Jesus' Humanity and Divinity

[PeteZaHut]

Am I correct in saying that the Catholic teaching is that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine? I believe there is a passage where Jesus said that even he does not know when the end of the world will be. If Jesus was fully divine, fully God, and God is omniscient, then how would he not known when that time would come?

Not trying to attack the Catholic faith. I just know there are plenty of people on here who can give me an answer.

 

[drafdog]

Read in St. Paul (Philipians?) where he says that Christ put away being equal to the Father and became man. Certain things were no longer immediately available to him in human form that he would normally have as God.

Nothing really explains how Jesus can be both God and man. We don’t know how it can be. We believe. Just live with the mystery of it.

Matthew

 

[teachccd]

Am I correct in saying that the Catholic teaching is that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine? I believe there is a passage where Jesus said that even he does not know when the end of the world will be. If Jesus was fully divine, fully God, and God is omniscient, then how would he not known when that time would come?

Not trying to attack the Catholic faith. I just know there are plenty of people on here who can give me an answer.

First, yes you are correct in saying that Jesus is fully God and fully man. When Jesus speaks of not knowing the day or hour there are some possibilities of why He said that. No possibility renders Him less than fully God unless all of His other claims were lies. So Jesus either did not wish to reveal this information as we are not privied to know or in His human intellect, which we read grew in wisdom and knowledge, He did not know. Jesus was not born speaking. He had to learn how to speak. He was human like us in all ways except sin. So it is very possible that His human intellect did not know the day or hour and His divine will chose to not reveal that information.
There is no easy answer. We can only apprehend Jesus and His revelation of the Father. We cannot comprehend Him. I’m sure that you will receive additional information …God Bless…teachccd

 

[NotWorthy]

We also use the words of John.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. (John 1:1) and then we look at John 1:14, which says,* ** And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us,***

 

[teachccd]

Read in St. Paul (Philipians?) where he says that Christ put away being equal to the Father and became man. Certain things were no longer immediately available to him in human form that he would normally have as God.

Nothing really explains how Jesus can be both God and man. We don’t know how it can be. We believe. Just live with the mystery of it.

Matthew

He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave but He NEVER lost His divine nature which is eternally consubstantial with the Father. Just wanted to clarify that…

 

[Agnes_Ainsworth]

Just to add another way of saying the same thing, Some scriptures demonstrate Jesus’ Humanity and some His Divinity, even though he was both at the same time from His conception in the womb of Mary. The Catholic Church has never taken one Scripture out of context of the whole as some Protestants are wont to do, like the “images” thing and calling no one “father”. Jehovah’s Witnesses in particular do this in their “proofs” that Jesus was not God.

 

[Walking_Home]

Christs awareness of His divinity
Question from Anonymous on 1/27/2008:

ewtn.com/vexperts/showmessage.asp?Pgnu=3&Pg=Forum7&recnu=58&number=527960

Answer by Fr. John Echert on 2/14/2008:
Let me state at the start: If Jesus did not know that Divine, then He was not Divine!" That is how firmly we must commit the the full awareness of Christ of His Divinity, including from the moment of His Incarnation. We should distinguish three types of knowledge in Jesus:
Beatific – the divine Word always knows God directly in Essence
Infused – the human soul of Christ receives knowledge directly from His Divinity
Acquired –the human soul of Christ experiences and learns through nature, as all human persons
We must affirm all three of these types of knowledge as simultaneously present in Christ. With regards to the Beatific knowledge, the divine Word always exists and even once joined inseparably to humanity in the Incarnation, the Word never ceased to have the perfect knowledge of God in His Essence. With regards to the Infused knowledge, the humanity of Christ was informed directly by His divinity from the moment of the Incarnation. So even in the womb and in the crib and as a boy, in His Humanity by reason of this infused knowledge He knew whatever was revealed to Him, and not in a parceled out manner but fully and in accord with the limitation and manner of knowing in the human soul. So he had a fullness of infused knowledge but whereas in His divinity Christ sees God directly in His essence, in His humanity it was in the manner appropriate to humanity and not a direct vision of Essence. Finally, we have the acquired knowledge of Christ, in which he learned through his humanity and not simply by infused. As to acquiring facts and so on, He already knew these by infused knowledge so this acquisition represented another manner in which such facts were known. But with regards to sensory type knowledge, such as human fear of death or anxiety in the face of suffering, that is something that is proper only to human nature and so Christ knew such things ONLY by experience and not by infusion.

