Christ, in his incarnation, did NOT seem to have all knowledge of all things.
Before I continue, I want to say this is all very weird, paradoxical stuff.
Discussing how the INFINITE God operated within the confines of a FINITE personage... this is probably the sort of thing we can understand some, or better, but never fully.
So if I point out some scriptural errors, or logic problems; it's only an effort to clarify and take the discussion deeper, not to ridicule anyone.
Can Christ "not know" anything?
When referring to Christ in the incarnation, Zi made the statement, "Never does he not know."
Well, at least that gets right to the heart of the matter.
Is there a time when Christ did NOT KNOW some things?
Yes.
In reality there WERE matters, which at certain times, Christ in his incarnate form did NOT KNOW.
Mar 13:31 Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.
Mar 13:32 But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
Here Christ talks of his second coming, and says that he does NOT know the exact time of his return.
If he is God, and knows ALL things, how can he NOT KNOW anything?
It seems that when Christ took on the limitations of an earthly body, he had to take on some cognitive limitations as well.
In his human form he simply did NOT KNOW EVERYTHING.
This is very clear and factual in scripture.
If Christ did "not know" some things, then where exactly did his divine knowledge go, and did it go somewhere?
Well, it would seem his divine knowledge could not have completely disappeared, because Christ WAS GOD, and omniscience is a necessary attribute of being God. So if his omniscience completely disappeared, it would seem he would have ceased to be God during the incarnation.
So... it seems his omniscience must have gone "somewhere", rather than just disappearing.
So where did his divine omniscience go?
We don't really know where his divine knowledge went, but some theologians and philosophers have some ideas.
- One theory of how this worked was that some of his divine knowledge was "willingly hidden" from him for a time... in some way. As an earthly man I don't have any way to hide my own knowledge from myself... but maybe this is something Christ was able to do in the incarnate state.
- Another theory is that perhaps it was dormant within his earthly subconscious mind for a while, so that it was still there, but he wasn't able to access it.
- There are different ideas about WHERE exactly his divine knowledge went, or HOW it was hidden from him during the incarnation.
I certainly have no idea how it worked, but it does seem that something of this sort DID happen in some way.
How much did Christ know and not know during the incarnation?
We don't seem to know.
A. He did seem to have a lot of supernatural knowledge that could only be divine.
B. But he was also limited in some ways, so we can't say he had complete omniscience.
How much did he know and not know at different times, like when he was a baby, or a small child?
We don't seem to know.
We don't even know the scope of his divine knowledge when he was an adult, so we certainly can't understand too much about it when he was a child... a period in his life where the scripture is mostly silent.
A. We know that as an adult he had a great deal of divine knowledge
B. We know that he didn't have full omniscience... some of it seems to have been willingly hidden from himself.
C. We know that by the time he was 12 he seemed to know he was the Son Of God.
D. We don't know too much on the subject beyond this.
E. We don't really know how much he understood as a baby before his brain was developed, or if he understood anything at all... the scripture just doesn't say much about this.