It’s a contradiction to you, just because you cannot fathom how it was done, does not mean it’s a contradiction. If you can’t understand it, it’s just one of those things you’re just gonna have to accept on faith, for now at least.
The Catachism actually answers this very question. Jesus is fully human and fully divine. Jesus as a human knows things as humans do in his space and time. His divine person knows all things and informs the human nature of certain things such as the hearts of the people he speaks with in the Gospels. Now the issue of what Jesus humanity does not know I can only guess is implied is the date of his return. That is not to say his divine nature is unaware. Also Jesus mentions time and again that in his felial relationship with the father that he only does what he sees the father doing. To imply that Jesus humanity was swallowed up in divinity was a problem in the early church. To be fully human meant that he has fully human Characteristics. So he does. His divinity is not lessened by his humanity.
In the Bible, Jesus is called the “Son of God” (divine nature) and “Son of Man” (refers to His human nature). I think that when He says that He is refering to Himself in His humanness, not His divine Person. Which, by the way, is the same as God the Father!
#4 and #5–Where did you get these? Please show Scripture that supports this statement.
In responding to your post I used these definitions:
paradox
I believe that what you see as a contradiction is seen that way because you do not have a sufficient understanding of the Incarnation.
So I should accept everything the Church says? This makes me think, you guys claim we don’t need logic, that logic can’t comprehend how God works, it’s simply a matter of faith. I would ask you this. If you were talking with a Protestant, say, a Baptist, and you pointed out, “hey, the Baptist church can’t be the true Church, it was started X number of years after Jesus”, and he said, “well, we can’t understand how God made the Baptist church the true church, but he’s God, and he can do anything, and so it seems contradictory, but it’s really just paradoxical, and you need to accept that the Baptist church is true simply on faith, because we can’t understand how God did it”, wouldn’t that frustrate you endlessly? How would you respond to this person?
I got #4 from Matthew 24:36. #5 was a conclusion I drew from the other points.
But we can understand how God made the Catholic Church because He revealed that to us through the the Scriptures. We don’t have to just accept that the Catholic Church is the true Church on faith because it’s all right there for us. Your statement about the Baptist church doesn’t amount to much considering the creation of the one true Church is laid out so clearly in Scripture (Matt 16:16-19).
Your definitions:
Yes.
No. It doesn’t. The Son is both human and divine. He has both human knowledge-- which is finite-- and divine knowledge-- which is not.
Your conclusion does not follow from your premise.
When it comes to matters of faith and morals I trust the teachings of Christ’s Church.
The Church teaches #1, everything after that is either seriously flawed or flat wrong. You can’t get down the list to your contradiction because your list starts with a host of false assumptions.
All right, how about this. You are talking with someone and tell them they need their sins forgiven through Jesus in order to go to heaven. They reply that their religion says their sins are forgiven anyways, that God just lets people off the hook. You reply that God, being perfectly just, needs a sacrifice,(Jesus’ sacrifice) in order to forgive sins. They reply that even though it doesn’t make sense, God just lets people off the hook anyway, and even though it contradicts his just nature, it isn’t really contradictory, it’s just paradoxical, and it needs to be accepted on faith. Same question, how would you respond?
The Church makes no such claim. Faith and reason are not contradictory. However, reason can take us only so far when it comes to the Divine. Since the Divine is infinite, there are things we can know only via Divine Revelation. The Trinity, for example.
Why?
Because Jesus said:
Jesus established a visible Church and he promised:
Therefore the teachings of the Church are true and worthy of acceptance.
Yes I heard about them. I believe the Church’s final ruling was that it’s a mystery, it can’t be understood? Well that’s great, except that if every member of non-christian religions followed that rule, they would have stayed their same religion out of faith and not converted to Christianity, and Christianity would have died out within 100 years.
And why do you trust what Jesus said?
He is God.