The Son's 'knowing the hour'

[AndyHolland]

In both the Gospel of St. Mark and St. Matthew, Jesus strongly indicates either "neither the Son" or "my Father only" knows the hour.

Yet we find many Church Fathers, especially St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great and even St. Athanasius arguing vehemently that God the Son did know the hour. The blessed Theophylact basically condenses these arguments (which are loaded with "in my opinion" and "I say" type phrases) into an argument that Jesus was basically telling them what they needed to hear to quiet them. This seems to strongly imply guile on the part of our Lord; to use figures of speech to directly misdirect a plain saying. However, given the Arian controversy, one can see why the Fathers were so inclined, yet they clearly speak in personal terms though St. Basil indicates he received the teaching from some of his fathers.

Given this, are there any ancient Church Fathers who say that Jesus did not know in accordance to His free will for example, and this He did not know for our sake as part of divine humility? [After all, one can have a gift without opening it, and the Icon of the Incarnation shows a rolled up scroll in Jesus hand.]

As a simpleton, I cannot believe God the Son would indicate something that was not true. St. Ambrose says the Gospels themselves were corrupted by Arians, however, that is not supported by other fathers nor does it appear to be the fact. Further, it would imply the Gospels themselves that the Church reads are corrupt, and this seems to be an even worse proposition.

Thank you,

Andy

[Tim Grass]

Why would Jesus know the hour of the end? In the Incarnation he became a man, and men don't know such things.........

--tim

[Athanasius Abdullah]

Dearest to Christ Andy,

Peace and blessings to you:


As a simpleton, I cannot believe God the Son would indicate something that was not true.

Well He did on another occasion: John 7:8-10

What are we to make of this? I think a proper contextual understanding of Christ's "lies" vindicate Him from any warranted accusation of moral wrongness.

As Giblin indicates in his article "Suggestion and Negative Response in John's Portrayal of Jesus", we may confuse, according to our contemporary sensibilities, ancient concepts of honour and accepted forms of rhetorical critcism, for deception. The honourable intention of Christ's response in Mark 13:32 and Matthew 25:13, is that his disciples dissociate themselves from such worthless concerns that may go to hinder their salvation.

In IC XC
-Athanasius

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dearest to Christ Andy,

Peace and blessings to you:



Well He did on another occasion: John 7:8-10

What are we to make of this? I think a proper contextual understanding of Christ's "lies" vindicate Him from any warranted accusation of moral wrongness.

As Giblin indicates in his article "Suggestion and Negative Response in John's Portrayal of Jesus", we may confuse, according to our contemporary sensibilities, ancient concepts of honour and accepted forms of rhetorical critcism, for deception. The honourable intention of Christ's response in Mark 13:32 and Matthew 25:13, is that his disciples dissociate themselves from such worthless concerns that may go to hinder their salvation.

In IC XC
-Athanasius

The witness of the Fathers is that when Christ says, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mk 13:32) this refers to Christ's human nature. In His divine nature Christ surely does know the Hour for as the Pre-eternal Logos He is consubstantial in knowledge with His Father.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Athanasius Abdullah]

Dearest to Christ Fr. Raphael,

I’m not quite sure what you mean by “the witness of the Fathers”. I realise that the interpretation you present is that of some Fathers, but as correctly indicated by Andy Holland in the initial post, there are certain reputable Fathers (i.e. Sts. Basil the Great and John Chrysostom) who interpret the verses in question in a manner that does not impute ignorance to The Son, even according to His humanity, and I for one am inclined to advocate that position*. Another notable Father who advocated this line of thought is St. Hilary of Potiers. Gregory the Great is a Chalcedonian Father that you may add to that list.

To clarify this alternative interpretation however, I must point out a crucial premise of it; namely, that The Son, although knowing the hour of His second coming, even in His humanity, did not know so by virtue of His humanity. Such knowledge was thus not inherently human, but rather humanly acquired according to the Hypostatic Union.

*I should make special mention of the fact that I don’t find anything wrong with this interpretation per se; I simply believe the alternative to make better sense of certain other Christological issues which I plan to discuss more in-depth in the other thread (viz. “The human flesh of Christ” thread)

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dearest to Christ Fr. Raphael,

I’m not quite sure what you mean by “the witness of the Fathers”. I realise that the interpretation you present is that of some Fathers, but as correctly indicated by Andy Holland in the initial post, there are certain reputable Fathers (i.e. Sts. Basil the Great and John Chrysostom) who interpret the verses in question in a manner that does not impute ignorance to The Son, even according to His humanity, and I for one am inclined to advocate that position*. Another notable Father who advocated this line of thought is St. Hilary of Potiers. Gregory the Great is a Chalcedonian Father that you may add to that list.

To clarify this alternative interpretation however, I must point out a crucial premise of it; namely, that The Son, although knowing the hour of His second coming, even in His humanity, did not know so by virtue of His humanity. Such knowledge was thus not inherently human, but rather humanly acquired according to the Hypostatic Union.

*I should make special mention of the fact that I don’t find anything wrong with this interpretation per se; I simply believe the alternative to make better sense of certain other Christological issues which I plan to discuss more in-depth in the other thread (viz. “The human flesh of Christ” thread)

Dear Athanasius Abdullah,

What I wrote was


The witness of the Fathers is that when Christ says, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mk 13:32) this refers to Christ's human nature. In His divine nature Christ surely does know the Hour for as the Pre-eternal Logos He is consubstantial in knowledge with His Father.

Certainly there is no Father who says that Christ in His Divine nature does not know the Hour. Of this 'not knowing' they always refer to His human nature.

Note though I used the word 'refer' which is quite purposeful in implying that there could very well be a sense in which Christ as Incarnate does know. This would be similar to referring to how Christ does suffer in His humanity but he is incorruptible due to the fact that He is the Pre-eternal Logos Son of God Incarnate.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Athanasius Abdullah]

Dearest to Christ Fr. Raphael,


Certainly there is no Father who says that Christ in His Divine nature does not know the Hour. Of this 'not knowing' they always refer to His human nature.

As I have indicated in my above two posts, the Fathers in question, particularly Sts. Basil the Great and Hilary of Potiers, do not refer to either of Christ’s natures in interpreting the verse in question (I do not have the time to locate their commentaries in order to type them out at this very moment, but I will certainly do so upon the completion of my exams when I have the time). They affirm that that which Christ claims to not know, is indeed known by Him, divinely and humanly. In my first post, I explained that by interpreting this apparent “lie” in its appropriate socio-cultural context, we are to view Christ’s intention as being honourable rather than deceptive.

To emphasise my position once more, Christ was not making a statement that may be deemed true with reference to a particular nature, but rather, He was making a statement that was in fact false with respect to both His Divinity and Humanity, which may, however, nonetheless be deemed honourable with reference to His intention as interpreted according to the socio-cultural context in which he made that very statement.

In IC XC
-Athanasius

[M.C. Steenberg]

The witness of the Fathers is that when Christ says, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Mk 13:32) this refers to Christ's human nature. In His divine nature Christ surely does know the Hour for as the Pre-eternal Logos He is consubstantial in knowledge with His Father.

[...] Certainly there is no Father who says that Christ in His Divine nature does not know the Hour. Of this 'not knowing' they always refer to His human nature.

One has to ask here, I think, just what one means by saying 'In his human nature, Christ knew x' and 'In his divine nature, Christ knew y' (or 'not x'). There is a real and ever-present danger of allowing such descriptions to describe of Christ two centres of subjectivity -- two personal 'who's' to his incarnate reality. But surely the meaning of Chalcedon's emphasis on one person in two natures is precisely that there is only one personal subject in Christ, one 'who', one personal 'knower', to fit things directly to this discussion. This was similarly Cyril of Alexandria's point in stressing the single subjectivity of the incarnate Son: the two natures abide indeed (see his letter of John of Antioch of AD 433), but abide in a single subject.

It's perhaps easier to address the fundamental question of Christ's two natures in awareness if one takes something more pronounced, so here is a discussion-starter: As a three-year-old infant, was Christ omniscient?

INXC, Matthew

[Athanasius Abdullah]

Dearest to Christ M.C. Steenberg,


There is a real and ever-present danger of allowing such descriptions to describe of Christ two centres of subjectivity -- two personal 'who's'
I believe the knowledge attributable to Christ’s humanity is knowledge that can be said to have registered with His human mind. The presence or lack of knowledge is thus a natural attribute, rather than a personal one.


As a three-year-old infant, was Christ omniscient?
I would answer, yes. By virtue of the Hypostatic Union, all that the Person of The Word knew according to His Divinity, instantaneously registered with His human mind at the very moment it became His human mind.

One of the very reasons St. Severus of Antioch stipulates in order to explain the sinlessness of Christ, is in fact His perfect knowledge. According to St. Severus, sin is primarily the product of a corrupt will, which is in turn the product of ignorance. This is an issue I plan to discuss in more detail in the 'human flesh of Christ' thread.

In IC XC
-Athanasius

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

"As a three-year-old infant, was Christ omniscient?" Yes and no. As the pre-eternal Logos He is omniscient but as the One Who willingly submits to being an infant He isn't.

As far as I can understand it this is the same point made by the Holy Fathers who ascribe the ignorance of Christ about the Hour to His humanity. Of course though they never meant this as overlooking the fact that there is One subject in Christ. Hopefully I don’t either!

It's also worth pointing out that the ignorance of Christ as a point about His humanity & the ignorance of Christ being a didactic method don't necessarily contradict each other. This I think is a point worth looking into for they seem to end up at the point you refer to of Christ being one personal subject.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Alec Lowly]

I don't know. Sometimes we may do well to be very simple about these things.

When the Lord says "only the Father knows," I believe that's the truth. ~How~ that's the truth may have very little to do with the hypostatic union and all our heavy theologising. It may have everything to do with the internal relationships of the Persons within the Trinity, which is something surpassing anything that we may hope to know or understand.

