Some details about Fatima Apparitions according to the oficial records Fatima Sanctuary

Some details about Fatima Apparitions according to the oficial records of Fatima Sanctuary, Portugal 

PART I 

On the description of the Apparition in Fatima in 1917, I begin with the work of Portuguese researchers and historians Joaquim Fernandes (University Fernando Pessoa, Porto) and Fina D'Armada (in memoriam) in which they quote a very illustrative dialogue between Lucia and her mother about the identity of the Apparition.

At the end, the book references. I advise, on account of its title, not to make hasty and foolish judgment. Fernandes and D´Armada's research is pioneer in Portugal, and relied directly on the sources of the Ecclesiastical Archives. Before them, other authors (which I will talk about in Part III) had begun collecting the scattered documents, but nothing had been published in Portugal before the work of Fernandes and D. Armada, in the sense of documentation based on the Archives.

Fernandes and D. Armada's book was published in 1981. Only in 1992 the critical edition of the Fatima documents was published by the Sanctuary of Fatima (object of Part II). Fernandes and D. Armada's book “involuntarily” forced the Sanctuary to publish the documents. The Roman Church's view of Fatima is not uniform, and there are very serious questions about the authenticity of Sister Lucy's testimony given at the Tui Monastery in Spain, which involves the alleged request for "the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart." Therefore, one should enter this field as an object of study, nothing more than that. In this particular case, specific conclusions are harmless and dangerous.

The following is the testimony:

“- O mother, I saw Our Lady today in Cova da Iria,” Jacinta said on her return home on May 13, 1917 (in: João de Marchi, Era Uma Senhora mais Brilhante que o Sol [She Was a Lady Brighter than the Sun], 1966).

A deserted and rocky place in the area of Fatima, where no family lived, suddenly became the focus of newspaper attention, hope for believers, agitation for politicians. Portuguese history found, on that Sunday afternoon, other courses, perhaps new destinations.

- “If the they saw a woman dressed in white, who could it be but Our Lady?” (In: Costa Brochado, As Aparições de Fátima [The Apparitions of Fatima], 1952), asked himself, Antonio da Silva, brother of Jacinta's mother . However, the visitor had not declined her identity to the little shepherds. Of course, for a Jacinta of the ancient Celtic civilization, the Celestial Lady would be Belisama, who was traditionally known as "flame-like." Astarte, Aphrodite, Venus would probably have been other female deities, descended from heaven, for Jacintas who had lived once, respectively, in the area of Syria, Greece, Rome…

In 1917, in fact, "it couldn't be anyone else." However, Lucia, the main seer and the one who dialogued with the “Lady,” was not convinced of this. She kept silent. Maria Rosa, Lucia's mother, a woman who did not believed much in the supernatural, became aware of the case and decided to inquire, questioning her daughter about the alleged visions of the previous day:

“-O Lucia, I heard you saw Our Lady in Cova da Iria?

- Who told you that?

It was Jacinta's mother, whom her daughter had told her about. It is true?

Lucia corrected:

"I never said it was Our Lady, but a beautiful little woman." And I even told to Jacinta and Francisco to say nothing about this. They could not halt their tongues.

- A little woman?

-Yes mom.

-Then tell me what that little woman told you ...

"She told me that wanted us to go there for six months and in the end she would say who she were and what she wanted from us." (in: Antero de Figueiredo, Fátima (Graças, Segredos, Mistérios), 1945).”

Source: Joaquim Fernandes / Fina D´Armada, “Intervenção Extraterrestre em Fátima, as Aparições e o Fenómeno Ovni" [Extraterrestrial Intervention in Fatima, the Apparitions and the UFO Phenomenon], 1981.

PS .: we must really understand what is the definition (discordant, by the way) that both Joaquim Fernandes and Fina D'Armada possess of “extraterrestrial” and “UFO” and it has nothing to do with the definition that casuistic ufology works.

Image of the original apparition (according to the official reports of the Sanctuary of Fatima) produced by Portuguese historians Joaquim Fernandes and Fina D´Armada.

Old and current images of Fatima, whose iconography was “adapted” to the canonical model of Our Lady. Note the difference between the 3 images above and the first, consistent with the report of the seers.

PART II 

“Doc.1

1917–05-c.27, Fatima.

Father Manuel Marques Ferreira, parish priest of Fatima, interrogatory with Lucia de Jesus Santos about the first apparition.

A- First redaction lost.

B-AEL, “Documents of Fatima”, K-2: Notes, pages 11–11v (copy of Fr. José Ferreira de Lacerda, presumably transcribed on October 19, 1917, during the interrogation to the seers).

[11] Interrogation by the parish priest of Fatima Manuel Marques Ferreira with the children who claim to have seen Our Lady.

1st Apparition- 13–5–1917- Lucia, 11 years old, daughter of António dos Santos - Francisco and Jacinta, sons of Manuel Pedro Marto d'Ajustrel. (note: the fourth seer who later was found and the only one who married, Carolina, is missing).

Lucia said everyone was walking ... and everyone saw a woman. Francisco only saw her when she left. Lucia said that they were all sitting and that the woman appeared standing to the side of Fatima.

1st They saw a lightning bolt, rose and began gathering the sheep to go away in fear, then they saw another lightning bolt, then they saw a woman on top of a bush, dressed in white, white socks in the feet, white skirt, white coat, white cloak, which was on her head, the cloak was not golden and the skirt was all gold, she had a golden cord and earrings. (ps .: earrings in the shape of a bow or a ring, cf. António de Morais Filho, “Great Dictionary of the Portuguese Language”, vol.II) very small, her hands were raised and when she spoke she widened her arms and open hands.

This woman said they shouldn't fear, that she wouldn't hurt them. Lucia asked:

- What is your place?

She said:

-My place is the sky.

-Why are you coming to the world? 

- I come here to tell you to come here every month until complete six months, and after I'll tell you what I want.

- Can you tell me if the war will last too long or if it ends soon?

- I can't tell you until I say what I want.

I asked her if I was going to heaven and she said to me:

- You will.

- And my cousin?

- Also will.

- And my [male] cousin?

- This one will still have to pray his [prayer] beads. 

And after that she shook through the air above.

The other two listened to the questions and answers but didn't ask questions.”

Source: “Documentação Crítica de Fátima. I - Interrogatório aos Videntes - 1917 [Fatima Critical Documentation. I - Interrogation with the Seers]”, 2013.

PS .: In the other books of the series there are more accounts of the description of "Lady". Fernandes and D'Armada studied the sources thoroughly and reconstructed what would be the closest image of the “Lady” seen by the seers.

Fatima Critical DocumentationI - Interrogation with the Seers - 1917 

PART III 

"The project “Fatima Critical Documentation”, the scientific edition of documents related to the events of Cova da Iria, Fatima, in 1917, with the evolution of the Sanctuary in that place, and the expansion of the message, in Portugal and abroad, was already present in the thinking of the bishops of the restored diocese of Leiria, D. José Alvez Correia da Silva (1920–1957) and D. João Pereira Venâncio (1958–1972; +1985).

D. João Venâncio, a year before the fiftieth anniversary of the apparitions (1967), made the decision to undertake a critical history of events, entrusting the task to Fr Joaquim María Alonso, C.M.F. (1913-1981). The project was slow and not without difficulties of various kinds.

The project was interrupted after the death of Fr. Alonso in 1981, it was restarted in 1985 by Archbishop Alberto Cosme do Amaral (1972–1993; +2005), third bishop of Leiria (after 1984, Leiria-Fátima), with the scientific sponsorship of the University of Theology of the Portuguese Catholic University, through the Center for Religious History Studies, and a Scientific Committee, whose members have changed over the years.

The critical edition of the documents began to materialize in August 1992, with the first volume dedicated to “Interrogations with the Seers" (1917–1919). The second volume, published in 1999, was dedicated to the “diocesan canonical process (199201930)”, which culminated on 13 October 1930 with the “Pastoral Letter on the Cult of Our Lady of Fatima” by D. José Alves Correia da Silva, with the aim: “1st. To declare as credible the views of the children in the Cova da Iria, parish of Fatima, of this Diocese, at May 13 to October 1917; 2nd. to officially allow the cult of Our Lady of Fatima ”.

Between 2002 and 2013, three more volumes followed, with the documents in chronological order, corresponding to three periods: “from the apparitions to the diocesan canonical process (1917–1922); from the beginning of the diocesan canonical process to the creation of chaplaincy (1922–1927); from the creation of the chaplaincy to the pastoral letter of D. José (1927–1930) ”, distributed in 12 volumes. Throughout the work, 3,811 documents were edited according to the following types: 25 interrogations, 211 official documents of civil and religious authorities, 1,086 letters, 2,322 press articles, 4 books or booklets, 2 memoirs, 66 testimonies, 62 notes and 33 photos. In all, 8,217 pages.

The Commission of the Centenary of Apparitions requested the Scientific Commission to organize a tome with a selection of the most significant documents from 1917 to 1930. In May 2013, 138 documents and an annex were edited, according to the following typologies: 13 interrogations, 24 official documents, 53 letters, 25 press articles, 1 book, 19 testimonials and 3 notes. In all, 651 pages. From the Portuguese edition, translation into English and Italian is already underway, in order to provide non-Portuguese language researchers with a summary of the edited documentation […] ”

PART IV

I transcribe, in full, 2 posts from Prof. Dr. Joaquim Fernandes (Fernando Pessoa University, Porto), pioneer in the dissemination of Fatima documents, published on his facebook:

1- THE “AIRCRAFT” THAT CARRIED THE “LADY” TO THE IRIA COVE ON 13 SEPTEMBER 1917 (2017)

Enlightening, literal and absolutely overwhelming this testimony. Under the diaphanous cloak of the mythical-religious vocabulary the essential is revealed…

From Barthas' book, “Fatima,” (pp. 130–2) I take the following passage:

“Everyone who saw it had the impression, as two priests mentioned - Manuel do Carmo Góis and Manuel Pereira da Silva - that it was similar to an aircraft that brought the Mother of God to the promised meeting with the little shepherds and it then carried her back to Paradise.

With them was Monsignor João Quaresma, Vicar General of the diocese of Leiria, ecclesiastical authorities appointed by the bishop to be part of the Commission of the Canonical Inquiry, considered it natural and permissible for the Virgin to use a means of transport, as it happens with any mortal…

On September 13, at noon, he wrote:

“There was complete silence.

There was the lisp of prayers.

