This is my reply to an article at BellatorChristi.com by Sherene Khouri entitled
The Knowledge of Jesus
May 6, 2022
See
here.
Some skeptics and even Christians present the following question regarding the knowledge of Jesus. “If Jesus is God, why he did not know when he would return?” According to Mattew 24:36, Jesus seems not to know the hour and the day of his coming. “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36).[1] This idea is also echoed in Mark 13:32 “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” The superficial reading of the text might show that Jesus does not know the time of His coming because the Father has not disclosed it; however, this understanding is problematic for those who claim Jesus is God.
But even inerrantist Christian scholars admit Mark 13:32 was difficult even for Matthew and Luke to accept:
The difficulty of the statement can be seen in the fact that many manuscripts of Matt 24:36 and a few of Mark omit the statement and that Luke omits the verse altogether. It is also possible that Matthew himself omitted the statement, as he often did in the case of difficult statements in Mark, and that later scribes added it in order to harmonize Matthew with Mark. Inasmuch as Matthew was more highly regarded and more frequently used than Mark in the medieval church, however, Mark usually was harmonized to Matthew rather than vice versa.
Brooks, J. A. (2001, c1991). Vol. 23: Mark (electronic e.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 217). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
The point is that if even spiritually alive apostles and their immediate followers could be so bothered by Mark 13:32 as to consider it best to get rid of it, then skeptics are justified to view Mark 13:32 as heretical. Or will you admit that Luke thought less of Mark than you do?
Khouri continues:
This article argues that Jesus does know about the timing because He presented many details about that day, but it is the type of knowledge that should not be announced.
But Jesus in Mark 13:32 classified the character of his not knowing as on par with all other human beings and angels also not knowing this same factoid. At least in the case of all other human beings, their not knowing such a thing has nothing to do with desire to keep such a date secret, but only because they are genuinely ignorant. So skeptics can be reasonable to argue that the basis for Jesus not knowing such a thing was the same basis upon which he also declared that no other human beings knew such a thing…
both classes were simply limited in how much information they had access to.
The Divine Knowledge
The divine knowledge in the Christian worldview includes past, middle, and future knowledge. God knows everything that had happened, would have happened, and will happen.
Here are the questions I posted to this article. They had to be brief because Bellator-Christi unabashadly admits it will reject replies that are too comprehensive or ask too many questions (i.e., smart skeptics who specialize in counter-apologetics are not allowed to fight back with everything they have at their disposal):
How long do you recommend skeptics to study the differences between Christian scholars on the subject of exhaustive divine knowledge and open-theism, before we reach the point at which we can be reasonable to start drawing conclusions as to which camp is more “biblical”?
Or must we be spiritually alive before we can beneficially distinguish orthodoxy from heresy?
And what will god do to protect these inquiring skeptics from going to hell while they remain within this transitory “I’m-not-a-believer-but-I’m-still-researching-Christianity” phase?
Khouri continues:
However, divine knowledge is not always announced, and at some times it is announced in expected and unexpected ways (through humans or miracles).
I'm not seeing the relevance. Jesus clearly asserted that God possessed a bit of factual knowledge of the future that Jesus himself equally clearly denied was possessed by the "Son". God's ability to refrain from announcing what's in his foreknowledge is irrelevant.
Khouri continues:
There are some places in the Bible where the superficial reading of the text implies that God is requesting information or seeking to learn something about the person or the situation. For instance, in Genesis 3:8-11, after the fall of Adam and Eve, God asks Adam “where are you?” as if God does not know where Adam is. Later in the text, God asks Adam “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”
And the conservative Christian view says those stories were originally told by illiterate Hebrews from 2,000 b.c. or even earlier, when Hebrew theology was far less sophisticated than it is today. The conservative Christian wants to "reconcile" bible statements about God's apparent ignorance with other bible statements about God's full knowledge, all in the name of having a theologically consistent book that seems to be a prerequisite for rationalizing one's view that the bible is "god's word".
But the more objective approach is to ask what theological position was held by the original authors of such stories. Any dipshit lawyer can "reconcile" any two statements, especially if they occur, in the case of the bible, hundreds of years apart. People back then did not speak in such comprehensive terms to as to preclude all possible harmonization scenarios that some inerrantist might propose. And yet most inerrantists stupidly think that because a harmonization scenario is merely possible, then skeptics have lost the bible-contradiction debate. LOL
Khouri continues:
God’s question might be understood as if God does not know that Adam ate from the tree, and He is making sense of Adam’s disappearance. But a deeper look into the text reveals that God is not asking Adam about his location but getting him to confess what he has done. In other words, God asking a question is not done to acquire extra knowledge (because He does not know), but to have human beings confess their sins.
