Teaching on Mary's sinlessness

[setarcos]

You are proving my point. Death of the soul is when grace leaves the soul. Its not when the soul just doesn’t have it, because the soul has no right to grace.

Just wondering why shouldn’t a soul have a right to grace?

 

[Wesrock]

Just wondering…how was a soul able to obtain more grace by its own efforts?

After initial justification a man, as a cooperator in good works of God, of which God is always the initator, can merit further justification. The reformers sometimes speak of sanctification (as different from justification) in a similar (if not exactly the same) way. Man has no right to any merit from God due to the immeasurable difference between God and man, but God has freely chosen to associate Himself with men. A child might not be able to roll a boulder of his own strength, and a father might be able to roll it all on his own with ease, but he still might offer to let the child “help” push and reward him for it.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Just wondering…how was a soul able to obtain more grace by its own efforts?

Standard teaching: a soul already in a supernatural state is able to merit more grace, one that is completely without grace (and so in “paralysis”) cannot and must rely on God wholly taking the initiative to enliven.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

You are proving my point. Death of the soul is when grace leaves the soul. Its not when the soul just doesn’t have it, because the soul has no right to grace.

I think you are trying to force illogical conclusions by manipulating symbols (ie words used loosely) rather than the actual realities that the symbols, at times, poorly represent.

Clearly “death” when applied to the soul is a somewhat analogical and distant use of the word.
Something I have attempted to observe to Vico with little effect.
High functioning autistic thinking types (and I do not exclude myself) do find it difficult to get jokes for the same reason - an inability to easily see beyond literal meanings and hence “read between the lines.”

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I never said a human being is “body soul and grace”. I am on the other side of the fence.

Just noticed this.
May I suggest you use the “quote” button for whomever you are addressing.

Insofar as you seem to believe that God owes it to human nature to provide SG at conception (as opposed to offering SG as a pure and free gift which he has every right to withdraw or withhold for His own good reasons … which is what “gratia” actually means) then this does effectively seem to be exactly what you are saying.

In other words you hold the soul deserves grace as much as it does a body.

Death of the soul is when sanctifying grace LEAVES the soul.

You are trying to make a teaching out of analogical hyperbole.
Death is fundamentally separation of the body and soul resulting in the dissolution of the body which needs the soul to remain vivified.

If we could speak of the separation of the soul and grace in exactly the same way then you would have to conclude that “grace” is somehow a “thing” that is brought to life by the soul. That is absurd, if anything it is the soul that is brought to a greater life by grace.

If you conversely were to say the separation of soul and grace resulted in the dissolution of the soul you would also be mistaken. Unlike a corpse which eventually decays and returns to nothing the soul cannot. It lives on, though without grace it will never reach the “accidental” (as in Aristotle) perfection it could have had.

Strictly speaking that is not likely an imperfection so far as Aristotle is concerned because grace, while the actualisation of a natural potential for relationship, is not by its absence a defect of human nature in itself.

We were promised that we would receive sanctifying grace as descendants of Adam, but when he fell so did we. But the broken promise was on Adam’s side. Nonetheless, it shouldn’t leave a stain, sin, or death on the soul. We would just be born without grace, in a state of nature without preternatural gifts as well.

Don’t understand any of this sorry.

 

[setarcos]

After initial justification a man, as a cooperator in good works of God, of which God is always the initator, can merit further justification. The reformers sometimes speak of sanctification (as different from justification) in a similar (if not exactly the same) way. Man has no right to any merit from God due to the immeasurable difference between God and man, but God has freely chosen to associate Himself with men. A child might not be able to roll a boulder of his own strength, and a father might be able to roll it all on his own with ease, but he still might offer to let the child “help” push and reward him for it.

