Mary's contribution to Jesus' conception?

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Went to dinner a few years ago with a girl who’d been brought up Catholic but left the Church. She mentioned some unanswered questions she’d had, like, “How could Jesus have been born of a virgin? Doesn’t it take a sperm and egg to make a baby?” Which got me thinking, and later things got me thinking more, and finally I thought I’d just throw this poll out there and see what people thought.

How much of Jesus’ original physical/genetic material do you think was contributed by the Virgin Mary upon Jesus’ conception?

1) None – God miraculously designed a fully-formed human embryo and implanted it in Mary’s womb.

2) Half – Mary provided an egg, and God miraculously designed the genetic material needed to fertilize that egg.

3) All – God took flesh from Mary (maybe including an egg, maybe not) and miraculously formed an embryo from her flesh.

–Mike
 
Dunno if there’s any defined dogma on this one, so I don’t feel entitled to be dogmatic (ha ha). All the Bible tells us that Our Lord’s biological inheritance was that He was a descendant of David. This would have come from Our Lady, since He is ‘the fruit of [her] womb’ (Elisabeth’s divinely inspired words).

Our Lord came as ‘the Woman’s seed’ to save the descendants of Adam. I don’t think there’s any mention of the Father ‘creating new genetic material’ (which, presumably, would not be inherited from Adam) to fertilize Our Lady’s ovum.

That’s my two cents’, though I suspect that we’ll never really fathom the ineffable Mystery of the Incarnation while we’re down here. How are we to speculate on the mechanics of the conception ‘through the Holy Ghost’?🤷
 
Since many Jews argue that Jesus cannot be a descendant of David on his mothers side, and if god created “new genetic material” then it could have possible been like that of David’s.

That being said, with what we know about DNA today, it is clear that even if all genetic material came from Mary Jesus is still a descendant of David.
 
Jesus shares our humanity which he inherited from Mary

if God formed a full human in Mary’s womb, then he’ll be more like Adam before the fall, rather than be like us.

[BIBLEDRB]Luke 1:31[/BIBLEDRB]
Mary will conceive, therefore its her eggs
 
Thomas Aquinas said that Jesus was formed out of the Blood of Mary, not from some egg.

Anyway, if jesus was implanted in Mary womb without taking flsh from Her, He would not have shared the nature of the human race and become one with it through Mary.
 
philipmarie said:
Anyway, if jesus was implanted in Mary womb without taking flsh from Her, He would not have shared the nature of the human race and become one with it through Mary.
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Not sure this is true, necessarily. The idea of procreation in that day was that the man’s seed would take root in the woman and take flesh from her. The idea that God could create an untainted seed and implant it such that the seed takes flesh from Mary (i.e., her humanity but not her original sin – I’m not Catholic, btw) isn’t any more far-fetched than God’s morphing an egg cell with Mary’s X chromosome into a full-fledge XY embryo.

–Mike
 
mpartyka said:
Not sure this is true, necessarily. The idea of procreation in that day was that the man’s seed would take root in the woman and take flesh from her. The idea that God could create an untainted seed and implant it such that the seed takes flesh from Mary (i.e., her humanity but not her original sin – I’m not Catholic, btw) isn’t any more far-fetched than God’s morphing an egg cell with Mary’s X chromosome into a full-fledge XY embryo.

–Mike
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Mary was concieved Immaculately so no original sin was there.

Catholics believe (as the Church Teaches us) that Mary was sinless so Jesus could not have inhereted that from her as she did not have it to pass on.
 
ByzCath said:
Mary was concieved Immaculately so no original sin was there. Catholics believe (as the Church Teaches us) that Mary was sinless so Jesus could not have inhereted that from her as she did not have it to pass on.
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Yes, I realize that’s what the Church teaches. That’s why I mentioned that I’m not Catholic. 😉

