Over the weekend, I read Anne Rice‘s new book Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. Not being much of a fan of goth-horror, I hadn’t read a novel of hers since having read some of The Witching Hour many moons ago. Since reports of her reversion to Catholicism started filling the press, I’ve been eager to read this new book.
The book is not an easy read. Rice tries to write from the point of view of a seven-year-old who just happens to be God Almighty, so between the seven-year-old’s voice and trying to juggle the different modes of Christ’s knowledge, the book is not a spine-tingling page-turner. I give Rice high points for working hard to be orthodox, but I think she would have had an easier time accomplishing her task if she had not attempted to tell the story in the first-person point of view of Christ himself. Perhaps it would have been simpler to have written from the point of view of James, our Lord’s "brother" and depicted here as a thirteen-year-old, either in the first- or third-person.
Rice draws liberally on apocryphal stories told of Christ’s childhood struggles with his divinity. Mentioned are the apocryphal gospels tales of Christ bringing to life clay birds and resurrecting a child he had accidentally killed through his childish inability to control his divine power. While the incidents in the apocrypha are apocryphal, I appreciated Rice’s attempt to show Christ as fully God and fully human. Fully God in that he had divine power; fully human in that he was a child who may, in his childhood, have had to learn how to control it.
Whatever you make of the theological implications and whether Rice was completely theologically-correct, she asks interesting "What if?" questions while still trying to remain faithful to orthodoxy. I would much rather read an honest fictional imagining of our Lord that leaves open the possibility of an orthodox Christian understanding of him than a clearly anti-Christian screed like Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code.
Rice does make some interesting small choices within her story. She uses the older tradition of Joseph being an older (but not elderly) widower who is James’ father by his first marriage, but incorporates the later tradition of extended relations among the Lord’s "brothers" by making the other "brothers" and "sisters" Jesus’ cousins. As a personal preference, not a matter of doctrine, I prefer the later idea of a virginal Joseph because it makes the Holy Family an earthly, human image of the divine reality of the Trinity, but Rice’s picture is just as possible and within legitimate Catholic opinion.
One of the smaller choices I disliked was the idea that Jesus was taught to call Joseph by his name, rather than to call him "Father." Rice presumably chooses this for theological reasons and for dramatic purpose, and it is within the realm of acceptable opinion. Still, I prefer to believe that Jesus called Joseph Abba. It seems to me to fit better within the Catholic understanding of the sacramental understanding of creation. Human beings, because they are made in the image and likeness of God, can be physical, tangible images of divine reality.
All told, I’m glad I read this book. It’s not perfect by any means, either theologically or as fiction, but it is a solid piece of work that goes far in furthering Rice’s goal to take on the challenge of writing a novel about the Jesus of the Gospels instead of a Jesus of popular agenda. I hope that this book is the start in a series about Christ’s life. I would like to see how Rice’s development of Christ’s story matures.
I want to read this, but I expect the next novels will be stronger. Once you leave Jesus’s childhood and go into his ministry and passion I think the field really opens up for artistic and literary representation.
I agree with Ryan – I was thinking the same thing while reading your review, Michelle. It could be a very powerful thing to hear Christ’s “thoughts” during the Passion. (And I do not mean for those to be scare quotes. It just felt like I should emphasize that word somehow.)
I’ve been wondering, though . . . has anyone heard what non-Catholic Christians think of the book? Especially when it comes to some of the more controversial bits, at least to folks of certain faith communities. (I’d have thought James White would have quite a lot to say about the book!) I haven’t heard/seen much at all. Maybe I’m just not looking in the right direction? Like Gibson’s film, this could be an avenue for some very interesting discussions!
I give Rice high points for working hard to be orthodox, but I think she would have had an easier time accomplishing her task if she had not attempted to tell the story in the first-person point of view of Christ himself. Perhaps it would have been simpler to have written from the point of view of James, our Lord’s “brother” and depicted here as a thirteen-year-old, either in the first- or third-person.
I also thought the book might have been better written from the POV of a peer rather than Jesus’ own.
