Philosophy Now Forum

i am babysitting a child of very religious parents and part of my duties is reading age appropriate religious materials to him at bed time

the book i read tonight dealt with - obviously non canonical - ie the author made it up - description of jesus christ's childhood

according to this book christ was very well behaved never lied to his parents blah blah blah

this strikes me as theologically iffy - and raises some theological questions

christ was fully human and fully divine

being fully human meant he went through normal childhood development

however - lying is part of normal childhood development - in a sense it is a good sign, it shows that the child is learning to distinguish between him or her self and other people - a child who never ever lies will actually have trouble in this regard - it is psychologically unhealthy

but temper tantrums are to some extent similarly normal

so is arguing with one parents

to claim that christ was fully human and yet was a perfect child - in the ordinary sense of the term - makes no sense whatsoever

so children are not only not responsible for their 'sinful" behavior but it is not sinful at all it is just normal development

but how can we know when someones behavior becomes sinful - we cannot just refer to some arbitrary age here

thoughts?

In the film Out Of The Ice Willie Nelson played a sagacious advisor to young man. At one point he says, "Truth is only good for one: Jesus Christ" The suggestion in this that we are unable to perfectly represent a truth in human terms because we are not 100 percent human, whilst Jesus is. However this is only small matter as each of us can 100 percent represent truth in universal terms, and universal truths are what most count in the end.
Some people have a problem with the idea that humanity can be perfectly instilled in a single human being. I don' t.

I could enter a big Socratic elucidation at this point as to why lying is never good for us, but I lack the talent for it so will refrain. Others may be able to cite appropriate passages in The Republic but I can't quite put my finger upon them. The arguments would go something along the lines of whether the rottenness of an apple is of beneficial nature or not and the idea that it is beneficial would be eventually dismantled and rejected through reasonable inquiry.

A similar argument could be had that no such thing as imperfect divinity, or good, for that matter can exist, because divinity is an infinite quality and only composite phenomena can be said to exhibit an imperfect state or states because there are other composite things to reference against, whilst infinite qualities are 'stand alone'.