Fallacy of single cause. There is nothing in the Genesis texts you cited requiring that there must only be a single cause for God's statements asking where Adam was. And there is no logical contradiction between God not knowing where Adam was, and God's wanting Adam to confess a sin. But regardless, all you are doing here is pushing the classical theist understanding and saying literally nothing about the Christian theologians who adopt "open theism" or process theology and therefore think these are cases of God being genuinely ignorant. They are not impressed with the inerrantist who points to other bible verses and then screams that god cannot contradict himself.
So then, what? If you say Christian open theists aren't truly born again, well, you can't really know that, and the vast majority of conservatives, including the late Walter Martin, would say the presence of heresy in a Christian's theological understanding isn't sufficient by itself to justify placing them outside salvation. Skeptics would be reasonable to agree with the majority of conservative Christians that at the end of the day, you don't go to hell for heresy, but for having a heart that is not right with god. So you don't get anywhere with the skeptic who objects using open theist scholars, by saying those kind of Christians are just wolves in sheep's clothing.
So then, what? How can we take seriously the conservative viewpoint that certain genuinely born again Christians persistently misunderstand the voice of the Holy Spirit, and despite their salvation and sincerity, espouse heresy? Skeptics are justified to conclude either a) there is "god" guiding anybody's bible interpretation, that's why so many "born-again" people disagree in how to interpret the bible, or b) God wants some authentically born-again Christians to misinterpret the bible, which then automatically excuses and justifies their "heresy".
The point being that you've done a rather sad job of pretending that the "correct" interpretation of the divine-knowledge statements in Genesis is the one you espouse. For all you know, authors with different theological perspectives wrote the various stories in Genesis, and a later editor came along and did an imperfect job of making the viewpoints look more harmonious than they really were.
Gee, how many Christian scholars accept the documentary hypothesis? Or did I forget that you will just discount the significance of any Christian scholar who happens to disagree with your viewpoint?
Khouri continues:
A similar example happens when God wrestles with Jacob in Genesis 32:24-30. God asks Jacob “what is your name?” Does God not know what Jacob’s name is? Of course, He knows, but the answer lies in verse 28 when He says, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” God does not ask this question because He does not know the answer, but because He wanted to declare himself to Jacob. In verse 30, Jacob says, “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” Jacob knew right away after this incident that he was wrestling with God. This is all to say that God does not acquire extra knowledge, but He knows everything. The superficial reading of the text might give the wrong impression about the knowledge of God.
I'm sorry, but you have done literally nothing to show that the classical theist interpretation arises from the text itself. Yes, it is "god". Yes, Jacob knew at some point he wrestled with "god". Nothing abut this expresses or implies that the open-theist interpretation of that story is false or unreasonable. And to the ancient unsophisticated mind, a man's wrestling with "god" would suggest god might have limitations. Then again, nothing about bible interpretation affects anything in a skeptic's daily life if they don't let it, so what the bible "really" teaches is for all practical purposes, a pointless trifle of academia. We may as well be debating whether the Trojan War every happened. Big fucking deal.
Khouri continues:
The Different Types of Knowledge
Not all knowledge about a topic is equal or the same. According to the Dictionary of World Philosophy, there are three types of knowledge: a) Factual knowledge: it can also be called propositional knowledge. It is the knowledge of facts or a set of propositions that provides information. b) Procedural knowledge: this knowledge is practical. It is acquired through education, learning, and practice. It is expressed by “how to” clauses—a person knows how to ride his bicycle.[2] c) Knowledge by acquaintance, which is the knowledge of people, places, and things.[3] For instance, Susan knows that Alyssa is a musician (the propositional knowledge) is different from Suan knowing Alyssa because she is her sister (personal knowledge).
But Jesus said the knowledge that he didn't have was missing from other human beings, and only the Father had it. So once again, because the other human beings' ignorance of Jesus' date of second coming was due to simple ignorance, we are reasonable, even if not infallible, to assume that Jesus made the comparison because he thought his own ignorance of the same thing was in the same class.
Your reconciliation scenario is also ridiculous, since it would rationalize away any two contradictory statements somebody made about their knowledge. If a witness at the scene of the crime said "I don't know the suspect" but then later confessed "I knew the suspect before he committed the crime", your "apologetic" would enable the witness to "reconcile" this contradiction, and the police would be forced to accept it. Sorry, life doesn't work that way.
Khouri continues:
Jesus said to the Jews who believed in Him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32). The Jews were not appreciative of what Jesus said because they thought that they knew the truth. The truth to them is God, and they know the name of God and His commandments. They consider themselves the children of Abraham and free men who were never slaves. However, Jesus was instructing them to abide in the word not in a propositional way, but in a practical way. He was not emphasizing the propositional knowledge that they have, but the procedural knowledge they should acquire lest they followed the propositional knowledge. Jesus knew that they are the children of Abraham, and they were never slaves, but He meant those who make sin are slaves to sin. They are not free because they know God. They are slaves because they commit sin. Those who know God propositionally are still slaves to sin until their knowledge is manifested practically.
