I'd like to start of by saying that this will be a relatively long post, yet the nature of the subject doesn't allow my writing to take on a shorter form if i want to adequately represent my views. If there are any theological steps i have missed in my analysis, i hope to be corrected by somebody with more knowledge on the subject than me, so that i can change my position accordingly.
In the current eastern-orthodox church the essence-energy distinction is embraced as a fundamental aspect of it's theology. Going into the history of the essence-energy distinction is unnecessary to substantiate my criticism and i will therefore delve right into the problems that this distinction creates. God, according to the (current) orthodox consensus, must be believed to be (at least partly) compound to avoid contradictions with scriptural claims that relate to the divine nature. On the basis of this dilemma St. Gregory of Palamas during the late 13th century introduced the essence-energy distinction in an effort to create a consistent and coherent theology that protects the believer from falling into erroneous conceptions of God. If no distinction was made between the energies and essence of God the believer wouldn't be able to distinguish between, for instance, grace, mercy and love - all three distinct from one another but coming from one God. Grace would literally become God, mercy would become God and love would become God as well, leading to many new complications. One of these complications, from a purely scriptural perspective, are countless examples of clear verses that state that God is, essentially, unknowable. Whether it be Moses who says that nobody ever sees the face (essence) of God, or Christ Himself who says that nobody knows the Father except the Son. Without an essence-energy distinction the experience of love would be the same as the experience of God, there being no fundamental difference between God's love (an energy) and God's Self (His essence) and therefore be against the teaching of Jesus and the prophets.
Nevertheless, the essence-energy distinction ultimately leads to a dilemma that is many times more severe. To understand this problem we have to emphasise another aspect of modern Christian thought and that is the belief in true phenomenal distinctions, or rather, the rejection of non-duality. In Christian thought there is a strong belief in the authenticity of universal concepts. Authentic in the sense that, aside from the consequences that the Fall of Adam and Eve had on the entirety of creation, the way human beings perceive the world is still essentially trustworthy, for a good God wouldn't ''deceive'' it's creatures that He made in His own image. Idealism, for this reason, is largely rejected by the orthodox churches. The experience that an individual has of life is real, not merely a product of his mind. What the individual sees, hears, tastes, smells and feels is a true representation of the dynamics of the external world. The separation between subject and object is therefore also real, regardless of the arguments that can be made in favour of ontological interconnection between the perceiver and what he perceives. It goes without saying that this also entails that creation itself has no direct connection to God, neither is anything within creation rooted in divinity. God, according to the doctrine of creatio-ex-nihilo, accepted by virtually all historical churches from the 4th century onwards, didn't create out of Himself or from Himself; God is believed to have created out of nothingness. Inconceivable as though this may be, the consequences of this are self-explanatory, namely; creation is not representative of God in any way, shape or form. God may have created beings in His likeness, but the only connection that the total creation has to God is in being His creation, while simultaneously remaining fundamentally distinct from Him. Let us combine these Christian beliefs with the essence-energy distinction to show the consequences these two basic aspects of orthodox faith will have on theology.
Making a fundamental distinction between God's essence and God's energies, where His essence remains forever unknown, leaves us with the inability to confirm whether the energies that we believe to experience have their origin God. If we combine this dilemma with the Christian belief that neither we, nor anything in creation (not even scripture) is rooted in God, we have definitively severed our connection with God and have created a worldview that is as internally contradicting as the worldview of atheism. It goes without saying that without a God there is no objective foundation for any belief, yet an unknown and inaccessible God ultimately separate from a world not rooted in Him or connected to Him in any way leads to the exact same problem. When a Christian appeals to the church, scripture, or authoritative saints to defend his belief, he is already assuming that his sense perception through which he affirms the existence of these things is reliable. Yet on what grounds does he believe this? Neither his sense perception or reasoning faculties can be believed to have their roots (or origin) in an objective foundation if the essence of God is both outside of the world and simultaneously argued to be forever unknown. ''But'' the critic will say ''i believe in Jesus Christ who is rooted in God and is God Himself, and therefore i can trust His words''. Yet even the teachings and incarnation of Christ can only be argued on the basis of writings of the external world, but without being rooted in an objective foundation, the first principle, or God, there is no reason to assume that anything the individual is experiencing has an actual ontological representation in the broader reality. His experience becomes empty of meaning, his reasoning-faculties untrustworthy, his sense-perception void. This is the ultimate conclusion of the belief in a real separation between God and creation, subject and object, perceiver and the perceived. Just like the atheist has no reason for any of his convictions as he (for all intends and purposes) believes that the world is a product of matter, unguided by intelligent sentience, neither does the Christian dualist who believes that creation and God are ontologically distinct, undermining his own possibility of trusting his subjective experience of the world.
