Let me ask it this way: In your view, does Jesus have one will or two?  If two, how are the wills related to each other?

*Monothelitism (a Greek loanword meaning "one will") is a particular teaching about how the divine and human relate in the person of Jesus, known as a Christological doctrine, that began in Armenia and Syria in AD 633. Specifically, Monothelitism teaches that Jesus Christ had two natures but only one will. This is contrary to the orthodox Christology that Jesus Christ has two wills (human and divine) corresponding to his two natures. Monothelitism is a development of the Monophysite position in the Christological debates. It enjoyed considerable support in the 7th century before being rejected as heretical.

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/1/2009 10:04:42 AM (GMT-6)

Tom, do you agree or disagree with this statement?

This is what I said...

1) Jesus is exercising genuine human freedom in his choice to die on the cross. Jesus has a human will that is distinct and free from the Divine Will.

and...

6) The human Jesus freely gave himself in obedience to God's will through his human exercise of will and human faith (using his human noetic faculties), even unto death. There was real, genuine human existential struggle here. (Drops of blood!) It was not the case that God the Son was just "squatting" in the intelligible aspect of Jesus' human hypostasis PRETENDING to struggle with immanent death. It was God the Son suffering in his human flesh.

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/1/2009 9:58:55 AM (GMT-6)

Is this your logic:

One divine person of God the Son in the Unique Incarnate Word = ONLY one will, ONLY one "center of willing" in the Unique Incarnate Word.

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/1/2009 10:19:58 AM (GMT-6)

Tom: ...the Son ASSUMES this faculty (of human will, faith) as his own, as the vehicle through which he will express his own person and identity.

D: This means that the Eternal Son of God "has" a human (created, limited, etc) noetic faculty in the Incarnate Word.

Tom: You don’t need to say “…in the incarnate Word” because you already say it’s the Son who “has” this faculty…but yeah, I never denied that the Son comes to possess a full slate of human kind-essential properties.

D: Now, I'm asking you: HOW does he have that function?

Tom: Hell if I know!

D: In your view…does the Logos himself play the part of the intelligible aspect of Jesus' human hypostatic unity rather than a "logos-driven" particularized human intelligible aspect of a human hypostatic unity [human mind, spirit, soul]?

Tom: I’m looking around for someone to interpret that tongue for me.

D: Let me ask it this way: In your view, does Jesus have one will or two? If two, how are the wills related to each other?

Tom: Two. Both are determined by one person, one hypostasis, the Son.

D: “Salvation consists in the fact that Jesus…freely and voluntarily submitted his human will…to his divine will (which is the will of God).”

Do you agree or disagree with this statement?

Tom: I’d most definitely disagree that SALVATION consists in this fact (even if it’s true). Salvation consists in the fact that when we abandon self-reliance and repent of our sin and turn to God in Christ, God gives us his life. I wouldn’t ask people whether or not they’re monothelites in order to conclude something of the truth of their salvation. Oh my goodness no.

But as for whether or not God’s giving us his life contingent upon our repentance is only possible if monothelitism is false…I’d probably disagree also. I’d be skeptical about making the very metaphysics of God’s saving us dependent upon a psychology I can hardly understand.

D: Wait a sec...I think I see something...

“Having said that, the question is WHO is determining the human will of Jesus? Whose will is it? I say it's the SON'S and no one else's. That means I have to attribute authorship of the choice to die for us TO THE SON. Were I to posit the SPACE you posit between the Son as author/determiner and the human spirit who you say is freely authoring/determining itself in loving relation, then I'd have to say there's a PERSON on the human side of the space I've posited. It's that simple.”

D: Uh oh. I see you saying here that there is only one will in the human being Jesus, the ONE WILL of the Divine Person, God the Son. Is this what you are saying?

Tom: Distinguish between will as a ‘faculty of volition’ simpliciter and will as ‘the exercised expression of self perception’. In the first, the ‘will’ is just a piece of ‘hardware’, something constitutive of human NATURE. That’s all. But this faculty is lifeless (in terms of ‘choice’) until someone comes and stands up in it, and expresses his/her identity through it. When THAT happens, then you have an ‘active willing’, the ‘will at work’, you have that will ‘exercised as an expression of’ the one who is determining it. You seem to want to attribute the second to Jesus in a purely human sense. That is, for you to say “Jesus has a human will” means “the human in Jesus determines the faculty of will independently of the Son.” I’m thinking of ‘will’ in the first sense. The Son assumes a ‘human way of choosing’ and thus disposes of his identity through the constraints of human being.

