Photios said...
HB,

For Maximus there is one power or will in the Trinity as a natural faculty, but this power has infinite 'objects of the will' : the eternal logoi of the Logos. An actualized dunameis is energetic: that is, when the natural faculty is employed toward the object of the will by the person (mode of willing). This is why Maximus calls the logoi--along with Dionysius--"predeterminations and wills," although strictly they are not the natural faculty itself. One power in the Trinity, 3 persons and 3 modes of willing, and infinite objects of the will (logoi). This is how God has libertarian freedom (and as I would argue the only way he can, between this robust distinction between nature/hypostasis/dunameis) and the basis for libertarian freedom for creatures (built on the imago Dei). An act of will--irrespective of creations--is also the Orthodox "answer" to the filioque problem (eternal manifestation of the Spirit). An act of will is one that is common to all 3 persons. It is only at this level that the economic Trinity parallels the theologial Trinity.

Maximus says in his Chapters on Knowledge, "God never ceases from the GOODS because he never BEGAN them."

Think hard about what that statement means.

Our project is to maintain libertarian freedom for God and creatures, and what we think we have identified as the problem for Western debates regarding predestination/free-will/the problem of evil: That is the Neo-Platonic doctrine of simplicity.

Photios