After our forefather’s transgression in paradise through the tree, we suffered the death of our soul–which is the separation of the soul from God–prior to our bodily death; yet although we cast away our divine likeness, we did not lose our divine image.
Thus when the soul renounces its attachment to inferior things and cleaves through love to God and submits itself to Him through acts and modes of virtue, it is illuminated and made beautiful by God and is raised to a higher level, obeying His counsels and exhortations; and by these means it regains the truly eternal life.
Through this life it makes the body conjoined to it immortal, so that in due time the body attains the promised resurrection and participates in eternal glory. But if the soul does not repudiate its attachment and submission to inferior things whereby it shamefully dishonors God’s image, it alienates itself from God and is estranged from the true and truly blessed life of God; for as it has first abandoned God, it is justly abandoned by Him.
~St Gregory Palamas (Philokalia vol.4, p.363)
Prayerful Life 