ABSTRACT
The theological controversy that occasioned the Sixth Ecumenical Council was monothelitism, the doctrine that in the Person of Jesus Christ there is only one will. While the advocates of monothelitism denied the implication, it was apparent that such a doctrine bordered on monophysitism and endangered a fully adequate doctrine of the humanity of Jesus Christ. Third Council of Constantinople States: We also proclaim two natural willings or wills in him and two natural operations, without separation, without change, without partition, without confusion, according to the teaching of the holy Fathers. Two natural wills not contrary, God forbid, as the impious heretics have said, but his human will following, and not resisting or opposing, but rather subject to his divine and all-powerful will. For it was proper for the will of the flesh to be moved, yet to be subject to the divine will, according to the all-wise Athanasius.
