[Petronski]

Are you suggesting that the Blessed Mother DID NOT have the option of declining?

I was once expressly told this by a Calvinist.

So serious an error as this makes the Holy Spirit a rapist, and Mary a broodmare.

The idea is almost physically sickening to me.

[wagglebee]

Of course if the Blessed Mother was incapable of declining this would mean that she also lacked free will and would therefore be incapable of committing sin.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

If Mary had "declined" to carry the Christ child, God's entire plan of salvation by the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" would have been thwarted.

God graciously made Mary an offer she couldn't and wouldn't refuse.

I trust God when He says He "declared the end from the beginning."

You're free to dispute that.

As God wills.

[Mad Dawg]

Well you'd think the Protestants would learn from the persistence of the Calvinist-Arminian quarrel that the question of Free Will and Predestination is too hard for simple formulaic answers, not to mention it's being too hard for humans generally. Their one sided explanation — which, I think, sacrifices accuracy for simplicity and logical consistency with everything but experience — does seem to end up with Mary and the rest of us as marionettes.