FWIW, I did like the child’s perspective better than I thought I would. There was an innocent sweetness and sense of wonder about it that didn’t come across as saccharine to me, and I usually have a very low saccharine tolerance.
Rice does make some interesting small choices within her story. She uses the older tradition of Joseph being an older (but not elderly) widower who is James’ father by his first marriage, but incorporates the later tradition of extended relations among the Lord’s “brothers” by making the other “brothers” and “sisters” Jesus’ cousins.
I liked the combination of Sts. Jerome & Epiphanius’ theories. (Unlike you, I tend to prefer St. Epiphanius’.)
One of the smaller choices I disliked was the idea that Jesus was taught to call Joseph by his name, rather than to call him “Father.” Rice presumably chooses this for theological reasons and for dramatic purpose, and it is within the realm of acceptable opinion. Still, I prefer to believe that Jesus called Joseph Abba.
I agree with you completely on this.
I would like to see how Rice’s development of Christ’s story matures.
Me too.
Once you leave Jesus’s childhood and go into his ministry and passion I think the field really opens up for artistic and literary representation.
That’s why I’m expecting future books, if they’re published, to be more interesting.
has anyone heard what non-Catholic Christians think of the book?
Not yet. I’d like to.
First of all, I want to thank you for not spoiling this book in any way. I’m about half way through it. So far I love it, but I have to agree that I’m not fond of Jesus calling Joseph by his name. Otherwise, I have always been partial to the traditions about the “brothers of the Lord” as presented in this book, so they don’t bother me much.
“I liked the combination of Sts. Jerome & Epiphanius’ theories. (Unlike you, I tend to prefer St. Epiphanius’.)”
I haven’t read the book yet but I like that she did this too. I think I lean towards the Eastern Church’s explanation also, but I’m also interested in combining Eastern and Western understanding on scriptural and theological issues like this – the more Church Tradition at our disposal the better!
St. Joseph’s first marriage and Jesus calling him “Joseph” instead of “Father”? From my understanding of St. Joseph, these two theories are unlikely at best.
While Jimmy is orthodox bar none, I fail to see how the following paragraph is consistent with orthodox christology, which if theological qualifications were in vogue, I might call offensive to pious ears.:
“While the incidents in the apocrypha are apocryphal, I appreciated Rice’s attempt to show Christ as fully God and fully human. Fully God in that he had divine power; fully human in that he was a child who may, in his childhood, have had to learn how to control it.”
This remains me of contemporary views that Jesus “learned” he was God at some point during his ministry. Surely you’re not aligning yourself with that modernist viewpoint?
Christ is being “fully God” is a lot more than saying he simply has “divine power” which he learns to need how to control. You’re positing an imperfection in Christ’s divinity, or a dicordance between Christ’s human will and his divine will. Christ as a child had eternal wisdom, enternal virtue, eternal self-control, everything we predicate about God, because he was God. He was never “too big for his own britches.” Nor did he have any virtue to learn or vice to correct that he didn’t already possess. How could he, he had divine omniscience! And his becoming man didn’t take that away.
To say that a divine person was unaware of, or needed to learn to control his own divinity, is to implicitly deny that divinity, or to tend towards some kind of Nestorian seperation of the divinity and humanity.
Or put another way, the author of Providence, the head and summit of all creation, making accidents? Outside the control of his own providence? There was no trial and error with the Lord.
While Jimmy is orthodox bar none, I fail to see how the following paragraph . . .
Jimmy did not write that paragraph. He’s in Mexico right now, and this post was written by Michelle.
Jimmy indicated that his own review of Christ the Lord would be up in the next couple of weeks.
The God-Man makes mistakes? While I acknowledge the desire to explore the fullness of Christ’s humanity and well as our divinity, I don’t see how such a position is tenable, and nearly every modern attempt I read to render Christ “more human” is always at the expense of his Godhead. The Master and font of wisdom needing to be taught? Suffering ignorance and wavering from the path of virtue, while simultaneously enjoying the beatific vision and heavenly bliss? The mind boggles.
Folks, read the reviews on amazon. There are many and not all all Christian bashers. Suffice to say, they are very critical of this book which, according to many scholars and religious experts is sorely lacking in historical research or accuracy.