A similar issue is the Lord's repeated statement that for the Holy Spirit to come, He must go to the Father. One would think that the Holy Spirit could come anytime as the Holy Spirit is God and therefore transcends all conditions and contingencies. Yet the Lord speaks plainly otherwise.

Forgive me if I have offended by speaking way above my station. If I have spoken error, I beg correction.

[Tim Grass]

It's perhaps easier to address the fundamental question of Christ's two natures in awareness if one takes something more pronounced, so here is a discussion-starter: As a three-year-old infant, was Christ omniscient?
Hey, just to stir up the waters a bit, I'll say no.

If a three year old Jesus was totally omniscient..... he wasn't a three year old human infant.... he would be some strange divine/human hybrid. Maybe that's what some people believe..... but I don't see how an infant Jesus lying in a manger and knowing everything about everything, is "Like us in every way except sin." He'd actually be totally unlike me.... except that he'd have a body like mine. But that just takes us back to the body as a shell or house..... it's not a real incarnation.

--tim

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

I don't know. Sometimes we may do well to be very simple about these things.

When the Lord says "only the Father knows," I believe that's the truth. ~How~ that's the truth may have very little to do with the hypostatic union and all our heavy theologising. It may have everything to do with the internal relationships of the Persons within the Trinity, which is something surpassing anything that we may hope to know or understand.

On this one I would think that Christ as Son of God the Father must know since knowledge is something consubstantial to all Three Persons of the Holy Trinity. In other words I think that theologically the knowledge is one although they each act on this knowledge in distinct personal ways. I supppose that's why I read the interpretation of the Holy Fathers about Christ's unknowing in the way I do. When they refer this to His humanity they also state that Christ as Pre-eternal Logos the One subject (I'll try to take Matthew S's suggestion to heart here as I do acknowledge the importance of his point) does know.

Again this refers to something we have often tried to deal with and express at monachos about Christ. This is very hard to understand little lone express but the fact that Christ acts in two natures (He has two distinct wills after all according to His natures) does not mean that He is self-contradictory or schizoid. According to Fr Georges Florovsky this question is at the root of the Monophysite problem for really this comes down to a problem of questioning how two freely willing natures could operate within the One Christ. According to the Monophysite mind-set the starting point is the assumption that these two in their full integrity must be contradictory and thus could not have been in Christ.

Of course for us the two natures are held together within Christ as One subject. He is not like a board meeting with all sides coming to a nice agreement. Rather His humanity is both illumined by and accords with His Divinity. Like the Church then for Whom Christ is the Head & model the purpose of the Incarnation is upward looking & heavenly; it is to deify man.

Within this upward looking direction however there is a mystery within Christ in which He allows His humanity to experience the blameless passions, to undergo death and so on. Wouldn't then Christ's not knowing the Hour, whether this was actual or didactic, be the same? As He Who is deathless underwent death so:


Of that day or hour no one knows, not even He Himself- that is, when viewed according to the flesh, because He too, as human, lives within the limits of the human condition. He said this to show that, viewed as an ordinary man, He does not know the future, for this is a human characteristic. Insofar as He is viewed according to His divinity as the Logos Who is to come, to judge, to be Bridegroom, however, He knows when and in what hour He will come...Viewed according to His divinity, He knows, and there is nothing which He does not know.
St Athansius: Discourse Against the Arians, 3rd Discourse, Ch XXVIII(46)

What can we say of this except that the Lord at the moment when the Disciples asked Him about the Hour taught them the best lesson and to look at the present hour by referring to how He shared in their human condition? As St Athanasius says above, "He too, as human, lives within the limits of the human condition."

Perhaps the point of Christ's not knowing was specific to the particular time and occasion which this called for.


In Christ- Fr Raphael

[AndyHolland]

Dearest to Christ Andy,

Peace and blessings to you:



Well He did on another occasion: John 7:8-10

What are we to make of this? I think a proper contextual understanding of Christ's "lies" vindicate Him from any warranted accusation of moral wrongness.

As Giblin indicates in his article "Suggestion and Negative Response in John's Portrayal of Jesus", we may confuse, according to our contemporary sensibilities, ancient concepts of honour and accepted forms of rhetorical critcism, for deception. The honourable intention of Christ's response in Mark 13:32 and Matthew 25:13, is that his disciples dissociate themselves from such worthless concerns that may go to hinder their salvation.

In IC XC
-Athanasius
Dear Athanasius

I am sorry, but that is not of the truth:

"You go up to this feast. I am not yet going up to this feast, for My time has not yet fully come.” When He had said these things to them, He remained in Galilee. But when His brothers had gone up, then He also went up to the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret."

As in the case where Jesus said that Lazarus was asleep, the meaning was later made directly clear in the Gospel by our Lord. Here too, the meaning is made clear by the "Feast" to which He is truly referring to his brothers and the word "yet" provides a placeholder.

As for our contemporary sensibilities - the basic principals of this world may not be those to which we are bound, but they are applicable. If you were to express something abstractly and left it dangling realizing your students were lost, you'd be a poor teacher.

As for our modern sensibilities towards truth - they arise for very real reasons. Those reasons are eternal also - they were applicable then too. It is just more obvious now you cannot lie or mislead in a modern society with nuclear reactors, aircraft etc.... lying kills people and societies - fast nowadays.

I am a nuclear engineer, and there is a line you don't cross in life and death situations - people know this nowadays and certainly our Lord knew it as well. After all, He healed the guy at Bethsaida and the fellow saw men as trees walking - textbook Visual Agnosia for our "modern" benefit as we now can sometimes heal blindness from birth - so scientists do know Jesus Christ is Lord and play every game in the book to deny reality.

However, when there are enemies about, stealth seems to be in order as well. Yet you don't misdirect your closest friends to whom you have promised to reveal the fullness of truth. Further, you wouldn't contaminate the Gospels - it was unnecessary. He could have told them to be still - and like the wind and waves, they would have been calmed - have some faith!

Jesus is revealing a deep truth.

Jesus did not deceive when He plainly spoke He did not know the hour. How do you express the hour, Greenwhich Mean Time? Do you base it on a celestial or tropical year to count them off - or do you go off a Krypton electron orbital resonance based definition of a second? And then, what general relativistic system do you use to express the hour. It is unknowable as man.

The hour was/is inexpressible by man - therefore it is unknowable by man until it happens, and as Christ it is known in the Father when the hour comes for His will is to do the will of the Father - at the hour! In His Divine Love, God the Word is fully Divine as Word - in humility - indicating we need to be like Him, humble, and wait until the time as this is to do the will of the Father. In this he shares with us so that we, like Him, may with Him always even unto the end of the age - so that heaven and earth may pass away, but the Word will not pass away. That is not Arianism - God the Word is eternally begotton of the Father - in fact, not knowing is part of being eternally begotten - yet He knows in the Father as one with the Father as a matter of state - not conscious thought.

The Word made flesh is the Word in totality - and by Him all things were made. Even in our world today, it is entirely possible to construct things using Word (algorithms in a computer or molecules) and not know their end states nor does Word need to know state in order to act as Divine Word. Jesus did not need to know pressures, temperatures and flows to calm the Winds and Waves - and it is entirely possible for God to do so as man - if and only if He speaks perfectly as God.

Divine humility is real - therefore, it is entirely possible for the Word not to know the hour except in the Father when in obedience the lamb who is worthy unseals the scrolls. The hour is inexpressible in human terms - yet Christ is fully human as well as fully divine.

What answer would you get if you asked Jesus the value of Pi to the last decimal place - in truth He does not know - except as a mathematical relationship. You can exactly express Pi as a relationship - but it is impossible to express Pi otherwise. Therefore Jesus expresses the relationship with the Father having the knowledge.

So to, if you ask Christ what was the Quantum state of atoms in a galaxy 3,000,000,000 light years distant, would He know? Only the Father has the knowledge and only in the Father can such knowledge be known and expressed - yet living in the Father, one with the Father, Jesus fully participates in humility and obedience - and the property of Word does not require knowledge to act - rather He acts in accordance with the Father.

Our placing requirements of knowledge in a direct conscious way on the Word are not part of the Gospel - the need to counter Arius with a distortion was itself a distortion and not of the truth.

But the fathers were clearly uncertain because they expressed these things rhetorically, used "I" and were inconsistent.

The unopened scroll in the hand of Jesus alludes to the truth that He fulfills the Law - even the Universal laws of physics, and that He does not need to have direct knowledge of them to effect them but rather holds them in His hand and is in possession of them with the Father as He is eternally begotton. He does not need to know them to have them in possession, just as He does not have to know many things to be Word - Word does not need to know to be Word - yet Word must be eternally begotten of the Father.

Also, I think it is needful for God the Son to be able to not know the hour, so when the hour comes, He can unknow our sins forever. So it seems to me at least that it becomes more clear why it is the property of the Word to be our Judge. Like the sins written in the sand of those going to stone the harlot - those sins can be tread upon and unknown forevermore. So Jesus Christ is Lord.

I think clearly this lesson of Jesus is one of obedience and humility - that as Jesus is Divinely humble, we need to be humble to be like Him to be Divine, and we can fully participate in His divinity by humbling ourselves as little children. This includes especially intellectually in terms of knowledge and in terms of those things we should seek in prayer. Obedience and being a servant is nothing to be scoffed at; when one truly serves, one is truly free. So I guess I am vigorously disagreeing with many Church Fathers and one could argue I am being spiritually deceived being worldly etc.... They wouldn't be wrong either.

We need to acquire that state of being with God's help, so we are truly dead to the world and to any passions that may arise. We need to be able to forget as they happen - which is a property of the Word who forgives us eternally (I hope) and puts our sins far from us, consigning them to the darkness.

Knowledge is useless without love - love conquers all.

andy holland
sinner

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear all,

There have been some extremely interesting posts in this thread over the past week. Thanks to the many who have already written; I look forward to hearing more thoughts in this new week.

A few posts above, I asked the question, 'As three-year-old infant, was Jesus Christ omniscient?' as a way of drawing out some of the implications on our more precise discussion of Christ knowing or not-knowing 'the hour' of the end (cf. Matthew 24.36, Mark 13.32). There have been many, and different, responses over the week, and I thought it might be interesting to bring a few of them together and comment on them.

