Path: christian
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
From: hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu
Subject: Re: Why didn't Christ know?
Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu

>That brings you back to square one: "Why didn't Christ know?"

>The orthodox position, although it does not come out and say it, is, in
>fact, describing God as schizophrenic.

>Back to the original question:  "Why didn't Christ know?" 
>Answer: Jesus is the son of God; *not* God.  Plain, simple, and scriptural.

While it may be plain and simple, I fear it may not be scriptural
(though this depends upon what you mean. I'll come back to this later
-- it may be that we actually agree).  Col 1:19 says that the fulness
of God dwelled in Christ.  John 1:1 says that Christ is the same as
God.  ("the Word was the same as God" is a slightly better translation
than simply "the Word was God".)  2 Cor 5:19 says that it was God
himself at work in Christ.  Heb 1:8, makes it clear that it's
appropriate to call Jesus God, and Heb 1:10-12 seems to be ascribing
the creation of the world to Christ.  The problem is that the Bible
speaks of Christ in two different ways: as the eternal Logos made
flesh, and as a human being.  If our theology is to be based on the
Bible, this commits us to doing justice to both of these
perspectives.  I'd be less than honest if I said orthodox theologians
had done a perfect job of explaining things.  But I'm afraid we're
stuck with something that isn't simple.

The basic problem is that Jesus' experience is also God's experience.
If that isn't true, then the basic Christian explanation of what was
going on just doesn't hang together.  To paraphrase Col 1, the way God
chose to reconcile the world to him was by coming to us in the form of
Christ.  If we don't see Christ as God's presence, then we're denying
Paul's account of how we've saved.

But the other aspect is there too.  There's a certain indirectness in
God's activity through Christ.  Did God die?  In the most obvious
sense, clearly he didn't.  And yet, if we believe Paul that Jesus'
death was God's action, we have to find some sense in which God did
die.  Otherwise we've got just another good person's life and death,
and that doesn't have the effect for us that the NT says Jesus' life
and death did.

While I have some problems with it, it's probably best to look at
Athanasius' explanation of these things.  (It's best because his views
are the most representative of Western theology, and I'm trying to
explain the "standard" viewpoint.)  In Athanasius' explanation, the
Logos took to himself a human being, united it to himself in such a
way that everything about that human being applies to the Logos.  It's
as if a person had two bodies, which however were both controlled by
the same person.  But of course the Incarnation doesn't involve just a
body: there's also a human will, soul, etc.  (Yes, orthodox teaching
does say that Christ has two wills, a human one and a divine one.)
When one part of you hurts, *you* hurt.  Similarly, when God's human
body died, *God* died.  God was present in it, and experienced death
through it.  But obviously not in the sense that the eternal God
ceased to exist.

This is not a perfect explanation.  Indeed it's one that bothers me in
many ways.  But if we're going to do justice to the two emphases in
Scripture, we're going to end up with some explanation like this: one
way or the other, God was actually involved in Jesus' death, or none
of what the NT says about it makes any sense.  But that involvement is
in some way indirect: God experienced death through his incarnation,
but not directly in his divine nature.

Jesus' ignorance pushes this to its very limits.  Indeed I think
Athansius' explanation of it is rather forced.  God is ignorant in the
same sense in which he dies: he experiences it through Jesus.  But
clearly God doesn't completely lose track of his eternal plans.

Now in fact I think there's a somewhat better explanation of all of
this than Athanasius'.  But I'm reluctant to give it as my only one
for two reasons: (1) Western theology has clearly followed Athanasius,
and (2) the ideas on which it is based come from a theologian
(Theodore of Mopsuestia) who has been anathematized.  He was
considered orthodox at the time these doctrinal discussions were
occurring and the standards were adopted -- his rejection was after
his death as part of the complex politics in the East.  But when I'm
trying to present "standard" theology, I think it's safest to stay
away from people whose orthodoxy is in doubt.

Now you say Jesus is the Son of God, but not God.  A lot hinges on
what you mean by that distinction.  I may even agree with you.  It's a
matter of what you mean by Son of God, and by not God.  A lot of
people think orthodox theology is saying that Jesus is a theophany.
That is, that he is simply God himself, making himself visible to us
by using a human appearance, as when God appears to people in the OT.
That's not at all what is being said.  Jesus is not just an appearance
that God takes on.  He's a real human being, with a human mind and all
the limitations of a human being.  I think that's quite clear from the
descriptions of his life in the Bible.  If that's what you mean by not
God, then I agree.  Yet there's another side to the story.  Somehow
God has taken Jesus to himself in such a way that Jesus' actions are
also God's actions, reconciling the world to himself.  If that's what
you mean by son of God, then I agree with you.  But I claim that if
you really pursue what it means that Jesus' actions are God's
reconciling actions, you end up with something like orthodox
theology.

My own view of this -- which as I warned you may be of slightly
dubious orthodoxy -- is that we need to see everything of Christ as
happening simultaenously on two levels.  Every decision and action of
Christ is both a human decision, made by Jesus' very human will, and
God's action, part of his plan to reconcile us with himself.  The
problem I have with Athanasius is precisely the tendency for his view
to be schizophrenic: it too easily leads to dividing up Christ's
various actions between the human and divine natures: the miracles
show his divinity, while his suffering shows his humanity.  In fact
everything should be seen from both perspectives.  Jesus' attributes
his miracles to his Father's power.  The miracles are a demonstration
of Jesus' humanity and obedience to God.  Similarly, John's gospel
sees Jesus' death as his real glorification (e.g.  John 12:23).  His
suffering for us shows us the true nature of God.

I will say that I haven't worked out these ideas completely.  I've
looked at it in the context of prayer, because one of the common
attacks on the orthodox doctrine is "Jesus prays to his Father.  What
sense does it make to say that God prays to himself?"  From my
viewpoint, we have to look at Jesus' prayer on two levels.  On the
human level there is no problem.  But if we take seriously the idea
that everything Jesus does makes God visible, what is the implication?
I think the implication is that there is actually some communication
within God.  Christians believe that God is love.  This means that
there's a human relationship intrinsic to God.  This implies some kind
of distinction of roles and some kind of communication.  I've never
quite heard a theologian say that God the Son prays to God the
Father.  However the eternal relationship of love does imply that the
Son exists in dependence on the Father, and the communication between
them would seem to me to be at least analogous to the prayer between
Jesus and his Father.

Similarly, I would like to see Jesus' ignorance as showing us
something about God.  Just as I'm not sure I quite want to say that
the eternal Logos prays to the Father, I'm not sure I quite want to
say that the eternal Logos is ignorant of some things.  And yet, the
orthodox concept is that the Father is the source of the other two
persons of the Trinity.  (The Son is begotten from the Father, the
Spirit proceeds from the Father.)  The Logos exists in loving
dependence upon the Father.  Thus I think it may be that the Logos
doesn't independently know things, but has access to the Father's
knowledge and plans.  The human form of this is the fact that Jesus
doesn't know everything, but trusts his Father, and when he needs to
know something receives it from him.  I want to be clear that I regard
this as speculation -- it's not something I'm clear on yet.