Loudovikos, Being and Essence. Reciprocal Logoi and Energies in Maximus The Confessor and Thomas Aquinas
Loudovikos, Being and Essence. Reciprocal Logoi and Energies in Maximus The Confessor and Thomas Aquinas
Loudovikos, Being and Essence. Reciprocal Logoi and Energies in Maximus The Confessor and Thomas Aquinas
Being and Essence Revisited: Reciprocal Logoi and Energies in Maximus the Confessor and
Thomas Aquinas, and the Genesis of the Self-referring Subject
Author(s): NIKOLAOS LOUDOVIKOS
Source: Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia, T. 72, Fasc. 1, Teísmos: Aportações Filosóficas do
Leste e Oeste / Theisms: Philosophical Contributions from the East to the West (2016), pp.
117-146
Published by: Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/43816277
Accessed: 15-08-2016 20:08 UTC
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Revista Portuguesa de Filosofía, 2016, Vol. 72 (1), pp. 1 17-146.
© 2016 by Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia. All rights reserved.
DOI 10.1 7990/RPF/20 1 6_72_ 1 _0 1 1 7
NIKOLAOS LOUDOVIKOS*
Abstract
1. Riou, A. - Le Monde et l' Eglise selon Maxime le Confesseur. Paris: Beauchesne, 1973.
117-146
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
1 1 8 Nikolaos Loudovikos
for him, as for so many Eastern and Western theologians before and after
him, the underlying problem has rather been the impasse of any effort of
evaluating Palamite theology in light of Aquinatian thought, such claims
have fruitfully promoted the Maximian studies over the last decades,
though Maximus has been very rarely really compared with Aquinas.
Truly, it seems unthinkable for Western theologians not to conclude any
evaluation of Eastern theology with a sort of comparison, or confron-
tation, or, very recently, even equation of Palamas with Aquinas, but it
is also true that this cannot legitimately happen without checking the
formers tradition. Thus, Maximus the Confessor has to be read not only
per se, but also as a possible spiritual father of Gregory Palamas, since
the latter frequently refers to the formers work. Has Palamas properly
understood Maximus?
There is at least one recent work, which really tries to substantiate the
convergences between Maximus and Palamas, on the one hand, and the
divergences between Maximus and Thomas, on the other, while it also tries
not to separate them on the dogmatic field. This is Antoine Lévy s book, Le
Créé et V Incréé: Maxime le Confesseur et Thomas d'Aquin. Aux Sources de la
Querelle Palamienne.2 1 mention this book not because I fully agree with it
-since, as it will become obvious, I have a different proposal to make - but
because it is a serious book, with a noteworthy knowledge of the source
texts and the adjoining discussions, and, above all, with an intention to be
theologically fair. In this book, Palamas is proved to be an honest discipl
of Maximus, as the Orthodox tradition of the medieval and modern period
alike believed him to be. No longer thought of as a theological monster
coming from nowhere, Palamas can be then compared, through Maximus
with Aquinas, without obsessive contestation. Thus, according to the
author, in the ontological field, what matters for Maximus (and Palamas,
who follows him, as well) is the external diffusion and operation of the
uncreated logoi/energies, something that the author calls ktizocentrism,
while what counts more for Thomas is the original unity of those logoi/
energies in the divine essence, something that is called ktistocentrism .3 In
the Christological field, what we have in Maximus (and also in Palamas) is
rather a divinizing synergy between divine and human energies in Christ,
while in Aquinas, as this divinizing energy is identified with essence, all
2. Lévy, Antoine - Le Créé et V Incréé : Maxime le Confesseur et Thomas d' Aquin. Aux
Sources de la Querelle Palamienne. Paris: Libraire Philosophique Vrin, 2006.
