Tonight I taught a class on the Definition of Chalcedon. This represents the Christian understanding that Christ is 100 percent God and 100 percent man (“very God of very God of very man of very man”).
A discussion that arises every time I teach on this is how are we to explain Christ’ s apparent lapse in memory and mission when he prays in the garden to the Father, “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me . . .” (Matt. 26:39).
What did Christ mean when he said this? Did he really not know whether it was possible or not? He seemed so intent on his purpose to go to the cross before. Did he think that there just might be some loop-hole that would get him out of his suffering?
Not too long before, he rebuked Peter calling him “Satan” for even suggesting that he would not suffer (Matt. 16:23). Then immediately after this, Peter does it again when he cuts the ear of the guard off. Christ says, “Am I not to drink this cup that the Father has given me?” (John 18:11). So Christ’s seeming “prayer of absolution” is bookended by his stern rebuke of others who hope for this very absolution.
Here is the essence of my question. Was Christ sincere about this request or is there something more to it?
53 replies to "What Did Christ Mean When He Said . . ."
Granting that Jesus was both fully God and fully man, I see no reason that He had to always speak as both simultaneously. Why can it not just be that while rebuking Peter, He was speaking as God, and while praying, as man? This seems similar to the way Athanasius, in response to the Arians, explained His ‘Why have you forsaken me?’ Why reject his relatively common-sense view? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Good word, Robert Whitaker. Jesus qua man spoke from a fully human angle. Similarly, Jesus qua man did not know the day or the hour of his return. See my essay Christ and Chalcedon.
That is the view that I’ve taken on the matter Robert. I think that it is one of those passages that allow us to truly relate to Christ as a man.
I think I understand what Robert is saying, but doesn’t that seperate Jesus as God and Jesus as man? I’m a new student of theology, so please forgive me if my question is simple-minded, but it’s hard for me to see how Jesus could not speak as both simultneously. Of course, that makes it difficult to understand his comment and also the scriptures referenced in the article. Please help me work this out.
I agree with the other two comments. The only thing I would add is that it seems pretty clear that the two responses of Peter mentioned above were from a sinful heart of independent, autonomous, non-submissive arrogance, whereas Jesus’ response in Gethsemene was the exact opposite. Jesus’ human response was still sinless. And as such, He could be both the sympathetic and saving High Priest (Heb. 4:14-16). I have personally been helped by the Matt. 26 passage, as I see how the Heb. 4 passage is flushed out in real life. It truly does give me courage, confidence, and more humble faith in Him who loves me with an understanding and a conquering love. Praise Him (The God-man)!
I don’t think we need to read too much into what Jesus is praying here. He does not question the need for his death or the vicarious suffering for sinners that his sacrifice would entail. Nor does he even hint that he is unwilling or even thinking about not to obey.
He is asking that, if there is another way for him to die other than the cross, he’d prefer that.
Crucifixion was the cruelest, most painful form of capital punishment and Jesus, while willing to die, asked if there were another way. I’m sure he had witnessed enough crucifixions to know what they were like; I would think watching just one would be enough.
But while his request still hung in the air, he yielded his will to the will of the Father. He would die however the Father deemed necessary.
Not a big deal, really.
Quick addendum:
Peter was opposing Christ’s death in general, not just death on a cross. That was true both prior and subsequent to Jesus’ prayer in the garden.
CMP asks, “Was Christ sincere about this request or is there something more to it?”
Well, if he isn’t sincere then that means he is being deceptive at some level which I have a problem with since he is supposed to be sinless and deception is not part of the character of God. So, I feel very strongly that he was sincere.
Why did he say it? I don’t know and I would argue nobody really does either. This is just one of several places in scripture where we are presented with a fact but not given an explanation. We can conjecture (and I think the thoughts expressed so far have some legitimate, plausible basis) but in the end we will not know.
It is just another case where a developed systematic theology runs into a biblical fact that it cannot assimilate easily (or at all).
Stewart,
I understand your dilemma, and I find it helpful to think about how Jesus (being ONE person with two natures) acted, as it were, out of His Divine nature and not His human nature (e.g., John 21:17 — Omniscience is a Divine, not a human attribute; LUke 8:22-25 — sovereign power over nature is something that only GOD (the Creator/Sustainer/Ruler of all the universe) can do; Matthew 28:20 — Omnipresence is only something that Jesus can have in His Divinity, not His humanity. Jesus’ physical body has always and will always be only in one place at a time.; etc…).
Surely in these things (and the many others like them) Jesus was acting out of His Divinity, not His humanity. They are inseperably united in One Person, and yet forever distinct and never to be mixed.
I would also add that in His death on the cross, Jesus’ humanity died, not His Divinity (for that is impossible), yet it is my belief that what gave Jesus the ability to bear the sins of the elect and the wrath of God for them is His Divinity. This helps me see how Jesus can be One Person with two distinct natures (Divine/Human). This helps me think through it, but it doesn’t make it simple and easy to fully understand the mystery of the Incarnation or the Hypostatic Union.
Or is the doctrine of the Trinity just false/incoherent?
