Christ's Two Wills in Scholastic Theology
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CHRIST’S TWO WILLS IN SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGY: THIRTEENTH-CENTURY DEBATES AND THE CHRISTOLOGY OF THOMAS AQUINAS A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Notre Dame in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Corey Ladd Barnes, B.A., M.A.R. ___________________________ Joseph Wawrykow, Director Graduate Program in Theology Notre Dame, Indiana September 2006 CHRIST’S TWO WILLS IN SCHOLATIC THEOLOGY: THIRTEENTH-CENTURY DEBATES AND THE CHRISTOLOGY OF THOMAS AQUINAS Abstract by Corey Ladd Barnes The question of Christ’s wills arises naturally from Jesus’ prayer in the garden of Gethsemane (Matthew 26:39). The question gained urgency during the seventh- century 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 non- contrariety, 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. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………....iv Introduction: History and Theological Significance of Christ’s Two Wills…………..1 Chapter One: Foundations of Thirteenth-Century Debates………………………….13 Peter Lombard’s Sentences…………………………………………………..18 William of Auxerre’s Summa aurea…………………………………………28 Summa fratris Alexandri……………………………………………………..38 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………...48 Chapter Two: Scholastic Debates on Christ’s Two Wills…………………………...52 Albert the Great………………………………………………………………54 De incarnatione……………………………………………………...56 Commentarii in III Sententiarum…………………………………….63 Bonaventure………………………………………………………………….75 Conclusion……...……………………………………………………………99 Chapter Three: Thomas Aquinas on Christ’s Two Wills…………………………...103 Establishing a Human Will in Christ……………………………………….108 The Will of Sensuality……………………………………………………...128 The Twofold Act of the Will of Reason……………………………………136 Perfect Knowledge, Perfect Free Choice…………………………………...141 A Human Will Obedient to God……………………………………………147 The Acts of Christ’s Will…………………………………………………...165 Conclusion………………………………………………………………….177 Chapter Four: Fitting Means for Redemption………………………………………193 The Plan of the Summa theologiae…………………………………………195 The Incarnation as Fitting Communication of Goodness Itself…………….210 Hypostatic Union…………………………………………………………...221 The Word became Flesh…………………………………………………….223 The Human Nature Assumed……………………………………………….231 The Grace of Christ…………………………………………………………240 Christ’s Knowledge………………………………………………………...247 The Power and Defects of Christ’s Soul……………………………………267 Conclusion………………………………………………………………….273 ii Chapter Five: Christ the Mediator………………………………………………….280 Performing the Grammar of the Hypostatic Union…………………………285 De unione Verbi incarnate………………………………………………….303 The Consequence of Union…………………………………………………314 Unity of Operation………………………………………………………….319 Christ in Comparison to the Father…………………………………………328 Christ in Comparison to Us………………………………………………...341 Conclusion………………………………………………………………….360 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….369 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………..378 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Without the generous assistance of many people, this project would never have come to fruition. I would like to thank John Cavadini, Brian Daley, Cyril O’Regan, and Thomas Prügl for their encouragement, advice, and scholarly example, offered both through formal means and during informal discussions in the stairwell. Caleb Congrove provided expert editing and stylistic recommendations, for which I am grateful. Joseph Wawrykow deserves special thanks for his support and direction. He has, as both a teacher and scholar, been my trustworthy guide through this process. I owe many thanks to my wife, Doris Jankovits, for her patience, friendship, and optimism. iv INTRODUCTION HISTORY AND THEOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF CHRIST’S TWO WILLS Two tasks order the following investigation, one historical and the other systematic. While ultimately not separate, these two tasks can be distinguished for the sake of clarity. Fulfillment of the first task involves a close, detailed textual analysis of twelfth- and mainly thirteenth-century presentations of Christ’s two wills. Little scholarly attention has been paid to these presentations. They remain largely uncharted territory. The value of thirteenth-century discussions of Christ’s two wills has consequently been over-looked. The textual analysis of Chapters One, Two, and Three charts the development of debate on Christ’s two wills from Peter Lombard to Thomas Aquinas. This analysis reveals changes in sources, terminology, and conclusions during the scholastic period. For the purposes of this analysis, these changes culminate in Thomas’ Summa theologiae. This historical investigation of the development of scholastic presentations of Christ’s two wills helps draw out the richness of Aquinas’ presentation in the Summa theologiae. The systematic task rests upon the findings of the historical inquiry and uses them to examine Thomas’ understanding of Christ’s two wills within the larger 1 context of the Summa’s Christology. The Summa theologiae places remarkable emphasis on the salvific work of Christ’s human nature, going so far as to label it an efficient instrumental cause of salvation. The salvific work of Christ’s human nature cannot be grasped apart from Christ’s human will in its unity with the divine will. Chapters Four and Five carry out this systematic task of investigating Thomas’ Christology. While Chapters Four and Five rest upon and are informed by the historical analysis of scholastic debates on Christ’s two wills, their indication of the far reaching implications of Christ’s two wills for Thomas’ Christology also completes the historical task of analysing scholastic presentations of Christ’s two wills. This dissertation is exclusively concerned with debates on Christ’s two wills from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Obviously, debates on this topic did not commence with the twelfth century. The scope of this work does not permit any detailed consideration of the patristic history of this topic, but this introduction must provide at least a very concise summary of that history. The question of Christ’s two wills begins with Jesus’ prayer in the garden of Gethsemane: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless not what I will, but what you will” (Matthew 26:39).1 The question developed through several forms in the history of Christological debate. The Arians cited Jesus’ prayer 1 For a brief history of patristic interpretations of the prayer in Gethsemane, cf. D. Bathrellos, The Byzantine Christ: Person, Nature, and Will in the Christology of Saint Maximus the Confessor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp.140-147. 2 as evidence that the Logos was not of the same substance as the Father.2 Ambrose (De Fide ad Gratianum) and Augustine (Contra Maximinum episcopum Arianorum) responded by distinguishing the human will from the will of divinity in Christ.3 Ambrose and Augustine tended to stress this distinction of wills. Gregory of Nazianzus, in his fourth Theological Oration, writes of Christ’s human will as taken into God and interprets Matt. 26:39 as a statement of Christ’s identity in will with the Father.4 Gregory distinguishes Christ’s human will, which cannot oppose God, from a sinful human will, which normally struggles against God. Too heavy a stress on unity of wills begins to sound more like a numerical identity. Too heavy a stress on diversity of wills begins to suggest contrariety of wills. A desire to avoid any and all contrariety of wills motivated the seventh-century monothelites (proponents of one will) to deny two wills in Christ.5 That is, the monothelites equated diversity of wills with contrariety of wills.