Hi Wil -
So if second cause, G-d in the flesh, has the ability to feel thirst, hunger, anger, fear, sorrow, pain...why are we denying him other human traits...like developing skills, temporarily forgetting his path, and in the course of time moving growing from his humaness to his righteous understanding?
In the recent discussion between us, I think it's more a matter of perspective, because I don't disagree with your comment here.
But I will argue - he never sinned.
I think the 'anonymous years' of Jesus' childhood and adolescence was just that, growing into the fullness of his humanity, learnt at his father's side, his mother's bidding, playing with his family, life in the community...
That's why I simply refute any notion of secret travels to distant places, Egypt, India, et al ... it all seems a 'necessary fabrication' to me, to add a gloss of pseudo-mystery, as if the Mystery of the Incarnation was not enough.
My angle is this:
I think that Christ acted according to his will, rather than to what he knew, or learnt.
A 'good man' or 'good woman' knows what is right instinctively, and I believe no-one taught Christ the meaning or purpose of his Mission, He just knew it ... it was only in relation to the world that he came to understand it, if you like, by looking at his reflection in the eyes of others ... and this determines every act, every response, that is recorded in Scripture, and that is why the Fathers say Scripture is a dialogue with God.
The will of Jesus was 'one' with the will of his Father, and thus there was no taint of sin. In that aspect Jesus Christ was, absolutely, what we can only aspire to be, contingently.
Further, the 'understanding' he comes to is not about himself, nor his mission, of which he is certain, but the 'understanding' is about the blindness and obduracy of wilful humanity.
And as I said before, this 'dialogue' between God and man that took place in Judea 2,000 years ago was orchestrated by the 'Holy Spirit' which led the human Jesus through the 'wilderness' towards the fulfillment of his destiny, something which even he, at the eleventh hour, drew back.
(This introduces the question of Judas afresh)
When I refered to his time at the temple being showing a little disrespect it wasn't to the rabbis but to his parents...
Agreed. They saw it as disrespect, He saw it otherwise. And in fact respect to God supercedes respect to one's parents, so the lesson was theirs, not his ... but not to split hairs with you ... one can imagine a time when a boy Jesus is with Joseph in the workshop, 'miles away', and Joseph saying, "well, the meaning of
this moment is, hold that right there while I hit it!"
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There is a scene in The Passion when Jesus is carrying his cross to Golgotha. Mary follows a side-road to meet him, and as she watches, he falls beneath the burden. We see in her mind the child falling in the street, and she rushes forward to comfort him ... then back to the cross, "Look," he says, a beaten and bloody ruin of a man, "I make the world anew."
What is that, prophecy? Irony? Sarcasm? Bitterness? Defeat? Hopelessness?
I think not. When a child falls and hurts him/herself, in that moment, the whole world has sprung a trap. The first cry is more often fright than pain, and in that moment we all learn lessons deemed 'necessary' - take care, the world is not a safe place, etc.
But the parent picks up and comforts the child, and in so doing the child's world is remade ... not only the bad, but the positive too, love, care, comfort, nurture...
(This is heading somewhere else, now... )
Christ not only accomplished the act of the loving parent in the face of the ills of the world (ills, btw, of which we are not entirely innocent) - "Amen I say unto theee, this day thou shalt be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43) but that in a mysterious way, by taking the fall onto himself, he tells us not only that we are comforted, but that we need fall no more - certainly the snares of the adversary that bind the soul are loosed.
He has remade the world.
We simply lack the moral courage to believe in it.
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It was St Maximus who developed the theology of the two wills of Christ, the foundation of Chalcedon. He speaks of a Divine Will (God) and a 'gnomic' will of man (gnomic from the Greek, meaning 'discriminating'):
Gnomic Will:
To will, according to Aristotle, is simply to recognize something as good. However, fallen humanity is no longer able to recognize the perfect goodness of God as the sole object of its will. It deliberates, and is attracted to that which it thinks is good (perhaps for selfish reasons) and hence is swayed by inclination. This will Maximus calls ‘gnomic will’ from the Greek gnome – inclination or intention. The human will of Christ belongs to his human nature, the divine will to his divine nature, but any gnomic will – being drawn by inclination – would belong to the human person.
http://trushare.com/90NOV02/NO02GROV.htm
Unlike man, Jesus always saw what was 'the good' and his natural human will was always shaped and ordered by the divine will, which he knew by instinct, rather than by education.
What we will always wins over what we know - and this is the inevitable failure of pagan gnosticism, it invents fantabulous structures of reason, knowledge, meaning, etc., structures of
things, but it never confronts the issue of the errant will in any meaningful and useful dialogue.
Judas acted as he did not because of what he knew about Jesus, but because of what he wanted from him - by doing what he did, he hoped to 'force his hand' as it were, and bring Jesus into the open as the fulfillment of prophecy.
Thomas
