AUGUST 2005 - ISSUE 5 - ISSN 1448 - 632

MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR'S CHRISTOLOGICAL EPISTEMOLOGY     CULLAN WOODS - JOYCE

 

ABSTRACT

Maximus the Confessor is consistently a Christ-centered thinker of the seventh century who focuses on the importance of the incarnation in the deification of the human and the divinization of the cosmos.  The incarnation is an event that facilitates the ascetic’s gradual recognition that objects in the world have a divine source and finality. For Maximus, knowledge of Christ enables the recognition of objects in their true nature. Although seldom discussed, Maximus’ mystical epistemology is an important and interesting aspect of his theology.

Maximus the Confessor is widely acknowledged as the leading Chalcedonian theologian of the seventh century, [1] yet he has only recently been re-discovered in the west. [2]  He was influenced by mainstream orthodox theologians[3] and also some sources considered outside orthodoxy.[4] His theology was mainly formulated in response to queries; however, it contains consistent themes.[5] In this essay I will discuss his epistemology using McFarland’s article[6] and Maximus’ own texts. First I will note Maximus’ essentially Christocentric method for encountering the various issues. Then I will outline the relationship of Maximus’ pedagogical epistemology to the transformation of the passions and the sacramental result of this reordering.

What is the Knower composed of?

The human is a composite of body and soul. [7] The definition of the soul is based in the general Christian Platonic tradition. The soul is composed of two parts in Maximus, the rational part and the ‘more irrational’[8] part where the passions reside, also called the passionate parts of the soul. The irrational part of the soul is also divided into two, one part named the desiring and the other incensive, which is the motivational aspect of the soul[9].   The passions take their most permanent root in the irrational parts. However, the irrational parts are still open to recapitulation (transformation) through acceptance of God's will, and the application of the rationally ordered will to the continual conversion of the entire person through grace . The propensities within the soul to a degree determine the nature of the object and the association with the object of sense discrimination to which the soul applies attention.[10]

What is Maximus’ Epistemology?

This section of the essay will follow Ian McFarland’s article on Maximus’ epistemology. I will also introduce the concept of ‘natures’ or logoi (particular created natures)[11]. However, first one should be aware that the process of knowledge mirrors the ‘threefold’ pattern of theosis which I will generally follow in this essay:

Through the working out of the commandments the mind puts off the passions. Through the spiritual contemplation of visible realities it puts off impassioned thoughts of things. Through the knowledge of invisible realities it puts off contemplation of visible things. And finally this it puts off through knowledge of the Holy Trinity.[12]

Before moving onto the details of Maximus’ epistemology we must note the objects known: the natures. A nature is a principle possessing being. They are reflected in material creation. They have their source in the Logos but being distinct and numerous they are termed logoi. All principles are created by God, they are given being through the Logos. Natures have a “…participation in the divine properties...”.[13] They are essentially good,[14] and have their genesis, their continuity and end, in God, though they may be employed in a way contrary to their original purpose.  Though God ‘surrounds’ them it does not mean that a rational creature does not have the freedom to choose; the human person has freedom intrinsic to its nature (also known as passibility).[15] Not even by an act of free will can a logos violate its essential property of being, nor can another principle destroy it: only God can grant being.[16]  How a nature exists in the world may be altered according to a choice for good or evil. For Maximus the choice for good or evil is a choice for being or non-being.[17] It is in this aspect of neutrality (the ability to be subject to various different apprehensions) that a logos is encountered once the soul has begun to put off the impassioned thoughts. Hence once improper association has been put off then further movement towards the positive appropriation of sense objects may occur. Prior to this reordering, the association with and imprinting of negative habits onto the soul’s faculties through the senses is a cause of the continual inappropriate sensual associations with external sense objects. “God…brought creatures into being…so that they might participate in Him in proportion to their capacity…”[18] The importance of correct association with these principles underlies Maximus’ understanding of the world. Though creation has autonomous value and integrity it is still liable to misuse and misunderstanding. The neutrality of these natures means that in an incorrect encounter, the subject is led incorrectly by their incorrect apprehension of them, though it does not damage the principle reflected in the object.

Maximus’ Basic Epistemology

McFarland sums up Maximus’ epistemology regarding material and intelligible objects, in two distinct ways: “Knowing…involves an ascent from the particular data of sensory experience to the noetic realm of concepts.”[19] And: “[knowledge is not gathered solely] by means of a progressive abstraction from the concrete and particular, but through sustained and deliberate attention to the particular as it exists in and is illumined by Christ.”[20] Knowledge comes as a result of an abstracting from the realm of the senses into one of intellect. McFarland’s second quote takes into account the asceticism required in order to apprehend an object in its true nature. For Maximus, any projection onto an object of possible apprehension renders our perception of this object false or misleading. Therefore from Maximus’ most basic statements on how an object appears to the mind through the senses, the consideration is eminently ascetical. The degree to which we engage the world, having purified the mind of passions, is the degree to which we apprehend the objects of sense as they actually exist. However, the need for a mediator (Christ) is not negated after the recovery of the clearer use of our natural faculties.

