Has the Lord Christ two wills and two actions, that is a Divine will and a human will, as well as two actions, that is, a divine act and a human act? As we believe in the One Nature of the Incarnate Logos, as St. Cyril the Great called it, likewise:
We believe in One Will and One Act: Naturally, as long as we consider that this Nature is One, the Will and the Act must also each be one. What the Divine nature Chooses is undoubtedly the same as that chosen by the human Nature because there is not any contradiction or conflict whatever between the will and the action of both. The Lord Jesus Christ said: "My meat is to do the Will of Him that sent Me to finish His work. " (John. 4:34). This proves that His Will is the same as that of the Father. In this context, He said about Himself " the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner." (John. 5:19).
He does not seek for Himself a will that is independent of that of the Father. Consequently He Says "For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” (John 6:38). It is obvious that the Father and the Son in the Holy Trinity have One Will, for the Lord Jesus Christ said: "I and My Father are One. " (John. 10:30).
Hence, since He is one with Him in the Godhead, then He is essentially one with Him concerning the Will. Again, the Son, in His Incarnation on earth, was fulfilling the Will of the heavenly Father.
Thus it must be that He Who united with the manhood had One Will. In fact, Sin is nothing but a conflict between man's will and God's.
But remember that our Lord Jesus Christ had no sin at all. He challenged the Jews saying: "Which of you convicts Me of Sin?. " (John. 8:46). Therefore, His Will was that of the Father. The Saints who are perfect in their behaviour achieve complete agreement between their will and the Will of God, so that their will becomes that of God, and the Will of God becomes their will.
And St. Paul the Apostle said "But we have the mind of Christ. " (1 Cor. 2:16). He did not say that our thoughts are in accord with the mind of Christ, but that "we have the mind of Christ", and here the unity is stressed. If this is said about those with whom and in whom God works, then how much more the unity between the Son and His Own manhood would be in all that is related to the will, the mind and the power to act! He, in Whom the Divine nature has united with the human nature, a Hypostatic and Essential union without separation-not for a second nor a twinkle of an eye.
If there was not unity between the Will of the Divine nature of Christ and His human nature, this would have resulted in internal conflict. Far be it from Him! How then could Christ be our guide and our example... to follow in His footsteps (1 John.2:6)?. The complete righteousness which marked the life of our Lord Jesus was due to His Divine as well as His Human will. The same is true of the salvation of mankind, the message for which Christ came and said: "For the Son of Man has come to save that which was." (Matt. 18:11). This is the same Will of the Father who "He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. " (1 John. 4:10).
Thus, the crucifixion was the choice of the Divine as well as the human nature. Had it not been One Will, it would not have been said that Christ died by His Own Will for our sake. Since the Will is One, the Act is necessarily One. Here we do not distinguish between the two natures.
love and blessings
erini
Last edited by erinipassi; 19th June 2005 at 01:39 PM.
Please keep in mind that we are not confusing the actions and desires of each ousia in Christ. But we tend to look at what is "chosen." Even St. Maximus believed in a "mia gnome," or the "one will willed." When we saw "two wills" being confessed we misunderstood that as two different choices or two centers of willing, which implies two prosopa in Christ.
So there is a difference between the faculty of the willing and the decision made by the faculty. Here, His Holiness only stresses the decision and never delved into the faculty, as St. Maximus the Confessor did. At one point, St. Maximus even confessed "one energy" (mono energia) and interpreted it in an Orthodox fashion, and he even defended and interpreted St. Dionysius the Aeropagite's "one theandric will" as Orthodox as well (St. Dionysius lived at the time of St. Paul the Apostolic who wrote the Pauline Epistles we have in our Bibles). According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:
But if the word will is taken to mean not the faculty but the decision taken by the will (the will willed, not the will willing), then it is true that the two wills always acted in harmony: there were two wills willing and two acts, but one object, one will willed; in the phrase of St. Maximus, there were duo thelemata though mia gnome. The word will is also used to mean not a decision of the will, but a mere velleity or wish, voluntas ut natura (thelesis) as opposed to voluntas ut ratio (boulesis).
So if you read HH's words in this light, there is nothing heretical in what he said. He simply believed as any Orthodox would believe what is chosen rather than what is desired. It is obvious that Christ had a human will and a divine will, but united without confusion, without mixture, without division, and without seperation.
In our agreement with the Chalcedonian Orthodox Churches, a point was mentioned concerning the will of the Logos. In our Interpretation of the First Agreed Statement on Christology on page 6 you find the following:
The Will of the Incarnate Logos: The real union of the divine with the human. The agreed statement gave a very clear solution for the debate concerning will of Jesus Christ as follows. The real union of the divine with the human with all properties and functions of the uncreated divine nature, including natural will and natural energy, inseparably and unconfusedly united with created human nature with its properties and functions, including natural will and natural energy. It is the Logos incarnate Who is the subject of all willing and acting of Jesus Christ.
Jesus said to the Father, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Mat. 27:46), and in His prayer in the Mount of Olives he said, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” (Mat. 26:39).
We have to make a distinction between what we can call natural will and personal will. The natural will is the desire, while the personal will is the decision. We all believe that Jesus Christ is one single person not a composite person from two persons, but only one single person Who is the Person of the Word of God, the Logos. It is not normal for one person to have two personal wills, otherwise he will be two persons; and this is a Nestorian concept. The monothelites, are those who believe in a single will in Jesus Christ, they were anathematized by the Chalcedonian churches.
