Could Our Lord have failed His mission?

[sicutincensum]

A bit of speculative theology: I have been wondering whether Our Lord Jesus Christ could have failed His mission if He, for example, didn’t pray enough as He did, or if He didn’t fast for 40 days, etc.

In short, could some failings of His human will happen so that that the synergy between His human and divine wills be broken?

I’m looking forward to the Church teaching, patristic, commentaries on this issue. Thank you!

 

[ProdglArchitect]

I don’t have any commnetaries or articles on the subject, but logically, yes, he could have.

Jesus was fully man and fully divine. Being that he was fully human, he was prey to all the same temptations and desires as us. Where he outshines us is that his divine nature allowed him to overcome those temptations and remain perfect.

He still had free will. Remember, in the garden, he prayed that the burden be lifted from him. That shows that he didn’t want to go through with it. If he didn’t have free will then he could not have had the capacity to even want to reject God’s plan. Since he had free will he could have chosen to reject his calling. It was his love for us and his Father that drove him to go through with it, despite the pain and humiliation he suffered.

 

[dean24us]

This is an interesting question, one which I have wondered about in various forms, and one which I’m not sure anyone will be able to sufficiently answer. God’s knowledge of all history (past, present, and future) would seem to lend validity to the idea that Jesus could not have failed unless He wanted to, as He would have already known the outcome. However, if Jesus failed while already knowing the outcome, that in and of itself could be a ‘victory’ in itself. In short, a mind-bending paradox.

God bless,
Dean

 

[Evan]

I don’t think there is any way and omnipotent God could fail in his mission. For if he were to fail, he would not come at that time and place.

So by searching all history and finding the proper time in history, the woman, the family, the tribe. Then working with these people, giving them the title Chosen. He would appear and succeed at the mission he had set for himself from the foundation of the world.

This was know from the beginning as revealed in Genesis: And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.

 

[Semper_Zelare]

I don’t know if Jesus could have failed.

But I think it’s at least interesting to reflect on what exactly “success” was. For Jesus it was gaining 120 followers. After his death and after the 40 days of pentecost; we learn that the whole Church numbered only 120 believers.

I’ve heard sermons which call Jesus’ ministry a “failed ministry” before. Jesus could have converted 120,000 people if he wanted to. But, he didn’t. That’s kind of a mystery really. But, I would guess that it gives more Glory to God that we would convert the world.

[BIBLEDRB]John 14:12[/BIBLEDRB]

That’s literally true. A lot of people, starting with St. Peter in Acts have done greater works than Jesus, or had much more fruitful ministries. This I think is a really powerful proof of how much God loves us, of how he really does see us as part of his spiritual family- as his sons and daughters.

 

[R_C]

A bit of speculative theology: I have been wondering whether Our Lord Jesus Christ could have failed His mission if He, for example, didn’t pray enough as He did, or if He didn’t fast for 40 days, etc.

In short, could some failings of His human will happen so that that the synergy between His human and divine wills be broken?

I’m also looking forward to read official teachings on this.

“Unofficially” it is my understanding that the great value of the divine redemption accomplished by Christ is rooted on this very topic: the “new Adam” was not acting as the omnipotent God, but as a man, a perfect man. This man was tempted, suffered, laughed, was born, nurtured, died, and was buried. He did work miracles, but he also taught his disciples (who were not God) that they could do the same works, and even greater works than those, if only they had faith, true faith.

The conclusion? Yes, Christ could have failed.

We see this especially in the agony of the Garden, when the human nature struggles to the point of excruciating psychological terror leading to hematidrosis, asking the Father three times to take away that cup of suffering. Yet, by a perfect act of obedience (“not what I want, but what you want” - “Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?”) Christ overcame the most powerful of all struggles He might have ever faced.

Every temptation on the road, from creatures trying to force the events to go in the wrong direction (“Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself”, “I know who you are–the Holy One of God!* “Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly.*”) until the very end ( the dream of the wife of Pilate (that St. John of the Cross sees as of demonic origin) to try to spare His life, the words of the religious leaders and the thief while He was on the cross (“Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.”, “Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!”, “If you are The Messiah, save yourself and save us also”), the “dark night of the soul” (“Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying: Eloi, Eloi, lamma sabacthani? Which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”) )…all of those trials and tribulations had only one objective: to stop Christ from fulfilling His ministry.

