I only know that Jesus knew He was God by the time He started His mission at Cana.
...and probably earlier than that, at the finding in the temple - "Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business" (Lk. 2:49)
If Jesus knew everything about his nature and divinity from an early age, it probably wasn't necessary for God to send a vision at the moment of Jesus' baptism.
My guess (and it's only a guess) is that Jesus knew early on that there was something unique about him, that he possessed knowledge and abilities other boys didn't. But he probably didn't fully understand his true nature until he received that vison after his baptism, and after the weeks of fasting and prayer in the desert that came afterward.
Since none of us is at all close to being God, if there is an answer we wouldn't understand it. Would we? It's like asking: What does it feel like to be God?
It's a perennial question, though. I heard it asked years ago, and it seems as meaningless to me now as it did then.
Here is a summary of Thomistic thought on the subject:
http://www.thesumma.info/saviour...r/
saviour38.php
Enjoy!
I believe that he received full knowledge at his Baptism as astorian says. To what extent he knew before that date I wouldn't guess.
But St. Paul tells us that he put aside His "Godness" to become as one of us. His mother, being a devout Jew, knew the scriptures and would have taught him from his first cognisance - and she would have told him of the special events surrounding his birth. So He would have had some sort of knowledge.
I believe it's very dangerous to claim that Jesus, at any point, had any less human awareness of His divinity than His human nature would permit. As an infant not capable of rational thought, was He humanly aware? Probably not. Did He have to wait until the baptism? I have real problems with that.
While I don't endorse everything he says, Fr. Most's The Consciousness of Christ presents a strong case that the Ordinary Magisterium of the Church argues for a constant awareness.
There is an article in the EWTN library that I have bookmarked entitled "The Double Consciousness of Christ" by Fr. Bertrand de Margerie, S.J. It was published in Faith & Reason, Spring 1987. The URL is:
.
This question is not simple, and the article starts by indicating the question of Christ's consciousness was a hotly disputed question (in 1987 anyway).
I hope this contributes a bit ...
Dale
"I heard it asked years ago, and it seems as meaningless to me now as it did then."
Exactly. It is an utterly profitless question to ask.
The question of Christ's awareness of His divinity was prominently featured in the teaching materials for a teen catechism class I once taught. I thought it was ridiculous at the time, and still do. To waste our time in such a purely speculative and irrelevant question when there was real meat to get into was a crying shame. It also was confusing, where catechesis ought to clarify.
It made me wonder (along with the rest of the materials - from Tabor) if the purpose of the text was to create questions rather than answer them. To breed doubt, in other words.
How could anyone be God without noticing it? The issue would be the degree of clarity of Christ's understanding that he was divine. Pius XII, in Mystici corporis, asserts;
'75. Now the only-begotten Son of God embraced us in His infinite knowledge and undying love even before the world began. And that He might give a visible and exceedingly beautiful expression to this love, He assumed our nature in hypostatic union: hence - as Maximus of Turin with a certain unaffected simplicity remarks - "in Christ our own flesh loves us."[156] But the knowledge and love of our Divine Redeemer, of which we were the object from the first moment of His Incarnation, exceed all that the human intellect can hope to grasp. For hardly was He conceived in the womb of the Mother of God, when He began to enjoy the Beatific Vision, and in that vision all the members of His Mystical Body were continually and unceasingly present to Him, and He embraced them with His redeeming love.'
If Christ enjoyed the Beatific Vision shortly after his conception, it would be hard to see how he could fail to notice, in that vision, the central fact of redemption, which is his own divinity. I think this is one of the issues that has never been the object of a solemn magisterial teaching because the answer to it has been so obvious.
Well, this is indeed a doozy of a theolgical question, namely the knowledge of Christ.
First, we have to remember that Our Lord Jesus Christ has both a human and a divine nature in the one divine person of the Eternal Son of God. Since both natures are complete, then the Lord had both a human and divine intellect.
In his divinity, Our Lord of course was aware at all times of his nature, person, mission - everything that we know God knows - which of course is beyond us in every respect.
In his humanity, the question arises, 'what does it mean to know something'. Does a fetus in the womb of his or her mother, for example, know itself to be loved? Does a child of two years old know itself to be a person, a child, connected in some beautiful way to a man and a woman called 'mommy and daddy'?
I would maintain that Jesus, in his human mind, knew himself as Himself, God and man, but in the manner and mode proper to his human nature at each phase of his development. A matter surely beyond our understanding, but a fit subject for meditation and prayer.
