Philosophical Reflections on the Immaculate Conception
This past week, I had lunch with one of my Philosophy professors, Karsten Harries, who does not self-identify as a Christian, but given his specialization in nineteenth and twentieth century German thought, is quite familiar with the tradition. Our conversation veered onto the topic of the Immaculate Conception, and he suggested that this Marian doctrine represented a curious celebration of the divinity of nature, more generally, and an elevation of the feminine, in particular, that challenged the patriarchal theology of the Church. By insisting on Mary’s sinless state, he suggested, the Church recognized a Trinitarian divinization of Mary as the Mother, Daughter, and Bride of the Godhead, thereby placing Mary, a human, above one of the divine persons and on an equal footing with the other two. Indeed, he pointed out, there were icons of the Virgin that portrayed her as housing all three members of the Trinity in her womb in churches throughout Bavaria, an area whose church architecture Harries has written on extensively. (This is an image that is also repeated in the writings of female mystics like Frauenlob). I added that it is also interesting that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is one of the few infallible articles of Church teaching.
Far from critiquing such a high Mariology, as many Protestants are wont to do, Harries was presenting it as one of the Catholic Church’s more admirable doctrines, as it presented an openness toward a kind of “material transcendence” (his word) or sacramentality (mine) that sought to prevent the petrifaction of dogma in its historical forms by recognizing the potential for all of creation to continually conceive and give birth to the presence of the divine. At this point, I found myself playing an unlikely devil’s advocate, by countering Harries’ praise with the critical suggestion that the elevation of Mary might actually be a backhanded complement, in light of the Catholic Church’s continued prohibition of the ordination of women. In fact, I said, this elevation may very well be a relegation. As so often happens in patriarchal ideologies, the sanctification of the feminine results in her containment (e.g. the “holy housewife” unsullied in her domestic cloister by the corruptive influence of the “real world”). Indeed, preaching this Monday on Luke 1:26-38 will likely focus on Mary’s obedient submission to the will of the Father rather than on her reception of a most blessed matriarchal status.
Harries wondered why, if the reinforcement of such patriarchy was the intention, the Catholic Church would not simply adopt the “more elegant” Lutheran view that Mary was born with sin but, like all baptized Christians, was forgiven that sin by the power of the Holy Spirit in preparation for the vocation to which she was called. At this point, I could give no good answer, but it seems to me that the Catholic Church always wants to affirm strong understandings of sacramentality (e.g. the transubstantiation of the host during the celebration of the Eucharist) but, simultaneously, feels the need to deny the radical ecclesial implications of those sacraments by building into their theology rigid rules governing their efficacy (e.g. restricting access to the Eucharist to practicing Catholics). Of course, the notion of sacrament is predicated on the idea that there are boundaries designating the sacred over against the profane, but when those boundaries lose their living character as continually negotiated dwelling places of the Spirit, they become ossified walls imprisoning rather than manifesting the presence of God.
This is what has happened to the theological discussion surrounding the ordination of women in the Catholic Church. The theological dissonance between the doctrine we affirm this December 8 and the ecclesial practice currently barring women who may be called, like Mary, to (re)conceive and give new birth to the Word of God made flesh among us should be both felt and mourned as we remember and give thanks for that first woman who said, “Yes.”
Eric,
Forgive me if I detect a lack of your usual incontestable development in your posts. Even your professor really does not know what to make of it. He goes from noting that Mary is in some places placed above the Trinity or the fourth person (true especially in Latin America) to that of saying the Church should really depict her with sin. Ah, that little lady dressed in blue. What an awful picture of Mary. Have you not read Truly our Sister by Elizabeth Johnson? A great depiction of Mary as a solid Hebrew woman who was a hard working peasant.
Your post raises several problems since it presumes certain truths. Here are some things for us to ponder. Mary is unheard of before the fourth century and there are no churches in her name until the fifth century. Cyril of Alexandria pushed the term Theotokos to compete with Greek Goddesses.
Infallibility is unheard of in the church until the 12th century. Many theologians not that indefectibility might be the more accurate word. Certainly Damasus started championing the authority of Rome but no one claimed infallibility.
The concept of the immaculate conception developed in the late Middle Ages when the precept “Potuit, docuti fecit” was in vogue. “God could do it, it was appropriate, therefore he did it.” Can you imagine a respected Catholic scholar saying that today? On second thought…
And some say the Franciscans had political reasons for pushing this doctrine. Religious orders constantly vied for the upper hand.
I hold with most female theologians that the portrayal of Mary unquestionably demeans women. The real Mary is just fine.
There are, of course, redeeming elements if I may write so, Eric. I realize you are writing in context of what many Catholic perceive. I especially like your conclusion: “The theological dissonance between the doctrine we affirm this December 8 and the ecclesial practice currently barring women who may be called, like Mary, to (re)conceive and give new birth to the Word of God made flesh among us should be both felt and mourned as we remember and give thanks for that first woman who said, “Yes.”
Bill, Thanks for your comment. A few things: (1) Harries was not advocating that the Church present Mary with sin, but was saying that IF the Church was trying to reinforce patriarchal power structures, then it ought to. (2) The Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was officially articulated in 1854 as an affirmation of what had been, in some areas, popular devotional belief for centuries. That is what I was refering to as the “infallible” statement of the doctrine. Now, I am certainly not one to defend the doctrine of Papal Infallibilty, rather I find it interesting that the Pope felt it necessary to consider such a thing important enough to proclaim as infallible. (3) I think we are in agreement that the overdetermination of Mary’s sanctitiy actually served to “relegate” rather than “elevate” the status of women in the church, my point (and Harries’) is that it actually should imply the opposite. The sanctification of Mary should suggest something about the divinization of creation and, more specifically, the feminine, which I think could be leveraged as a theological challenge to the current stance on the ordination of women.
In my hymn on the Immaculate Conception I make a parallel between Mary and the Church–a parallel taught by the Second Vatican Council. Mary was predestined, she was full of grace. As she was from the beginning, the Church is predestined to be in time: she is the “type” of the Church:
But while in the most holy Virgin the Church has already reached that perfection whereby she is without spot or wrinkle, the followers of Christ still strive to increase in holiness by conquering sin. And so they turn their eyes to Mary who shines forth to the whole community of the elect as the model of virtues. Piously meditating on her and contemplating her in the light of the Word made man, the Church with reverence enters more intimately into the great mystery of the Incarnation and becomes more and more like her Spouse. For Mary, who since her entry into salvation history unites in herself and re-echoes the greatest teachings of the faith as she is proclaimed and venerated, calls the faithful to her Son and His sacrifice and to the love of the Father. Seeking after the glory of Christ, the Church becomes more like her exalted Type, and continually progresses in faith, hope and charity, seeking and doing the will of God in all things. LG 65
The parallel is also evident in the choice of the 2nd reading for the Mass during the day. It’s not just about her. It’s about us, and not just about women. (The parallel is similar in logic, though obviously quite different in causal structure, to the argument made by St. Paul in I Cor. 15 regarding the resurrection, that is, if Christ is raised, the dead are raised. Similarly here, if God can create Mary pure, the entire Church can in fact be re-created purified, by the same power of God.)
Brothers and sisters:
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavens,
as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world,
to be holy and without blemish before him.
In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ,
in accord with the favor of his will,
for the praise of the glory of his grace
that he granted us in the beloved.
In him we were also chosen,
destined in accord with the purpose of the One
who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will,
so that we might exist for the praise of his glory,
we who first hoped in Christ.
The dwelling places of the Spirit are “continually negotiated”? Between whom?
Also, is the Immaculate Conception really about “the potential for all of creation to continually conceive and give birth to the presence of the divine”? Mary was given a special privilege to carry out her mission: God’s intervention at the first instant of her existence to preserve her from the stain of original sin. She needed this precisely because “all of creation” was not worthy to give birth to the presence of the divine.
Andrew, the negotiation is between those of us who still “see darkly” and must openly and continually (re)discern the ways God makes God’s presence known to us. It depends on how radically and historically transcendent we want to read the incarnation, which also speaks to your second point. Should we see the incarnation as fixed at a specific time and place, or do we want to see it as an affirmation of the redemption of creation (re)iterated eternally? There is no doubt a tension here, but it seems we risk being overly dualistic if we only say that the elevation of Mary through Christ happened once and for a very singular swatch of creation.
Two observations. First, if I remember correctly, Susan Gannon and I agreed on this blog site some time ago that we both had difficulty in imagining what it would be like to be in contact with a wholly sinless person. We pretty much take it for granted that the people we live among have flaws just as we do. If they are decent about this, then we can expect them to cut us a little slack and to have some sympathy with our own failings. How did mary learn to be sympathetic? I do not doubt the dogma, but I just can’t imagine how it would play out in Mary’s personal contacts.
Secon, no the theological speculation that Eric and Harries engaged in, let me say that I strongly resist anything that moves in the direction of calling Mary the co-Redemptrix. I’m no theologian, but dealing with the mystery of Jesus as the God-man and with the doctrine of the Trinity pretty much fills my plate for dogma.
