The Palamite Controversy:

A Thomistic Analysis

A Thesis

Submitted to the
Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of

Licentiate in Sacred Theology

By

Peter Totleben, O.P.

Dominican House of Studies

Washington, DC
April, 2015
 Contents

Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 1

Chapter 1: The History of the Palamite Controversy ................................................................... 5

The Context of the Palamite Controversy.............................................................................. 5
The Historiography of the Palamite Controversy .................................................................. 8
The Early Life of Gregory Palamas ....................................................................................... 24
The First Phase: Barlaam and Palamas on the Knowledge of God ....................................... 25
The Second Phase: The Defense of the Holy Hesychasts ..................................................... 29
The Third Phase: Gregory Akindynos Takes the Lead .......................................................... 35
Latin Theology Enters the Debate ......................................................................................... 44

Chapter 2: God And His Activity in the World: A Thomistic Approach ..................................... 49
Distinctions ............................................................................................................................ 50
Divine Simplicity and the “Things Around God” .................................................................. 62
Creation: What It Is Not, And What It Is ............................................................................... 69
God’s Intimate Presence to the World Through His Activity ................................................ 76
A Note on Deification ............................................................................................................ 79
Thomism and the Divine Energies......................................................................................... 83

Chapter 3: Answers to Palamite Objections .................................................................................. 84

Mark of Ephesus and Classical Palamite Objections............................................................. 85
Eric Perl on the Palamite Approach to Creation .................................................................... 87
David Bradshaw on Divine Simplicity and Divine Freedom ................................................ 90

Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 99

Appendix: Syllogistic Chapters Against the Heresies of the Akindynists Concerning the Distinc-
tion of the Divine Essence and Energy .................................................................................. 101

Bibliography ..................................................................................................................................... 106

 Introduction

The Eastern Orthodox theologian and saint, Gregory Palamas (1296-1357), is noted for his

discussion of God's essence and His “energies”—that is, his activities or operations in the world.

According to Gregory, God's energies are uncreated, and they are—prior to the conceiving of the human

mind—really distinct from the divine essence. This understanding of God, which some hold to be

contrary to God's simplicity, is meant to offer an explanation for the Christian doctrines of creation,

deification, and heavenly beatitude. God's essence is unknowable, but we can have a participatory

knowledge of God's energies because they act on us, and we behold them. The paradigmatic example of

this is the disciples' experience on Mount Tabor. The divine energies acted on them, enabling them to

see the uncreated energies of Jesus streaming off of him in the form of visible light.

Gregory's teaching has been controversial ever since he formulated it. At first, the controversy

was limited to the Byzantine world. Gregory sought to defend a monastic revival that began on Mount

Athos in the fourteenth century that went by the name of “hesychasm.” The controversy surrounding the

hesychast monks and Gregory’s defense of them quickly became entangled in the intellectual and

political divisions of the day, with the Palamites eventually gaining ecclesiastical hegemony. As the late

Empire began to look westward in increasing desperation for help against the growing Turkish threat,

the Palamite controversy began to change into another East-West controversy. Through the mediation of

Dominican missionaries, a small circle of intellectuals in governmental circles and monks who were

dissatisfied with the hesychast form of monastic life began to use the theology of Thomas Aquinas to

critique the theology of Gregory Palamas.

Palamas’ teaching was developed in a context that was extremely polemical at five different

levels all at once. First, there was the metaphysical debate: was Gregory's “real” distinction between the

essence and the energies correct? Second, there was the debate about tradition: was Gregory's

distinction based on a complete and correct reading of the Fathers, or was it an innovation? Third, there

was the debate about prayer and monasticism: is hesychasm worth defending? Fourth, there was a
1
debate about the role of pagan learning in Christianity in general and theological argument in particular.

Fifth, there was a long dynastic civil war during the heart of the debate over Palamas' teaching, a war in

which both supporters and opponents of Palamas were caught up.

The Palamite controversy was definitively settled in 1368 with the canonization of Palamas and

the condemnation of some of his early Byzantine Thomist critics. The issue lay dormant in Eastern

theology, until the so-called “neo-Patristic” revival of Eastern Orthodox theology in the early twentieth

century. This movement had many parallels and personal contacts with the contemporaneous

“ressourcement” movement in Catholic theology, with which it had similar goals. The neo-Patristic

revival in Orthodox theology highlighted once more the role of Gregory Palamas as the person who

synthesized the Greek patristic tradition and ensured its definitive orientation towards mystical prayer.

With the revival of Palamite theology, there was also a revival of the polemics surrounding it. But along

with the older debates about the metaphysical validity of the essence-energies distinction and its

relationship to the teachings of the Fathers, new issues emerged. The debate between Gregory Palamas

and his fourteenth-century opponents has been read as a commentary on modern theological debates: to

highlight what is right or wrong with either Western neo-scholastic theology or Eastern neo-Patristic

theology. These debates, moreover, have not been without ecumenical interest. Often enough,

ecumenical rapprochement between East and West has been framed in terms of the acceptance or

rejection of the type of theology that Gregory Palamas has proposed—or, at least, the type of theology

that Gregory Palamas represents for his modern interpreters.

More recently, there has been a growing consensus that the standard twentieth-century

interpretations of the Palamite controversy need to be re-thought.1 New historical work has given us

new insights into Palamas’ critics. Moreover, new attention is being given both to the early adopters of

Thomas Aquinas in the Byzantine Empire and to the various ways that Thomistic theology may, to an

1 Andrew Louth, review of Juan Nadal-Cañellas, La résistance d’Akindynos à Grégoire Palamas: Enquête historique, avec tra-

duction et commentaire de quatre traités édités récemment, Journal of Theological Studies NS 57 (2006) 346-8.

2
extent, be respectfully received by the Christian East.2

Our purpose here is to examine the Palamite controversy—in its classical and modern

expressions—from a Thomistic viewpoint. We bring four presuppositions to this study. First, spiritual

depth and technical theology need not be opposed, and in fact, often mutually support one another. This

false dichotomy ought to be retired. Second, the traditional Thomistic approach to divine simplicity and

the metaphysics of creation, when properly understood (as it often is not), is more speculatively

satisfying than the Palamite real distinction between essence and energy in God. 3 Third, although

Thomist and Palamite metaphysics are not quite the same (and hence, they cannot both be entirely true),

this difference is at the level of theological opinion, and is not so great as to be church-dividing. Fourth,

this is because both schools maintain an intense interest in mysticism and the spiritual life—and the real

participation in God through prayer and sacraments that is at its root.

In chapter one, we will examine the history of the Palamite controversy of the fourteenth

century (and consider how it has been read in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries). In chapter two,

we will look at how traditional Thomistic theology has conceived God’s action in the world, particularly

with respect to creation. We hope to show that the Thomistic approach presents a view which is tightly

coherent, metaphysically profound, and speculatively correct, and which saves the Palamite concerns

about God’s transcendence, his intimate presence to the world, and its mystical orientation. In chapter

three, we will then answer some Palamite objections. After examining how Palamas conceives the

essence-energies distinction, we will look at the work of the fifteenth-century monk and bishop, Mark

of Ephesus, who at the very end of the Empire, gave us a précis of the classical Palamite objections to

the real identity of God’s essence and energies. Then we will look at two prominent modern

2Marcus Plested, Orthodox Readings of Aquinas, Changing Paradigms in Historical and Systematic Theology (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2012).
3Some Eastern Orthodox theologians are coming around to a more sympathetic view of Aquinas. An example of this is the ex-

cellent book by Marcus Plested which is mentioned above. But Plested sometimes suggests that it is the St. Thomas that has been
recovered by modern scholarship that can be acceptable to the Orthodox. A leitmotiv of this study is to show that the reflections of
classical Thomism—which, contrary to widespread perception, was deeply interested in questions of prayer and spirituality—also
deserve a more sympathetic reading.

3
philosophical defenses of Palamism, that of Eric Perl and that of David Bradshaw.

We will conclude by arguing that the Thomist and Palamite approaches are incompatible at the

level of philosophical explanation, and that we should opt for Thomism over Palamism. But, this

philosophical incompatibility occurs in the context of a larger, shared doctrinal and spiritual agreement.

Thus, when certain misunderstandings of Thomism are cleared up, and certain extreme expressions are

purged from Palamism, the dispute between the two emerges as a school dispute, which need not

prevent Christian unity.

4
 Chapter 1

The History of the Palamite Controversy

In order to examine how the Palamite controversy unfolded, first we will briefly set the stage by

looking at the historical context of the period in which Gregory Palamas was active. Then, before we

get on with the narration of the conflict proper, we will stop to consider the various ways that this story

has been told in the recent past, to see what they have to teach us. After that (and after a brief biography

of Gregory Palamas), we will move on to the Palamite controversy proper. First, Palamas and the

Calabrian monk Barlaam debated the way in which God is known. In this context, Gregory articulated a

very early intuition of his distinction. Second, as tempers flared, Barlaam began to criticize the monks

who practiced hesychasm, ultimately denouncing them to the Holy Synod of Constantinople. But, this

attempt backfired, and Barlaam got condemned in 1341. Third, Gregory Akindynos—erstwhile friend of

both Barlaam and Palamas—supported hesychast prayer, but fought Palamas' distinction between the

essence and energies. This ended with his condemnation, and another proclamation that Palamism is

doctrine in 1347 and again in 1351, due to the attacks against Palamas of scholar and former rival of

Barlaam, the humanist Nikephoros Gregoras. Fourth, with the translation of the works of St. Thomas

Aquinas into Greek, there were more attacks against Palamism, which ended with the condemnation of

Prokoros Kydones in 1368. Byzantine disciples of Thomas Aquinas had to make a definitive choice for

the West.

The Context of the Palamite Controversy

The last phase of the history of the Byzantine Empire began on July 25, 1261. It was on this day

that Michael Palaiologos, ruler of the rump empire of Nicaea recaptured Constantinople from the

Western ruler Baldwin II, put an end to the Latin rule over the City, which had existed since the end of

the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Crowned Michael VIII, along with his infant son, Andronikos II, on August

5
15, he founded a dynasty that would rule the restored Empire—with one exception, the rule of John

Kantakuzenos—until its collapse at the hands of the Ottoman Turks on May 29, 1453.

The late empire was a period of great cultural and intellectual achievement, which ultimately

played not a small role in inaugurating the Renaissance in the West. The political situation, on the other

hand, was one of almost continual decline. Internally, the Empire was destabilized by dynastic civil war

from 1341-1354. This would be the final blow from which the empire would never really recover.

Externally, the Empire was pressed upon from the East and from the West. From the East came the

Turks, who would successively conquer Asia Minor and the European portions of the Empire, before

turning to Constantinople itself. More complex was the relationship with the Latin West. Age old

cultural and theological differences coupled with the more recent memory of the Fourth Crusade and

subsequent Latin empire created a culture of mutual suspicion. A West which was on the rise both

intellectually and economically was interested in the trade and culture of the Empire, and some

parties—particularly those of Genoa and Venice—were not shy about growing their trading networks

and commercial domination at the expense of the Greeks. The Byzantines, for their part often saw

recourse to the West as their only hope against the Turks. But the Pope, who was the one in the position

to unite the West in defense of the Empire, insisted on church union.4

Although the Empire declined in this period, the Orthodox Church experienced no such parallel

decline. During this time, the Church exercised an influence well beyond the shrinking boundaries of

the Empire. It remained in communion with Orthodox patriarchates in Antioch and Jerusalem, but it

also claimed communicants of its own in lands now occupied by Turks and in rump Greek states that

were never really re-integrated into the Empire after 1261. Added to this were the Orthodox Serbs,

Bulgarians, and Russians. The Eastern portion of Christendom had traditionally held to a strong sense of

symphonia between Church and Empire, which justified the preeminence of the church of

4 The standard history for the period is Donald M. Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 2nd edition (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1993). For interesting sociological information on the period, see Angeliki e. Laiou, “The Palaiologoi and the
World around Them (1261-1400),” in The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire, ed. Jonathan Shephard (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2008), 803–33.

6
Constantinople. So, as the political fortunes of the Empire grew more bleak and governmental leaders

had to take a more pragmatic look at the rising powers both to the East and to the West, ecclesiastical

leaders held on to a high and idealized concept of Empire, even as they began to exercise an authority

that exceeded it.5

A key feature of ecclesiastical life in the fourteenth century was a monastic revival that went

under the name of “hesychasm.” The name is derived from the Greek word ἡσυχία, meaning “stillness,

rest, or quiet,” the attainment of which was the goal of this form of prayer. The movement was both

traditional and innovative—it saw itself in the light of older practices, but contained innovative forms of

prayer. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain (1749-1809) and Makarios of Corinth (1731-1805) compiled

the standard canon for this movement, the famous Philokalia, an anthology of spiritual texts from the

third to the fifteenth century.6 The hesychasts were innovative in promoting a new style of prayer. They

recommended a psychosomatic method of praying the Jesus Prayer that involved sitting low to the

ground, controlling the breath, and lowering the head. This method of prayer was meant to yield an

experience of God that was physically and sensible tangible in a strong sense, akin to what the disciples

experienced on Mount Tabor. This school of monasticism tended to marginalize (and, in some cases,

bypass) the coenobitic elements of monasticism, and tended to lay extra stress on its solitary elements. It

also tended to lay stress on a personal relationship with a spiritual father, over against other forms of

authority. This movement even had a “missionary” wing: the movement was centered on Mount Athos,

but many of its leading exponents established circles of lay followers in the cities. For its proponents,

then, it was a form of spiritual renewal, but for its critics, it could easily be seen as subversive of

monastic community structures as well as civil and ecclesiastical hierarchy.7

5 Michael Angold, “Byzantium And the West 1204-1453,” in The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. vol. 5: Eastern Chris-
tianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 53–78.
6 Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and Makarios of Corinth, The Philokalia: A Complete Text, ed. G. E. H Palmer, Philip Sher-

rard, and Kallistos Ware, 4 vols. (London: Faber and Faber, 1983). The fourth volume contains the precise texts that were central to
the hesychast revival of Palamas’ time. It has works by Symeon the New Theologian, Nikitas Stithatos, Theoliptos of Philadelphia,
Nikiphoros the Monk, Gregory of Sinai, and Gregory Palamas,
7 A good overview of the movement is Tomas Spidlik, Prayer: The Spirituality of the Christian East. Volume 2 (Kalamazoo,
7
 This reconfiguration of monastic life naturally prompted criticism from some quarters. A

particular criticism was the alleged connection of the hesychast movement with a phenomenon called

“Messsalianism,” (a Syriac-derived term) whose adherents were also called “Euchites” in Greek, “ones

who pray.” They espoused a sort of monastic charismatic enthusiasm which downplayed liturgy,

asceticism, and manual labor in favor of a form of solitary prayer with a very strong affective and

imaginative component. Messalianism was first noticed in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, as

something having a Syriac Christian origin.8 It was probably more of a tendency, with a continuum of

orthodox and heterodox manifestations, rather than an organized movement.9 But, it was able to be

identified as a heresy by John of Damascus.10 Thus, the term could be used to highlight a recurring

problem: “enthusiastic” anti-sacramentalism that was subversive of monastic and ecclesiastical order,

but it could also be a convenient term of abuse with which to label one’s enemies. As we will see,

during one of his stays at Mount Athos, Gregory Palamas came under the sway of the hesychastic

revival, which may have been “Messalian” in some sense. It is to defend the legitimacy of his fellow

travelers in the movement that he took up his pen.

The Historiography of the Palamite Controversy

Before we turn to the details of the Palamite controversy proper, it will be helpful to examine the

Cistercian Publications, 2005): 319-357. See also Irénée Hausherr, “L’hesychasme. Étude de spiritualité,”Orientalia Christiana Peri-
odica 22 (1956): 5-40 and idem. “A propos de spiritualité hésychaste: controverse sans contradicteur,” Orientalia Christiana Peri-
odica 3 (1937): 260-72. For a critical assessment of the hesychast movement, see Dirk Krausmüller, “The Rise of Hesychasm,” in
The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. vol 5: Eastern Christainity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 101–26. For
a more positive assessment see John Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas, trans. George Lawrence (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, 1998), 15–28.
8
Irénée Hausherr, “Lérreur fondamentale et la logique du Messalianisme, Orientalia Christiana Periodica 1 (1935) 328-60.
9 A classical typology of Eastern Christian spirituality has been to classify its sources as Greek or Syriac. “Greek” sources, have
a marked Stoic or Platonic influence and tend toward intellectualism, focusing on the nous. The characteristic heresy of this tendency
was Origenism or Evagriansm. “Syriac” sources tend to be more experiential and sensual, focusing on the theme of the heart. The
characteristic heresy being Messalianism. (See, for example, Irénée Hausherr, “Les grands courants de la spiritualité orientale,” Ori-
entalia Christiana Periodica, 1 (1935) 114-138. On this reading, the task for Eastern Christian spiritual authors is to come up with a
dynamic synthesis of these sources. This classification, however, does not hold up well if it is pressed very hard, as these two group-
ings cannot be strictly segregated into rigidly distinct cultural types. Neo-Platonism was embraced and transformed by the Syrian
Iamblichus, for instance. Some of the works of pseudo-Makarios (which are prototypically “Syriac”) have been linked with Gregory
of Nyssa. Scholars of pseudo-Dionysius have suggested a Syriac social setting for his work.
10 John of Damascus, “On Heresies,” in Writings, trans. Frederic H. Chase, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation 37

(Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1958), 131–7.

8
various ways that its history has been told in modern times. This history has been told a number of times

and in a number of different ways over the past century. 11 Three factors account for this multiplication

of conflicting narratives. First, many accounts of the controversy are written with a clear bias in favor of

or against a particular party.12 The second factor only exacerbates the first: many of the modern

narratives of the Palamite controversy were written before good editions of major primary sources were

available.13 Thus, some of the parties of the controversy were unable to speak to modern historians and

theologians in their own words; the latter were, in fact, forced to see these parties through the eyes of

their opponents—a risky business, given the highly polemical tone of the sources in question. Not only

this but occasionally, in earlier editions, some of the texts that were available were wrongly attributed to

certain partisans in the controversy. 14 As we will see, from time to time, this led modern authors to draw

incorrect conclusions about the positions taken by various partisans in the conflict, which in turn

affected the terms in which these authors framed their narratives.

The third factor that has influenced modern interpretations of the Palamite controversy is the

shape of modern theological and historical debate. Often enough, the Palamite controversy is told

11The literature for the history of the controversy up to 1972 is exhaustively documented in Daniel Stiernon, “Bulletin sur le
palamisme,” Revue des études byzantines 30 (1972): 231–336. More recent exhaustive bibliography can be found in Robert E.
Sinkewicz, “Gregory Palamas,” in La théologie byzantin et sa tradition II: XIIIe - XIXe siècles (Turnhout, 2002), 131–88. and Juan
Nadal Cañellas, “Gregorio Akindynos,” in La théologie byzantin et sa tradition II: XIIIe - XIXe Siècles (Turnhout, 2002), 189–314.
12This is not just a problem for modern narratives of the Palamite controversy. Most of the early histories of this period of Byz-
antine history come from the pens of people who were directly involved in the controversy. This includes the Byzantinae Historiae of
the anti-Palamite Nicephoros Gregoras (PG 148 and PG 149); the history of Emperor John VI Kantekuzenos (PG 153 and PG 154),
which he wrote as the monk Joasaph after his abdication; and the Palamite archbishop of Constantinople Philotheos Kokkinos (PG
154)
13The major work of Barlaam the Calabrian, Against the Messalians, was ordered to be destroyed in the summer of 1341; only

fragments survive as quoted in the works of his opponents (Robert E. Sinkewicz, “The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God in the
Early Writings of Barlaam the Calabrian,” Medieval Studies 44 [1982]: 182). Barlaam's anti-Latin treatises only received a critical
edition in 1998 (Barlaam the Calabrian, opere contro i Latini: Introduzione, storia dei testi edizione critica, traduzione e indici, ed.
Antonis Fyrigos, 2 vols., Studi e testi 347-8 [Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1998]). The letters of Gregory
Akindynos (not all of which are extant) were only published in 1983 (Gregorios Akindynos, Letters of Gregory Akindynos: Greek
Text and English Translation, trans. Angela Constantinides Hero, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantiae. Series Washingtonensis 21
[Washington: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1983]). A substantial statement of Akindynos' position in his own
words would not come until 1995. (Gregorios Akindynos, Refutationes duo operis Gregorii Palamae cui titulus Dialogus inter or-
thodoxum et barlaamitam, ed. Juan Nadal Cañellas, Corpus Christianorum Series Graeca 31 [Turnhout: Brepols, 1995]).
14For instance, Migne attributes the heavily Thomistic treatise De essentia et operatione Dei libri duo to Gregory Akindynos

(who had no access to the works of Aquinas), whereas it is actually a part of a longer work by the convinced Thomist, Prokoros Ky-
dones. (Giovanni Merciti, notizie di Procoro E Demetrio Cidone, Manuele Caleca E Teodoro Meliteniota ed altri appunti per la
storia della teologia e della letteratura bizantina del secolo XIV, Studi e testi 56 [Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,
1931, 1–31]).

9
through the lens of concerns which are contemporary with the author who is doing the telling. The

contemporary concerns are variegated, but they fall into four broad categories: rationalism and anti-

rationalism in theology; the relationship between theology as a discipline and theology as a mystical

experience; the desirability (or undesirability) of ecumenism; and the dynamics of secularism together

with its proper remedies. These were all lively subjects of debate among Catholic theologians of the

twentieth century. For their part, Orthodox theologians and historians of the period sought both to

resolve conflicts that were internal to their own theological tradition and to shine “light from the East”

on the problems that exercised their Catholic contemporaries.

The modern histories of the Palamite controversy begin with the work of the French

Assumptionist, Martin Jugie (1878-1954). In his articles for the Dictionairre de théologie catholique

and his textbook summary of Orthodox theology,15 Jugie was stridently critical of both the achievement

of Gregory Palamas and the manner in which he and his disciples conducted themselves in the Palamite

controversy. Jugie saw the Palamites as using aggressive means to introduce an un-traditional form of

neo-Platonism into the heart of theology. In Jugie's judgment however, in the centuries after the

Palamite councils, the Orthodox Church had effectively shelved Palamite doctrines; they did not play

much of a role in Eastern Orthodox thought and life. Jugie's work set the tone for all future discussion

for both opponents and supporters of Palamas. The former largely repeated the charges of Jugie, while

the latter, despite their strong disagreements with Jugie, nevertheless relied on him for his historical

research.

While Martin Jugie was completing his work on Gregory Palamas, important developments

were taking place in Eastern Orthodox theology. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century

Russian Orthodox theology—exemplified by writers such as Sergei Bulgakov—exhibited a highly

speculative and idealistic style. With his book, The Ways of Russian Theology, Georges Florovsky

15 Martin Jugie, “‘Palamas, Grégoire’ and ‘Palamite, Controverse,’” in Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique (Paris, 1932),

1738–1818; Martin Jugie, Theologia dogmatica christianorum orientalium ab Ecclesia dissidentium, vol. 2 (Paris, 1933).

10
(1893-1979) began a reaction against this type of theological reflection, and desired to develop a

theology more strictly rooted in the Greek Fathers and the Byzantine tradition. While Florovsky was

able to articulate his understanding of the situation and outline his own program for reform, he was

largely unable to carry it out. That project would be left to his disciples. The Communist revolution in

1917 ensured that this debate would take place among émigré Russian theologians in the West, where a

similar ressourcement was taking place.

Florovsky's most famous disciple, Vladimir Lossky (1903-1958), made some of the first

contributions to this “neo-Patristic” program in Orthodox theology. In his work,16 Lossky presents the

Greek patristic tradition as having at its core a direct linear development from the Cappadocians,

through Pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor, on to Symeon the New Theologian,

culminating in the work of Gregory Palamas, who in his mystical theology, sums up and synthesizes the

authentic spiritual and doctrinal traditions of the Christian East. Here we have a perspective that is quite

different from that of Martin Jugie. Palamas' distinction between God's essence and uncreated energies

is a necessary feature of any authentically Christian metaphysic, and it is just this distinction that allows

Eastern theology to have a dialectic of divine presence and absence that gives it its characteristic

mystical bent. The uncreated energies produce a real deification in the world in the strictest possible

ontological sense, while their real distinction from the divine essence provides the ground for an

apophatic approach to the latter—something absolutely essential for Lossky—where the divine essence

remains unknown and unknowable to any creature.

In Lossky's view, although Eastern theology takes doctrine seriously, nevertheless, it puts

doctrinal affirmations in the service of mystical experience. To his mind, this is different from what

happened in the West, which had become captivated to a rationalistic scholasticism, and had all too

often lost sight of the spiritual aspirations that are at the heart of Christianity. Consequently, Lossky

16Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, trans. Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius (Crestwood,
NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002); Vladimir Lossky, The Vision of God, trans. Asheleigh Moorhouse, 2nd ed. (Bedfordshire:
The Faith Press, 1973).

11
cannot find a place for the anti-Palamites, Barlaam and Gregory Akindynos, in the theological landscape

of the Christian East. They could not be true inheritors of the thought of the Greek Fathers, especially of

Pseudo-Dionysius. For Lossky, Barlaam and Akindynos were influenced by Latin scholasticism. Thus,

on this reading, the Palamite controversy itself becomes a debate between Eastern and Western modes

of theologizing, and in granting the palm of victory to the Palamites, the Orthodox Church was taking a

fundamental option of mystical contemplation over scholastic rationalizing. It is unclear if the aside is

from “this reading” or from your own assessment.

This template for the Palamite controversy would continue to have its exponents, right into the

twenty-first century. However, it would be subject to some modifications in what has become the

canonical account of the Palamite controversy—that of John Meyendorff (1926-1992). Since it has been

so influential, it will be worth the time to consider Meyendorff's perspective at some detail. Through his

prolific work in historical theology, Meyendorff played a prominent role in making Eastern theology

more widely known in the West. The Palamite controversy was his particular specialty. He was

responsible for producing the critical edition of the central work of Gregory Palamas, the Defense of the

Holy Hesychasts, also known, due to the style of its published form, as the Triads.17 He also published

what has become the standard history of the controversy, as well as a number of shorter studies.18

Given the nature of his work with primary sources, it is not surprising that Meyendorff largely

sees the Palamite controversy from Palamas' point of view. This leads Meyendorff more to assume,

rather than to prove, Gregory Palamas' version of events and his claim to represent the authentic

tradition of the Christian East. It also causes him to be rather dismissive of the points of view of

Barlaam and Akindynos. Unlike Lossky, Meyendorff does not see the conflict between Palamas and his

opponents as a conflict between “Eastern” and “Western” modes of theological discourse. Meyendorff

17John Meyendorff, Introduction à l’étude de Grégoire Palamas (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1959). English translation: John Mey-

endorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas, trans. George Lawrence (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1998).
18These are usefully collected in John Meyendorff, Byzantine Hesychasm: Historical, Theological, and Social Problems (Lon-

don: Variorum Reprints, 1974).

12
correctly notes that neither Barlaam nor Gregory Akindynos can be seen as representatives of Western

scholasticism.19 Rather, Meyendorff sees the debate between Palamas and his opponents as a conflict

within the Byzantine tradition itself.

The Eastern Empire was the heir to a dual tradition: that of the Greek Fathers and that of ancient

Greek culture. The fourteenth century had seen a growth in interest in the latter, and this inevitably

raised the question of the relationship of humanistic learning and Christian devotion. According to

Meyendorff, unlike the Latin Church, the Byzantine Church maintained a doctrinal conservatism that

limited the use of philosophy in theology to the fourth-century synthesis of the Greek Fathers. Between

the fourth and the fourteenth centuries, a monastic theology had developed in the East independently of

interest in Hellenistic learning, and was actually antagonistic toward it. The debate between Barlaam

and Akindynos, on the one hand, and Palamas, on the other, was an intra-Byzantine debate about two

different styles of theology. Barlaam thinks that God was radically unknowable in himself. However,

the authors of Scripture and the Fathers of the Church had a special inspiration. Our knowledge of God

is mediated through their texts. Therefore, knowledge of God comes through cultivating a scholarly

knowledge of these authorities. Moreover, when we look at these authorities, there are grounds for

accepting deviant Western doctrines (such as the filioque) at least as theologoumena. Thus for

Meyendorff, Barlaam was not a traditional scholastic, but a “nominalist” whose humanistic learning led

to a “doctrinal relativism.” He was a bad theologian of union.20

Union with the West was an important part of Meyendorff's approach to the Palamite

controversy. For Meyendorff, Palamas' synthesis was less about the philosophical technicalities of

essence and energies. Rather his theology represented a deep concern for authentic Christian values.

Palamas' theology was a “personalist” and “existential” mystical theology which was fully

19John Meyendorff, “Les débuts de la controverse hésychaste,” in Byzantine Hesychasm: Historical, Theological, and Social

Problems (London: Variorum Reprints, 1974), 97.

20John Meyendorff, “Un mauvais théologien de l’unité au XIVe siècle: Barlaam le Calabrais,” in Byzantine Hesychasm: Histori-

cal, Theological, and Social Problems (London: Variorum Reprints, 1974), 47–64. See also

13
Christological, sacramental, and ecclesial. This is what the East, having adopted the Palamite synthesis,

brings to the ecumenical table. Union with the East lies in reckoning with the theology of Palamas, and

not in the crafty doctrinal compromises of Barlaam. When Palamas' achievement is read this way,

Meyendorff thinks, it should not be a point of friction with the West, but rather a point of union. The

West may get caught up in scholastic rationalism from time to time, and this may lead to doctrinal

disputes on various issues, such as the filioque. But in actuality, Palamas' central religious concerns are

also the central concerns of Western theology at its best.21 Meyendorff's watershed contributions to the

study of the Palamite controversy produced a greater appreciation for Palamas in the West. By re-

orienting the discussion towards Palamas' underlying religious motivations, Meyendorff was able to

bring about a substantial reduction in anti-Palamite sentiment among his Western contemporaries.22

Meyendorff's work has not been the last word on the controversy, however. The Palamite

controversy has continued in more recent literature in three different directions. First, some authors have

sought to continue to develop the approach of Vladimir Lossky—often with rather sharp polemics.

Second, some authors have sought to develop the critique of Palamism, along the lines of Martin Jugie:

it is Platonic, it is not traditional, and real deification does not require the essence-energies distinction.

Finally, some authors have sought, through a more careful reading of the works of Palamas' opponents,

to call for a revision of the terms in which Meyendorff has stated the Palamite controversy. All of these

points of view are significant for understanding the controversy.

In the first place, from the side of Eastern Orthodoxy, some authors continued to develop an

analysis of the situation along the lines of Lossky. Modern Greek writers, such as John Romanides, 23

21John Meyendorff, “Humanisme nominaliste et mystique chrétiene à byzance au XIVe siècle,” in Byzantine Hesychasm: His-

torical, Theological, and Social Problems (London: Variorum Reprints, 1974), 905–14.
22A good example of this more conciliatory tone comes from the Swiss Thomist Charles Journet, whose long review of Meyen-

dorff's Introduction is probably the best overview and introduction to the Palamite controversy from a Western and Thomist perspec-
tive. Charles Journet, “Palamisme et Thomisme, À propos d’un livre récent,” Revue Thomiste 60 (1960): 429–52. Some Western
theologians saw in accepting Meyendorff's explanation of the Palamite controversy an opportunity to correct what they saw as some
of the excesses of neo-Scholasticism. See, for example, the work of the Louvain Franciscan, André de Halleux, “Palamisme et sco-
lastique,” Revue Théologique de Louvain 4 (1973): 409–42.
23John Romanides, “Notes on the Palamite Controversy and Related Topics,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 9 (April

1963): 225–70.
14
and Christos Yannaras24 have taken this line of writing to its polemical extreme.25 The most worthy

entry in this vein is David Bradshaw's book, Aristotle East and West.26 As the title of his book indicates,

Bradshaw highlights the philosophical importance of the essence-energies distinction. For him, this

distinction is a precious adoption from neo-Platonic reflection on Aristotelian metaphysics, which the

Greek Fathers used to describe how God can enter into a real synergy with His creatures. Augustine,

and the whole western tradition that followed him, never really incorporated this reflection, instead

opting for the absolute simplicity of the Godhead, a doctrine which, in Bradshaw's view, makes it

difficult to explain how God can enter into a real synergy with his creatures. Thomas Aquinas had

access to more neo-Platonic sources, but he was never really able to extricate himself from the

Procrustean bed of Augustinianism, and this inevitably led to the spiritual cul de sac of secularism.

