Page 238 - Orthodoxy Zizioulas

O r t h o d o x y
Hesychasm and Mysticism
Following the existential depth opened by figures such as
Dostoevsky, Orthodox theology is led back once more to
its ascetical and mystical roots, where the knowledge of God
is not abstract, but lived and experienced.
Once theology rediscovers the Eucharist and the Church as
communion, it must also return to the question of knowledge
itself: how God is known, and how divine truth is encountered
in the living experience of prayer.
One area that Orthodox theology has recently begun to
explore, though it has yet to reach definitive conclusions, is
that of gnoseology or epistemology. By returning to the mysti-
cal and ascetical Fathers, modern Orthodox theologians have
rediscovered and developed a distinction first explicitly made
by St. Gregory Nazianzus, and later elaborated by Dionysius
the Areopagite, St. Maximus the Confessor, and St. Gregory
Palamas: the distinction in God between οὐσία (essence) and
ἐνέργεια (energy). Thus, they have revived the Palamite con-
troversy—whether God can be known through His essence—
and emphasized the teaching of the Greek Fathers that God is
incomprehensible in His essence and is known only through
His uncreated energies. This point has been thoroughly ex-
plored in modern times, particularly by Vladimir Lossky, and
further developed in its implications by others such as Nikos
Nissiotis.
At this point, however, certain tensions begin to appear
within contemporary interpretations. There is of course the
path of the energies of God, which are clearly distinguished
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