HELL AND HEAVEN, NATURE AND PERSON. C. YANNARAS, J. ULAS, D. STANILOAE AND MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR Nichol ! Lo"#o$i%o!

U&i$'(!i)* Eccl'!i !)ic l Ac #'+* o, Th'!! lo&i%i I&!)i)")' ,o( O()ho#o- Ch(i!)i & S)"#i'!, C +.(i#/' U&i$'(!i)* o, 0i&ch'!)'( The film Avatar about the search for a lost earthly paradise, which was a box-office success a few years ago, revealed the glowing embers of a Neopaganism widely disseminated in the West today. As Christopher asch has shrewdly demonstrated, this is no more than the most recent manifestation of narcissism in Western culture! what it aims at is a return to the womb and its security, as a collective preservation of an unmitigated narcissism, either by the con"uest and crude exploitation of the natural world, or else, simultaneously assuaging the guilt feelings that flow from such behaviour, as surrender to this paradise of great mother nature.# What is it, however, that has made a genuine $ree%-Westerner, who is of course a Christian, feel nausea at the prospect of living in such a paradise& Why, it is the fact that this pagan paradise is only an eternal repetition of sameness, that is, the absence of a true and unexpected creativity with its achievements and dangers and, conse"uently, the absence of freedom. This paradise lies beyond good and evil, since it is the blind surrender to those hypothetically wise hidden cosmic powers ' exactly as the (edi of )tar Wars once did ' which permanently and immutably preserve an invisible harmony in *eraclitean terms, even if *eraclitus+ ogos, which effectively maintains this harmony and affords it a ,udicious meaning and content, is utterly absent. That is to say, what is absent from Avatars paradise is precisely the li%elihood of any gradual and progressive movement towards wholeness, any ground-brea%ing development or movement towards a higher level of existential perfection on the part of the world+s rational beings that live roped together, as it were, in this self-sufficient natural -den. .y theological criteria Avatars paradise, as we shall see, is not so much a paradise as a hell. 1 Conse"uently, for the $ree%-Western Christian there is no paradise without freedom ' which includes both the possibility of hell and its transcendence. *ell is the real boundary of the paradise of rational beings, and conse"uently the full definition of freedom necessarily

includes it ' and we are spea%ing here of created beings. Without an understanding of hell, paradise for them would be an asphyxiating repetition of sameness, Avatars neopagan paradise-prison ' it would not even exist as such. And this is because unless lin%ed with continuous development, the attainment of wholeness and transformation of nature, paradise /or heaven0 is bereft of sense and meaning. *eaven and hell, in this perspective, have to do with ontology and its dangers, that is, with the vicissitudes of a perpetual development of the being of created nature or of its falling away from this being. Things became complicated early on in Christian theology, for we soon discern the rise of two important ways of understanding the 1last things+ ' including both heaven2paradise and hell ' both in the -ast and the West! a ,udicial /or even, at times, ,uridical0 way and an ontological way ' without these two ways being mutually exclusive. 3n the West, starting with the so-called Fides Damasi in the fifth century, hell was defined as eternal punishment for sins /4) 560.6 This teaching is simply repeated in the Quicunque /4) 570, also of the fifth century, at the 8ourth ateran Council of the eighth century /4) 9:60, and at the Councils of 8lorence in the fifteenth century /4) #;:#0 and Trent of #:<5 /4) #:5:0. 3n the #==6 Catechism of the Catholic Church it is also stated explicitly /No #>;:0 that the souls of sinners 1descend immediately after death to hell, where they suffer the punishment of hell, eternal fire+. Without any other explanation the ,udicial here can easily become ,uridical. )ome of the greatest Western ?ystics tried precisely to give such an 1explanation+. To what extent this ,uridical infernalisme, to use (. 4elumeau+s expression, as a disastrous filling out of the exclusively ,uridical understanding of so-called 1original sin+ /another invention of the West0, rendered the Western Christian conscience guilt-ridden and melancholic, creating the presuppositions for an e"ually ,uridical understanding of inherited guilt and salvation, and also the stimulus for modern atheism, can only, again according to 4elumeau, be estimated in the light of the ontological teaching of the $ree% 8athers on these matters. ; All the above does not mean that there does not exist an inherent ,udicial element in Christian eschatology, starting already with the $ospels. *owever, it is not without meaning that some of the greatest 8athers of the Church tried not simply to combine this element with an ontological understanding of the @ingdom of $od, in order for the ,udicial not to become ,uridical, but, on the contrary, to somehow transform the ,udicial into an existential2ontological reality. 3ndeed, as we shall see below, a ,udicial understanding of the 1last things+ was not lac%ing in the -ast either, though in this case an ontological understanding was developed parallel to it, from 3renaeus of Confessor. This yons to ?aximus the ,udicial element often became even ,uridical, but this ontological

understanding, has yet to fully supplant, as we shall see, not only the ,uridical but also the Arigenistic understanding of the 1last things+, which, although not ,uridical, nevertheless inhibits any plausible filling out of an authentically ontological understanding of them. .efore

we turn our attention to the -ast, we must not neglect to emphasiBe that the high points of the Western ,udicial understanding of the last ,udgement lie without any doubt in the wor%, on the one hand, of Augustine /De Civitate Dei CC3, 560 and, on the other, of Thomas A"uinas / ST 3a ". 6>-6:D 3a 33ae, ". 95D De Malo, ". :0, both of whom clearly regard the ,udgement as a wor% of justice and thus render $od essentially a ,udge who inflicts the precise punishment due for each sin ' it was 8r )ergius .ulga%ov who li%ed to remind us how ironically Augustine used to moc% those who were opposed to this merciless legalism, calling them 1the merciful ones+ /misericordes0.< 3t is clear that within such a perspective, on the one hand, hell must remain eternal torment as punishment for sinners and the great ,oy of the elect, : while on the other, both condemnation and ,ustification lie under the absolute authority of $od ' the appalling teaching on absolute predestination. 3n his important wor% Freedom and Necessity St Au!ustines Teachin! on Divine "o#er and $uman Freedom ,7 $erald .onner notes that Augustine, in a rather contradictory fashion, despite his respect for humanity+s innate desire for $od, cannot help regarding $od as utterly transcendent, unaffected by humanity+s desire and, conse"uently, utterly independent of it through his predetermination of each person+s eternally good or eternally bad destiny /pp. ;<-;:0. Enderstood in this way, absolute predestination creates the relentless legal arsenal on behalf of the eternity of hell that has mar%ed a significant part of Western theology up to our own day ' with the full reception of the above theses ta%en as a given, not only against Felagius but even against (ohn Cassian, by almost the whole of the West, Frotestant theology with Calvin at its head included. Anly recently have theologians appeared, both Goman Catholics, such as von .althasar, 5 and Frotestants, such as (enson,9 who, along with Arthodox writers such as -vdo%imov = have attempted timorously to recover the Arigenistic line of universalism, the theory of the restoration of all things, in spite of all the problems that accompany it. The dominant trend today among Christian theologians of all denominations is to re,ect the eternity of hell, although the problem is that usually the theological argumentation is lac%ing that would offer sound criteria for adopting one or the other position. Ferhaps it is possible for this trend to be regarded as a desperate attempt to overcome the legalism innate in our understanding of the 1last things+, an argument that also attracts Arthodox theologians precisely because the ontological understanding of the 1last things+ already mentioned has not yet, as we shall see, been sufficiently appreciated. 3 have said that the ,udicial, or even, at times, ,uridical perception of ,udgement and hell was not lac%ing even in the -ast. 8or reasons that are obviously paedagogical the 1eternal fire+, the 1deep pit, the inescapable blac%ness, the lightless flame in the dar%ness that nevertheless has the power to burn, and the privation of light+, the 1worm of poisonous and flesh-eating %ind that eats voraciously and is never satisfied, inflicting unbearable pain as it devours+ of .asil the $reat accompanies the descriptions of the eternity and horror of hell

fire, 1which burns those it has seiBed hold of forever and never ceases, and that is why it is called un"uenchable,+ as (ohn Chrysostom says. #> )imilarly, teaching on the eternity of hell is common from the Martyrdom of "olycar% and the &%istle of Dio!netus right up to the preachers of the Attoman period. Alongside this line of thought, however, there is also that of 3renaeus, ?aximus and (ohn 4amascene. 3t is truly refreshing, after what has been set out in the previous paragraph to encounter theses such as those of (ohn 4amascene! 1and you should also %now this, that $od does not punish anybody in the world to come, but each person ma%es himself capable of participation in $od. Farticipation in $od is ,oyD non-participation in him is hell.+ ## That is, according to (ohn 4amascene hell is a creation of created beings and especially of the devil. 3n the familiar description of hell in the $ospel as 1the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels+ /?att. 6:!<#0, the dative /rendered in -nglish as 1for the devil+0 should rather be read as a dative of causal agency /1by the devil+0H -ven if the patristic tradition in its %erygmatic form usually regarded this expression as indicating a form of punishment for the devil, it is clear that, in %eeping with the deeper criteria of Arthodox theology, the devil is the one who envies $od+s love and opposes it. *ell thus becomes the self-maltreatment of the creature in terms of a refusal to participate in the $odhead on account of achieving its own satisfaction by turning itself into an idol, leading to the expression of creaturely freedom in terms of a narcissistic enclosure within the self. Texts such as the above perhaps have their original stimulus in the theology of 3renaeus of yons. The very important and noteworthy feature of the teaching of this great 8ather on the present topic is that on the one hand it connects ,udgement with the ontological renewal of creation, and on the other, more importantly, it regards this renewal as a conse"uence of humanity+s spiritual renewal and attainment of bodily incorruption. Thus when this happens and human%ind advances 1towards incorruption, so that it can no longer deteriorate, there will be a new heaven and a new earth+.#6 This means that heaven and hell occur through a syner!istic co'o%eration between $od and ?an, not through one-sided moral and ,uridical provision on the part of $od. What we have here are processes of dialo!ical reci%rocity, profound encounters of the freedom of $od with the deiform freedom of rational creatures. The above theses signify above all that hell and heaven can also be related absolutely to ontology, that is, to the full restoration of the created nature of beings and the never-ending evolution of that nature, or, alternatively, to its never-ending ontological fixity or nullification, after the general resurrection. Thus the ,udicial element is translated into ontological terms, and avoids its alteration into ,uridical. $od+s ,ustice is understood as identical to *is love, and the adventures of the reception of this love on the part of man.

<

2 And of course the author who has demonstrated the ontological nature of heaven and hell in an unparalleled manner is )t ?aximus the Confessor. The most important discovery of this great theologian in the present context is not simply the distinction between the !nomic and the natural will, but chiefly their deep connection! in order for the !nomic or %ersonal will to 1advance directly+, it must express the uncreated lo!os, or principle, of nature, which is not simply a lo!os-invitation of $od, but an answering dia'lo!os, or dialogue, expressed, on the part of the creature, as a natural #ill, which is nothing other than the response of the creature to the invitatory attraction that $od exerts upon it through his lo!os2will. This response, in turn, has as its content the re"uest for 1its own natural and full onticity+. #; That is to say, the gnomic will does not see% deliverance from nature as created by $od, but on the contrary needs to 1bow to the lo!os of nature+, with the intention of being led towards the 1good use+ /euchr(stia0 rather than the 1non-use+ /achr(stia0 of the lo!oi of with nature, in such a manner that finally with regard to every rational creature 1either the lo!os that is in accordance with nature comes to subsist in it through being used well, or the mode that is against nature exists co-ordinately with it through not being usedD the one is in accordance with nature, the other becomes the messenger of the free choice that is contrary to nature+. #< This very significant text lin%s free choice /which is always personal0 in an absolute way with the nature of being ' that is to say, personal freedom lies in the hearing and implementation of the uncreated creative summons that constitutes nature+s only ontological identity, precisely because created nature is defined solely and exclusively as participation in $od. 3t is in any case precisely for this reason that on the one hand 1nothing belonging to the natural world ever conflicts with its cause, ,ust as nature as a whole never conflicts with its cause, #: and on the other, 1the natural things that belong to the intellect are not sub,ect to necessity+ #7 ' nature at its core is not necessity but freedom of loving offering on the part of $od and a giving bac% in than%sgiving on the part of ?an. 4o we need any special emphasis on an ecstasy out of nature here& 3n a perspective such as that of ?aximus, 1the balance between the will of each will be the lo!os of nature according to the ,udgement that is the movement directing the will towards what is unfavourable or favourable in relation to nature, in accordance with which what results is either participation or non-participation in the divine life.+ #5 This means that at the ast (udgement what will 1weigh+ the truth or the falsehood of the personal choice of each of us is the personal or freely chosen preservation of the truth of our nature as participation in $od /naturally in Christ0, rather than a fearful denial of it. Conse"uently, paradise is here the freely chosen continuation of the natural dialogical development of created nature by participation

