The Path on Earth of the Son of God
I. Jesus’ consciousness of Himself and his mission
A. Introduction
1. Jesus’ imminent expectation: Jesus proclaimed the Kingdom of God to
be close at hand, but them it seemed not to appear.
a. The assertion is that Jesus was mistaken confronts theology
with difficult questions.
2. There are two attempts to address the question that must be avoided:
a. The Fathers of the Church suggest Jesus’ ignorance is for a
pedagogical purpose. Jesus does know, but he does not wish to
reveal it.
b. It is inadequate to assert what appears to be a prophetic
consciousness as the imminent end of the world and time is
explained by the overpowering shock at the absoluteness of the
will of God.
B. Imminent Expectation: Was Jesus Mistaken?
1. Weiss and Schweitzer believe that Jesus shared the Jewish
apocalyptic view of the world, where the end times will be seen in a
kind of cosmic catastrophe. Three elements were tied to this:
a. People assumed the imminent arrival of the Kingdom of God.
b. The kingdom of God is an eschatological/apocalyptic concept.
c. People were expecting the end of the world.
2. These theologians were responding against Harnack who turns Jesus
simply into a teacher of moral behavior.
a. Jesus shared the view that the end of the world was imminent,
but instead there was the cross. Even after Easter, Jesus’
disciples were hoping for the coming of the Kingdom, but the
Parousia was delayed.
b. Instead of the Kingdom of God, there was the Church.
3. But did Jesus really believe this way?
a. The Qumran texts question whether the people really did
expect the end of the world.
b. Exegetes wonder if Jesus had the kingdom as an eschatological
image. This is because Jesus talks about the Kingdom as being
present now.
c. Jesus gives no definite information about time in regard to the
future.
4. It is wrong to apply to Jesus a preconceived notion of the Kingdom of
God.
a. No where in Jesus’ preaching is there an indication that Jesus
himself believed his failure to be a sign that God’s kingdom has
not come.
b. The Kingdom fares as Jesus did. It is not recognized and it even
suffers violence.
c. Jesus imminent expectation is that the will of the Father is
done, that his Kingdom come.
C. The Decisive Will of God: Jesus’ moral message
1. The time is fulfilled because Jesus himself is the fullness of time,
because the boundless fullness of the love of God has come in Jesus.
a. The coming of Jesus is the coming of the end time. Jesus knows
that he has been sent to fulfill the eschatological gathering
together of Israel.
b. That fact can only mean that Jesus is conscious of being sent to
renew God’s covenant in its unconditionality to led all Israel to
what comes forth as the constant call of the covenant that
Israel is perfect and holy as God is perfect and holy.
c. Just as the call of the prophets brought about a separation
between those who accepted and rejected the Lord, so Jesus
himself is the sign of the times.
d. The band of those who follow Jesus are the eschatological
Israel. The discourses of Jesus on judgment see the judgment
with the reference to himself.
2. This separation does not lead Jesus to carry out a separation between
believers and non-believers. The WEEDS and WHEAT are left to grow
together. The judgment takes place in his self-offering on the cross.
a. Jesus knows he has been sent to save, not to judge. It is in his
healing and saving ministry that rejection and hatred are
ignited, right up to bring about the plan for his death.
b. The very fact that he is doing good brings him enmity.
3. A unique feature of Jesus’ mission is that the growing enmity against
him does not alter the aim of his mission.
a. He is always concerned to save, not to judge. Love your
enemies.
b. how can his saving mission be sustained if enmity prevails over
acceptance? It can only be accomplished by forgiving and
serving.
4. Jesus knows he has been sent to sinners and he grants forgiveness of
Sins in acts and images.
a. Jesus knows himself to be the one who carries out and
proclaims God’s own will, forgiving and in so doing this he is
bringing the kingdom of God.
b. In his acts of pardon it becomes manifest who the God who
sent him is and what his Kingdom looks like.
5. Jesus’ mission finds its expression in the trait of service.
a. Jesus overturns the rabbinic idea of service because his
demand for discipleship is more radical than that of the
rabbis, but he is among them as one who serves.
b. Because Jesus as the Master is one who serves, the disciples
must serve. Jesus himself understood his mission as service to
the poor and little ones.
c. Jesus uses his authority not to make people feel his power, but
to heal and save.
d. This action is more than an appeal for humility. It is an
essential part of the mission of Jesus and is essentially a
proclamation of the Kingdom of God.
6. Jesus prepares his disciples for such service and also promises them
hardships, persecution and maltreatment. We can only conclude that
suffering is a part of his mission.
a. His power to effect conversion stems from the fact that he is
ready to endure the hatred of those he loves. He can conquer
this hatred only by a love that is all the greater.
b. Jesus opens the door for them so that they can get out of their
hatred if they accept this love. Christ’s death becomes a
gesture of his love, his last word of Love.