And, since this is my first post on this blog, may I say, Mark, that I have been a long-time reader and admirer of your writings, and my prayers and best wishes are with you in all your endeavors. God bless you!
The purpose of the proclamation of Christ's divinity at the Baptism in the Jordan was to teach others, not to teach Christ. Even qua man, Christ always knew He was God by virtue of the beatific vision which He possessed from the first moment of His coneption.
Of course, given that the beatific vision which Christ's human soul sees is finite, it is possible that, even now, there are some things He does not know qua man. Nevertheless, one must keep in mind the principle of predication. Whatever is true of Christ in one of His natures is true of His person. If Christ, in His divinity, knows everything, then Christ the person knows everything. Christ the man knows everything; He simply does not know them as man. He may grow in his experiential knowledge, knowledge which He possesses as man, by a human mode of knowledge, but that does not change the fact that the man Christ Jesus, from the first moment of His conception, knows all things by a divine mode of knowledge.
I would be more worried about the suggestion of "adoptionism." That is what I have encountered in homilies in the past.
Guardini has a marvelous discussion of Christ and psychology - His knowledge and how and in what way it was subject to development. He is not a fan of the "baptism theory" espoused earlier in this thread. According to RG, the text says God declared, but it didn't mention any change, subjective or otherwise in Christ.
THE HUMANITY OF CHRIST - Contributions to a Psychology of Jesus, by Romano Guardini. It is available on the EWTN website.
The most recent magisterial pronouncement on the human consciousness of Christ seems to be last November's 'Notification' of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the works of Fr Jon Sobrino.
http://www.vatican.va/
roman_curi...sobrino_en.html
In section 5, 'The Self-consciousness of Jesus', it states:
"The Gospel of John speaks of Jesus’ 'vision' of the Father: 'Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father' (Jn 6:46; cf. also Jn 1:18 ). This unique and singular intimacy between Jesus and the Father is equally evident in the Synoptic Gospels (cf. Mt 11:25-27; Lk 10:21-22).
"The filial and messianic consciousness of Jesus is the direct consequence of his ontology as Son of God made man. If Jesus were a believer like ourselves, albeit in an exemplary manner, he would not be able to be the true Revealer showing us the face of the Father...
"Jesus, the Incarnate Son of God, enjoys an intimate and immediate knowledge of his Father, a 'vision' that certainly goes beyond the vision of faith. The hypostatic union and Jesus’ mission of revelation and redemption require the vision of the Father and the knowledge of his plan of salvation. This is what is indicated in the Gospel texts cited above.
"Various recent magisterial texts have expressed this doctrine: 'But the knowledge and love of our Divine Redeemer, of which we were the object from the first moment of His Incarnation, exceed all that the human intellect can hope to grasp. For hardly was He conceived in the womb of the Mother of God when He began to enjoy the Beatific Vision'. (Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, 75)
"Though in somewhat different terminology, Pope John Paul II insists on this vision of the Father: 'His [Jesus’] eyes remain fixed on the Father. Precisely because of the knowledge and experience of the Father which he alone has, even at this moment of darkness he sees clearly the gravity of sin and suffers because of it. He alone, who sees the Father and rejoices fully in him, can understand completely what it means to resist the Father's love by sin'. (Novo Millennio Ineunte, 26)
"Likewise, the Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks of the immediate knowledge which Jesus has of the Father: 'Such is first of all the case with the intimate and immediate knowledge that the Son of God made man has of his Father'. (473) 'By its union to the divine wisdom in the person of the Word incarnate, Christ enjoyed in his human knowledge the fullness of understanding of the eternal plans he had come to reveal'. (474)
"...it is precisely the intimacy and the direct and immediate knowledge which he has of the Father that allows Jesus to reveal to men the mystery of divine love. Only in this way can Jesus bring us into divine love."
Since none of us is at all close to being God, if there is an answer we wouldn't understand it. Would we?
That depends on the answer, doesn't it?
Take Fr. Lemieux's answer:
I would maintain that Jesus, in his human mind, knew himself as Himself, God and man, but in the manner and mode proper to his human nature at each phase of his development.
That's understandable. (I think it's also the correct answer.)
Simple prudence suggests people shouldn't be too quick to dismiss as meaningless those questions the finest Christian theologians have been taking up since the beginning.
The question is not "if," but "when," and most of the authoritative sources cited above do not address this. The ITC (International Theological Commission) took up the question about thirty years ago, and left it largely unsettled. Pius XII believed that the Lord from his conception knew all things, including his divinity, but most serious theologians seem willing to allow that his and earlier such assertions are not necessarily de fidei.
