“The grace of God could not be commended in a way more likely to evoke a grateful response, than the way by which the only Son of God, while remaining unchangeably in his own proper being, clothed himself in humanity and gave to man the spirit of his love by the mediation of a man, so that by this love men might come to him who formerly was so far away from them, far from mortals in his immortality, from the changeable in his changelessnes, from the wicked in his righteousness, from the wretched in his blessedness. And because he has implanted in our nature the desire for blessedness and immortality he has now taken on himself mortality, while continuing in his blessedness, so that he might confer on us what our hearts desire; and by his sufferings he has taught us to make light of what we dread.” City of God, Book X.29
What is ultimately offensive and irreconcilable about the Incarnation may not be the metaphysics, the sheer improbability and seeming impossibility that God would become man, but the even more stunning implications about the kind of God who would become man. Who is this God who would subject himself to the vicissitudes of history? What is this uncontrollable mystery marked not primarily by power and might but by humility?
In Book X of City of God Augustine spars with the Neoplatonists, represented primarily by Porphyry. I have to admit that this section was pretty tough going for me. I’m not entirely familiar with Neoplatonism, and though Platonism will always cast a shadow on Western thought for good or for ill, I wasn’t entirely sure where Augustine was going. But a real payoff came in chapter 29 of Book X, where Augustine comes to a truth that is instructive for anyone engaged in evangelism and apologetics.
In this chapter, Augustine asserts that at bottom it is not for philosophical or intellectual reasons that the Neoplatonists reject Christ. Rather it is because Christ’s humility in the Incarnation and Crucifixion are affronts to their pride. Of course the whole of Christ’s life and ministry raises intellectual questions, but for Augustine, the hurdle is not primarily an intellectual one of unanswerable questions, but a spiritual one of utter humility.
This is not to say the Incarnation is not an unfathomable mystery. Of course it is bottomless and beautiful and worthy of our contemplation. Nor is this to say that intellectual objections are empty and therefore should not be addressed, but it is to say that there is often a deeper objection behind the presenting objection, and if that deeper objection is not addressed, intellectual answers, no matter how subtle or seemingly satisfying, cannot win the day. For pride is the final stronghold, the last fortress that must fall in the battle for our affection. To be sure, even when we have turned to Christ, skirmishes will be fought, offensives will be launched from this fortress, for pride resides in our most inward citadel, in the Helm’s Deep of very selves.
Here Augustine is addressing that special form of pride, intellectual pride. Augustine’s target may be the neoplatonist, but it could just as easily be the New Atheist or the materialist or any other such movement that will inevitably come down the pike. But to take the example of the New Atheist, for Dawkins or Hitchens or Harris to acknowledge the hint of the possibility that there is some reality outside of science as they have defined it would be an act of enormous humility. What they have to lose is credibility, platforms, and power, the very things that Christ laid aside in the Incarnation.
In The Lord of the Rings Frodo’s greatest advantage is his seeming inconsequence. As Gandalf says of the quest to destroy the Ring, “Let folly be our cloak, a veil before the eyes of the Enemy! For he is very wise, and weighs all things to a nicety in the scales of his malice. But the only measure that he knows is desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts. Into his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it, that having the Ring we may seek to destroy it. If we seek this, we shall put him out of reckoning.” Humility has its own power because it never occurs to the powerful that anyone would willingly sacrificing power. This willingness, this sacrifice is its own kind of power.
Yet anyone looking at the quest of the ring bearer from the outside would have their doubts. Surely this hobbit cannot matter? Surely the fate of Middle-Earth does not hinge on a halfling? And many looking on the life of Christ have had their doubts. Surely the Christ cannot come from Galilee? Surely the Christ is not a carpenter, born and raised in obscurity? And we pile on our own objections. He never penned a book, never traveled beyond the borders of his occupied country, never directly affronted the occupying powers, never commanded the allegiance of the powerful. But if we would experience the humility of Christ and see its power to overcome darkness, and in seeing acknowledge the latent power of humility to destroy the one thing that seems unassailable, human pride, then we might come to a place of worship and awe, a place of understanding, not where all our questions are answered to our complete satisfaction, but where as Augustine puts it, “he might confer on us what our hearts desire.”