7. Two things have to be held together:
a. The authority of Jesus which empowers him to serve, in an
understanding of his mission as God’s final mission to Israel and
the eschatological call of Israel to return to God.
b. How can we reconcile the fact that Jesus expects the Kingdom
of God and at the same time walks toward self-sacrifice by way
of service and forgiveness of sins?
c. Jesus did not merely preach the Kingdom of God; he risked his
life for the sake of its coming. That is the heart of his
proclamation of the Kingdom of God. It reveals that God is
willing to pay much for it- indeed everything.
d. The key to the Kingdom is the cross. There is NO other way
that the Kingdom will ever come about but through the cross
and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
D. Jesus’ Knowledge in the History of Theology
1. The question of Jesus’ omniscience and his awareness of himself as
divine is a soteriological question. It is not irrelevant whether Jesus
knew why he was dying.
a. When Jesus was dying, he must have known in a mysterious but
real way for whom he was giving his life; otherwise he does not
save us and his death has no meaning for us.
b. What is unique about the revelation of Jesus is that he is not
only the one who receives revelation, but is himself the
REVEALER and REVELATION in one.
E. Integration and Perfection in Patristic Literature
1. The Early church was interested in two questions:
a. The question of the complete humanity of Christ.
b. The question of Jesus’ ignorance.
2. In the battles against Docetism, it Is clear that the Church proclaim
and defend the real corporeality of Jesus.
a. With the rise of Apollinarism, there also began to be the
concern of Jesus’ human will, intellect and soul.
b. Thus the human intelligence of Jesus could not be seen as that
of a man enlightened by God, but the human intelligence of
the LOGOS of God.
c. With the Hypostatic Union, it is possible for Jesus’ divine
knowledge to be communicated to his humanity. This
communication occurred with respect to Jesus’ human
constitution and for the salvation entrusted ot the Incarnate
Word.
3. With Chalcedon, Jesus is seen as perfect in humanity and perfect in
divinity.
a. That Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and favor with God,
that he assumed a true human process of growth is part of the
principle of Integrity. Does this imply ignorance on Jesus’ part?
b. There is also present in Jesus the principle of perfection,
whereby Jesus’ human existence is perfect and sinless. This is
why the early Church practically any ignorance on the part of
Christ.
c. St. Ambrose would state that Jesus knows the hour only for
himself. He does not know it for me.
F. Christ’s Vision of God in the Middle Ages
1. The question revolved around how could a human soul and a human
intelligence contain all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
a. Gregory the Great believed that Jesus’ knowledge was human
in application and divine in origin.
2. In the 13th Century, Scholasticism developed the triplex scientia
humana.
a. Scientia Acquisita: acquired human knowledge.
b. Scientia Infusa: A prophetic knowledge coming from
supernatural communication.
c. Scientia Visionis: The vision of God that other people will have
in everlasting life.
3. There are three respects in which the knowledge of the beatific vision
is misunderstood:
a. Visio does not mean the same as comprehension
(understanding). The soul of Christ was by no means able to
fully comprehend the nature of God. It s a contemplation, not a
comprehension.
b. The visio is immediate. It is not mediated through the senses or
mental concepts or ideas. It is a knowledge which God himself
grants directly to our mind.
c. Christ has in his human soul a relative omniscience.
4. The visio means that the soul of Christ sees everything in the Father,
receives everything from the Father and knows everything in the
Father.
5. How can divine knowledge and perception be present in the human
knowledge and perception and be mediated by it?
a. In the Bible there is only one way to know God, and that is by
looking at him. In the NT, man cannot look at God until he does
so in the perfection of the Kingdom of God.
b. Looking upon God can only mean endless happiness. Christ is
looking upon God because he has the direct relation to God
without which human perception can only ever grasp what is
finite.
c. Christ is the way that can lead all men to the goal (beatific
vision). In order to lead us there, Jesus must not only be
VIATOR (on the way to the goal), but already be there himself
(COMPREHENSOR).
6. If Christ enjoys the Beatific vision, then can he still be walking an
historical path?
a. The visio doctrine does not really contravene his true
humanity; but it ascribes the greatest importance to the
significance for salvation of Jesus’ life and its mysteries.
b. It is based on a particular evaluation of Jesus’ earthly life. In
the actions and suffering of Jesus, the whole of salvation came
about once and for all. It was realized by the incarnate Word
through his human will and human mind.
c. It was therefore requisite that Christ should know in his human
soul the entire revelation to be born and the whole salvation to
be effected.
7. Christ receives everything from the Father, who knows everything
from him and teaches on the basis of him.
a. Even if Jesus’ time period and environment left their mark on
him, it is still more true that he has left his mark on every age
in the whole world.
G. Christ’s self-awareness as a modern problem
1. Pope Pius X and Benedict XV write that it is wrong to maintain that it
must be taught with certainty that Jesus was mistaken in the
imminent expectation question or that he was not always conscious of
being the Messiah.
a. Pius XII points out the loving knowledge with which Jesus
comprehends everyone.
b. The question of Christ’s consciousness is posed quite differently
depending on the starting point.
