I that the Incarnation would have happened even if our first parents had not sinned.
- Lisa
That's a bit hard for me to take in.
Could anyone elaborate please?
Theory of Incarnation:
-Jesus Christ was absolutely predestined for grace and glory in His Incarnation quite apart from any question of sin. The elect (men and angels) were chosen and predestined in Him by an eternal decree. And this before the universe had been created.
Supporters of this:
-St. Maximus the Confessor: Christ was always destined to come
-St. Francis De Sales: The primary reason for the Incarnation is that God might communicate Himself outside Himself. Communication of God ad extra. From all eternity, God saw that the most excellent way to do this was to unite Himself to some created nature. The Incarnation is the ultimate self-communication of God to man. Therefore God willed it for His sake, to pour Himself out into creation.
-St. Albert the Great: In his Sentences, he says that Christ would have come, despite sin.
Scotus:
The absolute primacy of Christ begins with God’s plan. So we can say that it begins from above, and not from below (from man). It begins with God.
-He seeks to see the created world form God’s point of view. And God, he would hold, does not subordinate His eternal decrees to man’s temporal situation. God rather in His goodness, freely wills to create the universe according to a fixed plan.
The key note to Soctus’ system is the word "predestination"
Note the distinction again from a Calvinist predestination:
God has a fixed plan for creation, but man is still free.
For Scotus, the origin of all creation rests on predestination.
Scotus defines Predestination as "An act of divine will which destines (chooses or elects) an intellectual creature to grace and glory."
Predestination is characterized by 2 activities:
1) eternal: the eternal act outside of time. This refers to the intention of God for all eternity.
This specifically refers to the activity of "determining the end." Meaning determining the goal or purpose or final cause of all of God’s activity outside of Himself.
2) Temporal: " The Execution of His foreseen plan in time."
This means the gradual realization of His eternal plan in time.
-Therefore, we have a single plan of predestination with 2 activities that bring it about.
Intention and execution.
The intention which God freely chooses from eternity always precedes the execution of His intention in time.
The predestination is the positive act of the divine will which destines a rational creature to grace and glory. This refers first to Jesus Christ in his humanity, and also to all the saints and angels. Scotus will say therefore, it follows that there is a primacy of the will, that is, a primacy of charity in God. (Keynote of Franciscan thesis, from Bonaventure: Love is primary to God). Scotus doesn’t downplay the importance of the intellect, but does highlight the importance of love.
For Scotus predestination is absolute, not relative, meaning that it is not relative to any created need or circumstance. Rather it is based on God’s own intrinsic goodness and moving creatures to himself for the optimum grace and glory.
Christ was willed (Incarnation) before the foundation of the world. Jesus is first of all willed for His own sake and not first for man’s sake. In fact, men and angels are created for Him and He for God. Jesus could not be predestined to grace and glory on account of sin....even though he will conquer sin in his mercy. Thus the Incarnation is the supreme work of God ad extra (outside of Himself) and it is not occasioned by sin. This predestination of Christ, of men, and of angels is one simultaneous act. So God destines all of the elect to grace and glory in Jesus Christ.
To Sum up:
In Scotus’s Ordinatio he says:
1) God predestines Christ (in His humanity), saints and angels to glory before any foreseen sin.
2) Predestination is absolute in the intention of God and not based on future needs or sins of creatures.
3) Thirdly that Christ’s absolute predestination could not be "occasioned by sin" or even for the sake of men and angels.
a) After willing the Trinity, the first thing that God wills is the humanity of Jesus.
b) You don’t predestine the height of created glory based on the fall of an inferior creature.
It must be noted that St. Thomas Aquinas did not hold the same position.
