>
> Dear Vernon,
>
> I am sorry if I am butting in, but your exchange with George is public and I
> want to point out something peripheral but very important.
>
>
> I welcome corrections from the theologians on the list, but it seems to me
> that your assertion smacks of monophysitism, the assertion that there was no
> true humanity in Christ. (Some Gnostic monophysites went so far as to assert
> that Jesus only pretended to be human, and did not actually eat or excrete
> or even die on the Cross.) The common assertion that "it is hardly logical
> to assume the Creator would be ignorant in any area" hides within it the
> idea that the Savior did not assume full human nature because He did not
> participate in human limitations on knowledge.
>
> This is of first importance because "what is not assumed is not redeemed."
> Orthodox Christology asserts that, while Jesus the Christ was fully divine,
> He was also fully human and so shared the common limitations of humanity --
> including being limited to the knowledge base of the time in which He became
> Incarnate.
>
> Vernon, I am not making an accusation of heresy; but you should recognize
> that orthodox Christology can logically contain the assertion that Jesus,
> Incarnate Deity though He was, need not have held full omniscience in His
> human nature. Insofar as He was God He knew what was necessary; insofar as
> He was human He did not know what He did not have "need to know."
>
> I am using "need to know" in the sense used in compartmentalized
> intelligence work -- if you are not working in a particular area you don't
> have a need to know anything in that area which is not in the public domain.
> Jesus' mission was redemption, not science -- and would knowledge of the
> actual history of the universe, as opposed to the knowledge which was at
> that time in the public domain, have really been helpful in His mission? I
> think not; it would have been irrelevant at best and harmful at worst. Think
> how much less of a hearing He'd have gotten if He had asserted such
> self-evidently crazy things as temporal relativity or an evolving universe!
> He'd have been just another raving lunatic, not even worthy of execution.
>
> Yours,
>
> Dan Berger
> bergerd@bluffton.edu
> http://cs.bluffton.edu/~berger
>
>
Very interesting comments. I seem to remember that in one of the gospels -
Matthew's I think - Jesus said "As Jonah was three days and three nights
in the belly of the fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three
nights in the heart of the earth."
All of the gospels agree on the following - He was crucified on Friday,
and by early Sunday morning He had already risen.
I make this one day and two nights, so clearly one of the things that
Jesus didn't need to know was how to count :-)
As an aside - does this liberal usage of the expression 'three days and
three nights' remove the necessity for us to view the six days of
Genesis as 24-hour days? Just a thought...
/Gary