Only God is omniscient (1Kings 8:31-32, Psalms 44:21-22, 94:9-10, 139:2, Job 21:22, Daniel 2:20, Romans 11:33-34). The Father (Mt 6:4,32, 10:29-30), the Son (Lk 2:46-47, Jn 2:25, 4:19,29, 16:30, 21:17, Col 2:3, Mt 25:31-45, Hebrews 4:12-13) and the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 11:2, 40:13, Daniel 4:6, Jn 14:26, 16:13, 1Cor 2:10-11) are omniscient.
Reading the church fathers of the first three centuries, it becomes clear that this question has come up before in the history of Christianity. Generally, the ancient church fathers distance the idea of ignorance from Christ. In opposition to the spiritual boasting of the Gnostics, they state: to testify to His humility, the Savior claimed He did not know the day of judgement. Origen says: Christ does not ask out of ignorance, but because He became human, He behaves in all things in a human way. When the Arians began to emphasize the Savior's statement about the day of last judgement and the evangelist's comment about the progress of the child Jesus (Mk 13:32 and Lk 2:52) to justify their own error, a large part of the Greek church fathers who stood up against them (Athanasius of Alexandria, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Cyril of Alexandria, Theodoret) took the position that Christ, as God, is omniscient; those places must be understood about His humanity. They were not concerned with the question of Christ's human knowledge as such, and although their position is not definitive, especially concerning the knowledge of the day of the last judgement, they were the ones who stated the significant principle: the Word made Christ's humanity divine; they also distance the possibility of error from Christ's human knowledge and consider questioning unnecessary for Him.
Several church fathers and some modern theologians (e.g., Klee, Schell, Lagrange, Lebreton) considered it possible that the Savior, as a human, did not know this day. However, this ignorance was not a deficiency in Him before His ascension, because the honor above humanity was not yet due; thus, knowledge of the day of judgement was not in His scope. The majority of the church fathers, however, and almost all theologians believe that the Savior, as a human, knew the day of judgement, but with non-communicable knowledge, as He said before His ascension: "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority". (Acts 1:7) This interpretation is recommended by the context, as directly following the statement made in Mk 13:32 is Mk 14:33 (cf. Mt 24:42); it is preceded by Mk 13:31 (cf. Mt 24:35). Moreover, the consideration that the greatest secret of world history, the Savior knew not by virtue of His human nature, but solely by virtue of His personal unity with the eternal Word (in, but not from the human nature); so in some sense, He could say that He did not know.
Therefore, the question hinges on Christ's dual nature. This is an 'absolute mystery', so we will never understand it. Jesus, as God, knew and knows the day of the final judgement, as a man he did not. However, as a human he could know, because in the Gospel, the phrase "not even the Son" appears in a peculiar way: the Son does not know the time, in the sense that his mission does not extend to communicating the timing. The humanity of Jesus is endowed with infused knowledge /scientia infusa/. As a human, he only knew infallibly what was part of his mission, but at any time he could know anything as God /e.g., Peter's tax money in the fish's belly/. Why? Because the Logos within him supplemented the person.í
Moreover, the dual nature raises several such questions: Did Jesus die or not? After all, God never dies - Jesus, as God, is immortal, as a human, he died for sinful humanity. Did Jesus know the time of his birth when he was an embryo? As an embryo, no, as God, yes.
However, Jehovah's Witnesses argue against the teaching of the Trinity using this verse, and support their teaching that only the Father is God, while the Son is the first angel created by God, and that the Holy Spirit is simply an impersonal force, like electricity, which God uses to carry out his will.
Before answering them regarding the misinterpretation of this verse, we must first consider a fundamental difference between Jehovah's Witnesses and Christians: They feel that they can neatly fit all the facts known about God into the simple frames of clearly defined beliefs, while we recognize that many things about God are beyond our limited human intellect and understanding.
