TTSOML #30: Science of the Immaculate Conception of Mary

I mispoke in the one of the TTSOFML posts, that the dogma of the immaculate conception of mary was founded on a faulty biological theory. What I had meant to say was that it was because of scientific discoveries about biological conception and how it happens, in the late 1800s, that the Vatican was suddenly eager to make Mary "sinless". There had been all kinds of ideas as to how Jesus was both man and God, and how his bodily material was truly formed from Mary's blood and body.

If it is possible Mary was preserved from original sin by a "grace", how much moreso that Jesus was preserved, on his own merits, from sin by a grace, without needing a sinless mother?

Earlier RCC scholars had pointed out the scripture: "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" and they believed this included Mary. Mary was believed to be an obedient and faithful woman, full of "grace" (holy spirit), but not without the generational "original sin".

Later, the RCC theology changed.

At the Abbey, I found some interesting thoughts from Athanasius (early church father), which caused me to ponder the verse: "If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me" which is a statement by Christ. In the Old Testament, there is the story of how the Israelites were dying, bitten by serpents, and then Moses was commanded to raise a snake into the air on his staff, and his people were told God said to look at this standard or sign and they would be healed, and were healed.

So I began to wonder if Christ "crushed the head" of the serpent at the moment he was raised onto the cross, in a parallel to the serpent being raised on a pole, and that when Christ was lifted up, when he took the sins of mankind upon himself, it was done then, not (of course) at Mary's "fiat" or her "sinless conception".

Jesus said whoever looked upon him, who believed in him, in faith, would be "saved".

I also took it a step further, wondering if perhaps Jesus had been born with the tendency to sin, that original "sin" but had never acted on it, being "sinless" and that when he brought himself to the cross to be crucified, this was the generational sin which was upon him, which he triumphed over, in having never sinned himself, first, and then having the "original sin" put to death on the cross. If Jesus was the sacrifice or "atonement" for original sin, and simply believing this and looking to the cross was enough...This was an unorthodox thought, but I read some basis or idea for it, I think from Athanasius, but I really would have to go back and check. Br. Ansgar told me, "That has never been thought before."

At the very least, it was a powerful and biblical argument for how it was the doing of Jesus, not Mary, which reversed the curse of original sin. Like the Israelites who were dying (as man died from the effects of original sin), by looking to the "sign" or "standard", and believing in faith, they were healed (or could go onto eternal life.

Then I found out from the monks, the RCC didn't want the salvation to rest only on Jesus for another reason. It was too close to "salvation by faith alone". They wanted to say a person had to be clean first before Jesus accepted them. They argued Mary had to be "sinless" because Jesus couldn't have any contact or part of sin and it would be bad for him to be in her womb, or take any body material from her genetically.

Faith without works is dead, yes, but salvation seems to be "acheived" through faith alone. If this is true, it eliminates the need for purgatory, because a purging is unnecessary to make it to heaven, as Christ already did the "work" on the cross, and it eliminates the need for other things besides. Indulgences, for one thing. Penance for another.

I started to wonder, if the term "immaculate conception", once used by the RCC to describe the virginal conception of christ, could be changed through centuries and used to describe something else, with the RCC claiming it had ALWAYS been used to describe mary and not jesus's conception, what else had changed? I started to wonder too, about all of the "heretics" through the ages, and the gnostics who were killed and their manuscripts destroyed. The monks tried to tell me there was only one "protestant" group, the one that was large enough to break away and maintain an identity, but I wondered how many other smaller groups had thought the exact same thing and received no historical notice because they were killed off before their ideas could spread?