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Mar 28, 2016 · We should ask first what these two words—essence and energies—mean when they refer to God. Let’s first talk about essence. God’s essence is Who He is in Himself. The word essence comes from the Latin esse which means “to be.” In Greek, the word is ousia. So we can also say that it means “being.” God’s essence is God in His ...
- Church Fathers
(Part 4 of 8): God is Essence and Energies. March 28, 2016...
- Lent and Priesthood #6
Sunday of St. Gregory Palamas, March 12, 2017 Hebrews...
- Church Fathers
Christos Yannaras writes, "The West confuses God's essence with his energy, regarding the energy as a property of the divine essence and interpreting the latter as "pure energy" (actus purus)" [23] According to George C. Papademetriou, the essence–energies distinction "is contrary to the Western confusion of the uncreated essence with the uncreated energies and this is by the claim that God ...
May 31, 2024 · In his work Contra Gentes, St. Athanasius argues that although God’s essence remains incomprehensible, His providential actions (energies) reveal His presence and power. St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335–395): Gregory expanded on St. Athanasius’s ideas, making a clear distinction between the essence and energies of God.
- William Albrecht
The Eastern Orthodox monk and bishop Gregory Palamas taught that the essence of God is distinct from the energies or operations of God and that the latter were multiple, even infinite. This can sound like a multiplicity of parts or things within or around God and some have accused the language of “divine energies” (in the plural) as teetering into polytheism, although no Greek Orthodox ...
Mar 15, 2022 · Essence vs. Energies: An example. Imagine that God is the sun. We all experience the power and energy of the sun every day.We experience its warmth and light (both of which are energies) through the rays that shine down on us.
Mar 7, 2021 · The “visible essence” one may today classify as His energies and these energies pertain to how God is visible in the realm of creation (such as the movement of the stars). The “invisible essence,” God’s literal substance, is what can allegedly only be contemplated by the intellect (because, according to Philo and the Platonists, the reality of God can truly only be contemplated).
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An Athonite monk, abbot, and later Metropolitan of Thessalonica, Gregory is remembered especially for his distinction between God’s essence and energies. Articulated in more than twenty-five treatises and letters written over a twenty-year period, Gregory’s celebrated doctrine still generates a great deal of debate.
