06a - Creation & Creaturehood (Part 2)

Creation and Creaturehood

(Part 2)

III The acceptance of the absolute creatureliness and non-self-sufficiency of the world leads to the distinguishing of two kinds of predicates and acts in God. Indeed, at this point we reach the limit of our understanding, all words become, as it were, mute and inexact, receiving an apophatic, prohibitive, not a cataphatic, indicative sense. Nevertheless, the example of the holy Fathers encourages a speculative confession of faith. As Metropolitan Philaret once said, “We must by no means consider wisdom, even that hidden in a mystery, as alien and beyond us, but with humility should edify our mind towards the contemplation of divine things.”⁵¹ Only, in our speculation we must not overstep the boundaries of positive revelation, and must limit ourselves to the interpretation of the experience of faith and of the rule of faith, presuming to do no more than discern and clarify those inherent presuppositions through which the confession of dogmas as intelligible truths becomes possible. And it must be said that the whole structure of the doctrine of faith encourages these distinctions. In essence, they are already given in the ancient and primary distinction between “theology” and “economy.” From the very beginning of Christian history, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church endeavored to distinguish clearly and sharply those definitions and names which referred to God on the “theological” plane and those used on the “economical.” Behind this stands the distinction between “nature” and “will.” And bound up with it is the distinction in God between “essence” [usia, ουσια] and “that which surrounds the essence,” “that which is related to the nature.” A distinction, but not a separation.

