Good Question, Bad Answer
Michael Brown
6 Comments
In the middle ages, there was a famous debate between the realist theologian Thomas Aquinas and the nominalist theologian Duns Scotus over the question of the Incarnation. Scotus, of the Franciscan order, claimed that even if Adam did not fall, the Incarnation was necessary, as it was an underlying motive for creation. Aquinas, of the Domincan order, and the writer of the great Summa Theologica, defended the biblical doctrine of Incarnation as God's redemptive answer to the fall. Sadly, popular evangelical writer Philip Yancey thinks that what Scotus said was a good thing. In this article in Christianity Today, Yancey confuses Creation with Redemption.
Let's be clear on this point that the Bible makes: had Adam not sinned, there would have been no reason for the eternal Son to assume real human nature, for humans would have nothing from which to be saved. The eternal Word was made flesh because, as Heidelberg Catechism Q.16 so ably summarizes, "the justice of God requires that the same human nature which has sinned should make satisfaction for sin; but no man, being himself a sinner, could satisfy for others." This is why the Son had to be made flesh: in order to satisfy the justice of God through his active and passive obedience in his life and death.
The fact that there would have been no need for the eternal Son to be made man had the first Adam not sinned, does not mean that the Incarnation was an afterthought of God. As we know, we were elect in Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph 1.3-5). God gave us grace in Christ Jesus before the ages began (2 Tim 1.9) by giving us as a gift to the Son in the Covenant of Redemption (John 17). God knew and allowed by his permissive will the Fall of Adam. He knew that Satan would try to derail his plan to bring humans to the glorified life symbolized in the Tree of Life. He already had a plan from eternity past and to send a Second Adam to complete the work the first Adam failed to do (Rom 5.12-21; 1 Cor 15).
Reader Comments (6)
I wasn't even aware that he was still alive. But that picture is awesome, it reminds me of Bob Ross, the happy painter.
Yeah, they could be brothers. If only we could see that hairdo on Kim or Scott Clark.
Thank you for addressing this. I see a larger danger in that Roman Catholic ecclesiology is based on the idea that "the Church" (as they define it) is the "ongoing Incarnation" of Christ, and of course, everything that follows from that.
Thanks for drawing this to my attention.
I'm not sure what theological problem you see with the position that the incarnation would have happened even apart from the Fall. You say that the Son would have had no reason to take on human nature apart from sin, but is that really the case?
The incarnation, it seems to me, is more than just a mechanism for dealing with our sins. Jesus is Immanuel, "God with us." By becoming flesh, He tabernacles with us in a way that God didn't before the incarnation. But on your approach, if Adam hadn't fallen, there would have been no hypostatic union, and God would never have come closer to us than He did in the Old Covenant or in the Garden.
Furthermore, it is only by way of the incarnation that the Son is our head and we are His body. On your approach, the Son would not have been our head apart from the Fall.
Moreover, it is only by way of the incarnation that the Son is the Groom and we are the Bride, flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone. On your approach, we would not have been the Bride.
In fact, because all of these things -- having God with us in the way He is in Christ, being members of Christ's body, being the bride of Christ -- depend on the incarnation and (on your view) the incarnation wouldn't have happened apart from the Fall, then (on your view) wouldn't we have to say felix culpa ("happy fall")?
If we're better off because of the incarnation (and surely we are, right?), then are we better off because of Adam's sin? Surely that can't be right, can it?
In fact, in the Bible, marriage precedes the Fall (Gen. 2). Paul tells us that our marriages display the marriage of Christ and His Bride (Eph. 5). Was it only after the Fall that marriage became a picture of Christ and the Church or was that God's intent all along, even apart from sin?
Did Adam and Woman's marriage before the Fall prefigure the marriage of Christ and the Church? That's certainly how it's been taken, including the details (e.g., Adam going down into "deep sleep," which in the Bible is a condition related to death; the bride coming from Adam's side, like the church born of blood and water). But if their marriage was always a foreshadowing of Christ's marriage to the Church, even apart from the Fall, then doesn't it follow that Christ's marriage to the Church was part of God's plan even apart from the coming of sin?
In short, it seems to me that either we have to say that sin brought about something better for us than we would have had apart from sin (and surely that's not right to say) or we have to say that God always intended the incarnation of His Son as Immanuel, our Head and our Husband.
Thoughts?
John,
Why don't you begin by reading the series of short posts I have put up titled, "Basic Covenant Theology" and then get back to me.