Why do we believe in the Immaculate Conception?

In discussing why we believe in the Immaculate Conception, it’s important to understand what the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is and what it is not. Some people think the term refers to Christ’s conception in Mary’s womb without the intervention of a human father; but that is the Virgin Birth. Others think the Immaculate Conception means Mary was conceived "by the power of the Holy Spirit," in the way Jesus was, but that, too, is incorrect. The Immaculate Conception means that Mary, whose conception was brought about in the normal way, was conceived without original sin or its stain — the meaning of "immaculate" being “without stain”. The essence of original sin consists in the deprivation of sanctifying grace, and its stain is a fallen nature. Mary was preserved from these defects by God’s grace; from the first instant of her existence she was in the state of sanctifying grace and was free from the corrupt nature original sin brings.

While in the West the doctrine has been taught somewhat negatively – the emphasis being on Mary’s sinlessness - the East has tended to put the accent instead on her abundant holiness. The colloquial term for her is Panagia, the All-Holy; for everything in her is holy.

Although this doctrine is not explicitly stated in Scripture (as indeed the Trinity is not explicitly stated), there is much implicit evidence that the New Testament Church believed in the sinlessness and holiness of the Mother of God.

The primary implicit reference can be found in the angel’s greeting to Mary. The angel Gabriel said, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you" (Luke 1:28). The phrase "full of grace" is a translation of the Greek word kecharitomene. This word represents the proper name of the person being addressed by the angel, and it therefore expresses a characteristic quality of Mary.

The traditional translation, "full of grace," is more accurate than the one found in many recent versions of the New Testament, which tend to render the expression "highly favoured daughter." Mary was indeed a highly favoured daughter of God, but the Greek implies more than that (and it never mentions the word for "daughter"). The grace given to Mary is at once permanent and of a unique kind. Kecharitomene is a perfect passive participle of charitoo, meaning "to fill or endow with grace." Since this term is in the perfect tense, it indicates a perfection of grace that is both intensive and extensive. So, the grace Mary enjoyed was not a result of the angel’s visit, but rather it extended over the whole of her life. She must have been in a state of sanctifying grace from the first moment of her existence to have been called "full of grace."

However, this is not to imply that Mary had no need of a saviour. Like all other descendants of Adam, she was subject to the necessity of contracting original sin. But by a special intervention of God, undertaken at the instant she was conceived, she was preserved from the stain of original sin and its consequences. She was therefore redeemed by the grace of Christ, but in a special way - by anticipation.

If we consider an analogy: Suppose a man falls into a deep pit and someone reaches down to pull him out. The man has been "saved" from the pit. Now imagine a woman walking along, and she too is about to topple into the pit, but at the very moment that she is to fall in, someone holds her back and prevents her. She too has been saved from the pit, but in an even better way: she was not simply taken out of the pit; she was prevented from getting stained by the mud in the first place. By receiving Christ’s grace at her conception, she had his grace applied to her before she was able to become subject to original sin and its stain.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that she was "redeemed in a more exalted fashion, by reason of the merits of her Son" (CCC 492). She has more reason to call God her Saviour than we do, because he saved her in an even more glorious manner.

St. Luke also provides us with further evidence that the early Church believed in the sinlessness of Mary. In the first chapter of his gospel, he goes to great pains to recount the event of the Visitation in parallel terms to the recovery of the Ark of the Covenant by David in 2 Sam 6. The following contrasts are notable:

1) 2 Sam 6,2 “So David arose and went…set out for Baala of Judah” Lk 1,39 “And Mary rising up in those days, went…to a town of Judah”

2) 2 Sam 6,9 “How can the ark of the Lord come to me?” Lk 1,43 “And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

3) 2 Sam 6,14 “And David danced with all his might before the Lord” Lk 1,44 “the infant in my womb leaped for joy.”

4) 2 Sam 6,11 “ And the ark of the Lord abode in the house of Obededom the Gittite three months.” Lk 1,56 “And Mary abode with her about three months.”

When taken in conjunction with Gabriel’s earlier promise to Mary that “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee.” (Lk 1,35) in similar language to that describing the descent of the Shekinah on the ark, it is clear that St. Luke considers Mary to be the fulfilment of the type of the Ark of the Covenant.

