The Necessity of the Incarnation

Last updated on: December 8, 2016 at 7:19 am by Taylor S. Brown

The Necessity of the Incarnation 2016-12-08T07:19:28-06:00 Taylor S. Brown

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Jason Micheli (a fellow David Bentley Hart fan) has a thought-provoking post over at Tamed Cynic on the Incarnation. Micheli discusses the reality of the Incarnation as eternally necessary. That is to say, the Incarnation of Christ was not merely accidental in relation to the Fall. It was not conditioned by the Fall.

Micheli quotes Duns Scotus, one of the preeminent theologians of the High Middle Ages, on the matter:

“The Incarnation of the Son of God is the very reason for the whole Creation.

Otherwise this supreme action of God would have been something merely accidental or ‘occasional.’

Again, if the Fall were the cause of the predestination of Christ, it would follow that God’s greatest work was only occasional, for the glory of all will not be so intense as that of Christ, and it seems unreasonable to think that God would have foregone such a work because of Adam’s good deed, if he had not sinned.’

I tend to side with this understanding of the Incarnation (which aside from Western thinkers like Scotus, is quite prominent among Eastern Christian thinkers), rather than the view that it only happened because of the Fall. Micheli goes on to talk about the beauty of the eternal necessity of the Incarnation:

It’s true that Jesus saves us. It’s true that his death and resurrection reconcile God’s creation. It’s true that through him our sins are both exposed and forgiven once and for all, but that’s not why he comes.

That’s not why he comes because the even deeper mystery is that he would’ve come anyway.

The whole post is a good read, especially for Advent.

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