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ABSTRACT Principles of Doctrinal Continuity and Change in Maximus

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ABSTRACT Principles of Doctrinal Continuity and Change in Maximus ABSTRACT Principles of Doctrinal Continuity and Change in Maximus the Confessor (580-662) Yelena V. Borisova, Ph.D. Mentor: Daniel H. Williams, Ph.D. Maximus the Confessor portrays the cosmos as Christologically "prewired" for a dynamic doctrinal transmission. Ontologically, reality is coherent as created by, centered on, and interpretable through the Logos. The perichoretic human-divine duality of Christ's natures—united without confusion and distinct without separation—serves as the hermeneutical model for other non-oppositional relations of contraries, such as the human and the divine. The principle of diabasis (transit) and the kenosis/theosis model place these contraries in a relation of dynamic continuity. Historically, the perichoretic paradigm is realized through the Church, the unique theandric entity characterized by the unconfused unity of the divine and the human qualities. The essential immutable unity of the Logos behind the Church’s teaching balances this teaching's formal mutability and secures the continuity of its multiple expressions. Accordingly, the immutable archetype is reflected in the mutable and, therefore, developmental aspects of his image. Doctrinal continuity is preserved by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit who equips humans to preserve, research, and transmit the contents of the Church's Tradition. Maximus demonstrates reverence to Tradition not by slavishly repeating the received content, but by assuming the inner unity and binding authority of Tradition as a whole and of its vehicles (such as Scripture and the voice of the Fathers). Maximus treats the monadic Christological formulations of Cyril of Alexandria as part of a harmonious and authoritative whole, and his assumptions allow him to take Cyril's teaching past the originally received. On the level of theological language, Maximus modifies doctrinal content quantitatively by increase, and qualitatively by making language more capacious to express the infinite reality through the techniques of paradox, apophasis, and careful verbal nuance. Implicit correlations of Maximus’ Christology allow Vladimir Soloviev to construct an explicit apology for doctrinal development. While Maximus does not formulate a theory of doctrinal development, his Christologically-cohesive vision of ontology and history, his critical yet reverent interaction with the legacy of his predecessors, and his progressively-charged theological language offer a methodological "license" for development—a development which, for Maximus, does not break the dynamic continuity within the historical consciousness of the theandric organism of the Church. Copyright © 2014 by Yelena V. Borisova All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................... viii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ xi Chapter One: Introduction ...............................................................................................................1 Purpose and Significance .....................................................................................................1 Bridging East and West: The Ministry and legacy of Maximus the Confessor...................3 Ministry ....................................................................................................................4 Legacy ......................................................................................................................8 Reception ...............................................................................................................11 East .............................................................................................................11 West ...........................................................................................................12 Rediscovery............................................................................................................13 East .............................................................................................................13 West ...........................................................................................................15 Overview by Chapter ........................................................................................................19 Chapter Two: The Issue of Doctrinal Continuity and Change in Light of Contemporary Scholarship .........................................................................................................................22 Importance of the Issue of Continuity and Discontinuity .................................................22 Overview of Scholarship on the Issue of Continuity and Discontinuity in Doctrinal Transmission ..........................................................................................................25 Patristic Models of Orthodoxy and Heresy ............................................................25 Newman .................................................................................................................33 Adolph von Harnack ..............................................................................................47 Walter Bauer ..........................................................................................................53 Models that Recognize Fixed and Flexible Elements in the Development of Doctrine .................................................................................................57 Some Eastern Orthodox Perspectives ....................................................................68 Chapter Three: Christological Grounds for Dynamic Continuity in Doctrinal Transmission in Maximus’ Thought ..................................................................................72 The Christological Paradigm .............................................................................................73 The Centrality of the Incarnation ...........................................................................73 The Incarnation as Perichoresis .............................................................................76 Cosmological Implications ................................................................................................84 Unity and Difference ..............................................................................................84 Inner Rationality of Reality ...................................................................................89 The logoi ....................................................................................................89 Logical coherence ......................................................................................93 Non-oppositional Structure of Reality ...................................................................96 v Diabasis ..................................................................................................................97 Anthropological Implications ..........................................................................................100 Synergy of Nature and Grace ...............................................................................100 Transition from word to meaning through search/research .....................100 Correlation of logos and tropos ...............................................................105 Theosis .................................................................................................................114 Patristic theosis theories ...........................................................................116 Time and eternity .....................................................................................118 Expansion and contraction .......................................................................121 Theosis as perichoresis ............................................................................122 Theosis as interplay of activity and passivity ..........................................130 Theosis as ontological change .................................................................130 Theosis as asymptotic and asymmetrical .................................................135 Chapter Four: Historical Principles of Dynamic Continuity in Doctrinal Transmission ....................................................................................................................139 The Church as the Locus of Doctrinal Transmission.......................................................139 Perichoretic Paradigm Realized in History: the Church as the Theandric Entity ........................................................................................................140 Image and Archetype ...........................................................................................144 General Principles of the Transmission of the Church's doctrine ....................................148 Agency of the Transmission of the Church's Doctrine ....................................................155 “Theologian” and “Theology" .............................................................................158 "Fathers" and the "Consensus of the Fathers" .....................................................163 Orthodoxy and Heresy .........................................................................................171 Councils ...............................................................................................................172
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