Uncreated Light, Universals and Centering Prayer

Modernity in its analytical and scientific approach to living yearns to touch the transcendent. This Modernity had its roots centuries ago in the Reformation but its roots were in reaction to the Scholastics, the Schoolmen of the Medieval University.

Begun in the last exposition regarding Protestants as the first Moderns I complete my discussion regarding the vast differences philosophically with them. I tried to discuss the Universals, within what is called Realism (Platonic Philosophy) and Moderate Realism (Thomism) and how we currently dismiss them. And I touched on what is called the Uncreated Light. This is Light obtained in the operation of God’s Energies, some times called Grace.

In the first half of the 14th Century St. Palamas and Barlaam were arguing Moderate Realism and this Light, brought about by the repeated recitation of the Prayer of the Heart, the Jesus prayer: Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, a sinner. In this prayer the supplicant rests his chin on his breast, in other words towards ones noetic center and repeats the prayer.
To Barlaam this was simply navel gazing and mindless repetition. Virtually all today would agree; I argue the contrary.

To Barlaam, a Moderate Realist or Thomist, our understanding approximates these Universals but surprisingly St. Palamas dismisses them. But unlike the Nominalist, which says Universals are simply names for objects, he, along with the Desert Fathers and others, called Hesychasts, see us created in the image of God, with a nous, a heart, a “transcendental portal” if you will permit, strictly my 0wn phrasing, to God’s enlightenment. Mind you, Western Christianity has dismissed this idea. Since unarguably we can’t partake of God’s essence, they would say, this union of God and man is not possible.

What is this Nous? Generally speaking it is the spiritual intellect; that in some way is a most foundational spiritual reality, not simply of our own concept.

To the Orthodox we can become open to God’s energy, his Uncreated Light. We can’t participate in the essence but His energies or operations are available to deify us, make us gods NOT Almighty God the Father of course. This deifying process allows us to participate more closely with God’s graces, energies. So the noetic reality is a true eternal reality beyond the senses in the vein of the Universals but representing spiritual realities not forms of created things and concepts like the mathematical ones such as triangles as previously discussed. The Uncreated Light is of God but not of his essence, a Platonic emanation, some would say, as light from the sun. We have a transcendent spiritual reality to participate in, not a reality confined to the physical senses, as the Moderate Realists would say, but of a noetic spiritual sense: an eternal verity absence in current thinking.

Orthodoxy, Christianity for the first thousand years [at least for this debate] before the innovations of the Romans and the demise of the Byzantine Empire, views the supreme deity apophatically. He can only be defined in the negative, not positively. While God is seen as omniscient, omni-powerful, omnipresent and having the character of aseity (existence originating from and having no source other than itself); God is love and wisdom as well, to the Orthodox these names are not the essence but our attempt to define the indefinable, the Deity whose essence is beyond definition, nonetheless worthy of our worship and adoration.

This harkens back to our discussion regarding Socrates and the nature of God. Was the Good God or was it God who determined the Good? Socrates was referencing those bawdy Greek gods who cavorted themselves about shamelessly and were in no way moral examples. He says the true Deity as the Good, not the anthropomorphic gods the Greeks offered sacrifice to. Western Christianity does the same in its view of God. The Old Testament shows us a God who becomes angry and changes his mind and annihilates groups of Israelites and casts sickness upon them for their disobedience. He is the Ancient of Days and the Great “I AM” and is no way seen to be any different than the God worshiped in the New Testament. Yes, this is the God I worship, existent before being and non-being, time and space, etc.

But Christian theologians will “square” the God of the Old with the New and rightfully so. And so God’s essence is constrained by being Good and Wise and Love at his foundation. (See William of Ockham’s [Medieval Scholastic] retort to this view.) The Reformers on the other hand do little of this. We are abject sinners and deserve our fate; Almighty God decides how his irresistible Grace is dispensed not depraved sinners, despite efforts at altar calls or even at Promise Keepers gatherings. It is God who protects us, at His Pleasure from our Just reward: damnation. As for the Orthodox they grant God perfect attributes but say the essence is beyond names. His attributes are uncreated even his creative powers as well as his effluence of Light, Uncreated Light, as light to fire.