3. Lévy, pp. 298-304.
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Being and Essence Revisited 1 19
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
120 Nikolaos Loudovikos
I have two things to stress here: first, that these logoi of God are
clearly conceived by Maximus as "acts of His own will and we add a good
reason for this: if He has made everything by an act of will (and there will
be no contradiction of that), and it is pious and just always to say that God
knows His own will, and He has made each entity willingly, then it follows
that God knows entities as acts/energies of His own will, because He has
made things willingly".8 By absolutely connecting logoi with divine will
and divine acts ad extra, of God the Father through the Logos-Son by the
Spirit, Maximus shows that through those logoi/wills/energies God creates
a real relationship with beings created by Him, out of nothing, i.e. outside
Him.
The second point is that for God this relationship cannot be identified
with His essence, in any sense, Thomist or not. Those acts/logoi/wills are
called by Maximus,
This, of course, does not mean that these works can be somehow
ontologically separated from Gods essence, and, consequently, they cannot
be separately ontologized and conceived as separate beings between God
and creation as they belong to Gods very being. And in order to leave
no "Thomist" question unanswered, he makes absolutely clear in the very
next paragraph that,
8. 1085AB.
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Being and Essence Revisited 121
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
122 Nikolaos Loudovikos
thus when the mind apprehends the logoi in things in a natural manner,
contemplating the energies of God in the infinitude of those logoi, it reckons
that there are many - or, truth to tell, infinite - variations of the divine energies
it apprehends. And it will most likely find its power feeble and its method of
searching for knowledge useless before Him who indeed is true, being unable
to understand how God who is in truth no one of the things that exist, and
properly speaking is everything and is beyond everything, is in every logos
of each thing separately, and in all the logoi of all things taken together. If
therefore it is true to say that every divine energy indicates through itself
God, whole and undivided, [as present] in every [creature], in accordance
with the logos of its own particular existence - in that case, who is able to
understand and express precisely how God in His entirety is undividedly and
indivisibly present in all things in common, and in each entity in a way that
is particular, being neither subject to a variety of distinctions in line with
the infinite variations in the things in which He is present, nor compressed
into the individual existence of each one; nor yet does He compress the diffe-
rences between things into one unitary totality of all things, but He is truly
all things in all things, never abandoning His own indivisible simplicity?14
I have two points to make here: first, the logos, as we see in the
text, creates a unique presence of God within each one of the creatures,
a presence which is expressed ("indicated") through a divine energy
which makes God "whole and undivided" to appear in the depth of
each creature. Thus, what we "contemplate" in the depth of each logos/
presence is a divine energy, forming this presence, (and, in a second step,
as a syn-energy with the created energies of beings, as we shall see below).
This absolute ontological connection/identification between divine
essence ( God whole and undivided, according to the above text), and logoi
and energies (logos is exclusively manifested as energy), primarily means
here that energies, manifesting divine essence ad extra, are not a sort of
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Being and Essence Revisited 123
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
124 Nikolaos Loudovikos
Vol. 72 -
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Being and Essence Revisited 125
includes it" (i. e. God, 1073D), but this does not mean any abolition of the
autexousion, the self-determination, but its "steady and unshakable reso-
lution" (Gácric; 7rayía Kai a^eraSeroę, 1076BC), in order to finally have "only one
energy, that of God, and of the saints of God " (my italics). Once again, for
Maximus, any sort of passivity or suffering the divine energy on the part of
the creatures is simply unthinkable; creatures find their real and eternal
identity in their participation in God, and not simply, in a passive way, his
energy, as Levy s Thomist account of Maximus would have us think.19
Thus all the above texts mean that, first, the relationship between God
and creation is real and permanent, not only for creation but also for God
Himself- otherwise we could not have invitation for dialogue, proposal,
energetic relationship, or, in a word, divine logos', and, second, that,
consequently, this relationship means that God indwells creation indeed,
through his uncreated wills/logoi expressed via his uncreated energies,
by transforming the mode of existence of created beings in dialogue/ synergy
with their logoi/wills/energies into uncreated, through his own graced wills/
logoi/ene rgies, without the created beings losing their essential creat-
edness. Because of the Maximian distinction between essence and logoi/
wills/energies, this participation does not imply that divine essence is
flooded by the created beings, while, at the same time, it is precisely with
this divine essence that the creatures come into communion - this is why
Maximus calls the logoi "existential ways toward God."20
19. Lévy, see, p. 179-1 83. The author here reads the text Ad Thalassium 2,269D-27 1C, but
in that text Maximus clearly connects the energeia of the divine Providence with the
synergetic "movement of the particular beings towards the well-being", which he
characterizes as avSaíperoç, not in the bad sense of the arbitrary, as the word is translated
in the modern Western dictionaries, but in the ancient and not necessarily bad sense
of self-choice (avro-ctípea-K;) . By reading the word in the former sense, Levy concludes
that divine energy pushes forcefully the poor created motions/energies, beyond
their arbitrariness, towards itself as goal of any actuality. The distance between this
"Thomist" understanding of "participation as energetic causality", according to L., and
the Maximian understanding of participation as dialogical synergy, is enormous, as we
shall see, while Lavers that the two views are identical (p. 299). The divine call does not
mainly serve God 's Selbstbehauptung, but gives creatures an eschatological free, active
and creative self; it is through this reciprocity that participation is achieved.
