“Then said I, ‘Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.'”
Ps. 40:7-8
“Father, if Thou be willing, remove this cup from Me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.”
Lk. 22:42
“When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, He groaned in the spirit, and was troubled.”
Jn. 11:33
.
.
Subsection
Christ’s Mediatorial Operations, Divine & Human, unto the Same Work
.
.
Order of Contents
Encyclopedia Articles 2
Historical Theology 4
Rutherford’s Assertions
Latin 6
.
Intro
This controversy, whether Christ has one will (monothelitism) or two wills (dyothelitism) was decided in the early Church at the 6th ecumenical council (AD 680-81), the 3rd Council of Constantinople.
It was rightly determined that ‘will’ is a property of ‘nature’, and not of ‘person’. If it were not so, the Trinity would have three wills. Nor is it possible for a rational nature not to have a will, power and its own distinct operations and ends. If Christ’s human nature did not have this, then his nature would not be the same as ours.
Hence, as Christ has two natures, so He has two wills, one human, creaturely and finite, and one divine, uncreated and infinite; both are willed by his one and the same Person.
It was not until the late 1600’s, through the influence of Cartesianism, that will came to be more popularly defined as a formal and essential part of personhood rather than that of a person’s nature. Such a paradigm is latent Tritheism.
.
Articles
1200’s
Aquinas, Thomas
Summa Theologica, 3rd Part, Treatise on the Incarnation
Question. 18 – Of Christ’s Unity of Will (6 Articles)
(1) Whether there are Two Wills in Christ? [Yes]
(2) Whether in Christ’s human nature the will of sensuality is distinct from the will of reason? [Yes, though joined]
…
(4) Whether there was free-will in Christ? [Yes]
(5) Whether Christ’s human will was always conformed to the Divine will in the thing willed? [Yes & No]
(6) Whether there was any contrariety of wills in Christ? [No]
.
2000’s
Jones, Mark – ‘Eternal Subordination of Wills? Nein!’ (2016) at NewCityTimes
Butner, Glenn – ‘The Obedience of One Man: an Excerpt from The Son who Learned Obedience‘ in The Master’s Seminary Journal, vol. 33, no. 1 (Spring, 2022), pp. 127-46
Butner covers the post-Chalcedon Monothelite (One-Will) controversy in this article.
.
Quotes
Leonard Riissen
A Complete Summary of Elenctic Theology & of as Much Didactic Theology as is Necessary trans. J. Wesley White MTh thesis (Bern, 1676; GPTS, 2009), ch. 11, ‘Christ’, pp. 114 & 117
“§VI. In this person, a divine and human nature, each with their own intellect and will, were united.”
“§XII. Consequently, Christ had a true soul (Mt. 26:38) and true body (Heb. 10:5) but without any blemish.”
.
Francis Turretin
Institutes (P&R), vol. 2, 13th Topic, Q. 7, ‘Was the hypostatical union of the two natures of Christ such that neither the person is divided nor the natures confounded? We affirm against Nestorius & Eutyches.’, pp. 320-21
“XIII. A second rock to be avoided here is Eutychianism… who… confounded the two natures into one… one nature is neither changed nor converted by the hypostatical union into the other. Nor are the natures so confounded or mixed with each other that each of them does not retain its own properties and conditions.
XIV. The reasons are: (1) the opposition of the two natures in Christ is frequent in Scripture (Rom. 1:3; 1 Pet. 3:18; Heb. 9:14; Jn. 1:14; Phil. 2:6-7, 11); (2) two wills are ascribed to Him (‘not my will, but thine, be done,’ Lk. 22:42). Nor does it follow that there are two [persons] willing because the will belongs to the nature, while willing belongs to the person; nor is it evident that the will follows personally forthwith because in God there are three persons, but only one will. (3) Contraries are ascribed to Christ, which could not be if there were not two natures in Him (as that He would depart from the world and remain with us forever; that a child was born, who is the Father of eternity; that He suffered death and was made alive; in the form of God and in the form of a servant, etc.).
