Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas on the Motive of the Incarnation

Abstract

ALBERT THE GREAT AND THOMAS AQUINAS ON THE MOTIVE OF THE INCARNATION BOTH PRE-CHALCEDONIAN and post-Chalcedonian Christology focused on the relationship between humanity and divinity in the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. Roman Catholic Christology has always devoted attention to the " person " of Christ, to his ontological " make-up " which is the ultimate source of his activity. If we look at the development of Christology in the Middle Ages, it becomes clear that intense study was given to this issue.1 One of the significant contributions of Thomas Aquinas to Christology touches on this same topic.2 There is, however, another issue which was important for medieval Christology: not the nature of the Incarnation or the mode of union, but the purpose or motive of the Incarnation. This question may not have been the primary Christological concern of the Middle Ages, but it was a question which medieval theologians pondered 3 and which was significant both in 1 A valuable study in this regard is Walter Principe's four volumes on the theology of the hypo&tatic union in the early thirteenth century: William of Auxerre?s Theology of the Hypostatic Union (1963); Alexander of Halea's Theology of the Hypoatatie Union (1967); Hugh of Saint-Cher's Theology of the Hypostatic Union (1970); Philip the Chancellor's Theology of the Hypostatic Union (1975) ; all published by the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Toronto. 2 ST, III, qq. lil-6, written toward the end of Thomas's second Parisian regency, and especially q. 17, written after De unione Verbi lnearnati, constitute Thomas's contribution to and discussion of the mode of the Incarnation, See James Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d' Aquino (Garden City: Doubleday, 1974), pp. 307-815. 8 For further discussion of the history of this question, see Rudolf Haubst, (' Das hoch-und- spiitmittelalterliche 'Cur Deus homo?'" Miinchener Theologische Zeitschrift (1955), 302-303. Also Robert North, Teilhard and the Creation of the Soul (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1967), pp. 139-161. Whether there would have been an Incarnation if man had not sinned is a question primarily discussed within Latin theology during the high and late 5~3 524 DONALD GOERGEN, O.P. late medieval thought and in the Christology of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. The issue was expressed as follows : would God have become incarnate if man had not sinned? Would there be any ' reason ' for the Incarnation if there had been no need of redemption? Was the intention of God in becoming man to redeem humankind from sin, so that there would have been no Incarnation if there had not been sin? But, if there is ' more ' to the Incarnation than the goal of redemption, in what does this 'more' consist? Of course, in one sense, there is no way to answer such a question . Any response can easily become a faulty, speculative tendency to ' read the mind of God.' Can we know what God had in mind in becoming incarnate? Man can know that God became incarnate and that the Incarnation was redemptive, but can we know anything more than that? As Thomas Aquinas rightly points out, we can only know through what God has chosen to reveal to us. Does his revelation then tell us anything concerning this question? In the end, it is a question of what the Scriptures say, and it is in the interpretation of Scripture that different opinions emerge. Middle Ages. An exception seems to have been Isaac of Nineveh, 700 A.D. As North points out, Rupert of Deutz, c. 1100, raises the question, and Alexander of Hales, c. moo, does so as well. Albert the Great gives his opinion in the early thirteenth century. Robert Grosseteste agrees with Albert. Bonaventure, however, takes the opinion contrary to that of Albert, as does Thomas Aquinas. Alexander, Albert, Robert Grosseteste, generally represent the opinion later attributed to Duns Scotus. Bonaventure and Thomas maintain the opinion associated with Thomas. Theologians of the half century after Thomas accepted the opinion of Albert, e.g., Matthew of Aquasparta, Raymond Lull, Peter of Auvergne, William of Ware, Duns Scotus. John of St. Thomas and Cajetan later defended the view of Thomas. But Ambrose Catharinus and Giacomo Nacchianti, both Dominicans...