A (blessedly?) short week.
THAT THE ASSUMPTION OF HUMAN NATURE WAS MOST SUITED TO THE WORD OF GOD
1 From this it is also clear that the assumption of human nature was outstanding in suitability to the person of the Word. For, if the assumption of human nature is ordered to the salvation of men, if the ultimate salvation of man is to be perfected in his intellective part by the contemplation of the First Truth, it should have been by the Word who proceeds from the Father by an intellectual emanation that human nature was assumed.
2 There especially seems to be, furthermore, a kind of kinship of the Word for human nature. For man gets his proper species from being rational. But the Word is kin to the reason. Hence, among the Greeks “word” and “reason” are called logos. Most appropriately, then, was the Word united to the reasonable nature, for by reason of the kinship mentioned the divine Scripture attributes the name “image” to the Word and to man; the Apostle says of the Word that He is “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15); and the same writer says of man that “the man is the image of God” (1 Cor. 11:7).
3 The Word also has a kind of essential kinship not only with the rational nature, but also universally with the whole of creation, since the Word contains the essences of all things created by God, just as man the artist in the conception of his intellect comprehends the essences of all the products of art. Thus, then, all creatures are nothing but a kind of real expression and representation of those things which are comprehended in the conception of the divine Word; wherefore all things are said (John 1: 3) to be made by the Word. There fore, suitably was the Word united to the creature, namely, to human nature.
Notes Not a wholly convincing argument, but then there are many mysteries (in the proper sense of that word) left to us.
Well, I disagree with the Briggsian comment “Notes Not a wholly convincing argument, but then there are many mysteries (in the proper sense of that word) left to us.”
While I admit that I cannot form a viable concept of HOW the Incarnation is what it is I can readily “see” that the Incarnation perfectly accords with the nature and purpose of Creation; namely the absolute perfection of the most sublime Gift of ultimate Life, Intellect and Will manifest in an infinite Act of Justice and Mercy. i.e. Why the Second Person became the Man.
(I think it’s more than weird to say “why Jesus became Man” as though Jesus somehow preexisted the Man. Jesus IS the Man in whom the Second Person of the Triune God is Incarnate. He really is a man “like us in all things but sin” Who had a physical beginning like all the rest of us. Perhaps the Mischief has much in his bag of tricks to confuse, or deceive, the unwary).
Pingback: Summary Against Modern Thought: Jesus & The Nature Of Man – William M. Briggs