“What we say about God affirmatively shows us,” as St. John Damascene explains, “not His nature, hut only what is related to His nature” (ου τυν φυσιν, αλλα τα περι τυν φυσιν),⁵² “something which accompanies His nature” [u physin, allata paraphysin, τι των παρεπομενων την φυσει].⁵³ And “what He is by essence and nature, this is unattainable and unknowable.” ⁵⁴ St. John expresses here the basic and constant assumption of all Eastern theology: God’s essence is unattainable; only the powers and operations of God are accessible to knowledge.⁵⁵ And as matters stand, there is some distinction between them. This distinction is connected with God’s relation to the world. God is knowable and attainable only in so far as He turns Himself to the world, only by His revelation to the world, only through His economy or dispensation. The internal Divine life is hedged by “light unapproachable,” and is known only on the level of “apophatic” theology, with the exclusion of ambiguous and inadequate definitions and names. In the literature of the ante-Nicene period, this distinction not seldom had an ambiguous and blurred character. Cosmological motives were often used in the definition of intra-Trinitarian relations, and the Second Hypostasis was often defined from the perspective of God’s manifestation or revelation to the world, as the God of revelation, as the Creative Word. And therefore the unknowability and inaccessibility were assigned primarily to the Hypostasis of the Father as being un-revealable and ineffable. God reveals Himself only in the Logos, in “the spoken Word” [logos prophorikos, λογος προφορικος], as “in the idea and active power” issuing forth to build creation.⁵⁶ Connected with that was the tendency to sub-ordinationism in the ante-Nicene theological interpretation of the Trinitarian dogma. Only the Fathers of the fourth century obtained in their Trinitarian theology the basis for an adequate formulation of God’s relation to the world: the whole entire and undivided “operation” [energie, ενεργειαι] of the consubstantial Trinity is revealed in God’s acts and deeds. But the single “essence” [usia, ουσια] of the undivided Trinity remains beyond the reach of knowledge and understanding. His works, as St. Basil the Great explains, reveal the power and wisdom of God, but not His essence itself. ⁵⁷ “We affirm,” he wrote to Amphilochius of Iconium, “that we know our God by His energies, but we do not presume that it is possible to approach the essence itself. Because although His energies descend to us, His essence remains inaccessible.” And these energies are multiform, yet the essence is simple.⁵⁸ The essence of God is unfathomable for men, and is known solely to the Only-begotten Son and to the Holy Spirit.⁵⁹ In the words of St. Gregory the Theologian, the essence of God is “the Holy of Holies, closed even to the Seraphim, and glorified by the three ‘Holies’ that come together in one ‘Lordship’ and ‘Godhead.’” And the created mind is able, very imperfectly, to “sketch” some small “diagram of the truth” in the infinite ocean of the Divine entity, but based not upon what God is, but upon what is around Him [ek ton periavton, εκ των περι αυτον].⁶⁰ “The Divine essence, totally inaccessible and comparable to nothing,” says St. Gregory of Nyssa, “is knowable only through His energies.”⁶¹ And all our words concerning God denote not His essence but His energies.⁶² The Divine essence is inaccessible, unnameable, and ineffable. The manifold and relative names referring to God do not name His nature or essence but the attributes of God. Yet the attributes of God are not just intelligible or knowledgeable signs or marks which constitute our human notion of God; they are not abstractions or conceptual formulae. They are energies, powers, actions. They are real, essential, life-giving manifestations of the Divine Life - real images of God’s relation to creation, connected with the image of creation in God’s eternal knowledge and counsel. And this is “that which may be known of God” (το γνωστον του Θεου, Romans 1:19). This is, as it were, the particular domain of the undivided but yet “many-named” Divine Being, “of the Divine radiance and activity,” - η Θεια ελλαμψις και ενεργεια, as St. John Damascene says, following the Areopagitica.⁶³ According to the Apostolic word, “the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His everlasting power and Godhead” (η τε αιδιος αυτου δυναμις και Θειοτης, Romans 1:20). And this is the revelation or manifestation of God: “God hath shewed it unto them” (Romans 1:19; ephanerosen, εφανερωσεν). Bishop Silvester rightly explains in commenting on these Apostolic words: “The invisible things of God, being actually existent and not merely imaginary, become visible not in a kind of illusory way, but certainly, veritably; not as a mere phantom, but in His own eternal power; not merely in the thoughts of men, but in very fact - the reality of His Divinity.”⁶⁴ They are visible because manifested and revealed. Because God is present everywhere, not phantasmally, not in remoteness, but really present everywhere - “which art in all places, and fillest all things, the Treasury of good things, and Giver of life.” This providential ubiquity (different from the “particular” or charismatic presence of God, which is not everywhere) is a particular “form of existence” for God, distinct from the “form of His existence according to His own nature.”⁶⁵ And furthermore this form is existentially real or subsistent - it is an actual presence, not merely an omnipraesentia operativa, sicut agens adest ei in quod agit. And if we “do not particularly understand” (in the phrase of St. Chrysostom⁶⁶) this mysterious omnipresence, and this form of the Divine Being ad extra, nevertheless it is indisputable that God “is everywhere, whole and entirely,” “all in all,” as St. John Damascene said (ολον ολικως πανταχου ον, ολον εν πασι).⁶⁷ The life-giving acts of God in the world are God Himself - an assertion which precludes separation but does not abolish distinction.⁶⁸ In the doctrine of the Cappadocian fathers concerning “essence” and “energies” we find in an elaborate and systematic form the mysterious author of the Areopagitica that was to determine the whole subsequent development of Byzantine theology. Dionysius bases himself on the strict distinction between those “Divine Names” which refer to the intra-Divine and Trinitarian life and those which express the relation of God ad extra⁶⁹ But both series of names tell of the immutable Divine reality. The intra-Divine life is hidden from our understanding, is known only through negations and prohibitions,⁷⁰ and in the phrase of St. Gregory the Theologian “one who by seeing God has understood what he has seen, has not seen Him.”⁷¹ And nevertheless God really reveals Himself and acts and is present in creation through His powers and ideas - in “providences and graces which issue from the incommunicable God, which pour out in a flooding stream, and in which all existing things participate,”⁷² “in an essence-producing procession,” [usiopion proodon, ουσιοποιον προοδον], in “a providence that works good things,” [agathopion pronian, αγαθοποιον προνοιαν], which are distinguishable but not separable from the Divine entity “which surpasses entity,” from God Himself, as St. Maximus the Confessor says in his scholia.⁷³ The basis of these “processions” and of the, as it were, procession of God in His providences out of Himself - [eks eavtugenete, εξω εαυτου γινεται] - is His goodness and love.⁷⁴ These energies do not mix with created things, and are not themselves these things, but are only their basic and life-giving principles; they are the prototypes, the predeterminations, the reasons, the logi (λογοι) and Divine decisions respecting them, of which they are participants and ought to be “communicants.”⁷⁵ They are not only the “principle” and the “cause,” but also the “challenge” and beckoning goal which is beyond and above all limits. It would be difficult to express more forcefully both the distinction between and the indivisibility of the Divine Essence and the Divine energies than is done in the Areopagitica (το ταυτον και το ετερον).