Firstly, Athanasius wrote:


I would answer, yes. By virtue of the Hypostatic Union, all that the Person of The Word knew according to His Divinity, instantaneously registered with His human mind at the very moment it became His human mind.

Here it is the singleness of Christ's person that seems paramount in the response (so Athanasius went on to mention Severus, whose emphasis is precisely this): as the singleness of Christ's person exists in fact that the incarnation is a union of natures in the hypostasis, or personal reality, of the Son, the fullness of the Son's divine knowledge becomes the fullness of his human knowledge the moment humanity becomes his hypostatically. As it is the Son who takes to himself full human existence, the Son's knowledge naturally exists humanly in the incarnation.

This is clearly a strong way of articulating the Son's single personhood in the incarnation, of preventing a 'double-mindedness' to Jesus Christ that might arise, should one attempt to indicate an alteration to his divine knowing in his incarnation. But there are certain areas with regard to which it leaves questions unanswered - and questions that some find deeply problematic. So Mr Grass' comment on the same question:


Hey, just to stir up the waters a bit, I'll say no.

If a three year old Jesus was totally omniscient..... he wasn't a three year old human infant.... he would be some strange divine/human hybrid. Maybe that's what some people believe..... but I don't see how an infant Jesus lying in a manger and knowing everything about everything, is "Like us in every way except sin." He'd actually be totally unlike me.... except that he'd have a body like mine. But that just takes us back to the body as a shell or house..... it's not a real incarnation.

If the reality of Christ's humanness is critical for soteriological reasons - i.e., if his being human is critical for salvation, as human - then, following the thought of Athanasius of Alexandria and Gregory of Nazianzus in particular, it is the full and complete stature of that humanity that ensures the full and complete extent of human salvation. 'That which is unassumed, is unhealed', to bring up St Gregory's oft-quoted maxim (Ep. 101). Tim seems to be following the original line of argument of that comment, which Gregory directed aganist Apollinarius, and which dealt with the question of a human soul / mind in Christ; Tim argues that if Christ were omniscient at every age of his childhood, he would not be human in the sense that Hebrews 2.17 (and elsewhere) demands - for omniscience is not part of the human condition (even, some would argue, the full and perfected created condition), and to be an 'omniscient human' would be to be something quite different from being 'like us in all ways, save sin' (cf. Hebrews 4.15).

So there are challenges in both directions. On the one hand, dare answer the question 'yes', and risk articulating the reality of the incarnate Christ in a manner that divides him from the full human life necessary for human salvation? Or dare we answer 'no', and risk an articulation that divides his experience or challenges the real presence of the eternal Son?

Fr Raphael's response was a kind of middle way:


Yes and no. As the pre-eternal Logos He is omniscient but as the One Who willingly submits to being an infant He isn't.

As far as I can understand it this is the same point made by the Holy Fathers who ascribe the ignorance of Christ about the Hour to His humanity. Of course though they never meant this as overlooking the fact that there is One subject in Christ. Hopefully I don’t either!

Here the question delves more into a realm of mystery. How are we to conceive of the two natures, human and divine, united in Christ in such a way that one can say, 'He didn't know x in his human nature, though he did in his divine?', without risking a division into two subjects? Athanasius' point in his post (which was also a main point of Cyril of Alexandria) is that in the incarnation it is the pre-eternal Logos whom one encounters; thus to ascribe to him anything diminished of this Logos, is to claim a diminished view of the Son himself. If the Son is not omniscient at all ages of his human life, then for at least some part of that life, he has become less than fully and truly the consubstantial Son of the Father.

Fr Raphael's point seems (to me) to be, not that the Son is ignorant 'only in his humanness' (i.e. that only the 'human part' of him is ignorant), but that it is as human that the divine Son is ignorant. One could also turn this statement on its head, and state that it is as divine that the human Sun is omniscient; the point of both being that the natures do not speak of differing aspects or elements in Christ, but of the manner of his incarnational existence. Divine omniscience must be possessed humanly, including the full stature of human intellectual limitation, but the Son as human. What one has in Christ is a meeting of the divine and human in the single person of Christ, not an exchange from one into the other. The Son does not exchange his divine omniscience for human intellectual finitude, but comes in the incarnation to experience omniscience humanly.

Mr Holland took a slightly different approach in his excellent post, which turned back to the original question of the Son's knowing / not knowing the hour, in expressing this knowledge as the fruit of relationship between Son and Father, and God and man. He wrote:


The hour was/is inexpressible by man - therefore it is unknowable by man until it happens, and as Christ it is known in the Father when the hour comes for His will is to do the will of the Father - at the hour! In His Divine Love, God the Word is fully Divine as Word - in humility - indicating we need to be like Him, humble, and wait until the time as this is to do the will of the Father. In this he shares with us so that we, like Him, may with Him always even unto the end of the age - so that heaven and earth may pass away, but the Word will not pass away. That is not Arianism - God the Word is eternally begotton of the Father - in fact, not knowing is part of being eternally begotten - yet He knows in the Father as one with the Father as a matter of state - not conscious thought.

I very much like this, not because it is a direct reply to the matter of how human and divine knowing are one in Christ, but because it challenges the categories in their own rights: to 'know' need not be, as so regularly it is, assessed as a kind of factual awareness. Rather, there is a manner of knowing, especially of deeper realities, that is the fruit of relationship and relating, which will always be conditioned on the manner and means of that relating. And perhaps it is this kind of knowledge that the Son expresses in his comments on 'the end'.

INXC, Matthew

[Theopesta]

just I write as a learner not knowledagable:

Can I say the Son is the Word is the God's thought so, He know the hour at its time when the Father the source of divinty utter it, so the text not contradict to the divine truth or christ try to cover somthing but it is a paradox

christ learn us your words should be yes or no, so HE say the divine truth

and as HE say HE and the Father are one but HE not know the hour this indicate the trinitarian one GOD also, as we the miaphisite say one physis as the mind is one not two

If it is possible Might I find any correction to this thought
best regards to all, IN ONE CHRISt

[Alec Lowly]

Can I say the Son is the Word is the God's thought so, He know the hour at its time when the Father the source of divinty utter it, so the text not contradict to the divine truth or christ try to cover somthing but it is a paradox

I think our Coptic sister may be on to something.

In clarity: Can we say that because the Son is God's Word, He knows "the time" only when the Father speaks, as it were, the "word" of the time? And that therefore there is no contradiction between the Son's omniscience, which can rightly be understood only in reference to the interrelationships among the equal Persons within the Trinity, and the Lord's plain statement that "only the Father" knows?

I do appreciate the patristic learning much in evidence in the various considerations here, but I am still unconvinced that this issue can be explicated only in reference to the hypostatic union. It seem to be that there is more going on here.

IC XC NIKA,
Alec Lowly

[Theopesta]

as I know Arian use these text in between other texts to prove hia hersy, and St.Athansiuos explain it theologically. but I feel Christ always try to say the even truth about the one omnipotence of the 3 persons in the trinity, so this passage not contradict with the other passages which indicate the all omniscience of the Logos, but inside the trinity of the ONE GOD their are many things above our sensible realization also, when this time come whom of the persons of trinity will declare it,by what manifestation God the father --the source of divinity, will declare it?

e.g: I know something it is present in my thoughts and my soul, the three parts partake in this one same knowledage, when I utter this thing as a words, just at this time I make a personification to what present in my thoughts

the announcement of thie time is like the announcement of the beginning of the time in Genesis: "Let Us make...." at this moment the 3 person persent, partake, omnipotance and omniscience as they are ONE GOD

I do not know by this way I mistaken in my thinking or not

[Alec Lowly]

Well, I agree with you, Sister, that I do not know whether I am mistaken. I am certainly willing to be taught. But as the discussion stands now, you and I share the same understanding of the problem.

Alec, sinner

[AndyHolland]

The interesting thing about quoting the Fathers such as St. Athanasius, St. John Chrysostom, and St. Basil is that they are clearly using the "I" word and rendering personal opinions.

The Disciples themselves rendered the opinion that 'we know you know all things', but Jesus does not confirm that statement - and the disciples like us, are often wrong. That makes them all the more endearing.

Since we cannot know God in essence, perhaps it is unknowable in essence to speak of what the persons of the Trinity know or how they know? Christ does know all things in the fullness of time in relationship with the Father as made plain by the fact He is the Alpha and Omega - the Beginning and Ending.

St. Ambrose indicated that he thought the scripture itself was corrupt. That seems to indicate that he did not buy off on the 'he knew but indicated according to his human nature he did not know' opinions. However St. Ambrose was found to be flat wrong in terms of Gospel texts.

St. Athanasius conjecture posted seems physically impossible unless bounded by the relationship. St. John the Theologian's supposition in the last sentence of the Gospels: 'If everything Jesus said and did were written in a book, I suppose the whole universe could not contain the things that would be written.' That being the case, it seems that the action of the Logos is God - transcending space/time and all state information; like knowing the hour in an instant sense. Jesus is infinite God even in human form - because the property of Word in of itself is inexpressible in the entire universe and the Word is God without the need to 'know' instantly all things - though the Father instantly knows all things. The Universe was created by the Word - that does not mean the Word must know anything about the state of the universe (like the hour) at any particular time. Noah could build the Ark without having to know the atomic structure of the wood!

I just wish there was another Father somewhere who was thinking along these lines.

It seems to me these passages make our liturgical experience in Orthodoxy all the more important, as well as the need for the virtues - particularly obedience, patience and humility which are themselves divine. Absolute knowledge is not a requirement for theosis but rather virtues and the Word fully shares those eternally - evening knowing the hour only as we who are mortal can know?

Knowledge is one thing, but these other virtues are part of the narrow path expressed in the beatitudes and it is not to the wise that the good things of God are revealed but to babes. We are called to be like God - and it seems we should be like God the Word - like Jesus, acting in obedience, patience and humility in accordance with the Will of the Father without a compulsive need to "know" except as the Father reveals?

