Could Mary have redeemed us?

[zro_x]

Original sin is only part of the equation. Original sin is not necessarily enough to bar one from heaven. Unbaptized infants meet an uncertain fate, trusted to God to be saved by some unknown means. It is actual sin which condemns, and Mary was free from actual sin only because she was actively filled with Grace from God. Adam and Eve were free of original sin, but were condemned for actual sin. Jesus Christ, being God, was filled with his own Grace.

Original sin may be only part of the equation, but it is still part of the equation. If someone had only original sin, and no actual sin, they still would not be able to redeem us, because they would have been stained with sin. Why was Jesus free from original sin? I say that it was because he died on the cross and was able to free his human nature from original sin before he was born, since God is eternal, and he did notsimply wipe the original sin away from Jesus’s human nature. As you yourself pointed out, God does not employ favoritism, and that would be a blatant act of favoritism.

I also never said that dying on the cross was not the best option, just that is was not the only option. As I said, God had the option to not save us at all.

God alone is the arbitrator of life and death. Your mob in the cave analogy doesn’t take this into account. God can decide that it would be time for the lives of the members of the mob to end, and he would be perfectly justified. God the father can decide that his son in the form of man must die, and be perfectly justified in doing so.

God is the author of the human soul, and wants the human soul to remain in communion with himself. Perhaps he’d cause the cave to collapse on the mob, because it would be better for their souls to die than to kill the man they were chasing.

I am not speaking of the moral choice for God in this dilemma. Of course God could kill the mob and be perfectly justified in doing so, as he alone knows the true state of a person’s soul. I am speaking of the moral choice for the man being chased. This man knows that the mob behind him will die, so he decides to stop and let the mob kill him in order to save the mob. This analogy can be applied to God. As you aptly pointed out, God is not trying to avoid our deaths. He is trying to manipulate our souls so that we die in a state of grace. The ultimate thing to be avoided for God is our damnation, rather than our deaths. So, God allowed us to kill him in order to save us from our sins and from entering into eternal damnation, and allowing us to have the possibility of entering into his kingdom.

Jesus Christ told Pontius Pilate, that he could ask his father to send 10,000 angels to save him, and it would be granted. Jesus Christ prayed in the garden, sweating blood, praying to his father that a better way be found, but humbly submitted to his father will.

Jesus Christ was unjustly executed according to human law. Hundreds of agents of free will actively sought his execution, or passively watched it happen. God the father could have intervened and saved his son, but that would be an act of favoritism according to human law. Don’t we as common people complain when Senators or celebrities use their influence to protect their families from the law? By becoming human, Jesus submitted himself to human law.

God the father could have punished humanity, barring us from heaven for all time, and been perfectly justified in doing so. He barred Satan and the fallen angels for all time, and was perfectly justified. Instead, God the father used his son’s unjust death to save humanity.

Perhaps, if we didn’t nail the son of God to a tree, God the father would have granted us with salvation using a non-bloody method anyways. God the Father raised Elijah directly to heaven, proving salvation can occur without the cross. However, it doesn’t matter what could have been, but what has been done; in humanity’s darkest hour, God showed mercy.

… ah, I think I see. You seem to think that God just allowed Jesus to be killed on the cross. The problem is, I think that this view is countered in the bible and catholic teaching. I’m not sure, but I believe that the official teaching of the church is that the main point of becoming man at all was to die on the cross. In other words, dying on the cross was the main reason why God became man. His death was not something that God utilized, it was something he intended and planned.

I also will not be able to respond until after new year’s.

Merry Christmas to you too!

 

[Ion]

Yes, provided God would have wanted to save us through Mary.

 

[runningdude]

Original sin may be only part of the equation, but it is still part of the equation. If someone had only original sin, and no actual sin, they still would not be able to redeem us, because they would have been stained with sin. Why was Jesus free from original sin? I say that it was because he died on the cross and was able to free his human nature from original sin before he was born, since God is eternal, and he did notsimply wipe the original sin away from Jesus’s human nature. As you yourself pointed out, God does not employ favoritism, and that would be a blatant act of favoritism.