⁷⁶ The divine energies are that aspect of God which is turned towards creation. It is not an aspect imagined by us; it is not what we see and as we see it, but it is the real and living gaze of God Himself, by which He wills and vivifies and preserves all things - the gaze of Almighty Power and Superabundant Love. The doctrine of the energies of God received its final formulation in the Byzantine theology of the fourteenth century, and above all in St. Gregory Palamas. He bases himself on the distinction between Grace and Essence, “the divine and deifying radiance and grace is not the essence, but the energy of God” (η Θεια και Θεοποις ελλαμψις και χαρις ουκ ουσια αλλ ενεργια εστι Θεου)⁷⁷ The notion of the Divine energy received explicit definition in the series of Synods held in the fourteenth century in Constantinople. There is a real distinction, but no separation, between the essence or entity of God and His energies. This distinction is manifest above all in the fact that the Entity is absolutely incommunicable and inaccessible to creatures. The creatures have access to and communicate with the Divine Energies only. But with this participation they enter into a genuine and perfect communion and union with God; they receive “deification.”⁷⁸ Because this is “the natural and indivisible energy and power of God,” (φυσικη και αχωριστος ενεργεια και δυναμις του Θεου)⁷⁹ “it is the common and Divine energy and power of the Tri-Hypostatic God.”⁸⁰ The active Divine power does not separate itself from the Essence. This “procession” [proiene, προιεναι] expresses an “ineffable distinction,” which in no way disturbs the unity “that surpasses essence.”⁸¹ The active Power of God is not the very “substance” of God, but neither is it an “accident” [symvevikos, συμβεβηκος]; because it is immutable and coeternal with God, it exists before creation and it reveals the creative will of God. In God there is not only essence, but also that which is not the essence, although it is not accident - the Divine will and power - His real, existential, essence-producing providence and authority.⁸² St. Gregory Palamas emphasizes that any refusal to make a real distinction between the “essence” and “energy” erases and blurs the boundary between generation and creation - both the former and the latter then appear to be acts of essence. And as St. Mark of Ephesus explained, “Being and energy, completely and wholly coincide in equivalent necessity. Distinction between essence and will [thelisis, θελησις] is abolished; then God only begets and does not create, and does not exercise His will. Then the difference between foreknowledge and actual making becomes indefinite, and creation seems to be coeternally created.”⁸³ The essence is God’s inherent self-existence; and the energy is His relations towards the other [proseteron, προς ετερον]. God is Life, and has life; is Wisdom, and has wisdom; and so forth. The first series of expressions refers to the incommunicable essence, the second to the inseparably distinct energies of the one essence, which descend upon creation.⁸⁴ None of these energies is hypostatic, nor hypostasis in itself, and their incalculable multiplicity introduces no composition into the Divine Being.⁸⁵ The totality of the Divine “energies” constitutes His pre-temporal will, His design - His good pleasure - concerning the “other,” His eternal counsel. This is God Himself, not His Essence, but His will.⁸⁶ The distinction between “essence” and “energies” - or, it could be said, between “nature” and “grace” [physis, φυσις and haris, χαρις] - corresponds to the mysterious distinction in God between “necessity” and “freedom,” understood in a proper sense. In His mysterious essence God is, as it were, “necessitated” - not, indeed, by any necessity of constraint, but by a kind of necessity of nature, which is, in the words of St. Athanasius the Great, “above and antecedent to free choice.”⁸⁷ And with permissible boldness one may say: God cannot but be the Trinity of persons. The Triad of Hypostases is above the Divine Will, is, as it were, “a necessity” or “law” of the Divine nature. This internal “necessity” is expressed as much in the notion of the “consubstantiality” as in that of the perfect indivisibility of the Three Persons as They co-exist in and intercompenetrate one another. In the judgment of St. Maximus the Confessor, it would be unfitting and fruitless to introduce the notion of will into the internal life of the Godhead for the sake of defining the relations between the Hypostases, because the Persons of the All-Holy Trinity exist together above any kind of relation and action, and by Their Being determine the relations between Themselves.⁸⁸ The common and undivided “natural” will of God is free. God is free in His operations and acts. And therefore for a dogmatic confession of the reciprocal relations between the Divine Hypostases, expressions must be found such as will exclude any cosmological motives, any relation to created being and its destinies, any relation to creation or re-creation. The ground of Trinitarian being is not in the economy or revelation of God ad extra. The mystery of the intra-Divine life should be conceived in total abstraction from the dispensation; and the hypostatic properties of the Persons must be defined apart from all relationship to the existence of creation, and only according to the relationship that subsists between Themselves. The living relationship of God - precisely as a Triad - to the creation is in no way thus obscured; the distinction in the relations of the different Hypostases towards the creation is in no wise obscured. Rather, a fitting perspective is thus established. The entire meaning of the dogmatic definition of Christ’s Divinity as it was interpreted by the Church actually lay in the exclusion of all predicates relative to the Divine condescension which characterize Him as Creator and Redeemer, as Demiurge and Saviour, in order to understand His Divinity in the light of the internal Divine Life and Nature and Essence. The creative relationship of the Word to the world is explicitly confessed in the Nicene Creed - by Whom all things were made. And “things” were made not only because the Word is God, but also because the Word is the Word of God, the Divine Word. No one was as emphatic in separating the demiurgical moment in Christ’s action from the dogma of the eternal generation of the Word as St. Athanasius the Great. The generation of the Word does not presuppose the being - and not even the design - of the world. Even had the world not been created, the Word would exist in the completeness of His Godhead, because the Word is Son by nature [Yos kataphysin, υιος κατα φυσιν]. “If it had pleased God not to create any creatures, the Word would nevertheless be with God, and the Father would be in Him,” as St. Athanasius said; and this because creatures cannot receive their being otherwise than through the Word.⁸⁹ The creatures are created by the Word and through the Word, “in the image” of the Word, “in the image of the image” of the Father, as St. Methodius of Olympus once expressed it.⁹⁰ The creation presupposes the Trinity, and the seal of the Trinity lies over the whole creation; yet one must not therefore introduce cosmological motifs into the definition of the intra-Trinitarian Being. And yet one may say that the natural fulness of the Divine essence is contained within the Trinity, and therefore that the design - His good pleasure - concerning the world is a creative act, an operation of the will - an abundance of Divine love, a gift and a grace. The distinction between the names of “God in Himself,” in His eternal being, and those names which describe God in revelation, “economy,” action, is not only a subjective distinction of our analytical thinking; it has an objective and ontological meaning, and expresses the absolute freedom of Divine creativity and operation. This includes the “economy” of salvation. The Divine Counsel concerning salvation and redemption is an eternal and pre-temporal decree, an “eternal purpose” (Ephesians 3:11), “the mystery which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God” (Ephesians 3:9). The Son of God is from everlasting destined to the Incarnation and the Cross, and therefore He is the Lamb “Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world” (1 Peter 1:19-20), “The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). But this “purpose” [prothesis, προθεσις] does not belong to the “essential” necessity of the Divine nature; it is not a “work of nature, but the image of economical condescension,” as St. John Damascene says.⁹¹ This is an act of Divine love - for God so loved the world ... And therefore the predicates referring to the economy of salvation do not coincide with those predicates by which the Hypostatic Being of the Second Person is defined. In Divine revelation there is no constraint, and this is expressed in the notion of the perfect Divine Beatitude. Revelation is an act of love and freedom, and therefore introduces no change into the Divine nature.⁹² It introduces no change simply because there are no “natural” foundations for revelation at all. The sole foundation of the world consists in God’s freedom, in the freedom of Love.