20. See my Eucharìstic Ontology: Maximus the Confessors Eschatological Ontology of Being
as Dialogical Reciprocity, Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2010, pp. 84-
88. Note that for Levy, it is completely impossible for any creature to overcome its
createdness, even if it enters the sphere of divine participation through its created
energy, which thus becomes "supernatural", but not by grace uncreated, as this
happens for Maximus (pp.182, 194ff).
v°'- 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
126 Nikolaos Loudovikos
For Aquinas, "it is necessary to suppose ideas in the divine mind. For
the Greek word 'idea' is in Latin 'forma'. Hence by ideas are understood
forms of things existing apart from the things themselves". Thus, either as
a type of that which is called the form, or as a principle of knowledge, and
because "the world was not generated by chance, but by God acting by His
intellect (...) there must exist in the divine mind a form to the likeness of
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Being and Essence Revisited 127
which the world was made. And in this the notion of an idea consists."21
But this further means that, "God is the similitude of all things according
to His essence; therefore an idea in God is identical with His essence/'22
But then, in what sense can we conceive of those ideas that cannot be
distinguished from divine essence? Thomas s answer is as follows: "hence
many ideas exist in the divine mind, as things understood by it; as can
be proved thus. Inasmuch as He knows His own essence perfectly, He
knows it according to every mode in which it can be known. Now it can
be known not only as it is in itself, but, also, as it can be participated in by
creatures according to some degree of likeness. But every creature has its
own proper species, according to which it participates in some degree in
likeness to the divine essence. So far, therefore, as God knows His essence
as capable of such imitation by any creature, He knows it as the particular
type and idea of that creature; and in like manner as regards other crea-
tures. So it is clear that God understands many particular types of things
and these are many ideas".23
If ideas are the closest Aquinatian equivalent to the Maximian logoi,
it is immediately clear that with texts like the text above, we are presented
with a rather different understanding of the nature and the function of
those logoi/ideas. The ideas here simply represent a different type of Gods
self-understanding, regarding the possibility of an imitative participation
in a likeness of the divine essence on the part of the creatures, and they do
not seem to clearly initiate any sort of real relationship of God with a real
otherness outside Him. For the reader of Thomas, this is not of course a
surprise, as for this author God cannot be the being of things "for if He is
the being of all things, He is part of all things, but not over them"24 - while
Maximus does not hesitate to assert precisely the opposite, by calling God
"sense" and "mind" and "life", and "being" of all existent things, while in
himself he is absolutely above any being. Thus for Thomas, "God knows
other things as seen in His essence",25 precisely because "Gods will is His
essence".26 But if the Thomist will of God is absolutely identified with
Gods essence, opposite to the Maximian distinction-in-identity between
21. Aquinas - The Summa Theologica. (translated by Fathers of the English Dominican
Province) New York: Benziger Bros, 1947, I, 15, 1, ans.
