Maximus the Confessor: On Ontology and Deification

The typical Protestant reticence towards the language and concept of "deification" (theosis) as it is employed in Patristic theology generally regards the blurring of the absolute line between Creator and creature.  It is typical of many Protestant soteriological outlooks to circumvent this type of ontological language completely in favor of more "extrinsic" forensic models of justification and adoption.  However when one looks at the actual sources, the Protestant aversion to a transformation of nature into divinity is misplaced when it seeks targets among Patristic tradition.  It is certainly correct insofar as if and when this tendency arises, it should be opposed as idolatrous. Yet it is essential to examine the sources themselves, and to ask whether this sort of physical deification actually arises, or is perhaps a caricature. Part of the language of deification has indeed been tainted by the Mormon's fairly alien concept that we ourselves become gods, i.e. our "entitative" or essential state is such that we attain god-like powers and cease to be "merely human."  Regardless of the affinity of terminology of "deification," however, the Christian Patristic tradition's general motif of salvation is a far cry from the scope of the Mormon narrative.  Far more than a type of "superhero" origins story--where the protagonist is invaded by an alien element and so mutated--the Patristic concept of theosis involves less of an individuals coming to possession of a set of superlative attributes, than it does of a communion with Christ (and by extension, an invitation into the life of the Trinity itself).  Theosis is a "Christification," so to speak.  And insofar as Christ is, as Paul records, "the second Adam," theosis as a "deification" actually involves more of a "humanification" of true humanity in us as we participate and commune with God, than it does the dissolving of the boundary distinctions between human and divine natures.  A good example of this is the concept of theosis in the theology and ontology of Maximus the Confessor.

Throughout his discourses related to Christology, Maximus continually makes a fascinating reference to a “conceptual distinction,” (Amb. 42.82)** between a thing’s “principles” (logoi) and “modes” (tropoi) of employment. This is a tantalizing yet difficult distinction to grasp. It is, however, a distinction that I would like to look at and elaborate upon, as it appears throughout and is a key metaphysical device Maximus uses to explain such things as Christ’s true human origin (genesis) as opposed to its “mode” of human begetting (gennesis), between Christ’s “becoming sin but not knowing sin,” his “putting off” and conquest of the human passions in incarnation, and even carries over into Maximus’ brief discussions in these sections on Deification in relation to our own humanity (especially in Ad Thalassium 42 and 60). To give a general frame to this extended reflection on Maximus’ Christology, then, I would like to situate the discussion of the various topics as an extended analysis of the distinction between logoi and topoi and the ontological implications of this.

The first instance in our reading where this distinction arises is in Ambiguum 42.80, where Maximus is attempting to exegete Gregory of Nazianzus’ apparent distinction between natural birth and the “original and vital inbreathing” (Amb. 42.79). This is a key aspect for the elaboration on just what the exact difference between logoi and tropoi could be, since in this particular instance Maximus wants to defend Nazianzen from contradiction. This is important because Nazianzen talks about “three births” (natural birth, baptism, and resurrection) and yet, says Maximus, it appears he inserts (unbeknownst to Nazianzus) a fourth birth by the phrase “original and vital inbreathing.” Has Nazianzus simply forgotten what he just said by enumerating three births? Maximus in a “quodlibetal” type format (probably an anachronism, but how often do you get a chance to use quodlibet in a sentence?) poses the question to himself in order to provide a jumping off point demonstrating that, no, Nazianzus is in fact being consistent. The distinction of logoi and tropoi then follows as a distinction which both allows a unity (so that there is not in fact a fourth type of birth) without glossing over the apparent difference of natural birth to vital inbreathing.

The first distinction drawn then is this: Christ through his creaturely origin “by nature [became] the same as Adam in terms of the ‘vital inbreathing’…receiving as man what was created in the divine image.” On the other hand “he voluntarily assumed the likeness of corruptible humanity.” Maximus then glosses his own initial explanation: “in being formed as a human being…[he] assumed in his human nature impeccability through the divine inbreathing, but not incorruptibility. On the other hand…he underwent the human birth punitively instituted after the fall…he became the New Adam by assuming a sinless creaturely origin and yet submitting to a passible birth.” This is further nuanced by another loaded comment that Christ “has perfectly become the New Adam, while bearing in himself the first Adam, and he is both of these at once without diminution.” (Amb. 42.81) Hence already we can see that the difference between “principle” and “mode” is falling along the lines of some sort of distinction of “nature” and, to perhaps put it crudely at this point, the various ways that nature is realized (hence literally tropoi means “modes”). Zizioulas puts the matter helpfully as guide to this discussion by noting logos physeos is what something is, while tropos or tropos hyparxeos is the how it is. In other words “tropos adjusts being to an intention or purpose or manner of communion…without change of what (logoi) each thing is.” (Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness p.23ff) Similarly, the introduction by Wilken and Blowers notes “Maximus intends to show how Christ took on himself natural human passibility…In so doing Christ not only resolves the legacy of the fall but pioneers a whole new modality (tropos) for human passion consistent with the soul’s natural—and perpetually graced—desire for God.” (p.35). To see if these definitions cover the extent of Maximus’ uses, let us turn to several more instances. After these instances are exegeted, we can ask what sort of ontological difference this distinction makes, though that will of course be in part implicitly seen in the elaboration of its use.

