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International Conference on St. Maximus the Confessor
The Architecture of the Cosmos
Helsinki, September 2nd - 4th 2013
Introduction
Among Patristic scholars and theologians, it is generally acknowledged that Maximus the Confessor (580-662) is one of the greatest metaphysical minds – if not the greatest – of the Greek Christian tradition. This is, however, a fairly recent stance in the Western academic world. Indeed, it was not until H.-U. von Balthasar's Kosmische Liturgie, published in 1947, that researchers rediscovered the paramount significance of Maximus' theological legacy, more than one thousand years after its initial reception in the works of John Scot Eriugena (+817). Meanwhile the Orthodox Church has uninterruptedly revered the memory of Maximus the Confessor, especially after Gregory Palamas (+1353) placed renewed emphasis on the relevance of his theological views.
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Since Balthasar's seminal study, a number of scholars (J.M. Garrigues, A. Riou, P. Sherwood , L. Thurnberg, among others) have gone to great lengths to account for the multifarious aspects of Maximus' exceptionally rich and complex thought. The reassessment of a foremost representative of the East's and the West's undivided theological heritage roused great expectations in the field of ecumenism. Unfortunately this promising impulse came to a halt during the third quarter of the 20th century. Among other issues, the reluctance of Western theologians to acknowledge a fundamental identity of views between Maximus the Confessor and Gregory Palamas' teaching on the divine, uncreated energies has put this research dialogue under considerable strain. It has burdened further studies with a more or less overtly apologetic agenda (J.M. Garrigues, J.C. Larchet, V. Karayannis, A. Louth, P. Renczes among others).
The idea of organizing a new conference on Maximus the Confessor is integral to an international effort to overcome this ecumenical tension by taking a fresh look at the original content of Maximus' theology (Athens 2008, Amsterdam and Oxford 2011). Admittedly it is only in a better understanding of the logic underlying Maximus' thought that an unbiased approach to the notion of uncreated energy/energies will be found. This is the reason why The Architecture of the Cosmos has been chosen as the theme for the Helsinki conference. It lays dogmatic concerns aside and emphasizes the need for a concrete and rigorous analysis of the structure and meaning of Maximus' writings. At the same time, it challenges theologians and scholars to try to unfold a comprehensive picture of Maximus' theological vision. Dogmatic divergences often derive from true, but partial, aspects of Maximus' thought. The chosen theme offers a chance to rule out irrelevant opposition by showing that these aspects ought to be considered as mutually connected in order to be fully understood. |
The poster for the Maximus Conference in Helsinki in 2013.
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As central as the input of professional theologians might be to the discussion, it could hardly bear fruit in the absence of interaction with researchers on the history of ancient philosophy and especially later Neo-Platonism. The theme of the conference itself is a hint at the seminal study by A. H. Armstrong on the philosophy of Plotinus, The Architecture of the Intelligible Universe (1940). Recent research on the Neo-Platonic school of commentaries on Aristotle, in the wake of R. Sorabji's works, has shed light on a conceptual apparatus which Maximus seems to have thoroughly assimilated and masterfully adjusted to the Christian Revelation. Accordingly, the clearer our understanding of the development of Pagan philosophy after the closing of the school of Athens (529), the sharper will be our grasp of the logical principles that lie behind Maximus' genuinely Christian and emphatically “Orthodox” picture of the world.
