The fact that Christ “increased in Wisdom and stature” (Luke 2:52) presents a certain conundrum because Christians simultaneously hold that Christ is the omniscient Deity.

Linguistic Analysis

The Greek word used is προέκοπτεν which is the imperfect form of προκόπτω, for which Strong’s meaning is given as “to cut a way (forward),to advance”.  That word is derived from κόπτω, which in turn literally means “to cut (off), to strike”. There are only 6 uses of it in the NT, the one that is most similar in context is St. Paul saying that he was “advancing in Judaism beyond many contemporaries” (Gal.1:14). The verse ends with “and in favor (chariti) with God and man”, much in the same manner in which it is said of Christ.

There are two Forms of Knowledge

Before we can explain this we need to describe the two forms of knowledge. If you’ve never studied theology this will be new to you, but I’ll be brief as possible.

Human knowledge is “discursive”, where we need to move from initial premises and hypotheses in stepwise manner to conclusions and so on, through knowledge gained from experience and from sense data. We live in the physical temporal realm which our minds and bodies are part of, and we learn things over the course of the passage of time, and according to what data our senses bring to our brains from the external world. Our brain then analyses the data, categorizes it in a Kantian spirit for easy storage and access, discards what has not been processed. We might then also actively act upon this data, actively processing it (as we are now), in an attempt to further categorize, add data and draw further conclusions that might have not initially seemed apparent (which we hopefully will have done by the end of this article).

Now in the spiritual realm knowledge is not like all that because there is nor physical sense data, nor are the creatures that live therein temporally bound. The creatures that live there are the angels and they stand there in the presence of God himself. This is called the Beatific Vision, that vision to which we shall all come one Day the Lord willing, the Presence of the Almighty himself which is our ultimate end for which we were created and which the angels have already attained.

In that state we are infused with the “simple” Light of divine Knowledge, in which premises and conclusions are all known simultaneously. This is the Divine Vision which is what it means to be in Heaven. In this state we see God “as he is” (1Jn.3:2). Our created minds which could never withstand the Presence of the fullness of the Glory of God in their present state will be raised up from the dead in a glorified form (as St. Paul also describes 1Cor.15) by God in which we will be able to perceive God himself “as he is”. In this state although truly see God in his entirety yet it is also true that we never fully comprehend him. This is because by definition it is only God who fully comprehends his own Essence, which is what makes him God. However this is why heaven for us is unending joy because no matter what marvels we see of the Beauty of God, there will always be more to come. I have written about the Beatific Vision in Heaven here ().

In fact this is also the manner in which God himself knows, for God does not need to reason from premise to conclusion nor learn experientially; rather he knows all premises and conclusions simultaneously and atemporally. In Heaven us and the angels are given also to have knowledge in the same atemporal and simple eternal manner, though it is limited according to our form and the form of the hierarchy of angelic being.

As St. Paul alludes to these two types of knowledge here:

“…as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.^“ (1 Cor.13:8-12)

King David states: “in your light we see light” (Psalm 36:9)

Two Knowledges in the Soul of Christ

So in the same way that we described two forms of knowledge in the created soul, it is necessary to posit that in Christ, if he is truly Human, which is the central contention of the Christian Faith, that he too possess the same two. However because he is the Divine Person and himself the Divine Vision, his human Soul has the Beatific Vision from the time of its Conception.