It is also my understanding that the Passion had a miraculous aspect in that an average human being could have not survived a fraction of those sufferings…in there, the perfect faith of Christ allowed Him to receive much more sufferings than any other human being that ever lived. However, we see traces of this great faith in many saints and martyrs who endured sorrowful mortifications and tortures that would have immediately killed an average man.

Christ did everything perfectly, because that was His mission as man: to show us what the Father wants from us (“be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”) and to show us by teaching and by example that such an expectation is far from impossible.

In fact, Christ taught that this can be accomplished by any man (“take my yoke on you…For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light”). He even went further and taught us that it is not a matter of becoming greater and stronger, but vice versa, to become smaller and smaller, “the last”, “like a little child”…St. Paul and the apostles would emphasize this (“when I am weak, then I am strong”, “he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness”), and perhaps its nicest “modern” reflection is “the little way” of the Doctor of the Church s. Therese of Lisieux.

 

[Cristiano]

A bit of speculative theology: I have been wondering whether Our Lord Jesus Christ could have failed His mission if He, for example, didn’t pray enough as He did, or if He didn’t fast for 40 days, etc.

In short, could some failings of His human will happen so that that the synergy between His human and divine wills be broken?

I’m looking forward to the Church teaching, patristic, commentaries on this issue. Thank you!

I think that basic logic will suffice. Jesus Christ is God, God is omnipotent thus he cannot fail. Here the breakdown of your logic is that you are considering only Jesus’ human will. He has two wills human and divine that are independent from each other but He has them because He has two natures in one person. If the person fails then both natures fails and that is impossible because one is omnipotent. This is like asking “can God sin?”.

 

[Dorothy]

He suffered, died, and rose from the dead! Jesus Christ is Victor!

 

[johnnyjones]

The concept can be contemplated ad infinitum but in the final analysis, God can’t fail.

His humanity contained all the weaknesses of the flesh yet he did not sin. Sin is failure.

The combination of being fully man and sinless, and being fully God , is a recipe for ONLY victory.

 

[PJM]

=sicutincensum;9816805]A bit of speculative theology: I have been wondering whether Our Lord Jesus Christ could have failed His mission if He, for example, didn’t pray enough as He did, or if He didn’t fast for 40 days, etc.

In short, could some failings of His human will happen so that that the synergy between His human and divine wills be broken?

I’m looking forward to the Church teaching, patristic, commentaries on this issue. Thank you!

NO

Because in Order to “Be God” he must absolutely be both “good and perfect”

Matt 16:19-20 promises that “The gates of hell” now willnot BUT CANNOT prevail.

Both Christ Divine and Human Wills had to be “perfect” is another evidence of your statement being a IMPOSSIBILITY.

 

[R_C]

The concept can be contemplated ad infinitum but in the final analysis, God can’t fail.

His humanity contained all the weaknesses of the flesh yet he did not sin. Sin is failure.

The combination of being fully man and sinless, and being fully God , is a recipe for ONLY victory.

Great point. However, it is my understanding that in Christ the privilege of humanity, perhaps the only thing that is truly “ours”, was fully respected: free will.

It seems to me that Christ as man was fully free to do His own will, not the divine will. We see that by perfect obedience and by his free choice to do the divine will the Lord was successful in His mission. And being His faith perfect, as everything else in Him, then we may as well say that the probability of Him failing was 0%.

However, I think He was not like an angel, who would have had no choice but to perfectly fulfill God’s command. He was in a human nature, thus free to choose what to o…which in my eyes increases the value of all of His actions exponentially, because no matter how complex or how harsh things were, He always freely made the right choice, the one pleasing to God, even and especially against His human will.

That’s just like the question: could He sin? As a human being, of course! Yet we know that He never did. But not because it was impossible.

Any thoughts?

 

[R_C]

Some official words!

From a General Audience of Pope John Paul II (underline mine):

In the case of the temptations of Jesus, the impulse to go into the desert came from the Holy Spirit and signified above all the beginning of a manifestation, one can even say of a new awareness, of the struggle which he will have to wage to the bitter end against Satan, sin’s craftsman. Overcoming his temptations, he thus showed his saving power over sin and the advent of God’s kingdom, as he would one day say: “If I drive out demons by the power of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Mt 12:28). The Spirit was revealed both in Christ’s power over evil and Satan, and in this coming of God’s kingdom through Christ’s actions.

It is well to observe that in the temptations which Jesus underwent and overcame during the desert experience, one notes Satan’s opposition to the coming of God’s kingdom into the human world. This opposition is directly or indirectly expressed in the texts of the evangelists. The answers which Jesus gave to the tempter unmask the fundamental intentions of the “father of lies” (Jn 8:44) who tried in perverse fashion to use the words of Scripture to reach his goals. But Jesus refuted him on the basis of the same Word of God, properly applied.

