Essence and Energies: Being and Naming God in St Gregory Palamas

Essence and Energies: Being and Naming God in St Gregory Palamas PDF

Author: Tikhon Pino

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-10-03

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1000684644

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St. Gregory Palamas (ca. 1296–1357) is among the most well-known and celebrated theologians of late Byzantium. This book provides a comprehensive account of the essence-energies distinction across his twenty-five treatises and letters written over a twenty-year period. An Athonite monk, abbot, and later Metropolitan of Thessalonica, Gregory is remembered especially for his distinction between God’s essence and energies, and his celebrated doctrine still generates a great deal of debate. What does Palamas actually mean by the term energies? Are they ‘activities’ that God performs, and if so, how can they be eternal and uncreated? Indeed, how could God be simple if he possesses energies distinct from his essence? Going beyond the Triads and the One Hundred and Fifty Chapters, this book explores Palamas’s answers to these long-standing questions by analyzing all of the treatises produced by Palamas between the years 1338 and 1357. It seeks to understand what Palamas means when he speaks of God’s energies, how he seeks to prove that they are distinct from the divine essence, and how he explains that this distinction in no way violates the unity and simplicity of the one God in Trinity. Essence and Energies is a useful resource for upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates, and scholars interested in Byzantine theology in the fourteenth century.

The Triads

The Triads PDF

Author: Saint Gregory Palamas

Publisher: Paulist Press

Published: 1983

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 9780809124473

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Gregory Palamas (1296-1359)-monk, archbishop and theologian-was a major figure in 14th-century Orthodox Byzantium. This, his greatest work, presents a defense in support of the monastic groups known as the "hesychasts," the originators of the Jesus Prayer.

The Ground of Union

The Ground of Union PDF

Author: A. N. Williams

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1999-06-17

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 0195124367

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This book attempts to resolve some of the oldest and most bitter controversies between the Eastern and Western Christian churches: those concerning the doctrine of God, the nature of salvation, and theological method, all of which converge in the doctrine of deification. Deification was the dominant patristic model of salvation and remained the essential paradigm in the East but was thought to have disappeared from Western theology by the Middle Ages. A. N. Williams examines two key thinkers, each of whom is championed as the authentic spokesman of his own tradition and reviled by the other side. Taking Thomas Aquinas as representative of the West and Gregory Palamas for the East, she presents fresh readings of their work that both reinterpret each thinker and show an area of commonality between them much greater than has previously been acknowledged.

Gregory Palamas and the Making of Palamism in the Modern Age

Gregory Palamas and the Making of Palamism in the Modern Age PDF

Author: Norman Russell

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-03-21

Total Pages: 419

ISBN-13: 0192565486

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The fourteenth-century Greek hesychast and controversialist, Gregory Palamas, has been so successfully cast as 'the other' in Western theological discourse that it can be difficult to gain a sympathetic hearing for him. In the first part of this book, Norman Russell traces the historical reception of Palamite thought in Orthodoxy and in the West, and investigates how 'Palamism' was constructed in the early twentieth century by both Western and Eastern theologians (principally Martin Jugie and John Meyendorff) for polemical or apologetic purposes. Russell argues that we need to go behind these ideological constructions in order to gain a true perception of the teaching of Gregory Palamas. In his recent survey of Palamite scholarship, Robert Sinkewicz noted that it is now time to raise the larger questions. The second part of the book attempts to do this, following the contours of Palamas' thinking in three areas: his relationship to tradition, his philosophy, and his theology. Russell shows that Palamite thought, when freed of misunderstanding and misrepresentation, has the potential to enrich our understanding of divine-human communion. This study contributes to the changing paradigm of scholarship on Palamas, nudging it towards the point at which Palamite thought can be used fruitfully by contemporary Western and Eastern theologians without the need to subscribe to what has been regarded as 'Palamism'.

Orthodox Readings of Aquinas

Orthodox Readings of Aquinas PDF

Author: Marcus Plested

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-11

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0199650659

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The foremost Roman Catholic theologian of the middle ages, Thomas Aquinas, was hugely popular in the last days of the Orthodox Byzantine Empire, in contrast to his largely negative reception by later Orthodox commentators.This book is the first to explore the long history of Orthodox fascination with Aquinas.

