Gregory himself appears to reject any “realism” regarding the divine energies (CE 1:87), but Palamas is able to draw on language of Gregory’s, and I am not at all convinced that Palamas ever intended to suggest a real distinction between God’s essence and energies; nor am I even confident that the energies should be seen as anything other than sanctifying grace by which the Holy Spirit makes the Trinity really present to creatures. I take the distinction to mean only that God’s transcendence is such that he is free to be the God he is even in the realm of creaturely finitude, without estrangement from himself and without the creature being admitted thus to an unmediated vision of the divine essence.
~ The Beauty of the Infinite pg. 204
I’m no expert on Palamas, but this strikes me as the more natural reading of Paul’s use of energia and ergon. The Holy Spirit is always mentioned in close proximity, eg. 1 Cor. 12:11, Gal. 3:5, Eph. 2:2.
