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MarysLurker
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Then, once again, why does CCC 490 say that Mary had to be completely free to say yes?
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Wesrock
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Hans Ur Balthazar speculates that Mary could not have given assent without reservation without the IC, and for such a thing for the Incarnation God would not impose if there was any reservation.Wesrock:
Then, once again, why does CCC 490 say that Mary had to be completely free to say yes?
However, note that the CCC says the IC was needed, not that the IC guaranteed it when without it there would have been uncertainty.
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MarysLurker
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Bingo. Thanks for looking it up. I think the second part of your statement is a distinction without a practical difference.
As far as uncertainty/risk to God, let’s make sure I’m not misunderstood here. If God thought the plan of salvation would fail He would not have committed to it. We are talking about the conditions that He chose, using the risk factor to draw inferences about the choices that He made.
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Wesrock
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If you want a form of your argument to work, it’s necessary to argue that her assent would have been absolutely impossible without the IC. “If God thought the plan of salvation could fail” and the hypothetical risk of an infinite regress of backups completely misunderstand Catholic theology on God’s manner of existence, predestination, and free will.Wesrock:
Bingo. Thanks for looking it up. I think the second part of your statement is a distinction without a practical difference.
As far as uncertainty/risk to God, let’s make sure I’m not misunderstood here. If God thought the plan of salvation would fail He would not have committed to it. We are talking about the conditions that He chose, using the risk factor to draw inferences about the choices that He made.
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Gorgias
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He chose to do it by becoming human. Full stop.
Mary is the instrumental cause of his incarnation. (Full stop!)
God foreknows that Mary will say ‘yes’, and graces her with an immaculate conception that redeems her from the moment of her conception.
There’s no “what if” in that – God knows, and acts in a way that’s fitting. It doesn’t force Mary’s “yes”, nor is it in risk of failing to hear Mary’s “yes”.
It’s a difficult concept to wrap your head around, without a doubt! Yet, there’s not the “risk” that you seem to be perceiving. If this were a bank heist movie, then sure – I’d say “it wouldn’t have worked unless this happened, and that happened, and that other thing happened. How lucky they got!” (or even “how clever they were, to force that outcome!”)
That’s not how God works.
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MarysLurker
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No, absolute impossibility isn’t necessary to the argument. God would not choose a plan of salvation without a 100% success rate. Any degree of impossibility (e.g. 99.9999%) would be unacceptable to Him.
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Wesrock
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…Wesrock:
No, absolute impossibility isn’t necessary to the argument. God would not choose a plan of salvation without a 100% success rate. Any degree of impossibility (e.g. 99.9999%) would be unacceptable to Him.
But there is no degree of impossibility. Let’s suppose Mary was not immaculately conceived. God knows from all eternity how she will respond if placed in that situation. There is no degree of uncertainty for him.
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MarysLurker
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But He would not put Her (and us) in that situation if there was any risk of a no. We aren’t talking about hypothetical other scenarios, we are talking about the one He chose with the IC and CCC 490.
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Wesrock
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God knows absolutely in all eternity what you’ll freely choose to eat for breakfast in ten years.
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Wesrock
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But there is no such risk.Wesrock:
But He would not put Her (and us) in that situation if there was any risk of a no. We aren’t talking about hypothetical other scenarios, we are talking about the one He chose with the IC and CCC 490.
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MarysLurker
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Sure, and if He wants you to eat Lucky Charms, He will put it on the shelf for you to buy. If He really wants you to eat Lucky Charms instead of Cheerios, He won’t remove all the Cheerios boxes from the shelves (this impairing your free will), but He could make your TV malfunction so that the Honey Nut Cheerios Bee won’t tempt you. In that scenario, the Cheerios will still be there next to the Lucky Charms, but the Bee will not have been able to undermine your choice.
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MarysLurker
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Because He set the conditions such that Mary would be completely free. The whole point is that He set the conditions, and the IC appears to be one of them.
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Wesrock
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God knows how anyone will freely act in any given situation. If it was possible to say yes without an IC, God could simply plan from all eternity to ask a person who he knew would say yes when prompted, no risk involved.
So the argument only works if it is strict, absolute impossibility to give the needed “yes” without an IC.
So the argument only works if it is strict, absolute impossibility to give the needed “yes” without an IC.
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Gorgias
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In fact, it isn’t even relevant. God foreknew what choices people would make in their lives. Period. End of story.
Unless it’s bacon-covered bacon. Then he’ll send your guardian angel to you, in order to try and persuade you to have a nice, healthy fruit cup instead…
No; God doesn’t stack the deck in that way. (And neither, thankfully, will He cause me to be inclined to set aside bacon for fruit cups.)
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MarysLurker
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By removing concupisence from Mary, He did stack the deck without removing Her freedom. In fact, He enhanced Her freedom because concupisence is a wound to our freedom.
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tafan2
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The word “risk” implies uncertainty/probabilities. If I have cancer, I am not at risk to get cancer, even though having cancer is a bad thing. For God, there is never risk. Even a bad decision on my part in the future is not a risk for God. There is no risk that I might end up in Hell for God. For God, there is the certainty that I will end up in heaven or hell, just as for me there is the certainty I am currently typing on this computer. So we at least need to reword the argument to remove this verbiage of risk and probabilities.
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MarysLurker
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Yes, which is why He chose the scenario He did, with the IC. The point is He would not choose some other situation with any degree of risk.
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Wesrock
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But there wouldn’t have been risk. He would have known either way.tafan2:
Yes, which is why He chose the scenario He did, with the IC. The point is He would not choose some other situation with any degree of risk.
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MarysLurker
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He would have known, and then not chosen another scenario with risk, but given that Mary’s Fiat had to be borne by grace to be totally free, which is what the Catechism says, He chose that scenario, not another one.
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Wesrock
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And the IC was necessary for that type of assent, and would have been impossible otherwise.Wesrock:
He would have known, and then not chosen another scenario with risk, but given that Mary’s Fiat had to be borne by grace to be totally free, which is what the Catechism says, He chose that scenario, not another one.
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