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Good_Fella
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I am not questioning whether Paul was actually divinely inspired. I am pointing out that his epistles are not explicitly clear on the ontological deity of Christ. And so religious scholars are in a position to question whether the apostle shared the same fundamental view of the Church by the late fourth century. It’s this lack of explicitness in Scripture that served to give rise to the major Christological and Trinitarian heresies which compelled the Church to define her doctrines. For instance, Arius cited John’s Prologue and Philippians 2, 6-11 to support his heretical teaching. Like I said above, Scripture is materially sufficient but formally insufficient. Scripture must be interpreted in light of Apostolic Tradition, for “the Church is the pillar and bulwark of the truth”. It’s ironic that mainstream Protestants accept the Catholic Church’s Christological dogmas yet reject her Marian teachings, such as Mary’s Immaculate Conception and her personal sinlessness. If Protestants believe that the Church has erred in her Marian doctrines, how can they be sure that the Church did not err in her Christological teachings? What would be the point of our Lord sending his Paraclete to the Church if she would not be protected from declaring false doctrines? Let’s be logical for a change and stop rationalizing. If I wanted to assume an Arian postion and support it by citing scripture, I can assure you that my argument could be just as convincing as that of orthodox Catholicism.
You may have missed a post of mine farther above concerning the human nature which Christ received from his mother, Mary. It is a question of fittingness, not necessity. Jesus is a divine Person with a divine and human nature, and as a divine Person he could not necessarily inherit original sin from a woman who may have been conceived in that primal state of sin. We read in Hebrews 4, 15 that Jesus was without sin. In light of this verse, Genesis 3, 15 tells us the enmity between the seed of the woman (Jesus) and the seed of the serpent (original sin) is absolutely complete. Now this same enmity exists between the woman and the serpent. In other words, she shares the same ground with her seed against the serpent and his seed. If Jesus (the New Adam) were sinless, Mary (the New Eve) had to have been sinless too. This is consistent with Mary’s role as the New Eve. Both Adam and Eve were originally created without sin. Adam was a type of Jesus in this sense. The New Adam had to be sinless like the original Adam before the Fall in order to reverse it. Likewise, the woman who would play an active role in God’s plan of salvation had to be as sinless as Eve was before she disobeyed God. The New Eve had to be conceived preserved free from original sin, for she had a part to play along with her Son in reversing the Fall. Woman did play a key role by implicating Man in her disobedience, having seduced him to disobey God as well and bring about the eventual Fall. If Mary were not immaculately conceived, she could not fulfill the prophetic type she holds with Eve nor play a key role together with her Son who is a type of Adam before the Fall. So because the New Adam must be sinless, the New Eve had to be sinless too. And as Eve was fashioned from sinless Adam, the sinless New Adam had to be fashioned from a sinless New Eve. God made both Jesus and Mary sinless: Our Lord by his uncreated substantial grace of union with the Father, Mary be her Immaculate Conception. Romans 5, 14 and Genesis 3, 15 are prophetically connected. The early Church Fathers believed Mary was sinless because of her role as the New Eve. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception would appear in the writings of the Fathers only after the Church had precisely articulated the doctrine of original sin in the fifth century. First A, then B.
Pax vobiscum
Good Fella
