 |
| John Duns Scotus, 1266-1308 |
Attempting to explain why it is that Anglicans celebrate Christmas so splendidly, some commentators point to the central place of the Incarnation in Anglican theology and spirituality. I find this explanation entirely persuasive. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. At Christmas we take particular delight in recounting the story of his taking flesh in all its vivid and earthy detail: the inn, the stable, the manger, the shepherds, the angels, and the animals.
And yet – from time to time I hear church members make slightly supercilious and denigrating remarks about the celebration of Christmas. It’s all well and good to commemorate the birth of Jesus, they say, but the theological significance of Christmas pales in comparison with that of Holy Week and Easter. Our Lord’s death on the cross and resurrection are what really matter to Christian faith.
To evaluate such claims, we need to look a bit more closely at the classical Christian doctrine of the Incarnation. At Bethlehem, God the Son, the eternal Second Person of the Holy Trinity, came down from heaven to be born at a particular place in a particular time, to share in our human nature, and to participate in our human condition. But why?
The standard and indeed correct answer is that he came to save us from sin and death. In the biblical account, Adam and Eve disobeyed God and the whole human race inherited the guilt of their sin. We need not read the story of Adam and Eve literally to understand it as a definitive interpretation of the human condition. We are fallen creatures, held captive by sin, unable by our own efforts to redeem ourselves or to live as God intended when he created us. So in the Incarnation Christ came among us to redeem us by dying on the cross.
One possible implication of this account, however, is that Christ’s conception and birth of the Virgin Mary have significance only as preliminaries to his atonement. To suffer and die for us, he had first to be born as a human being. A further implication is that if Adam and Eve had not sinned, the Incarnation would not have taken place.
In the medieval West, this line of thinking even led some to regard the fall of Adam and Eve as a good thing for having occasioned the great blessing of Christ’s coming into the world. In the hymn known as the Exsultet, sung by the deacon at the blessing of the Paschal Candle during the Easter Vigil, we encounter the famous lines: “O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!”
The fifteenth-century English carol “Adam lay ybounden,” expresses the same basic idea. If Adam had not sinned by taking the apple in the Garden of Eden, then our Lady (the blessed Virgin Mary) would never have become Queen of Heaven. So the carol concludes: “Blessed be the time / That apple taken was / Therefore we moun singen / Deo gratias!”
This view became widespread in the Christian Church, at least in the West. But from the beginning a number of theologians of impeccable orthodoxy took the opposite view: that even if Adam and Eve had never fallen, the Incarnation would likely have taken place anyway. Saint Irenaeus made this suggestion in the second century, and Saint Maximus the Confessor developed it in the seventh. Both theologians proposed that, even before the Fall, God created the world with the precise intention of becoming incarnate in it as a human being.
Medieval scholastic theologians debated the question with enthusiasm, as they were wont to do. In the thirteenth century, Saint Thomas Aquinas took the negative position, pointing out that Scripture consistently describes the Incarnation as a remedy for human sin – as, for example, in I Timothy 1:15, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Yet after concluding that the Incarnation would probably not have taken place if humanity had not sinned, Thomas immediately adds that God’s power is not limited, so that God could have become incarnate under any circumstances he chose.
Taking the opposite position, the thirteenth-century Franciscan theologian John Duns Scotus argued vigorously that it was unfitting for God’s greatest deed ever of becoming incarnate to have been contingent upon Adam’s sin, such that if Adam had not sinned, the Incarnation would have remained undone. (In subsequent years, as in so many other theological controversies, the Dominicans tended to follow Aquinas, while the Franciscans tended to follow Scotus.)
But why would God have become incarnate as a human being apart from the purpose of redeeming fallen humanity? All the writers I’ve mentioned propose in different ways that by becoming incarnate and participating in our human nature, God communicates his infinite life, wisdom, and love to us finite human beings. He shares in our human life so that we may share in his divine life, and so fulfill the purpose for which he created us: to live in union with him for eternity.
We should exercise due caution about making any sweeping claims on this question. The suggestion that God would have become incarnate even in the absence of human sin is a contrary-to-fact hypothetical speculation. We can never know the answer for sure because, as it happened, humanity did fall, and Christ did come into came into the world to save us from our sins. What we can say, perhaps, is that if we had not sinned, then Christ would not have had to suffer and die on the cross. The Incarnation of the Son of God may well have taken place anyway but would likely have taken a very different course.