22. op. cit. repl. to obj. 3
23. STh, I, 15, 2, ans.
24. Aquinas - Summa contra Gentiles. Book I (transi, by Anton C. Pegis), I, 26, 8.
25. ScG, I, 49, 5.
26. ScG, I, 73, 3.
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
128 Nikolaos Loudovikos
essence and will in God, then "God wills His own being and His own good-
ness"27 necessarily, and "He wills Himself as the end, and other things as
what is for the sake of the end".28 As a consequence, "Gods action is His
essence",29 and thus Gods act does not create any real relation outside
Him. As Thomas explicitly writes, "these relations in question have no real
being in God".30 Even "beatitude is a created thing in beatified creatures
but in God, even in this way it is an uncreated thing".31 As it is further
explained, in the third part of the Summa, 32 every relation between God
and the creature really exists only in the creature, as coming from the
change which affects the creature, but this does not exist really in God,
existing only already in (His) reason. But then, even the union between
God and creation, Aquinas maintains, does not have "a real existence
in God"; it is present in Him only by reason. On the contrary, this rela-
tionship really exists in human being exactly because this being is created
- therefore we can say that this relation of union is something created.
What is somehow odd for an Orthodox reader is that Thomas
describes this kind of created relationship of the creature with
a non real one, on the part of God: "therefore there is no real r
in God to the creature, whereas in creatures there is a real relatio
to God; because creatures are contained under the divine order, and
their very nature entails dependence on God".33 Even if this relationship
on the part of the creature is sometimes called supernatural, this does
never mean uncreated.34 It is not paradoxical then that, even concerning
Christ, Thomas thinks that His soul needs a created grace in order to get
in contact with His divine nature.35
Though Thomas' idea of the unity of all in God, along with the
ontological unity of divine ideas, energies and wills, with divine essence,
(the "ktistocentic" aspect, in Lévy s terminology) is familiar not only to
the ancient , but also to the modern Eastern theological ear, starting
with Gregory Palamas and ending with George-Gennadios Scholarios,
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Being and Essence Revisited 129
36. See my "Striving for Participation: Palamite Analogy as Dialogical Syn-ernergy and
Thomist Analogy as Emanational Similitude", In: Athanasopoulos, C. and Schneider,
C. (eds.) - Divine Essence and Divine Energies. Ecumenical Reflections on the Presence
of God in Eastern Orthodoxy. Cambridge: J. Clarke, 2013, pp 122-148.
37. STh, I, 8, 1.
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
130 Nikolaos Loudovikos
power "38 (my italics). By so clearly defining power as the principle of acting
upon another, Thomas is able to write that "without Gods action all things
would be reduced to nothing".39 What is this divine essential power (since
in both ScG and STh divine power is identified with divine essence), which
acts immediately in all things, i.e. ad extra, and touches them directly,
and it is God himself who acts through it, thus existing in all things, and
making all things subject to him through it? Gregory Palamas or Maximus
the Confessor could have written the above texts, as they perfectly describe
their definition of divine essential power/action/energy. Most importantly,
the above texts could be perfectly match with Thomas' new understanding
of divine will in STh I, 19, 1-12: "God wills both himself to be, and other
things to be; but himself as the end, and other things as ordained to that
end; inasmuch as it befits the divine goodness that other things should be
partakers therein". Thus "it pertains therefore to the nature of the will to
communicate as far as possible to others the good possessed " (my italics).
What will? Not the "necessary will of God (God wills his own goodness)",
but his "unnecessary will" concerning things ad extra. It is obvious that
here we have a clear distinction between essence-energies, or essence-will,
very close to that of Maximus or Palamas and the Greek Fathers in general,
something that seems unthinkable in ScG. The divine power/action is now,
on the one hand, identical to the essence/substance (onto-theo-logically),
but, on the other hand, it acts outside it, without any ontological danger of
any possible elimination of God s being or its simplicity. It is also clear that
this divine power/action has to be, of course, uncreated, as it is totally iden-
tical with divine essence - but at the same time it touches created beings
without this action being changed into created! A fully "Maximian" (if you
do not dare to say "Palamite") Thomas thus emerges. Thus, to use Lévy s
terms, the Aquinatian philosophico-theological "ktistocentrism" leads
to an existential/theological impasse, if it is not complemented with the
Maximian "ktizocentrism". On the other hand, no one can seriously claim
that the Maximian supposed "ktizocentrism" lacks "ktistocentrism"...