Which then of course, makes this post useless - unless it is the will of the Father to post it?

I would also like to express another radical idea - that the "us" of "let us create man in our image" is the same "us" in 'Our Father' and it seems good to the Holy Spirit and to "us" - that this "us" includes "The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church" because Catholic is universal over all time and space - thus the Church herself is prefigured in Genesis. This again emphasizes the importance of Church and the Great Congregation for working out our salvation - that we cooperate fully - even eternally - in our own creation, so the Saints truly are Christ in different times, expressing Christ in different languages - even persons.

andy holland
sinner

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

I do appreciate the patristic learning much in evidence in the various considerations here, but I am still unconvinced that this issue can be explicated only in reference to the hypostatic union. It seem to be that there is more going on here.

IC XC NIKA,
Alec Lowly

There is surely a very important lesson for us in understanding that to 'think like the Holy Fathers' does not mean repeating word for word everything they said. Actually the Holy Fathers themselves rarely quoted each other exactly. Rather what they did was first to hold themselves in obedience to the Church & within this context of course they read and prayed and had an ascetic life.

It is from all of this that the Holy Fathers spoke and wrote from their hearts trusting what God was leading them to say. And what they say shines a light on the unfathomable mystery of Divine theology and God's providence without pretending to be the be all and end all of explanations.

It's a bit like having a infinite diamond before us with countless facets. No matter how many facets we look at or the words we use to describe them there is always something- an eternal something- remaining. Even the way in which many of the Fathers wrote -eg the Century style of short sayings- points to this.

All of this is just to say that there is I think no one explanation for what we are talking about here even though it is equally wrong to think any kind of explanation goes. Certainly there are self-willed explanations which mostly come down to defending our own ideas which have arisen from outside of the selfless way the Church thinks. But there are also the many explanations each can give which add to a more complete understanding of what we are talking about.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[AndyHolland]

The Father is the Creator of Heaven and Earth. All things were created in the Word. Who then would require the Son, who is eternally begotten of the Father, to know all things? In fact, placing a requirement for God the Son to know would be to restrict His free will choice - even His eternal choice. God the Son can of His own will not know the hour until the hour comes as He is the person of the Son eternally begotten of the Father. This seems too obvious for all the fathers to have missed. If you require the Son to know, He becomes a mechanism - whereas in the Holy Trinity, all of the Divine virtues can find their being and particular honors as expressed in their eternal relationship - all of which are God. Part of being a person is willingly not knowing what one should not know (consider those who choose virginity).

Not knowing does not make the Word any less God. It only seems to convey more and appropriate honor to Christ whose divine humility is every bit as divine and important as His divine knowledge. Humility, patience and obedience can only be fully practiced by a disciplined mind that does not desire to know even what it can know. There are things we should not delve into. "We" includes Christ and the Holy Spirit who are with us always. Being with "us", their divine condescension does not end nor could we require of it any restriction - God is God.

For example, in Holy Orthodoxy, we do not "define" the Holy Mysteries as the Protestants and Roman Catholics often do. The Gospel speaks for itself. It seems more wise to allow the Gospels to speak for themselves, and experience the mystery.

Also, in Genesis the Sons of Noah teach an important lesson about knowing their father, and the bounds of propriety - the blessing and cursings that follow. The elder sons back into the tent to cover their father's nakedness and while they could but turn around, they prefer to cover Noah and receive blessings, while the youngest who walked in receives cursing.

We are taught by the Church that the Word does not lie. That teaching is absolutely true. Knowledge need not be instantly realizable in order to be possessed - one can possess what one does not know. The Icons teach that Jesus holds the sealed scrolls - and the Gospel teaches that Jesus searched to find the place in the Prophets when he taught and revealed Himself as fullfilling the prophecy. Further the Word directly teaches that He does the will of the Father and the Father reveals Himself to Him.

Comparing things spiritual to spiritual - that is Holy Scripture to Holy Scripture, it seems perfectly consistent one can hold a valid point of view that Christ knows as we know and does so eternally and this is a Divine property - every bit as Divine as "knowledge" and perhaps more important than most "knowledge".

This seems to argue for patience in understanding and humility, and makes null and void a "requirement" of intellectual prowess to be like God. That makes this important in that we are not called to knowledge that is abstract and intellectual, but rather experiential and revealed in time as we live. It seems all the more Orthodox as the Church has experienced Orthodoxy.

Finally, like adding "and the Son" we need to be careful not to add to what the Gospels plainly teach concerning the Father and the procession of the Spirit. To contradict plain words in the Holy Gospels is dangerous - even of the fathers.

There are many fathers whose teachings were lost to the ages - and there are legitimate points of disagreement that one may have with certain fathers or groups of fathers. The Holy Spirit is accessible to all Orthodox Christians, however, to discern the truth of a teaching reference is made to the fathers. The fathers are not infallible, and where they express personal opinions, we should be careful in assuming this as "orthodox" teaching or tradition. Saint Columba taught something very important about the "I" word.

It seems incredulous to believe, as the Blessed Theophylact makes plain, that Jesus misdirected and mis-spoke in order to effectively shut up the disciples. The man who calmed the winds and waves did not have to lie to bring them peace. The teachings of the fathers on this point seem to be lacking faith - preferring their own thoughts and opinions to expressed, plain and open statements of the Gospels. Also, the teachings seem inconsistent with their own teachings about free will and our intrinsic ability to know God in essence.

Somewhere, there has to be a father who addressed this issue differently?

andy holland
sinner

[Tim Grass]

I would also like to express another radical idea - that the "us" of "let us create man in our image" is the same "us" in 'Our Father' and it seems good to the Holy Spirit and to "us" - that this "us" includes "The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church" because Catholic is universal over all time and space - thus the Church herself is prefigured in Genesis. This again emphasizes the importance of Church and the Great Congregation for working out our salvation - that we cooperate fully - even eternally - in our own creation, so the Saints truly are Christ in different times, expressing Christ in different languages - even persons.
I followed you.... though didn't necessarily agree with you... up till here. The "us" of Genesis shouldn't be read this way.... there's just no patristic or Christian grounding for it... even if wanting to see the cosmic being of the church is a good idea by itself. But "us" there is only "us" as in the sense of you and me, because we're all united to God, who is Trinity. It is God who is the "us" in Genesis. We are joined to Him..... but that is not the same thing.

--tim

[AndyHolland]

I followed you.... though didn't necessarily agree with you... up till here. The "us" of Genesis shouldn't be read this way.... there's just no patristic or Christian grounding for it... even if wanting to see the cosmic being of the church is a good idea by itself. But "us" there is only "us" as in the sense of you and me, because we're all united to God, who is Trinity. It is God who is the "us" in Genesis. We are joined to Him..... but that is not the same thing.

--tim
Yeh - I agree. This is purely speculative. Its a radical idea in that since time and space even in a chronological sense are linked, then in a sense what is the difference between being in the Church in Denver or Pittsburgh - we are us. If it is so geometrically, then perhaps in chronological time as well since we know now that time and space are in fact linked (physics *)?

If one really believes in a six day creation, and that the Universe is of old and 'a thousand years is as a day and a day a thousand years' - and if Saints can be in different places in different times - and we are in Christ in Church and He is the Alpha and Omega, perhaps it is conceivable that the "us" does include "us"?

But I certainly agree its not a teaching, its probably not a safe way to think about things in general. The idea is intriguing because with Adam death entered into the Universe, but based on the fossil record, obviously there was death before man fell in nature - so maybe going backwards in time is part of the process of theosis.

Wasn't there a saint who held the baby Christ in his arms centuries afterwards or something?

It may be a necessary way to think to translate the Gospel into the modern language of physics just as the fathers translated the Gospel into Greek philosophy in order to refute the pagans. Today the pagans are scientific material athiests.

andy holland
sinner

* Uriel asked Esdras if he could 'measure a blast of wind, weigh a measure of fire or recall a day that was past.' We live in the age when the first two questions were answered by Fermi at the "trinity" test site in 1945 - in a purely physical sense (and arguably wicked way - the first atomic blast). The equation that relates mass and energy is a scalar form of a tensor equation that relates time and space, and from a physical point of view seems to be valid.

[M.C. Steenberg]

In an earlier post, Mr Lowly wrote:


In clarity: Can we say that because the Son is God's Word, He knows "the time" only when the Father speaks, as it were, the "word" of the time? And that therefore there is no contradiction between the Son's omniscience, which can rightly be understood only in reference to the interrelationships among the equal Persons within the Trinity, and the Lord's plain statement that "only the Father" knows?

The relationship of knowing to speaking, in terms of the Son's relating to the Father as Word to God, cannot really be addressed in terms of time. What is the 'when' of God's speaking to the Son? This was part of the challenge of the kinds of conceptualisation employed by, for example, Justin the martyr: 'immanent' and 'spoken' word is a useful distinction in many ways; but it is not as helpful in the realm of relation outside the scope of cosmic history.


I do appreciate the patristic learning much in evidence in the various considerations here, but I am still unconvinced that this issue can be explicated only in reference to the hypostatic union. It seem to be that there is more going on here.

This must surely be right: I think some of the recent posts in this thread have been emphasising just this - that the question goes beyond a 'simple' treatment of how the Word becomes flesh in the incarnation, and how that becoming relates to the Word's knowing as man. But while the approach cannot be limited to this, must go beyond it, it must also not stray too far from it.

INXC, Matthew

[AndyHolland]

There is another argument for believing simply that what the Gospel says that Jesus indicates, that only the Father knows the hour is the literal and full truth.

The Lord's revelation is often to the simple and not to the wise. A simple person hearing the Lord's Word will believe. He/She will believe all that is said in simplicity. That sort of love and truth should never be despised - in fact it is to be appreciated and loved. In fact it is exalted by the Father who draws the simple to the Lord and withholds from the wise.

As such, as the Lord seems to rejoice that the good things of God are revealed to the simple then why is it hard to fathom that the Lord in the Divine person of the Son, shares eternally in receiving knowledge with us, experiencing with us ignorance of the hour until it happens?