On the other hand, the ITC's formulation -- that the Lord knew everything he needed to know for the sake of his mission -- seems to require that the Lord knew his own mission and identity at least by the time he assumed his public ministry. Not coincidentally, this moment is his baptism, which is also a manifestation of the Lord's divinity and indeed all three Persons of the Trinity.
Ah, but the Trinity was first revealed to Mary at the Annunciation. Do you think she refused to teach her Son who He was?
Two things:
First, Mgr Ronald Knox (before he was Mgr or even Father, in 'Some Loose Stones', which he wrote as an Anglican) pointed out that a boy who behaved as our Lord did at the age of 12 and wasn't conscious of his divinity would, in fact, have been guilty of grave sin in deliberately doing something which would grieve his parents.
Second, if you can get hold of a book by Diana Wynne Jones called 'Dogsbody', it may be helpful. Not theological at all - in fact, fantasy - but it helped me to understand this question emotionally, so to speak - as far as we are able to understand it, which obviously isn't very far.
"the failure of a priest to be a theological vending machine on every abstruse question of theology--and that at the drop of a hat--is not really an indication of something sinister"
This reminds me of the George Carlin skit when he was in Catholic School, and the kids would ask questions like...Could God create a rock so heavey the he himself could not pick it up?
I agree that it is an abstruse question and we can never know the exact time Jesus in his human nature become concious of his divine nature.
However, I think that the revelation at his baptism is no big help here as it was not necessarily only direct at Jesus but also at those standing by.
Neither should Jesus "only the Father knows" be used, as the Son is not only Jesus' human nature but encompasses both natures. So even though Jesus in his divine nature shares in the divine omniscience, he does not know the date of the end, in both his natures.
PS. Mark, can you confirm to me via mail wether it was you who enquired about Aristion.
Reading on, I agree that "Jesus, in his human mind, knew himself as Himself, God and man, but in the manner and mode proper to his human nature at each phase of his development."
Another problematic basis for deductions is young Jesus at the Temple. It has nothing to do with Jesus' divine nature, only with his very special connection to God the Father.
Mary teaching little Jesus that he was God? I seriously doubt it (doesn't make a good education 
), quite apart from the fact that the Trinity was not revealed to Mary in the Annunciation any more than at any time before (at least our accounts don't say such a thing).
The magisterium (Mystici corporis, etc.) has been clear enough that, as God, Jesus was in full possession of the beatific vision at every moment of his life (even, I think Thomas says, from conception!). This means that no knowledge would be absent from his mind. Sure, you can say 'as God, He knew this, but as man, he knew this...' but that doesn't really help us, since we believe that the two intellects in Christ were in complete union at all times. One mind doesn't 'hide information' from the other mind. At the same time, his human intellect was capable of something his divine mind was not: growing in knowledge via discursive reasoning through incoming sense data. The divine mind already knew all things intuitively, but this did not prevent the human mind from 'learning' the same things in a different way. Jesus could learn things he already knew.
We do things that are similar, albeit in a different order: for example, one might read 100 books about fly fishing, and then sit down and go fly fishing - one would be, in a sense, learning how to do something one already knew how to do. We're dealing with two levels of knowledge. Not the same as Jesus' experience, of course, but it gives you a sense of the type of learning of which he was capable.
One of my students began the second week of intro to theology class by asking 'does God know what chicken tastes like?' It had me stumped for weeks, and involved quite a few arguments with members of the philosophy department.
I don't agree, however, that such questions are abstruse or irrelevant. They involve the very heart of the Christian faith - the humanity of Christ and the genuineness of the Incarnation. I don't think they are necessar for salvation, obviously, but irrelevant they certainly are not. Nor are they unanswerable. The modern denials of Christ's knowledge of his own divinity is based on a rejection of His divine mind, a rejection which has been chastened by the Magisterium more than once in recent decades.
There are many questions regarding the faith where the correct answer is "we don't know" or "beats me," as Mark puts it. Some things are a mystery, and the Church quite properly does not try to answer each and every question that is posed. It is actually very comforting that the Church does not claim to know all things.
When we see God, we can ask Him face-to-face, but until then, the right answer is "we don't know." But it does not seem to me to detract from the divinity of Jesus to suggest that, when He was merely a single cell in Mary's womb at the Incarnation, and when a brain had not yet formed at that stage of physical development, He did not then have the sentience or awareness of His divinity.
