Maximus the Confessor
580-662 · Eastern Christianity · Prominent
Maximus was a Byzantine theologian who insisted that Christ had two wills, one human and one divine, since a Christ with no human will saves nothing. He held that line against the emperor's own theology and was mutilated for it. His vision carries all creation through purification toward deification, the creature made God by grace, each thing holding the logos God made it to fulfil.
Signature
The position Maximus is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Natural Processes
- leans Purposeful
- End of Things
- Transfiguration
Positions on the 10 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Purposeful (89 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Mind
- strongly leans Beyond Brain (100 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- leans Indescribable (79 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Universals
- strongly leans Realism (10 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Identity
- strongly leans Unchanging (0 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- strongly leans Inherent (100 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Nature of Reality
- mildly leans Unity (33 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ground of Being
- strongly leans Transcendence (97 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence (89 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (82 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
10 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Maximus refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Monarchy / Confessional State
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Union with God
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Good Real, Evil Privative
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Transfiguration
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Knowledge
- Grounded in God / Receptive Intellect
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Divine Command / Natural Law
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Synergism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Creation ex Nihilo
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Eschatological / Sacred Time
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Divine Revelation / Sacred Tradition
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Logos
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Paradox
- Apophatic Pointer
What is the status of paradox? - Law
- Divine Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Ascent of the Soul
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Path to the Divine
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Imago Dei
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?