Knowledge is revealed to us, and if God the Word shares with us even eternally a begotten 'property' (?) to receive all knowledge as it is revealed by the Father to us (Divine Humility), then the practice of the virtues of patience in not knowing, faithfulness even in the midst of silence ("My God My God, why hast thou forsaken me...") - why shouldn't that virtue be practiced eternally in the Holy Trinity? For God alone is good - and goodness surely has patience and even voluntary ignorance such as that of the good sons of Noah. How can man practice a virtue that God alone cannot in three persons practice eternally?

Therefore, while the Son is eternal and in the beginning and very God, and no less so even lacking immediate knowledge of such things as the hour (who cares really - its in the Father's hands), God in three persons lacks no virtue but rather fulfills all virtues eternally in God's own being. It therefore seems the Son does know in time, but chooses to know in time in order to conform His will to the Father, ever practicing obedience. This seems more than just plausible, in fact it seems more than necessary - in no way diminishing God the Word, but rather increasing the honor due His name.

In this way also, it seems revealed by the Gospels that God alone is good - practicing and eternally living the virtues He has called us to - an experiential knowledge.

andy holland
sinner

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

There is another argument for believing simply that what the Gospel says that Jesus indicates, that only the Father knows the hour is the literal and full truth.

The Lord's revelation is often to the simple and not to the wise. A simple person hearing the Lord's Word will believe. He/She will believe all that is said in simplicity. That sort of love and truth should never be despised - in fact it is to be appreciated and loved. In fact it is exalted by the Father who draws the simple to the Lord and withholds from the wise.

As such, as the Lord seems to rejoice that the good things of God are revealed to the simple then why is it hard to fathom that the Lord in the Divine person of the Son, shares eternally in receiving knowledge with us, experiencing with us ignorance of the hour until it happens?

Knowledge is revealed to us, and if God the Word shares with us even eternally a begotten 'property' (?) to receive all knowledge as it is revealed by the Father to us (Divine Humility), then the practice of the virtues of patience in not knowing, faithfulness even in the midst of silence ("My God My God, why hast thou forsaken me...") - why shouldn't that virtue be practiced eternally in the Holy Trinity? For God alone is good - and goodness surely has patience and even voluntary ignorance such as that of the good sons of Noah. How can man practice a virtue that God alone cannot in three persons practice eternally?

Therefore, while the Son is eternal and in the beginning and very God, and no less so even lacking immediate knowledge of such things as the hour (who cares really - its in the Father's hands), God in three persons lacks no virtue but rather fulfills all virtues eternally in God's own being. It therefore seems the Son does know in time, but chooses to know in time in order to conform His will to the Father, ever practicing obedience. This seems more than just plausible, in fact it seems more than necessary - in no way diminishing God the Word, but rather increasing the honor due His name.

In this way also, it seems revealed by the Gospels that God alone is good - practicing and eternally living the virtues He has called us to - an experiential knowledge.

andy holland
sinner

We need to keep in mind that our manner of knowing even to extent that it is imparted to us by the Holy Trinity can never be identical. Thus to follow what is almost a formula with the Holy Fathers; God is Divine by nature but we are divine by grace. This crucial distinction refers then not to some sort of difference of quantity like having less water in the glass but it's still water. Rather our knowledge and manner of knowing are different by nature from that of the Holy Trinity.

The Three Persons of the Holy Trinity share in this knowledge, wisdom, goodness, etc as being one in essence. Their knowledge is one even though the manner in which this is revealed is Personally distinct. Thus in the Persons of the Holy Trinity knowledge is connected to Personal acting although the knowledge is One and shared in identically by all three Persons.

Thus the Son as Pre-eternal Logos being one in essence with His Father does know the Hour even while as Incarnate submitting in various ways to a human manner of 'not knowing'.

I would also say that it is this human manner of knowing and being which defines what humility is for us. Humility is not a kind of ignorance but rather a virtue which is the never-ending completing of what we are through our life in Christ. It is knowing more & more as Christ knows without this ever of course being identical to the knowledge of the Holy Trinity.

A last point here is that the not-knowing Christ is talking about in the Gospel
is specific and not total. Christ Himself tells us of the signs of the Coming and He even says how critical it is to have our eyes open to these signs. Thus the 'not knowing' we have and which He shares in as man is not at all a total ignorance about the End but rather points to the relative limitation of our knowledge as human beings.

It seems then that Christ is not at all saying that we should be totally ignorant about the End- on the contrary like the housekeeper who watches so the thief does not break into the house we must also watch- but rather that we have to humbly acknowledge our limitations.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Sorry- this is a mistaken repeat post from trying to edit my previous post. Do not adjust your TV sets.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[AndyHolland]

While I do not know as God is unkowable in essence - it certainly seems consistent with Holy Scripture that as Christ has an eternal Priesthood, and He is with us even to the end of the age and the Lord is without guile and does not lie and the Lord plainly said "My Father only" and/or "nor the Son", and the Gospel is inerrant, it is far more supportable comparing things Spiritual to Spiritual that the Lord Jesus meant what He said and said what He meant.

Therefore it seems better to believe the Holy Gospel as plainly presented than the 4th Century Greek fathers expressed personal opinions filled with the cursed "I" word - who did not claim authority of the Holy Spirit in the matter. The Holy Spirit is accessible to Orthodox believers - even now. Fathers speaking in the authority of the Holy Spirit do not use "I" but rather give God the glory.

Knowing from the very Spirit of truth, as written in the Holy Icons, that one can possess knowledge without opening a scroll, it seems while the Son does not know in His humanity, He does know eternally in the Father - however His condecension is eternal in that the Son is eternally begotton of the Father - therefore if the knowledge of the Son is shared in time (especially Liturgical time above time) with us, being with us always, though He is in Heaven at the right hand of the Father, then His Priesthood is indeed eternal as is His title "Christ" with all honor and glory that are peculiar to His Divine condecension (See St. Cyril).

Furthermore, it is more honorable to be a servant who patiently does the Will of one's Father. It is more honorable to be a virgin who does not know another until the bridegroom enters the chamber. It is more honorable to back into the tent of Noah holding a sheet up with another witness to virtue - for those two sons proceeded from their father and received his blessing, even the blessing of the Father from whom they proceeded.

The danger in countering Arianism with a requirement that in essence all persons of the trinity must "know" instantly stretches credulity. As St. Athanasius says even in human form - Jesus knows all things, does Jesus know the crators on the dark side of the moon - circling Pluto? Is that knowledge relevant - to anyone other than the Father? Does He know the atomic state of an electron in a quasar 10,000,000 light years away 5.123454 picoseconds ago? The Father knows and in the Father such knowledge is knowable - thank God for God, as for me an my house - we serve the Lord and are free from that heavy duty service being humble, meek and lowly - just dust. And the Lord bid those around to handle Him and see that He is indeed meek and lowly.

Yet the Word is fully God because when the Word speaks, even as man - the wind and waves calmed. That mathematically and formally requires perfect Word - perfect expression - perfect logic - perfect execution - true God. [The fluid dynamic equations that we use to express the system through conservation of mass, energy and momentum are chaotic - formally unstable, requiring infinite subtle perfect Word to bring them to stability] Yet the person of Word, though knowing in time is able to command the wind and waves without knowing the atomic state of all atoms, flows, temperatures pressures etc.... which knowledge is in the Father.

The Greek philosophical system was a theoretical system, however, theory has real limits. A philosophical requirement that the Word must know all things to be God instantly is not required in that perfect logic, perfect Word is truly God. Self learning systems can be constructed to automatically make things - so the 4th Century reasoned requirement that the Word must know all things is fundamentally flawed. One can indeed construct a logical system that, with cooperation with its surroundings, make marvelous things - DNA is physically like the Word, transforming the planet, programming the dust of the ground to become a living planet. Grass is dust, trees are dust, we are dust - yet through a molecular Word, DNA/RNA, the dust is ordered into a living world and this is obviously the work of God. DNA/RNA do not know anything, yet they act on what is presented. This is a physical system that teaches through creation that the Word acts on what is presented to the Word, transforming and ordering what is chaotic. This is consistent with the Gospels, with walking on water, with the healings etc.... The Word speaks and spirits and matter obey. This is consistent with St. John the Theologians beautiful exposition in the beginning of the Gospel.

It is too much of a counter and yet a compliment to the Arians and their gnostic roots - loving knowledge and using knowledge as "proof" and then explaining away what is plainly written in the Gospels because of a perceived philosophical or logical need.

The calming of the wind and waves as man is formal proof - because it does not require much energy or knowledge to calm the wind and waves, but physically it requires a perfect Word (Son) even with the frail knowledge and energy of a man. So the manner of man that calms the wind and waves is perfect Word. And this was prefigured by Moses who parted the Sea by lifting up his staff as the Father commanded - so that the Wind striking the pattern of an obedient man holding a staff split the Sea, because God commanded Moses to part the sea. So Word is perfectly God from God and Moses is in Christ Jesus always.

Whether God the Son knows now or not, I have no idea. We will all know one day the hour - when it comes. However it seems reasonable and consistent comparing scripture to scripture that He will know when we know. Only the lamb is worthy to unseal the scroll. All of Holy Scripture appears to agree with this line of thought.

If one requires God the Son to instantly know all things, one is delving into the very essence of God - and that is not for us to do. Even St. Athanasius the Great. You cannot perfectly define what is unknowable nor can you put upon that which is unknowlable a definitive requirement. We know God by His energies, not in essence, so the "I" words used by the fathers were appropriate. As wonderful as the 4th Century Greek fathers are, they were not infallible. After all, the disciples themselves spread the word that John would not die - but they misinterpreted what the Lord said, being sloppy about it.

I do not believe there is any harm in believing the Gospel as plainly written, realizing that one can have knowledge in a scroll, yet not open it so one does not know until the Will of the Father calls for the seals to be broken. Pictorially the Icons beside the Royal doors teach us in the Holy Spirit to believe the infallible Church, and await the coming of our Lord. The Church teaching is infallible, and includes the fact that the Word is Truth, without guile.