2. One either starts with Faith in the God-man, The Incarnate Word, or
whether Jesus is regarded from the standpoint of an ordinary man
who had a strong relationship to God.
II. Contemporary Answers to the Question
A. Rahner’s Basic distinction
1. The doctrine of the Hypostatic Union is the basis of the dogmatic
statement about the self-knowledge and self-awareness of Jesus.
a. Knowledge is a multi-tiered structure, that at ay given point
man will consciously know some facts but unconsciously not
others.
b. Besides the subconscious, there is also the super conscious- the
constantly active spiritual dimension of the human soul, the
life-giving source of any of its intellectual activity, artistic
inspiration and great moral choices.
c. There is by analogy the simultaneous existence of two levels of
consciousness in which the upper level does not abolish the
activity proper to the lower, but strengthens and guides it.
d. There exists the form of knowledge of an a-priori non-objective
knowledge of oneself, the basic mode of being. The basic mode
of being is not objective knowledge; reflection never basically
catches up with this basic mode of being.
2. Thus there is
a. An objective perceiving of oneself (cogitare)
b. A knowing of oneself as a whole, even if this is never
objectively conscious (nosse)
3. Augustine is convinced that every mind knows of itself and about
which it is certain.
a. One may have any possible opinion on any possible matter, but
even if it doubts, he lives. If these processes were not, he
could not doubt at all (CF.185)
b. This ultimate certainty, which can never become objective
knowledge, is the basis of all perception.
c. BUT, is the concept of omniscience a meaningful concept at
all? And what might represent its corresponding human analogy
in human consciousness?
d. One CANNOT become omniscient. One cannot arrive at an
infinite knowledge from a finite starting point. It is not mere
addition.
e. BUT, with “NOSSE”, that self-knowledge and self-awareness of
the finite conscious subject (mens) which never becomes
categorical knowledge is the unity that renders possible all the
separate individual perceptions; this comprehending presence
that accompanies all the activities of our intelligence.
9. In the ultimate unity of the conscious subject in which I know myself,
is the closest analogy to the divine omniscience which must surely be
thought of as a unity, but not an infinite sum of perceptions. Thus
Christ cannot be omniscient on the level of cogitare.
a. Rahner attributes ot Jesus from the beginning a basic mode of
being that is immediate to God of an absolute kind.
b. He interprets the growth of Jesus’ self-consciousness as a
history of the self interpretation of Jesus’ own basic mode of
being.
c. Jesus more and more grasps what he already is and what he
basically already knew.
B. Von Balthasar’s Trinitarian Overview
1. He sees the mission of the Son in the extension of the eternal
procession of the Son from the Father.
a. Jesus’ entire earthly existence is a kind of translation in terms
of history and the economy of salvation of his eternal
existence, his manner of being God.
b. His manner of being man is the form of the translation of his
manner of being God. Thus if as God he is entirely from the
Father, so when he became man he is entirely from the Father.
2. Mission and Person is localized in Jesus. No split exits between his
person and his task. Jesus is in his entire existence the envoy of the
Father.
a. Jesus’ self awareness is the awareness of his mission. Jesus’
human consciousness is the consciousness of his mission.
b. Jesus has always been fully aware of his mission; it is a non-
thematic immemorial knowledge of the conscious subject itself
(NOSSE) which always knows of being one with the Father.
c. The process of becoming conscious of his mission thematically
can certainly take place in the manner of a historical process
of becoming.
3. What does the self-awareness of Jesus mean? He is the Son of God.
This self-awareness is therefore inseparably the awareness of the
unity with the one who he calls ABBA.
a. His human consciousness is the human translation of his eternal
divine Sonship.
b. Jesus’ knowledge is not at all from himself, but from his
relationship with his Father. Jesus knows himself purely in the
loving gaze at his Father, since he exists only in through and for
the Father.
c. When Jesus prays, then the mystery of the Son who wholly lives
through the Father appears in the most personal manner.
4. Human self-awareness is inconceivable without relationships with
others.
a. There is no such thing as an isolated self-awareness. Openness
to and dependence on others are an essential part of human
awareness.
b. Only in knowing other things and people do we know
ourselves.
5. In that sense, we may assume that Jesus came to know himself
through others, and especially through his mother.
a. However much human knowledge was certainly part of it,
everything seen on the other hand, to indicate that there was
one thing that Jesus did not learn, his connection to the
Father. (NOSSE)
b. Anyone who does not presuppose an absolute immediacy to
God on Jesus’ part necessarily have to support a kind of
adoptionism.
c. Everything that Jesus does and says always comes from his
immemorial unity with the Father.
C. Basic Mode of Being and thematic knowledge
1. The unity between divine and human consciousness in Christ consists
primarily in the awareness of mission.
a. Jesus understands himself as the One who comes from the
Father and who makes the Father known.
b. The particular shape of the mission can contain a wealth of
content, successively revealed, but its source remains the
mission itself.
c. From the Gospels, it is clear that Jesus not only knows about
his mission in a basic mode of being, but also knows in the
concrete about the path, his task and the word he is to speak