Constantinos Athanasopoulos

The paper will discuss the anthropological and therapeutic theories of Platonic Socrates, Aristotle, Augustine and Carl Rogers and how these can be applied to current philosophical practice in all three of its major forms: client counselling, group facilitation and organisational consulting. Key concepts that will be used as tools to unlock the developmental potential in the philosophical practice consultation will be: Socratic elenchos (or elenchus), balance (metron), truth, love, integrity, fear of freedom, self-concept, incongruity. A discussion of some of the foundations and pre-suppositions (metaphysical, epistemological and ethical) of these theories will provide the outlines for solutions to important challenges facing the theory of Carl Rogers and contemporary approaches to philosophical practice. The paper provides at the end an analysis of key examples and scenarios of philosophical practice and how these can be benefited through the use of the tools presented and discusse...

Abstract In what follows, I discuss what I mean by Orthodox Mysticism in Philosophy and Theology with specific reference to Ps. Dionysius the Areopagite, St. Symeon the New Theologian and St. Nicholaos Cabasilas. I then discuss what I take to be the goal of the Orthodox mystic in Philosophy and Theology, i.e., ecstatic rapture and union with the Triune God through glorification or deification. My investigation will finish with an examination of how the Orthodox mystical approach to the Triune God differs from the Roman-Catholic approach to God perceived as ‘Esse ipsum subsistens’ and the two different forms of mysticism that these two perceptions of God imply. Keywords : cloud of non-knowledge, doxastic proportionality, esoteric intellectualism, ontology, Orthodox Mysticism, synergos

I will discuss some often neglected aspects of St Gregory Palamas' Philosophy and Theology in relation to his views on the use of Demonstration (Απόδειξις). My starting point will be Aristotle's views on this and how St Gregory Palamas dealt with them in his treatises. Then, I will examine Sinkewicz's and Ierodiakonou's claims that either St Gregory Palamas did not understand the points Barlaam was making in relation to the use of Demonstration or that the Saint is mistaken on his interpretation of Aristotle. I will finish with some thoughts of why St Gregory Palamas expressed his critique on the use of Demonstration, which hopefully will clarify some of the intentions of the Saint on this debate.

... Michael Peters and James Marshall, Wittgenstein: Philosophy, Postmodernism, Pedagogy Reviewed by. Constantinos Athanasopoulos. Bookmark and Share. This journal is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommerical 3.0 Unported license. ...

In this work, I examine how we can use St Gregory Palamas’ views on hesychasm and asceticism to solve key problems associated with Aristotelian eudaimonia, Stoic apatheia, and Epicurean ataraxia. The
problems of social interaction and lack of knowledge regarding the intentions of others presents a serious problem for Aristotelian eudaimonia. For Epicurean ataraxia, the fleeting nature of pleasure presents further problems, and the Stoic ideal of apatheia is too stable to be real. St Gregory Palamas knew these limitations of Ancient Greek ethics very well and proposed hesychia and ascesis as the true answer to moral dilemmas and the pursuit of true eudaimonia.

Triune God: Incomprehensible but Knowable— The Philosophical and Theological Significance of St Gregory Palamas for Contemporary Philosophy and Theology, edited by Constantinos Athanasopoulos, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015 (in English), ISBN (10): 1-4438-8055-8; ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-8055-8. Webpage: http://www.cambridgescholars.com/triune-god

After I discuss what I mean by Orthodox Mysticism in Philosophy and Theology, I sketch the traditional contemporary philosophical and theological views about Ecology and the use of food and drink for bodily nourishment. Following this, I present the views of three Orthodox mystics on food and drink as spiritual nourishment and how they differ from traditional contemporary philosophical and theological views. Finally, I discuss why we should be based on the Orthodox mystical views on the use of food and drink for a more coherent and ethically and theologically justified ecological perspective.