There was no TRIBE of DAVID for example. Most grade school Christians know that. Jesus was not born in 11 b.c and on and on.
Those who have been away from the faith for years and who return are hardly equipped to begin writing about it even if they did….. two years of research.
“The Master and font of wisdom needing to be taught?”
Was Christ born knowing how to use tools? St Joseph & the Blessed Virgin Mary had to teach Him something. His divine conscience kept Him from sin, but not from running out in front of cars or pulling a boiling pot over on His head – figuratively speaking, of course. He was like us in all ways but sin. We can only speculate what it must have been like for Him.
Breier, our human minds are finite. We can not hope to grasp what it was like for Jesus as a small child. Any artistic depiction of the 3 Persons of the Trinity will always be filtered through our very human & finite eyes. We can only represent God in artistic form in an imperfect way, just as we, although made in the image & likeness of God, are imperfect because of our sinfullness.
But there can be value in such depictions for believers. And such they can lead non-believers to Christ, too. Not everyone liked Gibson’s Passion film, which contained non-Gospel scenes. But nobody can deny it was made with reverence & humility by a man who very personally identifies with the sacrifice Christ made for us. Or that it helped millions grow closer to the Christ! I know of a certain painting of Christ & the Sacred Heart that looks like a California surfer dude with blue eyes & sun-bleached hair. Not my cup of chai, thanks. But some have been very moved by the image. They can identify with Him, somehow, through this painting & it’s helped their walk with Jesus. I can’t fault that. And, honestly, it just doesn’t seem as if Rice is trying to subvert anyone’s faith walk. In fact, in her afterword, she blasts modern bible study that seeks to (as you said) render Christ more human at the expense of the Godhead. Perhaps pha & Michelle, 2 folks who have actually read the book, could comment on that.
Gene,
Was Christ born knowing how to use tools? Yes. I’d up the ante and say that he was also born with the ability to speak as an infant, and that if he had so chosen, he could have taught his parents, rather than chosing to be subject to them. Christ isn’t a human person like us in all ways without sin, he’s a divine person like us in all ways except sin. As just as Adam and Eve didn’t need any period of infancy to be taught what they knew, so neither the new Adam. He indeeded learned and was taught, be he learned and was taught things he already knew. He had the beatific vision from the moment of his conception, he had the fulness of infused knowledge, he had a human nature hypostatically united to the nature of God; whatever that means for how we discuss his human nature; I can’t see the possibility of predicating ignorance or lack of knowledge in Christ.
Gene,
Was Christ born knowing how to use tools? Yes. I’ll up the ante and say he could have spoken as an infant, or taught his parents instead of being subject to their instruction, had he so chose. What he learnt from them he already knew. After all, he’s was not some human person with divine powers and sinlesses, he’s a divine person and the eternal God with a human nature. Everything you predicate about God you have to predicate about Christ. He started out life with a union with God more complete than the highest of the saints in heaven. He has the fullness of knowledge, the beatific vision from the moment of his conception, ineffable infused wisdom, a human nature hypostatically united to the very divine nature itself. To predicate ignorance or lack of knowledge in Christ, while easier for sentimental piety perhaps, is not the right road.
Christ didn’t error, Christ’s didn’t make mistakes, he never crossed his parents, he was in fact perfect. We have none of those attributes. So in one respect our “experience” as it were, is profoundly different from that of the God-man. Ignorance is a wound of original sin which Christ, being sinless, did not have.
The God-Man makes mistakes?
Says who?
There was no TRIBE of DAVID for example.
Of course there is. The Prophet St. David belongs to the tribe of Judah, as does our Lord.
Was Christ born knowing how to use tools? Yes. I’d up the ante and say that he was also born with the ability to speak as an infant, and that if he had so chosen, he could have taught his parents, rather than chosing to be subject to them.
“And the Child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him…. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” Luke 2:40 &52
“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. 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,’ and would even have to inquire for himself about what one in the human condition can learn only from experience. This corresponded to the reality of his voluntary emptying of himself, taking ‘the form of a slave.'” Catechism of the Catholic Church 471-472
See also Aquinas’ Summa Theologica:
Whether Christ advanced in acquired or empiric knowledge? (Hint: the answer is YES)
The God-Man makes mistakes?
