Definitely loved your observation that the machine is not the problem, but that it's a result of human longing. I think you are right to speak of discontent and pride as ancient conditions, but I don't think you follow through on what modernity does with those conditions.
The contemporary world is not spiritually empty. It is spiritually overcrowded. People are not lost because they are secular but because they have created new gods, new rites, and new eschatologies in technology, politics, wellness, and identity. If the machine is a conduit, then we must ask what flows through it. What are the new sacraments. What are the new priesthoods. What are the new myths.
I'm also a bit confused by your reflections on the story of the Garden. Where are you getting the idea that the human being was perfect in the garden? How do you reconcile that with the creator / creature distinction? How do you reconcile that with St. Maximus' understanding of the gnomic will vs natural will?
I look forward to your response and enjoyed the reading.
Hi Christian! Thank you for your reply. Let me make a quick reply in an effort to clarify, and see where it takes us.
To your first point, my article couldn't possibly cover all possible modes of modernity. I love your idea that modernity presents new gods and new sacraments but I'm struggling to connect those thoughts with some inherent deficiency in my article due to my not bringing them up.
To your second point, I only mean by "perfect" that Adam and Eve were, up to that point, free from sin. They possessed, in Maximus' terms, a natural will. After their disobedience they fell into a condition of having a gnomic will.
I did not mean that your article should have covered every aspect of modernity. I agree entirely that no single essay can do that. My point was narrower. Since you frame “the machine” as the result of discontent, I think it becomes important to bring in the fact that modern discontent does not express itself as emptiness, but as new forms of spirituality.
What religious content flows through the machine? What vision of salvation does it promise? What myths animate it? This matters because it changes the diagnosis.
The modern person is not simply “fallen and discontent.” The modern person is liturgically formed by rival stories of meaning that the machine amplifies. Wellness culture, political activism, techno-utopianism, conspiracy subcultures, self-optimization communities, etc. all function as religious systems with sacraments, priesthoods, eschatologies, and moral codes. My point isn't that your article is deficient for not mentioning these. I’m suggesting that these modern rites complicate the picture of “the machine.” If the machine is a conduit, then identifying what flows through it helps illuminate the inner spiritual logic of our moment. It helps us see modernity not as secular but as hyper-religious in distorted form. That is the only reason I raised the question. I think you need to get at the deeper issue.
Thanks for your clarification of the word "perfect." Maximus does indeed say the natural will is aligned to the good. But he does not say the gnomic will is the result of the Fall in the sense of being an unnatural mutation of a previously perfect human nature. He says the gnomic mode arises from creaturely deliberation, which itself arises from immaturity and incomplete participation in God, not from moral defect. If Adam and Eve had a purely natural will (in the unfallen sense you mean) they would not have deliberated. Their decision to obey or disobey would have been immediate, without internal conflict.
But the whole narrative shows that they did deliberate.
If humans had been perfect in the way that natural will is perfect in Christ, they could not have misused their freedom. Which is why the Incarnation is not simply a restoration to Eden but the fulfillment of Eden’s uncompleted trajectory. Describing Adam and Eve as “perfect” (even in a purely sinless sense) risks collapsing the entire distinction between Creator and creature, and it misaligns Maximos’ teaching on maturity, deliberation, and the teleology of the natural will.
I hope that makes sense, and I say all of this in the spirit of dialogue, not to debate. I enjoyed your article and look forward to continuing the conversation.
My understanding of how Maximus uses the gnomic will relating to Christ as compared to Adam (and there's a wide margin for error here because he used it differently according to the context), is that the reason Adam was able to fall even though he possessed a natural will and Christ wasn't was because of the hypostatic dual nature of Christ (God/man), whereas Adam was not hypostatically dual natured. But however that may actually play out with Maximus, there is no confusion in calling a creature "perfect" and assuming that means they are in fact Creators. We call a horse perfect if it is acting fully within its nature. A human is perfect when they act within their natural capacity.
Also, I still love your point on the mode/nature of the machine and completely see your point.
Thanks for clarifying. I can see now where your reading of Maximus diverges from mine.
You said, “Christ was unable to fall because He was hypostatically dual natured.”
I think this is a misunderstanding of Maximus. Christ' was incapable of sin because His human nature is fully actualized, fully deified, and fully united to the divine Logos. He was fully transparent to God. Adam's human nature was not.
There is no ‘gnomic’ will in Christ. Opusc. 3 is devoted to this fundamental distinction. What happens in the Incarnation is that ‘the Incarnate Word possesses as a human being the natural disposition to will, and this is moved and shaped by the divine will’ (48A).
'The first man, being newly created, was moved according to the gnomic mode, for he did not yet possess that unerring knowledge of the good.'-St Maximus (Ambigua 42) 'The gnomic will is the mode of willing proper to those who are not yet perfect in virtue, and so are moved by deliberation and doubt.' (Ambigua 7) 'Adam exercised the gnomic mode and erred.
Christ exercises the natural will and does not err.' (Opusc. 3)
So yes, the 'natural will' is always oriented toward the good, but the 'gnomic will' is not. It deliberates. Adam had a 'gnomic will' from the start which is why he deliberated; Christ did not have a 'gnomic will' which is why he never sinned. If Adam did not have a 'gnomic will' from the start he would have never erred. Maximus seems to explicitly state that the gnomic will is proper to those who aren't "perfect."
Looking forward to your response. Have you read Paul Bowers work on Maximus?
Let me say again that I appreciate your posts here. Not in the "oh, thanks for your post, I really appreciate it" way, but truly, it has sent me on a rereading of Maximus, which I spent the better early half of 2025 studying and have been reading for the past 15 years off and on. It has been a wonderful contemplative study today. So again, thank you.
That said, I think you are terribly mistaken in your understanding of Maximus, and possibly harbor some misunderstandings in Orthodox Christology in general. When Gregory of Nazianzus said,"That which He has not assumed He has not healed," he meant that Christ truly became a man in all ways as we are. According to your view, if I'm understanding you correctly, you believe man never had a natural will but only a gnomic will from the beginning. If that is true, then if Christ did not assume a gnomic will, He did not heal it. Alternatively, if Christ assumed a natural human will, and Adam had a natural human will from the start, then Christ indeed assumed our nature and healed it.
But it's not this simple, as Maximus makes clear. Christ actually took on both - the natural and gnomic will - but in different ways than one would think. As Maximus puts it in Ambiguum 42:
"He assumed creaturely origin just as it was before the transgression of Adam, and in being formed as man He naturally assumed, through the inbreathing, the condition of sinlessness - but He did not assume incorruptibility [i.e. death]. On the other hand, when in His voluntary self-emptying He experienced the form of birth that emerged subsequent to the divine condemnation of the transgression, He naturally assumed human passibility - but not the proclivity to sin. And thus became a new Adam, assuming the same sinless creaturely origin and submitting Himself to the same passible birth."
