The Universal Church

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Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.483
Thank you. From that I glean those in Abrahams bosom were " justified", or saved, even regenerated in spirit towards God.
 
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We also see the Immaculate Conception in Full of Grace. In the original Greek, this phrase was perfect past tense. Meaning: An action already completed. Thus, we see that she was already sanctified before becoming the Mother of God.
The problem with that interpretation is that the Greek word charitoō doesn’t mean “without sin” or “free from sin”. It simply means highly favored or or greatly blessed. How was Mary highly favored or greatly blessed? By being Chosen by God to bring Christ into the world.
 
2 Thess 2:15
15 So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter.

How do you know Mariology was a tradition that Paul taught orally but not by letter? Historically there is no mention of anything close to Mary being an ever virgin or the immaculate conception before the middle of the 3rd Century in the writings of the Early Church and it wasn’t fully fleshed out till later.
 
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Vico:
Jesus did not descend into hell to deliver the damned, nor to destroy the hell of damnation, but to free the just who had gone before him.483
Thank you. From that I glean those in Abrahams bosom were " justified", or saved, even regenerated in spirit towards God.
The regenerated term is used to refer to baptism, yet God is not limited to His sacraments.
 
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Behold thy Mother. In this verse, Jesus gave Our Lady into the care of Saint John the Evangelist. If Our Lady has other kids; Jesus wouldn’t be giving her into the care of strangers.
John wasn’t a stranger. He was one of Christ inner circle. We know that Jesus’s “brothers” had rejected His teaching (John 7:5) and didn’t believe in Him. They also weren’t at the foot of the cross and John was. It makes perfect sense for Christ to defy cultural norms and place His mother with one of His followers who were loyal to Him instead of with a sibling who didn’t follow Him and wasn’t there.
 
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@lanman87,

The earliest Mariology was Our Lady as the New Eve giving life and salvation, from Saint Irenaeus of Lyons; ( causa salutis ) to men that reverses Eve’s sin that brought death to the human race. You’re also ignoring the enmity between the woman and the serpent that God placed there and the Virgin birth prefigured there.

No other woman gave Virgin birth but Our Lady.

That’s clearly prefiguring Our Lady.

As for your take on charitoo: Blessed art thou among women and Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Both she and Jesus are spoken of as blessed.

Also: Tradition held that Our Lady is Panhagia, or: All Holy. Saint Augustine held that she was sinless but couldn’t reconcile that with Original Sin. The answer came with Bl John Duns Scotus who tendered the answer that Our Lady must have been preserved from Original Sin.

Another principle of Catholic theology is: If it was fitting and good; therefore, God did it.

Think about it: Would you, As God; want the Word to be born from a sinful woman?

Therefore: God seeing that a sinless woman would be better to mother the Incarnate Word and demonstrate God’s mercy and Chrost’s redemptive power to preserve His Own Mother from Original Sin and thus she is sinless.

It makes logical sense.

Another point that Protestants might not know about our theology:

1: Scripture and Tradition are equally authoritative. The Apostles did both write and speak.

2: If our doctrines aren’t explicitly found in Scripture; it lines up with it and are found in kernel form to be found and explicated later.

3: Doctrinal development in the Church occurred as the result of having to refute heresies. Thus, definitions to the Faith that were assumed everyone held and believed all across the Empire; had to be developed and defended.

4: Mariology took a back seat as the heresies of the early Church were Christogical, schismatic, antiPopes, whether or not Sacraments were validly performed by a priest in mortal sin and whether or not to readmit or rebaptize lapsi who fell away from the Faith and made sacrifices and got their certificates from the State.

5: Catholic Mariology is participatory and cooperative; not the passive witness Mariology of the Protestants.

6: The Assumption. Scripture is silent about Our Lady’s death. Tradition held two ideas:

A) She never died but was taken like Elijah into heaven; body and soul. If Elijah was so honored; why not the Mother of God?

B) She died and she translated somehow, body and soul; into heaven. That’s the Eastern tradition of Dormition.

As for your assertion of Behold thy Mother: You’re being inconsistent. If Jesus could defy cultural norms as He wished; then very easily He spoke literally about eat My Flesh; Drink My Blood.

