With ease I can point out to you why Calvinist denial of free will is counterscriptural nonsense: the Beatitudes, the explanation of the Last Judgement in Matthew 25, and exhortations to virtue with which St. Paul ends all his letters, all contradict the concept that men can do nothing to save themelves or others.
However, this is not what I asked the "doctor" to do. I have no interest in fully figuring out Calvinism; what I heard was enough to dislike and despise this pseudoreligion. If you have an interest to find out what the Church teaches about predestination, election, and free will, I will do so on an apporpriate thread. In fact, I already did so: on my profile you will find this reference, Luther and Erasmus: The Controversy Concerning the Bondage of the Will , as well as an index to some important posts I and others made therein. See also St. Irenaeus on Free Will (Adversus Haereses IV,37).
Or perhaps, just like I post Catholic conversion stories, you could post a Calvinist conversion story where the convert explains how he came to believe in absence of free will, and what scripture he found to support the notion.
This is what I did ask: "If you have a scripture that you think contradicts [Catholic mariology], kindly make a reference to it and explain where do you think the contradiction is" (441). Let me now go over your post to see if any scriptural assertion there does the job I asked the "doctor" to do.
(1 and 2) simply mention that Mary was predestined from all eternity to give birth to Christ. That would seem to be alone a good reason to venerate her. I don't see from these sections anything that tells us not to venerate her.
(3) concentrates on Mary's role in the Nativity. It does not address the issue of venerating her or any saint, however insignificant in relative terms. But Mary also appears at the pivotal to us wedding at Cana, among the disciples during Jesus's ministry, where her identification with the Church is established, and an early act of veneration is recorded, at the crucifixion, at the Pentecost, and after her assumption in Apocalypse. So it is plain false to say that Mary is an inimportant character. Further, Mary's absence at the empty tomb is significant: we conclude from it that she expected the resurrection and was with the disciples as they were receving the happy news -- she was with Christ's church, as she ever is.
(4 and 5) start with a correct statement that angelic life of the heavenly dwellers such as Mary and the saints differs radically from our life on earth. From that it doesn't follow that all saints in heaven are the same and lack individuality, or are incapable of interceding for us. The proper conclusion is the opposite: that since the scripture shows angels interceding and having diverse roles, the saints who are like angels have different roles and intercede also.
(6) is unscriptural. The scripture speaks of various rewards in heaven on more than one occasion. There is no reason to speculate, like you do, that the unique role of Mary on earth does not extend after her glorious assumption, and in fact, Apocalypse 12 describes her unique role in heaven plainly.
“you could post a Calvinist conversion story where the convert explains how he came to believe in absence of free will,”
This is an interesting example of of Irresistible Grace:
When God calls his elect into salvation, they cannot resist. God offers to all people the gospel message. This is called the external call. But to the elect, God extends an internal call and it cannot be resisted. There is no free will involved, it is all of God.
“Then one night in 1992 I knew that my life would radically change, that something was going to happen in my life to cause a radical change,” he says. “I knew something was going to happen. Something was coming.”
It was this peculiar, sudden, and powerful intuition that changed his life — a feeling so powerful that he turned down the calls from friends to come out to party as he did on a nightly basis. He still has trouble explaining exactly what happened. The prayers of a mother?
For a while Calloway remained in his room waiting for this unknown “something” to arrive, then went to the hall looking for a magazine or book to read as he waited, guided by an amazing internal feeling. “I wanted to look at some kind of magazine with pictures while I was waiting, something like National Geographic, with pictures, and I went out there and there was a book that caught my eye,” he says. “On the binding it said, The Queen of Peace Visits Medjugorje.”
It was a book about the apparition site in Bosnia-Hercegovina by Father Joseph A. Pelletier and Calloway couldn’t comprehend what the words meant. He wondered if his parents had taken up a foreign language! Looking at the pictures, he saw six children staring up into nothing. It was the seers during an apparition — something he had never even heard about. He read the caption and it said they were looking at the “Blessed Virgin Mary.” He was so poorly versed in religion that he didn’t know who the Blessed Mother was. “I thought Jesus was like Santa Claus,” he recalls. “I was a blank slate.” Looking at more of the pictures, he saw other words like the Rosary, Communion, and the Eucharist that he had little idea about.
There was all this Catholic lingo, but he began to avidly read it. He couldn’t put it down. “I read that whole book by 3:30 or 4 a.m. in the morning,” he says. “I ate that book like it was life. I consumed it. And I said to myself, ‘That is true. Everything in that book is true.’ She was saying that Jesus was God, and I thought, anything she says is true. She seemed so beautiful and flawless. She captivated my heart
“It does not address the issue of venerating her or any saint, however insignificant in relative terms.”
Mary says, (Luk 1:48) “For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.”
Later on in Jesus’ ministry, that prophecy comes true when a woman in the crowd who has witnessed one of Jesus’ miracles says, (Luk 11:27) “And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed [is] the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.”
Jesus responds, not by denying that Mary is blessed, but says in comparative terms those are greater blessed that hear and obey.
Luk 11:28 “But he said, Yea rather, blessed [are] they that hear the word of God, and keep it.”
Jesus uses the same comparative formula concerning the righteousness of the Pharisees and the person of John the Baptist. He does not deny that the Pharisees are righteous, He says that kingdom righteousness exceeds that. He does not deny that John the Baptist is considered great, He says that those of the kingdom are greater.
Mat 5:20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed [the righteousness] of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Mat 11:11 Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
“(4 and 5) start with a correct statement that angelic life of the heavenly dwellers such as Mary and the saints differs radically from our life on earth. From that it doesn’t follow that all saints in heaven are the same and lack individuality, or are incapable of interceding for us. The proper conclusion is the opposite: that since the scripture shows angels interceding and having diverse roles, the saints who are like angels have different roles and intercede also.”
Ephesians 3:14-15, “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named”
There is only one family of believers and only one parent, God the Father; all others are His children. There is no scriptural warrant for any one other than Jesus or the Holy Spirit interceding in heaven with the Father for mankind, in fact the only person mentioned in the bible whose ministry is helping us to pray is the Holy Spirit.