St. Maximus the Confessor (d. 662) - a patristic author Dumitru Stăniloae showed much attention to and about whom he said, short before his death, that he hadn`t been able to fully understand and that he keeps on reading him, discovering new things - is well-known as a theologian of God`s reasons, even though before him Church Fathers, such as Justin Martyr (d. 165) had approached the same subject and even though after him, other Church Fathers, such as Gregory Palamas (d. 1359) tried to create a synthesis of this central subject and to further develop it. St. Maximus the Confessor`s large theological perspective has almost completely covered this theme, a theme forgotten by the post-Byzantine era due to both its difficulty and secularization. Still, it is brought again under discussion by Pr. Dumitru Stăniloae, who updates it, remodeling it and carries it forward, creating new nuances as far as the feelings, the living and the thinking go. In the conception of the Romanian theologian, St. Maximus becomes intelligible and gains the true dimension, difficult to be noticed by the common theologian or man. Following a short description of the more general framework of this theme, this text is an attempt to remark the way in which father Dumitru Stăniloae understood the role and the place of God`s reasons in the creation. The theme is then illustrated by analyzing one of the less ample works belonging to St. Maximus the Confessor, On the Lord`s Prayer, which doesn`t apparently seem to deal with God`s non-created and eternal reasons. In the end, as conclusions, a few ideas are remarked, which define the theology of reasons, in the view of St. Maximus the Confessor, of father Dumitru Stăniloae, and of the Church.

Keywords: Father Dumitru Stăniloae, St. Maximus the Confessor, the theology of God`s reasons, Philocalia, On the Lord`s Prayer

ADRIAN MARINESCU