I. Reply to the question
Ordinatio III, d. 17, q. un.
"Were there two wills in Christ?"
1 Concerning distinction 17 I ask whether there were two wills in Christ.
2 Arguments that there were not two wills in him:
First, every will is in control of its own act. Now if there were two wills in Christ, one of them would not be a will, because it would not be in control of its own act.
Proof: a power that follows the movement of another power is not in control of its own act, since following another power in this way means that it is not in control of its own act but instead is subordinate to another with respect to its own act. Now if there is a created will in Christ, its act follows a movement of the Word's uncreated will, since it was the Word who performed the activity of the human nature [united with the Word]. Therefore, etc.
3 Second, granting that there are two wills in Christ, there is an argument that there are not only two: for since there is a free will in him that follows the created intellect, and in addition to this a natural will—for free will and natural will have opposite ways of being drawn to or tending toward their objects—it follows that there are two created wills in him; and there is also an uncreated will in him. Therefore, etc.
4 On the contrary:
He had only two intellects: an uncreated and a created intellect. Therefore, he likewise had only two wills.
I. Reply to the question 5 Damascene answers this question in chapter 60,1 where he says that just as according to the faith it must be firmly held that in Christ there are two natures and one hypostasis, so too one ought to grant, as a consequence of this, that the natural properties and powers of both natures are in Christ. Now the supremely perfect powers of a rational nature are intellect and will; hence, there is a created intellect and a created will in Christ.
1 Damascene, De fide orthodoxa c. 58.
ORDINATIO III, D. , Q. UN.
Also, in distinction 13 [nn. 53–4, 87] I held that there was supreme created grace and supreme created enjoyment in Christ, and in distinction 14 [nn. 58, 67–70] I held that there was all knowledge and supreme vision in him by reason of the assumed nature.2
Therefore, since cognition and enjoyment3 presuppose intellect and will, one must affirm both powers, disposed in the best possible way, in Christ. And thus there is a created will in Christ.
But is there only one created will in Christ?
I say that 'will' can be taken either according to its proper notion or under a general notion and name, namely, as appetite. If it is taken generally, there were at least three appetites in Christ: an uncreated intellectual appetite, a created rational appetite, and a created non-rational (that is, sensory) appetite. But 'will' in its proper sense adds something to appetite, because a will is a free appetite associated with reason. Thus, understanding 'will' in the strict sense, there were only two wills in Christ.
But, speaking more generally, taking 'will' as appetite, I think that there were in Christ, as there are in us, as many appetites as there are distinct apprehensive powers.
Thus, just as taste and sight, touch and smell, are distinct sorts of apprehension, so too there is a distinct proper power of appetite corresponding to each of them and a distinct proper pleasure consequent upon each distinct sort of apprehension.4
Typically, though, we speak of the sensory appetite as a single appetite: it is the one that follows the imaginative power. For just as the imaginative power imagines the objects of all the senses, both in their presence and in their absence, so too its appetite takes pleasure in them if they are suitable or is sorrowful about them if they are unsuitable. Now even though the imaginative power can thus imagine objects of all the senses, both in their presence and in their absence, we still affirm particular senses that apprehend their particular, distinct objects; and in the same way, even though the appetite that is consequent upon the imaginative power can desire and rejoice in whatever is suitable to any particular sense and can not-desire and be sorrowful about whatever is unsuitable, we should also affirm, in addition to it,5 distinct particular appetites consequent upon distinct particular apprehensions or distinct
2 The edition, following AS, adds:
The church affirms the same thing in its sixth synod, determining that in Christ there are two wills and activities, in the Decretum, distinction 16, at "I have a book containing the canons," and distinction 16, in the chapter that begins "The sixth synod, held in Constantinople."
(The references are to Gratian, Decretum pars 1 d. 16 c. 6 and c. 9.) Since the text of nn. 6 and 8 forms a continuous argument, the editors' decision to interrupt it with the poorly attested text in n. 7 is puzzling.
3 Reading cognitio et fruitio praesupponant (BNYQ) for the edition's cognitio praesupponat.
4 Alternatively, reading with Q: "Thus, just as taste, sight, touch, and smell are distinct sorts of apprehension, so too there is a distinct sort of inclination and pleasure consequent upon each apprehension."
5 Reading praeter illam (NYQ) for the edition's pari ratione.
WERE THERE TWO WILLS IN CHRIST?
apprehensive powers; and there is the same necessity for affirming distinct appetites as there is for affirming distinct apprehensive powers.
12 But what about natural will and free will? Are they two powers?
13 I say that 'natural appetite' is taken as a general name for the natural inclination in each thing to its proper perfection. For example, a stone is inclined to the center; and if that inclination in the stone is something absolute, distinct from its weight, then
I believe as a consequence that the natural inclination of a human being as such to his proper perfection is likewise something distinct from the free will. But in fact I think the first claim—that the stone's inclination to the center is something absolute, distinct from its weight, and a distinct power that has some activity at the center, as some6 imagine—is false. The activity would be quite odd, since one would not be able to identify a terminus for it, even though it would be a transient action; also, because the center is suitable to it, it would not perform an action to corrupt, or to save, the center, since one could not offer any account of what sort of activity that would be or what its terminus would be, except perhaps for conserving its own where—for perhaps its where in the center is continuously coming to be, like light in the medium. But if so, that action would not be toward the center,7 since a where is in what is placed and not in what places it, and the center is what places the body that is in the center. So [the stone's natural inclination] does not indicate anything over and above [the stone's] weight except a relation: its inclination to the center as to its proper perfection. Accordingly, I say that the same holds for the will: natural will is not will and natural willing is not willing. Rather, 'natural' takes away from both,8 and it is nothing other than a relation consequent upon the power with respect to its own perfection. Hence, one and the same power is called "natural will" with reference to the relation to its own perfection that is necessarily consequent on the power9 and "free" according to the proper and intrinsic notion by which10 it is, specifically, a will.
14 Alternatively, one can say that the will is called "natural" as contrasted with a supernatural power or will. Thus, a will is natural when it is in its purely natural state, as contrasted with that same will informed by gifts of grace.
15 And in yet a third way a will is called "natural" insofar as it elicits an act conforming to its natural inclination, which is always to the advantageous, whereas a will is called
"free" insofar as it is in the will's power to elicit an act opposed to its natural
6 Godfrey of Fontaines, Quodl. VI q. 1 in corp. and ad 2.
7 in centrum: that is, the action would not have the center as its terminus.
8 "'natural' takes away from both": ly 'naturalis' distrahit ab utroque. For a discussion of determinations that "take away" (distrahere), see Walter Burley, Treatise on the Purity of the Art of Logic, The Shorter Treatise, Rule 9, 111, trans. Paul Vincent Spade (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 25.
9 Reading cum tali respectu necessario consequente ipsam respectu propriae perfectionis (Q) for the edition's cum respectu tali necessario consequente ipsam ad perfectionem.
10 Reading qua (Q) for the edition's quae.