Secondly, coming from the opposite direction, some writers continued to develop a critical

position, similar to the one first staked out by Martin Jugie. In his lengthy study of the influence of Plato

on Christian thought,27 The patristics scholar Endre von Ivánka takes a somewhat critical view of

Palamas' position, and responds to the claims of the earlier neo-Palamites, such as Vladimir Lossky.28

Ivánka would like us to distinguish between hesychasm and Palamism. According to Ivánka, the

spiritual inspiration for hesychasm comes from the Siniatic tradition (e.g. John Klimakos), and

especially Symeon the New Theologian. Hesychasm, however, is a new development, inasmuch as it

adds a psychosomatic method aimed at helping practitioners to have a physical-spiritual experience of

24Christos Yannaras, “Orthodoxy and the West,” Eastern Churches Review 3 (1971): 286–300; Christos Yannaras, “The Distinc-

tion between Essence and Energies and Its Importance for Theology,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 19 (1975): 232–45.
25Perhaps the most serious criticism of this position—apart from its serious misconstruals of the Western authors it critiques--is
the discovery of just how much the reviled Augustine of Hippo actually shaped the thought of Gregory Palamas, and the discovery of
how later Palamites modified their understanding of Palamism in the light of Thomistic critique. We will have more to say about
Byzantine Thomists, of course. But for more information about the influence of Augustine of Hippo on Palamas, see Reinhard
Flogaus, “Palamas and Barlaam Revisited: A Reassessment of East and West in the Hesychast Controversy of 14th Century Byzanti-
um,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 42 (1988): 1–32; R. Flogaus, “Inspiration—Exploitation—Distortion: The Use of St. Au-
gustine in the Hesychast Controversy,” in Orthodox Readings of Augustine (New York, 2008), 63–80.
26David Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Divisions of Christendom (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2004).
27Endre von Ivánka, Plato Christianus: Übernahme und Umgestaltung des Platonismus durch die Väter (Einsiedeln: Johannes

Verlag, 1964).
28Ivánka was writing after Meyendorff had completed his major works, but he did not engage with Meyendorff.

15
divine light—like what was experienced at Tabor. Ivánka flirts with the rather unhelpful suggestion that

this psychosomatic method was imported from India.

Palamism, for Ivánka (and here is one of the ways that he differs from Meyendorff), is a

systematic, philosophical position. It is the official metaphysics of hesychasm—or, at least it is what

became the official metaphysics of hesychasm after the definitive pro-Palamite settlement in the

Orthodox Church in 1351. Palamas' principal concern was to explain how a person could have a real

participation in God without actually becoming the divine essence. The doctrine of uncreated energies

makes this possible. The energies are the various modes of participation in God, which are prior to the

existence of the participant. Ivánka sees in this scheme a recrudescence of neo-Platonism. The

fundamental problem for Platonists is the passage from the one ultimate reality to the plurality of

existents. What marks a system as Platonic is its need to posit a really existing middle sphere between

the one and the many—in our case, the Uncreated and the created—in order to account for the passage

from the former to the latter. This is the direction in which Gregory's thought tended, though he never

quite came to positing such a middle sphere in the strict sense.

For Ivánka, if the Palamite position represented a renewal of Platonism in the service of

defending the doctrine of participation in God, then the anti-Palamite position represents a growth in

appreciation for Aristotelian logic. Indeed, Ivánka shows that many of the anti-Palamites had an

exuberant faith in the power of dialectic, and it was this that caused them to object to Palamism in the

name of absolute divine simplicity. What we have here is a conflict between two traditions that were

current in the Byzantine Empire in the fourteenth century. The Palamite tradition was popular, monastic,

Platonic, and concerned with the doctrine of participation in God. The anti-Palamite tradition was

intellectual, cultured, urban, Aristotelian, and concerned with the doctrine of divine simplicity.

On this reading, during the time of Palamas, there was still a possibility of coming up with a

synthesis of these two traditions. This was not unlike the parallel situation which obtained in the West in

the 12th and 13th centuries, as it tried to incorporate Aristotelian philosophy into theology. After all, it is

16
not hard to find Western authors of the High Middle Ages whose polemic against the use of dialectic in

theology is every bit as harsh as anything that came from Gregory Palamas. Nevertheless, voices for

synthesis were few and far between in the Greek world of the fourteenth century. At least a part of the

problem lay in the tone-deafness of the anti-Palamite party with respect to spiritual matters. Even when

the anti-Palamites did not engage in the outright mockery of Hesychasm, they never showed much of a

concern for mystical prayer. Since they never really took the time to show how their doctrines were

compatible with the real participation by grace in the divine life, they made the Palamite position seem

inevitable for all of those who were concerned with matters of the spirit. With the fall of the Empire,

and the subsequent migration of many of the more cultured of its citizens to the West, the hegemony of

the Palamite position, together with its anti-rationalist tendencies, was secured in the Orthodox Church

If Palamas was not interested in philosophical dialectic, then how did he justify his metaphysics,

which Ivánka claimed were the centerpiece of the Palamite position? Palamas does not really rely on

philosophical argumentation. As we have seen, the first part of his defense was by appealing to religious

necessity: authentic Christian mystical prayer requires that we posit an extra-mental distinction between

God's imparticipable essence and his uncreated energies. The second part of his defense was by an

appeal to the Fathers of the Church. Ivánka does not find Palamas' appeal to the Fathers persuasive at

all. Passages that sound favorable to Palamas are not so in reality, when they are considered in their full

context, or when they are read alongside other statements of the same author.

Thus, for Ivánka, the historical position of Gregory Palamas represents something of a departure

from the tradition of the Greek Fathers. Paradoxically, claims Ivánka, Palamas himself is more

kataphatic than the earlier Greek tradition. The earlier tradition stressed the inadequacy of human

concepts before God, whereas with his distinction of essence and energies, Palamas had somewhat

simplistically assumed that our modes of conceptualizing God and his activities had corresponding

extra-mental referents. Modern Orthodox re-interpreters of Palamas (here Ivánka has in mind people

like Vladimir Lossky) do not make the same mistake, however. They are careful to read Palamas in the

17
light of the apophaticism of the preceding Greek patristic tradition. They also tend to re-interpret

Palamas' essence-energies distinction, de-emphasizing its nature as a metaphysical thesis, and

emphasizing rather the underlying experience that the distinction is meant to guard: the radical

antinomy of God's immanence and transcendence. But these neo-Palamites are wrong to oppose a

rationalist and kataphatic West with a mystical and apophatic East. In fact, according to Ivánka, an

honorable legacy of apophaticism is as much a part of Western Christianity as it is of Eastern

Christianity.

Ivánka thus presents us with an analysis of the Palamite controversy from a point of view which

is critical of both Palamas and the polemics of his modern-day disciples, but without espousing the

point of view of the anti-Palamites. Like Meyendorff, he recognizes that the original Palamite

controversy was not (at least originally) a controversy between East and West, but rather a controversy

within the Byzantine world itself. However, unlike Meyendorff, he does not frame the conflict quite in

terms of humanism and monasticism, but rather in terms of an Aristotelianism and Platonism that were

unable to be reconciled, because of the mutual mistrust of their respective exponents. The anti-Palamites

did not have to ignore mystical prayer, and the Palamites did not have to denigrate dialectic. But they

did. Also, unlike Meyendorff, Ivánka is less willing to concede that the Palamite party has the exclusive

right to represent the Eastern Christian tradition. In fact, he is skeptical that the prayer method of

hesychasm and the metaphysical distinction of Palamism are as grounded in the tradition as their

exponents claim. Finally, Ivánka wants to take Palamas' ideas seriously as philosophy (despite their

proponents' disavowals of secular learning), and question their value—and the difficulties they

present—in articulating the Christian faith.

A concern similar to that of Ivánka was expressed by the editors of the ecumenical journal

Istina, published by a group of French Dominicans, when they devoted a part of their Spring 1974 issue

to a set of critical responses to the neo-Palamite revival.29 The editors of the symposium blame Martin

29Jean-Philippe Houdret, “Palamas et les cappadociens,” Istina 19 (1974): 260–71; J.-M. Garrigues, “L’energie divine et la grâce
18
Jugie for the revival. As Jugie himself had noted, Palamism had not been an active force in Orthodoxy

for several centuries before his time. Had Jugie “let sleeping dogs lie,” there would not have been such a

strong neo-Palamite revival. What the twentieth-century neo-Palamite revival has done, however, is to

re-center Orthodox theology in a way that matches and responds to the neo-Scholastic re-centering that

occurred in Catholic theology in the early twentieth Century—as Catholics had turned to scholasticism,

so would Orthodoxy turn to a more patristic theology, a theology to which Palamas has given the

definitive synthesis. But, like Ivánka, the editors wonder whether Palamas' thought is entirely

traditional, and whether the doctrine of our real deification requires Palamas' distinction between the

essence and the energies. The editors also have a concern for contemporary Catholic theology. Catholic

theologians who are dissatisfied with neo-scholasticism might take the claims of the neo-Palamites at

face value, in order to argue for changes in the style and content of Catholic theology. 30 The editors,

then, want to raise critical questions about the nature of the Palamite synthesis, in the hope that Catholic

authors will regard it with extreme circumspection. After all, Palamas himself would not have

reciprocated their warm gestures to his theology. 31

While some authors have continued to carry on arguments about the nature of Palamism itself,

the last group of authors to respond to Meyendorff have explicitly questioned and attempted to revise

his historical narrative. This often involves taking a less sympathetic look at the achievement of

Gregory Palamas and the monks in his circle. This is the approach taken by Lowell Clucas. 32 Clucas

writes from the perspective of Byzantine studies, and so he is especially concerned to examine the

social context against which Palamism developed, and to consider its ultimate significance for

chez Maxime le confesseur,” Istina 19 (1974): 272–96; Juan Sergio Nadal, “La critique par Akindynos de l’herméneutique pa-
tristique de Palamas,” Istina 3 (1974): 297–328; M.-J. Le Guillou, “Lumière et charité dans la doctrine palamite de la divinisation,”
Istina 19 (1974): 329–38.A critical response to this symposium—questioning some of the claims of the authors, as well as its ecu-
menical usefulness--was given by André de Halleux in “Palamisme et tradition,” Irénikon 4 (1975): 479–93.
30Rowan Williams has expressed similar concerns. “The Philosophical Structures of Palamism,” Eastern Churches Review 9

(1977): 27–44.
31“Grégoire Palamas” Istina 19 (1974): 257-9.
32Lowell Clucas, “The Hesychast Controversy in Byzantium in the Fourteenth C.: A Consideration of the Basic Evidence”

(Ph.D. diss., University of California at Los Angeles, 1976).

19
Byzantine culture. Under both of these aspects, Clucas has little positive to say either about Palamas or

the larger Hesycahst movement. The Athonite monks led a monastic movement that de-emphasized the

cenobitic, sacramental, and ascetic aspects of Eastern monasticism, and emphasized its eremetic,

experiential, and mystical aspects (pace Meyendorff). At the same time, the monks were securing for

themselves independence from civil and episcopal oversight. The apogee of monastic power came with

the publication of the Hagioretic Tome, authored by Palamas, which formally anathematized opponents

of hesychasm—a task that should be reserved for bishops. This “charismatic” presentation of Athonite

monasticism leads Clucas to compare the hesychasts of fourteenth-century Byzantium to the disciples of

Joachim of Fiore in the West, claiming that the Athonites saw themselves as the vanguard of a new age

of revelation, based on their mystical experience of God's energies, induced through the technique of

Hesychastic prayer.

John Kantakuzenos saw the vast influence of the monks as useful in his own struggles against

the Patriarch John Kalekas. It was the alliance between John VI and the monks that gave Palamism the

palm of victory. Kantakuzenos was not an ideologically convinced Palamite during the time of the Civil

War, or during his reign as emperor. The historical and theological works that he wrote after his

abdication—as the politically-active monk Joasaph—are self-serving.

Clucas sees Palamas as something of a “charismatic” figure. His works are something of a

testimony to a personal experience, expressed in an apologetic and polemical form. Palamas' personal

experience is the criterion for his metaphysics and his reading of the tradition, and it is the grounds for

his claims to be an authoritative teacher of Christian truth (as opposed to episcopal consecration, for

instance). This means that Palamas reads the tradition selectively, in order to support his own position—

providing partial quotations of patristic texts, for instance, stopping the quotation short just when it says

something that would contradict Palamas' own position. Moreover, Palamas advances his theory about

the uncreated light of Tabor by equivocating on two senses of divine energy. In one sense, (Clucas calls

it the “Aristotelian” sense), God's energy is the medium by which He acts in the world in creation and

20
deification. In another sense God's energies are basically a Christianized version of the Platonic ideas.

They are something which we perceive in a transformative sensitive-noetic act. Palamas uses statements

and metaphysical claims about God's energy in the first sense, to justify his theories about God's

energies in the second sense. Palamas thought he had to defend the notion of God's energies in the

second sense because he was a hyper-realist. The things that he knew of God through experience (the

Taboric light) had to have an extra-mental referent that was distinct from the divine essence, which was

unknowable. And these “energies” which emerged from the essence, Palamas thus conflated with the

energy that emerges from God as the medium of his action in the world. Palamas, thus, represents the

triumph of Christian Platonism. In fact, in both the style of monasticism that he promoted and in the

metaphysical system by which he supported it, he shows himself to be somewhat Origenistic and

Evagrian.

For Clucas, the triumph of Hesychasm and Palamism is really something of a tragedy. Its deep-

down problem lies in its deep suspicion of human reason and science. These later accounted for the

cultural ascendency of the West at this time, and their lack in the Greek world was a significant reason

for its concomitant decline. Even in theology, the Latins were busy penetrating to the meaning of the

Fathers, while the Greeks simply quoted their words back and forth in, what Demetrios Kydones called,

diatribes masquerading as theology. In Clucas judgment, the Byzantines made a poor trade-off: they

chose an often dubious form of mysticism over a form of human reason with real cultural power. Since

Clucas is more of a Byzantinist than a theologian, some of his religious judgments may be a bit

hyperbolic and polemical, nevertheless he makes a useful distinction between the two ways that God's

energy (or energies) is spoken of, and he helps to balance out our historical understanding of the

Palamite controversy by telling this story in a light that is more sympathetic to the anti-Palamites and

more critical of the Palamites.

More recently, as the works of the anti-Palamites have been edited and studied, a new

perspective has been emerging. Scholars are beginning to develop a new narrative that moves beyond

21
the ways that Jugie, Lossky, and Meyendorff have framed the issue. Like Clucas, they have considered

the positions of the anti-Palamites more sympathetically. This generation of historical scholarship tends,

to varying degrees, to be more critical of Palamas. Some still generally support his position, while

others oppose it. The common factor in this newer trend of historical scholarship is a renewed attention

to the works of the anti-Palamites.

This school of thought began with the work of Robert Sinkewicz. Sinkewicz is responsible for

producing a critical edition of Palamas' late work, The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters, which is a

concise summary of Palamas' whole system.33 Sinkewicz has focused his attention on the very

beginnings of the Palamite controversy, when Palamas met Barlaam.34 Since we will be following

Sinkewicz's version of events in our narration of the conflict between Barlaam and Palamas below, here

we will simply say that the debate between Barlaam and Palamas began with a debate about what it

means to have knowledge of God. At the very beginning of the controversy, it must be said that Barlaam

was not being untraditional, and Palamas did not acquit himself entirely admirably in dealing with

Barlaams' thought—he condemned Barlaam based on limited information, and he was perhaps willfully

ignorant. As the conflict escalated, however, both men became more hardened and extreme in their

positions. Eventually, Barlaam showed that his doctrine of God was unorthodox, and those aspects of

his doctrine were justly condemned at the council of 1341.

A similar rehabilitation of Gregory Akindynos is due to the lifelong work of the Jesuit scholar

Juan Nadal-Cañellas. He has produced critical editions and lengthy studies of the works of Gregory

33Gregory Palamas, The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters, ed. and trans. Robert E. Sinkewicz (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of

Medieval Studies, 1988).

34R. Sinkewicz, “A New Interpretation for the First Episode in the Controversy Between Barlaam the Calabrian and Gregory
Palamas.,” Journal of Theological Studies 31 (1981): 489–500; R. Sinkewicz, “The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God in the Early
Writings of Barlaam the Calabrian,” Medieval Studies 44 (1982): 181–242; Sinkewicz, “Gregory Palamas.” Noteworthy work on
Barlaam the Calabrian has also been done by Tia Kolbaba and John Demetracopoulos: Tia Kolbaba, “Conversion from Greek Ortho-
doxy to Roman Catholicism in the Fourtheenth Century,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 19 (1995): 120–34; Tia M. Kolbaba,
“Barlaam the Calabrian. Three Treatises on Papal Primacy. Introduction, Edition, and Translation,” Revue des Études Byzantines 53
(1995): 41–115; John A. Demetracopoulos, “Further Evidence on the Ancient, Patristic, and Byzantine Sources of Barlaam the Ca-
labrian’s Contra Lations,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 96/2 (2003): 83–122.

22
Akindynos.35 Akindynos produced lengthy refutations of Palamas' polemical works during the period of

the civil war, as well as a first-hand account of his involvement in the Palamite controversy. In the work

of Nadal-Cañellas, who always cites a rich variety of primary sources, Akindynos emerges as a man of

both culture and prayer, who was (relatively) gracious and moderate in his criticisms, with a keen

intellect and an interest in maintaining the traditional orthodox theology in the face of what he saw as

Palamite innovations. Because of Nadal-Cañellas, neither the historical testimony nor the theological

output of Gregory Akindynos can be simply dismissed any longer; any future re-telling of the

controversy will have to take his work into account.

Finally, more and more attention is being turned to the internal evolution of the Palamite

position itself. John Meyendorff had portrayed the Palamite school as monolithic. The teachings of

Palamas were the final word, and all further Palamites followed suit.36 This, too, has been questioned.

Several scholars have directed our attention to the subtle modifications of Palamite thought that were

made as the position encountered critique. In particular, Palamas' disciples might have conceded to the

anti-Palamites that the distinction between God's essence and energies was not extra-mental in the way

that Palamas himself thought that it was. This is what Endre von Ivánka claimed about twentieth-

century neo-Palamites. Maybe it was also true of the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century disciples of

Palamas as well.37 The authors who have been advancing this view show that the final Palamite council

of 1351, and even Palamas canonization in 1368 did not completely settle the matter about Palamism.

Moreover, this was due to increased theological interaction with the West, and Thomism in particular.

For these authors, this period of interaction between East and West indicates the possibility to make

meaningful ecumenical progress today on an issue that has become one of the major doctrinal disputes

35Juan Sergio Nadal, “La Critique par Akindynos de L’herméneutique patristique de Palamas,” Istina 3 (1974): 297–328; Cañel-
las, “Gregorio Akindynos”; Juan Nadal Cañellas, La résistance d’Akindynos à Grégoire Palamas: enquête historique, avec traduc-
tion et commentaire de quatre traités edités récemment., vol. 50–1, 2 vols. Spicilegium Sacrum Louvaniense Études et Documents
(Leuven: Peeters, 2006).
36Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas, 227.
37John A. Demetracopoulos, “Palamas Transformed. Palamite Interpreations of the Distinction between God’s ‘Essence’ and
‘Energies’ in Late Byzantium,” in Greeks, Latins, and Intellectual History 1204-1500, ed. Martin Hinterberger and Christ Schabel,
vol. 11, Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales, Bibliotheca (Leuven: Peeters, 2011), 263–4, 369–72.

23
clouding East-West relations.38

As this review of the different interpretations of the Palamite controversy shows, the historical

dispute involved several parties and many issues, and the same partisans do not always fall on the same

side on every issue. The controversy defies characterization by simplistic pairs of binary opposites.

Moreover, as we have seen, on top of this historical debate, there rests another debate: one about the

style that contemporary theology should have. The Palamite controversy has served as something of a

Rorschach blot for those who have told its history.

With this in mind, a word should be said about the fundamental options taken in this study. We

will generally follow the historical outline provided by Sinkewicz, Nadal-Cañellas, and Clucas. John

Meyendorff presents a version of the history that is quite different, one that, in our judgment, is older

and not as well-sourced. Thus, while we will make reference to it, we will not follow its basic

orientation.39 Like the clear majority of historians of the controversy, we think that the Palamite

controversy was initially a conflict within Byzantine intellectual and spiritual culture, which only later

became a conflict between “Eastern” (i.e. Byzantine Palamite) and “Western” (i.e. Byzantine anti-

Palamite, more or less influenced by Thomism) factions. We should accept the basic sincerity of each of

the parties in the conflict, without idealizing them. A certain amount of escalation occurred because of

misunderstandings—sometimes willful—among strong personalities. Having made these remarks, we

now turn to the Palamite controversy itself.

The Early Life of Gregory Palamas

Gregory Palamas was born around the year 1296 into a pious, senatorial family in

38Antoine Lévy, “Lost in Translatio? Diakrisis Kat’Epinoian as Main Issue in the Discussions Between Fourteenth-Century Pal-

amites and Thomists,” The Thomist 76 (2012): 431–2, 470–1.

39 We realize that this option will give our historical account something of an anti-Palamite flavor, but we hope that this does not
become an unfair bias. The historical work that has been done on the history of the Palamite controversy since the time of John Mey-
endorff has been decidedly critical of Palamas. Orthodox scholars have largely remained content with the historical narratives of
Lossky and Meyendorff. This has largely left the examination of the newly-edited works of Palamas’ critics to non-Orthodox schol-
ars. Unfortunately, this could leave history biased in the other direction. What is really needed is a modern pro-Palamite history of
the controversy to balance out our view of the controversy.

24
Constantinople. Under the patronage of Andronicus II, Gregory received a classical education in

grammar, logic, and rhetoric, perhaps in preparation for a career in the civil service. Gregory did not,

however, complete higher philosophical studies—though he shows some knowledge of Aristotelian

natural philosophy.40 Inspired by the example of monks visiting the capital, Gregory left for Mount

Athos around 1314, at about the age of eighteen. After living under the direction of a spiritual father and

spending time at the monastery of the Great Laura, he became a hermit in 1320. He was ordained to the

priesthood around 1322 in Thessalonica, having fled there after a Turkish invasion of Athos. In 1331,

Gregory returned to Mount Athos, living the eremitical life at St. Sabas, a dependency of the Great

Laura. It was here that he would hear troubling news concerning theological discussions with the Latins.

This would begin the chain of events which would come to be known as the Palamite Controversy.

The First Phase: Barlaam and Palamas on the Knowledge of God

The Palamite controversy was started—inadvertently—by Dominican friars. The Fourth

Crusade, and the foundation subsequent Latin empire of Constantinople had brought a number of

Catholic religious to the imperial city. The general chapter of the Dominican Order, held at Paris in

1228, created two missionary provinces—that of Greece and the Holy Land, and by 1233 they had

established a priory in Constantinople. After the re-conquest of Constantinople, the Dominicans re-

established their ministry at the Genoese quarter in Pera, a suburb across the Golden Horn from

Constantinople. In 1300, the Order organized its oriental missions into a group known as “The

Company of Friars Pilgrims.” The Company would follow Genovese trading routes east, reaching

Moldavia, Ukraine, Crimea, Georgia, Armenia, and even Persia, and was based at Pera.41

In the spring of 1333, two Dominican friars, Francesco de Camerino and Richard of England

40In his One Hundred and Fifty Chapters, (1-25), Palamas shows some knowledge of Aristotelian natural philosophy (though he

does not accept all of it). As we will see in the next section, he showed some knowledge of Aristotelian logic, but the import of logi-
cal discussions could, at times, elude him. Gregory's knowledge
41This whole story is fascinating, and deserves to be better known. The basic research has been done by Claudine Delacroix-

Besnier, Les dominicains et la chrétienté grecque aux XIVe et XVe siècles (Rome: École française de Rome, 1997).

25
came to Avignon to obtain the foundation of two new missionary bishoprics. On their way to Avignon

from the Crimea, Francesco and Richard naturally stopped at the Dominican convent in Pera. There

they detected a new interest in union among the Greeks. Andronikos II had dissolved the once-mighty

Byzantine navy, leaving the Empire vulnerable to Turkish attacks. Andronikos III became more friendly

to the West, marrying Anne of Savoy. Having consecrated them bishops, John XXII sent them with

letters to Constantinople, to seek the union of the churches on August 4, 1333. In February 1334, John

Kalakas became the patriarch of Constantinople, and in the winter of 1334 Francesco and Richard

presented themselves to him, the Emperor being away on business. Along with letters from the Pope,

they presented a theological treatise which argued in favor of the filioque using arguments from St.

Thomas Aquinas.42 This was, in all likelihood, the first exposure that the Angelic Doctor had in the East.

Unlike the Latin party, however, the Byzantine party was not interested in renewed theological

discussion. Acceptance of the filioque was not on the table. The task of making the response to the

Dominican bishops fell to a monk from Calabria in southern Italy named Barlaam.43

We do not know very much about Barlaam's early life. He was born about 1290 in southern Italy

to a family of Orthodox lineage. He was probably educated in an Orthodox monastery in southern Italy.

The sporadic attempts made to enforce the Roman Rite in the region increased in the 1320s, causing

Barlaam to seek refuge (and to continue to studies) in Thessalonika around 1326, and in Constantinople,

around 1330.44 Though his enemies tried to label him as a crypto-Latin, even Palamas acknowledges, in

the early stage of their conflict, that Barlaam headed East “for love of true piety.” There is no reason to

suppose that he had any particular knowledge of Latin philosophy or theology. 45 Barlaam's obvious

42Sinkewicz argues that the two Dominican bishops might have been working off of St. Thomas' Contra Errores Graecorum.

(“A New Interpretation,”498).

43Ibid. 491–3; Delacroix-Besnier, Les Dominicains et La Chrétienté Grecque, 23–5, 146–7.
44Meyendorff, “Les débuts de la controverse hésychaste,”, 92–3; Meyendorff, “Un mauvais théologien de l’unité,” 49; Kolbaba,

“Conversion from Greek Orthodoxy 124; Michael Angold, “Byzantium And the West,” 54.
45Meyendorff, “Les Débuts de La Controverse Hésychaste,” 90–3. Sinkewicz agrees: “ A careful reading of the Antilatin Trea-
tises leaves little doubt that Barlaam's acquaintance with the works and the theology of Thomas Aquinas was minimal and restricted
entirely to what was provided for him by his Latin (and Dominican) opponents” (“The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God,” 195n6.

26
intellectual gifts attracted the attention of the Great Domestic, John Kantakuzenos. Under his patronage,

Barlaam obtained a prominent appointment to teach in Constantinople. Barlaam's appointment included

offering lectures on theological topics, especially on Dionysius the Areopagite, of whom he was

especially fond.46 It is through this connection that he was chosen to respond to the Dominican bishops

Francesco and Richard.

Barlaam47 made his response in early 1335 (before May), in two addresses. 48 Gregory Palamas

apparently received an oral report of these discussions. From the reports that he received, Palamas got

the impression that Barlaam had defended the Latin view, at least as a theologoumenon. In reality,

Barlaam had done no such thing; he had only assumed the Latin position hypothetically, in order to raise

objections against it. Nevertheless, disturbed at the outcome of the discussions, Palamas wrote what he

called Apodictic Treatises in late 1335,49 in order to defend Orthodoxy. Gregory Akindynos, a mutual

acquaintance of both men praised the work (in a letter no longer extant), but gently rebuked Palamas

for using the term “apodictic” in the title, as Palamas' arguments did not really meet the standard of

demonstration.

At about the same time, Barlaam was busy fleshing out his own objections against the Latin

position in a series of 21 Anti-Latin Treatises. The filioque is one of the prominent themes of these

treatises, and he addresses it in two ways. First, he does something traditional: he uses and extremely

rich collection of scriptural and patristic citations.50 Second, he does something innovative. In his Anti-

Latin Treatise 5, he gives a critique of the use of rational arguments in the argument as such. Apodictic

46Meyendorff, “Les Débuts de La Controverse Hésychaste,” 94–5; Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 211–3; Kolbaba,
“Conversion from Greek Orthodoxy,” 124.
47The chronology here is that given in Sinkewicz, “The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God in the Early Writings of Barlaam the

Calabrian,” 184–6. Sinkewicz is correcting the chronology and interpretation of Meyendorff, “Les Débuts de La Controverse Hésy-
chaste.” Sinkewicz gives a full justification of his approach in “A New Interpretation”
48Sinkewicz, “A New Interpretation” 490–4.
49According to Juan Nadal-Cañellas, this version is actually a second edition of a work that Palamas had originally composed in

the first months of 1334. (“Gregorio Akindynos, 197.)

50Barlaam's work was so thorough, that the standard Orthodox work against the filioque, Neilos Kabasilas' On the Procession of
the Holy Spirit, was largely a copy of it. (Neilos either plagarized it, or was unable to acknowledge its true source due to Barlaam's
condemnation). Ibid., 500; Sinkewicz, “The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God,” 240.

27
argument was not valid in theology, and any pretended demonstration will exhibit a logical fallacy, as

do the Latin arguments for the filioque. 51

On Pentecost Sunday, May 19, 1336, Gregory Palamas received a portion of Barlaam's Anti-

Latin Treatise 5, but none of the Treatises which contain Barlaam's patristic dossier. He found these

arguments to be quite disconcerting, but he never really seems to understand Barlaam's position.

Nevertheless goes on to attempt a refutation of it with confidence, never quite making an objection that

is ad rem.52 At the heart of the confusion lies a twofold ambiguity. In the term “demonstration” and the

term “knowledge.” Palamas takes each of these in a broad sense: demonstration means certainty, and

knowledge means an intuitive grasp. But Barlaam meant them in a more technical, Aristotelian sense.

Demonstration, for Barlaam, means valid syllogistic reasoning, and knowledge means assent to a true

proposition. Actually, both Barlaam and Palamas were interested in establishing certain knowledge of

God. Barlaam tried to point out that they were in fundamental agreement. What made Palamas nervous

about Barlaam was that he seemed to use Aristotle more than the Fathers. It also did not help that

Barlaam had something of a reputation for being arrogant himself. 53 Thus, it is not surprising that their

correspondence gradually broke down.

Interestingly enough, it is in this context that Palamas first makes a pasing reference to what

would become his famous distinction between the Divine essence and its uncreated energies. Palamas

wanted to maintain the possibility of knowledge of God and demonstration of divine realities (in his

senses of those terms), but he still had to reckon with Scriptural affirmations that we cannot see God.

51As Barlaam himself wrote in his first epistle to Gregory Palamas: “When I saw that it was impossible to examine and refute
each syllogism proposed by the Latins--for the verbiage would become endless--I considered how it might be possible to refute them
all (and prove them to be sophisms) in a single treatise” Sinkewicz, “The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God,” 190–4.
52Ibid., 197–8, 202–4. “However, in order to establish his position, Palamas chose his texts very selectively and read them in a

literal and superficial matter. The letter raises serious doubts about whether Palamas had really understood Barlaam or even Aristotle,
for the Athonite took certain liberties in his use of Aristotelian terminology which did not necessarily support his cause or further his
true intentions.” (200-1)
53See for example Letters 9 and 10 of Gregory Akindynos. Letters of Gregory Akindynos: Greek Text and English Translation,
trans. Angela Constantinides Hero, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantiae. Series Washingtonensis 21 (Washington: Dumbarton Oaks
Research Library and Collection, 1983). In Letter 10, writing to Barlaam, Akindynos, who was friends to both Palamas and Barlaam
and acted as a go-between for them for some time, reproached both of them for their attitudes. Part of his reproach to Barlaam con-
cerned his understanding of knowledge and belief. Akindynos, who defended monastic practice while criticizing Palamite doctrine,
told Barlaam that true faith was a real, lived experience.

28
His response, which he gives in his second letter to Barlaam at the beginning of 1337, is to say that

some divine realities can be contemplated, while others—the substance in particular—cannot.54

The Second Phase: The Defense of the Holy Hesychasts

The reason why Palamas wanted to defend his understanding of the knowledge of God is

because he was a part of the revival of hesychastic spirituality which took place on Mount Athos and

spread to other locations. While Barlaam was reading this in his correspondence with Palamas, he was

beginning to hear reports about the psychosomatic method of prayer that monks would use in order to

have the sort of experiential encounter of which Palamas wrote. Deciding to make inquiries about this

practice of prayer in the circle of hesychasts which consisted of members of prominent families in

Thessalonika, and which was led by the monk Ignatios. Alarmed at what he discovered, he confronted

Ignatios directly.55 Barlaam famously ridiculed its practitioners as ὀμφαλόψυχοι (roughly, “navel-

gazers”). Finally, he lodged a formal complaint with the standing synod in Constantinople in 1337. At

the advice of Gregory Akindynos, the synod took no action.56

To an extent, Barlaam's concerns were justified. Sometime between the years 1332 and 1334,

there seems to have been a Macarian revival on Mount Athos, a revival which had an extreme

“Messalian” component. Members of this movement allegedly circulated their doctrines and practices

clandestinely at Athos, and Palamas is reported to have drawn some of his ideas from this circle. 57 This

54R. Sinkewicz, “The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God,” 220–1.

