Historical Criticism, HELP!

[Petrus127]

The Historical-Critical method is a tool. Like any tool, it can be used for good or for ill.

Pope Benedict is right to be critical of ‘modern exegesis’ (a slightly different nuance from ‘historical criticism’), which often misuses the authority of historical-critical scholarship in the service of pre-determined philosophical agendas. This is why Dibelius and Bultmann are in a different league than Fr. Brown or Scott Hahn for that matter. Bultmann began with the idea that modern man can’t believe in miracles, and then, lo and behold, his scholarship ‘proved’ his point. Both Brown and Hahn begin with the assumption that Catholic doctrine is inerrant, but needs reformulation to address the concerns of modern readers. They both address this as faithful Catholics, Brown for an academic audience and Hahn perhaps for a more popular audience (without compromising scholarship).

Thank you to mairegrrrl for pointing out, too, that the classic era of historical criticism is pretty much over. The newer ‘advocacy’ criticisms can be very interesting, but can also lead to problematic conclusions, like any method.

Finally, Pope Benedict, as well as Pope John Paul the Great both made use of the legitimate discoveries of historical criticism. I have just finished reading Cardinal Ratzinger’s wonderful and profound book “In the Beginning…” What the pope objects to is not reading texts historically, but forgetting to incorporate what we discover in this reading into the whole saga of Heilsgeschichte–“the story of God’s struggle with human beings to make himself understandable to them over the course of time.”

Pax et bonum

 

[BayCityRickL]

I am not a great intellect like Pope Benedict or even like posters in this thread.

Ratzinger called the problem with the historical critical exegesis a ‘crisis.’ Well, he fooled me. It doesn’t seem to be that it’s being handled like a crisis. I’d like to see a little action, you know, Maynard?

 

[Robin_L.in_TX]

The discussion of the historical-critical method is not either/or, but rather both/and.

We had a major crisis in our parish when the diocesan teaching made significant use of the historical-critical method without commenting on its anti-Catholic beginnings, or limitations, and actually gave an historical presentatio n of the Church that left the Holy Spirit out of the discussion. It was awful, not to mention intectually dishonest, and an impetus for me to research this hot topic.

I discovered that as a method of providing an objective, quantifiable basis for understanding the artifacts and written records left by ancient peoples, particularly the idioms and modes of speech not apparent in the Bible itself, the h-c method is invaluable. Like everything else, though, it has its limits and its inherent biases and definitions. As any debater or geometry student knows, these assumptions, and historical biases must be objectively thought out, defined, and kept in mind as one attempts to use the information gained in addition to the Church’s consistent teachings since Apostolic and Patristic times, as well as the current Magisterium’s interpretations that are germaine to the interpretation of Scripture.

Just as true science is totally objective, quantifiable, and repeatable, all inherent biases toward First Causes or a bias against a First Cause need to be ruthlessly kept out of the research, as well as the interpretations of said research. If this is not done, the science is tainted by inherent philosophy and theology–regardless if the inherent bias is atheistic or for Intelligent Design. Those discussions should occur in Philosopy and Theology, not science class.

The same applies here. The very definition of miracle–a suspension of natural laws-precludes discussion in a scientific study of nature and natural laws. So–we shouldn’t be surprised by a seeming dismissal of a supernatural cause of unexplainable things. Discussion of anything above or beyond the natural is not a scientific discussion. It is inherently philosophical or theological in nature.

God’s fingerprints can be seen in all of His handiworks, but if nature readily, objectively, and overtly proved His existence, there would have been no need for His Self-revelations through His written and Living Words (Holy Scripture and Christ Himself).

My studies have led me to read historical-critical treatises and researchers, expecting a dry dissertation on what can be known of the past at the time Scripture was written. Then I read as a believer all that I can find from the patristic fathers, popes, and spiritual writers that I can, combine it with prayer, Adoration, and Mass. In this way, I ask the Holy Spirit to guide my readings and fill me with His understanding and wisdom. It is an active role, rather than a passive one in which I try to incorporarate God’s revelations into my heart, mind, and daily life.

It works for me and seems to be in line with JPII’s writings on the subject. H-C is not anathema, but rather is another wonderful tool to gain insights into Scripture and the revelation God continues to share with us.

