Monoenergism
Catholic teaching receives two natural operations corresponding to Christ's divine and human natures, united in the one person of the Son.
Historical context
The controversy arose in the seventh century as imperial and ecclesial leaders sought formulas that could reconcile communities divided after Chalcedon. Maximus the Confessor argued that one operation could not adequately express Christ's complete humanity. The Sixth Ecumenical Council's confession of two natural operations was received with the confession of two natural wills.
Reception
Catholic teaching receives two natural operations corresponding to Christ's divine and human natures, united in the one person of the Son.
Memory hook
One Son acts through divine and human operations.
Key points
- Natural operation means the activity proper to a nature, not a second person.
- Christ's human acts—eating, suffering, learning, obeying, and dying—are genuinely human acts of the one Son.
- Two natural operations do not split Christ into two subjects.
- The doctrine protects the reality of human salvation: Christ acts humanly in order to heal human action.
Common questions
- What is a natural operation?
- How can one person act through two natures?
- Is 'operation' the same as a personal choice?
Doctrinal connections
- Christology
- Human action
- Maximus the Confessor
- Constantinople III
Scripture
- Luke 22:42 — Christ's prayer reveals a genuinely human mode of obedience without dividing the one person.
- John 5:19 — The Son's action is inseparable from the Father's work while remaining an action of the incarnate Son.
Primary sources
The council's definition states:
Constantinople III explicitly confesses two natural operations as well as two natural wills in Christ.
in him are two natural wills and two natural operations
Passage context and translation
The council's Definition of Faith rejects Monothelitism by confessing that Christ's complete divinity and humanity include two natural wills and operations united in his one person. The prior wording in this record came from Pope Agatho's letter earlier on the linked page.
Before the excerpt
defining all this we likewise declare that
After the excerpt
indivisibly, inconvertibly, inseparably, inconfusedly, according to the teaching of the holy Fathers.