IV From eternity God “thinks up” the image of the world, and this free good pleasure of His is an immutable, unchangeable counsel. But this immutability of the accomplished will does not in the least imply its necessity. The immutability of God’s will is rooted in His supreme freedom. And therefore it does not bind His freedom in creation, either. It would be very appropriate here to recall the scholastic distinction between potentia absoluta and potentia ordinata.

And in conformity with the design - the good pleasure of God - creation, together with time, is “built up” from out of nothing. Through temporal becoming, creation must advance by its own free ascent according to the standard of the Divine economy respecting it, according to the standard of the pre-temporal image of and predestination for it. The Divine image of the world always remains above and beyond creation by nature. Creation is bound by it unchangeably and inseparably, is bound even in its very resistance to it. Because this “image” or “idea” of creation is simultaneously the will of God [thelitikiennia, θελητικη εννοια] and the power of God by which creation is made and sustained; and the beneficent counsel of the Creator is not made void by the resistance of creation, but through this resistance turns out to be, for rebels, a Judgment, the force of wrath, a consuming fire. In the Divine image and counsel, each creature - i.e., every created hypostasis in its imperishable and irreproducible form - is contained. Out of eternity God sees and wills, by His good pleasure, each and every being in the completeness of its particular destiny and features, even regarding its future and sin. And if, according to the mystical insight of St. Symeon the New Theologian, in the age to come “Christ will behold all the numberless myriads of Saints, turning His glance away from none, so that to each one of them it will seem that He is looking at him, talking with him, and greeting him,” and yet “while remaining unchanged. He will seem different to one and different to another”⁹³ - so likewise out of eternity, God in the counsel of His good pleasure, beholds all the innumerable myriads of created hypostases, wills them, and to each one of them manifests Himself in a different way. And herein consists the “inseparable distribution” of His grace or energy, “myriadfold hypostatic” in the bold phrase of St. Gregory Palamas,⁹⁴ because this grace or energy is beneficently imparted to thousands upon myriads of thousands of hypostases. Each hypostasis, in its own being and existence, is sealed by a particular ray of the good pleasure of God’s love and will. And in this sense, all things are in God - in “image” [en idea ke paradigmati, εν ιδεα και παραδειγματι] but not by nature, the created “all” being infinitely remote from Uncreated Nature. This remoteness is bridged by Divine love, its impenetrability done away by the Incarnation of the Divine Word. Yet this remoteness remains. The image of creation in God transcends created nature and does not coincide with “the image of God” in creation. “Whatever description may be given to the “image of God” in man, it is a characteristic moment of his created nature - it is created. It is a “likeness,” a mirroring.⁹⁵ But above the image the Proto-Image always shines, sometimes with a gladenning, sometimes with a threatening, light. It shines as a call and a norm. There is in creation a supra-natural challenging goal set above its own nature - the challenging goal, founded on freedom, of a free participation in and union with God. This challenge transcends created nature, but only by responding to it is this nature itself revealed in its completeness. This challenging goal is an aim, an aim that can be realized only through the self-determination and efforts of the creature. Therefore the process of created becoming is real in its freedom, and free in its reality, and it is by this becoming that what-was-not reaches fulfilment and is achieved. Because it is guided by the challenging goal. In it is room for creation, construction, for re-construction - not only in the sense of recovering, but also in the sense of generating what is new. The scope of the constructiveness is defined by the contradiction between the nature and the goal. In a certain sense, this goal itself is “natural” and proper to the one who does the constructive acts, so that the attainment of this goal is somehow also the subject’s realization of himself. And nevertheless this “I” which is realized and realizable through constructiveness is not the “natural” and empiric “I,” inasmuch as any such realization of one’s self” is a rupture - a leap from the plane of nature onto the plane of grace, because this realization is the acquisition of the Spirit, is participation in God. Only in this “communion” with God does a man become “himself;” in separation from God and in self-isolation, on the contrary, he falls to a plane lower than himself. But at the same time, he does not realize himself merely out of himself. Because the goal lies beyond nature, it is an invitation to a living and free encounter and union with God. The world is substantially different from God. And therefore God’s plan for the world can be realized only by created becoming - because this plan is not a substratum or substantia that comes into being and completes itself, but is the standard and crown of the “other’s” becoming. On the other hand, the created process is not therefore a development, or not only a development; its meaning does not consist in the mere unfolding and manifestation of innate “natural” ends, or not only in this. Rather, the ultimate and supreme self-determination of created nature emerges in its zealous impulse to outstrip itself in a kinisis yper physin κινησις υτερ φυσιν, as St. Maximus says.⁹⁶ And an anointing shower of grace responds to this inclination, crowning the efforts of the creatures. The limit and goal of creaturely striving and becoming is divinisation [theosis, θεωσις] or deification [theopiisis, θεοποιησις]. But even in this, the immutable, unchangeable gap between natures will remain: any “transubstantiation” of the creature is excluded. It is true that according to a phrase of St. Basil the Great preserved by St. Gregory the Theologian, creation “has been ordered to become God.” ⁹⁷ But this “deification” is only communion with God, participation [metusis, μετουσια] in His life and gifts, and thereby a kind of acquisition of certain similitude to the Divine Reality. Anointed and sealed by the Spirit, men become conformed to the Divine image or prototype of themselves; and through this they become “conformed to God” [symmorphiTheo, συμμορφοι Θεω].⁹⁸ With the Incarnation of the Word the first fruit of human nature is unalterably grafted into the Divine Life, and hence to all creatures the way to communion with this Life is open, the way of adoption by God. In the phrase of St. Athanasius, the Word “became man in order to deify [theopiisi, θεοποιηση] us in Himself,”⁹⁹ in order that “the sons of men might become the sons of God.” ¹⁰⁰ But this “divinization” is acquired because Christ, the Incarnate Word, has made us “receptive to the Spirit,” that He has prepared for us both the ascension and resurrection as well as the indwelling and appropriation of the Holy Spirit.”¹⁰¹ Through the “flesh-bearing God” we have become “Spirit-bearing men”; we have become sons “by grace,” “sons of God in the likeness of the Son of God.”¹⁰² And thus is recovered what had been lost since the original sin, when “the transgression of the commandment turned man into what he was by nature,”¹⁰³ over which he had been elevated in his very first adoption or birth from God, coinciding with his initial creation.¹⁰⁴ The expression so dear to St. Athanasius and to St. Gregory the Theologian, Theon genesthe (Θεον γενεσθαι),¹⁰⁵ finds its complementary explanation in a saying of two other Cappadocian Saints: omiosis pros ton Theon (ομοιωσις προς τον Θεον).¹⁰⁶ If Macarius the Egyptian dare speak of the “changing” of Spirit-bearing souls “into the Divine nature,” of “participation in the Divine nature,”¹⁰⁷ he nevertheless understands this participation as a krasis diolon κρασις δι ολον, i.e., as a certain “mingling” of the two, preserving the properties and entities of each in particular.¹⁰⁸ But he also stresses that “the Divine Trinity comes to dwell in that soul which, by the cooperation of Divine Grace, keeps herself pure - He comes to dwell not as He is in Himself, because He is incontainable by any creature - but according to the measure of the capacity and receptivity of man.¹⁰⁹ Explicit formulae concerning this were not established all at once, but from the very beginning the impassable gulf between the natures was rigorously marked, and the distinction between the notions kata usian, κατ ουσιαν (or κατα φυσιν) and katametusian, κατα μετουσιαν was rigorously observed and kept. The concept of “divinization” was crystallized only when the doctrine of God’s “energies” had been explicated once and for all. In this regard the teaching of St. Maximus is significant. “The salvation of those who are saved is accomplished by grace and not by nature,”¹¹⁰ and if “in Christ the entire fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily according to essence then in us, on the contrary, there is not the fulness of the Godhead according to grace.”¹¹¹ The longed-for “divinization” which is to come is a likeness by grace (και φανωμεν αυτω ομοιοι κατα την εκ χαριτος θεωσιν).¹¹² And even by becoming partakers of Divine Life, “in the unity of love,” “by co-inhering totally and entirely with the whole of God,” (ολος ολω περιχωρησας ολικως τω Θεω) by appropriating all that is Divine, the creature “nevertheless remains outside the essence of God.”¹¹³ And what is most remarkable in this is the fact that St. Maximus directly identifies the deifying grace with the Divine good pleasure as regards creation, with the creative fiat.¹¹⁴ In its efforts to acquire the Spirit, the human hypostasis becomes a vehicle and vessel of Grace; it is in a manner imbued with it, so that by it God’s creative will is accomplished - the will which has summoned that-which-is-not into being in order to receive those that will come into His communion. And the creative good pleasure itself concerning each and every particular is already by itself a descending stream of Grace-but not everyone opens to the Creator and God Who knocks. Human nature must be freely discovered through a responsive movement, by overcoming the self-isolation of its own nature; and by denying the self, as one might say, receive this mysterious, and terrifying, and unspeakable double-naturedness for sake of which the world was made. For it was made to be and to become the Church, the Body of Christ. The meaning of history consists in this - that the freedom of creation should respond by accepting the pre-temporal counsel of God, that it should respond both in word and in deed. In the promised double-naturedness of the Church the reality of created nature is affirmed at the outset. Creation is the other, another nature willed by God’s good pleasure and brought forth from nothing by the Divine freedom for creation’s own freedom’s sake. It must conform itself freely to that creative standard by which it lives and moves and has its being. Creation is not this standard, and this standard is not creation. In some mysterious way, human freedom becomes a kind of “limitation” on the Divine omnipotence, because it pleased God to save creation not by compulsion, but by freedom alone. Creation is “other,” and therefore the process of ascent to God must be accomplished by her own powers - with God’s help, to be sure. Through the Church creaturely efforts are crowned and saved. And creation is restored to its fulness and reality. And the Church follows, or, rather, portrays the mystery and miracle of the two natures. As the Body of Christ, the Church is a kind of “plenitude” of Christ - as Theophan the Recluse says - “Just as the tree is the ‘plenitude’ of the seed.”¹¹⁵ And the Church is united to Her Head. “Just as we do not ordinarily see iron when it is red-hot, because the iron’s qualities are completely concealed by the fire,” says Nicholas Cabasilas in his Commentary on the DivineLiturgy, “so, if you could see the Church of Christ in Her true form, as She is united to Christ and participates in His Flesh, then you would see Her as none other than the Lord’s Body alone.”¹¹⁶ In the Church creation is forever confirmed and established, unto all ages, in union with Christ, in the Holy Spirit.