Suddenly shouts of joy… Voices are heard praising the Virgin. Arms rise to point at anything in the air. “Look, don't you see?…” - “Yes, I see!…” Satisfaction shines in the eyes of those who see.

In the blue sky there was not a cloud. I too look up and peer into the breadth of the sky to see what the other happier eyes, first than me, have beheld.

“There you are looking also!…”

To my great admiration, I clearly and distinctly see a luminous globe moving from east to west, sliding slowly and majestically through space.

It was oval in shape, with the larger side facing down.

Beside me a friend priest looked, too, and was fortunate to enjoy the same unexpected and charming apparition… when suddenly the globe, with its extraordinary light, vanished before our eyes.

Next to us there was a little girl dressed like Lucia and about the same age.

Filled with joy, she kept screaming “I still see… I still see… now it goes down!”

Minutes later, exactly the time the apparitions used to last, the child began again to exclaim pointing to the sky:

"Up there again!" and continued to follow the globe with her eyes until it disappeared towards the sun.

- What do you think about that globe? I asked my friend, who was enthusiastic about how much we had seen.

"That was Our Lady," he answered without hesitation.

It was also my belief. The shepherds contemplated the very Mother of God.

We were granted the grace to see the vehicle that had carried her from the sky to the inhospitable heath of the Aire Mountains.”

Fig. 6 - Object or objects observed on September 13, 1917 by Joel de Deus Magno and Dr. Pereira Gens.

Reconstitution of the light globe observed at Cova da Iria, September 13, 1917. (Claro Fângio, 1982)

2-FATIMA: WHEN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IGNORES ITS OWN DOCUMENTS… (2016)

The image worshiped at the Fatima sanctuary, identified as the Virgin Mary described by the shepherds in the apparitions of 1917, is far from being based on the original testimonies recorded in that year's Parish Survey by the parish priest of Fatima, Manuel Marques Ferreira, and contained in the first volume of the Critical Documentation of Fatima (ed.1992). It is important to note the caution of this priest who, month after month, tried to clarify the contours of the alleged visionary experience of the three children. Now, rereading the “portrait” that Lúcia and Jacinta tried to make of the “little woman” that descended on the bush and comparing its morphological details and her objects, one comes to the conclusion without much effort that the traces of the image that intends to reconstruct “ little woman ”of the 13 days omit the general picture of the original descriptions. That is, the current statue of the Virgin Mary, originally conceived by José Ferreira Thedim, exhibited since 1920, in Fatima (the present version is from 1947), and which intended to reproduce the detailed morphology of the alleged celestial entity, has little or nothing to do with the original testimonies contained in the ecclesiastical documents themselves! This official statue, then, results from a calculated gradual “correction” of the accounts to adapt it to the stereotype established after the Council of Ephesus, (431.dC). A study by the authoritative historian of sacred art, Father Xavier Coutinho, professor at Porto's Greater Seminary, clearly assumes that the statue of the Virgin of Fatima has as inspiring model the image of Our Lady of Lapa. In the image, you can see a 1927 Virgin of Fatima compared to a 1914 Our Lady of Lapa. See and compare with the portrait that can be drawn from the original descriptions of Lúcia dos Santos: The unorthodox details of the “little woman”, especially the reference to the “skirt by the knees”, repeatedly mentioned by the seer, would not be in line with the model consecrated on the altars since the high middle ages and in the imaginary of popular piety. Hence the calculated and progressive “deviation” that was introduced into the final definition of the statue: Lucia's “later memories”, acculturated by her Jesuit confessors during her internment in Spain, would eventually naturally yield to the conveniences of religiously correctness and forget the most incongruous details: Thus, the uncomfortable knee-length skirt gradually descended to the feet in literature until it became the Orthodox dress of the Lady…

Following is a summary of the original “portrait” of the “Lady” according to the 1917 Parish Survey:

Nothing prevent that Fatima and her sanctuary can signify a symbolic space for the consecration of a cult of ancient roots, a monument to a millennial generic devotion to the “sacred feminine” of all cultures, with the marked variants. Another thing, different, is to pretend that its statuary, the image venerated there, and identified with the Virgin Mary of Nazareth,  is the faithful portrait of the initial description of the seers. From the point of view of historical criticism, fidelity to documentary and historically documented truth, we think that its not faithful to the original description. 

It is the documents themselves that also show us that the events of Fatima were cataloged in advance before any critical judgment or ecclesial intervention. As in hundreds of other legends of Marian worship in Portugal, the Virgin Mary was necessarily identified beforehand: 

“If the children saw a woman dressed in white, who could it be but Our Lady?” questioned António da Silva, Jacinta's uncle, as soon as the young woman revealed to her mother on May 13, 1917, what she had seen in Cova da Iria. Herein lies the key to all the supposed visions of female entities in all human cultures: for a Jacinta of Celtic civilization the “lady in white” would be Belisama, in ancient Greece would be Aphrodite and the ancient Incas of Bolivia they would call her Orejona. In rural Portugal of 1917, the “little woman” could only be the Virgin Mary. In the midst of the apparitions of 1917 already circulated between the believers the image of Our Lady! It is the cultural “truth” of one's cognitive limits and possibilities - as pointed out by Josef Ratzinger, the emeritus Pope. The hesitations of the Portuguese Church until the late 1920s were not enough to prevent the consecration of the rumor. For the masses of believers became unnecessary any investigation. The ineffectiveness of science at the time gave the green light to popular religiosity and the Marian interpretation of the alleged visions.

Believers, unbelievers and indifferents can verify and confirm the 1917 “original portrait” of the “Lady”, as well as its evolution over time in our work, with Fina d'Armada, “Fátima nos bastidores do Segredo" [Fatima behind the scenes of the Secret] (ed. Anchor Publisher). Now, for those interested, enjoy the Book Fairs that are announced, starting in Lisbon, where you can still buy this present edition of the work, I suppose few copies will remain…

On the left, a statue of the Virgin of Fatima from 1927, side by side with her model, Our Lady of Lapa, statue of 1914 (Doc. Dr. Xavier Coutinho).

- It was a seemingly feminine figure, very beautiful;

- It was surrounded by a blinding light;

- About 1,10 m [3ft 7.3 in] height;

- Apparently between 12 and 15 years old;

- She was wearing a skirt, a coat, and a cloak, maybe a cover. They were white, but the skirt and cloak had strings of gold. The coat had two to three strings at the cuffs;

- She had something in her head that covered her ears and hair;

- She had black eyes;

- She had a 'prayer beads', a kind of rigs around her neck and a light ball around her waist.

- Came from above and slowly disappeared in reverse direction;

-  Did not perform facial movements or articulate the lower limbs in her locomotion;

-  Spoke without moving her lips;

- Moved only her hands from time to time;

- She turned her back to the seers when he left. 

Fatima behind the scenes of the Secret (ed. Anchor Publisher)

Finally, I share a post by Priscila Garcia, posted on her facebook about the false sister Lucia imposed by Freemasonry:

"Long story, with dire consequences ...

In 1958, shortly after the freemason Roncalli was “elected pope” in an illegitimate process, which involved blackmailing the real elected - Giuseppe Siri, archbishop of Genoa - the freemasons killed the seer of Fatima, Sister Maria Lucia of Jesus and of the Heart Immaculate, who then lived in Carmel Santa Teresa, Coimbra, Portugal.

The seer disappears from the public scene, therefore, only “reappearing” in the 1970s, led by the also freemason, entitled “supreme leader of the Masonic Illuminati”, the heretic Giovanni Baptista Montini, aka Paul VI - in the figure of an IMPOSTOR, placed in her place in a farce made by the same freemasonry, infiltrated in the leadership of the Catholic Church of Rome since the nefarious political operation inaugurated by the mentioned freemason Roncalli and presided by the mentioned freemason Montini, called "Vatican Council II".

In honor of the real Lucia, I post here once again the photographs of her and the impostor that freemasonry has put in her place - for comparison.

Here the freemason Montini “presents” to general scandal the impostor put by the freemasonry in the place of Sister Lucia, the seer of Fatima.

Another comparative photo of the real Lucia and the impostor.

After the real Lucia had been gone for years, surely the masonic leadership considered that her true face would have been forgotten, or would remain just a misty image by the time… And then they finally came up with this, entirely different — and even much younger woman. The photo with Montini is from 1967, the first time the impostor appeared in public. 

Born in 1907, real Lucia would be sixty then - obviously not the age of the impostor, as is clear from the photograph. ”

This article was written by the portuguese researcher Loryel Rocha. The original text can be found here. 

The Significance of the Distinction between the Essence and Energies of God according to St. Basil the Great (Georgios Martzelos)

Introduction

Concerning the important positions that Professor David Bradshaw has expressed regarding the formation and development of the distinction between essence and energies of God in the Orthodox tradition,1 we think it would be useful, within the limited framework of an article, to offer from a historical and doctrinal view a special discussion of the ontological and epistemological significance of this distinction according to St. Basil the Great. This will clarify his decisive contribution to the development and formation of the above distinction within the Orthodox tradition. As was already emphasized in a related study of ours, it is indeed a noteworthy contribution because Basil was the first of the great Fathers of the Church to develop, not only ontologically, but also epistemologically, this distinction, constituting the basis for its further development, both by the other two Cappadocians, and by the subsequent great Fathers of the Church, especially St. Gregory Palamas.2

The teaching of St. Basil the Great οn the distinction between essence and energies of God is not the outcome of philosophical conjecture, but rather the continuation of the biblical and of the patristic tradition that came before him. Although this teaching was developed in the fourth century by St. Athanasius of Alexandria on an ontological basis and especially in the context of his struggle against the Arians,3 St. Basil further developed it from an ontological and epistemological perspective, in his confrontation with the Eunomians and Pneumatomachians of his age.

1 The Challenge of the Eunomians and the Pneumatomachians

Ιn their attempt to save, from the attack of the Church Fathers, the fundamental Arian teaching that the Son is of different essence than that of the Father, the Eunomians were forced to revise the Arian epistemology and ontology, severing the traditional bond existing between them.