St. Gregory of Palamas, (1296-1357) most sublime apologist for the Hesychasts, was a monk on Mount Athos of the late Byzantium Empire, remnant of the Eastern Roman Empire, mostly overrun by the Turks (Ottoman Empire) by that time. This light is evidenced in the lives of ascetic monks throughout the age and reported Biblically as the light seen on the face of Moses after receipt of the Law and descendent from Mt. Sinai, and the bedazzling Light at Jesus’ Transfiguration. Much is said of the Light in the New Testament that’s taken as a literary device to denote the Truth of the Gospel but can be seen as a reference to this Uncreated Light as well.

One of the operations of God is emanation of this Uncreated Light. As we are healed from the sickness of sin we begin to participate in this Light, strictly by the Grace of God. Ours is to journey on this ascetic path, acquiring the virtues through struggle and discipline, any result being due to the Grace of God. We can have more than a proper doctrinal, intellectual understanding of God as the Protestant emphasizes and accompanied by some type of an emotional epiphany, so much sought after today, seen at revivals and rallies. These are simply ephemeral attempts at a most yearned for transcendence. Of course I don’t dismiss these dramatic calls out of atheism and disbelief found at these rallies anymore than someone would the first steps of a baby. To the Saints who have struggled mightily against the powers of Hell these are simply inauguration of on a great journey not a final destination, whose true beginning is humble repentance.

A few in the Roman Church have begun to re-learn this tradition of Hesychasts, after Vatican II in effect deposed Thomas Aquinas, (1225- 1274) the great Scholastic, from the pre-eminent and unassailable position held for centuries as the Doctor of Theology in the Church. We have begun to hear talk of a Centering prayer, a meditation not so much of cognitive recitation, but allowing our whole being, our breathing to reach a point of deep center.
Centering prayer website recites this:
In the Christian tradition Contemplative Prayer is considered to be the pure gift of God. It is the opening of mind and heart - our whole being - to God, the Ultimate Mystery, beyond thoughts, words, and emotions. Through grace we open our awareness to God whom we know by faith is within us, closer than breathing, closer than thinking, closer than choosing - closer than consciousness itself.

Centering Prayer is a method designed to facilitate the development of Contemplative Prayer by preparing our faculties to receive this gift. It is an attempt to present the teaching of earlier times [Desert Fathers and Hesychasts I presume.] in an updated form. Centering Prayer is not meant to replace other kinds of prayer: rather it casts a new light and depth of meaning on them. It is at the same time a relationship with God and a discipline to foster that relationship. This method of prayer is a movement beyond conversation with Christ to communion with Him

It can be said that deep, contemplative breathing bespoken of in the Centering prayer without the virtues and Grace of God is simply a way to relax, albeit much needed in our over stimulated society. It must be said that in much of the Protestant tradition this type of meditation would be looked at very suspiciously, even as an opening to the demonic realm, for fundamentally for reasons discussed; fallen man can’t have intercourse with Almighty God. Note extremely few will have the concentration to step beyond our mundane existence and encounter the spiritual realm, yet these must be careful. I would invite those embarking on this centering prayer to investigate the Desert Fathers from whence it came. Many are suspicious thinking this is Oriental mysticism not the inklings of a tradition of a great ascetic journey inspired by martyrdom as were the first monks.

The discussion by the Saints of this ascetic journey can found in the four volume, Philokalia. This is the Bible of the heart of the Orthodox Church, the path of theoria: the journey of deification to communion with God.

It is unimaginable that this journey of theoria could take place out the guidance of the Church and its graces and if possible spiritual guides, as few as they are in this spiritual desert we live in. The Orthodox church service retains a meditative atmosphere, very much alien from the jarring Rock bands and big projection screens of the contemporary church. A modern individual coming into an Orthodox service arrives in an alien environment. They crave stimulation and excitement; they see things moving excruciatingly slow and almost jump out of their skin wondering when this interminable service is going to end. Nonetheless, devout steadfastness within this worship pays great dividends; worship becomes truly Heavenly not a chore but a blessing of enlightenment for we go to meet the Christ, Himself within the Eucharist, not simply approximations of the ideal of God, accompanied by emotional outbursts brought on by Rock concert like incitement.