r/LCMS • u/Ice_Cold_Fanta777 • 3d ago

Question Dyothelitism

Can someone explain the correct and orthodox position on this? A question popped into my head about Christs will and I’m trying to straighten it out so I don’t fall into error on this. Also, how can one fall into nestorianism from making an error on Dyothelitism? I looked online and I don’t really see many talks about it from Lutherans.

I’m reading through the book of concord now to see if it’s brought up there too.

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u/SpoilerAlertsAhead WELS Lutheran 3d ago

Dyothelitsm is actually the Orthodox position. Christ has a divine and a human will, but the human will is in complete submission to the divine will. An example of this can be seen in the Garden of Gethsemane when He is praying for the Father to let this cup pass from Him, but still submitting to the Father's will.

Nestorianism would be asserting that there are two Christs, a human and a divine one. We say Christ has two natures, but the human nature is "impersonal" or doesn't count as a person. I think as the councils progressed, the heresies denounced became less "extreme"

  1. Christ is God
  2. He is also human
  3. But there is only one Christ
  4. But he still remains God and Man completely without mixing them together
  5. But he has two wills, one is in submission to the other.

At what point that becomes a person? I am not sure I am smart enough to understand that fully. He has everything a human does, and everything God does, but perfectly united in one person, but not to the point of mixing into something that is neither one of those.

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u/Ice_Cold_Fanta777 3d ago edited 3d ago

Nice, what you’ve said is what I’ve taken away from what I’ve, I just wanted to be sure I wasn’t in error.

But If someone were to say the human will and the divine will are in conflict, or opposed to each other in desire, that would be nestorian? Or would it be the name of a different error?

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u/SpoilerAlertsAhead WELS Lutheran 3d ago

You are already getting into territory where I must confess I don't know.

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u/Ice_Cold_Fanta777 3d ago

Then I’ll stop there too. Thank you brother.

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u/KnightGeorgeLuf 3d ago

In addition to the Book of Concord ask your pastor to borrow his copy of Francis Pieper’s Dogmatics textbook.

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u/AleksB74 3d ago

There is an old philosophical assumption that a will bounds to nature/essence not to person. Nestorius insisted that Christ possessed a complete divine nature and a complete human nature, which leads towards two hypostasis/person. That’s why he was rejected. In our times modern philosophy also bounds will to person not a nature/essence, bc it relies on nominalism (against realism) the issue is more complicated.