Monothelitism
Classical Protestant confessions commonly retain Christ's complete humanity, including genuinely human willing, while detailed explanations differ.
Historical context
The seventh-century controversy followed attempts to reconcile Chalcedonian and anti-Chalcedonian communities through formulas such as one energy or one will. Maximus the Confessor argued that salvation requires Christ to live and obey as a real human being, and the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680–681) defined two natural wills and operations.
Reception
Classical Protestant Christology generally retains the completeness of Christ's humanity, including genuinely human willing.
Memory hook
The human will is healed by obedience, not removed.
Key points
- A natural will belongs to a complete nature; Christ's human nature therefore includes a human will.
- Christ's human will is not sinful simply because it is genuinely human.
- The human will follows the divine will in free obedience rather than being erased.
- Two natural wills do not create two persons because the acting subject remains the one Son.
Common questions
- Can Christ have a human will without resisting God?
- What is the difference between natural will and personal choice?
- Why does Gethsemane matter to this debate?
Doctrinal connections
- Christology
- Human freedom
- Gethsemane
- Constantinople III
Scripture
- Luke 22:42 — Christ's Gethsemane prayer became central to the debate over human willing.
- Hebrews 5:7-9 — The Son's suffering and learned obedience figure in discussions of his complete humanity.
Primary sources
The council's definition states:
Constantinople III explicitly confesses two natural wills and operations 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.
Maximus answers Pyrrhus:
Maximus describes the one Christ willing according to both natures.
Since Christ is God and man by nature, did he will as God and man—the same one—or only as Christ? If Christ willed primarily as God and man, then clearly he who is one and the same willed in a twofold manner, not a singular one. For if Christ is nothing other than his natures, from which and in which he exists, then manifestly, as befits his own natures—that is, as each is by nature—he, being one and the same, both willed and acted, since neither of his natures is without will or without activity. And if Christ willed and acted in a manner befitting his own natures—that is, as each is by nature—and his natures are two, then his natural wills are altogether two as well, along with the essential energies equal in number to them.
Passage context and translation
Maximus answers the inference that one Christ must have only one will. He locates divine and human willing in Christ's two complete natures while maintaining one personal subject.
Before the excerpt
Pyrrhus: Obviously, God and man together.
After the excerpt
For just as the number of the natures of one and the same Christ, when piously understood and spoken of, does not divide Christ but demonstrates that the difference of the natures is preserved even in the union