Notes and References

51. Discourses and Speeches of a Member of the Holy Synod, Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, part 11, Moscow, 1844, p. 87: "Address on the Occasion of the Recovery of the Relics of Patriarch Alexey" (Russian).

52.    St. John Damascene, De fide orth., I, 4, PG xciv, 800.

53.    Ibid., I, 9, c. 836.

54.    Ibid., I, 4, c. 797.

55.    For a survey of this question see I. V. Popov, The Personality and Teachings of the Blessed Augustine, Vol. I, part 2 (Sergiev Posad, 1916, and Lichnost’ i Uchenie Blazhennago Avgustina), pp. 350-370 ff. (Russian).

56. In the words of Athenagoras, Legat. c. 10, PG vi, c. 908: εν ιδεα και ενεργεια. Cf. Popov, pp. 339-41; Bolotov, pp. 41 ff.; A Puech, Les apologistes grecs du II^esiècle de notre ère (Paris, 1912). On Origen, see Bolotov, pp. 191 ff. From the formal aspect, the distinction between "essence" and "energies" goes back to Philo and Plotinus. Nevertheless, in their view God receives his own character, even for Himself, only through His inner and necessary self-revelation in the world of ideas, and this "cosmological sphere" in God they named "Word" or "Mind." For a long time the cosmological concepts of Philo and Plotinus retarded the speculative formulation of the Trinitarian mystery. In fact cosmoiogical concepts have no relation to the mystery of God and Trinity. If Cosmological concepts must be discarded, then another problem appears, that of the relationship of God to the world, indeed of a free relationship. The problem is relationship in the conception of the "pre-eternal counsel of God." On Philo see M. D. Muretov, The Philosophy of Philo of Alexandria in its Relation to the Doctrine of St. John the Theologian on the Logos, Vol. I (Moscow, 1885); N. N. Gloubokovsky, St. Paul the Apostle’s Preaching of the Glad Tidings in its Origin and Essence, Vol. IΙ (St. Petersburg, 1910), pp. 23-425; V. Ivanitzky, Philo of Alexandria (Kiev, 1911); P. J. Lebreton, Les origines du dogme de la Trinité (Paris, 1924), pp. 166-239, 570-581, 590-598; cf. excurus A, "On the Energies," pp. 503-506. Cf. also F. Dölger, "Sphragis," Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des Alterhums, Bd. V, Hf. 3-4 (1911), pp. 65-69.

