Maximus the Confessor and the Trinitarian Debate

“Persons Act, Natures Are” – Maximus the Confessor and the Trinitarian Debate

Peter J. Wallace

It was good to see Lewis Ayres comment today. I had some of the same concerns about the blithe use of “Nicene” – and a tendency on the part of many participants to talk as though all of the words we are using here are obvious in meaning.

The debate over the meaning of the Nicene Creed continued for several hundred years. Chalcedon, after all, sought to explicate the meaning of “was made man.” And particularly, much of the discussion of the two wills of Christ took place three hundred years after Nicea!

For myself, I spent a decade wrestling with the Trinitarian and Christological controversies before I finally discovered Maximus the Confessor. (I’d like to say that now everything is perfectly clear to me – but then Maximus would box my ears for denying the mystery of God!).

Maximus the Confessor was a seventh century theologian who helped formulate the doctrine of the two natures of Christ – particularly in the Monothelite controversy. The Monothelites claimed that Christ had only one will and one energy. (He also wrote a glorious exposition of the liturgy – the Mystagogia – you can get a sense for it here).

What we affirm in the Nicene Creed and the Chalcedonian definition is that the second person of the Trinity is the one person of Jesus Christ.

In the 6th and 7th centuries the Monothelites claimed that there was one theandric energy and will (and by “theandric” they meant “pertaining to the God-man”). They said that in Christ the two natures had come together, constituting an indivisible unity, discerned in a single energy and/or will. Their goal was laudable: they wanted to resolve the schism between the Chalcedonians and the Monophysites (though, in fairness, there were a lot more than two parties in the debate).

But Maximus rightly understood the problem: a “theandric” energy and/or will is neither divine nor human. If Jesus’ will is “theandric” – then his will is not very God of very God. Nor is his will truly human. Christ may not lack any natural property of humanity or divinity. “How again, if the Word made flesh does not himself will naturally as a human being and perform things in accordance with nature, how can he willingly undergo hunger and thirst, labour and weariness, sleep and all the rest? For the Word does not simply will and perform these things in accordance with the infinite nature beyond being that he has together with the Father and the Spirit.” (Opuscule 7, 77B)

Much of our discussion of “will” and “energy” have to do with our ordinary human experience of willing (deciding what to do) and doing (putting our decisions into practice). What does it mean that Christ has two wills? Certainly not that Christ is a split personality with his two wills debating over what he will do! Certainly the fact that he has two energies does not mean that he is going two different directions at the same time!

And so Maximus articulated his most central insight of Christology – namely, that persons act; natures are. Christ does not have two centers of deliberation. Rather, Christ has two “natural wills” – in other words, Christ himself (the second person of the Trinity) acts according to the principles of both natures.

As processes, energy and will proceed from one’s nature(s). But as result, energy and will are expressions of the person. If Jesus had no human process of willing, he would never choose to eat, because his divine will would have no need for such a decision. But the Son of God did choose to eat because his person willed to do so on the basis of his fully human property of will and energy. As Andrew Louth summarizes this, “the Incarnate Word possesses as a human being the natural disposition to will, and this is moved and shaped by the divine will” (Louth, p61).

But what does it mean for God to will? After all, we are used to deliberating and deciding (that is what we mean by “will”). But God does not need to “deliberate” (the term Maximus uses is “gnomic”). He does not acquire knowledge the same way that we do – and so God does not “deliberate” about what he will do. His will – like his knowledge – is intuitive and immediate.

[A note to my readers: scripture often speaks of God holding council, asking questions, deliberating, etc. But this is done for our benefit – not his. The God who knows the end from the beginning does not need to deliberate as to what he will do in the middle.]

When we talk about the two “wills” in Christ, we need to distinguish between the idea of “natural will” (namely, the principle of willing) and the idea of “deliberative will” (namely, the process of deliberation by which you and I go about willing). Maximus argues that “When the Fathers say that there are two natural wills in Christ, they mean that there are two natural laws, not two inclinations [gnomai].” (Op 3, 45B)

The natural will is “the natural appetency of the flesh endowed with a rational soul,” while the gnomic will is “the longing of the mind of a particular man moved by an opinion.” “For to be disposed by nature to will and to will are not the same thing.” (Op 3, 48A)

But think about the alternative. What if Christ has only one will? Well, if this will is natural (pertaining to his nature), then his nature is neither related to the Father or Mary. But if this will is gnomic (deliberative), and his one will is the will of the divine nature then the Godhead will be subject to passions – inclinations. Or if this one will is simply human, then he is not God. (Op 3, 56A)

[God is not subject to passions – he is not helplessly acted upon by others. He certainly has affections – emotions – but the “passions” ordinarily refer to the wild uncontrollable urges of the flesh.]

Therefore, Maximus insists that there are two natural wills in Christ. In other words, there are two principles of willing. But there is no deliberative will in Christ. After all, the divine will does not deliberate. God does not “debate and discuss” the question of what is best to do. As Maximus puts it, “this will is not at all deliberative [gnomic], but properly natural, eternally formed and moved by its essential Godhead to the fulfillment of the economy. And it is wholly and thoroughly deified by its agreement and concord with the Father’s will, and can properly be said to have become divine in virtue of the union, but not by nature. For nothing at all changes its nature by being deified.” (Op 7, 81D)

Some had suggested in Maximus’ day that within the Trinity, “there is a will for every person,” and therefore there are three [gnomic] wills in the Trinity. If will attaches to person, then it cannot be “natural” (pertaining to nature), but must be gnomic (deliberative), and therefore there would be deliberation and possibly even disagreement within the Trinity. (Op 3, 52C-D)

I fear that I may have lost some of my readers along the way. If you insist on trying to understand the incomprehensible God, you will find yourself in deep waters. The history of the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the Incarnation demonstrates that no one has come up with exactly the right way to say it. Rather, there are a whole lot of very bad ways to say it, and only a few acceptable ways to say it. There are many ways of speaking that contradict what the scriptures teach about God and Christ. There are very few that do not! Hopefully Maximus helps us to remember that when we use language to describe God, we frequently are required to make distinctions that we don’t normally think about (e.g., the distinction between natural and gnomic wills).

But if you forget everything else, hang on to that central insight of Maximus that persons act, natures are. Natures don’t do things. Persons do things — according to their nature(s).

All quotations from Andrew Louth, Maximus the Confessor (London: Routledge, 1996).