Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-g5fl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-26T07:42:23.070Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Christ's Acquired Knowledge According to Thomas Aquinas: How Aquinas's Philosophy Helped and Hindered his Account

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Simon Francis Gaine OP
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Thomas Aquinas is celebrated for many things in the history of Christian theology, but one is the revolutionary place he gives to the thesis that Christ acquired knowledge by way of empirical experience. That his claim should be so revolutionary strikes us today as odd. Any reflection on Christ's knowledge ordinarily begins today by stressing how the Word of God assumed our ordinary human limited ways of knowing. In medieval times, however, theologians found it extremely difficult to accept that Christ acquired knowledge by the normal empirical, experiential route. A crucial role in Aquinas's theological advance beyond this position was played by his philosophical commitments, within the wider context of the soteriological character of his Christology. However, there are problems involved in Aquinas's particular theological position on Christ's acquired knowledge and his wider picture of Christ's knowledge. The same philosophical means that enabled Aquinas to recognise the reality of Christ's acquiring knowledge also led him into an overall picture of the perfection of Christ's knowledge that was not so satisfactory. Part of the solution to the difficulties into which Aquinas gets himself can be found in a philosophical position already employed by him in his mature account of Christ's knowledge.

Keywords

Jesus ChristThomas AquinasKnowledgePhilosophyMedieval Theology
Type
Original Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 96 , Issue 1063 , May 2015 , pp. 255 - 268
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 The Dominican Council

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 E.g., Jean-Pierre Torrell, ‘S. Thomas d'Aquin et la science du Christ: Une Relecture des questions 9–12 de la “Tertia pars” de la Somme de Théologie’ in Bonino, Serge-Thomas (ed.), Saint Thomas au XXe siècle: Actes du colloque du centenaire de la “Revue Thomiste” 25–28 mars 1993 – Toulouse (Paris: St Paul, 1994), pp. 394–409Google Scholar.

2 This is reflected in the Catholic Church's universal catechism: Catechismus Catholicae Ecclesiae (Vatican: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), 472. For an introduction to the question of Christ's knowledge in general, see Moloney, Raymond, The Knowledge of Christ (London & New York: Continuum, 1999)Google Scholar.

3 Karl Rahner, ‘Dogmatic Reflections on the Knowledge and Self-Consciousness of Christ’ in Theological Investigations, vol. 5: Later Writings (trans. Kruger, Karl-H.; London: Darton, Longman and Todd; Baltimore: Helicon, 1966), pp. 193–215Google Scholar (194–95).

4 Albert, In Sent., 3.13.10; Bonaventure, In Sent., 3.14.3.2.

5 Summa Theologiae, 3.9.4; 3.12.

6 Ibid., 3.9–11.

7 Ibid., 3.9.1.

8 On his knowledge of the Councils, see Morard, Martin, ‘Thomas d'Aquin lecteur des conciles', Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 98 (2005), pp. 211–365Google Scholar.

9 Cf. Quaestiones disputatae de Veritate, 20.1; De articulis fidei, 1.

10 See Grillmeier, Aloys and Hainthaler, Theresia, Christ in Christian Tradition, vol. 2/2 (trans. Cawte, John and Allen, Pauline; London: Mowbray; Louisville KY: WJK, 1995), pp. 362–74Google Scholar.

11 Summa, 9.1.

12 Denzinger, Heinrich, Hünermann, Peter, Fastiggi, Robert and Nash, Anne Englund, Enchiridion symbolorum definitionum et declarationem de rebus fidei et morum, Compendium of Creeds, Definitions and Declarations on Matters of Faith and Morals (San Francisco: Ignatius, 43rd edn, 2012), paras. 553–59Google Scholar.

13 Cf. Torrell, ‘S. Thomas d'Aquin et la science du Christ', p. 395, n. 2; Morard, ‘Thomas d'Aquin lecteur des conciles', pp. 308, 311.

14 Cf. Summa, 3.18.1.

15 Summa Sententiarum, 1.16. Cf. Hugh, De Sapientia.

16 Sent., 3.13–14.

17 1 Summa Theologiae, 3.7, pr.

18 Ibid., 3.15.1.

19 Ibid., 3.46.

20 Ibid., 3.14–15.

21 See Gondreau, Paul, The Passions of Christ's Soul in the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, Neue Folge 61; Münster: Aschendorff, 2002)Google Scholar.

22 Summa, 3.7.1.

23 Ibid., 3.9.1.

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid., 3.9.2.

26 Ibid., 3.9.3.

27 Ibid., 3.9.4.

28 De Anima 3.

29 Quaestiones disputatae de Anima.

30 In Sent., 3.14.3.5 ad 3; 3.18.3 ad 5.

31 Summa, 3.12.2, sed contra, citing De Incarnatione dominicae sacramento, 7.

32 Gregory of Nazianzus, Orationes, 43.38; Cyril, Thesaurus, 28; John of Damascus, Expositio Fidei, 3.22.

33 In Sent., 3.14.3.5 ad 3; 3.18.3 ad 5.

34 Summa 3.12.3 ad 1, citing Super Lucam 19.

35 Ibid., 3.9.4, sed contra.

36 Ibid., 3.9.4 ad 1; 3.12.3–4.

37 On Aquinas's educational theory, see Schmidl, Wolfgang, Homo discens: Studien zur Pädagogischen Anthropologie bei Thomas von Aquin (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1987), 15–90Google Scholar; Boland, Vivian, St Thomas Aquinas (Continuum Library of Educational Thought, vol. 1; London and New York: Continuum, 2007), 41–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Summa, 3.12.1.

39 Ibid., 3.12.1 ad 1.

40 Ibid., 3.9.4, sed contra.

41 Ibid., 3.12.2 ad 1.

42 Ibid., 3.39.3 ad 3.

43 Ibid., 3.12.2 obj. 2.

44 Ibid., 3.12.2 ad 2.

45 For the emergence of this since the nineteenth century, see Rivière, Jean, ‘Le problème de la science humaine du Christ: Positions classiques et nouvelles tendances’, Bulletin de Littérature Ecclésiastiastique 7 (1915–16), pp. 241–61, 289–314, 337–64Google Scholar.

46 Summa, 3.11.1.

47 Ibid., 3.9.4 ad 2 & 3.

48 Ibid., 3.9.3; 3.11.1.

49 London and New York: T and T Clark, 2015.