Christ would have had an intellective soul to no purpose if He had not understood by it; and this pertains to created knowledge…And hence the Sixth Council [Third Council of Constantinople, Act. 4] condemned the opinion of those who denied that in Christ there are two knowledges or wisdoms. [STIII,Q.9.a.1.co]

So we make a distinction between the Knowledge of the Uncreated God, which is also that of Christ, and the knowledge which pertains specifically to the created human soul of Christ:

“Christ knew all things with the Divine knowledge by an uncreated operation which is the very Essence of God; since God’s understanding is His substance, as the Philosopher proves (Metaph. xii, text. 39). Hence this act could not belong to the human soul of Christ, seeing that it belongs to another nature. Therefore, if there had been no other knowledge in the soul of Christ, it would have known nothing; and thus it would have been assumed to no purpose, since everything is on account of its operation” [STIII,Q.9.a.1,ad.1]

St. Paul states that in Christ “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Colossians 2:3)

So St. Paul is describing here that Christ has this “infused knowledge” which is what we have been talking about wherein, in St. Aquinas’ terminology the “intelligible species” of “all things” is “imprinted by the Word of God (the Divine Person/Nature)”. This is merely describing the form of angelic knowledge that we have been describing already. “Intelligible species” pertains to the intellectual abstraction of the essence of a created thing, “understanding” that essence of a thing, which in this life we might gain only after years of studying it and growing in knowledge ourselves. This is what Aquinas is describing as the “infused knowledge”

“We must admit in the soul of Christ an infused knowledge, inasmuch as the Word of God imprinted upon the soul of Christ, which is personally united to Him, intelligible species of all things to which the possible intellect is in potentiality; even as in the beginning of the creation of things, the Word of God imprinted intelligible species upon the angelic mind (…) so likewise, besides the Divine and uncreated knowledge in Christ (the Divine Essence, the Word of God himself- my addition), there is in His soul a beatific knowledge, whereby He knows the Word, and things in the Word; and an infused or imprinted knowledge, whereby He knows things in their proper nature by intelligible species proportioned to the human mind.” [STIII,Q.9,a.3.co.]

St Thomas explains how both forms of creaturely knowledge (infused or beatific and acquired) co-existed in Christ, and the latter is strengthened by the former:

“he who knows the cause is thereby enabled the better to understand the probable signs from which dialectical syllogisms (the manner of reasoning in the human state which we have been describing- my addition) proceed. So likewise in Christ, together with the beatific knowledge, there still remains infused knowledge, not as a way to beatitude, but as strengthened by beatitude. [STIII,Q.9.a.1,ad.2]

It is written (Hebrews 5:8): “Whereas . . . He was the Son of God, He learned obedience by the things which He suffered,” i.e. “experienced,” says a gloss. Therefore there was in the soul of Christ an empiric knowledge, which is acquired knowledge. [STIII,Q.9,a.4,s.c]

He summarizes:

“As is plain from Article 1, nothing that God planted in our nature was wanting to the human nature assumed by the Word of God. Now it is manifest that God planted in human nature not only a passive, but an active intellect. (the passive intellect is that by which the Soul of Christ has the Beatific Vision, which we too will be given, which the active is the knowledge which is “actively” that is discursively gained by learning- my addition)

…Hence it is necessary to say that in the soul of Christ there was not merely a passive, but also an active intellect. But if in other things God and nature make nothing in vain, as the Philosopher says (De Coel. i, 31; ii, 59), still less in the soul of Christ is there anything in vain. Now what has not its proper operation is useless, as is said in De Coel. ii, 17. (…) And thus it is necessary to say that in Christ there were intelligible species received in the passive intellect by the action of the active intellect—which means that there was acquired knowledge in Him, which some call empiric. And hence, although I wrote differently (Sent. iii, D, xiv, 3; D, xviii, 3), it must be said that in Christ there was acquired knowledge, (…)

But infused knowledge is attributed to the soul, on account of a light infused from on high, and this manner of knowing is proportioned to the angelic nature. But the beatific knowledge, whereby the very Essence of God is seen, is proper and natural to God alone, as was said in the I:12:4. [STIII,Q.9,a.4,co.]

“Does not Know the Divine Essence as the Divine Essence Knows itself”

The Council of Basle (Sess. XXII) condemned the proposition of a certain Augustinus de Roma: “The soul of Christ sees God as clearly and intimately as God perceives Himself”. It is quite clear that, however perfect the human soul of Christ is, it always remains finite and limited; hence its knowledge cannot be unlimited and infinite.) as , going through the stages of human learning presents its difficulties.

