I’m silly, don’t take this too seriously
I want to state at the outset that these are my opinions and my opinions are fallible and likely to be wrong. All of my opinions are subject to the Church.
I will preface that I am unworthy to give any actual commentary or deep exegesis of St. Maximus, so I feel the need to say that I am merely jotting down my own contemplation and am not offering any special or unique commentary on him. My name should not be anywhere near his work, for he was on a completely different playing field. I am just working through a contemplation I have had. With this said, I will continue.
St. Maximus the Confessor is credited with saying, “The one logos is the many logoi, and the many logoi are the one logos.”
I’ve been on a kick lately thinking about things in the terms of a part/whole relationship. “I am hungry” is a part regarding the whole human: their appetite. The “I am” in reference to hunger is not an identity claim, but rather the subject (the whole) is making a claim about something they are feeling (the part).
Thinking in terms of the Logos/Logoi relationship provides much explanatory value. It means that you can look at a part to figure out something about the whole, but your explanation will not exhaust the whole. With the earlier example of hunger, you could reasonably conclude, by looking at that part, that the whole has felt hunger in the past, knows the feeling of hunger, and will continue to. You can reason that the whole has some attribute that would necessitate the part, like a metabolism. Furthermore, you can find out what type of subject would best describe this list of attributes: a person.
Very base example. But this template of thought can be applied to so much more. Take now a given thought someone has. Let’s say a person has an outburst of anger. That would mean they have some disposition or proclivity to the spirit of anger, and this proclivity has produced a fruit.
Furthermore, allow us to imagine someone with beliefs that are outrageous. You can likely pinpoint many, but I will make up a hypothetical. Say someone is occupied with thinking they can chop off and remove left arms — and that it is indeed a positive to do this, and to allow people to do this. Because thinking in terms of Logos/Logoi accounts for the missing link connecting part and whole, the part can be thought of as an extension of the whole. Therefore, because this part of thought (the thoughts of mutilation) is contaminated, that means that some greater genera of thought is “above” this thought, giving birth to it; the umbrella thought that begot this specific thought is contaminated.
For some reason or another, the idea that parts and wholes are connected has been under attack, and I think the example provided above gives a partial account for this want to refuse part/whole relations. I also think it has to do with the denial of God. Denying God means that down the line of justifications, the justification for categories and relations between things is lost. St. Maximus’ work has done a lot to help me understand that many things should be thought of in terms of relations of participation. Understanding this relationship preserves connectedness and unity; nothing is isolated, which certainly seems to account for the world.
It’s also worth noting that the takeaway from this contemplation is not that if you have a bad thought then you are a bad person; you are not an angry person if you have an angry thought. To walk away with this conclusion would be confusing our proclivity to sin with our value and nature coming from the great gift that we are Images of God. I’m not trying to overstate or judge people in this contemplation. The vice does not define the person.
Now, I want you do some work. If the vice does not define the person, does the virtue? What about Luke 17:10?
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