In defense of the Immaculate Conception

[Julie4]

I suppose if it helps curb the spread of the virus, it’s worth a try…

 

[JanR]

If there is no original sin then why have the sacrament of baptism?

I’m sure that God has both the power and prerogative to choose one human woman out of all of them to be conceived without original sin. He could have chosen to have any woman he wanted to to be conceived that way, and he chose Mary, even before she was born.

As for the rest of us, God hasn’t granted outright that special grace, so we need baptism.

It’s not that there is no original sin. It’s that God chose MARY to be free of it.

 

[Margaret_Ann]

https://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_pi09id.htm

Blessed Pius IX:

Hence, if anyone shall dare – which God forbid! – to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should dare to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he thinks in his heart.

 

[Margaret_Ann]

The Immaculate Conception makes perfect sense to this Ukrainian Greek Catholic!

Honestly, this is one area where I think the RCC got it right. Gen. 3: 15:

I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.

[15] “She shall crush”: Ipsa, the woman; so divers of the fathers read this place, conformably to the Latin: others read it ipsum, viz., the seed. The sense is the same: for it is by her seed, Jesus Christ, that the woman crushes the serpent’s head.

If two persons are at enmity, they have nothing in common. Blessed Pius IX states that the Divine Maternity is the reason for the Immaculate Conception. She had to be immaculate in order to bear the Son of God. IIRC, somewhere in Scripture it says: Wisdom shall not dwell in a body subject to sin. The Eternal Son Who is Wisdom and the Word of God will not dwell in a body subject to sin. His Absolute Holiness required that the woman who bore Him be even more worthy than Eve who He created immaculate. “Death through Eve, life through Mary” was the watchword of St. Irenaeus and all the Holy Fathers.

I totally understand that we have to preserve our own heritage but honestly I don’t see how any Catholic could disagree with the Immaculate Conception.

I once asked an Orthodox deacon: “Since you have the same Liturgy as we do, why don’t the Orthodox believe in the Immaculate Conception?” He couldn’t answer me.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

No, I’m reiterating what’s in the Catechism and what I’ve read in works by Catholic bishops.

The augustinian view generally taught by the RCC is not dogmatic, and is not the teaching of the EC churches as a group.

And again, the EO do not “deny” anything about what the IC doctrine says about Mary; they just scratch their heads about it (as well as objecting by the RCC purporting to unilaterally issue dogma)

You are very focused on the Augustinian view, to the point it sounds like you’ve read too many polemics.

 

[PilgrimMichelangelo]

I once asked an Orthodox deacon: “Since you have the same Liturgy as we do, why don’t the Orthodox believe in the Immaculate Conception?” He couldn’t answer me.

This

“It is truly meet and right to call thee blessed, O Theotokos, the ever blessed and most blameless and Mother of our God, more honorable than the Cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim, thou who without corruption, gavest birth to God the Word, true theotokos, we magnify thee.” (Emphasis mine)

–It Is Truly Meet, chanted throughout divine services and specially placed in the Divine Liturgy at the end of Anaphora as the priest censes the portion of paten with the Body of Our Lord and the portion of bread taken from the Lamb that represents the Mother of God.

This is one area I completely agree with Rome, the language the East uses is so exalted for the Mother of God that every argument against the Immaculate Conception falls flat, and seems to be a resort to defining our identity against that of the Latin Church.

 

[dochawk]

You are very focused on the Augustinian view, to the point it sounds like you’ve read too many polemics.

You have got to be kidding . . .

No.

Just, no.

In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever read any polemics (well, other than assorted loonies for both sides on web fora . . .)

The West generally accepts (but non-dogmatically) Augustinian’s thought on Original sin, while the East does not.

Once accepting individual taint an need for forgiveness for OS, as found in Augustine, something like the IC becomes necessary.

Again, the East does not deny the notions of the IC. It just finds dogmatizing something as obvious as “2+2=4” to be silly.

 

[Margaret_Ann]

Again, the East does not deny the notions of the IC. It just finds dogmatizing something as obvious as “2+2=4” to be silly.

IIRC, Edgar Allan Poe wrote that if you want to hide something, put it in plain view.

And to build on what @Maximian posted earlier, 2+2=4 may have to be declared dogma if certain people think otherwise.

Save Your people, O Lord, and bless Your inheritance. Grant victory to Your Church over her enemies, and protect Your people by Your Cross.

Troparion of the Holy Cross

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

Original Sin (which is not dogmatic in the west, and has never been accepted in the east)

But it is dogmatic everywhere and it was accepted by the East. 7th Ecumenical Council accepted and adopted acts of Council of Carthage. Which taught :

“ Likewise it seemed good that whosoever denies that infants newly from their mother’s wombs should be baptized, or says that baptism is for remission of sins, but that they derive from Adam no original sin, which needs to be removed by the laver of regeneration, from whence the conclusion follows, that in them the form of baptism for the remission of sins, is to be understood as false and not true, let him be anathema.

For no otherwise can be understood what the Apostle says, By one man sin has come into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed upon all men in that all have sinned, than the Catholic Church everywhere diffused has always understood it. For on account of this rule of faith (regulam fidei) even infants, who could have committed as yet no sin themselves, therefore are truly baptized for the remission of sins, in order that what in them is the result of generation may be cleansed by regeneration.”