Thus, while the Arians accepted, as did the Fathers of the Church, that created beings are unable to conceive of the uncreated essence of God,4 the Eunomians defended the possibility of full knowledge of the divine essence οn the part of created beings.5 They believed that this knowledge was not the result of any special intellectual effort, but was the consequence of knowledge of the name ‘unbegotten’ (ἀγέννητος), which they accepted as ontologically defining and representing the divine essence.6 Consequently, since the essence of God consisted of his unbegottenness, it could not be ontologically identified with the essence of the Son, which they considered as begotten.7

Based οn the distinction between essence and energies of God, the Eunomians revised the Arian ontology as well. Ιn other words, while the Arians accepted two ontological categories of existence – that of the unbegotten or uncreated for the Father, and the begotten or created for all other beings8 – the Eunomians distinguished ontologically the ‘begotten’ from the ‘created’ and accepted three such categories: the ‘unbegotten’ for the Father, the ‘begotten’ for the Son and the ‘created’ for all remaining creations, among which was included the Holy Spirit. The difference between ‘begotten’ and ‘created’, upon which they distinguished ontologically the Son from the Holy Spirit, resided in the fact that the ‘begotten’ came into being through the energy οf the unbegotten Father, while the ‘created’ came into being through the energy οf the begotten Son.9 Considering the Persons οf the Ηοly Trinity in this manner, as depicting the above-mentioned three ontological categories οf being, they thus excluded their essential relationship.

Οn the basis οf this ontology and epistemology, the Eunomians invented two theological methods with which they sought to prove that the Persons οf the Holy Trinity were οf unlike essence. The first was supported based on the difference between the names ‘unbegotten’ and ‘begotten’, which they attributed respectively to the Father and the Son,10 while the second was supported on the basis of the difference οf their energies, which they accepted as appearing in their ontologically different creations: that οf the Son and the Holy Spirit.11

It is characteristic that these theological methods were used in a different form by the Pneumatomachians, who did not accept the ontology and epistemology of the Eunomians. Ιn other words, in order to prove the createdness of the Holy Spirit, they οn the one hand attributed different prepositions for each Person of the Holy Trinity12 and οn the other hand they maintained that the Holy Spirit did not have creative energy and as such differed in regards to energy from the Father and the Son.13

2 The Ontological and Epistemological Significance οf the Distinction between Essence and Energies οf God according to St. Basil the Great

Against this novel ontology and epistemology as well as the related theological methods οf the Eunomians and the Pneumatomachians, Basil puts forward the ontological and epistemological significance οf the distinction between essence and energies οf God, as well as its definitive importance for the origin and significance οf the divine names.14

According to Basil, the transcendence οf God has not only an οntological dimension but also an epistemological one. In contrast to Eunomius, who considers the ontological transcendence οf God as the presupposition for knowledge οf the divine essence, Basil considers it as the presupposition for not knowing it. For this reason he does not accept the names ‘unbegotten’ and ‘begotten’ as declaring respectively the essence of the Father and the Son, but as declaring the particular manner οf their existence, by which their hypostases are distinguished.15 As with the uncreated essence οf God, likewise the manner οf existence οf his hypostases remains unknown and indescribable. The knowledge οf these is a characteristic property only οf the uncreated Persons οf the Holy Trinity.16 Thus, Basil considers ontology as the foundation οf his epistemology, and he re-establishes their traditional bond, which had been broken by Eunomius.17

For Basil, the emphasis οn the absolute transcendence of the divine essence does nοt run the risk οf agnosticism. While God is in himself completely inaccessible and inconceivable according tο his essence as well as tο his inner-Trinitarian life and movement, he is revealed and made known by his energies, which appear in the creation of the world as well as in the saving economy which surrounds man. As he underlines emphatically, “We say that we know God from His energies; we do not maintain that we access His very essence. And this because His energies come down to us, while His essence remains inaccessible”.18

Ιn other words, God has not only an inner-Trinitarian life consisting of the essential relationship of the three hypostases among themselves, but also an outer-Trinitarian life consisting of the relationship of the divine Persons with the created world through their energies. In this sense, the distinction between essence and energies of God, because of its ontological character is, according tο Basil, valid objectively in God and is not subjective or intellectual, coming from the finite nature of the human intellect, as (mistakenly) the Roman-Catholic theologian E. von Ivánka maintained.19 This is also shown more clearly from the fact that Basil connected this distinction with the distinction between essence and hypostases in a similar manner, so as tο present the absolute correspondence between the eternal and the economic Trinity. Thus, according to Basil, the existence of one essence and three hypostases of God is reflected in the manifestation of the energy and the three particular works of his hypostases.20

Βut the epistemological significance of God’s revelation in the world through his energies is not understood, according tο Basil, independently of man’s relationship and communion with God and participation in His being21. Familiarization with the revelation of God, which He grants through His energies, demands the ethical and spiritual purity of the human mind and its illumination by God.22 Only under these presuppositions can man οn the οne hand know of the existence of God, and of the variety of His energies from Creation23, and οn the other hand know of the unity of essence and the peculiarity οf His hypostases from His saving economy.24

It is in the frame of this epistemological significance of God’s revelation through His energies and of these spiritual presuppositions that Basil gave a very interesting and original answer to the problem of the relationship between faith and knowledge. This problem apparently arose from the discussions between the Eunomians and the Orthodox. The Eunomians, as it is known, in considering the knowledge of the divine essence as the basis of their whole theology25 undervalued the significance of faith for the knowledge of God as set forth by the Orthodox. It appears that for them the knowledge of the divine essence precedes faith in God. And indeed, in their setting forth the primacy of knowledge as over against faith often they would put the question to the Orthodox: “Which came first, knowledge or faith?”26

To this clearly epistemological question Basil responds by taking in view both its theological and its philosophical dimension. Now the answer he gives is not the same for philosophical and theological epistemology.27 For philosophical epistemology faith precedes knowledge. In the first place, one must, for example, believe that element a is called alpha and, having learned the character and its pronunciation, one can subsequently achieve a precise knowledge as respecting its use.28 But in Orthodox theological epistemology the question of the primacy between faith and knowledge is not important, because both the aim and the content of faith is identified with the aim and content of knowledge. In this sense, both the view that faith precedes knowledge and the view that knowledge precedes faith can be regarded as correct. “For if you say of one believing and knowing”, Basil observes characteristically, “of what he believes, of these same things he also knows; or also conversely, of what he knows, these things too he believes”.29 Yet, between these two views Basil inclines most evidently towards the second. From this perspective it appears that he agrees with the Eunomians that knowledge precedes faith. This knowledge, however, has according to him a completely different meaning. It is symmetrical to man’s ability of comprehension and as such it cannot consist of the knowledge of the essence of God but in the knowledge of His existence. And we are led to this knowledge from the energies of God, which are manifested in the creatures that came to be, that were created, by Him.30 As a consequence, when Basil prefers the view that knowledge precedes faith, he means the fundamental knowledge concerning the existence of God. The existence of this elementary knowledge he considers necessary for the development of faith in God. Thus, religious faith is not, according to him, irrational and arbitrary; it is supported upon a rational foundation, which consists of the knowledge of the existence of God derived from the knowledge of creation.31

From another perspective, however, faith, according to Basil, precedes knowledge of God. The knowledge of God cannot be achieved by means of the organs of sense, but by means of the intellect, which is equipped through faith.32 Only through faith is it possible for the necessary pre-requisites of spiritual purity and divine illumination to be realized, for the achievement of the knowledge of God to be rendered possible. Besides, for Basil, faith constitutes the fundamental prerequisite of baptism.33 Through this, sharing in the salvific tradition of the Church, we achieve not only adoption by grace but also knowledge of God.34 And in this sense faith does not constitute simply the pre-requisite of knowledge, just as it is for philosophical epistemology, but is the pre-requisite of the ethical and spiritual life, and only within this framework is true knowledge of God possible.

According to these considerations faith and knowledge are closely connected with each other in a functional unity and constitute two forms of approaching the same thing, insofar as both are supported wholly by and in the energies of God, which are manifested in the world.35 On account of this, no dialectic antithesis subsists between them, something that occurred later during the Middle Ages and the more modern years in the West, when these were considered to be gnostic (cognitive) powers of the human mind functioning independently of the energies of God. If for Basil faith and knowledge are inseparably connected with each other, this is due to the fact that these are not understood independently of man’s relationship with God. And it is precisely for this reason that these are not limited simply to a theoretical conception of the idea of God, but look to a deep existential relationship with Him, which Basil characterizes by the term ‘proskynesis’, veneration or worship. Knowledge, faith and worship constitute for him three stages of the relationship with God which are connected causally between them through the divine energies. Thus knowledge of God does not have as its aim simply and only the basing of faith but also guidance towards His worship.36 Only in worship do faith and knowledge find their theological aim and their deeper meaning and significance.

The above-mentioned ontological and epistemological significance, which Basil attributes tο the distinction between essence and energies of God, is clearly apparent in his teaching οn the origin and significance of the divine names. He maintains that the names attributed tο God come from human conception (ἐπίνοια), which is the unique source of the names of all beings in general. These names, while real, cannot declare the essence of beings but only their various properties.37 Consequently, the names attributed tο God cannot declare the divine essence, as Eunomius maintained, but only the various characteristics of the essence, hypostases and energies of God.38 Thus, ontology, epistemology and teaching οn the divine names are, according tο Basil, interconnected and causally tied together. Ontology is the foundation of his epistemology, and this in turn is the foundation of his teaching οn the divine names. It is exactly for this reason that he was able tο confront the theological methods of the Eunomians and the Pneumatomachians with two contrary but logically unshakable theological methods οf his own, with which he proved the identity οf the essence οf the Persons of the Holy Trinity, invoking either the identity οf their names39 or the identity of their energies.40

Conclusion

Ιn order to fully appreciate the significance οf Saint Basil’s teaching οn essence and energies οf God for the entire Orthodox tradition, we must stress that, with this teaching, he not only responded to the danger which Orthodoxy underwent from the Eunomians and Pneumatomachians, but also contributed decisively tο the development and formulation οf the Τrinitarian doctrine, and especially that of the Holy Spirit. He thus prepared the ground for the theological work οf the Second Ecumenical Council, which was called just two years after his death.

Chiefly, however, Basil, with his teaching οn essence and energies of God, provided the framework for the correct relationship between the uncreated God and the created world, which is the fundamental presupposition for Orthodox Trinitarian doctrine as well as Orthodox Cosmology, Christology and Soteriology. Ιn this way, he provided the necessary presuppositions for the proper manner of confronting not only the Christological question, which had already begun tο preoccupy the theological thought of the Church from his own period, but also the question of man’s real participation in the life of God, which occupied the theological thought of the Church in the fourteenth century. From this point of view, the contribution of St. Basil tο the future development of Orthodox dogma was particularly important.