/effected in Christ0, whereas hell is precisely the freely chosen refusal to allow nature to follow the path to its completion by participation, that is, the understanding of nature not as participation but 1as a given, implacable necessity /as urges, instincts, inexorable tendencies, irrepressible reflexes0,+ that must be 1restrained, confined, controlled and nullified by our gnomic will+#9 ' while ?aximus the Confessor wants the gnomic will to cover, include and express this divinely-created nature, which, as a gift of $od connotes in its essence as we have seen, dialogical freedom rather than necessity. 3n his latest boo% Christos Iannaras attempts, among other things, to respond to the criticism 3 have been ma%ing about his personalism for a few years now. Enfortunately, he does no more than repeat his arguments that begin with his formulations set out in the paragraph above.#= As this debate is directly relevant to my theme in the present article, 3 shall ta%e it up again. 3t is clear, then, that Christos Iannaras usually gives the impression that he tends to identify nature ontologically with the fall. *owever, this was first explicitly done by Arigen.6> The problem with Arigenism in so far as eschatology is concerned ' a problem that )t ?aximus alone resolved ' is not that the spatio-temporal character of eternal life is not accepted, /even if Iannaras does not clearly accept the 1material+ spatio-temporal character of eternity0. The problem is that the final @ingdom of $od is a transcendence of this spatiotemporal eternity! for Arigen the world is by nature ontologically outside $odD spirituality means ultimately the transcendence of the nature of beings within $odD heaven is the final abrogation of the nature of beings, of their spatio-temporal character, despite the restoration of all things in the meantime through their relationship with $od. 6# Iannaras regards the instincts as the main content of nature /the instincts of self-preservation, domination and pleasure0, which exist in a state of 1functional independence from the reason and will of the human sub,ect, an independence that is experienced empirically by us as more or less a state of existential schiBophrenia! a splitting of our reason and will from the biological demands of our nature. The description of the Apostle Faul remains classic in our literature! J3 see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind...K.+ 66 3n the face of this nature-monster all that is available to us as human beings is 1resistance to, control of and suspension of the necessities that the mode of nature imposes on us,+ and this is precisely, in the author+s view, 1the possibility of e)'stasis from nature! a possibility that a rational /personal0 hypostasis should exist e*'istamen( /Jstanding outK in existential JapartnessK0 from the necessities given in nature /urges ' instincts ' reflexes0 that determine the common mode of homogeneity.+ 6; And to remove any doubt, the author offers the following clarification! 1 e)'stasis from nature is a linguistic expression that permits the ontological content of the word freedom to be signified and communicated.+6< That is to say, it is clear that the primary ontological process which provides the foundation for the person is a distancing of the person from its own nature. The personal freedom of deliberate choice not only fails to summariBe nature+s

demand for participation in the uncreated that is its foundation, that transforms it and sacrifices it, but on the contrary is consumed in a hard moralistic struggle 1of resistance to, control of or even suspension of+ the mode of nature. *owever, the "uintessence of the $ree% Fatristic tradition, as expressed by ?aximus the Confessor, is that the original creation of human nature has nothing to do with its post-lapsarian distortion resulting in uncontrolled urges and reflexes. 3nterpreting, then, the relevant saying of )aint $regory the Theologian in his Ambi!ua /#;:; A.0, and referring to ?an+s prelapsarian creation, ?aximus writes that 1at that time /i.e. before the 8all0, since ?an was not torn asunder by "ualities of the body+s constitution that were contrary to each other and corruptive of each other, but en,oyed them in a state of e"uilibrium without ebb and flow, and was free from constant change with regard to each of these according to which of the "ualities happened to be dominant, he was not without a share by grace in immortality and was not sub,ect to the corruption that now scourges him with its torments, but had a different constitution of the body that befitted him and was maintained by "ualities that were simple and not in conflict with each other.+ All this means that nature was created to be deiform and not at all inexorable and monstrously inimical to the person, who is supposedly free by definition /and the fall happened not because of the existence of nature, but precisely on account of ?an+s self-serving %ersonal choices ' it is telling that because Iannaras identifies nature and the fall, he re,ects the latter as an ontological event0. Aur personal-gnomic e)'stasis should aim at the restoration of nature and at its diviniBation, and not, according to ?aximus, at its e%-static 1truncation+ through the renunciation /as supposedly non-personal ' i.e. non-subsistent&0 of either the instincts, or the unconscious, or the body, for the sa%e of a pseudo-ascetical e%-static 1apostasis+, or 1separation of oneself+ from it, a truncation that is regarded by ?aximus unhesitatingly as 1?anichaean+.6: 4espite the fall, then, nature remains as a gift of $od, naturally, without the 1censurable+ sinful fall of the free will, which, according to ?aximus, also provo%ed the 1noncensurable+ fall of nature ' the person, as 3 have said, rendered nature the way Iannaras regards it, not the other way round. 67 The following text from the Ambi!ua merits close study by us all! 18or the Word, Who is beyond being, truly assumed our being for our sa%e and ,oined together the transcendent negation with the affirmation of nature and what is natural to it, and became man, having lin%ed together the way of being that is beyond nature, that he might confirm the LhumanM nature in its new modes of being without there being any change in its lo!os, and ma%e %nown the power that transcends infinity, recogniBed as such in the coming to be of opposites+ /Ambi!ua, F$ =#, #>:;.CD trans. outh0. There is no existential 1a%o'stasis+ or 1e)'stasis+ or 1freedom+ from nature, but its affirmation and its opening up to a mode that is beyond nature, not simply the mode the 1person+, but the mode of uncreated enhypostatic nature. This anthropology of a psychosomatic sanctification and participation in

$od, which flows from the Christology discussed above, was a constant throughout -astern theology, from ?acarius and ?aximus through to $regory Falamas. *aving a different view, Iannaras in the end identifies nature with evil, ob,ectifying it in an evil being that is independent and reliant on its own powers and that exercises its infernal authority on a good being, which is the person . Iannaras writes! 1?an is created, and his given mode of existence /his nature or essence0 is by necessity that of individual onticity, of the instinctive urges of self-preservation, domination, perpetuation. 3t is that of selfcompleteness at the opposite pole to the !oodD that is, it is evil, an evil 1which destroys a %ersonal human being with the same even-handed indifference with which it destroys any animate existence....+65 8inally the author asserts that eternal life in $od means nothing other than that 1human beings LshouldM exist, after the death of their physical being, by hypostasiBing existence as grace, without the mediation of created nature.+ 69 Nature has no future in eternity, remains soteriologically unaffected, simply chec%ed and controlled, li%e an infection, and in the end is totally abrogated, in an ecstatic delirium wherein without nature the created being hypostasiBes the natural energies of $od ' the creature is flooded by the divinity. 3 find it difficult to understand what the purpose of the 3ncarnation precisely is /as a coming together and syner!y of two natures, two natural wills and two natural energies, divine and human, in the one hypostasis of the Word0 in this perspective ' unless it concerns a 1Christology of escape+, as 3 have called it recently, in discussing the similar theology of ?etropolitan (ohn NiBioulas,6= where Christ is regarded as a model of a double hypostatic escape from his two natures. At any rate, in a case in which the person, as Iannaras claims, is really freedom, expressed as control, domination and resistance, etc., with regard to nature, it is evident, it seems to me, that hell is nothing other than surrender to the innate irrationality, badness, self-interest, etc. of nature, whereas heaven2paradise is the %ingdom of fully realiBed self-control and self-transcendence, i.e. a flight from nature through an 1 e)'static+ relation. All this, however, signifies that the @ingdom of $od is entirely bereft of natural creatures ' and it was precisely this that was the essence of the Arigenism that ?aximus saved us from. ;>
3

3t has become, as 3 thin%, evident today that some of the criteria

of

modern

transcendental sub,ectivism, existentialism, and2or personalism seem to be the main criteria applied so far in the reading of Fatristic doctrine on person and nature, by most of the

prolific authors of the 1generation of the 7>+s+, as they have been called, although this sort of reading begun before them, in oss%y. The underlying "uestion here is to what extend can we allow ourselves not only to use ' because it is absolutely necessary to study and to understand them in a fertile way ' but to become dominated

by these criteria turning the flow of Arthodox theology towards the mouth of the modern or post-modern river, instead of not only ta%ing into account /as we must do0, but also correcting some of the very presuppositions of post-modern thought. 8or the last six decades, or perhaps even more, this sort of sub,ugated interpretation has become almost self-evident in Arthodox theology, both in $reece and the West, and the few but accurate ob,ections had never really disturbed the certainty of the leading thin%ers of the above current. Thus it is with a sense of relief that, after the publication of my article in $eythro% +ournal, / 1Ferson instead of $race and 4ictated AthernessD (. NiBioulas+ final Theological Fosition+, (uly 6>##, Ool.:6, n.<0, and (ean-Claude archet+s boo% on Nature et "erson, /Cerf, 6>#60 that followed, we witnessed the debate not only starting in a vivacious way , but even (ohn NiBioulas, in his .elgrade paper on "erson and Nature in the Theolo!y of St Ma*imus the Confessor /Actober 6>#60, trying to somehow reconsider his theology, in light of the above suggestions /;>a0. Iannaras also responded to my criticism of #=== and 6>>= in his last boo%, which is discussed above. The remar%s that follow, in close connection with the sub,ect of this paper, aspire to be a small contribution to this immensely important nascent discussion, already mar%ed by the excellent contributions of distinguished scholars. Ance again, 3 thin% that this debate is not about some philological points of Fatristic literature, but it affects decisively our very way of understanding $od, the world, and ourselves. 3f NiBioulas and his fellow-personalists had aspired ,ust to express their personal views on personhood, nature etc, a different sort of discussion would ariseD but the fact that they attribute these views, for example, to ?aximus the Confessor, ma%es also this discussion of the texts relevant ' not simply for historical , but mainly, as 3 believe, for serious theological and philosophical reasons. 3 am going to deal with the ?etropolitan+s arguments in the order they appear in his paper, also ta%ing into account some of his other very recent publications. #. The ?etropolitan starts by affirming that for the $ree% Fatristic tradition there is no 1,uxtaposition between nature and the human sub,ect which we encounter in 8rancis .acon, 4escartes, @ant and a whole philosophical tradition leading into modern existentialism+ /p.950.This dis,unction between nature and person was made by the medieval scholastic thought, 1the first representing the Job,ectiveK and JnecessaryK reality and the second the Jsub,ectiveK and JfreeK individual who can distance himself from nature+ / o% cit 0. This claim seems, at least =

at first sight, to be a real 1turn+ for someone who until very recently affirmed that 1such an understanding of personhood as freedom from nature /author+s italics0 may be applied to the human condition in which nature is a JgivenK to the person! humans are born as a result of given natural laws+ ' while for $od there is no need to tal% about freedom from nature because of the divine Fersons, and so, 1it is the Trinity that ma%es $od free from the necessity of his essence+ /;#0. Thus what we have to reflect upon now is whether there exists any change into the deep structure of the author+s thought or not, and what is the form this thought seems now to ta%e after all this reconsideration. 6. The main sub,ect of our discussion is )t. ?aximus the Confessor+s theology on nature and person. 3t is according to the Confessor+s theology that NiBioulas now defines nature as an abstract universal, while person is the only real being, as the %ossessor of this, non existing in itself, nature /p. 9=0. .y spea%ing of nature in this way, the ?etropolitan seems to use an expression that was first used by Torstein Tollefsen, /;60 and he defends his claims using precisely the texts Tollefsen uses. et us see those texts again. These texts belong to the -%uscula /F$ =#0. .y reading the passage 657A, NiBioulas correctly assumes that nature is defined by ?aximus 1not in itself but in relation with hypostasis+. .ut then he goes on "uoting the 67<A. and asserting that this text implies that 1there is nothing concrete about natureD the concrete and selfexisting in being is the hypostasis , not nature+ /p.9=0 ' which nature 1is an abstract universal *owever, ?aximus deals in this passage with 1enhypostaton+, and , in order to defend it, he claims, first, against Nestorians that 1there is no nature without hypostasisD and thus anyone who thin%s that this non an-hypostatic nature constitutes a hypostasis is wrong+, and then , against ?onophysites, that nature 1is never without hypostasis, but this does not mean that nature is identical with hypostasis+. The doctrine of the 1enhypostaton+ does not teach us only that it is impossible to have nature without hypostasis, but also that it is impossible to have a hypostasis without essential "ualities. Thus it is also 1impossible to thin% of hypostasis without nature+ /67<A0 ' a hypostasis without nature is , for ?aximus, also an abstract universal. The Confessor says it explicitly, when he asserts that hypostasis has to be considered as 1enousios+, to wit with and in the essence, since, otherwise, it is only a ./012 /34567, an abstract property /6>:.0. The Aristotelian2Neoplatonic 1vicious circle+ of the #>

priority of the first substance over the second, and the dependence of the second on the first, is now bro%en, since a new, much more 1wholistic+ and reciprocal relationship between them seems to be proposed. That means further that between hypostasis2person and nature there is no relationship of possession of the latter by the former as NiBioulas claims above, Pr vice versa. The ?etropolitan implies here that nature is ,ust an abstract sameness, and thus, what ma%es it exist is precisely the fact that there exists in a person, who lies above, by definition, the sameness of nature, who 1possesses+ it, and uses it, and thus he gives it existence, /as if person was another being living by itself, and deciding, in a detached manner, who is to possess and who is to be possessed0. *owever ?aximus claims precisely the opposite, in his &%istles, ::6.-::;C.3n this text, which is a goldmine for his ontology, ?aximus shows, against our personalist nostalgia, that, s%ea)in! of created human bein!s, nature is only personal and hypostasis is abstract and inexistent without it, and thus that the !round of %ersonal otherness is the natural otherness, as he explicitly asserts 3n deed ?aximus never needed to go beyond (ohn 4amascene+s definition of hypostasis as 1nature with properties+, which also belongs to the Cappadocians /;;0. An the contrary, he articulates his admirably wholistic definition of person2hypostasis in exactly the same way. Thus the 1personal otherness+ of beings is due to the 1addition of the properties that ma%e the logos of his hypostasis uni"ueD according to which /addition of natural properties0 he is not in communion with the beings who are consubstantial and of the same being+ /::6.C0D conse"uently, a human being 1by reason /logos0 of the natural communality of the parts of his being, he saves his consubstantiality with the other human beings, while by reason 8lo!os9 of the %articularity of those %arts he saves the %articularity of his hy%ostasis /::;., my italics0. *ypostatic particularity then is bound with natural particularity, and it is inconceivable without itD there exists a reason, a divine logos of natural particularity ' otherwise the former is a fantasy, a !eneral abstract 8inally, 1if the attributes that distinguish one+s body and soul from others+ bodies and souls come together, they characteriBe him and ma%e him a hypostasis, separate from others+ hypostases+ /::6C40, precisely because human being while he unites with other human beings through their common nature 1he saves the natural otherness of the difference of his %ersonal %arts unconfused /::;.C, my italics0. With this genial phrase the Confessor puts a full stop to any modern theological or philosophical attempt for a transcendental2detached construal of hypostasis2person. A supposedly ##

