I have often wondered whether, if Adam and Eve had not sinned, God would still have become man in Christ Jesus. Can you help me?
We are pondering here what God might have done had Adam and Eve not sinned. We know that they did sin and that God became man to reconcile us with him. The Catechism is very clear on this: “The Word became flesh for us in order to save us by reconciling us with God, who ‘loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins: The Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the world,’ and ‘he was revealed to take away sins’” (CCC 457; 1 Jn 4:10; 4:14; 3:5).
We profess this truth in the Nicene Creed: “For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven.”
But what God would have done if there had been no original sin we cannot possibly know unless he chose to reveal it and, as far as we know, he has not done so. Therefore, it is left to theologians to speculate about the answer. And they have speculated.
We can start with arguably the greatest theologian of all time, the Dominican St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). In his masterful Summa Theologiae he addresses that very question: “Whether, if man had not sinned, God would have become incarnate” (IIIa, q. 1, art. 3).
He writes that in his day there was a difference of opinion among theologians: “There are different opinions about this question. For some say that even if man had not sinned, the Son of Man would have become incarnate. Others assert the contrary, and seemingly our assent ought rather to be given to this opinion.”
He explains his reasons for thinking that God would not have become incarnate: “For such things as spring from God’s will, and beyond the creature’s due, can be made known to us only through being revealed in the Sacred Scripture, in which the Divine Will is made known to us. Hence, since everywhere in the Sacred Scripture the sin of the first man is assigned as the reason of the Incarnation, it is more in accordance with this to say that the work of the Incarnation was ordained by God as a remedy for sin; so that, had sin not existed, the Incarnation would not have been.”
But St Thomas goes on to say: “Yet the power of God is not limited to this; even had sin not existed, God could have become incarnate.” In another of his writings, St Thomas concedes that this opinion has merit. In his commentary on the Sentences he writes: “Others indeed say that since through the Incarnation of the Son of God is accomplished not only the liberation from sin, but also the exaltation of human nature and perfection of the whole universe, the Incarnation would have come about because of these reasons even if there were no sin; and this can be sustained as probable” (In Sent., d. 1, a. 3, resp.).
An eminent theologian of St Thomas’ time, although a little later, who takes this side is the Franciscan Blessed John Duns Scotus (1265-1308). Scotus maintained that the motive of the Incarnation was to establish the universal primacy of Christ. He based his argument particularly on the letters of St Paul to the Colossians and the Ephesians.
For example, “He [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in him were created all things in heaven and on earth …; all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. … He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he himself might be preeminent” (Col 1:15-18).
Scotus argued that it would be an inversion of values to assert that God became man as a remedy for sin. Rather he became man to exalt man, to be the first-born, the centre, of all creation, even if he also came to redeem us.
In summary, we cannot really know what God would have done. There are eminent theologians on both sides of the question. We can choose whichever opinion we like.