Is There Still a Place For Christ's Infused Knowledge in Catholic Theology and Exegesis?

It seems to me that questions arising from the reading of Scripture require a theological account of Christ's knowledge that can itself then shape a speculative exegesis and that this was the approach of Thomas Aquinas. In this way, beyond the divine knowledge that pertains to Jesus's divine nature, Aquinas also attributed to the earthly Christ three forms of knowledge in his human mind. These three are beatific knowledge, infused knowledge, and acquired knowledge.² The first, the knowledge had by the blessed, is the supernatural intuitive knowing of the divine essence enjoyed by the saints and angels in heaven, our fullest participation in divine knowledge.³ The second, infused knowledge, is a more conceptual knowledge supernaturally imprinted onto Jesus's human mind, the kind of knowledge had naturally by angels and exercised by disembodied human souls.⁴ The third is knowledge empirically acquired through experience, the kind that is natural to bodily human beings.⁵

Aquinas wanted to clinch the fact that Christ must have had each of these three kinds of knowledge while on earth in terms of how each uniquely contributes to the perfection he needed in order to be our Savior, such that each kind of knowledge has its own particular argument for its presence in his mind. Although theologians today largely differ from Aquinas in the details, the reality of Christ's acquired knowledge seems currently to hold universal consent among theologians, the hesitations of other scholastic positions having long given way. However, not only have the reasons Aquinas gives for which the earthly Christ had beatific and infused knowledge been rejected in recent years by opponents of his teaching, but those reasons have also been reconsidered, adjusted, nuanced, or amended by those working more in tune with Aquinas's scheme. The need for Christ's infused knowledge has been defended most recently by Philippe-Marie Margelidon, who helpfully traces the historical development of Aquinas's thinking on infused knowledge and covers the objections standardly put against Aquinas's account.⁶ However, when I myself argued in favor of the need for Jesus's beatific knowledge in a recent book, I noted that my own argument seemed to undermine the rationale now often given for infused knowledge. I stated, however, that it was not my intention to reject Christ's infused knowledge and that it deserved a proper consideration of its own from the point of view of the Catholic theologian.⁷ My purpose here is to clarify and extend my argument about beatific knowledge and then reconsider the case for infused knowledge in that light.

Taking his cue from 1 John 3:2—'We shall see him just as he is'—Aquinas recognized this eschatological knowledge as the fulfilment of our natural desire to know the essence of God, such that this beatific vision is the formal core of our ultimate beatitude.⁸ Though we had lost the way to this vision through the Fall, the way was restored to us through the salvation wrought by Jesus Christ. Aquinas argued that the Savior himself enjoyed the knowledge of the blessed for the saving purpose of sharing that same beatifying knowledge with us. In other words, our heavenly beatific vision will have been caused by his beatific vision, the members of his body benefitting from what the Head of the body enjoys preeminently.⁹ Now, one respect in which Aquinas's argument has been criticized concerns the necessity it ascribes to the presence of this vision in Christ's mind before his death and glorification. Aquinas's opponents are generally happy to allow that Christ attained to vision in the next life and that his beatific vision in heaven is the cause of our heavenly beatific vision. What they do not accept is that his beatific vision need be present already on earth in order for it to be the cause of ours.¹⁰

I suggest that we can understand more recent defenders of Aquinas's position to be providing a response to this objection...