Says who?
There was no TRIBE of DAVID for example.
Of course there is. The Prophet St. David belongs to the tribe of Judah, as does our Lord.
Was Christ born knowing how to use tools? Yes. I’d up the ante and say that he was also born with the ability to speak as an infant, and that if he had so chosen, he could have taught his parents, rather than chosing to be subject to them.
“And the Child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him…. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” Luke 2:40 &52
“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. 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,’ and would even have to inquire for himself about what one in the human condition can learn only from experience. This corresponded to the reality of his voluntary emptying of himself, taking ‘the form of a slave.'” Catechism of the Catholic Church 471-472
See also Aquinas’ Summa Theologica:
Whether Christ advanced in acquired or empiric knowledge? (Hint: the answer is YES)
Breier,
Remember the distinction between “ignorance” and “nescience” in Catholic theology, as well as the distinction between wisdom and knowledge. Lack of knowledge is not a consequence of original sin. The sinless Adam and Eve did not possess all knowledge. The sinless Mary, “full of grace” did not possess all knowledge.
Be very careful in equating Godliness or grace with fullness of knowledge. Serpents and gnostics agree on that point..
I’d up the ante and say that he was also born with the ability to speak as an infant
This statement is, by the way, more compatible with the Qur’an’s portrayal of Jesus than with the understanding of the Church Fathers.
The Christmas homilies of the ancient Fathers of the Church are chock full of comments about the paradox of the Divine Word becoming an infant (which literally means “not able to speak”). In the Incarnation, the Fathers say, the Bread hungered, the Fountain thirsted, the Light slept, the Word became speechless (i.e. an infant), the Way was wearied by the journey, and the Truth was accused by false witnesses.
The Qur’an, on the other hand, attributes speech to the infant Jesus (19:29-33).
agreed, JA. We got two of the most vicious heresies in Church history out of misguided analyses of the Incarnation: Arianism and Monophysitism. Breier seems to be accidentally drifting in the direction of the latter.
JA,
I quite agree that one can be profoundly holy and an ignoramus. My point is that there was no such dichotomy with the Godman. His knowledge at the beginning of his existence exceeded that of the infused knowledge first Adam when God breathed life into him and he became a living soul.
From the very moment of his Conception, the human soul of Christ experienced the beatific vision, and knew all things it that vision of the divine essence.
Further, from his very conception the human mind of Christ was filled with infused knowledge, the fulness of human knowledge.
He also acquired knowledge experientially through his senses, and learned things that way, but it doing so learned things he already knew from a higher way.
Do you agree that Christ was fully aware of his divinity from the moment of his conception, or not? Or did he grow into knowing he was God?
If you think it’s Catholic christology to saw that perfect God and perfect man Jesus Christ needed to learn how to control his divine power, that he didn’t know basic things that he needed to be taught, one is sounding more like Karl Rahner than Thomas Aquinas.
As for the Quran, what relevance does that have? The infant Christ acted like an infant, and didn’t work any miracles either, but that’s not for any want of any innate ability to. If you can see God, if you are the Word, you can have the ability to form words. The infant Christ was not an irrational animal.
Explain to me how one can have sufficient development of soul to experience the beatific vision from the moment of his conception, and be filled with infused knowledge, and know all things in the Word, and yet be ignorant of basic truths.
In claiming such, one is simply stating that Christ had the use of reason from the moment of his conception. It would be hard to have the beatific vision without reason, no? Whether or not Christ had the physical ability as an infant to articulate his wisdom is an interesting question, my point is that while we was an infant, his infant mind was also supernaturally elevated beyond that of your average infant. Your average baby does not yet have reason. Christ did.
This has nothing do with denying Christ’s human soul, or claiming that salvation is knowledge.
For perspective, and for those who are interested, I recommend the article on Christ’s human knowledge in the Catholic Encyclopedia, as well as the article on the “Human Knowledge of Christ” in the Catholic Faith magazine by Fr. O’Connell, easily attainable via Google.
