Was the incarnation an afterthought?
Readers of this blog may be interested in an article in Christianity Today by Philip Yancey (author of "What's So Amazing About Grace"). His article is titled Ongoing Incarnation...Would Christmas have come even if we had not sinned?
Yancey revisits a debate between 13th century theologians Thomas Aquinas (from Italy) and John Duns Scotus (from Britain): Was Jesus' incarnation an accommodation to human failure or was it the center point of all creation? Duns Scotus asserted that the incarnation was the reason for creation itself, not just a correction to the fall.
Agreeing with Duns Scotus, Yancey muses: "Perhaps God spun off this vast universe for the singular purpose of sharing life and love, intending all along to join its very substance."
I think Duns Scotus and Yancey are correct, though I would describe the original plan as adoption (Eph. 1:5), which, in turn, is worked out through creation (Genesis 1) and then through incarnation (John 1:14) to which was added Jesus' substitutionary death which was necessitated by the fall. Nothing in heaven or on earth (including human sin) can stand in the way of God's plan to adopt humankind in and through the God-man Jesus.
Click here to read the full article from Yancey. And see the comments posted below that article. This issue brings some controversy as we wrestle to understand more adequately the truth that is in Jesus.
Yancey revisits a debate between 13th century theologians Thomas Aquinas (from Italy) and John Duns Scotus (from Britain): Was Jesus' incarnation an accommodation to human failure or was it the center point of all creation? Duns Scotus asserted that the incarnation was the reason for creation itself, not just a correction to the fall.
Agreeing with Duns Scotus, Yancey muses: "Perhaps God spun off this vast universe for the singular purpose of sharing life and love, intending all along to join its very substance."
I think Duns Scotus and Yancey are correct, though I would describe the original plan as adoption (Eph. 1:5), which, in turn, is worked out through creation (Genesis 1) and then through incarnation (John 1:14) to which was added Jesus' substitutionary death which was necessitated by the fall. Nothing in heaven or on earth (including human sin) can stand in the way of God's plan to adopt humankind in and through the God-man Jesus.
Click here to read the full article from Yancey. And see the comments posted below that article. This issue brings some controversy as we wrestle to understand more adequately the truth that is in Jesus.