In a previous article, we began looking at three ways of talking about a “will,” in addition to the normal use of it as an accompaniment to future actions (e.g. I will go to the store) and the distinction between “will of decree” and “will of precept.” We are setting aside the latter issue in this particular series. In discussing the will, we instead looked at three ways to talk about the will. We can talk about it in three ways, as the thing willed, the act of willing, and the origin in the will. We used the examples of turning on a light or moving a table, in which illumination or the placement of a table in a room was the thing willed from the will.
Like many philosophical and theological concepts that aim at precision, these three distinctions were developed in the context of controversy. In our telling of Christian history, we tend to silo our conversations. Tell me if this sounds familiar: In the Ante-Nicene (i.e. “pre-Nicaea”) period, Christians dealt with Gnosticism/Marcionites and Judaism. Against the former, Christians argued that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New are one God, and that Christ came in human flesh. Against the latter, Christians argued that Christ fulfilled the hopes for a Messiah. In the Nicene period (say, 320 to 400), Christians argued in defense of the Trinity. In the 400s, Christians argued about the natures of Christ (some will extend this to the 600s or 700s). We could go beyond these to talk about the Great Schism, Reformation and Post-Reformation era, and the impacts of Enlightenment thinking. If we focus in on the first items, though, we should note that we tend to think “first, the Bible, then the Trinity, finally Christology.” In this paradigm, the Nicene Creed is about Trinitarian theology and the Chalcedonian Definition is about Christology.
However…
We should readily admit that these are helpful ways of schematizing the conversations, and that they serve to focus our minds on particular truths, but when we ask the question, “What were they seeking to declare?” we quickly remind ourselves that these are interdependent affirmations. What is the answer to that question? They were seeking to answer, “Who is Jesus Christ?” This question requires a particular affirmation about the eternal Person whom we encounter in his incarnation. He is the Person eternally begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, True God of True God, begotten not made, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven by the Holy Spirit. The affirmation of the true divinity of the Son required us to also affirm explicitly the true divinity of the Holy Spirit as well.
At Chalcedon, the pastor-theologians declared they were “following the holy fathers,” meaning they believed (rightly) they were explicating the implications of the affirmation from the Nicene Creed that the Son is “true God” and “came down from heaven.” They say as much in their Definition (the part we usually encounter): “we all with one consent teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in Manhood; truly God and truly man.” They develop this, however, teaching that in becoming man he added to himself a body and a “reasonable/rational soul.” The Son is the God-man “inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, and inseparably.” There is much to unpack here—too much for this short article—but note that Christ the God-man was not simply God dwelling in a human body, nor the Person of the Son dwelling in some person named Jesus. Rather, he is the God-man as the one who has inconfusedly and inseparably added to himself a true human nature.
As this conversation and debate developed from the mid-400s to the late 600s, we encounter a particular point at which it became clear whether everyone who claimed to confess Chalcedonian orthodoxy actually agreed in what they were saying. If Christ is man, does he then have two wills? This question is easily answered by some today, while it simultaneously seems strange to others. For those who think it seems strange, the question of “two wills” seems to make Christ into two persons. However, as we consider the way things are done, and the affirmations we have outlined regarding natures, we come to see the necessity of affirming two wills. One of the (or simply the) key proponents of what is called “dyothelitism” (meaning “two-will-ism”) was Maximus the Confessor. Explaining some of his thought, one historical theologian says Maximus distinguished between “thelesis/thelema” and “theleton/thelethen.” “The former,” this historical theologian says, “is a permanent, indispensable part of the ontological constitution of both God and man, whereas the latter is no more than its external object.”1 He continues, “This distinction is very helpful because, according to Maximus, . . . whereas it makes sense to say that God and man have at times the same [theleton] or [thelethen], to say that God and man have the same [thelesis] or [thelema] would be tantamount to confusing divinity and humanity.”2 Maximus includes other distinctions, but for our purposes, what we see here is the important distinction between the ontology and the object of the will. “Maximus make a distinction between the will as a faculty, or capacity of operation, and the will as an object, action, or purpose. To put it differently, the will is conceptually distinct from what is willed.”3
Such a way of speaking of the will was received by Calvin, as is evident in his comments on Christ’s statement, “Not my will but thine be done.” We close with Calvin’s comments:
as musical sounds, though various and differing from each other, are so far from being discordant, that they produce sweet melody and fine harmony; so in Christ there was a remarkable example of adaptation between the two wills, the will of God and the will of man, so that they differed from each other without any conflict or opposition. This passage shows plainly enough the gross folly of those ancient heretics, who were called Monothelites, because they imagined that the will of Christ was but one and simple; for Christ, as he was God, willed nothing different from the Father; and therefore it follows, that his human soul had affections distinct from the secret purpose of God. But if even Christ was under the necessity of holding his will captive, in order to subject it to the government of God, though it was properly regulated, how carefully ought we to repress the violence of our feelings, which are always inconsiderate, and rash, and full of rebellion? And though the Spirit of God governs us, so that we wish nothing but what is agreeable to reason, still we owe to God such obedience as to endure patiently that our wishes should not be granted. For the modesty of faith consists in permitting God to appoint differently from what we desire. Above all, when we have no certain and special promise, we ought to abide by this rule, not to ask any thing but on the condition that God shall fulfil what he has decreed; which cannot be done, unless we give up our wishes to his disposal.4
1 Demetrius Bathrellos, The Byzantine Christ, 119.
2 Bathrellos, The Byzantine Christ, 119.
3 Robert Lucas Stamps, “‘Thy Will Be Done:’ A Dogmatic Defense of Dyothelitism in Light of Recent Monothelite Proposals,” (dissertation, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2014), 99–100.
4John Calvin and William Pringle, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke, vol. 3 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 233.