Whatever your interpretation of the article on Palamas might be, I am not surprised that a Protestant found Palamas congenial. Even though Palamas came to the defence of monastics' direct experience of God, I have long thought that Palamas has many points that Protestants can agree with. Perhaps more than Roman Catholics can agree with. In fact, it seems to me that Roman Catholics don't care much for what they encounter in Palamism.
I prefer to withhold judgement until I learn more about the differences and distinctions that the Orthodox make in Palamatic formulations. I don't think agreeing to something without knowing the deeper meanings does much to help matters. If you want to know why Roman Catholics don't 'care' much for the Orthodox saint's writings, it is because the vast majority haven't heard of them or read them. And it doesn't help matters when people use the same words to mean different things (like a Catholic vs. Protestant understanding of "salvation").
Regards
I'm skimming through some of Palamas writings tonight. Rather interesting as some of his ideas sound very Protestanish, for an Orthodox. Also, since his writings were in the 1300+ he would be very close to the era of the Reformation. It's interesting, though not surprising, that some of his views were considered heretical until later in life.
"Whatever your interpretation of the article on Palamas might be, I am not surprised that a Protestant found Palamas congenial. Even though Palamas came to the defence of monastics' direct experience of God, I have long thought that Palamas has many points that Protestants can agree with. Perhaps more than Roman Catholics can agree with. In fact, it seems to me that Roman Catholics don't care much for what they encounter in Palamism."
As a former Protestant myself (although my days of being a convinced Protestant are more than 20 years ago, now) I have to agree with this. The Orthodox approach to the inner spiritual life was what ultimately drew me to Orthodoxy -- even though at the time I was "Western" enough not to understand that this, and not an assent to a body of dogma and doctrine, was actually the key thing about Orthodoxy.
I've not analyzed just why Palamas and this aspect of the Orthodox life is particularly congenial to many Protestants, but it is rather true.
Also, it is interesting that Harley boils down all of Christianity to the Reformed and the Orthodox approaches, with all others being variations on those themes. This is particularly interesting to me because of the fact that when I was on my journey to Orthodoxy, I thought that my final decision was going to be between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. That decision proved to be a very easy one, but at precisely this time, I found myself actually feeling as though what I really needed to do was to go back and review the Reformed/Calvinist tradition in my mind.
The last "comparison" I made prior to commiting to becoming an Orthodox Christan was between Orthodoxy and the Reformed tradition. I had completely forgotten that.