There's a lot there, so let me unpack a bit of it for clarity as it relates to our discussion. Upon receiving the inbreathing of God, as Adam did, He received the condition of sinlessness in His human life, but did not assume what Adam had before his fall - incorruptibility. Also (on the other hand), He assumed human passibility (due to His bodily birth from a seed, a virgin, whereas Adam was not born by seed as other animals), but did not receive the proclivity to sin i.e. the gnomic will, which Adam also did not receive at his creation.
Maximus is drawing comparisons between Christ and Adam demonstrating that He took everything Adam had both before and after the fall - except the proclivity to sin.
In other words, after the fall Adam gained the proclivity to sin, not before. Adam was born with a natural will, which is why Christ assumed it. However, Christ also assumed the results of a gnomic will but not into Himself. Maximus goes on to say:
"In becoming flesh, the Savior did not in any way assume sinful passion or corruption into Himself, but He accepted their consequences..."
I haven't been able to find the quote you gave from Ambiguum 42, and instead of the chapter demonstrating your point, it might just be the strongest teaching against your point in all of the Ambiguum collection.
It should be pointed out that Maximus does not teach that the prefallen state of human flesh lacks gnomic will outright - he is capable of discursive reason, just as Christ was capable of it, but did not use it. Gnomic will is an attribute, not a matter of nature. Having an attribute, or a potential, for discursive reasoning is not the same as having it as part of one's essence. It is an attribute that, when operated in, is an "inclination" to sin. The difference is that after the fall, Adam was a slave to this mode of thinking, having lost his immediacy with God.
Adam had no pause before knowing the good. He did not have to deliberate in order to arrive at a decision: he knew what was good as a matter of immediacy with God (via his incorrupted nous). This is why the devil had to deceive him with appearances - not of evil - but of good (beauty, satiety, wisdom, etc.).
To further show that Christ had a natural will - an unspoiled nous - in the same manner as Adam had to begin with, he notes Isaiah 7:15-16, the prophesy of Christ:
"Butter and honey He shall eat before He knows to prefer evil or choose the good, for before the Child knows good or evil, He refuses the evil to choose the good."
In short, Christ as a child demonstrates His natural will - no inclination towards evil, but only the good. Later, as He grew in "wisdom and in stature before men," Christ was able to choose between the two but always chose the good. This shows that He did not operate in the gnomic will - He was free from it - but was He capable of moral/ethical deliberation? Yes, but why would He? Why would a human will in perfect harmony with God's will use his freedom for choosing evil? And this is the question haunting our discussion over Adam's ability to choose disobedience.
To believe in a Christ who did not take the rational mind of a man is to believe in something more akin to Apollinarianism, where Christ's human mind is replaced by the divine Logos, making Him only 2/3rd human in His supposed humanity. If He did not assume the mind of man then He did not redeem it, and we are still lost in sin - baptism is of no avail.
There is so much more that can be brought up in this discussion, but my reply has already become an article in itself. I would love to continue the discussion if time permits. But let me end by saying that Maximus is a difficult read. Scholars interpret him differently, monks interpret him differently, in a similar way to how people misunderstand Paul's writings. It's probably because the more you think and talk like Jesus, the more true your speech is, and therefore the more difficult to understand in human language, as it is a poor vehicle for the divine. So, may we both be humble and open to continued insights as God permits.
Thank you for your thorough response!! I appreciate the added context of your studies of Maximus. I'm going to respond to two separate claims you are making in two separate comments for brevity and clarity.
Before I can even get to the question of the human being's (Adam) will or how Maximus understands the “gnomic,” we need to pause over something far more fundamental that undergirds your entire reading. You seem to want an Adam (human being) that has spiritual freedom but does not yet have the possibility of misusing that freedom.
Your first assumption is that God could create a human nature with 'freedom' but without the possibility of error.
You have asserted that Adam possessed an incorrupt nous, unerring perception of the good, non-deliberative will, and no “proclivity to sin” from the beginning. This assumes God can (and did) create a spiritual creature who is truly free, yet unable to err, possessing immediate clarity, and functioning as though already deified. But this contradicts the core metaphysics of creaturehood and the creator/creation distinction. A creature cannot be created in its completed end. Freedom entails potentiality, and potentiality entails the possibility of misorientation. God cannot create a creature that already possesses what only the uncreated can. God is infinite actuality, unerring clarity, and non-gnomic simplicity. Creatures are not. This distinction must be maintained unless one wants to move towards pantheism. Creaturely freedom must begin in movement, becoming, potentiality, and in an as-yet-unperfected relation to the Good. This is why Maximus says the “gnomic mode” is proper to those 'who are not yet perfect in virtue' as I previously stated. Thus, from the very fact of being created the human being's will is deliberative, capable of mis-seeing the good, capable of deception, because these are conditions of creaturely freedom. Creaturehood itself includes the possibility of sin because they are not God. Your assumption about Adam being "perfect" misses this metaphysical distinction. Your assumption collapses this distinction and therefore cannot be reconciled with Maximus’s teaching.
Your second assumption rest on a historical, temporal, "pre-fall" human being (Adam) who exists in a state of perfect clarity.
In 'On the Making of the Human Image of God,' (Fr. John Behr's translation) St. Gregory of Nyssa does not present Adam and Eve as historical figures placed at the beginning of chronos. According to Gregory there never existed a historically-lived period where human nature enjoyed perfect clarity, incorrupt nous, and non-gnomic immediacy to the Good. Your reading assumes a temporal golden-age before a historical fall. Gregory denies this. Maximus denies this as well 'Adam fell at the very moment he came to be.' (Amb. 42 10; various scholia) 'Creation and fall are simultaneous from our perspective.' (Amb. 42; Amb. 10) Maximus’ point is that our coming-to-be in time is already the expression of a fall that takes place in another register altogether. Chronos is not the arena before and after the fall. Chronos is the fall’s consequence. The fall did not happen in historical time… time as we know it is the fallen result of a fall in the spiritual realm of the aeon. Once you grasp that, the claim that Adam temporarily enjoyed a perfect, non-gnomic immediacy collapses entirely.
Bulgakov carrying out that same ontology writes 'Creation is eternally complete in God, but temporally unfolding in conditions of becoming—and this becoming is marked by the fall.' (Lamb of God, ch. 2) In God's eternal divine act creation, incarnation, and deification form one undivided movement. In temporal history we experience this movement as rupture, distortion, and death. So, when you say "Adam did not have the proclivity to sin at his creation” you are speaking as though Adam’s genesis is a historical moment in an unfallen nature. But Bulgakov insists there is no historical moment of unfallen natural existence. Gregory, Maximus, and Bulgakov speak of the fall as meta-historical, "outside" of chronos, and something inseparable from the very temporality of the world.
Ephesians 1 says 'we are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.' There is no “start” to creation in God, temporal beginnings are the creature’s experience of an eternal act, the world as we know it is not creation in its truth but creation in its fallen becoming. Paul does not mean “before history began.” He means creation has its truth, telos, and meaning in Christ, not in some imaginary prelapsarian past. For Gregory 'Genesis reveals Christ, not the past.' which I think dismantles the historical framework underlying your interpretation. Christ is the only human being who has ever possessed unerring knowledge of the good. Everyone, including the mythic Adam, lives within the shadow-world of the fall.
