Do Trinitarians believe Jesus has (or had) two centres of consciousness?

Question

I recently read a pastor talking about how while Jesus was a baby in the manger, he was simultaneously keeping the entire universe running.

Yet a baby consciousness is very different, presumably, from what is required to do the latter.

Do Trinitarians hold that Jesus has (or at least had, prior to Ascension) two centres of consciousness? (I.e., two centres of subjective experience?)

Answer 1

Mark 11:12-13 Would an omniscient God have to go to the fig tree to search for figs he already knew to be absent?

Luke 22:43 Would an omniscient God who upholds the universe require strengthening by an Angel whom he had created?

John 11:34 Was Jesus simply faking a lack of knowledge when he asked where the body of Lazarus was?

Phillipians 2:7 Jesus emptied himself, taking humanity with all it’s frailties and limitations and came to our world as one of us to triumph over sin through complete and total reliance on His Father. He exercised no power not available to us, which he instructed us to ask for in His name. cf John 14:10-14

If you would really like to dig deep into the subject there is a 1977 book available online, “The man who is God” by Edward Heppenstall. http://www.sdanet.org/atissue/books/mangod/index.htm

Edit for additional clarity:

In summary, No, Jesus the man was not possessed by the Son of God who then lived a separate existence and as a separate being inside of Him. Jesus voluntarily gave up the nature that He shared with His Father, His equality with God, and laid it aside for us.

Then, as Gabriel told Mary, by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born a man, in every way like you and I. See Gal 4:4, Hebrews 2:17.

The Most High God, the Almighty (cf Rev 1:8), truly and personally became one of us, made a little lower than the angels, and entered into the world in the exact same way every single one of us is, born of a woman. The only single difference is that as Paul writes, “yet without sin”.

As Paul describes in Romans 7, we are carnal, born into sin (cf Psalms 51:5), with a flawed nature we have inherited from Adam. However Jesus was exempt from our fallen human nature, instead inheriting from His Father the perfect sinless nature that Adam had before the fall. In this He became the second Adam.

Jesus did not assume a human body (complete with a separate mind and consciousness) which he just wrapped around His heavenly form to later be discarded. He actually gave up the glory he shared with His Father (cf John 17:5) from before the creation of the world. He had (past tense) before, He did not have now, else He would not have asked for it.

So clearly scripture teaches that Jesus became a man at the incarnation and at all times was a single consciousness, He was not at any time ever two centres of consciousness. This belief in two consciousnesses is Gnosticism and a major part of what the Gnostics believed.

The big take away from this study is that Jesus was and still is truly human. Jesus never ceased to be the son of God at any time. He always was the Holy One of God at all times.

But Jesus emptied Himself voluntarily, and became one of us and like you and I, as a human being, born under the law, he cast his lot fully and completely with us. If He had failed or sinned in any way, which was definitely possible, like us He would have fallen under a permanent sentence of death.

Jesus risked his eternal existence to become one of us and through complete and total reliance on His Father, conquered sin and Satan and secured for us the right to enter heaven as forgiven sinners with the death penalty paid for us by Him. He was treated as we deserve, so that we might be treated as He deserves.

Today, a man who is God Almighty, sits on the throne at the right hand of His Father. He has elevated humanity to the highest position in the universe under our Father and His Father. In Him and through Him humanity is united with divinity. To us a son was given. The Father gave, not loaned, His only Son, so that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have life everlasting.

Now, as when He walked the earth with men, our mighty saviour, always was, always has been and always will be one single consciousness.