So, we’re left with a speculation, but an edifying speculation all the same. At Christmas, we give thanks to God for sending his Son into the world to save us from sin and death. At the same time, the possibility that he would have come anyway, even apart from the Fall, confirms our characteristically Anglican intuition that Christmas cannot be reduced to a mere prerequisite to Holy Week and Easter. This festival celebrates a mystery that to some extent stands independently and in its own right.
To put it bluntly, even apart from Holy Week and Good Friday, there might well still be Christmas. Even if he had not had to suffer and die on the cross, the Son of God might still have been born as one of us, to teach us, enlighten us, and bring us to the fullness of eternal life and joy in God’s presence. This evening’s celebration proclaims that promise and that hope, in which we do well to rejoice with all the enthusiasm we can muster.
One possible implication of this account, however, is that Christ’s conception and birth of the Virgin Mary have significance only as preliminaries to his atonement. To suffer and die for us, he had first to be born as a human being. A further implication is that if Adam and Eve had not sinned, the Incarnation would not have taken place.
In the medieval West, this line of thinking even led some to regard the fall of Adam and Eve as a good thing for having occasioned the great blessing of Christ’s coming into the world. In the hymn known as the Exsultet, sung by the deacon at the blessing of the Paschal Candle during the Easter Vigil, we encounter the famous lines: “O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!”
The fifteenth-century English carol “Adam lay ybounden,” expresses the same basic idea. If Adam had not sinned by taking the apple in the Garden of Eden, then our Lady (the blessed Virgin Mary) would never have become Queen of Heaven. So the carol concludes: “Blessed be the time / That apple taken was / Therefore we moun singen / Deo gratias!”
This view became widespread in the Christian Church, at least in the West. But from the beginning a number of theologians of impeccable orthodoxy took the opposite view: that even if Adam and Eve had never fallen, the Incarnation would likely have taken place anyway. Saint Irenaeus made this suggestion in the second century, and Saint Maximus the Confessor developed it in the seventh. Both theologians proposed that, even before the Fall, God created the world with the precise intention of becoming incarnate in it as a human being.
Medieval scholastic theologians debated the question with enthusiasm, as they were wont to do. In the thirteenth century, Saint Thomas Aquinas took the negative position, pointing out that Scripture consistently describes the Incarnation as a remedy for human sin – as, for example, in I Timothy 1:15, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Yet after concluding that the Incarnation would probably not have taken place if humanity had not sinned, Thomas immediately adds that God’s power is not limited, so that God could have become incarnate under any circumstances he chose.
Taking the opposite position, the thirteenth-century Franciscan theologian John Duns Scotus argued vigorously that it was unfitting for God’s greatest deed ever of becoming incarnate to have been contingent upon Adam’s sin, such that if Adam had not sinned, the Incarnation would have remained undone. (In subsequent years, as in so many other theological controversies, the Dominicans tended to follow Aquinas, while the Franciscans tended to follow Scotus.)
But why would God have become incarnate as a human being apart from the purpose of redeeming fallen humanity? All the writers I’ve mentioned propose in different ways that by becoming incarnate and participating in our human nature, God communicates his infinite life, wisdom, and love to us finite human beings. He shares in our human life so that we may share in his divine life, and so fulfill the purpose for which he created us: to live in union with him for eternity.
We should exercise due caution about making any sweeping claims on this question. The suggestion that God would have become incarnate even in the absence of human sin is a contrary-to-fact hypothetical speculation. We can never know the answer for sure because, as it happened, humanity did fall, and Christ did come into came into the world to save us from our sins. What we can say, perhaps, is that if we had not sinned, then Christ would not have had to suffer and die on the cross. The Incarnation of the Son of God may well have taken place anyway but would likely have taken a very different course.
So, we’re left with a speculation, but an edifying speculation all the same. At Christmas, we give thanks to God for sending his Son into the world to save us from sin and death. At the same time, the possibility that he would have come anyway, even apart from the Fall, confirms our characteristically Anglican intuition that Christmas cannot be reduced to a mere prerequisite to Holy Week and Easter. This festival celebrates a mystery that to some extent stands independently and in its own right.
To put it bluntly, even apart from Holy Week and Good Friday, there might well still be Christmas. Even if he had not had to suffer and die on the cross, the Son of God might still have been born as one of us, to teach us, enlighten us, and bring us to the fullness of eternal life and joy in God’s presence. This evening’s celebration proclaims that promise and that hope, in which we do well to rejoice with all the enthusiasm we can muster.
No comments:
Post a Comment