The Fathers, for the most part, are at odds with the Roman Catholic spawned concept of the “beatific vision” in which man is knighted with created grace at baptism, struggles on earth to conform himself to the likeness of God, and is eventually promoted to a vision of God in His Essence at which point all personal development ceases and man simply contemplates God in His Essence.

I find that this idea infects the Protestant world pretty seriously in a variety of areas, including “once saved, always saved,” the concept of salvation as an on/off switch rather than as a process, and the idea of heaven as a place to which we’ll be accelerated to absolute perfection in all ways and have no more work to accomplish in growing toward God.

I provide the below words of Abbot Gregory of the Monastery of St. Gregory on Mount Athos as hopefully somewhat relevant to this discussion:

” If we could be connected with the essence of God, we could also become in essence gods. Namely, everything would have become gods, there would have been a confusion and nothing would have essentially been god. Namely, what they believe in the eastern religions, such as Hinduism, where god does not personally exists, but is a vague power, scattered over all the world, on the people as well as on the animals and on the materials (Pantheism).

If again God had only incommunicable divine essence without His energies He would have remained a self sufficient God, closed into Himself and non-communing with His creations…

With these, His uncreated energies, God created the world and continues to sustain it. He gives essence and existence to our world with His essence creating energies. He is present in nature and sustains the universe with His sustaining energies. He enlightens man with His enlightening energies. He sanctifies him with His sanctifying energies. And finally He makes him god with His Godly energies. So with His uncreated energies, Holy God enters nature, in the world, in history, in the lives of people.

The energies of God are divine energies. They are also God without being His essence. They are God that is why they make man god. If the energies of God were not divine, uncreated energies, then they would not be God, they would not be able to make us god, to join with God. There would have been an unbridgeable distance between God and people. However, by God having divine energies and with these energies joining with us, we can communicate with Him and join with His Grace, without equating with God, as it would have happened if we were joining with His essence.

We therefore join with God through His uncreated energies, and not through His essence. This is the mystery of the Orthodox Faith and of our life.”

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Glorification is the culmination of sanctification and would mean that we are made perfectly holy. I don’t know that this means there is nothing more for us, but I think it must mean that we are then sinless.

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I assume from your response that you intended the term “attributes” to encompass only those things that are common to the Essence of God but not those things that are unique to the hypostases? If so, I can go with that and apologize for any misinterpretation on my part.

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[Yes they are one in essence, but they also have the same attributes. Saying they have the same attributes is not the same as saying they are the same in their Persons. My understanding is that we express the difference ontologically (eternal generation of the Son, etc.) and economically (their work is different), but they all share the divine attributes.]

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Meant to reference DJH’s original note at 347 that spawned my reaction. Sorry for implying that it came from you.

If Christ tells us that we are to be perfect as His Father in Heaven is perfect, that certainly tells us of God’s desire for us to be perfect. If we were unable to do this (with divine indwelling, of course), then why would he ask this of us? Of course, when my children fail to achieve something to my standard, my response should not be either to lower the bar, to punish them, or to do it for them (as DJH indicated) but to reach down, understand their circumstances and their failure, and work with them to help them overcome it.

See my original comment in 352 for context regarding God the Father as a model for my own fatherhood.

[BTW, I think your statement regarding the Persons of God having the same "attributes" might better be expressed as the three Divine Persons sharing the same Essence. If they are exactly the same in their Persons, then we no longer have three Persons, for their distinctive personhood would have been obliterated. No need to get into this more, as I am pretty sure that is what you intended to convey. Plus, God's Essence is unknowable such that whatever we express theologically is certainly poor and infirm and inadequate; He is so much more than that.]

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Is your implication that Christ does not command us to be perfect?My comments have nothing to do with non-sinful things. I don’t command or expect my 3 year old to be able to mow the lawn. I do expect my 3 year old to obey me. Now I know she is going to fail, but that doesn’t mean I should set the bar lower when it comes to holiness and righteousness.

We can’t achieve divine perfection in this life with or without divine indwelling.

I didn’t mention God or Jesus. God is One in three Persons. All three Persons have the same attributes.

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You infer conclusions via rhetorical questions that do not follow from my statement. I try not to command my children at all and try to do so only with respect to items (a) dealing with their safety and (b) which they can perform. I hope that, by modeling goodness and holiness, my children will strive on their own to be good and holy. I have been all-to-often guilty of demanding too much from them– demanding more than they can deliver in their circumstances– and, in doing that, I sin and ask their forgiveness.

Two additional things I find to interesting from your original post:
(1) You seem to imply that humans cannot achieve perfection even with divine indwelling; and
(2) You seem to draw a distinction between God and Jesus. Not sure that was intentional but it does seem to belie a fundamental premise of Protestantism that the father is the harsh, demanding one who is incapable of forgiving without being paid off and the son is the loving, caring, self-sacrificing one who pays off the father for us or stands in our stead to take the father’s abuse– what I call the “schizophrenic god” syndrome.

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NOPM

What kind of a quesion is that? …… “You actually command your children to sin? You don’t demand obedience? Are your children perfect?”

Maybe you would explain what you meant to say? -

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You actually command your children to sin? You don’t demand obedience? Are your children perfect?

Mike

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I would be a poor father, then, to model myself after the god you describe if I demand of my children what they cannot perform. Lord have mercy!

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