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Gnomic will () is an Eastern Christian theological notion meaning spontaneous individual aspiration and movement of the mind.„Θἑλημα γνωμικόν ἐστιν, ἡ ἐφ᾽ ἑκάτερα τοῦ λογισμοῦ αὐθαίρετος ὁρμὴ τε καὶ κίνησις.” – PG 91 / Opuscula Theologica et Polemica / col. 153 Sotiris Mitralexis, Georgios Steiris, Marcin Podbielski, Sebastian Lalla. «Maximus the Confessor as a European Philosopher» / Wipf and Stock Publishers / 18.09.2017 / p. 77Basil Lourié. «История византийской философии» / III. Ранневизантийское богословие / Богословский синтез VII века: святой Максим Исповедник и его эпоха / 4. Богословие святого Максима Исповедника / 4.2 Тропос существования и энергия природы / 4.2.6 Теория волевого акта: воля природная и воля гномическая / p. 395
The term gnomic derives from the Greek gnome, meaning “inclination” or “intention”. Within Orthodox theology, gnomic willing is contrasted with natural willing. Natural willing designates the movement of a creature in accordance with the principle ( logos ()) of its nature towards the fulfilment ( telos (), stasis ()) of its being. Gnomic willing, on the other hand, designates that form of willing in which a person engages in a process of deliberation, culminating in a decision.
Within the theology of St. Maximus, which was endorsed by the Sixth Ecumenical Council in condemning monothelitism, Jesus Christ possessed no gnomic will. St. Maximus developed this claim, particularly in his Dialogue with Pyrrhus. According to St. Maximus, the process of gnomic willing presupposes that a person does not know what they want, so they must deliberate and choose between a range of choices. However, Jesus Christ, as both man and the second Person of the Trinity, possessed complete congruence of his two wills: the divine and the human. Therefore, St. Maximus reasoned that Jesus was never in a state of ignorance regarding what he wanted, and so he never engaged in gnomic willing.
Aristotle, a major philosophical influence on Maximus, in comparing the works of Nature with those of a human worker, had also declared that any process of deliberation, far from indicating superior intellect, is a sign of our weakness.
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