Maximus and truth and texts and discourse

[Clark]

I'm opening this topic to collect some by-the-bye passages I've noticed in various places. My notion is that Maximus keeps saying things that are invisible to us -- we zoom right past them, deeming them fluff or convention or pious noises that Maximus doesn't really mean. So I want to call attention to them and ask whether he does mean them and if so what follows.

[Clark]

If by reason and wisdom a person has come to understand that what exists was brought out of non-being into being by God, if he intelligently directs the soul’s imagination to the infinite differences and variety of things as they exist by nature and turns his questing eye with understanding towards the intelligible model (λόγος) according to which things have been made, would he not know that the one Logos is many logoi?

St Maximus the Confessor. (2003). On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ: Selected Writings from St Maximus the Confessor. (J. Behr, Ed., P. M. Blowers & R. L. Wilken, Trans.) (Vol. 25, p. 54). Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

(From Ambiguum 7)

[Clark]

But enough of these things. If this discussion has not strayed from the truth, the thanks goes to God. For by your prayers God has led me to think rightly about these matters. If, however, the truth has escaped me in any way, you will be able to instruct me, because you have been inspired by God to know these things.

p. 74

(From the end of Ambiguum 7)

[Clark]

Gregory adds these statements so that whoever [1104A] examines the saint’s intention with proper piety can interpret it as follows.

pp. 75–76

(From Ambiguum 8)

[Clark]

It is your responsibility, then, as just critics, to judge what is superior from the proposals set forth here.

p. 95

(From Ambiguum 42)

[Clark]

But were we to prepare our will with knowledge to receive the operation of these agents—water and Spirit, I mean—then the mystical water would, through our practical life, cleanse our conscience, and the life-giving Spirit would bring about unchanging perfection of the good in us through knowledge acquired in experience.

p. 104

(From Ad Thalassium 6)

[Clark]

Whoever intelligently examines the enigmas of the Scriptures with a fear of God and for the sake of the divine glory alone, and removes the letter as though it were a curtain around the spirit, shall discover everything face to face, as the wise proverb says (Prov 8:9). No impediment will be found to the perfect motion of the mind toward divine things. Therefore we shall let stand the literal meaning that has already been corporeally fulfilled in Moses’s time and consider, with spiritual eyes, the power of the literal meaning in the Spirit, since this power is constantly being realized and abounding into its fullness.

p. 105

(From Ad Thalassium 7)

[Clark]

The above are a hodgepodge of assertions in which truth and knowledge and suchlike refer to different kinds of things.

I will make the following tentative claims that we can test:

1. In Maximus's universe discursive reason (logic, etc.) is not the final answerer or judger.

2. In Maximus's universe even if one arrives at conclusions that are logical, God may have led you there. (In Orthodoxy there is a doctrine of synergy, that if the human gets himself or herself out of the way the human and God work closely continuous together in real time so that one cannot separate out what each of them has contributed to the human's thinking or action.) "For by your prayers God has led me to think rightly about these matters."

3. The human's attitude and goals matter: "... with a fear of God and for the sake of the divine glory alone ..." (This would be part of the human getting out of the way.)

[Nemo]

Clark wrote: "The above are a hodgepodge of assertions in which truth and knowledge and suchlike refer to different kinds of things.

I will make the following tentative claims that we can test: ."

I'm curious *how* you think we could go about testing these claims?