ARTICLE I

The Question Concerns the Knowledge of Christ, and in the First Article We Ask: SHOULD WE SAY THAT THERE IS CREATED KNOWLEDGE IN CHRIST?

Difficulties:

It seems that there we should not, for

1. Knowledge is a perfection of the one who knows. But every perfection is more noble than the subject of perfectibility. Therefore, if Christ knows by reason of some created knowledge, something created will be more noble than the soul of Christ. But this seems unfitting.

2. Activity is not attributed to the nature, but to the substantial subject. For activities belong to substantial subjects and individuals. But, for the person of Christ to understand, uncreated knowledge is sufficient. Therefore, it is superfluous to ascribe created knowledge to Christ.

3. The more noble a thing is, the more it is like God. But the soul of Christ is more noble than physical heat. Therefore, since physical heat acts without a medium, and in this is like God, who acts without a medium, it seems that, with much greater reason, the soul of Christ should understand without the mediation of any created knowledge.

4. It was said that the activity of heat proceeds from within, but the activity of knowledge, from without, since it is according to the movement from things to the soul. Hence, they are not alike.--On the contrary, in the activity of knowing there is not only reception, but also judgment about the things received. And, although reception is from without, judgment proceeds from within. Therefore, the activity of knowledge is not entirely from without.

5. Christ, the Son of God, did not assume any imperfection unless it aided our redemption. But imperfection of knowledge does not aid our redemption. Therefore, He did not assume imperfection of knowledge. But all created knowledge is imperfect in some degree by the very fact that it is created. Therefore, He did not assume created knowledge.

6. Anyone who is always engaged in the act of thinking according to the most perfect knowledge does not need any less perfect knowledge, because he would never use it, and so would have it to no purpose. But Christ is always engaged in the act of thinking according to the most perfect knowledge, namely, uncreated knowledge. Therefore, we should not ascribe another, that is, created knowledge to Him.

7. Nature does not do with two things that which it can do with one; much less does God, who acts in a more orderly way than nature. But Christ could become wise if He had only uncreated knowledge. Therefore, He did not become wise by means of created knowledge.

8. According to the first Epistle to the Corinthians (13:10): "When that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be put away." But created knowledge, in comparison with uncreated knowledge, is more imperfect than vision in the mirror [of creatures], in comparison with vision of [God's] essence. Therefore, if the vision of faith is removed because of its imperfection when vision of [God's] essence arrives, with much greater reason created knowledge will be excluded from Christ in whom there was uncreated knowledge.

9. The Word united to His soul is much more intimate to it than our understanding is to our soul, since the Word is united to it not only through its essence, presence, and power, as in other souls, and through grace, as in the just, but also in unity of person. But our soul understands through its intellective power. Therefore, Christ's soul could be wise with the wisdom of the Word, and so it did not need created knowledge.

10. If Christ had created knowledge, it was not given to Him except for His perfection. But the soul of Christ, united to the Word and having created knowledge, is not more noble that if it were united to the Word alone without created knowledge. For something created added to God does not increase His goodness, just as a point added to a line does not make it longer. Therefore, we should not ascribe created knowledge to Christ.

To the Contrary:

1'. In Luke (2:52) we read: "And Jesus advanced in wisdom. . . ." But it is clear that he could not advance in uncreated wisdom, since that neither grows nor declines. Therefore, we should say that there is created knowledge in Christ.

2'. According to Damascene: "The Word of God assumed everything which God implanted in our nature." But He implanted created knowledge in our nature. Therefore, He assumed created knowledge.

3'. Just as divine knowledge is above created intellective knowledge, so created intellective knowledge is above sensitive knowledge. But one who has created intellective knowledge does not lose sensitive knowledge, as is evident in men. Therefore, created intellective knowledge can remain after the advent of uncreated intellective knowledge.

REPLY:

Just as we say that there are two natures in Christ, so, also, we say that there are two kinds of knowledge: created and uncreated. But some heretics have said that there is only uncreated knowledge in Christ.

To see the source of this error we must bear in mind that some have understood that the union of the divine and human natures takes place in the way in which the soul is united to the body. Thus, as the soul is the form of the body, so in Christ the divinity would be the form of the humanity. Therefore, some have thought that if the Word were united to Christ's body as the soul is to our body, it could give life to Him just as our soul gives life to our body. Hence, they said that there were only two substances in Christ, body and divinity, and the latter in place of the soul gave life to the body. This was the error of Eunomius and his followers.

