ΖΙΖΙΟULAS-staniloae

8/13/2019 ULAS-staniloae

1/47

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 themost 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 andunexpected 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

#


2/47

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 #:;: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 withan 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 yons to ?aximus the

Confessor. This 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

rigenistic understanding of the 1last things+, which, although not uridical, neverthelessinhibits any plausible filling out of an authentically ontological understanding of them. efore

6


3/47

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 3, 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+ / misericordes 0.< 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. ;


4/47

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 ttoman 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:!


5/47

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!os 2will. 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(stia 0 rather than the 1non-use+ / achr(stia 0 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+. #:; 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

5


8/47

$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 self-

completeness at the opposite pole to the !ood D 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 iBioulas, 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 rigenism 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

9


9/47

by these criteria turning the flow of rthodox 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 rthodox 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 thernessD

(. iBioulas+ final Theological Fosition+, (uly 6>##, Ool.:6, n.#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. nce 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

iBioulas 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 JfreeKindividual who can distance himself from nature+ / o% cit0. This claim seems, at least

=


10/47

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 iBioulas 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,

iBioulas correctly assumes that nature is defined by ?aximus 1not in itself but in

relation with hypostasis+. ut then he goes on "uoting the 67: 0. The Aristotelian2Neoplatonic 1vicious circle+ of the

#>


11/47

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 iBioulas 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. n 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 1 he 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 philosophicalattempt for a transcendental2detached construal of hypostasis2person. A supposedly

##


12/47

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 iBioulas+ position that 1 it 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

iBioulas, 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 logos2will2Frovidence, in order for man to build his personal otherness throu!h and u%on it

#6


13/47

Against any existentialist2idealist devaluation of nature, where, according to

iBioulas, 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 iBioulas 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 iBioulas 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 naturemade by the personalists, is totally misleading and pointless for )t ?aximus. 3f then

#;


14/47

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 iBioulas+

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 self-

existing 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

iBioulas 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 /;


15/47

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

iBioulas, 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

1-6 B43B/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 / ne, Nous,

Fsyche0, and the Christian Trinity. The Flotinian *ypostases represent three non-

consubstantial 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 ein!, 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, iBioulas avers,referring to me, that 1those, therefore, who refer to the ousia /or the homousion0 as

#:


16/47

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%iriruality , 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 iBioulas , Iannaras, and others do. 3t is precisely in this

incorrect way that iBioulas, 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 3nfinity2 ther. 3f we apply Gicoeur+s criticism in

relation to this evinasian2 iBioulean 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 fromselfhood and individuality+0 /;90. 3t is precisely this danger of an ecstatic and

#7


17/47

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 iBioulas+

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 /


18/47

thers. This affirmation is not of course automatic, since it represents the intra-

Trinitarian 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

^`SSR ^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 /


19/47

former %erson, 1 due to the poverty of their language+ /


20/47

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 iBioulas, 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.


21/47

manifests the logoi in communion with the three other Fersons, but *e is not their

exclusive hypostatic 1possessor+ ' there exists an underlying problem in iBioulas

regarding the function of the divine will here, as we shall see below.

:. ut let us now switch to iBioulas+ 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 /


22/47

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. therwise, 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.

iBioulas 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 iBioulas 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 iBioulas 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


23/47

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 / BY3 O479of *is

8ather , and realises it / 7Y Y Z47,i.e. *e is the one Who brings it forth0, in the *oly

)pirit, Who co-operates / ?Y2B Z479/:


24/47

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 iBioulas, 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 thel, 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\742 2 79

#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


25/47

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` V Y, 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 #ill because the Fathers

#ill also belon!s to him, as he is God himself by nature /6=5A ,

;6>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 iBioulas 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 wee* definitio prioritiBe person over nature /1the person leads, the

6:


26/47

natures follow+, according to iBioulas-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 iBioulas,

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 tri-

hypostatic affirmation of the one divine nature in dialogical inter-

giveness 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 1hypostaticwill+, but a Triune manifestation through Christ, Whose will is

67


27/47

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 iBioulas, 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 fall D let us search again for the witness of the texts, reading closely

precisely the text that he uses, namely Questiones ad Thalassium ]I /F$ =>,769A-

7


28/47

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!!estion D 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 P7 = ?/s /bad use0,

which tends to destroy not the divine logoi that always sustain it, but its O7 ^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, iBioulas 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 weseparate them. Now, freedom lies both behind nature, concerning the way of its very

69


29/47

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 iBioulas, 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 dia-

logically 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 somethingcosmologically 1higher+ and something 1lower+. 3t is one best expressed in temporal

6=


30/47

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 rigen, 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


31/47

8r 4umitru )taniloae is widely and deservedly respected as one of the

greatest rthodox 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 rthodox theology. *e vivified 4ogmatic

theology, he became one of the most faithful interpreters of rthodox 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

rthodox 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 especiallyin ?aximus, that not simply the soul but the human being as a whole is created in the

;#


32/47

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


33/47

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

rthodox 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 rthodox 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 rthodox 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

;;


34/47

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 isthe absolute narcissistic enclosure within oneself, in an imaginary superiority that

;


35/47

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....

