Is God “Essence and Energies”?

As a result of the teachings of Gregory Palamas, the Eastern Orthodox teach that in God, there is a real and ontological distinction between His essence and energies. They teach that God’s essence is completely transcendent and that we only receive His energies which are themselves God. Hence. they define God as “essence and energies”. While the church fathers made a distinction between the essence of God and His energies (His attributes and operations), did they teach that this is a real and ontological distinction in God, or merely a philosophical distinction in the way we speak about God or perceive Him? We will explore this question in more detail in this article.

The Eastern Orthodox maintain that God’s energies are “uncreated”, and anything uncreated is God. Therefore, they maintain that God’s energies must be God. As we will discuss later, the Church fathers maintained that God is simple and not compound, and that God’s qualities, attributes, will, and operations are not God, even though they are divine. Defining the divinity based on attributes and not essence, is the foundation for the argument in support of the Eunomian heresy. The Arians/Eunomians argued that since the Word is begotten and the Father is unbegotten, the Word cannot be God. Thus, they made a mere quality or attribute (to be begotten or unbegotten) the criteria for the divinity. While not denying that God is uncreated, the church fathers already refuted this type of reasoning by explaining that it is not the mode of origin (or lack of) that is the criteria for the divinity. In other words, it is not the qualities or attributes of God (begotten or unbegotten, created or uncreated), but rather His essence, which makes God Who He is. The Fathers explained that even though God’s energies are divine and belong to God, because they are not the divine essence, they are not God. Otherwise, the heretics would be right who argued that the Son of God is not truly God because He is begotten and not unbegotten like the Father.

Yet in His book “The Orthodox Way” Eastern Orthodox Metropolitan Kallistos Ware writes:

Since, then, the union between God and the human beings that he has created is a union neither according to essence nor according to hypostasis, it remains thirdly that it should be a union according to energy. The saints do not become God by essence nor one person with God, but they participate in the energies of God, that is to say, in his life, power, grace and glory…The energies are truly God himself – yet not God as he exists within himself, in his inner life, but God as he communicates himself in outgoing love. He who participates in God’s energies is therefore meeting God himself face to face…

The above doctrine is problematic on many levels. First, God does not exist without a hypostasis. A hypostasis is the individual designation of an essence–a person. An essence without an individual designation is either extinct or imaginary. Dinosaurs are extinct because there is no longer an individual designation (hypostasis) of the dinosaurs. Likewise, unicorns are imaginary because an individual designation (hypostasis) of the unicorn essence never existed. If the energies of the Holy Spirit are literally God, with which does the Hypostasis of the Holy Spirit belong? The energies or the essence? Since the Hypostasis belongs to the essence only, how are the energies God Himself without a hypostasis? If the Hypostasis belongs to both the essence and energies, then God is inevitably no longer simple but compound. And God is simple, not compounded (more on this later). The only Hypostasis of the Trinity Who possesses any duality is the Word of God, after the incarnation. Thus, an operation or attribute is not God because it has no hypostasis. It cannot have a hypostasis because it has no metaphysical substance or essence of its own. God’s operations and attributes, therefore, belong to the divine Hypostases and essence, but have no hypostasis (or essence) of their own. Thus, it is theologically incorrect to say that God’s energies are “God” Himself.

Metropolitan Ware goes on to say:

To say that man participates in the energies but not in the essence of God is to say that between man and God there is brought to pass union but not confusion. It means that we affirm concerning God, in the most literal and emphatic way, ‘His life is mine’, while at the same time repudiating pantheism.

But the above is self-contradicting. If the purpose of distancing God’s hypostasis and essence from the believer, and asserting that the energies themselves “are God”, is to repudiate pantheism, how is pantheism repudiated if the energies of God are God? Either the energies are not truly “God” because they are not the essence, or they are “God” and we are pantheists because the energies themselves are “God”. The answer is that God’s energies cannot be said to be created, since anything that belongs to God’s essence cannot be “created”. However, they are neither created nor uncreated. The energies themselves cannot appropriately be called “God”. And their mode of origin is irrelevant (created or uncreated) since qualities and attributes are merely qualities of the divine essence. As mentioned earlier, attributes and operations have no metaphysical substance or subsistence. They are divine and belong to God, but are not God Himself. Neither did the early Church fathers refer to God’s energies as “God”, or said that “God is essence and energies” as this would violate the fundamental theological principle of divine simplicity.  So what do we receive? And how are we united with God? More on this later.

