St. Maximos and Two Wills

[Ignatius21]

Can anyone help me sort something out?

I've read through a fair amount of material on the issues surrounding the 6th Ecumenical Council and the Orthodox decision on the two wills of Christ. What I've gleaned, is that those who followed Maximos the Confessor, confessed that a "will" is proper to a nature, and thus if Christ had two natures, he necessarily had two wills. But I can't actually figure out just what a "natural will" really means. It seems to convey more the sense of desire, or even bent, whereas the faculty of actually choosing according to one's strongest desire, is a faculty not of the will, but of the person. I *think* this is what is meant by the "gnomic will?"

So my takeaway so far is this: the human will, proper to human nature, was created to be in willing submission to God. The highest desire of human nature is to be in fellowship and communion with God, which entails obedience and all that goes with it. But due to the fall into sin, every human person is somehow separated from the true desires of his humanity, and instead has carnal desires that war against what he was really created to be. Without God's grace, a person will choose sinful passions because he desires those things. But when united to Christ, the process begins of healing the whole person, including his "gnomic will," to the point of theosis, when he will always choose to serve God, because he will no longer desire anything other than to serve God. Thus salvation is a matter of healing human persons, so that they become cleansed of their sinful passions and attachments, and nothing stands in the way of them acting according to their human nature. This is also expressed as becoming the likeness of God, while by nature they always have been in the image of God (likeness being more about the person, and image being more about the nature).

Also, since Christ's human nature was "divinized" by full and total union with his divine nature, he actually had no "gnomic will" because for him, there was never any stronger desire than to submit to the Father.

Am I just making stuff up here?

I know there are some well-informed patristics people lurking around here. Please, jump in!

 

[Lukaris]

Does this quote from St. Maximos answer your question?:


. He restores human nature to itself. First, He became man and kept His will dispassionate and free from rebellion against nature, so that it did not waver in the slightest from its own natural movement even with regard to those who crucified Him; on the contrary, it chose death for their sake instead of life, thereby demonstrating the voluntary character of His passion, rooted as it is in His love for humankind. Second, having nailed to the Cross the record of our sins (cf. Col. 2:14), He abolished the enmity which led nature to wage an implacable war against itself; and having summoned those far off and those near at hand - that is, those under the Law and those outside it – and having broken down the obstructive partition-wall - that is, having explained the law of the commandments in His teaching to both these categories of humankind - He formed the two into one new man, making peace and reconciling us through Himself to the Father and to one another (cf. Eph. 2:14-16): our will is no longer opposed to the principle of nature, but we adhere to it without deviating in either will or nature.

Saint Maximos the Confessor on The Lord's Prayer

The qutoes from St. Maximos from his "On the Lord's Prayer" in the Philokalia are enrirely good from the link since I verified it with my paperback of the Philokalia vol, II. I was not sure if the poster had remebered to cite it on facebook. I have to confess it is a bit deep for me but seems to fit the bill.

 

[Kristos]

What you are saying sounds pretty much correct to me except that the gnomic will is healed. According to Maximus, Christ did not have a gnomic will because his human and divine wills were in perfect harmony. The gnomic will isn't therefore "healed" per se through the Incarnation (what isn't assumed isn't redeemed) but rather ceases to exist. I suppose you could look at this as bringing the gnomic will into line with the natural will or suppression of the gnomic will such that only the natural remains. Either way, the end point is a natural will that is in harmony with the divine will experienced through the putting on of Christ and becoming that new man. In a nutshell, gnomic will answers that question, whence is evil and that is precisely why Christ could not have a gnomic will. Evil in this understanding is not a created thing, it's not a thing at all, but a shadow. A shadow that diminishes as we move toward the light and in theory completely disappears when we approach the light and are clothed in it.

 

[Ignatius21]

What you are saying sounds pretty much correct to me except that the gnomic will is healed. According to Maximus, Christ did not have a gnomic will because his human and divine wills were in perfect harmony. The gnomic will isn't therefore "healed" per se through the Incarnation (what isn't assumed isn't redeemed) but rather ceases to exist. I suppose you could look at this as bringing the gnomic will into line with the natural will or suppression of the gnomic will such that only the natural remains. Either way, the end point is a natural will that is in harmony with the divine will experienced through the putting on of Christ and becoming that new man. In a nutshell, gnomic will answers that question, whence is evil and that is precisely why Christ could not have a gnomic will. Evil in this understanding is not a created thing, it's not a thing at all, but a shadow. A shadow that diminishes as we move toward the light and in theory completely disappears when we approach the light and are clothed in it.

Hmmmmmm....

I think I understand what you're saying, except that, as a nature is not capable of doing anything (not being a "thing" at all), all choices must be made by persons. God the Father makes choices, freely, as a divine person. We make choices, freely, as human persons. And Christ, it would follow, made (and makes) choices as a Divine-Human person. Which, I believe, is still a matter at the heart of the disagreement between Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian Christians, right? The latter (mono-energists, or monothelites) saw the will as being part of a person, therefore while Christ may have had two natures, he still must have had only one will (Divine-Human). Their opponents said no, the will is proper to nature, and therefore Christ had two wills, one for each nature.