Ιn particular, Basil put forward the ontological and epistemological significance of the distinction between God’s essence and energies as well as its definitive importance for the origin and significance of the divine names, offering in this way the basis for subsequent development of the teaching οn essence and energies of God within the Orthodox tradition. With the above-mentioned distinction, he indeed provided all the essential theological presuppositions for the connection made later by Palamas, between teaching οn God’s essence and energies and Orthodox spiritual experience and life, consisting in man’s real communion with God and his divinization. Thus, St. Basil was one of the chief contributors to the development of this teaching as the criterion of Orthodox Theology and Spirituality.

From the book: Divine Essence and Divine Energies: Ecumenical Reflections on the Presence of God in Eastern Orthodoxy Paperback 

NOTES

1. See David Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West. Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 154 ff.

2. Cf. Georgios D. Martzelos, Οὐσία καί ἐνέργειαι τοῦ Θεοῦ κατά τόν Μέγαν Βασίλειον. Συμβολή εἰς τήν ἱστορικοδογματικήν διερεύνησιν τῆς περί οὐσίας καί ἐνεργειῶν τοῦ Θεοῦ διδασκαλίας τῆς Ὀρθοδόξου Ἐκκλησίας (Thessaloniki 21993), pp. 25 f; 193.

3. See for example St. Athanasius of Alexandria, De incarnatione Verbi 17, PG 25, 125AB; Adversus Arianos III, 61–4, PG 26, 452A – 460B.

4. According to the witness of St. Athanasius, Arius applied this principle to all created beings, included the Son, underlining this point emphatically with the following words: “Τῷ Υἱῷ ὁ Θεὸς ἄρρητος ὑπάρχει. Ἐστὶ γὰρ ἑαυτῷ ὅ ἐστι, τοῦτ’ ἔστιν ἄλεκτος, ὥστε οὐδὲν τῶν λεγομένων κατά τε κατάληψιν συνίει ἐξειπεῖν ὁ Υἱός. ἀδύνατα γὰρ αὐτῷ τὸν Πατέρα ἐξιχνιάσαι, ὅς ἐστιν ἐφ’ ἑαυτοῦ αὐτὸς γὰρ ὁ Υἱὸς τὴν ἑαυτοῦ οὐσίαν οὐκ οἶδεν. Υἱὸς γὰρ ὢν θελήσει Πατρὸς ὑπῆρξεν ἀληθῶς. Τίς γοῦν λόγος συγχωρεῖ τὸν ἐκ Πατρὸς ὄντα αὐτὸν τὸν γεννήσαντα γνῶναι ἐν καταλήψει; Δῆλον γὰρ ὅτι τὸ ἀρχὴν ἔχον τὸν ἄναρχον ὅς ἐστιν ἐμπερινοῆσαι ἢ ἐμπεριδράξασθαι οὐχ οἷόν τέ ἐστιν” (Epistola de Synodis Arimini in Italia et Seleuciæ in Isauria celebratis 15, PG 26, 708BC). See also Adversus Arianos I, 6, PG 26, 24AB; 9, PG 26, 29B; Ad episcopos Ægypti et Lybiæ epistola encyclica12, PG 25, 565A. Cf. Alexander of Alexandria, Charissimis honoratissimisque ubique ecclesiæ catholicæ comministris 3, PG 18, 573B. About the above-mentioned idea of Arius see G. Zaphiris, ‘Reciprocal Trinitarian Revelation and man’s knowledge of God according to St. Athanasius’, in Τόμος ἑόρτιος χιλιοστῆς ἑξακοσιοστῆς ἐπετείου Μεγάλου Ἀθανασίου (373–1973) (Thessaloniki, 1974), p. 300 f.

5. According to the Church historian Socrates, Eunomius maintained verbatim that man’s knowledge of the divine essence is identified with God’s self-knowledge with the following words: “Ὁ Θεὸς περὶ τῆς ἑαυτοῦ οὐσίας οὐδὲν πλέον ἡμῶν ἐπίσταται. οὐδέ ἐστιν αὕτη μᾶλλον μὲν ἐκείνῳ, ἧττον δὲ ἡμῖν γινωσκομένη. Ἀλλ’ ὅπερ ἂν εἰδείημεν ἡμεῖς περὶ αὐτῆς, τοῦτο πάντως κἀκεῖνος οἶδεν. ὃ δ’ αὖ πάλιν ἐκεῖνος, τοῦτο εὑρήσεις ἀπαραλλάκτως ἐν ἡμῖν”. The same idea had expressed, according to Epiphanius of Salamis, the teacher of Eunomius, Aetius the Anomean: see Panarium 56 (76), 4, PG 42, 521C.

6. See Aetius the Anomean, Syntagmation, in Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarium 11, PG 42, 537C – 541C; Eunomius, Apologia 8, PG 30, 841D – 844B.

7. See Aetius the Anomean, Syntagmation, PG 42, 533C – 545A; Eunomius, Apologia 9–12, PG 30, 844B – 848B; 20–22, PG 30, 856A – 857C. See also Martzelos, Οὐσία καί ἐνέργειαι τοῦ Θεοῦ κατά τόν Μέγαν Βασίλειον, pp. 31 ff. and Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West, p. 156.

8. See Athanasius of Alexandria, Contra Arianos I, 5, PG 26, 21A; 6, PG 26, 24A.

9. See Eunomius, Apologia 15, PG 30, 849C. Cf. Basil of Caesarea, Homilia XXIV, Contra Sabellianos et Arium et Anomoeos 6, PG 31, 612CD. See also Martzelos, Οὐσία καί ἐνέργειαι τοῦ Θεοῦ κατά τόν Μέγαν Βασίλειον, pp. 85 ff.; Georgios D. Martzelos, ‘Der Verstand und seine Grenzen nach dem hl. Basilius dem Grossen’, in Τόμος ἑόρτιος χιλιοστῆς ἐξακοσιοστῆς ἐπετείου Μεγάλου Βασιλείου, pp. 230 f.

10. See Eunomius, Apologia 12, PG 30, 848B; 18, PG 30, 853AB; Aetius the Anomean, Syntagmation, PG 42, 540A. See also Basil the Great, De Spiritu Sancto 4, PG 32, 73AB; Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarium 11, PG 42, 525 A; Theodoret of Cyrus, Historia ecclesiastica 2, 23, PG 82, 1068A.

11. See Eunomius, Apologia 20, PG 30, 856ABC. See also Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium I, PG 45, 297ABC, 352CD.

12. See Basil the Great, De Spiritu Sancto 4, PG 32, 73A.

13. See Basil the Great, In Psalmum XXXII, 4, PG 29, 333ABC; De Spiritu Sancto 5–6, PG 32, 76A – 77C; 50– 51, PG 32, 160 C; Epistola CXXV, 3, PG 32, 549C. See also W.-D. Hauschild, Die Pneumatomachen. Eine Untersuchung zur Dogmengeschichte des vierten Jahrhunderts (Hamburg, 1967), pp. 46 ff.

14. Martzelos, Οὐσία καί ἐνέργειαι τοῦ Θεοῦ κατά τόν Μέγαν Βασίλειον, pp. 76 ff., 121 ff., 149 ff.

15. See Adversus Eunomium II, 28–29, PG 29, 636C – 640AB. Cf. Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West, p. 158 f.

16. See Adversus Eunomium I, 12–14, PG 29, 540A – 545A; II, 22, PG, 29, 621A; 24, PG 29, 628A; III, 6, PG 29, 668AB; Homilia XXIV, Contra Sabellianos et Arium et Anomœos 7, PG 31, 613C – 616A; In sanctam Christi generationem 1–2, PG 31, 1457 C – 1460 B; Adversus eos qui per calumniam dicunt dici a nobis deos tres 4, PG 31, 1496B.

17. For the break of the traditional bond between ontology and epistemology by Eunomius see Martzelos, Οὐσία καί ἐνέργειαι τοῦ Θεοῦ κατά τόν Μέγαν Βασίλειον, pp. 29 f.

18. Epistola CCXXXIV, 1, PG 32, 869AB: “Ἡμεῖς δέ ἐκ τῶν ἐνεργειῶν γνωρίζειν λέγομεν τόν Θεόν ἡμῶν, τῇ δέ οὐσίᾳ αὐτῇ προσεγγίζειν οὐκ ὑπισχνούμεθα. Αἱ μέν γάρ ἐνέργειαι αὐτοῦ πρός ἡμᾶς καταβαίνουσιν, ἡ δέ οὐσία αὐτοῦ μένει ἀπρόσιτος”.

19. See E. von Ivánka, ‘Palamismus und Vätertradition’, in L’Église et les églises. Études et travaux offerts à Dom Lambert Beaudouin (Chevetogne 1955), vol. 2, pp. 33 ff.; E. von Ivánka, Plato Christianus. Übernahme und Umgestaltung des Platonismus durch die Väter (Einsiedeln, 1964), pp. 429 ff.; E. von Ivánka, ‘Hellenisches im Hesychasmus. Das antinomische der Energienlehre’, in Mélanges patristiques offerts au Cardinal Jean Daniélou (Paris, 1972), p. 495.

20. See St. Basil the Great, De Spiritu Sancto 38, PG 32, 136ABC; see also Martzelos, Οὐσία καί ἐνέργειαι τοῦ Θεοῦ κατά τόν Μέγαν Βασίλειον, pp. 110 ff.

21. As David Bradshaw characteristically notes, “the divine energeiai are not merely operations, but God Himself as manifested within creation. It follows that the sort of participation Basil describes is not merely cooperation with God, but an actual participation in the divine being” (Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West, p. 174).

22. See St. Basil the Great, In Psalmum XXIX, 5, PG 29, 317B; In Psalmum XXXIII, 3, PG 29, 357BC; In martyrem Julittam 7, PG 31, 256A; Epistola CCXXXIII, 1-2, PG 32, 865A – 868B; Adversus Eunomium II, 16, PG 29, 604 AB; De Spiritu Sancto 23 PG 32, 109 AB; 61, PG 32 180 C; see also G. D. Martzelos, Οὐσία καί ἐνέργειαι τοῦ Θεοῦ κατά τόν Μέγαν Βασίλειον, pp. 123 ff.

23. See St. Basil the Great, Adversus Eunomium I, 14, PG 29, 544B; Homilia XII, In principium Proverbiorum 3, PG 31, 392B.