My typos. I should have typed “second, on the theological…”
Sorry.
Thanks, Eric, for a thoughtful post. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception (which my guy Thomas Aquinas did not hold, btw,) is in stark tension (though not a logical contradiction) with the Church’s denial of ordination to women. It never fails to amuse me that the magisterium occasionally feels the need to define (and delimit) women, our nature and vocation, (with or without any substantial input from actual women,) but oddly never feels the need to define (and delimit) the nature and appropriate roles of men, except by counterpoise in the documents on women. Why no masculine counterpart to “Mulieris Dignitatem”?
Of course, when women are contained, constricted and misdefined, so are men. If women are to be passive and receptive, that would seem to imply that men should not be–and anyone in a real relationship knows that such giving and receiving is mutual and reciprocal. When Mary is misread as passive, not the firebrand who shouted the jouful revolutionary anthem of the Magnificat, we downplay (or dismiss) the call for women to be audacious and active also–and the world loses out.
And the issue of women’s ordination remains a third rail in the Church. We’re told the issue is “settled,” so does not require further discussion. Can something so painful for so many be merely defined away? Can vocation be defined away? Justice? And of course we have L’Affaire Bourgeois, demonstrating that the hierarchy will respond with threats of the harshest penalty at its disposal should a priest act up in solidarity with women called to serve as priests in the Church. To put it mildly, the magisterium seems overly defensive on questions relating to women–why?
In terms reminiscent of King’s “Letter From Birmingham City Jail,” Bourgeois called on his fellow priests to speak up boldly and publicly on this question. I hope at least some have the courage and audacity of Bourgeois–and Mary–to do so.
I’ve always liked to think of Mary’s sinlessness–and I know this is heresy, but it’s just pew ruminations on the unknowlable–as comparable to papal infallibility. And I am no fan of the current “galloping infallibility.” In other words, she wasn’t some Stepford Wife who was programmed not to burn the lamb or spank the kids. It’s just that she, in a unique way, had an understanding of the big truths in a way others did not. Non-Catholics (and many Catholics) often believe papal infallibility means that Benedict XVI (or whoever) cannot tell a lie or will always pick the winner in the sixth race at Aqueduct. Not quite.
Gerry O’Collins once cited the Max Ernst picture of the Virgin spanking the Child Jesus in a discussion on Mary. I loved the piece, though wasn’t surprised Ernst was excommunicated by the Archbishop of Cologne when it went on display in 1928. It actually came to the Metropolitan Museum a few years back, an Ernst retrospective, I think. Anyway, it offers much food for thought, even if I risk my soul contemplating it. Here’s one image I found:
http://twokitties.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/10/max-ernst-the-blessed-virgin-chastising-the-infant-jesus.html
And this:
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/kachur/kachur7-21-05_detail.asp?picnum=2
Women’s ordination seems to me to be very small potatoes compared to the cosmic restoration. I can see the need for much greater theological clarity but ultimately how urgent is that? Are people staying away from the sacraments because women can’t be ordained, or is there some other equally devastating loss, to anyone, because women can’t be ordained?
Is all creation groaning, waiting for the next boat to sail? No, it’s waiting for the revelation of the children of God.
Before I saw Lisa Fullam’s comment above, I realized that I wanted to say something else about Eric’s original posting.
However important the question about women’s ordination may be, it is nowhere near as important as getting clear about the relationship between the clergy and the laity. If I understand Yves Congar correctly, we ought to see that ordained ministers have their function WITHIN the Church. Baptism and Eucharist constitute all of us members of Christ’s ecclesial body, within which there are a variety of functions. The story is that Cardinal Suenens told the newly elected Pope John Paul II: “Remember, this is not the most important day of your life. That day was the day you were baptized.” In my view, it is of utmost importance to keep firmly in view that all of us baptized into the Church are full members thereof. All too often the term ‘Church’ is take to refer just to the clergy. I have recently seen bishops commit this mistake.
Until we have fully recognized that the unity we share as baptized persons is more fundamental than any distinctions among us we will have, at least in practice if not in theory, a deeply flawed conception of the Church.
Simply ordaining women would not correct this flaw.
As someone who, as a child, was taught that Adam and Eve ate an apple, got booted from the Garden of Eden, and ruined everything for all generations to come, I kind of understood, in a very simpleminded way, what the Immaculate Conception might mean. Mary did not have original sin “on her soul.” (I note, by the way, that the words “original sin” don’t appear anywhere in this discussion other than in Andrew T. Sheeran’s comments.)
Now that we (or at least many of us) don’t believe in Adam and Eve, I don’t know what to make of the idea of original sin, and consequently don’t know what to make of the idea that Mary “in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin.”
“”There is something fascinating about science,” Mark Twain, said. “One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.” I wonder if what Mark Twain said about science isn’t even more true of the doctrine of original sin and particularly of Mariology.
Eric’s reference to Karsten Harries brought back memories of a class I took with Professor Harries some forty years ago. So it is good to hear that he is still teaching at Yale.
Harries’ remarks about the dogma of the Immaculate Conception seem to echo those of Carl Jung on the occasion of the proclamation of the dogma of the Assumption in 1950. If I remember, Jung celebrated the definition because it had elevated Mary into the Godhead, completing the trinity by a quaternity. The always-late Catholic Church had finally caught up with Carl Jung!
The story of Adam and Eve and the Fall is allegory. This means the story is not true. The Catholic Church teaches that original sin is called “sin” is an analogical sense and that original sin does not have the character of personal fault. I really don’t understand what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception is trying to tell us. I believe Mary was a good woman and I don’t think we need to say more than that about her. We try to understand the divine by speculating on its essence. This would include speculating about the mother of the divine. The problem is that we can easily use our own logic to misrepresent God. Jesus reveals the divine. Jesus walked dusty roads, sweat, ate and drank (with sinners), was tortured, and died a brutal death on a cross.
Doubting or confusing the issue of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Mother would also – would it not? – cast doubt on the apparitions at Lourdes, where Our Lady proclaimed herself to be the Immaculate Conception. It seems a pity to muddy waters on the eve of the feast of the Immaculate Conception.
The story of Adam and Eve and the Fall is allegory. This means the story is not true. The Catholic Church teaches that original sin is called “sin” is an analogical sense and that original sin does not have the character of personal fault.
Did Pope Pius IX, when he infallibly defined the Immaculate Conception as dogma in 1854, believe the story of Adam and Eve was an allegory? What was his understanding of original sin, and how could he infallibly define Mary as free from original sin if he accepted an allegory as historical.
Douglas Hofstadter wrote an essay entitled “Shakespeare’s plays weren’t written by him, but by someone else of the same name.” It seems to me that the Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that the story of the Fall is allegorical, but nevertheless happened to two people, Adam and Eve, the parents of the human race, who may actually have had other names.
It does seem to me, in my more skeptical moments, that the very foundations of infallible dogmas can be knocked out from under them, but the dogmas are saved by reinterpreting the meaning of the foundations.
It seems a pity to muddy waters on the eve of the feast of the Immaculate Conception.
Gabriel,
Perhaps you could explain the Immaculate Conception, and of course the meaning of “original sin.”
David,
Do you honestly doubt the fact of a Fall? St. Augustine famously pointed to a baby’s jealousy of another baby nursing as evidence. Seems to me he had a heck of a lot of examples to choose from.
Why aren’t we always touched by the better angels of our nature? How can we spite those we love? It’s not just that we’re mud and breath, which would be interesting enough, but also a little bit destroyed. N’est-ce pas?
The uniqueness of Jesus Christ is his crucifixion whereby he was killed as a common criminal, in total shame and abandoned by all his friends and disciples. Jesus also expressed the abandonment of God. Christians know by faith that Jesus lives through faith and discipleship.
Triumphal theologians have attempted to ignore the Crucified Jesus (that is all Paul wanted to know) and create victorious themes aligned with the likes of Constantine, Theodosius, Athanasius, Boniface and the like. This kind of Christianity began to kill other Christians and still does in absurd excommunications and haughty refusal of Communion.
That “the hungry will be filled with good things” is really foreign to many in Christendom because their message is the poor are responsible for their misery even if they demand their donations. Then to the complete denial that “the rich will go away empty” since many Fathers of the Church and countless bishops afterwards, courted the wealthy.
Mary’s fiat is in her humility which heirarchs barely pay lip service to. The only divinity she has is being a beneficiary of the mercy of God. We are what we are because of the great mercy of God. Not that we are Knights of Malta, Defenders of the Faith, and tout doctrinal glorifications. The glorification of Mary in the end result is used as a domination tool. Especially towards women. As Lisa’s post eloquently points out above. Perfection is in following God who sheds her light on the just and unjust, by total giving to ones neighbor and God.
Too many of these doctrinal ruminations are from those who had little else to do and kept their hands free from the poor and the downtrodden.