The fact is that Maximus' “cosmic architecture” relies widely on the interaction between different, hierarchically ordained levels of reality, from the supreme Intelligible to formless matter, just as in classical Neo-Platonism. Moreover, the philosophical notions upon which Maximus draws in order to account for these interactions – potentiality and energy, essence and quality, categories of time and space - can be shown to be derived from an exegesis of Aristotelian texts, just as in later Neo-Platonism (Levy, 2002; Mueller-Jourdan, 2003). However, the picture of the world conveyed by Neo-Platonism is based on a univocal mode of interaction; namely, a mode according to which the structure of the lower levels depends upon the direct or combined causality of the higher levels. The audacity of Maximus' theological construct is mainly due to the fact that the qualitative, step by step (uncreated/intelligible/sensitive/material and affective) thinning out of Being which provides the universe with its structure, is no longer understood as a univocal process of causality. Lower levels can somehow “backfire” on higher levels, since the intelligible realm does not exhaust the sphere of existence. Indeed, Maximus conceives the essential (or energetic) mode/tropos of created realities as an ontological dimension in its own right, independent of these realities' essential (or energetic) reason/logos which dwells in the mind of God. This could be what enables Maximus to articulate the horizontal plane of nature and necessity as the object of philosophy, with the transversal plane of history and freedom which is the object of the biblical narrative. At its core, the architecture of Maximus' world seems to rest on the delicate texture or intertwining induced by the simultaneous interaction of a bi-directional causal process (from both the upper to the lower and the lower to the upper levels of being).
At any rate, much work needs to be done in order to develop an adequate understanding of the multiple ways in which the elements of the Maximian cosmos - nature, anti-nature, super-nature, tropos, logos, essence, energy, reason, passions, sexual difference, etc.- are combined to form a coherent whole, an architectural complex. Rejecting the discursive mode of philosophical treatises, Maximus expressed his thought in the form of biblical commentaries of erratic lengths, apparently deprived of mutual connections. Nonetheless, the one thing an honest reader of Maximus cannot question is the existence of the utterly coherent thought that gave rise to this highly heterogeneous corpus. True, a single conference cannot pretend to give a full picture of Maximus' cosmic architecture. However, by putting future research onto the right track, a conference of this kind would already meet the keenest expectations of Maximus scholars in the West as well as in the East.
The fact is that Maximus' “cosmic architecture” relies widely on the interaction between different, hierarchically ordained levels of reality, from the supreme Intelligible to formless matter, just as in classical Neo-Platonism. Moreover, the philosophical notions upon which Maximus draws in order to account for these interactions – potentiality and energy, essence and quality, categories of time and space - can be shown to be derived from an exegesis of Aristotelian texts, just as in later Neo-Platonism (Levy, 2002; Mueller-Jourdan, 2003). However, the picture of the world conveyed by Neo-Platonism is based on a univocal mode of interaction; namely, a mode according to which the structure of the lower levels depends upon the direct or combined causality of the higher levels. The audacity of Maximus' theological construct is mainly due to the fact that the qualitative, step by step (uncreated/intelligible/sensitive/material and affective) thinning out of Being which provides the universe with its structure, is no longer understood as a univocal process of causality. Lower levels can somehow “backfire” on higher levels, since the intelligible realm does not exhaust the sphere of existence. Indeed, Maximus conceives the essential (or energetic) mode/tropos of created realities as an ontological dimension in its own right, independent of these realities' essential (or energetic) reason/logos which dwells in the mind of God. This could be what enables Maximus to articulate the horizontal plane of nature and necessity as the object of philosophy, with the transversal plane of history and freedom which is the object of the biblical narrative. At its core, the architecture of Maximus' world seems to rest on the delicate texture or intertwining induced by the simultaneous interaction of a bi-directional causal process (from both the upper to the lower and the lower to the upper levels of being).
At any rate, much work needs to be done in order to develop an adequate understanding of the multiple ways in which the elements of the Maximian cosmos - nature, anti-nature, super-nature, tropos, logos, essence, energy, reason, passions, sexual difference, etc.- are combined to form a coherent whole, an architectural complex. Rejecting the discursive mode of philosophical treatises, Maximus expressed his thought in the form of biblical commentaries of erratic lengths, apparently deprived of mutual connections. Nonetheless, the one thing an honest reader of Maximus cannot question is the existence of the utterly coherent thought that gave rise to this highly heterogeneous corpus. True, a single conference cannot pretend to give a full picture of Maximus' cosmic architecture. However, by putting future research onto the right track, a conference of this kind would already meet the keenest expectations of Maximus scholars in the West as well as in the East.