transcendental personal otherness, according to ?aximus, does not mean freedom from the supposedly abstract immanent natural sameness, and thus the Confessor seems to radically disagree with NiBioulas+ position that 1it is not nature that !ives bein! or e*istence to hy%ostasis, but it is hy%ostasis that ma)es nature abandon its abstract character, #hich is void of ontolo!ical content and acquire bein! /p.=>,author+s italics0. 3t is also natural otherness that gives, on the contrary, ontological content and being to hypostatic otherness, according to )t. ?aximus as well as the Cappadocians and )t. (ohn 4amascene. That means that man is other %rinci%ally throu!h :the %ersonal %art of his nature That further means that any 1personal+ otherness has to be built, through painsta%ing education, ascetisism, prayer etc, only u%on this natural otherness. 8or NiBioulas, it seems that we have an almost naturally unconditioned person who, as a free being, possesses at will an abstract and dead sameness, which is nature, giving it being, ma%ing it his own property, and 1harmoniBing+ it /p.###0 to himself. There is no place in ?aximus for any transcendental 1possession+ of this supposedly general abstract2nature by a person above it, which claims its otherness against it, or without it. The ?etropolitan seems to forget that, in $ree%, if 1anhypostaton+ means something that does not exist, the same is meant also by the word 1anousion+. Ferson is strictly conditioned by the particularity of his nature, which also gives it being ' otherwise it is 1anousion+,i.e. inexistent, and this is something that modern Fhenonenology, together with modern .iology and Fsychology understand very well. Ferson, if it is not conceived as totally detached from nature, which happens in the tradition of Western transcendental 3dealism, does not simply give particularity to his nature, but , first and foremost, is given particularity by its nature, from the very moment of his conception. The difference between man and the animals on this point is freedom, the image of $od upon man+s hypostatic nature, not a freedom from but a freedom for nature /;;a0, which gives him the possibility to #or) #ith this nature, #hich is already a !ift, in order to transform its mode of e*istence throu!h %artici%ation in divinity. .ut even during or after this dialo!ical;ascetical wor%, the natural characteristics of a human sub,ect do not changeD what changes is the way he uses them, i. e. not any more a!ainst nature , dividing it through %hilautia, but accordin! to nature, uniting it consubstantially in Christ. Thus natural otherness is not to be overcome, since it is already a gift, according to $od+s loving logos2 will2Frovidence, in order for man to build his personal otherness throu!h and u%on it #6

Against any

existentialist2idealist devaluation of nature, where, according to

NiBioulas, it either dictates its terrible laws, entangling the person, or it is possessed, /1given being+ by the person ' the person draws his being on what&0 dominated and directed by him, personal otherness expresses natural otherness and vice versa, and each one of them is simply ontologically abstract and inconceivable without the other. Any effort to ignore this, leads to an identification of personal otherness with only the passive exteriority of a relation with an other who can give me, or 3 can give him, otherness, as NiBioulas claims./;;b0. .ut can we have otherness without selfhood& 3f a man is hated or ignored, or denying and denied any relationship, is he not uni"ue and other& Nature, according to the Confessor, does not mean simply sameness, but personal othernessD between nature and person, no one is ontolo!ically prior or above or possessor of the other, precisely because it does not really exist even for a moment without the other. And any 1personal+ relationship presupposes and manifests a natural otherness, which forms its existential bedroc%. A man is free, not because he is a person prior to his nature, since then all human beings would be forever free, but because he willingly follows, as we shall see below, the divine logoi of his nature as existential ways bac% to his Creator ' man is thus free only throu!h and by nature The problem for ?aximus is not simply #ho chooses, but, at the very same time, #hat is to be chosen. 3 would need another paper in order to show how wise are the ?aximian suggestions above, if we discuss them in the light of modern Fsychology. 3 have insisted in my *eythrop article that the sub,ect, as it is described by NiBioulas and others is decisively pre-modern, since it has not, for example, an unconscious. Where is it possible to find that sort of fully conscious self, who is able to be a 1free+ person, possessing and dominating an 1abstract universal+, i.e. his nature, without this 1domination+ be affected by unconscious conflicts and desires ' for a psychoanalyst all this can perfectly be a 1mechanism of defense+, precisely against some unsolved unconscious conflicts, i.e. a slavery and not the triumph of freedom. This is why the ?aximian advice to listen carefully to nature is so much wiser than our personalists+ advice to dominate or to possess itH .ut also the ascetic tradition of Christianity %nows so well that one needs a deep ascetic experience in order to truly liberate its personal will in the )pirit. This is why the "uestion #ho is the active agent in man, when it ta%es for granted the blac%-and 'white detachment between person and nature made by the personalists, is totally misleading and pointless for )t ?aximus. 3f then #;

we definitely need to use the term %riority to describe the relation between the two, then we should rather use the term co'%riority of the two, on the ontological level. We shall return to this later on. The "uestion thus is not ,ust to assert that person and nature are connected, but mainly to deny any Aristotelian2Neo-FlatoniBing 1spatial+ ontological model, which uses the scheme 1above-under+ /person2above versus nature2under, since this is the scheme that seems to have replaced the scheme freedom-necessity in NiBioulas+ thought, although the core remains the same! the ontological degradation of nature0 in order to describe their relationshipD this can be theologically, spiritually, and even psychologically dangerous, as we shall try to show at the end of our discussion .The ?aximian nature is an o%en nature, since the divine wills2logoi lie behind it, ma%ing it an open field of divino-human dialogue leading to a perspective of an unending divinisation, and thus it is once again totally different from the Aristotelian selfexisting nature, which remains closed to itself, even when it is fulfilled through the virtues. This is 1the philosophers+nature+, according to ?aximus, which can be ta%en as dead sameness, while the Fatristic nature is an active, living, personal gift that exists as an enhypostatic2enousios otherness. /;;c0 Nature only personally /1dialogically+0 constituted, and2or person only naturally manifested! this is the ?aximian wholistic 1revolution+ in ontology, which, as we shall see later on, opens new ways of discussion with philosophy and science today. The "uestion of priority either of person or of nature would seem totally... anhy%ostaton or anousion ,i.e. inexistent to ?aximus, and this is precisely his great contribution to the anthropological "uest. We shall see below that this deep interconnection between nature and personal otherness is valid even for the Trinity. We have similar things to say about homoousion in ?aximus, another notion NiBioulas is allergic to, since he understands it, again, exclusively as sameness. .ut are three men waiting for the bus in a bus-station homoousioi for ?aximus& No, he would reply, they are same in their ontological structure /i.e. their natural2hypostatic otherness0, but not necessarily homoousioi between them. .ecause unless each one of them holds human essence in its fullness , they cannot be truly consubstantial. .ut human essence is in fragmentation after the 8all, following the gnomic2personal fragmentation of humanity, as the Confessor claims /;<0, and , in order for this anthropological homoousion to be achieved, we need to practice the ascetical %erichoresis of the other, following Christ who gathered the bro%en parts of humanity #<

through his Cross ' conse"uently, homoousion is now to be achieved, since , after the 8all the primordial unity was bro%en , and hypostatic2natural otherness, cannot safeguard the communion of beings without the ascetic struggle for love based upon grace. Thus , once again ?aximus would disagree, 3 am afraid, in a double way, with NiBioulas, who claims that 1the function , therefore, of nature is this and nothing else! to relate the hy%ostases to each other, to ma)e them relational /p.=>, author+s italics0. 8irst, because, as we have seen, nature participates in the very definition of personal otherness and vice versa, and, second, because this relationality, in order to be achieved, needs also the ascetic struggle ' otherwise we spea% of sameness , and not consubstantiality. )ameness cannot be called relation, <=>?/@, since it is only 1-6AB43B/7 /of the same genus0. )o, homoousion is an absolutely dynamic existential concept for ?aximus, giving us the essential base for an ontology of personal communionD the one-ness of humanity is not ,ust given as essential sameness, but remains to be achieved as %erichoresis of the others in Christ, in the )pirit, in the Church. Thus homoousion is the goal of personal activity, the verification of its function 1according to nature+, as we have already seen. .ut what happens with the Triune $od& As 3 have claimed elsewhere /;:0, homoousion is precisely the difference between, say, the Flotinian triad of the Three Frimordial *ypostases /Ane, Nous, Fsyche0, and the Christian Trinity. The Flotinian *ypostases represent three nonconsubstantial fragments and parts of .eing, and, conse"uently , .eing is ultimately the addition of all these parts. 3t is then impossible for the communion of those three parts to be free, precisely because they have to be necessarily added in order to constitute the #holeness of Cein!, i.e. in order to ma%e sense as representing .eing %er se -ach consubstantial person of the 4ivine Trinity, on the contrary, represents 4ivine -ssence in its wholeness! this is precisely the base of a personal dynamic communion of the 4ivine *ypostases that is absolutely free, since, as each hypostasis holds the whole of divine being in himself, he is in communion with the others exclusively out of love. The difference between the divine and the created or Christolo!ical consubstantiality above is that the former is pre-eternally and timelessly existing, while the latter represents Christ+s 1proposal+ to us, and remains to be achieved in time, in the Church /;70. )ince he construes homoousion merely as sameness, NiBioulas avers, referring to me, that 1those, therefore, who refer to the ousia /or the homousion0 as #:

such and build an ontology on that basis have departed fundamentally from the spirit of the $ree% 8athers+, because 1it is otherness that constitutes sameness, not the reverse+. .ut 3 have never claimed that homoousion somehow pre-exists in $od, so that it creates or causes the hypostatic communion. What 3 have argued since #=== /in my Closed S%irirualityD,above0 is, on the contrary, that for the 8athers, as well as ?aximus, it is impossible to spea% of the Trinitarian hypostatic communion without ta%ing into account the active role of nature in it, thus spea%ing of a supposed overcoming of nature, understood either as blind necessity, or, which is the same, as deadly sameness, as NiBioulas , Iannaras, and others do. 3t is precisely in this incorrect way that NiBioulas, in his last published article on Trinitarian freedom, mentioned above, /;50 writes! 1Trinitarian freedom is, negatively spea%ing, freedom from the given and, positively, the capacity to be other while existing in relationship and in unity of nature. 3n as much, therefore, as unity of nature provides sameness and wholeness, Trinitarian freedom, as the capacity to be other, can be spo%en of as freedom from sameness. And in as much as otherness provides particularity, Trinitarian freedom can be spo%en of as freedom from selfhood and individuality+. *ere once again nature /even the divine one0 is ,ust a passive given of necessity2sameness, which cannot actively be included in the hypostatic otherness, and which has to be escaped from, through the 1personal+ capacity to be other. 3t is paradoxical that while the ?etropolitan argues that, concerning his nature, $od is not presented with any 1given+, he considers sameness precisely as a given, i.e. something $od has to transcend through the 1capacity to be other+ ' once again otherness is not related with /or it is even somehow against0 nature, nature does not participate in the very definition of divine otherness, in opposition to what happens in ?aximus and the Cappadocians, as we shall see below. All in all this ontological scheme seems totally evinasian, not Fatristic! freedom from )ameness2Totality, and then freedom from selfhood for the sa%e of the 3nfinity2Ather. 3f we apply Gicoeur+s criticism in relation to this evinasian2NiBioulean scheme, we shall be forced to admit that this entails an even more decisive sub,ectivism, as it shows an initial will of self-enclosure and separation from the other /the 1moment+ of ecstasis from sameness0, in order for the other to be understood as radical exteriority /the 1moment+ of 1freedom from selfhood and individuality+0 /;90. 3t is precisely this danger of an ecstatic and #7

separated sub,ectivism the Fatristic notion of the Trinitarian homoousion saves us from, as this sub,ectivism shows a sub,ect who never really meets the other, as he, first, avoids the others+ existence / ecstasis above sameness0, and then he avoids his own existence /denial of selfhood0 ' in both cases either the other is absent, or the self is missing. et me substantiate this. 3n my *eythrop article above, 3 described homoousion as 1the principle of the eternal personal dialogue within the Trinity, as an eternal circulation of substance that is always one but in a state of absolute inter-giveness+ /;=0. This caused NiBioulas+ reaction, who in his article we are now discussing argues that giveness in the Trinity implies time and pre-existing individuals /<>0. The first good thing in this article is that the author tends to explicitly deny now to insert time in $od as he previously tended to do /<#0. The second good thing is that he tries to smooth a little his subordinationist tendencies so obvious in his Communion and -therness, where the 8ather seems to be the only really active person in the Trinity /<60.What is paradoxical , is that he now arbitrarily connects time with intra- Trinitarian giveness, as it seems to him connected with movement /<6a0. *owever, ?aximus as well as the Cappadocians, spea% of a sort of 1movement+ of nature within the Trinity, which does not imply time, and this is precisely the homoousionH This is also the way for divine nature to participate in the very definition of divine othernessQ Thus, concerning divine essence, the Confessor avers that 1though it stays in immovable rest, the divine essence seems to move , moving towards each other+ /RS TU RS VWWXWPYZ [\]X^RY, where [\]_ is a verb meaning both move and contain 0./<;0. This 1movement+ is called 1convergence /^`SSRa^YZ0 to the one, of those who originate from him+ /<<0, by $regory NaBianBen. )o, this is what homoousion is! a timeless intra- Trinitarian movement, as the affirmation, by the )on, of *is nature as the 8ather+s nature, and an affirmation, by the )pirit, of the *is nature as the 8ather+s nature, and a reciprocal affirmation by the )on and the )pirit of their essence as that of the 8ather+s, following timelessly the causal affirmation, made by the 8ather of his nature as the )on+s and the )pirit+s nature through !eneration and e)%oreusis This reciprocal affirmation of nature as immovable movement, i.e. as [_]U^YZ /movement towards and mutual containment0 and ^`SSRa^YZ2convergence between the Three, is initiated by the 8ather! this is the principle of the ?onarchy of the 8ather, on which we all agree, i.e. the 8ather+s absolute monocausality /<:0, which, at the same 1moment+, timelessly, actively and not passively, is reciprocally affirmed by the two #5

