Talk:Gnomic will

Sources

Hello Macrakis. You wrote this article without reference to sources. How you did this is not clear to me. I suggest that this is your original study, based on reading the texts of Maximus. John Meyendorff has work on this subject. The work is called «Free Will (γνώμη) in Saint Maximus», it was published in the collection of articles «Ecumenical World of Orthodox Civilization: Russia and Orthodoxy: Essays in Honor of Georges Florovsky» ed. A. Blane. The Hague; R: Mouton, 1973. Vol. 3./ P. 71–75. If you have the opportunity to read this article, I suggest you do it. I did not find the full English text of this article. There is an article in the Russian translation here. Maybe this text will help you improve the article. Of course, I can make changes myself, but I do not want to conflict. p.s. I assumed that it was not by chance that you began to edit an article about Blaise, specifically my revision. My assumptions were confirmed.Wlbw68 (talk) 03:48, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Take a look at the edit history.

I did not write any of the text of this article, and I have zero interest in the topic or theology in general. It was added by an anon in 2008.

All I did was split the material on Gnomic tense and Gnomic will from the article Gnomic (now a disambiguation page), which at the time included material on these two unrelated topics.

My edits here have nothing to do with my edits on St. Blaise, and in any case, you should focus on the content and not the editors. --Macrakis (talk) 16:51, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Good. Then I will try to supplement the article. I thought that with your knowledge of Greek this would make it easier. But you are not an expert on the theological theme. I am familiar with this topic well. I ask you, if it’s easy for you, to correct my spelling in future edits.Wlbw68 (talk) 21:57, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

I recommend that you start by rewriting the first sentence so that it summarizes what gnomic will actually is. The current opening sentence, "The notion of gnomic will (Greek: γνώμη) belongs to Eastern Christian, especially Byzantine Orthodox, ascetical theology, being developed particularly within the theology of St Maximus the Confessor." is terrible. It's as though the article on the tomato began "The concept of the tomato belongs to cuisine and gastronomy, especially since Europeans discovered the Americas."

Also, it's unclear to me what "willing" is in the first place, so the distinction between gnomic and natural willing escapes me entirely. It seems to have something to do with desire or decision or maybe even consciousness. As I say, I know nothing about theology.

What does "movement of a creature" mean?

What does "fulfilment of its being" mean?

Maybe you can clear all this up. --Macrakis (talk) 22:47, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

I will try to do it. The article must be completely rewritten. There is no text of Meyendorf’s article in English, it will be necessary to do a reverse translation from Russian into English. But this is still half the trouble, the topic of the article is very muddy. The concept of γνώμη is the term purely Maximus in Orthodoxy, his private theological opinion. No councils have confirmed this opinion. In the early works of Maximus, γνώμη is almost identical to θέλημα or ἐνέργεια. In the later works of γνώμη at Maximus, this is an additional will obtained as a result of the fall of man. This will not only makes a choice between good and evil, but hesitates and suffers, for its decisions are clouded by “ignorance” and “imagination”. Once again, the theme γνώμη is a very complex topic. Here, to everything else, θέλημα in the works of Maximus is not a will in everyday understanding.Wlbw68 (talk) 03:32, 4 January 2020 (UTC)