However, if any wish to try me for heresy, fine - at least it would prove people still care about the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth :^) . For a true defense, I cannot imagine better advocates than the most simple faithful, who hear the Word and believe. They are truly our betters - and those who have book learning and sophistication must be willing to listen to them and understand their plain way of thinking - because frankly, it is truly Holy and it is the sort of simplicity that we need in abundance in this sophisticated age. We should be advocating simplicity in faith, not philosophical sophistication.

andy holland
sinner

[AndyHolland]

...I would also say that it is this human manner of knowing and being which defines what humility is for us. Humility is not a kind of ignorance but rather a virtue which is the never-ending completing of what we are through our life in Christ. It is knowing more & more as Christ knows without this ever of course being identical to the knowledge of the Holy Trinity.

A last point here is that the not-knowing Christ is talking about in the Gospel
is specific and not total. Christ Himself tells us of the signs of the Coming and He even says how critical it is to have our eyes open to these signs. Thus the 'not knowing' we have and which He shares in as man is not at all a total ignorance about the End but rather points to the relative limitation of our knowledge as human beings.

It seems then that Christ is not at all saying that we should be totally ignorant about the End- on the contrary like the housekeeper who watches so the thief does not break into the house we must also watch- but rather that we have to humbly acknowledge our limitations.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

Dear Father,

Father Bless,

While humility is not ignorance, humility is often expressed as willful restraint from delving into what is not proper to know. For example:

1. Virginity
2. Not knowing the nakedness of a parent
3. Obedience that does not require knowledge.
4. Faith that does not require knowledge.

As humility is so expressed and experienced, is God limited in not being able to experience these forms of humility because He is omniscient? Isn't the formula then one that essentially limits God?

What did Holy Scripture say about scribes bring forth new and old? If the Church must limit itself to the opinions of 4th Century formulas it is intellectually dead - lacking the very Spirit of Truth, preferring a dead letter law. The Holy Spirit is real and active.

Of course we live in a dangerous rebellious time, so perhaps it is better just to say - it is possible to possess knowledge without knowing it, just as one can have a scroll without unsealing it or a book without opening it.

andy holland
sinner

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

[QUOTE]Dear Father,

Father Bless,

While humility is not ignorance, humility is often expressed as willful restraint from delving into what is not proper to know. For example:

1. Virginity
2. Not knowing the nakedness of a parent
3. Obedience that does not require knowledge.
4. Faith that does not require knowledge.


Dear Andy,

God bless.

While points 1 & 2 in your list may be forms of self-restraint they are not yet humility. For example as St Seraphim of Sarov explained the five unwise were physically virginal but yet still lacked something essential- so they were left outside the Wedding Chamber. So one can show self-restraint outwardly without this being humility.

About points 3 & 4. Precisly obedience and faith are based on and lead to a kind of knowledge of the divine life. Without these again we are in real danger of falling into something only external and not an inner change.



As humility is so expressed and experienced, is God limited in not being able to experience these forms of humility because He is omniscient? Isn't the formula then one that essentially limits God?

I think that without realizing it you are basing yourself on abstract ideas rather than the reality of theology and the life in Christ as shown by 2000 years of the Church's experience. If you wish you can read about this in many of the writings of Hierotheos Vlachos. Also our trusty moderator Matthew often refers to this.


What did Holy Scripture say about scribes bring forth new and old? If the Church must limit itself to the opinions of 4th Century formulas it is intellectually dead - lacking the very Spirit of Truth, preferring a dead letter law. The Holy Spirit is real and active.

Of course there is an important part of our Orthodox lives which is devoted to understanding the depths of the mysteries of God, His economy & creation. St Irenaeus of Lyons refers to this. No one & most of all the Holy Fathers ask for intellectual deadness. But they do warn over & over about how we must be very careful about confusing the work of the intellect with speculation which rejects obedience to the Apostolic tradition of the Church.

In a way I think a lot of this anxiety comes from the way we falsely oppose the Tradition of the Church with what we endeavour to bring to it, our little two mites I guess you could say. We think that because of the warnings about selfishness there remains nothing of ourselves to bring to Christ. The warnings however do not mean to stamp ourselves out and not offer anything of ourselves- on the contrary they mean that the real offering is an offering progressively purified from selfishness, just as typified in the Old Testament.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Mr Holland,

I appreciated your post above, on some of the issues involved in the Son's knowing. I think there is quite a lot of room here for further consideration, and am certainly enjoying these initial forays with your thoughts.

You wrote:


Not knowing does not make the Word any less God. It only seems to convey more and appropriate honor to Christ whose divine humility is every bit as divine and important as His divine knowledge. Humility, patience and obedience can only be fully practiced by a disciplined mind that does not desire to know even what it can know. There are things we should not delve into. "We" includes Christ and the Holy Spirit who are with us always. Being with "us", their divine condescension does not end nor could we require of it any restriction - God is God.

Surely, part of the issue here must be what is meant by 'knowledge', if one is going to attempt to define its possession or non-possession in this way. Earlier in this thread, the point was raised that 'knowing' does not always relate to an assemblage of data or familiarity with raw facts; you yourself, I believe, raised quite rightly the question of relation as at least part of knowing (and the fullest form of knowing in its higher levels). This we mustn't forget. Part of the issue, the problem, with this whole realm of address is that knowing, and particularly 'omniscience', is too easily taken to equate to 'knowing all possible facts about all possible things' -- e.g. what the temperature in Lebanon is going to be on the second Tuesday in May, AD 2316 -- which creates sincere problems for questions of the Son's knowledge in the incarnation. But knowing is revealed time and again by the fathers as ultimately a fruit of relationship to God. So for Gregory of Nyssa it is analogised to Moses ascending Sinai, the holy mountain, and finally seeing God fully in the darkness of the cloud; or in Symeon the New Theologian's discussions of the ineffability of the vision of the divine light, etc. In these highest states of knowing, one knows by experience, by relating and relation to God, rather than an intellectual formation about God.

This must be brought back to the question of knowledge when we speak of the incarnate Son. How and what the Son 'knows' cannot be divorced from the question of what knowledge means in these ultimate terms (such as speaking of 'the hour' of the end). I do not think it particularly helpful to speak of the Son 'not knowing' through a kind of humility that empties himself of knowledge; the flaws of kenotic theology have been fairly well elucidated by some recent scholars, amongst others. The Son's humility in the incarnation is not a humility that changes the character of who he is; he cannot become 'less Son' through the self-emptying properly spoken of by the apostle.

On the secondary topic of your same post, the question of 'lying' and whether Christ could be said to lie or mislead the disciples, you wrote:


We are taught by the Church that the Word does not lie. That teaching is absolutely true. Knowledge need not be instantly realizable in order to be possessed - one can possess what one does not know. The Icons teach that Jesus holds the sealed scrolls - and the Gospel teaches that Jesus searched to find the place in the Prophets when he taught and revealed Himself as fullfilling the prophecy. Further the Word directly teaches that He does the will of the Father and the Father reveals Himself to Him.

[...] It seems incredulous to believe, as the Blessed Theophylact makes plain, that Jesus misdirected and mis-spoke in order to effectively shut up the disciples. The man who calmed the winds and waves did not have to lie to bring them peace. The teachings of the fathers on this point seem to be lacking faith - preferring their own thoughts and opinions to expressed, plain and open statements of the Gospels. Also, the teachings seem inconsistent with their own teachings about free will and our intrinsic ability to know God in essence.

Some very interesting points here. Though one wonders if it mightn't be best to remain a touch more open to the idea that such fathers are aware of some deeper realities to questions of 'lie' and 'truth'. This actually connects the two discussions: in popular sentiment, a 'lie' is simply the inversion (or perhaps also concealment) of a given truth claim - a given piece of data, a given fact. Thus, if 'x' is true, claiming 'not x' is a lie. Within this framework, all works well.

But in some of our above discussion, we've attempted to see that knowledge must also operate at a higher level, whilst not abandoning this basic structure. There is knowledge that goes beyond the ability of simply logical, verbal claims to be expressed - knowledge to which, ultimately, such claims are in service and to which they are subject. Within the scope of this deeper truth, how then do we define 'lie'? At times, Christ's whole method of instruction by parable is grounded on the inversion of a simple x/not-x framework. The Sabbath is holy, but breaking the Sabbath law is at times the necessary way to reach and understand the truth disclosed and encountered in the Sabbath. Etc.

Perhaps someone else in the Community will remember which of the fathers it was who said (and where), that one must engage in severe ascesis to learn how to understand lies, if one is ever to use them properly (a very provocative claim).

INXC, Matthew

[AndyHolland]

[QUOTE=AndyHolland;34952]

Dear Andy,

God bless.

While points 1 & 2 in your list may be forms of self-restraint they are not yet humility. For example as St Seraphim of Sarov explained the five unwise were physically virginal but yet still lacked something essential- so they were left outside the Wedding Chamber. So one can show self-restraint outwardly without this being humility.

About points 3 & 4. Precisly obedience and faith are based on and lead to a kind of knowledge of the divine life. Without these again we are in real danger of falling into something only external and not an inner change.

Dear Father,

Father bless,

I certainly fully agree- and being chief of sinners, understand this because while on the outside I often am good, on the inside it can be WWIII - and "I" always loose.

However, that is a political answer, not a real one that gets to the essence of the issue. The issue is, placing immediate knowledge above all else in a formula.

Many of the points of their speculation were technically incorrect.



I think that without realizing it you are basing yourself on abstract ideas rather than the reality of theology and the life in Christ as shown by 2000 years of the Church's experience. If you wish you can read about this in many of the writings of Hierotheos Vlachos. Also our trusty moderator Matthew often refers to this.

Of course that is true - beyond the basic it is possible to posses knowledge without knowing it, it is purely speculation. However, the speculation is based on scientific information that was not known to their age when they were clearly speculating using the "I" word.