55
Juan Nadal Cañellas, La Résistance, 129–31.
56Sinkewicz, “Gregory Palamas,” 133; Nadal Cañellas, La Résistance, 132.
57Our reports are from anti-Palamite sources, but these reports would make sense of the relevant facts. In the first place, Gregory
Akindynos was a close associate of Palamas from 1326 until 1332. During this time, Palamas was his spiritual father, sponsored him
as a monk on Mount Athos, and supported his scholarly aspirations. As we will see, Akindynos had a great affinity for the type of
prayer that he learned from Palamas, but claims to know nothing of the psychosomatic method. His earlier familiarity with Palamas
made him initially skeptical of Barlaam's charges against the hesychasts. By 1340 he was genuinely surprised to read from Palamas
himself some of the things of which Barlaam was accusing him. Second, many people in the hesychast circle whom Barlaam got to
know in Thessalonika around 1337 were suspected of Messalianism and were associates of Palamas on Athos in the period 1332-
1337. Palamas would himself move in this circle upon his return to Thessalonika in 1337. Third, Palamas' move to Thessalonika in
1337 is co-incident with a crackdown on Messaliansim on the Holy Mountain. This, at any rate is the argument of Nadal-Cañellas,
among others. See the next note.

29
circle tended to give a central role to people such as Pseudo-Makarios, John Klimakos, and Symeon the

New Theologian. The people who we more commonly call “fathers of the Church” (for example, the

Cappadocians and Maximus the Confessor) played a less central role in their thought. To the extent that

these latter were used, according to critics of the hesychasts both then and now, they were cited partially

and taken out of context. Gregory Palamas will begin to cite more from the more “classical” fathers of

the Church later on, when he is forced by his opponents to defend the traditional character of his

teaching.

Some of the people involved in this movement were close associates of Palamas who soon

became influential spiritual teachers in Thessalonika. This fact shows two an important features of the

monasticism of this period: it was growing in influence in both church and society, and it saw itself as

having a mission to society as a whole. Thus, when Barlaam encountered hesychast practioners, he

found them not just eccentric, but alarming.58

This is not to say, however, that Barlaam's own approach to the spiritual life was entirely sound.

Barlaam proposed an ascetical doctrine that stressed moral purification through detachment from the

body, and an intellectual purification through an ascent from creatures to a purely negative knowledge

(in the philosophical sense) of the Creator. This program did have a basis in the tradition. It could

appeal to the tradition of “natural contemplation” (θεορία φυσική) as a stage of spiritual progress. It

could also appeal to the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius. But, at least in the way that it has come down to

us, there is nothing in this scheme that is specifically Christian. Rather, it is a highly rarefied spirituality

designed to appeal to an intellectual. It is missing the corporeal, experiential, and ecstatic elements that

are equally a part of the tradition.

And Barlaam's arrogant disdain for the enthusiasm of the monks, combined with his favorable

descriptions of pagan philosophers as having experienced some kind of divine illumination, only made

matters worse. His approach needed correction, but perhaps there were certain excesses in the Palamite

58Cañellas, La Résistance, 172–7.

30
response.

By the end of 1337, coincident with a Messalian crackdown on the Holy Mountain, Palamas had

made his way to Thessalonika, where he moved in circles the have been described as Messalian.59

Palamas used this time to respond to Barlaam's attacks on Hesychasm more directly. In 1338, he wrote

his First Triad in Defense of the Holy Hesychasts. This treatise is so-named because it falls into three

parts: a discussion of the limits of profane philosophy, a defense of the psychosomatic method of prayer

used by the hesychasts, and a description of the spiritual perception needed in order to have a true

knowledge of God. At this point, Palamas showed little direct knowledge of Barlaam's critiques of the

hesychasts. By the end of the year, Barlaam had responded. In 1339, due to a revival of the Turkish

threat, Barlaam was sent by Andronikos III and John Kantakuzenos on a diplomatic mission to the West,

visiting Naples, Paris, and Avignon. While he was away, Palamas made another response, his Second

Triad in Defense of the Holy Hesychasts, which followed the same format as the First Triad, but this

time was aimed more directly at Barlaam.60

The spirituality of the monks whom Palamas was defending had two characteristics which drew

Barlaam's scrutiny: it downplayed the role of human learning and intellectual purification in spiritual

growth, and it highlighted the necessity of the body's participation in the deification of the whole

person. This latter feature often took the form, according to the reports of the monks, of sensible visions

of light. These reports, along with the techniques used to induce them, alarmed Barlaam, because—

among other reasons—it sounded like the monks were claiming to see the divine essence with their

bodily eyes. This led to Palamas' first attempts to correlate the sensible experiences of the monks at

prayer—what they “saw”—with the divine essence:

They know that the essence of God is unreachable by every sense, since it is not only
God who is beyond all beings, but beyond-God (ὑπέρθεος) is as well. The Preeminent-
Beyond-All (ἡ ὑπεροχὴ τοῦ πάντων ἐπέκεινα) is not only beyond every affirmation, but,

59Meyendorff, always interpreting Palamas and his party favorably does not think so. But Nadal-Cañellas, citing more evidence

does. (Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas, 35–7; Nadal Cañellas, “Gregorio Akindynos,” 132–3.
60Nadal Cañellas, La Résistance, 141–144; Sinkewicz, “Gregory Palamas,” 133.

31
 beyond every negation, he has also exceeded every preeminence whatsoever which has
come into being in the mind. The saints see the enhypostatized light spiritually, as they
themselves say, a light which is not symbolic, as are the apparitions formed by
accidental circumstances. Through experience itself, they know that it is an immaterial
and divine illumination and grace, invisibly visible and unknowingly known. But what it
is, they profess not to know.

But you who introduced the methods of definition, analysis, and distinction, come to
know, and deem us the ignorant worthy to teach. For [the light] is not the essence of
God, for the latter is both inaccessible and imparticipable. It is not an angel, for it bears
the marks of the Master, and sometimes it goes out from the body—or it is not borne up
to the unspoken heights without a body—and at other times it transforms the body and
gives it a share of its own proper splendor . . . In this way, therefore, it also deifies
(θεουργῆσαν) the body, becoming visible—O the miracle—to bodily eyes.61

It is in texts like this that we see the motivations behind Palamas' distinction between God's

essence and energies. He began with the fact of the experience of the hesychast monks. But their

experience contained a theological problem: if “no one has ever seen God” (1 John 4:12; cf. John 1:18),

then just what were they seeing? Barlaam interpreted them as claiming to have seen the divine essence,

and was appalled. Palamas adamantly denied this, and so was forced to claim that this light was not

identical with the divine essence,62 but still bore the deifying “marks of the Master.” The distinction that

Palamas makes here in the second round of controversy with Barlaam mirrors and develops the

distinction that he made in the first round of controversy concerning the knowledge of God. There,

Palamas defended the unknowability of the divine essence by distinguishing it from the “things around

God,” of which we may have knowledge. Notice that at this point, Palamas has not yet phrased his

distinction in terms of God's essence and energies. When it came time for him to re-formulate his

distinction in terms of essence and energies, these earlier uses were in the back of his mind.63

61Triads, II.3.8.9-20 – II.3.9.1-14, (Meyendorff, ed. 403–5). The translation is my own.

62In addition to the text above, see Triads II.3.12 and II.3.30, quoted in ibid., 409–11, 447–9.
63This dual nature of the Palamite distinction is why it is so difficult to interpret its significance. On the one hand, it is a distinc-

tion between the divine essence and uncreated, corporeal light, a distinction which was made as a defense of his friends and their
way of life. This experience of light has some precedents in the spiritual tradition. On the other hand, it is a distinction between the
divine essence and energies, a distinction which belongs in the realm of speculative theology and philosophy, and as such the term
“energy” has philosophical and Patristic antecedents. The first framing of the distinction tends toward making it a full-bodied real
distinction, whereas the second distinction tends toward muting the extra-mental character of the distinction. This contrast was noted
by Palamas' Dominican critic and convert from Orthodoxy, Manuel Kalekas in the early 15 th century, where he points out that Pala-
mas makes many seemingly real distinctions in God, but also denies composition in God (PG 152.316c-321a). These two ways of
32
 Barlaam, however, was not convinced. His response to Palamas' Second Triad was his principal

work, Against the Messalians (to whom he likened the hesychasts). Gregory Akindynos, being an old

friend and disciple of Palamas as well as a friend of Barlaam, did not approve of this decision.

According to Akindynos, Barlaam was arrogant in his contempt for the monks, imprudent in criticizing

a man as estimable as Palamas was, and rash in calling the hesychasts heretics absent a synodal

decision.64

When Palamas found out about Barlaam's response, he responded aggressively in turn. In June

or July of 1340, he wrote his Third Triad in Defense of the Holy Hesychasts. “In this Triad, his pen

comes to give birth to Palamism.”65 Here, Palamas gives his most developed account of deification to

date, including, in the second treatise of the Triad, his first explicit description of the distinction

between the divine essence and energies in those precise terms. Returning to Mount Athos in August, 66

he authored the Hagioritic Tome, which was approved by the Protos of Mount Athos, the hegumens of

14 of its monasteries, and the local ordinary of Athos. 67

The promulgation of the Tome was a bold move by the monks. In it, they took up a traditional

prerogative of bishops—anathematizing heretics. Moreover, the basis on which they did it was striking:

their authority to teach was based on the mystical experience granted to them. The prologue of the Tome

openly presents the monks as the vanguards of a new revelation.68 The Tome condemns (while

deliberately refusing to name names) those who deny that deifying grace is an “uncreated, ingenerate,

and a distinct reality”; those who say that union with God can be attained by natural imitation (or that

grace is a natural faculty); those who deny that the intellect is somehow located in the heart of the head;

framing the Palamite distinction might be behind these two different ways of thinking. When the distinction framed as between the
essence and the light, the distinction is (at least to Thomistic eyes) more radical and its expression is more troubling. When the dis-
tinction is framed as between the essence and the energies, the distinction is expressed in a more subtle way. The question, then,
would be the coherence of these two ways of conceiving the essence and light/energies.
64Letter 8, quoted in Letters of Gregory Akindynos, 26–8.
65Nadal Cañellas, La Résistance, 161.
66Clucas, “The Hesychast Controversy,” 24.
67Sinkewicz provides a complete list of editions of the Tome as well as a translation. (“Gregory Palamas,” 140, 183–88.)
68Ibid., 183–4.

33
those who say that the light of Tabor was a phantasm or symbol that comes into being or passes away;

and those who deny that spiritual dispositions show their effects on the body. The Tome also condemns

“whoever says that only the substance of God is uncreated but not also his eternal energies, all of which

he transcends as the one who activates transcends what is acted upon.”69

While Palamas was writing his Third Triad and the Hagioritic Tome, Barlaam took his work

Against the Messalians to Constantinople, to lodge yet another complaint with the Synod. Akindynos

again publicly opposed Barlaam for his rash and malicious criticisms of the hesychasts. To Akindynos,

Barlaam's claims did not square with what he knew of his old friend and spiritual father. But, as

Akindynos developed his correspondence with Palamas, he came to the conclusion that Barlaam's

complaints might not be so exaggerated after all, because Palamas' writings apparently contained new

expressions which Akindynos had not heard from his old master, whom he had not known since the two

had parted ways at Athos in 1332. Palamas assured him that all of these matters would be cleared up

after the defeat of Barlaam. Having been given these assurances, Akindynos decided to help Palamas. 70

By May of 1341, the emperor Andronikos III and the Patriarch John Kalekas were ready to

convoke a synod, which did in fact take place on June 10, 1341. It was to be disciplinary only. It did not

go well for Barlaam, who overplayed his hand in attacking monasticism—a traditional and popular

institution. The Great Domestic, John Kantekuzenos, an erstwhile benefactor of Barlaam saw the

writing on the wall, and dropped his support of him. Palamas acted shrewdly. Barlaam was condemned,

and his works were burned.71 Barlaam returned to Calabria, converted to the Catholic Church, and in

October 1342, Pope Clement VI appointed him the bishop of the city of Gerace.

What was the status of Palamite teaching? Palamas and his circle were exuberant, of course, and

69Ibid., 184–6.
70Nadal Cañellas, La Résistance, 169–71, 177–78.
71Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas 54–5; Clucas, “The Hesychast Controversy,” 159–87; Nadal Cañellas, La Résis-

tance, 185–98.

34
contemporary neo-Palamites think that they are justified.72 But, more realistically, it seems that Palamas

and his disciples over-interpreted the condemnation of Barlaam as official endorsement for their

position. At any rate, Palamas no longer saw the need to revisit the content of his teaching, as he

promised Akindynos that he would.73 On account of this, the relationship between Palamas and

Akindynos would quickly deteriorate, and Akindynos would become the leader in the struggle against

Palamas.

The Third Phase: Gregory Akindynos Takes the Lead

Gregory Akindynos was born to a family of shepherds around the year 1300 in the frontier city

of Prílapos (modern day Prílep, Macedonia), which had been under Byzantine rule since 1259. His first

name was the name of his religious profession, and his last name was one that he ascribed to himself.74

Likely because of Serbian invasions of his homeland, Gregory made his way to Thessalonika with his

family. There, he began his studies in grammar and rhetoric at the traditional age of 14, taking up

philosophical and theological studies for about four years after he turned 18.75 All of his written works

show training in classical Byzantine style, and throughout his life, he showed an enthusiasm for secular

learning.76

After completing his studies, Akindynos took up a post teaching rhetoric in the city of Beroia,

just to the west of Thessalonika. It is here that he met Gregory Palamas in 1326, when the latter came to

the city to found a hermitage. Palamas became Akindynos' spiritual father. Incursions by Albanian

72Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Palamas, 56.

73Nadal Cañellas, La Résistance, 194–9.
74Nadal-Cañellas thus argues that Gregory Akindynos was a Byzantine, and not a Slav. Gregory Palamas uses Akindynos rustic
(and allegedly foreign) origins, as well as his nom de plume, as grounds to attack Akindynos ad hominem (Nadal Cañellas, “Gregorio
Akindynos, 189–314).
75After Barlaam's condemnation in 1341, Akindynos' enemies accused him of being a student of the Calabrian. But this is not

possible, because Gregory had completed his formal education around 1322, when Barlaam had not yet arrived in Thessalonika (He-
ro, “Introduction” in Letters of Gregory Akindynos, xii; Nadal Cañellas, “Gregorio Akindynos,” 192–3; La Résistance, 9–14.)
76Nadal Cañellas, “Gregorio Akindynos,” 190–2. Akindynos was not impressed with Palamas' education. He attacked Palamas

ad hominem on this point. (Letters 34-5 in Letters of Gregory Akindynos)

35
nomads made the city unconducive to monastic life, and so Palamas returned to Mount Athos, taking

Akindynos with him. Palamas, however, could not convince the monastic fathers to admit Akindynos to

profession. The fathers seemed to be worried about Akindynos' enthusiasm for secular learning. At this

point Palamas seems to have found this to be an admirable trait in Akindynos. But, during his period of

conflict with Akindynos, after his own positions had developed somewhat, Palamas would come to

repeat the judgment of the Athonite fathers concerning Akindynos. For his part, Akindynos eventually

discerned that Athonite life was not for him, though he retained a lifelong respect for the monks and

their style of prayer.77 Akindynos returned briefly to Thessalonika in 1332. If he had yet met Barlaam,

he had time to make his acquaintance now, as Barlaam was himself returning to Thessalonika from

Constantinople. By 1334, Akindynos was established in the capital, had made monastic profession

there, and had been ensconced in the entourage of the emperor. He taught his directees hesychastic

principles (though he claimed to know nothing of the psychosomatic method). 78 For a time, he was the

spiritual director to the princess Irene, who had been a nun for a long time (under the name Eulogia),

replacing after a long interval her former director, Theoleptos of Philadelphia (who died in 1322), who

was one of the leaders in the hesychast revival.79 As we have seen, from the period of 1334-1341,

Akindynos tried to mediate between Barlaam and Palamas, but concerns about the extremism of the

latter led to a deteriorating relationship in the wake of the June 10, 1341 synod at which Barlaam was

condemned.

The nature of the June synod has been debated. Some have suggested that the June synod

awarded a complete victory to the Palamites after a substantive doctrinal discussion. Since the emperor

had mentioned the essence-energy distinction, Akindynos was only prolonging a debate about matters

77Lettersof Gregory Akindynos, xii; Cañellas, “Gregorio Akindynos,” 194–5. According to Nadal Cañellas, Akindynos chose to
leave Athos on his own. It was only a later story, concocted by his enemies that he was expelled.
78Akindynos, Letters of Gregory Akindynos, Letter 10, lines 142–44, 53.
79Nadal-Cañellas highlights the importance of this association, “This discovery clarifies . . . practically all the points of the life
of Akindynos and of the Palamite controversy which until now have not found a satisfactory explanation.” (“Gregorio Akindynos,”
204).

36
that were definitively settled. Others point out that in the pourparlers for the synod, it was determined

that there would be no investigation into doctrinal questions (and it was precisely by violating this rule

that Barlaam got himself into trouble), and that the synod issued no Tome in June; its only official act

was to order the burning of Barlaam's work Against the Messalians. There was no declaration in favor

of Palamite doctrines. At any rate, given his discussions with Palamas before the synod, and given the

lack of an official doctrinal statement after it, Akindynos certainly did not think that the doctrinal

questions were settled. He supported the traditions of monasticism, but Palamas' language about “a

higher divinity” and “a lower divinity,” one “energizing” and the other “energized” caused him a great

deal of consternation.

These issues would not be resolved in an irenic environment, however, because three days after

the June synod, the emperor Andronikos III died, leaving as his heir his eight-year old son John. A

council of regency was set up consisting of the empress, Anne of Savoy, the Great Domestic, John

Kantakuzenos, and the patriarch, John Kalekas. Kantakuzenos was an ambitious man and a close friend

of Andronikos. It had been his recommendation to the emperor that made Kalekas, who came from an

undistinguished family, the patriarch. But, when Andronikos actually appointed Kalekas the patriarch in

1334, the emperor also appointed him guardian of the dynasty, in place of Kantakuzenos. This clipped

Kantakuzenos' wings and gave Kalekas a certain degree of independence from his benefactor, which he

exercised in both matters of church and state.80

So, after the June synod, amid growing tension, Akindynos approached Palamas about

addressing the manner in which he expressed his teachings. Palamas was not interested. Palamite

sources have claimed that Akindynos conceded Palamas' position and then retracted it, but this appears

not to be the case—Akindynos only affirmed the traditional nature of his own opinions, without

endorsing Palamas' teaching. The Palamites over-interpreted Akindynos' profession of adherence to

80Clucas, “The Hesychast Controversy,” 188–201. The political machinations of the years 1341-1347, apart from being a major
episode in the later history of the Byzantine empire, played a major role in the outcome of the Palamite controversy. Kantakuzenos
had the support of the monastic party, while Kalekas became more supportive of Akindynos over time.

37
tradition as agreement with them.81 During this period the Palamite strategy was to assimilate

disagreement with them to a rejection of the June synod and agreement with the condemned Barlaam,

over against the tradition of the Church.

The growing acrimony between the Palamite party and Gregory Akindynos showed that the June

synod had left some unfinished business. Therefore, Kantakuzenos pressured Kalekas to call another

synod, which the Great Domestic hoped would secure the condemnation of Akindynos. At this point,

Kalekas was not really a supporter of Akindynos, but nevertheless, he was reluctant to convoke another

synod, because he feared both that doctrinal discussions would cause schism in the Church and that a

synod would give Kantakuzenos the opportunity to exercise an imperial prerogative—presiding—at a

time when imperial power was being contested.82 This synod met in July,83 and by all accounts it was a

raucous affair, with more than one source claiming that some monks of the Palamite party did physical

violence to Akindynos.84 Due to all of the commotion, the Patriarch left the synod, after which time a

motion (which would have been uncanonical) was made verbally to condemn Akindynos as a

Barlaamite.

By the end of July, due again to the pressure of Kantakuzenos, Kalekas produced an official

Tome. The Tome limited itself to the points that were made at the June synod: the light of Tabor and the

hesychast method of prayer. Barlaam was condemned, the monks' way of life was defended, and further

doctrinal discussion was forbidden under the severest punishment. The Tome further ruled that no one

could oppose the arguments which the monks made against Barlaam. The Tome, however, made no

81Nadal Cañellas, La Résistance 198–204. Nadal gives evidence of possible tampering with sources on the part of the Palamites.

He also definitively refutes the claim that Akindynos reneged on doctrinal agreement with Palamas, by producing the texts of the
affidavits that Akindynos signed. Meyendorff follows the quite different narrative of the Palamite sources. (A Study of Gregory
Palamas, 57).
82Our principal sources for this period are the main partisans in the conflict themselves (Palamas, Akindynos, Kalekas, and Kan-

takuzenos), writing in retrospect. Therefore it can be hard to discern when some of the information is self-serving. Nevertheless, the
actual written decisions of the Tome of 1341, which was to come as a result of the July synod, substantially support the points of
view of Kalekas and Akindynos.
83Older sources place this synod in August, but newer sources have definitively established that it, in fact, took place in July.

(Hero, “Introduction,” in Letters of Gregory, xviii; Nadal Cañellas, La Résistance, 205n648.

84Nadal Cañellas, La Résistance, 205–9, 218–20.

38
mention of Akindynos or his condemnation.85 Also, curiously, the signatures were not added to the

Tome until mid-August and September, with some only being appended at the suspiciously opportune

time of October 1346. Palamite authors both at the time and now tend to gratuitously86 explain these

facts away. They seem to take it for granted that Akindynos' doctrine is the same as Barlaam's and was

therefore condemned.87 They thus used the Tome to go on the attack. In 1344 (after the political

circumstances brought Kalekas and Akindynos closer together), Kalakas wrote an explanation of the

Tome. Palamite authors interpret this document as Kalekas backpedaling on the Tome, whereas anti-

Palamite authors interpret it as giving the Tome a correct interpretation in the face of Palamite

propaganda.

The political situation devolved into civil war by October 1341, pitting the widowed empress

Anne of Savoy and Kalekas against Kantekuzenos. The war lasted until 1347, when Kantekuzenos took

Constantinople.88 The struggle between Akindynos and Palamas would be tightly bound to this event, as

Kantekuzenos gained the support of the monks, and Kalekas eventually came to rely on Akindynos to

speak out against Palamas. This phase of the controversy would end on February 2, 1347—the arrival of

Kantakuzenos being immanent89—when Anne of Savoy and John V Palaiologos held a synod to depose

Kalekas and excommunicate Akindynos.90 This decision was ratified two weeks later by Kantakuzenos,

85It is important to remember the standing of the people in question. At times, it can seem like Barlaam or Akindynos were
standing alone against a broad consensus of hesychast monks. This is not the case, however. Barlaam was a respected teacher with a
high profile, and Akindynos was widely recognized as a spiritual director and advisor in the highest circles—bishops and princesses
came to him, for example. Thus, they would have found agreement with many ecclesiastical and civil officials present at the synods.
It is also important to note that Kalekas was more interested in imperial and church order, and therefore, at least in this period, did
not especially favor Akindynos.
86Nadal Cañellas, La Résistance, 226;
87Clucas, “The Hesychast Controversy,” 217-31; Nadal Cañellas, La Résistance, 226-30.
88Some date the true end of the civil war to 1354 when John V Palaiologos forced John VI Kantakuzenos to abdicate. John VI

would become a monk in the capital city, taking the name Joasaph, and remain active in political activites for the remainder of his
life. Laiou, “The Palaiologoi and the World around them.” 823.
89In Byzantine history, John the son of Andronikos III Palaiologos is styled as John V, while John Kantakuzenos is styled as

John VI. This is because John V, though still a minor, was technically the emperor before Kantakuzenos was proclaimed. Thus, in
Byzantine history, somewhat unusually, John VI ruled before John V.
90Different authors have interpreted the motives of Anne and John differently. On the one hand, they were learning more about
the positions of Gregory Palamas, on the other hand, they decided to condemn Akindynos and his benefactor Kalekas right at the
moment when their enemy and Palamas' benefactor—John Kantekuzenos—was about to take Constantinople.

39
after he established himself in Constantinople as co-emperor.91

The theological battle raged during the civil war along with the military battle. As we have seen,

Palamas and his circle considered the condemnation of Barlaam at the July synod of 1341 as a

condemnation of Akindynos as well, because they likened him to Barlaam. Retiring to the monastery of

St. Michael of Sosthenion on the Bosporus, Palamas wrote his Dialogue of an Orthodox with a

Barlaamite in Partial Refutation of Barlaamite Error92 in the fall of 1341. This is one in a series of

polemical works which Palamas wrote from the autumn of 1341 through the autumn of 1342.93 Palamas

may have considered his work to be a continued refutation of Barlaamism which was condemned at the

August synod, but the patriarch Kalekas saw it as a re-opening of dogmatic questions, which was

strictly forbidden by that synod. After repeated warnings to Palamas to stop his polemical activity and

retract (as well as some possible pro-Kantekuzenist activity at Heraclea), Kalekas had Palamas

imprisoned. Ultimately this resulted in Palamas being confined to a sort of house arrest in the environs

of the Hagia Sophia. Kalekas then ordained Gregory Akindynos a priest and authorized him to respond

to the works of Palamas, which he did in the form of two Refutations, which he completed in December

of 1342 or January of 1343.94 Palamas responded to these with seven Antirrhetic Treatises in 1343-

1344.95

91Among works which deal with the Palamite controversy, Clucas provides the most historical detail and supplies the most polit-
ical context for the events of 1341-1347, and his verdict is against Kantakuzenos. (“The Hesychast Controversy,” 188–333. Meyen-
dorff supplies less detail, but comes off as something of an apologist for Kantakuzenos, and especially Palamas. Meyendorff sees
little of good faith in the actions of Akindynos or Kalekas during this period. (A Study of Gregory Palamas, 63–85.) For the standard
secular history of the period, see Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 185–208.
92An English translation (which is unreliable in places) along with a Greek text is in Rein Ferwerda, trans., Dialogue Between an

Orthodox and a Barlaamite (Binghamton, NY: Binghamton University, 2000). In his critical edition of Akindynos' refutations of this
dialogue, Nadal-Cañellas suggests that there is an earlier, unedited version of this document, which is attested to in Akindynos' refu-
tations.
93These works are On Unity and Distinction; the Apology; On Divine and Divinizing Participation, or, On the Divine and Su-

pernatural Simplicity; Theophanes (PG 150:909-960); and That Barlaam and Akindynos Are the Ones Who, in a Truly Wicked and
Atheistic Manner, Are Dividing the One Divintiy Into Two Unequal Divinities.
94Nadal Cañellas, “Gregorio Akindino,” 216
95Sinkewicz comments, “Palamas responded in a series of seven Antirrhetic Treatises, and his correspondence during this period
is of critical importance to the correct interpretation of his theology. In an effort to better inform his supporters and to persuade the
undecided, Palamas tends to be more cautious in his letters, nuancing his explanations and his use of theological language.” (Gregory
Palamas 135). Other authors have similarly noted that in writings from this time period, Palamas makes a shift in the authorities to
which he appealed, from the sort of authors which were later included in the Philokalia to the more classical fourth and fifth century
Fathers of the Church. (Nadal Cañellas)

40
 We do not have a systematic statement of the theology of Gregory Akindynos. He wrote his

works only after being commissioned by the Patriarch to respond to the writings which Palamas

produced after the Synods of 1341.96 His commission was limited to refuting Palamas' claim to

represent the authentic tradition of the church. His method was to cite passages from the Fathers in their

entirety, and set them in both their immediate and wider context. In order to do this, he set out a rather

developed hermeneutic for reading the Fathers. For example, exuberant expressions of a particular

Father risk misinterpretation if they are not read in the light of the basic assumption of both that Father

and other Fathers.97 In the light of this hermeneutic, Palamas comes off as a careless reader of the

Fathers, and perhaps maliciously so.98 The Fathers, for instance do not draw a hard distinction between

the essence and the energies, and this is shown in the fact that they can apply the same concepts to both.

Speculatively, it is an oversimplification to equate opposition to Palamas with support for Barlaam, and

Akindynos is a case in point. Akindynos is not interested in Barlaam’s intellectualism, nor is he

interested in Barlaam’s criticism of hesychastic prayer. The question is whether this rejection of

intellectualism and support for hesychastic prayer require the acceptance of Palamas’ theories.

Akindynos thinks that it does not, and he cites confusions that he sees among the Palamites: the

uncritical application of created metaphors (like the sun and its rays) to God; the confusion of the roles

played by the uncreated divine energy (identical with the essence) and its created effect; and the

misappropriation of texts about the “works of God which do not begin in time” of which God is the

96 John Meyendorff (without engaging his work) presents Akindynos as a “very weak” and “mediocre” theologian who tried to
have a hesychastic spirituality while rejecting the theology of Palamas, which he did not realize was impossible. Instead, says Mey-
endorff, Akindynos' theology is essentially that of Barlaam. Akindynos relied on a “formal conservatism,” which consisted in a mere
“verbal repetition of the formulas of the Fathers” in “interminable theological treatises” that gave a “false impression of doctrinal
certainty.” According to Meyendorff, Akindynos opposed Palamas because the latter “interpreted the patristic tradition in a living and
creative way” and thus embodied “the truly traditional spirit which wished to share the living experience of the Fathers . . . and not
only the words they spoke.” Others have suggested, rather, that Akindynos was more careful to quote his sources integrally and in
context, whereas Palamas was more free with his references to the Fathers. (A Study of Gregory Palamas, 56–7, 72)
97 Juan Sergio Nadal, “La critique par Akindynos de l’herméneutique patristique de Palamas,” Istina 3 (1974): 297–328.
98 More recently, a few authors have undertaken a thorough investigation of the Greek patristic tradition, and have found it to be

more sympathetic to Palamas. Jean-Claude Larchet, La théologie des énergies divines: des origines à saint Jean Damascène, Cogita-
tio Fidei 272 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2010); Torstein Theodor Tollefsen, Activity and Participation in Late Antique and Early Chris-
tian Thought (Oxford: Oxford Universtiy Press, 2012).

41
“demiurge” with the divine energies.99

The apogee of the career of Kalekas and Akindynos occurred in late 1344 when Palamas was

excommunicated and declared a heretic. By 1346, however, Kalekas was already beginning to fall out

of favor with Anne of Savoy, and as we have seen, by February 1347, Kalekas had been deposed,

Akindynos had been excommunicated, and Kantekuzenos had become emperor. His victory also marked

a turn in the tide in favor of the Palamite party. A new Tome was published. Claiming to confirm the

Tome of 1341, this Tome condemned Barlaam, Akindynos, and Kalekas; it made no mention of the

former Tome's prohibition of doctrinal discussion, however.100 Palamas' friend and disciple Isidore

Boucherias, who had been denied an episcopal see under Kalekas was now appointed patriarch and

reigned from 1347-50, after which he was succeeded by another Palamite, Philotheos Kokkinos. Isidore

immediately consolidated his influence by appointing 32 bishops, chief among them was Gregory

Palamas, who was named the archbishop of Thessalonika. Palamas was unable, however, to take

possession of his see until 1350, when the anti-Kantekuzenist Zealot party was finally put down in the

Empire's second city. Palamas spent his time waiting on Mount Athos, and in 1349 or 1350 wrote a

summary of his position, One Hundred and Fifty Chapters on Topics of Natural And Theological

Science, the Moral and the Ascetic Life, Intended As a Purge for the Barlaamite Corruption.

As for Akindynos, Kantakuzenos wrote in his memoirs that he promised Akindynos safety and

the freedom to publish, but Akindynos, unwilling to stand trial and abandoned by most of his former

friends, went into self-imposed exile in 1348, dying before May of the same year. This did not quite put

an end to the anti-Palamite movement, however. Throughout the summer of 1347, anti-Palamite bishops

met and pronounced against his doctrines, causing Isidore to depose them in August. Taking up the

intellectual opposition was Nikephoros Gregoras, who found the rising tide of Palamas inimical to his

intellectual pursuits. Gregoras had sided with Kantakuzenos in the civil war, but eventually they broke

99 Nadal-Cañellas, “Gregorio Akíndino,” 228-253; Clucas, “The Hesychast Controversy,” 301-314

100Clucas, “The Hesychast Controversy,” 337.

42
over Palamism.101 He debated with Palamas in 1348, and in 1350 he wrote his most important work, the

First Antirrhetics against Palamas.102 A synod was called for 1351, which met in May and July. The

latter meeting concluded with a solemn dogmatic definition, the Tome of 1351.103 Effectively, any

opposition to the Palamites would henceforth explicitly be equated to Barlaamism and condemned as

such.104 The Tome did end up making a backhanded concession to Akindynos, however, in proscribing

the use of the expressions “higher” and “energizing” divinity when speaking of the essence and “lower”

and “energized” divinity when speaking of the energies, language which Palamas had dropped as he

developed his position in controversy with Akindynos and Gregoras.