Aside from the natural birth question, Maximus uses the logoi-tropoi distinction in several other instances. Maximus notes of the unity of Christ: “he took on himself our human nature in deed and in truth and united it to himself hypostatically—without change, alteration, diminution, or division; he maintained it inalterably, by its own essential principle” (Amb. 42.84). This hypostatic union, and Maximus’ theology in general, follows a very developed form of the basic principle of Gregory of Nazianzus: that which is unassumed, is unhealed. Hence in analyzing the distinction we have set out to understanding, it seems that the distinction is itself a result of an attempt at a deeper understanding of the hypostatic union and soteriology. We have seen this partially already in the question of natural birth above. But what are its other consequences? In Ad Thalassium 21 it is applied to Christ’s redirection of the human passions into a new tropoi. Maximus records two essential vanquishings of the passions by Christ: In the desert “he put off the principalities and powers, removing them from human nature and healing the liability to hedonistic passions, and in himself canceled the bond.” And the second was upon the cross “[where] he put off the principalities and powers at the moment of his death on the cross, when he remained impervious to his sufferings and, what is more, manifested the (natural human) fear of death, thereby driving from our nature the passion associated with pain.” (Ad Thal. 21.112)

There are important things to note in these two instances which move us toward further understanding of the logoi-tropoi distinction. What we have to notice is that in Christ’s activity what is being eliminated is not our nature, but a certain mode of association, “a bond,” which is being cast off. In the second instance of Christ’s victory on the cross he says Christ “thereby [drove] from out nature the passion associated with pain.” He does not say that pain is eliminated, merely a certain relation to it, namely its usual invocation of passion. And in the first example, the desert temptation Maximus notes “[man is] unable, in his fear of death, to free himself from his slavery to pleasure.” This ends up being the same as the theme at the cross, since man turns to pleasure, according to Maximus, given his fear of death. In both cases fear and passion are what are eliminated. Elsewhere Maximus writes “For everything that comes into existence is subject to movement, since it is not self moved or self powered. If then rational beings come into being, surely they are also moved, since they move from a natural beginning in being toward a voluntary end in well-being itself, just as its beginning is being itself which is God who is the given of being as well as of well being...from him come both our moving in whatever way from a beginning and our moving in certain way toward him as an end.” (Amb. 7.51) Movement and change are from “a natural beginning.” Hence, coming back to Ad Thalassium 21, when Christ removed the principalities and powers from human nature (21.112) and removed the fear of death, it is not a stilling of movement, but a redirection. To use Zizioulas terms, it is a reworking of the how of the what of nature, or “[Maximus] indicates that Christ blamelessly used fear for our sake, in effect pioneering a new and edifying mode of that fear as a part of the conforming of human volition to the divine will.” (translators’ note 7 p.112 in Ad Thal. 21).

This same distinction is carried over into the discussion of Christ become sin without knowing sin in Ad Thalassium 42. Whereas in 21 Christ reorganized the patterns of fear to allow a directional change in our nature, here the distinction is between sin “as culpable free choice,” and sin as “unwillingly putting off incorruption.” (42.119). That is, “the Lord did not know “my sin” that is, the mutability of my free choice. Neither did he assume nor become my sin. Rather he became the “sin that I caused’; in other words he assumed the corruption of human nature that was a consequence of mutability of my free choice.” (42.120). In other words, in order to repair our nature Christ assumed the tropos of our passibility, of our sin, in order to utilize it as a vehicle for the redirection of nature. This is what we saw Maximus meant too by the Savior taking our “creaturely origin” (ie. Adamic human nature) yet also subjecting himself to the procreative conditions of fallen humanity (gennesis) yet without sin (Amb 42).  This seems to be the thrust of a somewhat obscure remark in Ad Thal. 22 as well when he comments “For he subjugated—to this very same natural passibility—the evil tyranny which had once ruled within it (within that passibility, I mean).” I can think of little else that this could mean but that our nature has been liberated precisely because the tropos of passibility is itself now separated from its evil connotations and redirected by Christ toward the good in deification. With these distinctions, let us look more at the ontological nature of the relation between the two.

