What if Our Lady had said no?

[Amac1]

(Not sure which category to put this into sorry).

As we know, the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and she said those beautiful words “Let it be with me according to your word”.

What if that wonderful “yes” had been a “no”? What if she wasn’t willing to be part of God’s plan?
Did Mary have free will at this time?

If she had, and if she said no… did God have a back up plan? If she was the only person without sin, and was the perfect vessel for Jesus to be born… and this was the plan all along… it makes me think she didn’t have free will. She is very obviously the only option.

Which then makes me wonder… if Mary didn’t have free will, and the “yes” was predetermined… why do we praise and glorify her “yes”, and her humility, and generally respect her so much for doing God’s will?
Did she really have a choice??

For the record, I love Mary, but I’ve just been questioning that today and thought I would ask your thoughts.

 

[porthos11]

Because in God’s plan of divine providence and predestination, God always accounts for man’s free response to his grace. Mary was no exception. We are not Calvinists.

Mary’s “yes” was predetermined, but it was predetermined because God accounted for her foreseen response to grace out of her own free will in his eternal plan. Because all things and all moments are at once present to God, there is no backup plan, and was never any need for one. And I even use “predetermined” loosely, because in God, there is no “pre-”. The term is for our benefit, who are limited and live in time.

Yes, there are challenges reconciling free will and grace and predestination, and the Church has not defined how exactly they are reconciled, only that they are. Man’s free will and God’s sovereign decrees of predestination are both Catholic teachings, and neither one can be denied without falling into heresy. But as Catholics we reject the premise that predetermination/predestination equals no free will. We rather think that in the divine decree, free will is already part of that plan, although it is a mystery.

So your conclusion that Mary had no free will is wrong. Mary did have free will, and we honour her for it.

 

[phil19034]

What if that wonderful “yes” had been a “no”? What if she wasn’t willing to be part of God’s plan?
Did Mary have free will at this time?

Then God would have have chosen her. She did have free will. God simply knew the future & what she would say/do.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

(Not sure which category to put this into sorry).

As we know, the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and she said those beautiful words “Let it be with me according to your word”.

What if that wonderful “yes” had been a “no”? What if she wasn’t willing to be part of God’s plan?
Did Mary have free will at this time?

If she had, and if she said no… did God have a back up plan? If she was the only person without sin, and was the perfect vessel for Jesus to be born… and this was the plan all along… it makes me think she didn’t have free will. She is vey obviously the only option.

Which then makes me wonder… if Mary didn’t have free will, and the “yes” was predetermined… why do we praise and glorify her “yes”, and her humility, and generally respect her so much for doing God’s will?
Did she really have a choice??

For the record, I love Mary, but I’ve just been questioning that today and thought I would ask your thoughts.

I have asked precisely these questions myself.

I hope I’m right in saying this — Our Lady’s free will was so closely conformed to the Divine Will, that even though, on some level, hypothetically she could have said “no”, she would not have done this, and in fact, it wouldn’t even have occurred to her, to say “no”.

 

[White_Tree]

Because in God’s plan of divine providence and predestination, God always accounts for man’s free response to his grace. Mary was no exception. We are not Calvinists.

Mary’s “yes” was predetermined, but it was predetermined because God accounted for her foreseen response to grace out of her own free will in his eternal plan. Because all things and all moments are at once present to God, there is no backup plan, and was never any need for one. And I even use “predetermined” loosely, because in God, there is no “pre-”. The term is for our benefit, who are limited and live in time.

Would you say, therefore, that the Fall of Adam was also predetermined?

 

[porthos11]

porthos11:

Because in God’s plan of divine providence and predestination, God always accounts for man’s free response to his grace. Mary was no exception. We are not Calvinists.

Mary’s “yes” was predetermined, but it was predetermined because God accounted for her foreseen response to grace out of her own free will in his eternal plan. Because all things and all moments are at once present to God, there is no backup plan, and was never any need for one. And I even use “predetermined” loosely, because in God, there is no “pre-”. The term is for our benefit, who are limited and live in time.

