Does/Did the Holy Spirit know the day or the hour?

[Sultan_Of_Swing]

Matt 24:36 - But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father

Now, I understand the arguments for why the Son did not know. For example, He was on earth at the time or that He was setting an example or that His human nature did not know.

But what about the Holy Spirit? Did He know the day or the hour? If He did, why didn’t Jesus mention Him too?

 

[maltmom]

I believe that only the Father knows otherwise the scripture passage would have been stated differently.

 

[POJIUJH]

Matt 24:36 - But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father

Now, I understand the arguments for why the Son did not know. For example, He was on earth at the time or that He was setting an example or that His human nature did not know.

But what about the Holy Spirit? Did He know the day or the hour? If He did, why didn’t Jesus mention Him too?

He is omnipotent. He couldn’t not know (I’m saying He to refer to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit).

The only part of the Son that could in some way lack knowledge (something of a physical knowledge) would be the human nature of the Son as you said, even though it is infused with His divinity and could never be found wanting. What He is almost certainly saying is that His angels and His own, human intellect are incapable of knowing.

That is to say, only the Divine knows. His human intellect is incapable of knowing, therefore it definitely isn’t possible by any stretch of the imagination for any other man to know. What would probably support this too is that He mentioned the angels first - since the angels possess an intelligence that isn’t even comparable to ours, then mentions His own human nature, comparable to ours, only more perfect. He is stressing very heavily that we won’t and couldn’t ever know.

 

[R_C]

He is omnipotent. He couldn’t not know (I’m saying He to refer to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit).

The only part of the Son that could in some way lack knowledge (something of a physical knowledge) would be the human nature of the Son as you said, even though it is infused with His divinity and could never be found wanting. What He is almost certainly saying is that His angels and His own, human intellect are incapable of knowing.

That is to say, only the Divine knows. His human intellect is incapable of knowing, therefore it definitely isn’t possible by any stretch of the imagination for any other man to know. What would probably support this too is that He mentioned the angels first - since the angels possess an intelligence that isn’t even comparable to ours, then mentions His own human nature, comparable to ours, only more perfect. He is stressing very heavily that we won’t and couldn’t ever know.

Wonderfully put There is but one God. We must be cautious when reading such passages that imply too much of a separation between the Divine Persons.

 

[bsroufek]

This verse is extremely simple and clear: only the Father knows. Also, Jesus said, “The Father is greater than I”. And, Jesus said, “It is not for you to know the time” and seasons the Father has set up on His own authority.

It’s very clear that only the Father knows the day and the hour that Jesus will return.

 

[Sultan_Of_Swing]

This verse is extremely simple and clear: only the Father knows. Also, Jesus said, “The Father is greater than I”. And, Jesus said, “It is not for you to know the time” and seasons the Father has set up on His own authority.

It’s very clear that only the Father knows the day and the hour that Jesus will return.

So the Holy Spirit and the Son are not omniscient?

There are things one part of God knows that the other parts do not?

Isn’t it better to say that it was the Son’s human nature that did not know, but the Divine does know, as stated by POJUIJH?

 

[Sultan_Of_Swing]

He is omnipotent. He couldn’t not know (I’m saying He to refer to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit).

The only part of the Son that could in some way lack knowledge (something of a physical knowledge) would be the human nature of the Son as you said, even though it is infused with His divinity and could never be found wanting. What He is almost certainly saying is that His angels and His own, human intellect are incapable of knowing.

That is to say, only the Divine knows. His human intellect is incapable of knowing, therefore it definitely isn’t possible by any stretch of the imagination for any other man to know. What would probably support this too is that He mentioned the angels first - since the angels possess an intelligence that isn’t even comparable to ours, then mentions His own human nature, comparable to ours, only more perfect. He is stressing very heavily that we won’t and couldn’t ever know.

Thank you

 

[spiderweb]

But what about the Holy Spirit? Did He know the day or the hour? If He did, why didn’t Jesus mention Him too?