It thus appears from these preceding examples that, to a certain extent, Maximus is arguing that nature, conceived in and of itself as logoi, does not get altered, but it does enter “corruption,” which pertains to its tropos. But how are the two related? Maximus says several very interesting things in this regard. Right away we can rule out the Aristotelian substance/accident schema. Maximus writes in Amb 42.82, we should recall, that the distinction and unification of the natural birth and divine inbreathing are one thing. They do not constitute two separate births. In fact remarkably he writes “you should distinguish them only conceptually.” This conceptual distinction between logoi and tropoi is intriguing conceived in this way because it anticipates what Duns Scotus later famously called a “formal distinction”; a category that is somewhere in between merely in the mind and what is objectively distinct. In other words they are conceptually distinguishable even though ontologically speaking they are simultaneously one thing or within one existant. Even though Maximus says we should distinguish them only conceptually, I think that this means something different than what it would mean if a modern theologian uttered the same words. For clearly the tropos has an ontological import. It seems what he means by a conceptual division is he doesn’t want us to see logoi and tropoi as two separate, independent things. Rather it would appear that nature never appears “naked” as it were, but always has a mode of being. In this sense again it is similar to Scotus who defined a “formal distinction” as one which holds between entities which are inseparable and indistinct in reality, but whose definitions are not the same.

This similarity is increased when Maximus writes “generally speaking, all innovation is manifested in relation to the mode (tropos) of the thing innovated, not its natural principle (logos). The principle if it undergoes innovation, corrupts the nature (logos), as the nature in that case does not maintain inviolate the principle (logos) according to which it exists.” He goes on “The mode thus innovated, while the natural principle is preserved, displays a miraculous power, insofar as the nature appears to be acted upon, and to act, clearly beyond its normal scope.” (Amb 42.90) And again: “[the body’s] mode is the scheme in which it naturally acts and is acted upon, which can frequently change and undergo alteration without changing at all the nature along with it.” And so when he writes of Enoch’s “translation,” to a different form of life of incorruption, it was not an alteration of nature, but “by changing the mode and domain of action.” (ibid).

In relation to deification, this principle of “formal distinction” between the two is sustained. Maximus writes in Ad Thalassium 22.116 that in fulfilling the goal of deifying humanity, this occurs in every respect “except identity of essence with God.” The extent of this analysis is left a bit implicit in the reading we went over, so I will end with what hopefully amounts to a drawing out of the same “formal distinction” logic in relation to deification. We already saw that Enoch’s translation into glory was by tropos, and the deification is not an identity of essence. Another key distinction is necessary: that between activity and passivity. He writes “accordingly the ages of flesh, in which we now live…are characterized by activity, while the future ages in the Spirit, which are to follow the present life, are characterized by the transformation of humanity in passivity.” (Ad Thal. 22.117). He clarifies: “for we are active agents insofar as we have operative, by nature, a rational faculty for performing the virtues, and a spiritual faculty…” But then contrasts this: “But when in the future we are rendered passive (in deification)…we will unwittingly enter into the true Cause of existent beings and terminate our proper faculties along with everything in our nature that has reached completion. We shall become that which in no way results from out natural ability, since our human nature has no faculty for grasping what transcends nature…Grace alone illuminates human nature with a supernatural light, and, by the superiority of its glory, elevates our nature above its proper limits in excess of its glory.” (22.117-118).

While this does not explicitly reinvoke the tropos language, it does seem quite reminiscent of Amb. 42.90 insofar as the language of “exceeding natural capacity” and the parallel of the image of Enoch’s translation both fit well with this paragraph. Moreover, if we are to maintain consistency with Maximus, he notes that innovation cannot come to nature without corrupting the nature. In other words if the nature of the thing is changed, even in salvation, then “it” would theoretically no longer be the thing being saved. Moreover, since Maximus is quite explicit in his shift to the language of “pacificity” and that which exceeds “natural capacity,” it is reasonable to assume God deifies “tropically” so that deification is an infinite modification of tropos, not logos. If this is so it would make for an interesting dialogue with we who are Protestants, whose usual fear with deification is the loss of human nature in the divine. But this would not be at all a feature of Maximus, quite the opposite. In deification we become “better humans” so to speak, a human logos or nature whose tropos or mode or manner in which the nature is active in relation, is an infinite communion with God.

**The number on the left of the decimal indicates the section number, while the numbers on the right will indicate pagination in The Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ, since subsection numeration was not provided.