In December of 1354, John V Palaiologos took Constantinople and forced Kantakuzenos to

abdicate. He became a monk under the name Joasaph, but still remained a political advisor and

theological writer. John V was more favorable to the anti-Palamite cause, even deposing the pro-

Palamite patriarch, Philotheos Kokkinos at the beginning of his reign. This gave Nicephoros an opening

at the court. John V permitted a debate between Palamas and Gregoras before the papal legate Paul in

1355. Gregoras continued the debate in his Second Antirrhetics of 1355-6, to which Palamas responded.

Apart from these debates and a brief period of capture by the Turks in 1354-5, Palamas spent his time as

a devoted shepherd of souls in Thessalonika.105 Sixty-three of his homilies are extant, most of them

coming from this period.106 Palamas died on November 14, 1357.107 The Patriarch Philotheos Kokkinos,

Palamas' disciple and biographer, proclaimed him a saint in 1368.

101Ibid., 377.
102H.-V. Beyer, ed., Nikephoros Gregoras. Antirrhetika I. Wiener byzantinische Studien. (Vieanna, 1976). Sinkewicz says that
this is “theologically the most significant refutation of Palamite theology within the lifetime of Palamas” (“Gregory Palamas,” 136)
103PG 151:732c-754b
104Clucas covers the arguments of this Synod in detail from the perspective of Nikephoros Gregoras, who was both the major

opponent of Palamas at the synod and a major historian of the period. If Gregoras is to be believed, then the Tome was a rather heavi-
ly redacted version of events, which leaves out many arguments and details which were embarassing to the Palamite party. (“The
Hesychast Controversy,” 440–534.)
105Sinkewicz, “Gregory Palamas,” 137
106Interestingly enough, there are no traces of the doctrines that are associated with Palamas in these homilies, not even in the

two that deal with the Transfiguration (Nadal-Cañellas).

107 A consensus is forming around this date, instead of 1359. (Sinkewicz, “Gregory Palamas,” 137.)

43
Latin Theology Enters the Debate

The civil war and the abdication of Kantakuzenos were the beginning of the end for the

Byzantine empire. The civil war had divided the populace and weakened the Empire significantly.

Moreover, the vying factions of the civil war had received assistance from both Serbian and Ottoman

forces. This was effectively an invitation for Ottoman forces to become familiar with Europe. Then, on

March 2, 1354, a catastrophic earthquake, accompanied with blizzards and rain, ravaged the Thracian

coast. Capitalizing on Byzantine disaster, Ottoman settlers at once crossed the Dardanelles and took up

residence in what was left of Gallipoli. The Turks were now officially in Europe, and, controlling the

only water-route to Constantinople, they were poised for further expansion into the continent. By 1374,

the Turks had made significant conquests in Europe, and had reduced the Byzantine emperor and the

Serb princes to vassalage. How would the Emperor respond to the Turkish threat? John V did so

differently than his predecessor. Kantakuzenos' daughter was married to the heir of the Ottoman throne;

he favored appeasement. John V on the other hand, favored reaching out to the West (his mother, after

all, was Italian), and the person that he would turn to in order to help him shape his western policy was

the old right-hand man of John Kantakuzenos, Demetrios Kydones, who would start a small circle of

“Byzantine Thomists.”108

Demetrios Kydones (c. 1324—1397/8) rose to prominence by being an early associate of John

Kantakuzenos (before the civil war). Eventually, he became Kantakuzenos’ chief minister. In the course

of his duties, he felt the need to learn Latin, in order to better deal with his western counterparts. In

order to do this, he turned to the Dominicans at Pera. The Dominican priest who oversaw his instruction

eventually gave him passages from Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Contra Gentiles to translate.

Kantakuzenos supported what became a full-fledged translation project, and Kydones completed his

108 Stylianos G. Papadopulos counts eight pro-Thomists and twelve anti-Thomists. (“Thomas in Byzanz: Thomas-Rezeption Und

Thomas-Kritik in Byzanz zwischen 1354 und 1453,” Theologie Und Philosophie 49 (1974): 279.

44
work on December 24, 1354, two weeks after the abdication of his patron. Kydones went on to translate

other works of St. Thomas, and as he did, his estimation of Latin culture and the Latin theological

tradition rose dramatically. He was impressed with the way Thomas argued for and justified his claims

and the claims of the Christian faith. Motivated by this, Kydones continued his translation project as a

means of bringing the East and West together.109 After the abdication of John VI, he had to lay low,

converting to Catholicism in 1357. Little-by-little he began to get involved again in government, until

John V invited him to return to his former duties in 1369, and he was present in Rome when John V was

received into the Catholic Church in Rome at the hands of the pope on October 18 of the same year. 110

Demetrios’ intellectual activities exercised an influence over his brother, the priest-monk

Prokoros (1330-1368/9), a vocation which gave him more theological skill, but less political acumen.

Prokoros acquired skill in Latin as a monk on Mount Athos and contributed to his brother’s translation

efforts, as well as making a number of other translations of Augustine, Boethius, and others, on his own.

His central work is a detailed anti-Palamite treatise called On The Essence and Energies of God,111

where he extensively deploys texts from St. Thomas Aquinas against Palamas, but never cited Thomas

by name. As we have seen, the abdication of John VI and the rise of John V was favorable to the anti-

Palamites, forcing the resignation of the pro-Palamite patriarch Philotheos Kokkinos. Demetrios

Kydones had arranged for the restoration of Philotheos on the condition that he leave non-Palamites

alone. But, Prokoros gave Philotheos the opportunity to resolve the Palamite controversy once and for

all.112 Some monks on Athos denounced Prokoros to the patriarch in 1365-6. Prokoros’ abbot demanded

109
John Meyendorff claims that Kydones was not sincere in his enthusiasm for western theology; he was more interested in po-
litical expediency and Renaissance culture. (John Meyendorff, “Society and Culture in the Fourteenth Century: Religious Problems,”
in Byzantine Hesychasm: Historical, Theological, and Social Problems [London: Variorum Reprints, 1974], 61). But this seems to be
more a function of Meyendorff’s binary opposition between humanists (who must be secular) and religious people (who must be
hesychast). Does this really explain all of his translation work? Does this explain the effusive praise that he gives to Aquinas’ work
(Letter 333, in F. Kianka, “Demetrius Cydones and Thomas Aquinas,” Byzantion 52 (1982): 285.)
110 Papadopulos, “Thomas in Byzanz,” 278-82; Angold, “Byzantium and the West,” 67-8; Plested, Orthodox Readings of Aqui-

nas, 64-73; Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 263

111 As mentioned earlier, Migne attributed Books I and II of this work to Gregory Akindynos (PG 151:1191-1242). But this book

was part of a larger six-volume work, of which Candal has provided an edition of Book VI on the light of Tabor (“El Libro VI de
Prócoro Cidonio (sobre La Luz Tabórica),” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 20 (1954): 247–97.
112 Angold suggests that Philotheos and his allies intended this move also to discredit Demetrios Kydones pro-unionist strategy.
45
his submission to the Tome of 1351, which Prokoros gave, but then reneged on. This prompted a search

of his cell which turned up heretical writings. Appealing to the Patriarch himself (but with personal

insults and little regard for propriety), Prokoros submitted his writings for review. Raising the stakes,

Prokoros also formally denounced the veneration of Gregory Palamas. This brought condemnation from

both Mount Athos and its ordinary. Prokoros was thus brought to trial before the Patriarch in April 1368,

where his syllogistic style of argumentation was found to be discordant with the teachings of the
113
Fathers. The Tome of 1368 condemned Prokoros, and at the same time, Philotheos canonized

Gregory Palamas.114

Demetrios’ unionist policies ultimately did not bear fruit, but through his work, the Dominicans

of Pera gained access to the Byzantine elite. Some of the best scholars of the generation formed a circle

around Demetrios, and exerted an outsized influence on the intellectual culture of their times. Their pro-

Latin stance often made them unwanted, and they often ended up turning towards the West, some even

joining the Dominican order. Perhaps the most influential of the circle of Demetrios Kydones was

Manuel Kalekas (d. 1410), the nephew of the disgraced patriarch. He met Demetrios in 1391, converted

to the Catholic Church in 1396, and entered the Dominican Order in around 1403. After the death of

Demetrios in 1397/8, he became the intellectual leader of the pro-Thomist party.115 He wrote a number

of important works, including a very complete critique of the Palamite position, as this was expressed in

the Tome of 1351, On the Essence and Operations.116 Here, Kalekas gives a clear explanation of what

(“Byzantium and the West,” 68)

113 Synodal Tome, PG 151:694-716. Plested points out that Philotheos did not exhibit an overtly anti-Latin attitude. He engages
Prokoros’ arguments and his interpretation of Augustine, whose authority Philotheos respects. (Plested, Orthodox Readings of Aqui-
nas, 77)
114 Papadopulos, “Thomas in Byzanz,” 282; Plested, Orthodox Readings of Aquinas 73-6; Norman Russell, “Prochoros Cydones

and the Fourteenth-Century Understanding of Orthodoxy,” in Byzantine Orthodoxies: Papers from the Thirty-Sixth Spring Symposi-
um of Byzantine Studies, ed. Andrew Louth and Augustine Casiday (Aldershot, 2006), 75–91.
115 Papadopulos, “Thomas in Byzanz,” 282-3; Marios Pilavakis, “Markos Eugenikos’ ‘First Antirrhetic against Manuel Kalekas

about the Essence and the Energy’. Editio Princeps with Introduction and Commentary” (Ph.D. diss., King’s College, University of
London, 1987), 136–7.
116 PG 152:283-428. The edition in Migne is accompanied with a long preface (PG 152:257-284) by the editor of the treatise, the

Dominican patrologist François Combefis (1605-1679), who also supplied extensive editorial notes. This is one of the earliest refer-
ences to the Palamite controversy that I could find in the West. The earliest, as far as I can tell is from the Jesuit theologian Denis
Pétau (1583-1652), who sought to incorporate the Greek fathers more thoroughly in his work, though he was quite critical of Pala-
46
he takes the Palamite distinction to be, emphasizing some of Palamas’ more extreme statements about

the extreme difference in ontological grade between the essence and the energies. He provides extensive

quotations from the Fathers (especially the Cappadocians, Dionysius, Maximus, John of Damascus and

an occasional reference to Augustine), hoping to show that this distinction is untraditional, and he

supplies reasoning explaining how God is named from his energies which produce created effects and

how distinct concepts do not necessarily imply distinct realities. The Thomism of the work is muted,

however, and the Angelic Doctor is not mentioned by name.

The last group of important Thomists were three brothers: Maximos, Andrew (d. 1451), and

Theodore. Maximos was another disciple of Demetrios Kydones, who actually joined the Dominicans

before Kalekas (in 1390). His zeal is shown in his rather polemical dialogue with the staunchly

Orthodox monk Joseph Bryennios.117 Maximos’ younger brother Andrew followed him into the

Dominican order, and eventually became the bishop of Rhodes and then Cyprus. Andrew was likely the

first to openly cite Thomas, claim that his teaching was incompatible with Palamas, and assert the

superiority of the former over the latter, explaining himself in a request to Bessarion (before his

conversion to the Catholic Church).118 For Andrew, Thomas was an authoritative figure, and the

definitive spokesman of the Western theological tradition.119 The final brother, Theodore, also became a

mas. (G. Podskalsky, Theologie Und Philsophie in Byzanz: Der Streit Um Die Theologische Methodik in Der Spätbyzantinischen
Geistegeschichte (14/15. Jh.) [Munich, 1977] 7). Again, as far as I can tell, none of the standard Thomistic commentators take any
notice of Palamas, except for a brief mention (and rejection) by Billuart (Cursus Theologiae, diss. ii, a. iii, sec. ii et iii, vol. 1, p. 52,
54)
117 The priest-monk Joseph Bryennios (c. 1350–c. 1431/2) was one of the most significant Orthodox theologians of his time. He

was an anti-unionist and sometime friend of Demetrios Kydones, with a mixed opinion of Thomas. He will use and adapt Thomas’
arguments from time to time, and at other times will strongly disagree with him. (At one point, he names seven Thomistic positions,
including Thomas’ understanding of the divine simplicity, ‘which no Orthodox should pay attention to’) He rejects the use of syllo-
gisms in theology in a way that bears a striking resemblance to Barlaam, but in practice uses them anyways. According to Demetra-
copoulos, he was “clear-minded enough to see that Aquinas’ conceptual distinction of the divine names is not identical with the
Greek patristic one. Given that he lived after a rather long chain of Thomistic Palamites [i.e. Palamites who, according to Demetra-
copoulos softened some of Palamas’ stark language of distinction, in dialogue with Thomas] Brynnios marks a unique and consistend
and, to that extent, remarkable return to the pre-Thomistic vindication of Palams’ distinction, which was based exclusively on Greek
patristic grounds. Although he knew Aquinas’ Summae and the Thomistic Palamism of the second half of the fourteenth century, he
rejected both of them.” (Papadopulos, “Thomas in Byzanz,” 293; Plested, Orthodox Readings of Aquinas, 120-2; Demetracopoulos,
“Distinction Between God’s ‘Essence’ and ‘Energies,’” 287-91)
118 Emmanuel Candal, “Andreae Rhodiensis, OP, inedita ad Bessarionem epistula (De divina essentia et operatione),” Orientalia

Christiana Periodica 4 (1938): 329–70.

119 Papadopulos, “Thomas in Byzanz,” 283-5; Plested, Orthodox Readings of Aquinas, 119.

47
Dominican and a bishop; he has no notable writings, but was involved in the discussions leading up to

the Council of Florence.120

Andrew Chrysoberges was present at the Council of Florence (1438-9), a council which in many

ways was the fruit of the intellectual efforts of Demetrios Kydones. The Council itself, however, tabled

discussion of the Palamite distinction. With the failure of the union with the West, the Byzantine Empire

entered its last days. After the Empire succumbed to the final Turkish assault, there were fewer outlets

for expression of Byzantine theology, and fewer opportunities for engagement with the West. For this,

all involved would have to wait for another day.

120 Pilavakis, “Markos Eugenikos’ ‘First Antirrhetic,’” 137–141.

48
 Chapter Two:

God And His Activity in the World: A Thomistic Approach

It is sometimes claimed that the Christian understanding of God's involvement with the world

necessitates the Palamite distinction between God's essence and His energies. Drawing a strong

distinction between the essence and the energies, it is felt, allows us to explain how God can utterly

transcend the world in His infinite mystery, and yet be intimately present to the world. On the one hand,

God co-operates—He enters into a synergy—with us through His energies. On the other hand, our

ultimate beatitude consists in a mystical union with God's incomprehensible essence, and it is the strong

distinction between the inaccessible essence and the accessible energies that preserves the dynamic and

mystical quality of this union.

On this analysis, the Thomistic notion of absolute divine simplicity, that is, the identity between

God's essence and His energy (or in more Latin parlance, operatio) is both philosophically problematic,

untraditional, and unable to explicate the teachings of divine Revelation. St. Paul says, for instance,

“For this I toil, striving with all the energy (ἐνέργειαν) which he mightily inspires (ἐνεργουμένεν)

within me.” (Col. 1:29). If God's energies are really just His essence, then, it is claimed, if He is not to

enter into essential composition with creatures, then He must remain shut up in Himself; he cannot

“energize” creation in the manner that St. Paul describes. This critique is sometimes turned into a

genealogical account of Western secularism. It is thought that because of divine simplicity, Western

philosophy and theology could never develop a properly synergistic account of God's activity in the

world. Western doctrines of creation make it autonomous from God and intelligible according to

creation’s own principles.121 Moreover, the lack of a distinction between God's essence and energies

inevitably leads to a description of the face-to-face vision of God as an intellectual contemplation of the

very essence of God rather than a mystical union with Him according to the energies—a view which

121
David Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Divisions of Christendom (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2004) x, 266, 276.

49
further underwrites an alleged Western rationalism.

But are these concerns warranted? A deeper appreciation of the Thomistic tradition can show

that they are not. That is what we propose to do here. The controversy between the Thomistic and

Palamite doctrines of God plays out in three areas: creation, deification, and the vision of God,

especially in heaven. Here, we will focus on the first of these three, the Thomistic doctrine of creation.

Our task is to lay out the philosophical fundamentals of the Thomistic doctrine of creation, in order to

reply to some specific, typical Palamite objections which will be posed in the next chapter. We also

hope that this exposition will provide a response to the more general Palamite concern that the

Thomistic doctrine of divine simplicity leaves creation dangerously autonomous from God, and

downplays God’s active involvement in the world.

First, we will clarify the surprisingly tricky concept of what it means to say that two realities or

concepts are distinct. Then we will use this to state the doctrine of divine simplicity more precisely,

clearing up some misconceptions. Specifically, we will be able to say how the various “things around

God” (τὰ περὶ τοῦ θεοῦ)—the divine intellect, will, and pure perfections—are really identified with the

divine essence. Next we will turn to a consideration of the notion of creation, which we will develop by

showing how it is different than created agency. We will then describe how, in terms of this teaching,

God is actively present to creation. After a few remarks on deification and a brief synthesis, we will

describe a Thomistic view of the divine energies.

Distinctions

The most common way of stating the difference between Gregory Palamas' doctrine of God and

that of Thomas Aquinas is to say that for Palamas, the divine essence is “really distinct” from the divine

energies, whereas for Aquinas, due to his understanding of the divine simplicity, the divine energies are

distinct only by a “distinction of reason.” Stated this way, the doctrinal difference seems clear enough,

but upon closer inspection, the interpretation of these doctrinal statements is not so clear.

50
 In the first place, the Western scholastic tradition, in the course of its own controversies, has

paid a good deal of attention to the nature of distinction because this tradition has discovered some

important subtleties in this concept. The scholastic problem boils down to this: if a distinction is

something that we make with our minds, then how much of the distinction is ex parte rei, and how

much of the distinction is due to our mind's work of conceiving and signifying? One of the defining

traits of Aquinas and his school is to deny a strict isomorphism between our concepts and the realities

that they signify. That is, for St. Thomas and Thomists more generally, even if things can be thought

apart, this does not necessarily mean that they do (or even can) exist apart. We can have separate

concepts of things that do not necessarily have separate existence in rerum natura: the parts of the

essence of a thing (as revealed in its definition) are not really distinct in the thing, nor does the

knowledge of a universal augur for the existence of a separate universal in rerum natura. This claim that

there is a strict isomorphism between our concepts and the entities that are in reality is the fundamental

option taken by those that Aquinas calls “the Platonists,” of which he is uniformly critical. 122 Rather, for

Aquinas, reality has a richness to it that the human intellect, due to its state as the lowest kind of

intellect, must apprehend in a refractory way, through a multiplicity of concepts, which are gained

through abstraction from sense knowledge, and which are composed and divided by the act of

judgment, in order to conform the mind to reality. This is all the more true when it comes to human

knowledge of God, who exceeds the power of every created intellect to comprehend.

In the second place, there are certain ambiguities with respect to the interpretation of Palamas'

distinction between the divine essence and energies. For Palamas, as for so many of his Eastern

Christian predecessors, the epistemology of the “Platonists” seem to have had a more comprehensive

influence on his thought than they had on the thought of Aquinas.123 So, it would be only natural to take

122
Robert J. Henle, Saint Thomas and Platonism: A Study of the Plato and Platonici Texts in the Writings of Saint Thomas (The
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1956).
123
The relative influence of Plato and Aristotle on the thought of St. Thomas has been a widely debated question in twentieth-
century Thomism. Opinions on this question have crossed the entire spectrum. Some have tried to maximize Thomas's Platonism
while minimize his Aristotelianism; some have tried to do the reverse. Some have highlighted Thomas as an entirely unique thinker
51
the Platonic triad which describes the structure of participation (ἀμέθεκτον, μετεχόμενα, μετέχοντα) and

suppose that these have a distinction that somehow obtains extra-mentally. The problem, of course, is

that ever since the time of Palamas, his interpreters have disagreed on how to interpret the precise nature

of this distinction.124

How, then, should we understand the notion of distinction from a Thomistic perspective? First,

we should note that distinction follows on more basic notions of our intellect. In particular, distinction is

one of the concepts that follows upon the notion of one or unity. One is a so-called transcendental,

whose notion is co-extensive with being, adding to being the notion of undividedness.125 Consequently,

there are as many modes of unity as there are modes of being (which are the ten categories). The

principal modes of unity, then, are identity or sameness (which is said of things which are one in

substance), equality (which is said of things which are one in quantity), and likeness (which is said of

things which are one in quality).126

So, identity indicates some unity in substance. Now, according to Aristotle and St. Thomas,

things can be identical either per se or per accidens. Things have a per se identity either when they

share a common “matter” (whether that commonality is numeric or specific) or when they share a

common “substance.” By the former, St. Thomas takes Aristotle to mean that two items have a per se

identity when they are both determinations of the same potential principle, whether that be in the

physical order (i.e. they share the same sensible matter) or in the logical order (i.e. they share a common

genus). By the latter, St. Thomas means that two items have a per se identity when they both refer to

in his own right. What makes this question so hard to resolve is both the dizzying variety of authorities which St. Thomas uses and
the speculative power he deploys in crafting his own thought. Nevertheless, we can make a few determinations in this matter. First
off, given the fact that Thomas chooses so many “Aristotelian” fundamental options in constructing his philosophy, given his con-
sistent criticism of the fundamental philosophical options of the “Platonists,” and given the sheer bulk of commentary on and cita-
tions from the Philosopher, we must place Aquinas squarely in the Aristotelian camp. Nevertheless, when he is able to speak ex
professo, St. Thomas does not limit himself to restating the positions of Aristotle, rather he has clearly gone beyond the thought of
the Stagarite by integrating ideas that clearly have a “Platonic” pedigree.
124
For the older, classical Palamites, see Demetracopoulos, “Palamas Transformed.” For the newer Palamites, see Eric Perl, “St.
Gregory Palamas and the Metaphysics of Creation,” Dionysius 14 (1990): 105–30.
125
Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, q. 1, a. 1; Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 11, a. 1; Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics, Book IV,
lect. 2, nn. 548-58; Book V, lect. 8, n. 866
126
Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics, Book IV, lect. 2, n. 561; Book V, lect. 11, n. 907

52
something that is the same in definition or ratio.127 John of St. Thomas takes up this description of per

se identity under the rubric of material and formal distinction, respectively. He says that two items are

materially identical if they agree in entity and reality, but not in the ratio by which they are signified

primo et per se. Further, two things are formally identical when they are properly expressed by the same

proper ratio.128 Notice that material identity is a weaker type of identity than is formal identity.

A still weaker type of identity is per accidens identity. Two items have this sort of identity

because they are found together in the same (logical) subject. This sort of identity is revealed in

predication. It can happen in three ways: two accidents are said to be identical because they are

predicated of the same subject (as when white and musical are said to be identical because they are

predicated of Socrates); an accidental predicate is said to be identical with the subject of which it is

predicated (as when white is said to be identical with Socrates); and a subject is said to be identical with

the accident of which it is predicated (as when Socrates is said to be identical with white). 129

In short, then, the difference between per se and per accidens identities is that the former type

identifies two concepts of a single res, whereas the latter identifies two concepts, each of a different res,

which exist together. As we will see in more detail soon, the test for a per se or per accidens unity is

predication, because our intellect's act of judgment conforms the intellect to the real. For now, we can

say this: in substances, things predicated in an essential mode (genus, species, difference) of the

substance will have per se identities, whereas things predicated in the mode of a property or accident

will have a per accidens identity. However, the notion of a per accidens identity, as we shall see, also

has a wider application.

127
Thomas Aquinas, ibid, Book V, lect. 11, n. 911; cf. Book V, lect. 7, nn. 849, 859-865.
128
John of St. Thomas, Cursus Philosophicus, Ars Logica, pars II, q. 2, a. 3 (Beate Reiser, ed. Turin: Marietti, 1930, vol. 1, p.
296)
129
Commentary on the Metaphysics, book V, lect. 8, n. 908. The last two examples of per accidens identity make more sense
when the predication on which they are based is given in Latin: Sortes est albus. This enunciation expresses the composition of two
concepts: Sortes and albus. In affirming this composition, the intellect's act of judgment produces a new verbum or “expressed spe-
cies” which conforms or adequates the intellect to the extra-mental res: the really existing white Socrates. cf. Summa Theologiae, Ia,
q. 13, a. 12, c.; John of St. Thomas, Cursus Philosophicus, Ars Logica, pars I, q. 5, aa. 1-2 (Reiser ed. vol. 1, pp. 145-6, 152);
Philosophia Naturalis, pars. IV, q. 11, a. 3 (Reiser ed. Vol. 3, pp. 369-73).

53
 Now, distinction is simply the lack or removal of some identity. 130 Consequently, there will be as

many different ways of distinguishing as there are ways of removing the different types of identity that

we have outlined. One very obvious way in which two items are non-identical, or distinct, occurs when

they exist as numerically distinct substances: Peter is distinct from John, for instance, or a man is

distinct from a horse. On the other hand, one very obvious instance of identity, or non-distinction,

occurs when two concepts are indicated with synonomous names: “Tully” and “Cicero,” for instance, or

“man” and “rational animal.”

These instances immediately raise the question of the relationship of our concepts to different

things in reality. In the case of Peter and John, two distinct concepts answer to two distinct things in

reality. On the other hand, the case of “man” and “rational animal” or “Tully” and “Cicero,” two distinct

concepts each having exactly the same content refer to one and the same thing in reality. Are these the

only two ways in which our concepts can be related to their real referents? What about the type (or,

possibly, types) of cases that fall in between the two already mentioned: when what is one substance in

reality is conceptualized by several non-identical concepts. For instance, we can conceptualize Peter

under the the distinct concepts of “body,” “animal,” and “rational.” But what are these concepts

concepts of? That is, do each of the concepts under which we can consider Peter answer to something

different in Peter himself? What about the distinction between the concepts of “essence” and “nature,”

for instance? They seem to pick out the same thing in reality, but express something different about it.

The Western scholastic tradition has seen a need for some type of mediate distinction or

distinctions which are in some sense weaker than the distinction between Peter and John, but are in

some sense stronger than the distinction between Tully and Cicero. However, the different scholastic

traditions have disagreed on how to characterize the various grades of distinction. In particular, there

has been a celebrated controversy on this matter between the Thomistic and Scotistic schools. This

dispute about distinctions is important, because it conditions the schools' teachings on a number of

130
John of St. Thomas, Cursus Philosophicus, Ars Logica, pars II, q. 2, a. 3 (Reiser ed. Vol. 1, p. 294)

54
important points: the distinction between essence and existence in creatures, the difference between the

various “metaphysical grades” of a substance (i.e. “body,” “animal,” and “rational” in our example of

Peter above), and the distinction between the Persons and the natures in the Trinity. Significantly for our

purposes, this dispute about distinctions also conditions the schools' teachings on the distinction

between God's essence, attributes, and operations. Therefore, we want to describe and justify the various

grades of distinctions that the Thomistic school has identified.

In order to supply such a taxonomy of distinctions, however, it will first be useful to describe

how our intellect does the work of identifying or distinguishing our concepts. Aristotle says that our

intellect has two different acts. On the one hand, there is the act by which the intellect understands

indivisibles (τῶν ἀδιαιρέτων νόησις). This is the so-called “first act” of the intellect, which we can also

call “simple apprehenstion.” On the other hand, there is the act by which the intellect composes things

into a unity (σύνθεσίς τις ἤδη νοημάτων ὥσπερ ἓν ὄντων) or divides them (διαίρεσιν).131 This is the so-

called “second act” of the intellect, which we can also call “judgment”132 By its first act of simple

apprehension, the intellect grasps the quiddity of a thing and forms a concept or ratio of the quiddity

grasped. By its second act of judgment, the intellect composes or divides two concepts (we express this

composition or division as either an affirmative or a negative proposition, respectively), asserting that

the res signified by each of the concepts are really composed or separated extramentally. Thus, whereas

the first act of the intellect concerns itself with the essence of the thing that it is trying to grasp, the

second act of the intellect concerns itself with the esse of the thing that it is trying to grasp.133

Consequently, it is this second act of the intellect that conforms or adequates it to reality. Hence, in its

131
De Anima, iii.6 430a26-8, 430b4
132
Later logicians, of course, add a “third act” of the intellect, which is reasoning. This later addition has been justified by Ar-
istotle claims at the beginning of the Posterior Analytics (1.71a1) concerning the need for syllogistic reasoning, and St. Thomas's
remarks on those claims in his Commentary on the Posterior Analytics, Book I, lect. 1. See John of St. Thomas, Ars Logica, Prae-
ludium Secundum (Reiser ed. Vol. 1, p. 5); Philosophia Naturalis, pars IV, q. 11, a. 2 (Reiser ed. Vol. 4, p. 366)
133
Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle's De Anima, Book III, lect. 11, nn. 746-51; In I Sent. d. 19, q. 5, a. 1, ad 7; Su-
per Boetium de Trinitate, q. 5, a. 3; Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 85, a. 1, ad 1; John of St. Thomas, Cursus Philosophicus, Ars Logica,
Praeludium Secundum (Reiser ed. Vol. 1, pp. 5-6); pars I, q. 5, aa. 1-2 (Reiser ed. Vol. 1, pp. 145-7, 152-4); Cursus Philosophicus,
Philosophia Naturalis, pars IV, q. 11, a. 3 (Reiser ed. Vol. 3, pp. 366-73); Louis-Marie Régis, Epistemology (New York: Macmillan,
1959).

55
act of simple apprehension, the intellect is neither true nor false, whereas it is in its act of judgment that

the intellect is true or false.

The process by which we arrive at distinct concepts of the things that we perceive is called

abstraction. That is, the intellect literally “draws out from” (ab-trahere) real beings the different

concepts or rationes by which we express our thoughts about them. Speaking in a broad sense, we can

say that we make abstractions both by the first act and the second act of our intellect. However,

speaking in a stricter and more proper sense, we reserve the term “abstraction” for the first act of the

intellect, the “understanding of indivisibles” by which we simply apprehend the essence. We call the

distinguishing work that we do by the second act of our intellect—the act of “composing and dividing”

or judgment—”separation.”134

By its first act, that of simple apprehension, the intellect can grasp the same res according to

different rationes. But this does not make the intellect false, for this first act of the intellect does not

assert anything about whether or how these two concepts are identified or distinguished in reality. This

task is the proper responsibility of the intellect's second act, that of judgment. Here the intellect asserts

that the real referents of two concepts are somehow identified in reality (a judgment which is called a

“composition” and is expressed by us in an affirmative proposition) or that the real referents of two

concepts are somehow not identified in reality (a judgment which we call “separation” or “division.”).

Since it is the act of judgment that conforms our minds to reality by composing or dividing the concepts

that we form of the world, it is by the act of judgment that we determine whether or how the referents of

our concepts are identified or distinguished in reality. Therefore, there are two fundamental types of

distinctions: the distinction of reason and the real distinction, corresponding to the two types of

judgment that our intellect can make, composition and separation, respectively.

So, distinguishing is an activity that we do with our minds. We do it with either the first act of

the intellect (which is abstraction properly so-called) or with the second act of the intellect (which is the

134
Super Boetium de Trinitate, q. 5, a. 3; Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 85, a. 1, ad 1

56
judgment of separation, or abstraction in a broad sense). When we distinguish in the first act of the

intellect, we come up with two distinct concepts. Passing to the second act of the intellect, we can

compose and divide these concepts. If there is an order of predication between the two concepts, if we

can make a composition with them, then we have failed to deny their per se identity in the sense

discussed above. The distinction is only at the level of concepts; it is a distinction of reason. If we

cannot make a composition with them, if we must make a separation of them, then we have successfully

denied their per se unity. They may or may not have a per accidens unity. Since our intellect’s second

act, the act of judgment, conforms our minds to the real, this distinction is not merely one of concepts,

but also obtains extramentally. Any distinction of this type is called a real distinction. 135

The most obvious case of a real distinction is two distinct substances that are really separable.

We judge that “man is not a horse” or “Peter is not John,” for instance, and in so doing, we assert a real

distinction between men and horses, Peter and John. This type of real distinction is called the distinction

res a re (i.e. between thing and thing). We can also call this type of distinction a real physical

distinction, so called because we typically notice it through sense-experience: Peter occupies a different

matter and place than John.136 In a real physical distinction, there is a lack of even per accidens unity.