Thank you for your reply,
I wonder though in keeping with the nature of God in so much as it has been revealed to us through revelation, is not the Creator obligated to provide the choice of denying or receiving his provided graces? The nature of God is love. In freely choosing to create hasn’t God obligated himself to provide his Graces to his creatures lest his nature be a lie? Isn’t it misleading to say man has no right to Gods merits simply because the creature is not the creator? Grace without creation is meaningless. Creation without Gods provided graces would render his nature other than what has been revealed in revelation. Another pointless exercise. Instead of saying God freely chose to associate himself with men, shouldn’t we say God has created man to freely associate with him if they so choose? If we say the former it implies men exist apart from Gods association and sustaining influence. Isn’t it the nature of Gods creation to have the necessity of Gods graces provided as a choice? Whether or not the reward is given may be dependent upon the recipient but it is not possible that a reward not be provided given this contingency.

 

[setarcos]

Standard teaching: a soul already in a supernatural state is able to merit more grace, one that is completely without grace (and so in “paralysis”) cannot and must rely on God wholly taking the initiative to enliven.

You’ve not answered the question.
What do you mean by a soul already in a supernatural state?
If a soul is in this state what is it to do to merit more grace? If a soul is already in a “supernatural” state how does this merit it for more grace? What effort is expended by the soul to reach this supernatural state?
You mentioned a soul completely without grace, can a soul be partially without grace?
How does a soul get to this state of “paralysis”? Is it by denying Gods freely given graces to begin with? If so how is such a soul to take the initiative to regain Gods graces if the initiative it took to begin with was to deny Gods graces? Please clarify this standard teaching.

 

[setarcos]

I’ve browsed a couple of pages of replies but don’t have the time (or desire) to slog through pages upon pages of debate. To get back to the OP’s question, I’ll refer to something our local Perpetual Adoration Chapel wrote about the issue, discussing the issue of Mary’s preservation from Original Sin and Mary’s connection to the Eucharist, and citing some writings of St. Augustine on the matter.

Simply put, Jesus, while conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, grew and developed in Mary’s womb in the normal, human way. The fertilized egg implanted into Mary’s vaginal wall, and a placenta developed. IOW, this new life developed “out of Mary’s flesh”.

We know now how much inter-transmission of blood as well as nutrients and waste products there is through the placenta. Antibodies from the mother’s blood provide some initial protection from various diseases until the baby can develop its own antibodies. While waste products can pass from the fetus to the mother (at least until the baby’s own kidneys can handle things), poisons can and do pass from the mother’s blood to the baby. It’s why we have crack babies being born to crack addicts – babies who are born already addicted to crack.

That example demonstrates not only the truth but the necessity of Mary’s Immaculate Conception. Clearly, corrupt products can pass through the placenta. What’s more, if Jesus developed out of Mary’s flesh, then her flesh and blood must, by necessity, be free of corruption. Since we were all conceived with Original Sin, all of our flesh is “corrupted” in a spiritual way. G_D **could **take this corrupted flesh and blood and transform it to non-corrupted material for Jesus’s growth and development, but it’s **much **easier (i.e., less complicated) to have preserved Mary from Original Sin in the first place, and thus allowed her flesh and blood to directly produce the Flesh and Blood of Jesus.

Because of this, Mary’s flesh and blood are linked/connected to Jesus’s Flesh and Blood. Thus, at the Consecration, when the bread and wine are transubstantiated to the Flesh and Blood of Jesus, some of Mary’s flesh and blood is included, simply because she provided her own flesh and blood to Jesus before His birth.

Wow…this view allows for some interesting repercussions. This cant be standard Catholic teaching? Can it?

 

[Vico]

You are proving my point. Death of the soul is when grace leaves the soul. Its not when the soul just doesn’t have it, because the soul has no right to grace.

Not leaving but not present. This can be in two ways: being born without it and loosing it after receiving it, due to mortal sin.

 

[Vico]

De Lubac’s error is far and wide

Not sure why you mentioned De Lubac.

Also De Lubac was vindicated when St. Pope John Paul II made him cardinal in 1983.

 

[PRmerger]

Thank you for your reply,
I wonder though in keeping with the nature of God in so much as it has been revealed to us through revelation, is not the Creator obligated to provide the choice of denying or receiving his provided graces? The nature of God is love. In freely choosing to create hasn’t God obligated himself to provide his Graces to his creatures lest his nature be a lie?

