1. Пневматологическая антропология свт. Григория Паламы

1.1. The teaching of St. Gregory Palamas on Uncreated Divine Energies Saint Gregory Palamas is known as the teacher of Uncreated Divine Energies. The clarification and refinement of this teaching was his significant contribution to the theological development of the Eastern Orthodox Tradition. Trinitarian disputes of the 4th century identified Three Persons in a single Divine nature. The theology of St. Gregory speaks of an incomprehensible Divine essence and an intelligible essential energy. He accepted and used the logic of Saint Maximus the Confessor and the Sixth Ecumenical Council, which teach about Energy as the realization and action of any nature, as a movement from nature to action. “Divine Energy is inseparable from the Divine Essence; it is God Himself acting. Distinguishing Divine energies from essence does not mean dividing God, because one and the other are two images of the same life of God” 1. This means that Saint Gregory Palamas does not think of Divine energy as an impersonal emanation of an essence, but as a personal communication of the Divine life. Through Divine Energy, God, incomprehensible in his essence, becomes comprehensible to creatures. The Council of 1351 determined that “energy is a substantial and essential movement. It flows from the Divine essence as an eternally flowing source. Divine energy is not something other than God, but it is His eternal uncreated action, the fullness and perfection of the Divine. From eternity itself she existed inseparably united with the Divine essence, completely incapable of being separated from it by eternity, or by the distance of time and space. God exists, and the essence and Divine energy belong to Him” 2. The presence of God in energies must be understood, according to Saint Gregory, in a real sense. This is not the presence of a cause in its effects: energies are not “consequences” (effects) of the Cause, as is the case with the created world, where God is present as the cause of the world He created. Divine Energies are not created, not created “out of nothing,” but they flow eternally from the single essence of the Most Holy Trinity. “They are an excess of the Divine nature, which cannot limit itself, which is greater than its essence. We can say that the Energies reveal to us a certain image of the existence of the Most Holy Trinity outside of Her inaccessible essence. So, we learn: God exists simultaneously both in His essence and outside of It” 3. Saint Gregory Palamas views the Holy Trinity as a natural unity of Three Persons, each of which has its own identity, which are not parts of God, for the fullness of the one Divinity lives in each of Them. The single energy is common to the Three Divine Persons, therefore there is always unity and community of Divine actions. There are not three different and separate Divine energies to be attributed to each of the Divine Persons, but there is only one Divine energy characteristic of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity. 1.2. The teaching of St. Gregory Palamas on the knowledge of God The distinction between essence and energy is the starting point of apophatic knowledge of God. “We do not know the Essence of God, but we have access to experimental knowledge of the Divine way of being. We can talk about this method, since we cognize Divine Energies” 4. To everyone who is involved in the Divine Energies, they reveal the entire otherness of each Divine Hypostasis and, at the same time, the entire Divinity. Thus, we recognize Divine Energies through hypostases. Divine energy makes the Divine Person accessible to human experience without abolishing that bottomless essential difference between us and God. Saint Gregory places special emphasis on personalism in his theology. His teaching emphasizes the personal character of Divine action, which flows from the Divine nature. Divine energy cannot be known either in itself or through the Divine essence, but only through personality. “The personal way of being corresponds to our personal experience of being a person. We know each human personality only through its participation in Divine energies, in which its existential otherness is revealed. Outside of the human personality, there is no other possibility of a relationship between creatures and the Creator” 5 . The energy transferred from one person to another is real. But it does not have its own independent existence. Uncreated Energy cannot manifest itself, it cannot manifest through the Divine Essence, it can only manifest through the personality. God is known by us because He personally acts through Divine energy. The Divine Energy communicated to us, in a certain sense, becomes hypostatized by our personality, since it does not exist independently of the Divine Persons, but the Holy Spirit sends it into the personality of another, the one who contemplates it. Divine energies make it possible to know God through participation in what is God as a whole. This communication is the generalization and expression of the total way of being of the entire Deity or humanity. “There is no Divine or human nature outside of actually existing hypostases. Personality defines being as existing reality” 6. By denying this difference, we are forced to interpret personality as a relationship between entities, which we can later see in the theology of Thomas Aquinas, where “the relationship does not characterize the personality, but is identified with it. This ensures the logical necessity of the simplicity of the essence. God is conceived of as accessible only as an essence, that is, as an object of logical interpretation, as a prime mover, in itself incomprehensible and representing pure energy. Its existence must be identical with the self-realization of the essence” 7. 1.3. The role of the Holy Spirit in the deification of man The doctrine of the communication of Divine Energy from Divine Persons to our personalities is the principle by which Saint Gregory solves the problem of deification. The entire teaching of Saint Gregory presupposes the action of a Personal God. Without leaving the “impregnable light” in which He dwells forever, God rushes to man and embraces him with His Grace and action. The source and giver of the Trinity deifying energies that accomplish salvation is the Holy Spirit, who makes us partakers of the Divine energies. He communicates them to us and makes us ready to receive them. All energies come from the Father, communicated by the Son in the Holy Spirit. Divine energies are inseparable from the Holy Spirit and a person, imprinted with the energies of the Holy Spirit, becomes a person. The action of the Holy Spirit is to bestow Divine Energy. