Monothelitism
Monothelitism, or monotheletism, is a theological doctrine in Christianity that was proposed in the 7th century, but was ultimately rejected by the sixth ecumenical council. It held Christ as having only one will and was thus contrary to dyothelitism, the Christological doctrine accepted by most Christian denominations, which holds Christ as having two wills. Historically, monothelitism was closely related to monoenergism, a theological doctrine that holds Jesus Christ as having only one energy. Both doctrines were at the center of Christological disputes during the 7th century.
Monothelitism is from. Theological notions related to the oneness of Christ's will emerged as a result of some earlier Christological controversies that were related to monophysitism as formulated by Eutyches and miaphysitism as formulated by non-Chalcedonian followers of Cyril of Alexandria. Since the notion of Christ's one nature implied the oneness of his will, ecclesiastical and political elites of the Eastern Roman Empire tried during the 7th century to promote monothelitism as a unifying doctrine that would reconcile divided Christian factions. In spite of strong imperial support, those attempts failed, and monothelitism was consequently rejected and denounced as heresy in 680–681 at the Third Council of Constantinople, the sixth ecumenical council.
Monothelitism is still today taught by some Protestant Christian philosophers, including William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland. However, the dyothelite view is mainstream in all major branches of Christianity. Modern monothelitism is associated with a certain form of social trinitarianism.
Background
During the 5th century, some regions of the Church were thrown into confusion because of the debates that erupted over the nature of Jesus Christ. Although the Church had already determined that Christ is the son of God, his exact nature remained open to debate. The Church had declared heretical the notion that Jesus is not fully divine in the 4th century, during the debates over Arianism, and had declared that he is God the Son who became human. However, in arguing that he is both God and man, there then emerged a dispute over exactly how the human and divine natures of Christ actually exist within the person of Christ.The Christological definition of Chalcedon, as accepted by the Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and Reformed churches, is that Christ remains in two distinct natures, yet these two natures come together within his one hypostasis. More simply, Christ is known as "both fully human and fully Divine, one in being with the Father". This position was opposed by the Monophysites who held that Christ possesses one nature only. The term Monophysitism of which Eutychianism is one type, held that the human and divine natures of Christ were fused into one new single nature. As described by Eutyches, his human nature was "dissolved like a drop of honey in the sea", and therefore his nature is really divine. This is distinct from Miaphysitism, which holds that, after the union, Christ is in one theanthropic nature and is generated from the union of two natures. The two are thus united without separation, without confusion, and without alteration, and with each having a particularity. Miaphysitism is the christological doctrine of the Oriental Orthodox churches.
Nevertheless, the resultant debates led the Chalcedonians to accuse the non-Chalcedonians of teaching Christ's humanity to be of a different kind from our own. Meanwhile, the non-Chalcedonians accused the Chalcedonians of espousing a form of Nestorianism, a doctrine rejected in the preceding council that held that Jesus Christ was two distinct subsistences.
This internal division was dangerous for the Byzantine Empire, which was under constant threat from external enemies, especially as many of the areas most likely to be lost to the empire were the regions that were in favour of Monophysitism, and who considered the religious hierarchy at Constantinople to be heretics only interested in crushing their faith. In these provinces, the non-Chalcedonians were far more numerous than the Chalcedonians. In Egypt for instance, some 30,000 Greeks of Chalcedonian persuasion were ranged against some five million Coptic non-Chalcedonians. Meanwhile, Syria was divided between followers of the Chalcedonian Patriarch Paul I and Miaphysite Patriarch Sergius I, and Mesopotamia between Syriac Miaphysities and Nestorian Church of the East, while the church of Armenia was wholly Cyrilline Non-Chalcedonian, and Palestinian Patriarch fully adhered to Chalcedonianism. Consequently, the Monothelite teaching emerged as a compromise position. The Byzantine emperor Heraclius tried to unite all of the various factions within the empire with this new formula that was more inclusive and more elastic.
That approach was needed to win over the non-Chalcedonians since they already believed that Christ has a single nature and so necessarily believed that he holds a single will. However, it was unclear whether the Chalcedonians should believe in Christ's human and divine energy and/or will as well as his human and divine nature because the ecumenical councils had made no ruling on that subject. A ruling for the new doctrine would provide common ground for the non-Chalcedonians and the Chalcedonians to come together, as the non-Chalcedonians could agree that Jesus has two natures if he has only one will, and some Chalcedonians could agree that Jesus has one will if he has two natures.
