Could Mary have sinned?

[Cam42]

[quote name='Raphael' date='Oct 30 2005, 12:01 AM']Then during her life, she was not acting out of free will and therefore ceased to be human? If she could not change her mind, then she could not have been choosing freely.  Are you telling me that for the Blessed Virgin, once saved always saved is the reality?
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Again, since merely sufficient grace (gratia mere sufficiens) in its very concept contains the idea of a withholding of consent on the part of free will, and is therefore at the very outset destined to inefficiency (gratia inefficax), the question in its last analysis reduces itself to the relation between free will and efficacious grace (gratia efficax), [b]which contains the very idea that by it and with it the free will does precisely that which this grace desires should be done.[/b] Mary has effacious grace.

It is by acting WITH the free will that the gratia efficax accomplishes that which is desired. There is no loss of freedom of will, but as I have said before, total cooperation with the will and grace allowed Mary to act in the manner that she did.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Cam42' date='Oct 30 2005, 12:19 AM']Again, since merely sufficient grace (gratia mere sufficiens) in its very concept contains the idea of a withholding of consent on the part of free will, and is therefore at the very outset destined to inefficiency (gratia inefficax), the question in its last analysis reduces itself to the relation between free will and efficacious grace (gratia efficax), [b]which contains the very idea that by it and with it the free will does precisely that which this grace desires should be done.[/b] Mary has effacious grace.

It is by acting WITH the free will that the gratia efficax accomplishes that which is desired.  There is no loss of freedom of will, but as I have said before, total cooperation with the will and grace allowed Mary to act in the manner that she did.
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Then how did Eve change her mind?

If Mary was unable to reject this grace at any point along her natural life, then she was being driven by grace, not cooperating freely with it.

[qfnol31]

I think, Micah, that Cam is arguing that if one is Immaculately Conceived, she could not have sinned, but not not in the sense that she did not have the capacity, but if she had sinned it would have taken away the Immaculate Conception?

I think that's right. I'm pretty sure that to get a further explanation might cause more confusion...this is why I like philosophy in the background.

Anyways, if you read the first question, it reads as though it's a question about the capacity to sin, which is what everyone has been arguing about, right?

[Cam42]

[quote name='Raphael' date='Oct 30 2005, 12:24 AM']Then how did Eve change her mind?

If Mary was unable to reject this grace at any point along her natural life, then she was being driven by grace, not cooperating freely with it.
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Mary is not Eve. Mary is the NEW Eve.

It isn't that Mary wasn't unable to reject this grace. She freely accepted it and therefore did not need to reject it. You are assuming that Mary is coming from the position of all humans. She does not. She was excluded from having original sin. She was able from the moment of her conception to be able to freely accept all the grace that God bestowed upon her.

This was also spoken to earlier.

The reason that she could not have sinned is because she was preserved from these defects by God’s grace; from the first instant of her existence she was in the state of sanctifying grace and was free from the corrupt nature original sin brings.

It is not the same as when we are baptized, the relationship of God's Grace to Mary is totally different and unique. It is a characteristic of Mary. It is part of her being. She is not eveloped in it as we are. The sanctifying grace is not given sacramentally, as it is with you and I, but rather it was granted from the moment of conception.

Her will was illumined and supported by this special grace from the moment of her conception. Another way of looking at it, she was endowed with sanctifying grace from the moment of her conception to the moment of her death, unceasingly.

This might seem as though her free will would be in some way compromised, but that could not be farther from the truth. Her free will cooperated completely and fully with God at all times. It was part of the endowment of sanctifying grace. It was freely given and was freely accepted at the moment of conception. Hence the Immaculate Conception.

Incidentally, from the moment of our conception, we are full human beings. This cannot be denied. While we may have the stain of original sin, it doesn't mean that God cannot act in a miraculous way and eleviate that burden. As a matter of fact, he did, once, with Mary. However, when God communicated with Mary it was at the moment of her conception. He said, "You have a choice, Yes or No?" She said YES!!!!!! That yes is vocalized in the Magnificat, but had existed from the moment of her conception.

