Talk:Ousia

St. Gregory Palamas does not hold that the divine energies "lay outside of the godhead"; instead, he teaches that they are the manifestation of God outside of the divine essence. In fact as St. Gregory Palamas said, "When we speak of one Godhead, we speak of everything that God is, namely, both essence and energy." [St. Gregory Palamas, Capita Physica, no. 126; see The Philokalia, vol. 4, page 406] In other words, the divine energies are God as He manifests Himself in the world.

See my essay: Book Review: The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Theology of Gregory Palamas

You're right. I've removed the offending section. It didn't represent anything that resembles Palamas's teaching, and its meaning was hard to extract, as well. —Preost ^{talk contribs} 18:59, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

ousia is a participle, an abstract noun

Lucaas, please cite your source that ousia is a past participle. Also the pre-philosophical use of the term was property, plus you reintroduced a fragment of a sentence. Zeusnoos 02:53, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Well it wasnt pre-philosophical since it was philosophy/theology that took up this meaning from it when it was translated in the middle ages to latin. What do you think an abstract noun of a verb is? A participle. Fragments ok, especially in a telegraph. --Lucas

You put back a statement that ousia is a past participle and some strange statements about 'has been' - please tell me the source for this statement. Sure, participles are technically abstract nouns, but not all abstract nouns are participles, and ousia is not any of the known and taught participles. Not even LSJ lists it as a participle.

A good work on the history of ousia is G. Christopher Stead, Divine Substance, Oxford University Press, 1977 (reprinted I think in 2000). He, of course, calls it as it is - an abstract noun.

Ousia originally meant property or possessions - substance as "stuff" one owns. This is absent in this article even though it is all over Greek works before and independent of Plato. Zeusnoos 19:50, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

"Not even LSJ"? Well, that is just a very old dictionary, 19th Century, with only few words in it. An abstract noun is an abstraction from what? "Ousia originally means property", well that is news, I thought the whole point of giving an etymology was to give an original meaning. Originally ousia is the feminine participle of the Greek verb "to be", Einai. Check any good dictionary or any source willing to tell you from where this abstraction comes. When Aristotle calls ousia the most basic being (as form + matter), I don't think he was referring just to people's individual items of clothes and houses, though ousia had come to be used in that sense colloqually. Here is a quote from the etymology of ousia in the Oxford English Dictionary:

< ancient Greek ousia, from, ont-, stem of present participle of einai, to be (see BE v.) + ia-.

--Lucas