Jesus,Agency,and the Life Led Well

Natural Human Will

Broadly, the Council of Constantinople III focused on whether Jesus had one will (monotheletism) or two wills (dyothelitism). The importance of this debate ultimately cost Maximus, the primary defender of the two wills of Christ, his life. ¹⁷ The reason he was willing to die for his position is that he believed that nothing less than soteriology was at stake—for if Christ did not really assume a human nature with a human will, then how could he be fully human? In other words, Jesus' sinlessness was assumed since he is the Logos, but how Jesus could actually be like us in every way as our empathetic high priest if he had only a divine will, was the main question. ¹⁸

To justify Jesus' full humanity, Maximus made the argument that a will is a property of a nature, not a person. Instead, a person does the willing—which is an action—but the will itself is associated with the nature. Maximus distinguished between the one doing the willing, the property of the will, the manner of willing, and the aim of willing. ¹⁹ In the case of Jesus, he is one divine person with a divine nature and a human nature. Because he has two natures, he has two wills since wills follow natures, not persons. As such, the divine person is the one doing the willing (which is why he cannot sin), but he does the willing according to his human nature (since he is truly human). The mode, or manner, of his natural human willing is deified because the human will is united with the divine will in the hypostatic union. As such, the aim of Jesus' natural human will is always the good—which is ultimately God—and the way he wills is in a deified way. Currently, this is not how human willing works. On this reading of Maximus, gnomic willing ‘refers not to the mechanical process of decision-making per se, but to the fallen character of human willing’, and this is how humans currently will. ²⁰ Gnomically willing is to be unable to choose the good and thus wills unrighteously, but more on this below.

Regarding the natural human will, the overlap of Jesus' human nature with our own is that Jesus also wills according to his nature. In other words, the mechanics of the willing are the same. ²¹ While Jesus has two natures and thus two wills: a natural divine will (uncreated) and a natural human will (created), humans too have a natural human will. For all natural wills, God has oriented natures toward the good of that creature. So, natural human wills are oriented toward the good of the human person but the human person can still will the bad. Once this willing occurred (however that happened in history), humans willed gnomically. ²² In other words, sinfulness is what thwarts the nature from being oriented toward its naturally good end. Thus, in Christianity's theological history, the natural will of the man and the woman in Edenic paradise was naturally oriented toward the good. Yet they could still sin (posse peccare posse non peccare). Their wills were not yet deified, as a deified will cannot sin. Such deification of the natural human will is a future eschatological reality, though not because humans become divine persons but because God transforms the mode of human willing from unrighteously willing to always righteously willing. ²³ Such transformation will be possible through the union of God with humankind that will no longer be tainted by sin.

Jesus models the kind of human willing possible in the eschaton—deified willing. And yet, Jesus also makes possible a return to willing out of our natural wills due to the giving of the Holy Spirit in the here and now. As we will see below, gnomic willing is what is being addressed by the Spirit to return us to freely willing the good. Consequently, what we see in Christ is the hope of how humans may one day be while also providing a taste of that freedom in the present by restoring the natural human will.

According to Maximus, the natural human will moves toward being. Death is a form of non-being and is thus naturally avoided. Beeley proposes that it would have been natural for Jesus to want to preserve his own life. ²⁴ However, when faced with impending death, Jesus wills righteously (his mode of willing) not because he must but because of who he is. ²⁵ He wilfully agreed to be the one incarnate (according to the divine will) and then wilfully submits himself unto death (according to the human and divine will). Thus, his natural human will is in alignment with his divine will but not overridden by the divine will.

Ian McFarland largely agrees with Beeley's assessment of Maximus. Jesus is truly obedient, not as a puppet but as an actual agent. As part of Jesus' natural human will, he wills obediently since ‘[o]bedience cannot be ascribed to the divine nature. Therefore, in so far as Christ willed to be obedient, he must have done so according to his human nature’. ²⁶ In other words, given the consubstantiality of the Trinity, divine obedience of one person to another is nonsensical. Such obedience must take place through the natural human willing. This natural willing is:

properly conceived as the natural form but not the source of human action. This basic principle is true whether or not the will is deified. Just as the fallen person claims rightly their actions (whether eating, fornicating, or praying) as their own, so the glorified person will rightly claim their actions (for example, loving God) as their own: in both cases, ‘I willingly did x’, will be the correct form by which an individual describes their actions. The mode by which this willing action is accomplished, however, differs radically before and after deification. ²⁷

Beeley and McFarland agree that Jesus has a natural human will and that this will is also held in common with common human nature. Finally, since it wills the good and is not divided against itself, this natural will is oriented toward flourishing because it is oriented toward God.