57. St. Basil the Great, C.Eun., Ι, ΙI, 32, PG xxix, 648; cf, St. Athanasius, De decret., n. II, PG xxv, c. 441: "God is in all by His goodness and power; and He is outside of all in His own nature” [κατα την ιδιαν φυσιν].

58. St. Basil the Great, Ad Amphil., PG xxxii, 869, А-В.

59. St. Basil the Great, C. Eun., I, I, n, 14, PG xxix, 544-5; cf. St. Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 28, 3, PG xxxvi, 29; Or. 29, Colossians 88 B.

60. St. Gregory Nazianzos, Or. 38, in Theoph., n. 7, PG xxxvi, 317.

61. St. Gregory of Nyssa, Cant. cant. h. xi, PG xlix, 1013 В; In Phalm. II, 14, PG xliv, 585; cf. V. Nesmelov, The Dogmatic System of St. Gregory of Nyssa (Kazan, 1887), pp. 123 ff.; Popov, pp. 344-49.

62. St. Gregory of Nyssa, Quod non sint tres dii, PG xlv, 121B: "We have come to know that the essence of God has no name and it is inexpressible, and we assert that any name, whether it has come to be known through human nature or whether it was handed to us through the Scriptures, is an interpretation of something to be understood of the nature of God, but that it does not contain in itself the meaning of His nature itself… On the contrary, no matter what name we give to the very essence of God, this predicate shows something that has relation to the essence” [τι των περι αυτην]. Cf. С. Eunom. Л, PG xlv, с. 524-5; De beatitud., Or. 6, PG xliv, 1268: "The entity of God in itself, in its substance, is above any thought that can comprehend it, being inaccessible to ingenious conjectures, and does not even come close to them. But being such by nature, He who is above all nature and who is unseen and indescribable, can be seen and known in other respects. But no knowledge will be a knowledge of the essence;" In Ecclesiasten, h. VII, PG xliv, 732: “and the great men speak of the works [εργα] of God, but not of God.” St. John Chrysostom Incompreh. Dei natura, h. III, 3, PG xlviii, 722: in the vision of Isaiah (vi, 1-2), the angelic hosts contemplated not the "inaccessible essence" but some of the divine "condescension," - "The dogma of the unfathomability of God in His nature and the possibility of knowing Him through His relations towards the world" is presented thoroughly and with penetration in the book of Bishop Sylvester, Essay on Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, Vol. I, (Kiev, 1892-3), pp. 245 ff.; Vol. II (Kiev, 1892-3), pp. 4 ff. Cf. the chapter on negative theology in Father Bulgakov’s book, The Unwaning Light (Moscow, 1917), pp. 103 ff.

63. St. John Damascene, De fide orth., I, 14, PG xciv, 860.

64. Bishop Sylvester, II, 6.

65. Cf. ibid., II, 131.

66. St. John Chrysostom, In Hebr. h-2, n. 1.

67. St. John Damascene, De fide orth., I, 13, PG xciv, 852.

68. The Eastern patristic distinction between the essence and energies of God has always remained foreign to Western theology. In Eastern theology it is the basis of the distinction between apophatic and cataphatic theology. St. Augustine decisively rejects it. See Popov, pp. 353 ft.; Cf. Brilliantov, pp. 221 ff.

69.    Dionysius Areopagite, De div. nom., II, 5, PG iii, 641.

70.    Cf., for example, De coel. hier., II, 3, с. 141.

71.    Ep. I, ad Caium, с. 1065А.

72.    De div, nom; xi, 6, с. 956.

73. Dionysius Areopagite, De div. nom., I, 4, PG iii, 589; St. Max. Schol. in V 1; PG iv, 309: προοδον δε την Θειαν ενερεια λεγει, ητις πασαν ουσιαν παρηγαγε; is contrasted here with αυτος ο Θεος.

74. De div. nom., IV, 13, PG iii, 712.

75. De div. nom., V, 8, PG iii, 824; V, 5-6, с. 820; XI, 6, с. 953, ss. Cf. Brilliantov’s whole chapter on the Areopagitica, pp. 142-178; Popov, pp. 349-52. The pseudo-epigraphic character of the Areopagtiica and their close relationship with Neo-Platonism does not belittle their theological significance, which was acknowledged and testified to by the authority of the Church Fathers. Certainly there is need for a new historical and theological investigation and appraisal of them.

76.    Dionysius Areopagite, De div. nom; IX, PG iii, c. 909.

77.    St. Gregory Palamas, Capit. phys., theol. etc., PG cl, c. 1169.

78. Ibid., cap. 75, PG cl, 1173: St. Gregory proceeds from a threefold distinction in God: that of the essence, that of the energy, and that of the Trinity of the Hypostases. The union with God κατ ουσιαν is impossible, for, according to the general opinion of the theologians, in entity, or in His essence. God is "imparticipable" [αμεθεκτον]. The union according to hypostasis [καθ υποστασιν] is unique to the Incarnate Word: cap. 78, 1176: the creatures who have made progress are united to God according to His energy; they partake not of His essence but of His energy [κατ ενεργειαν]: cap. 92, 1168; through the partaking of “God given grace” they are united to God Himself (cap. 93). The radiance of God and the God-given energy, partakers of which become deified, is the grace of God [χαρις] but not the essence of God [φυσις]: cap. 141, 1220; cap. 144, 1221; Theoph. Colossians 912: 928D: cf- 921, 941. Cf. the Synodikon of the council of 1452 in Bishop Porphyrius [Uspensky]’s book. History of Mt. Athos, III, 2 (St. Petersburg, 1902), supplements, p. 784, and in the Triodion (Venice, 1820), p. 168. This is the thought of St. Maximus: μθεκτος μεν ο Θεος κατα τας μεταδοσεις αυτου, αμεθεκτος δε κατα το μηδεν μετεχειν της ουσιας αυτου, apud Euth. Zyg. Panopl., Titus 3:1-15, PG cxxx. 132.

