Jesus' knowledge of His divinity

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Quick question (with a potentially long answer haha):
Did Jesus know of His divinity during His whole life on Earth, or did he “discover” it along the way?
Does the Church have any official teaching on this?

Thanks in advance 🙂
 
To my knowledge, there is no official Church teaching on this.

Considering what we know about His childhood, I would say that He knew it from the beginning.
 
Jesus always knew He was God.

Or to put it another way, God always knew He was God. :rolleyes:

Simple?

You can look it up in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma.
 
Here’s what the Catechism has to say:

**Christ’s soul and his human knowledge **

471 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. [100]

472 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”, [101] and would even have to inquire for himself about what one in the human condition can learn only from experience. [102] This corresponded to the reality of his voluntary emptying of himself, taking “the form of a slave”. [103]

473 But at the same time, this truly human knowledge of God’s Son expressed the divine life of his person. [104] “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.” [105] Such is first of all the case with the intimate and immediate knowledge that the Son of God made man has of his Father. [106] The Son in his human knowledge also showed the divine penetration he had into the secret thoughts of human hearts. [107]

474 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. [108] What he admitted to not knowing in this area, he elsewhere declared himself not sent to reveal. [109]

[100] Cf. Damasus 1: DS 149.
[101] Lk 2:52.
[102] Cf. Mk 6 38; 8 27; Jn 11:34; etc.
[103] Phil 2:7.
[104] Cf. St. Gregory the Great, *“Sicut aqua” ad Eulogium, Epist. Lib. *10, 39 PL 77, 1097A ff.; DS 475.
[105] St. Maximus the Confessor, Qu. et dub. 66: PG 90, 840A.
[106] Cf. Mk 14:36; Mt 11:27; Jn 1:18; 8:55; etc.
[107] Cf. Mk 2:8; Jn 2 25; 6:61; etc.
[108] Cf. Mk 8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34; 14:18-20, 26-30.
[109] Cf. Mk 13:32, Acts 1:7.
 
Shin said:
Jesus always knew He was God.

Or to put it another way, God always knew He was God. :rolleyes:

Simple?

You can look it up in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma.
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Even right after conception when it’s not possible for a human to know anything? I find that hard to believe because he wouldn’t be fully human then.
 
Shin said:
When we are created we have a soul.
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Yes but you can only gain knowledge through the senses. At conception it’s a blank slate because the senses haven’t developed yet. Even at birth the brain isn’t fully developed. Unless I’m misunderstanding what the Catechism says, this is in line with Catholic teaching. His knowledge was perfect but limited by His humanity.
 
roseproject said:
Quick question (with a potentially long answer haha):
Did Jesus know of His divinity during His whole life on Earth, or did he “discover” it along the way?
Does the Church have any official teaching on this?

Thanks in advance 🙂
Click to expand...
He could not become man without His choice to do so, for that reason it would be impossible for Him to not know that He is God. Even in the womb it is His divine and conscious will to grow that He grows.

That is to say, everything that can happen, happens by His will, being divine. If He did not know that He was divine, He would have to will it. He would always, as a necessity, be conscious of His will, therefore He could not not logically be unaware of His divinity.
 
Popes have taught Christ knew everything and enjoyed beatific vision from the earliest moments of His Incarnation.

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, D 2184)

“The knowledge and love of our Divine Redeemer, of which we were the object from the first moment of His Incarnation, exceed all the human intellect can hope to grasp. For hardly was He conceived in the womb of the Mother of God, when He began to enjoy the beatific vision, and in that vision all the members of His Mystical Body were continually and unceasingly present to Him, and He embraced them with His redeeming love.” (Pius XII, Mystici Corporis 75)
 
Thanks for all the helpful answers 🙂
I was pretty sure that was the case, Him knowing of His divinity that is.
There were a few movies depicting His live that I’ve seen that seem to depict Him being somewhat ignorant of His divinity. So, it kinda made me curious as to whether there was any truth to it or not 😃
Specifically speaking, the movies ‘The Holy Family’ (based off the apocryphal gospels) and ‘Jesus’ (starring Jeremy Sisto).
 
roseproject said:
Thanks for all the helpful answers 🙂
I was pretty sure that was the case, Him knowing of His divinity that is.
There were a few movies depicting His live that I’ve seen that seem to depict Him being somewhat ignorant of His divinity. So, it kinda made me curious as to whether there was any truth to it or not 😃
Specifically speaking, the movies ‘The Holy Family’ (based off the apocryphal gospels) and ‘Jesus’ (starring Jeremy Sisto).
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It may be noted that the young Christ could have acted as if unaware of His greatness in order to avoid tumult, in accordance to the way He kept a low profile about a number of His miracles during His active ministry in adulthood (Matt. 8:4, Matt. 9:30, Mark 1:44, Mark 5:43). In general it is good for humility to keep good characteristics and actions discreet to the degree that is possible. (Matt. 6:4) “The saints always speak of God; they always speak ill of themselves, and always well of others.” (St. Alphonsus de Liguori)
 
roseproject said:
Thanks for all the helpful answers 🙂
I was pretty sure that was the case, Him knowing of His divinity that is.
There were a few movies depicting His live that I’ve seen that seem to depict Him being somewhat ignorant of His divinity. So, it kinda made me curious as to whether there was any truth to it or not 😃
Specifically speaking, the movies ‘The Holy Family’ (based off the apocryphal gospels) and ‘Jesus’ (starring Jeremy Sisto).
Click to expand...
Never expect the Truth of anything in a movie made for entertainment, most of them are made by people who could care less. 👍
 
Glacies said:
Popes have taught Christ knew everything and enjoyed beatific vision from the earliest moments of His Incarnation.

