The Concept of the Gnomic Will in St.

Maximus the Confessor

Nick Calibey

Theological students (and, apparently, especially converts) sometimes tend to act if they are omniscient when it comes to theological matters. Yet, this last semester in my Church History class, as we were going over the monothelite controversy1 it became uite apparent that no one really !new what "t. #a$imus% doctrine of the gnomic will was. "ome suggested that it was an additional will ac uired at the fall (it%s not), others & rather most & remained silent, li!ely to avoid espousing heresy. #e, being one of those omniscient theological students (and, even worse, a convert') decided to read multiple boo!s on "t. #a$imus% theology and even had my girlfriend buy me On the Cosmic Mystery of Christ for my name(day present. This blog post is a rather modest attempt to e$plain what the gnomic will in its most basic form. ) profess that ) am by no means an e$pert on #a$imus, having only read a few monographs and some direct sources, but ) do believe it is enough to flesh out the concept for others to understand at a rudimentary level. )n his wor!s, "t. #a$imus uses a variety of words interchangeably and inconsistently, a style that can ma!e his wor! uite difficult to weave through (*athrellos 1+,).+ However, this cannot be solely attributed to the saint as #a$imus discovered, for e$ample, -that the term %gnomie% has many different meanings in the Holy "criptures and in the Holy .athers/ which called for careful discernment to identify the multiple nuances.0 However, in his Disputation with Pyrrhus, #a$imus articulates a distinction between the will as a faculty of nature, and the mode of willing which relates to the hypostasis1 -The will and the mode of willing are not the same, 2ust as the power of sight and the mode of perception are not the same. 3ill, li!e sight, is of nature. 4ll things which have identical nature have identical abilities. *ut the mode of willing, li!e the mode of perception & in other words, to will to wal! or to will not to wal!, and the perception of the right hand or of the left, or of up or down, or the contemplation of concupiscence or of the rational principles in beings & is only a mode of the use of a power, of the employment of will and of perception. 4nd the same distinction may be applied to other things as well. These things demonstrate that have, by nature, the will to eat or not to eat, to wal! or not to wal!. *ut these negatives are not applicable to the will as such, but only to the particular mode of willing./5 The distinction is absolutely vital, for if the natural will is located in the hypostasis as the monothelists believed, then either the one will of 6od implied "abellianism since there would
1 #onothelitism is the heresy that claimed Christ only had one will (though there are many permutations of the basic theological point). "t. #a$imus% and "t. "ophronios% dyothelitism was upheld as 7rthodo$ by the decisions of the si$th 8cumenical Council (Constantinople )))) in 9:1 4.;. .or a general overview of the controversy see ;emetrios *athrellos, The Byzantine Christ: Person, Nature, an !ill in the Christolo"y of #aint Ma$imus the Confessor (<ew Yor!, <Y1 7$ford =niversity >ress, +,,5), 9,(?:@ Aoseph >. .arrell, %ree Choice in #t& Ma$imus the Confessor ("outh Canan, >41 "t. Ti!hon%s "eminary >ress, 1?:?), 9B(:5@ Aohn #eyendorff, 'mperial (nity an Christian De)isions, The Church in History vol. )) (Crestwood, <Y1 "aint Cladimir%s "eminary >ress, ), 000( B0. + .or e$ample, the word DEFGHI means %will% when used in Disputatio +?+*, ; and +?0 4, but means %the mode of willing% in 7pusc. 0, 5:4. *athrellos, The Byzantine Christ, 1+,, n. 110. 0 "t. #a$mimus the Confessor, The Disputation !ith Pyrrhus of our %ather *mon" the #aints Ma$imus the Confessor, Aoseph >. .arrell trans., ("outh Canan, >41 "t. Ti!hon%s "eminary >ress, 1??,), 05. ) have ta!en some of the Aacobean language .arrell uses for his translation and substituted it with modern english usage instead, i.e. %does% instead of %doth%. 5 )bid. 1,(11.

