That tired old argument against Mary's Immaculate Conception

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That Mary couldn’t be sinless because it’d mean she didn’t need a Savior.

“My spirit rejoices in God my savior.” (Luke 1:47)

God is the Savior of mankind and He won all graces for mankind through His death. He won graces for all men of all times and places, from the first man to the last man. He went down to limbo to lead the righteous there to Heaven after reopening Paradise’s doors for mankind, so obviously He was not inactive but active prior to the Death of Jesus Christ, giving men the graces they needed for their salvation and sanctification. And it is the same with Mary. Moreover, He gave her every grace, making her all-holy, because, as the Mother of God, she is also the Mother of His graces, for, God is Mercy Itself and so she who is His Mother is also the Mother of the gifts which He would bestow upon all souls, including her own soul. There is no limit to His Mercy; He can make a soul as holy as it pleases Him to make. But it requires cooperation, and not all souls accept God’s graces - not even the grace of eternal life. Mary gave herself entirely to God as His handmaid, she cooperated with Him her whole life and to such a degree that she is the most excellent exemplar of charity and hope; but such a degree of holiness, while “merited” by her by her cooperation, is actually God’s gift to her, for no one is good but God, only He can save us and make us holy. And if through the Sacrament of Baptism He can destroy original sin in the soul, why not exempt Mary from original sin? Original sin is not a part of human natue but is a consequence of man’s first sin; it is an unnatural and unfortunate corruption. God, though, preserved her from original sin, so she was not a fallen human being, and this by His grace, which He won for her by His Death and which she “merited” by her complete cooperation with Him. The Immaculate Conception is not impossible but is proper for Mary. If no one could touch the Ark that held within itself the Ten Commandments and live, than how could sin touch she who held within herself He who is our Lord and Savior?
 
I know what you mean! That argument is pretty tiresome.

Mary did require a saviour, the difference with Our Lady is that she was saved at conception. Our lady was fortunate enough not to have original sin when she was conceived, to have this done she needed a saviour to do this as he is the only one who can.

If we are fortunate enough to get to heaven then we have all sin removed forever! Our lady simply had this done when she was conceived.
 
Louie1983 said:
I know what you mean! That argument is pretty tiresome.

Mary did require a saviour, the difference with Our Lady is that she was saved at conception. Our lady was fortunate enough not to have original sin when she was conceived, to have this done she needed a saviour to do this as he is the only one who can.

If we are fortunate enough to get to heaven then we have all sin removed forever! Our lady simply had this done when she was conceived.
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Well said.
 
The Immaculate Conception
Lk 1:28 - hail full of grace[highly favored] Lord is with you
Lk 1:30 - you have found favor with God
Lk 1:37 - for with God nothing shall be impossible
Gn 3:15 - complete enmity between woman & Satan, sin
Ex 25:11-21 - ark made of purest gold for God’s word
 
Joe_Brown said:
The Immaculate Conception
Lk 1:28 - hail full of grace[highly favored] Lord is with you
Lk 1:30 - you have found favor with God
Lk 1:37 - for with God nothing shall be impossible
Gn 3:15 - complete enmity between woman & Satan, sin
Ex 25:11-21 - ark made of purest gold for God’s word
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Amen!
 
Protestants, especially pop-evangelicals, forget that in Jewish thought, one didn’t get saved because of a “personal relationship with YHVH” or “praying to receive Elohim as one’s personal savior” or anything similar to that. In fact, one will not find either the formula or the concept of “personal Savior” anywhere in the Bible.

One was saved and redeemed by being a part of the saved, redeemed people.

One person put it this: What God gives us in Baptism, the Holy Virgin always had.

In the Byzantine tradition call the Theotokos “immaculate/achrantos” (though some English liturgical texts, for reasons of euphony, render this as “most pure”.

She’s always been immaculate and always a strange to sin.

For me that suffices; it is unnecessary, and possibly irreverent, to inquire further.
 