The Gnomic Will

For sinful human beings, the manner in which humans will is distinct such that the ‘quality of our willing, including its righteousness or sinfulness—does not belong to the willing subject by nature alone, but to the particular way in which each individual makes use of her or his natural faculty of willing’. ³⁰ Thus, the mode of willing that is not held in common with Jesus, on both McFarland and Beeley's understanding of (at least, late) Maximus, is gnomic willing. While gnomic willing is not itself sinful, it is a mode of willing that is ‘the deliberative inclining of the will … the sort that is beset by ignorance and doubt and is “pulled in opposite directions”’. ³¹ Willing gnomically is inclined toward evil. For Beeley, this is a conflicted deliberation due to the influence of sin, ignorance, and the passions. There is a disintegration of the human person as she is divided within herself, choosing against her nature. Thus, ‘all human beings exist under the sway of sin [after the primal sin] and have gnomic, rather than naturally-functioning wills; only the incarnate Lord, whose existence is liberated and divinised by the hypostatic presence of his divine being, is free of the oppressive distortion that Maximus now calls γνώμη [gnōmé]’. ³²

In Beeley's account, the natural will is held in common by all those who share a human nature. Still, the manner of willing for common sinful humanity is characterised by ignorance and doubt and is ‘pulled in opposite directions’. ³³ Such a mode of willing cannot be applied to Christ because Christ is not conflicted. Instead, Christ wills according to his human nature and this natural will is oriented toward the good—such willing is in alignment with his divine will. ³⁴

To try and make sense of this complexity, imagine a remote-controlled car. We might think of the natural will as a perfectly straight receiving antennae on the car, readily able to receive radio waves and relay those so that the car moves in a certain direction. The gnomic will is like an iron coil wrapped around the antennae, inhibiting the car from receiving the radio waves and moving in the right direction. ³⁵ The gnomic will is basically interference that is foreign to the antennae and prevents it from being able to fulfil its true function. ³⁶ While not itself evil, it prevents the natural will from freely choosing the good. Now, imagine further that the straight antennae is magnetic and the iron coil is as well but has the opposite polarity. No matter how much we try to wrap the coil around the straight antennae, it cannot be done. This is like the deified natural will in that choosing to sin is no longer possible. It is still the natural will (the straight antennae) but with an inability to sin (be wrapped in the iron coil). As Beeley concludes his essay, in denying the iron coil (the gnōmé) to Christ, ‘Maximus is making the traditional argument that Christ's human willing possesses a different moral quality from ours, rooted in his holy desire and his constant ability to perceive and choose the good; he is not denying the mechanics of willing as such’. ³⁷ What Christ is restoring is our ability ‘to will naturally, just as he does’. ³⁸ In other words, to receive perfectly the radio waves of the will of the Father and to freely will and act according to those signals.

Such a willing maintains human agency for both Beeley and McFarland as Jesus can authentically say, ‘I willingly did x’, though how he did x is through a deified will. Sinful humans can ‘willingly do x’ whether or not they are willing gnomically (apart from the Spirit's empowerment) or naturally (with the Spirit's empowerment). Eventually, in glory, it seems that humans will be able to will naturally (thereby choosing the good), but in a permanent way, thanks to being glorified by God. Their antennae will become magnetised, so to speak. ³⁹

To illustrate in a more animate way how ‘I willingly did x’ agency is still operative, William Abraham gives an example of a mother who is offered payment to torture her own child. For nearly all mothers, such an offer is completely inconceivable because this does not make any sense in light of who she is in relationship to her child. One would not say that the mother does not have agency in this context, but simply that as an agent, she would never choose to act in this way. ⁴⁰ So, it is inconceivable that Jesus would disobey the Father, not because he lacks agency, but because doing so would be against his human nature as Jesus is convinced that the source of life and goodness is God. ⁴¹ Such an account also makes sense of the deep love Jesus has for the Father and the Father's deep love for the Son.