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, D 2184)

“The knowledge and love of our Divine Redeemer, of which we were the object from the first moment of His Incarnation, exceed all the human intellect can hope to grasp. For hardly was He conceived in the womb of the Mother of God, when He began to enjoy the beatific vision, and in that vision all the members of His Mystical Body were continually and unceasingly present to Him, and He embraced them with His redeeming love.” (Pius XII, Mystici Corporis 75)
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Maybe I’m dense but I can’t make sense of the first quote. To many negatives I think.

This is something that fascinates me. Are there any good books about this? I guess I have a hard time believing that the baby Jesus, who wouldn’t even pass the mirror test, somehow knew He was God. In a more convoluted way, is it possible the He knew He was God when He may not have even known that He was a he? Jesus was fully human, not super human, so all of our limitations were his limitations?
 
J_Peterson said:
Maybe I’m dense but I can’t make sense of the first quote. To many negatives I think.

This is something that fascinates me. Are there any good books about this? I guess I have a hard time believing that the baby Jesus, who wouldn’t even pass the mirror test, somehow knew He was God. In a more convoluted way, is it possible the He knew He was God when He may not have even known that He was a he? Jesus was fully human, not super human, so all of our limitations were his limitations?
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The statement of Pope Benedict XV condemns the proposition which implies that the soul of Christ might have been ignorant of something, and this can be seen as a way to support the opposite opinion.

The Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ludvig Ott contains a section which treats the attributes of the human nature of Christ, and the part considering His immediate vision of God, infused knowledge, acquired knowledge, and progress in human knowledge is about six pages long. The following propositions are presented with their given levels of theological certainty:
  • Christ’s soul possessed the immediate vision of God from the first moment of its existence. (Sent. certa.)
  • Christ’s human knowledge was free from positive ignorance and from error. (Sent. certa.) Cf. D 2184 et seq.
  • From the beginning of Christ’s life, His soul possessed infused knowledge (scientia infusa). (Sent. communis.)
  • Christ’s soul possessed also an acquired knowledge or experimental knowledge (scientia acquisita, sc. experimentalis). (Sent. communis.)
In the book “Sent. certa” is used for a teaching whose truth is guaranteed while the Magisterium has not made final pronouncements on it, and “Sent. communis.” means a free opinion which is generally accepted by theologians. Cf. Wikipedia on theological certainties

For additional reading the [Summa Theologica (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4.htm) contains a portion about the Incarnation, and there is a theological blog with an article on this subject. Cf. When did Christ reach the “age of reason”?

From the blog:
Christ increased in knowledge with respect to experiential knowledge gained through the senses. But, of course, our Savior knew all created things through the beatific vision and through the infused knowledge given by the Holy Spirit. There can be no doubt that Jesus, from the first moment of his conception, knew all things that had been or would ever be, and that he had the use of reason. The Infant in the womb is already a “perfect man”, insofar as he has the perfect use of reason and will – he is no irrational child, but the Everlasting Man.
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Thanks for the reply. I wil check out The Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. The fully human and fully divine aspect confuses me. I think I tend to focus on the fully human part and end up getting things wrong.

I wish I could read the summa like some here but I tend to only understand bits and pieces. I guess I’m too impatient to take the time necessary for it. :o
 
Is it possible the Son of God knew who he was, but the Son of Man (at least as an infant) did not?
 
spockrates said:
Is it possible the Son of God knew who he was, but the Son of Man (at least as an infant) did not?
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Ott quotes in the negative through a note that by the Hypostatic Union knowledge is communicated from the Divine nature of Christ to His human one. The Hypostatic Union was effected by the Holy Trinity (D 429) at the moment Christ was conceived within the Blessed Virgin. Additionally it is stressed that the Son of God is the same as the Son of Man.

Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma:
The Patriarch Euologius of Alexandria, the chief opponent of the Agnoetes, teaches: “Christ’s humanity which was taken up in the hypostasis of the inaccessible and substantial wisdom of Christ cannot be ignorant of anything of the past or of the future” (Photius, Bibl. Cod. 230 n. 10). Pope Gregory the Great approved the teaching of Eulogius, basing it upon the Hypostatic Union, from which Christ derives a communication of the knowledge from His Divine to His human nature. Only if one accepts Nestorianism can ignorance on the part of Christ be maintained: “He who is not a Nestorian cannot possibly be an Agnoet.” He expressly caals the Agnoetes heretics (Ex. X 30; D 248). Cf. The Libellus emendationis (N 10) of the Gallic Monk Leporius.
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In the struggle against Nestorianism the Fathers rejected the doctrine of a double sonship in Christ, and stressed that the Son of Man is the same as the Son of God.
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In JESUS OF NAZARETH, Pope Benedict XVI makes it quite clear that Jesus always saw the Beatific Vision. He grew up as a man in His Father’s presence. He knew His Father intimately.
 
I think the finding in the temple is indicative as much- Jesus was always aware of His divinity from the start. He was quite self assured in his response to Mary-did they not know he had to be about His Father’s business?
 
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