First attempt: Doctrine of one energy
was the driving force behind this doctrine, with the full blessing of Emperor Heraclius. Coming to the imperial throne in 610, the patriarch had long since converted the emperor to the new doctrine as by 622, Heraclius had communicated with Bishop Paul of Armenia where the emperor asserted that the energy, or the active force, of Christ was single. That doctrine of monoenergism was the precursor of monotheletism.Heraclius's interest then focused on Armenia, and it was probably then that the emperor decided to use monoenergism as a political weapon to reconcile the Non-Chalcedonian Church of Armenia with the Imperial Church. To help bring that about, a synod was held in 622 at Theodosiopolis, called the Synod of Garin, where monoenergism was discussed. Over the next few years Heraclius was preoccupied with his prosecution of the war against the Sassanids, but by 626, he had issued a decree to Arcadius, Bishop of Cyprus, requesting him to teach the doctrine of "one hegumenic energy". By all accounts, that was met with notable success, particularly as there was then a large colony of Armenians on the island, which encouraged Heraclius to attempt to seek a wider approval of his compromise. In 626, he asked Patriarch Sergius to approach Cyrus, Bishop of Phasis, to secure his cooperation.
With the successful conclusion to the Persian War, Heraclius could devote more time to promoting his compromise, which was now more urgent because of the administration of the recovered monophysite provinces of Syria and Egypt. In 629, a meeting took place between the emperor and Athanasius the Jacobite at Hierapolis. An agreement was struck in which the Jacobites were to return to the Imperial Church on the basis of the single energy doctrine, and Athanasius was to be made Patriarch of Antioch. In 630, Bishop Cyrus was made Patriarch of Alexandria, who soon won over another non-Chalcedonian group. Very soon, three of the five patriarchates were teaching Christ's "one theandric energy".
Not everyone was convinced, particularly a monk of Palestine named Sophronius, who believed that there was something unsound in the doctrine and so became the champion of dyothelitism, the doctrine of the two wills of Christ. He was concerned that for the sake of ecclesiastical unity, doctrinal expressions were being compromised. For the first few years, Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople managed to keep him silent, but when Sophronius was appointed as Patriarch of Jerusalem in 634, he used his newfound position of authority to challenge the validity of the doctrine of monoenergism.
Determined to prevent that formidable challenge to his Christological compromise, Sergius wrote to Pope Honorius I at Rome to ask him to endorse a position that Church unity should not be endangered by having any discussions or disputes over whether Christ had one energy or two. Sergius added that the doctrine of two energies could lead to the erroneous belief that Jesus has two conflicting wills. Honorius's reply in 635 endorsed that view that all discussions should cease and agreed that Jesus has only one will, not two conflicting wills, since Jesus assumed not the vitiated human nature, tainted by Adam's fall, but human nature as it existed prior to Adam's fall. In the meantime the epistola synodica of Sophronius appeared, the outcome of the Synod of Cyprus. It attempted to show that the new doctrine was inconsistent with orthodoxy. Sophronius declared that it was nothing more than a bastardised form of monophysitism, which went against the hard-fought achievements at Chalcedon. Suddenly, support for the doctrine began to subside, and soon, former supporters were busy finding flaws and inconsistencies in the proposal. Soon, Sergius and Heraclius abandoned it as a doctrine.
Second attempt: Doctrine of one will
However, Sergius and the emperor refused to give up. Three years later, the patriarch came up with a slightly-modified formula, which Heraclius released as the Ecthesis in 638. The edict was considered to be the official response to Sophronius's letter. It forbade all mention of Christ possessing one or two energies; instead, it now proclaimed that Christ has two natures but a single. This did not deny Christ human volition, but insisted that this volition could never be in opposition to the divine will; but the opponents of one will misinterpreted the doctrine as denying Christ any human volition whatever. Sophronius had died before the release of the new doctrine, and his replacement, Bishop Sergius of Jaffa, as Patriarch Abraham I of Jerusalem, approved the modified formula. Sergius died by the end of 638, and his replacement, Pyrrhus, was also a devoted monothelite and a close friend of Heraclius. The two remaining patriarchs in the East also gave their approval to the doctrine now referred to as monothelitism and so it looked as if Heraclius would finally heal the divisions in the imperial church.Unfortunately, he had not counted on the popes at Rome. During the same year, 638, Pope Honorius I had died as well. His successor Pope Severinus condemned the Ecthesis outright and so was forbidden his seat until 640. His successor, Pope John IV, also rejected the doctrine completely, leading to a major schism between the eastern and western halves of the Chalcedonian Church. When news reached Heraclius of the Pope's condemnation, he was already old and ill, and the news only hastened his death. He declared with his dying breath that the controversy was all due to Sergius and that the patriarch had pressured him to give his unwilling approval to the Ecthesis.