Well, no. Man was created with no sin, but our first parents committed sin and passed it down to their offspring. Mary was conceived the ordinary way, and would have been stained with sin had God not intervened. Her son, Jesus, was conceived in an extraordinary manner, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and thus bypassed being stained by original sin. It would be contradictory for the Holy Spirit to add sin where no sin was present.

I am not speaking of the moral choice for God in this dilemma. Of course God could kill the mob and be perfectly justified in doing so, as he alone knows the true state of a person’s soul. I am speaking of the moral choice for the man being chased. This man knows that the mob behind him will die, so he decides to stop and let the mob kill him in order to save the mob. This analogy can be applied to God. As you aptly pointed out, God is not trying to avoid our deaths. He is trying to manipulate our souls so that we die in a state of grace. The ultimate thing to be avoided for God is our damnation, rather than our deaths. So, God allowed us to kill him in order to save us from our sins and from entering into eternal damnation, and allowing us to have the possibility of entering into his kingdom.

God doesn’t manipulate. He wants us to freely choose him. It is a voluntary limit on God’s omnipotence to create beings that can defy him. However, God the almighty can use even those who would defy him to achieve his purposes.

… ah, I think I see. You seem to think that God just allowed Jesus to be killed on the cross. The problem is, I think that this view is countered in the bible and catholic teaching. I’m not sure, but I believe that the official teaching of the church is that the main point of becoming man at all was to die on the cross. In other words, dying on the cross was the main reason why God became man. His death was not something that God utilized, it was something he intended and planned.

Well, no again. God is all powerful and all knowing. He foresaw his son’s death, but sent him anyways, because it was the best way to achieve what he wished to achieve. This is an important theological point, that God can’t be tricked, or have his hand forced. The Gospel of John in particular stresses how Jesus was ultimately in control.

However, it is equally if not more significant that Jesus’ death was unjust, as this is why he made the perfect sacrifice. He was not guilty of the slightest transgression, making his death wholly unjust. He had to be free of original sin, because any stain of sin would make him deserving of some degree of punishment.

It was ultimately an act of evil that condemned Jesus. However, Jesus as high priest submitted himself as sacrifice to atone and forgive the sins of humanity. It is a mystery of the faith that God can both be in control and yet experience true and unjust suffering.

I also will not be able to respond until after new year’s.

Merry Christmas to you too!

And a Happy New Year!

 

[Ion]

God is almighty.
He foretold us through prophecies about his plans, and the future, and unfortunately some think that “He has to do so, thus he CAN’T DO otherwise”. I think He can, but we just can’t imagine how.
Happy new year

 

[seanflynn]

It is true that it is not in the Holy Spirit’s nature to add sin where there was none before. However, there was none there (in Mary) before only because of her Immaculate Conception (and her constantly choosing God’s will over actual sin). Jesus would have needed to inherit original sin from a mother if she was afflicted with it. “But”, you say, “Divinity can not co-exist with sin.” I agree, which is why God saw fit to bless his Mother with an immaculate conception (as far as I can attribute reasons to God’s decisions). This makes the Incarnate Deity possible.

Mary, although not worthy of offering an infinite atonement for infinite transgression, was made worthy of offering her womb, her motherhood, her everything, to the Word Made Flesh. For His holiness would destroy the body of a sinner, as the Ark of the Covenant’s holiness was too much for humans to handle in ancient Israel.

I propose that without Mary being the Immaculate Conception, there are at least two reasons redemption would not have happenned. (a) Jesus would not have a human nature without being born of a woman. But he needed to be free from original sin, which would have passed to him from a mother. (b) Any attempt at incarnation in a spot-filled, instead of spotless, vessel would have ended in the instant death of the chosen mother.

 

[seanflynn]

My previous post was inspired by this statement from runningdude in post #50 of this thread.

Incorrect, Jesus had no original sin because he was God, and thus inherently sinless.

I will gladly stipulate that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity had no original sin while he was eternally existing with the Father and the Holy Spirit before His descent into time and humanity. All my musings were in regards to Jesus the God-Man who walked in first-century Palestine.

