Tuesday, May 31, 2022

Sacrae Theologiae Summa on the Ignorance of Jesus (e.g., Mark 13:32)

  

Scholium 2. On ignorance and error. The question here is about ignorance in the proper sense or denoting a privation, that is, of those things that according to his status the soul of Christ needed to know. For it is clear that the knowledge of Christ suffered some ignorance in the improper sense, in a negative way, or better, simply not knowing, since, as finite, he did not know everything that is contained in the power of God.  . . . There were not lacking important Fathers who attributed some ignorance to Christ the man, especially because of Mark 13:32 But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Some of these Fathers held only the progress of the human knowledge of Christ up to his resurrection. But many of the Fathers, especially after the Agnoetists, who following the leadership of Themistius attributed ignorance to Christ, strongly affirmed that it is unworthy of Christ to think that he was burdened with any ignorance.

 

358. Already at the beginning of scholastic theology the exclusion of all ignorance in Christ was almost unanimous. St. Thomas deduces from the fullness of Christ’s knowledge that there was no ignorance in him (III, q. 15, a 3 c)

 

The magisterium itself of the Church, both formerly and recently, has rejected the opinion that places some ignorance in Christ. See D 474-476, 3432-3434, 3645f..

 

359. Regarding a positive explanation of Mark 13:32: Christ said that he did not know the day and hour, because it was not part of his mission to reveal this. This saying of Christ agrees with not a few others in which Christ hides himself, so that the father may be more apparent.

 

Moreover, concerning the knowledge acquired by his own acts it can truly be said that Christ did not know the day of judgment . . . he truly asked questions and experienced true admiration. However since Christ did not know the day of judgment by his human knowledge both beatific and infused, it would be false to say that the Lord simply did not know it by his human knowledge. (Iesu Solano and J. A. de Aldama, Sacrae Theologiae Summa, 4 vols. [trans. Kenneth Baker; Keep the Faith, Inc., 2014], 3-A: 164)