Kathy,
I do not in any way doubt the problems in human nature that the Fall might be used to explain. If by the Fall is simply meant that human nature is flawed, I am one of the most devout believers in it.
I do doubt (disbelieve would be a more accurate word) that two human beings without those flaws were created, made bad choices, and damaged their own human nature and that of all of their descendents. It is interesting to me that the Jews interpret the story of Adam and Eve in entirely different ways than Christians.
It does seem to me (in my more skeptical moments) that the Christian story is one of the consistent failure of Gods plans. He created two humans, who immediately disobeyed him. Worse still, humanity grew to the point where God simply decided to wipe it from the face of the earth. There was only one family worth saving (Noah’s). God’s chosen people were constantly turning away from him. He sent his son, and the people who were supposed to receive him rejected him. (“He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” Although you have to be careful what you say about that, nowadays.) Then there was the One True Church which had a pretty good run until the 1500s, and now Christianity is fragmented. And they say the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry!
Eric, thank you for a very coherent and well-written post. The conversation with the professor was quite interesting. I would not elevate Mary into the Trinity, although admittedly she had a unique roll acted upon by the Divine in the arrival of our Savior. From our human understanding, only a woman could fulfill this roll. From that standpoint, I don’t know if there is a correlation for admitting women to the priesthood based on the Immaculate Conception. However, I do believe that one day the church will expand the roll of women to be included in the priesthood. “We” just haven’t caught up with that concept yet. God willing that someday it will happen. One thing we as church may not focus on regarding Mary is how much from a worldly standpoint she may have given up to be enshrined as the Mother of God. She is our model of purity, discipline, and strength as well as our conduit to the Lord. For these things from Mary, we as humans are truly grateful.
David Nickol,
I am not that curious about whether Pius IX believed the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall was true or false. I am more curious about his understanding of original sin.
Among other things, the doctrine of original sin is a sophisticated qualification of human desire. It teaches that all desire is distorted or unstable and is capable of being undistorted over time. I believe that this understanding of desire as being one of the most important parts of the Catholic tradition.
I hope with time that we move away more from Vatican-directed doctrines that are highly essentialist and speculative. This would include a lot of the official thinking about sin, perfection, absolute, etc.
I always got in trouble at CCD whenever we talked about the IC. I would ask if God could make this happen for Mary, then why not for the rest of us?
Kathy, I know your question was directed at David N. but, yes, you bet I doubt the fall, in fact I double doubt it, and I am the father of three boys. The story belongs to the Jews and they don’t affirm it. It is a classic case of creating a problem that doesn’t need solving but then claiming credit and justification for solving it.
The notion of a fall would seem to presuppose one first couple, which the etiological story of Geneesis doesn’t impose and whic history certainly casts into doubt,
Beyond that, the issue of women’s ordination is hardly “small potatoes”, as fr. Bourgoise is about to find out – it is part of abraod cleavage in the Church about the issue of how women are perceived. The issue of males definingthis is discussed already above.
As we move towards Dec. 8, I find it sad that for all our (real) appreciation of the Lord’s Mother and her “yes”, we need to talk so much divisive about (as Bill M. at the beginning noted) our sister who offers so much – a division that more and more seems to be rooted in the inability to engage the problem of paternalism within our Church.
“After the man, Adam, had eaten of the tree,
the LORD God called to the man and asked him, ‘Where are you?’
He answered, ‘I heard you in the garden;
but I was afraid, because I was naked,
so I hid myself…’
~ Genesis 3:9-10
(From today’s readings for the Immaculate Conception.)
In the Hasidic tradition there is a great stress put on the idea of
not hiding. The Hasidim stress the idea that Adam and Eve hid after
eating the forbidden fruit. Also after they ate the forbidden fruit,
God doesn’t ask Adam and Eve “are you being good or evil?”. Instead
God asks, “Where are you?”. For the Hasidim transformation for men
and women begins after they stop hiding.
Joe,
If I remember correctly, you self-identify as an adoptionist. I see that your theological system is admirably consistent, then, with agreement between soteriology and Christology.
Two questions:
-St. Paul says “the last enemy to be defeated is death.” Does human death agree with you? What happens to the wonder of the human person after death? (Forgive me if we’ve spoken of this before and I’ve forgotten.) If there is life after death, who inhabits that country?
-Is there a unified code of Jewish interpretation of Scripture?
Kathy:
I have many thoughts about death, but my four year old must soon get to pre-school, so here are a few quick thoughts.
1) Even if death were the absolute end of the person, it would not nullify the gift of the opportunity to follow God while one is alive. God would still be the source of all goodness and the only meaningful end (multiple meanings intended) of one’s life.
2) There is much about me that I see no reason to extend beyond one lifetime. If there is something worth preserving, then perhaps God will do some good with it.
3) I have no reason to doubt the resurrection of Jesus, nor do have any reason to doubt the traditions of reincarnation found in so many world religions. Seems to me that every good Christian should ask the Coach to let them get back into the game. The harvest and the suffering are plenty. Why waste a good laborer?
Michael,
I have always found this interesting:
So they were banished from the garden lest they eat from the tree of life, and live forever.
It’s interesting to note that Adam and Eve are never mentioned again in the Hebrew Bible after their story is told in Genesis.
I am more curious about his understanding of original sin.
Michael,
Without some idea of the cause or origin of the “fallen state” of humanity, how can original sin be understood? Perhaps everything attributed to original sin is attributable to evolution. I read recently that psychologists are finding it useful to think of an individual not as a self, but as a collection of selves. Reading some of the case histories of Oliver Sacks, I am struck by how often something we think of as a human ability (like vision, or memory) is often a whole collection of different abilities working in complete harmony. However, when one of those abilities goes out of synch, you get sometimes bizarre results, like the man who mistook his wife for a hat.
It may be that someone can have deep insight into the results of “original sin” — that is, the human condition, and human flaws and weaknesses — but that there was never anything like the Fall. It would be extremely dubious, then, to claim anyone was conceived without original sin.
David,
Thanks for the quote and your comments. I find them very interesting. Perhaps the ultimate meaning of all of this cannot be known by us. It is part of an interesting narrative. Ultimately it is God’s narrative and not ours. The essence of monotheism is the conviction that God is more important than we are.
Sir Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of
the (British) Commonwealth since 1991:
“Rabbi Shimon said: When God was about to create Adam, the
ministering angels split into contending groups. Some said, ‘Let him
be created.’ Others said, ‘Let him not be created.’ That is why it
is written, ‘Mercy and truth collided, righteousness and peace
clashed’ (Psalm 85:11).
“Mercy said, ‘Let him be created, because he will do merciful deeds.’
“Truth said, ‘let him not be created, for he will be full of
falsehood.’
“Righteousness said, ‘Let him be created, for he will do righteous
deeds.’
“Peace said, ‘Let him not be created, for he will never cease
quarreling.’
“What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He took truth and threw
it to the ground.
“The angels said, ‘Sovereign of the universe, why do you do this to
your own seal, truth? Let truth arise from the ground’
“Thus it is written, ‘Let truth spring from the earth’ (Psalm 85:12).”
Sacks’ interpretation: “God takes truth and throws is on the ground,
meaning: For life to be livable, truth on earth cannot be what it is
in heaven.”
Michael
Much of the theological discussion in this thread is over my head, and I’ll leave it to the experts, but I do have two comments.
First, it appears some are questioning the Immaculate Conception itself. Even if Pius IX’s declaration of the Immaculate Conception as dogma in 1854 bothers some on papal infallibility grounds, just four short years after Pius IX’s declaration, the BVM identified herself as the “Immaculate Conception” to Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes. (Gabriel Austin mentions this event earlier in this thread.) It seems to me that to deny the Immaculate Conception as doctrine requires denial of the BVM’s self-identification at Lourdes, and denial of the 60 to 70 attested miracles at Lourdes (and many hundreds not fully attested) since 1858.
Second, it appears some are denying the Fall and the concept of original sin. While the CCC states that the account of the Fall in Genesis “uses figurative language,” the account “affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.” (para. 360; emphasis in the original). I personally don’t see any conflict between evolutionary theory and a “primeval event” where God may have imbued two individuals, or a whole group of individuals, with both higher reasoning and direct knowledge of Him, and where individuals rejected God and estranged themselves from Him, thus creating original sin that could not be fully redeemed until the death and resurrection of Christ. I guess I’m not bothered that the Genesis account may contain metaphorical elements. Something actually happened that resulted in original sin, and Christ’s sacrifice would lose much of its redemptive power in the absence of original sin. Besides, I thought Pelagianism was rejected as long ago as the fifth century.
William: I can confirm the presence of at least one or two Pelagians on this earth, and would happily defend the tradition, but I suspect that this thread is not the place.
One question: what is the difference between an attested miracle and a miracle that is not fully attested?
The cross was not something that was necessary because of the nature of God or the nature of sin.
