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shalom_molahs
Guest
Its perfectly clear to me that you can’t give any evidence for Mary being sinless, you can only speculate. Its more like Mary could but couldn’t or would but wouldn’t. Need straight answers to simple questions.
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neophyte
Guest
Please, people. I’ve seen enough traps on these forums to recognize them. I’m even guilty of having laid out a few of my own, in the heat of battle.
Babies can’t sin, nor can the simpleminded. To sin requires an act of the will, which they are incapable of forming.
And even competent adults aren’t doomed to have every act they make be sinful. The idea that merely by breathing we are commiting sin is utter nonsense. I personally can go for several seconds at a time without sinning, and on a good day I might be able to make that stretch out for ten or fifteen minutes…by the grace of God, of course. Yesterday I was working on a difficult computer program, and was hyperfocused on my work for about an hour. I don’t think I commited a single sin during the entire time.
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neophyte
Guest
So then you concede that I never said that there’s no theoretical possibility that you could live the rest of your life without sinning.
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shalom_molahs
Guest
It is not a trap to ask for evidence for the idea that Mary was sinless. Simple question, which no-one is answering.
Please, people. I’ve seen enough traps on these forums to recognize them. I’m even guilty of having laid out a few of my own, in the heat of battle.
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neophyte
Guest
You haven’t asked for such evidence. What you’ve actually been asking for is whether or not you can be sinless, and the reasons for our answer.
In the same way that you need to listen well if you wish to have a meaningful exchange, you must also ask the actual question you want answered. If you don’t actually ask the question, you have no cause to complain when it doesn’t get answered.
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jimmy
Guest
Theoretically it is possible that you could remain sinless, but practically it is impossible. As the epistle of John says, every man is a sinner and he who says he isn’t is a lier.
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shalom_molahs
Guest
Your failure yet again to answer my question for evidence to support your idea that Mary was sinless clearly demonstrates that there is no evidence for this idea.
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LutheranDK
Guest
And once again, the “argument” boils down to this:
Babies can’t sin, nor can the simpleminded. To sin requires an act of the will, which they are incapable of forming.
And even competent adults aren’t doomed to have every act they make be sinful. The idea that merely by breathing we are commiting sin is utter nonsense. I personally can go for several seconds at a time without sinning, and on a good day I might be able to make that stretch out for ten or fifteen minutes…by the grace of God, of course. Yesterday I was working on a difficult computer program, and was hyperfocused on my work for about an hour. I don’t think I commited a single sin during the entire time.
Are we sinners because we commit sin, or do we commit sin because we are sinners (our nature is tainted with sin)?
I claim the latter. Individual sinful acts are symptoms of the disease, not the disease itself.
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jimmy
Guest
Mary’s sinlessness is inconsequential to me so I am not concerned about answering whether it is true or not, but if you want someone to answer a question you need to be clear about what the question is. For most of the thread it seems that your question is in relation to yourself and whether you personally can be sinless. Now you are changing the subject and asking whether Mary was sinless and what is the proof. If that is what you wanted then why didn’t you ask from the beginning, “is Mary sinless and what is your proof?”
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LutheranDK
Guest
Except that wasn’t what you were doing in the OP, was it now?
You asked a very simple one-liner question, concealing the real motive behind the question. You had planned to lure some RC into saying “no”, then spring the trap about Mary…
The reason no one is answering you might be that no one takes someone who “reasons” like this seriously… I certainly don’t.
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neophyte
Guest
You never asked that question. You still haven’t asked it.
What is in evidence here is that I’ve plainly answered the question that you asked, and haven’t answered a question that you haven’t asked.
Now, if you’d like to change the subject, first let’s finish with the issue of whether or not I said that you can’t live without commiting a sin.
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jimmy
Guest
Or we could change the question slightly and ask, does sin follow death or does death follow sin?
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shalom_molahs
Guest
See my 2nd post in this thread below;
If Mary can be sinless so can I, was Mary sinless? Still waiting for evidence for the idea that Mary was sinless.Not getting much of a response so I’ll have to reply to myself
If Mary can be sinless then so can I.
If you think not then why not?
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jimmy
Guest
Your second post still doesn’t ask whether Mary was sinless. It presumes that Mary was sinless and then argues that consequenlty you can be sinless.
Either English isn’t your first language or you are trying to be deceptive because to say that you were trying to ask whether Mary was sinless is to go against the gramatical structure of the sentence. The way you said it, you asserted that you could be sinless.
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shalom_molahs
Guest
So there is no evidence for the idea that Mary was sinless. Why didn’t someone say this earlier
So now I know that Mary couldn’t be sinless and neither can I.
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neophyte
Guest
:whacky:So there is no evidence for the idea that Mary was sinless. Why didn’t someone say this earlier
So now I know that Mary couldn’t be sinless and neither can I.
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DavidFilmer
Guest
Yes, absolutely.
St. Theresa of Avila wrote “The Way of Perfection,” which describes the process of achieving spiritual perfection on earth (which includes, but is not limited to, complete aversion to all sin). Her pupil, St. John of the Cross, wrote “The Dark Night of the Soul” which describes some of the difficulties that someone will experience when attempting to achieve this perfection. St. Thérèse of Lisieux (the “Little Flower”) taught that ordinary people living ordinary lives can also achieve this perfection (this teaching is called her "little way’).
All three of these Saints were named Doctors of the Church because of their teaching on achieving spiritual perfection on earth.
Some will say that regular Christians (without benefit of an immaculate conception) cannot achieve spiritual perfection on earth, but three Doctors of the Church maintain otherwise (and I’m gonna have to go with the Doctors on this one).
But one should not attempt to achieve this lightly. People who have embarked upon this path have found themselves lost instead. Don’t even think about it unless you secure the assistance of a Spiritual Director who is well-versed in Catholic mysticism.
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Charlie_Zeaiter
Guest
I really don’t care if you are sinless or not.
But I do care about Mary, because God used His dying words on the Cross to say “Behold, your mother”.
Why would God say this?
I believe it is to teach us that Mary personifies the Church; That is, through Mary we receive the life that God wants to give us. And like the Church that was created without a stain or blemish (see Eph 5:25-27), so too was Mary.
:twocents:
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LutheranDK
Guest
When Adam sinned, death followed. But as for his descendants (you and I), it does not work like that. Saints and sinners, the good and the evil, all die eventually. And how long you live is not necessarily proportionate with your level of purity/success in the fight against sin.
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DavidFilmer
Guest
Well, (physical) death followed eventually. Adam is said to have lived for an astonishing 930 years (the vast majority after his sin) - see Gen 5:1-5.
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