St. Athanasius and St. John Chrysostom believed that one could not create the Universe without knowing its state. That belief, based on speculative Greek philosophy is in fact wrong. DNA/RNA are proof - as is the Living Word who calmed the wind and waves by His rebuke.

DNA/RNA doesn't consciously know anything, nor does it know the state of what it will create by its molecular word, yet it creates the most wonderful marvelous things. Do you recall Jesus marvelled at the faith of the Centurian?

DNA/RNA does contain information - though it is unrealizable until something external triggers its pattern to knit together proteins that serve as structures for structures, valves, pistons, engines, factories, chemical plants, electrical power source, variable resistance, capacitance, inductance and conductance based on requirements of what is being created. This is the Lords doing and is marvelous in our eyes (and it even makes our eyes).

I happen to be a patent inventor on a self verifying computer language that was used to automatically design and analyze nuclear reactor cores in the United States. It is technically possible to design things without knowing the end state. Now give God the glory for that work, I certainly do being a wicked sinner.

St. Athanasius and St. John were speculating on that technical point. I, worst of sinners and hypocrites, by the grace of God, am not on that particular point. I am not speculating at all when I say that it is possible to create marvelous things without having the slightest idea what the intermediary states are.

If the the fathers are wrong in their speculation, AND THEY ARE MOST CERTAINLY AND DEMONSTRATABLY, I am not with regard to how something very complex can in fact be designed and analyzed without knowing the outcome or any intermediate state. That knowledge is realized in this age.

We could literally design a nuclear reactor to any programmable objective function, a level of sophistication that is immense. It would be impossible to know how the computer was actually designing the core, yet the final design would meet the criteria - better than any individual could do manually.

The science of the 4th century was comparitively lousy - just as our morality and love of suffering, poverty, truth and virtue in this age is lousy. Our age is often blind to the Word - but the Word is true. All of the Greek systems and philosophies can be mapped to Thermodynamics, or various branches of mathematics. However, they all have real limits. They all are traduced and fail - by the fathers themselves, who used them to destroy them.

Yet DNA/RNA is indicative of Word - transforming dust into a living world. God holds the patent on DNA/RNA!

A seed has a mass of a few grams, yet when it falls to the earth and dies (undergoes a series of chemical reactions using all its internal stored energy), and throught many generations, the molecules within that seed and its progeny can literally move mountains.

Life is the light of men - literally. We ought to study living things and learn from creation, from the Father, from the Holy Gospels. We have all the tools.

Yet if we insist on 4th century speculative thinking, then modern atheism and materialism will swallow whole generations. People are dying from this drunken age. In Amerika, 3000 Babies die every day in abortion mills, while we argue 4th Century theology! There is a world out there that needs to be Christianized, and arguing against the plain truth of the Holy Gospel will not get it done. In fact, it plays right into the hands of the Protestants.

If the fathers do not speak the proper language, if their language is dead (they themselves trampled it down using its very form), then we must ask the Holy Spirit to guide us to communicate to this age, translating the Gospel into the reality as people live it.

We are dieing, and yet the contemporary fathers insist on more than the mind to follow Christ in the Gospel, but the methodology of a dead system the ancient fathers themselves trampled down and traduced!

Yet living in an age of rebellion, perhaps we truly are lost. If so, the ancient Greek fathers then must accept some responsibility then, because they planted the seed of unbelief in the Holy Gospel, and for that their speculations must be abandoned out of true love for them.

They were clearly speculating, read their words again and see where.


Of course there is an important part of our Orthodox lives which is devoted to understanding the depths of the mysteries of God, His economy & creation. St Irenaeus of Lyons refers to this. No one & most of all the Holy Fathers ask for intellectual deadness. But they do warn over & over about how we must be very careful about confusing the work of the intellect with speculation which rejects obedience to the Apostolic tradition of the Church.

Exactly, and I am not speculating when I say that systems can in fact be created that have an infinite power and force without relating to state information. DNA/RNA is material analogue proof that THE WORD IS GOD and by HIM ALL THINGS WERE MADE.


In a way I think a lot of this anxiety comes from the way we falsely oppose the Tradition of the Church with what we endeavour to bring to it, our little two mites I guess you could say. We think that because of the warnings about selfishness there remains nothing of ourselves to bring to Christ. The warnings however do not mean to stamp ourselves out and not offer anything of ourselves- on the contrary they mean that the real offering is an offering progressively purified from selfishness, just as typified in the Old Testament.

In Christ- Fr Raphael
I must admit, when I was confronted with this speculation of the fathers on this issue, I could not believe it. It caused incredible consternation and trouble.

In deepest prayer, I asked for the gift of the Holy Spirit to teach me the truth concerning this, because the simple, the pure who taught me to look for Jesus Christ as Lord would not believe our Lord would speak guile. He was simple and mentally "challenged" and wise.

So by the Holy Spirit, I sincerely believe that the truth was imparted that one can possess knowledge without knowing it. DNA/RNA are in fact proof in the material world. And this is completely consistent with the teaching of the Theotokos Icon and Church teaching as we experience in the Holy Liturgy. It is consistent with virginity and all other virtues, and it is true.

All virtue, truth, beauty and the Holy Scriptures themselves show that to be true as does the universe created by the Father - for we have ONE FATHER IN HEAVEN - not many fathers. You fathers are Icons of our father, but you are but men and brothers - for all men are brothers.

The Holy Gospel is true. Don't be faithless and speculative, but believing. Don't rely on dead systems but learn from the living Word.

andy holland
sinner

[AndyHolland]

Dear Mr Holland,
...
Surely, part of the issue here must be what is meant by 'knowledge', if one is going to attempt to define its possession or non-possession in this way. Earlier in this thread, the point was raised that 'knowing' does not always relate to an assemblage of data or familiarity with raw facts; you yourself, I believe, raised quite rightly the question of relation as at least part of knowing (and the fullest form of knowing in its higher levels). This we mustn't forget. Part of the issue, the problem, with this whole realm of address is that knowing, and particularly 'omniscience', is too easily taken to equate to 'knowing all possible facts about all possible things' -- e.g. what the temperature in Lebanon is going to be on the second Tuesday in May, AD 2316 -- which creates sincere problems for questions of the Son's knowledge in the incarnation. But knowing is revealed time and again by the fathers as ultimately a fruit of relationship to God. So for Gregory of Nyssa it is analogised to Moses ascending Sinai, the holy mountain, and finally seeing God fully in the darkness of the cloud; or in Symeon the New Theologian's discussions of the ineffability of the vision of the divine light, etc. In these highest states of knowing, one knows by experience, by relating and relation to God, rather than an intellectual formation about God.

Absolutely - I agree 99% - this is what I have been trying to say. I strenously object to "HIGHER" however, there is nothing "high" about it. It is readily apparent to simple people that the Lord did not know, yet possessed the knowledge. This is marvelous.

That is why the personal speculation ("I" word opinion) of immediate knowledge as clearly indicated by St. Athanasius in particular was so disconcerting. It is not that the Son does not possess all things in the Father.

The Son does not know when it is not the correct time, yet possesses the knowledge - in time He experiences them in accordance to the Divine will. And this works in all time systems - above and chronological, below. HE HAS ALL THINGS IN THE FATHER. His knowledge is eternal in the Father. And this shows us great patience and virtue in this operation of relationship. His Priesthood is eternal, from everlasting to everlasting - so too we can, I believe safely assume, is His experience of knowledge.

The physical material world has DNA/RNA that has in its store great knowledge, yet in itself does not consciously know state information. Yet the Word of DNA/RNA by the grace of God and His programming through molecules, makes a living world.


This must be brought back to the question of knowledge when we speak of the incarnate Son. How and what the Son 'knows' cannot be divorced from the question of what knowledge means in these ultimate terms (such as speaking of 'the hour' of the end). I do not think it particularly helpful to speak of the Son 'not knowing' through a kind of humility that empties himself of knowledge; the flaws of kenotic theology have been fairly well elucidated by some recent scholars, amongst others. The Son's humility in the incarnation is not a humility that changes the character of who he is; he cannot become 'less Son' through the self-emptying properly spoken of by the apostle.

If He cannot become 'less Son' through self-emptying, then by the fact of the Divine Humility of the Incarnation, Humility itself is Divine, Eternal, and practiced.

Your last sentence is making my point in spades, 'not knowing' is precisely a form of patience, love and humilty. One possesses a betrothed without knowing her because He loves her. So He is in possession without knowledge.Anyone reading the Holy Gospel should be familiar with Holy Scripture with respect to the distinction between knowledge and possession. Certainly the fathers were. That is why it is so hard to believe they missed these points. Is it readly apparent only in English?


On the secondary topic of your same post, the question of 'lying' and whether Christ could be said to lie or mislead the disciples, you wrote:

Some very interesting points here. Though one wonders if it mightn't be best to remain a touch more open to the idea that such fathers are aware of some deeper realities to questions of 'lie' and 'truth'. This actually connects the two discussions: in popular sentiment, a 'lie' is simply the inversion (or perhaps also concealment) of a given truth claim - a given piece of data, a given fact. Thus, if 'x' is true, claiming 'not x' is a lie. Within this framework, all works well.

But in some of our above discussion, we've attempted to see that knowledge must also operate at a higher level, whilst not abandoning this basic structure. There is knowledge that goes beyond the ability of simply logical, verbal claims to be expressed - knowledge to which, ultimately, such claims are in service and to which they are subject. Within the scope of this deeper truth, how then do we define 'lie'? At times, Christ's whole method of instruction by parable is grounded on the inversion of a simple x/not-x framework. The Sabbath is holy, but breaking the Sabbath law is at times the necessary way to reach and understand the truth disclosed and encountered in the Sabbath. Etc.

The Truth does not lie, on any level. The Word is consistent. The fathers were not above practicing deception, and these sins are well known to history and forgiven.

The Lord never, ever broke the Sabbath law - HE FULLFILLED THE SABBATH for He was fully God and man, and as man acted as man on the Sabbath. His Divine nature was at rest, yet He healed - fullfilling the Sabbath and the law of Love and mercy - going to the well to pull up Adam from the grave.


