Could Mary have sinned?

[Servant of the Secret Fire]

Oooops Clicked the wrong option. Just typical that my first post after lurking around for a while has to be to correct an embarrassing mistake like that.

I meant to vote "Yes".

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Servant of the Secret Fire' post='1420929' date='Nov 17 2007, 07:46 AM']Oooops Clicked the wrong option. Just typical that my first post after lurking around for a while has to be to correct an embarrassing mistake like that.

I meant to vote "Yes".[/quote]
awesome screen name!

[Servant of the Secret Fire]

[quote name='Laudate_Dominum' post='1420936' date='Nov 17 2007, 02:21 PM']awesome screen name![/quote]

Thanks

[Justin86]

Free will, our ability to choose good or evil, is something God gave to all of His creatures above that of animals. By freely choosing for or against God, these privileged creatures alone are capable of being most pleasing to Him as a robot can not freely love his master since that affection has merely been programmed into it. Because, however, as long as free will is open in a creature there remains the possibility of him changing his mind, thereby making him an unstable creatures, God deemed that this free will be set after a period of time which differs for these creatures depending on whether they come from the human or angelic race.

For the angels, the exact how of their creation is not known. However, what is known is that they were given free will upon their creation. Privileged to see the Beatific Vision from the first moment of their existence, these creatures were tempted to choose for or against God after they were told that the Second Person of the Trinity would become man, and that the all the angels were to bow before Him, now truly God and truly Man. Led by Lucifer, only a third of the angels rejected God's demands, and God called upon the Archangel Michael to throw these angels out of Heaven and into a place without God called Hell. From then on the angelic free will was set. Angels, fallen or in Heaven, cannot change their minds for or against God. Their time to choose had been given, and it was made.

Moving on to us humans, in Western Christian theology God created the first man (named Adam), and the first woman (named Eve) with original innocence, meaning with no blemish of, or desire to sin, on their souls. Endowed with free will, God gave Adam and Eve one commandment: not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil located in the middle of the garden they were given as their home called Eden. One day a serpent, believed to be Lucifer, tempted Eve to eat the fruit of this Tree which she did, choosing against God. She then gave this fruit to Adam who also ate it thereby committing the first human sin. As punishment, God kicked them out of Eden, and Adam was condemned to till the fields while Eve was made to have labor pains during childbirth, and death for both was proclaimed to eventually happen. On top of this Adam and Eve were plagued with evil desires telling them to further choose against God throughout their lives. Because of Adam's sin, all of his descents share in the guilt of this act, as well as the consequences. This guilt, which all possess, is what is known as "original sin".

Because God was to later take upon flesh in Jesus Christ and die for our sins thereby giving us the option of entering Heaven, our free will was not set after our first temptation. Instead we humans have a choice of for or against God that can be made and reversed at anytime before death. It is at death that the human free will is set, and our time to choose is over, never to be changed again for the rest of eternity.

As the examples of God's workings with both angels and humans clearly shows, our capacity to sin (i.e. the ability to choose evil) is not the result of any sinful action nor does it in any way make us displeasing to God. Obviously, Adam and Eve had the capacity to sin before the fall, otherwise how could they have sinned? Scripture says after God created man he declared him to be "good". If the capacity to sin makes us in any way sinful man, upon his creation, could not have been good, and saying otherwise therefore doubts in the Infinite Goodness of God. Therefore, it is a consequence of our free will, not original sin, that our capacity to sin is the result of.

Moving on now to the Blessed Virgin, only because Mary was to be the Mother of God (Jesus Christ) were exceptions from original sin offered to her. By a pre-emptive application of the Blood of Christ, Mary, at her conception, was offered to be preserved entirely from the stain of original sin, making her the only pure and holy vessel that could bear the coming God-Man. At this point, one is required to believe that Mary could have sinned and said "No" to God's will. To deny this would be saying Mary never had free will, and is a form of Calvinism.

