Uncreated Energies of God

The following is an essay from the book “Theosis: The True Purpose of Human Life” by Archimandrite George, abbot of the holy monastery of Saint Gregorios on Mount Athos.  It is a clear explanation of the Energies of God as the doctrine is understood – and experienced – in the Orthodox Catholic Church.

Theosis is possible through the uncreated

energies of God

According to the teachings of the Holy

Bible and the Fathers of the Church, man

is able to achieve Theosis because within the

Orthodox Church of Christ the Grace of God

is uncreated. God is not only essence, as the

West thinks; He is also energy. If God was only

essence, we could not unite with Him, could

not commune with Him, because the essence of

God is awesome and unapproachable for man,

as was written: “Never will man see My face

and live” (Exodus 33:20).

Let us give a relevant example from things

human. If we grasp a bare electric wire, we will

die. However, if we connect a lamp to the same

wire, we are illuminated. We see, enjoy, and are

assisted by, the energy of electric current, but

we are not able to grasp its essence. Let us say

that something similar happens with the uncreated

energy of God.

If we were able to unite with the essence of

God, we would become gods in essence. Then

everything would become a god, and there

would be confusion so that, essentially, nothing

would be a god. In a few words, this is what they

believe in the Oriental religions, e.g. in Hinduism,

where the god is not a personal existence

but an indistinct power dispersed through all

the world, in men, in animals, and in objects

(Pantheism).

Again, if God had only the divine essence

–of which we cannot partake– and did not have

His energies, He would remain a self-sufficient

god, closed within himself and unable to communicate

with his creatures.

God, according to the Orthodox theological

view, is One in a Trinity and a Trinity in One.

As St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Dionysius

the Areopagite, and other holy Fathers repeatedly

say, God is filled with a divine eros, a

divine love for His creatures. Because of this

infinite and ecstatic love of His, He comes out

of Himself and seeks to unite with them. This is

expressed and realized as His energy, or better,

His energies.

With these, His uncreated energies, God

created the world and continues to preserve it.

He gives essence and substance to our world

through His essence-creating energies. He is

present in nature and preserves the universe

with His preserving energies; He illuminates

man with His illuminating energies; He sanctifies

him with His sanctifying energies. Finally,

He deifies him with His deifying energies. Thus,

through his uncreated energies, holy God enters

nature, the world, history, and human life.

The energies of God are divine energies.

They too are God, but without being His essence.

They are God, and therefore they can

deify man. If the energies of God were not divine

and uncreated, they would not be God and

so they would be unable to deify us, to unite

us with God. There would be an unbridgeable

distance between God and men. But as God has

the divine energies, and unites with us by these

energies, we are able to commune with Him

and to unite with His Grace without becoming

identical with God, as would happen if we

united with His essence.

So we unite with God through His uncreated

energies, and not through His essence. This is

the mystery of our Orthodox faith and life.

Western heretics cannot accept this. Being

rationalists, they do not discern between the

essence and the energy of God, so they say that

they cannot speak about man’s Theosis because

God is only essence, for on this basis, how can

man be deified when they do not accept that the

divine energies are uncreated, but regard them

as created? How can something created deify

man, i.e. how can something outside God deify

man?

In order not to fall into pantheism, they do

not talk about Theosis at all. What then, according

to them, remains as the purpose of human

life? Simply moral improvement. If man cannot

be deified with divine Grace and divine energies,

what purpose does his life have? Only that

he becomes morally better. But moral perfection

is not enough for man. It is not enough for

us simply to become better than before, simply

to perform moral deeds. We have as our final

aim to unite with holy God Himself. This is the

purpose of the creation of the universe. This is

what we desire. This is our joy, our happiness,

and our fulfillment.

The psyche of man, who is created in the

image and likeness of God, yearns for God and

desires union with Him. No matter how moral,

how good man may be, no matter how many

good deeds he may perform, if he does not find

God, if he does not unite with Him, he finds no

rest. For holy God placed within him this holy

thirst, the divine eros, the desire for union with

Him, for Theosis, so he has in himself the erotic

power, which he receives from his Creator, in

order to love truly, strongly, selflessly... just as

his holy Creator falls in love with His world,

with His creatures. This is so that with this holy

erotic impetus and loving power, he falls in

love with God. If man did not have the image

of God in himself, he would not be able to seek

its prototype. Each of us is an image of God,

and God is our prototype. The image seeks the

prototype, and only when it finds it does it find

rest.

