The question of whether or not grace is created or uncreated became an important issue between East and West in the latter part of the medieval period.  That said, in Scholastic theology created grace is held to be ". . . a quality, a light that enables the soul to receive worthily the indwelling of the three divine Persons," [1] but in Eastern theology this Light (or "quality") is the very uncreated energy of God, or —  to put it another way —  for the Byzantines it is God as He exists outside of His ineffable essence.  To express this difference more precisely, for a Western Scholastic theologian the effects of grace in man in are seen as something created, but which is itself not God; while for a Byzantine theologian the effects of God's energy in man are seen as a participation in the uncreated God Himself, for grace is simply God as He comes down to man. [2]  In fact, as St. Gregory Palamas expresses this truth, ". . . the divine Maximos has not only taught that it [i.e., the gift of theosis] is enhypostatic, but also that it is unoriginate (not only uncreated), indescribable and supratemporal.  Those who attain it become thereby uncreated, unoriginate, and indescribable, although in their own nature, they derive from nothingness." [3]  Thus, in Eastern theology there is no such thing as created grace, nor can there ever be such a thing, because grace is God Himself personally present in creation.

Now the differences between East and West on the issue of grace were highlighted by Fr. Joseph Gill in his book on the Western Council of Florence, for as he pointed out in his treatment of the topic of grace, the doctrinal differences between the two sides became particularly evident during the discussions between John Montenero and St. Mark of Ephesus in the fifth session of the Council on 14 March, because during a very heated exchange on the issue of the effects flowing from the power of grace, Fr. Montenero ". . . pressed Mark as to whether the gifts of the Spirit were different from the Spirit Himself," [4] which is what the Latins believed, or if the gifts flowing from the Spirit were the Spirit Himself, which is what the Byzantine Church affirmed.  St. Mark of course rejected the Latin position and this caused further heated exchanges, culminating in an intervention by the Emperor John VIII Palaiologos ordering that the subject be dropped. 

Although the exchange ended abruptly (i.e., because of the Emperor's interference), it did show that the two sides disagreed on the nature of grace, and in fact as Fr. Gill explained in his book, it was this line of debate that brought up the ". . . Palamitic question of the divine energies, which Mark with most Greeks held to be really distinct from the divine essence, an opinion that the Latins both then and now consider wrong." [5]  Thus, it is clear that East and West understand the nature of grace differently, because for the West the effects of the Spirit within man are created realities, i.e., they are a created grace; while for the East the effects are a true participation in the uncreated divine energy, which is God Himself as He exists outside of His essence.

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End Notes:

[1] Charles Journet, The Meaning of Grace, (Princeton, New Jersey:  Scepter Publishers, 1996), page 19.

[2] See St. Basil the Great's Letter #234 in Philip Schaff's (Editor), The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, (Peabody:  Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), Series 2, Volume 8, page 274. 

[3] St. Gregory Palamas, The Triads, translated by Nicholas Gendle, (Mahwah, New Jersey:  Paulist Press, 1983), page 86.

[4] Fr. Joseph Gill, The Council of Florence, (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1959), pages 205.

[5] Gill, page 206.

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