To my knowledge however, the Church has never declared that the free will of every single human being, including Mary, is set upon death. Therefore, I suppose, one could be permitted to believe that upon the moment [i]after[/i] her conception, Mary's free will was set, and no longer could she choose for or against God. I'm fairly certain however, that one would have to include this as part of Mary's singular grace, and for the rest of us our free will would be set upon death, if it is true of course.

As for myself however, I do not believe that Mary's will was set the moment after her conception. It seems to detract from Mary's achievement in her co-operation with God for our salvation to say it was a one-time decision. Rather it seems much more fitting that this be done continuously throughout her entire life as to give us more of a testimony of the power of God in a human life. Also, I find it interesting in the literal Greek translation given to us by our Aloysius, Gabriel says that Mary was full of grace in the past, and in the present, but absent in his statement is any mention of her future. It would appear that Mary's future co-operation with the Lord was still in question to Gabriel and she deserved no praise for it.

In either case, because saying Mary never had the capacity to sin is a denial of her free will one is basically saying that Mary was nothing more than a robot. She was programmed to do God's will from the start and never had any say in the matter for herself. Doing this lowers Mary dignity to less than an animal as animals cannot sin only because they do not have the faculties necessary to do so, not because of some divine programming inside of them.

Ultimately we are Catholics, and unlike the Calvinists we see nothing Good about a God that programs some to do good, and others to do evil, as if somehow this could be the will of an all-good God. By saying Mary could have never sinned is saying she was incapable of loving God altogether as it her [i]Fiat[/i] would not be her choice, but simply a part of her programming to please her puppet-master deity. If Our Lady truly is the holiest human person, indeed the holiest of all God's creatures, then it is without a doubt that she had to choose not to sin. It is the only way she could have ever reached to the heights of her holiness.

[Anthony]

[quote name='Proud2BCatholic139' post='772735' date='Oct 28 2005, 08:15 AM']No,

what I beleive, is that mary was concieved without original sin.
There fore, she could have never sinned. Pure of heart. She is the Mother of God. As being the mother of God, she was sinless.[/quote]

If Mary could not sin, then she wouldn't have free will. If she had the free will to choose God or reject Him and completely giving herself completely to Him saying yes to His call, it's very clear she could have sinned, but she didn't.

[Anthony]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1420464' date='Nov 16 2007, 02:37 PM']according to these song lyrics, mary did indeed sin.
[url="http://www.actionext.com/names_c/chumbawamba_lyrics/mary_mary.html"]http://www.actionext.com/names_c/chumbawam.../mary_mary.html[/url][/quote]

troll. You're not funny dairygirl. You know better too.

[mortify]

The problem is us lay folk think we can address such mysterious issues without a background in theology and philosophy.

[Apotheoun]

All Christians are theologians.

[ironmonk]

[quote name='scardella' post='772611' date='Oct 28 2005, 12:13 AM']The guy on [url="http://www.catholic.com"]Catholic Answers[/url] this afternoon speculated that Mary only had the free choice between non-sins. He called it passe non piccare. (Is that how you spell it?)

[url="ftp://radio.catholic.com/calive/2005/MP3/ca051027.mp3"]Click here for an MP3 of the Show.[/url] It's about 10 minutes into the show.

His statement bothers me. The Immaculate Conception states that she was born w/out Original Sin. I don't see why it would limit her ability to choose to sin. It would seem that she would have been bound to accept the Announcement by Gabriel if that were the case. The passage in Luke implies this difficulty in making the decision that shouldn't be there if it were not her choice.

Therefore, I think that she was in the same state as Adam and Eve, pre-fall, where she could have sinned, but she did not have the stain of sin, nor the disorder of the passions that Original Sin effects. That sort of understanding may be supplemented by various saints' saying that Mary was the "new Eve."

So, what do YOU think?[/quote]


Mary could not have sinned. If she could have sinned, then she could not be the mother of God.

Christ could not sin, He is God.

Mary could not sin because she had God in her womb and she must remain pure, more pure than the Gold of the Ark of the Covenant. Christ was God and all of His flesh came from Mary. Christ is the Word of God; the Word of God must be kept in something worthy to hold The Word of God.

