Logical Discourse and Transcendence Practices in the Teaching of Gregory Palamas

We know about Gregory Palamas’ interest in logic during the years of his study in Constantinople from the biographical book of Patriarch Philotheos Kokkinos. Later, already as a monk, he began his debate with Barlaam first on the question of the applicability of apodictic syllogism in theology, and we have the correspondence between the two and Akindynos on this issue. In the subsequent development of the dispute, which extends to the spiritual practice of hesychasm, in defense of which Palamas wrote his main works, he distinguishes theology from the hesychast’s vision of God as two separate paths of spiritual ascent to God, the second of which is higher and truly bestowed divine grace. In my paper, I will consider several questions: 1. Does Palamas reduce the way of transcending only to noetic prayer and does he break with the tradition of mystical theology? 2. Is there still a place for paraconsistent discourse in theology as a transcending activity of the mind, and is it not entirely subordinate to soteriology? 3. Is the importance of traditional logic, which he insisted on at the beginning of his debate with Barlaam, preserved, and what is its place in theology?