When did Jesus know He was the Son of God
Question from Sharon Roche on 3/1/2008:

I teach an eighth grade Confirmation class in Dublin, Ohio. One of the students in my class asked me when Jesus realized He was who He is. I have talked to others in the past about this (adults)and never came up with any conclusions, just opinions.

We have come up with when Jesus was in the Temple at age 12, when He performed His first miracle (Cana), the Last Supper when He instituted the Eucharist or in the Garden before the Crucifixion. Or, maybe He knew it all along from birth as I saw one such answer. I don't know, but it is a good question for a young man to ask in class.

I always encourage them to ask questions and if I don't know the answer, I'll find someone who does. I want them to ask about our Lord and His Church so they can better appreciate not only their heritage as Catholics but look at their faith, as well.

I didn't know if this would be under History or Apologetics. Any information you give me is greatly appreciated.

Answer by Matthew Bunson on 3/10/2008:
Back in late January Fr. Echert answered this very question. I could not hope to improve upon it, so I offer it here:

Let me state at the start: If Jesus did not know that Divine, then He was not Divine!" That is how firmly we must commit the the full awareness of Christ of His Divinity, including from the moment of His Incarnation. We should distinguish three types of knowledge in Jesus:

Beatific – the divine Word always knows God directly in Essence Infused – the human soul of Christ receives knowledge directly from His Divinity Acquired –the human soul of Christ experiences and learns through nature, as all human persons

We must affirm all three of these types of knowledge as simultaneously present in Christ. With regards to the Beatific knowledge, the divine Word always exists and even once joined inseparably to humanity in the Incarnation, the Word never ceased to have the perfect knowledge of God in His Essence. With regards to the Infused knowledge, the humanity of Christ was informed directly by His divinity from the moment of the Incarnation. So even in the womb and in the crib and as a boy, in His Humanity by reason of this infused knowledge He knew whatever was revealed to Him, and not in a parceled out manner but fully and in accord with the limitation and manner of knowing in the human soul. So he had a fullness of infused knowledge but whereas in His divinity Christ sees God directly in His essence, in His humanity it was in the manner appropriate to humanity and not a direct vision of Essence. Finally, we have the acquired knowledge of Christ, in which he learned through his humanity and not simply by infused. As to acquiring facts and so on, He already knew these by infused knowledge so this acquisition represented another manner in which such facts were known. But with regards to sensory type knowledge, such as human fear of death or anxiety in the face of suffering, that is something that is proper only to human nature and so Christ knew such things ONLY by experience and not by infusion.

The knowledge of Christ is badly misunderstood by many today, including Catholic theologians who are ignorant of the classical distinction of the three-fold knowledge or else they have simply rejected this view. In so doing, they often misinterpret biblical texts as demonstrating ignorance or even error on the part of Christ. No way! When Christ appears to be ignorant of something, it is not a case of ignorance as such. Often it is feigned ignorance in order to elicit a response (to the woman with the hemorrhage, “Who touched me?” or of the disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”). God did such things in the OT (to Cain, “Where is your brother?”). Or with regards to knowledge of the end times, Jesus says that not even the Son of Man knows. This has been carefully studied and commented upon and it appears the best solution to this is that Christ knew IN His humanity but NOT FROM His humanity the day and the hour; additionally, it was not for them to know and not part of the mission the Father gave Him to accomplish on earth and so it was not knowledge for them to know.

God bless, Father Echert