Pyrrhus: Virtues, then, are natural things?
Maximus: Yes, natural things.
Pyrrhus: If they be natural things, why do they not exist in all men equally, since all men have an identical nature?
Maximus: But they do exist equally in all men because of the identical nature!
Pyrrhus: Then why is there such a great disparity [of virtues] in us?
Maximus: Because we do not all practice what is natural to us to an equal degree; indeed, if we [all] practiced equally [those virtues] natural to us as we were created to do, then one would be able to perceive one virtue in us all, just as there is one nature [in us all], and “one virtue” would not admit of a “more” or “less.”
Pyrrhus: If virtue be something natural [to us], and if what is natural to us existeth not through asceticism but by reason of our creation, then why is it that we acquire the virtues, which are natural, with asceticism and labours?
Maximus: Asceticism, and the toils that go with it, was devised simply in order to ward off deception, which established itself through sensory perception. It is not [as if] the virtues have been newly introduced from outside, for they inhere in us from creation, as hath already been said. Therefore, when deception is completely expelled, the soul immediately exhibits the splendor of its natural virtue.
–The Disputation with Pyrrhus
What are the vitues for Maximus?
Ambigua 7, PG 91:1081D: “There can be no doubt that the one Word of God is the substance of virtue in each person. It is evident that every person who participates in virtue as a matter of habit unquestionably participates in God, the substance of the virtues,” and Gnostic Centuries 1.50; 58 in Berthold pp.137-138: “But some [virtues] began to be in time, for there was a time when they were not, and others did not begin to be in time…The one who with his body is diligent for his soul in the well-ordered diversity of the virtues.” C.f. Thunberg, Microcosm, p. 323-327 for Maximus’s understanding of virtue.
These virtues are the many logoi that pre-exist in God, Who keeps them together. They pre-exist in God, implying that they are grounded and fixed in Him. As Maximus says, “every divine energy properly signifies God indivisibly, wholly and entirely through itself, in each thing according to the logos—whatever it may be—whereby it exists, who is capable of conceiving and of saying exactly how, being wholly and entirely and altogether common to all and yet altogether particularly present in each of these realities.”
If you are an Augustinian, are you not a little taken back by these statements by Maximus. Does this short dialoque not guarantee the worth and dignity of each human person? If grace/virtue exists in each and every person, what does this say about divine election? Historically, has the will to dominate been covertly manipulated and hidden under the doctrine of predestination (think the Feudal System)?