For this reason, the belief in some form of non-dualism is a necessity for a coherent worldview, as this is the only conviction that allows an individual to be justified in attributing reliability to his subjective experience. Only in non-dualism is he believed to be intrinsically connected with the substrate of reality, and also, in the deepest depths of his being shares the same essence with God; but a dualistic worldview will forever sever him from the first principle of existence, leading to the impossibility of knowledge, wisdom and morality. We believe that the writings of st. Dionysius, who for many hundreds of years was considered one of the highest authorities on theology, are in harmony with the solution that we propose. To end our essay we will appeal to his short treatise ''on mystical theology'' where st. Dionysius argues that apophatic contemplation is a path by which the believer can have a direct experience with God. Though st. Dionysius doesn't argue for non-dualism in a direct manner, he seems to do so indirectly. If the individual wasn't in some way rooted in God the emptying of his mind and strategic renouncing of mental imagery wouldn't lead to God, but to emptiness and darkness; a mere vacuum void of all meaning, divinity and holiness. Though i could go on citing many different examples of saints whom i believe have been forced to come to similar conclusions regarding the necessity of phenomenal interconnectedness for coherent theology, i will leave our statements as they are, to be ingested by the reader in their current form, considering them to be sufficient to explain the negative consequences of a largely demystified theology as is practiced by most modern churches in both the western and eastern world today.
In the current eastern-orthodox church the essence-energy distinction is embraced as a fundamental aspect of it's theology. Going into the history of the essence-energy distinction is unnecessary to substantiate my criticism and i will therefore delve right into the problems that this distinction creates. God, according to the (current) orthodox consensus, must be believed to be (at least partly) compound to avoid contradictions with scriptural claims that relate to the divine nature. On the basis of this dilemma St. Gregory of Palamas during the late 13th century introduced the essence-energy distinction in an effort to create a consistent and coherent theology that protects the believer from falling into erroneous conceptions of God. If no distinction was made between the energies and essence of God the believer wouldn't be able to distinguish between, for instance, grace, mercy and love - all three distinct from one another but coming from one God. Grace would literally become God, mercy would become God and love would become God as well, leading to many new complications. One of these complications, from a purely scriptural perspective, are countless examples of clear verses that state that God is, essentially, unknowable. Whether it be Moses who says that nobody ever sees the face (essence) of God, or Christ Himself who says that nobody knows the Father except the Son. Without an essence-energy distinction the experience of love would be the same as the experience of God, there being no fundamental difference between God's love (an energy) and God's Self (His essence) and therefore be against the teaching of Jesus and the prophets.