In Christ’s peace and joy,

Robin

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

BayCityRickL:

To one and all, historical criticism is not the be-all and end-all of biblical exegesis.

Of course it isn’t - but it does come in for a remarkable amount of savaging by people who seem to know only that they don’t like it; and matters are made worse by attacks upon those who are in no position to defend themselves, who are routinely dismissed as “liberals”. It is critics of the HCM of this sort who make such a meal of it; not those who would be only to happy to be left in piece with having to defend what they are doing.​

In the variety of Catholicism usually met with on this board, “liberal” is the worst of insults. People may not know whether liberalism “is a man or a horse” - it is sufficient that the word encapsulates all the current bogeys of Fundamentalist Christianity - Catholic or Protestant: for Protestant Fundamentalists rival Catholic Fundamentalists in their aversion to “liberalism” and “liberals”, as in so much else. To call someone a liberal, is in effect to turn them into “unpersons”, whose ideas should not be heard; which are sufficiently dealt with by, not allowing them a hearing. How unlike the serenely rational approach of St.Thomas Aquinas that is.

It would not be necessary to defend the HCM if those who used it were not routinely depicted as bad Christians, deniers of the supernatural, heretics, and the like. If people insist on slinging mud at a caricature of it, those who can see what is wrong with the caricature are entitled point out the weaknesses in the arguments made against it. ##

Go to the EWTN website and download Cardinal Ratzinger’s 1988 essay on “Biblical Interpretation in Crisis.” First, for the edification of some, there is no mention of Fr. Raymond Brown.

Second, read the link to Dave Armstrong’s website and the article on “Fr. Raymond E. Brown and the Demise of Catholic Biblical Interpretation.” Brown was a quite influential fellow, and he was on the Pontifical Biblical Commission for the last years of his life.

The critics of Father Brown have still to explain why both Paul VI & JP2 gave him a place on the PBC; they have also to explain why the Church habitually uses such scholarship instead of agreeing with the priest whose 1941 pamphlet against such methods was condemned by Rome and answered by Divino Afflante Spiritu.​

Ratzinger spells out the problems with historical criticism, and he focuses on the fact that as far as it has developed so far, it has approached the study of scripture with biases and a pre-existing philosophy. This has led to notable errors.

He must have missed Barth’s remarks on it. Given that, as another poster points out, it is a method, it will have methodological limitations. Why is that surprising ? The point is not that it is all-perfect, but that it is a method valid for the study of the Bible (and one that has proved very fruitful - despite wishful thinking to the contrary).​

Here is to the 1993 document - his remarks on the members of the PBC are a world away from those of the people who savage Father Brown. ##

Ratzinger is an intellectual far above me and he goes on, best understood in his own words, to say that historical criticism needs a new philosophy, which will undoubtedly take an entire generation to rebuild it. And, in his view, historical criticism will take its place along side and not replacing the patristic understanding and traditional interpretations of the Bible.

[continued]

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

…continued…]

That’s all very well, but it is hardly the attitude of the attackers of the HCM on CA. As for the Fathers, the same applies to them as to the HCM: unjustifiable solutions are unjustifiable solutions - they have a place, but that does not mean that St. Augustine’s bad guesses at the meaning of words become good guesses. A solution may be traditional, in some sense not yet explained - that is no guarantee that it is correct. Age is no guarantee of truth: if it were, would still be stuck in Ur with Abram, worshipping the moon. Christ is “Truth, not custom”. Ignorance of Ancient Near Eastern languages displayed by a Father or Doctor, is still ignorance. That’s not their fault - it is also no reason to deny people recourse to more accurate means of studying the Bible in its context.​

Since Catholics in particular seem to have severe difficulties in entertaining the possibility that anyone who is not a Father, Doctor, Saint, or Cardinal can have anything worthwhile to say about the Bible, I very much doubt that 300 years will be long enough to acclimatise the HCM in the Church: officially it may have a place, but popularly, not. A Fundamentalist approach is far more superficially attractive, so it will win every time; it is, after all, able to call on authority to give it a (superficial) plausibility. The HCM has only the authority of scholarship - and it is not narrowly confessional: its ecumenical character will be sufficient condemnation of it for many (despite Papal encouragement of inter-confessional work on the Bible). And it does not insist on doctrine - that will also condemn it. ##

A sampling of what you will see Ratzinger say is this:

"Modern exegesis, as we have seen, completely relegated God to the incomprehensible, the otherworldly and the inexpressible in order to be able to treat the biblical text itself as an entirely worldly reality according to natural-scientific methods. "

and

"Thus the exegete should not approach the text with a ready-made philosophy, nor in accordance with the dictates of a so-called modern or “scientific” worldview, which determines in advance what may or may not be.

and of Dibelius and Bultmann he says of their results

“Judgments which derive from such a point of view are certainly persuasive for people of today, since they fit nicely into their own patterns of expectations. There is, however, no evidence in reality to support them.”