Perhaps someone else in the Community will remember which of the fathers it was who said (and where), that one must engage in severe ascesis to learn how to understand lies, if one is ever to use them properly (a very provocative claim).

INXC, Matthew
Our God is not Bill Clinton.

Extreme ascesis can lead to mental illness and spiritual deception.

Our Lord never lied - the lie in us reads lies, deceptions, and untruths into the Holy Scripture. It is our sins we are seeing reflected back - the Lord is without Guile and the Word is pure and truthful. TO THE PURE ALL THINGS ARE PURE.

The fathers were wrong to teach otherwise and the disasters we are facing with Protestantism must in part be laid at their feet, because clearly they had all the tools needed to compare things Spiritual to Spiritual. They should have been precise, but frankly, they were sloppy on these points in this particular instance. These slips cost us dearly when Martin Luther, who had a simple faith, began reading the fathers. Yet his sin appears to be one of rebellion which is far worse.

There is clearly a marked difference between possessing and knowing - and that is so easily apparent when thinking about true virginity. How could they miss it? A blind man can see it with a cane!

Frankly we have one Father in Heaven, and all men are brothers, and the Holy Gospel is true - let all other men be liars!

andy holland
sinner

[M.C. Steenberg]

In an above post, Fr Raphael wrote:


We need to keep in mind that our manner of knowing even to extent that it is imparted to us by the Holy Trinity can never be identical. Thus to follow what is almost a formula with the Holy Fathers; God is Divine by nature but we are divine by grace. This crucial distinction refers then not to some sort of difference of quantity like having less water in the glass but it's still water. Rather our knowledge and manner of knowing are different by nature from that of the Holy Trinity.

Thank you for this important reminder. This is, indeed, 'that from which the whole question stems'; for the doctrine of the Trinity as consubstantial and, e.g., of one will, is precisely what raises the questions over knowing.

But here I think we would also want to raise the matter of the fact that the consubstantiality of Father, Son and Spirit, does not negate the fact that they relate to one another eternally in their differing relations - so the 'one knowledge' of God the Trinity is 'known' by the Son as Son, by the Father as Father, by the Spirit as Spirit. It is not 'generic' to the three, since the three are unique, and as uniquely three are the one God.

(I've put 'known' in inverted commas in the above, again to raise the question of what that term means in a context like this. In the realm of the eternal nature of God as Trinity, knowledge must be something relational, since the usual temporal aspects of coming to possess knowledge, etc., simply do not apply.)

I think I am in a manner only re-framing your point later in your post:


The Three Persons of the Holy Trinity share in this knowledge, wisdom, goodness, etc as being one in essence. Their knowledge is one even though the manner in which this is revealed is Personally distinct. Thus in the Persons of the Holy Trinity knowledge is connected to Personal acting although the knowledge is One and shared in identically by all three Persons.

So the question comes back round, even as you raise it:


Thus the Son as Pre-eternal Logos being one in essence with His Father does know the Hour even while as Incarnate submitting in various ways to a human manner of 'not knowing'.

INXC, Matthew

[M.C. Steenberg]

Therefore it seems better to believe the Holy Gospel as plainly presented than the 4th Century Greek fathers expressed personal opinions filled with the cursed "I" word - who did not claim authority of the Holy Spirit in the matter. The Holy Spirit is accessible to Orthodox believers - even now. Fathers speaking in the authority of the Holy Spirit do not use "I" but rather give God the glory.

As comments along these lines have been creeping in a fair amount in this thread, I've opened a new thread to speak about them. Please see Question of the Authority of the Church Fathers (http://www.monachos.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2739) for discussion on the question of 'I' language in the fathers.

INXC, Matthew

[Alec Lowly]

Who was the famous (or infamous) wit who quipped, "Ninety percent of the Fathers are 80 percent Orthodox"?

[Kosta]

hmmm never heard that. I have heard that "85 % of the Saints are 85% of the time right"

[M.C. Steenberg]

And 92.14% of all statistics are made up.

:)

INXC, Matthew

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear friends,

I have moved the emerging discussion on the question of 'lies' and 'truth' in Christ to its own new thread: Christology Discussion Area > Did Christ lie? (http://www.monachos.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2742) We can keep the present thread focussed on the question of Christ's 'knowing the hour'.

INXC, Matthew

[AndyHolland]

Jesus never lied. Jesus never used guile. Jesus did not mince words here, nor did he mince words when He said,

"Matthew 24:34: Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
Matthew 24:35: Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
Matthew 24:36: But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
Matthew 24:37: But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."

In English Verily means assuredly, truthfully - it is a term of emphasis. The Son said "my Father only" therefore Our Father only. The fathers did not say this was a wording problem, a translation problem, - but rather, said they 'surely he must know.' That cannot be the truth because our Lord was so emphatic about it.

Is it possible for the fathers to make a mistake? Certainly. All men are Brothers according to Jesus, and the Generation is the same, Heaven and Earth may pass away, but the Word does not pass away.

There is a good prayer from a God-Bearing Father Nicholai that goes:

My elders taught me, when I was a youth, to cling to heaven and earth, lest I stumble. For a long time I remained a child, and for a long time I used to lean on the crutch that they gave me.

But once eternity flooded through me and I felt like a stranger in the world, heaven and earth snapped in two in my hands like a frail reed.

O Lord, my strength, how frail are heaven and earth! They look like palaces built of lead, but they evaporate like water in the palm of the hand in Your presence. Only by their bristling do they conceal their frailty, and frighten uneducated children.

Get out of my sight, suns and stars. Sunder yourselves from the earth. Do not entice me, women and friends. What help can I receive from you, who are helplessly growing old and sinking into the grave?

All your gifts are an apple with a worm in its core. All your potions have passed through someone's entrails many times. Your garments are a cobweb that my nakedness mocks. Your smiles are a proclamation of sorrow, in which your feebleness is screaming to mine for help.

O Lord, my strength, how feeble heaven and earth are! And all the evil that men do under heaven is an admission of feebleness and—infirmity.

Only someone strong dares to do good. Only someone who is nourished and watered with You, my strength, is filled with strength for goodness.

Only someone who sleeps in Your heart knows rest. Only someone who plows before Your feet will enjoy the fruit of his labors.

My childhood, nourished with fear and ignorance, came to an end; and my hope in heaven and earth vanished. Now I only gaze at You and cling to Your gaze in return, O my cradle and my resurrection.

At some point, our Faith in Jesus Christ must supersede our Faith in all others, even wonderful Saints, so that with the Saints we may pray to God eternally.

Even Consubstantial is but a word.

andy holland
sinner

[Tim Grass]

"Matthew 24:34: Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. [...]

In English Verily means assuredly, truthfully - it is a term of emphasis. The Son said "my Father only" therefore Our Father only. The fathers did not say this was a wording problem, a translation problem, - but rather, said they 'surely he must know.' That cannot be the truth because our Lord was so emphatic about it.
This is why you're not supposed to read the Bible without the Church.... the word in the scripture has nothing to do with the word "verily" in English.... which comes from the Latin for truth.

--tim

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Going back to the original point of this thread it's interesting to see what Blessed Theophylact actually writes:


But now by saying, "Not even the Son knows, but My Father only," He prevents them from asking. It is like a father who will often hold something in his hands and when his children ask for it and he does not want to give it, he hides it and says, "I do not have what you are asking for," and so the children stop crying for it. So too the Lord says, "Even I do not know, but my father only," in order to put an end to the desire of the apostles to know the day and hour.

Now Theophylact here says nothing directly about the Lord lying. Although if one wanted to interpret his interpretaion as implying this then I think this would be an interesting discussion about lying in general (which I'm pretty sure at one point Matthew tried to steer this thread towards even giving the link to a previous discussion about this I think).

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[M.C. Steenberg]

Mr Grass wrote:


the word in the scripture has nothing to do with the word "verily" in English.... which comes from the Latin for truth.

To follow up on what you wrote here, the word in the NT is actually 'amen'; so 'Amen, I say to you...'. Often this is a repeated doublet ('Amen amen, I say to you...').

INXC, Matthew

[Kosta]

The 'us' of genesis is simply using the correct syntax by the scribe. Elohim is in plural so it would make no sense to use the singular. This is realized in the septuagint. Where the serpent tells Eve , that she "will be like gods"(gen 3.5) iN hebrew Torah where god is always a single entity regardless of the fact he is refered to as elohim in the plural, is written "will be like God".

[M.C. Steenberg]

The 'us' of genesis is simply using the correct syntax by the scribe. Elohim is in plural so it would make no sense to use the singular. This is realized in the septuagint. Where the serpent tells Eve , that she "will be like gods"(gen 3.5) iN hebrew Torah where god is always a single entity regardless of the fact he is refered to as elohim in the plural, is written "will be like God".
Dear Kosta,

This is of course quite true, vis-a-vis the plural noun in the Hebrew (interestingly, not in the Greek). But it is interesting to note how the fathers see this as a clear indication of the Trinity. It is also an interesting aspect to consider, vis-a-vis the question of the Son's 'knowing the hour'. It is clear that the Son and Spirit are present with the Father at the initiation of creation, according to a patristic reading of Genesis. I wonder what the thoughts are of people here on the question of the relationship between 'knowing the beginning' and 'knowing the end'?

INXC, Matthew

[Theopesta]

I wonder what the thoughts are of people here on the question of the relationship between 'knowing the beginning' and 'knowing the end'?

Dear Dr. Matthew and venerable members:

I feel the knowing of the 2 times are one but when the express of the of this knowledage occur? when GOD express what HE want externally, I hope I find correction

all thanks,IN ONE CHRIST,Theopesta

[Tim Grass]

So what did we determine..... what did Christ mean when he talked about not knowing the end?

--tim

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

So what did we determine..... what did Christ mean when he talked about not knowing the end?

--tim

In my own mind at least what this all adds up to is that Christ for the good of humanity allowed Himself to be humanly ignorant of the Hour.

In Christ- Fr Raphael