I pointed out in a previous post how I would assess the difference between East and West on Blachernae based on my view that the filioque impasse can be resolved. Naturally, that led to a question about the essence-energies distinction, and here are my thoughts on that:
I cover that preliminarily in the article on the resolution of the filioque, but it's basically a question of the differences between what I call the relational model and what I call the Cappadocian Neoplatonic model on participation. The views actually agree on what deification is: grace to participate in the Trinitarian life. And they also agree that the Trinitarian life is the internal activity of the essence among the Persons, which is the power by which God creates. So it's just a question of what account is given of that act of participation.
In the Neoplatonic model, participation is when something takes on the attributes of a higher being by participation in the natural energeia of that higher being. Energeia are thought of as a kind of entity or expression of the entity in a participable manner as part of the overall hierarchy of being, which are connected to logoi (principles) or proodoi (processions) in an ordered way from higher to lower. But unlike Plotinus's version, the Cappadocian Neoplatonic model (especially as developed by Maximus) does not ground these emanations in the vertical causality from One to Nous to Intellect but rather in the good will of the entire Trinity. These expressions in being (energeia) tell us something about the nature (ousia) and the personal distinction, but the existence of the essence itself is beyond being, completely incomprehensible by any finite form as the Good is above understanding in terms of being.
In the relational model, participation is not understood in terms of specific attributes but rather the infinite act of God's self-existence. God is incomprehensible by analogy to the way that one can understand the concept of infinity without ever even being able to possibly count through it, then taken to the existential level. I used the gravitational model to illustrate this; finite essences like rocks and trees are essentially at fixed distances from God, like a stable orbit, so they participate in the gravitational relationship but in a limited and stable way. Rational beings, such as men and angels, are suited to move toward or away from God by free will, which makes their souls capable of interacting with God by grace, which is basically that gravitational relationship with God drawing the man or angel in toward God (or, with the resistance of sin, drifting out of orbit into space/non-being). So this account of participation is more like intensity relative to God's own infinite intensity, rather than different modes of sharing in divine attributes based on the different energeia.
The real difference is in how the *body* participates in the activity of God by grace. If participation is about modes, then there's no reason in principle that a certain activity by grace would not involve the entire person, body and soul. This is essentially the account of participation in the divine energeia offered by St. Gregory Palamas. If instead the means of participation are imagining the infinite act of existence, then participation is basically a hierarchy in which our rational part, our soul, becomes more and more an image of God, and the body, which is already ordered to the soul, will ultimately be brought to another level when it can even more be ordered to that rational activity without ceasing to be the material body that it is. This is why we can go to Heaven as disembodied souls even now, before the bodily resurrection.
In short, the difference is whether there is a foretaste now of the *bodily* aspects of glorification. The West believes that we only see the bodily aspects of glorification through better use of the currently unglorified body, including healing of its natural capacities through the Sacraments, in service of charity, which gives us a view of that future but still veiled. When we see the miraculous material effects of the divine power, this is a sign of that divine activity in which we participate through the soul and which we will enjoy bodily after the Last Judgment, but it is not itself a bodily participation (seeing with bodily eyes) in that activity. The Cappadocian Neoplatonic model holds that bodily glorification is simply a mode of participation, so that there is no reason why there would not be a foretaste of total personal glorification, even bodily, now, so that we could see the divine glory with bodily eyes.
Now I think it would be nigh-impossible to say that those are the same: either bodily eyes see the divine glory now, or they do not. But both sides agree that these sorts of mystical experiences are fundamentally mysterious, that they are solely products of divine grace and not human effort, and that asceticism (denial of the body) makes one better disposed to receive them if they are granted. So I do not think that disagreement is in itself any more fundamental than the metaphysical disagreement on participation that I outlined above.
