Читать книгу Catholicism For Dummies - Rev. Kenneth Brighenti - Страница 73

Jesus had a physical body with all the usual parts: two eyes, two ears, two legs, a heart, a brain, a stomach, and so on. He also possessed a human intellect (mind) and will (heart) and experienced human emotions, such as joy and sorrow. The Gospel According to John, for example, says that Jesus cried at the death of his friend Lazarus. Jesus wasn’t born with the ability to speak. He had to learn how to walk and talk — how to be, act, and think as a human. These things are called acquired knowledge. Other things were directly revealed to His human mind by the divine intellect; these are called infused knowledge.

Jesus did not share sin with human beings. As a Divine Person, He could not sin because it would mean negating Himself (sin is going against the will of God). Being human doesn’t mean being capable of sinning, nor does it mean that you’ve sinned somewhere along the line. Being human means having a free will and rational intellect joined to a physical body. Humans can choose to do good or choose to do evil.

Catholics believe that human beings don’t determine what’s good or evil because that’s intrinsic to the thing itself. Whether something is good or evil is independent of personal opinion. Murder is evil in and of itself. Someone may personally think an action is okay, but if it’s intrinsically evil, that person is only fooling himself and will eventually regret it. Jesus in His humanity always chose to do good, but that didn’t make Him any less human. Even though He never got drunk, swore, or told a dirty joke, He was still human.

It’s important to keep in mind that Catholicism doesn’t depend exclusively on the Bible for what’s known about Jesus. Sacred Tradition (see Chapter 2) fills in some of the gaps when the Bible is silent or ambiguous on certain points, such as whether Jesus ever married or had any siblings.