The metaphysics of relationality in patristic philosophy: Maximus the Confessor

Abstract

In classical European metaphysics and anthropology based on it, since Antiquity, the cat­egory of essence has been preferred over the category of relation. This marked the begin­ning of the tradition of autonomy, which meant that for things and, most importantly, for a person, any relationships are contingent. The essence is inseparable from the onto­logy of the One, which resulted in the diminution of the individual and its subordination to the common whole. For a long time, this way of thinking was quite productive, but in the history of philosophy there are a number of attempts to overcome these limitations, in particular, in Christian theology and philosophy of the patristic era. In this tradition, relativity still remains in the shadow of substantialism, but it receives much more atten­tion and development in the teaching about God, the world and man. We can trace the theo­logians’ use of the category of relation in triadology since the age of the apologists, but the more thoroughly relational language and character of Christian ontology were devel­oped by the great Cappadocians in the fourth century. Relativity in the ontology of the created world is especially vividly revealed in the thought of the Maximus the Confessor: in the doctrine of the participation of the world of divine energy, as well as in the doctrine of the logoi, in the movement and relation to which the created reaches perfection. The Christian revelation demanded that a more important place at all levels of meta­physics should be given to the relation and the Other. This allows us to take a step for­ward in solving such issues as the philosophical description of the individual, the ques­tion of free will and create a more dynamic ontology.