The evangelists’ narrative perhaps in some way echoes and establishes a parallel between the analogous temptations of the people of Israel in their forty year pilgrimage in the desert (the search for nourishment: cf. Dt 8:3; Ex 16; the pretext of divine protection for self-satisfaction: cf. Dt 6:13; Ex 32:1-6) and with various moments in Moses’ life. But the episode forms part of the history of Jesus, specifically, one could say, in its biographical and theological logic. Though exempt from sin, Jesus experienced the external seductions of evil (cf. Mt 16:23). It was well that he was tempted in order to become the new Adam, our head, our merciful Redeemer (cf. Mt 26:36-46; Heb 2:10, 17-18; 4:15; 5:2, 7-9).

At the root of all the temptations was the vision of a glorious political messiahship, which was widespread and had penetrated the soul of the people of Israel. The devil sought to lead Jesus to accept this false perspective, because the devil is the adversary of God’s plan, of God’s law and of God’s economy of salvation. He is therefore the enemy of Christ, as is seen in the Gospel and other New Testament writings (cf. Mt 13:39; Jn 8:44; 13:2; Acts 10:38; Eph 6:11; 1 Jn 3:8;etc.). If Christ too were to fall, the empire of Satan who boasts that he is the ruler of the world (cf. Lk 4:5-6) would have the final victory in history. So that moment of struggle in the desert was decisive.

Jesus knew that he was sent by the Father to establish God’s kingdom in the world of humanity. On the one hand, for this purpose he accepted being tempted in order to take his proper place among sinners. He had already done this at the Jordan, in order to serve as a model for all (cf. St. Augustine, De Trinitate 4:13). But on the other hand, by virtue of the Holy Spirit’s anointing, he reached into the very roots of sin and defeated the one who is the “father of lies” (Jn 8:44). Thus he willingly went to face the temptations at the start of his ministry, complying with the Holy Spirit’s impulse (cf. St. Augustine, De Trinitate 13:13).

 

[R_C]

More General Audiences: Nov 1988:

Christ is the only one truly without sin, and who, moreover, could not sin.

Feb 1988 (“Like us in all things except sin”):

The conciliar text quoted above completes this picture still more when it says: “He worked with human hands, he thought with a human mind, acted by human choice and loved with a human heart”
…]
Jesus therefore became truly similar to men, by assuming the condition of a servant …] not a “priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been similarly tested in every way, yet without sin” (cf. Heb 4:15).
…]
The faith of the Church is expressed as follows: “He was conceived, born and died without sin.” This was proclaimed, in harmony with the whole of Tradition, by the Council of Florence (Decree for the Jacobites, DS 1347). Jesus “was conceived, was born and died without sin.” He is the truly just and holy man.
…]
Christ has fully revealed man to himself precisely by the fact that “he knew not sin,” for sin does not enrich man. Quite the contrary”it cheapens him, it diminishes him and it deprives him of the fullness which is his due

 

[Marc_Anthony]

Great point. However, it is my understanding that in Christ the privilege of humanity, perhaps the only thing that is truly “ours”, was fully respected: free will.

Angels have free will. They don’t “Have” to do anything.

It seems to me that Christ as man was fully free to do His own will, not the divine will.

His divine will is just as much His as His human will. Christ is never “only” God or “only” man. He is always both.

 

[R_C]

Feb 2012 (more recent ):

The second element is found in the central part of the invocation: awareness of the Father’s omnipotence: “all things are possible to you”, which introduces a request in which, once again, the drama of Jesus’ human will appears as he faces death and evil: “remove this cup from me!”.

However, there is the third expression in Jesus’ prayer, and it is the crucial one, in which the human will adheres to the divine will without reserve. In fact, Jesus ends by saying forcefully: “yet not what I will but what you will” (Mk 14:36c). In the unity of the divine person of the Son, the human will finds its complete fulfilment in the total abandonment of the I to the You of the Father, called Abba.
…]

On the Mount of Olives, Jesus brings the human will back to the unreserved “yes” to God; in him the natural will is fully integrated in the orientation that the Divine Person gives it. Jesus lives his life in accordance with the centre of his Person: his being the Son of God. His human will is drawn into the I of the Son who abandons himself totally to the Father.
…]

It is what Jesus brings about at Gethsemane: in transferring the human will into the divine will the true man is born and we are redeemed.