Would you say, therefore, that the Fall of Adam was also predetermined?

Yes, according to the same principles.

That said, again, we are not Calvinists. We reject any notion that God had unconditionally predestined Adam to sin. Rather, he already saw that Adam would, by how own free will, reject grace and fall into sin, and his order of grace did not prevent Adam from using his free will to reject the temptation to sin.

This eternal plan, however, also included the Incarnation, hence, “O happy fault! O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!”

 

[ThomasMT]

Which then makes me wonder… if Mary didn’t have free will, and the “yes” was predetermined… why do we praise and glorify her “yes”, and her humility, and generally respect her so much for doing God’s will?
Did she really have a choice??

Why is it so inconceivable to so many that God, who is Omnipotent, Omniscient, and Absolute cannot give us free will AND know what we are going to do with it? After all, He exists outside of the bounds of time. What we plan to freely do He has already seen.

 

[White_Tree]

Fair enough.

 

[Amac1]

But before Mary was even born God had her answer to Gabriel determined. She was conceived without sin… that was a grace he provided her as part of the grand plan. So how did she have free will?

I can’t get my head around God seeing what she planned to freely do, as you put it… when He so obviously planned everything before her birth.

 

[porthos11]

But before Mary was even born God had her answer to Gabriel determined. She was conceived without sin… that was a grace he provided her as part of the grand plan. So how did she have free will?

I can’t get my head around God seeing what she planned to freely do, as you put it… when He so obviously planned everything before her birth.

Maybe we should challenge you back. So God gave her a singular grace of sinlessness and allowed an angel to appear to her. These are circumstances external to her that influenced her overall mindset and decision-making processes.

Why then should we conclude that she had no free will? Where is it even said or implied she was unable to say no? Where does one draw the conclusion that her “yes” was anything but free? There isn’t any. That’s a conclusion drawn without any evidence, what is called the logical fallacy of non sequitur. God gives us grace all the time, and sometimes we cooperate, and sometimes we reject, but both are of our own free will.

Yes, her answer was predetermined; it would be wrong for Catholics to deny that. But that predetermination was due to God’s already knowing what would lead her to freely respond “yes.”

 

[Hodos]

What if that wonderful “yes” had been a “no”? What if she wasn’t willing to be part of God’s plan?
Did Mary have free will at this time?

It wouldn’t have been. This question assumes that God’s will being done is dependent upon us. It isn’t. The same question could have been asked of Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, etc. With each of these people God made promises of what would happen in the future. In each case they happened, not because man is faithful, but because God is faithful and is in control of his creation. No back-up plan needed.

 

[Amac1]

Although it may seem like it, I’m not fully concluding Mary didn’t have free will (in my opinion). I’m just thinking out loud and trying to get my head around it.
What you say makes sense.

I keep going back to this though - If Mary did say no… what would have been the next step? How would Jesus have been conceived?
I know we have absolutely no way of knowing this. But I keep coming back to the fact that God knew she wouldn’t say no. Not that He knew she would say yes freely, but that He knew she would say yes, full stop. She just had to.

 

[porthos11]

He not only knew that she would say yes, but he brought it about by making sure that all circumstances were such that she would use her free will to say yes freely. He did not control her or force her. He did not possess her, attach strings to her and pull them to make her say yes. Yes, God did bring about her yes, but he used her free will to make that happen.

So you are incorrect with the full stop part. God did not merely know she would say yes, full stop, but he made sure she would say yes freely.

God does decree things from eternity, and he makes sure they happen, but Catholicism confesses that the means of bringing about these eternal decrees always include man’s free will. In other words, we deny that man is a puppet.

