the believer will be entirely absorbed in the divine will, which amounts almost to a pantheistic
absorption of the human personality in the divine.
The advocates of Dyotheletism on the other hand contended that the incarnation must be
complete in order to have a complete redemption; that a complete incarnation implies the assumption
of the human will into union with the pre-existing divine will of the Logos; that the human will is
the originating cause of sin and guilt, and must therefore be redeemed, purified, and sanctified; that
Christ, without a human will, could not have been a full man, could not have been tempted, nor
have chosen between good and evil, nor performed any moral and responsible act.
The Scripture passages quoted by Agatho and other advocates of the two-will doctrine, are
Matt. 26:39 ("Not as I will, but as Thou wilt"); Luke 22:42 ("Not my will, but thine be done"); John
6:38 ("I am come down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me").
For the human will were quoted Luke 2:51 ("he was subject" to his parents); Phil. 2:8 ("obedient
unto death"), also John 1:43; 17:24; 19:28; Matt. 27:34; for the divine will, Luke 13:34; John 5:21.
These Scripture passages, which must in the end decide the controversy, clearly teach the
human will of Jesus, but the other will from which it is distinguished, is the will of his heavenly
Father, to which he was obedient unto death. The orthodox dogma implies the identity of the divine
will of Christ with the will of God the Father, and assumes that there is but one will in the divine
tripersonality. It teaches two natures and one person in Christ, but three persons and one nature in
God. Here we meet the metaphysical and psychological difficulty of conceiving of a personality
without a distinct will. But the term personality is applied to the Deity in a unique and not easily
definable sense. The three Divine persons are not conceived as three individuals.
The weight of argument and the logical consistency on the basis of the Chalcedonian
Dyophysitism, which was acknowledged by both parties, decided in favor of the two-will doctrine.
The Catholic church East and West condemned Monotheletism as a heresy akin to Monophysitism.
The sixth oecumenical Council in 680 gave the final decision by adopting the following addition
to the Chalcedonian Christology:^606
"And we likewise preach two natural wills in him [Jesus Christ], and two natural operations
undivided, inconvertible, inseparable, unmixed, according to the doctrine of the holy fathers; and
the two natural wills [are] not contrary (as the impious heretics assert), far from it! but his human
will follows the divine will, and is not resisting or reluctant, but rather subject to his divine and
omnipotent will.^607 For it was proper that the will of the flesh should be moved, but be subjected
to the divine will, according to the wise Athanasius. For as his flesh is called and is the flesh of the
God Logos, so is also the natural will of his flesh the proper will of the Logos, as he says himself:
’I came from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the Father who sent me’ (John 6:38).
... Therefore we confess two natural wills and operations, harmoniously united for the salvation
of the human race."^608
(^606) Actio XVIII., in Mansi, XI. 637; Gieseler, I. 540 note 15; Hefele, III. 284 sq.
607
δύὁ φυσικὰς̔ θελήσεις̔ η τοι θελήματἁ ἐν̔ αὐτᾠ̑,καἱ δύὁ φυσικὰς̔ ἐνεργείας̔ ἀδιαιρέτως,ἀτρέπτως,ἀμερίστως,
ἀσυγχύτως...κηρύττομεν(duas naturales voluntates et duas naturales operationes indivise, inconvertibiliter, inseparabiliter,
inconfuse ... praedicamus).
(^608) Comp. the following passage from the letter of Pope Agatho to the emperor who called the Council, which evidently
suggested the framing of the decision (Mansi, XI. 239; Gieseler, I. 540; Hefele, III. 255): "Cum duas autem naturas duasque,
naturales voluntates, et duas naturales operationes confitemur in uno Domino nostro J. Ch., non contrarias eas, nec adversas