Saying God is “obligated” is a nonsensical statement.

God, as pure act and pure goodness, has no obligations. He does not owe anyone anything.

 

[setarcos]

Saying God is “obligated” is a nonsensical statement.

God, as pure act and pure goodness, has no obligations. He does not owe anyone anything.

He owes it to his own nature upon his act of creation and to creation contemporary to this act instigated through his own nature as revealed in revelation. In the same way we might consider it impossible for God to lie yet might say God has no obligation to tell the truth to anyone.
So you’ve made a statement about my assertions. Now may I implore you to explore with me as to why I am mistaken?

 

[Muzhik]

Wow…this view allows for some interesting repercussions. This cant be standard Catholic teaching? Can it?

The standard Catholic teaching is that Mary was protected from Original Sin by the special grace of G_D. She still needed (as do all people) the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, yet instead of Jesus pulling the sinners out of the pit in the road (a common image), He “carried” His mother over the hole, preserving her from the pit of Original Sin.

She is the Ark of the New Covenant, and as such fulfills the requirements of the original Ark, in that the materials used to make it were perfect. Like the original Ark, she carried the Bread of Life (manna), the Resurrection (Aaron’s rod, a dead stick that suddenly budded), and the Law (the tablets of the covenant). Her path from Nazareth to her Aunt’s house matches the path that David followed when bringing the Ark back to Jerusalem, thus emphasizing her role as the ark in carrying Jesus.

Everything else is just “gilding the lily”, so to speak. It is offered as further proof of her Immaculate Conception (being preserved from Original Sin) provided by modern science.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

You’ve not answered the question.
What do you mean by a soul already in a supernatural state?
If a soul is in this state what is it to do to merit more grace? If a soul is already in a “supernatural” state how does this merit it for more grace? What effort is expended by the soul to reach this supernatural state?
You mentioned a soul completely without grace, can a soul be partially without grace?
How does a soul get to this state of “paralysis”? Is it by denying Gods freely given graces to begin with? If so how is such a soul to take the initiative to regain Gods graces if the initiative it took to begin with was to deny Gods graces? Please clarify this standard teaching.

Sorry, I really have better things to do than be your personal Catechist on basics found easily enough on the Net.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Wow…this view allows for some interesting repercussions. This cant be standard Catholic teaching? Can it?

Re “the necessity of Mary’s Immaculate conception” - no.

 

[Vico]

You’ve not answered the question.
What do you mean by a soul already in a supernatural state?
If a soul is in this state what is it to do to merit more grace? If a soul is already in a “supernatural” state how does this merit it for more grace? What effort is expended by the soul to reach this supernatural state?
You mentioned a soul completely without grace, can a soul be partially without grace?
How does a soul get to this state of “paralysis”? Is it by denying Gods freely given graces to begin with? If so how is such a soul to take the initiative to regain Gods graces if the initiative it took to begin with was to deny Gods graces? Please clarify this standard teaching.

Grace is a supernatural gift from God. Now there are two kinds of grace, actual grace and habitual grace (also called sanctifying grace). So a soul first receives sanctifying grace with baptism, and receives actual graces, even before conversion.

Catechism of the Catholic Church2000 Sanctifying grace is an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it to live with God, to act by his love. Habitual grace, the permanent disposition to live and act in keeping with God’s call, is distinguished from actual graces which refer to God’s interventions, whether at the beginning of conversion or in the course of the work of sanctification.
…
2023 Sanctifying grace is the gratuitous gift of his life that God makes to us; it is infused by the Holy Spirit into the soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it.

2024 Sanctifying grace makes us “pleasing to God.” Charisms, special graces of the Holy Spirit, are oriented to sanctifying grace and are intended for the common good of the Church. God also acts through many actual graces, to be distinguished from habitual grace which is permanent in us.

2025 We can have merit in God’s sight only because of God’s free plan to associate man with the work of his grace. Merit is to be ascribed in the first place to the grace of God, and secondly to man’s collaboration. Man’s merit is due to God.

2026 The grace of the Holy Spirit can confer true merit on us, by virtue of our adoptive filiation, and in accordance with God’s gratuitous justice. Charity is the principal source of merit in us before God.