Yet the Eastern Orthodox argue that God’s energies are God Himself because as they argue, God is “fully present” in each one of His attributes. But if God is “fully present” in His attributes, this would have to mean He is present hypostatically and according to essence. Otherwise, how is God “fully present” without his essence? And if that’s the case, how does it not follow that since we receive God’s energies, in which God is “fully present” essentially, that we do not also partake of God’s nature, when we partake of His energies in which God is “fully present”? There is no satisfactory answer to this question. Yet those who hold this view nevertheless maintain, as Metropolitan Ware, that they partake of the energies and not of the essence, but still partake of God because the energies themselves are “God”.

Those who argue that the energies of God are God Himself because God is “fully present” in each of the energies, utilize flawed logic. The presence of an entity in a second entity does not make the second entity the first entity.  If a person is fully present in a room, the room does not become that person. If a person is fully present when a photograph is taken, the photograph does not literally become that person. The photograph is a paper (or digital) representation or manifestation of the person, but can never be the person himself. Another example: Since a person is fully present while he is running, this doesn’t make the act of running the very person. Yet this is essentially the logic of those who argue that the energies of God are “God” Himself, because God “is fully present” in them. Still yet, one might ask without any satisfying answer from the EO: How is God fully present in the energies without His essence?

Refuting Apollinarism, St. Athanasius explained that the “mind of the Lord” is not God Himself, but His “action towards something”, and that God’s will or counsel or action is “not itself the Lord”:

St. Athanasius – Against Apollinaris
Now a man’s body is called body, and not soul: and a man’s soul is called (soul) and not body, each being in relation to the other, that is, spirit to body. For it is said, who knoweth the mind of the Lord? The “mind of the Lord” is not of itself the Lord, but is the Lord’s will or counsel, or action towards something. Why then do you desire such language, adulterating the word of God by made-up words? But the Church of God has neither received nor handed down this notion, but rather, as it is written, that that God and Word who was before the ages with God came among us at the consummation of the ages, and was born of the Holy Virgin, and of the Holy Spirit, Son of Man, as it is written…

St. Cyril of Alexandria explicitly explained that God’s judgement “is an operation and nothing else”. Note that he does not explain that God’s judgement (operation/energy) is God Himself:

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John
Next we must consider this too. To judge or to give judgment, are rather operations and acts conceived as properties of essences than themselves truly essences. For we in giving judgment do something, being in ourselves what we are. But if we grant that judging or giving judgment is of the nature of an essence, how must we not needs grant, even against our wills, that some cannot exist at all, except as judges, and that their being wholly ceases together with the termination of the judgment? But so to think, is most absurd. Judgment then is an operation, and nothing else. What then hath the Father committed to the Son? No accession from His Own Nature, in committing all judgment to Him, but rather an operation in respect of them that are judged.

To the contrary, St. Cyril clearly explained that the divine being is not composed of “nature and energy”:

For if one is not too poorly endowed with the decency which befits wise men, one will say that the divine being is properly and primarily simple and incomposite; one will not, dear friend, venture to think that it is composed out of nature and energy, as though, in the case of the divine, these are naturally other; one will believe that it exists as entirely one thing with all that it substantially possesses. – St. Cyril, Dialogues on the Trinity, book VII; SC 246 (de Durand, ed.), pp. 200-202; PG 75, 1109 B-C.

Yet those who argue that the energies of God are themselves “God” (because they argue that the energies possess the attribute of uncreated-ness) are also refuted by St. Gregory Nazianzen. St. Gregory wrote against the errors of Eunomius who adopted a Christianized view of the essentialist view found in Platonic and Stoic traditions. He maintained that God’s essence is simply and merely unbegottenness. Eunomius was not simply saying that God’s essence is unbegotten. Rather, that God’s unbegottenness is the primary definition of the divine essence. Based on this flawed reasoning, Eunomius argued that the Son is not equal to the Father because the Son is begotten, while the Father is unbegotten. In other words, Eunomius incorrectly made an attribute of God the sole criteria for the divinity. This is undoubtedly similar to the logic of those who argue that the energies of God are God Himself, merely on account the energies being “uncreated”:

St. Gregory explained that what makes the Son God is not whether or not He was begotten or unbegotten. It is His essence, which He shares with the Father. In other words, the attributes–in this case means of generation (or lack of) — are not what make an entity what it is, but its essence.

St. Gregory Nazianzus – Theological Orations 3: On the Son, 1
But if you say that the One who begot and the One who is begotten are not the same [sc. in nature], the statement is inaccurate. For it is in fact a necessary truth that they are the same. For it is the very essence of the act of begetting, that the offspring is, with respect to nature, the same thing as the parent…For example, wisdom and lack of wisdom are not the same in themselves. Yet both are attributes of the same thing, humanity; they do not divide the essences, but mark divisions within the same essence. Are immortality, innocence, and immutability also the essence of God? If so, God has many essences and not just one – that, or the divine essence is a compound of these qualities. For God cannot be all these things without forming a compound – if all these things are essences. In fact, they do not assert this, for these qualities are common also to other beings. But God’s essence is proper to God alone…

St. Gregory goes on to argue that only Adam was created directly by God, but his offspring are still human like him even though they were begotten of their parents and not created by God directly. This is because Adam’s offspring always share his essence, not necessarily all his attributes–especially that he was created and not begotten of human parents:

What about Adam? Was he not alone the direct creature of God? “Yes,” you will say. Was he then the only human being? “Not at all.” And why so? Because humanity does not consist in direct creation; that which is begotten is also human.

