We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

Did Jesus Have Two Minds?
As I laid out in the previous post, I believe Jesus is fully God and fully human. The question is: How is this possible? How do we talk about the way that Jesus was fully God and fully man?
The Creed of Chalcedon (451) tries to answer the question this way:
We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, … truly God and truly man, … to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons…
While the Creed defends against basic Christological heresies of the early Church, it actually does not answer our question. It just sets the boundaries that must be observed to avoid heresy. We must still make sense of the incarnation within these boundaries.
The way most theologians in the church tradition have done this, at least as it concerns the question of Jesus’ knowledge, is often called a “two minds Christology.” This view holds that Jesus walked the earth with both the all-knowing mind of God and the limited knowledge of a human being. And one could argue that the Bible supports this claim. Jesus occasionally demonstrated an omniscient awareness of people’s innermost thoughts and motives (Jn 2:24-25; Mt 9:4). He expressed a divine knowledge of Judas’ deceitful heart and future betrayal (Jn 13:18-19, 21-27), of Peter’s future denial (Lk 22L31-34) and the exact mode of his death (Jn 21:18-19), of a stranger who would open up his house to him and his disciples (Mk 14:12-16), and of a coin that would be found in a fish’s mouth (Mt 17:24-27). At the same time, as a full human being, Jesus often indicates that his knowledge was limited. So, this tradition concludes, Jesus somehow simultaneously possessed “two minds”: a divine omniscient mind and a human finite mind.
This view is not without its problems. To be honest, I have always had trouble rendering this view coherent. It requires us to imagine that Jesus was aware of what was happening with every molecule on every planet in the universe even while he was a zygote in the womb of Mary. And it requires that we imagine this while also affirming that, as a fully human zygote, Jesus was completely devoid of any awareness. Is this a legitimate paradox or an unacceptable contradiction? One could easily argue the latter. If being God means that one is omniscient and that being human means that one is not omniscient, then it seems we are asserting A and not A in claiming Jesus was both. We could argue along the same lines regarding God’s omnipresence and omnipotence. And if this is true, then in asserting that Jesus was a single person who was fully God (and thus fully omniscient) and full human (and thus not fully omniscient), we are asserting nothing, just as when we say “married bachelor” or “round triangle.”
There is an alternative way of talking about how Jesus was fully God and fully human, however. It has been labeled the “kenotic Christology,” based on the word kenosis, which is Greek for “to empty.” More specifically, it is based on Philippians 2:7. In my next post, I’ll begin with a discussion of this passage.
If you want to read a basic introduction to the Classical view of the Incarnation, I recommend G. Boyd, P. Eddy, Across the Spectrum, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), 111.
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, God, Incarnation, Jesus, Kenosis, Omniscience, The Mind
Topics: Christology
Related Reading

Do You Need to Starve a Little?
Sarah (Rosenau) Korf via Compfight Here’s a challenging reflection on Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent by Kurt Willems. He notes that Lent is a season where we choose to starve ourselves of our little idols in order to join Jesus in the desert, and he lists several benefits of this particular kind of…

Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?
Trying to get around the Resurrection While Jesus’ life, claims, and miraculous ministry set him far apart from all other human beings, it is his resurrection more than anything else that stamps him as the one and only Son of God. But, precisely because it sets Jesus apart as unique and requires an affirmation of…

Why Believe the Virgin Birth Accounts?
Some skeptics claim that the story of the virgin birth of Jesus is derived from similar stories from pagan literature. While I won’t address here the details of the various parallels that some use to argue this point—as it has been demonstrated by many scholars that they simply don’t hold up to scrutiny—I will offer…

Why God Sometimes “Can’t”
Greg continues his thoughts on sickness and spiritual warfare by addressing the question of why God “can’t” intervene in some circumstances of illness.

Does God Intervene?
Given the vast influence of angelic and human free will, what influence does God have in determining what comes to pass? While God has an important role to play in anticipating and creatively responding to decisions agents make, is God only a responder? Does he have anything to do with what’s going on in creation?…

William Wilberforce and the Possibility of “Christian” Politics
William Wilberforce was a passionate Christian who entered politics for the sole purpose of ending the slave trade. For more than thirty years he passionately and courageous labored to get Parliament to outlaw the practice. His life’s dream was fulfilled a month before he died in 1833. It’s no surprise, therefore, that Wilberforce is frequently…