iv] Some Implications of the Incarnation 133 



entering into complete union with Christ 1 . In such a 

 view there is nothing docetic, nothing unreal. In keno- 

 sis and identification alike it is the Will of Christ which 

 supplies the motive power. 



Now if Christ's Human Nature was perfect, there must 

 have been somewhere a break with the normal human 

 inheritance in order that the heritage of disability might 

 be escaped. And this leads us to the question of the 

 Virgin Birth. 



No doubt some other means might have been chosen, 

 though it is hard to see what that means could have 

 been. 



No doubt it is true that the whole matter is a mystery 

 which we cannot solve. But it does at least seem con- 

 gruous that the Divine nature of Christ should have been 

 emphasised, and that the break with the tradition of 

 disability should have been symbolised, by a miraculous 

 and Divine Generation, in which the Human and Divine 

 aspects are visible equally. Whether the Virgin Birth 

 was a fact or a pious interpretation is an altogether 

 different problem, which can, I think, only be solved 

 on the. grounds of historical evidence. But of its con- 

 gruity there can be no question. The birth of Christ 

 must in some sense have been miraculous if He was 

 God and if there is any truth in our contention that 

 original sin, even in the sense of inherited disability, is 

 a real thing. The Virgin Birth seems to emphasise this 

 truth, and point to the miracle, in a way which lays 

 stress on just the points that need stress. Anyhow, as 

 we have said, our object is to establish the congruity of 

 the miraculous conception, not its actuality. On the 

 latter point it would be impertinent to dogmatise, con- 

 sidering what divided opinions are held by scholars. 

 What it symbolises is the important thing, not the mode 



1 Evolution and the Need of Atonement, and the present work, 

 passim. 



