Christ's human will
Because the Word truly became human, Jesus Christ has a natural human will. The Sixth Ecumenical Council confessed this human will together with His divine will, without dividing Him into two persons.
Key points
- Christ's human obedience is genuinely human.
- Two natural wills follow the two natures confessed at Chalcedon.
Scripture
- Luke 22:42 — The Gethsemane prayer bears on Christ's real human obedience; the council's two-wills definition is a theological reading of the full witness.
- Hebrews 5:7-9 — The Son's suffering and obedience are described as part of his earthly life.
Primary sources
The council defines:
Constantinople III 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 argues that the one Christ wills in the twofold manner proper to his 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