Theological Term: Dyotheletism
Thursday, March 13, 2025 at 3:30AM 
The orthodox teaching that Jesus, the incarnate Son, has two wills, his divine will and his human 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 Systematic Theology by Robert Letham, page 509:
In 649, Pope Martin I called a council, with Maximus present, which adopted a clear dyothelite position, that in Christ there are two wills, in harmony with Maximus’s teaching. This did not settle the matter, and controversy lingered, eventually resolved at the Third Council of Constantinople in 680-681.
The definition produced by that council specified that in Christ there are “two natural wills and two natural operations, indivisibly, incontrovertibly, inseparably, inconfusedly.” These two wills “are not contrary the one to the other … but the human will follows … as subject to his divine and omnipotent will.”
Learn more:
- Got Questions: What is dyotheletism?
- W. Robert Godfrey: Does Christ Have One or Two Wills?
- Stephen Nichols: Maximus the Confessor
Related terms:
Filed under Defective Theology
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