Results and methods are completely different things - results are continually being questioned, so saying that scholar X’s results are in some objectionable in some way is no criticism of the scholar or of the mode of scholarly discourse common to the scholar criticised & the scholar or scholars criticising.​

This may be obvious - to some, it may well be far from obvious. Catholic Biblical scholarship is not a means of arming the Church for controversial war-making; the members of the PBC and the other members of the scholarly constituency are not workers at a production line whose competence is to measured by nothing but their ability to shore up the Church’s defences against “error”. Biblical scholarship (RC or otherwise) is, IOW, not a form of apologetics, and will not be understood if it is so regarded. It is an academic pursuit, as much so as history or Classics: not a poor relation of Christian dogmatics, but a species of theology (in some university settings at least) and an academic pursuit: and it must be judged accordingly. So it does not exist in order to give Christianly “right” answers. ##

…continued…]

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

…continued & ended]

Constructively Ratzinger says

"Certainly texts must first of all be traced back to their historical origins and interpreted in their proper historical context.

This is precisely what Catholic Fundamentalists seem determined to avoid - even to allow that the Bible is not purely historical is a tussle for some. So what is to be done ? Any reading but a Fundamentalist one is morally impossible for some people - one might as well expect them to jump over the Moon. But that’s not going to stop these same people attacking perfectly decent scholars - so it is very tempting to ignore their complaints; except that to do so is not a Christian course of action.​

But then, in a second exegetical operation, one must look at them also in light of the total movement of history and in light of history’s central event, Jesus Christ. Only the combination of both these methods will yield understanding of the Bible. "

S. Mowinckel’s book He that Cometh does this, and more than this: not that the “cultured despisers” of the HCM are likely to touch Mowinckel with a ten-foot pole - he wasn’t a Catholic, he wasn’t from the USA, and he was not a Fundamentalist. Ergo he can have nothing to say.​

Piety can never replace scholarship, nor faith those things for which reason is needed. This may need to be emphasised. ##

And, in concluding, he says

“[exegesis ] It must come to acknowledge this faith as a hermeneutic, the space for understanding, which does not do dogmatic violence to the Bible, but precisely allows the solitary possibility for the Bible to be itself.”

That sounds like a subtle form of pre-judging the character of the Biblical texts. Avoiding “dogmatic violence” includes not forcing the Biblical texts to bear a meaning foreign to them - the truth about the Biblical texts is what matters, not the supporting of favoured positions, theological, philosophical, intellectual, doctrinal, or any other. It is very bad that Christian theology seems to have severe difficulties with letting solutions be what they will - how can the texts speak to us as the Word of God, if the fullest liberty is not allowed to those who investigate their humanity ? They can - up to a point: for they cannot do so properly, if we read into them only what we are prepare to hear them say: that is the problem.​

In a more recent essay (in the EWTN library) on the ten-year anniversary of the CCC, Ratzinger makes extended remarks about historical criticism and related matters, in the context of the catechism. (Wading through this document, I lost the sense that he was talking about the CCC anymore. But, that was a quick read-through.)

I would be surprised if Pope Benedict did not get around to a major encyclical on this subject, God willing.

I hope he does - it’s high time for one; in fact, long past high time.​

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Robin L. in TX:

The discussion of the historical-critical method is not either/or, but rather both/and.

We had a major crisis in our parish when the diocesan teaching made significant use of the historical-critical method without commenting on its anti-Catholic beginnings, or limitations, and actually gave an historical presentatio n of the Church that left the Holy Spirit out of the discussion. It was awful, not to mention intectually dishonest, and an impetus for me to research this hot topic.