24. See Adversus Eunomium III, 4 PG 29, 661B – 665A; De Spiritu Sancto 19, PG 32, 101C – 104A; 23, PG 32, 109 AB; 37, PG 32, 133CD; 47, PG 32, 153ABC; 64, PG 32, 185 BC. Cf. Epistola CLXXXIX, 6–7, PG 32, 692D – 693C. Especially on this point see Martzelos, Οὐσία καί ἐνέργειαι τοῦ Θεοῦ κατά τόν Μέγαν Βασίλειον, pp. 140 ff.

25. On this point see G. D. Martzelos, Οὐσία καί ἐνέργειαι τοῦ Θεοῦ κατά τόν Μέγαν Βασίλειον, pp. 27 ff.

26. See Basil of Caesarea, Epistola CCXXXV, 1, PG 32, 872A.

27. See C. Bonis, ‘The problem concerning Faith and Knowledge, or Reason and Revelation, as expounded in the letters of St. Basil the Great to Amphilochius of Iconium’, in The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, 5/1 (1959): p. 41 f.

28. See Epistola CCXXXV, 1, PG 32, 872AB.

29. St. Basil the Great, Epistola CCXXXIV, 3, PG 32, 869D – 872A.

30. Epistola CCXXXIV, 1, PG 32, 869 AB; Epistola CCXXXV, 1, PG 32, 872AB.

31. See ibid., PG 32, 872 B; Epistola CCXXXIV, 3, PG 32, 872A.

32. See St. Basil the Great, Homilia in illud ‘Attende tibi ipsi’ 7, PG 31, 216A.

33. See St Basil the Great, Adversus Eunomium 3, PG 29, 665 C; De Spiritu Sancto 28, PG 32, 117BC.

34. See De Spiritu Sancto 26, PG 32, 113AB; cf. ibid., 75, PG 32, 209. See also H. Dörries, De Spiritu Sancto. Der Beitrag des Basilius zum Abschluß des trinitarischen Dogmas (Göttingen, 1956), pp. 133 f.; ‘Basilius und das Dogma vom Heiligen Geist’, in Lutherische Rundschau, 6 (1956–57): pp. 255 f.

35. On the relationship between faith and knowledge according to the Orthodox Theology in general see N. Matsoukas, Γένεσις καί οὐσία τοῦ Ὀρθοδόξου δόγματος (Thessaloniki, 1969), pp. 159 ff.; see also N. Matsoukas, Κόσμος, ἄνθρωπος, κοινωνία κατά τόν Μάξιμο Ὁμολογητή (Athens, 1980), pp. 200, 305 f.

36. See St. Basil the Great, Epistola CCXXXIV, 3, PG 32, 869 C – 872 A; Epistola CCXXXV, 1, PG 32, 872B. See also P. Chrestou, Ὁ Μέγας Βασίλειος. Βίος καί πολιτεία, συγγράμματα, θεολογική σκέψις (Thessaloniki, 1978), p. 243.

37. See Adversus Eunomium I, 6–7, PG 29, 521C – 525C; II, 4, PG 29, 577C – 580B.

38. See St Basil the Great, Adversus Eunomium I, 8, PG 29, 528A – 529 C; II, 5, PG 29, 580C. See also Martzelos, Οὐσία καί ἐνέργειαι τοῦ Θεοῦ κατά τόν Μέγαν Βασίλειον, pp. 158 ff.

39. See St. Basil the Great, Adversus Eunomium II, 24, PG 29, 628C; III, 3–4, PG 29, 661AB; De Spiritu Sancto 11, PG 32, 85A; 48, PG 32, 156C; 53, PG 32, 165D.

40. See St. Basil the Great, Adversus Eunomium III, 4, PG 29, 661 B – 665 A; De Spiritu Sancto 19, PG 32, 101C – 104A ; 53, PG 32, 165D. Cf. Epistola CLXXXIX, 6, PG 32, 692D – 693A.

Thomas Aquinas on participation in God (Nikolaos Loudovikos)

As the first axiom of Thomas’ theo-logic postulates, God is of course pure act, as “he has not admixture of potency” (SCG I, 16, 5). This is because “what is not wholly act, acts not with the whole of itself but with part of itself. But what does not act with the whole of itself is not the first agent, since it does not act through its essence but through participation in something”. It is clear that “motion is the act of that which exists in potency”. But God is absolutely impassible and immutable, and that means that God has no part of passive potency, i.e. he is pure act” (SCG I, 16, 6). While matter is then pure potency (SCG I, 17), the other beings are composite as they consist in act and potency; for the same reason there is no composition in God (SCG I, 18), and of course no accident in him, as there is no potentiality in God (SCG I, 23, 4).

Some other Thomist assertions bring us closer to the subject of this essay. Thomas claims, first, that no addition of substantial difference is possible for God because “this would be a part of the essence, which means that God will be composed of essential parts” (SCG I, 24, 4). Second, he claims that God is not the being of all things, because if he is part of all things he cannot be over them (SCG I, 26, 8). The necessary conclusion then is that of SCG I, 45, 6: “every substance exists for the sake of its operation. If, then, the operation of God is other than the divine substance, the end of God will be something other than God, thus God will not be his goodness, since the good of each thing is its end” – for the same reason even “the primary and essential object of God’s intellect is nothing other than himself” (SCG I, 48). It therefore seems at first sight obvious that it is impossible for this theo-logic to admit any divine act/operation/energy going ad extra, as this would mean composition in God, in the sense that there is a potency in him, acting not through his essence but through participation in something outside him. For strong onto-theo-logical reasons God cannot enter the being of other beings, and “he knows other beings as seen in his essence” (SCG I, 49, 5), while “all things, in their proper forms, are in him, according to his active power, since God is the principle of every being” (SCG I, 50, 8). This active power is totally identical to his essence, as theo-logic demands that any possibility of distinction between essence and will in God is onto-logically unacceptable. The only moment where this postulate seems to have been forgotten, namely in SCG II, 1, where a distinction between an internal and an external operation in God seems possible, is very quickly covered by theo-logical assertions of the aforementioned type. Is Thomas for or against such a distinction?

Thus, “God’s will is his essence”, as “God’s being does not need superadded perfection” (SCG I, 73, 3). Here the perfection of essence cages in the will in a theo-logical way: in different case, divine essence would relate to the will as potency to act, creating composition in God (SCG I, 73, 5). Moreover, “the will is the intellect” (SCG I, 72, 3), says Aquinas following Aristotle, and so, “the principle object of the divine will is the divine essence. If the principal object of the divine will is different from the divine essence, it will follow that there is something higher than the divine will moving it” (SCG I, 74, 3). Now onto-theo-logic swallows existence up and forbids any existential freedom of God to act without its permission. God is not left free to really desire something that is “inferior” to him – a position that also, of course, ignores the fact that what God loves is, in a way that escapes onto-theo-logic, more valuable for him than his essence. Paradoxically, theo-logic here seems also to insert a curious complementarity between being and willing-to-being in God, which smacks of narcissism that entraps God in a sort of psychological vicious circle: is there any real otherness outside God? Thomas claims that God wills beings through the will for his being, that is, by willing and loving himself, or, in other words, that God wills everything through himself and by willing himself. It is exactly because of this onto-theo-logic that Thomas adopts his famous position concerning participation of beings in God through likeness (SCG I, 75, 4) – the only way for beings to participate in God without disturbing his gaze at himself.

It is clear that Thomas does not say that God wills us for himself, as Augustine did; on the contrary, he seems to say that God wills himself through us. Thus, “God’s action is his essence” (SCG I, 87, 4) which now means that it is impossible for God to will some thing for the sake of itself – exactly because everything is ontologically inferior to him. Now narcissism is absolutely logical: “again, joy and delight are a certain resting of the will in its object. But God, who is his own principle object willed, is supremely at rest in himself, as containing all abundance in himself. God therefore, through his will supremely rejoices of himself” (SCG I, 90, 4). Note the complete absence of any reference to Divine Persons here; any such reference would prevent us from thinking that this abyssal self-love is identical to the abyssal self-love of a ‘great celibate’, to employ Olivier du Roy’s ironical expression. How can we avoid thinking that the germ of modern ‘detached’ (according to Charles Taylor’s expression) subjectivism, as a happy coincidence of essence and self-enclosed will to a detached self-fulfilment (which finally becomes will to power), is already present here? I think that it has already become clear that Thomist theo-logic tends to confine God to what metaphysics could admit and support, although he at times gives the impression that he wants to somehow overcome metaphysics. But the problem here does not lie in the fact that for onto-logical reasons we must admit that act, existence, will, operation, essence, love are identical in God; the problem is that we cannot confine God to this theo-logic. If we avoid such a confinement, could then all the above theo-logic perhaps be somehow acceptable? Because one could perhaps somehow endorse this identification for serious theological reasons, as Palamas for example did, without exclusively confining God’s reality to it. It seems that Thomas understood at some point that there is a problem here.

But let me return to SCG. Because of this absence of any strong theoretical possibility of distinction between essence and will/power/action, after and along with the onto-theo-logical assertion of their identity, it is clear that for Thomas God’s external relations “have no real being in God” (SCG II, 12, 3). That means that these relations refer to God only “in accordance with our manner of understanding” (SCG II, 13–14). For the same reason “God is everywhere in the fashion of an agent cause” (SCG III, 68, 11). It can be therefore seriously doubted if this sort of presence implies a real presence either of creation in God (without of course this being confused with his essence), or of God in creation. Besides, in the same perspective, and “as the ultimate end of things is to become like God” (SCG III, 19) this can be only achieved by imitation of his goodness (SCG III, 20), in the sense that the creatures “participate somewhat in his likeness” (SCG III, 25, 1). It is clear that here participation seems, at first sight, to have nothing to do with any real participation in God’s being, in the sense proclaimed in the Scripture. This is the theo-logic of participation; but this is not all that Thomas has to say about participation, as we shall see later.

But it is also necessary to investigate the anthropological aspects in SCG. Thomas’ anthropology is characterized by the refutation of the Platonic position that the soul is connected to the body as mover to movable or a man to his clothes (SCG II, 57, 10). That means that man’s intellect is not a separate substance (SCG II, 59), but man, in a more Aristotelian way, consists of an intellective soul, imagination and the body with its senses (SCG II, 58). That means that the intellect is united to the body as its form (SCG II, 70) but also, on the other hand, in a fashion that is not so remote from that of Palamas, “intellectual receptiveness and operation are altogether without a corporeal organ” (SCG II, 69, 11), although, for Palamas, this is true only concerning nous and not dianoia, which needs the brain as its corporeal organ. Therefore, “happiness or felicity, consists substantially and principally in an act of the intellect rather than in an act of the will.” (SCG III, 26, 8) This is exactly because, in an Aristotelian way, will is under intellect’s control, as any existential understanding of the will sometimes escaping intellect (this happens, for example, in Maximus the Confessor) is totally lacking. Thus “happiness essentially consists in understanding rather than in an act of will (i.e. desire, or love, or delight)” (SCG III, 26, 11).