Your argument depends entirely on a historical fall, historical pre-fall psychology, phase of perfected prelapsarian clarity, and a temporally realized incorrupt nous. There is solid metaphysical patristic and scriptural ground to reject this assumption. The Genesis narrative portrays not a fall from a historical perfection but the unveiling, within history, of a meta-historical failure of spiritual freedom.
I also want to affirm that the assumptions you are working from are extremely common across Christian traditions — Protestant, Catholic, and even large portions of contemporary Orthodoxy. Nearly everyone today inherits a picture of a temporal “perfect Adam,” a historical golden-age before a moment of moral collapse. It is the default imagination we all receive simply by growing up in the Christian world, and it shapes how almost all of us first read Genesis and the fall. We need a different metaphysical map though. Once that deeper map becomes clear, many of the disagreements about Adam’s will, gnomic deliberation, and Christ’s assumption of human nature become much easier to understand. I would like to think I'm in good company in saying creation is not finished until Christ (Jesus says "It is finished" on the cross) and that our true birth is in the Resurrection.
Before I give you my second comment, I'll wait to hear your thoughts on this.
Great article! An honest reminder that the problems of modernity are not new -- and that we still have more control over the things that matter to us most. Looking forward to the practical application... I'll take all the help I can get! haha
Hello again, Christian. I will do my best to respond to what I think are the most important points made throughout our discussion, and will attempt to do so to the degree that this will be my final reply and then I will give you the last word.
Where to start?... This discussion originated from your concern that I was propping up Adam as a deity because I called him “perfect” prior to the fall. Your reasoning, in your own words:
“Your first assumption is that God could create a human nature with 'freedom' but without the possibility of error… You have asserted that Adam possessed an incorrupt nous, unerring perception of the good, non-deliberative will, and no “proclivity to sin” from the beginning. This assumes God can (and did) create a spiritual creature who is truly free, yet unable to err, possessing immediate clarity, and functioning as though already deified."
This is not reflective of what I said or believe. Yes, God created Adam with freedom, but not without the possibility of error. Here is where I think your pre-set metaphysical commitments aid in your misunderstanding of me. Again, by perfect I mean only that he was innocent of sin guilt, incorrupt, and possessed an intact nous (inclined to the good). He had these at his creation and was responsible for maintaining this state through obedience to God. This is clearly and thoroughly taught by Scripture and not disputed among the holy fathers.
He had “freedom” to choose the good without the hindrance of a fallen state – which, of course, is the true meaning of “freedom” when used in this context. He was able to err, but his default was to do the good. St. Basil explained that to be made “according to the image of God” meant to “understand the Good,” yet, “it also had the authority to turn away from the beautiful at any time” (Homily Explaining that God is not the Cause of Evil, sect 6). Section 7 of the same homily is a full description of the “historic golden age” (your words) Adam dwelt in prior to the fall.
Of course he was not fully deified; he was created with a telos of theosis, which would last forever (one never makes an end of becoming a partaker of God’s nature since the depth of which is eternally unfathomable and endless). To err, he had to be deceived; otherwise, he may have never erred on his own account (as I already said). He had the capacity to disobey. Remember, the gnomic will is an attribute, a mode, not a matter of nature. Man’s created nature does not include the gnomic will as its operating system. Adam could reason before his fall, just as Christ learned to reason as He grew from childhood, but he reasoned within the boundaries of the good – not good and evil (that was what the forbidden fruit offered). Hence, deception was the only way the devil could convince Adam to sin, and why he attempted the same play on Jesus in the wilderness.
Then you said:
“Your second assumption rest on a historical, temporal, "pre-fall" human being (Adam) who exists in a state of perfect clarity.”
Again, the last portion is unrelated to my posts. But the first part is fine, as it complies with Scripture and the fathers. From there you note St. Gregory of Nyssa teaching, let me quote it in full: “there never existed a historically-lived period where human nature enjoyed perfect clarity, incorrupt nous, and non-gnomic immediacy to the Good. Your reading assumes a temporal golden-age before a historical fall. Gregory denies this. Maximus denies this as well 'Adam fell at the very moment he came to be.' (Amb. 42 10; various scholia)"
I have only a scant reading of Gregory of Nyssa so I am unaware if he in fact teaches this; however, Maximus I am quite familiar with and can say without doubt that he does not teach this. In fact, the quotes you gave from Ambiguum 42 are not from 42.10 but rather 42.7, and state:
“The Lord – who heals human nature and returns it to its primordial grace of incorruptibility – came to liberate nature. His purpose was to reveal the beauty toward which human nature failed to move when it was first created, and to trample down the wickedness to which it, being deceived, unnaturally moved at the very moment it was created…”
Before you jump to the very end of the quote, note the rest: the Lord heals human nature, returning it to its primordial grace of incorruptibility. This is original human nature before the fall (notice the before-and-after sequence). How could He return human nature to something you claim never actually existed? If Maximus means that the fall happened simultaneously with Adam’s creation (which he does not say), then there would be no “incorruptibility” to return him to. Also note that Adam had to be deceived because otherwise he was “unnaturally moved.” According to your idea, he was naturally moved in that his essence included a gnomic will. Further, if Adam fell simultaneously with his creation, then God determined it.
And this last point seems to be the underlying problem with your entire theory. Your idea makes the entire field of deception, sin, corruption, death, etc., the grand plan of God, not the devil, and hence it becomes very difficult to distinguish between the two. It is a version of predestination that would make John Calvin shudder.
This response is becoming excessively long, so let me vamp on one more thing and I’ll end.
You wrote:
“These are not two “phases” of Adam’s life, nor two moments of personal existence. They are two modes of speaking about the same reality. First, in God’s eternal act, humanity has its archetype in Christ. Secondly, in time, humanity appears in a world as we know it but is in movement towards it's telos which is Christ. To be frank I don't even like the word fallen because of what that typically assumes. So, I'm hesitant using the language of "fallen" without a lot of qualifications… God’s act of creation is eternal, not sequential. There is no “before” and “after” in God. God’s creative act includes its goal (Christ) from the beginning. Jesus is not plan B.”
I think I know what you are trying to say here, as I am not unfamiliar with the thought. God’s reality is eternal, ours is conditioned by time. Thus, there are “two modes” of the same reality. Sure. But that won’t change the fundamental disagreement you have with me. There is no getting around the fact that Adam was created fully – soul and body – simultaneously (as Maximus is at pains to teach in Amb 42), in the physical world, as Scripture is at pains to teach. Adam did not have existence prior to his physical creation. Regardless of whether you play the story out in time sequence, or push it into an eternal realm (which our human brains cannot comprehend) there is still a Pre and Post fall. Denying this simply puts you at odds with Scripture and the whole of Holy Tradition. But your precommitment to this particular metaphysical theory makes such a leap necessary.