Athers. This affirmation is not of course automatic, since it represents the intraTrinitarian love, i.e. the free natural dialo!ical reci%rocity between the Three Fersons, which it can be also perhaps called reci%rocal inter'!iveness, in the sense that it is a timeless reciprocal essential dialogue on the ontological level, constituting the very mode of being of $od All these are names for this dynamic and personal understanding of homoousion, which holds the mystery of the personal and natural Trinitarian communion in a way that the latter is inconceivable without the former, and vice versa /and one may add even new names here in order to describe this ineffable mystery of the mode of the Triune being0. 3n this sense homoousion is absolutely wrong to be interpreted as any sort of *egelian )enosis, since it represents precisely the opposite, a timeless %lerosis, i.e .the mutual dialogical affirmation2fulfilment of otherness on the level of nature, without which any 1personal+ otherness is a transcendental, or, better, narcissistic fantasy. Thus divine homoousion does not simply mean sameness, but a pre-eternally achieved and timeless reciprocal, inter-personal, essential [_]U^YZ2movement,containing, or ^`SSRa^YZ2convergence, or dialogical reciprocity, or, simply, inter-giveness. Any discussion about Trinitarian personalism without the homoousion leads unavoidably to the absurdity of a Trinitarian transcendental sub,ectivism, spea%ing of $od+s nature as passive sameness /<:a0. And it is of course senseless to thin% that the homoousion2cosubstantiality, understood as it was understood above, occurs 1before+ the communion of the persons, thus forming a sort of 1cause+ of their communion! it is precisely this personal communion that occurs as consubstantiality. ;.$y%ostasis;%erson and atomon 3t is paradoxical that NiBioulas insists so much that his conviction that person and atomon are fundamentally different /p.=#0 can be derived from Fatristic tradition, although it is impossible to find even one patristic text explaining this difference in the way NiBioulas does. The only reason the formula 1three atoma+ with reference to the *oly Trinity is rarely used in the Fatristic tradition /while theologians of the status of )t. (ohn 4amascene did not hesitate to use it ' see his &lementary Entroduction to Do!ma,F0 is purely historical, and has only to do with the fact that the 3talian authors /and not the $ree% 8athersH0 identified the notion of hypostasis with that of person, as .oethius explains this, 1because of our lac% of terminology+, as he explicitly writes /<70. The same explanation is given by $regory NaBianBen, who accepts the term person only because the 3talians cannot ma%e the distinction between hypostasis and substance2nature, unless they call the #9

former %erson, 1 due to the poverty of their language+ /<50. Thus the term person gradually became the most fre"uently and ecumenically used, concerning the Trinity, but this has nothing to do with any shift of meaning, since this shift happened only in the modern times, after the great crisis of the Western sub,ectivism. ?aximus follows this line, absolutely identifying person with atomon and both with hypostasis throughout his wor%, although, for the historical reasons above, prefers the term hypostasis or person, when spea%ing of the Trinity or Christ. 3t is then pointless, anachronistic, and fruitless for NiBioulas or anyone else to search for texts ,uxtaposing atomon and hypostasis2person in ?aximus+ oeuvre, simply because ?aximus never wanted, and was of course unable to thin% in such a /modern0 way. Thus the only ?aximian text that NiBioulas utiliBes is totally misread. 3t is precisely in this text /-%uscula, "G HI JKIC'JKLA9 where ?aximus, on the contrary, com%letely identifies the conce%t of synthetic %erson #ith that of synthetic atomon , ,ust a few lines above /6>#C! M2 7N165 3B O7/ PQA?RP5 PS2NT NB O7/ PS2N5@, B4PBQ ?U2VBNA2D0 the text NiBioulas has chosen /which is the 6>#40.After this identification of person with atomon made by ?aximus in 6>#C, let us read again the text 6>#4 in the ?etropolitan+s translation, /which is correct0! 1we cannot call atomon the synthetic person of Christ. Cecause it has no relation #ith the division of the most !eneral !enus throu!h subsequent inferior !enoi into the most %articular !enus /translator+s italics0.And NiBioulas concludes! 1Atomon differs, therefore, fundamentally from hypostasis and prosopon /person0, because it falls under the category of nature+ /p.=#0. *owever, ?aximus does not contradict himselfD what he says here is totally different! he says that the synthetic atomon or, which is, as he explicitly asserts, the same, the synthetic %erson of Christ, cannot be called an atomon of a certain genus, in the sense that Christ as e*istence is absolutely unique, i e it is im%ossible to find other %ersons;atoma of the !enus :Christ , and he by no means says that the person of Christ cannot be called atomon, as if atomon has supposedly to do with nature, while person lies above it' thus the ?etropolitan+s conclusion is another misreading of ?aximus. bot only ?aximus, but also .oethius, in the second and third chapters of his aforementioned treatise, puts an end to this tiresome discussion, which resulted from a confusion of ancient terms with modern concepts. .oethius clearly asserts that the $ree% hy%ostasis means the same thing with the atin substantia, i.e. :essence;nature #ith %ro%erties, /as happens also with ?aximus, (ohn 4amascene, #=

and the Cappadocians0, after the atins had difficulty in ma%ing a distinction between substantia and subsistentia ,i.e. hy%ostasis and ousiosis, /which means the clear essence without properties, since hypostasis also comprises properties0. .ut , he continues, the $ree%s 1%eep the term hy%ostasis only for higher forms of existence+ such as $od, the angels and the humans. 8or this use of hy%ostasis, the atins, 1due to their lac% of terms+, as .oethius admits, which renders the meaning of hypostasis difficult to be clearly understood, use the term %erson, which precisely means 1an atomic /!individual0essence of a logical nature+ As it thus has been made clear, both for the atins and the $ree%s hypostasis also means atomon, and , of course, person, as soon as the $ree%s understood that it was impossible for the 3talians not to use this dangerous /since it has been used by )abellius0 term. Thus the, according to the modern $ree% personalists, glorious and historical identification of hypostasis with person, too) %lace in the West and not in the &ast, and , what is much more important, no one, either in the -ast or in the West, /although he would not perhaps have called a mouse person0 ever understood this identification as meaning any ontological differentiation between hypostasis, person and atomon, or any ontological exaltation of person over nature ,or person2hypostasis over atomon2individual, implying either identification of the former with freedom and the latter with necessity, or possession of the former by the latter, or freedom of the former from the sameness which is the latter, or any other degradation of the one and priority of the other, etc. 3t is only a waste of time for NiBioulas, Iannaras and others to stic%, so passionately, to their arguments, which are totally unsustainable by the textsD what is more painful is that , in this way, we lose sight of the real meaning of the Fatristic genial wholism for today+s anthropological "uest. <. An the other hand, the ?etropolitan is right in connecting divinisation with adoption in ?aximus. Where it is impossible for me to agree with him is when he, following his enterprise of exalting person over nature, claims that $od the ogos 1contains the logoi of beings in *is person /not in his nature, for it is only *e, and no other Ferson of the Trinity that contains them0+ /p.=:0. .ut then the logoi become hy%ostatic %ro%erties of ogos, since the only thing that the Three persons do not have in common are their personal2hypostatic attributes! non generation, generation and spiration2e%poreusis. The divine will and energies, /and, conse"uently, the logoi, which are $od+s loving will0 derive from divine essence, and they are hy%ostatically expressed by the 8ather, through the )on , in the )pirit. The )on 6>

manifests the logoi in communion with the three other Fersons, but *e is not their exclusive hypostatic 1possessor+ ' there exists an underlying problem in NiBioulas regarding the function of the divine will here, as we shall see below. :. .ut let us now switch to NiBioulas+ analysis of ?aximian Christology. Enfortunately, underplaying nature and prioritiBing person is once again, his main concern here. Thus we read that 1it is a Ferson that brings together into an unbrea%able unity the natures, not the other way around. The person leads, the natures follow. A certain priority of the person over nature is an undeniable fact in ?aximus+ Christology+ /p.##0. This assertion would be true only if the rece%tion of human nature by Christs divine hy%ostasis, #as %rior to the communication of the natural %ro%erties, human and divine 8communicatio idiomatum9, throu!h #hich, 8and only throu!h #hich9 this rece%tion is realised, i.e. if there were two successive 1moments+ in divine 3ncarnation, that of the 1personal+ activity of the ogos , and that of the two natures being put in communion by this 1prior+ and superior being called person ' but this is unthin%able for ?aximus /<90 Anyone who reads texts such as those included in his &%istles, ::;C-:574, sees clearly that it is simply impossible to spea% of Christ+s identity without referring simultaneously to both the communion /%erichoresis9 of his natures according to their hypostatic union, and to his acting through both natural parts of his existence, expressed through the mutual communication of natural will and energy between them. 3n his &%istle to +ohn Cubicularium, on Xove , the Confessor directly connects the 3ncarnation /since it represents the utmost wor% of $od+s perfect love for humanity0, with the communication of properties between the natures, the communication 1which ma%es man $od and ma%es $od appear as a man, because of the one and identical agreement of will and movement of the two+ /<=0. The deeper meaning of this connection is, as it is explained by ?aximus in his Dis%utatio cum "yrrho /:>0, that, through his hypostatic union with man, $od really inserts *is divine reality into human realityD this why ?aximus uses for the divine ogos the bold expression 72VQ5P/OR@ AY?/5VB4@ /becoming human nature0, concerning the ontological reality of the 3ncarnation, signifying that this is not a divine wor% external to *im, but it is *is very nature that is involved in it. 3n other words, the very agent of hypostatic union is not 1 ogos+ Ferson prior to the natures+, but Xo!os hy%ostatic nature, hy%ostatically assumin! human nature throu!h the communication of %ro%erties There can be no prior movement, or initiative, or 6#

enhypostasis of person before or without nature, since the divine Ferson does whatever he does only in communion with the other two divine Fersons, and only through divine nature. Atherwise, 3 am afraid that we are not far enough from that 1Christology of escape+ of which 3 spo%e in my *eythrop article, in the sense that there seems to exist a 1superior+ part of the saving agent, which stays above the salvation event, and realises it, without at the very same moment being fully, totally and existentially2naturally involved ' thus refusing to ,eopardiBe, li%e the Flotinian hi!her soul, a part of *is uncreated transcendence in this dangerous real mingling with the fallen immanence. 3t is not merely a 1Ferson+, but the ogos as an enousion divine Ferson, who unites, not two natures as if they were outside *imself, giving them an order to unite, but hypostatically in *imself, acting only through his divine nature, and with the fallen human nature. Thus, while in the ?etropolitan+s Christology we see one, ontologised, active divine person uniting and two passive natures, in ?aximus we have, on the contrary, ogos+ active divine nature uniting an active human nature to him, within *is uni"ue hypostasis. And now time has come for a word concerning the natural will in Christ. NiBioulas accuses archet and others /including me0, of using the expression 1will belongs to nature, not to the person+ /p.=90, thus supposedly ignoring the reality of the 1willing one+, who is the person. *owever, this expression belongs to ?aximus /:#0, meaning that the ontological source of the will is nature, not person, against Fyrrhus, who claimed the opposite, thus implying the existence of only one will in Christ. Neither ?aximus, nor 3 by extension by this mean that natural will acts automatically, by itself, without its hypostatic expression. .ut there also exist some nuances here. This does not mean, for example, as NiBioulas asserts, that, conse"uently, in Christ, the human will was deified because 1it was expressed and realiBed by a divine Ferson+, which 1moved and inclined towards the fulfilment of the will of the 8ather+ /p. #>>0 ' as if Christ+s divine will was not totally and forever identical with the Triune $od+s uni"ue natural will. 4oes Christ have a personal2 hypostatic will& The answer of the Fatristic tradition very clearly seems to be, no. et me ma%e some points here. a. As NiBioulas rightly claims /p.#>60, following )herwood, there is no !nomic #ill in Christ, since, obviously, according to ?aximus, that would mean that Christ is merely a man, 1deliberating in a way proper to ourselves, having ignorance, doubt, and opposition, since one only deliberates about something which is doubtful , 66