There is another type of real distinction—the real metaphysical distinction.137 It obtains between

the various correlative principles of a being: essence and existence; primary matter and substantial form;

substance and accident; a faculty and its proper action. What all of these pairs have in common is that

they are correlates of potency and act, determinability and determination. The real distinction between

act and potency is foundational to the Thomistic system, and it is ubiquitous. 138 Not only does the real

135
Note that this means that real distinctions are also, in some sense, distinctions of reason, inasmuch as in order to make a re-
al distinction, our intellect employs two distinct concepts in its judgment of separation.
136The idea is common to the whole Thomistic tradition, this terminology, however is due to Luis De Raeymaeker, Meraphysica
Generalis, editio altera (Lovain: E. Warny, 1935), 57
137 Again, this idea is common to the whole Thomistic tradition, but the terminology is due to De Raeymaeker, 57-8
138 The first of the famous “Twenty-Four Theses” of Thomism is “Potentia et actus ita dividunt ens, ut quidquid est, vel sit actus
purus, vel ex potentia et actu tamquam primis atque intrinsecis principiis necessario coalescat.” (Sacred Congregation of Studies,
decree of July 27, 1914, Acta Apostolicae Sedis 6[1914] 384.)

57
distinction between potency and act necessary to solve the problem of the one and the many and the

problem of motion, this distinction, in all of its analogical variations, is the explanation for how two

intrinsically correlative principles of a being can remain distinct while nevertheless preserving the

substantial unity of a being.

It is a bit contentious to call this real metaphysical distinction a real distinction. The two things

that are distinguished in such a distinction are not really separable. 139 This so-called “separability

criterion” is what many take to be the necessary and sufficient condition for a real distinction. 140 This is

not so for Thomists. According to the Thomist school, real separability is a sufficient condition for a real

distinction, but not a necessary one; there are some things that are distinct with a real distinction, but are

nevertheless not really separable, and such are the potency-act composites that we are considering here.

It is a real distinction because it verifies the conditions for a real distinction which we set out above. Our

notions of potency and act, matter and form, substance and accident, faculty and action, perfectible and

perfection cannot form a predicational unity in a judgment of composition, because their notions are

directly opposed. Therefore, they cannot have a per se identity, even though they have a per accidens

identity (in the sense described above), and therefore, they must be really distinct in our sense of the

term. The division of being into potency and act is a real, extra-mental distinction, which is recognized,

not forged, by our intellectual activity, even though two co-principles which are so-related are not really

separable.

When we turn to distinctions of reason, we consider distinctions that are made according to the

first operation of the intellect, but not according to the second. Or in other words, we have a distinction

of reason when we fail to deny some per se identity in the reality to which our concepts refer. If we fail

to deny formal identity, then we get a distinction which Thomists call a “distinction of reason

139 To be strictly precise, some pairs that are distinct by a real metaphysical distinction are really separable by the absolute pow-

er of God. For instance, in the Eucharist, accidents subsist without a subject.

140 Something like this happens in Palamism, where this school insists that every essence has its energy. In the case of God, his
energies are absolutely inseparable from his essence, and therefore, according to them, this does not compromise divine simplicity,
when this notion is rightly understood.

58
reasoning” (distinctio rationis rationantis). If we deny formal identity but fail to deny material identity,

then we get a distinction which Thomists call a “distinction of reason reasoned” (distinctio rationis

rationati).141

The distinction of reason reasoning is so-called because it is a distinction of concepts made

entirely by our mind. Therefore, it is also called a “distinction without a foundation in the thing”

(distinctio sine fundamento in re). In this sort of distinction the terms which name the distinct concepts

are synonyms. One of the distinct concepts, or rationes, highlights an aspect of the res that it signifies in

a way that another of the distinct rationes does not. This is the distinction between “Tully” and

“Cicero,” “Dominicans” and “Order of Preachers,” “man” and “rational animal,” “essence” and

“nature,” and “being” and “good.” In each pair, both items refer to the same res in the same way, but

each item in the pair highlights something that the other does not. “Dominicans,” highlights the founder

of a religious order, whereas “Order of Preachers” highlights its function. “Man” names the res in a less

explicit way, but as we come to know it better, we can characterize it more explicitly by its definition,

“rational animal.” “Essence” highlights the principle to which it refers as that which makes the being

the kind of thing that it is, but “nature” highlights the exact same principle as that by which a thing has

its characteristic activities. As transcendental properties, “being” and “good” are co-extensive and not

really distinct, but “good” adds to “being” the note of desirability.

The distinction of reason reasoned, on the other hand, is so-called because there is some

foundation in the thing for making a distinction of concepts. The ontological richness of the thing

demands, as it were, the formulation of distinct, refractory concepts of it in our intellect. Therefore, it is

also called a “distinction with a foundation in the thing” (distinctio cum fundamento in re) or a “virtual

distinction” (distinctio virtualis). This sort of distinction gets the last name because it describes the way

that the res provides the foundation for the distinction of concepts. The res exercises different grades of

141 John of St. Thomas, Cursus Philosophicus Ars Logica, pars ii, q. 2, a. 3; q. 3, a. 6 (Reiser ed. vol. 1, pp. 294-301, 337-343);

Cursus Theologicus disp. 4, a. 6 nn. 11-15 (Solesmes ed. vol. 1, pp. 483-5). The terms for these distinctions were not used by St.
Thomas himself, but the ideas behind them most certainly were. We will see the ideas employed below when we discuss St. Thomas’
theory of divine naming (cf. Summa Theologiae Ia, q. 13, a. 4; De Potentia q. 7, a. 6)

59
powers (virtutes), and this gradation of different powers provides the foundation in the res for the

different concepts that the intellect will form about it142 (this will become clearer with our examples

below). Unlike the distinction of reasoning reason—and this is important to note—the names which

concepts that are distinguished by the distinction of reason reasoned are not synonymous.

There are two kinds of distinction of reason reasoned, the major distinction of reason reasoned,

and the minor distinction of reason reasoned. In the major distinction, the two distinct concepts are

related to one another as more and less determined, according to varying degrees of potency and act.143

The standard example of the major distinction of reason reasoned are the so-called “metaphysical

grades” of a being.144 That is, the hierarchy of genera and species that a thing has due to its place on the

Porphyrian tree. A man, has a particular set of metaphysical grades (or genera and species) associated

with him: substance, body, living, animal, rational. In fact, we can recognize that a man performs

functions (virtutes) associated with all of these, and we can identify him with other beings on this basis.

A man is generically identical to a tree, for instance, in that they both are living, that is, they both have a

principle of self-movement. Or, equivalently, both a man and a tree have a common participation in life.

In order for the intellect to make these generic and specific identifications of a man with other beings, it

must pick out these distinct concepts. The question is, however, do these distinct concepts answer to

distinct items in the res? For Thomas, the question can be settled by predication, because judgment

conforms our mind to the real, and each of the metaphysical grades is predicated of the whole

substance. “Man is living;” “Man is an animal;” and “Man is rational;” for instance. Each concept

signifies the res in its entirety, but one in a less determined way and another in a more determined way,

like differing degrees of potency and act.145 As St. Thomas says, the genus is taken from matter, the

142 John of St. Thomas, ibid.. De Raeymaeker, Metaphysica Generalis, 60

143 John of St. Thomas, Cursus Philosophicus, Ars Logica, pars 2, q. 2, a. 3 (Reiser ed. vol. 1, pp. 297-8).
144 John of St. Thomas, Cursus Philosophicus ibid. and q. 3, a. 6 (Reiser ed. 337-343
145 Here a clarification is necessary in order to forestall an objection. Above, we argued that the distinction between potency and

act is a real and extra-mental distinction. Here we are arguing that two concepts which do not answer to really distinct things are
related as potency and act. Is this a contradiction? No. Although the two concepts signify the same res, nevertheless they are two
really distinct objective concepts. Therefore one concept can have a relationship of potency to act with respect to another concept.
60
specific difference is taken from the form and the species is taken from the composite. 146 In our

example, the notion of rational is outside the notion of animal but it is a determination of it—man is an

animal in a rational way.147 Animal and rational are distinct in man by a major distinction of reasoned

reason.

An understanding of the major distinction of reasoned reason enables us to have an

understanding of the minor distinction of reasoned reason. Sometimes, when we distinguish two

concepts of the same res, the two distinguished concepts are not related to each other as determinable

and determination, potency and act. Rather, each concept signifies in act what the other concept

signifies in act, but each concept signifies one thing explicitly and distinctly, and the other thing

implicitly and “con-fusedly.”148 What does this mean? Something is included in a concept implicitly

and “con-fusedly” when it is included in act (that is, the concept is not subject to a further determination

toward this something), but the concept nevertheless does not explicate or distinctly express this

something. It is like when we see a plurality of things a long way off: we see the plurality, and included

in the plurality in act is a variety of things, but we do not perceive them distinctly. Or, it is like when we

consider a house as a whole without explicitly considering each of its rooms. The rooms are included in

our conception in act, but not explicitly. Rather, they are included implicitly and “con-fusedly.” What is

expressed in one concept is implied in the other concept.149

There are not too many examples of the minor distinction of reasoned reason in the created

146 De ente et essentia, ch. 5

147 Thus, we see how the distinction of reason reasoned is the key tool that Thomists, following the ideas of St. Thomas himself,
have used to oppose what St. Thomas pejoratively described as “Platonism”—the idea that our distinct concepts must answer to dis-
tinct extra-mental items. Sometimes “Platonism” posits a realm of Forms, possibly contained in a nous-principle. Sometimes it posits
a plurality of substantial forms. Sometimes it posits distinct “formalities” of a being. In every case, such a “Platonism” emphasizes
the objective validity of our knowledge and its correspondence with reality, but its major problem is that does not adequately account
for the substantial unity of a being. By explaining how our concepts have a foundation in the thing through its virtutes, the theory of
the distinction of reasoned reason attempts to maintain the objective validity of our knowledge and its correspondence with reality.
By relating the distinguished concepts as matter to form, potency to act, and determinable to determination, the theory of the major
distinction of reasoned reason protects the substantial unity of the thing by using the standard Thomistic technique of explaining two
mutually-conditioning items which come together to form one thing as (analogical) act-potency composites.
148 This is the Latin word confusum, which is the perfect participle passive of confundere, “to bring together, to blend, to merge,

to combine, to unite,” and should be understood in this sense.

149 John of St. Thomas, Cursus Theologicus, disp. 4, a. 6, n. 13 (Solesmes ed. vol. 1, p. 484)

61
realm, but it is extremely important in diviniis, because it is an essential in order to correctly explain

divine simplicity. In particular, as we will see, the divine attributes are distinct from each other and from

the divine essence by this distinction, and each of the divine Persons is distinct from the divine essence

by this distinction.150

Divine Simplicity and the “Things Around God”

From the standpoint of Thomistic theology, the doctrine of divine simplicity is absolutely

essential to securing both a philosophically and theologically adequate understanding of God. This

doctrine allows us to properly articulate the relationship between God and the world, and it shows us the

proper limits of our knowledge about God. Some interpreters of the Greek Fathers have suggested that

though they held a version of the doctrine, they did not hold it in quite the strict way that St. Thomas

does.151 The Palamite distinction, as it is typically construed, seems to be in some tension with divine

simplicity as it is understood by St. Thomas, but nevertheless, Palamas himself still attributes simplicity,

of a sort, to God, even though it does not seem to be compatible with what St. Thomas means by divine

simplicity.152

150 The persons, being constituted by opposed relations, however, are distinct from each other with a real distinction, of course.
151 Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, studying the doctrine of divine simplicity and divine naming in the writings of the Cappadocian Fa-
thers as it emerged from the Eunomian controversy refuses to interpret Basil of Caeserea and Gregory of Nyssa as proto-Thomists or
proto-Palamites, trying to let them speak on their own terms. The Cappadocians reject what he calls the “identity thesis”—that God
is identical with his attributes—which is held by both Eunomius and Thomas Aquinas (though Radde-Gallwitz concedes that there
are more and less sophisticated versions of the identity thesis, so that Aquinas and Eunomius did not necessarily hold it in the same
form). According to Radde-Gallwitz, Basil and Gregory make God and his attributes distinct like a thing and its properties. A “prop-
erty” here is one of the predicables, a feature of a being that flows necessarily from its essence and is thus inseparable from the es-
sence, like risibility in man. (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and the Transformation of Divine Simplicity, Oxford Early Chris-
tian Studies [New York: Oxford University Press, 2009].) Of course, we will be defending a version of the “identity thesis,” which
Radde-Gallwitz might not have considered, by using the theory of distinctions which we have developed above. Moreover, we will
elucidate the distinction between a thing’s essence and its properties, and show why a composition of essence and properties cannot
be a real distinction in God. In fact, the whole point of divine simplicity is to deny that the terms that emerge from the metaphysical
analysis of creatures can be straightforwardly applied to the incomprehensible God. As for the teachings of Basil and Gregory, it is
obviously beyond our scope to compare and contrast them with Thomas’ teaching here. But nevertheless, we can note that they share
together with Thomas—and against Eunomius—a desire to name God, but also to preserve his Otherness, by which our names for
him do not comprehend him.
152 Triads III.2.7.20-26, Triads III.2.22. In the latter text, Palamas compares the simplicity of the divine essence and energies to

the simplicity of the soul and its faculties. As the various faculties do not compromise the simplicity of the soul, neither do the vari-
ous energies compromise the simplicity of the divine essence. Palamas tries to get at what he means by simplicity by saying that in
the essence and energies he is “indivisibly divided and is united dividedly, yet in spite of this suffers neither multiplicity nor compos-
iteness.” (The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters, 81 [Sinkewicz, ed.])

62
 In order to come to a better understanding of this doctrine, we need to make some clarifications.

The first thing to understand about divine simplicity is that it is not a positive property of God. Rather, it

is a shorthand way of expressing a set of denials of composition, that is, of extramental (or what a

Thomist would call “real”) distinctions in him: God is not composed of quantitative parts; God is not

composed of matter and form; God is not composed of essence and substance; God is not composed of

subject and accident; and God is not composed of essence and existence. When divine simplicity is seen

in this way, we can see one of the reasons why it is so important: it is the ontological explanation for

why God is incomprehensible:153 our modes of speaking fall short of the manner in which he exists.

In the second place, the lack of composition in God points us to a formulation of the way in

which He is: God is pure Act, with no admixture of potency. Any sort of composition or real distinction

of parts—even if they are metaphysical co-principles like act and potency which come together to form

one thing—presupposes something prior to the whole in order to account for the composing, and this

cannot be the case in God. When divine simplicity is seen in this way, we can see another of the reasons

for why it is so important: it is the ontological explanation for God’s perfection. God’s simplicity and

his perfection go hand-in-hand. Actuality indicates perfection and potency indicates perfectibility.

Denying potency in God denies his need to be perfected by another, for he is that from which everything

else derives its perfection.

Sometimes the notion of God as “pure Act” is looked upon pejoratively, but it really should not

be. It is important to remember that when we say that God is “pure Act”, or what comes to the same

thing, “ipsum esse subsistens,” we are not giving an exhaustive understanding or real definition of the

essence of God, rather, we are expressing the superior way in which God exists, a mode in which

153 “When the existence of a thing has been ascertained there remains the further question of the manner of its existence, in order
that we may know its essence. Now, because we cannot know what God is, but rather what He is not, we have no means for consid-
ering how God is, but rather how He is not . . . Now it can be shown how God is not, by denying Him whatever is opposed to the
idea of Him, viz. composition, motion, and the like. Therefore (1) we must discuss His simplicity, whereby we deny composition in
Him” (Summa Theologiae Ia, q. 3, proem. Translated by the Dominican Fathers of the English Province, New York: Benziger Broth-
ers, 1947)

63
creatures do not exist.154 If “simple,” that is “incomposite,” denominates God according to the via

negativa, then “pure Act,” “ipsum esse subsistens,” or “perfect” denominate God according to the via

eminentiae.

Frankly, calling God “pure Act” is unavoidable. If we were to deny this ascription to God, it

could only be for one of three reasons: (1) God really contains some admixture of potency, (2) “act” and

“potency” is an incorrect division of being, or (3) “being” and hence “act” and “potency” really should

not be ascribed to God, but only to creatures. The first option is inadmissible for reasons that we have

seen above. The second option denies the traditional Thomistic solution to the Parmenidean problems of

motion and of the one and the many. The third option is more interesting, but still inadmissible. One

seemingly attractive way to assure the aseity of God (and to avoid the dreaded accusation of onto-

theology) has been to deny that he is “a” “being.”155 But, unfortunately, this causes problems regarding

divine naming in both theology and philosophy.

To be sure, there is a very important truth behind the intuition which makes some say that

creatures are beings, while God is not: it is important not to think of God as just another thing or object

in the world. This is especially the case in a Neo-Platonic system, where more emphasis is placed on

formal causality than efficient causality. In such a system, creation is the multifaceted appearance of

God outside of himself as a variety of formal participations in him. Thought and being are co-extensive,

so “to be” means to be a definable thing. In such a system, claiming that God is a being would be to

mistake him for one of his creatures. However, claiming that “God is not a being” must be a special

154 “For all other names [i.e. other than “He who is”] are either less universal, or, if convertible with it, add something above it at
least in idea; hence in a certain way they inform and determine it. Now our intellect cannot know the essence of God itself in this
life, as it is in itself, but whatever mode it applies in determining what it understands about God, it falls short of the mode of what
God is in Himself. Therefore the less determinate the names are, and the more universal and absolute they are, the more properly
they are applied to God.” (Summa Theologiae, q. 13, a. 11, c. Translation by the English Dominican Fathers, New York: Benziger
Brothers, 1947.)
155Eric D. Perl, Theophany: The Neoplatonic Philosophy of Dionysius the Areopagite (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 2007), 111–3; John D. Jones, “The Ontological Difference for St. Thomas and Pseudo-Dionysius,” Dionysius 4 (1980): 119;
John D. Jones, ““(Mis?)-Reading the Divine Names as a Science: Aquinas’s Interpretation of the Divine Names of (Pseudo) Diony-
sius Areopagite,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 52 (2008): 142; Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern
Church, trans. Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002), 42; Vladimir Lossky,
The Vision of God, trans. Asheleigh Moorhouse, 2nd ed. (Bedfordshire: The Faith Press, 1973).

64
kind of denial, for surely it cannot be a denial in the same sense as “A unicorn is not a being” or “A

four-sided triangle is not a being.”156 God must share some sort of commonality with actual existents

that he does not share with unicorns and four-sided triangles. Moreover, this commonality must be due

to the fact that God causes the existents and the existents participate in him. God must be a being in

some sense after all. The Thomist school accounts for this by emphasizing the role of efficient causality

(without neglecting the exemplary formal causality of the divine ideas) in the relationship between the

world and God. Thus, it can reason back from existents to God, and denominate him analogically ipsum

esse subsistens because he is the principle of ens commune, the proper object of the human intellect.157

So, the doctrine of divine simplicity describes God as incomposite pure Act—ipsum esse

subsistens, and thereby grounds God’s incomprehensible perfection, the perfection from which

everything else derives its perfection. The fact that God is the source of all perfection, but is not

completely graspable by us immediately raises the question of divine naming. Divine simplicity and

divine naming are two sides of the same coin, and if a person treats the former without treating the

latter, there will inevitably be problems.158 Moreover—and this is even less commonly recognized—

there are two factors involved in divine naming: (1) the way that God’s essence is named from

creaturely perfections (and there are two different ways that this happens), and (2) the way that we

distinguish between the various names that we have of God. This latter type of distinction is essential

156 Gregory Palamas, writes, “Every creature is far removed from and completely foreign to the divine nature. For if God is na-

ture, other things are not nature; but if every other thing is nature, He is not nature, just as he is not a being if all other things are
beings. And if He is a being, then all other things are not Beings And if you accept this as true also for wisdom, goodness, and in
general all things that pertain to God or are ascribed to Him, then your theology will be correct and in accordance with the saints.”
(Capita 78) Palamas explains further: “In this way it can be said that in terms of His pre-eminence God does not exist. But he who
asserts this in order to show that people who say God exists are not speaking correctly, clearly employs apophatic theology not in a
way that connotes pre-eminence, but as through it connoted deficiency and signified in this case that God has absolutely no existence
whatsoever. This is the uttermost impiety.” (The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters, 123 [Sinkewicz, ed.])
157 Another problem arises with the dogmatic language of the Church when we do not allow God to be called a being: substance,

essence, nature, energy, hypostasis, and relation are all ontologcially-laden terms—many of which are derived etymologically from
the verb “to be”—and classical orthodox theology applies them all to the Godhead. Could these words, or indeed any of our language
(which is always derived from creatures) apply properly and non-metaphorically to God if he is not “being” in the strong sense?
158 In the Summa Theologiae, Thomas treats the divine simplicity (Ia, q. 3) and perfection (Ia, q. 4) together with all of the di-

vine attributes related to it before he treats of divine naming (Ia, q. 13). The relationship between simplicity and naming is somewhat
evident here. It is even more evident in other places. De Potentia q.7 treats of the divine simplicity, and includes a discussion of the
divine naming. A similar pattern is seen in the Summa Contra Gentiles, where Book I, chapters 16-36 consist of a discussion of the
divine simplicity, followed by the divine naming.

65
for a correct Thomistic interpretation of what some of the Greek Fathers have called the “things around

God” (τὰ περὶ τοῦ θεοῦ).

With respect to the first factor, there are two different ways of naming God from creatures,

because we can distinguish two sorts of perfections that are found in creatures. Some perfections

intrinsically belong to creatures, and thus have some sort of limitation implied in their very ratio. These

are the perfections that things have due to being placed in one of the ten categories. These sorts of

perfections are sometimes called “simple perfections” or “perfections secundum quid.” There is a

second sort of perfection, however, the so-called “simply simple perfections.” These are perfections

whose very ratio implies neither the limitlessness of being uncreated nor the limitation of being created,

for example, goodness, being, life, and wisdom. These may be inappropriate to a particular creature, due

to a limitation on the side of the creature (it is not fitting for a rock to be living, for example), but the

ratio of the perfection itself implies no such creaturely limitation.159

Simple perfections are said to be in God “virtually and eminently,” that is, God has the power to

realize them in creatures, because of the higher mode in which he exists. This is the mode in which any

effect exists in its equivocal cause. As we will see, we account for these perfections by means of the

divine ideas, or logoi—the ways that the divine intellect knows itself as imitable.160 These sorts of

perfections cannot literally be predicated of the divine essence.

Simply simple perfections, on the other hand are said to be in God “formally and eminently.”

That is, the ratio of the perfection can be said both of the creature and of the divine essence, but of the

divine essence in a higher way. This is the well-known Thomistic doctrine of analogy. The ratio of the

perfection is discovered in creatures. Seeing that the perfection contains nothing of creaturely limitation

in its very ratio, the intellect attempts to apply the perfection to God. However, the intellect must deny

that the perfection exists in God according to the manner that its ratio is signified in the creature (its

159 John of St. Thomas, Cursus Theologicus, disp. 5, a. 2, n. 1 (Solesmes ed., vol. 1, p. 504); Billuart, Cursus Theologiae diss. 2,

a. 2 (vol. 1, p. 50).
160 John of St. Thomas, ibid., n. 3, 10-15 (Solesmes ed. vol. 1, pp. 504-8).

66
modus significandi). The perfection exists as a property in the creature, but it does not signify a feature

or property of God, but rather, the divine essence itself. Thus, the perfection in question exists in a more

eminent way in God, and is the divine essence, but our concept of this eminent perfection is inadequate

to the divine essence (of which we can never have a proper concept at all—not even in the beatific

vision). Nor can we form one common adequate concept of this perfection as it is in creatures and is the

divine essence. Any concept that we form of the perfection as it is common to both God and the creature

will conceal an irreducible diversity that can never be thought away. This “imperfect” common concept

will signify two things “con-fusedly”: both the perfection as a property of the creature and our imperfect

concept of the divine essence as the source of the creaturely perfection. This “imperfect” concept will

not, however abstract away the irreducible difference between these two. This is the so-called analogous

concept.161 This is justified by causality, of course: the perfection is primarily in God as cause and

secondarily in the creature as effect, though we name the cause from the effect, because that is what is

immediately knowable to us.162

Note one further feature of this process of analogous naming: when we predicate the creaturely

name analogically of God, it still retains its creaturely mode of signifying (i.e. as a property), but we

know that this is not how the name applies to God (i.e. it signifies his essence). Thus, from a Thomistic

viewpoint, we always need to remember to correct our thought and language when we talk about God.

We may, for instance, speak of God’s justice, wisdom, intellect, or will. But although, these sound like

they are properties distinct from the essence, and they are just that when they are predicated of

creatures, nevertheless, they are not really properties of the essence when they are predicated of God.

Rather, they are various inadequate names for the divine essence. This is important to remember when

considering Palamite arguments. Any argument which argues from the fact that some divine names

signify properties of an essence to the conclusion that the things signified are really distinct from the

161 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 13, aa. 1-3, 5; Cajetan, The Analogy of Names, and the Concept of Being, trans.

Edward A. Buschinski and Henry J. Koren (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University, 1953): ch. 4-5, pp. 30-45.
162 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia., q. 13, a. 6.

67
divine essence (like they are in creatures) commits the fallacy of begging the question. Thomists deny

that a name (which comes from creatures) that signifies as a property exists as a property in God,

because there can be no distinction between essence and property in God. This is the claim against

which Palamites need to argue.163

So, we have a variety of names which are derived from perfections that are found in creatures

(the “simply simple” perfections) as effects are found formally and eminently in God as their cause.

From these perfections, we have derived a variety of names which inadequately signify the divine

essence. The second factor in naming the simple God involves a description of how the various names

that we have for the simple divine essence are related. One of the most common misconceptions

involved in divine simplicity is to assume that the various names said of a simple God are synonyms (or,

equivalently, that they are distinct by a distinction of reason reasoning). This is not the case, however;

the divine names are not synonyms. This is because each of the divine names is derived from creatures,

where these perfections exist as distinct, although they all apply to the same divine essence. The content

of this essence is so rich that it demands expression through a multitude of refractory non-synonymous

concepts, all of which are properly said of the essence, but none of which adequately express it. 164

These refractory concepts of the divine essence are distinct from each other with a minor

distinction of reason reasoned.165 Since each of the divine names refers to the essence, and that essence

has no composition of potency and act, the names cannot be related to one another in the way that

concepts are related in the major distinction of reasoned reason. The divine mercy, for instance is not

related as potency or act to the divine justice. Nor are the divine intellect and the divine will. Rather,

163 In the One Hundred and Fifty Chapters (chapters 96-103), Gregory Palamas presents a series of objections against the real

identity of essence and energies in God, all of which can be solved by calling to mind this fact, and noting the minor distinction of
reason reasoned that obtains between the divine attributes, which we will discuss presently.
164 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theogiae, q. 13, a. 4; Summa Contra Gentiles, I.35; De Potentia, q. 7, a. 6.
165 Strictly speaking, divine names that indicate a different formal perfection are distinct by a minor distinction of reason rea-
soned. Two divine perfections that are in the same formal line (for example, God’s power of will and his act of will) are only distinct
by a distinction of reasoning reason. Moreover, in the case of a power and its act, the power only indicates habitude to an effect, be-
cause acts are not fulfillments of potencies God—in whom there can be nothing of potency or first act. (John of St. Thomas, Cursus
Theologicus, disp. 24, a. 2, nn. 13-16 [Solesmes ed., vol. 3, p. 69]).

68
since the concept of each of these attributes signifies the divine essence itself, which is pure act.

Therefore, it must include each of the other concepts, in act, but “con-fusedly” and implicitly.166 Our

(analogically purified) concept of the divine intellect signifies what our (analogically purified) concept

of the divine will, but each of the concepts explicate the divine essence differently. God’s justice is

what God’s mercy is, but our notions of it are different. However, this is not a distinction of reason

reasoning (i.e. merely a feature of our conceptualizing), because the perfections as discovered in

creatures really are formally different, establishing a fundamentum in the divine essence for making the

distinction.

There are three theses that are central to any Christian conception of God: (1) that God is

knowable from creation as a cause is knowable from its effects, but (2) that God is not just another

object in the world, but transcends all things that are merely objects in the world, and (3) therefore, he is

also incomprehensible and eludes the complete grasp of any created intellect. It is tempting to treat

God-as-knowable and God-as-unknowable or God-active-in-the-world and God-in-himself as two

aspects of God that are extra-mentally distinct. But this is just what the doctrine of divine simplicity

refuses to do. Defenders of divine simplicity hold that—precisely to preserve the otherness of God and

therefore his ability to be deeply active in all of creation—we cannot assume that our distinct concepts

map distinctly onto God. God’s otherness demands a constant critique of our creaturely concepts. The

divine essence itself is known but beyond comprehension, and active in the world but transcendent of it.

Creation: What It Is Not, And What It Is

When considering creation, it is helpful to distinguish active creation (God’s “activity”, as we

conceive of it, of producing the creature) from passive creation (the placing into existence of the

creature itself). Just as in the doctrine of divine simplicity, so too in the doctrine of creation, we must

always be vigilant to distinguish between the way that our language and concepts signify, on the one

166 John of St. Thomas, Cursus Theologicus, disp. 4, a. 6, nn. 14-15 (Solesmes ed., vol 1, p. 483-4)

69
hand, and the way things actually are on the other hand. The most important fact to remember about

creation is that it is ex nihilo. That sounds like a commonplace, but the radical implications that this has

for our understanding of creation are not always fully noticed. In particular, this means that passive

creation is not a change (though we must necessarily signify it as one), and, consequently, active

creation is not a transient action (though, again, we must signify it as one), 167 nor is it an accident in

God (which, of course is a corollary of divine simplicity). The most helpful way to get a better

understanding of what creation is, is by starting with what creation is not. Therefore, we will examine

action as it is effected by created agents in created things, then we will, through a sort of via remotionis,

approach the correct understanding of creation.

It is well-known that there are two kinds of action that any agent can perform: transient action

and immanent action. Transient action that passes out of the agent and into a patient, whereas immanent

action is a type of action that remains within the patient. In the creature, both of these types of action are

accidents, which is a very important feature of created action. In no creature is its action (agere or

operari) the same as its being (esse). These must be really distinct, even if, as is the case in the angelic

intellect, the acting is always taking place.168 The most basic reason for this is because a thing’s essence

is ordered to its esse, while its actions are ordered to their respective objects (which are not identical

with the thing’s essence), and to the diversity of specifying principles corresponds the diversity of

acts—in this case a thing’s esse and its various agere and operari. Moreover, every created thing, due to

its very limitation is constituted in se before it operates; its operation does not belong to its very

constitution. Notice a further corollary of these two arguments: a thing’s operative potencies are really

distinct from its essence. First, this is because each act is proportioned to that of which it is the act.

Therefore, as the esse and operari of the creature are really distinct, so too are the essence and the

operative potencies of a thing. Second, this is demanded by the very limitation of a creature: its

167 Thomas Aquinas, De Potentia Dei, q. 3, aa. 2-3; Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 45, a. 2, ad 2
168 We must always remember, that according to our discussion of distinctions above, two components of a being can be insepa-

rable, but still really distinct—that is, distinct by an extra-mental distinction.

70
operation is not intrinsic to its ratio. Its capacity to operate presupposes its essential constitution.169 In

short, esse actualizes the essence, while acts are specified by objects, which, in turn specify potencies.

Therefore, a thing’s powers and their acts are predicamental actions. The agere or operari of a

thing are predicamental accidents, because they are not caused by the very principles of the thing, but

rather are actualized within it by another agent.170 The potencies of a thing are predicamental

accidents—they are the first species of quality—but they are not predicable accidents. Rather, they are

essential properties—the fourth type of predicable—which are inseparable from the essence, but since

they are not immediately a part of the quiddity of the thing, they “dimanate” from it.

Transient action, then, is the sort of action that is initiated by an agent in a patient. The patient

has some substrate (either the substance itself, in the case of accidental change, or prime matter, in the

case of substantial change) which is in potency to an actuality which the agent possesses. Through its

contact with the patient, the agent actualizes this potency, the patient passing from a terminus a quo to a

terminus ad quem, while the substrate of the change remains constant. The transient action of a thing

belongs to a special category of accidental being, the category of action. The actual action takes place in

the patient as the latter moves from its terminus a quo to its terminus ad quem. But, on the side of the

agent, there needs to be a formal principle—an accident—which accounts for the emanation of the

effect from it. This is the role that an accident in the category of action plays. To act is to communicate

that through which the agent is in act, insofar as this is possible, action is the accidental form by which

we denominate something as acting on another. Thus, action has a threefold order: to the patient, as the

principle of its motion from terminus a quo to terminus ad quem; to the effect, as the principle of the

fieri of the terminus ad quem; and to the agent, which must pass from repose (otio) to action (agere),

169 Thomas Aquinas, De Spiritualibus Creaturis, a. 11; Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 54, aa. 1-3; Ia, q. 77, a. 3; Ia, q. 79, a. 1;

Quaestiones Disputate de Anima, a. 12; John of St. Thomas, Cursus Philosophicus, Phil. Nat., Pars I, q. 12, a. 2 (Reiser ed. 251-7).
170 Here we are speaking on the order of nature, and so this actualization is ultimately reduced to the activity of God the first
mover. What should be noticed here is how profoundly “energetic” and indeed “synergistic” this vision is. The effect of God’s energy
(which is identical with his essence) is not only the creature’s actus essendi, but also its agere or operari. This means that God’s cre-
ated effects are themselves energies. God produces in the creature the being and acting by which the creature attains its proper per-
fection and telos. What is this but “syn-energy” in the most literal sense? Far from downplaying the theme of synergy, Thomas’s
understanding of creation, conservation, and providence are precisely accounts of how synergy takes place.

