History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps

Episode 106: Double or Nothing – Maximus the Confessor

Host: Peter Adamson
Date: December 9, 2012

Main Theme & Purpose

Peter Adamson explores the life, thought, and significance of Maximus the Confessor (c. 580–662), a pivotal figure in early Byzantine theology. The episode focuses on the fierce debates concerning the metaphysical relationship between Jesus Christ’s divinity and humanity—a matter that led to intense theological, political, and even violent conflict. Adamson traces how Maximus staunchly defended the doctrine that Christ possessed both a divine and a human nature (and will), and why this position mattered so deeply for the development of Christian metaphysics and ethics.

Key Discussion Points

1. The Stakes of Christological Debates (00:30–05:00)

• The episode opens with a reflection on how issues that seem abstruse or trivial to outsiders—such as the nature of Christ—were once intensely contested, leading to real-world consequences, including violence.
• Adamson notes, “Some of the blood belonged to the man we’ll be discussing in this episode, the 7th-century thinker Maximus the Confessor.” (02:38)
• Maximus’s honorific, "Confessor", refers to his defense of what would become orthodoxy: that Christ had two natures, united in a single person.

2. Background: Fourth- and Fifth-Century Controversies

• The dilemma of Christ’s nature is compared to the earlier Trinitarian debates handled by the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus), who sought a balance between:
  • Arianism—over-separating the persons of the Trinity.
  • Sabellianism—collapsing the persons into a single entity, losing their distinctions.
• Similarly, the Christological controversy required affirming both Christ’s divinity and his humanity without conflating or separating them unduly.

3. Key Figures and Doctrinal Positions (06:40–16:00)

• Apollinarius: Argued Christ had a singular, immutable divine nature, denying full humanity to secure Christ’s sinlessness. He was condemned for violating Christ’s completeness as a human.

  • “Apollinarius seems to have gone further and said that if Christ had a human will, he would actually have sinned…”

• Nestorius: Proposed two natures and two hypostases (distinct entities), but critics claimed this divided Christ too much; accused of masking a “real underlying duality” behind a superficial unity.

  • The imagery of “masks” in Greek theater (prosopon) is invoked to illustrate the perceived superficial unity in Nestorianism.

• Cappadocians and Cyril of Alexandria: Insisted on a “middle ground”: two natures, but a genuine unity, illustrated by the analogy of a red-hot sword—metal and fire retain their properties while united. Cyril’s theology is noted for both winning and failing to unify Christianity at major councils.

  • Notably, Cyril’s watch saw the murder of the philosopher Hypatia by a Christian mob.

• Fractures: Even after the Councils of Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451), unity remained elusive. Positions included:

  • Monophysitism: One nature (divine over human).
  • Dyophysitism: Two natures and two persons.
  • Cyrillian formula: One person, two natures.

4. Maximus’s Theological Contribution (16:00–32:00)

• Context: Byzantine Empire’s internal divisions were exacerbated by external threats—from Persians and then rapid Islamic expansion—motivating a search for theological consensus.

• Monothelitism vs. Dyothelitism:

  • Compromise suggestions proposed Christ had a single will (Monothelitism). Maximus, following Sophronius, vigorously opposed this.
  • Maximus’s essential claim: “It made no sense to ascribe only one will to a person who has two natures… having a human nature and a divine nature means having two wills.” (20:10)
  • Opponents argued two wills would inevitably conflict (risking Christ’s sinfulness). Maximus countered: do not confuse ‘will as capacity’ with ‘will as actual decision.’
    • “Christ’s divine will was a separate capacity from his human will. But these two wills always came together to issue a single joint decision.” (21:40)

• Single Activity Debate:

  • The term energeia (translated “activity” or “energy”) was used to ask whether Christ performed one kind of action or two.
  • Inspired by pseudo-Dionysius but ultimately rejected the “single activity” view, arguing Christ’s acts always involved the perfected cooperation of both capacities: human and divine.
  • Example: Christ walking on water—walking is human, but the manner is divine.

5. Philosophical Framework—Aristotle’s Actuality and Potentiality (25:15–27:50)

• Maximus used Aristotelian distinctions of first and second actuality:
  • Christ has “two first actualities, a divine will and a human will.”
  • Concrete acts (‘second actuality’) always involve the agreement of both wills.
  • Memorable analogy: “...think about a coffee shop loyalty card...” (26:24)
    • Initially blank (potentiality), filled with stamps (first actuality), eligible for free coffee (second actuality).