Denying the Fall is not the same thing as denying original sin. St.Augustine taught us about desire or what the Catholic Church calls “concupiscence” or a tendency toward sin. The Latin word for “concupiscence” has a bigger meaning than just lust or “concupiscence” in English. Etymologically, “concupiscence” can refer to any intense form of human desire. This teaching is part of the doctrine of original sin.
The rivalry and conflict over objects of desire that exists among human beings is inevitable given human freedom and the fact that these desires can be unstable. I believe St Augustine’s understanding of desire as being one of the most important parts of the Catholic
tradition.
The Catholic Church teaches that original sin is called “sin” is an analogical sense and that original sin does not have the character of personal fault
“Much of the theological discussion in this thread is over my head, and I’ll leave it to the experts, but I do have two comments.”
William, would not the right thing to do is to read a book like “Truly Our Sister” by Elizabeth Johnson, so that one can discuss this. Even Thomas did not believe in the IC. Apparitions, though popular, have never been an integral part of the deposit of faith. An education can be gleaned by looking at the present Medujorie where the Vatican and the Franciscans are having a turf war over jurisdiction. Shrines too often get more attention than the Sermon on the Mount which is rejected by too many Christians.
Joe–
I for one would like to hear you on the “one or two Pelagians on this earth.” :) Perhaps another thread will open up where your always thoughtful voice can be heard on the issue.
“Attested” and “fully attested”– I used those phrases, perhaps incorrectly, because I read an article a few days ago about how those charged in the Church with the task of investigating miracle claims at Lourdes have decided to stop their investigations. The gist of the article was that it was not necessary to verify (perhaps that’s a better word) each and every miracle claim. The article noted that 60 to 70 miracles had been verified, while hundreds more were in various stages of verification.
William,
It is not exactly to deny a doctrine or dogma to ask what it means, or even to ask (in my case) what in the world it could possibly mean.
It does trouble me that for centuries the story of Adam and Eve was taken to be literally true by the Catholic Church, and now that biblical scholarship and science cast serious doubts on the literal truth of it, it is salvaged by being called an allegory that conveys authentic truth. It seems to me that Paul accepted the existence of a real man named Adam when he said Jesus was a second Adam. It also seems to me that Pius IX believed Genesis to be literally true when he declared Mary to be free from original sin. It also seems to me that the Catechism is saying that although the story of Adam and Eve is allegorical, it is not all that allegorical, since there really were a man and a woman who did something wrong and damaged all of humanity. Those who find it difficult to believe in the literal truth of Genesis might also find it difficult to believe in two people who are the parents of the entire human race.
I suppose, of course, that some of these things fall into the category of mysteries, but on the other hand, if there actually were parents of the entire human race, it should be verifiable scientifically, and they must have done something we could understand, so why can’t we know what actually happened? That is, if there is such a thing as revelation, why couldn’t the real story of our first parents have been revealed, instead of told allegorically?
I do not dismiss Lourdes, but I do have many questions. One of them is that, to the best of my knowledge, only “possible” miracles occur. I will be more than happy to be corrected if I am wrong, but I don’t believe amputees have ever grown limbs back, for example. On the other hand, we just had a news story recently that some breast cancers spontaneously shrink and disappear. How do we know what is a medical miracle and what isn’t? I would certainly consider it a miracle if an amputee suddenly had a limb restored, or even if one grew back. But I don’t believe we have any records of truly “impossible” miracles. So at the moment I neither believe nor disbelieve.
David,
You write: “I do have many questions. One of them is that, to the best of my knowledge, only “possible” miracles occur. [...] I don’t believe we have any records of truly “impossible” miracles.”
What’s your take on the resurrection?
When Pius IX defined the Immaculate Conception I suspect that he meant to deny that the Virgin Mary totally free from the moral effects of “original ” sin as he undertsood it. In the Western Church at that time orginal sin was commonly understood in Augustinian terms. That was not the case with the Eastern Church, at least according to John Meyendorff’s Byzantine Theology. In other words how one thinks of original sin, and more particularly how Mary plays a role in a new beginning for humanity, will affect how one thinks about Immaculate Conception. Perhaps we have to wait for reunion of the churches for further clarification. At any rate no one now thinks that St. Paul said, as Augustine thought he did but the Greeks did not, that all men sinned in Adam. Pius IX probably followed Augustine, but that was not what he infallibly defined.
oops! for “deny” in line one read “affirm”.
Regarding “Hail Mary, full of Grace”:
htpp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk4pxXxOIEw
Ave Maria:
htpp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6Qu15k24SA&feature=related
Some of the conversation here has characterized original sin as part of the human condition. This can be read (or is that red?) at least two ways: 1) it has always been a part of the human condition and makes sin inevitable, although no particular act of sin would itself be thought of as inevitable in a deterministic way; or 2) it was not always part of the human condition, but rather became part of it at some time and for some reason.
The first option, which strikes me as correct, leaves lots of room for the pursuit of holiness and a more God-centered life, with the caveat that one should strive for, but will not likely achieve, perfect holiness in this lifetime (this, by the way, was the position of Pelagius). The second option still requires a point in time, and so the “when” question is still relevant. The second option also requires some good theology and metaphysics to make plain how this action in time could then affect all future humanity and why God would allow such an effect to take place.
Both options raise difficulties for speaking of the redemptive action of Jesus Christ. In either case, does the basic human condition change either after the crucifixion or after baptism? Why is it not better to speak of God’s mercy, something does not require a change in the human condition, but which still sets the bar at perfection (Mt. 5:48), a bar which I take to mean that asking for anything less would be inconsistent with affirming the perfection of God.
What’s your take on the resurrection?
Claire,
I was talking about the miracles at Lourdes.
“We pretty much take it for granted that the people we live among have flaws just as we do. If they are decent about this, then we can expect them to cut us a little slack and to have some sympathy with our own failings. ”
Bernard, thx for this – gives me something to ponder today!
“Why no masculine counterpart to “Mulieris Dignitatem”? ”
Hi, Lisa, it’s not a bad idea to have one – certainly “maleness” has the potential to be disfigured by the modern world.
Regarding my post at 12:25, perhaps this will get you there.
google: You tube, Ave Marie, sanctaorg
click:You Tube-Ave Maria
google: you tube, Hail Mary full of Grace
click: Sacred Heart Church
when you are done with this video, click, SecretofFatima
A number of interesting threads in this blog. Allow me to add some comments:
a) if my theological & dogmatic history is still correct, my profs always put IC and Assumption in the context of dogmas proclaimed by the church because the people of God basically believed, requested, and directed this “dogma making” – to paraphrase, the Vatican merely proclaimed what was already being practiced;
b) in terms of the mid-19th century, it is historical record that the Immaculate Conception was supported and pushed by the American bishops – that it was being preached and lived prior to its dogma announcement. In another quote from Rocco Palmo – “On August 15th 1791, in the small chapel of an English castle, Father John Carroll was ordained America’s first Catholic bishop, assigned to the newly-founded Diocese of Baltimore. In his own “inaugural” address, given in the infancy of our life as a nation, Bishop Carroll dedicated these States to the patronage of the Mother of God, entrusting to her another earthly journey that continues to this very day. Even before this, as far back as 1643, the King of Spain dedicated his newfound lands in the Americas to the special care of the Mother of Christ and Mother of the Church.
In a mid-19th century letter, the Holy See summoned the American bishops to Rome for the solemn pronouncement of the Immaculate Conception as a definitive teaching of the Church. At the time, an eminent historian noted that the bishops “could bring with them three centuries of [their people's] devotion to Mary Immaculate as their offering to the Mother of God.”
A century later, the man who would become Cardinal Cushing of Boston observed that “many of the shrines of Our Lady popular at the present time in America date from the arrival of the first European.” He likewise noted that just as Europeans were creating their own Madonnas with the distinctive ethnic features of the various nations there, here in the baby USA, our First Lady took on the likeness of the indigenous Indians.
By the mid 1800s, the efforts of early American Catholics to advance the dogma of the Immaculate Conception began to meet with success. In 1847, Bl Pius IX confirmed the desire of the bishops that Mary, conceived without sin, would be the patroness of our Church. Maybe we’ve always been ahead of the curve, but this somewhat upstaged the formal declaration of the dogma eight years later! In 1866, it was decreed that December 8th was to be observed as a holy day of obligation in every diocese of the United States, and Mary’s new journey was officially underway.