Therefore, the energies of God cannot be God, even if they are “uncreated”, because they are attributes and operations of God, and not the essence of God. It is the essence, not any one attribute or energy, which defines the Divine Being.

St. Gregory Nazianzen – Oration XXXVIII
For the nature of that which is without beginning does not consist in being without beginning or being unbegotten, for the nature of anything lies, not in what it is not but in what it is.  It is the assertion of what is, not the denial of what is not. And the Beginning is not, because it is a beginning, separated from that which has no beginning.  For its beginning is not its nature, any more than the being without beginning is the nature of the other.  For these are the accompaniments of the nature, not the nature itself. That again which is with that which has no beginning, and with the beginning, is not anything else than what they are. Now, the name of that which has no beginning is the Father, and of the Beginning the Son, and of that which is with the Beginning, the Holy Ghost, and the three have one Nature—God. 

Similarly, St. Athanasius explained that the Son is not God merely because He shares attributes or moral qualities with the Father, but rather because He shares His essence. In doing so, He explained that the qualities of God are not what make God Who He is. Otherwise, God would be “compound of quality and essence”. This is an idea that St. Athanasius utterly rejected. Rather, he explained that the criteria for divinity is the divine essence because God is “simple essence”:

St. Athanasius – Letter To the Bishops of Africa
Here especially once more it is easy to shew their folly. If it is from virtue, the antecedent of willing and not willing, and of moral progress, that you hold the Son to be like the Father; while these things fall under the category of quality; clearly you call God compound of quality and essence. But who will tolerate you when you say this? For God, who compounded all things to give them being, is not compound, nor of similar nature to the things made by Him through the Word. Far be the thought. For He is simple essence, in which quality is not, nor, as James says, ‘any variableness or shadow of turning.’

Maintaining the principle of divine simplicity, St John Chrysostom also explained that “God is simple and has no parts:” 

St. John Chrysostom – On the Incomprehensible Nature of God, Homily I
Therefore, he is saying that his present knowledge of God is imperfect and in part. Paul did not say “imperfect” because he knows one part of God’s essence and does not know another part-for God is simple and has no parts.

Additionally, the assertion that operations of God are themselves “God” is problematic as it inevitably makes one hypostasis of the Trinity more divine than the others on account of the unique operations of the Hypostasis and makes a verse such as this one extremely problematic: “For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22). If the operation (energy) of judging is “God”, as the EO would assert, this inevitably makes the Son more divine than the Father, since “all judgement” is committed to the Son. But St. Cyril addressed this flawed mode of thinking by explaining that to judge is merely an operation, and itself is not the divine essence. Therefore, the operation committed to the Son does not make the Son more superior to the Father (or Holy Spirit) as both share the same divine nature.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John
One may often see that he who has received anything is not inferior to the giver, and that the Father is not therefore of Superior Nature to His offspring, because He hath committed to Him all judgment. Next we must consider this too. To judge or to give judgment, are rather operations and acts conceived as properties of essences than themselves truly essences…Judgment then is an operation, and nothing else. What then hath the Father committed to the Son? No accession from His Own Nature, in committing all judgment to Him, but rather an operation in respect of them that are judged. How then will He herein be greater, or of Superior Nature, by having added anything which was not in the Son Who saith, All things that the Father hath are Mine?

Similarly, St. Cyril of Alexandria explained that while Christ was exalted as having the very essence of the Father`, He humbled Himself to be deprived of the “attributes” of Divine glory. Divine glory is an “attribute” of God. But God the Word forsook this attribute for our sake by means of the incarnation and made Himself of no reputation (Philippians 2:7). If God’s glory is God Himself, did the Word somehow decrease in His divinity? Of course not.  Therefore, God’s energies cannot be God Himself, even though they are attributes and operations of His nature:

-St. Cyril of Alexandria (Commentary on Gospel of St. John, Book 12. Vol. 2)
“And in what sense was He degraded, if you do not take into account the lofty attributes of His ineffable Nature? Therefore, when He was perfect and all-sufficient as God, He humbled Himself for your sake, transforming Himself to your likeness; and though He was high exalted as the Son of God, and of the very Essence of the Father, He degraded Himself, being mulcted of the attributes of Divine glory, so far as His Nature admitted.”

