"If I might offer an Anglican perspective (which seems to me much closer to the Orthodox than the Catholic position), essence and energy are abstract terms that we use for convenience of discussion. God is not an essence. He is not first an essence that gets differentiated into Three Persons. God is God because he is first of all Father--a Divine Person.
The uncreated energies are the ways in which the Personhood of God manifestes Himself to us that we might know Him. This is the only way a man can know or experience God; it is always as Divine Person--a hypostasis. What better or more complete manifestation of Grace could any man ask for?"
Very nicely stated. You've been reading more of those Eastern Fathers, haven't you? For shame -- when there is all of that good stuff being written by modern Anglicans! You are on the path to irrelevancy, my friend... :-)
Yes, well as I said, I was offering an Anglican perspective--not The Anglican perspective. There are many; it has been a broad church ever since the Elizabethan Settlement. But at this time the whole thing is coming apart at the seams.
I have been aware of the Orthodox perspective in the mix most of my life. I don't think it is simply coincidence that after the French Norman invasion, much of the English nobility ended up in Constantinople. The daughter of the defeated King Harold ended up in Kiev married to a Russian prince.
A person who claims to be a member of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church cannot ignore the Eastern Fathers. Even if it makes you irrelevant.