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To: Agrarian
I've noticed that you asked a couple of times about the Incarnation vis a vis uncreated energies. I'm not sure what exactly you are asking.

According to your explanations of "uncreated energies" and the related doctrine, man cannot contact God's essence directly. He must do so through this "uncreated energy". Thus, is Jesus Christ, the Incarnation who comes to our hearts - is HE an uncreated energy - NOT GOD HIMSELF - OR is He God Himself AND a man (the Mediator), in other words, man DOES contact God's self (which throws the doctrine upside down)?

Or am I still misunderstanding the distinction between "uncreated energy" and God?

Regards

7,228 posted on 05/26/2006 6:53:01 AM PDT by jo kus (Can faith [without works] SAVE him?" NO! James 2:14)
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To: jo kus; Kolokotronis

"According to your explanations of "uncreated energies" and the related doctrine, man cannot contact God's essence directly."

We cannot know, apprehend, become, or become joined with the Divine Essence. He is God and we are not.

"He must do so through this "uncreated energy"."

The uncreated energies of God are not separate from God. That is the whole point to insisting that they are uncreated, and not something that God creates to be an intermediary. When we participate in the divine energies, we are directly participating in the life of God. The uncreated light at Mt. Tabor that enveloped the apostles was the energies of God, and the Apostles saw it and participated in the life of God at that time.

"Thus, is Jesus Christ, the Incarnation who comes to our hearts - is HE an uncreated energy - NOT GOD HIMSELF - OR is He God Himself AND a man (the Mediator), in other words, man DOES contact God's self (which throws the doctrine upside down)?"

Of course Jesus Christ is God Himself. He is both God and man, with both human and divine natures enhypostasized into a single person. Chalcedon says that in Christ the divine and human natures are found in union, "without mingling, without change, without confusion."

I'm not sure what you mean by "the Incarnation that comes to our hearts." That is unfamiliar terminology to me, unless I'm not firing on all cylinders...

"Or am I still misunderstanding the distinction between "uncreated energy" and God?"

I think you are still trying to separate the uncreated divine energies from God himself, which we most emphatically do not do. I think that you are trying to get behind the energies and Persons of the Holy Trinity, behind the divine nature, and get to the one divine essence, and say "now *this* is what is really God, and unless we are in union with that essence, we really can't say that we are "partakers in the divine nature."

To the extent that I am right -- that it is the divine essence that is "really God" -- then this is an outworking of the implications of the filioque.


7,236 posted on 05/26/2006 11:11:26 AM PDT by Agrarian
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