not concerning what is free of doubt+ /:60. )ubse"uently, the ?etropolitan claims that while Christ does not possess a gnomic will, he nonetheless possesses a personal2hypostatic will, as we saw above. *owever, there does not exist either a hypostatic will in Christ, according to ?aximus, since 1if his will is hypostatic, then he shall be of different will, in relationship with his 8ather. .ecause, what is called hypostatic characterises only a certain hypostasis. LQM 3 would also as% them / sc the ?onothelites0 with pleasure, whether the $od of all and 8ather wills as a 8ather, or as $od. *owever, if *e wills as a 8ather, then *is will shall be different from that of the )on, because the )on is not a 8atherD if *e wills as a $od, then the )on also is $od, as well as the *oly )piritD and then they shall admit that the will belongs to nature, i.e. it is natural+ /:;0. )o, if we claim that in Christ it is the ogos Who wills, we thereby introduce three personal2hypostatic wills in $od, and conse"uently, three $ods /:;a0. b. .ut who then wills in Christ& The ?aximian answer is obvious! it is $od *imself in *is entirety, i.e. the )on, Who expresses the good will / BY3AO479 of *is 8ather , and realises it /7YNAYQZ47, i.e. *e is the one Who brings it forth0, in the *oly )pirit, Who co-operates /?Y2BQZ479 /:<0 [ all the above constituting the only possible expression of the one divine natural will, which exists dialogically through the homoousion. .ut God here #ills as a man. Thus Christ, as the one Who brings forth this tri-hypostatic divine will, assumes human nature, and, conse"uently, he also assumes human natural will, not 1in his Ferson+ but in *is enousios *ypostasis, and this assum%tion is only realised as a bindin! of the t#o natural #ills to!ether, in dialo!ical o%enness, #ithout se%aration and #ithout confusion, in a manner that ?aximus does not hesitate to call natural, in the sense that it is real and concrete. Thus we see the Triune $od, naturally willing in Christ, both as a $od, and as a man. c. What is most important! we cannot, furthermore, accept any sort of passivity of human natural will, as this is implied by NiBioulas+ above claim that human will+s deification is due to its expression and realisation by a 1divine Ferson+. 8irst, because through the Theoto%os, the human natural #ill is also active in the Christ-event, in the exclusive sense that human nature is not only assumed by the ogos, but also offered to him by humanity throu!h and by the Mother of God ' is this not the main cause for the veneration of the Oirgin ?ary, as Theoto%os, throughout the $ree% Fatristic theology, along with the Arthodox /as well as the Goman Catholic0 iturgy, piety, and prayer& )econd, because, as 8.- ?. cthel has 6;

pertinently shown, behind any opposition between human and divine will in Christ, solved by the 1person of Christ+, Who supposedly exercises *is 1personal+ will, lies %recisely the Monothelite tem%tation /::0. 3nstead of attributing to the person of Christ a sort of transcendental will, which, according to NiBioulas, 1brings the two natural wills in harmony in $esthemane+, the one desiring natural life, the other submission to the 8ather+s will /p.#; ' because, it could not be otherwise possible for Christ to bring these two wills 1in harmony+, unless he uses a third, more powerful 1personal+ willH0, ?aximus, according to cthel, who brings four ?aximian texts in witness /:70, saw in $esthemane+s condescension, on the contrary, precisely 1the expression of Christ+s human will+D if we see *is human will as somehow denying divine will, then this precisely results to the ?onothelite position, which subse"uently needs a hypostatic will in Christ to solve his problem. The union of the two wills is thus revealed in the relationship of the )on with *is 8ather, as it is humanly realised , through a free human will, open ' since it is Christ+s will ' to the natural Tri-hypostatic will of $od, manifested in the hypostasis of Christ, Who wants naturally and freely both as man and as $od. Christ+s human hesitation, natural fear and repugnance of death etc, as described by the Fatristic tradition, were not, according to the Confessor, 1against+ his divine will, since they represent human 1blameless and natural passions+, #hich, as the sinful inclination is not %resent in Christ, they are not in natural o%%osition, but in a certain conver!ence 8?Y6\742A2N79 #ith $im /:50 ' Vnd so, they do not represent any human volitional antithesis to the divine will, being also finally deified 1through the absolute union with divinity+/6;5A0. ?aximus+ anti-?onothelite 1revolution+ is precisely that Christ, #ills only throu!h and by and accordin! to nature8s9, #hich cannot be conceived as by nature o%%osin! each other. Thus, the only possible reason of disharmony between human and divine will in Christ, for ?aximus, would be sin, and, since Christ is clear of sin, it is impossible for *im to have his two natural wills in disharmony /:90, needing some 1personal+ harmoniBation ' this is practically identical with ?onotheletism. To conclude this paragraph, ?aximus+ points on Christ+s will are summariBed in his Dis%utatio cum "yrrho as follows! 3. There is no !nomic #ill in Christ, because of the 1divine hypostatiBation+ ' Christ does not need to choose between good and bad through thought and choice, because he possessed good by 6<

nature through his divine nature /;>94-;>=0. This hypostatic divine nature of the ogos along with his assumed human nature, and not simply his detached divine person, is the active agent of the 3ncarnation /:9a0. 33. Christ+s human nature does not move passively, following an order given by a divine person /SR`dVTY, in ?aximus+ words0, but it is the ogos himself who wills, but as man! 1as man and not as God Christ #illed to accom%lish his Fathers #illDbecause the Fathers #ill also belon!s to him, as he is God himself by nature /6=5A., ;6<C0. Thus, no 1divine will moved and inclined towards the fulfillment of the will of the 8ather+, as NiBioulas asserts /p.#>>0, /as if there were two separate divine wills struggling to unite0, according to the Confessor, and no passivity of human natural will can be also be accepted here ' otherwise we conclude with a sort of ?onotheletism. The problem of the ?onothelites was precisely that they needed a 1personal+, more or less 1synthetic+ hypostatic will /6=7A.C0 , in order to overcome the supposedly inherent antithesis between the two natural wills of Christ ' the divine willing, the human unwilling or less willing to fulfill the 8ather+s willD ?aximus+ proposal was that unless the two natural wills are actively and dialogically connected, in antidosis;mutual e*chan!e between them /6=7C-6=5A0, without violation and confusion, we do not have Christ really willing as $od-man. Thus it is not the /ontologised %er se 0 Ferson of ogos that wills in Christ, carrying along the two natures, as NiBioulas avers /and 3 do not %now how can one prevent this will from being a synthetic will0, but it is, on the contrary, human natural will that wills in %erichoresis with the divine natural will and vice versa [ $od in Christ wills as man and man wills as $od, in antidosis, #ithin the one hy%ostasis;%erson of Xo!os, Who no# manifests the one and common natural #ill of the Father, the Son, and the S%irit as God, and not as "erson, and accom%lishes it actively as a man . 3t is a pity that some modern theologians have lost sight of the unbridgeable gap between those two positions. 3f we e* definitio prioritiBe person over nature /1the person leads, the 6:

natures follow+, according to NiBioulas-p.=5- concluding with the anti-?aximian assertion of p.#>>! 13n Christology, it is the "erson that has the first and last #ord [ not the natures, author+s italics0, it is impossible to realiBe the perfect ?aximian balance between the two, which is described above, and abolishes ?onotheletism. 333. There is no hypostatic will in Christ, but $od+s one and common natural will /;#;C40 manifested through Christ, who expresses the common natural will of the three Fersons. *ere not only NiBioulas, but also some others too have perhaps serious hesitations to accept ?aximus+ thought, and they perhaps thin% that ?aximus needs some theological correction. 3f we have not only nature but also divine hypostases in $od, how is then possible not to have hypostatic will/s0 in $od, and, conse"uently, in Christ& *owever, the hypostatic will seems to be connected with created freedom in ?aximus, where the hypostatic will cannot be practically detached from the gnomic will, /which, as we shall see, is also connected with the unfortunate possibility of tearing created nature into fragments through sin0, and not with uncreated nature. 3t is nonetheless inaccurate, on the one hand, to connect human gnomic will only with the 8all, as some scholars tend to do, since it is precisely the existence of this sort of will that ma%es 8all to be a 8all indeed, while it is also unacceptable for ?aximus, on the other hand, to attach either hypostatic or gnomic will to the uncreated Trinity or to Christ, %recisely because divine natural #ill cannot chan!e. Enless we properly understand consubstantiality, the above ?aximian position will be totally unfathomable by our existentialistic2personalistic2idealistic minds, and we are going to loo% for 1corrections+ of ?aximus, on this point. The divine trihypostatic affirmation of the one divine nature in dialogical intergiveness is sufficient, in order for us to see that the one natural divine will does not need, any hypostatic 1alteration+, in order to be personal. 3t is personal since it is personally affirmed as one and uni"ue. This personal affirmation does not constitute a 1hypostatic will+, but a Triune manifestation through Christ, Whose will is 67

totally and consubstantially one and identical with the 8ather+s and the )pirit+s will. 7. And let me now come to the anthropological conse"uences of the above positions. The thorny problem for NiBioulas, even after the phenomenal shift in his thought, is still the relation between nature and freedom. 8or the first time in this paper, he does not explicitly identify any more nature with necessity both before and after the fall, because it supposedly represents something !iven to man, as he did before, but he insists now that this happens, according to his reading of ?aximus, only after the fallD let us search again for the witness of the texts, reading closely precisely the text that he uses, namely Questiones ad Thalassium ]I /F$ =>,769A7<:C0. )pea%ing of this text, NiBioulas claims that 1spea%ing of necessity of nature in its present state in which nature exists under the yo%e of death /ibid.7;7A.C0 is commonplace in ?aximus+ /p.#><0. *owever, what seems commonplace in this text is to spea%, on the contrary, of the submission under the necessity of death of, first, the person and second, nature 8Z2R6T NB O74 ^U?B/, ]_FC9, or, better, to consider nature as a victim of the person, who, by blamefully choosing pleasure instead of $od, carries along the blameless nature with him under the yo%e of pain, corruption, and death /7<#C0 ' thus necessity in ?aximus refers to person, not to nature /:9b0. NiBioulas, always practically identifying person with grace, does not thus see that , what is commonplace in ?aximus is, on the contrary, to consider person /through the false use of !nome and %rohairesis0 as precisely the real cause of the fall into the inescapable necessity of death. This is why, in the end of the text that we read with NiBioulas, ?aximus suggests, as the only way of salvation, not the harmoniBation of nature with person, as NiBioulas as%s /p.#90, but "uite the opposite, i.e. the harmoniBation of person /as this is the one who sins, falls, and creates the necessity0 with nature, since the latter is not an abstract universal, as the ?etropolitan wants it to be, but a personal dia-logical divine proposal, as%ing for a personal2gnomic response of holiness. The following text / Ad Thal ]I, F$=>, 7<:A.0 seems to be incomprehensible if we admit that there exists in ?aximus a 1 priority of the person over nature+ /p.#50! 1Those who %eep their !nome /personal choice and deliberation0 by any means in agreement with nature, and they ma%e it receptive of the energy of the logoi of nature, regarding the logos of ever well being, they shall completely participate in 65

the goodness, according to the divine life, which shines over humans or angels, because of the sensitivity of their !nome to divine will. .ut those who %ept their !nome in complete disagreement with nature and they damaged the logoi of nature through their !nomes activity, regarding the logos of ever well being, they shall loose all goodness, because of the antipathy of their !nome for divine will, due to the obvious %inship of their !nome with the ever ill being+. 3t seems that for ?aximus, against our existentialist pro,ections, which can destroy the very core of his thought, nature does not totally ontolo!ically fall, %recisely because nature is not just an abstract universal, but, on the contrary, it is the totally concrete incarnation of divine #ill, and remains such, even after its blameless fall into necessity caused by the %erson, and it is %recisely by listenin! to this divine call throu!h the lo!oi of nature that the %erson can be restored 3t is thus impossible to fathom ?aximus+ theo-centric concept of nature, by using any current philosophical metaphysics, from Flato and Aristotle, to @ant and *eidegger. Nature here is an open essential presence, as it consists in a divine %ersonal dialo!ical su!!estionD it is an existential personal way to $od, as it consists in an essential divine !ift Nature is not a thin! needing to be possessed and controlled by another transcendental thin! called person, /or even offered bac% to $od either as a burden of necessity or as /a burden of0 abstract sameness0 as this happens with personalist2idealist thought, regardless if it thin%s that it separates or unites the two, but a concrete natural divino'human reci%rocal %ersonal o%enness Thus, only the person, i.e. the gnomic understanding of nature, falls, and this blameful fall causes, precisely because of the interruption of divino-human dialogical reciprocity that generates it, also nature+s blameless fall as P7QS=QT?/s /bad use0, which tends to destroy not the divine logoi that always sustain it, but its O7NS ^U?/2 /according to nature2logoi0 mode of existence in our !nome, subse"uently falsifying and distorting natural beings of $od, since we are not seeing them any more as such. This is why nature implies freedom, for ?aximus. )eparating once again person from nature, NiBioulas asserts that ?aximus+ above claim, concerns nature only in an abstract universal way /p.#>#0, and it finally refers to person. 8or the Confessor, however, nature is, as we have seen, only personally constituted, ,ust as person is only naturally constituted, with no need of relations of possession or 1harmoniBation+ between them, precisely because they do not even really exist, if we separate them. Now, freedom lies both behind nature, concerning the way of its very 69

