Expert: Tom Smith - 3/28/2009

Question
Please enlighten me on the following issue:
Jesus has been recorded in the Gospel of Luke saying various things addressed to "Father", (implied to God the Father) (Luke 23:34 and Luke 23:46).  Now the problem arises as the following:
Given the Father should be by definition of omniscient, (inherent omniscience (As in selectively not reading people's mind) does not work here because by the doctrine of trinity, Jesus is part of God, and if God reads His own mind, so would He read Jesus' mind), then by deduction The Father should read the mind of Jesus.  Would communication be necessary?
Obvious solutions include the following:
1) Jesus is not aware of such principle.  (Then why would it be revealed to men about such principle if even Jesus doesn't know it?)
2) What do you call the condition when one does not know what he/she is talking about? Probably that is one of the stuff that happens to people when you put someone on the cross. (But then so is all the other things Jesus mentioned on the cross would have similar validity, such as Luke 23:43)
3) Omniscience of God is challenged.  Then how would one define God to be "Perfect" when God does not know what Himself is thinking/doing/saying?

To help me understand the answer better, please include your opinion on the degree of infallibility and degree of inerrancy of the Bible.

Answer
Interesting question.

First, why was communication necessary? The same question could be asked with respect to prayer. God knows us, He knows what we are asking and what we desire, and for that matter, what we need and what is good for us. So why do we pray? Why do we need to pray? the reason is that God simply reading our minds is not communication, nor is it indicative of fellowship or a relationship. For that there needs to be two way communication. the same is true in human relationships - your kids know that you love them, so why do you need to tell them? It builds the relationship.

So communication between the three persons of the trinity also occurs. Now, do we fully understand the relationship between these three persons or what their relationship is like? No, so we describe it in human terms because that is the only perspective that we understand. but clearly an infinite, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent being who is outside of space and time is being our understanding.

That takes of the question of why communication would occur. Now let's look at the other aspects of your question. Critical to understanding this is to understand Jesus' role while he was on earth:

Phil 2:8-9
8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
NKJV

So Jesus humbled Himself to live as a man and to temporarily lay aside His glory as God, which He restored after His ascension back into heaven:

John 17:5
5 And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.
NKJV

While on earth, He had to be a sinless, perfect man in order to be qualified to die on the cross for our sins. Had He failed to submit Himself to the Father, then He would have, as a man, sinned. So He lived on earth, not as God but as man, fully dependent upon the Father. An important part of the life of a Christian is prayer, and Jesus continued in prayer to the father while He was on earth.

To answer your second question, I believe fully in the infallibility and inerrancy of scripture.

Tom
http://discern.ca