The role of Christ assisting the knower[21]

For this section I will follow the text of Difficulty 10. When the disciples recognised Christ’s “great awesomeness…they passed over from the flesh to spirit, before they had put aside this fleshy life…”[22] This aspect of Maximus’ ascetical epistemology relates to the initial disengagement or purification of the soul from the passionate association with external objects. Objects known through passions are recognized in a false way not because they are inherently flawed, but because the soul, working out of the internal propensities, is unable to clearly recognize the object apart from the impositions of the soul. These are known as compounded thoughts.[23] A thought which imputes an extraneous factor onto an object that is simple and neutral in itself are said to associate with that object, not in itself, but as it is designated through the soul’s (passionate) propensities. In other words, the projection onto or improper mental use of an object, encounters it in a way distinct from its original natural simplicity. It is a movement or encounter contrary to nature.[24]  This movement of the soul is reordered through the keeping of the commandments. When the passions begin to subside, then through the agency of Christ one can begin to encounter the essential nature of the created principles through the Word.

The recognition of Christ as the creator and eschatological fulfilment of creation is a cause and a condition for the initial putting aside of the “fleshly life” which manifests in the imposition of impassionate thoughts onto objects. However, this initial detachment from sense pleasure is a partial purification; the subject does not yet encounter external objects in their purity. [25] The dispassionate intellect strives to encounter objects and their purpose clearly, though it is unable to through its own powers. Assisted striving may uncover objects in a simple way (the subject no longer associates with them with passions contrary to nature), but they cannot be stainlessly comprehended unless they are seen within their being grounded in the Word through whom they were created. “Apart from the Logos, our knowledge of creatures is distorted and imperfect. . .”[26]  Christ is the agent that reveals the nature and purpose of creation itself.

What role does Christ the Word play in this initial purification?

Ambiguum 10 uses the terms ‘recognized’ and ‘revealed’ that have a strong connotation of a hidden thing revealed through Christ. Christ reveals the “spiritual meanings [logoi] of the things that were shown to them…”[27] Christ reveals the proper end of objects by embodying the eschatological fulfilment of creation in himself. McFarland argues that Maximus holds the view that knowledge of the source and purpose of the nature of created objects is given only through the combination of the striving of the dispassionate soul towards knowledge of beings, and the condescension of Christ to creation.[28]  The process of emptying ourselves of passions imitates the incarnation: “By emptying themselves of passions they lay hold of the divine to the same [extent] as that to which, deliberately emptying himself of his own sublime glory, the logos of God truly became man.”[29] Once the logoi are encountered through the Word and seen in their original neutrality they can now be employed to a spiritual propensity rather than for the sake of sensual pleasure. The soul, occupied in Christ, now moves outward in response to the underlying purpose of natures, rather than the desire for objects of sense.[30]

When the soul encounters logoi in the way appropriate to their original purpose and creation, that is, as they are moving towards their creator who is their purpose of existence, this creation is seen as having its purpose in, and possessing attributes of, the divine. Maximus consistently reiterates that creation is good in itself inasmuch as it is from God. Moreover McFarland argues that the revelation of the purpose of creation also opens the way for the perception of God’s created attributes.[31]  Here he refers to actual participatory knowledge of the creature of the divine attributes (eternality, infinitude, wisdom, goodness etc). [32] These created realities include the attributes of the divine being given to creatures, such as goodness. These are seen in their proper context in the Word. The encounter with the divine attributes in beings is derived from the recognition of their corporate indwelling in Christ.

Knowledge of the created principles (logoi) through Christ

This level of knowledge after the stage of praktike corresponds to the stage of theoria, when, through the agency of the Word, the subject begins to encounter the logoi or principles of creation reflected in sensory objects in their relationship to the Word and all creation within the word.  McFarland notes that for Maximus the knowledge of the divine attributes in the logoi is not only a detached, purely conceptual recognition, but an actual participation or methexis.[33] The attributes revealed through the Word are created so they are not the final object of knowledge.[34] This is not yet an ecstatic knowing in God. Without the mediation of Christ through the assumption of our nature we cannot apprehend creation in its proper mode, let alone participate clearly in the divine attributes that are displayed through creation. Even in the final stage of theologia there is a mediated quality to the engagement with higher realities in Maximus’ thought. However, there is a strong element in Maximus in being able to ‘go beyond’ or encounter in a non-incarnated way, the divine Word.