2027 No one can merit the initial grace which is at the origin of conversion. Moved by the Holy Spirit, we can merit for ourselves and for others all the graces needed to attain eternal life, as well as necessary temporal goods.

Merit

Catchism of the Catholic Church

2011 The charity of Christ is the source in us of all our merits before God. Grace, by uniting us to Christ in active love, ensures the supernatural quality of our acts and consequently their merit before God and before men. The saints have always had a lively awareness that their merits were pure grace.

After earth’s exile, I hope to go and enjoy you in the fatherland, but I do not want to lay up merits for heaven. I want to work for your love alone. . . . In the evening of this life, I shall appear before you with empty hands, for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works. All our justice is blemished in your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in your own justice and to receive from your love the eternal possession of yourself.63​

vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c3a2.htm

 

[setarcos]

The standard Catholic teaching is that Mary was protected from Original Sin by the special grace of G_D. She still needed (as do all people) the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, yet instead of Jesus pulling the sinners out of the pit in the road (a common image), He “carried” His mother over the hole, preserving her from the pit of Original Sin.

She is the Ark of the New Covenant, and as such fulfills the requirements of the original Ark, in that the materials used to make it were perfect. Like the original Ark, she carried the Bread of Life (manna), the Resurrection (Aaron’s rod, a dead stick that suddenly budded), and the Law (the tablets of the covenant). Her path from Nazareth to her Aunt’s house matches the path that David followed when bringing the Ark back to Jerusalem, thus emphasizing her role as the ark in carrying Jesus.

Everything else is just “gilding the lily”, so to speak. It is offered as further proof of her Immaculate Conception (being preserved from Original Sin) provided by modern science.

Yes, yes…im familiar with the typology of the ark and Mary. I wonder though, why does this method ignore the significant differences between the comparison? I suppose I could type almost anything to anything if I look for my preconceived ideas hard enough. People tend to forget, typology while possibly leading one to new understanding of established truth, is not proof itself of that same truth. I think people need to be aware of and wary of our tendency to fall in love more with their own craftiness than with whether or not it leads to truth.
Have you read my post on why Mary couldn’t have been immaculate? I would love to get your critique on it.
My question though was…Is the idea of Jesus carrying DNA from Mary a main stream Catholic concept or speculation from this particular group? Also why do they choose to believe Mary donated her DNA since the Holy spirit who we may presume, being spirit, doesn’t have DNA to donate? It is the male contribution which dictates the sex of the child. If this is significant in Christ’s purpose and this was a supernatural contribution from the holy spirit what need is there of Mary’s DNA? The whole context of the birth is that it was a supernatural event in total. Mary having no relations sexually in any way. This being the case, it is more reasonable to assume that the Holy Spirits contribution extends to all 46 pairs of chromosomes. Look to your own method of typology, comparing Jesus to the first Adam. Adams DNA came directly ex nihilo from God with no female contribution. Contrast this fact with Eves creation using Adam. Does this make sense to you? God bless

 

[setarcos]

Sorry, I really have better things to do than be your personal Catechist on basics found easily enough on the Net.

Wow, I’m sure glad Christ didn’t think that about all of us.
Is it that you simply have an abrasive personality without knowing it or do you really not get the spirit of Christian charity in apologetics?
Sometimes, just sometimes when someone such as yourself with such a high caliber mind that blinds them to their own arrogance takes the time to review the basics with someone else they just may find that they themselves got the basics wrong all along. Is this what your afraid of? Because you seem awfully defensive in an offensive manner.

 

[setarcos]

Sorry, I really have better things to do than be your personal Catechist on basics found easily enough on the Net.

