Why Did Christ Come? Or When Theology Needs a Dunce Cap
In all the fevered debate about the atonement in recent years, it has become increasingly clear that the heart of this issue is the question Anselm raised in his book Cur Deus Homo? (Why God Become Man?). What was God’s motivation in the sending of his Son to become one of us? The traditional answer in the West has been that Christ came as God’s answer to human sin. Though most would resist the claim that this makes the Incarnation a sort of “Plan B” in God’s purposes and, thus, not his original plan and purpose, it seems difficult to avoid this conclusion. There is, however, a way around this difficulty. It involves putting on a Dunce Cap. Though the word “dunce” means someone incapable of scholarship, its application in this setting means something very different. ...