own will and energy. We must conclude with von Balthasar, that a new perspective is opened up, where personal existence and the mystery of union in infinity are brought together on the basis of Christological insights into what was felt as the deepest secret of created life.34 And this brings us to the final aspect of Maximus’ cosmology and that is what may be termed its qualitative or modal aspect. If the ‘qualifying’ element in nature is that which belongs to it as being moved and moving, then