Dr. Mike,
I agree with your thoughts on Peter’s responses, on Jesus’ ever-willingness to obey the Father, and on how the “issue” is really not that big of a deal. However, I have to say that it seems a little off the mark to me to say that Jesus’ prayer and desire was merely to avoid crucifixion. Although it was (and still is) one of the most horrendous ways to die, it seems to me that His sweating great drops of blood, His being sorrowful unto death, and His prayer in Matt. 26:39, 42, and 44 were more about having to bear the wrath of God. Being stricken by and forsaken by His Father was an incalculably greater burden to bear than the physical tortures of the crucifixion (even though they were beyond imagination, and I’m sure He wanted to avoid that as well). This seems to fit best with John 18:11; Psalm 75:8; Isaiah 52:17, 22; Jeremiah 25:15, 16; and others which point to the “cup of God’s wrath”.
Jesus’ human desire, though perfectly sinless and submissive, was to be the Savior without bearing the wrath of God on the cross, if at all possible. Which of course, it was not possible (and in His Divinity He knew so). Which is why He submitted and died in our place.
My point is that I think Jesus (in His humanity) would rather have been crucified 10,000 times instead of bearing God’s wrath through a paper cut (or some other much milder form of death).
As I understand Phil 2:7 when it states Jesus emptied Himself He was giving up his Godly attributes and becoming like man. In order for Jesus to live by perfect faith it was necessary for Him to give up his omniscience and live with the understanding of a man. He lived as we should, submitting to the Father and trusting Him for the outcome.
Which is why in John 17 Jesus requests of the Father to be glorified. The time has come for Him to return to His glorified state.
I’m knew here, and I fear I’m posting too many comments, so I’ll let someone else handle Ray D.’s comment on Phil. 2:7. And it does indeed need handling. Biblical, Theologically sound, humble, and loving handling.
Jason,
Feel free. I have apparently said something you feel strongly about.
Christ was obviously being sincere. Christianity is not stoicism or Buddhism, where people accept pain by dissociating themselves from it. If Christ had not expressed trepidation about what was to occur, the whole religion would be suspect. Imagine the questions that would raise.
And why can’t we say that Christ was fully man *and* fully God when He said it? To assume that there is an inconsistency in the story presupposes that God wasn’t at all vexed by the situation. Or worse, that God was so consumed by bloodlust that He didn’t love His own son. The fact that God could be so vexed by the cruel death, and yet go ahead with it, shows the sheer gravity of what happened.
Jesus didn’t rebuke Peter for suggesting Jesus wouldn’t suffer–Jesus rebuked Peter for vehemently denying that Jesus would suffer.
Jesus’ attitude, on the other hand, was humble submission to the will of the Father.
Suppose Peter had said, “Lord, must you truly suffer? Is there no other way? I would give my life a hundred times over rather than see you suffer through this.” Why think that Jesus would have rebuked him then?
I don’t see why there’s any problem with supposing that Jesus was simply, honestly, expressing the anguish and stress and aversion that was in his heart. It’s not like he’s going kicking and screaming.
I’m not even sure why we think this has to be coming from his human nature. What if he said the same thing just before the incarnation?
The problem that I am having with some of these responses is that they seem to be more representative Nestorianism than that of Chalcedonian Christianity.
Can one nature think and suffer one way while the other nature thinks something else? If so, than how do you distinguish this from Nestorian view which separates the natures? The natures can be distinguished, but not separated.
CMP: Chalcedon, as you know, clearly speaks against Nestorian Christology. I strongly (and humbly) recommend my paper http://tmch.net/christcalcedon.htm, which speaks against a Nestorian Christology.
As for Philip 2:7:
Rather than a kenosis Christology having the idea of subtracting any divine attribute in order to become human, the second person of the Trinity added a human nature to the divine nature; it is kenosis by addition. As a result, the divine nature was only limited in the use of all the essential attributes of deity. Erickson writes, “Jesus did not give up the qualities of God, but gave up the privilege of exercising them” (see The Word Became Flesh, p 550). Lewis and Demarest state that “the one person who came from God the Father added to himself a human nature” (see Integrative Theology, vol. 2, p. 343).
Consider (from my paper):
“The incarnation is a unique situation where the human nature subsists in the divine person such that the mind and will of Jesus of Nazareth always thinks and acts in accordance with God the Son. Rather than having two numerically distinct beings coexisting as the one person, we simply have an integration of the human nature into the divine nature, yet without confusion. As such, the human Jesus of Nazareth is ontically subordinate to and metaphysically dependent upon God the Son, the second person of the triune God. This, then, is what Chalcedon refers to as the hypostatic union of the two natures (divine and human) residing in the one person of Jesus. At the incarnation the divine person of Jesus is distributed, so to speak, throughout both a divine nature and a human nature such that the two natures are conjoined, yet distinct, into the one unique God-Man.
