Thursday, December 14, 2006

Well Obviously It's Not Meant To Be Taken Literally . . .

It Refers to Any Manufacturers of Dairy Products

Rico, I'll attempt to answer you based on my rather sporadic knowledge of Catholicism and no research.

I think the important fact to keep before you is that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine. I don't think anyone pretends to know the complete ramifications of this claim, but we can at least begin to answer your question.

John, who has the highest Christology of the Evangelists, has Jesus weep outside the tomb of Lazarus (11: 35), and Matthew, Mark, and Luke portray a very real struggle in the Garden of Gathsemane. Now, these examples are obviously after Jesus reached maturity, but the adult Jesus of Gospels seems to have very real human limitations along with his awesome power. I think that attributing all knowledge to Jesus in utero takes away from the awful mystery of the Incarnation. An overemphasis of the divine element in Christ risks minimizing both the Incarnation and the Crucifixion. Regarding your mention of the 12 year old Jesus, I'll just point out that, while he obviously knows he's special, his actions are very childlike.

As I said in the beginning of this post, a definite answer is unknowable; however, dwelling on the problem cane certainly be spiritually fruitful.

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