Wow, I’m sure glad Christ didn’t think that about all of us.
Is it that you simply have an abrasive personality without knowing it or do you really not get the spirit of Christian charity in apologetics?
Sometimes, just sometimes when someone such as yourself with such a high caliber mind takes the time to review the basics with someone else they just may find that the basics weren’t so basic after all.
The purpose of my basic questions is to establish a base of understanding between us before continuing in deeper discussion. If you simply do not have the patience in engaging in apologetics with some individuals because you believe yourself to be so much the superior and it would be a waste of time then don’t respond to their posts. They will move on to more fruitful discussion with others.
It’s been my experience that you can give different individuals the same statement and yet get widely differing views on what that statement means simply because cocksure individuals such as yourself saw it as beneath them to establish the meaning of basic terms and ideas beforehand or they presuppose that everyone believes exactly what they themselves believe .

 

[Muzhik]

Yes, yes…im familiar with the typology of the ark and Mary. I wonder though, why does this method ignore the significant differences between the comparison? I suppose I could type almost anything to anything if I look for my preconceived ideas hard enough. People tend to forget, typology while possibly leading one to new understanding of established truth, is not proof itself of that same truth. I think people need to be aware of and wary of our tendency to fall in love more with their own craftiness than with whether or not it leads to truth.

Have you read my post on why Mary couldn’t have been immaculate? I would love to get your critique on it.

My question though was…Is the idea of Jesus carrying DNA from Mary a main stream Catholic concept or speculation from this particular group? Also why do they choose to believe Mary donated her DNA since the Holy spirit who we may presume, being spirit, doesn’t have DNA to donate? It is the male contribution which dictates the sex of the child. If this is significant in Christ’s purpose and this was a supernatural contribution from the holy spirit what need is there of Mary’s DNA? The whole context of the birth is that it was a supernatural event in total. Mary having no relations sexually in any way. This being the case, it is more reasonable to assume that the Holy Spirits contribution extends to all 46 pairs of chromosomes. Look to your own method of typology, comparing Jesus to the first Adam. Adams DNA came directly ex nihilo from God with no female contribution. Contrast this fact with Eves creation using Adam. Does this make sense to you? God bless

I haven’t read your post. If you could give me the post number (from the upper right corner of the post) I’ll find it and read it.

You’re talking about “the idea of Jesus carrying DNA from Mary a main stream Catholic concept” over something that we didn’t even know existed until 1953, i.e., DNA. Not really enough time to become “mainstream.” What IS a “mainstream Catholic concept” is the teaching of the homeostatic union: Jesus is **both **True God and True Man. Yes, the Holy Spirit **could **have created all 46 chromosomes without using any of Mary’s DNA. However, that speculation balances on the tipping point of Arianism. Arianism had multiple forms, but every variation had the same theme: Jesus was either wholly created by God and thus was completely divine; or Jesus was a human who was “subsumed” into divinity (or “adopted” as some would say) by God.

Arianism was declared heretical by the First Council of Nicea (although it has a way of popping up all too frequently throughout the ages, as your question shows.) Jesus is both True God and True Man, two natures (one divine, one mortal) in one body. As True God, he is con-substantial (of the same substance) as the Father (“I and the Father are One”) As True Man he had a mortal body that suffered, shed its blood, and died. As True Man he had to have had 26 chromosomes donated by the mother. To teach that these 26 X chromosomes were “made by the Holy Spirit” as well as the 26 Y chromosomes that were donated by the Holy Spirit makes Jesus a created thing, not a human being, and makes a mockery of His Sacrifice on the cross.

Since Jesus is True Man he had to have had chromosomes from His mother, as well as genetic material provided from His Father. My suspicion is that the Holy Spirit used a proven set of genetic materials and gave Jesus the DNA that would have been provided by Adam in his pre-fallen state (i.e., perfect and pure). This is just my suspicion, not any kind of doctrine.

Apologists throughout the millenia have called Jesus the “second Adam” and Mary the “second Eve”. These are not simply poetic titles. Just as Adam and Eve were perfect examples of God’s creation, both physically (genetically) and spiritually (being created without the stain of Original Sin), so both Jesus and Mary had to be without the stain of sin so that the sacrificial lamb could be “perfect, without stain or blemish”. Jesus, by His perfect obedience to God, became the perfect Paschal sacrifice, reuniting us with God; while Mary, with her perfect obedience to God, reversed the effects of Eve’s disobedience.