Page 8 - Week2

Christ took human nature to Himself, which also demonstrates His absolute
supremacy over the material realm. While the Word exists from all eternity, His human
nature began in time with the Incarnation, meaning that matter is not eternal. Hence the
dogma of the Incarnation closes the door to pantheism which is almost always present in
eternal cyclic cosmic visions. The doctrine of Christ the only-begotten Son of the Father
excludes the possibility that any other entity is also begotten by the Father. Hence the
cosmos does not have the status of a begotten entity, but is in a very real sense put in its
place: ‘In the Christian perspective the exaltedness of the universe remained intact as it is
lowered through that infinite distance which is between Creator and Creature’. The
expression that Christ and the Holy Spirit are one in substance with the Father also ex-
cludes the idea that the cosmos could enjoy this privilege. St Paul transfers to Christ and
His Church the concepts of body and fulness (Col 1:15–20) as a bolster against
pantheism. The doctrine that the work of creation is carried out through Christ is a shield
against the Gnostic error that the cosmos emanated from God.
The doctrine of Christ, true God and true Man, safeguards those truths concerning the
nature of the human person. St Ambrose, St Jerome, and St Gregory Nazianzen affirmed
against Apollinaris of Laodicea that Christ’s human nature included a human soul using the
well-known axiom “what is not assumed is not saved”. Christ must have had a human soul
as this guaranteed the continuity of His human nature between Good Friday and Easter
Sunday and in particular for the descent into hell, which the Creed affirms. The
completeness of Christ’s human nature is thus also an affirmation that the nature of all
human beings consists of body and soul. The doctrine that Christ assumed a human
nature like ours in all things but sin, strongly reinforces the goodness and dignity of the
human being: Human nature, by the very fact that it was assumed, not absorbed, in Him,
has been raised in us also to a dignity beyond compare. For, by His Incarnation, He, the
Son of God, has in a certain way united Himself with each man. Christ thus reveals the
fullness of truth concern the human person: He “reveals man to himself”.
The Incarnation of the Word is also a guarantee of purpose and Providence within the
cosmos. The Christian approach excludes an idea of Providence which is merely fate as in
pagan systems, or the impersonal cosmic force featured in science fiction. Instead, purpose
is rooted in the economy of salvation of the Father who has revealed Himself in the Son
and guides us in the power of His Holy Spirit. Cosmic meaning is rooted in the Providence
of God’s plan as it has specifically been revealed to us in Christ: “He has let us know the
mystery of His purpose, the hidden plan He so kindly made in Christ from the beginning to
act upon when the times had run their course to the end” (Ep 1:9–10). Thus there is no
longer a possibility of a fatalistic, chaotic or chance vision of cosmic events.

Thanks to the Word, the world of creatures appears as a “cosmos”, an ordered
universe. And it is the same Word who, by taking flesh, renews the cosmic order of
creation.

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