While God the Son is a person who assumed a human nature, this is not to say that God the Son was a human person. The eternal Logos, as the principle pre-existent subject (Jn. 1:1), is God the Son who took on and sustained a human nature (Jn. 1:14). Still, Jesus was human, but not only human. He was a divine person who took possession of a fully human nature. In addition, there is some notable difference between the notions of a ‘human person’ and a ‘person who is human.’ The orthodox doctrine of the Incarnation claims that Jesus of Nazareth was a divine person who took on a human nature, not a human person who took on a divine nature. His complex ontological constitution consists of a divine person that assumed, at some point in history and now sustains, a particular human nature. And, if the divine person sustains Jesus’ human nature, it is not too difficult to opt for Jesus possessing a contingent (viz., having-a-beginning-in-time) human nature.”
Ray D.,
Let me say 3 things:
1. After rereading my last comment, I see how it comes off as rude and arrogant. For this, I apologize.
2. My intention was to call attention to (what I take as) a denial of Christ’s Deity, calling on others who are better equipped and/or have more time than I do, to join the discussion/debate.
3. While I don’t entirely agree with Paul’s (commenter #18) exegesis of Phil. 2:7, I wholeheartedly agree with him that the whole “kenosis theory” is anti-Scriptural. There was never any divestige of Divine attributes on the part of Jesus. He is and always has been truly God.
I’m a bit surprised that nobody has pointed out that this prayer was answered (Heb 5.7). How are we to account for this?
Yes, Christ was asking that death pass from him right then and there. Why? Because the plan was for him to die on the Cross. But Christ simply showed his willingness to die there (in the Garden) if the Father so decide.
I really don’t think this passage was intended to cause the problems it has.
Piggy-backing off of #20 @Edmishoe…
Is it possible that by praying this prayer, it left zero doubt about the payment for sin. In other words, there is no one who can say that Jesus didn’t die for the payment of the debt of man’s sin.
Jesus’ prayer was answered: there is no other way to the Father except by Jesus’ shed blood of the cross..
I don’t see how a nature can do anything, by itself. A nature doesn’t change; a nature is just what a being is.
My answer… I think Christ was, by saying that, submitting Himself fully to the Father, while exalting the Father above Himself and accepting the Father’s understanding. In that way He was the perfectly righteous God (as the Son, He has always done those things). He was also emotional, upset, afraid (all according to the nature of man); and He brought all those emotions before the Father for the Father to solve according to His wisdom, not hiding them in the stoic assumption that Jesus already knew that the best solution was to die. Jesus the human admitted that He might not know the correct solution; He accepted where God was apparently leading Him, while admitting that He didn’t want it at all.
By the way: to pray is to admit that the person you’re praying to is in control, and you’re not.
-Wm
Jason,
No need to apologize. I did word my post poorly. I am convinced He maintained all of His attributes as God, He did choose not to use all of them however. It seems to me Jesus lived His life by faith in the Father not by His knowledge as the Son.
Regarding post 20, I don’t see Heb 5:7 as saying Jesus’ prayer was answered – it says it was heard. I believe God hears all my prayers, but that doesn’t mean they’re answered, at least not according to my preference.
Furthermore, the verse seems to address all of Jesus’ prayers: “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth…”
Plural “days” = plural prayers, not just the one in the Garden. So I’m not sure the verse can be applied as you indicate.
Jesus functioned as a man; he didn’t need a human soul and spirit to ‘function’ as a man. Just as Jesus did not have a human soul or spirit in the OT Christophanies. To function as man, he would start of as a child and functioned as a child. As a teen, he functioned as a teen (albeit a very smart one). And he functioned as man when he “stated” he did not know the time of his return. Why? Because a man would not have access to the data, and he was to function as man at the time. But other times….
…. he used his divine attributes to know the thoughts of people. This is why we are not to imitate Christ in all areas. This is not a human function, even one indwelt by the HS. Apostles were not divine and hence were unable to know people’s thoughts (although I really don’t see why they couldn’t).
So, I certainly do not expect to find Christ with TWO natures, as if he could have a conversation with himself(s). This is just plain silly.
He FUNCTIONED as a man, but he was anything but a man. As a man, he died. He didn’t dismiss is spiritS to the Father. He only had ONE spirit.
The battle in the early church was whether or not Christ came in the FLESH. This he did. Only later did theologians begin to rationalize and think: well if he had flesh as a man, he must have had a soul and spirit. I find this just plain nonsense.
There are not TWO Jesuses. There are not TWO HALVES of Jesus. And the coming of Christ on this earth as a man was not a mystery. The OT presented this as nothing quite strange, having known of many Christophanies on this earth.
Lastly, I have no problem with Christ having a sin nature residing in his flesh. The reason for this is explained by Paul in Romans 7.20:
Now if I do what I do not want, it is NO LONGER ME doing it but sin that lives in me.
Paul informs us that sin is responsible for some of his actions, not his volition. Christ having sin residing in his flesh was to tempt him in all points as we are tempted. Of course, sin had no effect on Christ himself. Hebrews tells us that he was tempted, yet with sin. (Sin needs something to tempt, but God is not subject to yielding to temptation.) This is why Christ was able to experience sadness, stomach viruses, sleepless nights, etc. Sin could touch his FLESH, but that is all it had access to since that is all there was to tempt.
