What if Mary had not said "Yes"?

[Redeemed]

Did Mary give God permission by her “yes?” Or would she bear our Lord in her womb anyway?
I don’t remember God asking whether it would be ok.
The angel told Mary that she would have a son.

My daughter said that if Mary had declined, then God would have chosen someone else.

I think Mary is Blessed because she wanted God’s will to be done no matter the cost for her. She was created for this special purpose.

Any thoughts?

 

[Bob_Baran]

Mary’s **Yes **is the greatest yes we could ever hear! She was chosen from the beginning to be born without sin and she excerised her free will. Being without the stain of sin she choose seflessly for the greater honor and glory of God. Thank you Mary!

 

[SPOKENWORD]

Redeemed:

Did Mary give God permission by her “yes?” Or would she bear our Lord in her womb anyway?
I don’t remember God asking whether it would be ok.
The angel told Mary that she would have a son.

My daughter said that if Mary had declined, then God would have chosen someone else.

I think Mary is Blessed because she wanted God’s will to be done no matter the cost for her. She was created for this special purpose.

Any thoughts?

My take is that if she was created for that specific purpose she really would not have needed a free will. Now that is contrary to what God says for we were all created with a free will. I believe God knew that Mary was selected for this purpose for Mary knew Gods will in her life,and out of obidience and trust she said yes. Thats why Mary is such a beautiful example to us how we should trust God and know His will in our lives. God Bless.

 

[MrS]

There would be only one women in history who would say Yes and bring mankind back to a closer relationship with God. That would be God’s plan, just like there would only be one woman (Eve) who would say no and jeapordize our relationship.

Since God is outside of time, He knew who they both would be. So the question is moot

 

[Funky_Cedars]

Mom had free will, so she could have said no, despite Daddy having kept her ‘full of grace’ from conception. remember, Eve was also free of original sin and she said ‘no.’
now, if Mom had also said ‘no’, i think it would have bummed Daddy out so much He’d of just trashed the whole plan and we wouldn’t be talking. maybe He’d have kept some of His OT friends like Sts King David and Elijha, but the rest of us would have been dismissed from His mind altogether.
thanks for listening, t

 

[Edwin1961]

Bob Baran:

Mary’s **Yes **is the greatest yes we could ever hear! She was chosen from the beginning to be born without sin and she excerised her free will. Being without the stain of sin she choose seflessly for the greater honor and glory of God. Thank you Mary!

Wouldn’t this comment be interpeted as predestination? Since God is outside of time and know all that will be, then how can the Blessed Virgin Mary HAVE free will.
I.E. I want to do God’s will and my heart yearns to do so. So is that my soul in sync with God’s will or just My will?

Go with God!
Edwin

 

[Bob_Baran]

I don’t consider it to be predestination, it’s God’s greatest creation for mankind!

 

[Hesychios]

MrS:

There would be only one women in history who would say Yes

How can we know this?

How do we know that if Mary had said NO! that there wouldn’t be another woman in another time or place?

 

[Hesychios]

Bob Baran:

I don’t consider it to be predestination, it’s God’s greatest creation for mankind!

It sounds like predestination to me.

In fact, the whole theology around Mary’s yes is the greatest affirmation of predestination in all of Western Theology.

There is no doubt in my mind that God could do this, if that’s what He really wants.

 

[FrmrTrad]

To ask ‘what if Mary had said “no”’ is a little like asking, ‘if I had a brother, would he like spinach?’ or ‘what if God had not chosen the Israelites?’ Sometimes it helps to deal with reality as it presents itself. But, we are all a bit like Doubting Thomas. The question ‘could she say “no”’ is perhaps really the question ‘does her “yes” violate free will?’

Looking at the New American Bible translation it seems to me that the verses are consonant with free will. Mary “found favor with God”; found: it was something about her that she had done. Catholic lore proposes that she was willing to live a life consecrated to God. She was immaculately conceived but she wouldn’t have known this per se, I don’t think. Mary “was greatly troubled” at the greeting, which also reflects her consideration of the ‘proposal’. Later she states “Behold, I am the handmaid”, thus giving her assent. Other translations of a key verse are more helpful than the NAB in affirming “for I know not man”: in this line she may be referring to her previous choice to live a life of consecration: again, she is seen to actively evaluate the message, and indeed to make a choice that represents a different direction. And the conception of Our Lord also does not violate Mary’s free will choice to live a life consecrated to God, as her marriage to Joseph is chaste.

