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1 1 In many ways, this is an exercise in what Oliver Crisp would call “analytic theology” or perhaps “philosophical theology”.

2 2 For a good discussion see Kristin Johnston Largen, Baby Krishna, Infant Christ: A Comparative Theology of Salvation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books 2011), 41. She explains that “Krishna is not only the most powerful god, the supreme god of the universe, but is also exceedingly beautiful, which is a central part of his perfection”.

3 3 It is important to note that the conviction that the Incarnation of God could have been a person with Down’s Syndrome should not be considered the basis for affirming the intrinsic dignity of persons with Down’s Syndrome. The imago Dei (the image of God) is the basis for affirming the intrinsic dignity of all people, especially those with special needs.

4 4 The Sermon on the Mount is a good illustration of Jesus making an argument. The contrast between the Torah and the teaching of Jesus is powerful.

5 5 Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus – God and Man (Philadelphia: Westminster Press 1968), 333 n24.

6 6 Jasper Hopkins and Herbert Richardson, eds. and trans, Anselm of Canterbury Vol. 3 (Toronto and New York: Edwin Mellen Press 1976), 135. I am grateful to Daniel Deme for his good summary of Anselm’s position, which put simply is that “the man Jesus will never have ignorance with regard to his humanity. … [T]his man will be omniscient, even if he will not always manifest it in public.” See Daniel Deme, The Christology of Anselm of Canterbury (Aldershot, UK and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing 2003), 158.

7 7 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae (hereafter ST), 3a.9.2.

8 8 Aquinas, ST, 3a.9.3.

9 9 Aquinas, ST, 3a.11.1.

10 10 Aquinas, ST, 3a.9.4.

11 11 Michael Gorman is helpful here. The perfections are in Christ insofar as it furthers the salvific mission. Therefore, Gorman points out when it comes to knowledge: “Christ’s human knowledge was as extensive as human knowledge could be: he had the beatific vision, full infused knowledge, and full acquired knowledge. Of his possession of the beatific vision, Aquinas notes that this enabled Christ to be, in virtue of his humanity, the source of truth for other humans. He also had a human will and the ability to perform authentically human actions.” See Michael Gorman, “Incarnation,” in Brian Davies and Eleonore Stump, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Aquinas (New York: Oxford University Press 2012), 430.

12 12 Aquinas, ST, 3a.9.4.

13 13 Corey L. Barnes, Christ’s Two Wills in Scholastic Thought: the Christology of Aquinas and Its Historical Contexts (Toronto, ON: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies 2012), 213.

14 14 One solution that I am not discussing in this article is to build on the two natures distinction embedded in the Definition of Chalcedon. On this view one confines omniscience to the divine nature of Jesus and limited knowledge is then part of the human nature. A number of writers take this line. Thomas Morris in The Logic of God Incarnate (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press 1986), 103ff, argues for the “two minds view.” This also seems to be line in Gerald O’Collins, Christology: A Biblical, Historical, and Systematic Study of Jesus, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press,2009), 240. Collins explicitly writes, “With respect to his divinity Christ is omniscient, but with respect to his humanity he is limited in knowledge”.

15 15 Pannenberg, God and Man, 329.

16 16 In our post-Kantian age, I do accept that every experience entails interpretation. However, I do think the sense of the spiritual needs to be experienced in ways that do not allow the filters of reductionist materialism to obscure the true nature of experience. Without romanticizing children, I do think that often children can see and know things in ways that adults could see and know, but fail to do so because a crude empiricism dominates the adult realm of knowing. I am grateful for the clarifying help of my colleagues Joyce Mercer and James Farwell on this point.

17 17 Wisdom tradition is in quotation marks because I recognize it is not really a tradition. It is Stuart Weeks who has in a variety of places argued against the distinct wisdom tradition. Instead he sees it as a much more fluid movement where the literature is “intended more to entertain and provoke than deliberately to persuade its readers to adopt any particular understanding of the world.” Stuart Weeks, “Wisdom in the Old Testament,” in, Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? Wisdom in the Bible, the Church and the Contemporary World, ed. Stephen Barton (Edinburgh: T&T Clark 1999), 29.

18 18 Celia Deane-Drummond, Christ and Evolution: Wonder and Wisdom (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), chapter 3. This chapter is outstanding discussion of the importance of wisdom in Christology. Much of this chapter is building on Deane-Drummond’s discussion.

19 19 James D. G. Dunn, “Jesus: Teacher of Wisdom or Wisdom Incarnate?” in Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? Wisdom in the Bible, the Church and the Contemporary World, ed. Stephen Barton (Edinburgh: T&T Clark 1999), 77.

20 20 Dunn, “Teacher of Wisdom,” 78.

21 21 I am grateful to Joyce Mercer for this observation.

22 22 Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Jesus: Miriam’s Son, Sophia’s Prophet (New York: Continuum 1994), 139.

23 23 Fiorenza, Jesus, 157.

24 24 Fiorenza, Jesus, 162. Schüssler Fiorenza has a convention of following the Jewish practice of not reproducing the name of God (hence G*d) as a way of challenging the traditional patriarchal image of God.

25 25 Elizabeth Johnson, “Jesus, Wisdom of God,” Ephemerides Theologiae Louvaniensis Vol. 61 (1985): 261, as quoted in Don Schweitzer, Contemporary Christologies (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2010), 68.

26 26 Elizabeth Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: Crossroad 1992), 266.

27 27 Don Schweitzer, Contemporary Christologies (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 2010), 69.

28 28 I am happy to recognize a debt to Karl Barth here. If we are going to know what God is like, then we need to trust that God has spoken. The disclosure of God in the Eternal Wisdom made flesh is our control on our theology. Any legitimate affirmation about God and God’s relations with the world need to be justified, grounded in, or deduced from the Incarnation. See my Understanding Christian Doctrine (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008) for further discussion.

29 29 Stephen C. Barton, “Gospel Wisdom,” in Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? Wisdom in the Bible, the Church and the Contemporary World, ed. Stephen Barton (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 94.

30 30 To talk of Jesus as the Wisdom of God opens possibilities. Colin Gunton has a radical inclusivity when he explains that the Wisdom of God embodied in Christ embodies all the wisdom of even non-Christian cultures. So Gunton writes, “To say that the crucified Christ is the Wisdom of God is to say that he is the key to the meaning of the whole of the created order, and therefore the source of true wisdom, wherever that is to be found.” Colin Gunton, “Christ, the Wisdom of God,” in Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? Wisdom in the Bible, the Church and the Contemporary World, ed. Stephen Barton (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 260.

31 31 See Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003).

32 32 In some ways this is a defense of a kenotic Christology, although I am hesitant to formulate the precise form this took. I prefer to talk about the Eternal Wisdom interpenetrating a human life. This would mean it is not a “transformational model” (of, for example, Trenton Merricks) nor is it just relational. It is a more like a “spirit-filled” Christology. Jonathan Hill’s map of the current options in the debate is very helpful, see Anna Marmodoro and Jonathan Hill, The Metaphysics of the Incarnation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), chapter 1.

33 33 I am grateful to those who took the time to read an earlier draft of this article. These include Joyce Mercer, James Farwell, Barney Hawkins, Keith Ward, and Isabella Blanchard. Finally, I am grateful for the extraordinary gift of Ms. Ellen Hawkins (a person with Down’s syndrome) who has taught me so much about faith and trust.