Mary is the Second Eve. Now let us consider what this implies. Eve had a definite, essential position in the First Covenant. The fate of the human race lay with Adam; he it was who represented us. It was in Adam that we fell; though Eve had fallen, still, if Adam had stood, we should not have lost those supernatural privileges which were bestowed upon him as our first father. Yet though Eve was not the head of the race, still, even as regards the race, she had a place of her own; for Adam, to whom was divinely committed the naming of all things, entitled her "the Mother of all the living", a name surely expressive, not of a fact only, but of a dignity; but further, as she thus had her own general relation to the human race, so again had she her own special place as regards its trial and its fall in Adam. In those primeval events, Eve had an integral share. "The woman, being seduced, was in the transgression." She listened to the Evil Angel; she offered the fruit to her husband, and he ate of it. She co-operated, not as an irresponsible instrument, but intimately and personally in the sin; she brought it about. As the history stands, she was a sine-qua-non, a positive, active, cause of it. And she had her share in its punishment; in the sentence pronounced on her, she was recognised as a real agent in the temptation and its issue, and she suffered accordingly. In that awful transaction there were three parties concerned,-the serpent, the woman, and the man; and at the time of their sentence, an event was announced for the future, in which the three same parties were to meet again, the serpent, the woman, and the man; but it was to be a second Adam and a second Eve, and the new Eve was to be the mother of the new Adam. "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed." The Seed of the woman is the Word Incarnate, and the Woman, whose seed or son He is, is His mother Mary. This interpretation, and the parallelism it involves, seem to me undeniable; but at all events (and this is my point) the parallelism is the doctrine of the Fathers, from the earliest times; and, this being established, we are able, by the position and office of Eve in our fall, to determine the position and office of Mary in our restoration.

St Ireneaus says:

[quote name='Adv. Haer. iii. 22.34']With a fitness, Mary the Virgin is found obedient, saying, 'Behold Thy handmaid, 0 Lord; be it to me according to Thy word.' But Eve was disobedient; for she obeyed not, while she was yet a virgin. As she, having indeed Adam for a husband, but as yet being a virgin . . becoming disobedient, became the cause of death both to herself and to the whole human race, so also Mary, having the predestined man, and being yet a Virgin, being obedient, became both to herself and to the whole human race the cause of salvation.
. . . And on account of this the Lord said, that the first should be last and the last first. And the Prophet signifies the same, saying, 'Instead of fathers you have children.' For, whereas the Lord, when born, was the first-begotten of the dead, and received into His bosom the primitive fathers, He regenerated them into the life of God, He Himself becoming the beginning of the living, since Adam became the beginning of the dying. Therefore also Luke, commencing the line of generations from the Lord, referred it back to Adam, signifying that He regenerated the old fathers, not they Him, into the Gospel of life. And so the knot of Eye's disobedience received its unloosing through the obedience of Mary; for what Eve, a virgin, bound by incredulity, that Mary, a virgin, unloosed by faith.[/quote]

As Eve failed in these virtues, and brought on the fall of the race in Adam, so Mary by means of them had a part in its restoration.

John Henry Cardinal Newman says:

[quote] they declare she co-operated in our salvation not merely by the descent of the Holy Ghost upon her body, but by specific holy acts, the effect of the Holy Ghost within her soul; that, as Eve forfeited privileges by sin, so Mary earned privileges by the fruits of grace; that, as Eve was disobedient and unbelieving, so Mary was obedient and believing; that, as Eve was a cause of ruin to all, Mary was a cause of salvation to all; that as Eve made room for Adam's fall, so Mary made room for our Lord's reparation of it; and thus, whereas the free gift was not as the offence, but much greater, it follows that, as Eve co-operated in effecting a great evil, Mary co-operated in effecting a much greater good.[/quote]

continued......

[Cam42]

Cardinal Newman goes on to say,

[quote]I have drawn the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, as an immediate inference, from the primitive doctrine that Mary is the Second Eve. . . . If controversy had in earlier days so cleared the subject as to make it plain to all, that the doctrine meant nothing else than that, in fact, in her case the general sentence on mankind was not carried out, and that, by means of the indwelling in her of divine grace from the first moment of her being (and this is all the decree of 1854 has declared), I cannot believe that the doctrine would have ever been opposed; for an instinctive sentiment has led Christians jealously to put the Blessed Mary aside when sin comes into discussion. This is expressed in the well-known words of St. Augustine, All have sinned "except the Holy Virgin Mary, concerning whom, for the honour of the Lord, I wish no question to be raised at all, when we are treating of sins." (de Nat. et Grat. 42);[/quote]

and he also says:

[quote]We, as the children of Adam, are heirs to the consequences of his sin, and have forfeited in him that spiritual robe of grace and holiness which he had given him by his Creator at the time that he was made. In this state of forfeiture and disinheritance we are all of us conceived and born; and the ordinary way by which we are taken out of it is the Sacrament of Baptism.

