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Kalimera Pater Jesus had taught that man's prayers are answered. The Garden of Gethsemane? What effect would this incident have on the faith of his disciples and followers to see that a prayer had not been answered contrary to what Jesus had taught?
Answer to Question 428
I’m not sure if I understood your question correctly, but I take it to mean Christ’s Prayer in the garden of Gethsemane that he prayed to the Father “if possible let this cup pass from me” and it wasn’t. This has to do with Christ being both God and man.
Christ has two natures and therefore it follows that He also has two wills and two operations. In each act of Christ one can see two distinct operations, for Christ acts in conformity to both natures, and by both natures. Each nature acts according to its own properties: the human hand raises the young girl, the divine restores her to life; the human feet walk on the surface of the water, because the divinity has made it firm. “It is not the human nature that raises Lazarus, it is not the divine power which shed tears before the tomb,” said St. John of Damascus. The two wills proper to the two natures are different, but He who wills is one, though He wills in conformity with each of the two natures.
The volition also has one object, because the two wills are united, the human will being freely subject to the divine will. According to St. John of Damascus the divine will permits the human will to will, and to manifest fully what is proper to humanity. It always “prevents” the human will, in such a way that the humanity of Christ wills “divinely” in accord with the divinity which allows it to expand. Thus His body experienced hunger or thirst, His soul loved, grieved [at the death of Lazarus], and was indignant; His human spirit had recourse to prayer, the nourishment of all created spirit. The two natural wills in the person of the God-Man could not enter into conflict.
The prayer of Gethsemane was an expression of horror in face of death, a reaction proper to all human nature, especially to an incorrupt nature which should not submit to death, and for whom death could only be a voluntary rending contrary to nature. When His human will refused to accept death, and His divine will made way for this manifestation of His humility, the Lord in conformity with His human nature, submitted to struggle and fear, and prayed to be spared from death. But since His divine will desired that His human will should accept death, the humanity of Christ voluntarily accepted the Passion.
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