I agree rather with Pope Leo the Great, Pope Gregory the Great, and St. Thomas Aquinas – also Catholics – who believed that only Jesus was completely free from original sin by virtue of his unique virginal and spirtual conception. I find it morally inconsistent for God, who universally hates sin, to preserve only Mary from original sin and not extend that same gift to the rest of us. The same “logic” that I’ve heard applied to Mary applies just as well to the rest of us: “If God could do it, and if it would be fitting that God did it, then God did it.” Well, since God didn’t do it for the rest of us, then it’s only logical he didn’t do it for Mary, either, whereas Jesus’ sinlessness from conception is explainable by virtue of his unique conception. Likewise, it makes no sense that Eve, a perfect woman, would fall in a sinless world with only one temptation, whereas Mary, a supposedly equally perfect woman, would go her whole life without sin in a totally sin-stained world chock-full of temptations. (Jesus’ lifelong sinlessness is explainable by his humanity’s being hypostatically united to his divinity – apart from being God as well as human, which is a prerogative reserved to Jesus alone, it is totally impossible for a human being to go without sin one’s whole life, or else Adam and Eve would have done it. Plus, if it were possible for Mary to succeed at resisting sin where Eve failed, then God is to be blamed for placing Eve in Eden instead of Mary.) And then there’s the matter of recursion: if Mary had to be without sin so that Jesus was without sin, then Mary’s mother Anna had to be without sin so that Mary could be without sin, etc., etc., all the way back to Eve, whom we know sinned and was stained by that sin. So, for all these reasons, I don’t believe that Mary was either conceived without sin or remained sinless her whole life.

But again, that’s just me. 😉

–Mike
 
I believe her cooperation and her beingchosen by God provided all.
 
mpartyka said:
Yes, I realize that’s what the Church teaches. That’s why I mentioned that I’m not Catholic. 😉

I agree rather with Pope Leo the Great, Pope Gregory the Great, and St. Thomas Aquinas – also Catholics – who believed that only Jesus was completely free from original sin by virtue of his unique virginal and spirtual conception. I find it morally inconsistent for God, who universally hates sin, to preserve only Mary from original sin and not extend that same gift to the rest of us. The same “logic” that I’ve heard applied to Mary applies just as well to the rest of us: “If God could do it, and if it would be fitting that God did it, then God did it.” Well, since God didn’t do it for the rest of us, then it’s only logical he didn’t do it for Mary, either, whereas Jesus’ sinlessness from conception is explainable by virtue of his unique conception. Likewise, it makes no sense that Eve, a perfect woman, would fall in a sinless world with only one temptation, whereas Mary, a supposedly equally perfect woman, would go her whole life without sin in a totally sin-stained world chock-full of temptations. (Jesus’ lifelong sinlessness is explainable by his humanity’s being hypostatically united to his divinity – apart from being God as well as human, which is a prerogative reserved to Jesus alone, it is totally impossible for a human being to go without sin one’s whole life, or else Adam and Eve would have done it. Plus, if it were possible for Mary to succeed at resisting sin where Eve failed, then God is to be blamed for placing Eve in Eden instead of Mary.) And then there’s the matter of recursion: if Mary had to be without sin so that Jesus was without sin, then Mary’s mother Anna had to be without sin so that Mary could be without sin, etc., etc., all the way back to Eve, whom we know sinned and was stained by that sin. So, for all these reasons, I don’t believe that Mary was either conceived without sin or remained sinless her whole life.

But again, that’s just me. 😉

–Mike
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Let’s begin with Scripture:
 
mpartyka said:
Went to dinner a few years ago with a girl who’d been brought up Catholic but left the Church. She mentioned some unanswered questions she’d had, like, “How could Jesus have been born of a virgin? Doesn’t it take a sperm and egg to make a baby?” Which got me thinking, and later things got me thinking more, and finally I thought I’d just throw this poll out there and see what people thought.

How much of Jesus’ original physical/genetic material do you think was contributed by the Virgin Mary upon Jesus’ conception?

1) None – God miraculously designed a fully-formed human embryo and implanted it in Mary’s womb.

2) Half – Mary provided an egg, and God miraculously designed the genetic material needed to fertilize that egg.

3) All – God took flesh from Mary (maybe including an egg, maybe not) and miraculously formed an embryo from her flesh.

–Mike
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Jesus took 100% of His DNA from Mary.
 
kepha1 said:
Let’s begin with Scripture:
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Really enjoyed this video, especially when it got to the parallels between the Ark of the Old Covenant and Mary, the Ark of the New Covenant.

However, the parallel breaks down at the Immaculate Conception. The Ark of the Old Covenant was made from corruptible materials first, then overshadowed with the glory of God and purified. And this is the view of Mary to which many, many Catholics subscribed over hundreds of years. St. John Chrysostom was unafraid to call Mary a sinner worthy of Jesus’ rebuke (“Who are my mother and my brothers?” and “Woman, what have I to do with thee?”). St. Augustine could not, as Catholics do today, unequivocally declare Mary free from sin but limited himself to saying he would make no mention of sin so far as Mary was concered (because who knows what God might have done in her case). Pope Leo the Great spoke of Christ’s being the only human being free from the guilt of original sin due to his special conception. Pope Gregory the Great affirmed that no one born of carnal intercourse, like Mary, could be free from sin. And St. Thomas Aquinas showed in his Summa Theologica that Mary had been stained with original sin at conception and was only later purified from it.