1 Cor 2:11 “For what man knows the things of a man, but the spirit of a man that is in him? So the things also that are of God no man knows, but the Spirit of God”

 

[R_C]

Isn’t it better to say that it was the Son’s human nature that did not know, but the Divine does know, as stated by POJUIJH?

Yes, it is better in some way.

To understand this, it is important to review this section of the Catechism: Part 1 (Profession of Faith), Section 2 (Profession of the Christian Faith), Chapter 2 (I believe in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God), Article 3 (“He was conveived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary”).

The unique and altogether singular event of the Incarnation of the Son of God does not mean that Jesus Christ is part God and part man, nor does it imply that he is the result of a confused mixture of the divine and the human. He became truly man while remaining truly God.

The first heresies denied not so much Christ’s divinity as his true humanity (Gnostic Docetism).

The Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God’s Son. Opposing this heresy, St. Cyril of Alexandria and the third ecumenical council, at Ephesus in 431, confessed "that the Word, uniting to himself in his person the flesh animated by a rational soul, became man.

“the holy body, animated by a rational soul, which the Word of God united to himself according to the hypostasis, was born”

The Monophysites affirmed that the human nature had ceased to exist as such in Christ when the divine person of God’s Son assumed it. Faced with this heresy, the fourth ecumenical council, at Chalcedon in 451, confessed:

Following the holy Fathers, we unanimously teach and confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, composed of rational soul and body; consubstantial with the Father as to his divinity and consubstantial with us as to his humanity; “like us in all things but sin”. …] We confess that one and the same Christ, Lord, and only-begotten Son, is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division or separation. The distinction between the natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character proper to each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person (prosopon) and one hypostasis.

Because “human nature was assumed, not absorbed”, in the mysterious union of the Incarnation, the Church was led over the course of centuries to confess the full reality of Christ’s human soul, with its operations of intellect and will, and of his human body.

"The Son of God. . . worked with human hands; he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved. "

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.

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”, and would even have to inquire for himself about what one in the human condition can learn only from experience. This corresponded to the reality of his voluntary emptying of himself, taking “the form of a slave”.

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. …] 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. What he admitted to not knowing in this area, he elsewhere declared himself not sent to reveal.

As for the Holy Spirit, just read what Jesus says:

But when he is come, the Spirit of truth, he shall guide you into all the truth: for he shall not speak from himself; but whatsoever he shall hear he shall speak; and he will announce to you what is coming. He shall glorify me; because he shall receive of mine, and shall announce it to you. All things that the Father has are mine; therefore I have I have said that he receives of mine and shall announce it to you.

In the awesomeness of the Blessed Trinity, there is a hierarchy You can read some more here (scroll down to “The Patriarchal Hierarchy of the Trinity”). This is not “subordinationism”, which is a heresy, but a sacred order: the three Persons of the Trinity are both hierarchical and coequal, for the opposite of hierarchy is not equality, but anarchy (absence of order). “The three divine Persons, although entirely distinct Persons, are perfectly equal to one another, because all are one and the same God” (source). We could say that a (or the) distinctive characteristic of the Father is that He is unbegotten: while each of the Persons fully possesses the divine substance, The Father possesses the divine substance in himself, the Son as received from the Father, the Holy Spirit as received from the Father and the Son.

 

[browebmaster]

Here is an article I’ve read before on the Christ’s knowledge of the hour of the Apocalypse: newtheologicalmovement.blogspot.com/2011/05/did-jesus-know-day-and-hour-of.html.

Following the argument (as found in the article) that Christ knew the hour of the Last Judgment in His divine intellect then the Holy Spirit also knows the day and the hour.

 

[sparkfrompoland]

Here is a review of a new book which delves into the unknown papal prophetic teaching on this very subject:
the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/heralds-of-second-coming-by-stephen.html

 

[Birdmanman]

Yes; the Holy Spirit knows the day and the hour, as does The Son; in both His Human and Divine Natures. However, The Son’s Human Nature does not know the day and the hour by itself, but by its union with The Word. (see below)

As the Catechism said of Christ which R_C posted above,

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”, and would even have to inquire for himself about what one in the human condition can learn only from experience. This corresponded to the reality of his voluntary emptying of himself, taking “the form of a slave”.