These topics I’ve raised are not actually that ‘unorthodox’ if you limit your thinking to the first two centuries of Church History. Today, and even a 1,000 years ago, these topics are not popular, even heretical to some. Hope you will receive these thoughts in the spirit in which they were given.
Edmishoe’s last post (#25) seems dangerously close to Docetism and deserves a full response by someone more capable than myself. I’ll make only a brief comment regarding an underlying assumption in the last paragraph. He says, “These topics I’ve raised are not actually that ‘unorthodox’ if you limit your thinking to the first two centuries of Church History.” There seems to be some semantic confusion here regarding what constitutes orthodoxy. However one may define it, it is fairly clear that achieving it was a long process (possibly still ongoing), so that limiting oneself to the first two centuries is actually by definition ‘unorthodox,’ not to mention pointless. If one is to reject the clear teaching of the fathers after this point–teaching that deals with the objections in this post–then he/she assumes a strong burden of proof to show that an alternate view should have been accepted. This requires not only refutation of the arguments of the fathers, but also dealing with the objections raised to such alternate views, none of which of course is attempted in this post. Calling them “just plain silly” doesn’t cut it.
My point regarding “silly” was that there are no passages that refute my conclusions.
And regarding “orthodoxy”: the only century to be fully orthodox was the first, monitored and upheld by the living Apostles and their entourage. The second century’s theology was based on both the written documents from the Apostles and the “oral transmission” of the same. The second century quickly deteriorated with the passing of the Apostles, demonstrating that Satan is the THEOS of this world. By the end of the second century orthodox was a historical reality, thanks to the assault of Gnosticism and more so by the passing of the Apostles.
Doceticism denies Christ came in the FLESH. Don’t read any more into my comments. I simply deny TWO natures/Jesuses, and affirm one divine nature who assumed human flesh (with or without a sin, I’m comfortable either way, but we have no data to decided one way or the other apart from first constructing a theological system). I’m not at all sure there was any material difference between Christ in the OT and Christ in the NT, with the one exception that Christ was born in the NT, but critically without a human father. The body of Mary was nothing more than a conduit through which the Second person of the Trinity entered the world. That he took on flesh was nothing new; the OT precedent had already been set with YHWH appearing in the FLESH. He even wrested another man!!
I am quite open to correction, and have been for over 10 years. I’ve sent my conclusions to many seminary professors who, as you expected, did not agree with my conclusions. But I remain committed to these propositions unless Scripture tells me otherwise.
I agree they are now unorthodox, but to say that there was no orthodoxy in the first two centuries is not at all true. Yes, many of the Churches were fouled up in the first century, but they were immediately corrected by Apostolic invasion. Unorthodoxy was immediately stamped out by the supernatural gift of Apostles. The first century is the BEST we can strive for. Anyone care to disagree with that??
Please don’t take my emails as argumentative. I am just a man like you. We all have to stand by our convictions and answer to the Lord one day.
Edmishoe,
You said, “He FUNCTIONED as a man, but he was anything but a man.”
Yet I Timothy 2:5 speaks specifially of “the MAN Christ Jesus”. How do you reconcile that with your belief?
Edmishoe,
Not to gang up on you or anything, but are you saying that “nature” is the same thing as “person”?
The nature of a thing is not the means by which a thing carries on conversations. Thus, saying that Christ had two natures is not the same as saying that Christ could carry on a conversation with Himself. (That would be the case if we said that Christ had two persons.)
The nature of a thing is the unchanging set of rules which make it distinctively the kind of thing that it is. The nature of God includes to love, for example; the nature of man includes being born with a physical body which changes throughout life.
Christ fulfilled both natures of God and man in all respects — although He emptied Himself of certain privileges permitted by God’s nature.
The question of the dual natures of Christ has always puzzled me; part of my confusion was an inadequate understanding of what it means to have a nature. I thought that “having a nature” was something like having a mind or having an arm; but it’s not. It’s essentially like obeying a law.
Although it’s not a perfect analogy, it’s easy to imagine a dual-natured human; there are people who have dual citizenship. As such, they have to obey both sets of country’s laws in a way appropriate to the place in which they actually live.
-Wm
That’s a silly statement.
We can’t strive for the first century; it was a brief period in the life of the Church, marked by things that we can’t reproduce, like the eyewitnesses of Christ’s resurrected appearances and the living Apostles.
If the first century was what God wanted for the Church, He would have left Christ on the earth to keep making Apostles rather than sending the Holy Spirit.
The first century didn’t know everything; they didn’t think of all the heresies they’d ever have to contend with. Even the Apostles didn’t know everything in spite of their direct teaching; Peter had to be given a revelation before he realized that gentiles were part of Christ’s plan of salvation, and James didn’t seem to know that there was a conflict between Jews and Gentile Christians.
In fact, the solution to the problem of the Judaizers wasn’t to bring in an apostle, because Christ apparently didn’t teach anything about them. The solution was to read the Torah, which explicitly explained which parts of the Mosaic Law had to be kept by the Jews, and which had to be kept by the “strangers in the land”, which means gentiles that worship God but don’t convert to Judaism. The letter the Church Council of Acts sent explained fairly precisely those laws. This solution could have been reached — in theory — without Apostles.
