Sorry for being gone for so long! My life as of late has been, to put it quite simply, conflicting.
Here follows my thorough and concise take on the issue of Mary’s sinlessness, doing my best to establish that her sinlessness as an issue is a necessity to her being the Mother of God.
My Thorough Perspective on the Matter of Mary’s Sinlessness
This here will be my attempt to explain, in as concise and succinctly I can, my views on the issue of Mary’s sinlessness, and why I believe she was so. I ask you to positively ponder it, to not just disregard it from the start because you believe Mary’s status as a sinner or not is already precluded by some Scripture. I ask you to earnestly read this, as this is a matter not so much about Mary, but as her role of being the Mother of Our Lord, Christ.
The matter of Mary’s sinlessness, of course, cannot be approached without first setting an understanding of several things, of which I shall here do, using analogy as appropriately as I may.
The first issue is on the matter of God Himself. It is without exclusion believed by Christians that God is Truth itself, as Jesus reveals Himself as “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Now, I believe that understanding Jesus as God, and that He reveals Himself as not a revealer of Truth, but reveals Himself as Truth itself, we can immediately reach a certain conclusion about God, namely, that all Truth is found in God, or, in other words, “all truth is God’s truth.”
Now, if in fact God is Truth, then we must be able to see that God could never be in contradiction to Himself. Of course, there is no outside force that could ever oblige God to something, and I ask you do not disregard my argument from henceforth as if I were saying that, and ask that you allow me to establish what I mean when I say ‘necessity’ in a matter of God.
Of course, God can do anything. He could, if He wanted to, make pigs fly. However, we must remember that it is stated only that “God can do anything.” Could God make 1 + 1 = 3? Well, quite simply, that doesn’t make sense. Truth cannot be against truth, and if you will excuse me for this rather poor example (as numbers are subjective symbols of an objective reality), allow me to show why God couldn’t make 1 + 1 = 3.
God can, remember, do anything. If God is Truth, then it must be recognized that everything that comes from God is true, and anything that is true is as true as it is measured against God who is Truth. If something is not true, it is quite simply that; not true. We give a certain recognition to these sorts of things that are not true; false. However, we must not be confused into thinking that false things are things as true things are things. Falsity is that which is lacking truth, it is devoid of truth, it does not contain truth. It is not a thing.
So, we would conclude that God couldn’t make 1 + 1 = 3 simply because He couldn’t do a lacking of a thing, a lacking of Himself, who is Truth. We must conclude that God never does a thing that is against His very nature as Truth, the Logos.
This understanding of the relationship of God and Truth being set, we can now proceed to Christ. But first, let us consider this flying pig that I earlier mentioned. Exercising our minds, we can recognize easily that God could, if He so wished, make pigs fly, simply because pigs contain no inherent trait that contradicts flying. However, could God make a pig a cow, and still call it a pig? Well, He could change the words yes, but allow us to think of the pig and cow in their forms; the form of a cow and the form of a pig are naturally set against themselves. God could not, even if He so wished (although naturally, He would not, for it would be against His very nature as Truth) make a pig a cow and still call that cow a pig. I recognize there may be those who would mistake this argument as applying to the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, but allow me to give distinction between the two. We are assuming, in this exercise, that God is changing the form of the pig into the form of a cow, that the subject, or essence, of the thing that was previously a pig is now inherently a cow. In transubstantiation, where the bread and wine are changed, in substance, to Christ’s body and blood, the subject, or substance, of the bread and wine are being truly, physically and spiritually, changed into His body and blood, while remaining under the accidents, or as we would sense them with our natural five sense, of bread and wine, as they were before.
So, this exercise in place to set in our minds the idea that God can do anything, but would not do a nothing, for that would be contrary to Himself, allow me to continue on to, finally, Christ Himself.
