Three omnipotent persons—three competing wills?

1. The imagined power struggle already presupposes three separate powers

The objection treats Father and Son like two rulers with their own spheres of power. The question of who prevails in a conflict then indeed arises. But Trinitarian doctrine does not begin with three such beings who subsequently make peace. It confesses the one undivided divine power and one divine will.^[1]

No person is thereby denied power. The Father does not possess a third of what the Son also possesses. Each person is wholly God; none possesses a deity separable from the others.

Nor does an abstract nature act in place of the persons. Father, Son and Spirit act through the one divine knowledge and power of will. “Person” designates the agent, “nature” that through which he can act in this manner. Among humans, human nature is multiplied in each; they therefore have different volitional faculties. This creaturely multiplication must not already be built into the definition of a divine person. Nor is the one divine will a fourth person dictating the others' decisions.

2. John 5 explains inability through perfect action

Jesus says the Son can do nothing of himself except what he sees the Father do. In isolation, this could sound like limited ability. The sentence continues, however: Whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. Giving life, judgment and equal honor are then named.

The statement describes no restricted imitation. It excludes autonomous separation and connects this with a comprehensive claim. The Son does not act against the Father because his divine activity does not stand outside the shared divine life.

3. Freedom is not the ability to abolish God's being

According to 2. Timothy 2,13, God cannot deny himself. This is no weakness alongside his faithfulness but an expression of his perfection. Correspondingly, the impossibility of hostility within God is no lack of sovereignty.

Omnipotence does not mean that God could be simultaneously perfectly truthful and untruthful in the same respect. Nor must a divine person be able to combat the one divine goodness to be truly divine. Creaturely arbitrariness is no criterion of uncreated freedom.

Necessary agreement of three presupposed acts of will would not by itself prove that there is only one will. The classical explanation therefore does not first posit three independent wills and then add agreement. It denies multiplication of the divine power of will. A model with three distinct volitional faculties must answer the further question of God's own unity.

4. Gethsemane poses a different question

Jesus' prayer “not my will, but yours” speaks from his real human existence. The Christological distinction between divine and human willing explains why his obedience is not playacting. Thomas expressly addresses these two wills on the basis of Christ's two natures.^[2]

This does not produce three divine centers of will that would have to agree in heaven. The Son enacts human obedience toward the Father without possessing as God another deity or a hostile divine will. Distinguishing these levels preserves both God's unity and incarnation's reality.