Further, Christ from the beginning of his existence, and at every moment of his existence, knew everything that was, is, or will be. Would you expect anything else from the King of all Creation?
“Further, Christ from the beginning of his existence, and at every moment of his existence, knew everything that was, is, or will be. Would you expect anything else from the King of all Creation?”
Really? Then why did Christ say that only the Father, & specifically not the Son, knew the day & the hour of the end of the world?
Matthew 24:34-36:
“Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away till all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” (Emphasis mine.)
The infant Christ was not an irrational animal.
Neither are other human infants, yet they cannot speak.
Whether or not Christ had the physical ability as an infant to articulate his wisdom is an interesting question
That’s why it’s one of the questions being discussed.
I recommend the article on Christ’s human knowledge in the Catholic Encyclopedia
“Jesus Christ had, no doubt, also an experimental knowledge acquired by the natural use of His faculties, through His senses and imagination, just as happens in the case of common human knowledge. To say that his human faculties were wholly inactive would resemble a profession of either Monothelitism or of Docetism. This knowledge naturally grew in Jesus in the process of time, according to the words of Luke, ii, 52: “And Jesus advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace with God and men”. Understood in this way, the Evangelist speaks not merely of a successively greater manifestation of Christ’s Divine and infused knowledge, nor merely of an increase in His knowledge as far as outward effects were concerned, but of a real advance in His acquired knowledge. Not that this kind of knowledge implies an enlarged object of His science; but it signified that He gradually came to know, after a merely human way, some of the things which he had known from the beginning by His Divine and infused knowledge.”
Pha,
Exactly. Happy to see we’re on the same page. Particular emphasis on:
“Not that this kind of knowledge implies an enlarged object of His science; but it signified that He gradually came to know, after a merely human way, some of the things which he had known from the beginning by His Divine and infused knowledge.”
Hence there was nothing that Christ “needed” to be taught, as if would be ignorant if he weren’t taught. Thus the opinion that Christ needed to learn how to control his divine power, or to learn basic facts of life from his parents, although well-meaning, is incorrect. He already knew those things through his divine knowledge, the knowledge of the beatific vision, and through his infused knowledge. This, of course, did not preclude his learning those things by a new way.
But it does preclude Christ’s learning experience being like ours, because we go from ignorance as children to knowledgable adults. Christ with all the knowledge, so he never really learned anything he didn’t already know before, but his human non-infused knowledge did develop.
“Further, from his very conception the human mind of Christ was filled with infused knowledge, the fulness of human knowledge.
He also acquired knowledge experientially through his senses, and learned things that way, but it doing so learned things he already knew from a higher way.”
Breier-
In regard to the first statement; if Jesus in fact had the fulness of human knowledge at his conception, how is it that the scripture says he “grew in wisdom and knowledge”?
In regard to the second statement; I don’t see how a person could be said to learn (in the ordinary sense) something they already know.
If Jesus was truly man, then he had a real human brain, and even a perfect specimen of a human brain will have finite limitations. We can only process so much at once, though Jesus clearly had access to infinite knowledge.
I believe that Jesus (in a human sense) could CHOOSE to know anything he wanted, and could also choose to limit His own knowledge in certain areas. He could in this way make a choice to learn certain things in the usual human way, if he desired.
Why would Jesus do that? Maybe because he thought it was fitting, just as he thought that being baptized was fitting (though for him it was altogether unnecessary). He also thought it fitting to live under the authority of his earthly parents, and to be obedient to them, not because of any necessity (he could have been raised by angels), but because he LOVED the idea of The Family. He invented it. It was fitting.
The Son of Man didn’t just go through the motions of being human, he really was one of us. He really WANTED to be one of us. He could have come down from the cross and called his legions of angels, but he chose to be limited and mortal, as we are, so that he might lift humanity up into the life of the Trinity.
I think in being obedient to his parents, Jesus was simply saying “I am a person, and this is what people ought to do”. Same with Baptism, foot washing, paying taxes, fasting, feasting, etc… If he learned to use tools, then every splinter he got was an act of love toward us. It was his way of “bonding”.