I would encourage you not to “hesitate” using language of fallenness. Symeon the New Theologian certainly didn’t. Listen to his very first line in his homily on the Transgression of Adam: “The first-created Adam, being in Paradise, fell, at the instigation of the serpent…”
Very. First. Line.
How was he able to speak so boldly? Because he had no restriction due to potentially misleading his readers with the term. They understood what he meant: there was a paradise where incorrupted man lived… then he fell… now we’re all corrupted.
Symeon also preached the same story as the rest of the fathers. “In soul Adam died immediately, as soon as he had tasted… Man such as God had created him no longer existed in the world… For this (tasting of the tree) he was given over to great chastisements – to corruption and death.”
He did not begin in corruption, as you claim (corrupted simultaneously at his creation – which, honestly, makes no sense even if taken from a view of eternity), but was given over to it after he sinned. The man as God originally created no longer existed! According to your theory there was no difference between, no sequence, no golden age, no pre-gnomic will.
To summarize: When Christ assumed human nature in order to heal it, He assumed the true original (and still natural) nature of man. In Maximus' terms, he assumed the same attribute originally given to Adam - the natural will. Christ was not deceived by satan, hence, He never forfeited His human nous, nor his communion with the Father (this communion was made impermeable by his dual natured hypostasis). If Christ did not assume true human nature, then we are not healed. Our true human nature includes a healthy, non-fallen nous, subject to an inclination to the Good. It is as Adam was originally. Unless this is true, then Apollinarius had it right, Christ did not assume a human mind, and we are still lost.
This is indeed the longest reply I have ever posted in over 15 years of blogging. You’re welcome. Lol. I spent the better part of the last two days contemplating and rereading tons of Maximus and other fathers, which made for a wonderful weekend of study. Again, thanks for being the conduit for such a blessed deviation from my original plans. I won’t be able to continue, though. This starts a busy week and I need to dedicate whatever time I have to writing new articles.
Grace and peace my friend. Please have the last word. I look forward to future discussions.
This has been a very stimulating exchange. Thank you!
That being said it seems there is misunderstandings on both sides. I do hope when you have time you can help clarify anything I am misunderstanding here. Always happy to jump on a call too!
Originally, I asked for clarity on what you meant by "perfect." So far what I've heard is that Adam in his prelapsarian state had no "gnomic will" (without distinguishing the two different ways Maximus spoke about "gnome") and was incorrupt.
I'm still unclear on some of your language.
What is meant by "perfect" what is meant by "incorrupt"?
Let me first clarify why I had suggested that, on your own terms, Adam ends up looking functionally deified, even though you explicitly deny that.
What I am saying is that, in Maximian terms, the set of predicates you ascribe to Adam are the predicates Maximus associates with the deified state and, above all, with Christ. So, when I said your logic assumes a “deified Adam,” I meant that you seem to effectively ascribe to Adam, from creation, the mode of willing and knowing that Maximus reserves for Christ and for eschatologically deified humanity.
The other key thing I was going to say in “comment 2,” and that I think your latest response still doesn’t take into account, is that Maximus speaks of the gnomic mode in more than one sense. This isn’t just my idiosyncratic reading; it’s a core insight in contemporary Maximus scholarship. (Blowers, Wood, Thunberg, Louth, etc.) I wasn’t trying to be pedantic; I just didn’t think it was fair to dive straight into technical word-usage until those prior assumptions were at least on the table.
That being said all note that “gnomic will” / gnōmikon thelēma functions in two different ways for Maximus.
The first is a broader, more neutral/existential sense. Recent scholarship suggests that Maximus uses “gnomic” to name the mode of finite, unperfected rational freedom. According to them this is the mode of those who do not yet possess unerring knowledge of the good, who therefore deliberate, consider, and are temptable, even if they have not yet sinned. In this sense, gnomic does not = “sinful nature.” It = creaturely, undeified mode of willing. In this sense the gnomic will for Maximus is an act/mode, not a separate faculty; and as the way freedom is exercised in those not yet brought to full clarity.
The second is a more narrow, polemical Christological sense. In the Disputation with Pyrrhus and Opuscule 3, Maximus tightens the definition to argue against the monothelites describing gnomic as an act of will that arises from ignorance, involves deliberation between opposites, indicates a lack of clear knowledge of the good, and so cannot be predicated of Christ without implying sin or error. In this strict, technical sense, Maximus denies gnomic will to Christ in order to safeguard Christ’s full humanity (He has a natural will), and Christ’s full sinlessness (He does not deliberate in ignorance; He does not learn the good).
This narrow sense is what Bathrellos, Louth, and others draw out when they parse the Christological debates. "Gnomic” as a mode of fallen, ignorant, vacillating willing that must be excluded from Christ.
In your comments, you consistently define gnomic will like this “It is an attribute that, when operated in, is an ‘inclination’ to sin.” and: “After the fall Adam gained the proclivity to sin, not before… Adam was born with a natural will… Christ also assumed the results of a gnomic will but not into Himself.”
In other words, what I've heard so far for you is that the gnomic is a post-fall inclination to sin; and that pre-fall Adam had no gnomic mode at all only a natural will. If I've misheard, you please provide a correction.
The point I’ve been trying to get to (and why I started first with your assumptions about the fall and temporality) is that in the broader, existential sense, Maximus very clearly does attribute a gnomic mode to Adam “as newly created,” precisely because Adam does not yet possess unerring knowledge of the good. That doesn’t mean Adam begins fallen or sinful or that God predestined the fall or that Christ couldn't save us because he didn't assume this gnomic mode intrinsic to Creatures. Christ did not have to come from nothing to save humanity. Evil is not necessary. Only the possibility of evil is necessary for creatures with real freedom. The “simultaneity” of creation and fall is not predestinarian.
Creature = potentiality + freedom + possibility of error.
God = pure act, no potentiality, no error.
Only Christ begins in fullness of actuality precisely because He is fully God not simply a creature. Adam does not. I'm not thinking remotely in deterministic or voluntarism terms.
It means Adam begins as a creature from nothing, whose mode of willing is deliberative,
finite, temptable, and on the way. Christ alone has natural will without the gnomic mode in either the broad or narrow sense. Maximus’ own usage of “gnomic” is richer and more nuanced than “post-fall inclination to sin,” and that the best contemporary Maximus scholarship reads him this way.
There are several other things in your final reply that are worthy of attention, but I want to be respectful of your time and commitments. I hope we can chat on the phone and catch up soon.
This really resonated. What you name here isn’t just a problem of technology or capitalism, but of formation—how the “Machine” quietly reshapes our desires, sense of freedom, and even our theology.
I appreciate that this isn’t a cartoon critique or a manifesto. The turn toward limits, asceticism, and the garden feels less like nostalgia and more like recovering memory—remembering what human life was actually ordered toward.
This put words to something many of us feel but struggle to articulate. Grateful for the care and clarity here.