The Soul of Christ does not fully comprehend the Divine Essence, since it cannot:

“As is plain from III:2:6, the union of the two natures in the Person of Christ took place in such a way that the properties of both natures remained unconfused, i.e. “the uncreated remained uncreated, and the created remained within the limits of the creature,” as Damascene says (De Fide Orth. iii, 3,4). Now it is impossible for any creature to comprehend the Divine Essence, as was shown in I:12:1,4,7, seeing that the infinite is not comprehended by the finite. And hence it must be said that the soul of Christ nowise comprehends the Divine Essence.” [STIII,Q.10,a.1,co.]

…The whole power of the Godhead was not circumscribed by the human nature. (…) So likewise the soul of Christ sees the whole Essence of God, yet does not comprehend It; since it does not see It totally, i.e. not as perfectly as It is knowable, as was said in I:12:7. [STIII,Q.10,a.1,ad.2]

This does not contradict omniscience, Christ the Divine Person who has a human Nature is still omniscient and nothing in this conflicts with that. Omniscience is not ascribable to a nature in any case nor is it to be asked of a nature, so we do not have a problem here.

Christ Knows in his Soul all things that Pertain to His Humanity

Did Christ know the Hour of Judgement, a hotly contested topic in debating circles and even among Christian theologians, but when understood in the right manner does not present any difficulty. St. Thomas’ premise is that in the Divine Light, Christ knows all things that pertain to himself. His Second Coming is one of those things. I write of this in more detail in another article here Did Jesus “Not Know the Hour?”.

St Aquinas asserts that the “beatified intellect” (the intellect that is in the Presence of God) might not comprehend God fully, since this is impossible, yet it now comprehends itself fully, it has complete “self-knowledge”:

Yet no beatified intellect fails to know in the Word whatever pertains to itself. Now to Christ and to His dignity all things to some extent belong, inasmuch as all things are subject to Him. Moreover, He has been appointed Judge of all by God, “because He is the Son of Man,” as is said John 5:27; and therefore the soul of Christ knows in the Word all things existing in whatever time, and the thoughts of men, of which He is the Judge, so that what is said of Him (John 2:25), “For He knew what was in man,” can be understood not merely of the Divine knowledge, but also of His soul’s knowledge, which it had in the Word.

Where does the Difference in Knowledge lie?

Secondly, “all things” may be taken widely, as extending not merely to such things as are in act at some time, but even to such things as are in potentiality, and never have been nor ever will be reduced to act. Now some of these are in the Divine power alone, and not all of these does the soul of Christ know in the Word. For this would be to comprehend all that God could do, which would be to comprehend the Divine power, and, consequently, the Divine Essence. For every power is known from the knowledge of all it can do. Some, however, are not only in the power of God, but also in the power of the creature; and all of these the soul of Christ knows in the Word; for it comprehends in the Word the essence of every creature, and, consequently, its power and virtue, and all things that are in the power of the creature. [STIII,Q.10,a.2,co.]

and St. Thomas now beautifully expounds on how the knowledge of the Divine Nature is greater than the knowledge that is perceived by the Soul of Christ:

“..Therefore the soul of Christ knows all things that God knows in Himself by the knowledge of vision, but not all that God knows in Himself by knowledge of simple intelligence; and thus in Himself God knows many more things than the soul of Christ. [STIII,Q.10,a.1,ad.2]

The extent of knowledge depends not merely on the number of knowable things, but also on the clearness of the knowledge. Therefore, although the knowledge of the soul of Christ which He has in the Word is equal to the knowledge of vision as regards the number of things known, nevertheless the knowledge of God infinitely exceeds the knowledge of the soul of Christ in clearness of cognition, since the uncreated light of the Divine intellect infinitely exceeds any created light received by the soul of Christ; although, absolutely speaking, the Divine knowledge exceeds the knowledge of the soul of Christ, not only as regards the mode of knowing, but also as regards the number of things known, as was stated above. [STIII,Q.10,a.1,ad.3]

He goes on to seemingly state that the Soul of Christ does know infinite things, albeit in a finite manner, meaning that it does not comprehend everything about them in the manner that God does:

so can infinite things be received by the intellect, not after the manner of infinite, but finitely; and thus what are in themselves infinite are, in the intellect of the knower, finite.