Our early bishops were clearly committed to Marian devotion and, above all, the Immaculate Conception. In promoting this most unusual, most divine reality of the birth of the Son of God by Mary, they were clearly enamored of God’s mysterious love for us. The early leaders of our Church seemed to be convinced beyond any doubt that he loved this nation as he loved Mary, as he loves each of us, “even before the foundation of the world.”
c) would suggest that the focus of this history has been on Mary – not “original sin”. My comments are too long but my bias on that subject starts with Rahner’s concept of the “Supernatural Existential”….my MA Theology dissertation was on original sin and the supernatural existential.
d) I would like to thank those of you who posted earlier and linked this dogma to the question of female clergy. Fascinating bit of theology making and many of you analyze and argue persuasively on this point. It would seem to me that this dogma says a lot more about inclusion than in supporting the JPII Theology of the Body approach.
e) So, it appears that we have a dogma that came from the ground up; just as some see inclusion of women as a ground swell. In the same way, 4 days from now we celebrate La Virgen de Guadalupe – if you follow much of V. Elizondo’s work, he sees Mary’s intervention as a liberating, inclusionary movement that recognizes, empowers, and blesses the indigenous and sends a powerful message to the local bishop/authority to understand that catholic is universal, there is no male/female; no race, cultural, or ethnic differences.
Something to think about.
Bill, just want to mention how much I enjoyed your historical sketch of the Immaculate Conception in the US, and the link with Our Lady of Guadalupe. Thx.
Bill, I also want to thank you for your historical sketch of the Immaculate Conception in the US. Also let us not forget that the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is December 12.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YmL146DCqY&feature=related
Tonight’s homily touched on some of the points made in this blog. After reading this post and the respondents, I was an enthusiastic listener to our presider. The foreshadowing of the woman Mary was mentioned at the first sin of Adam and Eve. “Enmity between the serpant and the woman..” The priest also mentioned preventative grace and God always being the first responder to prod humans back into his graces. The preparation of Mary whom the Lord made sinless so she could carry His Son, was planning for the salvation of mankind by the Lord. Mary’s “Yes” may have had less importance than I remarked earlier because of the priests emphasis tonight on the planning of the Lord for salvation. Interesting….
Re: Bob Imbelli’s post about Jung and quaternity:
Harries’ remarks about the dogma of the Immaculate Conception seem to echo those
of Carl Jung on the occasion of the proclamation of the dogma of the Assumption in
1950. If I remember, Jung celebrated the definition because it had elevated Mary into
the Godhead, completing the trinity by a quaternity. The always-late Catholic Church had
finally caught up with Carl Jung!
I heartily welcome reference to Jung , but suggest consideration of the following by Ann Belford Ulanov, a noted Jungian analyst and professor of psychiatry and religion at Union Theological (also widow of Barry, with whom she co-wrote several classics on psyche and soul):
“Jung wrestles with the image for God of the Trinity, quite rightly asking for all of us, Where is the feminine? His solution adds Mary to the Trinity as the Spirit or as the fourth member. To me this is an intellectual solution, a sort of overdone masculine fix-it approach, to stick in the missing element: but it does not include the brooding pondering of the heart that issues in living it in the flesh. I pay close attention to the image itself and its entry into the world through Mary. She houses the Word sent by God, in which God lives, who will leave us the Comforter, the consoling and igniting Spirit. She houses in human flesh the Trinity that houses her.
“Are we then, all of us – men and women alike – are we the missing feminine, the fourth that embodies the mystery of the three, the earth in whom God plants his coming into humanity? Is the feminine mode of being in us the house for the birth of the divine into the world of individual persons and communities? The feminine mode is the process wherein we be and become. The endlessly circulating love in God takes up residence in the human, pulling us into its currents. What does that mean practically? It means, for now, in these decades, that the Holy Spirit comes into us through the feminine mode of being in each of us, moving us to live this love into the world.
“In previous centuries the masculine mode of being gave access to these mysteries. We abstracted upwards from the tumult of instinctive life and found refuge in the Trinity as the unchanging eternal, or the ever rational, the pure, removed from the mess of human instincts and conflicts. But in the last decades of theology, where the direction has been to bring God down into human realities of race, politics, and gender, what opens us to receive this divine offering is the feminine mode of being. Nothing is in the abstract; all is in the flesh, symbolized by Jesus being born from Mary’s womb. For what we seek is not a solution to evil but a conjunction, an inhabiting of God’s house.”
From “The Living God and Our Living Psyche: What Christians Can Learn from Carl Jung” by Ann Belford Ulanov and Alvin Dueck, p.66-67
I hope the excerpt is not too long, and addresses some points meaningfully. I find the convergences between spirituality and depth psychology compelling.
Holy Days in the Church are supposed to be days of celebration and opportunities to give thanks for the blessings God has bestowed on us through Christ and His Church and, in this case, His mother. It is a shame that so many Catholics, especially the adults who post on blogs like dotCommonweal, prefer to use our Holy Days as an opportunity to blame the “Church” for oppressing women, criticize the popes for the doctrine of infallibility, or carry on about their many reasons for rejecting settled teachings. It is amazing to me that on a day when the Church honors a poor peasant girl from Palestine as the greatest human of all time (how incredible is that?), we can end up arguing about whether the Church is actually using this celebration to further oppress women. I think there might be something wrong with us when we can’t even celebrate something this good without being suspicious of authority or using it as an opportunity to grind our axes.
I am not suggesting that we shouldn’t ask questions about Church’s teachings or its claims of authority, but it’s just downright unbecoming of Catholics to miss an opportunity to party. Why not celebrate with the Church instead of criticizing it all the time? Why not share the joy of this Holy Day with our co-workers and family instead of turning it into a cruade for women’s ordination? There is time for us to score political points, but not today – today is for celebrating.
Life is much more fun when we have child-like faith and when we celebrate the good gifts in our lives with wholehearted thanksgiving instead of detached skepticism. Mary is our mother, the new Eve, and a sign of hope of what we can all become in Christ – isn’t that good news that all humanity deserves to hear? This Holy Day is God’s gift to us, a way of reminding us of His love for all humantiy, the gift of His Son, and the compassion of Our Mother. Let’s not waste it!
” It is amazing to me that on a day when the Church honors a poor peasant girl from Palestine as the greatest human of all time (how incredible is that?), we can end up arguing about whether the Church is actually using this celebration to further oppress women.”
I challenge you Brendan, that you revere Mary more than we ‘critics.’ She is better honored for being human and earthy than heavenly and placid. She struggled and worked hard and labored with her other children. She championed the downtrodden and exalted the poor. Now she lives more for her humanity rather than the impossible person Rome has posited. One cannot escape the reality that along with a unreal and untrue depiction of Mary, Rome has contributed greatly to the degradation of women.
Bravo, Brendan. Your posting is right on the mark. People today need hope. Yesterday I preached to a packed noon-day Mass crowd and tried to preach on how Mary’s yes to God’s invitation is a challenge to all of us to say Yes and that her sinless soul allowed gave her a pure heart while our hearts tend to be much more troubled and muddled.
I doubt a homily in which I “deconstructed” Mary and the Church’s understanding of her would have brought any hope in the lives of the Catholics who had come to pray together.
On the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe in this part of the country (despitye its being quite icy and snowy as I type this) there is profound devotion to our Lady, probably more so than in the IC.
Of course in the Cathedral of Santa Fe, there is a major place of devotion to La Conquistadora (happily -or smoothly now- translated as our Lady of All Conquering Love- a title I’m sure the Conquistadors who came up and genocided the natives might appreciate.)
I think we’re on a long path of our understanding of Mary and Bill M. is right to emphasize Sr. Johnson’s work in that vein.
As to original sin, which I see as a somewhat related but quite differen tquestion, I find Bill C.”s notion of a”primeval event” incredible as the notion of two people, whose names mean the woman and dust, “passed on” this condition, in the face of evolutionary knowledge. If you want to stiuck a label on me and Joe P.. go ahead, but that’s like the old apolgetics where we placed our “enemies”(read those who don’t think the Cathechism is the final word)in some category and then refute them.
As with our understanding of Mary, we’re on the rode to continuing our understanding of what “original sin” means. I do think it’s clear that the ancient writers under the inspiration of God weaved a tale to explain how e got this way and which, I guess, some here more or less still think we should take literally.
Carolyn, thank you for that excerpt. What a profound reflection on the Incarnation that is! Indeed, this entire discussion allowed me to enter into the feast yesterday more deeply. Thanks to all!
“Life is much more fun when we have child-like faith and when we celebrate the good gifts in our lives with wholehearted thanksgiving instead of detached skepticism.”
True; but God gave us brains to use them, and living a life of faith presents problems and conundrums that aren’t easily solvable. These can’t always be shunted aside. There is much to be said for friends, including here, supporting one another in our faith. It can get frustrating when the same issues, slogans and bromides perpetually are recycled here, yet I think we’re called to listen to one another and help one another.
Bill – Thanks for your response to my post. I was not challenging your love for Mary; I hope you love her deeply. I was pointing out that sometimes we have to take a break from the political battles and celebrate what is good in the Church – especially on Holy Days. Sadly, I think your response only proved the point I was trying to make: Catholic adults spend a lot of time publicly criticizing and complaining about the “Church” (which you did in your post) and rarely take the time to publicly celebrate and offer praise for the great privilege we have of being members of this Church (which you failed to do it in your post, even on a day especially set aside for celebrating).