As the video demonstrates, people like to compare the Marian controversies to the Trinitarian controversies of the early Christian Church, but there really is no parallel. The Trinity was taught from the very beginning of the Church. You can clearly see all the elements of the doctrine of the Trinity in Scripture, and its elements are reinforced time and again in extrabiblical documents from the first century onward, and it is not until the fourth century that the doctrine is challenged with teachings that clearly do not reflect the thoughts of earlier writers. On the other hand, the Marian dogma of the Immaculate Conception is lacking any clear reference in Scripture and finds no support in the documents of the early Church. What you see instead regarding the Marian dogma is a gradual increase and elevation of Mary’s attributes over the centuries. First she is blessed and venerated because she is the Ever-Virgin Mother of God. Later you begin to see personal sinlessness ascribed to her. Then comes the notion that she was sinless from birth. Then comes the notion that she was sinless even before birth. Finally came the notion that she was sinless even from the first moment of her conception. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception simply was not taught from the beginning of the Church but was established only after a gradual, centuries-long progression.

(If there’s any doubt about this progression, one need only look to St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica and Pope Pius IX’s Ineffablis Deus. Pope Pius IX uses as one of his justifications for defining the Immaculation Conception ex cathedra that “it afforded the greatest joy to our predecessors to ordain that the Feast of the Conception should be celebrated in every church with the very same honor as the Feast of the Nativity; that it should be celebrated with an octave by the whole Church.” Yet 600 years earlier, St. Thomas Aquinas had argued that one reason Mary’s Conception was not immaculate was that “the Church of Rome does not celebrate the Conception of the Blessed Virgin”! So the conception of Mary was something previously not thought worthy of veneration by the whole Church – not even by the Church of Rome, over which the popes themselves presided – and only later was deemed worthy of veneration by the whole Church!)

–Mike
 
This seems to be drifting into a “sinlessness of Mary” discussion. Was that the intent of the thread starter?

He seems, like many protestants, to be confused between the doctrine of the complete sinlessness of Mary - always believed by the ancient Church. And the specific later doctrine of he Immaculate conception, which defines WHEN and HOW she was made sinless (at her conception by the removal of Original Sin).

On the main question, Jesus, to be a true man, capable of redeeming humanity, has to be genetically of the race of Adam. He is also a true descendant of David, since scripture shows his to be the basis of His Kingship of Israel. He is therefore true physical and genetic son of Mary.
 
Axion said:
This seems to be drifting into a “sinlessness of Mary” discussion. Was that the intent of the thread starter?
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No, the drift occurred when another poster wrote, “Catholics believe (as the Church Teaches us) that Mary was sinless so Jesus could not have inherited that from her as she did not have it to pass on.” From what I learned in other threads over the last few months, this is not true – the Church does not, after all, teach that Jesus’ being without sin was in any way a function of Mary’s freedom from original sin. This is likely because the logic breaks down when Mary’s own preservation from original sin is taken into account – i.e., if it is necessary that a mother be preserved from original sin so that her child can be preserved free from original sin, then Mary’s mother Anna must needs have been preserved from original sin, too; and that means Anna’s mother must needs have been preserved from original sin, and her mother, and her mother, etc., all the way back to Eve, whom we know was not preserved from original sin because she was involved in the commission of it.

In the early Church, original sin was thought to be transmitted in one or both of two ways:
  1. The seed of the man, being corrupt, transmitted original sin to the offspring created from it.
  2. The lust required to effect the procreative act tainted the offspring created through its activity.
Jesus’ supernatural conception bypassed both these paths of transmission: He was not formed from male seed, and His conception was effected through spiritual rather than carnal means.
He seems, like many protestants, to be confused between the doctrine of the complete sinlessness of Mary - always believed by the ancient Church.
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Not true, because if it had always been believed by the ancient Church, you wouldn’t have had saints like John Chrysostom teaching otherwise, nor would whole segments of the Orthodox Church today teach otherwise. Nor would St. Augustine have refrained from making a clear and decisive statement about Mary’s personal sinlessness when he had perfect opportunity to do so. His reticence about Mary’s sin is identical to that which I observed in a Greek Orthodox priest whom I once visited. I asked him whether Mary was personally sinless, and he hemmed and hawed around the issue for a full minute talking about how blessed she is and how much veneration she recieves and how good a person she is considered to be by the Church before finally admitting, “No.” Augustine, by comparison, similarly hemmed and hawed and finally evaded the question altogether.

–Mike
 
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