He gives some excellent examples of how things can be finite in one sense and infinite in another:

“There is nothing to hinder a thing from being infinite in one way and finite in another, as when in quantities we imagine a surface infinite in length and finite in breadth. Hence, if there were an infinite number of men, they would have a relative infinity, i.e. in multitude; but, as regards the essence, they would be finite, since the essence of all would be limited to one specific nature. But what is simply infinite in its essence is God, as was said in I:7:2. Now the proper object of the intellect is “what a thing is,” as is said De Anima iii, 26, to which pertains the notion of the species. And thus the soul of Christ, since it has a finite capacity, attains to, but does not comprehend, what is simply infinite in essence, as stated above (Article 1). But the infinite in potentiality which is in creatures can be comprehended by the soul of Christ, since it is compared to that soul according to its essence, in which respect it is not infinite. For even our intellect understands a universal—for example, the nature of a genus or species, which in a manner has infinity, inasmuch as it can be predicated of an infinite number.” [STIII,Q.10,a.3.ad.2]

He goes on to further describe in the next section:

It is written (Isaiah 11:2) that “the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, of knowledge and counsel shall fill Him (…) cf. Sirach 15:5,” under which are included all that may be known; for the knowledge of all Divine things belongs to wisdom, the knowledge of all immaterial things to understanding, the knowledge of all conclusions to knowledge [scientia, the knowledge of all practical things to counsel. Hence it would seem that by this knowledge Christ had the knowledge of all things. [STIII,Q.11,a.1,s.c]

Christ Knew “all things” also through his acquired knowledge”

St. Thomas similarly asserts that Christ did indeed come to a knowledge of “all things” also by his experiential learning:

” The knowledge of things may be acquired not merely by experiencing the things themselves, but by experiencing other things; since by virtue of the light of the active intellect man can go on to understand effects from causes, and causes from effects, like from like, contrary from contrary. Therefore Christ, though He did not experience all things, came to the knowledge of all things from what He did experience.” [STIII,Q.12,a.1,ad.1]
Further he maintains that this acquired knowledge is yet no equal to his beatific knowledge in which he knows things in the Word:
“By this knowledge the soul of Christ did not know all things simply, but all such as are knowable by the light of man’s active intellect. Hence by this knowledge He did not know the essences of separate substances, nor past, present, or future singulars, which, nevertheless, He knew by infused knowledge, as was said above (Article 11).” [ad.3]

The Second Person of the Trinity lives out a Human History for us

Fr. White emphasizes how it is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity himself who is living out a personal history as a human being. In this sense the human nature of Christ is serving an “instrumental” purpose.

He first describes the Hypostatic Union of the Divine and Human itself:

“The union of God and Man is hypostatic, taking place in the person who is one in being, not two” The word subsists personally as a man in a human nature (…) the human nature of Jesus (his Body and Soul) is an instrument of his person…the Word of God lives out his own personal history as the eternal Son in and through (italicized) his real history among us as a human being…the human nature of the Word is a rational instrument that is “conjoined” hypostatically to the person of the Word and is expressive of that person” (TIL 112)

He makes an observation that grace, the gifts of faith, hope and charity are properties of our personal, rather than themselves being our person.  Were this not the case it would not be possible to say that they were “gift”, for example, rather the human being itself would be grace. Further a human being that lost grace would cease to exist. To avoid these absurdities, it is right to view grace as a “property” of the human person (which is in line with how the Church views sanctifying grace) (TIL, 113) Similarly he observes that the intellectual and moral faculties of a person must be viewed as properties of personal substance (TIL,114)

