An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 58

1 BOOK III — CHAPTER 14: Concerning the volitions and free-will of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Since, then, Christ has two natures, we hold that He has also two natural wills and two natural energies. But since His two natures have one subsistence, we hold that it is one and the same person who wills and energises naturally in both natures, of which, and in which, and also which is Christ our Lord: and moreover that He wills and energises without separation but as a united whole. For He wills and energises in either form in close communion with the other.

3 Wherefore in the case of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit we recognise, from their sameness in will and energy, their sameness in nature. But in the case of the divine dispensation we recognise from their difference in will and energy the difference of the two natures, and as we perceive the difference of the two natures we confess that the wills and energies also are different. For we hold that wills and energies are faculties belonging to nature, not to subsistence.

4 The Word, therefore, having become flesh, endowed with life and mind and free-will, became also endowed with volition. Further, that which is natural is not the result of training: for no one learns how to think, or live, or hunger, or thirst, or sleep. Nor do we learn how to will: so that willing is natural.

5 And we cannot, if we wish to be accurate, speak of Christ as having judgment and preference. For judgment is a disposition with reference to the decision arrived at after investigation and deliberation concerning something unknown. But the Lord being not mere man but also God, and knowing all things, had no need of inquiry, and investigation, and counsel, and decision, and by nature made whatever is good His own and whatever is bad foreign to Him. For the virtues are natural qualities, and are implanted in all by nature and in equal measure.