Thus, it is obvious that when Thomas claims that “man’s ultimate felicity consists only in the contemplation of God” (SCG III, 37, 8-9) it is difficult for him to combine his perfectly holistic anthropology with his anthropology of participation. Man now becomes an intellect again62 and the rest of his composite hypostasis is passively precluded from any real participation in God. Here is his terrible corollary: “the mind which sees the divine substance must be completely cut off from the bodily senses, either by death or by ecstasy” (SCG III, 46, 2). Any possibility of a transformation of the bodily senses, so familiar in the Greek Patristic tradition, is completely lacking here, as for Thomas the main reason for the weakness of our intellect’s ability to see God is its connection with the body. Consequently, all who saw God in this life saw him “either in reference to an imaginary vision, or even a corporeal one” (SCG III, 46, 3), as the presence of the body seems to be an insurmountable obstacle for this vision. It is thus clear that the Neoplatonico-Aristotelian presuppositions of Aquinatian anthropology powerfully persist: “every intellect naturally desires the vision of the divine substance, but natural desire cannot be incapable of fulfillment. Therefore, any created intellect whatsoever can attain the vision of the divine substance, and the inferiority of its nature is no impediment” (SCG III, 57, 4). No other presuppositions seem to be required here in order for the intellect to see God, other than its natural kinship with him. Not of course to see him completely, as for the Christian Thomas, this kinship has a certain limit, imposed by the intellect’s createdness. Thus, for Thomas, the intellect can see God only through a light, which is “a likeness of God” and is supernatural (SCG III, 54, 10-11) – without of course accepting that this light is uncreated, as we would then run the danger of pantheism. In this way, this light “in its power, falls far short of the clarity of the divine intellect. So it is impossible for the divine substance to be seen as perfectly by means of this kind of light, as it is seen by the divine intellect itself” (SCG III, 55, 2). Therefore, “it is not possible for a created intellect to comprehend the divine substance”, as “it is not seen as perfectly by the created intellect as its visibility would permit” (SCG III, 55, 5-6), and consequently different degrees of participation in this light imply different degrees of seeing God’s substance (SCG III, 58, 1). In this way, “the created intellect becomes a partaker in the eternal life through this vision” (SCG III, 61), because “the intellect which sees the divine substance contemplates all things at once and not in succession” (SCG III, 60).

Thus, the anthropological conclusion of SCG’s onto-theo-logic is a natural upshot of its understanding of God: imperfect participation of an imperfect but Godlike intellect, through an imperfect supernatural light, in an imperfect similitude of a splendidly perfect divine transcendent Being. It is clear that Thomas’ primary intention here was precisely to show his God’s magnitude to the audacious pagans, Muslims, etc. Thomas’ God is absolutely onto-theo-logically magnificent, fearless, powerful, invulnerable, unreachable, and everything around him simply has to submit completely to his unsurpassable glory. In other words, Aquinas’ main concern in SCG was to describe God’s supreme unity and coherence, in the metaphysical, ‘logical’ (following Avicenna) language of his time, giving to the rising Papacy the absolute intellectual and doctrinal superiority that it so powerfully claimed at that period of time. But this God was not absolutely sufficient for Thomas’ fellow Christians, as it was obvious that participation here, although encouraged, was not very far-reaching. [...] 

It is not of course without surprise that, after the above claims concerning the touching of the creatures by divine will one reads: “therefore there is no real relation in God to the creatures, whereas in creatures there is a real relation to God; because creatures are contained under the divine order, and their very nature entails dependence on God” (ST I, 28, 1, r. to obj. 3). How can there be no real relation in God to the creatures when “he wills both himself to be and other things to be” (ST I, 19, 2)? Onto-theo-logic can sometimes become an obsession, where action and will tend to retire to their high solipsistic castle. This is why finally, for Thomas, the effect does not participate in its cause but in its similitude – otherwise things could be divine by essence! This similitude is multiplied in many things, and no one has it in its wholeness. Thus, analogical causality implies a deficient likeness, while analogy itself is a reduced similarity and creation is a kind of fall.67 To be precise, there are two kinds of likeness, one to God’s essence and a second to his intellect; creation is a fall in regard to God’s essence, while it is ‘very good’ in regard to his intellect. But, apart from the obvious return to theo-logic, what remains is that God seems here to act in absolute unity of action and essence, being absolutely and essentially present in the world. God projects another being outside him by analogical similitude, and wills it and touches it. Onto-theo-logic can thus, theoretically, become an ontological ground for participation, and then its ‘suspension’ simply means the possibility of its expression in an ontology of participation. But it is clear to me that Thomas cannot do this alone.

But let me now switch to Thomas’ understanding of beatitude. There are two kinds of beatitude here: first, the beatitude of God, i.e., “the perfect good of an intellectual nature”, and, second, the beatitude of every intellectual nature, which “consists in understanding. Now in God to be and to understand are one and the same thing, differing only in the manner of our understanding them. Beatitude must therefore be assigned to God in respect of his intellect; as also to be blessed, who are called blessed (beati) by reason of the assimilation to his beatitude” (ST I, 26, 3, ans.). Furthermore, it is clear that beatitude “is a created thing in beatified creatures; but in God […] it is an uncreated thing” (ibid.). It seems again absolutely impossible for the creatures to participate in God’s being as it really is, because every created beatitude “pre-exists wholly in a more eminent degree in the divine beatitude”, analogically (ST I, 26, 4, ans.), thus creating an onto-theo-logical gap between what God is and what of him is participated in. It is curious enough that the Thomists who complain about Palamas preventing us from participating in God’s essence by his doctrine of the energies, do not see that, for Thomas, any such participation is much more strictly forbidden. What is the reason for the beatitude of the creatures to be created and not, by grace and not of course by nature, uncreated? Anna Williams’s answer is that if beatitude were uncreated, “what was once created can somehow become uncreated”.68 But in Greek Patristic thought we find the concept of the ‘mode of existence’ (a Cappadocian Trinitarian concept that Maximus transferred, through Christology, to the ontology of creation, thus influencing Palamas), which permits us to understand that created nature can be acted upon ‘beyond its terms’, changing its rank of existence into uncreated, by grace, without losing its createdness.

Thus, “as the ultimate beatitude of man consists in the use of highest function, which is the operation of his intellect; if we suppose that the created intellect could never see God, it would neither never attain to beatitude, or its beatitude would consists in something else beside God; which is opposed to faith” (ST I, 12, 1). Furthermore, “there is in every man a natural desire to know the cause of any effect which he sees […]. But if the intellect of the rational creature could not reach so far as to the first cause of things, the natural desire would remain void. Hence it must be absolutely granted that the blessed see the essence of God” (ibid.). Therefore, man’s natural desire is to attain the beatitude of the intellectual vision of the cause of all things in its essence.

Thomas knows that the Greek Fathers preclude any such vision of divine essence, but he claims that when they do so, what they deny in fact is the comprehension of God’s essence (ibid., r. to obj. 1). But the most important problem for him here is that, of course, the intellective power of the creatures cannot be identified with God’s essence; so “there is required some similitude in the visual faculty, namely, the light of glory strengthening the intellect to see God” (ST I, 12, 2). Consequently, this light of glory, which is a similitude of divine essence, is another name for grace that needs to illuminate created intellect: or, else, “it is some supernatural disposition that should be added to the intellect in order that it may be raised up to such a great and sublime height” (ST I, 12, 5, ans.). What does Thomas mean by “supernatural” here? As he explains in the same passage, by supernatural we mean a created light, which is offered to the intellect in order for it “to understand God”. The question here is: how can man see even the slightest part of divine essence, if it is obviously impossible to overcome his created limits through a light that is merely created like him?

Thomas has a provisional answer: “since therefore the created light of glory received into any created intellect cannot be infinite, it is clearly impossible for any created intellect to know God in an infinite degree. Hence it is impossible that it should comprehend God” (ST I, 12, 7). On the other hand, “those who see the divine essence see what they see in God not by any likeness, but by the divine essence itself united to their intellect” (ST I, 12, 9). There is another contradiction here. How we can avoid pantheism in this case remains totally obscure. But this direct vision belongs to the next life, as Thomas writes: “God cannot be seen in his essence by a mere human being, except he be separated from this mortal life” (ST I, 12, 11).This is because, as he explains: “our soul, as long as we live in this life, has its being in corporeal matter; hence naturally it knows only what has a form in matter, or what can be known by such a form”.

But that means that the aforementioned created light/grace is obviously insufficient to liberate the human soul ontologically from the burden of the body in this life, in order for it to unite directly and intellectually unite with the divine essence; but if this is true, then the vision of God after death is not the result of any sort of grace, but is simply a natural result of the liberation of the soul from body. Thus any visit of the created/supernatural grace/light in this life has as its main goal our deliverance from the body. How can we conceive of Chalcedonian Christology in these terms? Is the communication of idioms possible if the human body cannot be transformed, starting in this life? What is the role of the Holy Spirit in Thomas’ vision of God? Is his role confined to helping us to get off our bodily nature, along with the passive part of our soul? And do we need the Spirit at all for something like this?

Despite these shortcomings, always due to the excessive role of onto-theo-logic in Thomas’ mind, which often risks suffocating his ontology of participation, there is a series of challenging claims in his thought that can be read positively. The fact that God’s action is absolutely one and the same with God’s essence, and thus it is God himself who acts outside himself, along with the fact that beings acquire both their essence and their beatitude by participation in God, and that, despite the failure of the created light, this has finally somehow to do with participation in divine essence. These are only some of Thomas’ positive points. What is undoubtedly absent in his theological consideration is, first, the question of the human body, as we have seen, and, second, divino-human synergy.

