Miroslav Griško

From the position of Saint Maximus the Confessor’s eschatology, conceptual pairs which address specific theological problems, such as logoi-tropos and natural will-gnomic will, also function as mirrors of each other, together clarifying the fundamental principles of the Confessor’s eschatology as well as demonstrating the systematic character of his thought. Following the tradition of figures such as Sherwood and Zizioulas, the paper takes the opposition between Maximus’ logic of end and Origen’s logic of beginning as a starting point to describe Maximian eschatology as systematic metaphysics. The cosmic finitude of eschatology is an ‘incomplete ontology’ (Loudovikos) of crucifixion and resurrection, according to which the void of soteriological incompleteness (viz. that the creation is not yet deified) receives an objective meaning in the eschaton. The fallen tropos of being as deep ontological contingency is guided by the in- carnation of the Logos, and, by extension, the logoi, thus instantiating the ‘fundamental meaning’ (Louth) of eschatological history. In other terms, history is the eschatological antagonism between, on the one hand, the gnomic will as the reduction of freedom to the complete ontology of immanent perpetual choice and, on the other, the natural will that determines the ethical mission of man as the total transformation of the cosmos, theosis.