Turning to common humanity, due to the deification of humanity and the current beginnings of deification through the deposit of the Holy Spirit, one's human nature (which is bound to human personhood for mere humans) is transformed into its ‘original nature and destiny as created by God’. ⁴² As such, ends that once seemed good no longer seem good, and thus multiple options are not actually viable. Instead, something in the source of the human person is changing and therefore, so also is her mode of willing changing. Her natural will is thus more and more freed up to will the good as the conflicting mode of willing is being uncoiled from her natural willing.

Summary

In these two readings of Maximus, humans share in common with Jesus the natural will, which wills the good freely, and these actions are rightly understood as one's own. Sinful humans gnomically will. However, the gnomic will is not a necessary property of human nature, unlike the natural will. The natural will is what ‘constitutes them as free and responsible agents’. ⁴³ Gnōmé is a way or mode of willing that pertains to individual persons with an undeified human nature and is inclined toward evil though it is not evil in itself. ⁴⁴

Beeley and McFarland both agree that Jesus would have agency in the sense of being the source of his actions. He wills according to his natural human will in a way that is in alignment with his divine will and not simply overridden by it. Recall on Beeley's reading, Jesus’ natural human willing is ‘rooted in his holy desire and his constant ability to perceive and choose the good’. ⁴⁵ So, the orthodox guardrails which the rest of this article will assume as necessary are: Jesus is fully human and fully divine and as such has two wills; Jesus is completely sinless; Jesus shares in common our natural human will which is oriented toward the good; Jesus does not share in common our gnomic mode of willing that obscures our being able to will in alignment with our natural human will; and Jesus is the agent of his own actions.

We will now look at the character of this agency through the lens of Self-Determination Theory, and Basic Human Needs Theory, to see if they provide an avenue for discussing Jesus' similarity and dissimilarity to sinful human beings.

Self-Determination Theory and Basic Human Needs Theory

In 1985 Edward Deci and Richard Ryan introduced Self-Determination Theory in their book Self-Determination and Intrinsic Motivation in Human Behaviour. As a meta-theory of human motivation, they focused on proposing and testing innate psychological needs. Since then, those needs have undergone cross-cultural scrutiny for nearly four decades. In 2017, they wrote Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development, and Wellness summarising their work and independent empirical studies testing their views. As a theory of motivation, they look at how we are motivated: why we act the way we do. Consequently, needs are important to this discussion since we are motivated to meet our basic needs and act in ways that seek to satisfy them.

One of the six constituting theories of their meta-theory of SDT is Basic Human Needs Theory (BHNT). This theory identifies three psychological needs that researchers have found consistently across times and contexts. ⁴⁹ For my purposes, I will focus especially on the psychological needs for relatedness and autonomy, although they also identify competence. ⁵⁰ Importantly, these theorists use ‘autonomy’ differently from how this word has been traditionally used in theology. Theologically, autonomy has been defined as ‘the capacity to set one's own laws and administer one's own affairs, and … one's right to do so’. ⁵¹ This evolved into an even more radical independence from others in some later Enlightenment traditions wherein ‘its goal was posited as an absolute self-determination in which every external point of reference is relativised or eliminated’. ⁵² On these understandings of autonomy, the theological assessment that ‘The root of Adam and Eve's sin lies in their desire to be “like God,” to assert self-sufficiency and autonomy over dependence on and accountability to God’ is right to cast autonomy in a harsh light. ⁵³

However, this theological understanding of autonomy is distinct from what we see in BHNT. There, autonomy is not a radical independence from others but is crucially conditioned by relatedness. BHNT scholars define relatedness as ‘the experience of warmth, bonding, and care, and is satisfied by connecting to and feeling significant to others’ and autonomy as ‘the experience of volition and willingness. When satisfied, one experiences a sense of integrity as when one's actions, thoughts, and feelings are self-endorsed and authentic’. ⁵⁴ In other words, when I perceive that my actions are my own and that I am choosing to make these choices free from coercion and control, this need is satisfied. So, when BHN theorists use autonomy, this is shorthand for integrated motivations and non-coerced agency. ⁵⁵ When these needs are met, people more fully flourish—meaning they are well-integrated both internally to themselves and externally to their social contexts. ⁵⁶ Consequently, being an integrated self is central to SDT's conception of human flourishing, wherein one's motivations and actions are self-regulated and consistent with one's sense of self. ⁵⁷