-Wm
How interesting! This is exactly like the monophysite controversy, during which the Greek speakers used one pair of words for nature/person, and the Latin speakers used a different pair of words, and the two sides got their pairs of words mixed up, and it divided the Church.
Interestingly, although the monophysite churches still affirm their basic beliefs, some have started clarifying and pulling closer to the dual nature doctrine, by using the term Miaphysitism. Miaphysitism affirms that God and Man both have natures, and Christ obeyed both; but they say that He did so by following His own nature, which was a full representation of both. (This is a very hasty explanation, and avoids the nuance; it’s therefore incorrect in the details. Please read a real text if you want to understand it.)
The reason I say this is exactly the same is that you’ve got the same misdefinition of nature and person that caused the same problem then.
-Wm
Are monophysites evangelicals?
Not only did Jesus pray to his Father that if possible the cup should pass from him ( his suffering a death) by he also prayed or asked his Father…”My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me”.
This comes from the prophecy of David in Psalm 22 where he says:
“My El, My El, why hast thou forsaken me”. We can get a clearer understanding of Jesus’ last hours by reading Psalm 22 where it is said that his strength is “dried up”.
After Jesus was baptized he was given the Spirit without measure when it is said that the Spirit descended upon him in the form of a dove. It was through the Holy Spirit that Jesus was able to do the things he did during his ministry on earth. Jesus was given the full measure of the Spirit as opposed to only in part as his disciples were.
However, it seems that during his last hours he felt alone. Psalm 22 really bring this meaning home. His strength was dried up, he felt forsaken, deserted or left alone. The Spirit that had once given him all the strength in the world seemed absent, which is the meaning of, “My El, My El,” or “My Strength, My Strength”.
The Spirit which had once given him all the ability he had had abandoned him, he was left on his own; with his own strength to finish what he had started. It seems necessary that it had to be that way; that it was up to him to finish the race, on his own strength; without the full measure of the Spirit. Which he did and which makes his final sacrifice more meaningful.
[…] read a post the other day over at Parchment and Pen regarding "What Did Christ Mean When He Said …" "let this cup pass from […]
Jesus’ statement is an expression of natural fear of death. As a divine person, he makes humanity his own and so the natural fear of humanity of death is expressed by a divine person.
The passage indicates that he did in fact not will to go to the cross at some point as he says “not my will.” This is not a sinful choice since God wills the preservation of human life. The great mystery here is that the one divine person simultaneously wills two different things at the same time and both options are good. There is no opposition between humanity as naturally constituted and divinity. The two wills of Christ needs to be kept fully in mind in thinking about this passage.
To chalk up the different expressions or acts to natures runs up against the obvious fact that natures do not act, persons do and there is only one divine person in Christ. It is the divine person who suffers and dies. If not, his redemptive work is worthless.
So to say that the humanity died doesn’t do the trick since natures don’t die, persons do and Jesus was not a human person or hypostasis.
There is no divine determination here of the human will by the divine. If there were, this would meant that God is naturally opposed to his creation and that his creation is naturally opposed to him.
Edmishoe’s problem is that he assumes that nature = person, which it doesn’t. In order to deny two persons, he has to then deny that Jesus is fully human, that is lacking a human soul. And Mary wasn’t a mere conduit since Christ takes his human flesh from her. If the indwelling of Christ makes no difference to Mary, why think that it makes any difference with believers?
As for Ps 22, v. 24 indicates that God the Father didn’t forsake the Son. The Baptism of Christ was after Christ had made humanity a fit occupant for the Spirit once again. Christ is the receiver of the Spirit and the giver of the Spirit. Since the Spirit comes through the Son, it is always the divine Son in the Spirit who does miracles.
I’ve never understood the doctrine of “two wills” of Christ. Could you provide a link to a good explanation? A will seems to me to be an aspect of a person; a being with two wills, by my definitions, has two persons (or is possibly defective). (I’m explaining why I’m confused; I’m not arguing the point. I’m expecting and hoping to have my definitions corrected.)
With that said, I don’t understand why you find it mysterious that one person can will two things. Isn’t that what Paul finds in himself? Nobody can will to actually carry out two things, but that doesn’t seem to be what you’re saying Christ did, right?
What do you mean “Jesus was not a human person”? Jesus was a person, and Jesus was human.
I see what you mean, I think, and I agree, with the caveat that I don’t understand the “two wills” idea (and so don’t agree or disagree with it).
I do know the term ‘monothelite’, so I’ve got some conception that my confusion’s pretty bad :-).
That’s a bad analogy. Christ doesn’t indwell believers in the manner in which He lived in Mary’s womb. (I agree that Mary wasn’t a mere conduit.)
-Wm
Wm,
You’d be better off reading some literature rather than a link. My blog (shameless plug) has plenty of stuff on the topic though. For books, Farrell’s Free Choice in S. Maximus the Confessor, or Bathrellos’, The Byzantine Christ, is more recent.
The motivation for the doctrine is obvious. The power of choice is an essential feature of human nature and so to be fully human, Christ must have a human power of choice. Scripturally, there are plenty of passages that indicate that Christ wills with a human power of choice, either to eat, sleep, etc. or to go places, etc.