The notion of one church unilaterally propounding a dogma

But this isn’t unilateral. If we introduce something into Liturgy it becomes dogmatic by virtue of “rule of faith is rule of prayer” and fact that “faith of the Church is incorruptible”. From this view, East has actually made this dogmatic even before Latin Church did. And at the same time, many Ecumenical Councils held in the East did declare some beliefs dogmatic… so being against “unilaterally propounding a dogma” isn’t something too Eastern either. At least not historically, not in the Catholic Church.

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

What did the fathers of the church speak about it?

Anybody who ever attended Eastern Catholic (or Orthodox) Liturgy knows that East also teaches this. It isn’t really about declaring it dogmatic that bugs people. It’s that Pope did it… which to me sounds extremely weird.

At Ephesus, laity actually intervened against Nestorianism and Fathers accepted it. Now Pope has quite more authority than laity of Ephesus did so if that was never a problem, why is this? Polemics and polemics…

 

[dochawk]

IIRC, Edgar Allan Poe wrote that if you want to hide something, put it in plain view.

“The Purloined Letter”

But it is dogmatic everywhere and it was accepted by the East.

I should clarify: the Augustinian formulation is not dogmatic.

But this isn’t unilateral.

Pronouncing it as dogma was unilateral by the RCC.

It’s that Pope did it…

No.

While that may fairly be said about the new calendar, the opposition to the west making dogmatic pronouncements on its own is church-church, not east-pope.

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

Pronouncing it as dogma was unilateral by the RCC.

East de-facto made it dogmatic by including it in the Liturgy. Liturgy is itself dogmatic. It is highest prayer of the Church. Church believes as she prays and faith of the Church is infallible. Hence it was binding in the East even before that pronouncement of the Pope.

I should clarify: the Augustinian formulation is not dogmatic.

Then that still makes us inherit sin of Adam and hence it is fair to say Blessed Virgin did not inherit it as she was spotless. It isn’t 2+2=4 without either assumption.

 

[dochawk]

East de-facto made it dogmatic by including it in the Liturgy.

Not in the manner pronounced as dogma by Rome, though.

The East does not hold that Mary needed this to avoid the taint of sin.

Then that still makes us inherit sin of Adam and hence it is fair to say Blessed Virgin did not inherit it as she was spotless. It isn’t 2+2=4 without either assumption.

That is exactly where it’s 2+2=4.

Per Eastern theology, first millennium through now, individual people are not tainted with sinful guilt; that isn’t part of Original Sin.

While noobe suggests that Mary didn’t have particular grace, saying that she didn’t have the taint is a 2+2=4 situation.

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

Per Eastern theology, first millennium through now, individual people are not tainted with sinful guilt; that isn’t part of Original Sin.

Dogma isn’t about the guilt. It’s about the stain of original sin (meaning for example that our Lady did not need to be baptized).

whosoever denies that infants newly from their mother’s wombs should be baptized, or says that baptism is for remission of sins, but that they derive from Adam no original sin, which needs to be removed by the laver of regeneration, from whence the conclusion follows, that in them the form of baptism for the remission of sins, is to be understood as false and not true, let him be anathema.

Council of Carthage speaks clearly. No one can deny that even infants derive Original Sin from Adam, and that Baptism cleanses it. Dogma simply says Blessed Virgin was “born baptized”.

 

[Isaac14]

Dogma isn’t about the guilt. It’s about the stain of original sin (meaning for example that our Lady did not need to be baptized).

What, then, is the “stain of original sin” since you say it’s not about guilt?

In the East it means we believe that while being “most holy, most pure, most blessed” and indeed without sin, the Theotokos was still subject to death. Jesus inherited that subjection to death in the humanity He recieved from Mary, while remaining sinless, so that He could destroy the power of death over us by His death and resurrection. This is why the immaculate conception doesn’t make sense to the East, as @dochawk keeps pointing out.

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

What, then, is the “stain of original sin” since you say it’s not about guilt?

Forgive me, I wasn’t clear… it’s not personal guilt. Christ inherited everything “except sin”. Which is exactly why baptism is necessary for eternal life. We become like Christ in our baptism.

It boils down to two things;

1. It is dogma according to Council of Carthage that even infants inherit Adam’s Sin and that baptism is for remission of Original Sin too.
2. Theotokos was ever-pure. She couldn’t have inherited Adam’s Sin according to Eastern Liturgy.

Conclusion is that Theotokos, unlike all other humans, has not inherited Adam’s Sin. Part about guilt or personal guilt is probably doctrinal. What is dogmatic is that we all inherit Original Sin but Blessed Virgin did not.

For Eastern Orthodoxy, only dogmatic part is technically that we all inherit Original Sin. Part about Blessed Virgin not inheriting it does stem from Liturgy but I don’t think it has ever been declared dogma.

 

[Isaac14]

What is dogmatic is that we all inherit Original Sin but Blessed Virgin did not.

Is the Theotokos subject to death?

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

Is the Theotokos subject to death?

Yes and so was Christ (through human nature of course). Did Christ need baptism to get rid of Original Sin? After all, St. John the Baptist does say that our Lord did not need to be baptized.

Even when we get baptized we can die, yet Council of Carthage says Original Sin is cleansed by Baptism by Regeneration.

 

[Isaac14]

Yes and so was Christ (through human nature of course).

Death is part of human nature due to Original Sin - no original sin, no death.

 

[OrbisNonSufficit]

Death is part of human nature due to Original Sin - no original sin, no death.

Right. But dogma of Immaculate Conception does not say Theotokos did not inherit Original Sin. It says she was born without “stain of” Original Sin. Even baptized can die and they no longer have Original Sin. Death is result of Original Sin but by cleansing Original Sin one does not defeat Death. Even baptized can die.