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State of the question. This article concerns the habit of
experimental knowledge acquired by the intellect through species
abstracted from phantasms, or obtained gradually by individual acts.
The difficulty is: (1) If Christ had this knowledge, then He
did not have it perfectly, because He never studied. (2) This
acquired knowledge seems superfluous if Christ already had directly
infused knowledge of created things, and especially if He already had
accidentally infused knowledge of sensible things.
Conclusion. Christ had knowledge that is essentially capable of being
acquired, and that was also actually acquired by Him.
Scriptural proof. St. Paul says: "Whereas, indeed, He was the
Son of God, He learned obedience by the things which He
suffered,"[1210] that is, by what He experienced. Farther
on,[1211] St. Thomas quotes the following Gospel text:
"Jesus advanced in wisdom and age, and grace with God and
men,"[1212] which He explains as resulting from an increase of
acquired knowledge.
St. Thomas himself admits in the present article that he corrects
what he wrote in an earlier work on this subject,[1213] in which
he taught that Christ had knowledge that is essentially acquirable,
yet it was not acquired by His own acts, but was accidentally
infused, as in the case of Adam who was created completely developed.
But now St. Thomas maintains that, as it was fitting for Christ's
body to develop gradually, so also it was proper for His soul to
advance gradually in the knowledge of natural things. Hence the
Evangelist says: "Jesus advanced in wisdom and age."[1214]
Theological proof. Nothing that God planted in our nature was
wanting to the human nature of Christ, among which is the active
intellect or the connatural active principle of intellectual knowledge.
But the active intellect would have been useless in Christ, lacking
in its own and special operation, if He did not have knowledge
acquired by His own acts by abstracting intelligible species from
phantasms.
Therefore Christ had this knowledge.
Objection. Scotus maintains that the active intellect neither was
useless in Adam, nor is it so in the blessed. The purpose of the
active intellect is not only to abstract species, but it also serves
the purpose of illustrating principles to be made use of in
conclusions.
Reply. The Thomists point out that there is a difference between
Christ and Adam, who was created not as a child, but as fully
developed, as there is a difference between Christ and disembodied
spirits that no longer have the connatural mode of understanding by
turning to phantasms. If Christ had not acquired knowledge by
repeated acts of the intellect, His active intellect would have been
useless, not absolutely so, but as regards its connatural mode of
operating; for it would be deprived of that act to which it is entitled
in such a state and at such a time.
Moreover, it was no imperfection for Christ that as a child He was
deprived of speech, or that He was unable as yet to acquire perfect
knowledge of things. He already had by the beatific knowledge
superabundant cognition for the perfect knowledge of divine things and
of other things in the Word. Therefore Christ in a certain sense
progressed intellectually, but not morally.
The solution of the objections of this article confirms the reply of
St. Thomas.
Reply to first objection. "It was more fitting for Christ to
possess a knowledge acquired by discovery than by being taught", hence
He acquired acquirable knowledge not by learning, but rather by
discovery, by a consideration of nature and men.
Reply to second objection. "It behooved Christ's intellect to be
also perfected with regard to phantasms," although it was already
perfected by infused knowledge. For this is a new and connatural mode
of knowing. Someone may already have certainty of knowledge by the
gift of prophecy that death will come on a certain day; in another
way, however, there is experimental knowledge of the moment of death.
Reply to third objection. There was also a distinction between this
acquired knowledge and infused knowledge concerning sensible things,
for this second kind of knowledge, coming as it does from on high, is
not proportioned to phantasms. Thus he who sings the melody of a
musical composition solely from memory, not having studied music, can
afterward in another way know this melody by distinguishing the various
parts and notes of the musical score, reading it even to the least
detail. Previously he knew the musical composition as some general
melody, but now he knows its parts and the way these are distinctly
related to the whole.
Thus, then, it is the common teaching of theologians since the time
of Peter Lombard, that there were three kinds of knowledge in
Christ: the beatific, infused, and acquired knowledge.
Each particular knowledge must now be considered briefly.
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