only be one hypostasis, or that the three persons of the Trinity implied that there were three different wills1 -.or if one suggests that a %willer% is implied in the notion of the will, then by the e$act inversion of this principle of reasoning, a will is implied in the notion of a %willer.% Thus, will you say that because of the one will of the superessential 6odhead there is only one hypostasis, as did "abellius, or that because there are three hypostases there are also three wills, and because of this, three natures as well, since the canons and definitions of the .athers say that the distinction of wills implies a distinction of naturesJ "o said 4rius'/K 3ith the distinction between the natural will and the mode of willing, we can now begin to understand the gnomic will. The gnomic will is -one sub(category within the much larger category of %the mode of willing%/ which relates to -a mode of willing, but is so %in relation to some real or assumed good.%/ .arrell%s uotation from #a$imus, that the gnomic will relates to -some real or assumed good,/ means that -the gnomic will is a form of actualiLation of the human natural will that is mar!ed by sinfulness,/ since our deliberation means we are sub2ect to -ignorance...to mutability, to the possibility of committing evil deeds, to passions and to actual sinfulness,/ all realities that pertain to fallen human hypostases.9 Thus, Christ lac!s a gnomic will since his hypostasis is that of the second member of the Trinity, the Mogos. 3hile one might claim this diminishes Christ%s humanity, it does not, -for "nome does not pertain to the logos of nature (+,-./ 01234/) but is a mode of use (56,7./ 869234/) through which we gain e$perience of the ways in which the good is achieved./B Thus, #a$imus says, -the humanity of Christ does not simply subsist Nin a mannerO similar to us, but divinely, for He who appeared in the flesh for our sa!es was 6od. )t is thus not possible to say that Christ had a gnomic will./: )t should be noted that the gnomic will pertains to fallen human hypostases and not the human hypostasis as such.? This means that the saints in heaven whose wills are deified (2ust as Christ%s was even during his ministry) will still maintain their free(choice despite the fact they will no longer be able to sin.1, .or those whose wills have been deified, there still e$ists differing options, but each and every choice is good. There will be no more deliberating over what is right, e$amining our options, weighing the conse uences, being uncertain about the outcome, etc., rather the saints choose from a variety of e ually good options in which the outcome is already !nown. The saints -wills will move in different ways, and they will vary in regard to their mo e of moving (5 5/ :;<9234/ 56,7). The saints in heaven will have a (sinless) mode of

K )bid. K(9. .arrell%s footnote is also worth uoting1 -*ecause our Mord e$hibited a will distinct from the .ather at 6ethsemane, 4rius maintained that He was only the highest of creatures. )n doing so, 4rius accepts the principle that the faculty of will and its operations are rooted in nature, but he denies that there are two natures in Christ. He thus confesses his own type of #onotheletism./ "ee also *athrellos, Byzantine Christ, 10,. 9 *athrellos, Byzantine Christ, 10+(00. B )bid. 1KB. : Disputation, 0+. *rac!ets are .arrell%s. ? *athrellos, Byzantine Christ, 1K9. 1, .arrell, %ree Choice, 111(1K. )t should be noted that *athrellos disagrees with .arrel on point, saying that -.arrell...has...misinterpreted this passage by arguing that for #a$imus, proairesis belongs to human nature, and that the saints in heaven will have a proairesis which will not be moved by the %things in the middle%...for #a$imus, the saints in heaven will not have a proairesis but only an active intellectual desire (PGQHR IGPSR ITGP1 Opusc& ), +5C)./ *athrellos, Byzantine Christ, 1K?. *athrellos on page 15? says that -Proairesis relates to deliberation (=.>+ or =.1+3>2;/), which is a searching appetite (63?;/ @A5A5;:9)./

willing./11 Thus #a$imus avoids the trap of multiple falls that 7rigen fell into, while preserving the 6od(given faculty of free(will.1+ Bibliography *athrellos, ;. The Byzantine Christ: Person, Nature, an !ill in the Christolo"y of #aint Ma$imus the Confessor. <ew Yor!, <Y1 7$ford =niversity >ress, +,,5. .arrell, A. >. %ree Choice in #t& Ma$imus the Confessor. "outh Canan, >41 "t. Ti!hon%s "eminary >ress, 1?:?. UUUUUUUUU, trans. The Disputation with Pyrrhus of our %ather *mon" the #aints Ma$imus the Confessor. "outh Canan, >41 "t. Ti!hon%s "eminary >ress, 1??,.

11 *athrellos, Byzantine Christ, 1K?. )talics are *athrellos%s. 1+ .arrell, %ree Choice, ?,.