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The Free Will of Christ in Maximus the Confessor
The soteriological need for reciprocity

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The Reciprocal Nature of Salvation in the Incarnation.

One may begin with a rather lengthy, but extremely important, quote from Lars Thunberg's shorter work on the Confessor, Man and the Cosmos:

As in the Eastern tradition in general, Maximus puts strong stress on the Incarnation as an effective instrument of salvation, of which--at least from one point of view--the reconciling death is only a logical consequence. Thus the different aspects are complementary; the sacrificial aspect occupies no exclusive place. The incarnation itself is the supreme act of divine grace, which manifests and carries into effect the salvific relationship between God and man. But stating this, we must always remember that incarnation has to be understood in terms of the doctrine of Chalcedon. This means that incarnation does not only imply God's becoming flesh, generally speaking, but God's becoming flesh in uniting himself hypostatically with man in Christ, true God and true man, fully united but without change or fusion. In other words, incarnation is always understood by Maximus as an aspect of reciprocity. The act of salvation understood in this way is not a one-sided act so that God, as it were, "forces" His salvation on man. Nor is it a divided act so that Christ as man reconciles God the wrathful Father, as in the predominant Western tradition, but a cooperative act, an act of reciprocity, a concerted act, and it has to be understood in this way.

One finds in this remarkable paragraph the heart of Maximos' understanding of the relational aspect of salvation. He is unwilling to look at it as a one-sided act on the part of God, somehow forced upon man from above. Promulgation of such a notion of 'forced salvation' would be to lose sight of the fact that man freely fell, a concept of which Maximos often spoke. The Fall was the work of humanity, stemming from the free choice with which it had been endowed as an aspect of its creation in the image of God. The first sin was, as all wilful choices are, the free choice of a free creature. To Maximos, such a reality intimately tied the will and the Fall together: the latter was bound up in the former, was indeed caused by it. Thus a salvation could not simply be a redemption of body or even of mind as a purely intellectual agent. It must needs be a salvation of will, for this is the element of most severe corruption in fallen humanity.

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Appendix: Points for Further Discussion.

Space constraints have limited this discussion of St Maximos the Confessor to a very specific theme within his works, examined primarily from secondary source criticism. There are, however, many other important themes running through the Confessor's writings which should be touched on in discussion. These include:

• His understanding of Christ's essential act of ke/nwsij as a model for the ascetic struggle in human life; as well as his appropriation to the thought of Diodochos of Photiki, in laying emphasis upon the role of asceticism as a means to attain natural contemplation, and thereby to once again be able to distinguish our essential lo/goj. In a larger sense, his whole focus upon deification as the focus of human life.


• His conception of man as 'microcosm' and 'mediator', and thus his view of the role of humanity in the sanctification of the cosmos.
  


• His rebuttal of Phyrrus' claim that a distinction of will thereby necessitates a contradiction of will.


• His discussion of Theopaschism.


• His notion of free choice in the eschaton; namely, how those present in the eternal Kingdom can retain free choice, yet without the possibility of choosing evil.

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Salvation, then, must involve two fundamental elements: (1) the saving power of God the Creator, who is the only source of life, and thus the only one capable of restoring life to those who have lost it; and (2) the free consent of the human will to the divine plan of redemption. Only when man uses his free will to re-attain his proper lo/goj, can salvation and sanctification fully come to pass. And this is the heart of the great why behind the Confessor's emphasis upon the free will of Christ: only if Christ possessed a truly human and truly free will, could he engage in the relational, reciprocal process of salvation that was truly needed by mankind.

Car le « fiat » de Jésus à Gethsémani exprime l'ultime décision de sa volonté humaine devant la Passion imminente. Pour nous sauver, « il fallait que le Christ souffrît sa Passion ». Cette mystérieuse nécessité procédait de la philanthrôpia de Dieu, de cette même volonté bienveilante (eudokia) que les trois Personnes ont à notre égard. Mais pour que le Christ nous sauve, il fallait aussi que sa Passion fût précédée par l'acceptation de sa volonté humaine. [12]

Christ as human must freely choose His passion, must freely choose to act according to the will of His Father. He must freely choose that path of ke/nwsij wherein the personal tro/poj is emptied of all that might stand against God, and live fully within the divine grace. Only then, when the process of Salvation is initiated as both a fully divine and fully human act (via the free choice of the will), can the true redemption of fallen humanity come to pass.

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• The Biblical and Patristic Doctrine of the Trinity http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/voulgaris_trinity.html


• Maximos Confessor on the Infinity Of Man http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/christou_maxim.html
  
• The Teaching of Gregory Palamas on Man http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/christou_palamas.html


• The Holy Trinity and the Parousia of the Holy Spirit According to St. John Chrysostom http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/pap_spirit.html


• The Diaconate in Ignatious' Epistles http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/salapatas_diaconate.html


• Time For All and a Moment for Each:
  The Sixth Homily of Gregory of Nyssa on Ecclesiastes http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/mosshammer.html

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In order to show precisely what happened during Pentecost, Chrysostom uses some radical formulations. Thus, he says that the Holy Spirit himself, not simply the grace, the energy, "descended today upon our nature."(68) This means that now we have the "parousia," the hypostatic coming and indwelling of the Spirit of God in man, making man capable of transformation: "For through the parousia of the Spirit they were transformed and became superior to all those who were merely bodily (and without the Spirit). Thus, when the Holy Spirit comes he takes the earthen vessels and transforms them into golden ones."(69) Of course, this transformation (ìåôåóêåõÜóèçóáí) does not mean the alteration of the human nature. It does mean a most inner spiritual transformation of the mind and the way of life. And while the human nature is maintained as we know it physically, the people who bear the Spirit of God become like angels: "Through the gift of the Holy Spirit, who has the 'essence' and the 'authority' of the Father and the Son, we become like angels as we approach the grace. We are not changed by nature, but in a way that is even more marvelous: remaining in human nature, we demonstrate the way of life of the angels." (70)

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...so also in many ways the Holy Spirit transforms human beings into a new creation. Then, such men and women, while "remaining in their human nature, they become like angels in their way of life."