Again, when one asks how can the Son not know, that is not the same as ignorance as the Son and Father are one. I never said ignorance.
One who has a hidden treasure is not ignorant of it, nor does he lack possession of it - yet if he deigns not to look upon it he can rightfully say he does not know it.
But to the rhetorical question, 'how can he be ignorant of the Universe he made?' there are several answers:
If one has access to the Father eternally, one is not ignorant. If one does not access a wicked thought, one is not guilty of transgression against the Father. Submission of will is the law of obedience, of propriety, of love.
As Word made flesh, when he spoke the winds and waves to calm, he did not have to know the state of all atoms to speak them to calm, nor pressures nor volumes, densities etc.... but as fully human and fully Divine rebuked them as Man in perfect union with the Father.
This is the inifinite power of the Word displayed. If the Word had to know pressures, temperatures, flows etc.... then the Word would be less than the Word and would be a mechanism ultimately knowable by man - one that must rely on all state knowledge in the Universe. Such objective ("what") knowledge is known by the Father who is the creator. The Son does the will of the Father in accordance to all that Scripture proclaims. Only the Word can speak a storm to calm as man. God is Spirit and is worshipped in Spirit and in Truth.
If Jesus as Son - as flesh - knows all things immediately outside the Father, then he must know all quantum state values of a universe 13.7 billion light years in diameter. What flesh has such capacity to hold such information? None. Furthermore, as He and the Father are One, he does not know outside the Father and in the Flesh he rightfully claims "neither the Son." If he did know, why would he need the Father then?
Further, as it is written that if all things He said and did were to be written in a book, I suppose the entire Universe could not contain the things written - it is evident that flesh is not a container in of itself (Son of Man) for all knowledge except as again - union with the Father.
Such trivial knowledge in essence, when un-needful is:
a. Impertinent
b. Irrelevant
c. The purview of the Father the CreatorThe fathers were defending Orthodoxy in certain instances, through philosophies that were taught to them in a Greco-Roman world and with Greek terminology and understanding. We now live in a terrible age when we indeed can measure a blast of wind and weigh the measure of fire - though we cannot recall a day that is past, we know relationships of time and space. Having such knowledge, acquired through ordinary observation of God's creation, we should know that all that Scripture foretold is absolutely true.
If the Son were to tell you the hour, how would He express it? How does the flesh express the hour. In years? Define a year. In moments? define a moment. In hours? Define an hour. Then ask me when will he know, or ask Him when the hour is. No - He expresses it by Coming Again!
Jesus knows eternally in the Father and that refutes the Arians, he does not know temporally/cronologically as flesh because there is no reason to ask what is unknowable as flesh - just as there is no reason to jump off a tower at the devil's bidding.
To know the hour is not needful, to speculate is against the Gospel itself, to disagree with the Gospel is dangerous and impertinent.
Do the fathers over extend themselves in other instances? When they speak of natural laws and sciences in their own opinions as men, they are shown to be but men. They are not infallible Popes! They will tell you of elements too - are they correct? They will tell you of the things of their world as they knew them - should we not cover over such ignorance? If they speak of a flat world, do we close our eyes as we fly above Continents and pretend the world to be flat? [Technically it is flat in a geodic coordinate system].
St. Basil and St. Ephraim speak of six literal 24 hour Chronological days for creation of the universe. Are they correct? We know they are not except by General Relativity - and even then one must make an extreme stretch in terms of order. They are not infallible when they speak of those things - we cannot worship them as gods - but we can pay attention and by the Holy Spirit agree where they speak the truth - affirming the Holy Scriptures.
What is written in Holy Scripture is the Truth. In essence what Theophylact is saying is that Jesus told the disciples a fib to shut them up. That just does not hold up to the scrutiny of honest men. It is easier to dump Greco-Roman philosophy, and just take Jesus at His WORD. The Holy Scriptures are consistent, and when one requires a lie in one place to uphold a premise with external information in another, one is going down a dangerous path. Why do it particularly where the Lord is telling his disciples not to be so curious?
andy holland
sinner
