From: Alexanian, Moorad (alexanian@uncw.edu)
Date: Fri Dec 13 2002 - 09:28:17 EST
"... resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ
Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge.’Äù Col. 2:2-3. Does this apply to Jesus on earth? Moorad
-----Original Message-----
From: george murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
Sent: Thu 12/12/2002 5:44 PM
To: Alexanian, Moorad
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: Did Jesus know the genetic code?
"Alexanian, Moorad" wrote:
> These sort of questions sound a bit strange in view of the
following verses: ˆ¢’Ǩ¬ùThrough Him all things were made; without
Him nothing was made that has been made.ˆ¢’Ǩ¬ù John 1:3. Moorad
"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14).
In response to Moorad's comment and a similar one of
Sheila, the question isn't whether or not the eternal 2d Person of
the Trinity knows certain things. It is whether the Word
become flesh, Jesus of Nazareth, between ~ 4 B.C. & 30 A.D.,
knew that the earth was round, the genetic code, &c.
The church's classic statements about Christ, God
Incarnate, insist that while he is one divine person, he possesses
everything proper to full human - as well as divine - nature.
I.e. that he had a complete human body & mind & all functions
proper to them. One then has to ask about the relationship between
the infinite divine mind and the finite human one. One
can argue that the human mind of Christ, while finite, had
access to everything in the infinite divine mind, rather as a
computer with relatively small memory might have access to the
memory of another much larger computer. (Thomas V. Morris
develops such an analogy in _The Logic of God Incarnate_.) But there
is no compelling reason to say that this was indeed the
case during Jesus' earthly life.
It is obvious that Jesus did not make use of full,
unlimited, divine abilities in everything he did on earth. He
normally got from one place to another by walking, not by
utilizing divine omnipresence.
The question then is whether those divine powers were simply
"hidden" most of the time or whether in assuming human nature he in
fact "emptied himself" of them, as Phil.2:5-11 suggests. I
think that the latter type of "kenotic" theology is closer to
the truth. But as I said in my earlier post, we do not in fact know
enough about the historical Jesus' consciousness, memory
&c to be able to make dogmatic statements about this.
Shalom,
George
> -----Original Message-----
> From: George Murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
> Sent: Thu 12/12/2002 11:15 AM
> To: asa@calvin.edu
> Cc:
> Subject: Did Jesus know the genetic code?
>
>
>
> The question posed in my subject heading is, on one level, as
> reasonable as "Did
> Jesus know that the earth was round?" If one
claims that, because he
> was the Son of God
> he must have known that the earth was round then he
must have also
> know that it isn't
> exactly spherical, its quadrupole, octupole &c
moments as well as the
> genetic code, the
> details of nuclear fusion &c.
> There is no compelling reason to make such
a claim - & also
> no drop-dead
> argument to reject it. I belive that the divine
kenosis should be taken with
> complete seriousness, that God Incarnate lived a
human life under the
> conditions of
> finite humanity in 1st century Palestine, & that
limitation of
> knowledge was part of
> this. Some NT texts (Mk.5:30 & 13:32, Lk.2:52)
point rather explicitly in this
> direction. OTOH, he was (& is) God Incarnate &
when all is said and
> done, we don't have
> access to the inner workings of his mind.
> That's "on one level," the theological. On
the purely
> historical level there's
> nothing impossible about Jesus having known the
shape of the earth -
> & even its size -
> found by Greek science. There was a strong
presence of hellenistic culture in
> Palestine, & we simply don't know how much
familiarity with it Jesus
> had. OTOH we have
> no indication in the gospels that he ever gave any
thought to the
> shape of the earth,
> nobody trying to trap him by asking, "Rabbi, is the
earth round or flat" &c.
> So the question about Jesus' views on the
shape of the earth
> may be like asking
> what I think is the world's greatest soccer team.
I've never given
> any thought to it,
> don't know, & don't very much care.
>
>
Shalom,
>
George
>
>
> --
> George L. Murphy
> gmurphy@raex.com
> http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
>
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