Aristotle East and West

Aristotle East and West PDF

Author: David Bradshaw

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2004-12-02

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9781139455800

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This book traces the development of conceptions of God and the relationship between God's being and activity from Aristotle, through the pagan Neoplatonists, to thinkers such as Augustine, Boethius and Aquinas (in the West) and Dionysius the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor and Gregory Palamas (in the East). The result is a comparative history of philosophical thought in the two halves of Christendom, providing a philosophical backdrop to the schism between the Eastern and Western Churches.

The Power of God

The Power of God PDF

Author: Michel R. Barnes

Publisher: CUA Press

Published: 2001-05

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0813209293

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This study will be useful for those who study the development of the doctrine of the Trinity, as well as those who are interested in the role of scriptural and philosophical resources in Christian theology. Fi

The Oxford Handbook of Deification

The Oxford Handbook of Deification PDF

Author:

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2024-06-18

Total Pages: 1307

ISBN-13: 0192634461

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Modern theological engagements on deification have undergone two major paradigm shifts. First, the study of deification shifted from the periphery of theological discourse to its center. For Adolf von Harnack, deification was a pagan import that fatally corrupted and distorted the Gospel message of salvation. In response, the positive retrieval of the concept of deification belongs to the early years of the twentieth century. By the 1910s in Russian religious thought and by the 1930s in much Roman Catholic theology, deification had become a magnet concept attracting attention from many different viewpoints. The second important shift relates to how deification is characterized. Recent studies question the exclusively 'Eastern' character of deification and draw attention to the engagements of this theme in Latin patristic and later Western Christian sources. Reassessing the evidence for these two major shifts, The Oxford Handbook of Deification comprehensively explores the points of convergence and difference on the constitutive elements of deification in different traditions, and offers a foundation for ecumenical and interreligious dialogues. The Handbook's first part analyzes the cultural and scriptural roots of deification; the second part explores the most significant historical contributions to the understanding of deification in the early, medieval, and modern periods; the third part develops systematic connections. Readers will discover a surprizing breadth, depth, and diversity of theologies of deification in Christian traditions. Throughout the Handbook, leading scholars in the field of Deification Studies propose vital new insights from a variety of perspectives for this central mystery at the heart of the Christian faith.

Too Sensational

Too Sensational PDF

Author: W. Max Corden

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2004-08-20

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9780262262118

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Most of the literature on exchange rate regimes has focused on the developed countries. Since the recent crises in emerging markets, however, attention has shifted to the choice of exchange rate regimes for developing countries, especially those that are more integrated into the world capital markets. In Too Sensational, W. Max Corden presents a systematic and accessible overview of the choice of exchange rate regimes. Reviewing many types of regimes, he shows how the choice of an exchange rate regime is related to both fiscal policy and trade policy. Building on the theory of optimum currency areas, Corden develops an analytic framework of three approaches (nominal anchor, real targets, and exchange rate stability) and three polar exchange rate regimes (absolutely fixed, pure floating, and fixed but adjustable). He considers all other regimes to be mixtures of two or three of the polar regimes. Beginning with theory and later turning to case studies of countries in Asia, Europe, and Latin America, Corden focuses on how economies react to negative and positive shocks under various exchange rate regimes. He examines in particular the Asian and Latin American currency crises of the 1990s. He concludes that although "too sensational" crises have discredited fixed but adjustable regimes, the extremes of absolutely fixed regimes or pure floating regimes need not be chosen.

Union and Distinction in the Thought of St Maximus the Confessor

Union and Distinction in the Thought of St Maximus the Confessor PDF

Author: Melchisedec Törönen

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2007-01-11

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0191537853

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Union and Distinction in the Thought of St Maximus the Confessor presents the writings of a key figure in Byzantine theology in the light of the themes of unity and diversity. The principle of simultaneous union and distinction forms the core of Maximus' thought, pervading every area of his theology. It can be summarized as: Things united remain distinct and without confusion in an inseparable union. As Melchisedec Törönen shows, this master theme also resonates in contemporary theological and philosophical discussions.