But Mary never was in this state; she was by the eternal decree of God exempted from it. From eternity, God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, decreed to create the race of man, and, foreseeing the fall of Adam, decreed to redeem the whole race by the Son's taking flesh and suffering on the Cross. In that same incomprehensible, eternal instant, in which the Son of God was born of the Father, was also the decree passed of man's redemption through Him. He who was born from Eternity was born by an eternal decree to save us in Time, and to redeem the whole race; and Mary's redemption was determined in that special manner which we call the Immaculate Conception. It was decreed, not that she should be cleansed from sin, but that she should, from the first moment of her being, be preserved from sin; so that the Evil One never had any part in her. Therefore she was a child of Adam and Eve as if they had never fallen;. . .[/quote]

That is very consistent with what I have been saying all along.

Cardinal Newman also says;

[quote]Now this is fulfilled, not only in our Lord's having taken flesh from her, and being her Son, but moreover, in that she had a place in the economy of Redemption; it is fulfilled in her spirit and will, as well as in her body.... [/quote]

[quote]And so of the great Mother of God, as far as a creature can be like the Creator; her ineffable purity and utter freedom from any shadow of sin, her Immaculate Conception, her ever-virginity-these her prerogatives (in spite of her extreme youth at the time when Gabriel came to her) are such as to lead us to exclaim in the prophetic words of Scripture, both with awe and with exultation, "Thou art the glory of Jerusalem and the joy of Israel; thou art the honour of our people; therefore hath the hand of the Lord strengthened thee, and therefore art thou blessed for ever."[/quote]

And it is precisely because she is free from any shadow of sin that she couldn't sin.....because she was free from it. There was no need for it to enter into her character.

[jmjtina]

Our Lady had free will. And her free will and her entire being was full of grace.

She couldn't have sinned because her free will was perfectly formed and she was full of grace thus being able to do God's Will perfectly.

[ofpheritup]

[quote name='hot stuff' date='Oct 29 2005, 07:15 PM']School is in session.
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DEFINIITELY...
Since we are in "school." I still have an opinion and a question.

The "choice Mary made at her conception."
Is it just me or does anyone else disagree.

I distinctly do not remember my own conception and Mary being human I don't think she would remember her's either. So how could she or anyone else for that matter have an awareness to make a decision?

ps. I had time to think (never a good sign)

If Mary said yes at her conception then why did God send the Angel Gabriel to her to ask her to be the Mother of Jesus. Going with the present mind set shouldn't that have "already been take care of?"

Edited October 30, 2005 by ofpheritup

[jmjtina]

how is it that we are thinking of the brain and human awareness? Our not our souls a different matter? How is it that when we die, even though we are dead, etc, God is able to grant us mercy in a split second (we are free to accept or not accept) when reality tells us that a decision like that takes time to contemplate etc (and probably a counselor) ?

Why are thinking of the realms of this world? Did God not say in scripture that He knew us before we were born? That even though our mothers would forget us, He would not?

How are we to know our mother forgot us? How is he to know us if we aren't even at the "age of reason" to know someone?

I think we are thinking the way of man, and not the way of God. I can agree that Our Lady, the Mother of God made her decision at conception. Bottom line is, she had perfect free will and was thus able to do God's will perfectly.

[DancesforLove]

Ohhhh NO I voted wrong lol.

Yes Mary could have sinned, everyone can sin.

[jmjtina]

as was previously stated:

Could Mary sin? No. She was the Mother of God, she carried the divine Jesus in her womb! It would have been against her character. [b]Was she capable?[/b] Yes, insofar as she was a human, however her choices would always lead to the good, so she would not sin.

[quote]Hippolytus

"[T]o all generations they [the prophets] have pictured forth the grandest subjects for contemplation and for action. Thus, too, they preached of the advent of God in the flesh to the world, his advent [b]by the spotless and God-bearing (theotokos) Mary[/b] in the way of birth and growth, and the manner of his life and conversation with men, and his manifestation by baptism, and the new birth that was to be to all men, and the regeneration by the laver [of baptism]" (Discourse on the End of the World 1 [A.D. 217]). [/quote]


good question ofpheritup. You know what comes to my mind? The fulfillment of scripture. It had to be done to fulfill the prophecy. Also, it's the same as asking as to why did Jesus have to say, "Let your Will not mine be done"? He knew he had to die and it was already "taken care". Why did He say that? Is that the human aspect of it? Verification? Like when we recite our baptimal vows, why do we say it every Easter? Isn't it already taken care of the first time we said it? Or when we say I love you to our beloved? Shouldn't they know the answer to that? Or when we say "Amen" everytime we go to recieve Jesus in the Eucharist, wasn't that already "taken care of" at our First communion?

But we say it over and over again......let me think about this some more!

Edited October 30, 2005 by jmjtina

[Cam42]

[quote name='ofpheritup' date='Oct 30 2005, 02:35 AM']DEFINIITELY...
Since we are in "school."  I still have an opinion and a question.

The "choice Mary made at her conception."
Is it just me or does anyone else disagree.

