A Biblical Basis for the "Immaculate Conception"?

AO Ministries ^ | 1991 | James White

[fishtank]

A Biblical Basis for the "Immaculate Conception"?

A Review and Rebuttal of Patrick Madrid's Article "Ark of the New Covenant" in "This Rock" magazine, December 1991.

by James White

Catholic Answers has some interesting ways of grabbing your attention. By placing the beginning paragraph or two of the lead article of their monthly magazine, This Rock, on the very cover of the work, they draw your attention into reading the rest of the article. True to form, the December, 1991 edition sported Pat Madrid's article, "Ark of the New Covenant" with the interesting lead in, "His face stiffened, and his eyes narrowed to slits. Until now the Calvary Chapel pastor had been calm as he `shared the gospel' with me, but when I mentioned my belief in Mary's Immaculate Conception, his attitude changed." Using a "real-life" backdrop for the presentation of some particular topic is another fine writing tool used by the folks at Catholic Answers. As you continue to read about this encounter, you discover that our author, Pat Madrid, is going to provide Biblical support for his belief in the Immaculate Conception of Mary. He writes of his encounter with the Protestant pastor,

More at link......

[paladinan]

From Dr. White's article:

Mr. Madrid speaks of "anti-Marianism" in the above quotation. From the Roman position, the Protestant's refusal to accept the Roman Catholic teachings on Mary is "anti-Marianism." Yet, is this a valid statement on Mr. Madrid's part? I certainly do not believe so. Rejection of non-Biblical and anti- Biblical teachings about Mary does not make one "anti-Mary." Indeed, one might well assert that to be concerned about maintaining the truth about she who was "blessed among women" would include safeguarding her against idolatrous worship, etc. I am sure that if Mary was aware of the millions who attempt to pray to her, ask her intercession, and dedicate themselves to her, all in direct violation of Biblical commands, she would be greatly distressed and grieved. I believe that God, in His mercy, has surely shielded Mary from such knowledge.

(*sigh*) This is why so few discussions between Catholics and anti-Catholics (especially "professional" anti-Catholics) go anywhere but downhill, degenerating into mere quarrels: how can one, supposedly in contrast to one's opponent, present oneself as "the adult in the room (i.e. the one who's going by reason, God's Word, and common sense)"--while turning around only a few words later and spraying raw opinions, assertions, begged questions, and a host of other fallacies, willy-nilly? To wit:

Rejection of non-Biblical and anti- Biblical teachings about Mary does not make one "anti-Mary."

Two answers to that:

1) It's really not sporting of Dr. White to "move the goal-posts" like that; "Marianism" (by which is commonly understood the fulness of Marian Devotion, found richly in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches) is hardly the same as "Mary", and "anti-Marianism" is hardly the same as being "anti-Mary" (whatever that might mean!). I certainly trust that Dr. White is not "anti-Mary" (and that his desire to protect her dignity is sincere), but he is most certainly a staunch opponent of "Marianism" (as defined above).

2) If one assumes the non-Biblical and anti-Biblical teaching of "sola Scriptura", then Dr. White's conclusion might follow; but if one is content not to add to Scripture in that way (or to reject the Church Who discerned the contents of that Scripture, and whose early bishops wrote the entire New Testament), then he's on very shaky ground, indeed.

Indeed, one might well assert that to be concerned about maintaining the truth about she [sic] who was "blessed among women" would include safeguarding her against idolatrous worship, etc.

Safeguarding the truth about the Blessed Virgin would certainly include safeguarding her (and those who woudl practise it) against idolatrous worship. I confess to being a bit more cautious, however, about agreeing with Dr. White's inclusion of the tiny qualifier, "etc.", since it may contain many things which, though good and wholesome, might do no more than run counter to Dr. White's personal tastes.

I am sure that if Mary was aware of the millions who attempt to pray to her, ask her intercession, and dedicate themselves to her, all in direct violation of Biblical commands, she would be greatly distressed and grieved. I believe that God, in His mercy, has surely shielded Mary from such knowledge.

(*sigh*) This is where the typical faithful, well-informed Catholic starts to shake his/her head, and despair of any meeting of the minds. A clearer example of utter, raw opinion and appeal to emotion/the gallery, unfounded by any Biblical mandate whatsoever, I have not seen in quite some time.

After this, Dr. White goes on to lambaste the poetic "language of love" used in some of the more sentimental prayers and songs regarding the Blessed Virgin, suggesting that they most certainly violate the distinction between "veneration" and "adoration" (which he would call "worship"--which is rather a different thing, etymologically). To that, I can only say that he--who looks with extreme disfavour at the Catholic Inquisitions--is not putting himself in the curious position of denouncing any hyperbolic love poetry whatsoever; and I don't relish the idea of saying to my wife, "I am yours, completely!" only to turn and face the righteous scowl of Dr. White, who would admonish me about belonging primarily to God, first and foremost! (Would he really doubt that I *know* that?)

