The Incarnation, God's original idea of uniting all creation to himself (Duns Scotus)

 

Unlike many Christian thinkers of the time, Blessed Duns Scotus, who meditated at length on the mystery of the Incarnation, maintained that the Son of God would have become man even if humanity had not sinned.

 

He states in the "Reportata Parisiensa":

"To think that God would have abandoned such a divine plan if Adam had not sinned would be absolutely unreasonable! I therefore say that the fall was not the cause of Christ's predestination and that - even if no one had fallen, neither angel nor man - in this hypothesis Christ would still have been predestined in the same way."[1]

This thought, which is perhaps a little surprising, arose because Duns Scotus believed that the Incarnation of the Son of God was planned from eternity by God the Father in his plan of love; It is the fulfilment of creation, and makes it possible for every creature, in and through Christ, to be filled with grace, and to give thanks and glory to God in eternity.

Even though he was aware that, in reality, because of original sin, Christ redeemed us through his Passion, Death and Resurrection, Duns Scotus reaffirmed that the Incarnation is the greatest and most beautiful work in the whole history of salvation, and that it is not conditioned by any contingent fact, but is God's original idea of ultimately uniting all creation to himself in the person and flesh of the Son.

Source:

Benedict XVI, excerpt from the general audience of 7 July 2010.

[1] Duns Scotus, in III Sent. d. 7, 4.

 

To know more

 

-on Mary in God's plan, in the Marian Encyclopaedia

- on Blessed Duns Scotus (1265-1308)on Mary in God's plan, in the Marian Encyclopaedia

-on the "preventive redemption" of the Virgin Mary (Duns Scotus), in the Marian Encyclopaedia