Surprisingly or not, I agree with most of your post, FK. The OT righteous were not sinless. Take David, for example. However, they are righteous in the eyes of God. We know that Job sinned, yet the Bible calls him "perfect" (KJ, Hebrew OT), "blamless" (NAB, LXX).
In other words, humans are never perfect even if they don't sin overtly, their nature tends towards sin. Even a thought can be a sin. So, it is really difficult to imagine that Mary, from her earliest days as a young girl, old enough to know right from wrong, never even thought something, even for a fleeting moment, that would qualify as sin.
It is not as difficult to imagine that she, filled with God's grace, lost any "apetite" for sin at the moment of Annunication and, realizing her role, remained passionless for the rest of her life.
But the Apostolic Catholic and Orthodox Church simpy, says that she is purer than angels, that she never sinned. I think it is an assertion based on the fact that anything that was not pure in its totality could not be a suitable vessel.
At any rate, she is not a "goddess," no Catholic or Orthodox would ever call her "divine." Mary cannot be considered in isolation, but can only be considered in context of Christology and ecclesiology.
I believe the Protestants have no problem with Mary except with what they perceive as "idolatry." I assure you, it's not idolatry. I don't understand what is it about Mary that drives Protestants crazy.
It just may be, Dear Kosta, that Holy Spirit within us is rising up and screaming an alarm that is worthy and fitting--particularly to a structure, pattern, degree of error--that for some RC's etc. is spiritually more than hazardous.
This business such as:
faulty Mariology = faulty Christology; functionally, logically yields Mary = Jesus.
Just screams of inappropriate emphases on Mary. At best, Mary is a distraction. At worst and far too often for far too many unthoughtful folks, Mary becomes an idol replacing focus, adoration, worship that GOD ALONE warrants, deserves, allows to be the focus of such attitudes, thoughts, practices.
We are talking, Dear Kosta, about a pattern of thought and behavior, which, under the Old Testament meant immediate stoning to death. For many of us Proties--it's not a light OPTIONAL thing--AT ALL.
And, we don't take protestatinos and rationalizations very seriously because we all have been very good at rationalizing and protesting our own petty and not so pety idoltries in our own religious and even our own spiritual walks. We have all been, at various times . . . none so blind as those who WILL NOT see. So, we assume that RC folks are AT LEAST AS HUMAN AS WE ARE--vis a vis denial, willful and other blindness; the comforts of substitutes for God etc.
I'll take it anytime it can happen. :)
Even a thought can be a sin. So, it is really difficult to imagine that Mary, from her earliest days as a young girl, old enough to know right from wrong, never even thought something, even for a fleeting moment, that would qualify as sin.
Exactly right. That is, as long as she really WAS human, and I know we agree that she was.
But the Apostolic Catholic and Orthodox Church simply says that she is purer than angels, that she never sinned. I think it is an assertion based on the fact that anything that was not pure in its totality could not be a suitable vessel.
That's what it sounds like, but I don't understand it. :) Christ allowed Himself to suffer the worst humiliations in all of history. Yet, somehow the Church has determined that the idea of Jesus being born through a normal faithful woman, who made mistakes like the rest of us, was so much WORSE than anything He ever suffered, that it was impossible.
I believe the Protestants have no problem with Mary except with what they perceive as "idolatry." I assure you, it's not idolatry. I don't understand what is it about Mary that drives Protestants crazy.
I think it has to be the appearances. The Bible gives us examples of REAL idolatry, and then we compare that against what we perceive, and see problems. Even with "Mary save us!", imagine if you were a Protestant who didn't know much about Orthodoxy. What would be reasonable to think? Then in Catholicism, we have people bowing down to statutes and the like, (on TV), JUST LIKE what is described as by actual idolaters in the Bible. In our own culture we often say "perception is everything". :)