In Luke’s mind she is the ark of the New Covenant. Just as the old ark contained the Word of God written on stone, the bread from heaven in the form of manna, and the priestly staff of Aaron; so the new ark contains the Word of God enfleshed, the true bread of heaven, and the high priest of the New Covenant.

Up until its disappearance 500 years earlier the ark had been the holiest thing in all creation – even to touch it or look into it was to bring death or plagues on non-Levites. Similarly then, the ark of the New Covenant would have been viewed as the holiest created being by the early Jewish Christians. Mary’s holiness was by the specific design of heaven, just as the old ark was given as a specific design from heaven.

This understanding of Mary as the ark is not just limited to the Lucan tradition. We also find Johannine understanding of this teaching in the Apocalypse. If we omit the medieval chapter and verse numberings, we see that John’s vision, following the judgement of Jerusalem and the Old Covenant, reveals:

“And the temple of God was opened in heaven: and the ark of his covenant was seen in his temple, and there were lightnings, and voices, and an earthquake, and great hail. And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars:” Apoc. 11,19-12,1

While some commentators see in the figure of the woman a corporate type of Israel or the Church, these can only be secondary meanings as the same vision reveals two other figures which both have primary individual identities: Satan and the woman’s child – Jesus Christ:

Apoc 12,3 “And there was seen another sign in heaven: and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads, and ten horns: and on his head seven diadems: Apoc 12,9 “And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan.”

Apoc 12,5 “And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with an iron rod: and her son was taken up to God, and to his throne.”

Thus many fathers of the Church as well as recent Popes have clearly identified the ark/woman as Mary, the Holy Mother of God. This should not be surprising as John is here recapitulating the whole of revelation. Not only is he portraying the breaking in of the New Covenant, but of the new creation itself. The early chapters of Genesis where we see the man and woman in conflict with the serpent at the beginning of the old creation, are now recapitulated with the new Adam and the new Eve in conflict with that same serpent, though this time with positive results. Revelation has come full circle with the final triumph of God over the devil through the woman and her seed as first foretold in Genesis 3,15.

This is why early fathers such as St Irenaeus, St Ephraim, St. Ambrose and St. Augustine could clearly identify Mary as the new Eve as well as the Ark of the Covenant. For in a way that Eve in her disobedience could only be physically the mother of all the living, Mary is now revealed as the true mother of all the living in Jesus Christ:

Apoc 12,17 “And the dragon was angry against the woman: and went to make war with the rest of her seed, who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”

It is only reasonable to conclude, then, that just as the first Eve was created without sin and filled with sanctifying grace, so the new Eve who was to “untie the knot of disobedience” wrought by the first, should be also so conceived. Or, as Cardinal Newman put it:

“Now, can we refuse to see that, according to these Fathers, who are earliest of the early, Mary was a typical woman like Eve, that both were endued with special gifts of grace, and that Mary succeeded where Eve failed?” Memorandum on the Immaculate Conception. Cardinal John Henry Newman.

Although arguments from authority can often be the weakest form of argument, as Catholics, it is worth finally pointing out that the ultimate reason for believing in the Immaculate Conception is that this doctrine has been infallibly defined as being revealed by God, and as such our salvation depends on adhering to it:

"Accordingly, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for the honour of the Holy and undivided Trinity, for the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, and for the furtherance of the Catholic religion, by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own: "We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful." Hence, if anyone shall dare—which God forbid!—to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should dare to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he think in his heart." Ineffabilis Deus, Bl. Pope Pius IX

To mere, here is the hardest Scriptural nut of all in the Sola Scriptura approach.

(As a foreword, I am truly not trying to be controversial here, although what I say certainly will raise energetic responses. This really is my "gut check" issue. I will say that I really made a good faith effort to apply BOTH Sola Scriptura AND Catholic doctrine, hoping that they would perfectly jibe. But they don't. And here is the place where it all comes apart for me.)

Jesus, in speaking of marriage, prohibits divorce and remarriage, except in the narrow case of lewd conduct. Then he says: Moses let you divorce because of the hardness of your hearts, but in the beginning it was not that way.