He observes that the New Testament and Four Gospels:

“when read attentively  indicate by various channels that Christ is the Wisdom of God, the Word and image of the Father, the pre-existent Son, and the truth who is God from all eternity (116)

While at the same time,
“…It is the Second Person of the Trinity who exists as a human being, from conception to natural death, so as to undergo all the stages of human development (biological, sensual, spiritual) that are proper to the human condition…” (TIL, 117)

God can enter Creation without it Suffering Distortion

He then goes on to make this masterful observation of why it is possible that God take human form:

“God is the author of our existence and our very being participates in existence due to the sheer gift of God. Therefore, God can exist as a human being without changing in any way as God… (117) creation is “merely” the expression of the creative goodness of God and therefore has nothing in it that is not received from the outpouring act of the creator. This means, however, that nothing in creation can rival God ontologically by being different from him, alien to him, or by existing alongside him as an extrinsic or complementary principle. Rather, God is present everywhere and in everything… (yet) He () utterly transcends and remains distinct from this creation as its cause. For the same reason, then, God can begin to be present “anew” in a hypostatic way in a created human nature…” (118)

This interaction of God with creature nature can occur without any distortion or destruction of that created nature, simply because there is no inherent conflict between the two. There is therefore no a priori reason why this should be the case when the process of creation is viewed correctly, as an outpouring of the Goodness of God himself and as existing only through participating in the existence of God himself in the first place. This of course, is a Thomistic view of Divine Simplicity which is widely subscribed to in the Christian world. God is Existence itself and nothing could exist did it not in some sense participate, and be given to participate in God himself. This is really the meaning of divine omnipotence:

“It is also precisely because our very being participates in existence, due to the sheer gift of God, that God can exist as a human being without distorting or violating the existence and essential properties of our created human nature… without damage or violence occurring to this human nature, with its inherent limitations but also with its proportional integrity and developmental history…(it) does not serve to enslave or limit the gradual development of his humanity through time, but causes it to flourish in an appropriate and essentially normal human way” (TIL,118)

Christ’s Moral Autonomy

Next he takes on a difficult issue, that the God as Word made flesh must “possess an authentic moral autonomy”. This is necessitated if the humanity of the Word is to be taken as authentic (When we say “the Word” we mean the Second Person of the Holy Trinity of God”. This is also what is denied in the heresy of Monothelitism which denies the presence of two Wills in Jesus,  human and a divine Will.

“Christ is a free human agent who thinks, decides, and obeys God…God the Son must also personally think with a human intellect and make human choices freely in and through his historical existence and life experiences” (119)

He goes on to say that these decisions are “expressive of that person (the Son of God, since they are his decisions- my addition) and are instrumental in making manifest to us in and through time who that person is” (119)

Observe that here it is “God who is making human choices”, through, as we shall see, a human process of decision-making, that is, God who is engaging in an authentic human decision-making process. Fr. White will go on to show how all human decision making is not different in form to this in the sense that when it is perfected in grace and in faith, it acts in accordance to the Word, and strengthened by the Light of the Word which indwells it. First, he describes how the human choices of Christ are “imbued” with the presence of the Divinity “from the start”:

“So his free human actions and decisions bear the mark, so to speak, of the divine life and will that are present within him, in his person and by virtue of his divine nature. His human spontaneity, passion, desire, intention, decision, and free choice are all real, but they are also imbued “from the start” with the presence of the Father and the Spirit, acting with and in him (120)”

Christ Enjoys the Highest Degree of Freedom

This, Fr. White points out, does not delimit Christ’s Freedom on the contrary it is what true Freedom consists in:

