Here is the text from Pope Benedict's audience address of 9th December:
Like other theologians of the Middle Ages, Rupert also asked: why was the Word of God, the Son of God, made man? Some, many, responded, explaining the incarnation of the Word with the urgency of repairing the sin of man. Rupert on the other hand, with a christocentric vision of the history of salvation, enlarged the perspective, and in a work of his entitled "The Glorification of the Trinity" held the position that the Incarnation, the central event of all history, was foreseen from all eternity, even independently of the sin of man, so that all creation could give praise to God the Father and love Him as a unique family gathered around Christ, the Son of God. He therefore saw in the pregnant woman of the apocalypse the whole history of humanity which is oriented to Christ, just as conception is oriented to birth; a perspective which would be developed by other thinkers and enriched also by contemporary theology, which affirms that the whole history of the world and of humanity is a conception oriented to the birth of Christ.
The thesis that the incarnation was predestined even apart from sin is usually attributed to the Blessed John Duns Scotus who defended it against the Dominicans; it is often called the "Franciscan Thesis". It is fascinating that a Benedictine theologian, writing a century and a half earlier, promoted the same perspective on the incarnation. It is an inspiring thesis; more so than the "plan B" thesis: that the Incarnation was God's intervention because of human sin. Of course, the Incarnation did deal with sin but it is the nature of the Second Person of the Trinity as the Word to express God's love and to go out into the creation of which he was the agent. John Maquarrie called this "expressive being." The Immuculate conception becomes, not just the beginning of the definitive moment in salvation history, but the expression of God's creativity moving towards fulfillment.
Like other theologians of the Middle Ages, Rupert also asked: why was the Word of God, the Son of God, made man? Some, many, responded, explaining the incarnation of the Word with the urgency of repairing the sin of man. Rupert on the other hand, with a christocentric vision of the history of salvation, enlarged the perspective, and in a work of his entitled "The Glorification of the Trinity" held the position that the Incarnation, the central event of all history, was foreseen from all eternity, even independently of the sin of man, so that all creation could give praise to God the Father and love Him as a unique family gathered around Christ, the Son of God. He therefore saw in the pregnant woman of the apocalypse the whole history of humanity which is oriented to Christ, just as conception is oriented to birth; a perspective which would be developed by other thinkers and enriched also by contemporary theology, which affirms that the whole history of the world and of humanity is a conception oriented to the birth of Christ.
The thesis that the incarnation was predestined even apart from sin is usually attributed to the Blessed John Duns Scotus who defended it against the Dominicans; it is often called the "Franciscan Thesis". It is fascinating that a Benedictine theologian, writing a century and a half earlier, promoted the same perspective on the incarnation. It is an inspiring thesis; more so than the "plan B" thesis: that the Incarnation was God's intervention because of human sin. Of course, the Incarnation did deal with sin but it is the nature of the Second Person of the Trinity as the Word to express God's love and to go out into the creation of which he was the agent. John Maquarrie called this "expressive being." The Immuculate conception becomes, not just the beginning of the definitive moment in salvation history, but the expression of God's creativity moving towards fulfillment.
