Logic, Bible, God’s freedom and Martin Luther come together to defend the Church’s sure guidance. Next topic please!

One small note: Your reader seems to be under the impression that Mary herself was a product of virginal conception. (“Where I’m coming from is Mary was conceived by means of the Holy Spirit.  No earthly father was involved.”) That contradicts the tradition of both the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, which states that Mary was conceived in the ordinary human fashion by her human parents (traditionally named Joachim and Anna, though not mentioned in Scripture). There are some squirrely speculations going about the Internet that claim Mary’s conception was virginal on the part of both parents (possibly derived from the “Meeting at the Golden Gate” story made popular by medieval apocryphal gospels), but it is not necessary (and is, in fact, less than helpful, as it perpetuates the confusion between virginal conception and the Immaculate Conception) to believe she was virginally conceived in order to profess belief that she was immaculately conceived.

Hmmm… I guess all this time I was one of those who believed the Immaculate Conception was necessary—yes, a gift, but also necessary.  That whole “Jesus couldn’t inhabit a sinful womb” stuff.  I get what you’re saying about God not being obligated, but it still doesn’t seem misguided to think that it was necessary for Mary to be without sin.  We rightly call her the new tabernacle, the new ark of the covenant, the first dwelling place of the perfect God-man.  Surely, she would HAVE to be holy!  Right?

Mark—I thought we got this squared away last time on your article on Jitter about Mary. You would think so after 700 comments.
Anyway your comment-“In other words, in the order of nature Mary was headed straight for the quicksand.  But in the order of time, God pulled her out of the quicksand’s way, granting her the grace Christ won by his Passion and Resurrection, in anticipation of his sacrifice and not apart from it.  And this happened in the first moment of her conception, neither before she came into existence nor at some time after.”
This is as you know, pure speculation without any facts to back it up. Since the NT is all that we know of Mary there is no mention, no hint of her being concieved or born without sin.  Just because it “found official theological favor in the popes’ judgments” does not make it true. Speculation is not a firm foundation for belief.

jkm, I think in the sentence you quote the questioner wrote Mary by mistake for Jesus. The idea that sin is passed down through the male line seems a trifle eccentric.

Read the Duns Scotus argument in the main article and see the LOGIC and BIBLE and THEOLOGICAL explorations and HISTORIC evidence to see how this Dogma was believed and finally declared infallibly. Adam does not figure, it takes two to tango and pass on original sin

JKM:

Nice catch.  I didn’t see that.  You are right, of course, that Mary is not born of a virgin.

Apple Pie: You might be right that my reader just made a typo.

Proto:  Thanks for your input, but since nobody—not even you—really believes in sola scriptura, I will stick with reading Scripture within the apostolic tradition of the Church and not according to what Proto and various quarreling Protestant fundamentalists think.  If you would like a freebie copy of By What Authority? to learn about how Catholics (and Protestants) rely on Sacred Tradition, as well as a free copy of Mary, Mother of the Son to learn how that Tradition reads Scripture with respect to Mary, feel free to drop me a line at chez.ami@frontier.com with your snail mail address and I will send you the books, Proto.

“I have been in e-mail with a devout Roman Catholic…”  Is this a new form of prayer?

Controverting this truth is like cutting off your own nose to spite your face.  But that’s what envy will do.

Didn’t Duns Scotus give us the appellation “dunce?”

Mark—If you are going to stick with Scripture then you have no scriptural basis for “In other words, in the order of nature Mary was headed straight for the quicksand.  But in the order of time, God pulled her out of the quicksand’s way, granting her the grace Christ won by his Passion and Resurrection, in anticipation of his sacrifice and not apart from it.  And this happened in the first moment of her conception, neither before she came into existence nor at some time after.” Lets at least be in agreement on this.
As for it being “apostolic tradition of the Church” I don’t know how you are going to support this since all that we have of the apostles is found in the written Scripture. If you think this is not correct then you are going to have to show otherwise.

Thanks for the book offer. I’m more interested in dialoguing with Catholics on their beliefs in a forum like this and see where it goes. I think its a good thing for you write about these things and give Protestant’ like myself a chance to dialogue with those who believe in these things.

Proto:

All the questions you ask are discussed at great length *in my book*.  If you actually want answers to your question, then take up my *free* offer.  If you refuse the offer and insist I re-write my book in these comment boxes, then you are a troll and I will ask the Register web elves to ban you.  Your choice.

Nothing is impossible with God. Mary did not have to be sinless. She was sinless because God wanted His Mother to have the unique place as the only perfect creature to mediate between Him and flawed humanity. Almighty God said at Mary’s Coronation that they wished to concede nothing to man that does not pass through her hands.  The very best path to salvation I know of is to offer everything to God though Mary’s hands as well.

