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?