Grace Is Uncreated

In Orthodoxy grace is not a created gift that God makes and hands over. It is God Himself, in His uncreated energies, given to His creatures: the light on Tabor, the fire at Pentecost and the grace of the Mysteries are God communicating Himself, not a substance produced for the purpose. This follows from the essence-energies distinction, and it is the point on which Orthodox and scholastic theology divide most sharply, since a created grace can only ever be a thing between God and the soul. Theosis depends on it entirely: a creature cannot be made a partaker of the divine nature by receiving something created.