Sorry, I was being technical.
we would never imagine that when we partake of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Mystical Supper that we become divine by nature, let alone in essence/substance.
When I say "share", that doesn't mean I become divine. I think we mean the same thing, using different words. It means that my human nature is raised up so that I am enabled to love my enemies and so forth, something only God can do, not human nature sans grace.
But again, the fundamental relationship between the Father and the Son is not that they share a common essence or nature -- it is that the Father begets the Son and the Son is begotten of the Father. This is the starting point of what we know about their relationship.
Yes, that is Scriptural and from the Fathers. Again, though, that is the language used by the Fathers (essence and nature) to describe the differences between the Father and Son. We don't have a relationship with an essence, but a person - but this is only terminology. That person consists of a particular existence, and essence. And by Him abiding within us, we come into contact with it, although our "sight" of it is very limited.
The personal and the practical are the starting points -- and the Incarnation is of course at the center of that: "he who has seen me has seen the Father."
The metaphysical terms are just an attempt to objectify the experience of the mystic. Otherwise, we cannot ground our individual experiences into one common theme.
I would say, though, that the terminology of the uncreated energies is a way of expressing a number of truths that are throughout Scripture and the patristic writings, none of which began with St. Gregory and the hesychasts: I would say it is not clear that the Cappadocians were not talking about "uncreated energy" in the same way that Gregory Palamas later discussed them and then took on a dogmatic understanding with subsequent Orthodoxy. Palamas' is one interpretation of the Patristic tradition - but St. Thomas and the West do not interpret the Cappadocians as saying "uncreated" energies. However, I would like to do more reading on this subject.
Regards
"Again, though, that is the language used by the Fathers (essence and nature) to describe the differences between the Father and Son."
I don't understand this sentence. Essence and nature are precisely things that do *not* describe differences between the Father and the Son. They are of one essence, and share a common Divine nature, and they also have the same Divine energies. This essence, this nature, and these energies are uniquely enhypostasized in the 3 distinct hypostases of the Holy Trinity.
"We don't have a relationship with an essence, but a person - but this is only terminology."
Agreed. At the heart of a relationship with a person is that it is, well, personal -- terminology doesn't really come into play at all at that point. This is why the Scriptures and early Fathers didn't begin to spell out all of this terminology from the beginning. They had that personal relationship with God, participated in the divine energies, etc... For those who experience this life in Christ, there is no need for definition and terminology.
"That person consists of a particular existence, and essence."
Not quite true. Again, in the case of the Persons of the Holy Trinity, there is a unique enhypostasization as I described above. It is only through personal relationships and interactions with God in his 3 persons that we have any apprehension at all that there even *is* a Divine essence. The Divine essence is not the Person.
"And by Him abiding within us, we come into contact with it, although our "sight" of it is very limited."
Christ reveals himself to men "as far as they can bear it" -- to paraphrase the troparion for the Feast of the Transfiguration. We understand that the process of theosis involves an increasing of our ability to bear participation in the Divine energies of God -- and that this process will, in the next life, continue without end, with a multiplicity of choices in how to proceed in this ongoing life of theosis -- *all* of which will then be good choices.
"The metaphysical terms are just an attempt to objectify the experience of the mystic. Otherwise, we cannot ground our individual experiences into one common theme."
True. You are probably meaning to say this, but I think that the purpose of "objectifying" and describing the spiritual life is to prevent what we in the Orthodox world call "prelest," or spiritual delusion by the demons or by ones self. An experience can be compared to that of those whom the Church knows to be saints and those experienced in the spiritual life.
Incidentally, this is why Orthodoxy has grave reservations, to say the least, about the post-schismatic ecstatic Catholic mystical tradition, which involves things that had never before been described -- except in descriptions of prelest in the desert fathers and others. We don't need to go into this, since much e-ink has been spilled on that subject on previous threads.
My point in bringing it up is to try to convey the serious practical implications for Palamite theology, and why we Orthodox do not at all view this as a speculative matter. We don't engage in speculation for the sake of speculation -- there is always a practical spiritual matter at stake that means the difference between spiritual health and spiritual sickness.
"I would say, though, that the terminology of the uncreated energies is a way of expressing a number of truths that are throughout Scripture and the patristic writings, none of which began with St. Gregory and the hesychasts: I would say it is not clear that the Cappadocians were not talking about "uncreated energy" in the same way that Gregory Palamas later discussed them and then took on a dogmatic understanding with subsequent Orthodoxy."
I would agree 100% with that statement. I believe that it is a certainty that the Cappadocians, and indeed all saints, regardless of where geographically one was in the undivided Church, experienced what St. Gregory described. The experiences that St. Gregory described were not new, but the terminology was. The terminology and metaphysical constructs of Barlaam were incorrect and had the very real potential to point people down the wrong spiritual path.
"Palamas' is one interpretation of the Patristic tradition - but St. Thomas and the West do not interpret the Cappadocians as saying "uncreated" energies. However, I would like to do more reading on this subject."
There may be other ways of describing the same phenomena and realities (and Aquinas may have ways of doing so -- Kolokotronis is the Aquinas expert on the Orthodox side around here), but there are *not* multiple realities in the spiritual life. St. Gregory's descriptions explain very well the realities of the spiritual life, from those in the Garden of Eden, to the patriarchs and prophets, and throughout the Christian era. We cling to them and know that they are a sure and safe guide in the spiritual life.