And Jim P., I certainly never suggested that we shouldn’t use our heads or question the Church. In fact, I explicitly stated in my post that I wasn’t suggesting such a thing. Jesus didn’t explain everything to his apostles and he certainly hasn’t explained everything to me. Working through the problems – theological and practical – shouldn’t stop us from celebrating when it’s time to celebrate. Jesus’ admonition to have child-like faith didn’t come with caveats.
The Church will never be what you or I want it to be, but that shouldn’t keep us from celebrating the good that it is. My wife isn’t perfect, but it doesn’t stop me from expressing my love for her – especially in public. If I spent all of my time telling others how oppressive my wife was and all the disagreements I have with her, even on our anniversary or her birthday (i.e. Holy Days), I don’t think she’d want to be married to me anymore. Moreover, I am not sure my example would inspire anyone else to join the institution of marriage. Sometimes we all have to stop bickering with our spouses and start getting the love on, especially on the big days.
Holy Days provide opportunities for Catholics to party and I think some of us may have missed the dance by focusing on all the things we dislike or doubt or question about the Church’s teaching on Mary instead of focusing on the things that are worth celebrating about her. On a day dedicated to her memory, why don’t we praise God for the chance to be members of a Church that proposes Mary as a model for humanity, instead of criticizing the Church for all the things we think it gets wrong? It never hurts a soul to praise God.
It’s not all about winning political battles in the Church and keeping score in the laity vs. hierarchy battle for Catholicism. Sometimes – like on Holy Days – it’s about celebrating the privilege of being part of a Church that provides a home for sinners like us. On Holy Days, when God is giving us the opportunity to dance, we should dance!
Bob N.–
“Primeval event” isn’t my notion. As I noted, it’s the phrase used in the CCC, which drops many footnotes to Scriptural and other religious sources. I don’t have the CCC in front of me as I type this, so I don’t know what, if any, sources were cited. My point is that I’m not all that bothered that God may have intervened in evolutionary history and set in motion an event or events that led to the Fall. I have absolutely no problem that others may take a contrary view. I don’t know how we reconcile as Christians, however, the concept of “original sin” with the sacrament of Baptism if there is no taint on our souls at birth that requires purification by the sacrament. Is Baptism superfluous? I don’t know the answer to whether there is original sin and how it came to be, but I feel comfortable with relying on faith in that context. It doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned reason and inquiry, only that there’s a point for me where pondering the imponderable becomes, well, too ponderous, and I fall back on faith.
William: Why can’t baptism be an initiation into 1) the community of the church; 2) new life in Christ?; 3) Repentance and a commitment to change one’s life? None of these require a belief in original sin. They do, however, suggest that baptism makes more sense for adults and that the proper ritual for an infant would be directed at the parents and church community, asking them to dedicate themselves to raising the child within a Christian home/community.
Jesus was baptized, so I do not think baptism has to be linked to “some taint on our souls at birth.” It is, in practice, linked to that because giving birth is hard work for the mother; because the Israelites crossed through the Red Sea to leave sinful Egypt; etc. But does anyone think that a mother’s labors are about the agonizing pain, and not about the child who is born? Should we remember Egypt, and not recall the Promised Land they entered when Joshua led them through the Jordan?
Maybe I am just confused because I consider myself to be as mythical As Adam and Eve.
Jim Pauwels wrote: “I think we’re called to listen to one another and help one another.”
Yes, Jim, and all the reflections did add immeasurably to my appreciation of a feast that has not really meant much before. I learn from the history, the critiques, and the speculations, discovering new aspects of old verities, while resonating with some questions about them.
The hope and joy and beauty are also evident in fresh insights, gained from reading Ulanov for example; and in remembering to ask the Sources themselves in prayer. That feminine brooding pondering of the heart in all of us…
Carolyn: I am guessing you are familiar with the Jewish tradition of shekhinah – the presence of God, often understood in feminine terms. Your posts have brought it to mind, and perhaps other dotCommonwealers would find it an interesting bit of religious trivia.
Bill C.
I don’t want to drag on, but:
without some monogenism, how is a notion of an original sin as an act of disobedience by individuals passed on possible???
-I agree with Joe on the many meanings of baptism
-I don’t know what the phrase “taint on the soul” means either. Is there a siggestion that we should resurrect limbo?
We can all agree that Baptism profoundly and metaphysically changes a person, inculcating them into the Christian community.
Does that mean infants sans Baptism are in some sinful condition?
Forgot to add, since we mentioned women and ordination, take a look at the most recent reflection on the topic by Msgr. Harry Byrne at his Archangel site.
“Why can’t baptism be an initiation into 1) the community of the church; 2) new life in Christ?; 3) Repentance and a commitment to change one’s life? None of these require a belief in original sin. They do, however, suggest that baptism makes more sense for adults and that the proper ritual for an infant would be directed at the parents and church community, asking them to dedicate themselves to raising the child within a Christian home/community.”
Joe P., just some quick comments: baptism as understood in the Christian tradition does encompass all those things you list (#3 when administered to adults; no need for infants to repent as they have not sinned). Baptism does make sense for adults and we do baptize them for the reasons and good things you mention. It also makes sense for infants, because it also involves an infusion of divine grace to the infant being baptized, grace that changes her and helps her as she matures. In the rite for infants, as well as in canon law, the parents’ promise to dedicate themselves to rearing the child within a Christian home/community is a condition of baptism.
Re: original sin: why would God be incarnated, die and rise again, and direct the disciples to baptize us in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, if we were not fallen and in need of redemption?
Jim P. I thoiugh Christ died in at-nement for the sins we commit, and we are surely as grown in that boat. -as to “original sin”, are you in favor or restoring limbo because God will not accept infabnts who are not baptized???
Jim: As you probably know, I have no idea what redemption means in this and many other Chrstian contexts. I am not trying to be difficult about it, I just do not know what it means. Whenever one of my students says Jesus died for our sins, I ask what that means. Usually, I get something like, “He paid the penalty for our sins.” To which I again ask what that means. Things don’t get much better from that point forward. Do we still sin? Yes. Are we still responsible for our sins? Yes. So what does redemption from sin mean?
For what it is worth, I am teaching a Sunday school class at my church for Advent and we are looking at Biblical and historical notions of the term messiah. This coming week we will be looking at text that actually does not mention the term, but serves as an interesting place to compare early Jewish Christianity with early Pauline Christianity and the Christianities of the gospels. The text is the Didache and in a 1,000+ page commentary on the text that I recently purchased there is an interesting discussion of baptism. One of the notable conclusions is that baptisizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a late development in Christianity (meaning probably second century). The command is unique to Matthew, and seems to stand in contrast to other traditions that speak of baptism in the name of the “Lord” only. In Jewish Christian communities, this would have meant in the name of God, not Jesus.
Here is one question for you. Do you really think God withholds any grace from infants? If so, why would God do this? If not, what does it mean to say that baptism “infuses” the infant with grace, assuming that God is already seeking to fill that infant’s life with grace?
“Jim: As you probably know, I have no idea what redemption means in this and many other Chrstian contexts. I am not trying to be difficult about it, I just do not know what it means. Whenever one of my students says Jesus died for our sins, I ask what that means. Usually, I get something like, “He paid the penalty for our sins.” To which I again ask what that means. Things don’t get much better from that point forward. Do we still sin? Yes. Are we still responsible for our sins? Yes. So what does redemption from sin mean?”
So does Romans 5 work for you on this question?
“Here is one question for you. Do you really think God withholds any grace from infants? If so, why would God do this? If not, what does it mean to say that baptism “infuses” the infant with grace, assuming that God is already seeking to fill that infant’s life with grace?”
I’m not sure about the notion of “withholds”. Do I think that we’re not born with grace sufficient to ensure our salvation? Yes. Is it cruel of God to allow us to be born in that state? The traditional Christian response would be, It wasn’t God’s doing. It was ours.
I don’t know how to make sense of Christianity without the Fall and original sin.
Oh man! Now I’ve gotta go and see if I can find a Bible around here (just kidding). After swim practice for the 8 year old, I’ll get back to you on Romans 5.
I still don’t see the grace thing. A merciful and loving God is perfectly seeking the salvation of all creation. I can see how we can turn from God, but not how God can turn from us. Thus, I still have a hard time understanding how anything less that maximal grace can be given to any part of creation, certainly to any infant, at any time. God’s perfection is at stake in this debate.
I fail to see how the traditional Christian response establishes fault that is relevant to an infant.
My last post on the original sin issue. My intention is merely to mention the Church’s catechetical teaching on the issue, especially the role of Baptism vis a vis original sin. I’m putting the doctrine of original sin up there with the doctrine of the Trinity. I’ll never figure either of them out to my satisfaction with my limited powers of reason, so I’m left to either accept or reject them on the basis of Divine Revelation. I won’t stop thinking about them, but for now at least I’m going with the former rather than the latter. (I am pleased, however, that the Church is taking another look at the concept of limbo.)
