Eros or Agape?

''Goodness transferred to the level of created beings receives the name of έρως from Maximos. This name expresses all the impulse of creation toward its perfection and acts in both directions being έρως οf God and έρως of man. "The divine as being eros and agape, is moved, while as an object of eros and agape, it moves towards itself those who are capable of receiving eros and agape. Τo state it clearer, it is moved with the aim of causing an inward relation of eros and agape in those who are capable of receiving this activity and moves as naturally attracting the desire of those who are moved for this reason". Goodness is the cause of creation; eros is its perfecting power. 

All beings, although they have come forth from nothing according to the will of God and in appropriate time, have their λόγοι, reasons, preexistent eternally within the one Logos, i.e. within God. Each one was made according to a corresponding reason, its logos, which defines its genesis and its essence. From this origin, creation dynamically rushes to its completion. 

The term Logos, with its long tradition both pre-Christian and Christian, takes a particular meaning in Maximos connected with his teaching in image, likeness and participation "All beings have a preliminary participation in God, according to the analogy of their creation especially rational beings, which according to the reason of creation, are seated in God himself and therefore are called μοίρα Θεού, particle of God" "Every man is a μοιρα Θεού, but not under any condition: he was created as a μοίρα Θεού and remains as such as long as he moves according to his logos, otherwise he collapses and may return again to non-being". At any rate, the logoi constitute the first found-action of man's ability to be raised above his natural state. By raised above his natural state" we mean an elevation which transforms nature to person, the φύσις to πρόσωπον. This is another fundamental distinction in the theology of Maximos, followed, by a number of other conjunctions, like κίνησις and ενέργεια, φυσικόν θέλημα and γνωμικόν θέλημα, εικών and ομοίωσις. 

Nature or essence, is the common content of all species; person or hypostasis is the nature, together with its distinctive marks in each individual. Here anthropology corresponds to theology, in which the divine nature hypostasised in the three persons.

Movement is a distinctive property of creation, beginning with the foundation of the world as its consequence and involving a state οf change. Everything which moves is subject to change and naturally God being immovable is ιιnchangeable. 

Α basic category of movement is time, which is unfolded alongside movement, and measures the life of the world. Time and perpetuity χρόνος and αιωνιότης are categories of creation while eternity is a category of God. Being above any relation, God is above time and age. He is eternal "as are all His energies". 

Νοw this movement belongs to the nature of created things, the rational as well as the perceptible ones, though different in each case. Ιn rational beings, it is combined with the distinction between the categories of nature and person. As we proceed from nature to person it is transformed into energy. 

Though Maximos also accepted energy as a capacity of nature, he does so only in a special case and under terms which facilitated his aim in facing the doctrine of his adversaries about a unique energy in Christ. Ιn Christ each nature has its οwn energy, not as a nature, but as a correspondence to a person. Αnd indeed, the divine nature is a person, while the human nature, not even a particular person, was developed to such a degree, that it had its movement raised into an energy''.
Maximos Confessor