We know the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit personally and intimately, as a little child knows his parents who he trusts, but we are also like this little child in that we are incapable of fully understanding the relationship between his father and mother - how their sexual union makes them "one flesh", the principles of husband's headship and wife's appropriate subordination, the legal and emotional aspects of marital bond, and so on. Similarly, how one Person of the Divinity can know something that the other does not is beyond our intellectual capabilities. And if even we are not able to grasp this, how much more does this surpass the understanding of Jehovah's Witnesses! ("But the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised." -- 1 Corinthians 2:14)
When we try to explain that the Son may not have known "that day or hour" because he was speaking in his incarnate human condition, the Witness could retort: "but why doesn't the holy spirit [sic] know?" - a question from page 426 of the JW handbook, Reasoning from the Scriptures.
While we readily admit that understanding how one member of the Divinity knows something while the other does not may be beyond our human mind's capabilities - and that we can only know those details that God has chosen to reveal to us in human terms - we can still propose the following possible explanation: Jesus took it for granted that the Holy Spirit knows everything that the Father knows. The JW's New World Translation says in 1 Corinthians 2:10-11 that "the spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God", and that "no one knows the things of God, except the Spirit of God".
By the way, note that the verse says: "no one, except the Spirit of God". So the Holy Spirit is someone, not something. (If we ask someone to complete this sentence: "No one knows my address, except _______" they will fill in the blank with a person's name, not with an impersonal object like a book or a computer.) So, by writing "no one, except the spirit", the New World Translation proves that the Holy Spirit is someone!
However, rather than trying to decipher why Jesus said he didn't know that hour and day, it would be much more important for Jehovah's Witnesses to ponder why their leaders falsely claimed to know the time of Christ's return, why they falsely prophesied about 1914, 1918, 1925, 1975, and the other years.
Even the ancient Arians referred to these passages, and used them to show that, since Christ did not know the day of judgement, he could not have been actually God. On the same words basis: no one knows, only the Father alone (as they interpreted), the Holy Spirit can't be true God either. The solution to the problem: if we say only the Father alone, it is certain that the eternal Son and the Holy Spirit must surely know the day of judgement, because - since they are the same God as the Father - their nature, essence, wisdom, and knowledge must be the same, in absolute perfection.
It is also certain that Jesus Christ knew the day of judgement, and everything that was to come, with a kind of knowledge that he must have had due to the unity by which his human nature was united with the divine person and nature. See Colossians chapter 2, verse 3. ["In him lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." (NWT)] Thus, to attribute ignorance to Christ was the error of the heretics called Agnoetae.
Agnoetae: (Greek) means confessors of ignorance, in Latin agnostics. After Themistius, a deacon of Alexandria, they taught that Christ did not know certain things, because he himself said (Mark 13:32) that he did not know the day of the Last Judgment. Contrary to their conception, the doctrine is that Jesus Christ, as a human, indeed did not know the time of the Last Judgment, but as God, he did indeed know; moreover, many theologians believe that Christ, as a human, was informed about the elements of salvation, therefore about the Last Judgment as well, but he did not know its time with communicable knowledge (scientia communicabili) and according to God's decree, he had to hide it from his fellow human beings.
Although Jesus as a man knew the date of the Day of Judgment, this knowledge was not due to him as a human being, not because he was a human, he could only know this day because he was God, just as he was a man. But he knew it as God and of course, under the illuminating influence of his divinity, he knew it as a man too, but not based on human knowledge. By sharing in our human nature, the Son also shared, in a sense, in our partial ignorance.
The Church Fathers generally believe that Christ is speaking to his disciples in this verse, but only as a representative of the Father; therefore, he only knows what he wants to make known to people. According to Saint Augustine, what he will not make known to people, or what he will not reveal to them, can be said - in a sense - that he does not know it.
Therefore, with these words of Jesus, he wanted to curb the curiosity of the disciples. So, taken by itself, this verse stops the speculations about the end time. Even after his resurrection, he answered the same question similarly: "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in his own authority." This final word was said so that the apostles would not be discouraged and would not think that their Divine teacher considered them unworthy to know these things. Some Greek fragments add in Mark 13:32 that not even the Son knows. The Son has no knowledge of it, not because of the divine, nor the divine united with human, but because of his human nature, which is independent of the divine.