CCC:
Para. 389: The doctrine of original sin is, so to speak, the “reverse side” of the Good News that Jesus is the Savior of all men, that all need salvation and that salvation is offered to all through Christ. The Church, which has the mind of Christ, knows very well that we cannot tamper with the revelation of original sin without undermining the mystery of Christ.
Para 1250: Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, children also have need of the new birth in Baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God, to which all men are called. The sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant Baptism. The Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after birth.
Para. 1263: By Baptism all sins are forgiven, original sin and all personal sins, as well as all punishment for sin. In those who have been reborn nothing remains that would impede their entry into the Kingdom of God, neither Adam’s sin, nor personal sin, nor the consequences of sin, the gravest of which is separation from God.
If you enlisted the help of a large number of Catholic hospitals to alert you every time a set of identical twins was born to a Catholic couple, and then you arranged a double-blind test, where in each set of twins, one was baptized and the other one wasn’t, and you followed the twins for, say, the first 25 years of their lives, at the end of that time, what differences would you expect to find between the baptized and the unbaptized twins?
I am reminded of a grade school nun’s story from St. Fidgeta and Other Parodies, which I don’t have a copy of, so this is from memory . . .
A group of irreverent children were playing with a Ouija board. They asked it, “Is there a God?” The board spelled out Y-E-S and the roof fell in, killing everybody.
First a quick clarification. I have received some off-blog correspondence expressing concern that my reference to Shekhinah as religious trivia might suggest an intended trivialization of the idea. No such intention was present. In fact, as many know on the blog, my appreciation of Jewish theology is extremely high. The trivia reference was more to send curious minds in search of something that might not best be discussed at length on this thread.
Jim: As for Romans 5, I find a lot of what philosophers would call “repeating the question.” The question is, “What does it mean to say that Jesus died for our sins?” and Paul gives a lot of answers that really don’t get much past repeating in various ways the claim that he did. Paul does not clarify how.
Also, I do not think sin causes death in any absolute sense (although in a practical sense the case can be made in various ways). Rather, life causes death. Evolution needs death in order to work. This, I take to be one of the strengths of Christianity. Life and death are inextricably tied to the salvation story.
Both William C and Jim P have suggested that Christianity does not make sense without the Fall and original sin. If one means traditional Christianity as codified a few centuries after Jesus, I am inclined to agree, but I do not think the solution is to stick with traditional Christianity, but rather to find a more vibrant (and coherent) expression of Christianity. I think there is much in the gospels and other Christian texts to provide the foundation for such Christianity.
Finally, William C. I do hope my pushing these questions was not off-putting in any way for you. I thoroughly enjoy this back and forth, am quite grateful for the willingness of folks to tolerate my rather unorthodox reflections, and regret if anything discussed or the manner of its discussion led you end your participation in this particular thread.
Brendan – I honestly don’t think this has been a political conversation. For the most part is has been a theological inquiry undertaken in good faith for the good of a Church that many of us care about very deeply. We need to be able to have such conversations as a Church body (laity included) without questioning one another’s motives by calling them “political.” I could just as easily dismiss your celebration of Mary as equally “political,” but that wouldn’t be helpful. As for the analogy with your wife. If you indeed thought she was oppressing you, I take it you would talk to her about it. If she refused to talk to you about it, then you might seek out other sympathetic ears, like family members, who cared about both of you, your marriage, and were committed to helping you come up with constructive ways to work things out. That’s what conversations like this are about – talking amongst friends about how to better live out our call to be Church. And, in this case, the fact that the institutional Catholic Church refuses to talk about certain issues, means we must seek out such sympathetic ears with the hope that the Church, “our wife” (as you suggest), might eventually join the conversation.
“Jim: As for Romans 5, I find a lot of what philosophers would call “repeating the question.” The question is, “What does it mean to say that Jesus died for our sins?” and Paul gives a lot of answers that really don’t get much past repeating in various ways the claim that he did. Paul does not clarify how.”
Adam’s sin is interpreted as the signal act of a revolt, a declaration of war against God in which all humanity has subsequently participated. Jesus’ death is seen as reconciling enemies. It is the means of achieving peace and justice between the king and his rebellious subjects. Jesus is the truth and justice commission, if you will. It’s amazing because the king – the wronged party – sacrifices his son in order to achieve peace, not because he needs peace for any utilitarian or policy reason, but for the sake of the rebels.
In that sense, I believe it does answer the question, “what does it mean to say that Jesus died for our sins”?
I find it a striking image. I doubt there are many parents who gaze upon the newborn infant napping in mom’s lap and think, ‘There dozes an enemy of God’. Yet such seems to be the bitter fruits of the fall.
Concerning Fr. Bourgois, a further note:VOTF’s “In The vineyard”, just out. has a section on the VOTF New York group discussion about him and the threat of excommunication held at St. Ignatius Loyola Church.
The conclusions about him, conscience and even some of this discussion struck me as quite relevant and worth a look.
A footnote to Jim P.
I think the death and Resurrection as Paul sees it is making God and us one in a new covenant, once and for all, not like the yom Kippur of the old covenant. For some time, the act of Christ’s sacrifice was seen anlagous to the action of being like takingcare of serfs satisfying the Lord of the Manor – an analogythat resonated in the world of that time. Sounds like reconciliation between the king and his subjects.
Also strikes me as an analogy that limps quite a bit.
I also think you need to do a better job of explaining what was meant by “Adam’s sin”
Jim Pauwels,
But why did God need a peacemaker? After all, he exempts Mary from original sin years before Jesus is even born. As someone asked above, why couldn’t he exempt everybody? Or forgive without requiring a sacrifice?
I always go back to this quote from Edward Schillebeeckx, which seems to describe what’s wrong with what I was taught (or believed they were saying) about Jesus dying for our sins.
Jim: I appreciate the reply, but I guess it still leaves me rather clueless:
1) Not clear how Adam initiated open revolt simply by sinning
2) Not clear how each of us is said to participate in the revolt
3) If there never was an Adam, how does this all work?
4) We still sin, and so continue the revolt (I guess you could say we are revolting!) after Christ. Why does this not constitute and act of war requiring another act of reconciliation?
5) Why is a sacrifice necessary? Why not ritual atonement or repentance?
6) Why not just mercy?
I will admit that the Pauline scenario you present gets a little bit beyond repeating the question, but not, it seems to me, by much.
Since you continue to discuss “original sin”; may I suggest a different approach that does not read the story and sin of Adam literally but expresses a truth about the human condition and God’s mercy.
First, if you google Karl Rahner and the Supernatural Existential – you will have a better context to reconsider “orginal sin.”
Second, my approach is that the human condition exists in freedom – this results in choices that may lead to sin, evil, etc. and also good. The story of the fall of Adam and Eve is a poetic image of this human condition. At the same time, theologically we know that God via his son has saved the human condition. And yet, that leaves us with a tension between the already (resurrection/salvation) but not yet (human condition and each person’s journey to salvation).
Baptism is basically a sacrament for the community of faith that recognized the infant as part of the human condition needing family, church, community support and faith so that they will grow to understand and journey in this faith towards their salvation. Thus, we know that the infant is blessed but has a condition that can choose sin. We celebrate the fact that this infant is being welcomed into a faith community (vs. focusing on a stain being removed from a soul). Baptism is more a decision by the parents and the faith community rather than some type of “magic” that removes “orginal sin”. The reality is – after baptism, each of us continues to live in that original condition; now open to God via our family, church, and community faith.
Bill D. What does it mean for Jesus to “save” the human condition? Are will still free after salvation? Your point reminds me of a humorous moment in Augustine when he talks about two different kinds of grace, the grace that Adam had, and the grace that we receive through salvation in Christ. Under the former grace, sin is still a possible expression of human freedom, whereas under the second grace, it is not. Augustine then notes that some will wonder why Adam was not given this latter grace. He then proceeds to never answer the question.
Sorry, that second question should read, Are we still free after salvation?
Good question but again, I am trying not to conflate personal sin with an understanding of “original sin” or the story of Adam’s Fall.
Jesus has “saved” the human condition (already) but freedom/human condition/journey continues for each of us (but not yet).
Not sure that I would describe or define salvation as a grace. We are all graced by our creation and as part of the human condition. But, we are free to respond or not to respond to that “grace”.
“For some time, the act of Christ’s sacrifice was seen anlagous to the action of being like takingcare of serfs satisfying the Lord of the Manor – an analogythat resonated in the world of that time. Sounds like reconciliation between the king and his subjects.
Also strikes me as an analogy that limps quite a bit.”
Hi, Bob, if it limps for you, it limps. If king and subjects strikes you as archaic or inappropriate, we can search for other analogies. Ultimately, God is the creator and we are the creatures, so there is a basic inequality or asymmetry in our relationship that, istm, can’t be gotten around. Whatever the image or analogy, though, Jesus as reconciler between two parties in confllict seems to be what Paul is presenting here.
