Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary

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Hello

I was just wondering why the doctorine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary is so important to the catholic notion of redemption?
 
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af1650:
Hello

I was just wondering why the doctorine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary is so important to the catholic notion of redemption?
Click to expand...
knock yourself out… everything you wanted to know but was afraid to ask…

newadvent.org/cathen/07674d.htm
 
Happy Feast Day!

The real issue relates to original sin, which if I properly understand, is the outcome of Adam’s initial miscue.

In turn, this presupposes Adam existed—a debatable issue [note: somewhere is a great thread on evolution, but I don’t remember thee title. Sorry.]

Somehow, RCC has the need to define every possible part of a story that remains a mystery to me, i.e. resurrection. IMHO, NOTHING else matters. No R===>NO IC.

For some of us, R remains a mystery, and so, I must humbly repeat the question of af1650: why the doctorine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary is so important to the catholic notion of redemption?

Original sin may be taken to mean: (1) the sin that Adam committed; (2) a consequence of this first sin, the hereditary stain with which we are born on account of our origin or descent from Adam. From the earliest times the latter sense of the word was more common, as may be seen by St. Augustine’s statement: “the deliberate sin of the first man is the cause of original sin” (De nupt. et concup., II, xxvi, 43). It is the hereditary stain that is dealt with here. As to the sin of Adam we have not to examine the circumstances in which it was committed nor make the exegesis of the third chapter of Genesis.
 
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af1650:
Hello

I was just wondering why the doctorine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary is so important to the catholic notion of redemption?
Click to expand...
Because God revealed it as being so. Mary is the “New Ark of the Covenant” The original Ark of the Covenant was specifically created to God’s exact specifications and was of the most pure gold possible. I think it says to be refined seven times (the number of perfection). God who can create something perfect, created His own mother, The New Ark, The New Eve, in the perfect condition of the original Eve, before the fall of Adam.
 
Just two salient points:

(1) It is DOGMA, not Doctrine, of the Immaculate Conception; and

(2) We celebrate it as a SOLEMNITY, not a Feast, of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Immaculate Conception.

Thanks.
 
Just a little side note:

To deny the Immaculate Conception is to deny the merits of the cross as transending time. That means the merits of Jesus death on the cross go in both directions in time, backwards and forwards. He died for those who were before Him, and these same merits are applied to His mother at her conception. This was necessarily done in a special way in order to have a pure vessel for which God made man could come into the world. This pure vessel is foreshadowed very clearly in the Ark of the Covenant. The scriptural parallels are too numerous to be coincidence. Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant.
God and sin cannot co-exist. I think, ignorance excepted, that to deny the Immaculate Conception is a blasphemy against the Incarnation.
 
These questions, grist for honing, come from my reading the article on Catholic Answers, that was linked to from Jimmy Akin’s site today.

Problems: the whole doctrine appears to be based upon Jerome’s mistranslation of the Greek.
2. The impetus appears to be Docetic - Jesus couldn’t touch anything marred by sin. But He didn’t stay in Mary’s womb. He was born, laid in a manger in the barn, walked the dusty and dung-covered roads of Palestine. Ate with sinners. And yet was not contaminated.
3. Federal headship in the Bible is always through the male line. Therefore Jesus had to be conceived in the Virgin, but she herself did not need to be free from sin.
4. Death is also a result of sin. If Mary was totally free of sin, she would not have died, on the basis of the article’s claim for her bodily uncorruption.

My chief concerns with this dogma are a) it is declared dogma that one must believe in order to be in full communion with the Roman see, but it is not contained in Scripture (and we are not “to commit the error of going beyond what is written”), and that the reason for the doctrine appears to be a manifestation of the heresy of Docetism.

Kepha1, why is the Immaculate Conception required for ‘the Lamb slain from the foundations of the world’? I don’t understand.

Let this not be taken as an attack on Mary! I do not mean it to be such!!
 
