Maximos and the Logoi

St Maximus said that the one LOGOS is the many LOGOI (I am summarizing key parts from his Ambiguum 7). Collectively, the Forms are LOGOI, which is LOGOS, which is the Second Person of the Trinity. The Logos is revealed and multiplied in the Forms (logoi) which are then recapitulated back into the Logos (Ephesians 1:10). The Logos is the interconnecting cause that holds the Forms together. The Logoi, therefore, pre-exist in God.

This is beautiful philosophy, but the only problem:  it's hard to say that the logoi as collective forms died on the cross for my sins.   But on the other hand, this handles Ephesians 1:10 and Col. 1:17 quite nicely.

Raise what up?

Old Jamestown Church has some interesting comments on Joseph Farrell and Maximus the Confessor.  When it comes to philosophy, Farrell/Maximus (and I speak of the earlier Farrell; the more recent Farrell probably wouldn't care) these two are probably the biggest guns Orthodoxy has to offer.  Responding to the Reformed/Augustinian reading of John 6, Farrell (via Fr Kimel) writes,

Farrell cites St Augustine’s exegesis of John 6:39 (“This is the will of the Father who hath sent me, that of all that he hath given me I shall lose nothing”) as an example. Who are the “all”? According to Augustine, the “all” are the specific individuals who have been divinely elected to salvation: this “number is so certain that one can neither be added to them nor taken away from them.” For Augustine, predestination pertains to persons. Maximus, on the other hand, interprets “all” as referring to the human nature assumed by Christ in the Incarnation.

OJC remarks,

Let's take a look at that verse in context:
³⁸ For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
³⁹ And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.
⁴⁰ And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
That Maximus could find human nature and not individuals in verse 39 is a testament to his wholly philosophical and theological approach to the text, one that is devoid of every necessary exegetical control.  The text CLEARLY refers to individuals.  There is nothing in this passage that suggests human nature is being resurrected; everything in it points topersons being resurrected.  And this just highlights the fundamental problem with Eastern Orthodoxy (and to a lesser but significant extent Anglo-Catholicism), which is that its theology is structured more around the mystical and philosophical nature of Greek theology rather than the exegetical nature of Augustine's later theology.  Any number of Augustine scholars will tell you that while he started out as a strong Neoplatonist, and that Neoplatonism did continue to exercise a deleterious effect in some of his theology, in later years he turned from a philosophical theologian to a much more exegetical one, and in his struggle against Pelagianism he resorted to all of the apostolic material -- including verses such as John 6:39 -- which buttress the case for the view of unconditional election reflected in Article XVII and in the theology of the (Augustinian) Reformers generally. 

A broadside across the Cyrillene bow

Some EO and RCC converts were attacking Protestantism's doctrine of man and the atonement on Facebook.  Granted, there are some difficulties and I am not fully satisified with Hodge's approach. but I noticed that both sides in the debate hold to an out-dated substance metaphysics.   This runs into problems when we apply it to Christology.   Take the great Father Cyril of Alexandria, whom they use to attack Protestantism.  Let's see what happens:

Dr Bruce McCormack illustrates some key gains with Cyril’s Christology. Like Apollinaris he understood that the Logos had to instrumentalize the human nature.  Unlike Apollinaris he avoided truncating that human nature.  The problem, though, as Lutherans were keen to pick up on, is locating the “acting agent.”  Normally Cyril locates the acting agent as the Logos asarkos.  However, when we get to the communicatio idiomata, it seems Cyril is locating the acting agent as the whole Christ, which is an entirely different term.  Anchorites are using a sliding scale.

Orthodox and Lutherans hold to a real communication of attributes.  Good.    There is a problem, though.  St Maximus said the relationship was tantum…quantum.   This means if there is a real communication, it’s a two-way street.  However, if we attribute human attributes to the divine (which is how John Milbank reads Andrew Louth’s reading of Maximus), how can we seriously maintain any doctrine of divine impassibility?

 Continuing McCormack’s argument.  We admit that the person of the Logos is the acting agent of the union, denying activity to the human nature; this is consistent with the principle that persons act, not natures.  However, when one communicates this to the modern world, using modern terminology, we find that we are equivocating on the term “human.”  In today’s language humanity means, among other things, a self-activating nature.  And that is Nestorianism.