The Essence-Energies distinction constitutes a fundamental principle within Orthodox theology, characterising the nature of God’s being and His relationship to creation. This concept is not unique to the Godhead but applies universally, asserting that all existent entities possess both Essence and Energies.
The distinction is deeply embedded in the classical tradition of Christian metaphysics, drawing upon terms first coined in the Platonic and Aristotelian traditions.
The Nature of Essence and Energies
In metaphysical terms, the energies (energeia) are defined as actuality. The concept is closely linked to ergon, the Greek word for work, which appears in the New Testament. The distinction pertains to a precise pattern of being in relation.
Essence (or nature) determines what a thing is. Energies are simply the existence of the thing itself. For the Orthodox tradition, the existence of God is an energy, as is the being of God. It is imperative that God’s existence is not collapsed into His essence.
All creation possesses essence and energies. Human existence, for example, is defined by human nature (essence) and human activities (energies). Energies are relational because they are directional; they are sometimes referred to as the extasis of nature, signifying a movement outwards from the self.
Even entities conventionally deemed inanimate, such as a blade of grass, possess energies; the grassness (nature) is realised in its activities, such as reflecting light outwards, thereby establishing a relation with the observer. The capacity to see is also an energy, as the observer pushes the self out in the activity of sight. All things are relational, thus all things have energy.
Participation in the uncreated life of God occurs through the Divine energies. Since every energy is rooted in nature and expressed personally, participation in the life of God manifests in three distinct hypostatic modes: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Divine energies are unitary but always threefold.
The Triune Relation: Essence, Hypostasis, and Energy
Understanding the Essence-Energies distinction requires consideration of the threefold relation: Essence, Hypostasis (Person), and Energy.
This triad represents the most crucial set of theological categories for comprehending the self-disclosure of God. This is a fundamentally trinitarian doctrine, concerned with God’s relational existence, sometimes termed communal ontology or being as communion.
In this structure:
- Nature/Essence provides the basis for existence.
- Person/Hypostasis determines the mode in which that thing exists.
- Energy is the existence itself.
Nature invariably exists in and through persons. The mode in which nature exists is described by the term in hypostatised. Saint Leontius of Jerusalem stated that in hypostatised describes the mode in which nature exists, asserting that nature exists in the mode of the persons possessing that nature. This is true across the realms of theology, Christology, and human anthropology.
In the Godhead, the three Divine Persons indwell one another, sharing the same will, essence, and powers through the doctrine of perichoresis. The divine nature is fully and infinitely realised in the interpersonal relationship among the three Divine Persons, subsisting as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God’s manner of being is necessarily the relationship between Father and Son, which requires the Holy Spirit.
The Prohibition Against Collapse
The Orthodox position rejects any collapse of God’s essence into His existence, or the identification of person with essence in a strict identity.
The reality of God, which is God’s incomprehensible and ineffable essence, is truly Father, Son, and Spirit. The persons possess the essence, but they are not strictly identical to the essence. To confuse the is of identity with the is of predication results in heresy. The strict identification of person and essence is the position of Modalism.
Saint John Damascene taught that the confusion of nature and person is the root of all heresies. Consequently, all theology must begin by correctly distinguishing nature and person. If person is collapsed into nature while simultaneously affirming three distinct persons, the resultant position is Tritheism, involving the belief in three substances or realities in God.
The attempt to identify God’s existence with His essence is not novel, though it was held by Aquinas. The collapse of essence and existence, alongside the strict identity of person with essence, leads to a modalist absolute divine species collapse identity thesis position. Furthermore, the doctrine of _Filioque_ is considered an outworking of this absolute divine simplicity collapse.
Christological Implications
The distinction between nature and person is vital to Christology. The human nature possesses a subject, which is the divine person of the Logos. The human nature in Christ is not a personal subject but is _in hypostatised_, existing in the mode of the divine person who assumed it.
The doctrine of the Theotokos confirms that the person who came forth from Mary is the Logos, the Divine Person. The sole subject of all the incarnate actions of Christ is the second person of the Godhead, the Logos. There is no human person or created hypostasis in Christ.
The Sixth Council explicitly forbids the notion of a created hypostasis because Christ possesses no gnomic will, which is the mode of willing proper to a created hypostasis. The hypostatic union means Christ is composite in the sense that the single Divine Person possesses two natures. Both natures retain their natural properties and functions, remaining unconfused and undestroyed in the union.
The death of Christ is the severance of His human soul from His human body. The claim that the Son was damned by the Father at the crucifixion is a blasphemous, anti-trinitarian doctrine. Damnation is the cutting off of communion with God. Since the Father and Son indwell one another, the idea of the second person of the Godhead being damned implies a cutting off within the Trinity itself.
This confused understanding of Christology has also contributed to the loss of the doctrine of the harrowing of Hades in the West. The affirmation of two wills and two energies in Christ by the Sixth Council proves synergy and the inner Essence-Energy distinction.
The Logi and Knowledge
The relational nature of energies relates closely to the theological concept of the logi. A word (logos) is defined as a thing in personal communication.
The Divine Logos, Jesus Christ, is the Person in whom God speaks everything about Himself eternally and in time. The world transmits its structure to humanity through its energies, allowing humans to gain knowledge and communicate that structure through language. Knowledge itself is defined as a mutual indwelling, analogous to the manner in which the divine Persons mutually indwell.
The universal relational constitution of things, facilitated by the energies, exists regardless of creation, as God is perfectly and infinitely God wholly apart from creation; creation is sheer gratuity.