So I believe he took on limitations (his death PROVES that), but that all his limitations were voluntary and he could have chosen differently.
Thanks, Tim. You made all the points I was going to try to make! (But better.)
I don’t believe that the phrase “He gradually came to know, after a merely human way” equates with “there was nothing that Christ ‘needed’ to be taught” because He still needed to learn things in an experiential way, as humans do. If Christ were raised by wolves, would He have learned to speak Aramaic? As the second Person of the Trinity, He could do anything He wanted to & speak any language He wanted. But that’s not how humans learn, that’s not how He created humans to learn. Even though He was perfectly human, He still needed to learn to walk because He was limited by how human muscles develop in the first year of life. That means he’d fall down & get hurt. To say that He had no need to learn anything seems to deny that, even though He could conceptualize Who he was because of His divinity, there was a point that He couldn’t articulate it. I was going to make the point that He chose to die in a very human way before Tim did, because, at some point, Jesus experienced the limitations of the human form He’d taken on.
And that is a very meaningful & significant mystery to ponder in one’s heart!
Tim,
Theologians have distinguished between different kinds of knowledge that Christ as man had. He had knowledge from the beatific vision, from infused knowledge, and from the ordinary manner of knowledge we get through our senses.
The idea is that Christ can know things in the first two ways that he didn’t know by the third way.
Obviously, it is hard for us to relate to that, since the only knowledge most of us experience third kind.
Regarding the statement of scripture, it likely refers to Christ actual growing in that third kind of knowledge. But what he learned by the third way he already knew by the first two. It could also be interpreted as a progressive manifestation of the knowledge he already possessed, as some fathers held.
I’m taking the existence of the beatific vision and infused knowledge in Christ as the established teaching of the Church. Magisterial references for it can be found in the articles I cited.
Whether or not Christ could truly have taken upon to himself ignorance and error if he chose, is a difficult question. It involves the question of the relationship between the spiritual life of the soul and the contraints of the body, and the union of the Word with both. One might also ask if Christ could have hypostatically united himself to something non-rational, like a stone or an animal. But of course that’s not what happened, so in a way it’s kind of moot. In any event, clearly he could not have sinned. But while acknowledging the theoretical issues involved, I’m talking about the reality that actually took place in the Incarnation.
And there’s a long line of magisterial authority that Christ did not have any ignorance, in fact had nearly unlimited knowledge in his human intellect, though not infinite, since his human mind was finite.
The difficulty in projecting our own experiences unto that of Christ is that he started out his human life as a perfect divine person, whereas our human personality develops slowly along with us. What is the experience of an unchangable immutable eternal out-of-time divine person becoming a man? Lord if I know. For example, if one of us, grown up, because an infant, but remained a grown-up adult too, hypostatically united to the nature of an infant what would our experience be? We’d still be adults, but then not. Speaking yet infant; it veers towards contradiction but ends up an inscrutable mystery.
Gene,
I’ll grant you that things like muscle memory, practice of an art, etc, have a physiological effect that better aids the performance of an action.
So clearly if Christ chose to accept standard limitations, he needed to exercise to be healthy, to eat to stay alive, etc.
However, we see examples in the Gospel of Christ transcending physical limitations. For example, eating and drinking nothing for forty days and nights.
In any event, with regard to knowledge, I think if Christ had perfect knowledge already, he didn’t really need to learn things in the human way, although it was certainly fitting that he did.
And anything that we can get through practice or human learning, the resulting virtue that’s obtained, can be infused directly by God without the human legwork. Christ did have infused knowledge.
I’m reminded of that scene in the Matrix when Neo receives plugs into the computer, and five minutes later says “I know Kung Fu!” I suppose Neo had infused Kung Fu. Did he need to take basic lessons?
He still needed to learn things in an experiential way, as humans do…. Even though He was perfectly human, He still needed to learn to walk because He was limited by how human muscles develop in the first year of life.
Of course. A person who has never had legs may know how walking is done, but that’s not the same thing as knowing how to walk, which knowledge is only acquired by experience.