Definitely loved your observation that the machine is not the problem, but that it's a result of human longing. I think you are right to speak of discontent and pride as ancient conditions, but I don't think you follow through on what modernity does with those conditions.
The contemporary world is not spiritually empty. It is spiritually overcrowded. People are not lost because they are secular but because they have created new gods, new rites, and new eschatologies in technology, politics, wellness, and identity. If the machine is a conduit, then we must ask what flows through it. What are the new sacraments. What are the new priesthoods. What are the new myths.
I'm also a bit confused by your reflections on the story of the Garden. Where are you getting the idea that the human being was perfect in the garden? How do you reconcile that with the creator / creature distinction? How do you reconcile that with St. Maximus' understanding of the gnomic will vs natural will?
I look forward to your response and enjoyed the reading.
Hi Christian! Thank you for your reply. Let me make a quick reply in an effort to clarify, and see where it takes us.
To your first point, my article couldn't possibly cover all possible modes of modernity. I love your idea that modernity presents new gods and new sacraments but I'm struggling to connect those thoughts with some inherent deficiency in my article due to my not bringing them up.
To your second point, I only mean by "perfect" that Adam and Eve were, up to that point, free from sin. They possessed, in Maximus' terms, a natural will. After their disobedience they fell into a condition of having a gnomic will.
Does that clear things up or muddy the waters?
I did not mean that your article should have covered every aspect of modernity. I agree entirely that no single essay can do that. My point was narrower. Since you frame “the machine” as the result of discontent, I think it becomes important to bring in the fact that modern discontent does not express itself as emptiness, but as new forms of spirituality.
What religious content flows through the machine? What vision of salvation does it promise? What myths animate it? This matters because it changes the diagnosis.
The modern person is not simply “fallen and discontent.” The modern person is liturgically formed by rival stories of meaning that the machine amplifies. Wellness culture, political activism, techno-utopianism, conspiracy subcultures, self-optimization communities, etc. all function as religious systems with sacraments, priesthoods, eschatologies, and moral codes. My point isn't that your article is deficient for not mentioning these. I’m suggesting that these modern rites complicate the picture of “the machine.” If the machine is a conduit, then identifying what flows through it helps illuminate the inner spiritual logic of our moment. It helps us see modernity not as secular but as hyper-religious in distorted form. That is the only reason I raised the question. I think you need to get at the deeper issue.
Thanks for your clarification of the word "perfect." Maximus does indeed say the natural will is aligned to the good. But he does not say the gnomic will is the result of the Fall in the sense of being an unnatural mutation of a previously perfect human nature. He says the gnomic mode arises from creaturely deliberation, which itself arises from immaturity and incomplete participation in God, not from moral defect. If Adam and Eve had a purely natural will (in the unfallen sense you mean) they would not have deliberated. Their decision to obey or disobey would have been immediate, without internal conflict.
But the whole narrative shows that they did deliberate.
If humans had been perfect in the way that natural will is perfect in Christ, they could not have misused their freedom. Which is why the Incarnation is not simply a restoration to Eden but the fulfillment of Eden’s uncompleted trajectory. Describing Adam and Eve as “perfect” (even in a purely sinless sense) risks collapsing the entire distinction between Creator and creature, and it misaligns Maximos’ teaching on maturity, deliberation, and the teleology of the natural will.
I hope that makes sense, and I say all of this in the spirit of dialogue, not to debate. I enjoyed your article and look forward to continuing the conversation.
My understanding of how Maximus uses the gnomic will relating to Christ as compared to Adam (and there's a wide margin for error here because he used it differently according to the context), is that the reason Adam was able to fall even though he possessed a natural will and Christ wasn't was because of the hypostatic dual nature of Christ (God/man), whereas Adam was not hypostatically dual natured. But however that may actually play out with Maximus, there is no confusion in calling a creature "perfect" and assuming that means they are in fact Creators. We call a horse perfect if it is acting fully within its nature. A human is perfect when they act within their natural capacity.
Also, I still love your point on the mode/nature of the machine and completely see your point.
Thanks for clarifying. I can see now where your reading of Maximus diverges from mine.
You said, “Christ was unable to fall because He was hypostatically dual natured.”
I think this is a misunderstanding of Maximus. Christ' was incapable of sin because His human nature is fully actualized, fully deified, and fully united to the divine Logos. He was fully transparent to God. Adam's human nature was not.
There is no ‘gnomic’ will in Christ. Opusc. 3 is devoted to this fundamental distinction. What happens in the Incarnation is that ‘the Incarnate Word possesses as a human being the natural disposition to will, and this is moved and shaped by the divine will’ (48A).
'The first man, being newly created, was moved according to the gnomic mode, for he did not yet possess that unerring knowledge of the good.'-St Maximus (Ambigua 42) 'The gnomic will is the mode of willing proper to those who are not yet perfect in virtue, and so are moved by deliberation and doubt.' (Ambigua 7) 'Adam exercised the gnomic mode and erred.
Christ exercises the natural will and does not err.' (Opusc. 3)
So yes, the 'natural will' is always oriented toward the good, but the 'gnomic will' is not. It deliberates. Adam had a 'gnomic will' from the start which is why he deliberated; Christ did not have a 'gnomic will' which is why he never sinned. If Adam did not have a 'gnomic will' from the start he would have never erred. Maximus seems to explicitly state that the gnomic will is proper to those who aren't "perfect."
Looking forward to your response. Have you read Paul Bowers work on Maximus?
Let me say again that I appreciate your posts here. Not in the "oh, thanks for your post, I really appreciate it" way, but truly, it has sent me on a rereading of Maximus, which I spent the better early half of 2025 studying and have been reading for the past 15 years off and on. It has been a wonderful contemplative study today. So again, thank you.
That said, I think you are terribly mistaken in your understanding of Maximus, and possibly harbor some misunderstandings in Orthodox Christology in general. When Gregory of Nazianzus said,"That which He has not assumed He has not healed," he meant that Christ truly became a man in all ways as we are. According to your view, if I'm understanding you correctly, you believe man never had a natural will but only a gnomic will from the beginning. If that is true, then if Christ did not assume a gnomic will, He did not heal it. Alternatively, if Christ assumed a natural human will, and Adam had a natural human will from the start, then Christ indeed assumed our nature and healed it.
But it's not this simple, as Maximus makes clear. Christ actually took on both - the natural and gnomic will - but in different ways than one would think. As Maximus puts it in Ambiguum 42:
"He assumed creaturely origin just as it was before the transgression of Adam, and in being formed as man He naturally assumed, through the inbreathing, the condition of sinlessness - but He did not assume incorruptibility [i.e. death]. On the other hand, when in His voluntary self-emptying He experienced the form of birth that emerged subsequent to the divine condemnation of the transgression, He naturally assumed human passibility - but not the proclivity to sin. And thus became a new Adam, assuming the same sinless creaturely origin and submitting Himself to the same passible birth."