But how can it be that the Son does not know the last day? If this were the case, we would have to conclude that his nature was imperfect: a second coming was necessary, yet he did not know when it would be time for it. However, let's not forget that the meaning of this verse is not that Christ was really not aware of this circumstance, but only that it was not the right time to reveal the secret. (Saint Augustine)
Not as if Christ himself did not know about this, as some Eutychian heretics called agnoetae thought, but because he did not know as our teacher to teach others, because it was not expedient. (Saint Ambrosius, De Fide lib. 5. chap. 8.)
The Son of God does not know that day, but not according to his divinity, which sees and knows everything, but according to his human nature, which by itself does not know this, but only through the revelation made by the divine nature, which is in close unity with him. 'In natura quidem divinitatis novit' (the divine nature knows it), said Saint Gregory, 'non ex natura humanitatis' (not arising from the nature of humanity).
Jesus as a human had certain limitations. But he was also God and the above verse can be convincingly and consistently interpreted in the light of the other verses referring to his omnipotence (which are characteristic only of God):
- Matthew 28:18: ... All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
- John 3:35: The Father loves the Son and has given everything into his hand.
- John 13:3: Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands,...
- Philippians 3:21: ... who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
- Colossians 1:17: ... and in him all things hold together.
- Hebrews 1:3: ... he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
Secondly, to claim that Jesus knows the Father in a special, unique way is fully consistent with unity and trinitarian doctrine. Thirdly, Jesus says that no one knows the Father except the one to whom the Son reveals Him, which is a quite extraordinary claim. This is not an absolute proof, but it offers three different aspects that suggest Jesus' divinity (especially in the light of the hundreds of verses that confirm this).
The expression "day and hour" in the language of the Bible means 'exact timing'. Jesus draws attention to the fact that this is a secret of God, about which no one can have knowledge, not even his 'immediate advisors', the angels. Matthew does not repeat the expression in Mk 13:32 ("not even the Son"), but implicitly makes it clear to the reader that this 'data' is also unknown to the Son, and therefore he cannot disclose it. This addition related to the Saviour's 'knowledge' has caused many headaches for theologians, but in fact it simply refers to the limits of Jesus' human knowledge. The future is a secret of God, and only those can know something about it to whom He reveals it. In this part, the emphasis is not on Christ's non-knowledge, but on his dependence on the Father. Only the Father knows the exact time of the Parousia, for this is also his decision. Moreover, we can distinguish between the timing of the destruction of Jerusalem (which everyone could foresee) and the exact timing of the Parousia or Christ's final return: no one could have known the latter, because, according to our understanding, the decision regarding this had not yet been made. The kind of non-knowledge that this gospel passage acknowledges in Jesus' case is derived only from the circumstances, not from ontological facts. But it is possible that the text has a deeper message. The verb 'to know' in the Bible also means 'to will'. So the text is not simply talking about God's incommunicable secret, but about a decision that depends solely on him. We find the echo of this answer in the Acts of the Apostles (1:7), where Jesus tells the apostles, who are interested in the timing of the restoration of the kingdom: "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in his own authority." Only the Father knows the decisive turning points of the history of salvation, because they depend solely on his defining will.
Christ’s Knowledge: How much did Jesus know? If he was God, why was some of His knowledge limited?
The Jehovah's Witnesses contend that Jesus could not be God because of his limited knowledge for Jesus “learned obedience” (Should You Believe, Chapter 7), did not know the precise day and hour of the Last Day (ibid.), and was given a revelation by God (ibid.). Much of the Jehovah's Witnesses’ confusion here likewise stems from their inability to comprehend the hypostatic union of the God-man Jesus (i.e., it was the created human Jesus, who was not God, who learned obedience). Nor do they understand the nature of Jesus’ three-fold human knowledge.
Theologians are in general agreement that Jesus had a) the beatific, or intuitive, vision of God; b) infused knowledge, and c) acquired knowledge (Catholic Encyclopedia, 930).
- A) Vision/Intuitive or Beatific Knowledge
With respect to His vision knowledge it is taught that “Christ in His humanity, i.e., in His human intellect, from the very first instant of the incarnation, had the immediate vision of God, (ibid., 930). “[T]he two, hypostatic union and vision, of necessity go together.”
Christ’s self-awareness as a Divine Person in His human nature includes the beatific, or immediate, vision of God.
