Taking all the above as given, it is still worth noting that, from time to time, some theologians have speculated on the question of whether the Incarnation would have happened had we not fallen.
Some people are surprised to hear that and wonder if such theologians would get in trouble somehow for thinking such a supposedly heretical thought. But this is to show a radical unfamiliarity with the Catholic mind. The Church has no trouble with flights of speculation or even of pure imagination. That is why Augustine could noodle the question of dog-headed men in the fifth century and the great Catholic author J.R.R. Tolkien could invent all of Middle-earth in the twentieth. It is perfectly acceptable to play with ideas as a Catholic. It’s more or less what theologians do all day. Problems only arise when the ideas we play with become more important than or even opposed to reality.
So suppose we had not fallen. Would that have stopped the Incarnation? Phrasing the question that way makes clear that there is no particular reason it couldn’t have happened anyway. God is, after all, God and can do as he pleases. Nothing can stop God from doing what he likes, so if he chose to become incarnate without our having sinned, he could have done so, just as your family doctor might still choose to come to your house for dinner even if you are not sick.
Indeed, aside from the first reason given for the Incarnation—to reconcile us to God—none of the other three reasons for the Incarnation have to presuppose our fallenness at all. God might still have become incarnate to show us his love, to be our model, and to divinize us. As far as we can tell, our sin complicated, but did not necessitate, the Incarnation. It might have happened anyway, but without the horrors of the lash, the crown of thorns, and the spikes through his hands and feet. As the great medieval theologian Duns Scotus said:
To think that God would have given up such work if Adam had not sinned would be altogether irrational! I say, therefore, that the fall was not the cause of the predestination of Christ, and that—even if no one had fallen, not angels or man—in this hypothesis Christ would still have been predestined in the same way.[1]
In short, Duns Scotus believes the Lover would not forbear to seek union with the Beloved if she was feeling well. But since he found the Beloved on her sickbed, he undertook the desperate remedy appropriate to her condition, spending all he had to save her. One need not hold Duns Scotus’ opinion as a Catholic. But neither does the Church forbid it. Likewise, Catholics can and do go their whole lives without giving the matter any thought at all. This is the capaciousness of the Faith.
He Came Down from Heaven
In the Incarnation, the omniscient, omnipotent, almighty, and glorious God who needs nothing and who is infinitely greater than all things completely abandoned himself to us in humility. Think of somebody you have known who is truly humble (one beautiful modern icon for many people is Fred Rogers of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood). The truly humble do not think of themselves as something worthless. They do not think of themselves at all. They are thinking about others: what they might need, what admirable qualities they have, what beauties they see in them, and how grateful to God they are for the goodness he has placed in them. Humble people can speak the truth about themselves and others because they have no need for the approval of somebody else to shore up their fragile egos. Of course, the proud are also in a state where they do not care what others think of them. But the difference is that the proud do not love others. They see them as instruments and tools only. The humble see others as persons and prefer the good of others to their own.
The Son of God offered himself without reservation to us not to reduce us to implements, but to exalt us to become fellow sons and daughters of God—whatever the cost to himself. And so the Tradition reminds us that the Incarnation cost him all he had in an offering he freely gave in love for us. Paul remarks on this:
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich. (2 Corinthians 8:9)
It is almost as though Jesus was speaking of himself first when he told these parables:
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. (Matthew 13:44-46)
Long before any apostle, hermit, or monk gave up all he or she had to pursue Jesus, Jesus gave up all he had to pursue us. Indeed, that is the entire basis of Christian discipleship:
Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5–11)
Although Paul focuses on the most exquisite and archetypal part of the Son’s “emptying” the truth is that his humiliation starts, not with his Passion, but with his conception. The Son, in obedience to the Father’s salvific will, freely chooses to give up his divine glory and enter fully into human experience by becoming a mammalian zygote and undergoing the birth process like the rest of us. Imagine how you might feel having to become a crab or a snail, if you want to get the hang of it. God faces all the indignities that appertain, not only to being a baby, but to being a baby in a third world nation where his family come from the bottom rungs of society even by the standards of the time. That is why Luke is careful to record his birth in a stable, a mere cave that demonstrates his outsider status right from the start. He comes down from Heaven at his birth and keeps coming further and further down throughout his life. He is subjected to exile, attempted murder, the normal tedium and grind of work, gossip, hunger, sleeplessness, homelessness, insults, the death of his father, whispers among his relatives about his sanity, contempt, and all the exasperations of being a public figure. He is misunderstood, pawed over, left without a moment’s peace, frustrated by the dullness and ambition of disciples and fans who can and do turn on him at a moment’s notice. And at the end of the road–as he is aware every second of every minute of every day–is the ticking truth: “He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed” (Matthew 16:21).