I distinctly do not remember my own conception and Mary being human I don't think she would remember her's either. So how could she or anyone else for that matter have an awareness to make a decision?

ps.  I had time to think (never a good sign)

If Mary said yes at her conception then why did God send the Angel Gabriel to her to ask her to be the Mother of Jesus. Going  with the present mind set shouldn't that have "already been take care of?"
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I actually spoke to this directly, for you. I know that there was a lot of posting last night and it may have been overlooked in all of the rhetoric.

However, here is what I said, several posts ago:

[quote name='Cam42' date=' Yesterday, 07:47 PM'][b]The term conception does not mean the active or generative conception by her parents. Her body was formed in the womb of the mother, and the father had the usual share in its formation. [i][u]The question does not concern the immaculateness of the generative activity of her parents.[/u][/i][/b] Neither does it concern the passive conception absolutely and simply (conceptio seminis carnis, inchoata), which, according to the order of nature, precedes the infusion of the rational soul. [b]The person is truly conceived when the soul is created and infused into the body. [u]Mary was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin at the first moment of her animation, and sanctifying grace was given to her before sin could have taken effect in her soul.[/u][/b][/quote]

We are not talking about the biological aspect of this. It has no bearing in dogmatic theology. What we are talking about is the moment when the soul is created and infused into the body. It is a simultaneous event, however, it is a distinct event. So, while the nuance is subtle, the nuance is clear. We are not talking about the carnal conception, but the animative conception. Remember, we as humans only pro-create. We do not do the creating. We participate in the creation the human person, but it is the infusion of the soul that makes the human special in the eyes of God. And it was at that moment, simultaneous with the pro-creative act of Mary's parents, but different, that she was preserved from original sin.

[jmjtina]

[quote]We are not talking about the biological aspect of this. It has no bearing in dogmatic theology. What we are talking about is the moment when the soul is created and infused into the body. It is a simultaneous event, however, it is a distinct event. So, while the nuance is subtle, the nuance is clear. We are not talking about the carnal conception, but the animative conception. Remember, we as humans only pro-create. We do not do the creating. We participate in the creation the human person, but it is the infusion of the soul that makes the human special in the eyes of God. And it was at that moment, simultaneous with the pro-creative act of Mary's parents, but different, that she was preserved from original sin.[/quote]



well there ya go.

sometimes when I should sleep on it, I don't. Thanks Cam. found it again on pg. 2. See what happens when I re-read and I'm awake? :

[qfnol31]

Now that that's all been cleared up, might I mention it sounded like she couldn't have sinned because she was Theotokos whereas I think it would be more accurate to say we know she didn't sin for that reason? The first way appears to deny her capacity to sin...

[Thy Geekdom Come]

None of you make any sense and are only confusing me more.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote]Mary is not Eve. Mary is the NEW Eve.[/quote]

I never said she was. What I meant is that Eve was able to accept all God's grace the same way, and yet, she could change her mind (and did). It follows that Mary had the capacity to change her mind as well.

I keep asking (repeatedly) if you are trying to say that Mary couldn't sin not because she lacked the capacity, but because she simply didn't. As I understand it, it would go like this:

God foresaw that Mary would not reject His graces.

Therefore, God predestined Mary to be the Mother of Christ.

Therefore, He made her immaculate from the point of Conception, preserving her from every stain of original sin.

Thus, she couldn't sin...not because of her immaculate nature, but rather, that her immaculate nature was granted to her because she wouldn't sin, and thus, since this immaculate nature filled her with the grace necessary to follow God perfectly (if she cooperated), she "couldn't" sin...not because she was incapable, but because God knew that it would never be the case that she would sin, that is, that the situation in which Mary would sin would never occur, and therefore, that she couldn't sin. However, such a situation *could* occur, but it never would, and thus, would never be actualized and thus, to all-knowing God, couldn't exist.

The problem I have is that you seem to keep saying:

God made Mary the Immaculate Conception.

Therefore, that grace kept her from sinning.

She accepted that grace at the moment of conception (which I still don't get, since it would require an act of the will), and kept accepting it, but could never reject it.

This seems inconsistent with Eve's case...she accepted her nature...kept accepting it...and then rejected it. It seems impossible and just plain wrong to say that Mary couldn't reject it later. Granted, she didn't, but to say that she didn't have the ability must be wrong.

Meanwhile, I'm tired of having it implied that I'm a heretic...if the Church wants people to believe, and those people are more than willing to believe, it would be nice if the Church would articulate a little more what they were supposed to believe. I can't just take a Church Scholar's word for it that its a defined teaching (and if it is, then I submit, but how can I know that it really is, especially when it seems so ridiculous and no one will explain it to me?)