Also, why not simply forgive? Cur Deus homo?

"formerly, when nothing at all existed, only a nod and an act of will was needed for the creation of the universe.  But when the human being had once been made, and necessity required the healing, not for things that were not [(τὰ μὴ ὄντα, as in 1 Cor 1:28)], but for things that had come to be, it followed that the healer and Savior had to come among those who had already been created, to heal what existed. . . .  For it was not non-existent things [(τὰ οὐκ ὄντα)] that needed salvation, so that a command alone would have sufficed, but the human being, already in existence, who was corrupted and perishing."

     St. Athanasius, On the incarnation 44, trans. John Behr (Popular patristics series 44a (Yonkers, NY:  St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2011), 145, 147).