How do you refute someone who asks, "How are there not two wills if Christ said, 'not your will but mine'?"

By CopticBot.ai (Coptic Space Inc.) · Last reviewed 2026-10-10

When refuting the claim that Gethsemane (Matthew 26:39: "Not as I will, but as You will") proves two separate wills in Christ, you must apply the Miaphysite (Coptic Orthodox) understanding of the One Will of the Incarnate Word.

The opponent’s argument usually follows the Dyophysite (Chalcedonian) logic: "If there are two natures, there must be two wills; Jesus’ human will shrank from death while His divine will desired it."

1. The Unity of the "Subject" (The "Who")

The most important question to ask is: Who is praying in Gethsemane?

• Is it a human nature talking to God? No. A "nature" does not talk. A Person (Hypostasis) talks.
• The Person praying is the Word of God Incarnate. If you say there are two wills acting independently or in conflict, you have divided the single Person of Christ into two separate actors, which is the heresy of Nestorianism.
• In Coptic theology, the Will belongs to the Person/Nature acting. Since there is One Nature of God the Word Incarnate, there is One Composite Will.

2. The Prayer Was "Economical," Not "Conflictual"

St. Cyril of Alexandria and the Alexandrian Fathers explain that Jesus’ words in Gethsemane were part of the Divine Economy (the plan of salvation).

• To Prove His Humanity: If Jesus had marched to the Cross without any sign of human dread, heretics (like the Docetists) would have argued that He wasn't truly human or that He didn't really suffer.
• The Refutation: He allowed His human nature to experience its natural, blameless properties (the fear of death) specifically to demonstrate that He had truly assumed our nature. However, this "shrinking" was immediately swallowed up by His single, divine-human purpose. It was not a "separate will" fighting against God; it was the One Christ manifesting the reality of His human flesh.

3. Will vs. Desire (The Natural Property)

You must distinguish between a natural property of the flesh and a separately acting will.

• It is a natural property of human flesh to desire food when hungry and to fear death when facing it.
• The Refutation: Christ assumed these properties "without sin." When He says "not My will," He is referring to the natural, blameless inclination of the flesh to avoid destruction. However, this inclination was never a "willed" opposition to the Father. He immediately united that human inclination to His divine purpose. Thus, there is one "movement" of the will.

4. The Absurdity of Two Wills

If an opponent insists on two separate wills (Dyothelitism), they create a psychological catastrophe in Christ:

• If the Human Will says "No" and the Divine Will says "Yes," there is a moment when Christ is internally divided.
• The Refutation: Can God be in disagreement with Himself? If the Human Will is truly "other" than the Divine Will, then Christ’s humanity is not perfectly united to His Divinity. Our faith teaches that Christ’s humanity was completely deified and perfectly moved by the Godhead from the moment of the Union. As St. Cyril says, His flesh moved at the beck and call of the Word.

5. Using the Analogy of the Soul and Body

Ask the opponent: "When you are hungry, your body 'wills' to eat, but your soul 'wills' to fast for a spiritual reason. Does this mean you are two different people with two different wills?"

• No. You are one person with one composite will. The desire of the body and the decision of the mind are united into a single act of the person.
• Similarly, in Christ, any human desire was perfectly and inseparably united to His Divine Will. There is only one willing subject.

6. Scriptural Refutation

In John 6:38, Jesus says: "For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me."

• If "the will of Him who sent Me" is the Divine Will, and Jesus says "not My own," and you claim "My own" is His Human Will, then you are saying Jesus came not to do His human will.
• But in Coptic theology, the "Will" of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit is One. Therefore, Christ’s will as the Incarnate Word is perfectly identical to the Father’s will. There is no "second" will in Christ that has to be "subdued"; there is only the manifestation of the One Divine Will through the human nature He assumed.

Summary Response:

"When Christ said 'not my will,' He was not showing a separate, competing human will, but was demonstrating the reality of His humanity for our sake. Just as He hungered and wept, He allowed His human nature to express the natural fear of death to prove He was truly Man. But because He is One Nature, His human expression and His divine purpose were always one single movement. To say there are two wills is to say there are two Christs, and a house divided against itself cannot stand."