 

[zro_x]

Well, no. Man was created with no sin, but our first parents committed sin and passed it down to their offspring. Mary was conceived the ordinary way, and would have been stained with sin had God not intervened. Her son, Jesus, was conceived in an extraordinary manner, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and thus bypassed being stained by original sin. It would be contradictory for the Holy Spirit to add sin where no sin was present.

I agree with everything said here. The issue is how Mary and Jesus were able to avoid original sin. The only way that God could save Mary from the stain of original sin was by dying on the cross for her and for the rest of humanity, as several posters on this thread, including you, have said:

No, because she was conceived without sin by the graces of her son’s death acting outside of time. It was Christ’s blameless death that protected Mary from sin.

God did not simply wipe away the original sin of Mary, or Jesus, for that matter. It was the blameless death of Christ that protected Mary and Jesus himself from sin. Jesus was only able to die on the cross because he didn’t inherit original sin from his mother. Being conceived in an extraordinary matter wouldn’t have done anything, since he was still descended from a human woman.

God doesn’t manipulate. He wants us to freely choose him. It is a voluntary limit on God’s omnipotence to create beings that can defy him. However, God the almighty can use even those who would defy him to achieve his purposes.

Perhaps “affect” would be a better word than manipulate. God does indeed affect our souls through his death on the cross, the sacraments, and so on.

Well, no again. God is all powerful and all knowing. He foresaw his son’s death, but sent him anyways, because it was the best way to achieve what he wished to achieve. This is an important theological point, that God can’t be tricked, or have his hand forced. The Gospel of John in particular stresses how Jesus was ultimately in control.

I’m confused. are you saying that Jesus was in control and that his death was the reason he came to earth, or are you saying that Jesus’s death was just something God utilized to save us?

 

[PRmerger]

IThe only way that God could save Mary from the stain of original sin was by dying on the cross for her and for the rest of humanity, as several posters on this thread, including you, have said:

Right. Mary’s preservation from Original Sin was accomplished in anticipation of the atoning death of her Son.

 

[PRmerger]

IIt was the blameless death of Christ that protected Mary and Jesus himself from sin. Jesus was only able to die on the cross because he didn’t inherit original sin from his mother.

No. Jesus was able to die on the cross and atone for our sins because he was God, not because he was sinless, zro.

 

[traillius]

I always thought it was Christ’s sinless nature that allowed him to be the perfect sacrifice not his divinity. Maybe I was wrong. If sinless nature were the requirement, then Christ wouldn’t need to be both God and Man. So, is it his divinity, or his sinless nature, or both, that made him the perfect sacrifice?

 

[PRmerger]

I always thought it was Christ’s sinless nature that allowed him to be the perfect sacrifice not his divinity.

No. Because then Mary or even Adam and Eve, or anyone who is sinless could have been sacrificed on the cross.

Maybe I was wrong. If sinless nature were the requirement, then Christ wouldn’t need to be both God and Man. So, is it his divinity, or his sinless nature, or both, that made him the perfect sacrifice?

Yes, it is because He is God, not because He was sinless.

 

[Sarcelle]

Right. Mary’s preservation from Original Sin was accomplished in anticipation of the atoning death of her Son.

Well said.

I have been looking for a defense brought about by my Protestant friends concerning the Immaculate Conception. They point to her Magnificat in the Bible, saying that she mentions her savior. This proves, they say that she is also in need of a Savior and therefore could not have been Immaculately Conceived. I can then use your quote to say that her statement on her Savior and her Immaculate Conception are actually in harmony and not mutually exclusive.

 

[PRmerger]

Well said.

I have been looking for a defense brought about by my Protestant friends concerning the Immaculate Conception. They point to her Magnificat in the Bible, saying that she mentions her savior. This proves, they say that she is also in need of a Savior and therefore could not have been Immaculately Conceived. I can then use your quote to say that her statement on her Savior and her Immaculate Conception are actually in harmony and not mutually exclusive.

Right.

