[Quix]

I don’t think any authentic Christian argues about what

HOLY SPIRIT

*COULD* DO

*COULD* HAVE DONE!

[Cronos]

Well, I don't know, let's see what Rn or Met answer

We like to believe that the Holy Spirit is all-powerful and He protected Mary from sin. Mary did nothing great, all of it was from God and by God, all Mary did was say yes, everything else was from God and is for the greater glory of God.

To Rn and Met: Do you think it impossible for the Holy Spirit to preserve a created being like Mary from sin?

If you believe that the Holy Spirit can do this and that this has nothing to do with our salvation (which came from Christ and His sacrifice) and if this doesn't contradict scripture, then quite frankly this is not an argument but just dancing around.

However, our Calvinist friends would like to believe in Cessationism, that God somehow packed up and left. Cessationists generally believe that the miraculous gifts were given only for the foundation of the Church, during the time between the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, c. AD 33 (see Acts 2) and the fulfillment of God's purposes in history, usually identified as either the completion of the last book of the New Testament or the death of the last Apostle, i.e. John the Apostle.

In contrast, they forget that we are a community of the Pentecost, we are a community, a church where thanks to Christ we can experience God in our lives -- God is not a far-away God, He is here and now.