Christ and the Will

2019 ◽  
pp. 277-330
Author(s):  
Han-luen Kantzer Komline
Keyword(s):  
Lord's Prayer ◽  
Divine Will ◽  
Pelagian Controversy ◽  
Human Need ◽  
The Will ◽  
Maximus The Confessor

Centuries before Maximus the Confessor, Augustine had already declared in explicit terms that Christ takes on a human will distinct from his divine will. According to Augustine, possessing a distinct human will allowed Christ to model how grace impacts the will. Yet, as Augustine insists over and over against Pelagius, Christ does more than take on a human will and model grace’s effects upon it. Christ transforms the human will. Augustine’s debts to Cyprian are on display as he points repeatedly to the Lord’s Prayer to show human need for Christ’s aid. Augustine’s understanding of Christ’s person and work, then, plays an indispensible role in shaping the character and operation of the redeemed human will. While for the early Augustine, the human will illustrates the workings of divine willing, here in the Pelagian controversy Augustine emphasizes the reverse: that Christ’s willing illuminates and transforms the workings of our own.

God’s Gardening

2019 ◽  
pp. 169-222
Author(s):  
Han-luen Kantzer Komline
Keyword(s):  
Successive Stage ◽  
Specific Question ◽  
Lord's Prayer ◽  
Human Power ◽  
Pelagian Controversy ◽  
The Will ◽  
Over Time

Chapter 4 continues the analysis begun in chapter 3 of the Pelagian controversy, now turning attention to the specific question of how God impacts the will. It tackles this question in two parts. The first focuses on the theme of prayer. Throughout the Pelagian controversy, Augustine consistently points to prayer, especially the Lord’s Prayer, as evidence of God’s impact on the will. The Christian practice of prayer, as interpreted in scripture, is a key source for Augustine’s views about God’s impact upon the human will. The second part addresses how Augustine’s views develop over time. Whereas Augustine’s estimation of what is in human power with respect to good willing contracts over the course of the Pelagian controversy, his estimation of the extent of God’s role in effecting good human willing expands with each successive stage. Throughout the controversy, however, he views God’s aid as indispensible for right human willing.

The Redeemed Will

2019 ◽  
pp. 223-276
Author(s):  
Han-luen Kantzer Komline
Keyword(s):  
Pelagian Controversy ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Good Will ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Relationship

Chapter 5 continues to concentrate on developments during the Pelagian controversy, setting forth Augustine’s diverse responses to the question of what the will is under grace. Part I introduces two of Augustine’s central images: the everyday image of a root and the abstract image of the eye of the soul. Part II analyzes a number of other ways Augustine characterizes the good will. Part III assesses the relationship between the good will and the heart in Augustine’s thinking. The overall picture of the good will that emerges during the Pelagian controversy is presented in part IV. For Augustine, rather than having its own independently coherent character, the will is good in relation to God, its maker and redeemer.

What Is in Our Power

2019 ◽  
pp. 121-168
Author(s):  
Han-luen Kantzer Komline
Keyword(s):  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Power ◽  
Pelagian Controversy ◽  
Good Will ◽  
The Will ◽  
Over Time

Chapter 3 begins to look at how Augustine’s thought on the good will developed during the Pelagian controversy. It considers Augustine’s answers to the question of what is within human power with respect to the will by addressing two subsidiary questions: How much can people do to achieve a good will? and How much can people do to enact a good will, to carry through with the good they want even when their will is weak? Augustine’s conviction that human beings need God’s help for the latter remained constant throughout the Pelagian controversy. Over time, however, he understood the need for God’s electing grace for the former, to meet the preconditions of conversion, in more and more radical terms. This development was not a result of polemical exigency alone but the gradual outworking of decades of struggling with the writings of Paul following Augustine’s initial flash of insight in Ad Simplicianum.

Davenant on the Will of God and the Divine Decrees

2021 ◽  
pp. 147-160
Author(s):  
Michael J. Lynch
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Extended Treatment ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Divine Will ◽  
God's Love ◽  
The Will ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Will Of God

This chapter discusses another important doctrine relative to John Davenant’s hypothetical universalism: the divine will. Observing that the doctrine of God’s will in early modern scholastic theology, including among Reformed theologians, involved a plethora of scholastic distinctions, the chapter shows that Davenant’s theology of the divine will was heavily influenced by these distinctions, which were themselves ways of making sense of apparent contradictory claims in Scripture. Davenant’s employment of these medieval distinctions, such as between God’s love of simple complacency and his absolute will, are given extended treatment. This chapter also gives attention to the difference between a divine conditional and an absolute will. Finally, tying all these distinctions together, this chapter explains how Davenant employs them to buttress his hypothetical universalism.

scholarly journals A Freedom beyond Conflict: The Logic of Internal Conflict and the Free Will in Maximus the Confessor

Scrinium ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-74
Author(s):  
Basil Lourié
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Deontic Logic ◽  
Internal Conflict ◽  
Opposite Case ◽  
Divine Will ◽  
Maximus The Confessor ◽  
The Middle Ages