I know a good bit about how ice skating is done, but I do not know how to skate. I know how bread is made, but I do not know how to make bread.
But what he learned by the third way he already knew by the first two. It could also be interpreted as a progressive manifestation of the knowledge he already possessed
So you’re already denying what the Catholic Encyclopedia said, after instructing us all to read it and saying “exactly”? “[T]he Evangelist speaks not merely of a successively greater manifestation of Christ’s Divine and infused knowledge, nor merely of an increase in His knowledge as far as outward effects were concerned, but of a real advance in His acquired knowledge.”
clearly he could not have sinned
No one here has suggested otherwise.
[Matrix tangent]
I’m reminded of that scene in the Matrix when Neo receives plugs into the computer, and five minutes later says “I know Kung Fu!” I suppose Neo had infused Kung Fu. Did he need to take basic lessons?
Though Neo says he knows Kung Fu, it is just a manner of speaking. In reality, he knows how Kung Fu is done. To do Kung Fu, in the real world and not virtually, he would still have to learn how to do it. That kind of learning can’t be “downloaded.”
Although it is true that Christ’s soul was infused with knowledge, we must not interpret this in a manner that confuses the intellective power of the soul with what we would call the human mind. We must remember that Christ had a human brain and that the development of his human intellect is intrinsicly tied to his physical development. We must also remember that any “infused” property of human beings has a chronological dimension. The “fullness of knowledge” infused into his soul can only be manifested to the extent that his humanity allows at any given point in time.
In the case of language, for instance, it seems to me to deny Christ’s humanity if the ‘human’ infant somehow possessed a complete understanding and ability to command verbal language at a time when he did not yet possess cortical language structures (or even a developed cortex as an embryo). Now, I will concede the possibility that Christ’s physiological development, especially that of his brain, is completely unknown to us and its similarity to ours mere supposition. However, we have no reason to believe otherwise; there is no evidence that orignial sin causes physiological or mental development. Christ’s human mind was tied to his human body; the human person (or substance) is not a soul which is somehow controlling a body, but rather composed of a body and soul.
This is not to say that Christ ever held erroneous thoughts. On the contrary, it excludes this possibility, for the infused knowledge of Christ’s human soul is chronologically constant.
We are not forced to interpret the conclusions of Aquinas with Aristotle’s understanding of human psychology, (especially regarding the relationship between the brain, the soul, and the mind) any more than we are forced to accept arguments of Aquinas based upon Aristotelian physics.
The mind of Christ is an inscrutable mystery, but we must not be too quick to assume that his pristine humanity excluded him from the same physiological and cognitive developments of the rest of humanity. Let us not forget the humanity of the Sacred Head is as essential as the humanity of the Sacred Heart.
Well, this is certainly a fascinating discussion. What impresses me is how important the mystery of the Incarnation is to the people who posted here. The mail I’ve received in response to Christ the Lord, Out of Egypt, has been overwhelmingly positive, and the most common comment is “you made Him real to me for the first time.” I’m grateful. That was the idea: to say God became man and lived with us for over thirty years; let’s try to imagine how that might have worked out for Him day in and day out. Take care, and again, belatedly, my thanks. Anne Rice. (Anne Rice.com).
Is that really Anne Rice!?!?!
I bet it is. She corresponded with me (sent a response email to me) after I learned of her reversion to the faith.
I mentioned to Ms. Rice, that my wife liked her previous works and wondered if I could get her reversion story in an article somewhere to share with her. My wife is a non-Denominational Christian and has not been too happy about my conversion to the Church. At the time I thought Anne’s reversion story would make some kind of favorable impression. It did, my wife threw away her old Anne Rice books.
My Friday Laugh for the day.
I read her book and it really did make me a grown man cry at the end. I recommend it.
Thanks, Vince!
Yeah, I’d love to read something personal from her such as here reversion.
Would it be possible for you to share?
God bless you and your wife, who I hope one day will share the Fullness of our Faith!
Trust in Him!
Remember Kimberly Hahn???
Oh, I failed to follow through with my thought. Her reversion story is in the Hard Back copy of the book. It was good too, but didn’t make me cry.