Christ’s vision of God, it is common teaching, was not comprehensive with regard to its primary object, the divine essence; it was limited because it was human. Nor does it extend, as to its secondary objects, to all that the divine knowledge comprehends, but only to what pertains to the object of God’s vision knowledge…. not to the object of the knowledge of simple understanding …; and here it extends particularly, if not exclusively, to all that pertains to His mission and man’s salvation. (ibid.)
- B) Infused Knowledge
Whereas “the vision is inexpressible in human concepts (Catholic Encyclopedia, 930) and is a knowledge that ‘Christ derived from His contact with the Father,” Christ’s infused knowledge is “expressible in human concepts and words” (ibid., 938). “The distinction may be explicit in Scripture (cf Jn 7.16; Mt 11.27). Infused knowledge is similar to angelic knowledge, “Because vision knowledge is incommunicable in human terms, and Christ’s mission entailed the communication to men of divine mysteries …” i.e., salvation, “ … a communicable knowledge of these mysteries was necessary” (ibid.). Infused knowledge was required because of Jesus’ mission.
Today theologians incline to explain the extension of Christ’s infused knowledge from the purpose and nature of His mission; this was a coming in lowliness, not in glory, and did not require the knowledge of all human learning … but only of all that pertains to men’s salvation …. This was necessary and sufficient for Christ to discharge His mission.” (Catholic Encyclopedia, 938)
- C) Acquired Knowledge
“The fact of Christ’s experiential, or acquired, knowledge is considered certain by theologians today,” and like all of us was “limited and restricted.” This knowledge “was perfect in keeping with the concrete circumstances of His time and place, age and mission, and His dealings with people for His redemptive and prophetic mission” (ibid.). Jesus “grew” in this knowledge (cf Luke 2.40, 52) through observation and experience and from other people (ibid.).
- D) The Three Kinds of Human Knowledge were Distinct, but not Separate
“[The] three kinds of human knowledge in Christ, required by what Scripture and revelation say of the God-man, did not hinder or exclude but rather complemented one another. The three were required on different grounds and existed on different levels, while uniting in one human consciousness for the purpose of Christ’s mission” (ibid., 938, 939).
The three kinds of knowledge were the acts and possession of one human intellect and one human awareness; they were distinct, not separated. Their perfect harmony, however, remains mysterious; it is part of the very mystery of Christ.” (ibid., 939)
Some modernists place less emphasis on Christ’s vision knowledge believing that it could lead to interference and the exclusion of genuine human experience (Encyclopedia of Religion, 25).
14) Jesus’ ignorance of the Last Day - Christ knew the Last Day in His vision knowledge which is inexpressible in human concepts, not His infused knowledge. But did the Holy Spirit know the day and hour of the Last Day?
At Mark 13:32 Jesus stated “But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” “Son” in this context does not refer to the “God” of the God-man Jesus but the man and His human knowledge. St. Augustine offered a solution to the question of Christ’s limited knowledge that today is universally accepted, namely, that “Christ had no communicable knowledge of the Last Day because it did not pertain to His mission to reveal it.” “[One] could say that Christ knew the Last Day in His vision knowledge, not in His infused knowledge” (Catholic Encyclopedia, 939) (emphasis added).
Augustine said this in the context of the question about human infirmities taken on by Christ; his solution here too has prevailed: Christ took all of these infirmities, except ignorance, which is not only a consequence but also a principle of sin. (ibid.)
Roch A. Kereszty explains “The Word has known man and the fullness of human experience from all eternity through his divine knowledge. But in the process of the Incarnation, he empties himself of his divine “status,” renounces, it seems, the direct use of his divine consciousness and knowledge, and becomes aware of himself as man and learns as man gradually about God, himself, people and the world. He consummates his human experience in all these dimensions only in dying and rising to a new, definitive form of human existence (Fundamentals of Christology, 317).
There are also practical considerations regarding Christ’s limited knowledge of the Last Day. Not only was it not necessary in order to fulfill His mission, but mankind’s awareness of the exact day and hour has the propensity for unrepentant man, subject to death at any moment, to put off repentance and salvation until the last possible minute. This would countermand Christ’s command to be constantly vigilant (Matthew 25: 1-13).
