Meditiamo ora il mistero dell’ Incarnazione.
Una volta capito di cosa parliamo quando parliamo di Dio, la sua “incarnazione” non è poi un evento cosi sorprendente per una persona con un po’ di sale in zucca:
… It is an obvious general fact about the world that humans not merely suffer but do much wrong. How will a loving God respond to the suffering and wrongdoing of these feeble but partly rational creatures whom he has made? I will argue… that a priori we would expect God to respond to our suffering and wrongdoing by himself living a human life….
Esplicitiamo meglio con un esempio questa dinamica:
Suppose that, my country has been unjustly attacked, and the government has introduced conscription in order to raise an army to defend the country.
All young men between 18 and 30 are ‘called up’ to serve in the army; older men under 50 may volunteer. The government however allows parents of those aged between 18 and 21 to ‘veto’ a call-up. Suppose that I have a 19-year old son; and, although most parents veto their young sons ‘call up’, I refuse to do so because of the gravity of the threat to the country’s independence. Suppose also that I am 45 years old, and so have no legal obligation to serve.
Plausibly since I am forcing my son to endure the hardship and danger of military service, I have a moral obligation to him to volunteer myself. In circumstances of this kind the sharing must not be entirely incognito. The parent needs not merely to share the child’s suffering, but to show him that he is doing so.
Hence it seems to me highly plausible to suppose that, given the amount of pain and suffering which God allows humans to endure, it would be obligatory on God to share a human life of suffering.
This would be achieved by a divine person becoming incarnate as a human and living a life containing much suffering ending with the great crisis which all humans have to face: the crisis of death.