79. Bishop Porphyrios, 783.

80. St. Gregory Palamas, Theoph., PG cl, 94l.

81. Ibid., 940: ει και διενηνοχε της φυσεως, ου διασπαται ταυτης. Cf. Triodion, p. 170; and Porphyrius, 784: "Of those who confess one God Almighty, having three Hypostases, in Whom not only the essence and the hypostases are not created, but the very energy also, and of those who say that the divine energy proceeds from the essence of God and proceeds undividedly, and who through the procession designate its unspeakable difference, and who through the undivided procession show its supernatural unity. .. eternal be the memory." Cf. ibid., p. 169, Porphyrius, 782 - ενωσις Θειας ουσιας και ενεργειας ασυγχυτον ... και διαφορα αδιαστατη. See St. Mark Eugen. Ephes. Cap. Syllog., apud W. Gasz, Die Mystik des N. Cabasilas (Greiszwald, 1849), App. II, c. 15, p. 221: επομενην ... αει και συνδρομον.

82. St. Gregory Palamas, Cap., 127, PG cl, 1209: ουτε γαρ ουσια εστιν ουτε συμβεβηκος; p. 135, 1216: το γαρ μη μονον ουκ απογινομενον, αλλ ουδ ευξησιν η μειωσιν ηντιναουν επιδεχομενον, η εμποιουν, ουκ εσθ οπως αν συναριθμοιτο τοις συμβεβηκοσιν ... αλλ εστι και ως αληθως εστιν, ου των καθ εαυτο υφεστηκοτων εστιν; ... εχει αρα ο Θεος, και ο ουσια, και ο μη ουσια καν ειμη συμβεβηκος καλειτο, την Θειαν δηλονοτι βολην και ενεργειαν; Theoph. p. 298: την δε θεατικην δυναμιν τε και ενεργειαν του παντα πριν γενεσεως ειδοτος και την αυτου εξουσιαν και την προνοιαν; c.f. p. 937, 956.

83. St. Gregory Palamas, Cap. 96, PG cl, 1181: ει ... διαφερει της Θειας ουσιας η Θεια ενεργεια, και το ποιειν, ο της ενεργειας εστι κατ ουδεν διοισει του γενναν και εκπορευειν, α της ματος και του προβληματος; cf. Cap. 97, 98, 100, 102; Cap. 103, 1192: ουδε τω θελειν δημιουργει Θεος, αλλα το περφυκεναι μονον; c. 135, 1216: ει τω βουλεσθαι ποιει ο Θεος, αλλα ουχ απλως τω πεφυκεναι, αλλο αρα το βουλεσθαι, και ετερον το πεφυκεναι. S. Mark of Ephesus, apud Gasz., s. 217: ετι ει ταυτον ουσια και ενεργεια, ταυτη τε και παντως αμα τω ειναι και ενεργειν τον Θεον αναγκη συνιδιος αρα τω Θεω η κτισις εξ αιδιου ενεργουντα κατα τους ελληνας.

84. St. Gregory Palamas, Cap. 125, PG cl, 1209; St. Mark of Ephesus, apud Gasz., c. 14, s. 220; c. 9, 219: с. 22, 225: ει πολυποικιλος μεν η του Θεου σοφια λεγεται τε και εστι πολυποικιλος δε αυτου η ουσια εστιν, ετερον αρα η αυτου ουσια και ετερον η σοφια; c. 10, 209.

85. St. Gregory Palamas, Theoph., PG cl, 929; 936; 941; St. Mark of Ephesus, apud Gasz., c. 21, s. 223.

86. Byzantine theology concerning the powers and energies of God still awaits monographic treatment, much the more so since the greater part of the works of St. Gregory Palamas are still in MSS. For the general characteristics and theological movements of the times, see Bishop Porphyry’s book, First Journey into the Athonite Monasteries and Sketes, part II, pp. 358 ff., and by the same author, History of Mt. Athos, part III, section 2, pp. 234 ff.; Archimandrite Modestus, St. Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonica (Kiev, 1860), pp. 58-70, 113-130; Bishop Alexey, Byzantine Church Mystics of the XIV Century (Kazan, 1906), and in the Greek of G. H. Papamichael, St. Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessalonica (St. Petersburg-Alexandria, 1911); cf. the Review of the book by J. Sokolov in the Journal of the Ministry of Public Education, 1913, April-July issues. The Eastern distinction between essence and energy met with severe censure from Roman Catholic thelogy. Petavius speaks of it at great length and most harshly, Petavius, Opus de theologicis, ed. Thomas, Barri-Ducis (1864), tomus I, I, I, c. 12-13, 145-160; III, 5, 273-6.

87. St. Athanasius, C. arian. Or. III, c. 62-63, PG xxvi.

88. St. Maximus the Confessor, Ambigu., PG xci, c. 1261-4.

89. St. Athanasius, C.arian., II, 31, PG xxvi, c. 212: "It was not for our sake that the Word of God received His being; on the contrary, it is for His sake that we received ours; and all things were created... for Him (Col. i.16). It was not because of our infirmity that He, being powerful, received His being from the One God, that through Him as by some instrument we were created for the Father. Far be it. Such is not the teaching of the truth. Had it been pleasing not to create creatures, nevertheless the Word was with God, and in Him was the Father. The creatures could not receive their being without the Word, and that is why they received their being through Him, which is only right. Inasmuch as the Word is, by the nature of His essence, Son of God; inasmuch as the Word is from God and is God, as He Himself has said, even so the creatures could not receive their being but through him."