XV. Although the efficient cause of the operations of Christ is one alone, still the exciting cause is twofold–the divinity and humanity. The work upon which both exciting (egergema) causes exert their power is one, but the action (energeia) is twofold.”
.
Encyclopedia Articles
McClintock & Strong Biblical Cyclopedia
.
Historical Theology
On the Early & Medieval Church
Articles
1600’s
Baxter, Richard – ch. 8, ‘Councils held about the Monothelites, with others’ in Church-History of the Government of Bishops & their Councils abbreviated… & a True Account of the Most Troubling Controversies & Heresies till the Reformation... (London, 1680), pp. 193-202
Du Pin, Louis Ellies – A New History of Ecclesiastical Writers… (London, 1693), ‘Councils held in the Seventh Century’
‘Council of Lateran against the Monothelites under Martin I’, pp. 63-66
Du Pin (1657-1719)
‘Council III of Constantinople, 6th General’, pp. 66-74
.
Books
Hovorun, Cyril
Theological Controversy in the Seventh Century Concerning Activities & Wills in Christ PhD diss. (Univ. of Durham, 2003)
Abstract: “The primary purpose of the thesis is to fill the existing gaps in our understanding of various theological and political aspects of the controversy that took place in both Eastern and Western parts of the Roman Empire in the seventh century, the main theological point of which was whether Christ had one or two energeiai [energies, or operations] and wills.
Before coming to any conclusions on this subject, I shall investigate the preliminary forms of Monenergism and Monothelitism i.e., belief in a single energeia and will of Christ, which were incorporated in the major Christological systems developed by Apollinarius of Laodicea, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Severus of Antioch (chapters 1-3). Against this background, it becomes obvious that the Chalcedonian Monenergism and later Monothelitism emerged from the movement of neo-Chalcedonianism. It was an attempt by the political and ecclesiastical authorities to achieve a theological compromise with various non-Chalcedonian groups, mainly Severian, but also ‘Nestorian’. Their ultimate goal was to reconcile these groups with the Catholic Church of the Empire (chapter 4).
However, this project of reconciliation on the basis of the single-energeia formula was contested by the representatives of the same neo-Chalcedonian tradition and consequently condemned at the Councils of Lateran (649) and Constantinople (680/681). Thus, the same neo-Chalcedonian tradition produced two self-sufficient and antagonistic doctrines. A major concern of the thesis is to expose and compare systematically their doctrinal content per se and in the wider context of the principles of neo-Chalcedonianism (chapter 5).
Will, Action & Freedom: Christological Controversies in the Seventh Century in The Medieval Mediterranean Pre Buy (Brill, 2008) This is the published form of the dissertation above.
.
Samuel Rutherford’s Assertions
Christ Dying & Drawing Sinners to Himself (London: 1647), pp. 138-41
Here is the fifth article in this prayer: a sort of correction, in which Christ does resign his will, as man, to the will of God; as Mt. 26:39; Lk. 22:42. ‘Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.’
In this there is offered to us a question, Whether or no there be in this prayer any repugnancy in the human will of Christ to the will of God? For:
1. A correction of the human will seems to import a jarring and a discord; 2. Christ desired that, the contrary whereof He knew was from eternity decreed of God. 3. The Law of God is so spiritual, straight and holy that it requires not only a conformity to it, and our will, actions, words and purposes, but also in all our affections, desires, first-motions and inclinations of our heart, that no unperfect and half-formed lustings arise in us even before the complete consent of the will that may thwart or cross the known Law and command of God; and by this, ‘Thou shalt not lust,’ Rom. 7, and the duty of the highest love we owe to God, to love him with all the heart, soul, mind, and whole strength, Mt. 22:37; Mk. 12:33; Lk. 10:27.
