PSYCHOLOGY OF JESUS CHRIST (PSYCHOLOGICAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF G.). — In a general sense, psychological consciousness is the perception that an intelligent being has of its own acts, but in a more precise sense it is the perception that the thinking subject has of itself through its acts: “it perceives itself to understand” (Sum. Theol., 1a, q. 87, a. 1). It is therefore an intimate knowledge that includes a relation to the subject, that is, to the person as an active principle. Moderns call it self-consciousness and, at least since Locke, identify it with personality, which is expressed by the pronoun “I.” Indeed, a distinction is often made between the “I” and the “me”: the former is perceived as a fixed, stable subject that knows the “me” as a fluctuating subject through multiple psychological phases. In reality, however, the two are identical (James) and reduce to two aspects of self-consciousness that constitutes personality.
This modern theory, which Catholic philosophy and theology do not accept (v. PERSONA), creates serious difficulties in the fields of Trinitarian and Christological dogma. In the Trinity there is only one consciousness, and therefore there should be only one person; in Christ there are two consciousnesses: one divine and one human, and therefore there should be two persons. Conclusions that contradict the dogmatic definitions of the Church’s magisterium. Protestants, who have readily adopted this psychological theory of the person, have been forced to tamper with the data of traditional faith. Some, acknowledging the two consciousnesses in Christ, do not hesitate to recognize in Him two persons, reverting to a form of Nestorianism (v.); others, by eliminating the divine consciousness altogether, reduce Christ to a mere man with his human personality. More subtly, Sunday (Christologies ancient and moderne, chap. 7) posits in Christ a human consciousness as the sole center of activity of the conscious “I,” which, however, is also endowed with a subconsciousness from which the sense of the divine sometimes emerges, giving rise to the suggestion of being God. Thus Protestants either fall into Nestorianism or remain victims of the kenotic theory (v. KENOSI), which is a kind of Monophysitism, because with it divinity is hybridly absorbed into human nature.
Catholics avoid these erroneous solutions, but they do not escape the serious problem. Recently some of our theologians have fully addressed the question, deepening the study of Christ’s humanity from a psychological point of view (D. de Balsy, Gaudel, J. Rivière, Hériss, P. Galtier).
The solution to the problem, according to the doctrine of St. Thomas, is as follows: first, being in creatures is really distinct from their essence or nature. Materially, the person is a whole resulting from an individuated nature, the act of existence, and its proper accidents, but formally it is constituted by subsistence, which is nothing other than the proper being of that individual nature. In Christ, therefore, since there is only one person, that of the Word, there is only one being, the personal being of the Word Himself, which is communicated to the assumed human nature, which thus comes to subsist in the person of the Word. In this way, the perfect ontological unity of Christ is assured.
In the dynamic, operative line, this unity continues as a function and expression of ontological unity. Certainly, the human nature of the Savior, like ours, has its own activity according to its corporeal and spiritual operative faculties; it is the source of all human activity of Jesus, its *principium quo*. But in every concrete nature there is also the supposit or person, which is the agent *par excellence*, the *principium quod*, that is, the efficient, directing, hegemonic principle of all the complex activity of the nature, as is evident from the conscious responsibility and attribution we express when we say: “I see,” “I think,” “I will.” This is not to establish two distinct and parallel activities, one of the nature and one of the person. The activity of a subject is one, as is its being, and it arises from nature and person together through formal causality and efficient causality.
In Christ, the human nature, like its being, does not exist of itself but participates in the being of the Word in which it subsists, so it does not exercise its complex activity independently of the Word, who fulfills in it the functions of our human personality. There is a difficulty: every divine action *ad extra* is common to the three persons, and therefore the Word cannot influence the assumed nature exclusively as a person. But if one systematically admits that the Word makes the human nature His own by communicating to it the divine being, proper to the three persons, according to the relation of filiation that gives to that being a personal imprint (*secundum modum possidendi*), one can also admit, consequently, a divine operative influence that efficiently derives from the three persons but is exercised in a certain personal way by the Word, who remains the active term of attribution of all the activity of the assumed human nature. From the ontological and operative unity thus understood, it is not difficult to establish the psychological unity of Christ. He, as God, has a divine consciousness, which absolutely speaking is common to the Father and the Holy Spirit, but relatively is in a certain way personal, analogously to what has been said of being. Moreover, as man, He has a human consciousness. Whoever admits the constitution of the person on the basis of psychological consciousness is forced to attribute to the incarnate Word a double personality, in a Nestorian manner. But for us, consciousness is revelatory, not constitutive, of personality. Therefore, the two consciousnesses in Christ reveal His single person, which is that of the Word. The difficulty clearly does not concern the divine consciousness, but the human one. In the psychological and gnoseological sphere, consciousness, even according to St. Thomas, attains acts or psychic facts, but not the being of the agent subject. And yet in Aristotle (Ethics, IX, 9) and in St. Thomas (De veritate, q. 10, a. 8) we find the assertion that the soul, turning back upon itself, perceives its acts—feeling while sensing, understanding while understanding—and thus arrives at a perception, at least implicit, of its being, of its existence (cf. the *Cogito ergo sum* of Descartes). On the basis of these principles, it is not repugnant that the human psychological consciousness of Christ attains, at least implicitly, His single being, which is that of the Word.
The beatific vision contributes to making this perception more explicit and clearer. And then one cannot and must not speak of a human “I” of Christ (which would have a Nestorian flavor!): in Him there is only one “I” ontologically grounded in the unity of being. Psychologically, this “I” (= person of the Word) is perceived by the divine consciousness and in a certain way also by the human consciousness. In us, psychological consciousness is expressed in our “I,” which is our incommunicable personality; in Christ, human consciousness mysteriously flows into the divine “I,” which is expressed both divinely and humanly: “I am from eternity,” “I suffer.”
Only thus can the profound language of the Gospel be adequately understood, and only thus can that ontological and psychological unity of Christ be preserved, which is the fundamental reason for the reality of the Incarnation and the infinite value of the Redemption.
Studies: Catholic: I. A. Chollet, *La psychologie du Christ*, Paris 1903; L. de Grandmaison, *Jésus-Christ*, II, 1931, p. 79; ibid. 3: D. de Basky, *Le Moi du Christ*, in *La France française*, 1929, no. 2-3; above all P. Galtier, *L’unité du Christ. Etre... Personne... Conscience*, Paris 1939; P. Parente, *L’io di Cristo*, Brescia 1951; A. Michel, *Christologie*, in *L’Ami du clergé*, 61 (1951), p. 756; ibid. 62 (1952), p. 513;
Protestant: W. Sanday, *Christologies ancient and modern*, Oxford 1910; G. Stanley Hall, *Jésus de Christ in the light of Psychology*, 2nd ed., New York 1923; W. Temple, *Christus Veritas. An essay*, London 1924; Ch. Gore, *The Reconstruction of Belief*, London 1926; H. Hodgson, *Essays on the Trinity and the Incarnation*, London 1933.