Ah, yes, thank you, I see what you mean. All that aside, however, isn’t the “insurmountable problem” ultimately within the realm of Sola Scriptura then? That’s what appears to be constraining them. Or are you saying that Protestants are using the IC to claim that Church teaching contradicts Scripture and is therefore proven to be a false authority?
Dear TommyWommy,
Cordial greetings and thankyou for the above.
Well, I rather think it is a little more nuanced than
that. It is quite true, especially as regards orthodox Evangelicals, that a Protestants first question is always, “What saith the Scriptures?” Even Blessed Newman acknowledged that “No one can add to revelation. That was given once for all” (
Memorandum on the Immaculate Conception). If a supposed doctrine is not actually within the sacred “deposit” entrusted by the apostles to the Church (cf. I Tim. 6: 20; II Tim. 1: 14, 2: 2), then, yes, as far as they are concerned it is not an authentic part of the Christian faith. To this extent they have hedged themselves in and erected a formidable barrier to an embracing of the whole spirit of Catholicism.
However, most educated Protestants would not expect us Catholics to put on
Sola Scriptura, bible only blinders. They would expect us to make the point that even the oral teaching of the apostles was authoritative (I Thess. 2: 13) and was handed down as such (II Thess. 2: 15), and that if there is evidence that a doctrine was taught orally then such a doctrine necessarily commands our assent. Moreover, they would expect us to argue forcefully that even truths implicit in apostolic doctrine form part of the faith “once delivered”. Thus, for example, neither the Trinity nor the dual nature of Jesus Christ is explicitly taught in the N.T., nevertheless, as has already been argued previously, each of these doctrines is a synthesis of what the apostles certainly did teach and actually emerges from the pages of Sacred Scripture. Therefore, as regards these theological and Christological tenets, they do indeed command one’s assent.
Now the Protestant controversialists would say, in light of the above, that the case for the sinlessness of our Lady could be jolly compelling even in the absence of direct biblical support, provided there is weighty evidence that the first-century Church had received it orally from the college of the apostles, or at least if the sinlessness of the BVM is implicit in Sacred Scripture. Hope I am not misrepresenting their standpoint here; if so, perhaps one of our Protestant brethren will inform us as to where my account of their position is inacurate.
Warmest good wishes,
Portrait
Pax
And I assume most Protestants might agree that God can pull off the IC, but they want proof texts to explicitly show that God did do that for Mary. So, it’s really a Sola Scriptura issue I think.