I wouldn’t call this monothelitism because I have two distinct faculties of willing, even two distinct contexts under which the Son disposes of his identity. But if the rest of the world says this is monothelitism, fine.

-------------

OK, time to answer me question. What would the human spirit of Jesus (the human noetic matrix, yada yada) need to do that he didn’t do in order to get you to object, “No, can’t do that. THAT would mean a human person in there in addition to the Son”? What is missing from the WAY THE HUMAN RELATES TO THE DIVINE in Christ that would get us to two persons?

Tom

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/1/2009 12:42:01 PM (GMT-6)

Maybe this will help:

“The Virgin is Mother, not of a human person united to the divine person of the Logos, but of a single, undivided person who is God and man at once.”

Tom: Obvious. No problem. One undivided person.

“…everything in the Gospels that is spoken, performed or suffered by Christ is to be ascribed to one and the same personal subject, the eternal Son of God who has now been born as man within space and time.”

Tom: No problem. I’ve been harping on this myself: ONE PERSON. But don’t just SAY it. Require that the actions, determination, modes of expression, etc. of Jesus conform to this. Don’t SAY he’s one person and then attribute independent hypostatic activities to him—which is what you do. That’s not consistent.

“First, only God can save us. A prophet or teacher of righteousness cannot be the redeemer of the world. If, then, Christ is to be our Saviour, he must be fully and completely God.”

Tom: Yes.

Secondly, salvation must reach the point of human need. Only if Christ is fully and completely a man as we are, can we men share in what he has done for us.”

Tom: Well, we’re non-divine persons in relationship to God. Is Christ THAT? No. Then there’s one way the human experience that is Jesus is UNLIKE the human experience that is us. All I’m doing is trying to account for this difference, D. I don’t see how we do that without saying the structure of divine-human relationality is different in the relevant points. It’s determining what those points are. To me, the difference has to be (for obvious reasons) is HOW the human RELATES TO the divine in Christ. There’s nowhere else to account for it. But for you salvation itself depends upon there being NO DIFFERENCE at precisely this point.

“…for if Christ did not have a human will like ours, he would not truly be truly a man as we are. Yet these two wills are not contrary and opposed to each other, for the human will is at all times freely obedient to the divine.”

I’m cool with saying Jesus has a will (faculty of will). But there’s no need to say that this will was always FREELY determined by the human spirit independent of the identity/person of the Son. That sort of independent and free exercise of will is precisely what accounts for the emergence of personal distinction. If you posit that space, you can’t continue saying Christ is one and only one divine person.

So I’d agree with all these quotes with the exception that I’d not say the human will was determined by some personal identity other than that of the SON.

Tom

Post Edited (Tom) : 3/1/2009 11:51:31 PM (GMT-6)

D, pages 207-208, on Cyril’s ‘mia physis’, especially 2^nd paragraph on p. 208.

http://books.google.com/books?id=QxhR9ihUAWkC&pg=PA207&lpg=PA207&dq=miaphysis&source=bl&ots=5YHubdcpwY&sig=7MjMO6v_QU7xeDI2gMlDU22_cZg#PPA207,M1

That’s kinda where I am. But take that description of Cyril’s Christology and then pick up your claim that the human nature (human will) determines itself independently of the subjectivity of the Son, independent of the Son’s hypostasis. For me ‘subjectivities’, the conscious, perceiving center of hypostasis is the tactical center where choice is processed and determinations of will executed. That’s why I’m kicking against the notion that there was a subjectivity other than the Son’s which served as the tactical, determining center of choice for the human Jesus. I think you posit one person but two subjectivities. Maybe that’s the issue here.

To me, you can’t posit the determination of loving, relational choice without positing the appropriate, conscious subjectivity responsible for the choice. Fine. BUT if this subjectivity determines itself freely, independently of the determining influence of any other subjectivity, THEN you have the very thing in which I account for the emergence of non-divine personhood. That freedom is the thing. So long as the human subjectivity is not ‘let go’ (whatever that means) to perceive itself as other than the Son, the actions of that subjectivity are determined by the Son. Slice it however you like. But if that subjectivity is ‘let go’ to determine itself freely, you will inevitably have the emergence of INTERPERSONAL relations, a subjectivity relating to all other subjectivities as “Thou.”

T

How could Christ the Logos do this WITHOUT two "realms of consciousness", one human, one divine?

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/2/2009 10:49:40 AM (GMT-6)

I'm NOT trying to say that the human spirit of Jesus disposes ITSELF personally over and against the person of Christ.

Post Edited (One Love) : 3/2/2009 11:43:00 AM (GMT-6)