Another of the last few posts from my Getting Medieval: An Exploration with C S Lewis. Sorry the posts are sporadic – enjoying a wonderful junket in England. Was at the Kilns this afternoon – now back in London. 🙂
Attention to the Incarnation can also renew our sense of the wonders of Creation, as God not only Created the world but also came and participated in it, and in the process gave Creation a renewed dignity. The Incarnation is also, as John of Damascus argued at the Second Nicene Council in 787 (and the church agreed with him and made his position dogma), the warrant for the sacramental understanding of human-made material things such as icons.
First, the Incarnation prevents us once and for all from the temptation to talk about Creation – or any part of creation – as if it were inherently evil. For if it were inherently evil, then God could not have joined himself to it: “It has always been realized in the main tradition of Christianity that if the Word was made flesh, matter can never be regarded as evil in itself.”[1] Darrel Amundsen strengthens the connection by observing that “individuals or groups (e.g., Gnostics, Manicheans, Marcionites) on the periphery of Christianity who conceived of matter as inherently evil also balked at the doctrine of the Incarnation.”[2]
Second, in fact, this raising up of creation was the real and final purpose of the Incarnation. Lewis has this in Perelandra: “All which is not itself the Great Dance was made in order that He might come down into it. In the Fallen World He prepared for Himself a body and was united with the Dust and made it glorious for ever. This is the end and final cause of all creating, and the sin whereby it came is called Fortunate and the world where this was enacted is the centre of worlds. Blessed be He!”
[1] Herbert Butterfield, quoted in Darrel W. Amundsen, Medicine, Society, and Faith in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 332; cited in n. 23.
[2] Amundson, p. 332.
Related articles
- Incarnation and compassion (gratefultothedead.wordpress.com)
- Incarnation and the theological task (gratefultothedead.wordpress.com)
- C S Lewis on the Incarnation: Theosis, “coming down and drawing up,” the Great Dance, and statues coming to life (gratefultothedead.wordpress.com)
- C S Lewis, incarnation and morality: Living what we are, and avoiding the super-spirituality trap (gratefultothedead.wordpress.com)
- “Raiders of the lost Incarnation”: The beginning of the end of my book about C S Lewis and the manifold wisdom of medieval faith (gratefultothedead.wordpress.com)
- C S Lewis: Why value our bodies? Because we can know God ONLY through the senses (gratefultothedead.wordpress.com)
- Q: What do Aslan, St. Francis, and medieval mystery plays have in common? A: The Incarnation. (gratefultothedead.wordpress.com)
- The Incarnation as the medieval “theory of everything” (gratefultothedead.wordpress.com)
Medieval Wisdom for Modern Christians
Grateful to the dead 