There are (at least) two instances wherein SDT could be helpfully supplemented by a theological framework: taking seriously human sin and the impossibility of absolute self-determination. Given the seventh-century debates we have briefly sketched above, we can endorse ‘I willingly did x’ as something human persons need, while also recognising that not all modes of willing are flourishing modes. I can willingly kick a puppy and fully endorse that action but this not be a flourishing mode of willing. Returning to the remote-controlled car analogy above, we can be perfectly integrated with the iron coil but this is not the way we were meant to be integrated. Relatedly, self-determination is not initially generated from the individual. We do not self-determine in a radical sense—perhaps this is better termed self-definition. God is the one who defines what it means to be human and what it means to flourish as a human. ⁵⁸ Within this identity, each particular human being is intended to live into this flourishing life. At the same time, we live into this identity as unique selves who do need autonomy and relatedness.

One semantic difference that does need clarification (since it has theological implications) is between the psycho-spiritual need and the psychological needs of BHNT regarding the distinction between a need and need satisfier. On BHNT, autonomy and relatedness are ‘psychological nutrient[s] that [are] essential for individuals’ adjustment, integrity, and growth’. ⁵⁹ I would agree with Garrett Thomson who would say that fundamental physiological needs continue to persist even as they are sated: ‘I need food even when I am eating’. ⁶⁰ In contrast, Ryan and Deci see hunger and thirst as drives and, as such, are homeostatic. ⁶¹ Consequently, the psychological needs for autonomy and relatedness ‘cannot be sated in the same way as can a drive such as hunger or thirst. People can indeed eat too much, but they cannot have too much autonomy … or too much relatedness in the way we define these terms’. ⁶² This difference seems to be because of a conflation of the need and the need satisfier for Ryan and Deci. However, by keeping these separate, we can talk more clearly about how a human person meets their need—which is active—versus having the need met—which is passive. For instance, the need for autonomy is dispositional. It might be indicated by feelings of disempowerment and helplessness when it is not being met and empowerment and helpfulness when it is being met. However, regardless of the need for autonomy being met or not, it persists. Returning to the nature and person distinction above, the need follows the nature. While an individual can eat too much, the act of eating or over-eating does not undermine the dispositional need for food, and in this way the psycho-spiritual and physiological needs are actually similar. Instead, the act of eating satisfies hunger—the desire to eat—not the need. For Ryan and Deci, given the conflation of the need and need satisfier, this distinction is not clear. However, even with this lack of semantic nuance, Ryan and Deci's main point is that the needs for autonomy and relatedness are persisting and dynamic, and on this point, I agree. ⁶³ We are now ready to turn to Jesus' autonomy and to begin to see his similarities and differences from common humanity.

Autonomy, Relatedness, and Willpower

Returning to Jesus, as the fully flourishing human person, is it possible that he also needed autonomy (i.e., non-coerced agency)? According to Beeley and McFarland's interpretation above, Jesus would be able to say that he ‘willingly did x’. This is all that is required for the need for autonomy to be satisfied. Further, introducing this theory for understanding the way Jesus related to God in his humanness can help us more clearly understand what the life led well looked like for Jesus. In other words, the quality of his second-personal relationship with God provides the optimum description of the divine-human relationship possible on this side of the eschaton. We also see the optimum motivational structure; Jesus' ‘holy desire’ to know and pursue the good. Before engaging with this motivational structure, we need to address how autonomy can exist simultaneously with an external authority.

If Jesus is submitted to the will of the Father, this raises questions about how autonomy, which humans intrinsically need, can be preserved if an external authority is involved. Ryan and Deci explain that autonomy can remain operative under external authority if a person chooses to respect and recognise the legitimacy of the authority figure. ‘For example, one can willingly obey a “doctor's orders” insofar as one agrees with or values those inputs’. ⁶⁴ Thus, autonomy does not mean ‘behaving without constraint’; one can have autonomy within constraints. ⁶⁵ Elaborating on autonomy, Ryan and Deci contrast autonomy and willpower.