Redeemed:

I think Mary is Blessed because she wanted God’s will to be done no matter the cost for her. She was created for this special purpose.

From the perspective of God this is surely true, but Mary herself would not have known that she was created for this special purpose prior to this moment. She probably felt early in her life a call to serve God. That we may reject a reason for our creation is evident in the fact that we each have a vocation, which we may reject.

Redeemed:

My daughter said that if Mary had declined, then God would have chosen someone else.

We don’t know what God would have done should Mary have opted to refuse the Holy Ghost. At a rough guess, given that God promised a redeemer, he would have found a new way to introduce the redeemer. The book of Genesis shows God adapting to his creation, to balance punishment and redemption. But the important thing is to embrace revelation and to consider all questions in the light of faith and revelation. In faith we know that we have free will, and we know that Mary’s “yes” fulfilled God’s wish and corrected Eve’s mistake.

Hesychios:

… in all of Western Theology.

What is “Western Theology”?

 

[Hesychios]

FrmrTrad:

In fact, the whole theology around Mary’s yes is the greatest affirmation of predestination in all of Western Theology.

What is “Western Theology”?

What I meant was in all of Western beliefs, both Catholic and Protestant the Catholic doctrine of the IC makes Mary’s yes the strongest argument for predestination available.

I think Calvin would have agreed.

 

[FrmrTrad]

What is the connection with Protestant doctrines? Are they definitive in some way? I think you are trying to re-lump ‘schools of thought’ so as to create an East-vs-West battle, with the West saddled with erroneous doctrine, leaving the East as the ‘true faith’. Am I right in guessing that this is your intent? I guess the “Eastern Theology” is uneasy with the Immaculate Conception, because it implies the authority of the Pope: it was defined after the East-West schism. Are you from the East? Or does the Eastern exceptionalism appeal to you personally? How do you decide whether to be “Eastern” or “Western”? I hope you will enlighten us about this, because you deploy your stance in ways that approximate deviance, such as when you lump everybody in the “West” together despite the obvious incongruence between “Catholic” and “Protestant”.

 

[Hesychios]

FrmrTrad:

What is the connection with Protestant doctrines? Are they definitive in some way? I think you are trying to re-lump ‘schools of thought’ so as to create an East-vs-West battle, with the West saddled with erroneous doctrine, leaving the East as the ‘true faith’. Am I right in guessing that this is your intent? I guess the “Eastern Theology” is uneasy with the Immaculate Conception, because it implies the authority of the Pope: it was defined after the East-West schism. Are you from the East? Or does the Eastern exceptionalism appeal to you personally? How do you decide whether to be “Eastern” or “Western”? I hope you will enlighten us about this, because you deploy your stance in ways that approximate deviance, such as when you lump everybody in the “West” together despite the obvious incongruence between “Catholic” and “Protestant”.

Wow, how did you get all that out of what I posted?

A person can’t make a comment about Mariology without all of this?!?

Take a chill pill.

+T+

 

[Funky_Cedars]

FrmrTrad:

…I guess the “Eastern Theology” is uneasy with the Immaculate Conception, because it implies the authority of the Pope: it was defined after the East-West schism…

you guessed wrong. the difficulty has to do with the concept of ‘original sin’ itself.

thanks for listening, t

 

[FrmrTrad]

Funky Cedars:

you guessed wrong. the difficulty has to do with the concept of ‘original sin’ itself.

thanks for listening, t

I’d love to listen some more… Have differences in how East vs. West conceive of original sin already been batted about here on the boards? Let me guess, I think I’ve heard something about this: The East thinks that the West is wrong in believing too strongly in the stain of original sin, and that this has to do with St. Augustine; this idea was picked up and exaggerated by Calvin who is thus lumped with [Roman] Catholicism to form “Western Theology”; the East more correctly believes in the theosis in which man is able to approach union with God. Is that the general line of discussion? And do the Easterns have doubts about the Immaculate Conception because they don’t put as much emphasis on original sin? And do they think that Rome has leapt ahead on such topics without sufficient union with all the other Catholic churches?

 

[Hesychios]

Dear FormerTraditionalist,

I don’t know what prompts you to put words in peoples mouths, unless you are intending to provoke a fight.

First, I am a Catholic, and as such I do not believe that the traditional Western Theology has less validity than the Eastern. If I did I most definately would be Orthodox today, without a second thought about it.