71
and so needs to be brought from repose (otio) to acting (agere) by acquiring a new accidental from

through the work of another agent. What all of this means is that action has an inherent habitude to the

patient and to the effect that is to be produced in the patient. Action is the facere in the agent that

corresponds to the fieri in the patient. In fact, the action (understood as an accident in the agent) takes

its specification from these, and thus cannot be understood apart from its habitude to them. 171 Thus we

say that an action is a transcendental relation, or relation secundum dici, which serves as a foundation

for a real relation from the agent to the patient.172 As we will see, the fact that created action cannot be

understood without an intrinsic habitude to the patient and effect is one of the key differences between

created action and creation.

Immanent action, on the other hand, is the sort of action that remains within the agent. It is a

further act and perfection of the agent, which only indicates the agent’s union with a further object.

Since immanent action has no reference to a patient or an effect in the patient, it is not of the category of

action. Rather, it is found in the first species of the category of quality, as the act of the power of a thing.

The standard examples of immanent action are the actions of sensing, knowing, and willing in the

spiritual creature. Some immanent actions are said to be virtually transient, inasmuch as the agent

produces an effect in the course of its being united to an object. For example, when the spiritual creature

171 John of St. Thomas, Cursus Philosophicus, Phil. Nat., Pars I, q. 12, a. 4, q. 14, aa. 3-4 (Reiser ed. vol. 2, pp. 263-267, 304-

315) ; Thomas Aquinas, I Sent. dist. 6, q. 4, a. 3, ad 3; Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 54, a. 1; Ia, q. 77, a. 3; De Potentia, q. 2, a. 1; In III
Physicam, lect. 5; De Spiritualibus Creaturis, c. 9; Summa Contra Gentiles II.35
172 The division of relation of relation into real relation and relation of reason is well known. But, there is another division of re-
lations: relation secundum esse (“categorical relations” or “predicamental relations”) and relation secundum dici (“transcendental
relations”). The first type of relation is the ninth category of accident. It is the sort of accident whose entire ratio is ad aliud. For
example, “paternity” and “filiation” when said of Abraham and Isaac, respectively. When the very term and ratio in question indi-
cates habitude toward another, then it is relation secundum esse, and is an accident of some subject. Some terms and rationes, how-
ever, signify something absolute (i.e. non-relative) in themselves, but yet this thing cannot be thought of apart from some other abso-
lute thing. This is called a relation secundum dici (or, a “transcendental” relation, because it does not refer to a category). For exam-
ple, “father” and “son” when these refer to Abraham and Isaac respectively. Transcendental relations come up frequently in meta-
physics: matter and form, substance and accident, soul and body, and many other pairs are all transcendental relations. In fact, every
relation secundum esse has a foundation that is really distinct from it—a foundation which is a relation secundum dici. (Though, as
the example of matter and form shows, the converse is not true: some transcendental relations do not found predicamental relations).
This is the case with action and passion, which we are considering now. Action cannot simply be a real relation from cause to effect,
because the cause exists with at least a logical (if not a temporal) priority to the effect. Rather action in the agent and passion in the
patient must be understood together as facere and fieri, causans and causatum. That is, they are relations secundum dici, which pro-
vide the foundations for a relation secundum esse from the agent to the patient and from the patient to the agent. St. Thomas makes
the distinction between relation secundum esse and relation secudum dici in Summa Theologiae Ia, q. 13, a. 7, ad 1. For a more com-
plete description of relation, see John of St. Thomas, Cursus Philosophicus, Ars Logica, pars ii, q. 17 (Reiser ed. vol. 1, pp. 574-
607).

72
understands with its intellect, it produces a concept. The key thing to notice in such a formally

immanent but virtually transient action is that, unlike normal transient action, the effect produced is not

the object of the action, nor is the action in any way specified by it. The goal of the action is not to

produce the effect, but the effect is produced in the process of attaining some other object. The action is

related to this transient effect eminently. 173 The goal of the act of understanding, for instance, is not to

produce a concept, but this happens in the course of understanding. Notice that this means that there is

no relation—transcendental or predicamental—from the action to the transient effect produced. This

consideration brings us closer to understanding what creation is, for as we shall see, it is best understood

as a formally immanent but virtually transient action. Due to the divine simplicity, however, it will not

be an accident of God, but his very essence.

As we have said, the most important thing to remember about passive creation is that it is ex

nihilo. It is the placing of the whole of the being extra causas, with absolutely no presupposed subject.

This has radical consequences for our understanding of creation, for this is not how we describe creation

with our language. Our language leads us to think of creation as a sort of passage from non-being as a

terminus a quo to being as a terminus ad quem. But, of course, non-being is not a presupposed subject

from which some actuality is adduced. Further, this fact has implications for thinking about active

creation. Recall that transient action on the side of the agent has an intrinsic habitude to the patient. This

is not possible in creation, where there is no patient and no passage from terminus a quo to terminus ad

quem. Rather, there is only the simple placing into existence of the effect.174

This already begins to suggest that God is “related” to the things that he creates in a manner that

is quite different from the way that created agents are related to the effects that they induce through their

transient actions. The patient and the effect to be produced in the patient specify the action of the

173 St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 27, a. 1, c.; Ia, q. 54, a. 1, ad 3; Summa Contra Gentiles I.100; I Sent dist. 8,

q. 4, a. 3, ad 3; John of St. Thomas Cursus Philosophicus, Phil. Nat., Pars I, q. 12, a. 2; q. 14, a. 3 (Reiser ed. vol. 2, p. 256-7, 308)
174 Thomas Aquinas, De Potentia, q. 3, a. 2; Summa Contra Gentiles II.17; Summa Theologiae Ia, q. 45, a. 2, ad 2 et 3; John of

St. Thomas, Cursus Theologiae, disp. 38, a. 2, n. 19, 37, 48 (Solesmes ed., vol. 4, p. 396-413)

73
created agent. We have seen that no patient can specify the creative act of God, because there is no

patient. There is, however, an effect. Can the act of creation be specified by this?175 No, it cannot.

Creatures, in fact, are not really the objects of the divine intellect and will—or, at least, they are not the

objects of the divine intellect and will in the relevant sense.

The primary formal object of the divine intellect and the divine will is the divine essence itself.

That, is, the divine acts of knowing and loving take their specification from the divine essence, because

the divine essence could be the only adequate object of these “powers” in God. Any other object would

not only imply composition in God, but it would place limitations on God’s knowing and loving.

Creatures are secondary material objects of the divine intellect and will. God knows all of the ways that

he is imitable. These are the divine Ideas, or the logoi, and they are not really distinct from the divine

Intellect. (In fact, they are distinct from the act of the divine intellect by a distinction of reasoning

reason). In knowing his intellect to be participable in certain ways, he wills certain of them inasmuch as

they are reflections of his goodness. God’s executive power for creating is really identical with God’s

essence, intellect, and will. In fact, this executive act is conceived of us in the formal line of God’s

intellect. It is analogous to the act of imperium that is performed by our practical intellect. (This

highlights the fact that God’s creation is a production of his wisdom, and not sheer voluntarism). As

such, it presupposes God’s will considered as a free act with respect to creatures.176

This determination of his will towards creatures is non-necessary, because God’s act of will is

adequately specified and attained without them.177 Here is a deep mystery. God’s act of will is necessary

and identified with His being, yet it is responsible for the non-necessary emanation of creatures.178 We

175 Notice that an act of creating on the side of God which is specified by the created effect that it produces is essentially a Pal-

amite divine energy which is “really” distinct from the essence.

176 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 14, aa. 2-4, Ia, q. 19, aa. 1-2; Summa Contra Gentiles, I.48-9, 74-77; John of St.
Thomas, Cursus Theologicus, disp. 31, a. 2, n 5 (Reiser ed., vol. 3, p. 592); disp. 38, a. 2 (Solesmes ed., vol. 4, p. 396-413); Salman-
ticenses, Cursus Theologiae, tract. iv disp. iii, dub. ii. (vol. 2, pp. 39-47); Billuart, Cursus, diss. vii, a. ii (vol. 1, pp. 256-8)
177 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 19, a. 3; Summa Contra Gentiles I.81-3
178 If the central problem of metaphysics is the problem of the one and the many, then the central problem of Christian meta-

physics is the procession or derivation of a contingent many from the one. The only way to account for such contingency is to recog-
nize the personal nature of the One, with the plurality of creatures coming from the choice of God’s will, as this is informed by His
74
will have more to say about this below, 179 but for now, we can highlight two salient points. First, the

fact that something is the case immutably and from all eternity does not imply that it is absolutely

necessary. Second, God’s willing of creatures works differently from our willing inasmuch as it is not a

power that needs to be further determined by an object in order to be actualized. Rather, prior to the

willing of creatures, it is already fully actualized determined, and thus is eminent over the creatures that

it wills.

Thus, not only is active creation not specified by a patient, it is also not specified by the created

effect. In fact (and this is important in dialogue with Palamites), the act of creation on the side of God is

not at all analogous to an accident in the category of action which we find in the created transient actor.

Rather, active creation is a work of God’s intellect and will, and in God, these acts are formally

immanent, but virtually transient. Creation is what happens as a product of God’s very activity of

knowing and loving himself. The acts of knowing and loving are related eminently to the production of

creatures. Thus, unlike created agents, whose action has an inherent relation to the patient and the effect

produced in the patient, the Creator has no inherent relation to creatures.

On the side of the creature, there is only the placing of the effect outside of its causes.

Though there is no patient which can be transcendentally related to the agent, nevertheless the very

being of this effect as caused is a transcendental relation to the Creator, which is the foundation for a

predicamental relation towards God. Speaking most properly, the term “creation” most properly denotes

this predicamental relation of absolute dependence of the creature on God. This means that, although

creation is an eternal activity on the side of God, nevertheless God is denominated as a creator from

time. Nor is it a contradiction that an eternal action have a temporal effect, because creatures are

products of God’s intellect and will, and thus they are placed into being in accordance with the

intellect. But the acts of God’s intellect and will do not only have bearing on the created world, but also are important to the trans-
cendent inner life of God Himself. How to coordinate these two aspects of God’s intellect and will, without compromising either
God’s presence in the world or his transcendence of it is the central topic of debate between Palamites and Thomists, when this de-
bate is stripped of extraneous polemical baggage.
179 One which we will respond to in greater detail in Chapter Three, when we reply to the criticisms of David Bradshaw.

75
ordination of God’s intellect and will.180

The fact that God is denominated creator from time, and that there is a real relation from the

creature to God, but not God to the creature presents us with an interesting (and at first,

counterintuitive) corollary: we can formulate a notion of God’s act or acts of creation, but this notion is

necessarily subsequent to our understanding of the existence of the creature and its relation of

dependence to God, and it is only distinct from the divine will by a distinction of reason reasoning. 181

When we think the creature as related to God, our mind is lead to make some distinctions of reason

reasoning: in view of the existence of the creature and its relationship to God, we can distinguish a

logos of the creature in the divine intellect, as a particular imitation of the divine essence; we can

distinguish an ordination of God’s practical intellect; we can distinguish a free act of God’s will with

respect to the creature; and we can distinguish a reciprocal relation (of reason, of course) from God to

the creature. It may sound strange to say that God’s creative action is subsequent to the creature, but

nevertheless it is true. We cannot understand a relationship of participation until there is something that

actually is participating. We have repeated the reason several times: passive creation is not a fieri in a

pre-supposed subject, and so active creation is not like created agency, but rather is something that

happens as a part of God’s knowing and loving himself, actions which are formally immanent, but

virtually transient.

God’s Intimate Presence in Creation Through His Activity

When we take all of the above doctrines together, it might seem like we have over-emphasized

180 Thomas Aquinas, De Potentia, q. 1, a. 1, ad 8; q. 3, a. 3; q. 3, a. 17 ad 12, 26; Summa Theologiae Ia, q. 45, a. 3; Summa Con-

tra Gentiles II.35; John of St. Thomas, Cursus Theologicus, disp. 38, a. 2 (Solesmes ed., vol. 4, p. 396-413)
181 As we will see when we consider the work of Eric Perl in Chapter Three, this is perhaps the key difference between Pala-

mites and Thomists in their understanding of creation. Antoine Lévy has claimed that Palamas and Thomas have articulated under-
standings of the relationship between God and the world that are doctrinally equivalent, but are exact inverses of each other, and this
has given rise to two different religious worlds. The Palamite view is more theocentric: it starts with God and considers the proces-
sion of many creatures as so many participations in him. The Thomistic view is more creation-centric: it starts with the plurality of
creatures, and looks up to their unified Source. What we are arguing here shows something of what Lévy means. (Antoine Lévy, “An
Introduction to Divine Relativity: Beyond David Bradshaw’s Aristotle East and West,” The Thomist 72 [2008]: 173–231.)

76
God’s transcendence over the world at the expense of his active presence in it. God is not really related

to the world and creatures are not objects of his intellect and will. God seems uninvolved in the world,

and creatures seem relatively autonomous from him. The doctrine of divine simplicity seems to be the

major culprit. This doctrine forces us to deny many features of God that are found in created actors,

features by which these created actors are actively present to their effects. Does pointlessly exalting God

as pure Act and ipsum esse subsistens make him too aloof?

No, it does not. In fact, not only does the doctrine divine simplicity preserve God’s

incomprehensibility, perfection, and transcendence, it also precisely the doctrine that allows us to

explain how God can be radically present to a creature and active in it in a way that no created agent can

possibly be present to its effect. God is pure act and ipsum esse subsistens. Now every agent acts insofar

as it is in act to produce its proper effect. Therefore, the very esse of the creature is God’s proper

effect.182 In fact, it is precisely because creation is not a change (i.e. it does not presuppose a subject, but

gives being even to the subject) and because God works the most universal, and hence most intimate

effect in the creature—its very being—that he is intimately present to it. A creature remains in existence

because of God’s continual action on it.183 To fully appreciate how radically this makes God present,

consider the fact that there are two types of participation. On the one hand, an effect can depend on an

agent and on a subject, the agent works on the subject to transmute it and educe the effect by which the

thing participates in the cause. This must happen through some virtue which is diffused from the agent.

On the other hand, an effect can depend on the agent totally and in every way, so that it does not also

depend on a subject. In this case it is impossible for the agent to be “distant” from the effect, because

there is no distinct subject on which the agent acts. There is no virtue diffused from the agent which

reaches out to a subject to produce an effect. Rather, the agent just acts, and the effect comes to be, so

182 Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 8, a. 1.

183 Though of course, even this use of language is misleading. God does not act “on” the creature, precisely because prior to his

willing the very being of the creature, there is nothing there for him to act on. We sometime speak of creation as a “gift,” but even
this does not do the concept justice, because unlike other instances of gift-giving, there is nothing presupposed to which something
can be given.

77
that the very substance or supposit of the agent is conjoined to the effect. 184 God should not be thought

of as “reaching out” from himself to create the creature. Simply through his knowing and willing, the

creature comes to be in dependence on him. “He spoke and it sprang into being.”

Recalling that creation is the result of God’s formally immanent but virtually transient acts of

knowing and loving also helps to highlight this point. Consider the difference between God’s actions ad

extra and angels’ actions ad extra. Angels effect changes by their acts of knowing and loving, which are

formally immanent but virtually transient, as well. But the way they work their effect is still radically

different than the way God works his. Angels do not cause the very esse of the thing, and therefore their

action is a transmutation, a change, of a pre-existing subject. Therefore, they act at a “distance,” from

the subject. Their action “reaches out” to a subject to “act on” it. There is some virtue distinct from their

substance by which they act on their patient. God cannot act in this way. Since he does not act on a

subject to change it. Rather, he places the subject in being in its very esse, (which is the most intimate

thing about it), which makes it dependent on him, and thus he is radically present to it.185

Moreover, as we have seen, one of the implications of divine simplicity is that the divine

essence alone is the proper object of God’s knowledge and love. Sometimes people find this account of

God's knowledge and love for creatures to be unappealing. God's love for the creature is almost an

afterthought, so the thinking goes, He does not need the creature, and He only loves it because it has

some formal resemblance to Himself, which is what God is really in love with. But actually, this

account of God's love for creatures is not so grim; quite the contrary. This line of objection fails because

it takes God's love to be univocal with human love, and not analogical. The fact that God is the Good

itself makes all the difference. Once we realize this, the objections disappear. What God loves in the

creature is precisely the unique way that goodness is present in it—a goodness which it has because

God has given it a share in His own goodness. And He gives it such a share, not because of any need on

184 John of St. Thomas, Cursus Theologicus, disp. 8, a. 1, nn. 21-25 (Solesmes ed., vol. 2, pp. 8-9); Thomas Aquinas, I Sent., d.

37, q. 1, a. 1, ad 4
185 John of St. Thomas, Cursus Theologicus, disp. 8, a. 1, n. 9 (Solesmes ed., vol. 2, pp. 4-5)

78
his part, not because He has any designs on the creature, but simply because He wants to communicate

His goodness. What we have here is not some caricature of “Greek metaphysics,” but a profound

Christian insight.186 And, moreover, the effect of this love is to produce in the creature an activity (or

energy), a loving response to the Good, by which it the creature is united to the Good—whether that

activity is on the order of natural appetite, sensitive appetite, or will (by nature or by charity).187

A Note on Deification

We have been especially concerned here to examine how God’s radical presence to every

creature is the natural consequence of the very act of creation. But, of course, an important part of the

Palamite controversy is its strongly realistic account of deification, something which is claimed to be

lacking in Thomism. The common reason given for this is because St. Thomas’ account of “created

grace”, taken as an accident of the soul, cannot account for a real participation in the life of God. The

problem here is twofold: a misunderstanding about what created grace is and an incomplete

understanding of what deification consists of in the teachings of St. Thomas. Here we would like to

make a few brief notes with a view to correcting this problem.

There is a special mode of God’s presence that is available to the rational creature. 188 This is

through grace and deification. Although the formal object of created powers of intellect and will are

being and goodness respectively, nevertheless each power does have its adequate and connatural object.

The adequate and connatural object of the intellect is anything that the intellect is capable of having an

intelligible species of (in men, of course, this is the quiddity of a sensible thing, but in angels, it is the

intelligible species that they are created with). The adequate object of the will is any object that the

186 This has not gone unnoticed by Christian thinkers. Pseudo-Dionysius, for instance, explains this insight in the categories of
eros and agape, both of which he applies to God (Divine Names, IV.12, PG 3.711b; IV.13, PG 3.712b). In God, eros (ecstatic, desir-
ing love) and agape (benevolent love) meet, precisely because He is the Good itself. When the Good Himself draws the creature to
Itself (eros), He is also, by the very same “act” producing the creature's own proper good (agape).
187 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, q. 26, a. 2
188 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 8, a. 3, ad 4; Ia, q. 43, a. 3

79
creature can so conceive and thus desire. But since the formal objects of these powers are being and

good, they are still, in principle, able to be elevated to attain an even higher object, namely God as he is

in himself. This ability to be elevated to enjoy God in himself is called an “obediential potency”189 This

obediential potency is reduced to act in the creature through grace, the virtues, and the gifts, and results

in the enjoyment of the very persons of the Trinity. 190 It is due to this aptitude for knowing and loving

God, and even moreso the actual knowing and loving God that a person is said to be after the image and

likeness of God.191

How does this work? The fundamental principle that we need to recognize is that God’s love

works differently than ours. Our love is a response to the goodness of a thing. God’s love does not

presuppose the goodness of the thing, but places the goodness in the thing. We have already seen this in

the order of nature: As a diffusion from God’s knowledge and love of himself, he produces creatures

contingently from nothing, and as First Mover, in willing their good, he reduces their potencies to

actuality so that each creature can realize its proper perfection through its activities.

Now, in addition to this common love that he has for all creatures, he has a special love for the

rational creature, by which he desires for it a good that is above its nature—a share in his very inner

self. This special love of God produces new effects in the rational creature by which it comes to share in

this life. Ultimately, the rational creature will attain this life through its proper activities, a knowing and

a loving that have God as he is in himself as their object. (These actions will be produced under the
189 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IIIa, q. 11, a. 1
190 This distinction between nature and grace has come under a great deal of criticism in recent times. Often, it is felt that at-

tempting to conceive a rational nature is impossible apart from its teleological ordering to knowing and loving God as he is in him-
self. Trying to do so—and thinking about a possible “pure nature” of the rational creature—would leave that nature dangerously
autonomous from God, and would make any supernatural relationship with him extrinsic, and hence uninteresting and unimportant.
But, this simply is not true on the account of creation that we have given above. Even apart from any ordering through knowledge
and love to God as he is in himself, the creature is radically dependent on God for both its being and acting. The creature’s proper
activities (energies) are brought about through God’s intimate, energizing activity on the creature, directing it to its connatural ends.
We do not need grace to make nature good! The reason for the criticism of the distinction between grace and nature seems to be that
the concept of nature is not properly understood. Properly understood, “nature” is a dynamic principle of motion and rest, whose
activities are under the intimate direction of the providence of God—even before grace is added. Some critics of the concept of a
“pure nature” seem to have a more modern concept of nature in mind, where nature is inert, independent, and stripped of its own
teleology. On this view, grace has to do all the work of giving the rational creature all of its dynamic ordering. In fact, the distinction
between nature and grace serves precisely the purpose of articulating what happens in deification. After all, something has to be be-
fore it can be deified.
191 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 93, aa. 4, 7.

80
influence of actual grace). But, these acts need to come from principles proportionate to producing

them. Proximately, this means qualifying the powers of intellect and will (and the irascible and

concupiscible appetites) so that they are proportioned to performing these supernatural acts. (This is the

job of the theological and cardinal virtues, with the gifts of the Holy Spirit) Radically, this means that

the soul itself needs to be qualified so that it may be of such a nature as to have these sorts of elevated

acts fitting to it. (This is sanctifying grace). These actions allow us to enjoy the divine persons.192

From this description, we can clear up a few misconceptions about deification in Thomism.

First, the Thomistic understanding of deification includes not only “created grace,” but also the

theological virtues, infused moral virtues, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the missions of the Trinity by

which we are given the divine persons themselves to enjoy.193 If it does not include all of these, then it is

not a correct account of deification in Thomism.

Second, the way in which sanctifying grace renders us partakers in the divine nature is a special

mode of participation. It is a physical and formal type of participation, 194 like the way that creatures

participate in God’s simply simple perfections. But, the ratio of simply simple perfections is indifferent

to created or uncreated. This is not the case with the very nature of God which is ipsum esse subsistens

or pure act. This formality cannot be subjectively in the very soul of the rational creature. Therefore,

sanctifying grace makes us participants in the divine nature by so elevating our being and acting that

God as he knows and loves himself can also be the proper object of our knowing and loving.195 The

192 Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate q. 27, aa. 1,2,6; Summa Contra Gentiles III.150-1; Summa Theologiae Ia, q. 43, a. 3, c. et ad 1;
Ia, q. 43, a. 5, ad 2; IIIa, q. 110, aa. 1-4
193
John of St. Thomas makes an interesting observation about how grace gives us a participation in the divine nature. God is
simple pure act, which means that he is entirely in second act without distinction. (That is, according to our mode of understanding it
is formally constituted by its intellegere.) But, it eminently contains all of the rationes of first act. Thus, our participation in the di-
vine nature is spread out across all of our faculties, though it is radically in the essence of the soul through sanctifying grace. (Cursus
Theologicus, in IIIam, disp. 22, a. 1, n. 10 [Paris: Vivès, 1883-6, vol. 6, p. 794])
194 That is, the participant is a participant due to something in its very nature and not from some extrinsic denomination (i.el it is
physical, not moral participation), and the participant shares something that is in the participated formally and eminently, and not just
virtually and eminently (i.e. it is formal and not virtual participation). John of St. Thomas, Cursus Theologicus, In IIIam, disp. 22, a.
1, n. 5 (Vivès ed., vol. 6, p. 792)
195John of St. Thomas, Cursus Theologicus in IIIam, disp. 22, a. 1, n. 12 (Vivès ed., vol. 6, p. 795-6). This is a real doctrinal dif-
ference with Palamism. But we must ask the Palamite: if it is the divine energy that deifies by becoming enhypostatized in the crea-
ture, does this produce an effect in the creature at the level of action? If so, what is the object of that action?

81
effect of God’s uncreated love for us produces created effects (energies and habitus) within us, which

enable us to return to God as friend, through our acts of knowing and loving. 196

Third, there is a careful balance between uncreated energy of God and created energy. The effect

of God’s uncreated energy is a subordinated, created energy in the creature. When the fire heats the iron,

the iron glows with its own proper light and heat, but subordinated to the light and heat of the fire. But,

this analogy still limps in a way. The iron may still retain its light and heat when pulled out of the fire.

The created energies, being educed from obediential potencies of the soul, will disappear if the

uncreated love of God is withdrawn. It is frequently suggested that Palamism has uncreated divine

energies, whereas Thomism has created grace. This is inaccurate. Thomists hold that the divine energy

is uncreated, and in fact, is the very divine essence. Created grace is the subordinated, dependent effect

of the uncreated energy, and is itself an energy of the creature which renders the creature radically capax

Dei through its activities (so much so, that the divine themselves are given to the creature to enjoy). The

theory of deification in the Thomistic school is, in fact, a carefully worked out description of the

synergy that takes place between God’s uncreated energies and our created energies.

Fourth, the Thomistic teaching is commonly criticized for making sanctifying grace, the virtues,

and the gifts accidents of the soul. This can make grace seem extrinsic. But the problem here is more a

metaphysical misconception about the proper relationship between a substance and its accidents. They

should not be thought of as two distinct realities, like icing on a cake. Rather, substance and accident are

transcendental relations, two correlative principles of a being, mutually related as potency and act,

respectively. That is, accidents actualize the whole of a substance in a particular way, they cause the

substance to be such. Therefore, they are not properly said to be beings, but they are said to be of a

196 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, III.151. The whole chapter is beautiful, but especially relevant here is, “The form

whereby a thing is ordered to an end makes the thing somewhat like the end. For instance, a body acquires through the form of
weight a likeness and conformity to the place toward which it is moved naturally. But we showed that sanctifying grace is a certain
form in man whereby he is ordered to his ultimate end, Who is God. So, man achieves the likeness to God through grace. Now, like-
ness is the cause of love, for everything loves its like (See Sirach 13:19). Therefore, by grace man is made a lover of God.”

82
being.197 Thus, to call grace an accident implies no extrincisim.

Thomism and the Divine Energies

So, if the divine energies are God, inasmuch as he is active in the world, what role do they play

in Thomism? We can think of the energies in the line of God’s relation to creatures. A divine energy is

the foundation on the side of God for his relation to a creature or created effect. It plays the role of a

transcendental relation to the creature, which founds God’s predicamental relation to the creature. The

creature’s being as participated and caused is the transcendental relation to God that founds the

predicamental relation to God which is creation. The energy corresponds to this—it is God taken as

cause of the being. However, note two things. First, the divine energy only founds a relation of reason

toward the creature. Like this relation of reason, the divine energy is distinct from the divine essence

only by a distinction of reason reasoning. The divine energy is just our concept of the divine essence

when we take it as connoting a relation to the creature. Second, like the relation toward the creature

which it founds, the divine energy is logically posterior to the creature. We discern a divine energy as a

cause (and the logos which it instantiates) only after we see the creature as caused.198 This is like the sun

and its rays. The sun’s shining is an activity that flows from the principles of its essence, but there is

only a ray of sunlight after there is a point or an object that is illuminated. Indeed, different rays from

the sun are discerned by the different points or objects that they illuminate. The analogy limps however,

because God does not act at a distance from the creature. Nor is his power distinct from his essence, his

intellegere, or his velle. Nor is there a patient on which God works; he either creates with no

presupposed subject, or educes grace, the virtues, and the gifts out of an obediential potency.

197 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, q. 110, a. 2, ad 3. Luis De Raeymaeker is especially good on the correct relationship of

accident to substance. The Philosophy of Being: A Synthesis of Metaphysics, trans. Edmund H. Ziegelmeyer (St. Louis: Herder,
1954), 170–94; Metaphysica Generalis (Louvain: Warny, 1935), 158–79, 400–425.
198 Again, just because we can think of an energy as distinct from the essence, this does not mean that they are really two differ-
ent things. Especially in the case of God. Divine simplicity is the ontological foundation for assuring that God himself is known, but
always more unknown, transcendent of creation, but for just that reason able to be radically and intimately present to it.

83
 Chapter Three:

Answers to Palamite Objections

Gregory Palamas notes that there are works of God (providence foreknowledge, will,

contemplation of himself, etc.) which are without beginning and are uncreated, but are not the essence.

They are, rather, energies which manifest the essence.199 But, this does not violate his simplicity, even as

the distinction between a soul and its faculties does not violate its simplicity. 200 Palamas says that the

energies are accidents of a sort, but unlike (predicable) accidents, they do not come and go from their

subject. He seems to suggest that the energies of God are essential properties of the essence,201 which

flow from the principles of the essence, and are therefore inseparable from it.202 Thus, they do not

violate divine simplicity in the relevant sense.

There have been a variety of defenses of claims like these. In this chapter, we will look at some

of the more prominent ones. First, we will examine some of the objections of Mark of Ephesus, a writer

who stood at the very end of the classical Palamite controversy. His objections do not take much

account of Thomistic theology. Modern writers who favor Gregory Palamas do so in a climate where

Western theology is better known and more thoroughly studied. It is also a climate where Thomism has

profoundly shaped the discourse in philosophical theology. We examine two such modern views: Eric

Perl on the superiority of a Palamite account of creation over a Thomistic one, and David Bradshaw,

199 Triads, III.2.6; III.2.7 (Meyendorff ed., vol. 2, p. 653, 5, 7)

200 Triads, III.2.22 (Meyendorff ed., vol. 2, p. 681). Notice that, although Palamites have a strong sense of the incomprehensi-
bility of the divine essence in itself, nevertheless, the concepts that they use for essence and energies are taken in a straightforward
and univocal way from creatures, and from examples that are found in the creaturely order, without considering how these might be
different in God. This is an example of how Palamism is, paradoxically, not apophatic enough. This can also be seen in the assump-
tion that since the divine names are taken from creatures, therefore they are comprehensible and cannot name the essence, so they
must refer to a really distinct thing “around God.”
201 The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters, 126-8 (ed. Sinkewicz)
202 Thomists would indeed say this about created essences and their energies. But would deny that this distinction obtains in
God. An essential property is still a predicamental accident (Palamas does not distinguish between a predicable and predicamental
accident), but one that is caused from the principles of the essence, and not from an outside agent. But the essential property is still
really distinct from the essence, because it is not part of the very quiddity of the thing. A sign of this real distinction comes from the
fact that in a science, one starts with the essence and demonstrates the essential properties through the middle term which is the defi-
nition of the essence.

84
who argues that divine simplicity is incompatible with divine freedom.

Mark of Ephesus and Classical Palamite Objections

As we saw in chapter one, although there were definitive pro-Palamite settlements in 1351 and

1368, debates about Palamism flared up off and on until almost the end of the empire. After the

condemnation of Gregoras in 1351 and the translation work of Demetrios Kydones and his circle

starting in 1354, the enemies of the Palamites became more associated with the West, and particularly

with the Dominicans and Thomas Aquinas, who was taken to be the chief representative of the Western

theological tradition.

Coming at the very end of the imperial period was the monk Mark Eugenikos (c. 1392-1445),

who eventually became the bishop of Ephesus (1437-1445), and led the anti-unionist party among the

Greeks at the Council of Florence, engineering the rejection of that Council in the East. Mark himself

was a teacher with extensive literary gifts. He wrote many polemical works as well as liturgical

compositions.203

Mark was certainly aware of the anti-Palamite arguments that came from the West, and Thomas

Aquinas in particular.204 He seems to take a strong pro-Palamite stance, where he defends the real

distinction between essence and energies with a straightforward epistemological realism (i.e. distinct

concepts signify distinct realities). Though, he seems to back off from this in places, admitting some

sense in which the distinction is conceptual (ἐπίνοια).205 We have three edited works by Mark in which

he defends the Palamite distinction.206 Two of them are refutations of Manuel Kalekas’ work On the

203 For a complete biography, see Nicholas Constas, “Mark Eugenikos,” in La théologie byzantin et sa tradition, vol. 2 (Turn-
hout: Brepolis, 2002), 411–64, as well as Pilavakis, “Markos Eugenikos’ ‘First Antirrhetic.’” Pilavakis is quite favorable to Mark, but
opinions about him can get heated. See, for example, Joseph Gill, Personalities of the Council of Florence (Oxford: Oxford Universi-
ty Press, 1964).
204 Demetracopoulos, “Palamas Transformed,” 342–3.
205 Ibid., 342–8.
206 Constas, “Mark Eugenikos,” 424–5.