I have to get home and I’ll fish out my copy of Dr Scott Hahn’s Fourth Cup which details out how the Last Supper was a Passover sacrifice that finished at Calvary. Thus: The Upper Room and Calvary are both part of the Passover Seder that became the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass.
 
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The earliest Mariology was Our Lady as the New Eve giving life and salvation, from Saint Irenaeus of Lyons; ( causa salutis ) to men that reverses Eve’s sin that brought death to the human race. You’re also ignoring the enmity between the woman and the serpent that God placed there and the Virgin birth prefigured there.

No other woman gave Virgin birth but Our Lady.

That’s clearly prefiguring Our Lady.
Nobody is arguing that Mary wasn’t a virgin when she gave birth to Christ.
As for your take on charitoo: Blessed art thou among women and Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Both she and Jesus are spoken of as blessed.
Blessed (eulogeō) also doesn’t give a meaning close to being sinless or without sin. It is more of a statement that something is special or valued or held in high esteem.
Also: Tradition held that Our Lady is Panhagia, or: All Holy. Saint Augustine held that she was sinless but couldn’t reconcile that with Original Sin. The answer came with Bl John Duns Scotus who tendered the answer that Our Lady must have been preserved from Original Sin.
So you are admitting it is the invention of men and was not taught by the apostles???
Think about it: Would you, As God; want the Word to be born from a sinful woman?

Therefore: God seeing that a sinless woman would be better to mother the Incarnate Word and demonstrate God’s mercy and Chrost’s redemptive power to preserve His Own Mother from Original Sin and thus she is sinless.
Why is it better? Christ was God. He would have been God even if His early mother been the vilest of sinners. The Virgin birth wasn’t to keep Christ sinless. When sin comes into contact with Christ the sinner becomes clean, Christ isn’t stained. The Virgin birth was to show that Christ is both fully God and fully man.

I find the idea that Christ humanity came from a normal lowly teenage girl much more beautiful than if He came from a sinless and perfect girl. It shows that Christ is truly one of us and came for all of us and that the least of us are used to advance His glory.
Scripture and Tradition are equally authoritative. The Apostles did both write and speak.
Do you think the Apostles taught the doctrine of Mariology orally and it was just never recorded in Scripture? If so, how do you know?

I would say that we are to only follow the Traditions that the Apostles taught, not the traditions of men. If you want to convince me that something is the tradition taught by Paul (or the other apostles), then you need to show the apostles taught it and it wasn’t a creation of man.
You’re being inconsistent. If Jesus could defy cultural norms as He wished; then very easily He spoke literally about eat My Flesh; Drink My Blood.
The prohibition on drinking blood wasn’t a cultural norm. It was an explicit part of the Mosaic law.
 
When The body dies , soul and body separate . The body goes to the ground, The soul remains awake. It doesn’t die, it doesn’t sleep till the end of time. There is no such thing as soul sleep . The soul remains aware, with memory intellect and will fully functional.
You mention nothing about our spirits.
 
person that attains heaven is the partial cause of it, by cooperation with the grace that God first gives.
Well, as you know this is disputed by some, that we partly save ourselves, or have partly caused it. Indeed we seem to have a problematic will that without God is not so free. Yet choose ye this day says scripture, for you have been predestined since befor the foundations of the earth were laid!!?

.
 
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Think about it: Would you, As God; want the Word to be born from a sinful woman?
Interesting, yet what is the Holy Spirit, anything less than Jesus, who indeed is in us, cleansed by the blood by faith? What the OT thru Israel, light of the world, was mute on such faith also, and wss powerless to justify, sanctify?
 
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@lanman87:

First off, I didn’t admit anything. You’re reading into my statement.

I see you’re still ignoring the enmity between the woman and the serpent and how the whole verse foreshadows both Our Lady and Jesus.

Now, as for Our Lady’s sinlessness, I will write from the book, The Catholic Verses by Dave Armstrong; a former Protestant and now a Catholic apologist. Many of our best apologists are former Protestants.