Actually, it is philosophically and theologically nonsensical to speak of the energies of God as “created” or “uncreated”, because an operation or attribute has no metaphysical existence in itself. An operation belongs to an essence, which can be said to have a metaphysical existence (via a hypostasis). We can only speak this way of an essence. Only an essence can be created or uncreated.

Some might argue that the verse “God is love” (1 John 4:7) is evidence that love which is an attribute of God, is God Himself, and therefore the energies of God are “God”. However, this is faulty logic which fails to consider the metaphorical writing style of the Apostle John. “Love” here is used as a name for God, and for emphatical and metaphorical association. “God is love” means that love is a key attribute and operation of the divine essence, and that God is the source of all love. Otherwise, we would also worship “love”. Similarly, when we learn from Scripture regarding Emanuel “…his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6), we do not consider the attributes “wonderful”, “mighty”, “everlasting” to be “God” Himself. These are merely descriptive names of Christ, and scripture reminds us of this explicitly by saying “his name shall be called”. In the same manner, when we call someone who is skilled in mathematics, a “mathematician”, or someone skilled in athletics, an “athlete”, we neither consider that this person has literally become “mathematics” or “athletics”, nor do we consider mathematics and athletics to be that person. This would be absurd. These are mere titles, attributes, names, or operations. The same principle applies to “way”, “truth”, “life”, “door” and the many other names or attributes of Christ. These are not literally God, since God is simple and not compounded. He is the great “I Am”.  Therefore, God’s names are not God, and God is not his various names, titles, attributes. and operations (energies).

Just as the Word of God the Father is one but is called, according to his various operations, life, and light, and power, so it is too with regard to the Holy Spirit. He is one but is regarded as multiform because of the way in which he operates. – St. Cyril of Alexandria (Commentary on Isaiah, the Nature of the Messiah)

For the sake of argument, let’s entertain the argument that God’s energies are “uncreated”, and take one of God’s attributes, such as omnipresence, for example, and call it “God”, on account of it being “uncreated”. Is uncreated-ness the only attribute of God? Obviously not. Many other attributes are unique to God, such as infinite wisdom, love, power, omnipotence, among many others. Yet, in order for omnipresence to truly be “God”, it must possess all other attributes of the divine nature. Else, how is it truly “God”, without all of God’s divine attributes? Does omnipresence possess omnipotence? Does omnipresence possess infinite love? Does omnipresence possess infinite wisdom? Is omnipresence to be worshipped? Thus, should be evident the absurdity of calling “God”, one of God’s attributes, on account of it being “uncreated” or eternal.

And if we were to collectively call all the “energies” of God “God” Himself, as the Eastern Orthodox do, we would then have to ask: Do the energies subsist independently of the essence? If we say they subsist independently, then we have created another deity comprised of “energies”. And this would be polytheism. And if the energies depend on the essence because they belong to the essence, as the EO say, then the energies cannot be “God”. This is because by definition, God is self-subsisting and does not depend on anything for His existence. And if we say that “God is both essence and energies” then undoubtedly, we violate the theological principle of divine simplicity because God’s subsistence would depend on both His essence and energies. Thus, it should be evident on all levels that the energies of God are not God Himself. God is simple essence.

Then what do we receive when we partake of the Holy Spirit? The Spirit’s essence/nature or His energies? The church fathers emphasized as with scripture, that the Spirit Himself dwells in our hearts and not merely His “grace” or “energies”. But before we delve into this question, we should first consider the hypostatic union of God the Word and the indwelling of the Spirit in the believers. As St. Athanasius explained, receiving the Spirit of God, we continue to be “men according to nature” and are not changed into the nature of God. In a somewhat similar manner, the Word united Himself with flesh but “remained God in his humanity”, and His humanity was not changed to the nature of the divinity. If when the divine nature of God the Word united with His humanity, the divinity did not alter the humanity to make it divine (to say so would be Monophyisitism), how much more absurd would it be to argue that believers cannot have any fellowship and communion with the divine essence when they receive the Holy Spirit, because this would somehow cause their human nature to change to the divinity?

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Letter 1, to the Monks in Egypt
We have been enriched with his Spirit, for his Spirit has come to dwell in our hearts, and have taken our place among the children of God, and yet have not lost being what we are. For we are men according to nature even though we say to God, “Abba! Father!” Similarly he, God the Word, ineffably begotten of the substance of God and the Father, in assuming his humanity, has honored that nature, but has not departed from his preeminence, but has remained God in his humanity.