When God came down from heaven and became man, the Infinite became small, and in becoming fully man, He necessarily took on the natural limitations of man, while still remaining fully God. Certainly, He was aware at 12-years-old when He taught in the Temple. But before then, the only thing that we can say with any certainty is, we don't know.
Did Christ know he was God? Let's see what the Holy Office responded to this question:
"May the following be safely taught... Nor can the opinion be called certain which has established that the soul of Christ was ignorant of nothing, but from the beginning knew all things in the Word, past, present, and future, or all things that God knows by the knowledge of vision... The Most Eminent and Reverend Cardinals, general Inquisitors in matters of faith and morals, the prayer of the Consultors being held first decreed that the answer must be: In the negative."
There's your answer. Christ knew all things at all times.
To interpret the passage, "Of that day and that hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only." is to not only say Christ was ignorant, but also the Holy Spirit. Is that what our Lord is saying? Of course not. We know this because Pope St. Gregory the Great said so, "The omnipotent Son says He does not know the day which He causes not to be known, not because He himself is ignorant of it, but because He does not permit it to be known at all... The Only-begotten having been incarnate, and made perfect man for us, in His human nature indeed did know the day and the hour of judgment, but nevertheless He did not know this from His human nature. Therefore, that which in (nature) itself He knew, He did not know from that very (nature), because God-made-man knew the day and hour of the judgment through the power of His Godhead." (DZ 24
I side with the Pope in this one.
That should be Denziger 248, sorry about the ridiculous smily face.
Not every Magisterial pronouncement has equal weight. In particular, if a pope or council or curial body declares that a certain teaching "cannot be safely taught", they are clearly not making a dogmatic definition. Indeed, a few theories that were declared "unable to be safely taught" at one point in time later were deemed safe, probable, or even taught by the Magisterium.
This is a complex question, because you need to make careful distinctions. Assuming that Luke's story is historical, Jesus at age 12 clearly knew himself to be the Son of God in a special and unique sense. We cannot conclude from this alone that he knew that he was actually God, consubstantial with his Father. Moreover, although I myself accept the historicity of Luke's story, denial of its historicity would not be heretical in the eyes of the Catholic Church.
Here are some famous works on this question, from a Biblical perspective, by recent and well-revered Catholic scripture scholars:
Jesus: God and Man by Raymond Brown, SS. Brown gives a "liberal" or "nuanced" answer to this question: Jesus was aware that he had a special and unique relationship to God his Father, but probably never considered the idea that he himself was God. A similar perspective can be found in A Christological Catechism by Joseph Fitzmyer, SJ.
Did Jesus Know He Was God? by François Dreyfus, OP. Dreyfus gives a more "conservative" or "traditional" answer: The Gospel of John clearly affirms that Jesus taught that he himself was God, and Christian tradition has always understood this Gospel to be accurate on this point. In two millennia of Christian tradition, only very recently has this been disputed, and thus the Catholic answer must be affirmative.
Personally, I agree with Dreyfus. But if you want to pursue the question, you may wish to read all these books.
Also, the terms "liberal" and "conservative" are too simplistic as labels here.
Brown, for example, while being "liberal" in some ways, absolutely rejects the idea that Jesus learned about his mission or his nature when he was baptized. Brown argues that there is absolutely no suggestion of this in the text. On the contrary, Jesus seems to know exactly what he is doing when he requests baptism from John. It's not like he was just some nice Jewish boy who got baptized, and suddenly he yells out, "Holy moley, I just realized that I am God and I'm gonna preach and be crucified!"
Moreover, you can find a lot of very conservative, traditional Thomists today who say that Thomas' description of Jesus having four forms of knowledge (divine knowledge, beatific knowledge, infused knowledge, and aquired knowledge) is simply implausible. Even the Dominicans at my Dominical school are quite skeptical about this. Still, they agree with Thomas that Jesus as a man had to in some way know things as a man.
So the question of what Jesus knew as an infant becomes particularly difficult.
Personally, I think that the Christmas carol that tells us "The little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes" borders on monophysitism. If Jesus became incarnate as a baby that didn't cry, he didn't have a real human nature. So if he became incarnate as a baby who could do calculus, do we have a similar problem? Catholic theologians have wrestled with that question for centuries. You can't settle it with a single reference to Aquinas or a non-infallible curial document.
the soul of Christ was ignorant of nothing, but from the beginning knew all things in the Word
That Jesus in His soul knew of His divine nature does not necessarily mean that He also knew it in His intellect, so as to confidently take the next step and conclude that "Christ knew all things at all times."
