Was Jesus capable of making a mistake?

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atheistgirl said:
That’s very interesting. What information was revealed that wasn’t known at the time? Was it of an advanced scientific nature?

Sarah x 🙂
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It’s been awhile since I read it so my memory is dim. Nothing earth shattering though, I remember writing was one of them, maybe metal work. Basically nothing that someone in 100-200 BC wouldn’t know about. Some of the forbidden ones were abortion (smiting a child in the womb if I remember correctly), astrology, sorcery, and that type of stuff.

It is still an interesting read though. It’s basically a prequel to the flood story.
 
In His finite human nature(leaving aside His perfect Divine Nature for a moment) and given His free will Jesus did indeed have the potential to make a mistake.
 
Theophorus said:
In His finite human nature(leaving aside His perfect Divine Nature for a moment) and given His free will Jesus did indeed have the potential to make a mistake.
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👍 “finite” is the keyword. Jesus was neither omniscient nor omniscient while He was on earth.
 
**We know that Jesus was sinless, but does this mean he was or wasn’t capable of making inadvertent mistakes – the way you forget an item, for example? **

Do you know of any mistakes he made? 😃

Even the choice of Judas for an apostle was not a mistake.
 
tonyrey said:
👍 “finite” is the keyword. Jesus was neither omniscient nor omniscient while He was on earth.
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That’s actually not true.

Jesus was still omniscient while on earth to say otherwise is a denial of his being fully Divine at the same time and it is a denial of Catholic teaching. It was only in His human nature (which exists concurrently with and in perfect harmony with His Divine nature) that Jesus had the potential to make a mistake. While His self-emptying at the incarnation(cf. Phil 2:6-11) may have concealed certain things from His human nature nevertheless He retained His Divine nature(which includes the property of omniscience).
 
Theophorus said:
That’s actually not true.

Jesus was still omniscient while on earth to say otherwise is a denial of his being fully Divine at the same time and it is a denial of Catholic teaching. It was only in His human nature (which exists concurrently with and in perfect harmony with His Divine nature) that Jesus had the potential to make a mistake. While His self-emptying at the incarnation(cf. Phil 2:6-11) may have concealed certain things from His human nature nevertheless He retained His Divine nature(which includes the property of omniscience).
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It is not a denial of His divine nature but a recognition of His human nature with its inevitable limitations.
 
PumpkinSeed said:
Only if he wanted to
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Ha! I like that answer. Although, I wonder if it being something wanted means that it really shouldn’t be called a “mistake”. Doesn’t being a mistake kinda imply that it was something that you didn’t want?

Consider the Cleaning of the Temple, aka Jesus and the money lenders… That always came off to me as Jesus kinda loosing his temper a bit. Sure, the money lenders were in the wrong, but did he really have to trash their stuff? In hindsight, he maybe could have considered that a “mistake”. That is, the trashing part.

Thoughts?
 
CatSci said:
Ha! I like that answer. Although, I wonder if it being something wanted means that it really shouldn’t be called a “mistake”. Doesn’t being a mistake kinda imply that it was something that you didn’t want?

Consider the Cleaning of the Temple, aka Jesus and the money lenders… That always came off to me as Jesus kinda loosing his temper a bit. Sure, the money lenders were in the wrong, but did he really have to trash their stuff? In hindsight, he maybe could have considered that a “mistake”. That is, the trashing part.

Thoughts?
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I believe He was justified because they were desecrating the Temple and exploiting the poor.
 
tonyrey said:
I believe He was justified because they were desecrating the Temple and exploiting the poor.
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Yeah, no, I get that. I was trying to come up with an example where Jesus maybe could have thought to himself, in hindsight, that he made a mistake. Like; “geez, I was kinda hard on those guys, maybe I didn’t need to trash their stuff”.

I wasn’t trying to make a case where he definately made a mistake.
 
You mean like during his lifetime as man? Not in the sense of translating it to Greek.

Or like putting the right sandal on his left foot? Not in that sense either. Could he have chosen to? I really doubt that, too.
 
atheistgirl said:
That’s very interesting. What information was revealed that wasn’t known at the time? Was it of an advanced scientific nature?

Sarah x 🙂
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“The Lord sits above the circle of the earth.” I don’t believe scientifically it was known that he Earth was round.
 
johnnyjones said:
“The Lord sits above the circle of the earth.” I don’t believe scientifically it was known that he Earth was round.
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Actually It was known mathematically(curvature and shadow etc.) that the Earth was round for a few centuries before our Lord became man. It was not widely held however till much much later.
 
CatSci said:
Yeah, no, I get that. I was trying to come up with an example where Jesus maybe could have thought to himself, in hindsight, that he made a mistake. Like; “geez, I was kinda hard on those guys, maybe I didn’t need to trash their stuff”.

I wasn’t trying to make a case where he definitely made a mistake.
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That could possibly be regarded as a moral error but it’s a borderline case. I think we can agree that Jesus didn’t make any serious mistakes which caused unnecessary suffering.
 
tonyrey said:
That could possibly be regarded as a moral error but it’s a borderline case. I think we can agree that Jesus didn’t make any serious mistakes which caused unnecessary suffering.
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Sure, I can agree to that. But the question raised in the OP was this:
We know that Jesus was sinless, but does this mean he was or wasn’t capable of making inadvertent mistakes – the way you forget an item, for example?
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So things like putting the wrong shoe on the wrong foot… You think he might’ve done that once or twice in his lifetime?

We’ve all done something like that, and as I said ealier, if he couldn’t make mistakes then he wasn’t really a man.
 
Theophorus said:
Actually It was known mathematically(curvature and shadow etc.) that the Earth was round for a few centuries before our Lord became man. It was not widely held however till much much later.
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Are you saying that mathmatics got progessively worse centuries later when a flat earth concept was widely embraced? Do you have any info to support early beliefs that people believed the earth to be round in OT times?
 
Luke 2:40 The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.

Luke 2:52 And Jesus advanced [in] wisdom and age and favor before God and man.

As a man Jesus grew in experience and wisdom. When you do not have experience and wisdom you can make mistakes. Just look at Luke’s narrative of the young Jesus in the temple and his parents loosing him. That was clearly a mistake on his side, he did not notify them; however, it was nothing immoral at all. It is very interesting that Luke uses that very verse (2:52) to close that story.
 
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