Yes. God would know what She would do in any event. At the time of the Fall—and in fact, at the very beginning of creation—God knew. And, in fact… while there’s no time for God, He does have an order in which He created the universe according to what His priorities were. The whole reason He created anything at all was to create us, and make us capable of sharing in His divine life. Once He decided that He was going to do that by becoming one of us, His very next thought is of the creature He would accomplish the incarnation through: Mary. This is why Abp. Fulton Sheen calls Mary “the world’s first love.” She is the first thought God has outside Himself, and is in that sense the very first creature.
Okay, then I think we’re in agreement at basic principles. I do not see how we introduce risk and a possibility that it could go either way (in God’s knowledge) into it.Wesrock:
Yes. God would know what She would do in any event. At the time of the Fall—and in fact, at the very beginning of creation—God knew. And, in fact… while there’s no time for God, He does have an order in which He created the universe according to what His priorities were. The whole reason He created anything at all was to create us, and make us capable of sharing in His divine life. Once He decided that He was going to do that by becoming one of us, His very next thought is of the creature He would accomplish the incarnation through: Mary. This is why Abp. Fulton Sheen calls Mary “the world’s first love.” She is the first thought God has outside Himself, and is in that sense the very first creature.
We can talk all day about the advantages of being entirely prescient, but that doesn’t change the fact that love always involves risk because love is a free gift of self, without quid pro quo strings attached.
Right. By correlate to that, the IC is part of reality itself. Take it away, and everything falls apart.
Then let’s not talk about risk, let’s talk about God’s essential nature, which is Love. It is against God’s nature to let the devil win. He would never do that.
God doesn’t merely choose love; it has been revealed to us that God IS Love. Love is not just an idea or an “option,” but the reality that created and sustains and underpins the universe and all of its workings. When reality finally makes itself felt, it isn’t a matter of “winning,” is it? The way things are will eventually show themselves. There is no happiness or even any reality outside of love in its true sense. That can never be eliminated from reality.
She could say no, but She wouldn’t… because She was full of grace.
I mean that grace gave her the capacity to see that accepting God’s will is on par with “accepting” walking in hallways instead of trying to walk through walls, because one can see how a building is structured. The Annunciation was a light switching on for one who walked only by the light of grace. Her fiat was consent with a beautiful reality. It is no wonder that she exulted in the path she had been given to walk and exulted that God makes this path accessible to the lowly ones who trust in Him even though it is hidden to those who are blinded by imagining themselves to be self-sufficient. She was seeing a marvelous sight!!
Because Divine mutability (change the plan of salvation) or no free will (we are robots) are the only alternatives, and neither can be true.
I really wish we could. I would love for this to become one, like I said at the beginning. I’m hoping this might finally be the thing to break through the Pavlovian recoil against Mary that so many Protestants are conditioned into… I was.
I don’t want to keep going in circles, but would an assent to God’s call to be the mother of Jesus have been possible for anyone ever without that person being immaculately conceived?Wesrock:
I really wish we could. I would love for this to become one, like I said at the beginning. I’m hoping this might finally be the thing to break through the Pavlovian recoil against Mary that so many Protestants are conditioned into… I was.
It’s not a valid alternative but it’s the only way God could change His promises on the fly. But He would never do that anyway. (Mal. 3:6)
I used to think so until I saw CCC 490.
Okay, thank you. I had reread your initial post and I can’t wrap my head around speaking of God “needing to be sure.”
No, He could have just used a different plan. Not because because He was choosing based on what worked, but because He both chose a plan and saw it worked through all eternity.