[RoadGumby]

My possessing knowledge does not in any way require me to Prove it to you or any other. AND, whether or not I can Prove that knowledge does not impact whether or not I should share it as Truth.

The way that you dodge questions that would require something of You to be revealed is pretty good, almost as good as Holder in F&F.

You claim that you ‘want to know others beliefs’ yet, when asked to reciprocate, you dodge. Why? It is that dodging that implies ‘mocking’. There is no sharing of view[points, only more questions form you and vague answers that amount to fluff.

Well I may not KNOW what exactly your thoughts might be, but Jesus gave us a pretty good eye witness account of a man in hell begging to have an angel go tell his relatives to get right with God, and begging for water, able to see and never get to, paradise. You may even recall all these exchanges and wish you had listened.

IF you have not received the Savior.

[Iscool]

You wouldn’t have wanted Jesus to be born with original sin, would you?

What was the penalty for original sin??? Without original sin, would Adam have died???

Did Jesus die???

[Iscool]

The fourth commandment of the Decalogue (using the Protestant numbering) says, "Honor thy father and thy mother".

Jesus fulfilled this commandment perfectly.

And Jesus only called his mother, woman??? Never Mother, or Mom...Just woman??? And he rebukes her at the wedding in Cana???

[Iscool]

Jesus couldn't have been born with original sin in any case; he's God.

Would Jesus have died of old age had he not been killed on the Cross???

[Iscool]

Sounds like you are using a Greek view of ‘blood.’ In Hebraic scripture blood is ‘life.’

Is not...Besides the blood of Jesus was written in Greek, not Hebrew...

[Claud]

However, if we look at Mr. Keating's presentation, it seems clear that he is basing his interpretation not primarily upon the lexical meaning of the word caritow, but upon the form it takes in Luke 1:28, that being the perfect passive participle, kecaritomene. Note that Keating alleges that the "Greek indicates a perfection of grace." He seems to be playing on the perfect tense of the participle. But, as anyone trained in Greek is aware, there is no way to jump from the perfect tense of a participle to the idea that the Greek "indicates a perfection of grace."

That is wrong Dr. Wright.

There is *every* reason to make the logical jump. The verb, as was said, means "to grace". It is in the perfect tense. That means it's completed. Done. Finished. The word literally translates as "she who has been graced". That's where the "full of grace" comes in--if the gracing is completed, there can be room for no more.

And might I also add I find it not a little insulting and even patronizing that Dr. White states "as anyone trained in Greek is aware....".

Trained in Greek? TRAINED in Greek? You mean 21st century English-speakers who, at best, study New Testament Greek academically? WHo learn it from books written by other English speakers? That kind of training?

Many of the Church Fathers *spoke New Testament Greek natively*. If anyone's Greek is going to be relied on, it's not modern Catholic scholars or modern Protestant scholars, but native speakers of Greek, particularly those closest in time to the New Testament period. I.e. the Church Fathers. And this is PRECISELY why we don't sweep all that writing under the rug and call it "useless tradition"...the Fathers are not some useless adjunct. They are literally KEY to interpreting the Biblical Text as written.

Does the Greek Orthodox Church today teach the Immaculate Conception? No. The Greek Orthodox don't like the Western formulation of it, chiefly because of our ideas of original sin. But they DO regard Mary as Panagia = the all-holy. ALL holy. Say what you want about what that means--but it sure doesn't sound like they think Mary was a sinner like everyone else.

You'd think if Dr. White and other exegetes were so-spot on on their analysis of kecharitomene, the Greeks would have known it long before he did.

[Iscool]

The flesh came through the Blessed Virgin Mary. That’s why she was sinless — so that she could carry that flesh in her womb.

Jesus didn't require a sinless womb to pop out of...

Jesus appeared many times in the OT in the form of a man...Just as Angels do...

If all God wanted to do was to be God in the form of a man, Mary's presence wasn't required...God chose to become a real man, just like us...In every way...

If Jesus was not exactly like us, he could not have been tempted...

[stuartcr]

Of course you’re not required to prove it to anyone, it’s your belief.

What specifically, would you like me to answer?

[RoadGumby]

Specifically, return the to initial questions on post #21

“What if there is? (Original sin) What are you then? Where will you go without the Salvation Christ offers?”

Those, specifically, would be a good place to start (restart).