Nevertheless, the essence-energy distinction ultimately leads to a dilemma that is many times more severe. To understand this problem we have to emphasise another aspect of modern Christian thought and that is the belief in true phenomenal distinctions, or rather, the rejection of non-duality. In Christian thought there is a strong belief in the authenticity of universal concepts. Authentic in the sense that, aside from the consequences that the Fall of Adam and Eve had on the entirety of creation, the way human beings perceive the world is still essentially trustworthy, for a good God wouldn't ''deceive'' it's creatures that He made in His own image. Idealism, for this reason, is largely rejected by the orthodox churches. The experience that an individual has of life is real, not merely a product of his mind. What the individual sees, hears, tastes, smells and feels is a true representation of the dynamics of the external world. The separation between subject and object is therefore also real, regardless of the arguments that can be made in favour of ontological interconnection between the perceiver and what he perceives. It goes without saying that this also entails that creation itself has no direct connection to God, neither is anything within creation rooted in divinity. God, according to the doctrine of creatio-ex-nihilo, accepted by virtually all historical churches from the 4th century onwards, didn't create out of Himself or from Himself; God is believed to have created out of nothingness. Inconceivable as though this may be, the consequences of this are self-explanatory, namely; creation is not representative of God in any way, shape or form. God may have created beings in His likeness, but the only connection that the total creation has to God is in being His creation, while simultaneously remaining fundamentally distinct from Him. Let us combine these Christian beliefs with the essence-energy distinction to show the consequences these two basic aspects of orthodox faith will have on theology.
Making a fundamental distinction between God's essence and God's energies, where His essence remains forever unknown, leaves us with the inability to confirm whether the energies that we believe to experience have their origin God. If we combine this dilemma with the Christian belief that neither we, nor anything in creation (not even scripture) is rooted in God, we have definitively severed our connection with God and have created a worldview that is as internally contradicting as the worldview of atheism. It goes without saying that without a God there is no objective foundation for any belief, yet an unknown and inaccessible God ultimately separate from a world not rooted in Him or connected to Him in any way leads to the exact same problem. When a Christian appeals to the church, scripture, or authoritative saints to defend his belief, he is already assuming that his sense perception through which he affirms the existence of these things is reliable. Yet on what grounds does he believe this? Neither his sense perception or reasoning faculties can be believed to have their roots (or origin) in an objective foundation if the essence of God is both outside of the world and simultaneously argued to be forever unknown. ''But'' the critic will say ''i believe in Jesus Christ who is rooted in God and is God Himself, and therefore i can trust His words''. Yet even the teachings and incarnation of Christ can only be argued on the basis of writings of the external world, but without being rooted in an objective foundation, the first principle, or God, there is no reason to assume that anything the individual is experiencing has an actual ontological representation in the broader reality. His experience becomes empty of meaning, his reasoning-faculties untrustworthy, his sense-perception void. This is the ultimate conclusion of the belief in a real separation between God and creation, subject and object, perceiver and the perceived. Just like the atheist has no reason for any of his convictions as he (for all intends and purposes) believes that the world is a product of matter, unguided by intelligent sentience, neither does the Christian dualist who believes that creation and God are ontologically distinct, undermining his own possibility of trusting his subjective experience of the world.
For this reason, the belief in some form of non-dualism is a necessity for a coherent worldview, as this is the only conviction that allows an individual to be justified in attributing reliability to his subjective experience. Only in non-dualism is he believed to be intrinsically connected with the substrate of reality, and also, in the deepest depths of his being shares the same essence with God; but a dualistic worldview will forever sever him from the first principle of existence, leading to the impossibility of knowledge, wisdom and morality. We believe that the writings of st. Dionysius, who for many hundreds of years was considered one of the highest authorities on theology, are in harmony with the solution that we propose. To end our essay we will appeal to his short treatise ''on mystical theology'' where st. Dionysius argues that apophatic contemplation is a path by which the believer can have a direct experience with God. Though st. Dionysius doesn't argue for non-dualism in a direct manner, he seems to do so indirectly. If the individual wasn't in some way rooted in God the emptying of his mind and strategic renouncing of mental imagery wouldn't lead to God, but to emptiness and darkness; a mere vacuum void of all meaning, divinity and holiness. Though i could go on citing many different examples of saints whom i believe have been forced to come to similar conclusions regarding the necessity of phenomenal interconnectedness for coherent theology, i will leave our statements as they are, to be ingested by the reader in their current form, considering them to be sufficient to explain the negative consequences of a largely demystified theology as is practiced by most modern churches in both the western and eastern world today.
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