Some Arians and Arminians, John Geysteranus at the Synod of Dort, have said blasphemously that there was concupiscence and a will repugnant to God’s will in the second Adam, as in the first. But this they spoke against the consubstantiality and deity of the Son of God. To which we say:
Assertion 1. Jesus Christ that holy thing, Lk. 1:35, was a fit high priest, holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners, Heb. 7:26. Which of you (says Christ to the Jews) convinces me of sin, Jn. 8:46. There could not be a spot in this Lamb sacrificed for the sins of the world, no prick in this Rose, no cloud in this fair Sun, no blemish in this beautiful Well-beloved.
Assertion 2. An absolute, resolved will or desire of heart to lust after that which God forbids in his Law must be a sinful jarring between the creature’s and the Creator’s will. Now, Christ‘s will was conditional and clearly submissive; it lay ever level with his Father’s holy will.
Assertion 3. I shall not with some affirm that which in the general is true, a will contrary to God’s revealed command and will, called voluntas signi, which is our moral rule to oblige us, is a sin [see Assertion 4 below]; but a will contrary to God’s decree, called voluntas beneplaciti, which is not our rule obliging, except the Lord be pleased to impose it on us as a moral Law, is not a sin.
Peter and the apostles, after they heard that prophecy of their denying of Christ and their being sinfully scandalized, and their forsaking of Christ when the Shepherd was smitten, were obliged to have a will contrary to that decree and to pray that they might not be led into temptation, but might have grace to confess their Savior before men and not flee, nor be scattered: Here is a resolute will of men lawfully contrary to the revealed decree of God, yet not sinful. But the Lord’s will that Christ should die for man, as it was a decree of the wise and most gracious Lord pitying lost man, so was it also a revealed commandment to Christ, that He should be willing to die and be obedient to the death, even the death of the cross, Phil. 2:8; yea, a rule of such humble obedience as we are obliged to follow, as is said, verse 5, ‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,’ etc. If the Lord’s will that Christ should die be nothing but his mere decree, it could not oblige us in the like case to be willing, as John says to lay down our life for the brethren. Yea, Jn. 10:18, Christ has a commandment of God and the revealed will of God to die for us:
‘No man takes it from Me, but I lay it down of myself: I have power to lay it down; I have power to take it again: this commandment have I received of my Father.’
Here is an express commandment given to Christ to die for sinners; and the Father loves Christ for obedience to this commandment.
Assertion 4. A conditional and a submissive desire, though not agreeable to a positive law and commandment of God, is no sin, nor does the Law require a conformity in all our inclinations and the first motions of our desires to every command of God, though most contrary to nature and our natural and sinless inclinations.
1. If God command Abraham to kill his only begotten son and offer him in a sacrifice to God, which was a mere positive commandment, for it’s not a command of the law of nature (nor any other than positive) for the father to kill the son, if yet Abraham retain a natural inclination and love commanded also in the law of nature to save his son’s life and to desire that he may live, this desire and inclination, though contradictory to a positive command of God, is no sin; because the Fifth Command, grounded on the law of nature, does command it. Nor did God’s precept (‘Abraham, kill now thy son, even Isaac thine only begotten son’) ever include this, ‘Abraham, root out of thine heart all desire and inclination natural in a father to preserve the life of the child.’ So the positive command of the Father that the Son of God should lay down his life for his sheep, did never root out of the sinless nature of the man-Christ a natural desire to preserve his own being and life, especially He desiring it with special reservation of the will of God commanding that He should die.
2. A martyr dying for the truth of Christ may have a natural and conditional desire and inclination to live, though his living be contrary to the Lord’s revealed will commanding him to seal the Gospel with his blood and to confess Christ before men.
3. If the brother, son, daughter, wife or friend that is as a man’s own soul, Dt. 13:6, blaspheme God, yea if father or mother do it, Dt. 33:8-9, yet is a father obliged to stone the son or daughter, the son being a magistrate or a Levite and priest, to judge according to law (the priests’ lips should preserve knowledge, Mal. 2:8) that his father or mother ought to be stoned to death; yet ought not father or son to lay aside that natural desire of being and life to son, father, brother which the law of nature in the Fifth Command does require, especially the desire being conditional, with submission to God’s will, as the desire of Christ is here; and the command to stone the blasphemer, that the father stone the son, the son the father, being positive, and though founded on the law of nature, that a man prefer his Lord Creator and God before son or father and mother, yet are they not precepts of the law of nature such as is the precept of nature that a man desire his own life and being, the father the life and being of the son.
