Concluding reflections

Abstract

Akindynos’ negative assessment of Palamas’ character has been influential, particularly through its strong endorsement by Juan Nadal. Palamas knew how to use social networks and construct arguments to demolish his opponents. In assessing his character, however, the rhetorical conventions of dialectics need to be taken into account. Philosophically Palamas is important for his understanding of participation, his modification of certain Aristotelian categories, and his use of enhypostasia to posit activities or energies of the divine essence that are real, not notional, but have no independent existence apart from the essence. Theologically he maintains that deification is not the perfection of rational nature but the transformation of the believer, who becomes ‘uncreated by grace’ by partaking of the divine mode of existence. The greatest obstacle to the reception of Palamas is perhaps that by his essence–energies distinction he attempts to solve a problem that Western theologians do not have.