I humble, sincere question from a Protestant

[Mort_Alz]

I know that the line of reasoning for Mary being a sinless person is so she could give birth to the Son of God, but in order for her to be sinless, wouldn’t her mother have to be, too? Then wouldn’t you have a whole bloodline of sinless women??

 

[RC1947]

We have all inheirited Original Sin from Adam and Eve, our first parents, which is removed from one’s soul when one is validly baptized. In Mary’s case, she was sinless from the moment of her conception, i.e., her Immaculate Conception, a miracle of grace given by God Himself. This sinlessness was never inheirited from Mary’s mother or her mother’s ancestors.

I hope this is helpful.

Pat

 

[LilyM]

This is an objection which has come up on CAF before. The short answer is no.

Mary had to be fit to be the Mother of God, which is several orders of magnitude different, and more important, than being fit merely to be the mother (or grandmother, great grandmother or great great grandmother) of the Mother of God.

See Adam and Eve were created sinless, as was Mary. The difference was they later sinned but she did not. This gives you a clue as to the difference between a sinless human being and the Son of God - there is no question of His even being capable of sin, let alone actually sinning. Unlike Adam, Eve and Mary He didn’t realistically have even a choice or an option to sin.

Put it this way - what Mary was by creation and grace, in other words by God’s supernatural protection and intervention in the natural order of sinful humanity, Jesus had to be by very nature. This being the case, His perfection and sinlessness was of a different and much higher order than hers, and required even more extraordinary circumstances than hers to bring it about.

The reason she didn’t have to be born of a sinless woman as He was are similar to the reasons she didn’t have to be born of a virgin as He was.

 

[Alexander_Roman]

From the Eastern Catholic POV, Original Sin has to do with the fallen nature we’ve inherited from Adam, not the personal guilt of Adam’s sin.

In her conception, the Mother of God was sanctified to the nth degree. She became the dwelling place of the Most Holy Spirit in view of her exalted role in our salvation in Christ Who took His Flesh from her.

She certainly NEVER had any stain of sin on her soul. The Archangel at the Annunciation called her “Blessed” and “Full of Grace.” This was repeated by St Elizabeth. So the Angelic world and humanity salute her as being All Holy.

It is also interesting that the Archangel blesses Mary first and then Christ . . .

But I digress . . .

Alex

 

[Brighitte]

Thanks for the question

We inherit original sin from Adam and Eve, not from our mom and dad. So Mary could be conceived sinless without Anne or Joaquin having to be. At least this is what I gathered from post 1.

 

[Dive_Pistol]

Here’s a comparisin I’ve heard used. It made sense to me, so I hope it will help.

The entire human race inherits our sinful nature from Adam and Eve because of the fall. This is comparable to all of us falling into a pit of mud the moment we are first born. Mary did not inherit her sinless nature from her mother, or from any of her ancestors. If not for the grace of God, she would have fallen into the mud pit too. Despite her many graces, Mary is still human. However, God gave her an extraordinary grace and prevented her from falling into the mud, and so kept her from having the original sin that all of us have. This was necessary in order for her to become the mother of our Savior.

Hope this was helpful

 

[porthos11]

I know that the line of reasoning for Mary being a sinless person is so she could give birth to the Son of God, but in order for her to be sinless, wouldn’t her mother have to be, too? Then wouldn’t you have a whole bloodline of sinless women??

Nope, that has nothing to do with it. She didn’t “have to” be sinless so that the Son of God won’t be “contaminated” so to speak. She was immaculate because it was fitting that the bearer of God be free of sin, just like it was fitting for the Ark of the Covenant to be precious and immaculate as a vessel containing sacred things.

Mary didn’t need a line of sinless mothers because her being immaculate is a singular grace given her by God out of his own pleasure and will.

 

[MarkThompson]

I know that the line of reasoning for Mary being a sinless person is so she could give birth to the Son of God, but in order for her to be sinless, wouldn’t her mother have to be, too? Then wouldn’t you have a whole bloodline of sinless women??