The phrase, full of grace; is kecharitomene. It is derived from the Greek word, charis. Translates as literally grace. The literal meaning of kecharitomene is “ endued with grace “

For Our Lady, this means that it was a state granted to her by God in which she enjoys an extraordinary fullness of grace. Grace often refers to the power to overcome sin and as Saint Paul says grace is the antithesis and conqueror of sin and in Romans 6:14 we see:

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Now, no where have I said that Jesus needed Our Lady’s sinlessness to be sinless Himself. The basic point is: Since God saw it was a good thing to do; He wouldn’t refrain from doing it. It wouldn’t be in His nature.

As for the Apostles:

We see in the frescoes from Roman catacombs that images of Our Lady and prayers to her were there from the first century. In the lifetime of the Apostles. If the Apostles would’ve disapproved; they’d have said so and in no uncertain terms. Yet, the frescoes are there.

Considering that in the first and second centuries; the Fathers like Pope Saint Clement and Saint Irenaeus were successors of men who retained living memories of the Apostles and doctrines fresh from these same men; if such doctrines like the New Eve and Panhagia were not consistent with what the Apostles taught the Fathers themselves or the men who taught them, within three generations of time; these same Fathers wouldn’t have taught them.

So your argument of only what the Apostles themselves taught are valid Tradition is a straw man.

Another thing is: The Church Fathers has four marks to be considered a Father. Two were orthodoxy and everywhere believed. These men often knew what the mind of the Church was and the antiquity of these beliefs. They wouldn’t be inventing wholesale doctrines that wouldn’t be accepted by their teachers and their flocks.

As for the Real Presence: In a later post, I will lay out the truth.

That’s my proof that the Apostles approved of Marian devotion and doctrines.
 
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@mcq72,

The Old Law didn’t convey any grace. So, you’re arguing a straw man.

Christ Instituted a New Covenant in His Body and Blood. The Passover Liturgy was completed with the cup of wine and vinegar Christ drank on the Cross and that completed the Last Supper. Thus we have the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass. Christ’s Sacrifice opened up access to the Holy Spirit that before had been confined to just the prophets.

As Saint Paul tells us in Romans, Christ’s Sacrifice and faith in Christ grants us access to grace and the interior helps of the Holy Spirit.

So, again; you’re arguing a straw man.

The point of the Immaculate Conception is that Our Lady was preventively redeemed by her Son and granted an immense fullness of grace that kept her sinless. She didn’t merit that grace. God gave it to her as a freely given gift. Our Lady wasn’t born under Original Sin and thus didn’t have concupiscence to sin and this didn’t ever sin.
 
The Old Law didn’t convey any grace
Well then how did Holy Spirit indwell some, and was with some, and empowered some, inspired some in writ, took some up to “heaven”?

You mention the Law but not all OT covenants. The gift of grace and faith to justify, sanctify, is even before the Law. The Law is your straw man.
 
No, @mcq72.

It’s not a straw man.

The indwelling of the Holy Spirit was a gift from God to His Prophets. Your argument of applying New Covenant everybody has access to the Holy Spirit is anachronistic.

The Old Law was simply a set of laws and liturgies on how to officiate animal sacrifices. In the Mosaic Covenant, keeping the law simply assured you a long life and not being hit hard with God’s curses for breaking the Law.

No grace was conveyed in them.

Justification in the OT was by works of the law. No sanctification either.
 
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The point of the Immaculate Conception is that Our Lady was preventively redeemed by her Son and granted an immense fullness of grace that kept her sinless
Indeed I like prevenient grace, it’s all over OT, and understand your application of such to Mary. As to her fullness in grace, we do not know when this happened, and for how long the filling took place. We are only told she was full at time of annunciation.

While I can not claim to know for certain any explicit endowments to Mary, I sympathize more with those who stick to explicit prophecies of a Jewish virgin giving birth, and it would not be unscriptural to cite her as being quite like us except Jewish, and saved by grace but not quite perfect yet as Christ was. Another words, not perfect, except in the sense that Job was. This is not negating her blessedness amongst women, and her fullness of grace at time if angelic visit. Not either/or
 
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@mcq72,

I’d like to you supply me references, citations and sources for your claim that preventive grace all over the OT.

As for the exact process of the Immaculate Conception: It’s understood that Original Sin was prevented from infecting Our Lady as she was being conceived.
 
@mcq72,

That’s the conclusion I drew from your statement. Please be more clear in the future.
 
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