Some may say "but she was human"... Christ was human too... the objection then might be "but Christ is a different story"... and the answer is "So too Mary is a different story". Mary is "Full of Grace"... Only two people in all of the Scriptures are said to be "Full of Grace"; Jesus and Mary.

Adam and Eve were never said to be full of Grace, to assume that they were would show a misunderstanding of what "Full of Grace" meant. The Grace that Mary had made it impossible for her to sin.


God Bless,
ironmonk

[dairygirl4u2c]

"could mary sin"
this is a vague statement and needs clarified.

there's the *possibility* that she could sin.
then there's the question of whether she could sin and still carry Jesus.

if she had the possibility to sin, the option, but God knew she wouldn't, then there's no problems with her as far as carrying Jesus goes.

[dairygirl4u2c]

also, Mary wouldn't have to inherently be sinnless as if her sins would taint Jesus. this is because Mary's mother was sinful, and Mary was not tainted. as a sinless creature Mary was disrespected, but not tainted. as a sinless creature, then, Jesus too could simply be disrespected but not tainted.

of course, i simply don't think God would disrespect Jesus, but would allow for some disrespect to Mary.

I know that's a loaded statement, disrespect to Mary, but it's the only way I know of being consistent. i welcome alternative solutions to why Mary's mom didn't have to be sinless.

Edited November 20, 2007 by dairygirl4u2c

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1422824' date='Nov 20 2007, 11:44 AM']also, Mary wouldn't have to inherently be sinnless as if her sins would taint Jesus. this is because Mary's mother was sinful, and Mary was not tainted. as a sinless creature Mary was disrespected, but not tainted. as a sinless creature, then, Jesus too could simply be disrespected but not tainted.

of course, i simply don't think God would disrespect Jesus, but would allow for some disrespect to Mary.

I know that's a loaded statement, disrespect to Mary, but it's the only way I know of being consistent. i welcome alternative solutions to why Mary's mom didn't have to be sinless.[/quote]

I'm surprised at how frequently this is overlooked, but here it is: Mary is not God. The Immaculate Conception protected Christ from the taint of sin as he is both human and divine, but Mary didn't need to be protected in the same way because she's only human. Hence, the Immaculate Conception serves to provide us with one model of the sinless state that all humanity was created for in Mary, showing us that one doesn't need to be divine to be without sin, while also pointing towards the uniqueness of Christ, who was divine and therefore sinless.

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='ironmonk' post='1422723' date='Nov 20 2007, 01:34 AM']Adam and Eve were never said to be full of Grace, to assume that they were would show a misunderstanding of what "Full of Grace" meant. The Grace that Mary had made it impossible for her to sin.[/quote]

There are two ways of looking at the question. Obviously God's grace effectively made it impossible for Mary to sin, but Gabriel still appeared to her in order for her to submit to God's will that Christ be conceived in her womb. Of course, she was predestined to be the mother of Jesus anyway, but God didn't remove from her the freedom to make the choice. After all, it's Mary's submission that defeats Eve's rebellion, but that could only happen if Mary made a conscious choice just like Eve did.

So Mary could sin, but then again, she couldn't. Both are correct, and it is ultimately a mystery to us.

[Aloysius]

there was a "fiddler", as it were, between Mary and her parents, so that the defect of original sin in human nature would not be passed from them to her.

God willed, however, that Christ would receive His human body fully and completely from Mary; as Eve had received her body fully and completely from Adam; Christ's flesh had to come wholly and entirely and directly from Mary, so that they could truly be the new Adam and the new Eve.

[dairygirl4u2c]

i don't see how you'd need sinlessness to establish divinity, but you don't need it to establish sinlessness.
other than the fact if it's divine you're going for, you should have it as respect.

on a note. this is all like metaphysics. something we don't know. you can define it as you will. but, i don't see much theological differentiation IMHO.

respect is a decent argument. but is there another distinguishing factor? (saying "bc divine" isn't the factor. divinitiy is the conclusion. ie respect is a reason for sinlessness to establish divinity, but you can't say divinity is a reason for sinlessness to establish divinity)

Edited November 20, 2007 by dairygirl4u2c