Nikolaos Loudovikos, “Being and Essence Revisited: Reciprocal Logoi and Energies in Maximus the Confessor and Thomas Aquinas, and the Genesis of the Self-Referring Subject,” Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 72, no. 1 (2016): 117–46, DOI 10.17990/RPF/2016_72_1_0117
| Type | Journal Article |
|---|---|
| Author | Nikolaos Loudovikos |
| Rights | © 2016 Aletheia - Associação Científica e Cultural | © 2016 Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia |
| Volume | 72 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 117-146 |
| Publication | Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia |
| ISSN | 0870-5283; 2183-461X |
| Date | 2016 |
| DOI | 10.17990/RPF/2016_72_1_0117 |
| Language | English |
| Abstract | This essay is a contribution to the discussion of a possibility of complementarity between Maximus and Thomas, given that they are different but not necessarily hostile to each other. For Maximus, logoi of God are clearly conceived of as acts of His own will, as an existential and not formal essential expression , through which he can create an uncreated relationship with every creature without losing His transcendentality, where logos becomes relationship, a reality of love begging for reciprocity, and thus unavoidably moving on through proposals and gifts asking for response, an uncreated-created syn-energy; something that remains true even in the deepest degree of perichoresis of creation by God , since without a created logical response, the very reality of logos as proposal, invitation for reciprocity, skhesis (relation with), would be finally annihilated. On the other hand, in Thomas the ideas represent a different type of God’s self-understanding, regarding the possibility of an imitative participation in a likeness of the divine essence on the part of the creatures, but this position, though not wrong, does not seem to clearly initiate any sort of really reciprocal relationship of God with a real otherness outside Him. This creates the context of a new theological and philosophical discussion of the Gilsonian/Thomist distinction between being/existence and essence. |
| Date Added | 13/04/2016, 16:26:05 |
| Modified | 13/04/2016, 17:10:45 |
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