St. Gregory Palamas and the energies

of God

In the fourteenth century, there was a great

upheaval in the Church which was provoked

by a Western monk, Barlaam. He heard that

Athonite monks talked about Theosis. He was

informed that, after much struggle, cleansing

of the passions, and much prayer, they became

worthy to unite with God, to have experience

of God, to see God. He heard that they saw the

uncreated light which the holy Apostles had

seen during the Transfiguration of our Saviour

Christ on Mount Tabor.

But Barlaam, having the Western, heretical,

rationalistic spirit, was unable to perceive

the authenticity of these divine experiences of

the humble monks, so he began to accuse the

Athonite monks as though it was they who were

deluded, heretical; as though they were the

idolaters. Because he knew nothing about the

difference between the essence and the uncreated

energy of God, he said that it is impossible

for someone to see the Grace of God.

Then, God’s Grace revealed a great and

enlightened teacher of our Church, the Athonite

St. Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessaloniki.

With much wisdom and enlightenment

from God, but also from his personal experience,

he said and wrote much which taught,

in agreement with the holy Scriptures and the

Holy Tradition of the Church, that the light of

God’s Grace is uncreated; that it is a divine energy,

so that in fact deified men see this light as

the ultimate, the highest experience of Theosis;

and they are seen within this light of God. This

is the glory of God, His splendour, the light of

Mount Tabor, the light of Christ’s Resurrection

and of Pentecost, and the bright cloud of the Old

Testament. It is the real uncreated light of God,

and not symbolic, as Barlaam and others who

thought like him believed in their delusion.

To continue, in three great Synods at

Constantinople the whole Church justified St.

Gregory Palamas, declaring that life in Christ

is not simply the moral edification of man, but

his Theosis, and that this means participation in

God’s glory, a vision of God, of His Grace and

His uncreated light.

We owe great gratitude to St. Gregory Palamas

because, with the illumination he received

from God, with his experience and his theology,

he expressed the eternal experience of the

Church, and so gave us the teaching concerning

the Theosis of man. A Christian is not a Christian

simply because he is able to talk about God.

He is a Christian because he is able to have

experience of God. And just as, when you really

love someone and converse with him, you feel

his presence, and you enjoy his presence, so it

happens in man’s communion with God: there

exists not a simple external relationship, but

a mystical union of God and man in the Holy

Spirit.

Until now, Westerners have considered that

divine Grace, or the energy of God, is something

created. Unfortunately, this is one of the

many differences which must be seriously taken

into consideration in theological dialogues with

the Roman Catholics. It is not only the filioque,

the primacy of power, and the “infallibility” of

the Pope which are basic differences between

the Orthodox Church and the Papists. It is also

the above. If the Roman Catholics do not accept

that the Grace of God is uncreated, we cannot

unite with them even if they accept all the other

points. For who is able to effect Theosis if divine

Grace is a creation and not an uncreated energy

of the All-Holy Spirit?

Living in the Divine Presence

In today’s world, many people have given up on religion.  A lot of times, this isn’t such a bad thing.  When people give up the cultural conditioning of their childhood, it is often because they are seeking authenticity, and they are not finding it in religion.  As an Orthodox – even though I belong to what a lot people would call a “religion” – my life is one lived in Christ.  (Or, at least, it’s an attempt to do such a thing – I fail miserably a good bit of the time.)  This Orthodox life is not a religion, then, since it’s not a belief system.

Despite the fact that it appears as if “religion” is dying, many of these people who have given up the religion of their childhood are nonetheless searching for something more.  This something more is often what is referred to as “spirituality.”

And, yet, the “spiritual” life can be just as dangerous as the “religious” life.  And by “dangerous” I mean that it can very easily lead one off track, so to speak.  It can lead away from a life lived in Christ, a life lived in – and through – the Presence of the Divine.

Many religious people practice their belief system because they want to give their lives meaning – nothing wrong with that in and of itself.  But what too often happens is a religion that is all exterior – it is about insulating oneself with a myriad of beliefs, and then finding other likeminded people to gather with, thus ensuring that your beliefs will rarely be questioned.  And when your beliefs are questioned, well, you have plenty of support to assure you that you were right all along.

