The Immaculate Conception vs. Free Will (Predestination question)

[matthew1624]

Not sure if this will help but here goes anyway…

I can see how the argument could hold water; I think it would depend on whether or not Mary was the only child so conceived prior to the conception of the Savior. If God had intervened in this fashion for only Mary, then it follows that God had predestined her to be the Theotokos (“bearer of God”), which would make the choice offered her at the Annunciation moot - she would only be doing what she was predestined to do.

From the book Predestination by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange:

“God foresees infallibly the free act of the future, at the same time leaving their contingency intact. Therefore He can predestine a person to perform these acts. It is possible that the effects of this predestination will or will not be realized in time, if we consider their cause, which is our free will. They are foreseen and ordained by God from all eternity, being irrevocable and necessary in virtue of a necessity of consequence. In this third and most important chapter of his (St. Anselm) treatise, the author shows clearly the necessity of our free co-operation with grace.” pg. 60

I would highly recommend this book but be prepared to have your brains rattled a bit since this is such a tough topic.

Finally…a passage from St. Paul:

“O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counsellor?” (Rom 11:33-34)

God Bless…

 

[xukeith]

I am a tad more confused now.
I know God is timeless. If God knows every decision I will make tomorrow, both doing God’s will and My will. How can he be pleased or displeased?
Can or should I pray to always do God’s will if it will happen already?
How do my prayers or Mary and Saints’ intercessions affect or do not affect my future if God already knows what I will do and what will happen??

 

[mangy_dog]

I’m no Greek scholar, either, but those who are tell us that the rendering of kecharitomene means “one who is filled with grace,” so Mary was filled with grace before Gabriel appeared to her. And when did that happen? The Church teaches us that it was at the moment of her conception because it was fitting that the Mother of the Messiah, the Son of God, be perfect.

As to Mary’s free will being negated by the Immaculate Conception, that is not at all the case. Adam and Eve were also created without sin. They had free will, and so did Mary. She could have refused Gabriel’s proposal because she was a free agent not a puppet.

Mary, however, had no desire to sin within her–God did this for her because she would not only give birth to his Son, but because she was the Second Eve, the Mother of the New Covenant of humans made a new creation in Christ her Son.

Hello,

Yet another none greek expert here. As a matter of fact I’m rather simplistic in my approach.
What everybody seems to keep dancing around when referring to the kecharitomene is that the Archangel Gabriel used the term as a proper name. Latin would be, “Gratia plena”. He greets her first with a queenly salutation, “salve” Hail Full of Grace. You see Mary’s virtues are in light of Christ’s virtues. The choice of Mary was not a “shot in the dark” or “one of 'em is bound to be the right one”. Whatever our understanding of “predestination” may be, Mary did have a choice and always, always chooses the greater good because she has the unique fullness of grace, (second only to her Son, Jesus) to always choose the right, good, correct everytime with a will in union with God. This is not strange, we are all destined to be this way in heaven.

 

[Madalynne]

I had this very same question not too long ago, I finally came up with an answer that satisfied me.
I thought about there being several Immaculate Conceptions, and wondered if someone had said “no” to God.
But then I realized that if someone was infused with grace, and had been born without Original Sin, then it would not make much sense for them to have said no to Him.

 

[paulchinnz]

A way to look at predestination might be

I hold a ball in my hand. I say: when released it will fall.
I release, it falls. It was predestened but it was not my will that made it fall, it was the essential aspects of the ball.
.

Been making my way through the Catechism and recently came up to the Chapter on Jesus, containing the title “Mary’s predestination” that (on first glance) conflicts with #488 going on to say “he wanted the free co-operation of a creature”. Even if God stacked the odds heavily in favour of Mary saying yes by way of her being full of grace, it wouldn’t be predestination if Mary really did have the opportunity to say no, because if she did say no won’t that ruin predestination? Also, if the odds were so heavily loaded, where is the free will in that i.e. isn’t freedom being restricted/coerced? The idea of multiple Immaculate Conceptions is interesting, kind of like multiple parallel universes, and perhaps in some Adam and Eve never took the fruit, in others Mary said no.

Reading through this thread makes me suspect this is one of those things we can’t really understand, at least from my definition of predestination i.e. everything from woe to go is already destined to happen in God’s view, as opposed to Evan’s for example, which to me is only a partial pre-destination (I would have thought pre-destination would include the idea that you already know you’re going to have a ball in your hand, you know you’re going to release it, and not just you know which way it’s going to go after release).

 

[mlchance]

Now: If Mary truly had free will - and we generally believe that she did - she must have had the ability and the opportunity to say no.

Of course she had the ability and opportunity to refuse God, but because she was uniquely graced by God, the Blessed Virgin had the ability to always freely choose to do what is right.

– Mark L. Chance.