4.

 Why does Orthodoxy make a distinction between the essence and the energies of God?

            At first glance, there would appear to be a contradiction between the concept of God's divine transcendence and His divine immanence. Actually there is no inconsistency, for Orthodoxy distinguishes between the inaccessible essence and the uncreated and communicable energies of God.

            The mystery of the Holy Trinity, since it has to do with the essence of God, is ultimately incomprehensible not only to discursive reasoning, but to intuition as well. God is absolutely transcendent, and His essence is invisible and incomprehensible and remains unapproachable.

            On the other hand, God is not cut off from the world He has made: He is a living God Who comes down from above and communicates Himself to man in the form of deifying grace and divine light. Such are the energies of God: they are visible and perceivable manifestations that make the divine life accessible to man without taking away from the inaccessibility of God. Thus, people can behold God through His energies, but not His essence.

            Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos explains that this teaching is not an isolated opinion of one Father alone, but that it is the teaching of the Orthodox Church. Many Holy Fathers have referred to the distinction between essence and energy. It is found in the Bible, in the first Apostolic Fathers, in the Cappadocian Fathers, and especially in St. Basil the Great and in the great dogmatic theologian of the Church, St. John of Damascus. In the fourteenth century, St. Gregory Palamas developed further this already existing teaching and put forward its practical consequences and dimensions.