Florin Crîșmăreanu (Universitatea „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” din Iași)
Creație, mișcare, îndumnezeire. Perspective meta- fizico-teologice asupra libertății în primele secole ale creștinismului [Creation, movement, deification. Metaphysical-theological perspec- tives on freedom in the first centuries of Christianity]
Keywords: creation, movement, freedom, will, deification.
Abstract: Creation, movement, deification. Metaphysical-theological perspectives on freedom in the first centuries of Christianity. The present research started from a statement that Hannah Arendt makes regarding freedom, considered as one of the last issues that are among the concerns of philosophers. Moreover, she also identifies an exact date for the entry of freedom into the field of philosophy: the writings of Saint Augustine. In this article, however, I try to point out that the issue of freedom has also been a constant concern of Greek Christian authors such as Origen, Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor. In the second part of the text we try to capture some of the characteristics of freedom and the indissoluble connection with the problem of movement and deification, as it appears in the writings of Maximus the Confessor. This representative author for the Byzantine paradigm succeeds ‒ directly or through Nemesius of Emesa and Stoicism ‒ to make full use of Stagirite ideas about movement and, going beyond them, to reframe it by relating it to the idea of deification.