The Jehovah's Witnesses contend further that even if, “as some suggest, the Son was limited by his human nature from knowing, the question remains, Why did the Holy Spirit not know?” (Reasoning, 409). The answer is that the Holy Spirit did know because He is one of the Hypostases or Persons of the Holy Trinity. Remember, usually “Father is not a title for the first person of the Trinity but a synonym for God” (Encyclopedia of Religion, 54). God is by nature triune and one of those Persons is the Holy Spirit. Therefore, when Jesus stated that only the Father knows exactly when the Last Day shall be, his reference to the Father, the triune God, by definition included the Person of the Holy Spirit.
The belief that the Holy Spirit did not know something would contradict other scriptures that teach that the Holy Spirit knows all the thoughts of God; therefore, logic dictates that He should be defined as omniscient (which is unique to God):
"...for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God... no one can know the things of God, except the Spirit of God." (1 Corinthians 2:10-11, Cf. Jeremiah 17:10, Revelation 2:23)
Since the Scriptures do not contradict themselves, only an interpretation that is in harmony with the entire scripture can exist. We interpret the less clear, more ambiguous part based on the clearer and simpler basis. In addition, the Bible teaches in several places that the Holy Spirit is God.
By the way, although this is also false in their view, the Witnesses teach that the Father can voluntarily choose not to know certain future events. ("Selective foreknowledge means that God could choose not to be aware of all the future actions of his creatures without selection." -- Insight on the Scriptures, page 853) That is, according to Jehovah's Witnesses, God is not truly and currently omniscient, but rather has a foresight capability, as if he had a crystal ball to look into if he wants. If Jehovah's Witnesses claim that this is the case, then following their logic, Jesus could also have chosen not to look into the future and not to know the time of his coming -- without being lower or subordinate to the Father in any respect. Thus, the Witnesses cannot use Mark 13:32 to refute Christ's divinity without contradicting their own teachings about the Father.
“(But) concerning that which has been written: That neither the Son, nor the angels know the day and the hour [cf. Mark 13:32], indeed, your holiness has perceived rightly, that since it most certainly should be referred not to the same son according to that which is the head, but according to his body which we are . . . . He [Augustine] also says . . . that this can be understood of the same son, because omnipotent God sometimes speaks in a human way, as he said to Abraham: Now I know that thou fearest God [Gen. 22:12], not because God then knew that He was feared, but because at that time He caused Abraham to know that he feared God. For, just as we say a day is happy not because the day itself is happy, but because it makes us happy, so the omnipotent Son says He does not know the day which He causes not to be known, not because He himself is ignorant of it, but because He does not permit it to be known at all. Thus also the Father alone is said to know, because the Son (being) consubstantial with Him, on account of His nature, by which He is above the angels, has knowledge of that, of which the angels are unaware. Thus, also, this can be the more precisely understood because the Only-begotten having been incarnate, and made perfect man for us, in His human nature indeed did know the day and the hour of judgment, but nevertheless He did not know this from His human nature. Therefore, that which in (nature) itself He knew, He did not know from that very (nature), because God-made-man knew the day and hour of the judgment through the power of His Godhead. . . . Thus, the knowledge which He did not have on account of the nature of His humanity-by reason of which, like the angels, He was a creaturethis He denied that He, like the angels, who are creatures, had. Therefore (as) God and man He knows the day and the hour of judgment; but On this account, because God is man. But the fact is certainly manifest that whoever is not a Nestorian, can in no wise be an Agnoeta. For with what purpose can he, who confesses that the Wisdom itself of God is incarnate say that there is anything which the Wisdom of God does not know? It is written: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . All things were made by him [John 1:13]. If all, without doubt also the day of judgment and the hour. Who, therefore, is so foolish as to presume to assert that the Word of the Father made that which He does not know? it is written also: Jesus knowing, that the Father gave him all things into his hands [ John 13:3]. If all things, surely both the day of judgment and the hour. Who, therefore, is so stupid as to say that the Son has received in His hands that of which He is unaware?” (Pope Gregory I - The Knowledge of Christ (against the Agnoetae))