Summary Maximus’ idea of appropriation of the divine will by deified humans, in any consistent interpretation, would mean their deprivation of their own freedom – exactly in the same manner as it could be in the case of servitude to sin. Maximus’ own logic, however, was paraconsistent when applied to the case of deification (whereas not to the opposite case of the servitude to sin). A recourse to a paraconsistent deontic logic was not a uniquely Maximian tool even in the Middle Ages and could serve as an inspiring example for logicians today.

scholarly journals Ketiadaan Otoritas Terpusat dalam Fenomena Kontemporer di Indonesia

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-215
Author(s):  
Effendi Chairi
Keyword(s):  
Negative Influence ◽  
Legal Authority ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
Actual Fact ◽  
Divine Will ◽  
The Will

This article presents an analysis result on contemporary phenomenon inIndonesia by sociological approach. This states that Ulama or kiai whowere formerly the only religious authorities fused religious purity inpolitical interest. This gives negative influence for religious authorityitself. Substantive divine will is forced to submit to the will of individualor certain group. So Islam which is previously inclusive and moderatmelts to exclusive and discriminative acts. The distance betweenreligious goals to rahmatan lil-’alamin and individual political interesthas been eroded (hyper-reality). Therefore, society has not trusted to thetraditional authority and rational-legal authority. In actual fact,authority construction of Weber is nothing.

Peter Lombard’s on God’s Will: Sententiae, Book I, Distinctions 45-46

2018 ◽  
pp. 136-152
Author(s):  
R. Tkachenko
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Doctrine Of God ◽  
Divine Will ◽  
The Will ◽  
Biblical Texts ◽  
The Given ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theology Proper

The global Peter Lombard research continues, but the Master of the Sentences’ theology proper is still to be analyzed in detail. In particular, a more thorough exposition of the distinctions 45-48 of his Book of Sentences, which deal with the notion of God’s will and its relation to the human free will, has for some while remained a desideratum. The given article partly fills this lacuna and elucidates on the doctrine of the divine will as presented by the Lombard. In particular, it is shown that for him there exist two ways of speaking about God’s will: «simply and absolutely» and «not simply and absolutely» which may be identified with intransitive and transitive use of the verb «to will,» respectively. The will is primarily understood in terms of execution of one’s will (active willing) but its relation to one’s desires and inclinations (wanting) are downplayed or altogether omitted from the Lombardian doctrine of God. The divine will is by definition free and efficient but Lombard highlights that there is place for human free will, too. His explanation of the relationship between the divine and the human wills seems somewhat unconvincing but the unfolding of his theory on the basis of a few biblical texts should be acknowledged a peculiar theological exercise.

Scotus and Ockham

2020 ◽  
pp. 101-108
Author(s):  
Terence Irwin
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Rightness ◽  
Divine Will ◽  
The Will ◽  
Divine Commands ◽  
The Right

Scotus and Ockham reject the Aristotelian outlook, as Aquinas presents it, and develop a voluntarist account of the will and of morality. In their view, determination by practical reason does not ensure free will; a free will must be wholly undetermined by reason. Nor can it be determined by the desire for one’s ultimate good; the impulse towards the right is separate from the impulse towards happiness. If we apply these principles to the freedom of the divine will, we find that God could not be free if the nature of right and wrong were independent of the divine will. We must infer that moral rightness and wrongness are ultimately constituted by divine commands.

Rom, der Tomus Leonis und das 6. Ökumenische Konzil (680/681)

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-354
Author(s):  
Heinz Ohme
Keyword(s):  
Cyril Of Alexandria ◽  
Capacity To Act ◽  
Teaching Text ◽  
The Will ◽  
Ontological Categories ◽  
Ecumenical Council ◽  
Maximus The Confessor

AbstractThis article analyses the dyothelete and dyenergist Christology in the following texts: the Horos and the Logos Prosphonetikos of the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680/681), the epistle of pope Agatho, which became officially authorized as a teaching text, and the letter of the roman synod of the 125 bishops. The results of this analysis are compared with the Christology of the Lateran Council of 649 and the theology of Maximus the Confessor, upon which it is based. The council claims to define things in a way that complements and concludes the results of the council of Chalcedon (451) by designating the will and the capacity to act as properties of the ontological categories of φύσις/οὐσία and thus formulating the doctrine of the double willing and acting of Christ. In fact, the council draws on text of the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon but changes the order of priority of the texts (which were made authoritative in Chalcedon) of Cyril of Alexandria and Pope Leo I. so that the Tomus Leonis, which contains pointed statements that were controversial both during and after Chalcedon, becomes the hermeneutical key to the doctrine of two natures. Both natures become subjects of willing and acting and the meaning of the ὑπόστασις remains underdeveloped in comparison with that of φύσις and πρόσωπον. Thus the council neither comes to terms with the development of Leo’s thought nor with the Christology of the Lateran Councils nor with the Christology of Maximus. In fact, fundamental distinctions in the meaning of θέλημα and ἐνέργεια as well as of φύσις and ὑπόστασις have not been taken into consideration by the council in 681. Instead, the council remains with the initial ontological concepts due to its recourse to an ontologized Tomus Leonis. Additionally, it is worth mentioning that this is the first ecumenical council to establish the primacy of and infallibility of the Roman Pope. The final concern of this article is to ask how this development could come about.

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