It can be recognized without any revelation that if man is to be justfully forgiven by God, then there must be satisfaction made for the sins of man to God, to restore His honor (not that any man could take away God’s honor, but that His honor is, in a certain sense, ‘offended’). This can only be achieved by God, who can merit, of Himself, such forgiveness, and yet the whole process remaining just. (It must be just [as in justice], for justice is an attribute of God, and we must remember that God does not work against Himself.) For this justice to be achieved, God must become Man, or of the race of Adam, so that He may merit, in the place of Man, forgiveness for His sins. (For further reading on the idea of God becoming Man, read St. Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo)
Now, in becoming Man, He must become fully man of man. I emphasize this point; He must become fully man of man. He cannot be recreated in the exact same form of man, but must inherit His humanity, in full, without addition to, or protection from, same man, of the race of Adam. If He were to be not of the race of Adam in entirety, then He would not be able to justfully merit man’s salvation as God to God. If He were to protect Himself from some part of man in the reception of His humanity, then inevitably in the same He would’ve not been fully man, and could not have merited man’s salvation as God to God.
Remember that God is Truth, and that God does not work against Himself. As reason recognizes this, we can easily see that this necessary form of events can implicate themselves upon God only because this truth, or reason, is found within Himself, and is ordered by His own nature. This is not truth obligating God, but God obligating Truth.
Enter Christ. The first promise of His coming comes in Genesis 3:15, which promises a man to crush the serpent’s head, and most particularly, that He will come of the woman. Now, going back only two paragraphs, we remember that if Christ is to merit man’s salvation, He must be fully man, and that He must inherit this humanity from same man, that He is perfectly of the race of Adam.
We know, then, that He will inherit His humanity from the woman. How shall He receive this humanity, then? This is the problem. If, in fact, original sin is the separation we experience from God due to the sins of our parents, then, if Christ in becoming enfleshed, will not be able to protect Himself from any part of the woman’s humanity, how shall He Himself not be separated from Himself? We must recognize, at first, that in becoming human, He will not, as God, work against Himself. This means that He will not, in becoming human, act as anything other than human, for then He would not be acting as a human in becoming human, which is quite clearly contrary to reason. Coming back to that pig becoming a cow, how could that pig, in becoming a cow, act as a pig in the moment of its being-made-a-cow? Quite simply, it would not, it would act only as a cow in its being-made-a-cow. In the same, in God becoming Man, He would act as man in becoming man. If, then, He is acting as man in becoming man, He will not be able to act as God and protect Himself from any unnatural separation that would happen if His mother had sinned, this separation being inherited to Him along with the rest of His humanity (of which He must fully become).
So, there are two points to grapple with. He must become fully man, inherited from man, without addition to, or protection from, the said nature, and also cannot, in becoming man, act as anything other than man, for then He would not be truly becoming man.
The solution, then, naturally, is that His mother be without sin. This is, of course, not a necessity in that it is a truth outside of God obligating upon Him from without Him, but is a truth that happens because He is Truth, and is in perfect harmony with Himself as Truth.
The reason being established, we can now approach that common ‘refutation.’ Romans 3:23, which says “For all have sinned, and the wages of sin is death.” It seems I have come quite a ways only to be defeated by four short words, however, to bow my head in defeat would be to not recognize where reason has already brought us, and also to completely further forego reason.
There is no person who reasonably accepts this statement by Paul as being absolutely, without any radical exception, as being true. For instance, there is Christ, whom we all acknowledge as sinless. Then, there are those who quite simply were never able to sin, i.e. children who never reached the age of reason, the mentally handicapped, etc. The two solutions to these issues are; they were not people, and so were not part of the group that Paul was speaking of (as he was speaking of humans); or, if there is succinct reason as to this rule not applying, then the succinct reason holds true. With Christ, He could not have sinned because He is God, and God cannot be against Himself. With the young children and mentally handicapped, they could not have sinned for one can only sin if they understand what they are doing. With Mary, we recognize that she could not have sinned because she was the Mother of Our Lord.
Amtheomusings 