“One might object that this characterization would seem to delimit the authentic human freedom of Christ, since his human choicemaking never operates in independence from the will of God, but must always unfold in correspondence to it. Here, however, we should recall a fundamental metaphysical truth: in God freedom is expressive of sovereign goodness. When Christ as man acts freely in accord with the divine will, then, his human will is assimilated to the sovereign goodness that is proper to him by virtue of his deity. Consequently, the horizon of his human freedom is expanded and ennobled, not lessened or restricted. Because he is God, Christ makes human choices that are most excellent and most human. He is not less free than all others, therefore, but is the freest of all, and is the model of authentic moral liberation (120)”

He goes on:

“The human freedom of Christ depends in part upon the sanctifying grace of Christ. As I have noted above, Aquinas thinks that Christ must have possessed the highest degree of sanctifying grace of any human being because of the hypostatic union. The human nature of the Word exists in the closest proximity to the source of all grace (the deity). Consequently, it must fittingly possess the highest intensity of sanctifying grace, overflowing, as it were, from the deity of Christ into his humanity. (120)” (quoting ST III, q. 7, a. 1)

Christ Historical Development

He now for the first time describes how this form of grace produces a “development” in Christ’s human history:

“This plenitude of grace does not inhibit, but rather allows for a more perfect progressive history in which the grace of Christ “deploys” itself in more and more perfect expressions and actions…” (121)

He states that this “moral autonomy (of Christ) is instrumental for our salvation (…) “from his fulness (italicized) we have received, grace upon grace” (Jn.1:16)

He goes on the elaborate upon this historical development of consciousness in Christ. Just as we have already stated that we are not ourselves our Faith, rather we increase in the property of Faith, or our persons increase in the theological virtues of Faith Hope and Charity in the spiritual journey (if its going correctly!), but no one would say “we are faith”, so also analogously, the developmental history of the humanity of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity of God is a property of his Person but not constitutive of his Person. The Second Person of the Holy Trinity of God has a “developing humanity”, this does not take away from the divinity, rather is “additional” to it, the Second Person did not hitherto have a human developing nature at all and yet was the perfect transcendent God:

Christ’s Human History do not constitute the Divine Person

Under the Heading “Historical Development of Consciousness Is Not Constitutive of Hypostatic Relationality, but Is Expressive of It” Fr White writes:

“the human spiritual development of the man Jesus is a property of his person, but it is not constitutive of his subsistent personhood as such. Jesus as man can be rationally conscious, for instance, of the mystery of his Father and of the Holy Spirit. This conscious awareness might develop throughout his childhood, into adulthood, and throughout his adult life until death. Christ in his acts of human consciousness (reflection and moral action) can be relationally turned toward the person of the Father in prayer, obedience, decision, witness, acting, and suffering. But this set of conscious activities as such (by which he is related to the Father and the Holy Spirit) is not the very substance or hypostatic subsistence of his person per se. Rather, it is a property of his person (121)”

“Christ is always the Word made flesh, and his human thoughts and actions accrue to him or cease to accrue to him through the flux of time and history in such a way as to be properties of his person, but not in such a way as to constitute his person. (122)”

Christ. Soul expresses who he is as God, and the Prayer at Gethsemane

Finally Fr. Whyte tells us how this human history of the Word serves to express to us who he is as God:

“when Christ in the garden of Gethsemane asks the Father that the cup of suffering might pass from him (Lk 22:42), he also states “not my will but thy will be done.” This human decision in the heart of Christ to obey the Father does not constitute Jesus as the Son of God. The hypostatic union does not intensify in degree or come more perfectly into being as the result of a more perfect conformity of Christ’s human will to the divine will. Rather, because Christ is “already” the eternal Son of God, he chooses as man to do freely what the Father wills, and what he also wills with the Father as God. Christ as man possesses a natural, adverse inclination of the will away from suffering and death, but he can surmount this inclination by the “rational will” of human free decision, not unlike a soldier accepting and choosing to enter into battle, despite the fear of death. In doing so, Christ is manifesting his Sonship: that he from all eternity has all he has from the Father, and that from all eternity he wills with the Father to redeem the human race.”