Assertion 5. The apparent opposition (for it is not real) is rather between Christ‘s sensitive and his sinless mere natural desire and affection, and his reasonable will, than his [human] will and the will of God: Nor can any say there is a fight or jarring between the conditional desire of Christ subjected in the same act of praying, to the Lord’s decree and the resolute and immutable will of God. The Law of God, because holy and spiritual, does require a conformity between all the inclinations and motions of our soul and the law of nature; but an absolute conformity between all our inclinations and every positive command of God, such as was the Lord’s command that Christ should die for sinners, is not required in the Law of God. If Adam submit his natural hunger or desire to eat of the forbidden tree, to God’s Law, and eat not, there is no sinful jarring between his will and God’s positive Law, ‘Thou shalt not eat of the tree of Knowledge of good and evil.'”
.
Latin Articles
600’s
13 Short Works of St. Maximus the Confessor Against Monothelites & Acephali trans. Francis Torres (Ingolstadt, 1605) 159 pp. ToC This work does not appear to be in Patrologia Graeca.
Maximus (c. 580–662). Turrianus (c.1509-1584) was a Romanist Jesuit. The Acephali (meaning ‘men without a head’) was a name for various heretical early Church sects who had no distinguishable leader. Two prominent groups of them were respectively Nestorians and Eutycheans who did not accept the Council of Chalcedon.
.
1600’s
Goclenius, Rudolph – ‘First Disputation, contra the Error of the Monothelites’ in a Twofold Disputation… 1. Contra the Theological Error of the Monothelites, 2. Physical-Theological on the Bread & Wine (Marburg, 1610), pp. 2r-3v 25 theses
Goclenius was reformed.
Voet, Gisbert – On the Will of Christ in Syllabus of Theological Problems (Utrecht, 1643), pt. 1, section 2, tract 2 Abbr.
Strauch, Aegidius – A Historical-Theological Dissertation Describing the Heresies of the Monothelites (Wittenberg, 1665)
Strauch (1632-1682) was a Lutheran professor of philosophy and theology at Wittenberg.
.
1700’s
Chladni, Martin – A Theological Dissertation on the Condemned Monothelitism of Pope Honorius at the 6th Ecumenical Council, against Binius & Cabassutius (Wittenberg, 1710) 40 pp.
Chladni (1669-1725) was a Lutheran. Pope Honorius I (d. 638) was post-humously anathematized by the 6th Ecumenical Council (680-81) for monothelitism, but later only for failing to end it. This became a central argument against Papal infallibility and for councils’ authority over Popes by the concilliarists.
.
.
Latin Book
1600’s
Combefis, Francois – The History of the Heresy of the Monothelites, & in it, of the Holy Sixth Synod, Vindications of Diverse Ancient Authors in the Same, and in the Middle Age, even of Sacred History, as well as Dogmatic, with short Greek Works… (Paris, 1648) 1,322 cols. Index Scripture Index
Combefis (1605-1679) was a Romanist Dominican.
.
.
.
“And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts?”
Mk. 2:8
“And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped Him, saying, ‘Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.’ And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched Him, saying, ‘I will; be thou clean.’ And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.”
Mt. 8:3
“For Christ… being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: by which also He went and preached [by Noah] unto the spirits [now] in prison, which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing…”
1 Pet. 3:18-20
.
.
.
Related Pages
On the Person of Christ, his Human & Divine Natures & the Hypostatic Union
On Union with Christ & the Fruits of the Fellowship Ensuing Therefrom
On the Doctrine of Appropriations
On the Communication of the Properties of Christ’s Natures