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To: CynicalBear
So Christ wasn’t the only sinless human you say? Really?

No; as exception we know of Mary and Noah. It is also possible that St. John the Baptist lived without sin, since Christ gave him the Holy Spirit while both were not yet born. Of course, in each case it is Christ alone who renders people sinless.

410 posted on 12/11/2012 5:40:36 AM PST by annalex (fear them not)
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To: annalex; CynicalBear
So Christ wasn’t the only sinless human you say? Really?

No; as exception we know of Mary and Noah. It is also possible that St. John the Baptist lived without sin, since Christ gave him the Holy Spirit while both were not yet born. Of course, in each case it is Christ alone who renders people sinless.

LOL, was Noah REALLY SINLESS? Read your bible PLEASE

I know that Catholics do not understand that a sinless Mary is blasphemy.

You make her a demi god.

The only one that had a sinless life, the only one that could live a sinless life is Jesus Christ, God made man.

St Ambrose notes this of Christ,

"He was man in the flesh, according to His human nature, that He might be recognized, but in power was above man, that He might not be recognized, so He has our flesh, but has not the failings of this flesh. For He was not begotten, as is every man, by intercourse between male and female, but born of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin; He received a stainless body, which not only no sins polluted, but which neither the generation nor the conception had been stained by any admixture of defilement. For we men are all born under sin, and our very origin is in evil, as we read in the words of David: 'For lo, I was conceived in wickedness, and in sin did my mother bring me forth.'" (On Repentance, 1:3:12-13)

No exception for Mary there.

Augustine quotes Ambrose here

"For the Lord Jesus alone of those who are born of womanis holy, inasmuch as He experienced not the contact of earthly corruption, by reason of the novelty of His immaculate birth; nay, He repelled it by His heavenly majesty." (cited in Augustine, On the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin, 2:47)

No immaculate conception there.

Augustine himself did not hold to a "sinless" Mary

"And now that we are about to bring this book to a conclusion, we think it proper to do on this subject of Original Sin what we did before in our treatise On Grace, --adduce in evidence against the injurious talk of these persons that servant of God, the Archbishop Ambrose, whose faith is proclaimed by Pelagius to be the most perfect among the writers of the Latin Church; for grace is more especially honoured in doing away with original sin. In the work which the saintly Ambrose wrote, Concerning the Resurrection, he says: 'I fell in Adam, in Adam was I expelled from Paradise, in Adam I died; and He does not recall me unless He has found me in Adam,--so as that, as I am obnoxious to the guilt of sin in him, and subject to death, I may be also justified in Christ.' Then, again, writing against the Novatians, he says: 'We men are all of us born in sin; our very origin is in sin; as you may read when David says, 'Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.' Hence it is that Paul's flesh is 'a body of death;' even as he says himself, 'Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' Christ's flesh, however, has condemned sin, which He experienced not by being born, and which by dying He crucified, that in our flesh there might be justification through grace, where previously there was impurity through sin.' The same holy man also, in his Exposition Isaiah, speaking of Christ, says: 'Therefore as man He was tried in all things, and in the likeness of men He endured all things; but as born of the Spirit, He was free from sin. For every man is a liar, and no one but God alone is without sin. It is therefore an observed and settled fact,that no man born of a man and a woman, that is, by means of their bodily union, is seen to be free from sin. Whosoever, indeed, is free from sin, is free also from a conception and birth of this kind.' Moreover, when expounding the Gospel according to Luke, he says: 'It was no cohabitation with a husband which opened the secrets of the Virgin's womb; rather was it the Holy Ghost which infused immaculate seed into her unviolated womb. For the Lord Jesus alone of those who are born of woman is holy, inasmuch as He experienced not the contact of earthly corruption, by reason of the novelty of His immaculate birth; nay, He repelled it by His heavenly majesty.' These words, however, of the man of God are contradicted by Pelagius, notwithstanding all his commendation of his author, when he himself declares that 'we are procreated, as without virtue, so without vice.' What remains, then, but that Pelagius should condemn and renounce this error of his; or else be sorry that he has quoted Ambrose in the way he has? Inasmuch, however, as the blessed Ambrose, catholic bishop as he is, has expressed himself in the above-quoted passages in accordance with the catholic faith, it follows that Pelagius, along with his disciple Coelestius, was justly condemned by the authority of the catholic Church for having turned aside from the true way of faith, since he repented not for having bestowed commendation on Ambrose, and for having at the same time entertained opinions in opposition to him." (On the Grace of Christ, and on Original Sin, 2:47-48)

"The Augustinian view long continued to prevail; but at last Pelagius won the victory on this point in the Roman church." - Philip Schaff (http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/3_ch07.htm, section 81)

"Now, O you, my children, our Instructor is like His Father God, whose son He is, sinless, blameless, and with a soul devoid of passion; God in the form of man, stainless, the minister of His Father's will, the Word who is God, who is in the Father, who is at the Father's right hand, and with the form of God is God. He is to us a spotless image; to Him we are to try with all our might to assimilate our souls. He is wholly free from human passions; wherefore also He alone is judge, because He alone is sinless. As far, however, as we can, let us try to sin as little as possible. For nothing is so urgent in the first place as deliverance from passions and disorders, and then the checking of our liability to fall into sins that have become habitual. It is best, therefore, not to sin at all in any way, which we assert to be the prerogative of God alone...But He welcomes the repentance of the sinner-loving repentance-which follows sins. For this Word of whom we speak alone is sinless. For to sin is natural and common to all." (Clement of Alexandria /The Instructor, 1:2, 3:12)

You attribute to Mary the very nature of God, yet you all wince when Protestants say you worship her. By this doctrine Mary would have been a fit substitutionary sacrifice on the cross for the sins of man .

That is blasphemy !

457 posted on 12/11/2012 11:07:50 AM PST by RnMomof7
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To: annalex
So you would also claim the scriptures are in error?

Rom 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

1 Ki 8:46 If they sin against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy, far or near;

Psa 14:1 The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. 2 The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. 3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Gal 3:22 But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.

If she was sinless she wouldn’t have needed a savior.

Luke 1:47 And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

509 posted on 12/11/2012 4:07:55 PM PST by CynicalBear
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