 

[R_C]

Angels have free will. They don’t “Have” to do anything.

His divine will is just as much His as His human will. Christ is never “only” God or “only” man. He is always both.

I do not think that after the Fall all angels made a definite choice, so a holy angel cannot choose to disobey God anymore. Am I mistaken here? Otherwise it would seem that a fallen angel could also repent and choose to do God’s will…

As for the second part, I agree, the divine will did not erase the human will, what I am not sure is if this is correct: that it was His free choice, that is, that Christ freely chose to conform perfectly the human will with the divine will.

CCC 475 Similarly, at the sixth ecumenical council, Constantinople III in 681, the Church confessed that Christ possesses two wills and two natural operations, divine and human. They are not opposed to each other, but cooperate in such a way that the Word made flesh willed humanly in obedience to his Father all that he had decided divinely with the Father and the Holy Spirit for our salvation. Christ’s human will “does not resist or oppose but rather submits to his divine and almighty will.”

The question thus remains, for me: was it a fact beyond choice, or was the submission of Christ’s human will a choice freely made by Christ?

I think that answering that questions answers the OP’s question as well.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

I do not think that after the Fall an angel can choose to disobey God anymore. Am I mistaken here? Otherwise it is a logical consequence that a fallen angel could also repent and choose to do God’s will.

It’s not that they don’t have free will. It’s that they already made their choice. They’ve chosen to serve God, and they’re not going to change their minds, and with the fallen angels the opposite is true.

After all, a Saint in the presence of the Beatific Vision still has free will; he or she just already made their choice.

As for the second part, I agree, the divine will did not erase the human will, what I am not sure is if this is correct: Christ chose to conform perfectly the human will with the divine will.

I THINK that’s right, but I’m not sure. I think when He chose to be incarnate and thus take both wills He knew that the human will would conform to the divine.

 

[R_C]

Thank you very much, I understand your point.

So perhaps we can say: while His free human will was still fully preserved, Christ could never have sinned, nor he could have failed, because of a radical, perfect choice to conform to the divine will.

So maybe it was incorrect to say “He was not like an angel”, that is, it would have been more appropriate to say that angels and saints resemble Christ because their choice, made after much tribulation, reflects His perfect choice, made from the very beginning and never changed despite much tribulation?

 

[johnnyjones]

Great point. However, it is my understanding that in Christ the privilege of humanity, perhaps the only thing that is truly “ours”, was fully respected: free will.

It seems to me that Christ as man was fully free to do His own will, not the divine will. We see that by perfect obedience and by his free choice to do the divine will the Lord was successful in His mission. And being His faith perfect, as everything else in Him, then we may as well say that the probability of Him failing was 0%.

However, I think He was not like an angel, who would have had no choice but to perfectly fulfill God’s command. He was in a human nature, thus free to choose what to o…which in my eyes increases the value of all of His actions exponentially, because no matter how complex or how harsh things were, He always freely made the right choice, the one pleasing to God, even and especially against His human will.

That’s just like the question: could He sin? As a human being, of course! Yet we know that He never did. But not because it was impossible.

Any thoughts?

Any time the words “free will” enter the debate it sets up
possibilities. Although Jesus had a free will like us, and had the capability to sin, he never would have because “in him dwells ALL the fullness of the Godhead BODILY” (Col. 2:9).

So yes, a free willed person can choose to sin but the humanity of Christ was filled with the purpose of doing Gods will. It seems to me that if the entirety of God is housing your body your human flesh becomes a perfect vessel. In that full human body though pain remains, and temptation remains, but Gods will carried out can not fail. Could Christ in His humanity have failed to do what the Father asked of Him? I maintain the answer is no, because why would He refuse? There is no logical reason why a man filled with God (literally) would choose anything other than what He Himself has brought forth as a plan.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

A bit of speculative theology: I have been wondering whether Our Lord Jesus Christ could have failed His mission if He, for example, didn’t pray enough as He did, or if He didn’t fast for 40 days, etc.

Some would hold that Jesus’s mission did fail - he saw all his plans turned to dust and ashes with his arrest and the scattering of his followers. His spiritual agony was therefore, in this view, even deeper than customarily imagined. His kenosis (self-emptying and entrusting of all things to his Father) was absolute. And the Father, in response, vindicated his Son’s trust through the resurrection and the unexpected wroughting of the Church (rather than a transformed Judaism) from the hopelessly wrecked remains of Jesus’s earthly ministry. Satan never saw it coming.