So is the Incarnation an "uncreated energy" or one of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity? Or both?
Regards
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.
At the Incarnation, God the Son became man as well, taking on human flesh and our human nature. In this hypostatic union, both natures were uniquely enhypostasized into a single hypostasis/person. Christ's human nature is, by definition, created, since he took it on from a created being -- his mother. Our hymnology is filled with wonder that the Creator became a creature. God the Son is not created (as in Arianism), nor is there a separate created human hypostasis (as in Nestorianism). All that pertains to his Divine nature is uncreated and is of one essence with the Father and the Spirit.
Energies are similar to the Western concept of attributes -- except that they are active, dynamic and living, and not static and descriptive objects of contemplation.
When we receive, for instance, the grace of the Holy Mysteries, this is participation directly in the life of God's uncreated energies. If they were created, gnostic-like emanations and what=not, then they would not be Divine. They would be from God, but not *of* God.
Incarnation is an exception, inasmuch that the divine nature and human nature are joined, but remain unconfused and separate, in one Person. The Church at no time taught that the divine nature and human nature could mix or become part of each other, not even in Christ.
It has been Church teaching from the beginning that we can become by grace what God is by nature. Therein lies the difference between theosis and divinity.
Come to think of it, jo, your question is wrong: you are confusing nature (essence, ousia) with God's uncreated energies. In the case of our Lord Jesus Christ we have a union, without confusion, of two natures: that of Jesus (human) and Christ (divine), each possessing fully its own energies, human and divine.
The very fact that the Church established Orthodox Christology based on two natures of Christ, and two wills or energies, is proof positivie that +Gregory Palamas was not proposing something new, but something that was known to the Church from the beginning.
That is an extremely important question. In my opinion it is not possible to separate Christology from the Palamite question of uncreated energies. I would maintain that Palamism depends on the previous centuries' discussions of Christology as part of its fullest expression.
Since kosta has also responded to your question, I will continue this discussion on that thread as soon as I have some time to think through some of the main issues.