There's a lot there, so let me unpack a bit of it for clarity as it relates to our discussion. Upon receiving the inbreathing of God, as Adam did, He received the condition of sinlessness in His human life, but did not assume what Adam had before his fall - incorruptibility. Also (on the other hand), He assumed human passibility (due to His bodily birth from a seed, a virgin, whereas Adam was not born by seed as other animals), but did not receive the proclivity to sin i.e. the gnomic will, which Adam also did not receive at his creation.
Maximus is drawing comparisons between Christ and Adam demonstrating that He took everything Adam had both before and after the fall - except the proclivity to sin.
In other words, after the fall Adam gained the proclivity to sin, not before. Adam was born with a natural will, which is why Christ assumed it. However, Christ also assumed the results of a gnomic will but not into Himself. Maximus goes on to say:
"In becoming flesh, the Savior did not in any way assume sinful passion or corruption into Himself, but He accepted their consequences..."
I haven't been able to find the quote you gave from Ambiguum 42, and instead of the chapter demonstrating your point, it might just be the strongest teaching against your point in all of the Ambiguum collection.
It should be pointed out that Maximus does not teach that the prefallen state of human flesh lacks gnomic will outright - he is capable of discursive reason, just as Christ was capable of it, but did not use it. Gnomic will is an attribute, not a matter of nature. Having an attribute, or a potential, for discursive reasoning is not the same as having it as part of one's essence. It is an attribute that, when operated in, is an "inclination" to sin. The difference is that after the fall, Adam was a slave to this mode of thinking, having lost his immediacy with God.
Adam had no pause before knowing the good. He did not have to deliberate in order to arrive at a decision: he knew what was good as a matter of immediacy with God (via his incorrupted nous). This is why the devil had to deceive him with appearances - not of evil - but of good (beauty, satiety, wisdom, etc.).
To further show that Christ had a natural will - an unspoiled nous - in the same manner as Adam had to begin with, he notes Isaiah 7:15-16, the prophesy of Christ:
"Butter and honey He shall eat before He knows to prefer evil or choose the good, for before the Child knows good or evil, He refuses the evil to choose the good."
In short, Christ as a child demonstrates His natural will - no inclination towards evil, but only the good. Later, as He grew in "wisdom and in stature before men," Christ was able to choose between the two but always chose the good. This shows that He did not operate in the gnomic will - He was free from it - but was He capable of moral/ethical deliberation? Yes, but why would He? Why would a human will in perfect harmony with God's will use his freedom for choosing evil? And this is the question haunting our discussion over Adam's ability to choose disobedience.
To believe in a Christ who did not take the rational mind of a man is to believe in something more akin to Apollinarianism, where Christ's human mind is replaced by the divine Logos, making Him only 2/3rd human in His supposed humanity. If He did not assume the mind of man then He did not redeem it, and we are still lost in sin - baptism is of no avail.
There is so much more that can be brought up in this discussion, but my reply has already become an article in itself. I would love to continue the discussion if time permits. But let me end by saying that Maximus is a difficult read. Scholars interpret him differently, monks interpret him differently, in a similar way to how people misunderstand Paul's writings. It's probably because the more you think and talk like Jesus, the more true your speech is, and therefore the more difficult to understand in human language, as it is a poor vehicle for the divine. So, may we both be humble and open to continued insights as God permits.
Thank you for your thorough response!! I appreciate the added context of your studies of Maximus. I'm going to respond to two separate claims you are making in two separate comments for brevity and clarity.
Before I can even get to the question of the human being's (Adam) will or how Maximus understands the “gnomic,” we need to pause over something far more fundamental that undergirds your entire reading. You seem to want an Adam (human being) that has spiritual freedom but does not yet have the possibility of misusing that freedom.
Your first assumption is that God could create a human nature with 'freedom' but without the possibility of error.
You have asserted that Adam possessed an incorrupt nous, unerring perception of the good, non-deliberative will, and no “proclivity to sin” from the beginning. This assumes God can (and did) create a spiritual creature who is truly free, yet unable to err, possessing immediate clarity, and functioning as though already deified. But this contradicts the core metaphysics of creaturehood and the creator/creation distinction. A creature cannot be created in its completed end. Freedom entails potentiality, and potentiality entails the possibility of misorientation. God cannot create a creature that already possesses what only the uncreated can. God is infinite actuality, unerring clarity, and non-gnomic simplicity. Creatures are not. This distinction must be maintained unless one wants to move towards pantheism. Creaturely freedom must begin in movement, becoming, potentiality, and in an as-yet-unperfected relation to the Good. This is why Maximus says the “gnomic mode” is proper to those 'who are not yet perfect in virtue' as I previously stated. Thus, from the very fact of being created the human being's will is deliberative, capable of mis-seeing the good, capable of deception, because these are conditions of creaturely freedom. Creaturehood itself includes the possibility of sin because they are not God. Your assumption about Adam being "perfect" misses this metaphysical distinction. Your assumption collapses this distinction and therefore cannot be reconciled with Maximus’s teaching.
Your second assumption rest on a historical, temporal, "pre-fall" human being (Adam) who exists in a state of perfect clarity.
In 'On the Making of the Human Image of God,' (Fr. John Behr's translation) St. Gregory of Nyssa does not present Adam and Eve as historical figures placed at the beginning of chronos. According to Gregory there never existed a historically-lived period where human nature enjoyed perfect clarity, incorrupt nous, and non-gnomic immediacy to the Good. Your reading assumes a temporal golden-age before a historical fall. Gregory denies this. Maximus denies this as well 'Adam fell at the very moment he came to be.' (Amb. 42 10; various scholia) 'Creation and fall are simultaneous from our perspective.' (Amb. 42; Amb. 10) Maximus’ point is that our coming-to-be in time is already the expression of a fall that takes place in another register altogether. Chronos is not the arena before and after the fall. Chronos is the fall’s consequence. The fall did not happen in historical time… time as we know it is the fallen result of a fall in the spiritual realm of the aeon. Once you grasp that, the claim that Adam temporarily enjoyed a perfect, non-gnomic immediacy collapses entirely.
Bulgakov carrying out that same ontology writes 'Creation is eternally complete in God, but temporally unfolding in conditions of becoming—and this becoming is marked by the fall.' (Lamb of God, ch. 2) In God's eternal divine act creation, incarnation, and deification form one undivided movement. In temporal history we experience this movement as rupture, distortion, and death. So, when you say "Adam did not have the proclivity to sin at his creation” you are speaking as though Adam’s genesis is a historical moment in an unfallen nature. But Bulgakov insists there is no historical moment of unfallen natural existence. Gregory, Maximus, and Bulgakov speak of the fall as meta-historical, "outside" of chronos, and something inseparable from the very temporality of the world.
Ephesians 1 says 'we are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.' There is no “start” to creation in God, temporal beginnings are the creature’s experience of an eternal act, the world as we know it is not creation in its truth but creation in its fallen becoming. Paul does not mean “before history began.” He means creation has its truth, telos, and meaning in Christ, not in some imaginary prelapsarian past. For Gregory 'Genesis reveals Christ, not the past.' which I think dismantles the historical framework underlying your interpretation. Christ is the only human being who has ever possessed unerring knowledge of the good. Everyone, including the mythic Adam, lives within the shadow-world of the fall.
