Summary
Many contemporary theology scholars assert that the split of East and West Christianity to a large extent depended on the fundamental opposition of doctrines of such theologians as Thomas Aquinas and Gregory Palamas. These two authors often regarded as mascots for Latin and Byzantine traditions. It’s hardly possible to advance in theological dialog of Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches unless reexamining whether Thomism and Palamism are really irreconcilable. There were many theological melees of Catholic and Orthodox scholars about the doctrine of deification and the simplicity of God. Some issues of Thomistic doctrine, such as created grace and beatific VIsion, were criticized by orthodox theologians, and many of catholic authors reprobated Palamas for energyessence distinction, which compromises, according to them, the God’s simplicity.
The purpose of this paper was to examine if the disagreements of Aquinas and Palamas on the issue of deification of man are real irreconcilable contradictions or just differences of theological accents. It seems that on the basis of theological context of the works of Palamas and Aquinas and considering the absence of direct intersections of theirs’ theological themes we may affirm that these theologians are much closer in their aims then it’s often supposed. The Thomistic issues of created grace and comprehension of God may be considered as contradicting to the orthodox tradition only if they are removed from their genuine theological context and treated without considering the whole structure of Thomistic doctrine of deification. On the other hand, examining the doctrine of Gregory Palamas, we must distinguish his thought from interpretations of “neo-Palamistic” authors, which are often confronting each other. We must also to pay attention to such important resemblance of the doctrines of Aquinas and Palamas, as the principle of participation of man in God. Also it’s necessary to understand the genuine purpose of theological concepts, invented by these authors.
To understand better the special features of Thomistic and Palamistic approaches, in this paper we first considered the patristic development of the theology of theosis, then studied accordingly Thomistic and Palamistic doctrines on deification, and finally had a look at contemporary theologians writing on deification. HaVIng done this, we think that when speaking about Aquinas and Palamas, it’s more reasonable to estimate their doctrines as an example of acceptable plurality in the unity of Christian tradition.