History and Scripture show that ever since Adam and Eve men tend to want a God cut down to their own size: a God fashioned in their own likeness. What they don’t want is a God of infinite perfection who asks them to rise above themselves, above concupiscence and self-love, and strive to be perfect, even as their heavenly Father is perfect.

Men who have a strong tendency to be this way are likely to have difficulty also with the mystery of the Incarnation. Their hearts find it intolerable that an Infinite God should so love the world as to give His only-begotten Son to die in torments for love of us. You understand that what makes this intolerable is the implied obligation of making a like return of love; of putting off the “old Adam” and conforming oneself to Christ the new Adam.