John Gill's Reformed Dyothelitism

Abstract

Despite being rejected as a heretical position at the Third Council of Constantinople (680-81), monothelitism--the belief that the incarnate Christ possesses only one will--has experienced something of a revival in recent decades. This article examines the defense of dyothelitism, or two-wills Christology, provided by one particular Reformed theologian: the seventeenth century Particular Baptist preacher John Gill (1697-1771). As such, this article is an exercise in retrieval theology, pressing the theological reflections of the past into the service of contemporary dogmatics. In narrower terms, this article seeks a retrieval of Reformed dyothelitism, utilizing Gill as one important example of how the two-wills view was refracted through the prism of Reformed Christology and its covenantal categories.