ICOANA CREDINȚEI No. 14, Year 7/2021 http://revistaicoanacredintei.com/ ISSN 2501-3386, ISSN-L 2393-137X https://doi.org/10.26520/icoana.2021.14.7.76-91 A FASCINATING SYNTHESIS OF SCIENCE, THEOLOGY, AND SPIRITUALITY: ST. GREGORY PALAMAS Rev. PhD. Alexandru-Corneliu ARION Assoc. prof., Faculty of Theology and Sciences of Education, “Valahia” University of Târgovişte, ROMANIA Email:
[email protected] Motto: «Any word can be contradicted by another, but can word contradict life? » (St. Gregory Palamas) ABSTRACT As a prominent Church father, mystical theologian and incisive polemicist, St. Gregory Palamas has realized a «Summa Theologica» of his epoch, but one that has surpassed not only the thinking of contemporaries, but remained, to this day, a synthesis of philosophical and theological knowledge, at least for the Eastern Christianity. He pointed out with clarity the independence of theology from philosophy or from any other field of research. One of the most important instruments with a view to knowing God is prayer and Palamas began to write under the pressure of defending the hesychastic method of prayer. He proves that true communion with God was possible through sanctification and that God's vision through prayer was a sign of this spiritual communion. In Palamas' very coherent theological thinking, Christology corresponds to his anthropology, and both to his mysticism. St. Gregory strongly depreciated the value of intellectual effort, maintaining the primacy of direct illumination over scientific reasoning. Thus, prayer and asceticism engender love, which leads to illumination by God and participation in the divine life. He tries to make sense of mystical experience in the scientific and philosophical language of his day.