It is characteristic of human action and definitive of its self-determination and liberty that it somehow realise the novelty and creativity proper to its created, deiform nature and to the dynamic scope of historic and personal contingency. Yet the morality of human action can also be and, in Catholic Christianity, continue to be, measured and appraised by its relative conformity to the stable norms of reason, nature and the divine will. At first these two approaches, the first representing what one might call a morality of freedom and the second a morality of heteronomy, seem to be at odds. Moreover, they leave unanswered the question of the relation of human action to Christ, its efficacious redeemer and ultimate if unspecified goal. This paper briefly explores Maximus’s contribution to this challenging complex of thoughts, paying special attention to three main themes in his writings: a) his anthropological distinction between the creative exercise of freedom (pôs thelein / thelêsis) and its ontological foundation (haplôs thelein / boulêsis); b) his understanding of the dynamic drama of human passion and desire, deliberation and action; and c) his theological exegesis of the suffering Christ’s obedience to the will of his Father.
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