Now that the presents are opened and the turkey is eaten, we can get back to business. But first a moment's frivolity. I made this joke up a few days ago to wide acclaim in my household. In the spirit of Christmas giving, you are free to use it ... so long as you send me a royalty cheque:
What did Whitney Houston hang on her door at Christmas?
A-wreath-a Franklin!
Get it? Ho ho ho!
Okay I probably shouldn't quit my day job for a career in stand-up comedy.
On to more serious matters. I have been concerned with a two minds account of the incarnation as a way to explain the incompossibility of human and divine attributes. Our focus has been specifically on the question of how Christ could simultaneously be omniscient and ignorant.
With that in mind, beetle496 says: "You are asking if Jesus was literally of two minds. You suppose that the impossibility/contradiction/paradox stems from the idea of a omniscient zygote or fetus or infant. The problem goes deeper than that, and an omniscient adult is just as much of an impossibility/contradiction/paradox."
Actually I chose the blastocyst merely as the most striking point. But beetle496 is correct. Forget about the blastocyst. How could an adult human being be omniscient? How could a finite human brain, even that of Einstein, Newton, or Justin Timberlake, possibly know an infinite number of propositions?
With that question in mind let's turn to some of MGT2's comments from the "Was Jesus of two minds ... literally? (Part 1)" thread:
The word "educate" is etymologically related to the word "educe." Educe means to draw out something that is latent or hidden or reserved, the bringing out of some potential (Merriam-Webster). I learned way back then, that the purpose of education is simply to unveil the knowledge that we already have.
The point I am making is this. It could be possible that we were all born with knowledge that has yet to be "awaken." In the biological sciences, especially immunology, it is believed that we are all born with a preset amount of immunologic defense (antibodies) that only become manifested when our bodies become exposed to the specific pathogens.
It could be possible that in the human form, Jesus' mind had to go through this process, but the knowledge was always there (not Docetism). This may also explain why he did not actively start his earthly ministry until about age thirty.
MGT2's claim thus seems to be this: all learning is really recall of innate knowledge. Thus, Jesus could have had innate infinite knowledge as a blastocyst in much the same way that we all have innate knowledge as blastocysts.
The only problem with this proposal as I see it, is that I respectfully dissent from this account of education and learning. This theory that learning is recall of innate knowledge is Plato's classic account. See Meno's Paradox for his famous statement of it. Plato's account of knowledge is the arch rival of John Locke's tabula rasa account (that is, the view that the mind is a complete blank slate waiting empirical data). (That is not quite Locke's view but set that aside. Many others have held the blank slate view.) Plato thinks everything is innate. Locke thinks nothing is. Both it seems to me are wrong. In other words, there is both empirical and a priori knowledge. Some things are learned, while others are innate (For an example of empirical knowledge, just open your eyes and look around. Chomsky's view of the innate syntactical structure of language in the mind seems a classic illustration of the latter.)
But is there space to think of innate knowledge in such a way that it could explain how Jesus Christ as blastocyst could have been omniscient?
More on that after I get back from Best Buy's after Christmas blowout.

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