become incarnate?

(4) Whether He became incarnate to take away original sin rather than
actual?

(5) Whether it was fitting for God to become incarnate from the
beginning of the world?

(6) Whether His Incarnation ought to have been deferred to the end of
the world?
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FIRST ARTICLE [III, Q. 1, Art. 1]

Whether It Was Fitting That God Should Become Incarnate?

Objection 1: It would seem that it was not fitting for God to become
incarnate. Since God from all eternity is the very essence of
goodness, it was best for Him to be as He had been from all eternity.
But from all eternity He had been without flesh. Therefore it was
most fitting for Him not to be united to flesh. Therefore it was not
fitting for God to become incarnate.

Obj. 2: Further, it is not fitting to unite things that are
infinitely apart, even as it would not be a fitting union if one were
"to paint a figure in which the neck of a horse was joined to the
head of a man" [*Horace, Ars. Poet., line 1]. But God and flesh are
infinitely apart; since God is most simple, and flesh is most
composite--especially human flesh. Therefore it was not fitting that
God should be united to human flesh.

Obj. 3: Further, a body is as distant from the highest spirit as evil
is from the highest good. But it was wholly unfitting that God, Who
is the highest good, should assume evil. Therefore it was not fitting
that the highest uncreated spirit should assume a body.

Obj. 4: Further, it is not becoming that He Who surpassed the
greatest things should be contained in the least, and He upon Whom
rests the care of great things should leave them for lesser things.
But God--Who takes care of the whole world--the whole universe of
things cannot contain. Therefore it would seem unfitting that "He
should be hid under the frail body of a babe in swathing bands, in
comparison with Whom the whole universe is accounted as little; and
that this Prince should quit His throne for so long, and transfer the
government of the whole world to so frail a body," as Volusianus
writes to Augustine (Ep. cxxxv).

_On the contrary,_ It would seem most fitting that by visible things
the invisible things of God should be made known; for to this end was
the whole world made, as is clear from the word of the Apostle (Rom.
1:20): "For the invisible things of God . . . are clearly seen, being
understood by the things that are made." But, as Damascene says (De
Fide Orth.