But I'm still rather confused as to what this means for Christ as a person. All agree that he is a single person. When he made choices, he did so as a person, since natures cannot choose things. In saying that Christ had no "gnomic will," is Maximos merely saying that he never had to deliberate about whether or not to obey the Father? I understand this to be the condition experienced by the saints when they enter fully into union with God in Christ--they, too, no longer deliberate about whether to obey God, because they desire nothing other than to obey God.

I understand the shadow analogy, that our evil inclinations disappear as we come closer to the light. But our ability to choose does not diminish or go away. We still freely choose to love God. So what do we call that faculty of choice that each person (whether human or divine) has?

 

[buzuxi02]

Gnomic willing is how the person conducts and directs his natural will. That is man should naturally be willing to direct things towards God, "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven". Man though utilyzes a mode of willing tainted by sinful inclinations

 

[jckstraw72]

buzuxi is correct - it's helpful not to think of the gnomic will as a separate will, but rather as a mode of willing in which the person deliberates between apparent goods. in Christ there is no wavering, no deliberation, etc - being God Himself He always knows the will of God and naturally does it. also, then, since the gnomic will is not a separate will but rather a mode of willing, it does not matter that Christ did not have "the gnomic will" - He has a human will and He deified the human will - He did not need to take on the fallen gnomic mode of willing in order to raise the human will above nature.

 

[Ignatius21]

I think I get what you're both saying...maybe I'm just having some difficulty with the semantics of things...

buzuxi is correct - it's helpful not to think of the gnomic will as a separate will, but rather as a mode of willing in which the person deliberates between apparent goods. in Christ there is no wavering, no deliberation, etc - being God Himself He always knows the will of God and naturally does it. also, then, since the gnomic will is not a separate will but rather a mode of willing, it does not matter that Christ did not have "the gnomic will" - He has a human will and He deified the human will - He did not need to take on the fallen gnomic mode of willing in order to raise the human will above nature.

Am I correct in saying that a "nature" cannot actually do anything? That is, a nature cannot deliberate or choose, but only a person can deliberate and choose?

Is it best to think of the natural will, as more like the ability to choose, together with some set of desires that it is "natural" for a human to want? That is, if man was created in the image of God, then man's nature should desire all those things that God desires...right?

Then, enter sin, when man was deceived and used his personal ability to make choices, to choose contrary to what is natural for man to desire. And due to the effects of sin, and the fear of death that has enslaved us ever since, we humans must always be deliberating from among apparent goods. Due to sin, we will actually desire what is evil, but will do so as though that evil were actually good. As we grow in union with Christ, that confusion and darkness is stripped away, so that we increasingly choose (with less deliberation?) according to what our natural will actually is meant to do.

Is that accurate? More or less? I see, then, that Christ did not have what we're calling the "gnomic will" because he never desired anything contrary to his natural wills. But it was still his person who actually chose, and acted on the choices.

 

[jckstraw72]

I think I get what you're both saying...maybe I'm just having some difficulty with the semantics of things...



Am I correct in saying that a "nature" cannot actually do anything? That is, a nature cannot deliberate or choose, but only a person can deliberate and choose?

Is it best to think of the natural will, as more like the ability to choose, together with some set of desires that it is "natural" for a human to want? That is, if man was created in the image of God, then man's nature should desire all those things that God desires...right?

Then, enter sin, when man was deceived and used his personal ability to make choices, to choose contrary to what is natural for man to desire. And due to the effects of sin, and the fear of death that has enslaved us ever since, we humans must always be deliberating from among apparent goods. Due to sin, we will actually desire what is evil, but will do so as though that evil were actually good. As we grow in union with Christ, that confusion and darkness is stripped away, so that we increasingly choose (with less deliberation?) according to what our natural will actually is meant to do.

Is that accurate? More or less? I see, then, that Christ did not have what we're calling the "gnomic will" because he never desired anything contrary to his natural wills. But it was still his person who actually chose, and acted on the choices.

as far as i know, everything you have said is correct.

 

[ArmyMatt]

I think I get what you're both saying...maybe I'm just having some difficulty with the semantics of things...



Am I correct in saying that a "nature" cannot actually do anything? That is, a nature cannot deliberate or choose, but only a person can deliberate and choose?

Is it best to think of the natural will, as more like the ability to choose, together with some set of desires that it is "natural" for a human to want? That is, if man was created in the image of God, then man's nature should desire all those things that God desires...right?

Then, enter sin, when man was deceived and used his personal ability to make choices, to choose contrary to what is natural for man to desire. And due to the effects of sin, and the fear of death that has enslaved us ever since, we humans must always be deliberating from among apparent goods. Due to sin, we will actually desire what is evil, but will do so as though that evil were actually good. As we grow in union with Christ, that confusion and darkness is stripped away, so that we increasingly choose (with less deliberation?) according to what our natural will actually is meant to do.

Is that accurate? More or less? I see, then, that Christ did not have what we're calling the "gnomic will" because he never desired anything contrary to his natural wills. But it was still his person who actually chose, and acted on the choices.

looks good to me too, and I just finished reading St Maximos in the Philokalia not too long ago.