Every Christmas Christians celebrate the Incarnation, the metaphysical union between true divinity and true humanity in the one person of Jesus Christ. But is such a union possible?
Throughout the centuries many skeptics have raised doubts by pointing out that being divine entails being omniscient and omnipotent, but the New Testament portrays Jesus as having human properties such as being apparently limited in knowledge (Mark 13:32) and power (John 4:3-6).
Many Christians have responded by saying that the Incarnation is a mystery.
This is true, nevertheless, the inadequacy with simply replying ‘mystery’ is that, since the Christian wants to make meaningful statements by affirming, for example, that the divine nature includes omniscience and that Jesus was apparently limited in knowledge as stated by the Scriptures, he/she must demonstrate what is meant (or what could possibly be meant) by these statements; it is not enough to claim that it is a ‘mystery’ and leave it as that.
Moreover, the Christian must ensure that the explications of these statements do not result in contradictions. The problem with asserting that one can make contradictory statements about Jesus (e.g. ‘Jesus has complete awareness of everything and complete unawareness of everything simultaneously’) is that the person who makes such contradictory statements is not affirming anything about Jesus.
Affirming ‘complete awareness of everything’ and ‘complete unawareness of everything’ simply cancel each other out; it is like writing something and then immediately erasing it, such that one ends up with nothing that is affirmed of Jesus.
Therefore, in order to make meaningful statements about Jesus in accordance with the Scriptures and to rebut the charge of incoherence, it would be helpful if the Christian can suggest a possible model to show how concepts like omniscience and apparent limitation in knowledge can be affirmed of Jesus such that no contradiction results.
One such model is the Divine Preconscious Model (DPM), which is a form of ‘Kryptic model’. The New Testament portrays Christ as having divine powers including the knowledge of all things (e.g. John 16:30, 21:17), but not utilizing them in all situations. His divine powers were largely ‘hidden’ (‘Krypsis’ in Greek) during the Incarnation, and only utilised on certain occasions to reveal his glory (e.g. John 2:1–11).
This is what DPM postulates.
The key insight is that a divine person can refrain from utilising his omnipotence when he carries out certain activities, such as walking to a town in Samaria. One can therefore suggest that the Son of God did this by the finite strength of his human body instead of utilising his divine powers, hence he could experience fatigue as portrayed in John 4:3-6.
Likewise knowledge can be understood as a kind of power which one can refrain from utilising. For example, a person might have knowledge of calculus, even though he might not be consciously thinking about calculus all the time.
This knowledge of calculus can be said to be in his preconscious: when he chooses to utilise this knowledge by directing his attention to it, that is, when he chooses to consciously think about calculus, he can become aware of calculus.
Since having knowledge of a certain thing such as calculus does not require a constant conscious awareness of that thing, the knowledge of all things by a divine Person does not require a constant conscious awareness of all things by him. Thus, it could be the case that a divine Person chose to let his knowledge of all things reside in his divine preconscious at the Incarnation, and he freely chose not to utilize all of the knowledge in his preconscious, so as to consciously experience our human limitations.
Concerning Mark 13:32, it should be noted that the Greek word οἶδεν which is translated as ‘know’ means ‘to have realised, perceived, to know’; this word is often used in the New Testament in a general way, e.g. to know a person, to be able to understand/apprehend/recognise.
Therefore, in view of its semantic range, in this passage oiden (οἶδεν) can be legitimately rendered as ‘aware’. Thus, Mark 13:32 can be read as ‘But of that day or hour no one is aware, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.’
This reading fits the context perfectly: the disciples would be hoping that the Son would reveal to them the day of his coming, but no one can reveal what he/she is not aware.
For our purposes here, it is important to note that such an unawareness of the Son can co-exist with omniscience in the same person because, as noted previously, omniscience does not require a conscious awareness of all the things known. A divine person can use his omnipotence to restrict the scope of his conscious awareness as well as the utilisation of his omniscience, and in this state of self-restraint the Son was genuinely unaware of that day; it was not a sham.
Because of his love for us, the Son of God restricted himself, came into the world, suffered for us and gave himself up for us (Galatians 2:20). This Christmas, let us be thankful that ‘The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth’ (John 1:14).
Dr. Andrew Loke (PhD, Kings College) is Research Assistant Professor at The University of Hong Kong. A former medical doctor, he is the author of ‘A Kryptic Model of the Incarnation’ (Ashgate, 2014) and ‘Debating the Christian Faith’ (Tien-Dao, 2014). He has published articles in leading academic journals such as Religious Studies. He is also the author of the ETHOS Institute Engagement Series booklet, ‘Science and the Christian Faith‘.