Greetings to all,
I am trying to determine the relationship between Divine Light, Uncreated Energies and Grace. Are they interchangeable terms? related at all? distinct?
Is there a definition of Grace that might be a standard acceptable Orthodox term? Can anyone recommend some reading of the Fathers or elsewhere that treats the subject?
I am trying to understand the concept of Grace from an Orthodox perspective. I think that I might understand it in the Western sense, Catholic and Protestant. I just do not want to assume anything.
+T+
Michael
Dear Hesychios,
you may find usefull this
Web site . It's about the experience of Grace in the Church through Eucharist (Holy Communion) according to St. Maximos the Confessor.
Here follows a small sample:
...When the soul, by the grace of the Holy Spirit and by its own diligence and eagerness, has been able to bring together these five unions, that is to say, when it has succeeded in uniting reason with the nous, prudence with wisdom, action with vision, virtue with knowledge and faith with enduring knowledge, without there being too little or too much of one against the other, then even the soul itself "will be united with the true and good and one and only God". Then the soul will be united with God and become by participation what God is in essence.
St. Maximos attaches great importance to this unity of the pairs, but also to the movement of the nous and reason towards the truth and the good correspondingly. There is no immobility in the spiritual life. Through the struggle which the Christian makes - strengthened, of course, by divine grace - he acquires a blessed nous, prudent wisdom, vision in action, virtuous knowledge and enduring knowledge, which is very faithful and unchangeable.
In any case, energy is also a manifestation. The manifestation of the nous is the logos, as cause, as effect of the cause. A manifestation of wisdom is prudence, of vision is action, of knowledge is virtue, of enduring knowledge is faith. From these things is created the inner relationship with truth and the good, which is God. This relationship is called divine science (that is to say perfect, sure knowledge), love and peace, and in and through them deification exists and takes place. It is called science because it offers to man, as far as possible, knowledge about God and things divine, "and a perfect embrace of the virtues". It is called knowledge, because it lays hold of the truth and offers a lasting experience of the divine. It is called love, because it shares in the full happiness of God. It is called peace, because it prepares those who are deemed worthy of this state to share in the things of God....