And right there is the problem.
Moses didn't just LET the Hebrews divorce. HE WROTE IT DOWN IN THE TORAH. So, right there, Jesus is taking a direct piece of the Pentateuch: all of those explicit descriptions of how to properly go about divorcing your wife and what one may or may not do, and saying that NONE of it is Holy. It is SCRIPTURAL, right there in the Pentateuch, but we are NOT to take that Scripture as divinely inspired, according to Jesus! Indeed, we are to take the Scripture itself, in the Torah itself, as NOTHING BUT ERRONEOUS HUMAN TRADITION!

So, there's Jesus calling the holiest part of the Scripture as it existed at his time (there being no New Testament yet at all, and all Jews consider the Torah to be THE holiest part of the Jewish Scriptures. No Jew now, or in Jesus' time either, gave Kings or Esther or the Psalms equal authority to the Torah. The Torah is THE LAW according to the Jews to whom Jesus was speaking. The LAW from God. And Jesus takes whole sections of the Torah itself, describing the proper procedure for divorce, and says flat out that they are contrary to the will of God.
In that passage, Jesus says that all Scripture is NOT the inspired word of God. Those parts of the Torah that refer to divorce Jesus says are nothing but bad human traditions.

Given that, coming from the mouth of God, I cannot accept the argument that Scripture alone will tell us all the answers. Because Scripture says that another part of Scripture is not from God...and that very part of Scripture was understood by the audience to be the HOLIEST part of Scripture!

Nobody has ever been able to work out this conundrum for me, although plenty of people have spit bile all over me for bringing it up. My purpose is not to be controversial for the sake of controversy. Truly, for me Jesus has thrown such a wrench into the reliability of Scripture as a rule to live by, that I think the only thing to do is to follow the rules of the Church that he founded. The best summary catechism in existence, I think, is the Didache of the Apostles, circa 70-80 AD. But that's another story.

I welcome anyone who wishes

SD Wrote: "I think the point is that God allowed divorce to be written into His Law for the people at the time, but Jesus had the authority to alter it.
God truly made an allowance. Jesus, seeing that He would be giving the Holy Spirit to indwell Christians, felt this allowance unnecessary."

This brings up three points:

(1) Jesus said no divorce (except for lewd conduct), and if divorce, no remarriage (even after divorce for lewd conduct). That's in, what?, 3 Gospels? It isn't unclear, not in the way that "I am" is unclear. ("I am", in Greek, is not the same thing as saying "I am God", in Greek.)
If a Christian church adheres strictly to the Bible, it must not permit divorce, except for lewd conduct (presumably by the OTHER spouse, although the Bible does not say that explicitly), and more importantly, it must never, ever, ever recognize a remarriage as legitimate, except of a widowed spouse. Because Jesus is explicit that the remarried spouse after divorce is an adulterer. Period. He does not add any qualifying language. Remarriage after divorce is absolutely, explicitly prohibited by God in all cases whatsoever: Jesus leaves no wiggle room at all. Ergo, any Church that permits any divorced person to remarry in that Church, or with the blessing of the Church, blesses adultery, and do so entirely based upon its own tradition, in direct defiance of the explicit word of God. That is what the Bible says.

(2) Even if God made the allowance, that is not what the Bible says. The Bible says that MOSES allowed you to divorce because of the hardness of your hearts. It does not say that God did. It says, rather, that it was not this way in the beginning. And Jesus says that this is the Jews' traditions, indeed, it is part of the tradition that Jesus condemns. He simply does not say that this was the Law, and now the law is changing. What he says was: That was NEVER the law of God, it was your tradition, from the moment it was written down by Moses, because of the hardness of your heart.

(3) And by saying that, Jesus points out that the holiest part of the existing Scriptures themselves: the Torah, is rife with human tradition, and must be read in light of that knowledge. Jesus says that you have to follow HIM here, and not the Torah, because the Torah records a mere tradition, inserted by Moses, that did not come from God.
If there is one such tradition, how do we know that there aren't more?