That depends how far back one goes - was nothing said of Richard Simon:​

rhbnc.ac.uk/~uhra026/simon1.html

rhbnc.ac.uk/~uhra026/simon2.html

or Alexander Geddes ? #

I discovered that as a method of providing an objective, quantifiable basis for understanding the artifacts and written records left by ancient peoples, particularly the idioms and modes of speech not apparent in the Bible itself, the h-c method is invaluable. Like everything else, though, it has its limits and its inherent biases and definitions. As any debater or geometry student knows, these assumptions, and historical biases must be objectively thought out, defined, and kept in mind as one attempts to use the information gained in addition to the Church’s consistent teachings since Apostolic and Patristic times, as well as the current Magisterium’s interpretations that are germaine to the interpretation of Scripture.

Just as true science is totally objective, quantifiable, and repeatable, all inherent biases toward First Causes or a bias against a First Cause need to be ruthlessly kept out of the research, as well as the interpretations of said research. If this is not done, the science is tainted by inherent philosophy and theology–regardless if the inherent bias is atheistic or for Intelligent Design. Those discussions should occur in Philosopy and Theology, not science class.

The same applies here. The very definition of miracle–a suspension of natural laws-precludes discussion in a scientific study of nature and natural laws. So–we shouldn’t be surprised by a seeming dismissal of a supernatural cause of unexplainable things. Discussion of anything above or beyond the natural is not a scientific discussion. It is inherently philosophical or theological in nature.

God’s fingerprints can be seen in all of His handiworks, but if nature readily, objectively, and overtly proved His existence, there would have been no need for His Self-revelations through His written and Living Words (Holy Scripture and Christ Himself).

My studies have led me to read historical-critical treatises and researchers, expecting a dry dissertation on what can be known of the past at the time Scripture was written. Then I read as a believer all that I can find from the patristic fathers, popes, and spiritual writers that I can, combine it with prayer, Adoration, and Mass. In this way, I ask the Holy Spirit to guide my readings and fill me with His understanding and wisdom. It is an active role, rather than a passive one in which I try to incorporarate God’s revelations into my heart, mind, and daily life.

It works for me and seems to be in line with JPII’s writings on the subject. H-C is not anathema, but rather is another wonderful tool to gain insights into Scripture and the revelation God continues to share with us.

In Christ’s peace and joy,

Robin

An excellent post. Especially on this matter of the supernatural - I hope your remarks are taken to heart by those who are upset or troubled by the “failure” of scholars to appeal to the supernatural (whatever the word may in fact denote).​

 

[kim_wilson]

Flaming,

The easy answer is this: cooperate and graduate. Spit back out what they want at exam time. But, if possible, have a polite and personally honest conversation with the prof after class.

kim

 

[BayCityRickL]

flamingsword:

As a theology student I am constantly being subjected to the ideas of Historical Criticism! Everything is being taught from that perspective. Does anyone have good articles against the usage of this? I realize that some historical criticism is ok, but when do they cross the line? What are the limits of this? How can talk with a professor who absolutely loves historical criticism and thinks that there are no limits to it?

Do me a favor, please? Whenever he says something like “this book was not meant to be read as a science book” or “this book was not meant to be read as a history book”, please ask him if that book was meant to be read as if it had errors in it? That is of course what a lot of h-c exegetes say, in their glibness, that the bible has errors in it.

 

[TOME]

I personally believe that using Historical Criticism is an important tool in the study of Scripture, despite its origins. Objectively, its a tool and with any tool it can be used in the right way or wrong.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his book “Introduction to Christianity” writes of the benefits and limitations of the Historical Critical method and I recommend that you it. One thing he points out is that part of the limitation of HC is that it is grounded on only that which is observable there it can be severely limited in its exposure of truth (ie facts). A perfact example of this is how so many theories have to be abandoned because of a new archelogical discovery. Now this doesn’t mean that the principles upon which the theories developed are false its just the newly discovered facts (I’m borrowing from the Pope now) changes the truth.

However, when your professor states that the bible is not “History” tell him he is correct in a sense, however, the Bible is a history, the History of Salvation - God actively working Redemption through out human history and recorded through the human instruments which gave us the written word. Therefore, the “Truth” is there and it the purpose of the HC method is to discover how the TRUTH of Salvation History came to us through the human instruments of History, Allegory, Wisdom Liturature or Apocalyptic Liturature. To go beyond this seems to be either abusing this scientific method or pressing an agenda, both of which fails in HC’s given task -to seek the Truth.