38. STh, I, 8, 3.
39. STh, I, 9, 2.
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Being and Essence Revisited 1 3 1
II
40. The French edition was published by Vrin (Paris); the English translation was
published in Toronto by the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies.
41 . I use here the excellent Greek translation of the 1994 edition of the French book, made
by Th. Samartzis, precisely because it comprises in its notes extensive passages from
the English edition. See Gilson, E. - To On kai e Ousia, (translated by Th. Samartzis)
Herakleion, Athens: University of Crete Press, 2009.
42. The sequence of Gilson quotes taken from Samartzis: pages 137, 138, 142.
Vol. 72 -
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
132 Nikolaos Loudovikos
becomes, for the first time in history, according to Gilson, the real ontology
of the real being, through the work of Thomas Aquinas.
This of course presupposes, first of all, a new' (but always Aristotelian)
understanding of God, not as a frozen supreme being, but an actus purus,
as a pure esse, i.e. absolute act of being, where being/existence has taken
the place of essence, in other words, where essential potentiality no longer
exists in it.43 Concerning now created beings, esse remains the actus of
essence, as the first act/energy or entelecheia or form of a being - while
operado is the second actus of it.44 Thus the act of the form is the act of
existing, while within created beings we see an act of the absolute divine
esse , confined in the limits of the essence of a certain being. Natural
theology now becomes metaphysics, as an understanding of divine esse
in created beings, an understanding of the influxus Dei, which lies behind
creatures.45
Having made these clarifications, Gilson now moves on toward a
criticism of the loss of existence in both medieval and modern philosophy in
the light of his revolutionary Aquinatian discovery. Already with Avicenna
starts the identification of existence with one attribute of essence, while
with Ockham, and especially with Duns Scotus, essence becomes the rule
and the measure of being, against the Thomist priority of existence over
essence - even in God, according to the latter, his existence is contained
in his being.46 With Scotus, as later on with Suarez, we gradually reach
an autonomous pure ontology, absolutely detached from the metaphysics
of divine esse. Suarez identifies being with essence - when we speak of
essence we speak of being, without any need of a distinct concept of exis-
tence, as an act marking the emergence of a real , concrete being.47
Subsequently, after what he claimed above, Gilson finds the same
oblivion of esse as existence throughout modern philosophy, starting with
Descartes and Spinoza, where no real distinction between essence and
existence in finite being's structure is made;48 the Cartesian-Spinozian-
Leibnizian ontological argument is similar to that of Anselm: God exists
only because of his divine essence. In Wolf, ontology is completely
divorced from theology, and existence is again a secondary complement
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Being and Essence Revisited 133
of essence, without being necessary for the definition of being - even God
exists because of his essence.49 In Kant, on the other hand, there exists
a feeble existential light, due to his reading of Hume, whose empiricism
claims some rights for real existence, against Wolf. Nonetheless, existence
in Kant is, as happens with Scotus, a simple modus of essence, or, better,
a modality not of a thing , but of a judgment - finally existence is frozen,
as Ding an Sich, beyond human knowledge, as if it does not exist at all.
In Hegel, according to Gilson, being is pure thought, or thought that
takes itself as its object, i.e. pure abstraction and negativity, which finds
the truth of being in non being, and vice versa, to wit, in the unity of being
with non being, which is precisely what we call becoming.50 In Hegel we
have Dasein instead of existence: the being-here of becoming, the unity of
the negative with the positive, or ultimately, the unity of being with phai-
nesthai. In Hegelian terms this finally means that existence is identical
with pure concept. Kierkegaard reacts against this reduction of existence
to a logical system of concepts, precisely because existence always exceeds
concepts. However, according to Gilson, existence in Kierkegaard is still
not the act of existing, but the empirical existence of the Kierkegardian
moment'.51
Gilson s Thomistic proposal is that within the subject who possesses
his essence, one can discern a transcendental act of existing, which parti-
cipates in Gods pure act of existing that contains all those acts, and makes
possible transcendence as an ascent of created being, 'in it and through iť,
according to Gilsons fine expression, to its divine source, the divine act
of existing.52 Thus, from the concept of existence as a simple attribute of
being we reach to a concept of existence as a catalyst and cause of essence,
which gives truth and reality to it.