However I agree with my bishop (a fully Catholic and holy man, appointed by His Holiness John Paul II) that in order to be fully Catholic, I must be fully Eastern. What you do to be fully Catholic is your own concern, not mine, but if the way you go about it is to provoke fights with your Eastern Catholic brethren you are proceeding down the wrong path.

Now, to the matter at hand.

This thread asked “What if Mary had said NO?”. I commented that the doctrine of the Predestination of Mary is something Protestants should appreciate, since it is well within God’s prerogative to do such a thing, and I thought that some astute budding apologists out there might pick up on that and make a good case for Mary in their ongoing discussions.

I described it as Western Theology because that is what it is.

 

[Highwayman]

The first Eve said yes to the Devil and took from the tree of free will knowing both Good and Evil, but the New EVE, The Blessed Virgin Mary, said yes to God, and took from the Tree of Life.The rest is History, all time backed up B.C. to Adam and came back A.D. as did the Jordan at the crossing of the Chosen people into the Promised land.
In my book “The King’s Highway” , highway 24 starts in God’s country in the high mountains of Colorado, behind the Vale and goes to Fort Wayne, In., where the Mary and Joseph Rivers come to gether and between is the Maumee River because they had a Son who would say Mommy but when ask hoosier daddy he would say God. Highway 24 goes to the thumb of the right hand of Michigan between Caro and Akron at highway 138 because the Day of the Lord began with Luke 1,38 when the lamb was chosen, and then came a shout of Deliverance.
Also because of such great moments in Salvation history needed to be written in a big way, highway 38 goes to the heart of the windy city and also highway 55 because “My word that proceeds out of my mouth shall not return unto me void but it shall accompish that purpose unto which I sent it”. Many do not get it and some rufuss to get it that is why also highway 57 goes accross the right lung of Illinois. Maybe it makes the Lord a little ill when they don’t get it because " The righteous man perishes and no man lays it to heart" Isaiah 57. Yet many do get it that is why in the heart of the windy city is, Peterson Avenue, where 50 and 14 and 41 come together because when Pentacost had fully come in chapter 2 verse 14 Peter stands up 27 verses later, verse 41, 3000 are saved and brought into the Church. God Bless

 

[FrmrTrad]

Hesychios:

I described it as Western Theology because that is what it is.

How would Eastern Theology answer the question posed by the thread?

 

[FrmrTrad]

Hesychios, I am sorry if I seemed indifferent or cavalier about Eastern Theology. It’s just that whenever I’ve tried to talk about it to one who seems to follow it, they came across as reclusive or secretive, and I don’t know how to square different theologies: do they conflict? If you can help me to understand the Eastern point of view, I’d be grateful. Perhaps I spoke coarsely, and I apologize.

Do you think that there is one theological truth, and that different theologies are ‘best efforts’ to reflect or grasp it?

 

[Hesychios]

FrmrTrad:

Do you think that there is one theological truth, and that different theologies are ‘best efforts’ to reflect or grasp it?

It’s OK, you are very intelligent. It is clear that you know a great deal of Eastern theology and I respect that. I am no expert, being rather knew to it myself, but I have adopted it as my own.

Yes, I do believe there is only one Objective Truth.

I have this analogy (but it’s a poor one) I’d like to share. I went digging for an old letter I sent to someone and happily I recovered it. I am a printer by trade, and color has played a large part in my working life, so it may mean less to others than to me:

**If I place an orange color swatch next to a peach color swatch, you’d think that the peach color was pink. If you place a pink color swatch next to a peach color swatch you’d think the peach was orange! In other words, your way of decribing the peach color would be informed by what you have to compare it to. In a sense, both (calling the peach color either pink or orange) might be good, although slightly innacurate ways of describing the same color to someone.

On the other hand both descriptions would actually be inadequate! Peach is peach and calling it orange can be a problem to someone who sees pink. Theology is like that too, God is bigger than all of us and everything everywhere, our little pea brains cannot take it all in, that’s why the East and West can have different ways of decribing the same idea, and often they will talk right passed each other! Should I condemn their best attempt to explain a mystery? No!**

Eastern theology is not as precisely detailed as the Western, there isn’t much anyone can do about it. If Mary’s “Yes” has saved us, the best we can do is say “Yippee!”, “Yahoo!” or the all time favorite “Alleluia!!”. The precise mechanism God employs to bring this about may not be well understood.

So I would say that there are a lot of areas where the theology will seem vague to people who are looking for, or accustomed to a lot more detail.

+T+