6. Metaphysics and the Problem of Dual Attributes (28:00–32:00)

• Adamson connects this to wider metaphysical questions, such as mind-body dualism.

  • The Nestorian challenge: If God cannot suffer but Christ suffered, are there really two subjects in Christ?

  • Theotokos debate (whether Mary is “God-bearer”): Nestorius resisted, Cyril and Maximus insisted that God truly became incarnate and born.

    “Mary did give birth to a man made of flesh like us, but in so doing she gave birth to God. This is no absurdity, as Nestorius claimed, but rather the whole point…” (31:30)

7. Ethics: Divinization & Human Moral Striving (32:00–35:45)

• Maximus expanded Christology into ethics.
  • Humanity’s nature is “divinized” in Christ, transforming the human good.
  • Echoes Plato’s idea: achieve “likeness to God insofar as is possible.”
  • Maximus inherits Dionysian negative theology: God is unknowable in His essence, accessible only through His activities (energeiai).
    • Even the blessed in the afterlife “participate in God’s activity, rather than unifying with the divine essence itself.” (34:00)

8. Life in This World: Asceticism and Virtue (35:45–End)

• Maximus combines previous traditions:
  • From Origen: intellectual contemplation of God.
  • From the ascetic Evagrius Ponticus: psychological self-discipline, ascetic struggle, and emptying oneself of bodily attachments to become receptive to God and virtue.
  • Scriptural allegory: “the flight of Moses and the Jewish people from Egypt symbolizes for Maximus the need to turn away from the realm of sensation and towards the things of the mind.” (36:45)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the contemporary irrelevance and former intensity of the Christological debate:

  “It’s amazing what other people care about… the late ancient dispute over the metaphysical relationship between the divine and human aspects of Jesus Christ. Nowadays, I suspect even most devout Christians have given this question no thought whatsoever.” (01:06)

• On Maximus’s fate:

  “Instead, his enemies literally cut off the hand with which he had written of Christ’s two natures and tore out the tongue with which he had so articulately defended his theology. He died soon after, in the year 662, having joined Socrates in the select group of philosophers who have been violently persecuted for their beliefs.” (02:56)

• Maximus’s key distinction:

  “We shouldn’t confuse will as a capacity with will in the sense of a decision made by that capacity.” (21:49)

• Coffee card analogy for Aristotelian actuality:

  “But let’s instead think about a coffee shop loyalty card…” (26:23)

• On Theotokos debate:

  “This is no absurdity, as Nestorius claimed, but rather the whole point. She gave birth to the Word of God made flesh, this being the very meaning of the word Incarnation.” (31:43)

• Why the debate matters (for metaphysics and ethics):

  “…for us philosophers, the debate is no less important… it is at root a debate over metaphysics. If you are trying to figure out whether two things are in fact identical, for instance, whether the mind is the same thing as the brain, or whether Christ’s humanity is the same thing as his divinity, there’s a test you can do. Try to find a statement that holds true of one of the two things, but not the other…” (28:09)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:30–02:56: Introduction; why Christology mattered so deeply; Maximus’s fate.
• 03:00–06:30: Historical prelude—late ancient theological stakes (Cappadocians, Arianism, Sabellianism).
• 06:40–16:00: Fourth/fifth-century disputes (Apollinarius, Nestorius, Cyril).
• 16:00–21:40: The Byzantine context and the rise of compromise formulas (Monothelitism).
• 21:40–27:50: Maximus’s philosophical solutions (two wills, activities, actualities).
• 28:00–31:45: The metaphysical implications (mind-body analogy, suffering, Theotokos debate).
• 32:00–36:45: Maximus’s ethics—divinization, virtue, knowledge of God, asceticism.
• 36:50–End: Transition to next episode: asceticism.

Conclusion

Adamson’s exploration of Maximus the Confessor presents him as both a defender of theological orthodoxy in the face of physical persecution and a sophisticated philosopher creatively reconciling metaphysics and ethics. The episode shows how arcane-seeming Christological disputes shaped not only theology, but philosophy in the Byzantine world—debates about the Christ’s dual natures and wills illuminate perennial philosophical questions of identity, unity, and the perfection of human nature.