The church fathers clearly maintained that the believers receive the very essence/substance of God. St. Gregory Nazianzen explained that the Spirit “no longer present only in energy” is “substantially, associating with us, and dwelling in us”. By “substantially”, St. Gregory meant according to God’s substance/essence:

St. Gregor Nazianzen – Select Orations, Oration XLI, On Pentecost
Now the first of these manifests Him—the healing of the sick and casting out of evil spirits, which could not be apart from the Spirit; and so does that breathing upon them after the Resurrection, which was clearly a divine inspiration; and so too the present distribution of the fiery tongues, which we are now commemorating.  But the first manifested Him indistinctly, the second more expressly, this present one more perfectly, since He is no longer present only in energy, but as we may say, substantially, associating with us, and dwelling in us. 

In defending the divinity of the Holy Spirit, St. Cyril argues how can we be called “temples of God”, if the Spirit dwelling in us “not be of God, i.e. of His essence”. St. Cyril could not make this argument if he was convinced that we are not truly indwelt by the Holy Spirit essentially, but merely according to “energies” or “grace”:

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Gospel According to St. John, Book IX
Else how can it be that the Spirit is and is called God? For do ye not know, he says, that ye are a temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? But if, forasmuch as the Spirit dwelleth in us, we are made temples of God, how can the Spirit not be of God, i.e. of His Essence, whereas He makes God to dwell in us through Himself?

Even more clearly, St. Cyril explained that we are both “partakers and sharers in the ‘Substance’ that transcends the universe”. In other words, we are temples of God because we are partakers and sharers in the divine nature/ substance/essence.

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, Book XI
How, then, should we have had added to us, or how should we have been shown to be partakers in, Divine Nature, if God had not been in us, nor we been joined to Him through having been called to communion with the Spirit? But now are we both partakers and sharers in the Substance That transcends the universe and are become temples of God.

St. Cyril explained that we are renewed because God Himself delineates in us the Godhead’s “substance” by dwelling in our hearts:

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Thesaurs34 (PG 75, 609-12)
For not like a painter does the Spirit delineate in us the Godhead’s substance, being himself something other than it, nor does he bring us to the likeness of God in this way; but being God Himself and proceeding from God, he is invisibly imprinted like a stamp, as it were on the wax tablet of his recipients’ hearts, delineating the nature afresh into the archetypal beauty through participation and likeness to him and again disclosing man in the image of God.

St. Cyril further explained that we receive the Holy Spirit Who is not separate from the Son as far as “identity of Substance” is concerned. Thus, he refuted what he called an “ignorant view” held by some, that the Holy Spirit merely performs “ministerial functions” in us. Thus, St. Cyril refuted the notion that we merely partake of the Spirit’s operations (ministerial functions), and not His essence as well:

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Gospel According to St. John, Book X. 
He is My Spirit, and as it were My Mind, He will surely speak to you of the things concerning Me. And this the Savior saith, not that we should suppose that the Holy Spirit has merely ministerial functions, as some ignorantly maintain, but rather from a wish to satisfy the disciples that His Spirit, not being separate from Him so far as identity of Substance is concerned, will surely speak the things concerning Him, and will work and purpose the same.

And to put it most clearly, St. Cyril explained that “the fullness of the consubstantial Trinity dwells within us through the Spirit”.:  

St. Cyril of Alexandria – On the Unity of Christ
For the fullness of the consubstantial Trinity dwells within us through the Spirit. This is why Paul says: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells within you?” (1 Cor 3:16). Indeed Christ Himself says: “If anyone loves me he will keep my word and my Father will love him. and we will come to him and make our abode with him” (Jn l4:23).

So then do we receive the Spirit or His energies? We receive both. Therefore, we receive God’s indwelling in us as well the manifestation of His presence in us–by means of His multiple and varied operations in us. Or more precisely, the reason we observe multiple manifestations of the same Spirit working in us, is because the Spirit personally and substantially dwells in us, and not merely His grace/energies. This does not mean that we become hypostatically united with the Spirit. Neither does it mean that we become God by nature. Rather, we have fellowship and communion with the divine essence by means of the Spirit’s indwelling. Scripture does not say we have communion with mere “grace” or “energies”, but with the Holy Spirit Himself:

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen (2 Cor 13:14)

St. Cyril of Alexandria explained that we are “partakers of the divine nature” and are begotten of God “not by grace alone…but as having now God too indwelling and lodging in us”:

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Commentary on the Gospel of St. John, BOOK I
For either we shall say that the Evangelist certainly lies, or (if he is true and it be so and not otherwise), the Spirit will be God and of God by Nature, of Whom we too being accounted worthy to partake through faith to Christ-ward, are rendered partakers of the Divine Nature and are said to be begotten of God, and are therefore called gods, not by grace alone winging our flight to the glory that is above us, but as having now God too indwelling and lodging in us, according to what is said in the prophet, I will dwell in them and walk in them.