constitution, as uncreated call and suggestion and loving will, and not as a 1given+, as well as after its constitution, as reception and response and dialogue, something that even 8all cannot stop. Nature+s very constitution is thus a matter of exchange of freedom, as it is dialogically constituted, developed, changed, deified, as an o%en nature, concerning its mode of dialogical existence, finally fully united with its divine source in Christ, and eternally and always, according to ?aximus+ suggestion concerning ever movin! rest, transformed. The personalists+ mista%e is that they see nature as a static thing /even if it is dynamic, as NiBioulas, after the criticism he received, seems to admit0, and they do not see it, in its very being, as a full of intentions personal divine suggestion , which calls for discussion, and %oints towards its personal sourceD person then cannot be, even 1hypothetically+, detached from nature, precisely because its very realiBation unavoidably passes through his nature+s logoi, which form its very mode of existence in $od, since they can and must finally become e*istential %o#ers of the soul, ma%ing it divinely lo!ical, as 3 have argued elsewhere /:9c0. *ow then one can claim, in the way the personalists claim, that the person 1saves nature+ through his gnomic choice, when he has precisely to dialogically choose and follow his nature, in its divine existential intentionality, in order for him to realiBe his freedom from necessity, sin and death& 3t is obvious that any idea of 1possession+ or 1domination+, or 1controlling+, or even, more smoothly, 1harmoniBation+ as a model of relationship between person and nature collapses here. This is also why ?aximus does not hesitate to insert the reality of the two natures in his very definition of Christ+s hypostasis. Christ in not only of two natures, and in two natures, but *e is also these two natures, as the Confessor claims, in a whole series of texts /:=0. That means that, as F. Firret puts it, 1the ousia is the hypostases, the hypostases is the ousia+ /7>0, in the sense that the two natures are Christ+s uni"ue hypostatic identity, or, better, according to ?aximus, the two natures are 1the complements of one person+ /7#0, and not 1possessed+ by it, since person alone is ,ust an abstract %ro%erty as we have seen above, inexistent without them. The problem is after all that, when we use, a s%atial, vertical model of understanding human being, or Christ, in terms of 1above+ and 1below+,/person above, nature below0, a model that G.A. ?ar%us calls Neoplatonic /spiritual above, carnal below0, we tend to forget that 1the biblical opposition, on the other hand, depends on Christ+s redemptive wor%! LQM The opposition is not between something cosmologically 1higher+ and something 1lower+. 3t is one best expressed in temporal 6=

rather

than

spatial terms, as 1new+ and 1old++ /760. The spatial model entails

possession, which means controlling and domination of the above over the below, as this happened not only in Neoplatonism, introduced in Western theology through Augustine, and in the -astern through Arigen, but also in the course of the Western 3dealism of the Detached Self, in Charles Taylor+s terms, of which not only @ant, but also *eidegger, )artre, and evinas are some of its final upshots. 3f the 1above+ being also possesses will, then we have the core of Western ?etaphysics, as *eidegger described it, as the ?etaphysics of the Will to Fower. Thus it is not accidental that nature for @ant is %henomenolo!ical, as Colingwood claims /7;0, or that being in *eidegger is ecstatically identified with its mode of e*istence /7<0, while, for evinas, real being exists as it existentially emerges out of the /abstract universal9 Totality. 3n all cases, what is repressed, according to the acanian reading of 8reudian tradition, is nature, since the 3 of the philosophical theory is already what acan terms the social E, emerging after the end of the mirror sta!e ,i.e after the end of %rimary narcissism. acan continues! 13t is this moment that decisively tips the whole of human %nowledge into being mediated by the other+s desire, constitutes its ob,ects in an abstract e"uivalence due to competition from other people, and turns the 3 into an apparatus to which any instinctual %ressure constitutes a dan!er, even if it corres%onds to a natural maturation %rocess.+ /my italics0 /7:0. 3t is this alienation, articulated as a repression of the natural selfhood in favour of the imaginary development of the social, detached E that ?aximian theology saves us from, along with the following neurotic aggressiveness that characteriBes it, and the will to power, where it is metaphysically embedded. .y indissolubly connecting will with nature, ?aximus puts a full stop to any possessive i.e. dominative and controlling detachment of person from nature, which ma%es his growth non real, imaginative, or even neurotic ' acan does not hesitate to use here even the term %aranoiac. Fersonal growth now means, on the contrary, a loving response to the divine call that lies within nature, which thus becomes not an abstract sameness, but a personal ascetic way of following $od, in Christ, in whose 3ncarnation the ultimate meaning of those loving logoi2calls leads. 4

;>

8r 4umitru )taniloae is widely and deservedly respected as one of the greatest Arthodox theologians of the 6>th centuryD we are all of us deeply grateful to this brilliant and extremely productive theological pioneer, for opening a series of new fertile perspectives in modern Arthodox theology. *e vivified 4ogmatic theology, he became one of the most faithful interpreters of Arthodox life in Christ throughout the world, he brilliantly translated "hilo)alia, adding his own valuable spiritual comments, discussing seriously with modern thought, and other Christian Confessions. This Gomanian theologian is a 8ather of the Church, a man who, along with 8lorovs%y and oss%y, and, up to a point, with .oulga%ov, established Arthodox theology in its ecumenical importance and witness. 8urthermore, in close connection with the topics discussed in this paper, he is, as far as 3 %now, the first who criticiBed oss%y /770 both for his separation of individual2atomon from person, and his interpretation of person as 1free from, and undetermined by, its nature+ /750, which nature is unfree in itself /790. Thus it is somehow unexpected to see him using, in a part of the same wor%, the same philosophical scheme of above'under regarding the ontological contruction of man, in which the person-nature dialectic is replaced by a sort of soul-nature dialectic. According to )taniloae, the soul is 1a free conscious spirit+, inserted by $od 1within nature+. )o, 1through the human spirit inserted within the world, the divine )pirit is himself at wor% to bring about the spiritualiBation of the world through his operation within the soul of man, and in a special way, through his incarnation as man+. /7=0. *ere the distinction between soul and grace seems difficult, and it becomes more difficult when the author puts the image of $od exclusively on the soul /5>0, calling it 1a %ind of replication of the creator )pirit on the created plane+, 1a %ind of alter e!o+ of him /5#0. Thus the human soul seems to be, in a nearly Flatonic fashion, above nature, as it is 1endowed with characteristics a%in to those of $od! consciousness, cognitive reason, freedom+ /560 ' although, as modern Neurobiology or Neuropsychology teach us, it is impossible to articulate, or even to understand any of the above characteristics in man, without the body, in this life. )taniloae tends to identify the creation of the soul with the insertion of the )pirit in man, in the very moment of his creation, following a similar oss%ian claim /5;0. The 1moment+ of the soul+s creation and the 1moment+ of grace seem thus identical, although there is substantial evidence in the Fatristic texts, and especially in ?aximus, that not simply the soul but the human being as a whole is created in the ;#

grace of the )pirit, as we shall see. ?an is thus defined as an 1incarnate spirit+, and, subse"uently 1our person is spirit that is capable of feeling and of %nowing through the senses+ /5<0. This person2soul2spirit seems to come into contact with $od immediately and directly, while in Falamas, for example, grace is carefully and repeatedly mentioned, as the only means for the embodied soul to participate in $od ' on the contrary, grace is not mentioned unless it is identified with the soul in )taniloae! 1-ven after the 8all, man was left with soul, with at least some sort of divine grace+/5:0. Thus 1the spiritual breathing of $od produces an ontological spiritual breathing on man, namely, the spiritual soul, which has its roots within the biological organism and is in conscious dialogue with $od and with its fellow human beings+ /570. A double "uestion very naturally arises here! first, does this soul possess by nature the ability of this 1conscious+ dialogue, regardless its moral disposition, and second, if this soul, for some reason stops this dialogue, does it remain a 1spiritual+ soul& 8urthermore, what does the author mean by this repeated assertion of a 1conscious+ dialogue, when, as this soul is closely connected with the body, it is impossible for it not to have an unconscious basement, where the light of consciousness cannot be immediately shed, and it is impossible unconscious event will be fully elucidated& 3t seems thus paradoxically true that )taniloae uses, in his anthropology, the same above'under NeoplatoniBing scheme, although he criticiBes the form that this scheme ta%es in oss%y. A phrase such as the following could have been possibly written either by oss%y, or even Iannaras or NiBioulas! 1?an cannot become wholly mechanical li%e nature, but he does become sinful when he falls under the sway of nature, ,ust as he becomes virtuous and spiritually strengthened when he asserts his own mastery over it+. /550. According to what we have seen above, it is obvious that ?aximus the Confessor could never have written such a phrase. Af course )taniloae never separates this nature /for the explanation of the way of creation of which he uses the curious term 1materialiBed principles+0 from soul2spirit2grace, and, in general, he has a much more positive account of it, in comparison with the other authors above. *e even spea%s of a 1spiritualiBation+ of nature, through the soul, although it is not easy to follow him when he spea%s of the spiritual life, in a rather intellectualistic way, as a 1life of understanding and also of communion with $od+, so that 1to the extend that the understanding is developed, so, too, is communion developed and vice versa /590. Although communion with $od ;6 that every

really means a progressive understanding of many things in *im, it is obvious that, starting from )t Faul and concluding with A"uinas and Falamas, there exist an infinite number of things that surpass human understanding in man+s communion with $od. ?aximus+ answer to the "uestion concerning human essence is different, as 3 tried to show elsewhere /5=0. 8or him man is not his soul, not his body, not an addition of them, but 1his wholeness+, i.e. 1something beyond them, and around them, giving them coherence, but itself not bound with themQ+With these mysterious claims ?aximus overcomes all the idealism and existentialism inherent in modern Arthodox theology, by inserting freedom and dialogical reciprocity in the very constitution of human being that is absolutely psychosomatic, but nonetheless in a state of a free dialogical becoming ' thus creating his a%o%hatic anthro%olo!y , which is, as 3 strove to show in my &ucharistic ontolo!y , decisively eschatological and historical at the same time. Enless this anthropology is properly understood, modern Arthodox theology, will never be able to go beyond modern Western philosophical sub,ectivism, which thus seems to mar%, totally or partially at least two generations of Arthodox theologians .

5 To conclude, according to the $ree% patristic tradition heaven or hell are born from the personal and free /1in accordance with nature+ or 1contrary to nature+0 choice alone of creatures, not from created nature which is universally resurrected ' and precisely for this reason heaven and hell are active realiBation of freedom, not decisions of passive reward or punishment on the part of $od. *eaven is the free choice /1in accordance with nature+0 of the dialogical and participatory development of created nature in Christ, for all eternity, as 1ever-moving stasis+, according to ?aximus, of the creature within $od ' whereas hell is the free choice /1contrary to nature+0 of refusal of the dialogical liberation of nature in the absolute meaning of the 3ncarnation! here $od is encountered, with malicious envy and hostility, according to ?aximus, 1in %nowledge but not by participation+ /F$ =>, 5=7A.C0. This is a ;;

peculiar refusal of the Gesurrection through the re,ection of the participation that would have allowed the Gesurrection to be transformed into a full and conscious communion and co-operation with $od. 3f heaven appears also to be a supernatural ,udicial reward, this happens because of $od+s limitless response to the human desire for participation ' and if hell also appears to be a punishment, this is on account of the intense bitter resentment that lies in the unparticipated %nowledge of $od. Thus the ,udicial element of Christian eschatology can be translated in ontological terms, and avoid its conception as ,uridical. And to be sure, it is a fundamental testimony of patristic theology that the @ingdom of $od, and heaven in particular, are ei%oniBed ontologically in the *oly -ucharist. )aint )ymeon the New Theologian, an ascetical writer of authority and stature, describes the good things of the @ingdom 1which $od has prepared for those who love him+ as follows! 1among the good things stored in heaven are the body and blood itself of our ord (esus Christ, which we see every day and eat and drin% ' these are ac%nowledged to be those good thingsD without them you will not be able to find any of the things mentioned, not even one, even if you go through the whole of creation.+ This scholion, clearly based on the sixth chapter of (ohn+s $ospel, is astonishing precisely because it removes any %ind of ecstatic or monophysite temptation. And )aint )ymeon continues! 1Iou have heard that communion of the divine and spotless mysteries is eternal life and that those who have eternal life are the ones the ord says he will raise on the last day, not li%e the others at all events abandoned in the tombs, but li%e those who possess life, raised from life to eternal life, while the rest are raised to the death of eternal punishment+ / &thical Discourses ;, #750. -ucharistic participation in Christ is the foundation of a freely willed movement towards $od, and is the present realiBation of the personal choice /1in accordance with nature+0 of that dialogical reciprocity that saves and perfects nature, whereas its denial is the %indling of a /1contrary to nature+0 self-loving necrosis within the abundance of life itself. 3n each case freedom according to the image of $od remains! we have, then, either freedom as a dialogical love that liberates nature in a eucharistic relationship, or freedom without love ' or rather, without dialogue ' which imprisons nature in a malicious self-will and self-activity. The "uestion about the eternity of hell thus does not affect $od and his love, because hell will end when the devil wants to end it, when he ceases from his malice against $od ' because if hell is the absolute narcissistic enclosure within oneself, in an imaginary superiority that ;<

denies the reality of corruption and the need for the transformation of the created, then this situation becomes in the end the soul+s ultimate blindness, its self-condemnation to hell. *ell, then, is the denial of the -ucharist, the tragic freedom of absolute narcissism, that is, the supreme self-torture of a freely chosen enmity against love. As the boundary of heaven, it is lit dimly by its light, and this minimal gleam of rationality that is shed on it besieges the abyss of its irrationality with the compassion of the saints of $odD but the battle against this hardened self-deification is indescribably frightening and also inauspicious. The rest is %nown to $od alone....

NAT-) #. Christopher asch, The Culture of Narcissism, New Ior%! Norton #=59D see the Addendum of #=9<. 6. &nchiridion Symbolorum, ed. *. 4enBinger and A. )chonmetBer, 8ribourg! *erder, #=57;7. ;. (ean 4elumeau, Sin and Fear` the &mer!ence of a Western Guilt Culture , New Ior%! )t ?artin+s Fress, #==>, pp. 6<<-67:. <. )ergius .ulga%ov, The -rthodo* Church, Crestwood, NI! )O) Fress, #=99, p. #9:. :. (ohn Gist, Au!ustine` Ancient Thou!ht Ca%tiaed, Cambridge! Cambridge Eniversity Fress, #==<, p. 656. 7. $erald .onner, Freedom and Necessity` St Au!ustines Teachin! on Divine "o#er and $uman Freedom, Washington, 4C! The Catholic Eniversity of America Fress, 6>>5. 5. *ans Ers von .althasar, bleiner Dis)urs cber die $dlle, -insiedeln! (ohannes Oerlag, 6>>5.

