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Type of Document Dissertation Author Barnes, Corey Ladd URN etd-09192006-142331 Title Christ's Two Wills in Scholastic Theology: Thirteenth-Century Debates and the Christology of Thomas Aquinas Degree Doctor of Philosophy Department Theology Advisory Committee
Advisor Name Title Joseph Wawrykow Committee Chair Brian Daley Committee Member Cyril ORegan Committee Member Thomas Prugl Committee Member Keywords
- Bonaventure
- Albert the Great
- instrumental causality
Date of Defense 2006-08-29 Availability restricted Abstract The question of Christ’s wills arises naturally from Jesus’ prayer in the gardenof Gethsemane (Matthew 26:39). The question gained urgency during the seventhcentury
monothelite controversy and was settled by the determination of the Third
Council of Constantinople (680-681) that Christ had two natural, non-contrary wills,
divine and human. Thirteenth-century debates, unlike those of the seventh-century,
did not involve disagreement about Christ’s possession of a human will. The
dominant concern of thirteenth-century theologians was to affirm the fullness of
Christ’s humanity while denying contrariety of wills in Christ. The thirteenth century
witnessed developments in the affirmation of Christ’s full humanity and in strategies
for denying contrariety of wills in Christ.
Corey Barnes
The foundation for thirteenth-century discussions was Peter Lombard’s
Sentences. The Lombard distinguished Christ’s will of reason and will of sensuality,
arguing that Christ willed the Passion through reason but shunned it through
sensuality. This implies no struggle, because Christ’s sensuality did not extend
beyond its natural limits. Rather, this testifies to the truth of Christ’s humanity.
William of Auxerre’s Summa aurea developed a new strategy for noncontrariety,
arguing that contrary wills must be in the same genus or part of the soul.
The Summa fratris Alexandri added a division of Christ’s will of reason, based upon
John Damascene’s distinction between thelesis and boulesis. Albert the Great and
Bonaventure rejected William’s strategy for non-contrariety and focused instead on
the conformity of Christ’s wills.
Thomas Aquinas’ mature presentation of Christ’s two wills in the Summa
theologiae benefited from knowledge of patristic and conciliar sources. Thomas
stressed Christ’s possession of a perfect human will and perfect free choice (liberum
arbitrium). Thomas places remarkable stress on the work of Christ’s human nature as
instrument of the divinity causing salvation through efficient instrumental causality.
Christ’s free human will to suffer in the Passion causes salvation. God’s use of a
human instrument to cause salvation fittingly reflects the dignity of human nature in
Thomas’ theology.
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