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And how do you know God except by analogy of His Energies -- justice, goodnes, mercy, love? Love is not a characteristic of God; God is Love. God is not virtious; He is Virtue. His nature can become our virtue, but never our nature

I understand "mercy" and such as God's nature. He IS love. I don't understand God as some sort of "essence" of spiritual "stuff" that emits "love" or "mercy". When we look to Christ, we see what God IS. He IS love - displayed in human form by the Incarnation.

But when it comes to nature, there is no analogy: how can created and uncreated be analogous?

The natural and supernatural are on different planes of existence, but we believe that Creation points to God Himself, and that Creation IS analogous, though only in images and likeness, not in reality. God's revelation to man is through creation, and we are meant to understand it as analogy. "The Kingdom of God is like..."

What we know of God is through His Energies: unless God revealed to us that we are created in His image and likeness, we would not know that. We must not forget that we can become only symbolic representations of God, and that those who achieve theosis become vessels through which God's Energies become apparent (as in saints and some priests).

So if I understand you, God's Energy is like a picture or an image of His essence - and yet, at the same time - IS God? What exactly is God's essence then, as it differs from God's energy? When Scriptures tell us that we cannot konw God, I still don't see that we know one "part" of God - His energy, rather than His essence.

The problem with concentrating on God's nature is that the likeness and image of God in our minds becomes analogous rather than symbolic. We begin to think of ourselves as "just like" God, but in minuscule terms. Nonetheless, we think of Him as one of "us."

This probably comes from the Incarnation and His claim to be One with God the Father. That is an interesting comment that will require me to think on some more...

Your picture is not you.

does this mean that God's energy is then not God?

Still confused

Regards

Although this doesn't directly relate to our discussion on Energy/Essence, I think it might help to clarify why I am confused... At the Chalcedon, Leo presented his Tome, declared as orthodox by the Bishops. In it, he wrote "each form [nature in the incarnate Logos] does the acts that belong to it, in communion with the other". As you may recall, orthodoxy was fighting the concept of one nature within the Hypostatic Union of Jesus Christ. In the end, the Council declared that the Incarnation had 2 natures after the union. As Leo writes above, it is the NATURE that does the acting.

The Nature, rather than the single Hypostatis (Person) of the Logos is the subject of the verb "to act". This clearly bears on our subject matter that we have been discussing. It is the NATURE, not the PERSON that is acting.

Furthermore, in subsequent questions that followed Chalcedon, the question came up "Does Jesus Christ have two wills"? Monotheletism (one will in Christ) said "the will does not pertain to the nature, but to the hypostasis". Against this, orthodoxy, as I stated above, declared that the "will pertains to the NATURE, not the PERSON."

Thus, when we look at Christ, "we confess two natural wills and two natural actions, without division, without change, without separation, without confusion". The christology of St. Leo I, cannonized at Chalcedon, required that each nature have its own will and its own action. With this in mind, I find I am hard pressed to agree on the concept that the PERSON is the source of action and that we do not come into contact with the nature (ousia) of God when He wills to act. Thus, the idea of "divine energy" - that a Person is acting "independently" of His nature (because "man and God's essence cannot touch") seems to refute the Counciliar decisions of Chalcedon and Constantinople that declare that it is the nature that acts, not the person.

Regards

I understand "mercy" and such as God's nature

Yes, He is Mercy; we can only be merciful. He is Love; we can only love; He is goodness; we can only be good (through Him). We can never be Love, Mercy or Goodness.

God does not exist; He is Existence. That which exists has a beginning and the end; God doesn't. Creation is evidence of God, for without God there is nothing.

Our existence is not analogous to God's. Nothing of ours is analogous to God. Nothing we do is analogous to God's work. If we do good, it is not ours, but God's.

So if I understand you, God's Energy is like a picture or an image of His essence - and yet, at the same time - IS God?

No, we are a picture of God (when we don't sin).

God's energies proceed from His nature and therefore are divine, just as ours are human.