An aspect is a perspectival difference. It is actually the same thing as the object but seen from a different vantage point, as opposed to a feature which is a part. The problem is that you are thinking of the will as hypostatic or personal. Here you are confusing the use of a faculty or power with the power itself. Persons use their natural faculties, but a person is not their natural faculty. This is why for humans, sin is in the use or the way they employ their faculty of choice and not in their nature per se. Will, like intellect is a power of a nature.
The willing of two things by one agent with one will is not properly speaking a willing. By willing I mean a decision, which is an execution of a plan of action, called an intention. The Pauline material then I think is speaking of either two competing desires, and not decisions, or the staving off of making a decision in deliberation.
I think Christ makes two decisions, one to preserve his life and to go to the cross, without opposition and without sin. Both objects of choice are good.
I meant what I said, Jesus is not a human person. There is only one person of God the Son in Christ and that person is a divine person into which human nature is taken or assumed. So Jesus being human and Jesus being a person doesn’t imply that Jesus is a human person. Again, there is only one divine hypostasis in Christ.
No, it is a perfectly good analogy. If the union with believers affects believers, so much the more the union with Mary since not only was a she a believer as well, but the nature of the union with her flesh was more intimate and unique.
Mr. Robinson, thank you for the recommendation; having looked around on the web, I think it’s clear that the web won’t be helping me too much. The problem is that I’m not sure what books will help me; this issue looks to depend heavily on how you define certain terms.
I’m very confused. How can a nature have a power? I would say (in my confused state, not because I want to contradict you) that the person has the power of choice, and it’s in their nature to have that power of choice. Is that a central confusion?
I understand. That makes sense.
Then this I don’t understand. I don’t see this in the evidence; Christ actually went to the Cross and did not preserve His life (He laid it down instead), so by your reasonable definition He did not will (execute the plan of action) to preserve His life. The evidence is that Christ desired to preserve His life, not that He willed it.
And because He became obedient unto death…
-Wm
Ah, that makes sense. And like you said, my definition of “will” previously (and currently) assumes that a will is a power of choosing that belongs to a person; this is why I believe that Jesus has only one will (although I strongly suspect that I am wrong in so believing, but I don’t yet see where I make my error).
Mary was united as a believer (which saved her) and as the one who conceived and carried Jesus (which made her the Mother of Jesus). Contrary to your statement, it’s not obvious that one union is more or less intimate than the other. Certainly being the Mother of Jesus is unique, but uniqueness doesn’t itself confer a blessing; the nature of the experience is what’s important, not the uniqueness of it.
-Wm
Wm,
Just because they are easier to find, I’d recommend Bathrellos’, Byzantine Christ or Cyril Hovorum’s, Will, Action and Freedom. Outside of those, Farrell’s, Free Choice in St. Maximus the Confessor is probably the best place to start ,but given that it is out of print and hard to find, go with the two more recent works. Unfortunately, they are not cheap.
Nature’s have powers and that seems pretty uncontroversial to me. It might help to think of powers as forces or something like that. Salt has the power of saltiness, but also of purification. Fire has the power of heat and so on. Choice is a power of human nature, but it gets used by the person who’s nature it is. I have the power of mobility, but it is I who do the moving. The distinction turns on possessing a power and using it. Possessing it doesn’t imply the use of it.
Tis true that Christ goes to the Cross and I am not denying that. There are a few questions here. First, does Christ will to preserve his life at any point? Second, if he does will to go to the cross with his human power of choice, what significance does that have in the schema of salvation and for the nature of humanity?
For the first, I answer in the affirmative. Christ preserves to save his life and that this is something good and natural to human nature. The evidence is that he in fact willed to preserve his life, since he says, “not as I will.” It is not merely appetitive or a desire.
He then wills with his human power of choice to go to the Cross. And this is significant for all of humanity, since it reorients human nature in such a way that all of humanity was oriented away form death as annihilation, it is now oriented to go through death towards resurrection. Consequently, Christ’s free human choice to go to the Cross has across the board anthropological implications.
Second, it shows that what is natural is not opposed to the divine and this is an important point over against the Greek view of the world as a mass of opposing powers.
Paul makes clear that a spouse can save an unbelieving spouse and that the union of the two renders the children holy. (1 Cor 7:14) So much the more reason to think that the union of Christ with the flesh from Mary sanctified Mary. She bears God and is rightly called the theotokos or God bearer. Second, the mode of union is more intimate since Christ indwelt Mary in a way he does not indwell believers. That union is flesh of flesh, and bone of bone, by which Christ is the Second Adam, and Mary then the second Eve. The mode of union is not only unique, but also of wide anthropological import. It is even more significant if one endorses Traducianism.
Before I ask any more questions, is this paper an accurate summary of St. Maximus’ arguments? I’m finding it immensely illuminating, not only for the “two wills” question, but also for the “gnomic will” question (which I remember we discussed earlier, without much enlightenment to me).
-Wm
By the way, I found your reviews on Amazon; very nice, informative.