And you can use the analogy that is often given regarding 2 different people who need a savior:
2 people are walking in the woods where there is a dangerous pit.
-one person is prevented from ever falling into the pit. (Mary). She is thankful to her savior.

-the other person falls into the pit and is rescued from it. (the remainder of humanity). We are also thankful to our savior.

 

[Sarcelle]

Right.

And you can use the analogy that is often given regarding 2 different people who need a savior:
2 people are walking in the woods where there is a dangerous pit.
-one person is prevented from ever falling into the pit. (Mary). She is thankful to her savior.

-the other person falls into the pit and is rescued from it. (the remainder of humanity). We are also thankful to our savior.

Will do.

I will use this also.

 

[zro_x]

No. Jesus was able to die on the cross and atone for our sins because he was God, not because he was sinless, zro.

from what I understand after participating in this thread and my own studies, Jesus was able to die on the cross because he was both an infinite God, and could provide infinite reparation, as well as a sinless human, and therefore could act perfectly as a second Adam, representing humanity in undoing the harm Adam brought to our race.

 

[runningdude]

I agree with everything said here. The issue is how Mary and Jesus were able to avoid original sin. The **only way that God could save Mary from the stain of original sin was by dying on the cross for her **and for the rest of humanity, as several posters on this thread, including you, have said:

God did not simply wipe away the original sin of Mary, or Jesus, for that matter. It was the blameless death of Christ that protected Mary and Jesus himself from sin. Jesus was only able to die on the cross because he didn’t inherit original sin from his mother. Being conceived in an extraordinary matter wouldn’t have done anything, since he was still descended from a human woman.

I may have to back track on this point then, if it is not logically sound, as it is only one theory among many. It is a more important point theologically that Christ’s human nature be free of all blemishes of sin, by virtue of his divinity, as he was to be the unblemished sacrificial lamb. He needed no savior, because he was God.

It is sufficient to say that Mary had a savior, in that was only a savior that could protect her from sin. The source of this grace protecting her need not be the cross (which avoids the time travel messiness…).

…

I’m confused. are you saying that Jesus was in control and that his death was the reason he came to earth, or are you saying that Jesus’s death was just something God utilized to save us?

Yes, it is specifically called a mystery of the faith!

 

[PRmerger]

from what I understand after participating in this thread and my own studies, Jesus was able to die on the cross because he was both an infinite God, and could provide infinite reparation, as well as a sinless human, and therefore could act perfectly as a second Adam, representing humanity in undoing the harm Adam brought to our race.

 

[dshix]

from what I understand after participating in this thread and my own studies, Jesus was able to die on the cross because he was both an infinite God, and could provide infinite reparation, as well as a sinless human, and therefore could act perfectly as a second Adam, representing humanity in undoing the harm Adam brought to our race.

Well put.

 

[zro_x]

I may have to back track on this point then, if it is not logically sound, as it is only one theory among many. It is a more important point theologically that Christ’s human nature be free of all blemishes of sin, by virtue of his divinity, as he was to be the unblemished sacrificial lamb.

Agreed. But there is no stipulation that I’ve read of that exclaims how this freedom from blemishes comes about. I say that it was because of his own death on the cross, you say that it was because he had a second nature which was divine. It doesn’t seem like either of us can back our claims with Catholic teaching, however, so until one of us provides some sources, I think we’re to the point where we’re just going to have to agree to disagree in this area.

Yes, it is specifically called a mystery of the faith!

That answer doesn’t really apply in this case. I was asking you whether **you **thought that the purpose of Jesus’s life on Earth was to die on the cross, or whether you thought that Jesus’s death was something God allowed to happen, and used it later as a sign of a new covenant.

 

[Ion]

Matthew 26:39 "Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

In my opinion, here Jesus was praying in his humanity; only from the human perspective can be said “if it is possible”, because for God everything is possible.
From the human perspective on the God plan of salvation, only Jesus could be the sacrifice.
Because in his human mind Jesus knew that God is almighty, he suffered this temptation, to withdraw because God could find another way to redeem the world. To overcome this temptation, and keep his human will in submission to the divine will, he prayed to the blood: “Yet not as I will, but as you will”