;:

9.

Gobert (enson, Systematic Theolo!y, Axford! Axford Eniversity Fress, #===, vol. 6, pp. ;:=-;79.

=.

Faul -vdo%imov, -rthodo*ie, Neuchatel! 4elachaux et Niestlc, #=:=D $ree% trans. Thessaloni%i! Gigopoulos, #=56, pp. <<:-<<5.

#>.

.asil the $reat, -n "salm __, e, F$ 6=, ;56D (ohn Chrysostom, -n the &%istle to the fomans, hom. :, F$ <5, 699-69=.

##. #6. #;.

(ohn 4amascene, A!ainst the Manichaeans, F$ =<, #:<:4-#:<9A. 3renaeus, A!ainst the $eresies O, ;7, #, F$ 5, #66#-#666. ?aximus the Confessor, To ?arinus, F$ =#, #6 C4. All my arguments relating to ?aximus that follow have been discussed at length in my &ucharistic -ntolo!y, .roo%line, ?A! *oly Cross Arthodox Fress, 6>#>, ch. 6D Closed S%irituality and the Meanin! of the Self Lin $ree%M, Athens! -llini%a $rammata, #===, pp. #9=-6><D Terrors of the "erson and the -rdeals of Xove Lin $ree%M, Athens! Armos, 6>>=, pp. #=-;#.

#<. #:. #7. #5. #9.

?aximus the Confessor, -%uscula, F$ =#, 694-6=A. ?aximus the Confessor, -%uscula, F$ =#, 9>A. ?aximus the Confessor, Dis%utation #ith "yrrhus, F$ =#, 6=;.C4. ?aximus the Confessor, garious Cha%ters <, :<, F$ =#, #;6=.. Christos Iannaras, Si* "hiloso%hical S)etches Lin $ree%M, Athens! 3%aros, 6>##, p. #69.

#=.

3 find it difficult to comprehend Iannaras+s accusations of polemic that he ma%es against me. Anyone who has read pp. #>5-### of my Terrors of the "ersonD above will gain the impression, rather, that 3 hold Iannaras in high respect, and for very serious reasons. This does not prevent me from having some disagreements with him on his ontology of personhood, while in some other boo%s or essays of mine 3 have so praised, for example, his ecclesiology or his understanding of modern science and politics .

;7

6>.

3t is extremely indicative that even the greatest modern defenders of Arigen thin% that he was the first to identify the nature of beings with the evil of a fundamental fall. Thus *. CrouBel, -ri!en, -dinburgh! TeT Clar%, #=9= p. 6#:, writes! 1if the 4evil is called /in Arigen0 the 8irst Terrestrial, that is, because he was the source of the fall which caused the creation of the perceptible world...+. F. TBamali%os, in his -ri!en` "hiloso%hy of $istory and &schatolo!y, eiden! .rill, 6>>7, p. ;:<, writes! 1The J8allK, on the one hand, coincides with the actual creation and mar%s the JbeginningK of space-time+. 3t is curious that Iannaras regards my attribution to him of Arigenian presuppositions with regard to his understanding of created nature as slanderous.

6#.

Gestoration is thus connected with a return to pre-creational conditions. )ee TBamali%os, -ri!en, pp. #:7, 65;-65<, 6=;.

66. 6;. 6<. 6:. 67. 65.

Iannaras, Si* "hiloso%hical S)etches, p. =>. 3bid., pp. #69-#6=. 3bid., p. #6=. ?aximus the Confessor, Ambi!ua, F$ =#, #;<>.C. ?aximus the Confessor, To Thalassius, F$ =>, <>:.C. Christos Iannaras, The &ni!ma of &vil, .roo%line, ?A! *oly Cross Arthodox Fress, 6>#6, pp. ;:, ;5. 3t is surprising how much the concept and reality of 4ivine Frovidence differs from its inner sense identified with the evil of nature! the 1scandal of evil+ appears to be independent even of $od /ibid., p. ##50. 3t is curious that Iannaras accuses me of regarding 1essence2nature as a thing+, as 1an /in itself0 autonomous existential factor+ /Si* "hiloso%hical S)etches0, p. #670, because 3 use expressions such as 1the substantial person+ /to enousion %rosh%on0 /on the model of $regory the Theologian+s 1substantial 8ather+ /enousios "at(r0 ' and he does so in spite of many pages that 3 have devoted in the boo%s listed in note #;, especially my Terrors of the "erson, pp. #=-;#, toward demonstrating precisely the opposite! how nature is personal and only constituted relationally /p. 650. An the contrary, it is

;5

Iannaras who on the one hand ma%es nature perfectly autonomous by identifying it with necessity or evil, and, on the other, ma%es the person in a similar fashion perfectly autonomous by identifying it with the freedom of an e%-static standing-out from nature. 69. Iannaras, The &ni!ma of &vil, p. #;7. )ee also his To fh(to )ai to Arrh(to, Athens! 3%aros, #===, p. 6>=! 1The created hypostasis of every human being also exists after death by no longer hypostasiBing its created nature but the uncreated vivifying energy of divine love+ since human beings after death are changed into an empty, non-substantial hypostatic shell, 1an existential mould+ according to Iannaras /p. 6#<0. 3t is doubtful whether such views allow us to suppose even the survival of the soul after death. The problem then, at least according to $regory of Nyssa, is how in that case is the resurrection of the dead possible, without the natural mould of each of us which is our soul, so that the Gesurrection would be the resurrection of the people themselves and not some new creation. 6=. ;>. Terrors of the "erson, p. :9. Iannaras+s error naturally lies not in his view of the @ingdom of $od as an ontology of relations, but in the 1existential standing-out+ of these axiomatically free 1personal+ relations from this axiomatically and originally fallen nature, which is identified with a burden of blind necessity. 3 have spo%en elsewhere of the roots of this ontology in Augustine, Arigen, $erman 3dealism, .erdyaev+s -xistentialism and @antianism /and finally, in the hidden Neoplatonism that has permeated the West+s philosophical and theological anthropology for centuries and only recently has been adverted to both in the field of philosophy and in that of the biological and psychological sciences0 /see my Terrors of the "erson, pp. #7-#=0. An pp. #;#-#;; of Si* "hiloso%hical S)etches Iannaras himself admits his debt to *eidegger and )artre with regard to this ontology of personal e)'stasis, regarding as his personal contribution the concept of relation through which this e)'stasis is realiBed. .ut that is precisely what 3 also say myself about his wor% on pp. 69<-6=# of my Closed S%irituality and the Meanin! of the Self, also demonstrating at the same time the one-sidedness of his argument. As for the

;9

concept of relation, not even this is a personal contribution of Iannaras ' it already exists at least in *eidegger /1?itsein+ and 1?itdasein+, paragraphs 6:65 of Sein und ieit0 and subse"uently in a whole raft of existentialists, personalists and phenomenologists, etc., such as ?arcel, ?ounier, ?erleauFonty, .uber, and evinas ' and naturally in psychoanalysis / acan0, depth psychology /.inswanger, existential psychologists, etc.0 and in sociology /4ur%heim, -lias, etc.0. A real theological contribution, then, would be not the concept of relation, but the setting of real natural existence, of the full human self, within a relational ontological perspective, where natural being itself occurs as a personal becoming of communion and relationship, not as supposed e)'stasis from itself. We have here a huge change of perspective, a real philosophical revolution of theological provenance! an eschatological ontology, nature in the mode of relation, the transformation of nature.

;>a. .ishop ?axim /Oasil,evic0 ed., bno#in! the "ur%ose of Creation Throu!h the fesurrection "roceedin!s of the Sym%osium on Ma*imus the Confessor, .elgrade, Actober #9-6#, 6>#6, Alhambra, California! )ebastian Fress e the 8aculty of Arthodox Theology-Eniv. of .elgrade, pp 9:-##;. 3n p.#>7, n. :<, NiBioulas accuses me of being academically biased and dishonest in by *eythrop article, because 3 1accuse him for six heresies+. 3 never accused the ?etropolitan of any heresy ' when 3 mentioned some possibly misleading tendencies in his theology, 3 only wanted to somehow as% him publicly to finally reconsider some aspects of his thought. Additionally, all these positions were ta%en as the "uintessence of Arthodox theology, uncritically, by at least the youngest generation of Arthodox theologians. ?y *eythrop article was translated and published in four languages, and it is true that 3 received a great deal of positive comments by some decades of colleagues around the world, some of them expressed even publiclyD even the only serious critic of this article so far, Alexis Torrance, agrees totally with me, /in his *eythrop article mentioned by NiBioulas above as 1uncovering+ my 1dishonest+ 1distortions+ of his thought0, in, at least, three ma,or points that 3 ma%e against the ?etropolitan+s thought, namely his underplaying of nature, his disparagement of consubstantiality,

;=

and his lac% of an ontological understanding of asceticism and theological gnosiology. 8ortunately, NiBioulas has, after my article and what followed it, started to seriously reconsider the very foundations of his systemD in his paper above, as well as in all his recent publications, he constantly tries to answer almost all the points of my criticism /in spite of my 1dishonesty+0, as the careful reader will easily see ' although he curiously avoids referring to me by name. .ut even this is %er se a positive the impression of some little groups of event, since modern Arthodox theological academia, after the Gussian spiritual explosion many years ago, often gives isolated islands triumphantly claiming the absolute glory of their Neo-patristic, or Fost-patristic etc theological self-sufficiency, without serious and groundbrea%ing dialogue between them . .ut ultimate divine truth belongs to no one ' it is only possibly, humbly and partially, participated in. ;#. )ee his 1Trinitarian 8reedom! is $od 8ree in Trinitatian ife&+ in fethin)in!

Trinitarian Theolo!yj Dis%uted Questions and Contem%orary Essues in Trinitarian Theolo!y /G. (. WoBnia% and $iulio ?aspero eds0, ondon and New Ior%! T.e T. Clar%, 6>#6, p.#=5. 3 have a point to ma%e here! how can we reconcile NiBioulas+ claim, in his .elgrade paper /p.###ff0, that, /as he asserts in n.5>0, while in the fallen state of its existence the person is sub,ected to the necessity of nature, both protologically and eschatologically 1nature and person co-exist harmoniously+ /an idea recently borrowed by NiBioulas from Torrance+s article above, although he refrains from ac%nowledging it 0, with his above view that 1such an understanding of personhood as freedom from nature /author+s italics0 may be applied to the human condition in which nature is a JgivenK to the person+& *owever, as we all agree, nature #as a :!iven not after but already before the Fall. *ow then can the ?etropolitan accuse his critics of not having understood that he always identified nature with necessity only after the Fall, when he, even in his most recent articles, clearly identifies nature with necessity, even before the Fall i e not because of sin, but because nature is a :!iven for mank 8urthermore, is it not a serious contradiction to assert, against 8arrow /p.#>7f, n.:70, that the real threat for creation 1was not sin but mortality due to createdness+, attributing this view to ?aximus, and to aver, at the same time and in the very same paper, that creation became necessity, mortality, and corruption, only after the 8all, i.e. after the sin, precisely as 8arrow claimed& *owever, first, as we shall see, nature has not become a necessity for ?aximus, even

<>

after the 8allD second, ?aximus never shared NiBioulas+ position createdness as source of mortality. -ven in the very text

concerning

proposed by the

?etropolitan in n. :7 /Amb "GHI,I_KeCD9 he claims, following a long Fatristic line of thought, that, on the contrary, the cause of mortality is not createdness but human sinful activity! 1since man did not move naturally, as he was created to do, towards the unmovable /and 3 mean $od0 as his own principle, but he submitted himself to those elements that had been given to him in order for him to govern them ' he moved willingly and foolishly, by using badly the natural power given to him when he was created, in order for him to unite the divided things, /i.e. he used it0 in order to divide, on the contrary, those that were united, and thus he ris%ed piteously to return to the non being, and for that reason LQM $od becomes man to save man being lost...+. The text spea%s of itself. Nature could have not %nown corruption, if man had not sinned. We shall spea% of the Trinity below. ;6. )ee his The Christocentric Cosmolo!y of St Ma*imus the Confessor, Axford! Axford EF, 6>>9, pp.#69ff. Tollefsen has recently started to somehow modify his views. ;;. .asil the $reat, Xetter J_], <>#-<>6D $regory of Nyssa, To his brother "eter, on the difference bet#een -usia and $y%ostasis /.asil+s Xetter _e9, #=5ff / oeb0. ;;a. )ee note :9c below. ;;b. )ee his Communion and -therness, ondon, N.Ior%! TeT Clar%, pp.7=5>. ;;c. )ee my &ucharistic -ntolo!yDch. : and 7. ;<. )ee, for example, Ad Thalassium LK, F$=>, ;=5.C4, <>#C4. ;:. )ee my Closed S%irituality and the meanin! of the SelfQ, pp 6:9-;>>. ;7. )ee my -i%on and ?imesisD -ucharistic -cclesiology and the -cclesial Antology of 4ialogical Geciprocity. Enternational +ournal for the Study of Christian Church, Ool. ##, N. 6-;,6>##, pp #6;-#;7, %assim ;5. 1Trinitarian 8reedomQ+ p.6>7. ;9. )ee his Soi'mlme comme un Autre, Faris!)euil #==>, p.;95. ;=. 1Ferson insteadQp.7=>. <>. 1Trinitarian freedomQ+, pp.6>#-6>;.