However, some, perceiving that it would be unworthy for the divinity to be united to the body as that which gives it life, said that Christ had a soul which gives life and sensation, that is to say, a vegetative and a sensitive soul, but did not have an intellectual soul. They said that in Christ the Word Himself took the place of the intellectual soul. This was the error of Apollinaris and his followers. And, granted this error, it is plain that there is only uncreated knowledge in Christ.

But this manner of understanding the union in Christ leads one to believe that the divine and human natures are combined into a single nature, just as the union of body and soul results in not only one substantial subject but also one nature. Furthermore, it follows from this that the true reality of each nature is destroyed. For, since it is essential to the divine nature to have its being separate from all things, if we make it the act of any body, it loses its proper nature. In the same way, if the soul or the understanding or anything integral to human nature is taken away from it, there will no longer remain the true reality of the specific nature, since, as is said in the Metaphysics, the specific natures are similar to numbers, in which the species of the number is changed when unity is added or subtracted. Therefore, according to the foregoing error, Christ was neither true God nor true man.

Therefore, for Christ to be true God and true man, He must have within him all that pertains to the divine nature, and, also, as a distinct nature in the same person, all that constitutes the specific nature of man. And for him to be not only a true man, but a perfect man, he must have everything which we need to be perfect, such as habits of the sciences and of the virtues. However, just as divinity cannot be an act of a body, in such a way that by it the body formally has life, or becomes a rational creature, so also it cannot be the act of the rational soul, so that by it the soul formally has knowledge or virtue in the way in which we have them through a habit of virtue or knowledge. Therefore, we must hold that there is created knowledge and virtue in Christ.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. Created knowledge is, indeed, more noble than Christ's soul in some respect, in so far as it is an act of His soul. In this sense, His color is more noble than His body, and any accident is more noble than its subject, in so far as it is related to it as act to potency. Simply, however, the subject is more noble than an accident, and, thus, Christ's soul is more noble than its knowledge.

2. Although activity is ascribed to the substantial subject as agent, it is ascribed to the nature as the source of activity. And activity does not receive its specification from the agent but from the source of the activity. Hence, there can be specifically different activities in one agent because of the diversity of the principles of operation, as sight and hearing in man. Therefore, although in Christ there is only one substantial subject, in Him there are two natures and, so, two activities. Furthermore, Christ must have the perfection of both activities. Thus, He has not only uncreated knowledge, which is sufficient for the activity of the uncreated nature, but also created knowledge, which is needed for the perfect activity of the created nature.

3. Properly speaking, heat does not act; rather, it is the medium through which fire acts. For this reason, it is related to the activity of heating in the way in which created knowledge is related to the act of considering.

4. Although there is something from within in the deliberation of science, such activity is completed only when there is something from without. Here we see the dissimilarity.

5. Although created existence is imperfect in comparison with the eminence of the divine perfection, each thing is perfect in its own order and demands some perfection of its own order. Thus, even in Christ the created nature had some created perfection, namely, created knowledge.

6. Christ is always engaged in the act of thinking according to His uncreated knowledge. But, since the two activities belong to Him by reason of two natures, this actual consciousness does not therefore exclude the added consciousness of created knowledge.

7. If Christ had only uncreated knowledge, He would indeed be wise as God, but He would not, so to speak, be wise as man. Hence, He had to have created knowledge to be wise in His humanity.

8. What the Apostle says should be taken of the perfection which is opposed to imperfection, for thus the imperfect is removed when the perfect arrives. But the perfection of divine knowledge is not opposed to the imperfection of created knowledge, since their objects are different. Hence, the conclusion does not follow.

9. Although the Word is more deeply within the soul than any of its powers, inasmuch as it supports and conserves the soul in existence, the understanding or any other power is more at one with the soul because it is united not only in person but also in nature, inasmuch as a power is a perfection of the soul itself, whereas the Word is not. Consequently, formally speaking, the soul of Christ cannot understand through the Word as though through its intellect.

10. Although the Word plus created knowledge is not better than the Word alone, the soul united to the Word and having the perfection of created knowledge is better than if it were united to the Word without having created knowledge. For created knowledge has a relation to the soul in a manner in which the Word does not. Therefore, the conclusion does not follow.