 

[Jim_Baur]

Help please!!!

How does the Documentary Hypothesis deal with the anagogical, tropological, and allegorical levels of scripture?

Thank you for the help!!!

 

[Jim_Baur]

Please forgive my lack of knowledge. Please forgive my ignorance.

I am under the impression that some students of historical criticism teach as if they know more than Jesus Christ. Is this true?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Jim Baur:

Please forgive my lack of knowledge. Please forgive my ignorance.

That sounds as though meant ly ​

I am under the impression that some students of historical criticism teach as if they know more than Jesus Christ. Is this true?

I take it you mean by “students of Biblical criticism” those who regard the historical-critical method as valid and fruitful in its results, at least for the purposes of the present discussion. For it not the only method of studying the Biblical texts.​

Not all such students are Christians - one of the strengths of the HCM is that it is not narrowly confessional, nor a purely Christian undertaking: so it does not exclude Jews; to whom, after all, the Tanakh “belongs” in a way that it cannot be said to belong to Christians, whose knowledge of it for most of the Church’s life has usually been indirect and not first-hand. (I don’t understand how bishops ignorant of both Greek and Hebrew, as many Fathers and their successors were, can have their expositions of the text treated as all but irreformable - unless infused knowledge of unknown languages is a potential part of the grace of episcopal ordination; but I have not see this suggested, let alone taught. St. Augustine at least was humble enouh to admit his limitations in this respect - it is a pity some Catholics let their veneration for the Fathers in general triumph over their regard for that kind of modesty from a Father.)

Can you specify what gives you the impression you mention ? Thanks

FWIW, we all know things Jesus did not - so what is the problem ? ##

 

[Jim_Baur]

GOG

FWIW, we all know things Jesus did not - so what is the problem? ##

Again, I am most ignorant.

I do not know what FWIW means.

This is one place where I disagree: “We all know things Jesus did not.”

I do not know more than the Word Who became flesh.

I do not know if “FWIW” changes the statement.

If you are a student of HC, you seem to be saying that you know more than Jesus, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Ergo…

I have no problem if you think you know more than Jesus.

In faith, I know that you are wrong. I cannot prove faith.

If one stays only with science, one cannot prove that they know more than Jesus Christ. One cannot run tests or experiments on this hypothesis.

God Bless

 

[mspencer]

You ought to seriously consider transfering to another school such as the Franciscan Univeristy of Steubenville. If what you say is representative of theology at your present school, it is a barren thing there.

flamingsword:

As a theology student I am constantly being subjected to the ideas of Historical Criticism! Everything is being taught from that perspective. Does anyone have good articles against the usage of this? I realize that some historical criticism is ok, but when do they cross the line? What are the limits of this? How can talk with a professor who absolutely loves historical criticism and thinks that there are no limits to it?

The line becomes very blurred when every class you have focuses on this?!?!?!

Help me I am drowning in this.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Jim Baur:

GOG

FWIW, we all know things Jesus did not - so what is the problem? ##

Again, I am most ignorant.

I do not know what FWIW means.

This is one place where I disagree: “We all know things Jesus did not.”

I do not know more than the Word Who became flesh.

I do not know if “FWIW” changes the statement.

If you are a student of HC, you seem to be saying that you know more than Jesus, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Ergo…

I have no problem if you think you know more than Jesus.

In faith, I know that you are wrong. I cannot prove faith.

If one stays only with science, one cannot prove that they know more than Jesus Christ. One cannot run tests or experiments on this hypothesis.

God Bless

FWIW = For What It’s Worth .​

How does science fit in, BTW = by the way] ? I don’t see the relevance. Can you clarify ? Thanks ##

 

[Jim_Baur]

What I meant: One cannot use the scientific method. One cannot make an hypothesis. One cannot gather data. One cannot put her data in a logical order. One cannot test the data. One cannot publish one’s results. We cannot do it because Jesus is not among us now. We cannot test His knowledge. We, however, do know it from faith.

However, I believe that Jesus knew special and general relativity, speed of light, and electricity infinitely better than any scientist of today or tomorrow. No! No! That is wrong. He created the moral and physical laws. He created the law of love. The law of love has more being than the law of gravity. The law of love is infinitely greater than the law of gravity. “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” Jesus teaches He is the BEGINNING.

