There have been, I think, Franciscan theologians who held that Christ did not have to die on the Cross or at all, that the Incarnation would have been enough. There have been different theological attempts to explain how human salvation was won by Christ, arguments about "atonement" vs. "redemption." None of them exhausts the reality, which remains a mystery beyond our understanding.
Calvinism, it seems to me (and I grant that all I know of Calvinism I've learned on FR), seems to try to fit everything into a two-dimensional diagram, like the schematic of a car's electrical system, completely amenable to human understanding, no matter what has to be lopped off or ignored to make it fit . . .
As I say, this is just my impression from FR, my only source.
“”There have been, I think, Franciscan theologians who held that Christ did not have to die on the Cross or at all, that the Incarnation would have been enough.””
You’re correct.(Blessed Johns Duns Scotus come to mind). We must realize that God did not have to do anything at all since we are not deserving in the first place and since sin is no fault of God.
The late Fr William Most wrote about this.
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/most/getwork.cfm?worknum=160
“He could have been content with the incarnation in a palace since, again, any act of an Infinite Person is infinite in value. But the Father wanted not only to be able to forgive, but to forgive lavishly. (The priest in giving absolution, can wipe out even a lifetime of dreadful sins in a moment: “I absolve you.”) So He went beyond the incarnation in a palace, to the stable, beyond an incarnation with only a prayer, to the horrible death of the cross. The first thing Jesus had to say to His Apostles when He first came after His resurrection was “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them.” He had just paid a terrible price for that forgiveness. He could hardly wait, we might say, to make that concretely possible.
....So immense was the love of the Father and the Son that as long as there was any way to make things more rich for our race, and more rich for objective goodness, it seems He would not stop short of using it. He could have, as we said, used any religious act done by any ordinary person for the whole of redemption, though it would be finite.”-Fr William Most
“”Calvinism, it seems to me (and I grant that all I know of Calvinism I’ve learned on FR), seems to try to fit everything into a two-dimensional diagram, like the schematic of a car’s electrical system, completely amenable to human understanding, no matter what has to be lopped off or ignored to make it fit””
That is an outstanding analogy,my friend