This is what often happens with Protestants in our country.  (Although not always.  There are some exemplary contemplatives – and others – that have come from the Protestant traditions.)  But it can also happen to Orthodox, as well, especially when Orthodoxy, too, becomes nothing more than a belief system, nothing more than one of the many religions of the world.

I know more than a few people who were actively involved in their churches, and even tried their best to cultivate a “spiritual” life, as well, but became burned out.  Why?  Because too often what is taken to be a “prayer” life, or a “biblical” life is one that is simply lived around the edges of true prayer.  It skirts the outsides of it, or it hovers about it, but it doesn’t become a life lived within it.  Or, even more likely, it never becomes a prayer life that understands to be truly contemplative, then the life must embrace – and live out – the beneathness of things.

The spiritual life – for it to be true – must not be all edges.  And it cannot be a life that occasionally goes within the spiritual, only to retreat to the edges for the remainder of its being.  (Here I am thinking of the person that attends Divine Liturgy on a regular basis, receives the Sacraments and thus enters within for a brief period during the course of the week.  And this person tries his/her best to say their daily prayers, to read the Gospel and Epistle of the day, yet never enters into the withinness of the truly spiritual – never understands the true gnosis that the early Fathers spoke of – because their life is still edges.)

What, then, is one to do?  First, you must participate in all of the Sacraments, and it is good to read the Gospel and Epistle of the Day, and to pray the Divine Hours.  But this is not all.  You must pray unceasingly.  (The best way to pray unceasingly would be with the Jesus Prayer).  You must be vigilant in your practice of watchfulness.  (Along with prayer, watchfulness should be the other pillar of the life lived in Christ.)  But reading Holy Scripture, practicing watchfulness, and constant prayer are also not all that must be done.  For these things are still only tools that lead you directly into a life lived in the Divine Presence of the One who loves you and desires for intimacy with you.

And this quest for intimacy with the Divine is what people are often seeking when they talk of being spiritual, or when they say they are “spiritual but not religious.”  But too often, this “spirituality” is worse than the “religion” it replaces.  It becomes nothing more than a narcissism that replaces God with man.  (We were created in the Image of God, but He was not created in ours.)

Often, “spiritual” people will even talk of intimacy with God, or practicing the presence of God, but too often, all they are talking about is a feeling, nothing more.  (In Christian circles, too, this has become common.)

But living in the Divine Presence – and thus partaking of a life lived in Christ – is not a feeling, it is a reality.  And it is a reality lived out in the Reality.

Not just in, either, but through and beneath.  By a true spiritual life that embraces the beneathness of Christ, I mean living the kind of faith that moves mountains.  When Christ spoke of having the faith of the mustard seed, enough to tell the mountain to move, and it will, is, of course, not to be taken literal.  But it doesn’t mean, either, what a lot of Christians think it means.  It doesn’t mean that if you have a lot of faith you will be able to pass the exam, win the marathon, or become Mayor of your town (or President of the country) – even though this is typically how it is interpreted.  Rather, it means having the kind of faith that is even more shocking than making a mountain move through the sheer force of your prayer.  It means loving others who don’t love you, even those who hate you.  It means forgiving seventy times seven.  It means clothing the naked and feeding the hungry.  It means ministering to prisoners, even murderers, rapists, and child molesters.  In short, it means doing all of the things that world says are crazy, a world that too often claims to Christian but is never lived in Christ.

The Divine Other as Person

a.k.a.: Why I’m not a Buddhist

The other day I received an email from someone asking – after reading my previous post on the Noble Eightfold Path – why I didn’t just stick with Buddhism.  I thought I made myself clear in my post that I am in no way, shape, form, or fashion a syncretist, but apparently that’s not the case.  The danger, I suppose, in writing something such as a post on the Eightfold Path is that readers, unfamiliar with either Buddhism or Orthodoxy, will come to the conclusion that either one of them is good, that either one of them is okay – why not just use them interchangeably.  (And there are plenty of writers – Buddhist and Christian – who say just that kind of thing.)

But I’m not one of them.

Buddhism and Orthodoxy are different – as Bikkhu Bodhi so succinctly puts it in the previous post.  So why am I Orthodox?  And why not Buddhism?

First off, and let me be as clear as possible, I learned a lot from Buddhism (and from Taoism, too, for that matter).  But in the end, it just didn’t work for me.  And, truth be told, I don’t think it will work for anyone else, either.  Not because it’s necessarily wrong, but because it’s incomplete.  Why?  For me to explain that, then the rest of this post is going to have to be personal.

