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

Did Jesus Have Two Minds?

amniotic sac

What did Jesus know when he looked like this?

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.

 suparna sinha via Compfight

Related Reading

Two Ancient (and Modern) Motivations for Ascribing Exhaustively Definite Foreknowledge to God

A historic overview and critical assessment Abstract: The traditional Christian view that God foreknows the future exclusively in terms of what will and will not come to pass is partially rooted in two ancient Hellenistic philosophical assumptions. Hellenistic philosophers universally assumed that propositions asserting’ x will occur’ contradict propositions asserting’ x will not occur’ and…

If God is already doing the most he can do, how does prayer increase his influence?

Question: If God always does the most that he can in every tragic situation, as you claim in Satan and the Problem of Evil,  how can you believe that prayer increases his influence, as you also claim?  It seems if you grant that prayer increases God’s influence, you have to deny God was previously doing…

Is Jesus Unique?

The Search for a Non-Unique Jesus Built into the naturalistic assumption that drives the liberal New Testament search for the “man behind the myth” is the notion that, whoever Jesus was, he cannot have been utterly unique. The laws that operate in the world today, including the laws of human behavior, have always operated. And…

Is Jesus Really God?

While it is true that Jesus Himself never comes out and explicitly says He is God in the Gospels, He is everywhere portrayed in terms that lead us to conclude to the same thing. He says things like “If you see Me, you see the Father,” “Honor Me even as you honor the Father,” and…

Seeing and Knowing God

There are many scripture passages that seem to suggest that the way people view God often says more about them than it does about God. Our perception of God, as well as other spiritual truths, is conditioned by the state of our heart. Jesus’ most important teaching on this matter is found in John’s Gospel…

Lighten Up: My Favorite!

He always gives the best gifts.