Christ’s role in ecstatic knowledge[35]

Christ’s role in all aspects of knowing (which is a gradual and ascetic process) is both as mediator of divine knowledge[36], and as a guide accompanying the ascetic. Christ reveals to the intellect that desires to know God the knowledge of the divine inasmuch as the person may receive it. Louth points out that theologia, which is a description of the ecstatic reverence for God, is a state of being rather than an event.[37] This final stage of knowing is transformative.  In this state there is the encounter of the ground that underlies the logoi, the ground, giving life to, and guiding creation but in its ‘nakedness’. The transcendent ground is Christ the Word.[38] Within this final unknowing gnosis the possibility of effective description falls away: “Jesus’ status as the unapproachable light…far from constituting an exception to…God’s transcendence is the definitive witness to the divine unknowability.”[39] Though the final manner of assistance or description of theologia may be indescribable, that Christ is the pivotal element in this ‘final’ point[40], and that ecstatic knowledge of the trinity is transformative, is a consistent point of agreement among interpreters of Maximus.[41]

The Pedagogical Reordering of the Soul by Knowledge

The significant aspect that accompanies these stages of knowing is the pedagogical aspect present with a consistent dwelling on an object apprehended. We imitate or learn from the object of our observance. To know an object is to be transformed by it into its own image: this goes for the encounter with the most simple ‘object’ of contemplation, God, to sensual objects subject to compounded thoughts. So to abide consistently in impassioned thoughts, one comes to resemble those thoughts:

When the intellect gives attention to conceptual images of physical objects, it is assimilated to the configuration of each image. If it contemplates these objects spiritually, it is transformed in the various ways according to which of them it contemplates. But once it is established in God, it loses form and configuration altogether for by contemplating Him who is simple it becomes simple itself and wholly filled with spiritual radiance.[42]

When the divine is contemplated or participated in, we come to resemble the object and are deified in Christ, even as Christ became flesh.[43] The incarnation is the essential paradigm outlining the process of the gradual assent/ascent of the human to God. “God and man are paradigms one of another, that as much as God is humanised to man through love for mankind, so much is man able to be deified to God through love. . .”[44] Therefore the process of knowing an object is intimately connected with coming to an understanding of Christ, as well as the ascetic struggle.

The reordering through knowledge assumes the directed employment of the soul’s energy towards the object desired which results in the giving of attention. Maximus argues that the will is imperative for distinguishing between the passionate representation of things and the things themselves.[45]  The reordering of the will is simultaneous with the re-ordering of the other aspects of the soul. The soul cannot function naturally towards an object of goodness while any aspect of the soul is occupied, or primarily directed to, entanglement with a compounded projection. The intellect, the soul, comes to resemble the object of its sustained apprehension. Maximus uses the example of a seal: “A seal conforms to the stamp against which it is pressed”.[46]

The ‘Blessed Passion of Holy love’

The appropriation of the object within the subject does not remain at the level of intellect, even though the intellect may be the primary way we recognise God. The reordering of the soul takes place gradually and in various ways in the subject whose soul gradually ascends to the Divine.[47] This reordering through the purification and redirection of the desiring component of the soul is described by Louth as occurring through the ‘blessed passion of holy love’ that the soul becomes acquainted with.[48] The reordering is actually a re-unifying of the soul through love.[49] The soul begins to reorder itself according to the object that it now rests upon; she seeks out the object of her affection. When the habit becomes adapted to contemplation and the will is gradually reordered through grace, the seats of the soul become resonant with God. “The perfect soul is one whose affective drive is wholly directed to God.”[50] The soul, in the process, is no longer as concerned with maintaining a self-generated imposition upon a creation that has revealed itself in God. Instead she seeks out the ground of creation in Christ the Word made flesh. Christ is now planted within the deepest seat of the human and the human seeks him out in the world.

The Transformation of Passions in Maximus

The person engaging continually in ascetic effort with faith grows continually in grace and becomes a visible sign of the divine in the world, so that they act in the world in such a way that imitates the incarnation, and makes God known to the cosmos through them. The sacramentality of the deified ascetic is not an unusual element of early Christian monastic doctrine. Origen and the early desert fathers spoke of it in various forms such as transparency.[51] Cooper specifically argues for the presence of a sacramental effectivity within the subject that can bind others to God through this incarnated love. [52] To quote Maximus:  “By constant straining toward God, he becomes God and is called ‘a portion of God’ because he has become fit to participate in God.”[53]

Conclusion

Intimately bound up with knowledge of objects is the ascetical life. The transformation of the human person arises from Maximus’ understanding of the nature and mode of the incarnation. The incarnation is the essential paradigm outlining the process of the gradual assent of the human to God. Essential to this process of purification, however, is the ascetical life that aims at securing the abiding of Christ within the soul. The initial reordering of the soul through the observance of the commandments also secures the gradual disengagement from the passions that we incorrectly impute upon created natures. Secondly the understanding or participation in the divine attributes in created natures as mediated through the source of creation, the Word, is the second way in which we gradually assume our likeness to the divine. Finally we disengage even from these lofty contemplations and dwell within God through grace, thus becoming portions of God in Him. In every stage Christ as mediator and guide may be clearly seen –  without his presence the ascetical life could progress, but only partially and without ultimate success. Without the dual elements of Christ and ascetic effort the knowledge of external objects is deceptive and shadowy. This is a very interesting aspect of Maximus’ thought and worthy of greater discussion.

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Footnotes