If the baby Jesus did not comprehend His divine nature, indeed, if He did not comprehend anything beyond wonder looking at colors and shapes, joy at Joseph jangling his keys, and wanting food now and then -- as with all babies -- that would not detract from His divinity. Jesus is fully God, but He is also fully human; and to be fully human, to be one with us, is to experience human limitations. Just as Jesus truly experienced fear and anxiety in the Garden, despite His omnipotence and knowledge that nothing could harm Him, so too could He allow Himself to lack comprehension of certain things despite His omniscience.
Similarly, the fact that any regular baby is totally unaware that he is a human does not detract from his humanity.
Hi,
I had a class with a person who I think was confused on the true divinity of Our Lord. We entered into discussion on this subject as the material we were given to read was modern-day theology that tends to downplay Christ's divinity.
The first thing that sprang to mind was the icon "Our Lady of Perpetual Help". It is Eastern Tradition that St. Luke wrote the original of this icon and many others. Icons such as these can give valuable insight into the Apostolic Traditions. Dogmas such as the Assumption were Apostolic. The Apostles were witnesses to it according to Tradition.
Anyway, the importance of the icon, that tradition tells us was written by St. Luke (disciple of St. Paul and writer of the Gospel), in answering this question is this: 1) Icons are meant to be prayed, 2) they are Scripture in pictures, 3) St. Luke would have given testimony to the direct teaching that he received from the Apostles themselves who had more insight to Christ's life than even the Scriptures contain.
The icon shows the Blessed Virgin holding the Child Jesus in Her arms. He is a very young Child in the icon and, as you can see, He is wearing sandals. One of them is falling off.
I'm not expert and I don't want to embellish here, but allow me to give my opinion. If I speak against Tradition please let me know and if I say anything that needs to be corrected, please don't hesitate. Looking at this icon, I believe that He may have just recently begun to walk. He is obviously a small Child and His sandals seem to illustrate that He has run to His Mother's arms in a state of fear. The Tradition that I am aware of regarding this icon is that this is the first time Our Lord was shown the future Passion and Crucifixion by the Archangels Gabriel and Michael (correct me if I have the Archangels wrong). They are holding the items that will be used in His Passion and Crucifixion in their hands. The Mother of God is comforting Him. She is looking at us, but I don't want to be too presumptive about the expression on Her face.
Essentially, I believe that this icon tells us that it was Apostolic Tradition that Jesus, true Man, discovered Who He was and what His mission would be as a young Child, just after learning to walk well enough to run. That is very young. Some children can learn to run in under 18 months.
This icon, like many others that tradition holds as written by St. Luke, also shows us that Our Holy Mother was not ignorant to the two-fold nature of Her Son (His Divinity and Humanity), as many modern-day depictions of Her would have us believe (I'm thinking specifically of "The Nativity" movie). Her role of Mother of God was no accident.
Please let me know if I strayed from Church teaching or if, on the contrary, I was careful with Tradition and my explanation was helpful.
God and Mary be with you,
Joe
Linked!
I don't think we should too easily dismiss even the non-infallible teachings of the Church on this issue, which convergently support Christ's unique human consciousness right from his conception. Not to reject the importance of theological speculation, but non-infallible magisterial teachings are still under the general guidance of the Holy Spirit, and remain a more reliable source than any individual theologian, even if they don't bring us to the absolute certainty of faith.
The 'religious submission of will and intellect' we owe to these non-infallible teachings 'must be understood within the logic of faith and under the impulse of obedience to the faith'. (CDF, 'Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian', 1990, 23) Disagreement with such teachings 'could not be justified if it were based solely on the fact that the validity of the given teaching is not evident or upon the opinion that the opposite opinion would be the more probable'. (ibid., 28 )
Last November's statement from the CDF says that 'the filial and messianic consciousness of Jesus is the direct consequence of his ontology as Son of God made man', and quotes the Catechism telling us that it is because of 'its union to the divine wisdom in the person of the Word incarnate' that 'Christ enjoyed in his human knowledge the fullness of understanding of the eternal plans he had come to reveal'. If this unique human knowledge of Christ is a direct consequence of the ontology of the Incarnation, it follows that this knowledge was itself present from the beginning of the Incarnation.
This reaffirms (against some denials in recent decades) the teaching of Pius XII that Christ in his humanity had the beatific vision from his conception.