I don't think we do know that.
That is why, I think, Jesus did not leave a Bible, or any Scripture at all. He left a Church invested with authority.
Now, the decrees of the Apostles: the Apostles Creed and the Didache especially, tell us what the Apostles believed. One does not find there a bookish Church, but a Church focused on good moral behavior, almsgiving, and the eucharist.

The problem with reducing the faith to the Bible, I think, is that one risks turning the Bible itself into an idol.
Jesus' direct assault on the words of the Torah itself were a direct assault on the Jews' placing their faith in Scripture, demanding instead that they place primary faith in HIM as the mouthpiece of the Father and the Holy Spirit. Presumably we ought to do that too, and pay particular attention to what Jesus says.

Those who refuse to adhere to the authority of the Church by privately interpreting passages, which is in direct contradiction of the Bible AND the Church, blind themselves and are be the accusers that suggest the Church hid the Scriptures.

And just who made up that circular argument of the Church authority?

Jesus Himself condemned Church authority, but since your not encouraged to read the Bible and allow the Holy Spirit to use it in your life, you probably have no idea what I’m talking about, so I’ll show it to you if your allowed to read it.

Matthew 20:25-27 But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:

This same command is repeated in Mark 10:42-44, and Luke 22:25-26.

It's words of Christ such as these that your Church would just as soon you never read or ask for an explanation.

The Church is not a building or an organization as you have been taught, it's any group of people who are believers.

Each of us make up the church, and God no longer dwells in building made with hands, but in each believer.

Here are a few scriptures you probably have never read.

Acts 7:48 Howbeit the most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands; as saith the prophet,

John 14:16-18 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

Can we only learn from a teacher?
1 John 2: 27. But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.

The anointing that John is referring to, is the receiving of the Holy Spirit when we’re born of God.

God never intended for His church to become a Walmart.

JH :)

SoothingDave wrote: "And by saying that, Jesus points out that the holiest part of the existing Scriptures themselves: the Torah, is rife with human tradition, and must be read in light of that knowledge. Jesus says that you have to follow HIM here, and not the Torah, because the Torah records a mere tradition, inserted by Moses, that did not come from God.
I don't know if I agree with you that Jesus is saying that this was mere tradition, inserted by Moses. This makes it sound happenstance, and calls into question the inspiration of the Old Testament.
I think Jesus is simply saying "Moses" did this as a figure of speech, to contrast the revelation given to Moses against His new revelation. I think you are reading too much into the phraseology.
I agree with the rest of what you said. I am a Catholic.
SD"

What I am doing is being a Sola Scripturalist, but adamantly refusing to add in ANY of the external traditions that have grown up around what this passage means and that passage means.
The Bible does not define what constitutes the Bible, for instance. Nor does it define what is Scripture and what is not Scripture. Nor does it say that Scripture alone is the only source of law.
I am applying literal Sola Scriptura, and being very, very hardminded about the literalism.
And in the process, I am finding that the Bible alone, without an interpretive hermeneutic, which is to say, a Tradition, tears at itself.

The Bible does not say that every word of the Bible is inspired by God. Yes, it says that Scripture is "God breathed", but it doesn't define what Scripture is, and what it is not. Only tradition does that. Jewish understanding of what Scripture was, and was not, certainly uses a different Tradition from all Christians. To all Jews, the Torah is the most authoritative part of Scripture. Most Christian traditions hold that every word of Scripture is as authoritative as every other word. But Scripture itself does not provide that hermeneutic. THAT is supplied by tradition alone. External. Not Biblical.

Same thing with "I am". I hate to get into an argument with PetroniusMaximus, because he's so sensible. But what I am trying to show with the I am business is that the literal words of the Bible, without some sort of external interpretive tradition, simply do not get you to "I am God". They MIGHT. But they don't HAVE to. To make them do that, you have to start adding in what everybody already knows from Church. But we know those things because of our respective traditions. The Bible itself, and what constitutes it and what doesn't, and what was the "textus receptus" is itself a Tradition.

