The Ground of Union: Deification in Aquinas and Palamas

by A.N. Williams

This book attempts to resolve one of the oldest and bitterest controversies between the Eastern and Western Christian churches: namely, the dispute about the doctrine of deification. A. N. Williams examines two key thinkers, each of whom is championed as the authentic spokesman of his own tradition and reviled by the other. Taking Aquinas as representative of the West and Gregory Palamas for the East, she presents fresh readings of their work that both reinterpret each thinker and show an area of commonality between them much greater than has previously been acknowledged.

Genres: Religion, Theology, Christianity

230 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 1999

Reviews

[David Mosley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beginning by laying out the history of the polemical debates surrounding Thomas Aquinas in the East and Gregory Palamas in the West, Williams sets out to do three things. First, she quite conclusively, in my opinion, shows that Thomas Aquinas has a rather robust doctrine of deification in his Summa Theologiae. Second, she systematises Gregory Palamas's understanding of deification and explains his energies-essence distinction as primarily nominal. Thirdly and finally, she shows that rather than being on two sides of a debate, Thomas and Gregory have quite a lot of common ground. Even the distinctions them irksome to East and West respectively should not, in her opinion, hold too much sway over how these two great theologians ought to be read. This book succeeds in all its aims and will hopefully be useful in bringing together both sides of this debate, making the book a ground of union in both a deificatory and ecumenical sense.

[Marcelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Groundbreaking dissertation on the commonalities in Aquinas and Palamas on the Eastern Christian concept of the deification of man.