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Wiki MarkupWhat does it mean to say that, "though \ [the Incarnation\] came later than the fall, \ [it\] was in God's purpose before it" (Maurice)?

To answer this question, one first has to ask what God's purpose is. God's purpose, in my understanding, is to create and to consummate all things in order thereby to realize as fully as possible God's own literally infinite potentiality for self-creation. In all its essential aspects, this purpose cannot possibly be defeated, or even frustrated, since its realization in these aspects depends solely on God's own unbegun and unending creation of Godself in and through the creation and self-creation of God's creatures. But God's purpose very definitely can be frustrated and even defeated in its accidental aspects, since in these aspects its realization also depends, in part, on the self-creations of God's creatures, all of which, precisely as creatures, have a beginning and an end. With this distinction in mind, one can appreciate the truth in Maurice's claim that "the fall did not in the least frustrate the scheme of God," even while precluding the error to which this claim, left unqualified, is exposed -- the error, namely, of making the fall and its consequences appear to be of no significance for God.

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