85
Essence and Energy (which was Kalekas’ critical commentary on the Tome of 1351).207 The third, the

Syllogistic Chapters Against the Heresies of the Akindynists Concerning the Distinction of the Divine

Essence and Energy was published at about the same time as the two Antirrhetics (the 1430’s). A

translation of portions of this work is included in the appendix.

The Syllogistic Chapters is divided into three sections: on the distinction between the divine

essence and energies (chapters 1-29), “On the Divine Light” (chapters 30-44), and “On Spiritual

Charisms” (chapters 45-64). We will be interested in the first section. This section seems to recapitulate

many standard pro-Palamite arguments, using standard types of Byzantine arguments. For example, he

tries to reduce his opponents position to heresy or paganism (chapters 2, 4, 5, 8, 27). Although Thomas

Aquinas is mentioned once (in chapter 14), and there is another acknowledgment of Latin teaching in

chapter 15, there does not seem to be much engagement with or incorporation of the sort of outlook that

we outlined in the last chapter. As such, many of Mark’s arguments have a straightforward response

from a Thomistic perspective.

For example, in chapter 2, Mark argues that the identity of the essence and the energy implies

that God’s energy is eternal like the essence, and that creation is therefore eternal. The reply is that the

energy is indeed eternal, but creatures are a product of God’s intellect and will, and therefore come to be

in time in accordance with these. In chapter 3, Mark gives two arguments. The second says that the

essence and the energy cannot be generically or specifically identical, so if they are identical, they must

be numerically identical. But they do not have identical concepts, therefore, they cannot be numerically

identical. The Thomist would reply that one reality can indeed be referred to under two concepts,

especially God, to whom all concepts derived from creatures are inadequate. In chapter 11, Mark argues

that the logoi are comprehensible to us, while the essence is not, and that the logoi cannot be creatures

(then they would be the Platonic Forms). Therefore the logoi have to be distinct from the essence. The

207 Pilavakis, “Markos Eugenikos’ ‘First Antirrhetic.’” Pilavakis’ edition of Mark’s Second Antirrhetic aainst Manuel Calecas

about the Essence and Energy is forthcoming.

86
Thomist would reply that the logoi are not really distinct from the divine essence, as they are

contemplated in God’s intellegere. We distinguish the logoi when we recognize a creature as a

participant in God. Finally, in chapter 24, Mark succinctly argues, “If the very things which God is

according to essence are the very things which he gives to us according to grace, then these things

are not the essence of God, for he gives a share of his essence to no one.” The reply is the

explanation given in the last chapter on how grace makes us a partaker of the divine nature: we

participate in the essence objectively and not subjectively.

Eric Perl on the Palamite Approach to Creation

Perhaps the most philosophically astute defense of the Palamite distinction is due to Eric Perl. 208

Perl has noticed that many of the objections to Palamas’ distinction have come not from a careful

reading of Palamas, but rather, of his neo-Palamite defenders, such as Lossky and Meyendorff, who

have not always described the metaphysics of Palamism correctly. Perl focuses on Palamas himself, but

limits himself to a consideration of Palamas at his most philosophically sophisticated, carefully

sanitizing him of his more extreme formations which have found so many vociferous detractors. This is

actually helpful, because it helps us get at the matters that are truly central to debate between Palamites

and Thomists.

For Perl, Palamas perfected the neo-Platonic theory of participation. Earlier forms of neo-

Platonism posited mean terms (the Forms or participations) between “God,” the participated and the

participants in the world. A form or participation was (as Plotinus called them) a “one-many.” But this

cannot account for the first multiplicity.

The fact is that the theory of participation simply does not allow for mean terms. On the
one hand, the entire Form, whole and the same, must be present to each an devery
participant in order to fulfil its role as a one-over-many . . . Participation can be nothing
less than the possession of the whole higher reality. On the other hand, in order that it

208 Perl, “St. Gregory Palamas and the Metaphysics of Creation,” Dionysius 14 (1990), 105-130.

87
 may be independent of all its participatnts, the Form must be apart from them all.209

For Perl, Palamas’ theory of the divine energies is a correction of Plotinian and Procline neo-

Platonism which is superior on purely philosophical grounds. For Palamas, the energies are God’s

activities with respect to creatures. Thus they are the logoi, Forms, or paradigms by which the world is

made. As such they are (or at least imply) God’s real relations to creatures. But they are not “lower

divinities,” hypostases, or intermediaries between the imparticipable essence and creatures. They are

participations of God—each one being a sort of different “window” into the divine essence--and as such

each can be, in some sense, identified with him, though he transcends them all. Not every real

distinction is a distinction between rem and rem. The divine essence and energies are related as mind

and understanding. This distinction is necessary so that God’s real relations to the world (which are or

are founded on the energies) do not compromise his transcendence. This view of creation emphasizes

God as formal (and not efficient cause): “He causes them to be by causing them to be what they are, by

giving himself to them as their whatness.”210

These causal powers are differentiated according to the differences of creatures. They have no

separate subsistence, but exist only as causes of creatures and relative to them. Thus they cannot be

(logically) prior to creatures. But they cannot be posterior to creatures either, 211 or they could not count

for the creatures’ diversity. The only option left is to say that the energies are multiplied along with the

production of creatures, though this of course remains eternal on the side of God. The divine energies

just are God’s acts of creating, multiplied along with the creature, but outside of time on the side of

God. In order to understand creation properly, there must be an actual multiplicity of formal

participations of the essence eternally related to created effects, which come to be and pass away in

time. “In short, if the plurality of ideas is to be truly possible, it must be actual; and if it is not actual, it

209 Ibid., 107-8

210 Ibid., 114. Note that Perl means formal cause in the strict sense. He denies that the logoi are merely exemplary causes (115).
211 As a relation of reason, as the Thomists would say.

88
is not possible.”212 We know that there have to be logoi, or energies, or relations of this sort, because the

only way we can give a fully realist account of creation is by holding the antinomy of God as

imparticipable but fully participated in by creatures, and in order to do this we need a distinction

between the essence and the energies of God as Palamas understands it.

But is this really the case? In the last chapter, we saw some of the ways that Thomists try to

answer the same questions. In short, Thomists try to give an account of creation as participatory in a

strongly realist ontological sense as well, but without supposing some sort of plurality on the side of

God. Thomists do this by emphasizing the role of efficient cause (as opposed to formal cause) in

creation. But, efficient causes work by bringing into being a formal likeness of the cause in the effect.

Omne agens agit simi simile, after all. And this axiom needs to be understood analogically for natural

and intelligent agents. God, of course is the latter sort, who produces creatures as similitudes of himself

as he knows and loves himself. Thus, there is no need for an actual plurality of logoi or energies on the

side of God, because creatures are known and willed virtually transiently in God’s immanent acts of

knowing and loving himself. Moreover, the relation between agent and resemblance in the effect is a

fully dynamic one, especially in the case of creation where there is no presupposed subject.

Perl’s approach has problems of its own. In the first place, it is hard to determine just what the

ontological status of this actualized plurality of logoi-energies on the side of God is. If they are not

mediating realities in themselves, and they are not in some sense identical with the divine essence, then

what are they? Moreover, is it really intelligible to say that these energies are multiplied along with

creatures, though on the side of eternity?213 Can causes be multiplied in their very act of causing?

Finally, and perhaps most seriously, is Perl’s account able to account for the contingency of creatures? If

the logoi or energies are themselves contingent, then it seems that they have to be a product of a choice

that God made through his intellect and will. But then they are created. If they are multiplied by the

212 Ibid., 123

213 It is not that it is problematic to assert the existence of a relation of something eternal to something temporal God’s eternity

does not mean that he abides unchangingly from even before there was time. God did not (or does not) exist before time began.

89
creatures of which they are the formal participations, then it seems that just this collection of creatures is

necessary. Perhaps the Thomistic solution of presenting God as an (analogically) intelligent agent

creating after the manner of an efficient cause (like an artisan) has something to be said for it after all.

But, there is one important objection to such a picture.

David Bradshaw on Divine Simplicity and Divine Freedom

Is divine simplicity compatible with divine freedom? David Bradshaw points out very clearly

the problem that this creates:

Does this not mean that if God were to will something different, then he would be
something different? Since among the things that God wills is the existence of creatures,
such a result would be at odds with the insistence of both Augustine and Aquinas that
God's essence does not depend on his act of creation.214

Bradshaw thinks that we can avoid this problem if we deny the Thomistic doctrine of divine

simplicity. If we instead assert a distinction between God's essence and energies ex parte Dei, apart

from our mode of conceiving and signifying, then we will have a way of explaining the divine liberty.

This is because, if this distinction is made, God could remain the same in His essence, even while being

different in the way that his energies are manifested in creation.

However, drawing such a distinction between God's essence and energies really does not solve

the problem. If the energies could have been different from what they in fact are, then there would be a

214
Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West, 247. It is interesting to note that Bradshaw is not the first person to have pointed out this
problem. In fact, it is a classical one for the Thomistic tradition. In the seventeenth century, the Carmelites of Salamanca wrote, “The
explanation of the quiddity of the free acts of God is of the highest difficulty, and thus many of the most weighty doctors teach that it
is not possible to have an understanding of it in this life; it is reserved for heaven.” (Cursus Theologicus [Paris: Vivès, 1876], vol. 2,
tract. 4, disp. 7, dub. 1, p. 101). The eighteenth century Dominican Charles-René Billuart agreed: “This knot is the most intricate
sacred enigma of all of theology, of which the human mind is unequal to completely solving . . . Behold the highest difficulty which
even theologians of the most exceeding genius twist and are compelled to go off into various opinions.” (Cursus Theologiae, vol. 1,
diss. 7, a. 4, p. 245). A summary of the relevant texts of Aquinas is given in John Wippel, “God’s Freedom to Create or Not,” in Met-
aphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas II, Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy 47 (Washington: Catholic University
of America Press, 2007), 218–39. Classical Thomistic treatments of this problem can also be found in John of St. Thomas, Cursus
Theologicus (Paris: Desclée, 1937), disp. 24, aa. 3-7, pp. 76-136; Billuart, op. cit., vol. 1, diss. 7, aa. 2-4 (p. 256-66); Salmanticenses,
op. cit., tract iv, disp. iii-viii (vol. 2, pp. 35-137); and Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, God: His Existence and Nature, trans. Bede Rose
(St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1949) vol. 2, 351-4. This problem has also been taken up by contemporary authors. Eleonore Stump
and Norman Kretzmann, “Absolute Simplicity,” Faith and Philosophy 2 (1985) 353-82; John F. X. Knasas, “Contra Spinoza: Aqui-
nas on God's Free Will,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 76 (2002) 417-29; and W. Matthews Grant, “Aquinas, Divine
Simplicity, and Divine Freedom.” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 77 (2004) 129-144;

90
reason why they are as they in fact are. Thus, there would be some contingent cause which would

account for the divine energy being multiplied in creatures in this way and not in another way. But, ex

hypothesi, this cause could not be assigned to the divine essence, therefore we would be forced to

suppose that there is some sort of mediate layer between the essence and the energies as these latter

immediately touch creatures. But, in order to maintain that this mediate layer supplies a contingent

cause for the multiplicaion of the energies that are subsequent to it, we would have to suppose yet

another layer. There would be an infinite regress. In short, the problem of the contingent plurality of

creatures cannot be solved by pushing the problem back into the uncreated realm and supposing a

contingent plurality there. In fact, positing an uncreated, caused contingency only makes the problem

more acute.

Bradshaw seems to be aware of this difficulty. Therefore, he adopts a unique view of the divine

energies. Basing his view on his own reading of Gregory Palamas, he claims that there are various

divine energies. These various energies are apparently not only distinct ex parte rei from the divine

essence, but also from each other:

Some are contingent, some necessary; some are temporal, some eternal; some are
realities or energies, others are activities, operation, or attributes. What could such a
disparate group have in common? Simply that they are acts of self-manifestation. . . One
way to look at Palamas is as inviting us to reconceive what have traditionally been
regarded as distinct categories—the eternal, necessary divine attributes and contingent,
temporal divine activities—as species within a broader genus.215

Just as a person has various more-or-less abiding ways of manifesting his character (a gesture, a

countenance, a heroic deed, a character trait), so too with God.216 Thus, according to Bradshaw, we can

suppose that while some of God's energies are necessary and eternal complements of his essence,

nevertheless others are contingent and come to be in time. But since this contingency is at the level of

215
Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West, 273-4
216
Ibid., 273.

91
(some of) the energies, and not the essence, “God can do otherwise without being otherwise.”217

But again, this will still not work. In the first place, this solution proposes that there is a divine

activity that is uncreated, contingent, and comes to be in time. But merely proposing that the divine

energies be understood in this way is not the same as demonstrating that the proposal obtains in

reality.218 In fact, it is not clear that there could even be something that is uncreated, contingent, and

comes to be in time, for it seems that anything that is contingent and comes to be in time is a product of

God’s will, and is caused and created.

However, suppose for the sake of argument that the divine energies could be understood in this

way. Then we can still make the same argument that we did above: there would be a reason why these

energies came into being and not other ones. This determination would be either by the essence or

another sort of energy. But, ex hypothesi it could not be by the essence, so it would have to be by

another sort of energy. But this energy would still be contingent, so it would demand a cause. And there

would be infinite regress.

In sum, making a distinction ex parte rei between God's essence and energies does not really

solve the problem, because (as Garrigou-Lagrange and Billuart note in their formulation of the

problem)219 the conflict does not exist between God's liberty and His simplicity, precisely as such.

Rather, the conflict is more precisely between God's liberty and the immutability of His essence, which

is something that all classical theists—Thomist or Palamite—would want to maintain. Therefore, we do

not need to reject divine simplicity in order to explain divine liberty. In fact, for St. Thomas, we should

not reject divine simplicity in favor of divine liberty, because he thinks that we have good arguments for

both, despite the difficulty in reconciling them.

We have already seen some of the reasons why St. Thomas defends divine simplicity. We can

217
Ibid., 272.
218
A Thomist would say that what Bradshaw has done is to offer a nominal definition of the divine energies, but has not an-
swered the question an est. That is, Bradshaw has told us what he means by the term “divine energies,” but has not established that
there is in re any such thing that answers to the term according to his understanding of it.
219
Garrigou-Lagrange, God: His Existence and Nature, vol. 2, pp. 351-4; Billuart, vol. 1, diss. 7, a. 3 (p. 259)

92
summarize his grounds for defending the fact that God has free choice. God must have a will because he

has an intellect by which he can apprehend his proper good. 220 This will must also have free choice with

respect to anything that he wills apart from himself, because being perfectly in act is a perfect good that

can be had without having anything else.221 Or, to put it another way, as possessing an intellectual

nature, God can scrutinize and judge various possible beings.222 The power of free choice is radically in

the intellect, because it can recognize the various ways that different possible beings are not necessary

to God so that He might attain his proper end.223 Therefore, not only can God will or not-will things

apart from Himself, but he can also will this rather than that.

Now all of this seems quite undeniable. Therefore, it seems that we must, at list prima facie,

favor the supposition that divine simplicity can be reconciled with divine liberty rather than with the

contrary supposition, even if we cannot see the reconciliation right away. After all, God is mysterious!

But, can we catch a glimpse of the mystery? Can we make the reconciliation clearer quoad nos? We can

do it in three steps. First, we need to consider the difference between how a creature wills and how God

wills. Then, we will consider how creatures come forth from God and are related to Him and to His act

of will. Finally, we will be in a position to assert that creatures cannot be the sort of objects that specify

the divine act of willing. Thus, God's act of willing would really be the same, even if He had willed a

different set of creatures. Once we have succeeded in showing all of this, we will have succeeded in

showing that divine simplicity can be reconciled with divine liberty.

It is worth taking a moment to think about how a human agent wills. We naturally and

spontaneously will our own end, happiness in general. But we do not immediately possess it. Thus we

must launch into a process of deliberation about the means to attain that end. These means themselves,

at some point in our deliberation, will become mediate ends. These mediate ends will be objects that

220
Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 19, a. 1, c.; Summa Contra Gentiles I.72
221
John of St. Thomas, Cursus Theologicus, disp. 24, a. 3, n. 3 (Solesmes edition, vol. 3, pp. 77-8)
222
Billuart, vol. 1, diss. 7, a. 3, (p. 259)
223
Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 19, a. 3, c.; q. 83, a. 4, c.

93
will specify acts by which the potency of our will may be reduced if we choose to perform them. Thus,

our free choice consists of the potency to either this act or that act, which acts are specified by either this

object or that.

One of the key insights that we need in order to reconcile divine simplicity and divine freedom

is that this is not how divine willing works. As an intelligent agent, of course, God wills his ultimate end

inasmuch as he knows it. But God is goodness itself, so He is His own ultimate end, and he understands

Himself perfectly. Therefore, God wills His own goodness as His ultimate end,224 and He does so

necessarily.225 Now in perfectly knowing Himself, God knows all the ways in which His being can be

participated, and in loving Himself desires that there exist beings who share in His being. Thus, God

wills other beings apart from himself.226 Moreover, because things apart from God are participation in

His being and directed to them as their ultimate end, God wills both Himself and the things that are

apart from Himself by a single act of His will.227 In loving his goodness, He loves all the existing things

that He knows as participating in it. Nevertheless, God can attain His end apart from the existence of

things that are other than Himself. Thus their existence is not absolutely necessary.228

Notice what we have discovered about divine willing. God's willing differs from our willing in

two ways. First, unlike our willing, God's willing does not exhibit a means-ends relationship. It is true

that creatures are willed on account of God's goodness, but they are not the means by which God attains

His goodness.229 God's goodness is the end towards which creatures are ordered, but God wills this

224
Summa Contra Gentiles, I.74
225
Summa Contra Gentiles, I.80
226
Summa Contra Gentiles, I.75
227
Summa Contra Gentiles, I.76
228
Summa Contra Gentiles, I.81
229
Therefore, Bradshaw is wrong when he claims that, according to Aquinas, “God necessarily wills His own goodness, [but] He
wills the existence of creatures only as a dispensable means to this end.” (Aristotle East and West, 249). Bradshaw gives this state-
ment as an interpretation of Summa Theologiae, q. 19, a. 3, however this is not an accurate interpretation. In the corpus of this article,
Aquinas says that creatures are “other things which God wills apart from Himself, inasmuch as they are ordered to His goodness as
to an end” (Alia autem a se Deus vult, inquantum ordinantur ad suam bonitatem ut in finem). In the reply to objection 2, Aquinas
calls creatures “the things which He wills on account of His goodness.” (ea quae vult propter bonitatem suam). Neither of these ex-
pressions imply that God wills creatures as a means to attain His own beatitude. Moreover, Thomas explicitly denies that creatures
94
goodness prior to them and independently from them.230 Second, notice that this means that the object

that specifies God's act of willing is His own essence, and not the creatures which He orders to his

essence.

We can summarize the difference between God's act of willing and our act of willing in this

following way. Our freedom comes from a potency which is indifferent to being actualized by a variety

of different acts which are specified by a variety of different objects. Our freedom depends on our

passivity with respect to a variety of different objects on whose goodness our will depends. God's act of

willing, on the other hand, is specified and fully actualized by His essence alone. This is the object on

which His will immediately and necessarily bears, antecedently to any willing of creatures. This makes

God supremely independent from the willing of any particular creature.231 Our act of willing depends on

its object; creatures, however, depend on God's act of willing. Freedom in God has to be understood

analogically when compared to human freedom, for it “is the dominating indifference not of a potency,

but of a pure act of subsistent love.”232 Now, if the adequate and specifying object of the divine will is

the divine goodness, the question naturally arises: in what sense, if at all, are creatures objects of the

divine will?

In order to understand how the divine will regards creatures, we first need to think about how

the necessary act of the divine will is related to the free act of the divine will. These are only distinct by

a distinction of reason reasoning. That is, the free act of God is entitatively identical with his necessary

are such means in Summa Theologiae Ia, q. 44, a. 4. There, Thomas distinguishes between perfect and imperfect agents. Imperfect
agents act so as to attain their good, but perfect agents do not act to acquire their end; they act to communicate their goodness. (For
more places where St. Thomas denies that creatures are means to ends, see De Potentia q. 3, a. 15, ad 5, 14; a. 16, c.; Summa Contra
Gentiles I.75.4, I.81.2, 1.82.6, II.35.7) Creatures are ordered to God as their end, but God has His end independently of His choice
to create creatures that are ordered to Him as their end. In fact, the very procession of things from God presupposes God's knowledge
and love of Himself, because this is just what God knows and loves in knowing and loving the creatures that participate in His es-
sence. What is at stake here is the very foundation for why divine simplicity can be compatible with divine freedom—because God's
willing works differently than ours. Getting this point right is also precisely what secures God's transcendence (because He has his
end even if there are no creatures) and His immanence (the knowledge and love with which He knows and loves creatures is the very
same knowledge and love with which He knows and loves Himself). This is the correct way to interpret Thomas when he describes
God as the finis and creatures as the ea quae sunt ad finem.
230
Billuart, diss. 7, a. 3, I say secondly, second proof from reason.
231
John of St. Thomas, Cursus Theologicus, disp. 24, art. 4, nn. 5-6, art. 5, n. 1 (Solesmes ed., vol. 3, pp. 89-90, 95-6); Salman-
tacenses, Cursus Theologicus, tract iv, disp. 7, dub 7, §2, n. 47
232
Garrigou-Lagrange, God: His Existence and Nature, vol. 2, 353

95
act. We only mentally distinguish them when we think of God as logically related to the creature,233

subsequently to considering the creature and its relation to God. It is admittedly mysterious how a

contingent habitude can have a necessary and immutable foundation.234 But, to see how this can be so,

we must always remember that divine freedom has a different basis from what forms the basis of human

freedom—active dominating indifference over all creatures whatever—so we must always be careful to

purge our notions of human freedom from our imaginations about divine freedom.235

All of this is to say that creatures are not objects that specify the divine will, for God does not

depend on them as objects of His will, but rather, He makes them to depend on Him, and subsequently

to the constitution of His will he gives the creatures the ratio of object precisely as constituting them as

participations in His being and ordered towards his Goodness. If the primary formal object of the divine

will is the divine goodness, then creatures are the secondary material objects, 236 loved by God because

they participate in his being and goodness. But they only have a share in that goodness because He

constituted them in that being and goodness, not because He needed them in order for his transcendent

activity to be, but simply because, according to the hidden counsels of His wisdom, He thought it

fitting.

So, what is the basis for the distinction of reason reasoning between the necessary act and the

free act of God's will? It is the particular ratio under which each regards the formal, primary, specifying

object of the divine will, namely the divine goodness itself. The necessary act regards the divine

goodness in se, while the free act regards the divine goodness as it may be participated.237 But of course,

entitatively, there is nothing really different about these two—God wills Himself and creatures by a

233
John of St. Thomas, Cursus Theologicus, disp. 24, a. 3, n. 20 (Solesmes ed., vol. 3, p. 85)
234
John of St. Thomas, Cursus Theologicus, disp. 24, a. 4, n. 1 (Solesmes ed., vol. 3, p. 87)
235
John of St. Thomas, Cursus Theologicus, disp. 24, a. 5, n. 18 (Solesmes ed., vol 3, pp. 103-4)
236
Salmantacenses, Cursus Theologicus, tract iv, disp. 3, dub. 2, p. 45
237
John of St. Thomas, Cursus Theologicus, disp. 24, a. 5, n. 2bis; Salmantacenses, tract. 4, disp. 7, n. 58

96
single act of will.238 Nor is there any necessary reason why one set of beings must be preferred to

another. Here we are in the realm of fittingness.239 The principle bonum diffusivum sui must be

understood analogically among non-intelligent, intelligent, and divine beings.240

Therefore, we make a conceptual difference between God's necessary act by which He loves

Himself and His free act by which He loves creatures when we consider the latter as connoting a certain

relation toward creatures. But, as we have seen, this relation toward creatures is not a real relation; it

only rises in our minds as a result of our consideration of the creature's relation of dependence on God.

But this means that if God had willed a different creation, God would have different relations to

different creatures. But these relations are only relations of reason. This means that in different

universes, our concept of God's free act would be different only by different relations of reason; in any

possible universe, God's act of will, whether considered as necessary or free, would be entitatively the

same, because it takes its specification from God's essence. Would God's act of will be any different if

he had chosen to bring different things into existence? No.

One final clarification remains to be made. Part of the difficulty in thinking of God's action as

free stems from the eternal immutability of the act of His will. There was no “time” when God

“decided” to make these creatures rather than those. His eternal and immutable act of will always “was”

to love His goodness and create these creatures. This does imply a kind of necessity, but not an absolute

necessity. Absolutely speaking, there is no compelling reason why God would have to love His

Goodness in diffusing it into these creatures rather than those (or to any creatures at all). This lack of a

compelling reason secures the non-necessity of any particular creature with respect to the divine act of

will. However, there is another kind of necessity, that of necessity ex suppositione. This is the kind of

238
Summa Contra Gentiles, I.76
239
Bradshaw (Aristotle East and West, 249) thinks that he has found several places in the Summa Contra Gentiles where Aquinas
says that there are some things that any possible creation must contain (II.30.6, II.45.3, II.46.2,5; III.71.3, III.72.3). In truth, these are
arguments from fittingness. Any necessity they have is only a suppositional and not an absolute necessity. For example, if God’s
creation is to reflect his goodness, then it must contain an intellectual nature.
240
Garrigou-Lagrange, God: His Existence and Nature, vol. 2, 344.

97
necessity that this creation has due to the fact that it is eternally and immutably willed by God.

Supposing that God has eternally and immutably willed this creation with His one act of will, He cannot

not will it.241

So, to sum up: God necessarily wills His own goodness as His own perfect beatitude. That is, He

loves His essence as the primary, adequate, and formal object which specifies His will. Since He

perfectly understands and possesses His own essence, His will has attained its ultimate end, and He has

no need of other things as a means to obtain His ultimate end. His act of will is specified by this object,

and there is no need for Him to create any creatures, or if He does create, there is no need for Him to

create any particular kind of creature. He did this out of the fitting decree of His wisdom, deciding to

love in the beings that participate in Him what He loves in Himself. God's necessary act of will and His

free act of will are distinct only by a distinction of reasoning reason from His necessary act. The former

considers God's goodness in se and the latter considers His goodness as participable. We tell them apart

because our concept of the latter is joined with the logical relation to what God has created. But if God

had willed to create something different, our concept of God's free act of creation would only differ

from what it is in this creation by a logical relation from God to creatures; entitatively God's act of will

would be the same as it is now. Even under the assumption of divine simplicity, God can do otherwise

without being otherwise. And, of course, divine immutability does imply a certain kind of necessity to

creature, not an absolute necessity, but a necessity ex suppositione: Supposing that from all eternity God

wills to create this world, then he cannot not create it.

241
Summa Theologiae, Ia, q. 19, a. 3; Summa Contra Gentiles, I.83. This distinction between absolute and suppositional necessi-
ty is sometimes equivalently expressed using the logical notions of “the divided sense” and “the composite sense,” respectively. The
divided sense indicates the presence of two forms in the same subject at different times, because one excludes the other, whereas the
composite sense indicates the presence of two forms in one subject simultaneously. For example, consider the statement, “It is possi-
ble for Peter, who is currently sitting, to run.” Is this statement true or false? It depends. Absolutely speaking, it is true. Peter can get
up out of his chair and start running. We say that the proposition is true in the divided sense. But, under the supposition that Peter is
sitting, the proposition is false, because a person who is sitting cannot also be a person who is running. In other words, we say that
the proposition is false in the composite sense. (John of St Thomas, Cursus Philosophicus, vol. 1, Ars Logica, ed. P. Beatus Resier
(Turin: Marietti, 1930) pars I, lib. II, cap. XX). A similar distinction can be made with the proposition “It is possible for God, who
eternally and immutably creates this world, to create a different one.” This proposition is true in the divided sense, but false in the
composite sense. Or, equivalently, absolutely speaking, God could have created another world, but under the supposition that he has
willed to create this world, the creation of this world is necessary. (Antonin-Gilbert Sertillanges, L'Idée de création et ses retentisse-
ments en philosophie [Paris: Aubier, 1945] 181-3).

98
 Conclusion

What can we say about the relative merits of Thomism and Palamism? From this study, it seems

clear that they make claims that are philosophically incompatible. This study has argued for the

superiority of the Thomistic account. Characteristic of the Thomistic approach as we have presented it

here is the idea that our concepts are derived from creatures, and therefore we need to be careful about

how we apply them to God. This is why we paid such careful attention to the Thomistic doctrine of

distinction and the Thomistic doctrine of divine naming. These give us the tools to critique our terms

and concepts before we apply them to God. This is not always done in Palamism, despite this school’s

claim to take apophaticism seriously. As we have seen, there are two places in particular in which we

need to purify our conceptual language when it comes to God: in our understanding of divine simplicity

and in our understanding of how creation works. When we do this, we find that Thomism gives an

account of God as an agent who diffuses his goodness into creatures according to the decrees of his

wisdom and love. Moreover, it is precisely the Thomistic understanding of divine simplicity and

creation which allows us to explain how God is both transcendent over and intimately present to

creation, and in fact how God’s transcendence and presence are mutually conditioning—one is the

reason for the other.

Though we have had to be critical of Palamism, it is important to understand the larger

affirmations that Thomists and Palamites share: divine impassibility, divine incomprehensibility, a

strong and realistic concept of deification, creation understood as a dynamic participation in the activity

of God, and a commitment to mystical contemplation as the normal form of perfection in the Christian

life (to name a few). Where these two schools differ is on the level of theological opinion which come

from divergent philosophical theses, which is something that need not cause Christian division. Seeing

things this way allows us to tone down the polemics of the debate. The debate about Palamism has all-

too-often been a stalking horse for other issues, and because of this, people have often resorted to crude

polemics instead of careful discussion, and have told the history of the controversy in terms of
99
simplistic binary oppositions that serve contemporary agendas. The way forward is to set all of this

aside, and to focus on the arguments. Doing this would give us the fascinating opportunity to explore

the way that God is acting in all of our lives so that he might share his life with us.

100
 Appendix:

Syllogistic Chapters242 Against the Heresies of the Akindynists

Concerning the Distinction of the Divine Essence and Energy

Mark, Archbishop of Ephesus

1. If the divine essence and energy are the same, then the things from the essence will also be the things
from the energy, and the things from the energy will be the things from the essence. And thus, on the
one hand, the Son and the Spirit will be from the energy, and will no longer be begotten and proceeding
only, but they will also be activities/operations (ἐνργήματα) and effects/products (ἀποτελέσματα). On
the other hand, faith will be from the essence; it will not be an activity/operation, but begotten. But both
of these are irreverent and alien to the truth.

2. Further, if essence and energy are identical, and it is altogether and by all means necessary that God
exists together with his essence and energy, then creation is simultaneous with God, who works from
eternity, according to the Greeks.

3. If things which admit of the same logos are also identical to each other, then Peter and Paul, who
admit of the same logos—man—will be identical to each other. But they are not. Thus, neither are the
essence and the energy, which admit of the same logos—simple, uncreated, and bodiless—now identical
to each other. Identity is either generic, or specific, or numerical. But, we should not say that the energy
is generically or specifically identical to the essence. It remains, then, that they are numerically
identical, just as when things have many names, as when we say that the essence, form, and nature of
God are the same. But let the one be said; the other has not been spoken, rather it has been forbidden
from among the things that are customarily said. For according to the divine Cyril, nature and energy
are not the same.

4. If the Son alone is the energy of the Father, as it seems to the heretics, but He Himself is also a
hypostasis, and the energy and the essence are the same according to them, then the hypostasis and the
essence will be the same, and in this way the mixture of the Sabellians is introduced. If the Son alone is
the energy of the Father, but no energy is enhypostatized, that is to say self-subsistent [καθ’ἑαυτὴν
ὑφεστῶσα] according to the great Basil, then the Son will be an anhypostatized energy, but this is the
absurdity of the heretics Marcellus and Photinus.

5. If Christ who has two natures, had union and two energies, according to the dogma of the Sixth
Ecumenical Synod, then these are four: the divine nature and the human, and the divine energy and the
human. And, just as the human energy is different from the nature, but created from created, so too is
the divine energy different from the nature, but uncreated from uncreated. While fighting the heretics
who take away the human energy in Christ, the fathers did not uproot [ἀνήρουν] the divine energy,
being satisfied with the nature alone on account of its utmost simplicity, as it seems to the Akindynists,
but they expressly preached the two energies, just as they preached the two natures.

6. If the arrangement of bodily limbs is not present to contemplation [παρά θεᾷ], then all the things that

242 The text is in the second appendix of Wilhelm Gass, Die Mystik des Nikolaus Cabasilas vom Leben in Christo (Griefswald

1849), 217-222.