Now as for “if Mary had said no”, we know that would never have happened because God had already ordained this economy of divine Providence. But if I were to put on my Molinist hat, I would say that God, through his middle knowledge sees all possibilities and circumstances and man’s free responses to any given situation, including those that have Mary freely saying yes, and others with her freely saying no. He then lays out this fixed order of grace that brings about his divine decrees. He had decreed that she would say yes, and so the fixed order of grace he decreed to occur is this one in which we live, so there is no “what if Mary said no”.

The Thomists would have their own take on this.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Actually, and I’d never thought of this before, but Our Lady seems to have exemplified at least two of the points of Calvin — irresistible grace and perseverance of the saints. Just saying.

I’m not a Calvinist, far from it.

 

[porthos11]

Actually, and I’d never thought of this before, but Our Lady seems to have exemplified at least two of the points of Calvin — irresistible grace and perseverance of the saints. Just saying.

I’m not a Calvinist, far from it.

And even Calvin got some things right. Irresistible/efficacious grace and perseverance of the saints have orthodox Catholic expressions, and are part of Catholic teaching. It’s just that our expressions do not do violence to free will, which is where Calvinism strays into heresy. But in fact, the Thomist expression is very close to Calvin while remaining fully Catholic.

 

[Amac1]

So if God made sure circumstances were such that Mary would freely say yes… why do we honour her for that? Yes she wasn’t forced to say yes etc, but she was set up to.

Your words are helping me btw @porthos11. I’m arguing with my own thoughts here, not anyone else’s.

 

[porthos11]

So if God made sure circumstances were such that Mary would freely say yes… why do we honour her for that? Yes she wasn’t forced to say yes etc, but she was set up to.

Your words are helping me btw @porthos11. I’m arguing with my own thoughts here, not anyone else’s.

Because she was still free and could still have said no. I repeat myself: she was not a puppet on strings.

By the way, this is not unique to her. This is true for us too. We honour our heroes because of what they freely did, and they freely did what they did partly due to the circumstances surrounding them. George Washington freely chose to cross the Delaware due to the circumstances, not merely despite them. The bad winter was only one circumstance. The element of surprise was the other, and his free will and tactical skills led him to freely make his decision. And yet do you hear Americans complain that he was “set up”? No! All his circumstances: the winter, the river, his love for his people and his state all contributed to his free response to cross the Delaware.

Every time you get a tinge of generosity and freely give to someone who needs your help, do you dare tell God he “set you up?” No! He gave you a grace, something you were always free to reject, but if you cooperated with it because of love, then how could you say you were set up? And yet that grace did not come from you. God gave it to you first.

If I set up a tray of muffins to cool, and I say to you, don’t touch those, despite you being a fan of muffins, would you still say your free will is inoperative? You are free to obey me or not. I did not set you up, even if I thought there was a good chance you would disobey me and take a muffin anyway.

So it is with Mary. She was always free to say no, but she said yes. There is a mystery between God’s sovereign will, his grace, and man’s free response. So much so that the Church has not dared define how this happens.

 

[JanR]

If Mary had said no, God would still have found a way. Nothing is impossible for Him. And yes, she did have free will. We ALL do. Adam and Eve had free will, too, they were originally created without sin, and they said no to a relationship with God. They were free to decide whether or not to obey, and so was Mary.

 

[ThomasMT]

He so obviously planned everything before her birth.

A plan based on knowing what she would do. I can respect your issue, the idea of free will is something that I have always struggled with myself. My contention is with the notion that free will cannot exist if God is able to plan for the effects of our excercise thereoff.

 

[JanR]

Amac1:

He so obviously planned everything before her birth.

A plan based on knowing what she would do. I can respect your issue, the idea of free will is something that I have always struggled with myself. My contention is with the notion that free will cannot exist if God is able to plan for the effects of our excercise thereoff.

The key words here are “our exercise thereof”. God based His plans on what WE would CHOOSE FREELY to do. He doesn’t manipulate us and we were never arbitrarily pre-programed. Just because He has foreknowledge doesn’t mean we don’t have free will. He simply knows what our decisions will be before we make them, and plans accordingly.