Is the answer to this dilemma the fact that Adam and Eve didn’t know original sin either, as Our Lady is the new Eve? Even in that case, God had guarded her from the beginning, in a way that (as far as I know) Eve would not have experienced…
As Memaw pointed out earlier, they knew FULL well what they were doing.
Eve did not sin because God didn’t do enough to protect her. A priest has said, that the sin at the Garden was full cooperation with the devil. It was done out of Malice. They WANTED it.
Mary was with God always, spouse of the Holy Spirit. Adam and Eve were with God, physically and they had God’s life, the Holy Spirit with them too. They walked with God. To walk with God?? when is his Grace ever enough to avoid sinning? It was not a sin out of weakness but intent.
To think that Adam and Eve were just duped and not guarded enough by God, like Mary is, is no different than thinking our personal actions hardly ever lead to Mortal Sin.
They walked with God, so this wasn’t just some sin the way* we* fall to weakness. So the very question is asked in ignorance of what it means to be free from Original sin!!
So to get back to the question, Adam and Eve PROVE against your suggestion.
To be made perfectly free from the effects of original sin ARE NOT enough to guarantee your SALVATION or make it “EASIER” because one’s will can still chose against God, while on Earth.
Were you or I to be free of the stain, we would fall at some point in our lives,* I know this by Faith*, as there is only ONE Immaculate Conception as declared by the Church. One would continue a new line of the sin of Adam and Eve, and , so no you would not have it easier, you would probably have the suffering of a greater condemnation, given that we have BOTH Adam and Eve (who were forgiven even later in Genesis) and Mary and Joseph as parents.
The sin and inclination to blame someone else for our own faults and failings in Scripture is again proved on this thread by some posts that we ALL have the sin of Adam.
" It was the woman
YOU gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it. " Adam blaming God, the way the devil would, and taught him well at that moment. Hence , the Malice.
Ungrateful for the gift, his spouse given to him freely by God.
The finger is being pointed at God again in this thread, because we do not understand the sufferings of both Mary and Christ, and how they provide hope in spite of the circumstances of this fallen world due to what Adam and Eve committed.
As Catholics we are called to be realists.
You are not immaculately conceived, and to desire it to make things ‘easier’ or ‘fairer’ is a waste of time. It is no different than blaming our parents Adam and Eve, and wondering* ‘if they could have just*’ The fact is they did, it’s done and we are to worry about our own salvation because we now have a way out.
As Jesus said, regarding God’s plan for another individual’s salvation, (John)
*“What is that to you? Follow me” *
To call God unfair is to suggest that we could have planned our creation better than he.
As God rebuked St. Paul when he asked three times to have the thorn in his side removed ,* “My Grace is enough for you” *
Not many Catholics today believe that his grace is enough anymore as is, when the Church teaches that Mortal Sin can be avoided and eliminated altogether, Christ always gives us an escape, and even deliberate venial sins can be avoided. Knowing that we’d have a better understanding of the Blessed Mother’s gift to us,* " Our tainted nature’s solitary boast."*
and these ludicrous questions would not even cross our minds.
