Does Jesus have two consciousnesses?

[thephilosopher6]

I am using self in the modern sense of the word, how psychologist use it and how everyday people use it, not in the Christian sense of hypostasis. This is why people get so confused with the Trinity as well when we speak of persons because they think we’re speaking of three individual separate beings. This is why I prefer to use hypostasis rather than just “person” because “person” in the Trinitarian sense doesn’t necessarily fit the modern definition of person.

 

[FrDavid96]

I am using self in the modern sense of the word, how psychologist use it and how everyday people use it, not in the Christian sense of hypostasis. This is why people get so confused with the Trinity as well when we speak of persons because they think we’re speaking of three individual separate beings. This is why I prefer to use hypostasis rather than just “person” because “person” in the Trinitarian sense doesn’t necessarily fit the modern definition of person.

Don’t worry. I’m not accusing you of any heresy of mis-using the word “self.”

I am merely trying to understand the original question—more specifically to understand the definition of qualia, at least the definition you are using in your question.

I think I understand it.

That is; first I was totally ignorant of the word, then I thought I understood it, then I thought I misunderstood it, now I once again think I understand it.

So if my latest understanding of the word qualia matches what you mean in your original question (whether or not it matches any other possible definitions of the word) then my answer is still:

Yes. Christ. One person (or one Hypostasis if you prefer the Greek), two natures, two wills,…two qualia.

 

[FrDavid96]

Apologies, by asking this I might be creating more work… but was the answer to the original question even given in this thread?

Well, for a while there, I thought I had offered one. Then I wasn’t so sure. Now, I think I did.

 

[Duckling]

Interesting!
At first, my side of the argument was that Jesus didn’t have two consciousnesses, but that wouldn’t make sense because he was tempted, yet did not sin.
It all makes sense now.
Thanks!

 

[Benadam]

I might be way off but, could the beatific vision been Jesus’ conscious experience of His divine nature?

 

[fisherman_carl]

Yes, a being must have senses in order to have sensory (name removed by moderator)ut. However, when speaking about God we know that He can still perceive things without a body.

Then God doesn’t need qualia to perceive things is basically what you are saying. Because that is the definition of qualia to perceive the qualities of things through the 5 senses. If you try to divorce sensory experience from qualia then it loses all meaning.

 

[fisherman_carl]

But anyrate it seems fools gold to argue over this since according to Wikipedia philosphers can not even agree on the definition of qualia or what it even means (as is evident even in this thread-it seems anyone can define it however they want). For example Wikipedia defines a general meaning as, “The ‘what it is like’ character of mental states. The way it feels to have mental states such as pain, seeing red, smelling a rose, etc.” If this is qualia most assuredly God does not have mental states as he is immutable. His mental state does not change. God may know what it is like to smell a rose, but he doesn’t experience the sensation of smelling a rose. When Jesus smells a rose he comes to experience something or know something in a different way that his divine intellect already knows.

 

[Richca]

I would stay away from the idea of saying that Jesus is somehow two persons no matter how one defines person. Such usage of the word ‘person’ I believe will only lead to confusion, errors concerning the person of Jesus and who Jesus is and possible outright heresy. I say this even though I think you believe as the Church teaches that Jesus is solely one divine person and your more or less broad interpretation of the word ‘person.’ Concerning Jesus and the truth that Jesus is one divine person in two natures, our theology and usage of language needs to be as precise as possible. The eternal Son of God assumed the nature of man but not the person of man or a human person. Simply put, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us; God became flesh, God took on the form of human nature in the likeness of a man.

Concerning whether Jesus has two consciousnesses and being that the divine person of the Eternal Word subsists in two natures since the incarnation, i.e., divine and human, I think it could probably be said that Jesus has a divine ‘consciousness’ and a human ‘consciousness’ according to each nature Jesus possesses. However, the bearer or subject of these two natures from which results as it were the ‘two consciousnesses’ is none other than one divine person, the eternal Son of God. The human nature of Jesus from which results the human ‘consciousness’ as it were of Jesus is the human nature and human consciousness of none other than the eternal person of the Word. The individual or person experiencing the human consciousness in Christ is none other than the Eternal Word. In fact, whatever can be said about the human nature of Christ belongs to the eternal divine person, the Son of God. So in the Litany of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we say ‘heart of Jesus, of infinite majesty, have mercy on us.’ This means that the physical heart in the body of Jesus is the heart of God because the Eternal Word assumed a human nature in his person. The humanity of Jesus belongs to the divine person of Jesus who is the eternal Son of God. At the same time, we understand that the physical heart of Jesus is predicated of the human nature of Christ which he assumed in time. I know it can get tricky of what can be properly said of Jesus since he is one divine person in two complete and unconfused natures. But the complete human nature that the Eternal Son of God assumed does not mean that He assumed an individual or person of human nature otherwise we would have the heresy of two persons in Christ. The person in Christ as man is the second person of the Trinity.

 

[fisherman_carl]

I’m sorry to hear that. I am not sure what I have said to offend you, but you should be careful because you are only hurting yourself with these remarks. You hurt your own soul. Whereas you can not hurt me with groundless accusations. I am sorry if I said anything to offend you.

 

[BlackFriar]

Its an across the board problem (see the does the bread remain bread thread).

I think its often unhelpful to keep repeating deep Scholastic Latin formulations into stilted transliterated modern language that has no history or use of the words as does the Latin counterparts (which themselves have been transformed from their classical meaning also to anchor Greek philosophic concepts).

Persons, Natures, soul, substance, accidents etc cannot easily be directly related to modern colloquial understandings of words such as “consciousness” and “presence”.
Even people with degrees in these things fight over the alleged correspondences.

Perhaps its enough to recognise that its very very involved and in the end no one really understands what it means to be a God-Man as there has only been one of Him anyways.

 

[STT]

God may know what it is like to smell a rose, but he doesn’t experience the sensation of smelling a rose.

We also know what is like to smell a rose without experiencing it. That is why we can distinguish the smell of rose from other smells.

 

[setarcos]

This is not entirely true. If we are given three scents as a test and asked which one comes from a rose having never smelled a rose then we are likely to not know. We experience and then are able to distinguish differences between other experiences from the experiences we’ve had, we don’t distinguish between experiences we haven’t had and this then enables us to have an experience we recognize as different. Of course you may have meant that having experienced the smell of a rose we then may distinguish differences in other scents from the memory we’ve established of the smell of a rose without actually smelling a rose at the time.

 

[STT]

This is not entirely true. If we are given three scents as a test and asked which one comes from a rose having never smelled a rose then we are likely to not know. We experience and then are able to distinguish differences between other experiences from the experiences we’ve had, we don’t distinguish between experiences we haven’t had and this then enables us to have an experience we recognize as different. Of course you may have meant that having experienced the smell of a rose we then may distinguish differences in other scents from the memory we’ve established of the smell of a rose without actually smelling a rose at the time.

I agree with what you said. We need to experience things once in order to remember/know them later.