Presumably this vision is first and foremost an operation of Jesus' spiritual soul - it might not immediately need to influence the state of Jesus' brain or imagination, or be directly expressible in his human language. I think this helps us understand how the beatific vision is compatible with development in Christ's human knowledge.
Thank you, Father.
I admittedly get caught up in trying to understand "too much". It's very easy to fall into that snare when trying to explain something to a fellow Catholic who will only believe if it they can understand it by their own reasoning. I have often become an "ecumenist" with other Catholics. Doing so sometimes makes me compromise my submission to authority to help them understand something reasonably. Sometimes that may be more hurtful than harmful.
The answer should always be, "I would not believe in the Gospel myself if the authority of the Catholic Church did not influence me to do so", especially for a layman like myself. It's not wise to toss around Sacred things. If someone has made up their mind that they won't believe because it doesn't make sense to them, they'll hardly listen to one of their contemporaries even if the message is within their reasonable limits.
By speaking with her about the icon, I was not so much trying to pinpoint the exact moment that Christ's Human mind began to fathom Who He was and what would be His mission. Rather, I was trying to offer an explanation that would be helpful to crumble her theories that it was not until much later in His Human life that He realized Who He was. She was under the spell of many of the modern-day theologians such as Raymond Brown, Elizabeth Johnson, etc.
I believe that St. Thomas Aquinas also gives a very reasonable explanation for those who feel the need to grasp something that I think is beyond our capability to grasp.
Bottom line, trust the Church. She wasn't put on this earth to lock man's mind and throw away the key. She was put here to give us true freedom of thought safely within the boundaries that hold back the enemies of our souls. Without Her, reason collapses in on itself, causes chaos, and enslaves man to their own infinite fantasy worlds built on vanity, pride, and self-love.
Joe, your interpretation of that icon seems reasonable. It seems (to me) to be within the range of views that the Church has wisely permitted.
Fr. Justin, my comment about non-infallible teachings were directed more towards John's comment (two comments before mine). He quoted a document from the Holy Office which decreed that a certain teaching "cannot be safely taught". This has much, much less magisterial weight than when a pope or a council declares that a certain teaching is true or is false.
More importantly, I think that John's attempt to derive a strong conclusion from a weak statement is dangerous. The statement that "cannot be safely taught" is the assertion that it is not certain that "the soul of Christ was ignorant of nothing". From this, John concluded: "There's your answer. Christ knew all things at all times."
Since your last post was very clear on this point, I am sure you will see the same problem that I do here. The soul of Christ was not ignorant. But what about Christ's conscious mind and brain? When He was a four-celled embryo, he didn't even have any brain cells yet. The connection between an embryo and a human soul is something we don't fully comprehend: how could we hope to comprehend the relationship between an embryo, a human soul, and the Divine Nature?
Some resources:
http://credo.stormloader.com/Doc...rine/
nestor.htm
An Excerpt:
Whereas the 5th century Council of Chalcedon defined that in Christ the divinity and humanity were united in a single Divine Person "without confusion, without change, without division, and without separation," DeCelles has clearly separated (in Nestorian fashion) the humanity of Christ from the divinity. In becoming perfect man, the Eternal Son did not cease to be what He was before: a Divine Person, one of the Holy Trinity. It is to dishonor Christ's Divine Person to allege that He at any time did not know Who He was from the moment of His conception as man in the womb of His Virgin Mother, or [that He] could be ignorant or mistaken about anything pertaining to His mission as Savior of the world.
As to the old canard about the Son of God not knowing the day and hour of the Last Judgement, Pope St. Gregory the Great gave a quite satisfactory explanation of Mark 13:32 long ago, insisting that Christ did know the day and hour of said Judgement, but it was not His mission to reveal it. The appropriate texts from Pope St. Gregory's writings can be found in the works of Fr. De Margerie and Fr. Most which cannot be praised too highly for their scholarly defense of the Church's orthodox doctrine concerning the unity of Christ's Person.
http://forums.catholic.com/showt...read.php?
