Baptism, grace and Mary

[Nathan_Wagar]

Original sin is basically our loss of sanctifying grace. My understanding of baptism is that it restores that, thus cleansing us of original sin. However, sanctifying grace would appear to be a condition dealing with your spiritual standing before God. I do not understand why Adam can pass on his spiritually fallen, “grace-less” state by his role as the covenant head of man, but two baptized parent cannot pass on their “grace-full” state to their child. This seems somewhat logically inconsistent to me, and so I have a very difficult time explaining it to someone else.

Since it would seem that whether or not we possess grace has no bearing on the fact that our children still possess a fallen nature, it also seems to throw a kink in the issue of the Immaculate conception. Sure, Mary could be immaculately conceived, but that would have no bearing on her son receiving a fallen nature. As it would seem above, just because your parents both have grace, doesn’t mean you will.

I am just having difficulty grasping all the particulars of this. These arguments were given to me from my father, and I really don’t have an answer for them that makes theological sense.

 

[Texas_Roofer]

I think the church teaches Adam choose the fruit of knowledge this choice created the fall from grace. We can obtain grace but we cannot return the knowledge. This is somewhat comforting to the ones who do not obtain knowledge (babies, etc). So ignorance maybe bless at least in some forms.

 

[DavidFilmer]

I do not understand why Adam can pass on his spiritually fallen, “grace-less” state by his role as the covenant head of man, but two baptized parent cannot pass on their “grace-full” state to their child.

Because Grace can come only from Jesus (not from our parents, not even indirectly).

For if, by the transgression of one person, death came to reign through that one, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of justification come to reign in life through the one person Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:17)

We can’t indirectly inherit Grace - we must obtain it directly from Jesus (of course, the ordinary means to do so is via the Sacraments).

 

[Tomster]

Original sin is basically our loss of sanctifying grace. My understanding of baptism is that it restores that, thus cleansing us of original sin. However, sanctifying grace would appear to be a condition dealing with your spiritual standing before God. I do not understand why Adam can pass on his spiritually fallen, “grace-less” state by his role as the covenant head of man, but two baptized parent cannot pass on their “grace-full” state to their child. This seems somewhat logically inconsistent to me, and so I have a very difficult time explaining it to someone else.

Since it would seem that whether or not we possess grace has no bearing on the fact that our children still possess a fallen nature, it also seems to throw a kink in the issue of the Immaculate conception. Sure, Mary could be immaculately conceived, but that would have no bearing on her son receiving a fallen nature. As it would seem above, just because your parents both have grace, doesn’t mean you will.

I am just having difficulty grasping all the particulars of this. These arguments were given to me from my father, and I really don’t have an answer for them that makes theological sense.

It is a result of mankind’s solidarity, physical and spiritual, with Adam. We are burdened with original sin only in so far as we are one family with Adam as our head and representative. His headship in the supernatural order is founded on and co-extensive with his physical headship, and therefore affects all those and only those who are descended from him by physical generation. Or, original sin is not a matter of the individual’s will, but of the “family” will, the representative’s will; it partakes of the nature of sin only in so far as it is derived from Adam. But everything derived from him comes to us by way of physical generation whereby human nature is handed on from father to son. Hence original sin, just as every human inheritance, comes to us by this channel. This is not to say that the act of generation is the efficient cause of the existence of original sin in the individual. That act is not the efficient or productive cause even of the existence of the child’s soul. All it does is so to dispose the material body, to put it in such a condition that, according to the divinely established laws of nature, it calls for and, if we may be allowed the word, necessitates the creation of the soul by God. But this soul, good and, indeed, a perfect thing in the nature of order, is deprived of that sanctifying grace which it ought to have had, according to God’s original but conditional design; instead of being supernaturalised, as it ought to have been, it is purely a natural thing; at the same time owing to the same cause, the whole human being, body and soul, is deprived of the gift of integrity, which it ought to have possessed, and, therefore, subject to concupiscence. But all this comes into effect when, and only when, the complete human being comes into existence, which is the act of generation. This act, then, is the vehicle of the transmission of origianl sin.