Your argument depends entirely on a historical fall, historical pre-fall psychology, phase of perfected prelapsarian clarity, and a temporally realized incorrupt nous. There is solid metaphysical patristic and scriptural ground to reject this assumption. The Genesis narrative portrays not a fall from a historical perfection but the unveiling, within history, of a meta-historical failure of spiritual freedom.
I also want to affirm that the assumptions you are working from are extremely common across Christian traditions — Protestant, Catholic, and even large portions of contemporary Orthodoxy. Nearly everyone today inherits a picture of a temporal “perfect Adam,” a historical golden-age before a moment of moral collapse. It is the default imagination we all receive simply by growing up in the Christian world, and it shapes how almost all of us first read Genesis and the fall. We need a different metaphysical map though. Once that deeper map becomes clear, many of the disagreements about Adam’s will, gnomic deliberation, and Christ’s assumption of human nature become much easier to understand. I would like to think I'm in good company in saying creation is not finished until Christ (Jesus says "It is finished" on the cross) and that our true birth is in the Resurrection.
Before I give you my second comment, I'll wait to hear your thoughts on this.
Great article! An honest reminder that the problems of modernity are not new -- and that we still have more control over the things that matter to us most. Looking forward to the practical application... I'll take all the help I can get! haha
To Christian Hollums above.
Hello again, Christian. I will do my best to respond to what I think are the most important points made throughout our discussion, and will attempt to do so to the degree that this will be my final reply and then I will give you the last word.
Where to start?... This discussion originated from your concern that I was propping up Adam as a deity because I called him “perfect” prior to the fall. Your reasoning, in your own words:
“Your first assumption is that God could create a human nature with 'freedom' but without the possibility of error… You have asserted that Adam possessed an incorrupt nous, unerring perception of the good, non-deliberative will, and no “proclivity to sin” from the beginning. This assumes God can (and did) create a spiritual creature who is truly free, yet unable to err, possessing immediate clarity, and functioning as though already deified."
This is not reflective of what I said or believe. Yes, God created Adam with freedom, but not without the possibility of error. Here is where I think your pre-set metaphysical commitments aid in your misunderstanding of me. Again, by perfect I mean only that he was innocent of sin guilt, incorrupt, and possessed an intact nous (inclined to the good). He had these at his creation and was responsible for maintaining this state through obedience to God. This is clearly and thoroughly taught by Scripture and not disputed among the holy fathers.
He had “freedom” to choose the good without the hindrance of a fallen state – which, of course, is the true meaning of “freedom” when used in this context. He was able to err, but his default was to do the good. St. Basil explained that to be made “according to the image of God” meant to “understand the Good,” yet, “it also had the authority to turn away from the beautiful at any time” (Homily Explaining that God is not the Cause of Evil, sect 6). Section 7 of the same homily is a full description of the “historic golden age” (your words) Adam dwelt in prior to the fall.
Of course he was not fully deified; he was created with a telos of theosis, which would last forever (one never makes an end of becoming a partaker of God’s nature since the depth of which is eternally unfathomable and endless). To err, he had to be deceived; otherwise, he may have never erred on his own account (as I already said). He had the capacity to disobey. Remember, the gnomic will is an attribute, a mode, not a matter of nature. Man’s created nature does not include the gnomic will as its operating system. Adam could reason before his fall, just as Christ learned to reason as He grew from childhood, but he reasoned within the boundaries of the good – not good and evil (that was what the forbidden fruit offered). Hence, deception was the only way the devil could convince Adam to sin, and why he attempted the same play on Jesus in the wilderness.
Then you said:
“Your second assumption rest on a historical, temporal, "pre-fall" human being (Adam) who exists in a state of perfect clarity.”
Again, the last portion is unrelated to my posts. But the first part is fine, as it complies with Scripture and the fathers. From there you note St. Gregory of Nyssa teaching, let me quote it in full: “there never existed a historically-lived period where human nature enjoyed perfect clarity, incorrupt nous, and non-gnomic immediacy to the Good. Your reading assumes a temporal golden-age before a historical fall. Gregory denies this. Maximus denies this as well 'Adam fell at the very moment he came to be.' (Amb. 42 10; various scholia)"
I have only a scant reading of Gregory of Nyssa so I am unaware if he in fact teaches this; however, Maximus I am quite familiar with and can say without doubt that he does not teach this. In fact, the quotes you gave from Ambiguum 42 are not from 42.10 but rather 42.7, and state:
“The Lord – who heals human nature and returns it to its primordial grace of incorruptibility – came to liberate nature. His purpose was to reveal the beauty toward which human nature failed to move when it was first created, and to trample down the wickedness to which it, being deceived, unnaturally moved at the very moment it was created…”
Before you jump to the very end of the quote, note the rest: the Lord heals human nature, returning it to its primordial grace of incorruptibility. This is original human nature before the fall (notice the before-and-after sequence). How could He return human nature to something you claim never actually existed? If Maximus means that the fall happened simultaneously with Adam’s creation (which he does not say), then there would be no “incorruptibility” to return him to. Also note that Adam had to be deceived because otherwise he was “unnaturally moved.” According to your idea, he was naturally moved in that his essence included a gnomic will. Further, if Adam fell simultaneously with his creation, then God determined it.
And this last point seems to be the underlying problem with your entire theory. Your idea makes the entire field of deception, sin, corruption, death, etc., the grand plan of God, not the devil, and hence it becomes very difficult to distinguish between the two. It is a version of predestination that would make John Calvin shudder.
This response is becoming excessively long, so let me vamp on one more thing and I’ll end.
You wrote:
“These are not two “phases” of Adam’s life, nor two moments of personal existence. They are two modes of speaking about the same reality. First, in God’s eternal act, humanity has its archetype in Christ. Secondly, in time, humanity appears in a world as we know it but is in movement towards it's telos which is Christ. To be frank I don't even like the word fallen because of what that typically assumes. So, I'm hesitant using the language of "fallen" without a lot of qualifications… God’s act of creation is eternal, not sequential. There is no “before” and “after” in God. God’s creative act includes its goal (Christ) from the beginning. Jesus is not plan B.”
I think I know what you are trying to say here, as I am not unfamiliar with the thought. God’s reality is eternal, ours is conditioned by time. Thus, there are “two modes” of the same reality. Sure. But that won’t change the fundamental disagreement you have with me. There is no getting around the fact that Adam was created fully – soul and body – simultaneously (as Maximus is at pains to teach in Amb 42), in the physical world, as Scripture is at pains to teach. Adam did not have existence prior to his physical creation. Regardless of whether you play the story out in time sequence, or push it into an eternal realm (which our human brains cannot comprehend) there is still a Pre and Post fall. Denying this simply puts you at odds with Scripture and the whole of Holy Tradition. But your precommitment to this particular metaphysical theory makes such a leap necessary.
