/lit/ - Literature

>>18730162

We do believe in divine simplicity. Everything St Irenaeus said is perfectly Orthodox, and is exactly what St. Gregory Palamas has taught - since everything he has said, has been about the energies/operations of God.

However, the Aristotelean and Maimonedean idea of *Absolute* Divine Simplicity, where the energies/operations are identical to the essence of God, has been clearly refuted by the Church Fathers historically - a clear example is in letter 234 of St. Basil.

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3202234.htm

"But God, he says, is simple, and whatever attribute of Him you have reckoned as knowable is of His essence. But the absurdities involved in this sophism are innumerable... The operations are various, and the essence simple, but we say that we know our God from His operations, but do not undertake to approach near to His essence. His operations come down to us, but His essence remains beyond our reach."

I think it would be hard to say that the belief God's essence is equal to his attributes is a historical belief of the Church, when the great Cappadocian Doctor, St. Basil the Great, one of the key Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council, says that this is a sophism, and the absurdities of this are innumerable.

Besides, since we are made in the image of God, the principles behind actus purus should naturally affect our understanding of human human nature. This article, though not academic, since its scope is for a more general audience, covers that: https://mindofthefathers.wordpress.com/2021/06/19/the-scholastic-bojack-horseman/

The conclusions of actus purus make God unknowable. You should read the dialogue between St. Gregory Palamas and the Barlaamite, linked earlier in the thread. It's not like St Gregory Palamas wasn't familiar with the territory - he was so proficient at Aristotelean philosophy that the pagans he studied with in his teenage years thought that he was the reincarnation of Aristotle.

Besides, "Palamism" doesn't exist - all he does is repeat what the Church has always believed. As St Aranaius said in his discourses against the Arians, as Christians we name ourselves after Christ, not any teacher, or Bishop. It should be concerning that Thomists call themselves Thomists, and not just Christians, - they are following after the trend of Arians, of naming themselves after the founder of their thought, as a confession that the founder of their thought isn't Christ.