[MHGinTN]

Jesus was not genetically a child of Mary or of Joseph, so can you explain to me how Jesus could have been tainted by original sin without being the genetic off-spring of Mary or Joseph?

[Claud]

Well said.

And speaking of spouses, why would the Holy Ghost take as a mystical spouse someone who was under the power of the Enemy?

[stuartcr]

‘What are you then?’ - I am the same as I ever was.

‘Where will I go...?” - I have no idea where I will go. How could I possibly know?

[DarkSavant]

Please humor this 'typical Catholic' and point to the passages that state the Holy Spirit equal to the Father and Son.

I'm aware they do exist, and I'll state the evidence in the New Testament for the Immaculate Conception is just as solid as that, but I'd like to see how you discerned that doctrine out of scripture.

[Belteshazzar]

MHGinTN wrote:
“Jesus was not genetically a child of Mary ...”

Excuse me ... huh?

[cloudmountain]

What I believe is based on Scripture, on the teachings of Christ.
I don’t follow Luther, Calvin or Henry.

If you really WERE a Catholic then you believed in Apostolic Tradition and the Magesterium. If you believed in those then you believed in the Immaculate Conception.
You don't get to pick and chose whom and what you believe when you are a Catholic--that's the smorgie-Catholic, relative morality.

Besides, the New Testament (27 documents)/Bible was decided on by the counsels, led by the Magesterium, which itself is based on Apostolic Tradition.

Christ didn't leave us a book. As He ascended into Heaven He did NOT yell down: "Read My book!" He left us TWELVE MEN, with Peter the Rock in charge, who could bind and loose on earth and in heaven. Peter was the head bishop of the Peter-begun Magesterium. What he and his fellow Apostles did became Apostolic Tradition.
They WERE chosen by Jesus.

[rzman21]

The Immaculate Conception rests on a premise that is foreign to Eastern Christianity because Eastern Christians do not accept St. Augustine's notion that we inherit the guilt of Adam.

Instead the Greek Fathers teach that we inherit a state of spiritual death and separation from God.

From that perspective the Immaculate Conception solves a non-problem. That said. The Eastern Orthodox refer to Mary as panagia or all-immaculate based on the definition of the Fifth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople.

Byzantine-rite Catholics do not celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the dogma isn't even discussed in our liturgical texts for the Feast of the Conception of St. Anna.

The same was true in the Latin Church prior to the dogmatic definition.

The closest we come to anything resembling the Immaculate Conception in the early centuries can be found in the Apocrphyal Infancy Gospel of Mary:

If, therefore, the reasonableness of my words does not persuade you, believe in fact that conceptions very late in life, and births in the case of women that have been barren, are usually attended with something wonderful. Accordingly your wife Anna will bring forth a daughter to you, and you shall call her name Mary: she shall be, as you have vowed, consecrated to the Lord from her infancy, and she shall be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from her mother's womb. She shall neither eat nor drink any unclean thing, nor shall she spend her life among the crowds of the people without, but in the temple of the Lord, that it may not be possible either to say, or so much as to suspect, any evil concerning her. Therefore, when she has grown up, just as she herself shall be miraculously born of a barren woman, so in an incomparable manner she, a virgin, shall bring forth the Son of the Most High, who shall be called Jesus, and who, according to the etymology of His name, shall be the Saviour of all nations. And this shall be the sign to you of those things which I announce: When you shall come to the Golden gate in Jerusalem, you shall there meet Anna your wife, who, lately anxious from the delay of your return, will then rejoice at the sight of you. Having thus spoken, the angel departed from him.

[cloudmountain]

MHGinTN wrote: “Jesus was not genetically a child of Mary ...”
Excuse me ... huh?

Ditto and double "huh?"

[RoadGumby]

You question others to give answers and return nothing but evasion.

Here are some Definites

IF you are the same as you ever were, then you will not like your eternal destination.

IF you really do know where you will spend eternity, you will not like where you end up.

And you still did not address (not that you really have addressed the two you listed here either) the first regarding original sin. You asked what if there wasn’t, I gave valid reasons why there is, and asked you ‘What if there IS original sin’. And THAT question should provide the basis for the second then the third.

You ignired the first and ‘fluffed’ the second and third.

[Tramonto]

You aren’t doubting the power of God or the power of the Bible, now, are you?

Not at all. What I wanted to know is how Mary was kept sinless in the womb when her mother was sinful.

If you say that it is a miracle, then the same miracle could have been applied to Jesus. What I am saying is that there is no need for Mary to have been sinless because Jesus' birth was already a miracle. Absence a need and absence scripture, I don't think there is any reason to believe in the immaculate conception. In fact, there are scriptures that would suggest that Mary was indeed sinful.