t=8052
http://www.ewtn.com/faith/teachi...ings/
incaa3.htm
Catechism:
Christ's soul and his human knowledge
471 Apollinarius of Laodicaea asserted that in Christ the divine Word had replaced the soul or spirit. Against this error the Church confessed that the eternal Son also assumed a rational, human soul.100
472 This human soul that the Son of God assumed is endowed with a true human knowledge. As such, this knowledge could not in itself be unlimited: it was exercised in the historical conditions of his existence in space and time. This is why the Son of God could, when he became man, "increase in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man",101 and would even have to inquire for himself about what one in the human condition can learn only from experience.102 This corresponded to the reality of his voluntary emptying of himself, taking "the form of a slave".103
473 But at the same time, this truly human knowledge of God's Son expressed the divine life of his person.104 "The human nature of God's Son, not by itself but by its union with the Word, knew and showed forth in itself everything that pertains to God."105 Such is first of all the case with the intimate and immediate knowledge that the Son of God made man has of his Father.106 The Son in his human knowledge also showed the divine penetration he had into the secret thoughts of human hearts.107
474 By its union to the divine wisdom in the person of the Word incarnate, Christ enjoyed in his human knowledge the fullness of understanding of the eternal plans he had come to reveal.108 What he admitted to not knowing in this area, he elsewhere declared himself not sent to reveal.109
Another interesting paragraph from the Catechism, reflecting both the aspect of the 'increase' in Jesus' human knowledge, as well as the aspect of his permanent 'vision' of the Father, is 2599:
'The Son of God who became Son of the Virgin also learned to pray in his human heart. He learns the formulas of prayer from his mother, who kept in her heart and meditated upon all the "great things" done by the Almighty. He learns to pray in the words and rhythms of the prayer of his people, in the synagogue at Nazareth and the Temple at Jerusalem. But his prayer springs from an otherwise secret source, as he intimates at the age of twelve: "I must be in my Father's house." Here the newness of prayer in the fullness of time begins to be revealed: his filial prayer, which the Father awaits from his children, is finally going to be lived out by the only Son in his humanity, with and for men.'
I suppose there will always remain mystery concerning exactly how the 'increase' in Christ's human knowledge fits in with the complementary aspect of a certain 'fullness' in his human knowledge from the time of his conception.
Joe's idea about the icon of Our Lady of Perpetual Help suggests to me a line of thought in relation to this double aspect. As Jesus was growing, the consciousness he always had (at one level of his humanity) of his divine identity and redemptive mission would at some point permeate his body and soul to the extent required to have a first impact also upon his emotions (which are bodily as well as spiritual realities); one of the natural emotional responses to this anticipation of his Passion would of course be a shock of fear (which we see expressed in the icon).
Methinks Jesus knew he was God when Jesus knew he was.
That would be, at the very latest, at the age of several hours incarnate in the womb, when he quickened the likewise in the womb personhood of John the Baptist (tho' some will argue that was the action of the Holy Spirit working independently). See Luke 1:41-42.
Lawrence King gives a good reference to Francois Dreyfus OP's book, "Did Jesus Know He Was God?" It hits the issue very well.
"Another problematic basis for deductions is young Jesus at the Temple. It has nothing to do with Jesus' divine nature, only with his very special connection to God the Father."
-str1977
I disagree here, and I think Dreyfus's book is helpful in understanding Jesus's knowledge of His divinity. Dreyfus examines the biblical evidence and concludes that Jesus knows His divinity by way of His filial relationship with the Father. What the Second Person of the Trinity is quite literally His relationship to the Father-- it is very fitting that Jesus knows His divinity by knowing His filial relationship to the Father. If this is the case, then it indeed is virtually the same thing to know His Sonship and His divinity. This can also be seen by the CDF document which disciplined Jon Sobrino SJ regarding the Consciousness of Christ, which quotes many documents which have this import. IMO, the CDF document was more than a little influenced by the theology in Dreyfus's train, if not Drefyus himself.
I think that, although Christ "knew all things at all times", that does not in any way imply that the juvenile human Christ was consciously aware of what He knew. In a way, sort of the obverse of my own father who, while descending into Alzheimer's, lost everything he knew, without compromising the integrity of the soul with which he was born. (Part of the difficulty of the entire matter is, of course, the complexity of the issues surroundng the nature and interrelationships of body, mind, memory, consciousness, intellect, spirit, identity, and soul. We barely know who and what we, as fully human creatures, are, much less do we truly comprehend the nature of the Incarnation!)