There are two serious problems with your claim here. The first is that it’s not clear whether Christ is talking about desire or will; Greek has words for both, but people normally use them ambiguously. The second is that Christ is making a negative statement, and it appears to be a rejection of any claim on his own future. In short, Christ submitted his own will to what He knew was the will of the Father. This seems to me to mean that Christ saw nothing to desire in the Cross — in going to the Cross, therefore, He acted on the desire to follow the Father’s will, not on any of His other desires.
The fact is that any of the martyrs could have made the same prayer, without needing two wills. All they’d need is the desire to save their life — definitely God-given and God-blessed — and the knowledge at the same time that the commands of Christ are the first priority to those being conformed to the image of Christ.
I agree that this is a good message, but I don’t see how the doctrine of two wills gives us this, since it doesn’t align the two wills except by eventual submission, and we already have clear teaching that everything will submit (in one way or another) to God.
-Wm
Any doctrine regarding what natures do and do not possess should be controversial. It’s a matter of philosophical definition, not a matter of clear fact or Scriptural testimony. The doctrine of the two natures is viable because Scriptures strongly indicates it; but defining the architecture of natures goes outside of Scripture.
In this case, after some study, I believe that this council acted prematurely, and released a definition which cannot bind Christians unless they subscribe to a set of philosophical definitions which are, by and large, no longer widely used. Furthermore, the council’s definitions seem hasty and ill-informed, and if they don’t contradict scripture, they at least seem to risk being misunderstood to cause contradiction. For example, it seems that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit all have wills, in that they have purposes distinguishable from one another; this is often used to demonstrate that they are distinct persons. Even if the will is not a part of the person, though, it can’t be a part of the nature, because Christ was of the same nature as God (and therefore the same as the Father).
This is true, but Salt is not Saltiness. The nature of salt is not itself salty — we do not sprinkle the nature of salt on our food.
You are not your nature. Your body naturally gives you the power of mobility, but your nature has neither mobility nor indeed location. Your person naturally “gives” you the power of choice, but your nature does not have that power (although your nature says that you are a person).
Christ does not will to save His life by the definition you’ve given. Clearly He desires to save His life, but also clearly He lays it down instead, becoming obedient unto death. If Christ had willed to save His life, He would have been willfully uncompliant to death at best. No, Christ desired to save His life, but desired more to submit to the Father’s will; and then He stood up, and willfully submitted. With all his heart, not half of it.
-Wm
Ouch. I should have said: I don’t think the council’s decree is wrong; I just think it’s not binding on all, because it presupposes a philosophical commitment that has never been claimed to be binding on all.
Within that philosophy, it’s necessary, because otherwise one risks denying the dual natures of Christ. In the framework of the now more common understanding of personal will, affirming dual wills risks claiming that Christ is two persons (which might be called Nestorianism), which seems to me to be a more directly antibiblical result than even monophysitism.
-Wm
Wm,
The monochos paper is ok, but I think it gets the gnome wrong if I recall. In sum, the gnomic will is a specific and personal use of the will. It is a way the will or power of choice may be used. It is not necessarily sinful as Adam had it prior to the fall.
I think it is clear that Christ is talking about will and not desire. The grammar I’d argue supports it exegetically. Second, if it isn’t good then Christ isn’t impeccable as far as his desires go.
The negative statement indicates a past willing or choice. What he did will while this has now changed. When you say that Christ submitted his own will to that of the Father, that depends on what you mean. Do you mean Christ’s human will or his divine will? If the latter, this can’t be the case since there is only one will between the members of the Trinity. If the human will, isn’t that the point? If the will is hypostatic, then there will be no human will in Christ, or Christ will be two persons or there will be three wills in the Trinity leading to Tri-theism. (Btw, this is a great passage to use with the LDS when they say that all three gods always agree in will with each other.)
I don’t think martyrs could have done the same thing since they aren’t the font of the race and their choice wouldn’t redirect the destiny of human nature towards resurrection. (Jn 6:38-39) Second, matyrs can’t simultaneously will to things with two powers of choice, both different. Third, Christ is the chief and prototypical martyr.
The doctrine of the two wills and two energies gives us the conclusion that what is natural is not opposed to the divine by the fact that Christ can will both simultaneously without sin. If Christ wills both, then things can be different but good. Second, the point is that the preservation of human life is also good and also willed by God. To will either is to submit to God.
If I thought that philosophy were the handmaiden to the theology filling in the conceptual content of theology, I might agree that what natures do and do not possess might be a matter of philosophical definition, but I don’t. And given that I don’t hold to Sola Scriptura, going beyond Scripture isn’t problematic for me. (I don’t think Protestants consistently adhere to it either.)
Any definition can risk misunderstanding and stating that you think that the council acted prematurely and can’t bind the consciences of Christians is a statement and not a demonstration that it did so. That would take a lot more work than you’ve presented here. Secondly, that judgment will place you not only outside of the historic position of Orthodoxy and Catholicism, but Protestantism as well, entailing that you endorse a Christology that your own church rejects as heterodox. I am not sure you wish to make that move.