I’m not going to lay out the details on any Orthodox catechism or apologetics.  Those too often come from the head, and – quite frankly – stay in the head.  What I have to say comes from the heart.  If what I say appeals to you, leads you into an intimate relationship with Christ, leads you into the depths of the Orthodox faith, then good.  If, however, it doesn’t, that’s okay, too – there are other ways to make your journey into Orthodoxy, and therefore into the heart of the true Christian faith.  As Elder Thaddeus of Vitovnika puts it, there are many ways to scale the mountain, but there’s only one mountaintop.  There is the way of the priests, the martyrs, the ascetics, the apostles, etc.  What I offer here is my way. (Maybe we’ll call it the way of the bedraggled, the broken, and the burned-out.) It works for me.  It may not work for you.

It Started With a Meditation

For a few months, I had been reading all I could get my hands on with regards the mystics of Christianity.  It didn’t take me long to realize that Protestantism held no sway over me – I had given up on that when I had given up on Christianity almost 20 years ago; which left me with Catholicism and Orthodoxy.  It wasn’t easy to get my hands on much Orthodox stuff, so I mainly read Catholic writers (I really enjoyed Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa of Avila) and the occasional Eastern Christian stuff that would come my way.

Despite all of this, I was still essentially Buddhist.  I sat in meditation every morning and each night.  I still read a lot of Buddhist literature, and held a very Buddhist worldview.  (The Buddhist view of the world and reality, I must admit, is at least better than a lot of what passes for a Christian worldview in this country.)  As much as I enjoyed reading the mystics of Christianity, there was one thing that I really had a problem with: the idea that God is a Person.  It was easy to take from some of the medieval mystics (Meister Eckhart, for example) and even easier from a lot of modern-day Catholic contemplatives that God was an Impersonal Absolute.  You could get intimate with this Absolute, sure, and you could feel a very personal relationship (in some ways, at least) with this Absolute, but it was still a stretch for me to believe that God was a Person who loved me and cared for me.

But, one night, everything changed.

I sat down on my zafu and zabuton for meditation.  After about 15 to 20 minutes of following my breath, and once I had sufficiently calmed my mind, I stopped following my breath to allow my consciousness to rest in open, vast awareness (that’s neo-Buddhist jargon).  As I did, something happened, something I was in no way prepared for.  In my room was a Presence.  This Presence wasn’t just in the room.  It was in me.  It was in me, and yet It was beyond me.  It was beyond even the Transpersonal That which I had taken to be the end of the road –as far as contemplative practice goes.  This Divine Other wasn’t just beyond everything, and It wasn’t just in everything, including me.  This Divine Other loved me – in fact, the Divine seemed to love me with a reckless, raw intensity.  It didn’t love me for what I wasn’t, and It didn’t love me for the great contemplative that I was trying so hard to be (as if that was going to happen).  The Divine Other was a Person who loved me just as I was.

At first, I didn’t want to think about it, but I knew the truth: this Person was Christ.  I knew it in a way beyond what any words can possibly describe – try as I might in these pages.  Christ loved me, prodigal son that I was (and still am).  For the first time, I knew what Saint John the Theologian meant when he wrote, “God is love.”

My eyes watered.  Tears found my face.  God, I don’t deserve to be loved like this, I thought.

Here’s another truth that I didn’t want to admit to myself at the time: Despite all my hours of meditation, despite the fact that I could enter deep meditative states where it seemed as if time and space fell away for an hour or more at a stretch, I was not a very changed person.  I was still capable of being the same irascible jerk as before my Buddhist practice.  I was still capable of being completely selfish and unkind to others.  I was still capable of being rude to co-workers, friends and family.  I was still broken.  I was still one screwed-up individual.

But Christ loved me.  He loved me in all of my screwed-up brokenness.

Only the religion of Christ offers a God that loves unconditionally, and wants you to join in intimate union with Abba – a word best translated as “papa” or “da-da.”  This is the God of Christ; the God who craves intimate union with me, with you, with all of His creation.

The Buddha was a great teacher.  But he was before Christ, before the Logos (the Dao, the One Who Was, Is, and Forever Shall Be) became flesh and walked among us.  He, as with other great teachers from Asia, knew Christ only indirectly, whereas we can know him directly, intimately, and can attain theosis with the One who made us in His Image and Likeness.