “god-human” energy of Christ, we understand it as implying the two energies of His two natures, that is, the divine energy of His godhood, and the human energy of His humanity”. (compare with John the Damascene, ref. III 19, B. Kotter 1973, 162. Similarly, pseudep. Athanasius the Great, “Sermon on the Annunciation”.. 6 Library of Hellenic Fathers 36, 209).
AUGUSTINE, AQUINAS, BARLAAM & PALAMAS: THE ROOT OF WESTERN THEOLOGICAL ERROR
By Jay Dyer
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 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:
“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)
By Jay Dyer
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 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:
“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)
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.”
“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)
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 energized rather than energizes; as Gregory the Theologian says in his thesis concerning the Holy Spirit : If energy exists, it must manifestly be energized and will not energize: and as soon as it has been energized, 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 realization 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 recognize 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 energizes 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).
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.
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. Recognize 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 recognized 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.”
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.”
“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)
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 energized rather than energizes; as Gregory the Theologian says in his thesis concerning the Holy Spirit : If energy exists, it must manifestly be energized and will not energize: and as soon as it has been energized, 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 realization 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 recognize 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 energizes 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).
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.
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. Recognize 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 recognized 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.”
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