Immaculate Conception

[Peetem]

A question I can't seem to get a good answer.....

The Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived without the stain of original sin.

Why didn't God do the same thing for all mankind after the fall (and continue to do)?

Thanks!

[Doom]

Because he chose not to

[gherkin]

Our Lady was preserved from original sin through the merits of her Son, applied, as it were, in advance. (I don't think I've ever written 'as it were' before, and having just done so, I feel dirty.) So the action of preserving her presupposes the Incarnation, death and resurrection of her Son. But Jesus came to free from our sins (among other things). If, then, we were preserved from the stain of sin, he wouldn't have become Incarnate. (This point is debated among the theologians, of course, with Scotus as usual being wrong and St. Thomas saying what I just said, only better.) But if he hadn't become Incarnate, we couldn't be preserved from the stain of original sin as was Our Lady, as in see first sentence above. Therefore, etc, QED.

All that said, and although I certainly don't agree with Doom, God could have saved us anyway he wished (or he could have refrained from saving us), and hence everything I just said is presuming the actual mode of redemption which God freely elected, presumably because he deemed it most fitting. So by the absolute power, God could have just waved away the consequences of original sin, but it wouldn't have been as fitting as what he actually did.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

I disagree with Doom and gherkin, of course, but I would point out that "Why didn't God do X?" questions are not answerable because He works on an entirely different level than we do. We are not capable of grasping His plan.

[Doom]

According to one (obviously unprovable this side of eternity) theory, the Incarnation was the entire point of creation and it would have happened even if man never fell.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

That's the Scotist theory, and therefore icky and wrong

[thejack]

I've always liked that theory. Liking it is no justification for affirming it, though I tend to provisionally affirm it just on the grounds that I do like it, that it seems more fitting than the alternative, and the fact that Scotus was no dunce (pun entirely intended) so it must not be blatantly stupid. It's on my list of things to study someday to try to come to a conclusion on. I doubt, given what I actually need to spend time on, I'll actually be able to do so.

edit: and yes, I have at least read ST III.1.3.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Study? When you can just give a knee-jerk reaction? How quaint.

[Peetem]

Thanks all for the responses.

Very helpful!

[anawim]

A question I can't seem to get a good answer.....

The Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived without the stain of original sin.

Why didn't God do the same thing for all mankind after the fall (and continue to do)?

Thanks!

In the second paragraph of Ineffabilis Deus, it states:

And indeed it was wholly fitting that so wonderful a mother should be ever resplendent with the glory of most sublime holiness and so completely free from all taint of original sin that she would triumph utterly over the ancient serpent.

If I'm reading that right, it was because she would participate with her divine son in the work of redemption.

[Theosis]

A question I can't seem to get a good answer.....

The Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived without the stain of original sin.

Why didn't God do the same thing for all mankind after the fall (and continue to do)?

Thanks!

Mary’s soul was preserved from inheriting the stain of original sin, because She was to be the Virgin Mother of God. But, of Her own free will, She did not wish to violate Her purity, bodily and spiritually, not even with one thought remotely connected with sin. She knew that sin exists. She saw its various and horrible forms and implications. She saw them all, including the most hideous one: deicide. But She knew them solely to expiate them and to be, forever, the Woman Who has mercy on sinners and prays for their redemption.

Ages have gone by since God judged Lucifer and Adam. But the voice of the judgement has not gone out. And its consequences still last. And if Jesus had come to bring back Grace to men, through the perfect Sacrifice, the sentence on Adam’s action remains what it is, and it will always be called “Original sin.” Men will be redeemed, they will be washed with a purification exceeding every other one, but they will be born with that stain, because God has decided that that stain is to be in every man born of woman, with the exception of Him, Who was made not by deed of man, but by the Holy Spirit, and with the exception of the Preserved Woman (Mary) and the Presanctified Man (John the Baptist), virgins forever. The Former, that She might be the Virgin Mother of God, the latter that he might be the precursor of the Innocent, being born already pure, through a pre-fruition of the infinite merits of the Saviour Redeemer. 3