That there are things in the Torah that were purely Jewish tradition and that Jesus struck down does not really call into question the divine inspiration of the Torah, no more than some of Paul's comments about the role of women, or Jude's citation to two apocryphal works, calls into question their divine inspiration. The Bible is indeed divinely inspired, but it does not come with an interpretive guide in any of its original languages as originally written. And most certainly the interpretive guides that appear in the footnotes and margins of every page of a modern study Bible are themselves the product of the various traditions of the translators. Stop reading the footnotes and read the text itself, without those traditional references, and you can come to different conclusions.

Also, Scripture directly contradicts itself.
Are good works necessary to salvation?
Jesus seems to say so. Paul says no. But James says that faith without works is dead.
Who wins? And why?
Each tradition has its answers, but if you rely directly on the text of the Bible, you do not get there.

Are you saved once and for all by accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior? Many say the Bible says that. It does not use those words anywhere. James says that faith without works is dead, in fact. Meaning that if you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, and don't follow up, you lose the salvation you gained. At least if you read James literally. Of course, Paul can be read to override James, but why is Paul's epistle superior in authority to James, the brother of Jesus and the head of the Church at Jerusalem? The Bible does not say that Paul is superior in authority, and the interpretation of Paul to override James is a tradition, not a literal reading of Scripture.

Scripture says, in 2 Maccabees, that prayers and offerings for the dead atone for their sins. That is not contradicted anywhere in Scripture. Yet some say this is not Scripture at all. On what authority? Jesus' generation had only the Septuagint, and 2 Maccabbees is in the Septuagint. Scripture does not say that 2 Maccabbees is not Scripture, and the early Church fathers and Councils said it was. Why is this not even read by some?

Does it matter if one is a member of a church that does not perfectly practice the Scriptures? Or is membership in such a church following the teachers of false doctrines? Jesus says in 3 Gospels that remarriage after divorce is adultery. Therefore, is any Church that allows divorce and then blesses remarriage Scriptural at all? Or is it false teaching, and therefore fruitless and useless?

Some have raised the objection that the celibate clergy is not directly demanded by the Scriptures. (They seem to place no weight on Jesus' and Paul's comments that celibacy is highly prized and holy, or in Paul's pragmatic arguments in favor of Scripture.) They argue, vigorously, that because it is not in the Scripture clearly and explicitly, it is sinful.
Fine.
Sunday is not in the Scripture. At all. One of the Ten Commandments says to keep the Sabbath holy - the SATURDAY sabbath. The Sabbath is relentlessly preached throughout the Bible. The Saturday Sabbath. The Bible never, ever, ever, ever, even once, authorizes Christians to change the Ten Commandments. But all (except the Adventists) adhere to the SUNDAY "Day of the Lord" and disregard the Ten Commandments and half of the Old Testament in doing so, with NOT ONE WORD of Scriptural authority in the New Testament. I do not hear anyone at all railing against THIS tradition on Scriptural basis. But if you are a Sola Scripturalist who does not keep the Saturday Sabbath, but who says Sunday is the holy day, and Saturday is dispensed with, you are illiterate and have made up a tradition that directly defies the explicit word of God, with no biblical authority at all.

This is the problem I am aiming at.
The Scriptures are indeed good for instruction, but they don't carry a reader's guide. To understand what they are meant to mean requires an external hermeneutic: a tradition. It requires the grace of the Holy Spirit to guide the mind right. And to maintain the Christian Unity for which Jesus prayed, that means that it requires a source of AUTHORITY. Jesus didn't leave a leaderless, rudderless Church and a Bible Dispensary, he left a Church with a leader: Peter, and with Apostles, and then disciples, and then other charismatics in descending order of authority. Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would cover those who invoked Him in His Name.

What I am trying to do is to sow confusion to SHOW confusion. The Bible does not interpret itself. If you read it literally, it contradicts itself AND it contradicts the practices of every Christian Church. Interpreting the Bible requires a hermeneutic, which is to say, a tradition. And the consequences of a hermeneutic without authority is dissension and division. That is why God left a Church, and not a Bible. The Church unites, the Bible, read outside the Church, becomes a tool to divide. Unfortunately, the only way to PROVE that is to be a hard-ass literalist with it, as I have been in a few places. This flummoxes the literalists...but sadly it also disturbs the faithful sheep. Satan tossed us a good curveball when he persuaded us that we could be our own priests if we just read the Bible. We can't.

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