" The result of a colloquium organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies (Cambridge, UK), Divine Essence and Divine Energies offers a rich repository of diverse opinion about the distinction between essence and energy in Orthodox Christianity – a doctrine which lies at the heart of the often fraught fault line between East and West, and which, in this book, inspires a lively dialogue between the contributors. The contents of the book revolve around several key questions: In what way were the Aristotelian concepts of ousia and energeia used by the Church Fathers, and to what extent were their meanings modified in the light of the Christological and Trinitarian doctrines? What theological function does the essence-energy distinction fulfil in Eastern Orthodoxy with respect to theology, anthropology, and the doctrine of creation? What are the differences and similarities between the notions of divine presence and participation in seminal Christian writings, and what is the relationship between the essence-energy distinction and Western ideas of divine presence? A valuable addition to the dialogue between Eastern and Western Christianity, this book will be of great interest to any reader seeking a rigorously academic insight into the wealth of scholarly opinion about the essence-energy distinction. "

The 13th and 14th centuries represented the most productive and influential period in the history of philosophy and theology in the West. A parallel and less influential (for the West) proliferation of arguments and theories took place in the East, at the same time, as a result of the defence of the Hesychastic movement offered by St Gregory Palamas and his followers. The papers brought together in this volume discuss the importance of Palamite ideas for the understanding of God in terms of divine energies, and for contemporary approaches to solving perennial problems in science, metaphysics, aesthetics, and ethics. Some of the contributors take a more reserved evaluation of the Palamite corpus, preferring to highlight similarities and differences between Palamas and the chief representatives of Medieval Scholasticism, such as Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus and Ockham. Other essays offer a radical re-evaluation of the Western history of philosophy and theology, preferring to bring out the reasons for Western philosophical and theological shortcomings and providing a wider critique on Western culture. Contributors to this volume include some of the top scholars on Palamite studies from the fields of philosophy, theology, aesthetics, cultural criticism, and art theory. As such, it represents a particularly useful resource for advanced undergraduate students, postgraduate students and researchers in Christian theology and philosophy, Byzantine cultural studies and aesthetics.


Introduction ................................................................................................ xi
Dr. C. Athanasopoulos (Research Associate and Associate Lecturer,
Department of Philosophy, Open University, UK).
A. Metaphysics, Epistemology and Ethics in Philosophy and Theology
Repentance According to Saint Gregory Palamas ....................................... 2
Archimandrite Ephraim, Abbot of Holy Monastery of Vatopaidi
(Holy Mount Athos)
Theologizing in Saint Gregory Palamas ...................................................... 7
Monk Adrianos (Holy Monastery of Vatopaidi, Holy Mount Athos)
The Indisputable Wisdom of the Holy Spirit ............................................. 12
Hieromonk Melchisedec (Holy Monastery of St John the Baptist, Essex,
England)
Simplicity of God according to St Gregory Palamas ................................. 19
Professor Georgios Mantzaridis (School of Theology, University
of Thessaloniki, Greece)
St Gregory Palamas and Elder Sophronios of Essex ................................. 28
Professor Georgios Mantzaridis (School of Theology, University
of Thessaloniki, Greece)
The Theological Presuppositions of the Filioque in the Work
of St Gregory Palamas ............................................................................... 38
Professor Dimitrios Tselengides (School of Theology, University
of Thessaloniki, Greece)
Patristic Evidence Concerning the Procession of the Holy Spirit
in Gregory Palamas .................................................................................. 44
Dr Georgios Panagopoulos (University Ecclesiastical Academy,
Ioannina, Greece)
Table of Contents
viii
Eucharist and Ascesis: Eucharistic and Therapeutic Ecclesiology
in the Theology of St. Gregory Palamas .................................................... 66
Dr Stavros Yangazoglou (Hellenic Open University, Athens, Greece)
Silence in the Land of Logos ..................................................................... 83
Professor Stephen R. L. Clark (Department of Philosophy, University
of Liverpool, England)
St. Gregory Palamas and the Moscow School of Christian Neo-Platonism
(A.F. Losev, S.S. Averincev, V.V. Bibihin, S.S. Horujy) ....................... 102
Professor Oleg E. Dushin (School of Philosophy, University
of St Petersburg, Russia)
St. Gregory Palamas in Russian Thought: Spiritual Practice
versus Rationality .................................................................................... 114
Professor Oleg E. Dushin (School of Philosophy, University
of St Petersburg, Russia)
St. Gregory Palamas’ Critique of Nominalism ........................................ 124
Professor Dan Chițoiu (Faculty of Philosophy, University of Iași,
and Romanian Academy, Romania)
St Gregory Palamas and Aristotle’s Categories ...................................... 132
Dr Christoph Erismann (University of Lausanne, Switzerland)
The Theotokos as a Mystical Theologian ................................................ 142
Rev. Professor Manuel Sumares (Department of Philosophy,
University of Porto)
The Open History and its Enemies: Unity of God and Concept
of History in Gregory Palamas and Thomas Aquinas ............................. 154
Rev. Professor Nikolaos Loudovikos (University Ecclesiastical
Academy of Thessaloniki)
Man’s Position in Cosmos according to Dionysius the Areopagite
and Gregory Palamas ............................................................................... 180
Dr. Filip Ivanovic (Norwegian University of Science and Technology,
Trondheim, Norway)
Triune God
ix
The Christological Context of Palamas’ Approach to Participation
in God ...................................................................................................... 190
Dr Norman Russell (Honorary Research Fellow at St Stephen’s House,
Oxford, England)
Aquinas and Palamas ............................................................................... 199
Rev. Michael Pacella III (University of St Mary, USA)
Saint Gregory Palamas: A Non-philosophical Philosopher ..................... 211
Rev. Michael Pacella III (University of St Mary, USA)
The Problem of Deification ..................................................................... 222
Patrícia Calvário (Department of Philosophy, University of Porto)
Becoming Homotheos: St. Gregory Palamas’ Eschatology of Body ....... 232
Rev. Dr Demetrios Harper (Thessaloniki, Greece)
B. History, Cultural Context and Aesthetics
Gregorius Palamas’ Theology, as Viewed by the Scholar Demetrios
Cydones ................................................................................................... 246
Professor Anna Koltsiou-Nikita (School of Theology, University
of Thessaloniki, Greece)
“Ἐκ” and “διά” in Apodictic Treatises on the Procession of the Holy
Spirit of Gregory Palamas ....................................................................... 264
Dr Mikonjia Kneževic (University of Pristina)
Taboric Light in Russian Visual Culture: From the Frescoes
of Dionisy to the Photographies of Yuri Holdin ...................................... 292
Dr Elena Dulgheru (Romania)
Nudity of the Body in the Late Medieval Orthodox Tradition:
One Example ........................................................................................... 301
Dr Dimitar Atanassov (Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies,
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Bulgaria)
The Relationship of the Theology of Uncreated Light in St Gregory
Palamas and the Byzantine Iconography of 14th-16th Century .............. 327
Dr Spyridon Panagopoulos (Greece)
Table of Contents
x
Contributors in Order of Appearance ...................................................... 345
Index of Names........................................................................................ 352
Index of Keywords .................................................................................. 357