In other words, God’s operations are what we see externally because of the unseen God Who dwells in us invisibly and works in us. St. John Chrysostom does not call the gifts and miracles of the Spirit (God’s energies) the Spirit, but rather visible “manifestations” of the invisible Spirit. As Chrysostom explained, the manifestations are “proof” of the presence of the Spirit Himself, Whom the believers receive in Baptism. Thus, it should be evident that the believer receives both the Spirit (essence) and the Spirit’s gifts and grace (energies), which are manifestations of the same Spirit. It is not merely “energies” as the per the Palamite EO doctrine:

St. John Chrysostom – Homilies on First Corinthians, Homily XXIX
For since on their coming over from idols, without any clear knowledge or training in the ancient Scriptures, they at once on their baptism received the Spirit, yet the Spirit they saw not, for It is invisible; therefore God’s grace bestowed some sensible proof of that energy…Wherefore also he so calls it, saying, “But to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given to profit withal;” (v. 7.) calling the gifts “a manifestation of the Spirit.”

St. Basil explained that the Holy Spirit is both present (essence) and manages the distribution of spiritual gifts (energies), which are as we stated earlier, manifestation of His presence.

“In every activity the Spirit is closely conjoined with, and inseparable from, the Father and the Son: while God’s activities effect the diversities of actions, and those of the Lord the differences of administrations, it is the Holy Spirit who is present, by his own authority, managing the distribution of spiritual gifts according to the worth of each recipient.” (DeSp. S. 21.52, PG 32)

St. Basil likens the operations of the Spirit as art is present in an artist, but only manifests when the artist is working. Here, St. Basil makes a clear distinction between the Spirit Who is present in the believer (essence), and the work (energies) of the Spirit in the believer. He says that both the Spirit and His energies are present in the believer–and not merely the energies of the Spirit. When the Spirit dwells in the believer, He also carries out His operations. It is not one or the other. This also refutes the Eastern Orthodox doctrine that the believers only participate in or receive the energies of God:

St. Basil – DE SPIRITU SANCTO, Chapter XXVI
And as the art in him who has acquired it, so is the grace of the Spirit in the recipient ever present, though not continuously in operation. For as the art is potentially in the artist, but only in operation when he is working in accordance with it, so also the Spirit is ever present with those that are worthy, but works, as need requires, in prophecies, or in healings, or in some other actual carrying into effect of His potential action…And like reason in the soul, which is at one time the thought in the heart, and at another speech uttered by the tongue, so is the Holy Spirit, as when He “beareth witness with our spirit,” and when He “cries in our hearts, Abba, Father,” or when He speaks on our behalf, as it is said, “It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of our Father which speaketh in you”…It follows that the Spirit is verily the place of the saints and the saint is the proper place for the Spirit, offering himself as he does for the indwelling of God, and called God’s Temple…For the grace flowing from Him when He dwells in those that are worthy, and carries out His own operations, is well described as existing in those that are able to receive Him.

St. Basil (quoting St. Paul) explained there are diversities of operations and gifts, but the same Spirit. However, If the operations and gifts are themselves “God”, as some incorrectly argue, how then is God not inevitably compounded according to their logic?

St. Cyril of Alexandria explained that the Son “personally dwells in the Saints” through the Spirit, and since He is by nature God, He makes us “partakers of the Divine Nature”:

St. Cyril of Alexandria – Gospel According to St. John, Book XI
…surely the Holy Ghost has power, since He is by nature of God, to make those in whom He abides partakers in the Divine Nature through Himself. The Son then, being the Fruit and express Image of the Father’s Person by nature, engrosses all that is His. And therefore He says, All things whatsoever the Father hath are Mine: therefore said I unto you, that He taketh of Mine and shall declare it unto you—-the Spirit, that is, Who is through Him and in Him, by Whom He personally dwells in the Saints.

St. Gregory Nazianzen explained that the Spirit is the “maker” of truth, wisdom, understanding, might, knowledge. These are all the attributes which proponents of this error call “uncreated” and God Himself. Also contrary to the EO doctrine, which states that the believers only receive the energies of God, St. Gregory explained that the Spirit fills “all with His essence” yet is “incapable of being comprehended”. As we will discuss shortly, our limitation with God’s essence is our inability to see and comprehend Him, not our ability to commune with His essence:

St. Gregory Nazianzen – Theological Oration 5: On the Holy Spirit
He is called “the Spirit of God,” Christ,” “the mind of Christ,” “the Spirit of the Lord,” and “the Lord” in His own right, “the Spirit of adoption,” “of truth,” “of freedom;” “the Spirit of wisdom, “of understanding,” “of counsel,” “of might,” “of knowledge,” “of godliness,” “of the fear of God”. For He is the Maker of all these qualities, filling all with His essence, containing all things, filling the world in His essence, yet incapable of being comprehended in His power by the world…

He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen. (1 Timothy 6:15-16)