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
134 Nikolaos Loudovikos
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Being and Essence Revisited 135
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
136 Nikolaos Loudovikos
within the Trinity, but to say more about this is out of the scope of the
present paper.59
59. See my "Possession or Wholeness? St Maximus the Confessor and John Zizioulas
on Person, nature and Will", In: Participado, 4, 2013, pp. 258-286, and my "Hell and
Heaven, Nature and Person. C. Yannaras, D. Staniloae, and Maximus the Confessor",
In: International Journal of Orthodox Theology, 5:1 (2014), pp 9-32.
60. STh, 1,4,1.
61. De Ent. et Essent., 4,10, my translation.
62. Ibidem .
Vol- 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Being and Essence Revisited 137
God are not their own being, but are beings by participation, Therefore it
must be that all things which are diversified by the diverse participation in
being, so as to be more or less perfect, are caused by one first being, Who
possesses being more perfectly'.63 Apart from the positive clear identifi-
cation of beings' existence with participation in this passage, it is obvious
that a series of serious questions arise: what we mean by restricted partic-
ipation? Why does such participation have to depend on the limits of the
essence of a certain being? Is, then, in other words, grace an additional gift,
a superadditum? Is it possible to avoid all this separate understanding of
grace, and conceive of it not as an addition, even naturally desired by the
creature, but as a fulfilment of its very natural being, and have, to use Dr
Levy's terms, an approach not only ktistocentńc but also ktizocentric at the
same time? Neither Thomism, nor Neo-Thomism can do this. But it can
be conceived of, as I think, again through Maximus' distinction between
logos-tropos. Through this distinction, Maximus, on the one hand, estab-
lishes the possibility, on the part of God, of an unlimited logical/ener-
getic gift of divine participation forming the very nature of creatures
(logos ousias), already in the order of grace. On the other hand, he makes
this possibility (i.e. the existence) also depending upon creatures' active
free response in this dialogical perspective, making existence real and
decisive for any creature's being ( tropos hyparxeos). Thus, while the 'act
of existence' seems monological for Thomas, it is dialogical for Maximus.
We must repeat here that in Amb. 1, the ultimate goal of divinization is
for the creature to "acquire the quality of the one who includes it" (i.e.,
God, 1073D), and that means an unrestricted gracious perfection through
dialogical syn-energy, since this participation does not mean abolition of
the autexousion, the self-determination, but its "steady and unshakable
resolution" (Qácrtç izayioL içai a(X6xá06To<;, 1076BC), in order to finally have "only
one energy, that of God, and of the saints of God" (my italics). Once again,
for Maximus, any sort of passivity, or suffering, of the divine energy on the
part of the creatures is simply unthinkable; creatures find their real and
eternal identity in their participation in God, and not simply, in a passive
way, his energy, as Levy's Thomist account of Maximus wants to convince
us.
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
138 Nikolaos Loudovikos
soul participating in the divine goodness [...]. And thus, because the soul
participates in the divine goodness imperfectly, the participation in the
divine goodness, which is grace, has its being in the soul in a less perfect
way than the soul subsists in itself. Nevertheless, inasmuch as it is the
expression of participation of the divine goodness, it is nobler than the
nature of the soul , though not in its mode of being' (italics mine). What we
have here is Thomas' philosophical decision that, for some philosophical
but not clearly Biblical reason, participation in God must be incomplete,
(i.e. supernatural but not uncreated?) - precisely because of the great
distance that separates Gods being, which is pure intellect, and created
being, which is mixed with matter; once again Plotinus seems to prevail
over Scripture. This would be reasonable if that participation would occur
only through human powers, not through the transformation of human
nature by the Spirit, and in Christ - it is curious that while Thomas often
speaks of this special help of grace in order for man to reach the contem-
plation of God, this help is never enough to change man's mode of exis-
tence in order for man 'to act and be acted upon, beyond the limits of his
nature', i. e. in an uncreated tropos , through grace, according to Maximus.