Jesus begins coming down from Heaven at the moment of his conception, but he does not come all the way down until the cries, “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?” and “It is finished!” are driven out of him, his hands and feet are pried loose from the cross, and his beaten body is laid in the tomb while his soul plunges into the underworld to bring out all the dead he went there to save.
[1] Blessed John Duns Scotus, Reportatio Parisiensis, in III Sent., d. 7, 4
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7 Responses
I am by no means an expert on Islam, but isn’t there a tradition within Islam that the cause for the Fall of Lucifer was his refusal to bow before Adam because he saw mankind as mud? Before anyone asks, “Why do we care what Islam teaches?” I will answer: Because Islam did not spring from a vacuum. It sprang from many traditions within the larger context of Judaism, Christianity, and other faiths of the era. And Islam certainly is not wrong on all counts. Is it POSSIBLE that a kernel of true lore has been preserved by Islam in this case?
Is it POSSIBLE that before or at the time of physical Creation, God revealed His plans for incarnation to his angels, and that might have led to the downfall of a third of them? I can imagine the greatest of angels taking offence. “Are we not the holiest and most powerful of spirits? Do you REALLY expect us to bow to these lowly creatures of mud? If anyone is going to rule this world, it should be us!”
I don’t know if that happened. But it is certainly interesting to speculate.
God revealing his plan to the angels, which led to the fall of Satan and 1/3 of the angels is close to the LDS (mormon) tradition:
The below is from LDS Study Materials: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-principles/chapter-3-jesus-christ-our-chosen-leader-and-savior?lang=eng
When the plan for our salvation was presented to us in the premortal spirit world… We understood that we would have to leave our heavenly home for a time. We would not live in the presence of our Heavenly Father. While we were away from Him, all of us would sin and some of us would lose our way…
We needed a Savior to pay for our sins and teach us how to return to our Heavenly Father.
Our Father said, “Whom shall I send?” Jesus Christ, who was called Jehovah, said, “Here am I, send me.” Jesus was willing to come to the earth, give His life for us, and take upon Himself our sins. He, like our Heavenly Father, wanted us to choose whether we would obey Heavenly Father’s commandments. He knew we must be free to choose in order to prove ourselves worthy of exaltation. Jesus said, “Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever”
Satan, who was called Lucifer, also came, saying, “Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor” (Moses 4:1). Satan wanted to force us all to do his will. Under his plan, we would not be allowed to choose. He would take away the freedom of choice that our Father had given us. Satan wanted to have all the honor for our salvation.
Because our Heavenly Father chose Jesus Christ to be our Savior, Satan became angry and rebelled. There was war in heaven. Satan and his followers fought against Jesus Christ and His followers.
In this great rebellion, Satan and all the spirits who followed him were sent away from the presence of God and cast down from heaven. A third part of the hosts of heaven were punished for following Satan.
I’ll quickly grant that a lack of sin would not STOP the incarnation if God felt like coming to dinner, but I don’t see a PURPOSE of the incarnation if there was no sin. That’s a far more interesting question; If there had been no fall, would we need a savior? It seems Christianity is dependent on a literal ‘fall’ event for Christ’s incarnation to serve any purpose.
Hard to say, but I don’t think so. Our first parents were good because they had grace from God. Grace that they rejected through sin, yes, but grace that they relied on to do good just as they relied on oxygen to convert their food into energy. So in that sense, we need God to save us from sin in the same way we need oxygen to save us from asphyxiation, even if we’ve never given ourselves brain damage by stubbornly holding our breath.
On the other hand, “O hapoy fault, O necessary sin of Adam” has been a part of Christian tradition for a long time, so I have to assume it’s not wothout good reason.
My understanding is that the tradition of “O hapoy fault, O necessary sin of Adam” claims redemption produces a higher mode of union with God than remaining innocence would not have provided. But I struggle with the idea that building a stronger relationship with God outweighs the suffering of billions of human lives.
Given that only God knows the end and we don’t, one part of faith is trusting that he knows what he is doing.
If there was no fall, there wouldn’t be “Christianity” because we would simply continue the same Judaic tradition for the simple reason that nobody would reject the Messiah.
If there even would be a Judaic tradition in the first place, given that we would have been in continuous union with God and still partaking in our immortality.