However, the above scripture does not say that God’s essence is unapproachable, or that God Himself is inapproachable. Rather, it says His light is unapproachable and cannot be seen–“unapproachable light, whom no man can see.” In other words, the limitation is with “seeing” or approaching God in the fullness of His glory (unapproachable light). When God told Moses He could not see Him and live, it was in response to Moses’s request to see God in His glory: “And he [Moses] said, ‘Please, show me Your glory.'” (Exodus 33:18). Note that Moses did not say “show me Yourself”, but “show me your glory”. This is because prior to Moses’s request, God already “Spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Exodus 33:11). Did Moses speak to “energies”? Did “energies” speak to Moses face to face? The thought would be absurd. Clearly Moses had fellowship with God and was already in the presence of His very essence. But God did not manifest the fullness of the glory of His essence to Moses but hid it from him. This is why Moses requested to see God’s glory, not to see God personally.

Likewise, God hides the fullness of His Glory from us, for our sakes, as we cannot bear to see the fullness of His glory and live. Nevertheless, God Himself dwells in us and the Kingdom of God is within us. How is it truly the “Kingdom of God” in us if it were mere “energies”. Is the Kingdom of God merely energies? If God’s essence is completely beyond our reach, to whom do we pray, thank, praise, and worship? And who answers our prayers? Energies? The matter then is our inability to see the glory of God’s essence and fully comprehend God, not an inability to have fellowship and communion with God essentially. This is because God hides the glory of His essence, not the presence of his very essence from us:

St. Basil of Caesarea – The Doctrine of the Spirit
Now, we are also quickened by the Spirit, as says St. Paul, ” He that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.” Ye are built for an habitation of God by the Spirit. Can He then, by whom God dwells in us, be Himself of other nature than that of God?

St. John Chrysostom also explained that “No one has ever seen God” pertains to our inability to have a clear and perfect comprehension of God:

St. John Chrysostom – On the Incomprehensible Nature of God, Homily IV
How is it, then, that John says: “No one has ever seen God?” He says this so that you may know that he speaking of a clear knowledge and a perfect comprehension of God. All the cases cited were instances of God’s condescension and accommodation: That no one of those prophets saw God’s essence in its pure state is clear from the fact that each one saw him in a different way. God is a simple being; he is not composed of parts; he is without form or figure.

Regarding seeing God, he went on to explain:

“No one has ever seen God,” you must understand that the words you hear mean that no one knows God in his essence with complete exactness…I have proved to you by all these arguments that the essence of God is incomprehensible to every creature. There now remains for me to show that the Son and the Holy Spirit alone know God with full and perfect knowledge.

Therefore, vision of the fullness of God’s glory and as well as full and perfect knowledge of God’s essence are one thing (these are impossible for us), but fellowship and communion with His essence are another. In His love, God made these possible. If fellowship with God’s essence were impossible for us, then how did the Word become flesh and walk among us? How did those who physically walked with Him and touched Him not die? This is because they saw Him divinely manifest in the flesh according to essence, but did not see the fullness of His glory. In other words, they partook of His essence robed in flesh, but did not eye the fullness of His divine glory. The first was obviously possible, the latter was not. Still yet, the Lord wished to reveal to the disciples a small glimpse of His glory on Mount Tabor. What they saw was a manifestation of God’s glory, to the extent they could see and not die.

Moreover, if any comprehension of God’s essence was completely impossible for us, what did the Son of God reveal to us about the Father? And what was the point of the incarnation? Else, those who physically touched the Lord would have been transformed to the divine essence. But it is absurd to think like this. Was God incarnate in His divine essence merely to reveal to us the divine “energies”? Obviously, it was so that we can have fellowship and communion with God Himself in His essence, not merely His energies.

If we are not truly partakers of the divine nature/essence as per scripture (2 Peter 1:4), how do we receive the true body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, which we believe is united with the Word’s divine essence? To deny that we commune with the divine essence and only participate in the “energies” is to deny the very Eucharist of which we partake. Communion and fellowship with the divine essence does not turn the human nature into the divine essence, as the Eastern Orthodox maintain–certainly not any more than if one were to partake of an apple, that that person should turn into the essence of an apple. What a Monophysite thought –namely the idea that our humanity would somehow be absorbed by the divinity merely on account of our association with God’s essence. Such is an imaginary problem contrary to logic, scripture, and patristic explanation.

Still yet, if God’s essence is beyond our reach, how is God omnipresent? Is He present without His essence? Is God’s essence somehow contained and confined, bound by space somewhere? What an absurd thought. And how does the below scripture hold true? If divine scripture really meant that only God’s energies are accessible to us, wouldn’t it have said something like: “Where can I go or flee from your ‘energies'”?

Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me. (Psalm 39: 7-10)

Therefore, just because we cannot see God’s essence, fully comprehend Him, and approach Him in the splendor of His glory, this doesn’t mean we can’t approach Him at all or be in His essential presence now. We can and do, but only according to the measure which the Spirit deems each person capable:

St. Cyril of Jerusalem – Cathechitical Lectures, Lecture VI
But some one will say, If the Divine substance is incomprehensible, why then dost thou discourse of these things?  So then, because I cannot drink up all the river, am I not even to take in moderation what is expedient for me? Because with eyes so constituted as mine I cannot take in all the sun, am I not even to look upon him enough to satisfy my wants?  Or again, because I have entered into a great garden, and cannot eat all the supply of fruits, wouldst thou have me go away altogether hungry?…No man hath seen God at any time What then, some man will say, is it not written, The little ones’ Angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in heaven?  Yes, but the Angels see God not as He is, but as far as they themselves are capable.

As we discussed earlier, the Eastern Orthodox teach that we do not commune with the essence of God because this would somehow make us gods by nature and would be “pantheism”. And to guard against this false dilemma, they maintain that we only commune with the energies of God, and not His essence. But unable to deny that we are the temples of God, they maintain that God’s energies are themselves “God”. Hence, they define God as “essence and energies” and claim that there is an ontological essence/energies distinction “in God”. To this, we argued that if God is two things, and if He is literally each one of His energies, then He is inevitably compounded. This teaching violates the principle of divine simplicity, whether the EO choose not to admit it or not. Scripture revealed and the Church Fathers explained that God is simple and not compounded. He is the great “I Am”. We also pointed out that the energies of God cannot be God Himself because the energies have no hypostasis. Even if we were to say that the energies are “uncreated”, this still would not make the energies “God” because the divinity can only be identified by the essence and not by any one attribute, as the fathers explained. Still yet, the energies cannot be “God” since they are dependent on the essence/hypostasis. By definition, God depends on nothing for His subsistence. We also mentioned that verses such as “God is love” do not literally mean that love is God or that attributes of God are God Himself. We also discussed that when believers are indwelt by the Holy Spirit, they inevitably have communion and fellowship with His essence and not merely according to “grace” or “energies”, as the fathers explained. This does not mean our natures are changed to the divine nature. To argue that human communion with God’s essence would lead to “pantheism” or would alter the human nature, would be to deny the hypostatic union of God the Word, the incarnation, as well as the mystery of the Eucharist. The thought itself is fundamentally Monophysite. Finally, we pointed out that just because we cannot see God’s essence, understand Him fully, or behold Him in the fullness of His glory, this doesn’t mean we can’t approach Him at all or be in His presence essentially now. We can and do according to His promise to personally dwell in us, but only according to the measure that the Spirit deems that each person is worthy and capable.

Scriptural references

• For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:14-19)
• No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he had made him known (John 1:18).
• No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. (1 John 4:12-13)
• To the king of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory (1Tim. 1:17).
• “who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, … ” (Phil 3:21)
• For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God…For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (1 Cor 2:11-12,16)
• Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. (John 14:23)
• And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” (Galatians 4:6)
• Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? (1 Cor 3:16)
• “I have been crucified with Christ. I live, and yet no longer l, but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:2)
• And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell in them And walk among them. I will be their God, And they shall be My people.” (2 Cor 6:16)
• The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. (2 Cor 13:14)
• But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. (John 14:26)
• Lift up your heads, O you gates! And be lifted up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, The Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O you gates! Lift up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory. (Psalm 24: 7-10)
• Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me. (Psalm 39: 7-10)
• But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. (Romans 8:9-11)
• “In this way we know that he is in us, from the Spirit whom he has given to us” (1 John 4:13)
• Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Cor 3:17-18)
• The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)
• And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment (John 16:8)
• However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. (John 16:13)
• And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. (Ephesians 4:30)
• This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. (John 14.17)
• But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. (Romans 8:9)
• “Now the Lord is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3.17)
• At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. (John 14:20)
• He who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen. (1 Timothy 6:15-16)
• The one who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you (Rom 8.11).
• Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)
• For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. (Matt 10:19)
• “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.” Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? (John 14:7-10)
• “If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. (John 14:15-17)
• Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21)
• And the Father Himself, who sent Me, has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nor seen His form (John 5:37)
• But He said, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.” And the Lord said, “Here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock. So it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover you with My hand while I pass by. Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen.” (Exodus 33: 20-23)
• For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. (1 Cor 13:9-12)
• For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. (Col 2:9)
• But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (1 John 1:12)
• For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse…(Romans 1:20)
• In all their affliction He was afflicted, And the Angel of His Presence saved them; In His love and in His pity He redeemed them; And He bore them and carried them All the days of old. (Isaiah 63:9 (NKJV))