The Love of God
This is a subject that I have pondered for some time, occasionally aloud, and one which came to mind once again during this time of reflection during the Triduum.
The first question I ask is this;
We express our realization that the Incarnation of the second person of the Holy Trinity, his life, ministry, death and resurrection were all done out of love for us, to redeem us from the situation that we are in because of the sin of Adam and Eve.
The Question: If Adam and Eve had not sinned would Jesus have incarnated to become one of us?
In other words, was this a plan B, so to speak? Did God not love Adam and Eve as much as he loves us who are the progeny of their fall? We have no way of knowing this for certain other than to wait for the Beatific Vision and ask Jesus, and should we make it that far, would it matter to us then anyway, or would we perhaps know the answer without asking?
Thus, we can only speculate, but if I am to state an opinion, I do believe that Jesus, the second person of the Holy Trinity, would have indeed incarnated to become one of us. I think that it was God’s intention all along to love us, feed us, nurture us into maturity and give us an ever increasing measure of his divinity as his most favoured creation, becoming one with us by becoming one of us, eternally bound to us as human beings.
There is some hint of this in apocryphal writings but it seems reasonable speculation that the problem that Lucifer had, the greatest of all the angels, the angel of light, actually the greatest of God’s creations to that point; the problem that he had was that he was informed of God’s plan for humanity and was jealous of his status as the greatest creature ever made, because God intended to divinize human beings and dwell with them in Holy Communion by coming down to meet us at our level while raising us up toward him. This would effectively displace Lucifer and like all the angels he was expected to serve man. “Non servium” was his answer and he got busy corrupting humanity as quickly as possible.
What seems to me to be evidence of this was the fact that in order to sustain themselves, Adam and Eve ate of the tree of life in the middle of the garden. From our distance we have no data to indicate whether this was a real tree or is a metaphor, but I don’t think that matters. There is no reason it could not have been an actual tree. The point was that Adam and Eve were in communion with God. Their everlasting life was sustained in their innocent state by God. This is the relationship that he wants with us. He wants us to be in communion, in dependence upon him for our life, for our sustenance and that life was eternal.
We can see that the same theme is present throughout Scripture as individuals in the Old Testament have faith in God and depend on him for their very next meal and he rewards their faith with miracles. Even when the people of God were complaining, as in the desert, he provided for them with manna from heaven, asking them to take only what they needed for that day and no more. Why? Because he wanted them to realize that their very lives depended upon him. He wanted them to have that simple child-like faith for the next day. If they hoarded the manna, the next day it was spoiled and no longer good to eat. He wanted, just as a mother with newborns in all of the mammal kingdom sustains the life of her offspring from herself, the food her own body produces; he wanted us to depend on him in the closeness of that offspring, feeding from him.
Later we see in the New Covenant, that again, we are sustained, we are given life by eating the very body of Christ and drinking his blood. That is how we abide in him and he in us. That is the communion that God wants with us. That is the restoration of the Garden of Eden that sustains us in the Kingdom and brings us to the final new heaven and new earth.
So then, does it not seem likely that a God who would love us despite our sin and reach down to redeem us back to himself; does it seem likely that God would have brought Adam and Eve even closer to himself and would have incarnated to draw closer to them and their children? I think so.