Potency of God. Hypostaticity and living being in Gregory Palamas (original) (raw)

Potency of God. Hypostaticity and living being in Gregory Palamas

Starting from the 24th chapter of Gregory Palamas’ The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters, the paper shows how God’s act of creation places a genetic ontological difference inside of the human being. The rational soul (λογικὴ ψυχή) is by nature hyper-cosmic, while the body is from the cosmos and constitutes the animality of the human hypostasis. A real ontological speech on the human being is therefore possible only at the level of his corporeity. On the other hand, the rational soul constitutes the κατ'εἰκόνα Θεοῦ, the centre of human hypostaticity, which is the hyper-ontological foundation of every human person, his being-hypostasis in the likeness of the Holy Trinity, what roots anthropology in Triadology. Moreover, in the paper the Theo-anthropology of Gregory Palamas is studied in relation with Aristotle’s anthropology and psychology.