Why Did the Son of God Become Man?

WHY DID THE SON OF GOD BECOME MAN? IT IS PERHAPS not altogether otiose to broach-yet again -one of the most famous questions in theology: if Adam had not sinned, would the Son of God have become man?.1 In the present article I wish just to take a closer look at the "Thomist" view in the light of recent (and not so recent) criticisms . We shall therefore leave out of account such questions as, Does it matter anyway? or Who cares?.2 I shall also not be discussing the existence of Adam! I To the best of my knowledge, the first writer to ask himself this question was Irenaeus.3 Adv. Haer. 5,14 is devoted to proving that if our flesh had not needed saving, Christ would not have assumed it. He is combatting heretics who denied the reality of Christ's body. Irenaeus replies that if Christ has not taken on :flesh and blood he could not have redeemed us (PG 7,1160-1163) . But he also states explicitly: If there were no flesh to save, the Word of God would never have become flesh. (1161) 1 Some recent literature on the subject: R. Garrigou-Lagrange, "De motivo incarnationis," Acta Acad. Pont. Rom. S. Thornae 10 (1944), 7-45; J. F. Bonnefoy, "La question hypothetique," Rev. Esp. T~ol. 14 (1954), 827-868; P. De Letter, "If Adam had not sinned," ITQ 28 (1961), 115-125; G. Martelet, "Sur le motif de l'incamation," in Problemes actuels de christologie, ed. Bouesse-Latour (Paris: Descleee de Brouwer, 1965), 85-80; G. Tessarolo, La necessitd dell'incarnazione presso Vasquez, Theology Dissertation at the Gregorianum, (Rome 1942). D. J. Unger, "The Love of God the primary reason for the incarnation according to Isaac of Nineveh," Franc. Stud. 9 (1949), 148-155; "Robert Grosseteste on the reasons for the incarnation," ibid., 16 (1956), 1-86; E. Doyle, "John Duns Scotus and the Place of Christ," Clergy Review 57 (1972), 667-675. 2 According to E. Mascall, The Importance of Being Human, (London: Oxford University Press, 1959), 92-98: "The controversy is largely an academic one." • Many of the historical data are given by Martelet, op. cit., 46-60. 288 WHY DID THE SON OF GOD BECOME MAN? 289 Irenaeus was writing about the year 180. Sixty or seventy years later, Origen asked himself the same question.4 " As long as there is sin," he says, " sacrifice must be made. But just suppose there were no sin: if there had never been sin, there would have been no need for the Son of God to be made the Lamb (of sacrifice), and he would not have needed to be slaughtered in the flesh; he would have remained what he was in the beginning, God the Word." Athanasius 5 and John Chrysostom 6 followed Origen in the East. In the West, Augustine taught the same doctrine. In Sermo 174 7 he states categorically: If man had not perished, the Son of Man would not have come. The Gloss has the famous phrase, " Tolle morbos, toile vulnera, et nulla est medicinae causa." 8 We find the same doctrine in Cyril of Alexandria,9 Leo the Great,10 Gregory/1 and others. In the Middle Ages, however, voices of protest began to be raised. The Fathers, particularly the Greeks, had often put as a motive of the incarnation the deification or adoption of man, almost, it would seem, apart from the fact of sin. The first, however, to answer our question explicitly in the affirmative was Honorius of Autun (died after 1130) who said that the first man's sin was the cause, not of the incarnation but of death and damnation. The incarnation came about because God had predestined man to deification.12 Similar theories were expounded by Rupert of Deutz/3 Alexander of Hales 14 and Albert the Great.15 Alexander of Hales, for •In Num. hom. ~4, 1, PG 1~, 756 (Enchir. Patr. Rouet 49~). 5 Adv. Arianos Or. ~. 56 (R ~65). 6 In Heb. hom. 5, 1, (R 1~18). 1 R 1517. 8 Quoted by S. Thomas, Summa Theol., III, q. 1, a. 3, sed contra. Cf. Augustine, Enchiridion...