Our church also does not accept this concept that the natural human will was dissolved. The natural divine will, natural human will were united without confusion and without mixture. To say ‘without confusion’, means that the natural human will of Jesus Christ was not eliminated because of the union. Does this mean that Jesus Christ had two wills? It is impossible to say that He had two wills, otherwise He is going to be considered two persons. That’s why we should define what we mean by the word ‘will’. The same problem concerning the natures emerges with ‘will’. He has His natural divine will united to His natural human will, but the two natural wills continued to exist in the union, in complete harmony without contradiction.
What is the natural will and what is the personal will?
The natural will is the desire; the personal will is the decision.
You can say, ‘I want to drink, but I don’t want to drink’; ‘I have a will to go, but I don’t will to go.’ What does this mean? If you are fasting you say ‘I am willing to drink, but I shall not drink’? It means that ‘I desire to drink but I decided not to drink’. So, there is difference between the natural will and personal will. The personal will works with the decision, while the natural will works with the desire.
As a human being Jesus Christ felt hunger and thirst while He was fasting on the mount. He naturally desired to drink or to eat, because His divinity did not eliminate the properties of His humanity; the energies and the natural will were not eliminated. Only tendency to sin was absolutely not in Him. He never had a desire for sin - not to desire and resist; no never. He was absolutely holy and infallible. However, all the other human desires were in Him. One of these desires as any human being was that he does not like to die. This normal desire was present in Him when He was approaching the cross. But, obeying the Father, as a person He is the second Person of the Holy Trinity; He is free, but He has input to His personal decision from His human desire and divine desire. His divine desire is identical with the desire of the Father. The three hypostaseis are three persons, three in their will, loving each other, but they have the same will and the same desire. Three in number, but one in nature. Naturally, whatever the Father desires, the Son desires, and the Holy Spirit desires.
Are the natural wills identical? No, because if they are identical this means that we are Eutychean and that there is confusion, since the natural desire of His humanity was absorbed in His divinity. This is the heresy of Monotheletism. If the two natural energies and natural wills are reduced to one natural will, this is the Eutychean heresy. Saint Cyril of Alexandria said that the differences of the properties of the two natures were not destroyed because of the union.
“O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”. In other words: O Father if You want You may let this cup pass from Me, but not as I desire but as Your will which is also My will, As You and Me decided. Let it not be My desire but Yours which is Your decision and My decision.
Jesus Christ has one personal will because He is one person. Concerning the natural will we can say that they are two in one, since the two natural wills are not mixed or cancelled, but they are in a perfect union, thus they are not separated. His human desire and His divine desire are not separated. Why? Because He never followed His human desires unless it was accepted by His divine desire; and that is the full obedience of Jesus Christ to the Father. Why do we say ‘to the Father’ and not ‘to His divinity’? Because if we say that He is obedient to His divinity, this will mean that He is two personalities. When I say, ‘He’, this refers to the person. So I cannot say that He is obedient to Himself; that is illogical. When we mention His obedience, we always refer to the Father; and the Father is automatically has the same desire and the same will of the Son. It is wrong theologically to say that He was obedient to His divinity. This is a Nestorian expression which is already condemned by Saint Cyril of Alexandria in his twelve anathemas. Anything that leads to the concept of two persons, is Nestorian. We should be very careful when we tackle this issue. In the Greek text it is: “Let it be not My desire, but Yours.” In Arabic it is, “Not My desire, but Your desire” In Greek the word was not repeated when he was referring to the Father but said, “But Yours”. The core of the problem is that He said, “My will”. The Greek term has two meanings, desiredecision.[1] So scientifically speaking, the Greek text allows this interpretation.
In the first agreement the following is stated:
and The real union of the divine with the human, with all properties and functions of the uncreated divine nature, including natural will and natural energy inseparably and unconfusedly united with the created human nature with all its properties and functions, including natural will and natural energy…It is the Logos incarnate[2] Who is the subject of all willing and acting of Jesus Christ.
In the second agreement, it is more clear:
The one hypostasis of the Logos incarnate is always Who is acting and willing..
It is the Logos incarnate Who is the subject of all willing and acting of Jesus Christ. In other words all willing and acting are from one person. But, sometimes He acts according to His divinity; and sometimes according to His humanity. Thus the human natural will did not cease to exist, and also divine energies and human energies did not cease to exist.
What does this mean? It means that sometimes He did things from His divine energy and sometimes He did things from His human energy. When He accepted death, He accepted it according to His humanity. When He destroyed Hades, He destroyed it according to His divinity, and so on. The source of the energy was continuous in Him. What is human was present and that’s why He fell under the cross; because His human energy continued in the union, without being separated from His divine energy. When He raised the dead from the tombs, after His crucifixion, this was done through His divine energy. So, the two energies continued to exist in the union.
Simply, the two natural wills continued to exist in the union. The two natural energies continued to exist in the union, without being separated. One person was willing and acting – the same person. Sometimes His will according to His humanity is to eat, and according to His divinity with the Father He is content to do it, so He eats according to His human desire with the consent of the Father. The motive of eating comes from His human desire, not His divine; because divinity does not hunger.
The finger configuration in the Coptic Orthodox is the same as the Eastern Orthodox, the first three finger including the thumb symbolise the Trinity (Three in one) and are held together to the forehead and the last two fingers are folded together to the palm.
love and blessings
erini
Last edited by erinipassi; 29th June 2005 at 04:36 AM.
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