I would encourage you not to “hesitate” using language of fallenness. Symeon the New Theologian certainly didn’t. Listen to his very first line in his homily on the Transgression of Adam: “The first-created Adam, being in Paradise, fell, at the instigation of the serpent…”
Very. First. Line.
How was he able to speak so boldly? Because he had no restriction due to potentially misleading his readers with the term. They understood what he meant: there was a paradise where incorrupted man lived… then he fell… now we’re all corrupted.
Symeon also preached the same story as the rest of the fathers. “In soul Adam died immediately, as soon as he had tasted… Man such as God had created him no longer existed in the world… For this (tasting of the tree) he was given over to great chastisements – to corruption and death.”
He did not begin in corruption, as you claim (corrupted simultaneously at his creation – which, honestly, makes no sense even if taken from a view of eternity), but was given over to it after he sinned. The man as God originally created no longer existed! According to your theory there was no difference between, no sequence, no golden age, no pre-gnomic will.
To summarize: When Christ assumed human nature in order to heal it, He assumed the true original (and still natural) nature of man. In Maximus' terms, he assumed the same attribute originally given to Adam - the natural will. Christ was not deceived by satan, hence, He never forfeited His human nous, nor his communion with the Father (this communion was made impermeable by his dual natured hypostasis). If Christ did not assume true human nature, then we are not healed. Our true human nature includes a healthy, non-fallen nous, subject to an inclination to the Good. It is as Adam was originally. Unless this is true, then Apollinarius had it right, Christ did not assume a human mind, and we are still lost.
This is indeed the longest reply I have ever posted in over 15 years of blogging. You’re welcome. Lol. I spent the better part of the last two days contemplating and rereading tons of Maximus and other fathers, which made for a wonderful weekend of study. Again, thanks for being the conduit for such a blessed deviation from my original plans. I won’t be able to continue, though. This starts a busy week and I need to dedicate whatever time I have to writing new articles.
Grace and peace my friend. Please have the last word. I look forward to future discussions.
This has been a very stimulating exchange. Thank you!
That being said it seems there is misunderstandings on both sides. I do hope when you have time you can help clarify anything I am misunderstanding here. Always happy to jump on a call too!
Originally, I asked for clarity on what you meant by "perfect." So far what I've heard is that Adam in his prelapsarian state had no "gnomic will" (without distinguishing the two different ways Maximus spoke about "gnome") and was incorrupt.
I'm still unclear on some of your language.
What is meant by "perfect" what is meant by "incorrupt"?
Let me first clarify why I had suggested that, on your own terms, Adam ends up looking functionally deified, even though you explicitly deny that.
What I am saying is that, in Maximian terms, the set of predicates you ascribe to Adam are the predicates Maximus associates with the deified state and, above all, with Christ. So, when I said your logic assumes a “deified Adam,” I meant that you seem to effectively ascribe to Adam, from creation, the mode of willing and knowing that Maximus reserves for Christ and for eschatologically deified humanity.
The other key thing I was going to say in “comment 2,” and that I think your latest response still doesn’t take into account, is that Maximus speaks of the gnomic mode in more than one sense. This isn’t just my idiosyncratic reading; it’s a core insight in contemporary Maximus scholarship. (Blowers, Wood, Thunberg, Louth, etc.) I wasn’t trying to be pedantic; I just didn’t think it was fair to dive straight into technical word-usage until those prior assumptions were at least on the table.
That being said all note that “gnomic will” / gnōmikon thelēma functions in two different ways for Maximus.
The first is a broader, more neutral/existential sense. Recent scholarship suggests that Maximus uses “gnomic” to name the mode of finite, unperfected rational freedom. According to them this is the mode of those who do not yet possess unerring knowledge of the good, who therefore deliberate, consider, and are temptable, even if they have not yet sinned. In this sense, gnomic does not = “sinful nature.” It = creaturely, undeified mode of willing. In this sense the gnomic will for Maximus is an act/mode, not a separate faculty; and as the way freedom is exercised in those not yet brought to full clarity.
The second is a more narrow, polemical Christological sense. In the Disputation with Pyrrhus and Opuscule 3, Maximus tightens the definition to argue against the monothelites describing gnomic as an act of will that arises from ignorance, involves deliberation between opposites, indicates a lack of clear knowledge of the good, and so cannot be predicated of Christ without implying sin or error. In this strict, technical sense, Maximus denies gnomic will to Christ in order to safeguard Christ’s full humanity (He has a natural will), and Christ’s full sinlessness (He does not deliberate in ignorance; He does not learn the good).
This narrow sense is what Bathrellos, Louth, and others draw out when they parse the Christological debates. "Gnomic” as a mode of fallen, ignorant, vacillating willing that must be excluded from Christ.
In your comments, you consistently define gnomic will like this “It is an attribute that, when operated in, is an ‘inclination’ to sin.” and: “After the fall Adam gained the proclivity to sin, not before… Adam was born with a natural will… Christ also assumed the results of a gnomic will but not into Himself.”
In other words, what I've heard so far for you is that the gnomic is a post-fall inclination to sin; and that pre-fall Adam had no gnomic mode at all only a natural will. If I've misheard, you please provide a correction.
The point I’ve been trying to get to (and why I started first with your assumptions about the fall and temporality) is that in the broader, existential sense, Maximus very clearly does attribute a gnomic mode to Adam “as newly created,” precisely because Adam does not yet possess unerring knowledge of the good. That doesn’t mean Adam begins fallen or sinful or that God predestined the fall or that Christ couldn't save us because he didn't assume this gnomic mode intrinsic to Creatures. Christ did not have to come from nothing to save humanity. Evil is not necessary. Only the possibility of evil is necessary for creatures with real freedom. The “simultaneity” of creation and fall is not predestinarian.
Creature = potentiality + freedom + possibility of error.
God = pure act, no potentiality, no error.
Only Christ begins in fullness of actuality precisely because He is fully God not simply a creature. Adam does not. I'm not thinking remotely in deterministic or voluntarism terms.
It means Adam begins as a creature from nothing, whose mode of willing is deliberative,
finite, temptable, and on the way. Christ alone has natural will without the gnomic mode in either the broad or narrow sense. Maximus’ own usage of “gnomic” is richer and more nuanced than “post-fall inclination to sin,” and that the best contemporary Maximus scholarship reads him this way.
There are several other things in your final reply that are worthy of attention, but I want to be respectful of your time and commitments. I hope we can chat on the phone and catch up soon.
This really resonated. What you name here isn’t just a problem of technology or capitalism, but of formation—how the “Machine” quietly reshapes our desires, sense of freedom, and even our theology.
I appreciate that this isn’t a cartoon critique or a manifesto. The turn toward limits, asceticism, and the garden feels less like nostalgia and more like recovering memory—remembering what human life was actually ordered toward.
This put words to something many of us feel but struggle to articulate. Grateful for the care and clarity here.