101
are written and sung as proper to Him in Scripture are indicative of the energies which come down to us
from the inaccessible and abiding essence, as the theologians say.

7. If the energy is said to be from and to flow forth from the essence everlastingly, something which no
one would ever dare to say of creatures, then the energy is not a creature, and yet, neither is it the
essence.

8. If we were to say that God is absolutely unmoved and inactive (ἀνενέργητον), as it seems to the
heretics, then, on the one hand, he will move the cosmos only as a goal which it desires, neither having
providence nor releasing power (οὐδεμίαν εἰς αὑτον οὔτε πρόνοιαν ἔχων οὔτε δύναμιν διιεὶς). On the
other hand, the cosmos will be a living thing with the power of choice, eternally governing itself and
being moved from God only by its desire. But these things are Greek and mythical and should be
thrown away by the pious.

9. If God is the very things which he is also said to have—for he is life and has life, he is wisdom and
has wisdom, and so on for all the rest—then, on the one hand, the things which God is are not distinct
from him, for they are essential and natural to God. On the other hand, the things which God has are
distinct and come down to us and are the singularly multiplied and undividedly divided energies of the
one essence.

10. If the invisible things of God are known and perceived from the creation of the world—namely his
eternal power and deity (Rom 1:20), but we come to an understanding not of the essence but of the
energy from the things made, according to theological speech, then the essence of God is one thing and
the power and deity of God which are clearly perceived and known through the things made is
another—eternal, indeed, and existing [αυτὴ τυγχάνουσα].

11. If the logoi of beings, which are in God without beginning and eternally, as all the theologians say,
are neither the essence of God (for how might the things which are somehow apprehensible to us obtain
[to] that which is abiding and incomprehensible), nor indeed are they outside of God (for all the things
after God are created, and we will at the same time give place to the Platonic ideas), then the essence of
God is not an uncreated One, according to the things which the mad men of Akindynos buzz.

12. On the one hand, the Akindynists say with respect to the Son and Spirit that God has a nature, but on
the other hand they say with respect to creation that [God has] will (βούλησιν) and energy. But they
contrive these things cunningly, so that they might block out the distinction. But it seems obvious that
they do not know what they are saying. For, with respect to those things which are nature, there is not a
will, and with respect to those things which are will, there is not nature. From where do those who have
taken up these kinds of noises hold that the Father himself is nature or will? For they will be forced
from this to also say that he is generation. But let it be said that the one who generates and the
generation, the one who wills and the will, the one who speaks and the word, are different, unless they
are drunk with wine and do not hear. Otherwise, if they speak of the nature as it underlies
(ὑποκείμενον), but of the will considered subsequently (ἐπιθεωρούμενον), then it comes to the same
thing for us; but if both are only words, as the seed and the fruit are from the grain, then let them say
what other thing is underlying, alongside the nature or essence.

13. If, on the one hand, the essence of God is not said with respect to many (for His essence is one), and
on the other hand, the energy is said with respect to many and differing things (for his energies are
many), then His essence is one thing and his energy is another.

102
14. If every power is said toward another (for it is referred to some ability [πρὸς τὸ δυνατὸν
ἀποδίδοται]), and Thomas the teacher of the Latins famously shows this, then the essence of God is one
thing and His power is another, unless he should say that the essence is something of the relation.

15. Although what I intend to say will seem strange, especially to the heretic Akindynists, it is
nevertheless absolutely true, that is, as far as the natures that stand closer to God, namely the intelligible
and rational ones, but also God himself, are concerned, energy is discerned from essence more than in
the case of the beings that stand away from Him and differ radically from Him. In fact, as theologians
teach “all beings” are determined in regard to the following things, namely, “essence, power, and
energy”; for, as they say, “whatever has no power or, otherwise, energy neither exists nor is something
concrete”. Now (1) in the case of “the inanimate” and insensible beings “the energetic” “power” is
enveloped, so to speak, in their nature, just keeping them in existence and providing them with the being
that makes them what they are. And if in some cases energy is distinguishable from essence, “as in the
case of fire” the power to heat, energy is one-dimensional, irrational and deprived of will. (2) In the case
of “the irrational animals” and, to a higher degree, in the case or rational ones, the result of power is
“more effective and more manifest” than in the previous one. Beings of this sort have the power to
operate, and do operate, not only in regard to themselves but also ad extra, not only the same results but
even the contrary ones, and “numerous” as well as great things, using first their bodies as instruments
and further making many other objects instruments by means of their bodies. (3) Proceeding higher, the
intelligible natures, which can be grasped only by means of the mind, will be found much more
powerful than these lying behind them; indeed, to the extent they are close to God in virtue of the
simplicity of their essence, they are also close to Him in virtue of the multfariousness and the diversity
of their energy. These natures, as the sophisticated Latin doctors say, concoct out of any sort of matter
and shape bodies for themselves ad libitum, in order to present themselves to the persons they intend to
in the proper appearance. Finally, “the God of all”, “the blessed nature”, to the extent He “lies above
all”, is also simple as well as super-essential, and not only much powerful or greatly powerful but also
“omnipotent”, since “He has from eternity in Himself and in the full sense of the term all power”, as the
glorious Dionysius says, and since “His power” and energy “goes through all beings; for He always has
it accompanying and serving His will”, and both are definitely seen “to be adjacent to His essence”.
Thus, the fact that his energy is distinct [from His essence] does not harm the simplicity of the essence
at all.243

16. The theologians say from negations that God, who is not at all the being of beings (ὤν τῶν ὄντων)
according to nature, but the one who is all things according to cause is theologized from affirmations as
the cause of all things. One must seek, then how this is to be said, for both the one who causes the
building of the house as house can never be called the house, and the physician who causes the healing
cannot be said to be the healing. But how in him will come together never being all things, and
subsequently, being everything? Is he not something in the midst of the essences of God and of beings,
according to which he is named from beings as the one who causes and not according to his nature? But
what ever could this be except the energy, which if one were to want to call it the logos or form (εἶδος)
of beings, we would not be disturbed? Except that the artisan is not named for us from the forms, having
his own name and logos apart from the natures and the form of the artisan comes to be and is perfected
without. But God who is nameless according to essence, gives birth to the forms of beings in him,
preposessing them from eternity, likewise excelling over them, and is named from them.

17. [omitted]

243This translation of chapter 15 is found in Demetracopoulos, “Palamas Transformed,” 354-5n285

103
18. If the mind (νοῦς) is not composed alongside the reason (διάνοια), inasmuch as the latter is
sometimes called a certain passageway (διέξοδον) from the mind which attains the things perceived,
then still less is God composed alongside the energy, and this divinity can be addressed.

19. If the reason (διάνοια) is not other than the mind (τοῦ νοῦ), for it is a natural power of it through
which it takes hold of the things which are shown forth conceptually (λογῳ), then neither is the energy
of God distinct, for it is some natural power which reaches something.

20. And this like reduction of the sound of “divinity” to the divine nature alone is from the delirium of
Eunomius, that those who admit the distinction of the essence and the energies conceptually (κατ’
ἑπίνοιαν) think completely the unreal concept (ἐπίνοιαν), which is formed by the bare utterance of our
word (λόγου) and that which we understand (νοήματος). But hear the God-bearing word from our Basil,
the one who both refutes and puts them to shame: “For,” he says, “we contemplate and distinguish the
natures which have been joined together in Christ by concept (ἐπίνοια) alone, but both of them are
nothing less than the properties. In this way, then, although both the things said of God and all of the
energies are said to be distinguished conceptually, they are not on account of this unreal, except insofar
as in the former case, there is a composition (σύνθεσις) since each nature according to itself can subsist
on its own from its own properties, but in no way is this so in the latter case.

21. If the logoi of beings, which are in God before creation, do not shape the divine mind nor come
together to make up the divine mind, then neither will the energies which proceed from him show forth
this composition.

22. If our mind having or receiving knowledge is not for this reason composed, then all the more is God
not composed of the natural characteristics which are present to him.

24. If the very things which God is according to essence are the very things which he gives to us
according to grace, then these things are not the essence of God, for he gives a share of his essence to no
one.

25. If the very things which God is according to essence are the very things which he gives to us
according to grace, then he does not give us things foreign to him, but rather things essentially
contemplated concerning him, according to the sayings of the saints.

26. If no one is good among men, except the one God, then virtue (power) and being (τό εὶναι) are
naturally present to no good man, unless it comes to be present [to him] from God. And, on account of
this, the divine Maximus said, “Every virtue is without beginning, not having its own father in time,
because it God alone as the eternal generator of its being.”

27. If we abolish the natural properties from God through which what is common is made known, and
we clearly destroy the hypostatic properties through which the hypostases are distinguished, then the
Sabellian mixture will also have place.

28. If the things said of God are distinguished only conceptually (τῷ λόγῳ), as the new dogmaticians so
eloquently say, how about non-beings? For being [is given] to each according to its proper concept (τὸ
γὰρ εἶναι ἑκάστοις ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ λόγῳ).

29. If, on the one hand, the wisdom of God is said to be and is manifold, but his essence is not manifold,
then his wisdom is one thing and his essence is another, and his essence is not from his wisdom, as

104
Χρυσοῤῥήμων [Chrysostom??] says, but his wisdom is from his essence, and likewise for goodness and
other similar things. On account of this Philip also said that he did not seek to learn the wisdom of God,
nor his goodness, but the essence itself, i.e. the very “whatever” which God is (αὐτὸ ὅ τί ποτέ ἐστιν ὁ
θεός).

105
 Bibliography

Akindynos, Gregorios. Letters of Gregory Akindynos: Greek Text and English Translation. Translated
by Angela Constantinides Hero. Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantiae. Series Washingtonensis 21.
Washington: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1983.

———. Refutationes Duo Operis Gregorii Palamae Cui Titulus Dialogus Inter Orthodoxum et Bar-
laamitam. Edited by Juan Nadal Cañellas. Corpus Christianorum Series Graeca 31. Turnhout:
Brepols, 1995.

Angold, Michael. “Byzantium And the West 1204-1453.” In The Cambridge History of Christianity,
vol. 5: Eastern Christianity:53–78. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Aquinas, Thomas. De ente et essentia.

———. Expositio libri Posteriorum analyticorum.

———. In libros Physicorum

———. Quaestiones disputate de anima

———. Quaestiones disputate de potentia Dei.

———. Quaestiones disputate de spiritualibus creaturis

———. Quaestiones disputate de veritate.

———. Scriptum super Sententiis

———. Sententia libri Metaphysicae.

———. Summa contra gentiles.

———. Summa theologiae.

———. Super libros De divinis nominibus.

Barlaam the Calabrian. Opere Contro I Latini: Introduzione, Storia Dei Testi Edizione Critica,
Traduzione E Indici. Edited by Antonis Fyrigos. 2 vols. Studi E Testi 347-8. Città del Vaticano:
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1998.

Beck, Hans Georg “Der Kampf um der tomistischen Theologiebegriff in Byzanz.” Divus Thomas 13
(1935): 3–22.

———. “Humanismus Und Palamismus.” In Actes Du XIIe Congrès International d’Études Byzantines
À Ochrid, 1:63–82. Belgrade, 1963.

Billuart, Charles. Cursus Theologiae. Editio nova, accurate emendate. 10 vols. Lyon: Perisse Frères,
1861.
106
Bradshaw, David. Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Divisions of Christendom. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004.

———. “Divine Freedom: The Greek Fathers and the Modern Debate.” In Philosophical Theology and
the Christian Tradition: Russian and Western Perspectives, edited by David Bradshaw. Washing-
ton: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2012.

———. “The Divine Glory And the Divine Energies.” Faith and Philosophy 23 (2006): 279–98.

———. “The Concept of the Divine Energies.” In Divine Essence and Divine Energies: Ecumenical
Reflections on the Presence of God in Eastern Orthodoxy. Edited by Constantinos Athanasopoulos
and Christoph Schneider. Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 2013: 27-49.

———. “In Defence of the Essence/Energy Distinction: A Reply to Critics.” In Divine Essence and Di-
vine Energies: Ecumenical Reflections on the Presence of God in Eastern Orthodoxy. Edited by
Constantinos Athanasopoulos and Christoph Schneider. Cambridge: James Calrke & Co, 2013:
256-273.

Candal, Manuel. “Andreae Rhodiensis, OP, Inedita Ad Bessarionem Epistula (De Divina Essentia et
Operatione).” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 4 (1938): 329–70.

———. “Innovaciones palamiticas en la doctrina de la gracia” in Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati. Vol-

ume 3. Studi e texti 123. Vatican City, 1946: 65-103

———. “El Téofanes de Gregorio Palamas.” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 12 (1946): 238-61.

———. “El Libro VI de Prócoro Cidonio (sobre La Luz Tabórica).” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 20
(1954): 247–97.

———. “La confesión de fe antipalamitica de Gregorio Acíndino” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 25

(1959): 215-64.

Cajetan, Thomas de Vio. The Analogy of Names and the Concept of Being. Translated by Edward A.
Buschinski and Henry J. Koren. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1953.

———. Commentary on Being and Essence. Translated by Lottie Kendzierski and Francis C. Wade.
Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1964.

Clucas, L. “The Hesychast Controversy in Byzantium in the Fourteenth C.: A Consideration of the
Basic Evidence.” Ph.D. diss., University of California at Los Angeles, 1976.

Constas, Nicholas. “Mark Eugenikos.” In La Théologie Byzantin et Sa Tradition, 2:411–64. Turnhout:

Brepolis, 2002.

Contos, L. “The Essence-Energies Structure of Saint Gregory Palamas with a Brief Examination of Its
Patristic Foundation.” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 12 (1967).

107
Curcic, S., and Doula Mouriki. The Twilight of Byzantium: Aspects of Cultural and Religious History in
the Late Byzantine Empire. Princeton, 1991.

Delacroix-Besnier, Claudine. Les Dominicains et La Chrétienté Grecque Aux XIVe et XVe Siècles.
Rome: École française de Rome, 1997.

———. “Les Prêcheurs, Du Dialoue À La Polémique (XIIIe-XIVe Siècle).” In Greeks, Latins, and In-
tellectual History 1204-1500, edited by Martin Hinterberger and Christ Schabel, 11:151–68. Re-
cherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales, Bibliotheca. Leuven: Peeters, 2011.

Demetracopoulos, John A. “Palamas Transformed. Palamite Interpreations of the Distinction between

God’s ‘Essence’ and ‘Energies’ in Late Byzantium.” In Greeks, Latins, and Intellectual History
1204-1500, edited by Martin Hinterberger and Christ Schabel, 11:263–372. Recherches de
Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales, Bibliotheca. Leuven: Peeters, 2011.

———. “Further Evidence on the Ancient, Patristic, and Byzantine Sources of Barlaam the Calabrian’s
Contra Latinos.” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 96 (2003): 83-122.

Ferwerda, Rein, trans. Dialogue Between an Orthodox and a Barlaamite. Binghamton, NY: Bing-
hamton University, 2000.

Flogaus, R. “Inspiration—Exploitation—Distortion: The Use of St. Augustine in the Hesychast Contro-

versy.” In Orthodox Readings of Augustine, 63–80. New York, 2008.

———. “Palamas and Barlaam Revisited: A Reassessment of East and West in the Hesychast Contro-
versy of 14th Century Byzantium.” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 42 (1998): 1–32.

Florovsky, Georges. “St. Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers.” Sobornost 4, no. 4 (1961):
165–76.

Garrigou-Lagrange, Reginald. God: His Existence and Nature. St. Louis: B. Herder Book Co., 1949.

Garrigues, Juan-Miguel. “L’Energie Divine et La Grâce Chez Maxime Le Confessur.” Istina 3 (1974):
272–96.

Gass, W. Die Mystik des Nikolaus Cabasilas vom Leben in Christo. Leipzig, 1899.

Gill, Joseph. Personalities of the Council of Florence. Oxford, 1964.

Grant, W. Matthews. “Aquinas, Divine Simplicity, and Divine Freedom.” Proceedings of the American
Catholic Philosophical Association 77 (2004): 129–44.

Guillou, M.-J. Le. “Lumière et charité dans la doctrine palamite de la divinisation.” Istina 19 (1974):
329–38.

Habra, G. “The Source of the Doctrine of Gregory Palamas on the Divine Energies.” Eastern Churches
Quarterly 12 (1958): 244–52, 294–303, 338–47.

Halleux, A. de. “Palamisme et scolastique.” Revue Théologique de Louvain 4 (1973): 409–42.

108
———. “Palamisme et tradition.” Irénikon 4 (1975): 479–93.

Hausherr, Irénée. “Les grands courants de la spiritualité orientale.” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 1
(1935): 114-138.

———. “Lérreur fondamentale et la logique du Messalianisme” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 1

(1935): 328-60.

———. “A propos de spiritualité hésychaste: controverse sans contradicteur.” Orientalia Christiana

Periodica 3 (1937): 260-72.

———. “L’hésychasme. Étude de spiritualité.” Orientalia Christiana Periodica. 22 (1956): 5-40, 247-
85.

———. “Hésychasm et prière.” Orientalia Christiana Analecta 176. Rome: Pont. Institutum Orientalis,
1966.

Henle, Robert J. Saint Thomas and Platonism: A Study of the Plato and Platonici Texts in the Writings
of Saint Thomas. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1956.

Herrera, Juan José. La simplicidad divina según santo Tomás de Aquino. San Miguel de Tucumán: Edi
ciones de la Universidad del Norte Santo Tomás de Aquino, 2011.

Hill, William J. “Uncreated Grace: A Critique of Karl Rahner.” The Thomist 27 (1963): 333–56.

Houdret, Jean-Philippe. “Palamas et les Cappadociens.” Istina 19 (1974): 260–71.

Ivanka, Endre von. “Hellenisches im Hesychasmus: Das Antinomische der Energienlehre.” In

Epektasis: mélanges patristiques offerts au Cardinal Jean Danielou, 491–500. Beauchesne, 1972.

Ivánka, Endre von. Plato Christianus: Übernahme und Umgestaltung des Platonismus durch die Väter.
Einsiedeln: Johannes Verlag, 1964.

John of Damascus. “On Heresies.” In Writings, translated by Frederic H. Chase, 111–63. The Fathers of
the Church: A New Translation 37. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1958.
John of St. Thomas. Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus. 3 vols. Edited by P. Reiser. Turin:
Marietti, 1930.

———. Cursus Theologicus. 9 vols. Paris: Vivès, 1883.

———. Cursus Theologicus. Solesmes, ed. Paris: Desclée et Sociorum, 1937

Jones, John D. “An Absolutely Simple God? Frameworks for Reading Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopa-
gite.” The Thomist 69 (2005): 371–406.

———. “Introduction.” In The Divine Names and the Mystical Theology, 15–106. Medieval Texts in
Translation 21. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2011.

109
———. “(Mis?)-Reading the Divine Names as a Science: Aquinas’s Interpretation of the Divine
Names of (Pseudo) Dionysius Areopagite.” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 52 (2008): 142–
71.

———. “Mystical Union and Beatific Vision.” In Intellect and Imagination in Medieval Philosophy,
edited by Maria Candida Pacheco and José Francisco Meirinhos, 3:1887–98. Rencontres de Phi-
losophie Médiévale. Turnhout: Brepols, 2006.

———. “The Ontological Difference for St. Thomas and Pseudo-Dionysius.” Dionysius 4 (1980): 119–
32.

Journet, Charles. “Palamisme et Thomisme, À Propos D’un Livre Récent.” Revue Thomiste 60 (1960):
429–52.

Jugie, Martin. “‘Palamas, Grégoire’ and ‘Palamite, Controverse.’” In Dictionnaire de Théologie

Catholique, 1738–1818. Paris, 1932.

———. Theologia Dogmatica Christianorum Orientalium Ab Ecclesia Dissidentium. Vol. 2. Paris,

1933.

Kappes, Christiaan W., J. Isaac Goff, and T. Alexander Giltner. “Palamas among the Scholastics: A Re-
view Essay Discussing D. Bradshaw, C. Athanasopoulos, C. Schneider et Al., ‘Divine Essence and
Divine Energies: Ecumenical Reflections on the Presence of God in Eastern Orthodoxy.’” Logos:
A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 55, no. 1–2 (2014): 175–220.

Kianka, F. “Demetrius Cydones and Thomas Aquinas.” Byzantion 52 (1982): 264–86.

———. “The Apology of Demetrius Cydones: A Fourteenth Century Autobiographical Source.” Byzan-
tine Studies 7 (1980): 57–71.

Knasas, John F. X. “Contra Spinoza: Aquinas on God’s Free Will.” American Catholic Philosophical
Quarterly 76 (2002): 417–29.

Kolbaba, Tia. “Conversion from Greek Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism in the Fourteenth Century.”
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 19 (1995): 120–34.

———. “Barlaam the Calabrian: Three Treatises on Papal Primacy. Introduction, Edition and Transla-
tion.” Revue des études byzantines 53 (1995): 41-115.

Krausmüller, Dirk. “The Rise of Hesychasm.” In The Cambridge History of Christianity, vol 5: Eastern
Christainity:101–26. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Krivocheine, Basil. “Simplicity of the Divine Nature and the Distinctions in God According to St.
Gregory of Nyssa.” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 21 (1977): 76–104.

Kydones, Demetrius. Briefe. Edited and translated by F. Tinnefeld. Stuttgart, 1981.

110
Laiou, Angeliki e. “The Palaiologoi and the World around Them (1261-1400).” In The Cambridge His-
tory of the Byzantine Empire, edited by Jonathan Shephard, 803–33. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 2008.

Larchet, Jean-Claude. La Théologie Des Énergies Divines : Des Origines À Saint Jean Damascène.
Cogitatio Fidei 272. Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2010.

Laurent, V. “La Correspondance de Démétrius Cydonès.” Echos d’Orient 30 (1931): 399–454.

Lévy, Antoine. Le Créé et L’incréé: Maxime Le Confesseur et Thomas d’Aquin: Aux Sources de La
Querelle Palamienne. Bibliotèque Thomiste. Paris, 2006.

———. “An Introduction to Divine Relativity: Beyond David Bradshaw’s Aristotle East and West.”
The Thomist 72 (2008): 173–231.

———. “Lost in Translatio? Diakrisis Kat’Epinoian as Main Issue in the Discussions Between Four-
teenth-Century Palamites and Thomists.” The Thomist 76 (2012): 431–71.

———. “The Woes of Originality: Discussing David Bradshaw’s Aristotelian Journey into Neo-
Palamism” in Divine Essence and Divine Energies: Ecumenical Reflections on the Presence of
God in Eastern Orthodoxy. Edited by Constantinos Athanasopoulos and Christoph Schneider: 96-
121.

Loenertz, R.-J. “Démétrius Cydonès, I: De La Naissance À L’année 1373.” Orientalia Christiana Peri-
odica 36 (1970): 47–72.

———. “Démétrius Cydonès, II: De 1373 À 1375.” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 37 (1971): 5–39.

———. “Les Établissements Dominicains de Péra-Constantinople.” Echos d’Orient 34 (1933): 333–34.

———. The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. Translated by Fellowship of St. Alban and
St. Sergius. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002.

———. The Vision of God. Translated by Asheleigh Moorhouse. 2nd ed. Bedfordshire: The Faith
Press, 1973.

Lossky, Vladimir, and Vladimir Lossky. “The Theology of Light in the Thought of St. Gregory
Palamas.” In In the Image and Likeness of God. New York, 1974.

Lössl, J. “Augustine’s `De Trinitate’ in the 150 Chapters of ST. Gregory Palamas.” Augustinian Studies
30 (1999): 61–82.

Menn, Stephen. “The Origins of Aristotle’s Conception of Ἐνέργεια: Ἐνέργεια and Δύναμις.” Ancient
Philosophy 14, no. 73–114 (1994).

Mercoti, Giovanni. Notizie Di Procoro E Demetrio Cidone, Manuele Caleca E Teodoro Meliteniota Ed
Altri Appunti per La Storia Della Teologia E Della Letteratura Bizantina Del Secolo XIV. Studi E
Testi 56. Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1931.

111
Meyendorff, John. A Study of Gregory Palamas. Translated by George Lawrence. Crestwood: St. Vla-
dimir’s Seminary Press, 1998.

———. Byzantine Hesychasm: Historical, Theological, and Social Problems. London: Variorum Re-
prints, 1974.

———. “Humanisme Nominaliste et Mystique Chétiene À Byzance Au XIVe Siècle.” In Byzantine

Hesychasm: Historical, Theological, and Social Problems, 905–14. London: Variorum Reprints,
1974.

———. “Introduction.” In Defense Des Saints Hésychastes, vii – l. Louvain: Spicilegum Sacrum
Lovaniense, 1959.

———. Introduction À L’étude de Grégoire Palamas. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1959.

———. “Les Débuts de La Controverse Hésychaste.” In Byzantine Hesychasm: Historical, Theologi-

cal, and Social Problems, 87–120. London: Variorum Reprints, 1974.

———. “Mount Athos in the Fourteenth Century: Spiritual and Intellectual Legacy.” Dumbarton Oaks
Papers 42 (1988): 157–65.

———. “Society and Culture in the Fourteenth Century: Religious Problems.” In Byzantine Hesy-
chasm: Historical, Theological, and Social Problems, 51–65. London: Variorum Reprints, 1974.

———. “Un Mauvais Théologien de L’unité Au XIVe Siècle: Barlaam Le Calabrais.” In Byzantine
Hesychasm: Historical, Theological, and Social Problems, 47–64. London: Variorum Reprints,
1974.

Nadal Cañellas, Juan. “Gregorio Akindynos.” In La Théologie Byzantin et Sa Tradition I: XIIIe - XIXe
Siècles, 189–314. Turnhout, 2002.

———. La Résistance d’Akindynos À Grégoire Palamas: Enquête Historique, Avec Tratuction et

Commentaire de Quatre Traités Édités Récemment. Vol. 2. Commentaire historique. 2 vols. vols.
Spicilegium Sacrum Louvaniense Études et Documents 50-1. Leuven: Peeters, 2006.

Nadal, Juan Sergio. “La Critique Par Akindynos de L’herméneutique Patristique de Palamas.” Istina 3
(1974): 297–328.

Nicol, Donald M. Church and Society in the Last Centuries of Byzantium, 1261-1453. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1979.

———. The Last Centuries of Byzantium. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain, and Makarios of Corinth. The Philokalia: A Complete Text. Edited
by G. E. H Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware. 4 vols. London: Faber and Faber, 1983.

112
Palamas, Gregory. Défense Des Saints Hésychastes: Introduction, Text Critique, Traduction et Notes.
Edited by John Meyendorff. 2 vols. Études et Documents. Louvain: Spicilegum Sacrum
Lovaniense, 1959.

———. The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters. Edited and translated by Robert E. Sinkewicz. Toronto:
Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1988.

Papadakis, Aristeides. “Byzantine Perceptions of the Latin West.” Greek Orthodox Theological Review
36 (1992): 231–42.

Papadopoulos, S. G. “Thomas in Byzanz: Thomas-Rezeption Und Thomas-Kritik in Byzanz Zwischen

1354 Und 1453.” Theologie Und Philosophie 49 (1974): 274–304.

Patacsi, Gabriel. “Palamism Before Palamas.” Eastern Churches Review 9 (1977): 64–71.

Perl, Eric. “St. Gregory Palamas and the Metaphysics of Creation.” Dionysius 14 (1990): 105–30.

Perl, Eric D. Theophany: The Neoplatonic Philosophy of Dionysius the Areopagite. Albany: State Uni-
versity of New York Press, 2007.

Plested, Marcus. Orthodox Readings of Aquinas. Changing Paradigms in Historical and Systematic
Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Podskalsky, G. Theologie Und Philsophie in Byzanz: Der Streit Um Die Theologische Methodik in Der
Spätbyzantinischen Geistegeschichte (14/15. Jh.). Munich, 1977.

Radde-Gallwitz, Andrew. Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and the Transformation of Divine Sim-
plicity. Oxford Early Christian Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Raeymaeker, Louis De. Metaphysica Generalis. Editio altera. Louvain: E. Warny, 1935.

———. Philosophy of Being. St. Louis: Herder, 1954.

Rahner, Karl. “Some Implications of the Scholastic Concept of Uncreated Grace.” In Theological Inves-
tigations, translated by Cornelius Ernst, 319–46. Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1961.

Régis, Louis-Marie. Epistemology. New York: Macmillan, 1959.

Romanides, John. “Notes on the Palamite Controversy and Related Topics.” Greek Orthodox Theologi-
cal Review 9 (April 1963): 225–70.

Rossum, Joost van. “Palamism and Church Tradition: Palamism and Its Use of Patristic Tradition and
Its Relationship with Thomistic Thought.” Fordham, 1985.

Russell, Norman. “Palamism and the Circle of Demetrius Cydones.” In Porphyrogenita. Essays on the
History and Literature of Byzantium and the Latin East in Honour of Julian Chrysostomides, edit-
ed by C. Dendrinos, J. Harris, E. Harvalia-Crook and J. Herrin, 153–74. Aldershot, 2003.

113
———. “Prochoros Cydones and the Fourteenth-Century Understanding of Orthodoxy.” In Byzantine
Orthodoxies: Papers from the Thirty-Sixth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, edited by An-
drew Louth and Augustine Casiday, 75–91. Aldershot, 2006.

———. The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition. Oxford Early Christian Studies.
Oxford: Oxford Universtiy Press, 2004.

———. “Theosis and Gregory Palamas: Continuity or Doctrinal Change.” St. Valdimir’s Theological
Quarterly 50, no. 4 (2006): 357–79.

Ryder, Judith R. The Career and Writings of Demetrius Kydones: A Study of Fourteenth Century Byz-
antine Politics, Religion and Society. Leiden, 2010.

———. “Divided Loyalties? The Career and Writings of Demetrius Kydones.” In Greeks, Latins, and
Intellectual History 1204-1500, edited by Martin Hinterberger and Christ Schabel, 11:243–62. Re-
cherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales, Bibliotheca. Leuven: Peeters, 2011.

Sacred Congregation of Studies. Decree of July 27, 1914. Acta Apostolicae Sedis 6 (1914): 384.

Salmanticenses Fr. Discalceatorum B. Mariae de Monte Carmeli, Collegium. Cursus Theologicus.

10 vols. Paris: Victorem Palmé, 1876.

Sertillanges, Antonin. L’idée de création et ses retentissements en philosophie. Paris: Aubier, 1945.

Sevcenko, I. “The Decline of Byzantium Seen through the Eyes of Its Intellectuals.” Dumbarton Oaks
Papers 15 (1961): 169–86.

Sinkewicz, Robert E. “A New Interpretation for the First Episode in the Controversy Between Barlaam
the Calabrian and Gregory Palamas.” Journal of Theological Studies 31 (1981): 489–500.

———. “The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God in the Early Writings of Barlaam the Calabrian.” Me-
dieval Studies 44 (1982): 181–242.

———. “Gregory Palamas.” In La Théologie Byzantin et Sa Tradition II: XIIIe - XIXe Siècles, 131–88.
Turnhout: Brepols, 2002.

Spidlik, Thomas. Prayer: The Spirituality of the Christian East. Volume 2. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Pub-
lications, 2005.

Stiernon, Daniel. “Bulletin Sur Le Palamisme.” Revue Des Études Byzantines 30 (1972): 231–336.

Stump, Eleonore, and Norman Kretzmann. “Absolute Simplicity.” Faith and Philosophy 2 (1985): 353–
82.
Tollefsen, Torstein Theodor. Activity and Participation in Late Antique and Early Christian Thought.
Oxford: Oxford Universtiy Press, 2012.

Trethowan, I. “Irrationality in Theology and the Palamite Distinction.” Eastern Churches Review 9
(1977): 19–26.

114
Tsirpanlis, C. Mark Eugenicus and the Council of Florence: A Historical Reevaluation of His Personal-
ity. Thessolonica, 1974.

Ware, Kallistos. “God Hidden and Revealed: The Apophatic Way and the Essence-Energies Distinc-
tion.” Eastern Churches Review 7 (1975): 125–36.
———. “Scholasticism and Orthodoxy: Theological Method as a Factor in the Schism.” Eastern
Churches Review 5 (1973): 16–27.

———. “The Debate About Palamism.” Eastern Churches Review 9 (1977): 45–63.
Williams, A. N. The Ground of Union: Deification in Aquinas and Palamas. New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1999.

Williams, Rowan. “The Philosophical Structures of Palamism.” Eastern Churches Review 9 (1977): 27–
44.

Wippel, John. “God’s Freedom to Create or Not.” In Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas II, 218–
39. Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy 47. Washington: Catholic University of
America Press, 2007.

Yannaras, Christos. “Orthodoxy and the West.” Eastern Churches Review 3 (1971): 286–300.

———. “The Distinction between Essence and Energies and Its Importance for Theology.” St. Vladi-
mir’s Theological Quarterly 19 (1975): 232–45.

115