But if this is true, we then risk to reach a spiritual self-sufficiency, where
the experience of God is included and restricted within our created - even
supernatural - limits; God is imprisoned and confined within my created
condition, and he is unable to radically break my chain of createdness,
and lead me to the radically other, which is the uncreated. This is why
Thomas does not clearly need the essence-energies distinction, which he
nonetheless sometimes proclaims. The following text could have been
written by Maximus or Palamas65:'Now from the divine effects we cannot
know the divine nature in itself, so as to know what it is; but only by way
of eminence, and by way of causality, and of negation' - and there exist
some other passages where the essence-energies distinction is even clearer
(31).66 So, the uncreated grace becomes created for the creatures for
strict philosophical, rather than theological reasons. The same happens,
according to Colin Gunton, regarding God's attributes. In Gunton 's words:
that is to say, Aquinas having set up the ontological framework for his
theology in the Five Ways by means of a general philosophical analysis of
causation, everything else follows by a process of logical deduction. The attri-
butes are those appropriate to a being who is the moving, efficient, formal
65. STh,I,13,8.
66. See my 'Striving...', pp 140-142.
Vol. 17
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Being and Essence Revisited 139
and final cause of the cosmos. We have an analysis of the God-world relation
in largely cosmological terms, untrammelled by reference to those particular
divine acts in which God is revealed by Scripture actually to operate. That is
to say, the basic concepts come from philosophical, or, should we say, Greek
theology.67
67. Gunton, Colin - Act and Being. London: SCM Press 2002, p. 52.
68. ScG, II, 12, 3.
69. STh, III, q. 2, a. 7.
70. STh, I, 28, 1, r. to obj. 3.
71. Gunton, p.51.
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
140 Nikolaos Loudovikos
God s act of existence, and free transformation of the will, without some
Maximian (or even Palamite) 'additions', which, without destroying the
philosophical coherence, can liberate our thought from its metaphysical
restrictions.
But the most important discussion has just started. First, it is impos-
sible to find in Maximus this sharp Thomist distinction between being and
essence, as von Balthasar thinks, thus identifying Maximus with Thoma
on that point, precisely because his dialogical reciprocity between man and
God constantly and syn-energetically existentializes created natures - there
is not an active moment' of existentialization on the part of God, passively
received by the creature, but a dialogical becoming, divinely changing, i
Christ, the mode of existence of created beings.72 God infinitely "changes"
through his infinite logoi/energies in Christ, and man infinitely change
through his active/logical responses; their essence is their dialogical being.
Second, by understanding the inner life of this self-concentrated
God as a sort of self-love and self-rejoicing Thomas writes: "again,
joy and delight are a certain resting of the will in its object. But God
who is his own principle object willed, is supremely at rest in himself,
as containing all abundance in himself. God therefore, through his will
supremely rejoices of himself".73 This sort of erotic solipsism, (to love the
other through loving yourself) common for both man and God, represents
a germ of what I have called elsewhere the modern self-referring subject,
starting, in modern times, from Descartes' Cogito and ending with Husserl 's
Transcendental Ego and Heidegger's Dasein, though this subject will become
manifest only after the modern secular revolution of the purely self-suffi-
cient humanism', in Charles Taylor's words.74 (34). This sort of subject neve
changes, and, against both Maximus and Thomas, his being is identical t
his essence, since he usually aspires to change everything according to his
own will to power.75
72. See Balthasars Cosmic Liturgy, (Brian Daley transi.) San Fransisco: Ignatius Press
(Communio), pp 246-250. I cannot agree with Balthasar or anyone else who claims
that we can find in Maximus a "Christology of essence and a Christology of being"; see
my "Possession or Wholeness?..." pp 273-280.
73. ScG I, 90, 4.
74. See his Cosmic Liturgy, (Brian Daley transi.) San Francisco: Ignatius Press (Commu
pp 246-250. I cannot agree with Balthasar or anyone else who claims that we can f
in Maximus a "Christology of essence and a Christology of being"; see my "Possess
or Wholeness?..." pp 273-280.