Thomas deals with synergy in his work Contra Errores Graecorum. In chapter 23 of this work, he deals with the question “how the assertion: the creature cannot cooperate with the Creator, is to be understood”. Thomas distinguishes two kinds of synergy. First, we have synergy “as it effects conjointly with another the same operation, as when two men carry a single burden or drag a boat”. Only the Persons of the Trinity have such a synergy. Second, there exists synergy when we have “work toward the same effect but by a different power, as a servant cooperates with his lord”. Obviously, this is the type of synergy between man and God. Aquinas clarifies that synergy has nothing to do “in respect to those effects which are immediately from God, such as creation and sanctification”. It is clear that here we have a non-dialogical synergy/cooperation between man and God, a synergy that is rather a submission to the will of the Aquinatian onto-theo-logical giant. It is really difficult for Thomas to admit any real dialogue between man and God, concerning for example deification, not because he theologically identifies essence and will in God, (since he also distinguishes them as we have just seen), but because he knows only of this sort of communication between them that is described and confined by the term similitude. Similitude, in this way, is God’s protective wall, it is the analogical locus of divino-human encounter, where God can be touched while left untouchable – while the creatures passively reflect his glory. Although there seems to exist an expression of divine will ad extra, its theo-logical presuppositions do not easily permit a real encounter with a free will outside it. [...] By inexorably binding logic and ontology together in his more or less Aristotelian onto-theo-logic, Thomas has difficulties in convincingly articulating the distinction-in-identity between the active will and the essence. The Greek Patristic distinction between will and essence in God is, in a way, a consequence of this distinction between logic and ontology, which Thomas is afraid of. This is because of their relational construing of essence, both in God and creation, as an event of dialogical circulation, unlike the Thomist philosophical understanding of essence as an event of self-enclosed onto-logical necessity.

From: Striving for Participation: Palamite Analogy as Dialogical Syn-energy and Thomist Analogy as Emanational Similitude by Nikolaos Loudovikos

Notes on Indulgences, Temporal Punishment, Purgatory, etc

A significant part of the debates at the Council of Ferrara-Florence was dedicated to the question of purgatory and more generally of the forgiveness of sins after death. Both Latins and Greeks agreed that there are Christians who belong to the so-called ‘middle state’ and who, assisted by the suffrages of the Church, will in due course join the group of the saved. But they disagreed as to how these souls will attain to salvation. The Latins emphasized divine justice, punishment, and satisfaction. Divine justice demands that those who have failed to offer full satisfaction for sins forgiven in this life will have to go through fiery punishment in purgatory, until due satisfaction is eventually offered. The Greeks, on the other hand, emphasized God’s love and forgiveness. They repudiated the idea of purgatory and of material fire burning (immaterial) souls, and rejected the Latin view that souls are punished for sins already forgiven. They argued that the souls of people who die with unforgiven minor sins will experience spiritual sufferings in the afterlife, which, however, are not divine punishments but self-inflicted consequences of these sins. These souls will eventually be purified and saved thanks to God’s love and forgiveness.   ... The Latin position, stated [in the Council of Florence] in detailed and unambiguous terms, deserves some attention. Forgiveness does not refer to the damage and the stain that sin causes to the soul, but only to the punishment that is due to it. Purgatory, therefore, is not a place where souls are cleansed and healed in order to reach the spiritual maturity that is necessary for entering heaven. It is only a place of punishment and torture for sins already forgiven. [...]

In spite of their differences, however, Latins and Greeks agreed on two fundamental points. First, there is an intermediate state of souls that are, as it were, in between Heaven and Hell. Second, the prayers, the liturgies, and the suffrages in general of the Church contribute to their salvation.

Nevertheless, it is clear that Greeks and Latins disagreed on why and how these souls are purified and led to salvation. The Latins put forward a metaphysical principle that emphasized divine justice, which demands the punishment of sinners who had already been forgiven, for the sake of satisfaction.  [...] The Latins understood purgation mainly as a punitive process by means of material fire, at the end of which divine justice is satisfied and the soul is at long last allowed to enter Paradise. In this context, the suffrages of the Christians must be understood as vicarious offerings of satisfaction, which thus reduce the amount of time the souls of the deceased will have to spend in purgatory. The highly controversial Latin doctrine of indulgences fits in very well within this theological system.

The Greeks approached the matter from a different angle.  As André de Halleux has argued, they reacted ‘against a scholastic theology that the Latins presented as the faith of the Church’.  Although they repeatedly referred to divine justice,  their emphasis was on divine love, purification, and forgiveness. They understood the sufferings of the souls not as divine punishments, but rather as self-inflicted consequences of sin. They believed that through their painful afterlife experiences the souls are purged and forgiven by divine love, with the assistance of the prayers and in general the suffrages of the Church. [...]

In commenting on the Latin view, Jugie has argued that a soul in purgatory is like a prisoner.  It is sent to serve a certain amount of time in it, and, after this, it is almost automatically released and transferred to Paradise. But according to Mark, Jugie continues, although there is a purification of the souls thanks to their afterlife pains, release comes only from God, from outside, ab extrinseco.  Jugie’s remark is correct. For the Latins, punishment comes from God, whereas release comes by itself. For the Greeks, punishment comes by itself, being a consequence of sin, whereas forgiveness and release from punishment come only from God. The two approaches are clearly different. The Latin emphasis is on God’s justice and punishment. The Greek emphasis is on God’s love and forgiveness.

The examination of the Latin and Greek texts on purgatory at the Council of Ferrara – Florence has led me to the conclusion that the following remarks by John Meyendorff are not far off the mark:

The debate [on purgatory] between Greeks and Latins, in which Mark was the main Greek spokesman, showed a radical difference of perspective. While the Latins took for granted their legalistic approach to divine justice – which, according to them, requires a retribution for every sinful act – the Greeks interpreted sin less in terms of the acts committed than in terms of a moral and spiritual disease which was to be healed by divine forbearance and love. […] Legalism, which applied to individual human destiny the Anselmian doctrine of ‘satisfaction’, is the ratio theologica of the Latin doctrine on purgatory. For Mark of Ephesus, however, salvation is communion and ‘deification’.

And as a representative of the ‘Latin’ side has further claimed in commenting on earlier controversies on purgatory, ‘Byzantine soteriology is conceived less as satisfactory than as deifying and liberating, as recreating the disfigured image and liberating man from slavery to the elements of the world’.

The Greek views on purgatory presented a powerful challenge to the medieval Roman Catholic penitential system, its projection into the afterlife, and the theology that underpinned them. Mark and the Greeks did their best in order to be heard by the Latins. But they were not.  With regard to the doctrines of satisfaction, purgatory, and indulgences, the stakes for the Latins were by then very high.  The Latin Church had developed a fully-fledged penitential system, which extended its power to both this world and the next.  [...]

So, the Latin views on purgatory that the Greeks challenged at the unionist Council of Ferrara – Florence stand behind the emergence of Protestantism and the subsequent, and probably irreversible, destruction of the unity of Western Christianity. In the words of Le Goff, ‘thanks to Purgatory the Church developed the system of indulgences, a source of great power and profit, until it became a dangerous weapon that was ultimately turned back against the Church’.  Even Gill had to admit that ‘the Council of Florence made the Reformation inevitable’.

Source: Love, Purification, and Forgiveness versus Justice, Punishment, and Satisfaction: The Debates on Purgatory and the Forgiveness of Sins at the Council of Ferrara – Florence by Demetrios Bathrellos

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See also a superb discussion of the Homilies refuting the purgatorial fire given by St. Mark of Ephesus at this same Synod: The Soul After Death, by Fr. Seraphim Rose, App. I, pp. 196-213. Here are Fr. Seraphim's introductory remarks on these homilies:

The Orthodox teaching on the state of souls after death is one that is often not fully understood, even by Orthodox Christians themselves; and the comparatively late Latin teaching of "purgatory" has caused further confusion in people's minds. The Orthodox doctrine itself, however, is not at all ambiguous or imprecise. Perhaps the most concise Orthodox exposition of it is to be found in the writings of St. Mark of Ephesus at the Council of Florence in 1439, composed precisely in order to answer the Latin teaching on "purgatory." These writings are especially valuable to us in that coming as they do from the last of the Byzantine Fathers, before the modern era with all its theological confusions, they both point us to the sources of the Orthodox doctrine and instruct us how to approach and understand these sources. These sources are: Scripture, Patristic homilies, church services, Lives of Saints, and certain revelations and visions of life after death, such as those contained in Book IV of the Dialogues of St. Gregory the Great.
Today's academic theologians tend to mistrust the latter two or three kinds of sources, which is why they are often uneasy when speaking on this subject and sometimes prefer to keep an "agnostic reticence" with regard to it (Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, p. 259). St. Marks writings, on the other hand, show us how much "at home" with these sources genuine Orthodox theologians are; those who are "uncomfortable" with them perhaps reveal thereby an unsuspected infection with modern unbelief.
Of St. Mark's four replies on purgatory composed at the Council of Florence, the First Homily contains the most concise account of the Orthodox doctrine as against the Latin errors, and it is chiefly from it that this translation has been compiled. The other replies contain mostly illustrative material for the points discussed here, as well as answers to more specific Latin arguments.
The "Latin Chapter" to which St. Mark replies are those written by Julian Cardinal Cesarini (Russian translation in Pogodin, pp. 50-57), giving the Latin teaching, defined at the earlier "Union" Council of Lyons (1270), on the state of souls after death. This teaching strikes the Orthodox reader (as indeed it struck St. Mark) as one of an entirely too "literalistic" and "legalistic" character. The Latins by this time had come to regard heaven and hell as somehow "finished" and "absolute," and those in them as already possessing the fullness of the state they will have after the Last Judgment; thus, there is no need to pray for those in heaven (whose lot is already perfect) or those in hell (for they can never be delivered or cleansed from sin). But since many of the faithful die in a "middle" state—not perfect enough for heaven, but not evil enough for hell—the logic of the Latin arguments required a third place of cleansing (''purgatory"), where even those whose sins had already been forgiven had to be punished or give "satisfaction" for their sins before being sufficiently cleansed to enter heaven. These legalistic arguments of a purely human "justice" (which actually deny God's supreme goodness and love of mankind) the Latins proceeded to support by literalistic interpretations of certain Patristic texts and various visions; almost all of these interpretations are quite contrived and arbitrary, because not even the ancient Latin Fathers spoke of such a place as "purgatory," but only of the "cleansing" from sins after death, which some of them referred to (probably allegorically) as by "fire."
In the Orthodox doctrine, on the other hand, which St. Mark teaches, the faithful who have died with small sins unconfessed, or who have not brought forth fruits of repentance for sins they have confessed, are cleansed of these sins either in the trial of death itself with its fear, or after death, when they are confined (but not permanently) in hell, by the prayers and Liturgies of the Church and good deeds performed for them by the faithful. Even sinners destined for eternal torment can be given a certain relief from their torment in hell by these means also. There is no fire tormenting sinners now, however, either in hell (for the eternal fire will begin to torment them only after the Last Judgment), or much less in any third place like "purgatory"; all visions of fire which are seen by men are as it were images or prophecies of what will be in the future age. All forgiveness of sins after death comes solely from the goodness of God, which extends even to those in hell, with the cooperation of the prayers of men, and no "payment" or "satisfaction" is due for sins which have been forgiven.
It should be noted that St. Mark's writings concern primarily the specific point of the state of souls after death, and barely touch on the history of the events that occur to the soul immediately after death. On the latter point there is an abundant Orthodox literature, but this point was not under discussion at Florence.

