Unfortunately, the sun and the sun rays are two distinct and different things and different essences. God the Father and God the Son are ONE. They do not have any differences EXCEPT within the Godhead in regards to the Son's generation by the Father. Thus, they have the same essence. Nicea made that clear and Chalcedon further clarified it.
Palamas' descriptions were in direct response to the heretical quasi Gnostic ideas of the Western Church as set forth by Barlaam (with, or so he claimed, his source in Thomist theology. Barlaam taught that we humans could know God's Divine Essence and become one with God's Divine Essence through the use of our intellect. If anything, Palamite theology is the antithesis of Gnosticism.
That's a paradoy of Thomistic theology, first of all. The Angelic Doctor reconciled reason and mysticism. Perhaps you are thinking of Peter Abelard, whom St. Bernard disputed with in the defense of mysticism that is above reason. It is St. Thomas' metaphysics that was able to reconcile the One and the Many, the paradox of God.
First, Thomas defined Existence - that something is - and Essence - what something is. When we look at the world, we see unity in existence, but a multiplicity of essences. In God, ESSENCE and EXISTENCE are identical. God is the only Being and all other beings participate in His existence.
I AM... Thomas appeals to Exodus, but also to 2 Peter and the participation of the divine nature.
But this is not all. St. Thomas doesn't make the mistake of Dionysius, who places God beyond existence. St. Thomas keeps the paradox. He says that God's existence is so different from other existences that we can say that God doesn't exist. God exists but God doesn't exist...
Such writers as the Cloud of Unknowing counsel his disciples to forget essences and to concentrate on existence. Concentrate on "that you are" and that "God is" Thus, one enters into a great oneness and forgets self. He justifies this with careful Thomistic metaphysics:
"For he is thy being, and in Him thou art what thou art, not only by cause and by being, but also He is in thee both thy cause and thy being...evermore saving this difference between thee and Him, that He is they Being and thou not His."
Bury all essences beneath of Cloud of Forgetting so as to be aware only of existence. Practical useage of Thomistic theology.
Without getting detailed, St. Thomas felt we could know through connaturality (where one co-natures with the something - embodied in oneself) or through love. St. Thomas refers to my tagline "For love is of God and everyone that loves is born of God and knows God". God is love. Thus, when we love, we come to know who God is through experience:
"The one who is joined to the Lord is one spirit" 1 Cor 6:17.
St. Thomas says that Scriptures does not say that "the one who studies theology knows God, but the one who loves."
Thus, it is a faulty understanding of St. Thomas that believes we can know God by some sort of systematic rationalization. You are confusing Peter Abelard with St. Bernard and St. Thomas.
And second, Barlaam didn't think much of the "navel-gazers" because it smacked too close to Oriental practices. IF Barlaam claimed to be Thomistic, he didn't do a very good job of portraying St. Thomas' theology.
Regards
Jo, why do you keep going back to the Trinity? The distinction between Divine Essence and uncreated Divine Energies says nothing about the "relationship" between the Father and the Son. Did you read the link I posted to Yanaras?
" That's a paradoy of Thomistic theology, first of all."
Jo, you will note that I said that Barlaam claimed to have the backing of Thomist theology; I didn't say that at all. I think that's wrong/
"He says that God's existence is so different from other existences that we can say that God doesn't exist. God exists but God doesn't exist..." This is a purely Cappadocian statement, real hesychastism. "I believe in God; God does not "exist"." +Thomas is right. ""For he is thy being, and in Him thou art what thou art, not only by cause and by being, but also He is in thee both thy cause and thy being...evermore saving this difference between thee and Him, that He is they Being and thou not His."" Then this: " Bury all essences beneath of Cloud of Forgetting so as to be aware only of existence." These are very different, even opposite positions, the latter being vaguely Orthodox in the sense that the Divine Essence is unknowable per se, but the existence of the Divine Essence is knowable through the uncreated Divine Energies (The Light of Mount Tabor for example). This of course is not to say that the human reality of the Logos is not knowable.