How Did Jesus Know He Was God?

Self-Consciousness and Human Knowledge of Christ: Maritain, Rahner, and Weinandy

William Chami

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781725260603
  9781725260597
• eBook ISBN:
  9781725260610
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

The self-consciousness and human knowledge of Christ is a contemporary christological issue which seeks to understand the awareness that the God-man, Jesus Christ, possessed of himself during his life on earth. The present question primarily concerns itself with exploring how the Son knows that he is the Son in his human mind. Traditionally this question has been asked and answered that, through the beatific vision, the Son knew himself as divine in his human mind. However, recent theories advanced by scholars seem to preclude any notion of beatific knowledge in the Incarnate Son. This book explores the perspectives of three main authors, Jacques Maritain, Karl Rahner, and Thomas Weinandy, in relation to the present question, and attempts to provide an answer for how the Incarnate Son apprehended his divine identity through his human operations. Considered also is the scope of Christ's human knowledge with regard to two specific objects of knowledge. These concern whether the Son as man had an awareness of those for whom he gave his life (Gal 2:20) and whether the Son was really ignorant of the eschatological final "day and hour" (Mark 13:32; Matt 24:36).

I. Jacques Maritain

Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain, in his 1967 publication De la Grâce et de l’humanité de Jésus, presented his thoughts on the issue of Jesus’ self-consciousness and his human knowledge. Like any good Thomist, Maritain’s ideas were built on the long-established foundations set by St. Thomas Aquinas and virtually the whole Catholic theological tradition which maintained that the Incarnate Christ, during his life on earth, possessed the beatific vision.1 More than this, it was also postulated that Jesus possessed two other forms of human knowledge: infused science as the most perfect of the prophets, and acquired knowledge such as we possess.2 It was said that Jesus obtained knowledge experientially throughout his life on account of his true humanity, while the beatific vision and infused science were interpreted as graces given to the Incarnate Son for the purpose of his soteriological mission.3 This idea of the threefold structure of Jesus’ human knowledge dominated the Catholic theological scene for centuries. As will be demonstrated in this chapter, Maritain’s thesis was significant in reinforcing the traditional notions of Jesus’ beatific vision and infused science as the condition for Christ’s self-awareness as the Son of God. More than this, Maritain, through his distinctions in consciousness, was able to develop these traditional concepts so as to better articulate how it is that Jesus, in his historical life, could be simul viator et comprehensor (“at once wayfarer and beholder”).4 For the purpose of this chapter, Maritain’s treatment of Christ’s beatific vision and infused science will be presented, as well as how these two forms of graced knowledge participate in one another so as to produce in the Son the knowledge of his own divine identity and mission.

Preliminary Remarks and Methodology

As previously stated, Maritain’s work relied heavily upon the thought of St. Thomas. This does not mean that Maritain’s thesis was a mere monotonous expression of what had previously been argued by the Angelic Doctor. Rather, Maritain took St. Thomas’s notions of Jesus’ beatific vision and infused science and developed them successfully through his ingenious distinction of the different levels of consciousness that exist in the Incarnate Son. For example, Maritain argued that the human soul of Jesus possessed consciousness not only as it is common to our own human experience, which he refers to as the “here-below” of Christ’s soul but, further than this, a “supraconscious of the Spirit.”5 In substantiating the existence of this “supraconscious of the Spirit,” Maritain argues that its properties are analogous to the unconscious functioning of the agent intellect and that this supraconscious was present even in the minds of the ancients, in particular, in Aristotle when he spoke on “inspirations.”6 The supraconscious, as with the subconscious, is the negatively established category for denoting that which is not conscious,7 while the “here-below” region of Christ’s soul is rendered akin to the ordinary human consciousness that functions in ourselves and in which lays present unconscious tendencies, instincts, and sensations, as well as the agent intellect and will.8 This distinction between supraconsciousness and lower consciousness is a central premise in Maritain’s thesis, one that helped him to convey how it is that Jesus could be both wayfarer and beholder at the same time. He argues that in the supraconscious region of his soul, Jesus was the perfect comprehensor, while in his lower consciousness, Jesus served as a wayfarer.9 Maritain further explains that there exists a certain level of incommunicability between these two spheres of consciousness. The content present in the supraconscious region is inaccessible to lower consciousness, and so cannot pass into it except by “mode of general influx, and of comforting, and of participated light.”10 As Romanus Cessario describes, the content of the supraconscious present to Jesus-comprehensor cannot and does not “inform” Jesus-viator in his wayfaring consciousness, but instead serves only as an illuminating light.11

An example of the way in which Maritain employs this distinction concerns the statement made by St. Luke that Jesus “increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52). Maritain recognizes that this passage of St. Luke appears to conflict with the words of St. John which describe Jesus as “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Herein lies the apparent contrariety, since St. Luke seems to describe a continual increase in wisdom and grace throughout the life of Jesus, whereas St. John seems to think that Jesus was filled with both grace and truth to the utmost degree. This is where Maritain’s distinction between supraconsciousness and wayfaring consciousness is made useful. According to Maritain, since St. Thomas lacked the distinction between supraconsciousness and wayfaring consciousness that Maritain himself employs, St. Thomas was not able to resolve these two seemingly conflicting texts and so, in his answer, did not do justice to the declaration of St. Luke.12 Maritain, on the other hand, was able to harmoniously integrate both statements of St. John and St. Luke into the reality of Christ’s life by stating that Jesus was indeed maximally filled with both grace and truth as per St. John, but only in the supraconscious region of his soul where he functioned as comprehensor. However, because this region is largely inaccessible to his lower consciousness, Jesus also, at the same time, grew in grace and truth, but only in his lower consciousness where he was viator.13 Both wisdom and grace increased in Jesus, but they did so only in one part of his soul, while in the other part it was had perfectly, as St. Thomas renders. This method of distinction was both innovative and useful in delineating Jesus’ role as both comprehensor and viator and is, as will be demonstrated, consistent with the rest of Maritain’s treatment on the whole question of Jesus’ self-consciousness and human knowledge.

Beatific Vision and Infused Science in Christ

Maritain holds that Jesus, from the moment of his conception, possessed the beatific vision.14 Maritain’s affirmation of the beatific vision in the Incarnate Son is predicated on Jesus’ role as comprehensor and on the nature of the hypostatic union. He argues that because it is the Word that is Incarnate and so subsists in human nature, it is necessary that this assumed human nature “participate in the Deity to the sovereign degree possible, in short, that it be elevated to the state of comprehensor, that is to say, that it see God.”15 Maritain’s attribution of the beatific vision to the Incarnate Son, then, seems to derive itself from a so-called “principle of perfection,” that is to say that since the human nature is hypostatically united to the divine person, the humanity is thus conferred with perfect human attributes, among these the beatific vision.16 Furthermore, because Jesus was comprehensor only in the supraconscious region of his soul, the beatific vision only occurred in and was confined to that region. It did not penetrate and permeate his lower consciousness unreservedly, except by mode of general influence and participated light.17 This means that the beatific vision did not produce in Jesus the complementary perfection, beatitude, and glory that is connatural to the vision.18 More than...

Table of contents

• Title page
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Jacques Maritain
• Chapter 2: Karl Rahner
• Chapter 3: Thomas Weinandy
• Chapter 4: Final Remarks
• Conclusion
• Bibliography