Summarizing- Resolution of the Paradox

The main challenge to the presence of the two forms of knowledge in Christ pertain to the question of identity. Knowledge is ascribed to a person, not to a nature, just like moral responsibility. As a result, if we try to state for example that Jesus “did not know the Hour in his human Nature”, we still require to answer the question “Who did not know the Hour?” “The Human Nature” is not a “who”.

So if we were to reply “the Divine Person did not know the Hour” it would mean that the Divinity is not omniscient, which is absurd. If we reply “the Human Person did not know the Hour”, then we must admit of two Persons in Christ, which is heresy. Rather, as I describe in the article, how we must hold that the Divine Person speaking in the verse did know the Hour, and that there is no question of a Human Person Did Jesus “Not Know the Hour?”

Let us summarize how we resolve the problem of identity in the matters of the Knowledge of Christ:

Knowledge of the Entirety of the Divine Essence

Q: “who is ignorant of the entirety of the Divine Essence?”

A: “No one. The entirety of the Divine Essence is known to the Divine Person”.

It does not matter that the entirety of the Divine Essence is not comprehended in the Soul of Christ. It does not need to be. There is no sense in which the Divine Person who is Christ is not omniscient. If Christ is asked a question that can only de comprehended in the Divine Nature, for example, there is no reason why he cannot answer it. There is no mysterious veil, except that there are things that he would not consider appropriate to reveal. For example he does not reveal the Hour, or the who will sit on the right and left hand of his Throne in Heaven. Beyond there are question that a human being cannot even conceive, leave alone ask.

We repeat what we said, that This does not contradict omniscience, Christ the Divine Person who has a human Nature is still omniscient and nothing in this conflicts with that. Omniscience is not ascribable to a nature in any case nor is it to be asked of a nature, so we do not have a problem here.

Christ’s Knowledge of the Hour

Q: “Who did not know the hour?”

A: “No one. The Divine Person, Christ knew the hour. He merely mean that he was not sent to reveal it.”

Christ “Grew in Wisdom and Stature”

Q: “Who did not have the fullness of wisdom?”

A: “No one. The Divine Person, Christ has all the fullness and plenitude of the Divine Knowledge.

as we have been describing, Christ’s human Soul knows “all things” in the infused Light of the Word even when it cannot in its Nature comprehend the Divine Essence as the Divine Essence fully. This does not matter personally since the He is the Divine Person himself who does comprehend that Essence.

However in his Humanity, Christ also learnt things in a discursive manner, as we also described. As Christ’s human Body grew in years, he became physically capable of performing more things, we could perhaps infer that his “muscle memory” and he became physically more proficient at certain skills even though they were in his Intellect. This is to state that he was growing in “Stature”. This was a new manner of learning, and a manner of “growing” in this sense.

The Soul of Christ has all this infused knowledge in the Word, but he now had also a “ground level/hands-on” experience of the same things that he did not have before in his Human Body. This does not mean that he learned tasks that he could not previously perform, rather these are merely tasks that he perhaps could not have got his human Body to perform. There is not contradiction there, since the whole point of being born as a human is to undergo all the processes that are involved in being human.

However did he at anytime wish to perform a task that his human Body had not “learned” we have no reason to presume that this would mean he was literally incapable of it. This is probably the point which makes the argument here (and the argument is admittedly difficult, Aquinas himself admits as we recounted that he changed his position on it).

For example, if someone (like Herod’s soldiers) were to attack Jesus as a toddler/baby, I think being a Divine Person, he could have held Herod’s entire army at bay while no more than lifting a baby finger, theoretically. Plus as fully Divine Person he would have known everything about Herod’s plans, positions of his troops and so on and so forth. Jesus was “fully God and fully Man” from his conception. There is a sense in the Gospels in which Jesus arranges certain things so that events do not transpire before their “appointed time” or until his “hour has come”. Thus even as a seemingly defenseless human being, he simply “passes through the crowd” that is bent upon lynching him, while at the time of the Passion he does not, because it is indeed his Hour.