One of the best modern explanations of this mystery I've read can be found in Roch A. Kereszty's "Jesus Christ: Fundamentals of Christology." Here's a relevant excerpt:
"It seems, however, more consistent with the scriptural data if, instead of explaining Jesus' unique knowledge of God in terms of the beatific vision, we derive it from his human self-awareness. Through his human conciousness, it is the eternal Son who experiences himself in a human way, therefore his human conciouness must also include the awareness of his relationship to the Father since his self as Son is constituted precisely by his being born from the Father. Thus, the self-awareness of the Son includes the awareness of his Father. This reasoning brings to light the unique character of Jesus' knowledge of God: He does not simply know or even see God the Son and God the Father as quasi objects distinct from himself (as the doctrine of the visio beatifica would require) but rather his immediate self-awareness includes his awareness of being the Son of the Father. At the same time, the above hypothesis accounts for the constant growth of Jesus' reflexive knowledge of himself and of the Father, since it does not presuppose a distinct objective vision of God's essence in which Jesus would have had a comprehensive knowledge of God and of his plan of salvation from the beginning of his human existence. Human self-awareness is always immediate, global, and luminous, but in need of clarification and a gradual, conceptual articulation that will result in growing reflexive self-knowledge. In Jesus' case his growing reflexive self-knowledge depends on the Father's constant revealing, guding, and inspiring activity. The Father and Jesus communicate in the Holy Spirit and Jesus reveals only what he hears from his Father in the Spirt. We can better explain in this way why Jesus in his earthly life did not know the date of the end of human history: it was not part of the revelation the Son had received from his Father."
And furthermore:
"The important role Jesus' common human knowledge plays in his mission appears clearly in this context. Neither his self-awareness as Son nor the Father's inspiring and guiding action through the Spirit dispense him from engagin his mind to the fullest as he contemplates in the Scriptures, in the events of his life, and in the reactions of people, the unfolding of his Father's plan and his own role in that plan. Through God's inspiration Jesus discovers and live's God's will from moment to moment, from one day to the next. The Father's inspiration ensures also that Jesus correctly understands himself, his Father, and his own task in the Father's plan, and that he can express these divine realities in human words with infallible certainty...Through his direct awareness of the Father and through the Father's revealing and inspiring activity every phenomenom of the world appears to him as pointing beyond itself: every created reality becomes an image or symbol of God's own life and of his plan for salvation..." hence the earthiness of the parables."
I'm going to say that if John the Baptist as a fetus in his mother's womb could recognize that God was present in Mary's womb and that Elizabeth knew just from hearing the voice of Mary that "the Mother of my Lord" was in her presense, that Jesus knew from the moment of conception who and what He was.
Knew in what way? John the Baptist kicking reflexively in the presence of Christ and John the Baptist pointing to Christ and saying "behold the lamb of God" are two very different acts of signifying.
If Jesus knew everything about his nature and divinity from an early age, it probably wasn't necessary for God to send a vision at the moment of Jesus' baptism.
Someone else has already addressed this by noting that the theophany was probably done for our sakes rather than for Jesus'.
But I'd also add this thought: Since when has God limited himself to doing only what's necessary? I wasn't aware that God operated by some kind of Occam's razor rule. Seems to me he does plenty of wonderful, totally unnecessary things.
Doesn't it depend on what you mean by "know"?
I mean, you can't "know" calculus when you are an infant. Infants don't have abstract reasoning power. If we think of Baby Jesus as sitting there mulling over quadratic equations and the future events of the Chinese empire, we are not understanding His Human Nature.
And sometimes, we "know" something but we have to make an effort to draw it into the forefront of our minds.
"Are you hungry?" "I don't know." "Well, think about it and tell me." "Okay, I guess I AM hungry."
In such a case, you are drawing on information that you "knew" in some deep sense, by consciously pulling it into the forefront of your mind.
And sometimes, you can say, "I don't want to know," meaning that you don't want to put it up on that "screen" and analyze it. But your knowledge may be there in the basic sense, though it is not present to your awareness.
This is the heart of the idea that Jesus had the kind of awareness or knowledge of Who He was proper to His Stage of Development and proper to the context.
When Jesus "fully realized" or was consciously aware in terms of analytical concepts is not so important. But whenver He became so, it would be something that was experienced as, "Yes, I knew that always", not as aquiring knowledge from the outside that He didn't have before in an absolute sense.
Like bringing something into focus.
And this helps to explain the "no one knows the day or the hour" too. In some deep sense, Christ knew. But He didn't know that by drawing it into His conscious awareness, because the Father didn't will it. And whether by express submission or by by interior prompting, Jesus ALWAYS did what the Father willed.
Because of the hypostatic union Jesus knew He was God from the first moment of his existance in the womb. But even though He was in His divine nature the God of Creation, his human nature and body still would have had to learn how shape the trees he cut as a carpenter that his divine nature had created.
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