It does in the Catholic world-view when talking about the "infusion" of grace versus the "imputation" of righteousness. It's the soul gas tank example I gave a number of days ago. Gotta keep that tank on FULL in order to make it to heaven. Mortal sins empty the tank like it sprang a leak and only confession and penance WITH good works can bring it back to nearly full (seeing as RCs believe most people will have to go through Purgatory first to top off the tank). I can't understand why it doesn't register that we are saved because of CHRIST'S righteousness and not our own - which IS the Biblical view.
Very thoughtful post, thank you.
Grace is not earned, or merited, or any otherwise apprehended buy actions on our part of any kind.
We are the recipients of it as sinners.
The person without sin can never be the recipient of God’s grace, therefore is Mary were truly sinless, she would by default be excluded from it.
The fact that the angel told her she was graced meant that God was doing something for her or to her what she did NOT merit or deserve, because she was a sinner.
Let me take a stab at that. 1st Corinthians 1:18. "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God." 1st Corinthians 2:14. "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."
Unregenerate man CANNOT understand spiritual issues, because unregenerate man is unspiritual. You and I both know, since we are ex Catholics, that we did not understand spiritual issues, till God revealed them to us.
One of the things I recalled from my Catholic days, was the incredible spiritual blindness I had. After I left the OTC, and started being my own pope, I began to understand, but not until God took away the blindness I had before.
The fact that unregenerate man, keeps trotting out the same old tired, worn out doctrines, should not surprise any of us. 😀😆😄
Good analogy, I missed it before.
It’s sad that some are trying so hard to follow a belief system’s rules/regulations/rituals/traditions that they miss the simple message that we can enter the Kingdom of God and be citizens of that Kingdom while we temporally sojourn on this planet as God’s children.
All we can do is point the way with God’s inspired Word.
A full tank in Catholicism is like a current Temple recommend card in Mormonism. Die without a valid one and a Mormon ends up with Baptists forever
On level two of lds Heaven