Here is another explanation from Richard McBrien: Shortcut to: http://www.the-tidings.com/2007/051807/essays.htm
“But why did God need a peacemaker? After all, he exempts Mary from original sin years before Jesus is even born. As someone asked above, why couldn’t he exempt everybody? Or forgive without requiring a sacrifice?”
I don’t think God “needs” or “requires” anything from us. I suppose He could have devised some other way of bringing about our salvation, but the way he chose is one that happens to reveal the depth of his love for us. Beyond that, I can’t speculate.
“1) Not clear how Adam initiated open revolt simply by sinning”
I guess the answer would be, it wasn’t “simply” sinning – it was an act that transformed (in a bad way) (a) human nature itself and (b) humanity’s relationship to God. It wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill sin – it was the Original Sin.
“2) Not clear how each of us is said to participate in the revolt”
Each of us has, by dint of our humanity, that deformed human nature – not perverted beyond redemption, yet still a twisted wreckage of how humanity originally was created. We’re born into the conflict, in a sense.
“3) If there never was an Adam, how does this all work?”
Who knows. I have no strongly held opinion on whether or not there was an original “first human”. I read a number of years ago that genetists thought that there was in fact a “first Eve” – would be cool if true. Whether that opinion is widely accepted in the scientific community, I don’t know. If it’s true that Christ’s salvation is specifically for the genus and species homo sapiens, and it’s true that homo sapiens evolved from other species, and it’s true that there wasn’t a “first couple” but rather multiple instances of evolution into humanity, then maybe the primieval act of rebellion played out more than once. The story, as Bill D. points out, is poetic – it’s mythic.
“4) We still sin, and so continue the revolt (I guess you could say we are revolting!) after Christ. Why does this not constitute and act of war requiring another act of reconciliation?”
Maybe for approximately the same reason that we don’t invade France every time she goes into one of her snits.
“5) Why is a sacrifice necessary? Why not ritual atonement or repentance?”
“6) Why not just mercy?”
As I mentioned to David N. – I don’t know why it played out the way it did, instead of some other way. But the way it did play out revealed a lot to us about the nature of God – that she is a loving deity. If there is a clue to be read in that, it is God’s love.
Here is a serious question, although it may sound flip or naive. The idea of Jesus dying for our sins and the idea of salvation have developed over almost 2000 years. Wasn’t Anselm a major figure in arriving at what we accept today? And he lived more than 1000 years after the time of Jesus. So if it has taken us this long to figure out some of the saying in the Gospels, or some of the things Paul said, what did these things mean at the time or for the next couple of hundred years? Is it possible that the concepts have been over-elaborated? I noticed someone earlier mentioned the “foreshadowing” of Mary in Genesis 3:15 (“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.”). As I see it (and I can quote Joseph A. Fitzmyer to back me up), that’s not at all what the text meant when it was written. How can we be sure all of the elaborate interpretations of the theories of salvation aren’t the equivalent of seeing the “Protoevangelium” in Genesis 3:15?
I have often thought that the apostles and disciples were so much luckier than we are, because they didn’t have tomes full of doctrines they “had to” believe in.
Hi, David N, I dond’t think it’s flippant at all. There is no doubt that a lot of what we accept shakes out through a historical process that is messy and conflict-ridden and time-consuming.
Re: the apostles and tomes of doctrine: it seems the apostles thought he’d be back really soon. At first, anyway, they were looking upon it as a very short-term project!
My history of theology is rusty but there is a decided difference of theological opinion around the issue of Jesus dying for our sins (Atonement). Not every scholastic theologian agreed with that explanation; some thought it went too far; others that it was a partial explanation, etc.
Personally, atonement to explain death/resurrection seems to decrease the value of God’s mercy and love – it was a freely given gift whose central focus is “kenosis” – to empty out not to atone or make up for.
But, there are other experts on this blog in this area.
Friends: This conversation has been fun. I have more thoughts, especially related to what I find to be some common denominators in a few of the attempts to explain original sin, but now is perhaps not the time to pursue them — in short, they seem more like capitulations than explanations (I was tantalized for a bit there at the possibility of taking to 100 comments a thread here at dotComm that had nothing to do with abortion and only tangentially was relevant to sex, but, alas, that will likely have to wait till another day).
Regarding multiple understandings of the atonement over the course of church history, yes, there have been many of them. A book that I have used in a course that does a good job of covering many of them is “The (or A) Nonviolent Atonement” by J. Denny Weaver.
Cheers.
Regarding some of the questions raised here, there’s a book that Fr. Imbelli recommended to me a few months ago that seems very pertinent. I have it, but haven’t read it yet. It’s by Gerard O’Collins, and the title is Jesus our Redeemer: A Christian Approach to Salvation.
The back cover copy begins, “Jesus Our Redeemer opens with three basic questions: How can redemptive events in the past bring about effects in the present? Why do human beings need redemption, both collectively and individually? What images of God are implied by the saving action of Christ and by human need?”
Excellent book….if memory serves me, CDF investigated and questioned O’Collins on his book, theology, etc. Guess this falls into the discipline of soteriology?
For anyone who might still be checking in on this thread, Sando Magister has an article at his website today that quotes extensively from recent pronouncements by BXVI on the doctrine of original sin:
http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/212913?eng=y
Joe P.– You weren’t offputting in any way. I signed off the discussion because I had to leave on a business trip.
Eric: Perhaps the discussion of original sin is too much of a dead horse. However, if you were willing to do it in your contributor capacity, I think a conversation about the texts that William links above from Sando Magister regarding BXVI on original sin would make for some interesting discussion and could merit a new thread.
Full disclosure: I think the Pope’s arguments on behalf of the doctrine, and ever more so on behalf of the relevance of Jesus to the doctrine, are just plain lousy, and what is of interest to me is that the texts provide a rather clear and concise context for the discussion.
Just a thought.
I wanted to make Joe P. happy by getting this thread to 100.
Actually there are 3 issues here
-Original sin; I think Bill D. has botth the best take and the best theology on this;
-IC and Mariology. Just want to update about La Conquistadora in the Santa Fe Cathedral. My wife took a friend to see the Cathedral there for the first time this week. La Conquistadora is now translated “Our Lady of Peace,” she told me.
Interesting how we perceive through the frame of time…
-Fr. Borguois – it’s reported that Maryknoll considers he’s (automatically, after the 30 days) excommunicated for faiuling to “recant.”
Personally, makes me think of the old auto da fes.
The universal feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary is a miracle of Divine Grace. It may relatively be described as a latecomer in terms of feasts, being solemnly defined as a dogma by Pope Pius IX in his constitution Ineffabilis Deus on December 8, 1854. But, indeed, we are grateful to her for answering her role to play – her vocation that was instrumental to the mystery of salvation. In the Catholic Church, it is a Holy Day of Obligation and in some countries like Italy where Roman Catholicism is predominantly strong, it is a public holiday.
What we are celebrating today is that Mary, from the very first moment of her conception, was free from any stain of original sin. This clarified with finality the long-held stand of the Church that Mary was indeed conceived without original sin. It came out in defense to that confusion and controversy over how Jesus Christ could be born sinless if he would be conceived inside of a sinful woman. The Catholic Church fought for the concept that the Immaculate Conception is necessary because without it, Jesus would have been the object of his own grace. In a similar vein, the Vatican was deluged with requests from people across the world asking the doctrine of the immaculate conceptions be officially proclaimed.
However, the problem with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is that it is not taught in the Sacred Scriptures. Mary is nowhere to be described as anything extraordinary but an ordinary woman whom God chose to be the mother of Christ. Besides, we are told that “all have sinned” (Rom 3:23) and objection was raised that if Mary were without sin, she would be equal to God. The bible does not provide us with reasons to believe that Mary was really sinless. But the bible gives us every reason to believe that Jesus Christ is the only person who did not have any sin and never committed a sin (Ecclesiastes 7:20; Romans 3:23; 2 Cor 5:21; 1 Peter 2:22; 1 John 3:5). On the strength of this idea, Catholic theology maintains that since Jesus became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, it was fitting that she be completely free of sin for expressing her fiat.
“Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you” (Lk 1:28) tells us that Mary was indeed a highly favored daughter of God. But the Greek translation implies more than that. The grace given to her is at once permanent and unique. She was graced in the past but with continuing results in the present. It was from conception onward. She was indeed in a state of sanctifying grace from the first moment of her existence.
For us Catholics the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception gained additional significance from the apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes in 1858. A French girl, Bernadette Soubirous, claimed that a beautiful lady appeared to her who said, “I am the Immaculate Conception”. In this sense, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception is also viewed as a key example of the use of sensus fidelium shared by the faithful and the Magisterium rather than pure reliance on Scripture and Tradition.
Through the long procession of years, our Roman Catholic tradition has remained firmly behind the doctrine and veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
As a nation, Mary, in her title of the Immaculate Conception, is our patroness and loving protector. May she always be our Model of every virtue. She is our Mother who is involved in our struggles, who prays for us and guides us toward that path of holiness.