75. See my 'Consubstantial Selves; a Discussion between Orthodox Personalism,
Existential Psychology, Heinz Kohut, and Jean-Luc Marion', In: Torrance, Alexis (ed.) -
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Being and Essence Revisited 141
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
142 Nikolaos Loudovikos
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Being and Essence Revisited 143
80. Kappes, Christiaan; Goff, J. and Giltner T. - "Palamas among the Scholastics: A
Review Essay Discussing D. Bradshaw, C. Athanasopoulos, C. Schneider et al., Divine
Essence and Divine Energies : Ecumenical Reflections on the Presence of God in Eastern
Orthodoxy, (Cambridge: James Clarke, 2013)". In: Logos: A Journal of Eastern Chństian
Studies , Vol. 55 (1-2), 2014, pp. 175-220.
81. Ibidem, p. 203.
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
144 Nikolaos Loudovikos
"Scotist", when speaking of Milbank , and clarify that Palamas "would not
endorse either a real or a formal distinction between essence and energies,
in the sense given to these terms by Milbank "82 - not by Scotus! Then they
conclude that, since I ignore that Gregory was a desperate Scotist, I also
know nothing about Palamas! However, I never thought that Milbank s
Scotus is the real Scotus, as they accuse me, but the subject of my paper
was Palamas and Thomas, not Scotus or Milbank. On the other hand, this
does not mean that Palamas is a Scotist. The three good authors try to
further devaluate my essay, in order to weaken my main argument, (which
they refuse to discuss), by attributing to me ... Monoenergism,83 though
I persistently speak of "the perfect perichoresis of the two natures (in
Christ) through the complete dialogue of created and uncreated energies
in him", and the "exchange of energies in the one hypostasis of Christ"84
- by the way, the term 'theandric energy' that I used was restored, in its
Orthodox meaning, by Maximus; they also attribute to me the paradoxical
position that divine energies are produced by the... divine will,85 though I
never wrote (or thought of) something like that, and they get anxious when
I prove that Palamas has indeed claimed that the distinction-in-identity
between essence and energies is made by mind, katepinoian, (something
that only Thomas, seems to have the right to claim!).
What is strange is that, despite their aggressive philological self-su-
fficiency, these men seem to have nothing to say about the possible diffe-
rences between Palamas (or Maximus) and Scotus. Since the space of
this paper has been exhausted long ago, I will leave this task for the near
future, but not without giving them a little food for thought. Only three
little points: is it possible to find, either in Maximus, or in Palamas, an
independent natural theology, like that of Scotus (explicitly against Henry
of Ghent's Augustinián doctrine of illumination), which deals with God in
a purely metaphysical way? Is it possible to find, either in Maximus or in
Palamas, a dialectic between nature and grace, similar to that of Scotus
(following, in his own way, Bonaventure)? Is it, finally, possible to find
either in Maximus, or in Palamas, a position like that of Ord.I,d.43, 14; 16,
where God seems to think, first, of himself as infinite, then he produces the
divine ideas, as finite essences (and not as uncreated), though in formal
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Being and Essence Revisited 145
unity with his essence, then he thinks of them as partially imitating his
perfection, and then he thinks of possible realizations of different associa-
tions of essences? I know of no other more radical refutation of Palamism
than the Scotist positions just mentioned.
Despite their arrogance, the Kappes group has still much to learn
from the Greek Fathers.
References
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
146 Nikolaos Loudovikos
Milbank, J. - "Sophiology and Theurgy: The New Theological Horizon". In: Pabst,
A. & Schneider, C. (eds.). Encounter Between Eastern Orthodoxy and Radical
Orthodoxy. London: Ashgate, 2009.
Riou, A. - Le Monde et l' Eglise selon Maxime le Confesseur. Paris: Beauchesne, 1973.
Vol. 72
This content downloaded from 134.48.244.176 on Mon, 15 Aug 2016 20:08:00 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms