Essence and Energies?

[Vesper_Jaye✝️]

I’m confused about the Essence and energies of God and how they’re different. Can someone please explain?

 

[ArmyMatt]

the essence is God known only to God, the energies are God revealed

 

[Vesper_Jaye✝️]

the essence is God known only to God, the energies are God revealed

Will we be able to see the essence of God in Heaven?

 

[ArmyMatt]

Will we be able to see the essence of God in Heaven?

no, God’s essence is forever beyond us

 

[HTacianas]

I’m confused about the Essence and energies of God and how they’re different. Can someone please explain?

It's usually compared to the sun. The sun never touches the Earth but its energies do in the form of light and heat. No one has ever touched the sun but everyone has experienced the energies of the sun. No one has ever seen the essence of God but His energies can be experienced.

 

[Gregory Thompson]

no, God’s essence is forever beyond us

Does that mean it's eternity itself?

 

[ArmyMatt]

Does that mean it's eternity itself?

no

 

[Justin-H.S.]

E/E distinction is explained here:

 

[Petros2015]

I’m confused about the Essence and energies of God and how they’re different. Can someone please explain?

You can not look into the Sun but you can feel it's light and heat
You can experience an artist through His art
And in some sense know the artist through His art
But the art is not the artist

 

[Light of the East]

E/E distinction is explained here:

This is a nice video to explain the difference.

How does this differ from the Roman Catholic view? What problems did Medieval Catholic theologians see with the Palamite view? How do they view to relationship of God to His creation, both in time and in eternity?

And . . . is this a good description of Open Theism:

Open Theism | Monergism

Thanks for helping with my nascent Orthodox phronema!

 

[Arctangent]

I’m confused about the Essence and energies of God and how they’re different. Can someone please explain?

Some speak of this distinction as if it refers to two different parts or aspects of God's being, but that is not the distinction.

Another way to speak of God's "energies" is God's "activities", or something along those lines. We know God because He interacts with us. We experience Him acting in the world. When we experience God interacting with us, we experience God Himself because it is God Himself who is acting.

This is also true of any other person. I can never truly know the YOU of you. I can only experience what you do. Yet when I experience you doing something, I am experiencing YOU doing it.

 

[The Liturgist]

This is a nice video to explain the difference.

How does this differ from the Roman Catholic view? What problems did Medieval Catholic theologians see with the Palamite view? How do they view to relationship of God to His creation, both in time and in eternity?

And . . . is this a good description of Open Theism:

Open Theism | Monergism

Thanks for helping with my nascent Orthodox phronema!

My understanding is that Palamism was thought to be incompatible with Scholastic/Thomistic Absolute Divine Simplicity (although not Divine Simplicity in a Patristic sense). This is based on my reading of both editions of Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy by Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick.

 

[ArmyMatt]

My understanding is that Palamism was thought to be incompatible with Scholastic/Thomistic Absolute Divine Simplicity (although not Divine Simplicity in a Patristic sense). This is based on my reading of both editions of Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy by Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick.

correct. God’s essence isn’t to be what is is to be. His essence is beyond what it means to be.

 

[IoanC]

Essence is "what God is made of". The Energies are God's "Hands" so to speak, the means through which He makes Himself known. The essence is unknowable. Energies sometimes imply Grace; God uses Divine Energies to communicate His Grace. Yet, I believe it is Fr. Dimitru Staniloae who said that ontological characteristics and the energies can also be seen as one and the same element, for there cannot be any separation between them. You cannot separate the hands from the rest of the body. And, If you have seen the hand you can infer the body (according to human potential, not to Divine Knowledge which is available only to God)