 

[BayCityRickL]

Gottle of Geer:

[continued]

When I read Fr. Brown in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary he said no one should treat that book in a fundamentalist way, but that is exactly what so many people seem to do. Without going into detail, the “other” people defend Brown, when it may be said in the first instance that Brown himself would invite criticism.

And, in so far as HCM is supposed to be a “scientific” study of the Bible, then the methods of science and criticism should be available to all.

Brown himself mentioned that the second edition of the Commentary discarded maybe 75% of the first edition, and he expects the second edition to do the same, if, as he put it, anyone cares to undertake that task.

One poster said that Brown was a “wonderful” man. I wouldn’t know.

Surely, if nothing else, Brown has stimulated discussion of perhaps what have been hitherto “sacred cows” of the Bible discussion, things that were never questioned.

It’s interesting to say the least, to read something in scripture, then to find out that Brown says it never happened or it’s a fake or a fairy tale. To be quite honest, the hallmark of scientific inquiry is the method of science, which should permit reproducibility. What I’ve read of Brown’s writing does not admit to probing his method or his starting assumptions. Card. Ratzinger’s critique of HCM goes right to the latter.

There are other views of scripture than Brown’s. The Catechism takes a view that Genesis, for example, contains figurative language, but that the underlying events (people committing original sin) are historical.

“Fundamentalists” are ravaged in these forums as much as an icon like Fr.Brown. Fundamentalism once had a clean, crisp definition, but the meaning has become so dilute, that anybody who says anything could be branded a fundamentalist. I am left with the distinct impression that anybody who attacks a fundamentalist by that label, is themselve imposing a form of fundamentalism – and their attack on fundamentalism is more convincing the less they define their own position.

I don’t believe that this is off-topic in this thread.

 

[JimG]

Jim Baur:

However, I believe that Jesus knew special and general relativity, speed of light, and electricity infinitely better than any scientist of today or tomorrow.

In his divine nature, yes. In his human nature, probably not. As man, he had to grow in knowledge just like us. And those things were not a part of human knowledge at the time.

 

[whosebob]

JimG:

In his divine nature, yes. In his human nature, probably not. As man, he had to grow in knowledge just like us. And those things were not a part of human knowledge at the time.

JMJ + OBT​

One must be careful with that theological apparatus – that is, the distinction betwen Christ’s human and divine natures – as statements which take it into account need always to be qualified by the complimentary truth that Jesus is ONE divine person. Never forget to reformulate questions such as the one you were answering in terms of "who":

When we say that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, we don’t say that his human nature was born, we say He was born of her. Another way to put it would be to ask: “Who was born of the Virgin Mary?” And the answer is, “Jesus, who is God, was born of her.”

Likewise we may ask, “Who died on the cross?” And the answer is “Jesus, who is God, died on the cross.” He could not die in His divinity, but He did really die in His humanity.

Things get trickier when we come to the consciousness of Christ. Our Lord had and has now both the divine mind and a human mind. But when we ask “Who was it that knew [something that Jesus knew, e.g. the names of the Apostles]?” the answer can only be, “Jesus, who is God, knew [the information in question].”

So what about General Relativity or other such things. Well, if He knew them in His divine mind, then He knew them. Again, If Jesus knew GR, then we can ask, “Who knew GR” And the answer can only be, “Jesus, who is God, knew GR.”

There is a great mystery here: the divine mind is infinite; Jesus’ human mind was finite. We understand from Divine Revelation and from the Magisterium that there were things that Jesus did not know from His human mind (e.g. from experience or from verbal instruction), but that He knew in His human mind by virtue of the latter being informed by the former. For example, Pope St. Gregory the Great taught in A.D. 600 that “. . . in the nature of His humanity He knew the day and hour of the judgment, but not however from this nature of humanity did He know it.”

But the finite cannot contain the infinite, so “Did and does Jesus suffer from some sort of split-mind/personality?” The answer must be an emphatic “No!” And this based again on the teachings of the Magisterium, the Fathers, etc. We have a mystery here of the first order which is bound up in the great Mystery of the Incarnation.

Those who are interested in this matter might enjoy reading an excellent book on the subject by the late Fr. William Most, which is freely available on the Internet:

The Consciousness of Christ
by Fr. William Most

In the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

IC XC NIKA