90. St. Methodius of Olympus, Conviv., VI, I, PG xvii, c. 113.

91. St. John Damascene, C. Jacobitas, n. 52, PG xciv, 144.

92. Ibid., De fide orth., I, 8, c. 812.

93. St. Symeon, Βιβλος των ηθικων, III-St. Symeon le Nouveau Theologien, Traitιs théologiques et Ethiques "Sources Chrétiennes," No. 122 (Paris, 1966), p. 414: Ενθεν τοι και βλεπομενος παρα παντων και πασας βλεπων αυτος τας αναριθμητους μυριαδας και το εαυτου ομμα εχων αει ατενιζον και αμετακιντων ισταμενον, εκαστος αυτων δοκει βλεπεσθαι παρ αυτου και της εκεινου απολαυειν ομιλιας και κατασπαζεσθαι υπ αυτου ... αλλος αλλο τι δεικνυμενος ειναι και διαρων εαυτον κατ αξιαν εκαστω, καθα τις εστιν αξιος ...

94. St. Gregory Palamas, Theoph., PG cl. 941.

95. Cf. απεικονισμα in St. Gregory of Nyssa, De hom. opif., PG xliv, 137. St. Augustine happily distinguishes and contrasts imago ejusdem substantiae, man. August. Quaest. in heptateuch, I, V, qu. 4, PL xxxiv, c. 749. For the most complete catalogue of the opinions of the Church Fathers on the "image of God" in Russian, see V. S. Serebrenikov, The Doctrine of Locke on the Innate Principles of Knowledge and Activity (St. Petersburgh, 1892), pp. 266-330.

96. St. Maximus the Confessor, Ambigu., PG xci, c. 1093.

97. St. Gregory of Nazianzos, Or. 43, In laudem Basil. Magni, PG xxxvi, c. 560.

98. St. Amphilochius, Or. I In Christi natalem, 4.

99. St. Athanasius, Ad Adelph., 4, PG xxvi, 1077.

100. Ibid.,De incarn. et с. аrian., 8, с. 996.

101. Ibid., С. arian., Ι, 46. 47, с. 108-109.

102. Ibid., De incarn. et c. arian., 8, с. 998.

103. Ibid., De incarn; 4, с. PG xxv, 104: εις το κατα φυσιν επεστρεπεν.

104. Ibid; С. arian., II, 58-59, с. 272-3. Cf. N. V. Popov, The Religious Ideal of Sl. Athanasius, Sergiev Posad, 1903.

105. For a summary of citations from St. Gregory see K. Holl, Amphilochius von Ikonium in seinem Verhältniss zu den grossen Kappa-doziern (Tübingen and Leipzig, 1904), p. 166; cf. Also N. Popov, "The Idea of Deification in the Ancient Eastern Church" in the journal Questions in Philosophy and Psychology (1909, II-97), pp. 165-213.

106. Cf. Holl, 124-125, 203 ff.

107. St. Macarius of Egypt, hom. 44, 8, 9, PG xxxiv; αλλαγηναι και μεταβληθηναι ... εις ετεραν καταστασιν, και φυσιν θειαν.

108. Cf. Stoffels, Die mystische Theologie Makarius des Aegyptars (Bonn, 1900), pp. 58-61.

109. St. Macarius of Egypt, De amore, 28, PG xxxiv, 932: ενοικει δε ου καθ ο εστιν.

110. St. Maximus the Confessor, Cap, theol. et. oecon. cent., I, 67, PG xci, 1108: κατα χαριν γαρ, αλλ ου κατα φυσιν εστιν η των σωζωμενων σωτηρια.

111. Ibid., Cent, II, 21, Colossians 1133.

112. Ibid., Ad Ioannem cubic., ep., XLII, c. 639; cf. Div. cap., I, 42, PG xc, 1193; De charit., c. III, 25, c. 1024: κατα μετουσιαν, ου κατ ουσιαν, κατα χαριν, ου κατα φυσιν, Ambigu., 127^a: "being deified by the grace of the Incarnate God;" PG xci, 1088, 1092.

113. St. Maximus the Confessor, Ambigu. 222: The goal of the creature’s ascension consists in this-that, having united the created nature with the uncreated by love, in order to show them in their unity and identity - εν και ταυτον δειξειε - after having acquired grace and integrally and wholly compenetrating with the whole of God to become all that is God - παν ει τι περ σετιν ο Θεος - PG xci, 1038; cf. also Anastasius of Sinai Οδηγος, c. 2, PG lxxxix, c. 77: “Deification is an ascension towards the better, but it is not an increase or change in nature - ου μην φυσεως μειωσις, η μεταστασις -neither is it a change of one’s own nature.”

114. St. Maximus the Confessor, 43 Ad Ioann. cubic; PG xci, 639; "He has created us for this purpose, that we might become participants of the Divine nature and partakers of eternity’s very self, and that we might appear to Him in His likeness, by deification through grace, through which is brought about the coming-into-being [η ουσιωσις] of all that exists, and the bringing-into-being and genesis of what does not exist - και η των μη ορτων παραγωγη και γενεισις.

115. Bishop Theophan (the Recluse), Commentary on the Epistles of Sf. Paul the Apostle to the Ephesians (Moscow, 1882), in Russian, pp. 112-113, to the Ephesians, I, 23.

116. Nicholas Cabasilas, Stae liturgiae expositio, cap., 38, PG cl., c. 452. (Russian version - Writings of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church concerning the Divine Services of the Orthodox Church [St. Petersburg, 1857], p. 385.