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The comments below were taken from the discussion at http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php/topic,13820.0.html

Purgatory exists to deal with the expiation of the temporal punishment due to post-baptismal personal sin, that part of the punishment which the person has not been able to expiate while on earth.

The purpose of purgatory is the expiation of sin, or the discharge of the debt of temporal punishment (Trent, Session 6, Canon 30). The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks about "those who are expiating their sins in purgatory" (paragraph 1475). To "expiate" means to make reparation for an offence or injury. This expiation is achieved through suffering of the soul. Unless completed on earth, "expiation must be made in the next life through fire and torments or purifying punishments." And again, those "who had not made satisfaction with adequate penance of their sins and omissions are cleaned after death with punishments designed to purge away their debt" (Vatican II, Apostolic Constitution on the Revision of Indulgences, 1967).

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Temporal punishment 

That temporal punishment is due to sin, even after the sin itself has been pardoned by God, is clearly the teaching of Scripture. God indeed brought man out of his first disobedience and gave him power to govern all things (Wisdom 10:2), but still condemned him "to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow" until he returned unto dust. God forgave the incredulity of Moses and Aaron, but in punishment kept them from the "land of promise" (Numbers 20:12). The Lord took away the sin of David, but the life of the child was forfeited because David had made God's enemies blaspheme His Holy Name (2 Samuel 12:13-14). In the New Testament as well as in the Old, almsgiving and fasting, and in general penitential acts are the real fruits of repentance (Matthew 3:8; Luke 17:3; 3:3). The whole penitential system of the Church testifies that the voluntary assumption of penitential works has always been part of true repentance and the Council of Trent (Sess. XIV, can. xi) reminds the faithful that God does not always remit the whole punishment due to sin together with the guilt. God requires satisfaction, and will punish sin, and this doctrine involves as its necessary consequence a belief that the sinner failing to do penance in this life may be punished in another world, and so not be cast off eternally from God. (Catholic Encyclopedia - http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12575a.htm ) 

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The Pope Benedict XVI does recognize a substantial difference between Orthodox and his church's stand on the matter:

48. A further point must be mentioned here, because it is important for the practice of Christian hope. Early Jewish thought includes the idea that one can help the deceased in their intermediate state through prayer (see for example 2 Macc 12:38-45; first century BC). The equivalent practice was readily adopted by Christians and is common to the Eastern and Western Church. The East does not recognize the purifying and expiatory suffering of souls in the afterlife, but it does acknowledge various levels of beatitude and of suffering in the intermediate state. The souls of the departed can, however, receive “solace and refreshment” through the Eucharist, prayer and almsgiving. The belief that love can reach into the afterlife, that reciprocal giving and receiving is possible, in which our affection for one another continues beyond the limits of death—this has been a fundamental conviction of Christianity throughout the ages and it remains a source of comfort today.  (ENCYCLICAL LETTER Spe Salvi - Pope Benedict XVI) 

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[In the bellow quote] I highlighted the crux of the matter.  I think this dual definition of 'punishment' is entirely absent from Orthodox theology:

1473 The forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the remission of the eternal punishment of sin, but temporal punishment of sin remains. While patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds and, when the day comes, serenely facing death, the Christian must strive to accept this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. He should strive by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the "old man" and to put on the "new man."

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2. It is a divinely revealed truth that sins bring punishments inflicted by God's sanctity and justice. These must be expiated either on this earth through the sorrows, miseries and calamities of this life and above all through death, or else in the life beyond through fire and torments or "purifying" punishments. Therefore it has always been the conviction of the faithful that the paths of evil are fraught with many stumbling blocks and bring adversities, bitterness and harm to those who follow them. (Indulgentarium Doctrina - Pope Paul VI, 1967)

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Fr Hardon has been one of the pre-eminent apologists of the Catholic Faith over the last 40 years.  His works are everywhere, on EWTN, etc., etc.  Fr Hardon served as a consultant for the drafting of the Catechism of the Catholic Church promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1992. 

Writers in the Latin tradition are quite unanimous that the fire of purgatory is real and not metaphorical. They argue from the common teaching of the Latin Fathers, of some Greek Fathers, and of certain papal statements like that of Pope Innocent IV, who spoke of “a transitory fire” (DB 456). ("The Doctrine of Purgatory" by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Eschatology/Eschatology_006.htm)

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On the Catholic Encyclopedia:

At the Council of Florence, Bessarion argued against the existence of real purgatorial fire, and the Greeks were assured that the Roman Church had never issued any dogmatic decree on this subject. In the West the belief in the existence of real fire is common. Augustine (Enarration on Psalm 37, no. 3) speaks of the pain which purgatorial fire causes as more severe than anything a man can suffer in this life, "gravior erit ignis quam quidquid potest homo pati in hac vita" (P.L., col. 397). Gregory the Great speaks of those who after this life "will expiate their faults by purgatorial flames," and he adds "that the pain be more intolerable than any one can suffer in this life" (Ps. 3 poenit., n. 1). Following in the footsteps of Gregory, St. Thomas teaches (IV, dist. xxi, q. i, a.1) that besides the separation of the soul from the sight of God, there is the other punishment from fire. "Una poena damni, in quantum scilicet retardantur a divina visione; alia sensus secundum quod ab igne punientur", and St. Bonaventure not only agrees with St. Thomas but adds (IV, dist. xx, p.1, a.1, q. ii) that this punishment by fire is more severe than any punishment which comes to men in this life; "Gravior est omni temporali poena. quam modo sustinet anima carni conjuncta". How this fire affects the souls of the departed the Doctors do not know, and in such matters it is well to heed the warning of the Council of Trent when it commands the bishops "to exclude from their preaching difficult and subtle questions which tend not to edification', and from the discussion of which there is no increase either in piety or devotion" (Sess. XXV, "De Purgatorio"). 

Perhaps there is another problem, and that is differentiating between when a Pope speaks as a matter of doctrine versus when he speaks merely out of personal opinion.  In terms of the Orthodox, since no one person has the status of authoritatively speaking for the Church (we have saints that come close, such as St. John Chrysostom, but I have read Orthodox take issue with this or that thing he said and not be accused of departing from the Church's teaching), then it is much easier for us to dismiss this person or that saint as being 'out on a limb.'  In the West, since the Pope holds the position of supreme authority when it comes to the determination of doctrinal statements, it is assumed that every time a Pope speaks, he is speaking authoritatively on the matter of which he speaks.

This impression was reinforced by a pronouncement regarding 'infallibility' of the Pope's pronouncements, though I have heard that it has been variously attenuated and not even used in recent memory (unless I am mistaken, which is entirely possible in this matter).

The Council of Trent proclaimed "difficult and subtle questions" as Purgatory ought not be discussed (as did the Treaty of Brest), but they certainly are taught as the CCC demonstrates.  To me, it appears the Magisterium of the RCC is not always very comfortable with this topic, given that it has caused them a great deal of controversy and that they are willing to unify with Orthodox who reject the teachings regarding temporal punishment, yet equally insist that such teachings are obligatory for all Roman Catholics.

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[Indulgences] has to do with the Western idea of the "merits of the saints" and binding and loosing. Basically it's been taught in the Roman Catholic Church that there is a treasury of merits in heaven earned by the saints. The pope can therefore issue indulgences, drawing from this treasury of merit, and apply it in expiation of the time one is due to spend in purgatory( where one is being cleanesed of a "residual" stain of forgiven sins for which insufficient pennance was done, or unconfessed venial sins.) The pope issues indulgences, promising either the partial or full removal of time in purgatory. An indulgence may also be applied to the deceased. In order for one to gain an indulgenxe one must will to gain said indulgence, usually attatched to performing some sort of pious act, recieve Comunion, pray for the intentions of the pope and be free from all attatchment to even venial sin. If the last condition of freedom of attatchment to venial sin is not met, the indulgence becomes partial, and not plenary(full).

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The problem is that some of Catholicism's theology is in a state of flux and there are divergent teachings.  So Catholics may use one argument one day and the next day use another if it is more appropriate.

I'd like to pull a post from a mutual friend who writes here.

Do yourself a favor and pick up any book in the 1950's teaching the Roman Catholic Faith...
This is The Faith
Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma
Everyman's Theology
Baltimore Catechism
etc
and you will find the faith taught by the Roman Catholic Church in the 1950's and 'all' of them taught Purgatory, Limbo, etc in the same exact way with very little in common with today's Roman Catholic Theology.
Modern Roman Catholics are all about reductionism. Separating 'depictions' from Doctrine, Traditions from traditions, etc etc. That is because within this kind of reconstruction you would be forced to deal with the contradictions such a move in Theology would create.
I'd recommend that Catholics start rereading the Classics and realize that Post-Vatican II Theology is a departure from what has been taught and thought for one thousand years.
Now you and others may argue that this 'piece' of Classic Theology wasn't 'infallibly' spoken or was only tradition with a small "t".   For me that spin on the reductionism happening within the Roman Catholic Church since Vatican II is such a farce.  It's rationalizing how we 'change the theology of the Roman Catholic Church' without admitting that we are changing the theology of the Roman Catholic Church... and that is weak in my opinion.
For hundreds of years Roman Catholics were taught Purgatory was a 'place and state' and that Limbo was a 'place and state' but in our modern times such certainties have been sidelined to make room for other theological opinions.  I ask, what happened to 'truth'?   I look and I see Catholicism reconstructing itself and pretending that it really isn't because this or that wasn't spoken infallibly or was actually never 'really' part of Tradition but only tradition with a small "t".   I simply can't believe in the Roman Catholic Church because of such nonsense and have simply embraced the Church that Catholicism is attempting to remake itself into... the Holy Orthodox Catholic Church.