My own view is that Mary did not have to be sinless to bear Jesus. If God could humble himself to be born in a stable and killed on a cross, then he could similarly have humbled himself to be born to, say, a prostitute. It is simply that God determined that it was fitting that Mary should be sinless. That is what Pius IX says in Ineffabilis Deus, the 1854 solemn declaration of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception: “indeed it was wholly fitting that so wonderful a mother should be . . . completely free from all taint of original sin.” There are various reasons why this was fitting – that Mary would serve as the prototype of the tabernacle, which contains the body of Christ; that Mary would be a supreme example of grace for others to follow; etc. – but no sense of strict requirement. It’s not like the old argument, “Well, if you say that God exists because everything has to have been created by something, then what created God, huh?”

Incidentally, the mother of Mary was Saint Anne, so it’s not as though Mary herself was born to some schlub.

EDIT: I see Porthos has expressed pretty much the same thing.

 

[Barbkw]

I know that the line of reasoning for Mary being a sinless person is so she could give birth to the Son of God, but in order for her to be sinless, wouldn’t her mother have to be, too? Then wouldn’t you have a whole bloodline of sinless women??

Adam and Eve (first parents) were also created without original sin. However, they used their free will to choose to disconnect from God.

(Being born without original sin does not mean that a human is incapable of sinning, or that free will has been wiped away).

The angel Gabriel told Mary she’d been blessed - born different - and as messenger of God, Gabriel addressed her with a title, “Hail, Full of Grace, the Lord is with you.”

Salvation history has reached fulfillment. The Redeemer for fallen mankind has arrived - given His birth through the consent of a woman. Jesus is the New Adam, and Mary is the New Eve. Our new spiritual “parents”.

As was foretold in Genesis:

Then the LORD God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, you shall be banned from all the animals and from all the wild creatures; On your belly shall you crawl, and dirt shall you eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at His heel.” usccb.org/nab/bible/genesis/genesis3.htm

 

[Portrait]

I know that the line of reasoning for Mary being a sinless person is so she could give birth to the Son of God, but in order for her to be sinless, wouldn’t her mother have to be, too? Then wouldn’t you have a whole bloodline of sinless women??

Dear Mort Alz,

Cordial greetings and thankyou for your question.

As regards Mary being infected by original sin as she assumed her mother’s flesh, unless Anna had been preserved from original sin as well - and so on, through her ancestry, we could chase our tails on this for a very long time indeed. My usual response to this is to say that God had to act in a special way in Mary’s case since it was her who was chosen to be the vehicle of the Incarnation of our Blessed Saviour. Moreover, a very logical reason why Mary needed to have been preserved from the stain of original sin is that it damages our will. Original sin causes man in his fallen estate to choose wrongly, therefore, in order for Mary’s “yes” to God to have been genuine, it needed to be expressive of a totally free choice. Thus Mary had to be preserved from that taint of original sin that clearly would have biased her choice. One could say then that Mary’s sinlessness facilitated her “Let it be”.

Warmest good wishes,

Portrait

Pax

 

[WFS5801]

I know that the line of reasoning for Mary being a sinless person is so she could give birth to the Son of God, but in order for her to be sinless, wouldn’t her mother have to be, too? Then wouldn’t you have a whole bloodline of sinless women??

No. Our Lady was sanctified at conception, much like we, as Christians, are sanctified at baptism. In our case we were born in original sin – yet, with one act, we are instantly clean. It doesn’t matter that our ancestors were also born with original sin and had committed innumerable actual sins over their many generations.

As a side note, I’m guessing Our Lady’s mother, St. Anne, was sinless by the time of the birth of Our Lady. Not that she was born without sin (like her daughter) or sanctified in the womb (like St. John the Baptist or Jeremiah), but she is a saint and (at some point) quit sinning altogether.