The Infused Science of Christ

Abstract

The Infused Science of Christ Thomas Joseph White O.P. Thomas Aquinas's theory of the knowledge of Christ may seem to have little relevance for modern historical-critical study of the figure of Jesus of Nazareth.1 In his mature work, represented emblematically by the third part of the Summa theologiae, Aquinas presents the knowledge of Christ in a fourfold descending perspective from the highest forms of knowledge to the most basic. He begins from the divine wisdom that Christ possesses as God and then examines three modes of human knowledge: the immediate vision of God that Christ possesses in his human soul, the infused science that Jesus possesses as the most perfect of the prophets, and the acquired knowledge that Christ possesses as man in virtue of the human nature that he shares with us.2 Aquinas's account stems originally from the Chalcedonian principles of Christological doctrine. The approach might be broadly characterized as a form of "descending Christology" insofar as the deity and divine wisdom of the Lord are presupposed and his human acquired knowledge is affirmed just insofar as he is essentially human. Meanwhile, the beatific vision and infused science of Christ are interpreted as graces given to his human nature in view of his human actions on behalf of our salvation. It is due to his beatific vision and his infused prophetic knowledge, for example, that Christ as man is able to [End Page 617] know perfectly who he is as the Son of God and who the Father and the Holy Spirit are so as to reveal them to us and to interpret Scripture authoritatively, foretelling of his own Passion and resurrection prophetically and instituting the Church and the sacraments effectively. In methodological contrast, the modern historical-critical study of the figure of Jesus of Nazareth makes use of a number of normative principles that stem from the Enlightenment era, among them a presupposition of the historical homogeneity of natural causes. That is to say, the causes of human experience and consciousness for all persons at the time of Jesus (including Jesus himself) should be understood against the backdrop of and in continuity with the language, concepts, and symbols of Second Temple Judaism.3 These in turn should be understood in continuity with the predictable natural occurrences and causes that we experience in the modern scientific era. So, for example, apocalyptic elements in the culture of the Judaism of the time of Jesus should be employed to explain Jesus's immanent expectation of the "kingdom of God," but this need not mean that there is any such thing as an eschatological occurrence in reality.4 Likewise, the New Testament portraits of the figure of Jesus should be understood as human literary artifacts and explained in light of their cultural setting, the theological vantage points of their editors, and their intended uses for historically situated human communities.5 This need not imply that they are inspired or that the portraits of Christ that they present must correspond to who Jesus of Nazareth really was ontologically. It follows from this that the portrait of Christ found in the Gospels might be very different from the "real" Jesus of history. We might notice the contrasts these two methodological approaches represent. If Aquinas's presentation of the infused science of Christ seems to bespeak a knowledge derived immediately from God, and [End Page 618] therefore from "outside of time," the modern study of Jesus tends to construe his consciousness by ascetic reference uniquely to the immanent and limited horizon of his age. Pressed toward extremes, one account readily emphasizes the divine origin of Christ's message and its universality for all ages but does so to the potential exclusion of his historical particularity as a first-century Jew, while the other account seeks to identify the historically particular and limited character of Jesus's aims and self-understanding within the context of Second Temple Judaism but does so to the exclusion of his divine origin and soteriological intensions, which are universal in scope. In this essay, however, I will argue that these two approaches, while really distinct, need not be construed in opposition to one another...