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives, and He is the one who is given. He is present in His gift, and He imparts His own life. When Saint Gregory Palamas speaks about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, His indwelling, he means that we are given Divine Energies, and not the Holy Spirit himself. He distinguishes the Holy Spirit from His gifts. But at the same time, he insists that the gifts, the energies of the Holy Spirit, are inseparable from the Holy Spirit Himself. The Holy Spirit cannot give us energy without giving Himself. Man, under the influence of the action of deifying energies, becomes a created god, but not God by nature, for the essence of man does not become the essence of God: man becomes involved in the Divine nature in Divine energies. “In the process of deification we do not cease to be creatures, we do not lose our natural identity, we are not absorbed into God. The Three Divine Persons communicate their Divine Energy to us in such a way that we possess it not by nature, but personally. Our nature and our natural energy remain untouched” 8. Divine energy is personalized energy because it becomes hypostatized in relation to our personalities. It is important to emphasize that the goal of Eastern Christian spirituality is the participation in the life of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is in this involvement that theologian Pavel Evdokimov sees the purpose of human life. “This is the true renewal of man, which is achieved not by the release of some natural energies inherent in the created existence of man, but by the “energies” of God Himself, who through them meets man, embraces him and accepts him into communion with Himself” 9. The problem of participation is connected with the question of communicating Uncreated Divine Energies to man. “When we become deified, we truly unite with God, we participate in His life, in a sense we become uncreated, being involved in the Uncreated Divine Energies” 10. The problem that St. Gregory Palamas poses is participation through grace in the Divine nature itself, the dwelling of the Three Divine Persons in us, in the direct vision of God as He is. As the Apostle Peter says, “you have become partakers of the Divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4) 11. This text is interpreted by Saint Gregory Palamas as the unity of man, but not with the essence of God Himself, but with the Divine Energies. Human beings are deified by virtue of the fact that they become involved in the Divine Energies, through the free gift of the Holy Spirit in the same Uncreated energy that belongs to God. The Holy Spirit is present and active in each of His energies. Those who act and move according to the will and power of the Holy Spirit are His instruments. Grace is uncreated, and it is precisely this that the Son gives, sends and bestows on His disciples. However, He does not give the Holy Spirit Himself. View of St. Gregory Palamas is not that the Holy Spirit gives Uncreated Energy, instead of giving Himself, but that He gives Himself, bestowing Uncreated Energy. Saint Basil the Great says: “The life which the Holy Spirit imparts to the personality of another being is not separated from Him. The Holy Spirit possesses life in itself, although people who participate in Him also live in a Divine way, having acquired a Divine and heavenly life” 12. Saint Gregory sees in this passage a double affirmation of the Uncreated character of grace bestowed by the Holy Spirit. This life is inseparable from the Holy Spirit, and those who participate in it are deified. Divine life is the fruit of participation, which itself is already a connection with life, inseparable from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit transfers it to another created hypostasis. The fruit of participation is that we become like God. Participation in God is real. Moreover, we commune with God completely. According to the teaching of Saint Gregory Palamas, the Divine Essence can be participated personally to some extent, but in the strict sense it is absolutely incommunicable. It can only be communicated through Uncreated Divine Energies. “Only participation in the Divine energies, common to the Three Hypostases, allows one to accurately express this participation” 13. Saint Gregory considers the doctrine of Divine Energies to be the only possible means of showing the involvement of Divine life, which is real. The gift of the Holy Spirit is inseparable from its source. To participate in this gift means to participate in the life, energy and light of the Divine, which comes from the Holy Spirit. The deifying gift of the Holy Spirit is the radiance of the Divine nature itself, thanks to which God communicates with those who are worthy of it. If the gift were separated from the Holy Spirit, then it could not deify those involved in it. The role of the Holy Spirit as Comforter is to unite man with the Trinity through love. The Light of Tabor is considered by Saint Gregory Palamas to be the main Divine action. The problem of understanding the Light of Tabor was one of the most controversial points in the controversy between St. Gregory Palamas and his opponents. Opponents of St. Gregory Palamas saw the Tabor light as a natural created phenomenon. “In relation to the sun, which is God, this light is a ray, beauty, glory, essential light, It is called grace, the Kingdom of God. It has all the properties of an action, as well as all the general properties like it. And yet he is not the Divine essence" 14. According to Saint Gregory Palamas, the Tabor light is uncreated. And he abides in God. To be involved in the Tabor light means to be mysteriously involved in the source, the inseparable radiation of which this light is. Through this Uncreated Light, God descends to us, being present in it, for this light is the manifestation of Divine Uncreated Energies to us. “Only those who participate in this supernatural and Divine light can participate in deifying grace, and through this light can be united with God. All other creatures are the result of creative actions, they are produced by grace, but they are not sanctified by grace, which is the mystery of Divine sanctification" 15. The teaching of Saint Gregory Palamas can be defined as the theological justification for the possibility of a person’s direct meeting with God. God, incomprehensible in His essence, can be known through Divine Energies, by joining which a person becomes a partaker of the Divine being. St. Gregory Palamas of the Triad M., 1996. P. 67. Meyendorff I., prot. Introduction to the Study of Saint Gregory Palamas. M., 1998. P. 238. 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