N T )

#. Christopher asch, The Culture of Narcissism , New Ior%! Norton #=59D see

the Addendum of #=9, pp. 6


36/47

9. Gobert (enson, Systematic Theolo!y , xford! xford Eniversity Fress, #===,

vol. 6, pp. ;:=-;79.

=. Faul vdo%imov, -rthodo*ie, Neuchatel! 4elachaux et Niestl , #=:=D $ree%

trans. Thessaloni%i! Gigopoulos, #=56, pp. >=, pp. #=-;#.

#A.

#7. ?aximus the Confessor, Dis%utation #ith "yrrhus , F$ =#, 6=; C4.

#5. ?aximus the Confessor, garious Cha%ters


37/47

6>. 3t is extremely indicative that even the greatest modern defenders of rigen

thin% that he was the first to identify the nature of beings with the evil of a

fundamental fall. Thus *. CrouBel, -ri!en , dinburgh! T T Clar%, #=9= p.

6#:, writes! 1if the 4evil is called /in rigen0 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. ;:


38/47

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 h(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#


39/47

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 eit 0 and subse"uently in a whole raft of existentialists,

personalists and phenomenologists, etc., such as ?arcel, ?ounier, ?erleau-

Fonty, 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., no#in! the "ur%ose of Creation Throu!h the

esurrection "roceedin!s of the Sym%osium on Ma*imus the Confessor, elgrade,ctober #9-6#, 6>#6, Alhambra, California! )ebastian Fress the 8aculty of

rthodox Theology-Eniv. of elgrade, pp 9:-##;. 3n p.#>7, n. :


40/47

and his lac% of an ontological understanding of asceticism and theological gnosiology.

8ortunately, iBioulas 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

event, since modern rthodox theological academia, after the Gussian spiritual

explosion many years ago, often gives the impression of some little groups of

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 ethin)in!

Trinitarian Theolo!y Dis%uted Questions and Contem%orary Essues in Trinitarian

Theolo!y /G. (. WoBnia% and $iulio ?aspero eds0, ondon and New Ior%! T. T.

Clar%, 6>#6, p.#=5. 3 have a point to ma%e here! how can we reconcile iBioulas+

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 iBioulas 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


41/47

after the 8allD second, ?aximus never shared iBioulas+ position concerning

createdness as source of mortality. ven in the very text proposed by the

?etropolitan in n. :7 / Amb "GHI,I_K CD9 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,

xford! xford 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 _ 9, #=5ff

/ oeb0.

;;a. )ee note :9c below.

;;b. )ee his Communion and -therness, ondon, N.Ior%! T T Clar%, pp.7=-

5>.

;;c. )ee my &ucharistic -ntolo!y ch. : and 7.

;, ;=5 C4, #C4.

;:. )ee my Closed S%irituality and the meanin! of the Self Q, pp 6:9-;>>.

;7. )ee my i%on and ?imesisD ucharistic cclesiology and the cclesial

ntology 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'm me comme un Autre , Faris!)euil #==>, p.;95.

;=. 1Ferson insteadQp.7=>.

. 1Trinitarian freedomQ+, pp.6>#-6>;.


42/47


43/47

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 iBioulas wants it, hy%othetically 0, 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&

94.

:;. o% cit;#;C4.

:;a. iBioulas 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 . therwise we conclude with three sorts of hypostatic

manifestations of $od ad e*tra /love, grace, communion0, and, according to?aximus, three $ods.


44/47

:


45/47

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 / YV R U SU0 fall of man+s

personal gnome2prohairesis that caused the blameless 873/ \0 29 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+, iBioulas 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.#>: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

8 YV1PB B? / 3/7^Y0 B/ 2 2V 5P 29, and he ma)es him in condition of God8V>?B/ B129, by offerin! him the divini ation above nature, out of $is !oodness 3f


46/47

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


47/47

from that of grace in ?aximus. Enfortunately, iBioulas 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

Documents

ΖΙΖΙΟULAS-staniloae