  1. The whole doctrine appears to be based upon Jerome’s mistranslation of the Greek.
    The dogma is not based on the “mistranslation” alone. Besides, it is not a strict mistranslation. The original pronoun is neuter, and so can be male or female. In any case, the dogma can do quite well without the clause “she shall crush your head.” The main concept in support of the dogma in Gen 3:15 is not this latter clause, but the statement that there will be “enmity between you and the woman.”
  2. The impetus appears to be Docetic - Jesus couldn’t touch anything marred by sin. But He didn’t stay in Mary’s womb. He was born, laid in a manger in the barn, walked the dusty and dung-covered roads of Palestine. Ate with sinners. And yet was not contaminated.
Perhaps “Docetic” is an inappropriate description, given that the dogma does not deny the actual physical incarnation of Jesus, which is the heresy of doceticism. Perhaps you are thinking of the heresy of Valentinus who proposed that Jesus only “passed through” Mary’s womb, or perhaps of the Gnostic duality of matter and spirit? In any case, everything you express is true. However, they do not affect the dogma for this reason: Jesus is/was not man eternally. He became man at a certain point in time. Before that time, He was unbridled divinity, which nothing impure can touch, without that thing being touched totally destroyed. Thus, there was an infinitesimal point in time that Mary came into contact with unbridled divinity at the moment of conception. If she was not perfectly pure at that particular moment in time, she would have been smitten to death by the sheer awesomeness of the divine power. THIS is the reason Mary could not be touched by sin – for that infinitesimal moment of the divine conception and that alone.
  1. Federal headship in the Bible is always through the male line. Therefore Jesus had to be conceived in the Virgin, but she herself did not need to be free from sin.
I don’t quite understand your line of reasoning here. What does the notion of federal headship have to do with the fact that Jesus’ immaculate body was formed out of the immaculate flesh of the Blessed Virgin?

(continued)
 
(continued)
  1. Death is also a result of sin. If Mary was totally free of sin, she would not have died, on the basis of the article’s claim for her bodily uncorruption.
You must distinguish between freedom from death and freedom from corruption, on the one hand, and freedom from death and freedom from the bondage of death on the other. You must understand a bit of theological biology (if you can accept the term) to grasp these concepts. Let’s take the first concept. The only type of body that is exempt from physical death is the heavenly body, which is different from the mortal body. Jesus and Mary both had mortal bodies even though they were sinless and free from original sin. Another aspect of mortal bodies is that they age – another distinction from the heavenly body. Did Jesus age? Did Mary age? Obviously. Thus, they must have had mortal bodies which were also subject to physical death. However, being completely pure and sinless, their bodies, even after death, would remain incorrupt., that is, their bodies would not return to dust, as per the curse God put on Adam/Eve and their progeny. Now let us address the second concept. Though Jesus and Mary died, death could not hold them. Jesus because of His divinity, and Mary because of her participation in the divine life due to her sinlessness, would resurrect and go to heaven (the Ascension of Jesus, and the Assumption of Mary).

My chief concerns with this dogma are a) it is declared dogma that one must believe in order to be in full communion with the Roman see, but it is not contained in Scripture

Like the doctrines of the Trinity, the divinity of the Holy Spirit, the Two Wills of Christ, and others, the dogma is not formally (explicitly) contained in Scripture, but it (like the other doctrines mentioned) are certainly contained implicitly. That is all that is necessary for a doctrine/dogma to be regarded as “Scriptural.”

Why is the Immaculate Conception required for ‘the Lamb slain from the foundations of the world’? I don’t understand.

I guess the best answer would be to redirect you to #2 above, and the italicized portion of my answer to #3.

I hope this has helped.

God bless,

Greg
 
GAssissi,
  1. The article I read on CA, said that Jerome wrote “full of grace” and that that isn’t actually in Matthew, but more of a “hello” or “greetings”. If that article is correct, would that not be a mistranslation? an eisegetic inclusion?
  2. Why would the act of creation of half of the genome, fertilizing the egg, have been more of a contact with God, resulting in death, than Jesus walking the paths of Galilee, or our receiving Him, body and blood, in the eucharist? I said Docetic, because the -defenses- I’d seen seemed to state that Jesus could never touch anything marred by the curse of the Fall. But He did. So, at that point, it is those defenses I have a problem with, and don’t understand the need for the dogma.
  3. Because the guilt of sin is imputed through the male line. Not through the female line. Therefore Mary could not have communicated or imputed original sin to Jesus, even were it the case that she was not immaculately conceived.
  4. Yes, this is somewhat new territory for me. Are you saying that Adam and Eve would have aged and died, had they not sinned? That is, is that not the implication of the theological biology you propose? Physical aging and death is a result of the curse of the Fall, not God’s original creational intent. Biologically that might mean no more than telomeres not being used up in cell division.
  5. I do not understand how this dogma is implied in Scripture, as Christ’s dual nature and the Holy Trinity are.
  6. I re-read 2 and 3 and still don’t get it. My apologies for my obtuseness. Could there be some assumptions unexamined that make 2 and 3 say different things to you, and to I?
 
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