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To: Agrarian; kosta50
it strikes me as having parallels to the Protestant view of the conception of Christ as a pure act of God's will

Oh, no!

No!

Aah!

Free from original sin Mary freely chose just like Eve freely chose. To undo Eve she had to defeat her in the same field. Here's the question. The Angel says, -- Your son is going to be the King and reign forever. The Girl says, -- Hm, OK, deal. This is a free will response but this is a concupiscent response. We must know that Mary was free from a disordered desire when she agreed to cooperate with God, -- truly free.

Consider the Apostles, and Judas in particular. They, too, at one point were asked to follow the King, and freely agreed. But their free will was a product of concupiscent minds, so their cooperation was mixed with vanity and betrayal till the Pentecost regenerated eleven of them. Their story reflects the struggle Mary would have exhibited had she been marked with the same stain of Adam. But the gospel sets her apart from the Apostles in her behavior and her role. It is logical to say that her consent was different in kind to their consent.

5,968 posted on 05/08/2006 7:21:10 PM PDT by annalex
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To: annalex; Agrarian
The Orthodox see Mary as our model and hope, a promise that even ordinary humans can achieve theosis, giving Mary extraodinary credit.

The Roman Catholics see Mary not as an ordinary human but a very special and uncommon human with a special role that no one can emmulate. Thus she was created to succeed.

In the Orthodox belief, Mary is an "under dog" (a pre-Fall human trying outdo the pre-Fall Eve and succeeding); in the Roman Catholic view, she is simply "created" as a "top dog" (pre-Fall human) with all the grace needed to resist temptations and corruption.

5,975 posted on 05/08/2006 8:04:18 PM PDT by kosta50 (Eastern Orthodoxy is pure Christianity)
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To: annalex

"Oh, no!

No!

Aah!"

Somehow I knew that would get a response -- I couldn't resist, so I fired it off. I'm still thinking. :-)


5,981 posted on 05/08/2006 10:31:46 PM PDT by Agrarian
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