Analogia

As an unfailing sign of his spiritual greatness, St Gregory Palamas continues to be a stumbling block for Western and some Eastern theologians alike, and he still emerges like a lonely island in the midst of Christian theology ‘for the fall and rising of many’ (Luke 2:34). Non-Orthodox theologians avoid or reject him, not only because they constantly misinterpret his doctrine of uncreated energies as ‘innovation’ (from Denis Petau to Martin Jugie and Robert Jenson) but also because they suspect him of refuting certain fundamental Western theological concepts concerning grace, synergy, divine unity, the Filioque, etc. Some Orthodox theologians, on the other hand, have become ‘Palamophobic’ for some complicated reasons, mainly due to the misunderstanding of the function of selfhood and the significance of psychosomatic participation in Hesychasm ....