Have you ever wondered why, in some instances, the things that Jesus said sounded so human, in some cases prophetic, and in other cases so mysterious?
Jesus Christ has a twofold nature: human and divine. As a consequence, Jesus also has two types of knowledge: human and divine. With regards to His human knowledge, St. Thomas Aquinas categorized Christ’s human knowledge into three levels: (1) Acquired knowledge – this is the experiential knowledge Jesus developed through the use of His senses, imagination and human intellect, very much like how any human person acquires knowledge through experience and experimentation. Scripture tells us that as a child, Jesus grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon Him (cf. Lk 2:40). (2) Infused knowledge – this is the kind of prophetic knowledge infused by the Holy Spirit; there are many instances of this in the Gospels: Jesus told Nathanael that He saw him under the fig tree (Jn 1:48); Jesus told the Samaritan woman that she had five husbands (Jn 4:18); Jesus foretold His Passion, Death and Resurrection three times, as well as the destruction of the Temple as recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke; and He predicted that Peter would deny Him three times in all four Gospels. (3) Beatific knowledge – St. Thomas Aquinas taught that Jesus possessed beatific knowledge from the moment of His conception, which gave Him the perfect knowledge of God in His human nature.
These three levels of knowledge in His human nature allowed Jesus to fully experience human life while possessing divine insights. Just to be clear, the beatific knowledge of Christ in His human nature is not the same as His divine knowledge in His divine nature, by which He is omniscient or all-knowing.
A great example of Jesus demonstrating His beatific knowledge was when He said to Philip, “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing His works. (John 14:9-10)
In his book “The Human Knowledge of Christ,” Bertrand de Margerie points out an important insight: The knowledge that Jesus received from the Father, He transmits with a human voice, having understood it with His human intelligence. Jesus did not teach like a recorder on playback mode; He taught in the most human way, by understanding the meaning and import of what He received from the Father. Jesus sees the Father through the lens of a man, and He reveals the secrets of the Father in concepts and language that is intelligible for all human generations to come.
In any discussion regarding the knowledge of Christ, this difficult question comes up: Regarding the Last Judgment, why did Jesus say, “But of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mk 13:32)? The tension here is that as Son, Jesus possesses divine knowledge, which is infinite and the same as the Father. How could He say that He didn’t know the day or hour of the Last Judgment? The Catechism responds: By its union to the divine wisdom in the person of the Word incarnate, Christ enjoyed in His human knowledge the fullness of understanding of the eternal plans He had come to reveal. What He admitted to not knowing in this area, He elsewhere declared Himself not sent to reveal (CCC 474). What this means is that as man, Jesus could say that He didn’t know because it was not His mission to reveal this information to man. This is what moral theologians would call, not a lie but mental reservation. Jesus would not have been truly man, if He had not given us a legitimate example of mental reservation. In the same way, it did not belong to His mission to allow His disciples to sit at His right and at His left, for it is for those to whom the Father has destined it. (Mt 20:23)
In 1273, Jesus spoke to Thomas Aquinas from a crucifix and asked what reward he desired for his theological work. Jesus said, “You have written well of me, Thomas. What reward would you have for your labor?” Thomas responded, “Non nisi te, Domine,” which means “Nothing but you, Lord.” Thomas stopped writing his masterwork – the Summa Theologiae – all he had written seemed like straw compared to what he had seen.