Theological Term of the Week: Monotheletism

monotheletism

The heretical teaching that Jesus has only one will, his divine will. It was condemned at the Third Council of Constantinople.

• From the Definition of Faith from the Third Council of Constantinople:

[W]e likewise declare that in [Christ] are two natural wills and two natural operations indivisibly, inconvertibly, inseparably, inconfusedly, according to the teaching of the holy Fathers.  And these two natural wills are not contrary the one to the other (God forbid!) as the impious heretics assert, but his human will follows and that not as resisting and reluctant, but rather as subject to his divine and omnipotent will. 

• From 2000 Years of Christ’s Power, Book 1 by N. R. Needham, page 356:

The Monothelete position aroused mighty enemies among orthodox Chalcedonians. The Mightiest were pope Martin I (649-55) and the Greek monk Maximus the Confessor, who maintained that Christ had two wills, a human will alongside a divine one. Maximus thought this out most fully. The question itself was simple: did “will” belong to nature or person? The Monotheletes held that it belonged to person; a human being’s will (his capacity for desiring and choosing) was part of his individual personhood, not his human nature. Therefore, since Christ was not a human person, but a divine person incarnate in a human soul and body, He did not have a human will. He had only the divine will of the Logos. Maximus disagreed with this with every fibre of his being. He maintained that the will was distinct from person, and belonged to nature. Just as our ability to think (our mind) is part of our human nature, Maximus argued, so also our ability to desire and choose (our will) is part of our nature. Will is just as essential to human nature as mind is. For Maximus, the human person is the subject or ego — the “I” — who acts through the mind and will of his human nature.

Learn more:

1. Got Questions: What is monotheletism?
2. Stephen Nichols: Monotheletism
3. Monergism: Monotheletism
4. W. Robert Godfrey: Does Christ Have One or Two Wills?

Related terms:

• adoptionism
• Apollinarianism
• Arianism
• dyotheletism
• heresy

Filed under Defective Theology

Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured as a Theological Term of the Week? Email your suggestion using the contact button in the navigation bar above. 

Clicking on the Theological Terms button above the header will take you to an alphabetical list of all the theological terms.

Sunday Hymn: All My Help Comes from the Lord

All my help (all my help) comes from the Lord.
All my help (all my help) comes from the Lord.
All my needs that I’m possessing,
All my help, all my help, all my help comes from the Lord.

Father I stretch (I stretch) my hands to Thee.
I know that You (only You) remember me. 
When others forget, when others forget, and leave me alone, 
I know that Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, will hear my groan. 

When I am weak (when I am weak) he gives me strength.
When I am lonely, he comforts me.
When I am tired of the load that I’m bearing, 
He gives me courage, courage, courage, to bear my share.

—Rev. Cleophus Robinson © 1964, Lion Publishing Co

Theological Term of the Week: Compatibilism

compatibilism

The belief that God’s exhaustive sovereignty, or his meticulous providence, is compatible with human free agency. 

• As seen in scripture:

Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger;

the staff in their hands is my fury!

Against a godless nation I send him,

and against the people of my wrath I command him,

to take spoil and seize plunder,

and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.

But he does not so intend,

and his heart does not so think;

but it is in his heart to destroy,

and to cut off nations not a few… (Isaiah 10:5-7 ESV).

When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes (Isaiah 10:12 ESV).  

Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it,

or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?

As if a rod should wield him who lifts it,

or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood! (Isaiah 10:15 ESV) 

• In the The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 10:

All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, a by his Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds, spiritually and savingly, to understand the things of God; taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them an heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by his almighty power determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace.

Learn more:

1. Got Questions: What is compatibilism?
2. Matt Perman: The Consistency of Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility
3. Shawn D. Wright: A Plea for Calvinistic Compatibilism
4. Monergism: What Is the Difference Between Hard Determinism and Soft Determinism?
5. James N. Anderson: Calvinism and Determinism
6. The Analytic Christian: Compatibilism and Christian Freedom with Guillaume Bignon (video)
7. John C. Winegard Jr.: Why I Am a Compatibilist about Determinism and Moral Responsibility

Related terms:

• author of sin
• decrees of God
• free agency
• libertarian free will
• open theism
• sovereignty of God

Filed under Reformed Theology

Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured as a Theological Term of the Week? Email your suggestion using the contact button in the navigation bar above. 

Clicking on the Theological Terms button above the header will take you to an alphabetical list of all the theological terms.