Again when the pharisees arrive to warn Jesus in Luke 13 that Herod is out to kill him and to get away, his reply implies that he knows they will not succeed and that he will carry on until the Third Day. He is in full control of the situation until the time that he relinquishes control. Again in the Gospel of John three times the soldiers fall to the ground when Jesus simply pronounces who he is. He has not relinquished control. Again in John 7:30 and 8:20 we are told that although Jesus is in the Temple itself, no one could arrest him “because his time had not yet come”.

So to state that Jesus “grew in wisdom and stature” is not to say that he was ignorant of things in the Word. Further the true wisdom of Christ only came to the fore as with his age his speech became clear and in this sense it would seem outwardly that he was “growing” in Wisdom inasmuch as a child is seen to be speaking things of greater depth. In any case by the age of accountability or even before, Christ seems to have been displaying the fullest clarity of knowledge already.

I would state that in the sense that Jesus now touched and felt things and in a sense “put into practice” what he knew, in this sense he gained experience that he did not before have, even though nothing was truly unknown to him, nor was there anything that he could not do. He just would not have been able to get his human musculature to do it. For example were the Baby Jesus to lift one of the family cows into the air, it would not be because the Divine Person had caused the strength in the arms of the Baby to increase. It would be because the Divine Person could cause it to lift irrespective of whether the Baby’s arms were strong or not. That does not mean that Baby Jesus could not lift that cow, when he just did (in my thought experiment lol).

So the Church would hold that Jesus was omniscient from the time of his conception. This does not mean that Jesus held all that knowledge in his human soul (or his embryonic brain/nerve cells). What is essential is that The Person, who is God and the Second Person of the Holy Trinity of God knows all things. So when Jesus “grew in wisdom”, perhaps all it means is that his human mind increased in capacity to adulthood. But even his immature human mind could access the Divine Wisdom, or rather the Divine Wisdom is at every moment the Wisdom of Christ. For example, if someone (like Herod’s soldiers) was to attack Jesus as a toddler, I think being a Divine Person, he could have held Herod’s entire army at bay. Theoretically. Plus as fully Divine Person he would have known everything about Herod’s plans, positions of his troops and so on and so forth.

Finally, this and this alone is the meaning of the second line in the Immanuel prophecy:

“By the time He knows enough to reject evil and choose good, He will be eating curds and honey.” (Isaiah 7:15)

This is an obscure verse, but no human child consciously “knows enough to reject evil and choose good”. This does not merely pertain to the baby not performing evil act, for no baby performs evil acts although children can perform acts that were they adults performing the same act would be seen as evil, like throwing their toys out of a window.

But here this is a prophecy of a child who can know what is good and evil in the world and consciously choose or reject it as such. It is therefore a prophecy, obscure as it is, of omniscience. The fact that it begins with “by the time the child knows enough” does not necessarily change this if we view that aspect as a linguistic inclusion. If we merely substitute “by” for “at” and simplifying slightly, we have “at the time he is eating curds and honey, he knows enough…” that does not mean that he did not know prior to that, the verse is silent of what the state of the child’s knowledge was prior to that point.

Christ’s Virgin Birth

Q: Who was born of the Virgin Mary?

A: The Divine Person

Christ’s Prayer at Gethsemane

Q: “Did Christ not wish to suffer?”

A: This has been addressed already under the heading of that name. Christ experiences and expresses the natural human aversion to suffering, and freely accepts it in accordance to the Father’s Will, in the same sentence of his prayer.

Book References

STIII- Summa Theologiae, Tertia Pars, St. Thomas Aquinas, translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province

TIL- The Incarnate Lord- A Thomistic Study in Christology, Thomas Joseph White, OP, The Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C, 2015