How the Saviour loves us: the dyothelite dogma and Saint John of the Cross

Abstract The doctrine of two wills in the Son of God incarnate was stated at the sixth ecumenical council in 680-681, endorsing the Christology of St Maximus the Confessor. Appreciation of the doctrine can be enhanced, this article contends, by bringing to bear on it the mystical testimony of St John of the Cross. The justification for such a move is the shared humanity in Jesus and John, and, further, the transformation in Christ which the human John has experienced. Four texts from the Living Flame show human willing lifted up, licked up in the flame of the Holy Spirit, surrendered entirely to God’s will, and thereby become entirely, humanly, free.