You are now contradicting other parts of the bible, such as Romans 3:9-10, where Paul includes his spiritually born-again self among those who are detestable because of their association with sin.
And Christians disagree over what exactly Paul meant in Romans 7 in confessing himself to be a contradictory person captive both to sin and to his better spiritual judgment. You aren't going to resolve that disagreement to the point of "showing" that skeptics are "accountable" to "know" that their distrust of Paul is "wrong".
Additionally, the Bible reveals two types of divine knowledge: what is announced and what is not announced. God in His provision chooses to declare some of the world’s secrets, He leaves other information for human beings to discover on their own, and He announces other data expecting human beings to react to it. As Moses states, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut 26:26). This is to say that there is secret information that God chose not to declare and other knowledge that God revealed.
I don't see the point: we are dealing with Jesus' confession of ignorance. Knowledge that God might choose to keep secret has nothing to do with it, except in the sense that Jesus was kept ignorant of it no less than the angels and the rest of humanity.
In real life, I remember an incident that happened to me, which illustrates the non-announced type of knowledge. When I was in graduate school taking a biblical language class, I asked the professor during the exam review will this question be on the exam and she said, “I don’t know.” Of course, the professor knew what questions are on the test, but she could not tell me what those questions are. It is not the type of knowledge that should be announced.
We don't know enough about this interaction to pretend that it is "clear" that the professor meant something other than genuine generic ignorance. her creation of the test doesn't mean she knew, at the point you asked the question, whether that particular question would appear on the test. And normally, when a person says "I don't know", they mean it in the same way it would be taken in a court of law, as a denial of factual knowledge.
Jesus’s Knowledge about the Last Day
Jesus knows everything because the Father has told Him. Jesus states, “All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him” (Luke 10:22).
Luke also omitted Mark 13:32. You can scream all you wish that even most NT scholars are "stupid" for adopting Markan Priority and the two-source hypothesis, but you aren't going to demonstrate this stupidity to such a degree as to render spiritually dead skeptic "accountable" to "know" that this most popular solution to the Synoptic problem is "wrong". Thus skeptics are reasonable, even if not infallible, to believe Luke copied off of Mark, but didn't copy out Mark 13:32 because Luke felt the statement was either heretical or reasonably capable of an interpretation that would support what Luke thought to be heresy.
Feel free to say that Luke was stupid to think that the statement in Mark 13:32 could reasonably be interpreted to support low-Christology.
Jesus knows the nature and the will of the Father. This factual knowledge was given to Him by the Father Himself.
Your leaning so heavily on other parts of the bible to establish a basis for "refuting" the skeptical view of Jesus' knowledge indicates you are writing primarily for a Christian audience. To that extent, your article threatens nothing in the skeptical view.
Certain Type of Knowledge Jesus Declared
There are several examples in the Gospels where Jesus claims not to have knowledge about the last day, but the context reveals that He does know. Referring to the day of judgment, Jesus says, “On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matt 7:22-23). Jesus knows what will happen on the day of judgment. He explains what will happen to certain people. Many people will claim to be His followers, but He will say to them that He never knew them. The phrase, “I never knew you” is an example of personal knowledge, whereas the claims about these people confessing their knowledge and belief in Jesus is propositional knowledge. Jesus presents that He has factual knowledge about the last day, but what He does not know is the personal knowledge of some people who will be raised on that day.
I'm sorry, Matthew 7 does not express or imply that Jesus is ignorant about the "personal knowledge of some people who will be raised on that day."
"I never knew you" is not a denial of factual knowledge, since under your conservative hermeneutic of
scripture interprets scripture, "know" in the bible often means to have particular or intimate knowledge of a person that most others do not have. Jesus apparently claimed knowledge that the people he would cast away were "workers of lawlessness", so he was apparently claiming to know exactly who they were, and his "I never knew you" is the same as the man who tells his adulterous wife "you are no wife of mine".
On the same eschatological occasion, Jesus gives the parable of the 10 virgins. The five virgins who left the wedding to buy more oil because theirs was about to finish, were cast out of the marriage feast. Jesus tells them, “Truly, I say to you, I do not know you” (Matt 25:1-13). This is another incident where Jesus gives propositional knowledge about the last day (the marriage feast), but He claims not to know some people with personal knowledge.
Well, you think Jesus is God, and you think God knows all factually true propositions, so how do YOU explain that God manifest in human flesh had lacked personal knowledge of some people?
And don't conservatives have a rule of thumb that says you shouldn't attempt to derive theology from the parables of Jesus?
There is an example in the Gospels where Jesus pretends not to know certain information, but the context shows that He does know. When Jesus speaks with the Samaritan woman and tells her to call her husband, the woman answered Him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband.” (John 4:16-18). Jesus knows that the woman is not married, and she is living an adulterous life. Jesus did not deceive the woman by giving her false information, but He presented her with a different kind of information in order to see how she would react.
