In the Hesychast controversy he took the side of the monks of Athos, but refused to agree to the theory of the uncreated light.
In God there are three infinite and uncreated "degrees" of being, and in man and all things corresponding three degrees, finite and created.
But in 1351 under the presidency of the emperor John Cantacuzenus, the uncreated light of Mount Tabor was established as an article of faith for the Greeks, who ever since have been ready to recognize it as an additional ground of separation from the Roman Church.
Among the Tahitians he was regarded as " the first and principal god, uncreated and existing from the beginning, or from the time he emerged from po, or the world of darkness.
He had embraced the Motazilite doctrine about free will and predestination, and was in particular shocked at the opinion which had spread among the Moslem doctors that the Koran was the uncreated word of God.