The result of a colloquium, Divine Essence and Divine Energies offers a rich repository of diverse opinion about the distinction between essence and energy in Orthodox Christianity – a doctrine which lies at the heart of the dialogue between East and West, and which, in this book, inspires a lively dialogue between the contributors.

The contents of the book revolve around several key questions: In what way were the Aristotelian concepts of ousia and energeia used by the Church Fathers, and to what extent were their meanings modified in the light of the Christological and Trinitarian doctrines? What theological function does the essence-energy distinction fulfil in Eastern Orthodoxy with respect to theology, anthropology, and the doctrine of creation? What are the differences and similarities between the notions of divine presence and participation in seminal Christian writings, and what is the relationship between the essence-energy distinction and Western ideas of divine presence?

Introduction: Beyond Agnosticism and Pantheism / Christoph Schneider

1. The Concept of the Divine Energies / David Bradshaw
2. St Gregory Palamas as the Response of Orthodox Mystical Theology to (Neo-) Platonist and Aristotelian Metaphysics / Constantinos Athanasopoulos
3. Pancreation Lost: The Fall of Theology / Roy Clouser
4. The Woes of Originality: Discussing David Bradshaw's Aristotelian Journey into Neo-Palamism / Antoine Lévy OP
5. Striving for Participation: Palamite Analogy as Dialogical Syn-energy and Thomist Analogy as Emanational Similitude / Nikolaos Loudovikos
6. The Significance of the Distinction between the Essence and Energies of God according to St. Basil the Great / Georgios Martzelos
7. Christianity and Platonism in East and West / John Milbank
8. The Sense and Reference of the Essence and Energies / N.N. Trakakis
9. The Distinction Between Essence and Energy according to Maximus the Confessor / Metropolitan Vasilios (Karayiannis) of Constantia-Ammochostos
10. In Defence of the Essence/Energy Distinction: A Reply to Critics / David Bradshaw