Thing is, God never gives us a mission without also giving us what we need to accomplish it. Nobody ever had a more important mission than the Mother of God; therefore, it makes sense for God to give her the unique grace of never having been under the dominion of Satan for even an instant.

I think everybody can agree that Mary needed extraordinary faith to carry out her mission in life. I think everybody can also agree that sin hinders us in the exercise of virtue. Faith is a virtue. To have the level of faith she needed to fulfill her duties as the Mother of God, doesn’t it make sense that God would remove all obstacles to Mary’s faith?
 
Opinions are like belly buttons. Everybody has one. Thomas Aquinas didn’t believe in the Immaculate Conception of Mary. But, in the end it’s the Church as a holistic body under the papacy that decides these things, not even the great Aquinas or someone like me! It’s an article of faith and an infallible teaching, de fide for Catholics. I believe it.🙂 And the OP is right, it IS a tired argument…
 
gurneyhalleck1 said:
Opinions are like belly buttons. Everybody has one. Thomas Aquinas didn’t believe in the Immaculate Conception of Mary.
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Well, I’m not sure I’d go quite that far. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception hadn’t been defined yet. Plus, the understanding of human development in the womb was rather primitive in his day; ensoulment was thought to take place at some point after conception.
 
Victorious said:
Well, I’m not sure I’d go quite that far. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception hadn’t been defined yet. Plus, the understanding of human development in the womb was rather primitive in his day; ensoulment was thought to take place at some point after conception.
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Hi Victorious,

Aquinas didn’t accept the notion of the I.C. You can google it and research it all you want. He felt that if Christ’s perfection was predicated on having a sinless mother, then the mother’s sinlessness would be predicated on having a sinless mother so now we’d have a sinless grandmother and so forth back to the beginning of time. His argument was, more or less, when would it end? He rejected the theory as did St. Bernard and others. My point was not to disprove the I.C. As I stated, I believe it. My point was that, in the end, it’s NOT the saints individually or doctors of the Church that make these decisions, but a holistic process capped off by the papacy…Augustine has his own beliefs that at time were a bit out there and they aren’t official dogma. Some anti-Catholics go out there looking for something bizarre that a famous saint or church dr. said to try to say, “see! they didn’t believe X” when that’s not the point. That’s what I was trying to say. Your points of human definement are good ones. Aquinas might have believed in it in 2009 for all you or I know? 🙂
 
gurneyhalleck1 said:
Aquinas might have believed in it in 2009 for all you or I know? 🙂
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Well, I think it is very safe to assume that he would have accepted the Immaculate Conception in 2009, since it is now a defined doctrine! And as a Dominican, and therefore a devotee of the Blessed Mother, I think he would have been very glad to accept it in his ow time if he had had the guidance of a definition that we enjoy today.

This is a reason why I think saying that he didn’t believe in the Immaculate Conception is a little strong, because putting it that way gives the impression that Aquinas was in dissent. There just wasn’t enough light on the subject then. Otherwise, I think Aquinas would have promptly accepted it without argument.
 
Victorious said:
Well, I think it is very safe to assume that he would have accepted the Immaculate Conception in 2009, since it is now a defined doctrine! And as a Dominican, and therefore a devotee of the Blessed Mother, I think he would have been very glad to accept it in his ow time if he had had the guidance of a definition that we enjoy today.

This is a reason why I think saying that he didn’t believe in the Immaculate Conception is a little strong, because putting it that way gives the impression that Aquinas was in dissent. There just wasn’t enough light on the subject then. Otherwise, I think Aquinas would have promptly accepted it without argument.
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I don’t think it was a little strong, Victorious, because I’ve read it in numerous sources and he emphatically denied it. He said out loud in no certain terms that he wasn’t buying it and gave the example about multiple generations of immaculate mothers backwards that I quoted to you. He didn’t believe in it, period. But I agree with you that he might had he heard later theories or the pope’s angle. Who knows? You and I cannot try to speculate what a great doctor of the church like Aquinas would have thought.
 
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