If each of the three persons have wills, then there is no common essence, since it only by the unity of action that we know indirectly that they have one essence…
Perry, thank you; I’ll be spending focussed time studying what you’re saying, and will attempt to correct my errors based on it. Thank you for explaining the error in definition of the gnomic will; I will reread the paper (and some others I ran across) with that in mind.
(BTW, your post got cut off; if anything vital got lost, please continue. I must say that your cut-off sentence seemed very significant, and in line with the argument that God’s essence is simple.)
I can offer one thing on a topic I know something about, as it’s a doctrine I hold to. You said “And given that I don’t hold to Sola Scriptura, going beyond Scripture isn’t problematic for me. (I don’t think Protestants consistently adhere to it either.)”
Sola scriptura doesn’t mean that Scripture is the only valid source of knowledge, nor the only authority. It means that Scripture is the only _infallible_ authority; the highest authority (because it is infallible); the source of authority for the Church (because it is the testimony of the direct disciples and apostles of Christ, and speaks with their authority); and the source for the doctrines that explain salvation (because it speaks with that authority when it says it contains everything so needed). I’m not arguing for this definition; I’m just explaining the Protestant doctrine.
The point is that going beyond Scripture isn’t problematic for a Protestant; what is problematic is claiming that one must believe something not contained in the Scriptures in order to be saved.
Thus, I do not claim that the council was wrong in its conclusions; rather, I claim that its conclusions follow from its premises, and some of its premises are philosophical rather than Scriptural. It therefore binds only those who follow its philosophical premises. And unless you can show that those premises are implied by Scripture, according to Sola Scriptura they are not binding.
Now, I see above that you’re doing a credible job in arguing your point with Scriptural reasoning. I will study that carefully, treating it with the respect and seriousness that is its due, and I’ll have a response ASAP.
-Wm
I’ve just parsed and word-studied both passages. I can’t do any better, given my lack of education (I can barely read Homeric Greek)… So I’m as ready as I’ll get to hear your exegetical argument.
Our desires are normally for good things (things God created); the sin comes in wanting those things apart from God, and apart from God’s timing. Christ desired to avoid suffering, which is without doubt a good thing; but He desired to do the will of Him who sent Him _more_, which is a better thing.
…anyhow, I don’t see how claiming that Christ could never have a sinful desire contributes to his impeccability; it seems to me that such would merely show that He was never tempted. When Satan tempted Christ, Christ desired bread; that was a desire outside of God’s will, and Christ knew it, which is why He didn’t bend to it for one moment.
There are two passages that cover these prayers, and a couple of repetitions. The statement is not only given negatively; in Luke 22:42 and Matt 26:39 it’s stated as a (conditional) imperative: “take this cup from me” (if you are willing, Father). This is a present statement, not in mere grammatical tense but in plain sense. It implies that Christ would have been grateful if God had interrupted the trial that followed with an alternate plan.
That begs the question. Let’s say that Christ submitted his entire will to the Father.
Then why did Christ say “not my will but thine”? Why did Christ say in John 6 that He came from heaven not to enact his own will? Why does the Bible so often attribute will to one of the Persons rather than always to God?
(cont’d)
I can think of one argument for God having a single will: actions should be attributed to the one who wills and then does them. A number of actions are attributed in the Bible to God, and a number are attributed to the Father in one place and the Son in another (for example, creation). God is one substance, so anything one Person of the Godhead does is done by (all of) the substance of God; thus, it would be perfectly consistent to attribute actions to both or all Persons if all actually willed that action in advance, which they of course would if the Godhead had a single will.
The problem with this argument is that it results in being impossible to attribute actions to ANY of the Persons individually; all actions done by God would be done by all the Persons in the same way at the same time. In short, God would not be revealed to us as three distinct Persons, because there would be no distinction between them in action. The role of the Spirit as the Paraclete is not the role of the Son or the Father; this is not because the Spirit is present with us while the Father is not (impossible), but because the actions of the Paraclete are properly the intention (willing) of the Spirit and not of the Father, although perfectly in line with those of the Father.
-Wm
This requires a distinction between a divine will and a human will, where there’s no suggested or revealed difference. Why can’t the Son’s will be Christ’s (full) will? Christ himself makes no distinction between His will before He incarnated and after; John 6:48 suggests that the Son’s purpose before He came down from Heaven was to reject His own will and do the Father’s. If you say that the Son intended to subject the “human will” He took on to His own Divine will, that’s grammatically possible — but this makes Christ seem to speak against Himself, since He’s denying His own will in order to assert His own will. It’s syntactically possible, but makes a revelation that reveals nothing — in particular, it would become an odd thing to say in the middle of an explanation of how the Father’s actions were the source both of the manna and of Himself.
Now, you make a good point when you say that there’s a danger of tritheism in claiming that each Person in the Godhead has a will. There are many dangers; when you assert that Christ has two wills, there’s a danger (against the background of modern philosophy) of confusing that with claiming that Christ had two persons, extreme Nestorianism. Both dangers appear when either doctrine appears without a proper understanding of its background, and both dangers disappear when the teaching is properly understood (as you’ve helped me start toward doing, thank you).
-Wm