Within the framework of SDT, we explicitly recognise that humans have capacities to selectively support some aspects of their natures and to oppose others. Some of these endorsements or inhibitions will be the product of autonomy and others of heteronomy and introjections, suggesting that one should not mistake willpower (overpowering one part of the personality by another) as autonomy. It is working in accordance with one's needs, rather than opposing them, that typically represents the more congruent and autonomous forms of living. ⁶⁶

SDT's further potential fruitfulness for this discussion returns to this theory's assumption of some form of givenness to human nature. ⁶⁷ Humans can act in conformity with that givenness or in opposition to it. At the same time, the source of the givenness, for SDT, is not necessarily God. Yet, even without recognising a divine source of this human nature, when humans function according to their creaturely givenness to will the good there is an internalised form of autonomy. ⁶⁸ According to SDT, the more internalised the autonomy, the more flourishing the person will be. Thus, SDT opens up one way in which our humanness is like Jesus' humanness. However, since SDT is not addressing our gnomic way of willing, there is a limit to how much SDT can explain apart from a theological account.

Returning to the overlap of Jesus' humanness with our own is the observation that autonomy requires working in accordance with one's needs rather than overcoming one's needs (as in willpower). This observation is theologically rich, especially when considering Jesus' human nature. If his needs were being met in a maximally rich way in a sin-conditioned context, we could think of his encounters with temptation alongside this understanding of autonomy. For instance, on the heels of the public announcement of his belovedness by the Father, reflecting outwardly the internal depth of their relatedness, Jesus is then tempted in the desert by the Satan. Interestingly enough, it is here that Jesus retorts to the Satan that a person ‘cannot live on bread alone’. He prioritises the psycho-spiritual need of living on ‘every word that comes from the mouth of God’ over satisfying his hunger (Matt. 4:4). Turning the stones into bread would have contributed to Jesus' life and, as such, would have been consistent with natural willing. However, Jesus knows that he is being tempted to will what is out of line with the divine will. Jesus knew his true source of life and is fully oriented toward it.

Jesus embodies the richest possible second-personal relationship with God while retaining autonomy. Thus, if the optimum expression of human flourishing is Jesus, and if autonomy is a need satisfier even for a perfect human being, then Jesus would have also autonomously related to God. Since becoming who one is meant to be in Christ Jesus is the telos of human existence, humankind is intended to become like him while still being particular selves. This becoming entails a relationship and an alignment of human willing with his willing, but in a way that endorses autonomy instead of undermining it. Further, such an endorsement also recognises where motivational structures may be sin-conditioned and need to be realigned so that autonomy and relatedness can be experienced to a greater degree.

Introjected, Internalised, and Integrated Motivation

Since Jesus has a fully human nature, and since the need to relate to God is a necessary dispositional property of human nature, he has this need. Given his natural human will, which includes ‘I willingly did x’, Jesus could have had the kind of autonomy proposed as a universal psychological need by BHNT theorists. Further, ‘I willingly did x’, for Jesus would be ‘I willingly submit to the will of the Father’. Such a volitional submission is grounded in his relatedness to God (which he dispositionally needs in his humanity and which he dispositionally has/is in his divinity). Consequently, it seems that Jesus is motivated to be obedient to the will of God, which is his own divine will, as well as in alignment with his true human will. When stated like this, the similarities and dissimilarities between Jesus’ human willing and current human willing become more apparent.

In terms of similarities, humans need to relate to God second-personally to flourish. However, such relating can be more and less internalised. For instance, I might relate to God as a mean Father waiting to smite me if I do not pray to him every night. In this case, I might be relating to God second-personally, but I am not doing so in a fully autonomous way. I am fearful, controlled, and ultimately, not internalising the value of praying to God as a good in itself. So, even though I am willingly doing x, my motivations for doing so are not well integrated with my sense of self nor my sense of God. ⁶⁹ We compare this to Jesus, who seems to pray and want to be with God (Matt. 15:43; Luke 2:49). Ultimately, this desire to be with God seems rooted in Jesus' awareness of his belovedness (John 5:20). So, in thinking about motivational theory, we might ask, why did Jesus pray? Because he loved God and was loved by God. ⁷⁰ In the richness of Jesus' being loved by God, he willfully submits to the will of God. Such a willful submission is called intrinsic autonomous motivation, and mere human beings can also be autonomously motivated, though not to the degree that Jesus could.