The knowledge of Christ is badly misunderstood by many today, including Catholic theologians who are ignorant of the classical distinction of the three-fold knowledge or else they have simply rejected this view. In so doing, they often misinterpret biblical texts as demonstrating ignorance or even error on the part of Christ. No way! When Christ appears to be ignorant of something, it is not a case of ignorance as such. Often it is feigned ignorance in order to elicit a response (to the woman with the hemorrhage, “Who touched me?” or of the disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”). God did such things in the OT (to Cain, “Where is your brother?”). Or with regards to knowledge of the end times, Jesus says that not even the Son of Man knows. This has been carefully studied and commented upon and it appears the best solution to this is that Christ knew IN His humanity but NOT FROM His humanity the day and the hour; additionally, it was not for them to know and not part of the mission the Father gave Him to accomplish on earth and so it was not knowledge for them to know.

God bless,

Father Echert

 

[jcrichton]

Am I correct in saying that the Catholic teaching is that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine? I believe there is a passage where Jesus said that even he does not know when the end of the world will be. If Jesus was fully divine, fully God, and God is omniscient, then how would he not known when that time would come?

Not trying to attack the Catholic faith. I just know there are plenty of people on here who can give me an answer.

Hi, PeteZaHut!

…though I don’t like ti anymore I will not hold it against you!

…that out of my system:

The problem is that some take one passage from the Holy Scriptures and they ignore the rest.

Is Jesus God? Yes! If you read the whole Bible you will find the three distinct Persons of the Holy Trinity. And you will find that the Names and Titles that are exclusively rendered to Yahweh God are shared by Jesus.

In the New Testament He is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the Lord, the King, the Just One, the Master, the Messiah, the Immanuel, the King of Peace, the Creator, the Visible Image/Reflection of the Invisible God, the God of the Amen, the Word who is God and always existed with God…

But Jesus was also human: the Lamb of God, the Suffering Servant, the Resurrection and Life, the Way (only Way), the Door, the Good Sheperd, the Savior, the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Rock, the Cornerstone…

As Christ Jesus He did not come to reveal all of God’s mysteries and offer all of God’s knowledge: He came to die for us: to rescue us from death: to be the perfect Sacrifice which would once and for all make us God’s children as we are washed in His Blood!

Scriptures are funny–there’s a passage in Apocalyse that tells us that His disciples, the ones washed in His Blood, will receive a new name that no one else knows, could that mean that Yahweh God was missing a bit of information?

Jesus as the Son of man did not need to reveal everything to humanity; Jesus as the Word, God, is Omnicient… the same people who eagerly embrace any passage of the Holy Scriptures that seemingly limits Christ to a “prophet” reject all of the other passages that clearly state that He is God:

“…now we know you know all things and that there’s no need to ask you anything…” (Jn 16:30)

“…the Father lives in me and I live in the Father…” (Jn 14:10)

“…my Lord and my God…” (Jn 20:20)

“…make Himself equal to God…” (Jn 5:18)

“…You make Yourself God…” (Jn 10:33)

…I could go on!..

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[Ron_Conte]

Christ’s human mind is finite; His Divine Mind is infinite.
Therefore, His human mind must have not known many things that His Divine Mind does know.

 

[MH84]

…Or with regards to knowledge of the end times, Jesus says that not even the Son of Man knows. This has been carefully studied and commented upon and it appears the best solution to this is that Christ knew IN His humanity but NOT FROM His humanity the day and the hour; additionally, it was not for them to know and not part of the mission the Father gave Him to accomplish on earth and so it was not knowledge for them to know.

So that means Jesus did know. But what is Fr. Echert suggesting, that Jesus said He didnt know when He actually did, but did not want to reveal the time?

 

[MH84]

Read in St. Paul (Philipians?) where he says that Christ put away being equal to the Father and became man. Certain things were no longer immediately available to him in human form that he would normally have as God.

There’s debate over the meaning of this passage.

 

[fix]

Am I correct in saying that the Catholic teaching is that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine? I believe there is a passage where Jesus said that even he does not know when the end of the world will be. If Jesus was fully divine, fully God, and God is omniscient, then how would he not known when that time would come?

Not trying to attack the Catholic faith. I just know there are plenty of people on here who can give me an answer.

This may be some help:

Again, in Mark 13:32 He Himself said He did not know the day of the end. Pope St. Gregory the Great gave us the answer to this in his Epistle to Eulogius: “… in the nature of His humanity He knew the day… but not from the nature of humanity did He know it.” That is, in our terms, the information did register on His human mind, even though His humanity was not the source of that information.
Jesus’s Knowledge