<#

<#. )ee my 1Ferson insteadQ+ p.7=6. <6. op.cit. p.7=#-7=6. <6a. 1Trinitarian freedomQ+, p. 6>#. <;. Comments in the -n the Divine Names, F$ <, 6#6.. <<.Theol -r ,_,J <:. *ere 3 have to ma%e a couple of serious corrections to my article in the *eythrop (ournal /(uly 6>##, Ool.:6, N.<0, which passed unnoticed by me and caused some misunderstandings, both on p.7=6, 6nd paragraph. 8irst, in the phrase 13f they cannot be conceived in a 1successive+ way, this means that 1cause+ and 1causation+ are ultimate and reciprocal presupposition of one another+, instead of 1cause+ and 1causation+, one should read 1to cause+ and 1to be caused+. )econd and much more important, a mista%e made by an editor, in the phrase 1.y being 1caused+ willingly by the 8ather, the )on at the same 1moment+ offers to be his 1cause+ as well, and so with the )pirit+, which should read 1 .y being 1caused+ willingly by the 8ather, the )on at the same 1moment+ offers to be his 8ather+s 6c "!'#7 as well, and so with the )pirit+. Thus the Fatristic concept of the ?onarchy of the 8ather and his monocausality in the Trinity are absolutely accepted by me, albeit without having this monocausality unilaterally imposed by the 8ather upon the AthersD their reception of it forms part of its mystery. <:a. 3 find NiBioulas+ discussion pointless of whether $od+s nature constitutes a necessity for him or not, depending on whether it is connected with divine person/s0 or not, in a hy%othetical way, as he claims, trying to answer to his critics on that point /including me0 /pp #>7-#>5, n.:70. 8irst, because the $ree% 8athers never made such useless hypotheses. )econd, because NiBioulas himself never said in his writings of the past that all his discussion of the freedom of $od+s being is totally hypothetical. Third, what is the possible ontological meaning of declaring at the end of the day that the by definition non personal unmovin! mover is a necessity for itself, when, in order for this declaration to have a possible meaning, the unmovin! mover would have to possess a conscious self in relation to which one could say that he has a problem of freedomD a stone, or a river, or the hippopotamus inside the river, do they have problems of freedom& 8ourth, and foremost, ?aximus once again disagrees here, even if this discussion is, as NiBioulas wants it to be, 1hypothetical+. Arguing against Fyrrhus who claims that what is natural is always bound with necessity, ?aximus insists /F$=#,6=;C0! 1if, according to this view, anything natural is bound with <6

necessity, then $od who is $od by nature, and good by nature, and creator by nature, he is $od , good, and creator by necessityD something that even if we thin% of it /i.e. as NiBioulas wants it, hy%othetically0, it is the ultimate blasphemy. Who is the one who brings necessity to $od&+ Can we thus say that $od is $od, or good, or creator because he is personal, even hypothetically& 4on+t we thus mean, more or less, that not the whole of $od+s being is free, but there is a special part of it, called person, that liberates the rest of it& And what is the ultimate point of such a pointless discussion, which simply but persistently pro,ects some existentialistic2idealistic obsessions upon Trinitarian theology& <7. Xiber de "ersona et duabus naturis, contra &utychen et Nestorium,_ <5. )erm.6#,;:. <9. Tollefsen seems to be close to NiBioulas here, although with some nuances. )ee his boo% above, pp,#6=-#;6. <=. F$ =#, <>#.. :>. F$ =#, 6=5.C. :#. e.g. F$ =#,6=6., 6=;A, ;><.C4. :6.Dis% cum "yrrho, F$ =#, ;>94. :;.o% cit ;#;C4. :;a. NiBioulas also clearly attributes hypostatic will to the )on when he attributes to only *is hypostasis the divine logoi2wills, and not to the other persons of the Trinity, as he expliticitly says, /see paragraph < above0. *e furthermore attributes hypostatic wills to the Trinity in p.##6, n.56, when, trying to respond to my initial ob,ection against him in my *eythrop article that he uses the term person instead of grace, he claims that grace belongs not to divine nature, but to 1the Ferson of Christ+ %ar e*cellence, because otherwise this 1would amount, once more, to a dis,unction between nature and person and would contradict the principle that it is the person that moves and hypostasiBes and moves the nature+. And he brings as an argument the 33 Cor. #;,#;, when Faul spea%s of 1the grace of our ord (esus Christ, and the love of $od the 8ather, and the communion of the holy )pirit+. *owever, for the totality of the Christian tradition in -ast and West, divine !race is one and derives from the divine nature, being manifested, as love of the 8ather and communion of the *oly )pirit, throu!h the Son;Christ. Atherwise we conclude with three sorts of hypostatic manifestations of $od ad e*tra /love, grace, communion0, and, according to ?aximus, three $ods. <;

:<. md Mar F$ =#,6;54, 6<>.. ::. )ee his 1 a prifre de (csus a $esthcmani dans la controverse ?onothclite+ in Ma*imus Confessor ActesDD %% JKF'JIL :7. p.6#6. :5. md Mar F$ =#, 6;7A.C4. :9.Dis% c "yrr, F$ =#, 6=6A.. :9a. .oth (.F. ?anoussa%is /in his 1The 4ialectic of Communion and Atherness in )t ?aximus+ understanding of the Will+, in bno#in! the "ur%oseDp. #5<0, and 4..radshaw /in his 1)t ?aximus the Confessor on the will+, in bno#in! the "ur%oseDpp #::0, who explicitly draws on 4..athrellos+ Cyaantine Christ` "erson, Nature, and Will in St Ma*imus the Confessor , Axford! Axford EF 6>><0, pp #:>-:#, /which papers are both, in themselves, extremely important and insightful0 believe that ?aximus initially attributed a gnomic will to Christ, and he retracted this position during the ?onothelitic "uarrels. *owever, the passage -r Dom F$=>, 99>A, which is used as the main source for this position is, as 3 thin%, misread, since it does not refer to Christ, but to us. Thus the text reads 1*e /i.e. Christ0 made peace and reconciled us with the 8ather and each other through *imself, /up to this point 3 agree with the translation as it is referred by ?anoussa%is above0, we not having / in $ree%, AYO >=A2N7, #here the subject is us, #hile the above author arbitrarily reads here AYO >=A2N, #here the subject necessarily is, for him, Christ9 any longer the gnome resisting the logos of nature, but as #e have the nature, so #e have the gnome invariable+ ' instead of #e have, as ?aximus wants it to be, ?anoussa%is here reads $e8i e Christ9had .ut the ?aximian text is crystal clear, and cannot sustain such a reading. Thus ?aximus did not contradict himself. .radshaw, based on .athrellos, endorses this position, and claims that ?aximus would not deny a gnomic will or prohairesis to Christ, if his choice were among things, 1all of which are good+. *owever, ?aximus seems not only to deny such a position, but to characteriBe it as blasphemous /Dis% Cum "yrrho,JeeCD9 ! 1What is more impious than to claim that the same sub,ect with the same will, on the one hand, before the 3ncarnation *e created all beings out of nothing, and binds them together, and ta%es care of them, and saves them, and, on the other hand, after the 3ncarnation, *e wants food and drin%, and *e goes from place to place, and does all the rest, #hich are beyond any blame or accusation, all those thin!s throu!h #hich $e %roved that his economy #as not ima!inary /my italics0. -ven, then, according to ?aximus, if all that *e chooses is <<

good, if this choice is made through a divine gnomic will, this implies wea%ness and imperfectness, and it is 1impious+ to attribute such a gnomic will to Christ. Christ wills all the above as man, in antidosis with his divine will /see below0. :9b. Concerning that it is precisely the blameful /gYVhRhWUdiSU0 fall of man+s personal gnome2prohairesis that caused the blameless 873/S\0TNA29 fall of nature into death and corruption, see also Ad Thal LJ, F$=>, <>:.C. Thus it is nature that fell under the necessity of death and corruption created by the person, not the opposite. Note also that, for ?aximus, the blameless fall of nature does not abolish the freedom of natural will to will its integrity expressed for humans in a personal will2prohairesis through which nature+s restoration is possible! that was precisely the wor% of Christ, through the dialectic of *is two natural wills, whom we are invited to imitate / o% cit <>:C-<>=A0. :9c. )ee my &ucharistic -ntolo!y, pp #>#-#>:. Attempting to answer to my remar%s in my *eythrop article above on his tendency to suggest an 1escape from nature+, NiBioulas offers ?aximus+ &%istle H /F$=#0 as a paradigm 1which shows how wrong is to conceive of grace as an addition to or fulfilment of nature. What we have clearly in this letter of ?aximus+ is rather a ru%ture with nature, and an e)'stasis from both world and nature, the latter occupying a middle position between $od and the world+ /p.#><, n.:6, author+s italics, 3 omit the $ree% terms0. Enfortunately, the author once again misreads the text, which could not have been written by ?aximus if it had the meaning the author gives it. 3t is hard, even with NiBioulas+ criteria, to find out how the eschatological harmonious and gracious co-existence between nature and person-hypostasis that he suggests /p.###0 is to be achieved if we believe that , for ?aximus, we must be estranged from, or in e%stasis from nature in order to obtain grace. 3t is perhaps noteworthy that NiBioulas also uses the expression 1freedom not from but for nature+ /p.#>:0, thus seriously contradicting himself again on this point! in what sense we are free for nature, if we need to create a 1rupture+ with it in order to ac"uire grace& 4oes our physical existence participate in this struggle to obtain and %eep the grace, or not& et us now try to see what ?aximus says indeed. Nature in this text is truly in the middle between $od and the world, which here represents the fall of nature if man turns towards it. What happens with $od& According to ?aximus, if the natural man turns towards *im, 1$e )ee%s man a man as he is 8NAYV1PBQ B?N/ 3/7^Y0SNNB/ NA2 S2VQ5PA29, and he ma)es him in condition of God 8V>?B/ nB129, by offerin! him the diviniaation above nature, out of $is !oodness 3f <:

man+s nature is %ept 1as it is+, and no rupture with it seems necessary, while man is diviniBed, this is because diviniBation has to do with the change of the mode of e*istence of nature, and not of nature itself. ?an becomes a diviniBed man V>?B/ but not ^U?B/, i.e. full of grace as man, and not a god or an angelH Any rupture or e%stasis from nature here would have ma%e diviniBation an empty word, as it is precisely nature that is diviniBed, throu!h the hy%er %hysin mode of e*istence !iven to it throu!h the Encarnation There seems to exist, for the Confessor, a continuity of nature with grace, since the divine logoi of beings also form existential ways toward $od, i.e. ways toward the 1accomplishment+ of those beings into the 1eternal well being+/ )ee the text Ad Thal ]I, 7<:A. above, and my &ucharistic -ntolo!y, pp9<990. 3t is obvious that for ?aximus the 1fulfilment of nature+ in the gracious divine mode of existence, forms the only reason for the 3ncarnation. := The texts are given by Firret, below. 3n his n.56 /p.##60, NiBioulas tries to place his ideas of a rupture between nature and grace in a Christological perspective. This is precisely what 3 called in my *eythrop article a Christolo!y of esca%e Theosis /diviniBation0 is now above nature precisely because, according to the ogos+, Who helps beings to author, grace is now identified with 1the Ferson of

somehow ecstatically, as he claims, escape their nature, as 1the concepts of aji] k`^YS and of [l]YZ coincide+. *owever, the ?etropolitan, unfortunately, once again misreads the ?aximian text that he uses / Ad Thal F$=>, ;6<A.0. The Confessor here simply says that 1human being does not possess either the power of the hyperbeing or that of non being+, %recisely because human bein! is not by nature God , and, second that, since he did not create his self out of nothin!, he is unable to return to this nothin!ness. Therefore, as a conse"uence, human being 1does not have the power either to ac"uire theosis by nature+ /i.e. without the assistance of grace0, or not to 1suffer the wic%edness as a result of our choices against nature, since we do not either have the natural power to invent wic%edness. Thus in this life we practice virtues, since we have by nature the power for that, while we suffer theosis in the future, by accepting as a gift the grace for this suffering.+ 3t is totally impossible to find in this text any allusion of rupture between nature and grace, and ?aximus does not exclusively identify here grace with the theosis in the future, unless we admit that the practice of 1natural+ virtues in this life can be accomplished without graceH After all, those virtues we have the 1natural+ power to accomplish are already grace, i.e. divine logoi2wills /see n. :9c above0.3t is thus impossible to disconnect the concept of nature <7

from that of grace in ?aximus. Enfortunately, NiBioulas usually misreads the Confessor+s texts, and forces them, by pro,ecting upon them his preconceived personalistic persuasion, to ma%e them say /if we spea% of academic honesty, as he does0 what he wants them to say. .ut 3 thin% that he thus strips ?aximus from what is precisely his most valuable contribution to modern theological "uestQ 7>. F. Firret,Q..p.66#. 7#. F$ =#, ::6A. 76. G. A. ?ar%us, Saeculum` $istory and Society in the Theolo!y of St Au!ustine, Cambridge! Cambridge EF, p.5=. 7;. 7<. )ee his Entroduction to Meta%hysics, 333,3O,6. 7:. (ac"ues acan, 1The ?irror )tage as 8ormative of the 3 8unction as Gevealed in Fsychoanalytic -xperience+ in his &crits, /.ruce 8in% transl.0, New Ior%, ondon! W.W. Norton, p.5=. 77. )ee his The &*%erience of God -rthodo* Do!matic Theolo!y gol t#o` The World` Creation and Deification, .roo%line ?ass.! *oly Cross Arthodox Fress, 6>>>, pp =5-#>>. 75. pp. =5-=9. 79. p. ==. 7=. p 59. 5>. p. 75. 5#. p. 79. 56. p.5=. 5;. pp 96,6>7. 5<. p.56. 5:. p. 9<. 57. p.9:. 55. p. #>5. 59. p.9<. 5=. 3n my Closed S%iritualityDch.6,;,;h.

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