This brings us to the continuum of motivation that moves from amotivation to extrinsic motivation to intrinsic motivation (Figure 1). There is a progression from being less to more conducive to human flourishing as they move from less to more satisfying of the need for autonomy. Beginning with amotivation, this is impersonal and would not fit with the second-personal need for relating to God. However, within extrinsic motivation is the external regulation of motivation, described in my fearful actions of praying out of fear of judgement. Such a way of engaging is still a second-personal way of relating to God but not a maximally flourishing way to relate to God. Introjected motivation is also extrinsically motivated but less about reward and punishment and instead based upon compulsion and guilt. Identified regulation is where a shift begins to happen within extrinsic motivation as the external values are becoming somewhat internal and consciously valued by the person. The final phase on the extrinsic motivation continuum is integrated regulation, wherein a person internalises the values so much that they are integrated with one's sense of self.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Self-determination continuum.

Finally, the end of the continuum leading to the greatest flourishing in SDT is intrinsic motivation which is intrinsically regulated. In this phase, the person's reasons for acting are motivated by their own interest and enjoyment, and the activity is engaged for its own sake. ⁷¹ The movement from external regulators to internal regulators thus follows a trajectory of less flourishing and integrated internalisation to more flourishing and integrated internalisation.

Given the discussion above, it seems reasonable that Jesus would be on the intrinsically motivated end of the motivation continuum. Recall that a summative biblical account of human flourishing is defined by a whole-hearted orientation toward God. One would think that such an orientation would mean that the person is motivated to be in a second-personal relationship with this God in an ongoing way. As part of that relationship, one's heart would be oriented toward God's values and motivated to act by them. Chiefly, these motivations will be concerned with loving God and loving others, and yet, doing so in a chosen way, even if that choosing is somehow enabled by God's Spirit. According to SDT, flourishing is an integrity, or wholeness, wherein one's motivations and actions are self-regulated and consistent with one's sense of self. Since only God can tell us who the self is, in a de facto way, and has given a natural human will that is oriented toward the actualisation of that selfhood, Jesus then epitomises the truly flourishing human. Jesus is intrinsically motivated even as he does the will of the Father. He receives God's love. He chooses to obey. He is also fully empowered by the Holy Spirit and reliant on that Spirit relating to Godself as the Beloved Son.

However, Jesus is also human par excellence. Jesus is whole-hearted in his orientation toward God and, in light of this, is intrinsically motivated to obey the will of the Father. Such obedience does not undermine his autonomy but is his active exercise of it. Jesus acts in perfect alignment with who he is and his purpose in the world, which is why this is not an exercise in willpower but autonomy as Jesus epitomises aligned internal motivations with the will of his Father. He lacks internal conflict and sinful motivations. He also seems to have a perfect understanding and reception of his belovedness. Consequently, he would seem able to model being the perfectly whole person who can actually love God wholeheartedly (intrinsic internalisation). As such, Jesus reveals what optimum human motivations, willing, and acting look like. Yet this is not cause for despair of an inaccessible ideal, but a realisation of what is possible in the life to come and also what is somewhat possible in the here and now. Through the work of the Spirit, the natural human will, plagued as it is by a conflicted way of willing (gnomically), can still be untwisted in this life and can move towards more internalised modes of motivation. As an example of that movement, one might want to profess faith in Jesus to avoid eternal damnation. This is a quintessential example of external, extrinsic motivation. However, upon actually engaging with God, Scripture, and a healthy faith community, that person may begin to see that there are healthier reasons to be in relationship with God. While introjected internalisation may be the next step in their faith journey (often characterised by rule-following and legalism), moving toward maturity will look like internalising the values of that faith tradition. All that to say, the process may not be linear; still, the idea is that humans can maintain and even strengthen their sense of self as they are motivated ever toward love for God (and neighbour), recognising that Jesus epitomises this motivational ideal. ⁷²

Summary

So far, we have seen that Jesus has a natural human will, even though it does not will in a conflicted way. Instead, Jesus wills in a deified way, which is not conditioned by conflict or ignorance of the good. We have also seen that while Jesus is perfectly related to God, he still relates to God in an autonomous way. This is not an independence from God, but a recognition that he is the subject doing the willing, and this willing is done volitionally. He is the perfect example of the one who wills according to nature while maintaining his agency. His motivations for acting are rightly aligned with his own value and the value he places on who God is (which is bound to his own value). We have seen that we share in common with Jesus a natural human will by way of having a human nature. However, how he wills is different from how we will. We will in conflict with our passions and intellect, whereas Jesus is perfectly integrated between his passions, intellect and willing. ⁷³