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. …] 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. What he admitted to not knowing in this area, he elsewhere declared himself not sent to reveal.

Thus, the human nature of The Son does indeed know everything that pertains to God; God is perfect Truth, and the day and the hour of the end of time is something that pertains to God; therefore, the human nature of the Son knows the day and the hour of the end of time, not by itself but by its union with the Word.
When Christ says, “Matt 24:36 - But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father”, He therefore means that the Son by Himself does not know through His Human Nature alone, but His Human Nature knows these things by its union with The Word.

This interpretation may feel like a stretch, but I’m sure you can find instances in Scripture where the proper interpretation feels similarly stretchy and where the most simplistic interpretation might lead us to error and sin (“if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off” might be a good example of where a simplistic interpretation can lead us to something strange). The Church has the authority to interpret Scripture, and it is to this interpretation that we are bound, even if it may feel like a stretch, God can reveal through Her (The Church’s) interpretation true things that we wouldn’t be able to come up with by ourselves.

 

[Sultan_Of_Swing]

Yes; the Holy Spirit knows the day and the hour, as does The Son; in both His Human and Divine Natures. However, The Son’s Human Nature does not know the day and the hour by itself, but by its union with The Word. (see below)

As the Catechism said of Christ which R_C posted above,

Thus, the human nature of The Son does indeed know everything that pertains to God; God is perfect Truth, and the day and the hour of the end of time is something that pertains to God; therefore, the human nature of the Son knows the day and the hour of the end of time, not by itself but by its union with the Word.
When Christ says, “Matt 24:36 - But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father”, He therefore means that the Son by Himself does not know through His Human Nature alone, but His Human Nature knows these things by its union with The Word.

This interpretation may feel like a stretch, but I’m sure you can find instances in Scripture where the proper interpretation feels similarly stretchy and where the most simplistic interpretation might lead us to error and sin (“if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off” might be a good example of where a simplistic interpretation can lead us to something strange). The Church has the authority to interpret Scripture, and it is to this interpretation that we are bound, even if it may feel like a stretch, God can reveal through Her (The Church’s) interpretation true things that we wouldn’t be able to come up with by ourselves.

It does feel like quite a stretch, yes, haha. I understand it though and I guess it’ll have to do.

 

[Stephen_Korsman]

Here is an article I’ve read before on the Christ’s knowledge of the hour of the Apocalypse: newtheologicalmovement.blogspot.com/2011/05/did-jesus-know-day-and-hour-of.html.

Thanks for that - the article cites the following quotes from popes and they pretty much resolve the issue. I requote here because I think it’s important to highlight them.

“If anyone says that the one Jesus Christ who is both true Son of God and true Son of man did not know the future or the day of the Last Judgment and that he could know only as much as the divinity, dwelling in him as in another, revealed to him, anathema sit.” (Pope Vigilius, Constitutum I of 14 May 553)

The following proposition is condemned: “The natural meaning of the Gospel texts cannot be reconciled with what our theologians teach about the consciousness and the infallible knowledge of Jesus Christ.” (Pope Pius X, Lamentabili of 1907)

The following proposition is condemned: “A critic cannot assert that Christ’s knowledge was unlimited, unless by making the hypothesis, which is historically inconceivable and morally repugnant, that Christ as man had God’s knowledge and yet was unwilling to communicate so much knowledge to his disciples and posterity.” (Pope Pius X, Lamentabili of 1907)

The following proposition is rejected: “The opinion cannot be declared certain, which holds that the soul of Christ was ignorant of nothing but from the beginning knew in the Word everything, past, present and future, that is to say everything which God knows with the ‘knowledge of vision’.” (Pope Benedict XV, Decree of the Holy Office of 1918)

The following proposition is rejected: “The recent opinion of some about the limited knowledge of the soul of Christ is not to be less favoured in Catholic schools than the ancient opinion about his universal knowledge.” (Pope Benedict XV, Decree of the Holy Office of 1918)