Why would Jesus need to see how she would react? Did he lack that bit of future knowledge that the classical theist god allegedly had?
This incident shows that Jesus knew (propositional knowledge and personal knowledge) but He pretended not to know because of a particular purpose. It was His way of declaring His divinity to a sinful woman and waiting for her response.
Only a conservative Christian would dare trifle that a man can desire to falsely convince others he is ignorant and yet the man can still be said to have been "honest" in such endeavor.
Certain Type of Knowledge Jesus Concealed
Jesus teaches His disciples to be ready, watchful, and attentive to the last day because they did not know the precise time of His return. He instructs His disciple not to marvel about the last day (John 5:28-29). Apostle Paul reminds his audience that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (1Thess 5:2). The same idea is repeated by Peter and John (Rev 3:3 & 2 Peter 3:10). If Jesus was ignorant about the end times, how could He be so specific in giving so many details?
Maybe for the same reason that you think biblical authors could know such details while still being ignorant of other related matters? Sure, that doesn't give you a Jesus who is truly "god", but that's your problem.
And once again, you are bouncing all around the bible, acting as if skeptics should consider themselves blown away by your creating your presuppositional foundation by simply throwing together lots of bible verses the way Jehovah's Witnesses do. Sorry, it ain't working.
The information about the last day lies within the realm of divine knowledge. Since the Bible is clear that the day of the Lord will be revealed at that moment, it is reasonable to think that the exact timing of that day is not meant to be revealed. Jesus tells His disciples, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority (Acts 1:7). He also told His disciples who were asking questions concerning judgment that “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now” (John 16:12). This knowledge belongs to the Father, it is not revealed yet, and it might not be revealed in the near future because people cannot bear it. People are expected to be wise servants while watching for the Master’s return.
That does not help explain why god manifest in the flesh confessed ignorance about his own future doings.
Jesus’s knowledge about the hour and the day is not factual knowledge but is related to the knowledge that cannot be declared right now.
No, in Mark 13:32 Jesus did not say his hearers were not allowed to know when he would return, he confessed that even the "Son" didn't know. Jesus' ignorance of such a thing is going to hurt your classical-theist view, whether or not the ignorance arose from God refusing to "declare" it.
There will be a time in the future when Jesus Himself will announce and execute his coming.
How long should skeptics study the differences Christian Preterists have with non-Preterist Christians, before we can be reasonable to start drawing conclusions as to who is right and who is wrong?
Or is that a stupid question light of the fact that skeptics are spiritually dead, while you are forced to admit that spiritually alive people cannot come to agreement on the meaning of such biblical data?
He tells the disciples, “I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father” (John 16:25). It is the role of the Son to fulfill that day and hour. Jesus declared repeatedly that He will not act independently of the Father (Matt 26:42; John 8:28; John 12: 49-50). Jesus speaks and acts only as the Father has directed and instructed Him.
So do you recommend that skeptics research the differences between Unitarians, Binitarians, Jesus-only, and Trinitarians?
How have spiritually alive people fared when they debated each other on such things?
How well do you expect spiritually
dead people to care when they inquire into such theological disagreements?
Aren't skeptics reasonably justified to say Christian confusion and disagreement about Jesus is so rampant that the skeptics who can justify interest in this crap are merely those who naturally like pointless intellectual sophistry?
Conclusion
Jesus as shown in different places in the Gospels uses the word “to know” in two different senses. On the one hand, He teaches that the disciples cannot, should not, and will not “know” the precise day or hour of His coming. On the other hand, Jesus “not knowing” belongs to His submission to the Father in regard to the timing of His return. It is not His call to determine or to announce the day of His coming (this role belongs to the Father). It is not the business of the disciples to know, nor the role of the Son to declare. It is not that Jesus’s human nature that limited His knowledge, but that His role and function in the Trinity is not to declare timing.
How urgent is the threat of hell to the skeptic who decides to stop thinking about repentance and instead focus on researching your article? Are there any second chances in the afterworld for unbelievers who were sincerely seeking, but not yet born-again, at the time they met an untimely death?
Or should I conclude it doesn't matter since your answer will merely show that this is yet another among the thousands of biblical subjects that spiritually alive people disagree on?
Your effort to "justify" Jesus' confession of ignorance in Mark 13:32 falls flat on its face. The context indicates it was also human beings didn't know, and in such context, that means Jesus' own ignorance was equally generic and literal, thus this bible verse is a legitimate attack on the classical theist view that Jesus is "god" by nature. That's going to be reasonable regardless of your trifles based upon statements elsewhere in the bible, a hermeneutical move that does nothing to impose an intellectual obligation upon a skeptic who doesn't even believe in biblical inerrancy/consistency.