Proto, sounds like white martyrdom to me.  I’m interested to see how a “believing Christian” handles a choice like that.  An interesting perspective is found in the 7 brothers of Maccabees: eat pork, or have your tongue ripped out.  Deuterocanonical, but choice!

Matt B—good to hear from you. Looks like I struck a nerve. I feel like I’m walking on egg shells now. I have to be very careful what I say.  Yikes.

I fear that those who believe Mary to have been sinless do not know scripture, nor the power of God. Jesus came to “save His people from their sins” (Mat 1:21). Romans 3:23 makes clear that “...both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin.” In Luke 1:47, Mary declares “And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.” If Mary had not sinned, she would have needed no saviour!

Mary was sinless because the Pope said so. The Pope can do things. He can make the earth the center of the universe, declare all non-Catholics evil, encourage martyrdom and convince people there is an all powerful God who loves you and needs money.

I’m happy God created Mary so that she would merit being my Queen.

If that didn’t happen life would stink; having no body to take all the pride out of my prayers.

Eric:

Catholics are aware of those passages.  It is *because* of the saving grace of God that Mary is sinless.

Ed: If the Pope magically made Mary sinless, why do the Eastern Orthodox, who broke with Catholic a thousand years ago, also regard her has sinless?

Mr Shea,
Quick off-topic question: you say Duns Scotus says God foreknew that Eve would betray him. Does God know what we are going to do ahead of time or does He know all possible paths and outcomes? I’m just curious as to how that applies to free will and Marian apparitions. Thanks!

Ed: Totally, that’s exactly how things work. Now, the Pope also said - and I’m paraphrasing a bit here, and don’t ask me exactly which pope or when, much less why, such is against the rules of the “the Catholic Pope made ____ doctrine up” game and anyway, it doesn’t matter, it was obviously some Romeish scheme even if we don’t know who exactly did whatever it was. Probably involving pagan Constantine, and maybe some albino monks with glocks. Obviously the many, many arguments, essays, and books presented here and elsewhere are just a cover the U.S. government is using to make it look like we actually walked on the moon, like anyone believes that nonesense - wait, what were we talking about again?

Mr Shea,
The Bible says that Mary was not sinless. It tell us that the saving grace of God did not keep her from sinning, but allowed her sins to be forgiven.

Eric, show me where in the bible it says that Mary is not sinless.  Many of you seem to forget, if it weren’t for the Catholic Church, there wouldn’t be a bible.

Bernie- Mary acknowledging God as her Savior is admitting she is a sinner. Jesus Himself never teaches she was without sin nor does He say she was saved from sinning.
If it were not for God-Christ there would be no Scripture.

Eric and Proto:  The Immaculate Conception means that God saved Mary from contracting original sin and committing actual sin.  There is no contradiction and it is perfectly compatible with the biblical witness.  Try asking Catholics what they believe instead of telling them what they believe without finding out if you know what you are talking about.

Proto1:
“Mary acknowledging God as her Savior is admitting she is a sinner.”
__
Did you even read the post? This is false. Mary was saved from sin, she was just saved before the sin made it to her - kept from falling in the hole. Preemptive saving, if you will. If someone grabs my arm before I can step out in front of a bus, he has saved my life just as surely as if he preforms whatever first aid is necessary after I’m lying bleeding and broken on the road.
—
As for the rest: you haven’t found where the bible says it’s true =/= the bible says it’s false; and while it is true that God is the reason we have scripture, the more immediate physical reason is that the Church kept it around by diligently and painstakingly copying it over and over, by hand, for centuries, so you’ve essentially just said that God works through the Catholic Church, and we all knew that already.

There are many things Jesus didn’t say that we know of.  That’s why we have tradition from the early church fathers, before there was a written bible.  Jesus was very explicit when he founded His church and gave Peter (the Rock) the keys to the kingdom of Heaven.  There is not one teaching of the Catholic Church that is not grounded in scripture and tradition.  Why do you suppose so many of our Catholic theologians are former Protestants?  When they dug into history, they had no choice, but to enter the church founded by Jesus Christ.

Jacob S—All that we know of Mary can only be found in the NT. There is nothing in the NT that says Mary was “Mary was saved from sin, she was just saved before the sin made it to her - kept from falling in the hole. Preemptive saving, if you will…”
If you want to continue to claim this, then what’s to stop me from claiming Stephen and Andrew were kept from sinning since the NT never mentions their being sinners specifically?
Just because God worked through the church of 4th century does not mean that the church cannot err.

Bernie- It is true that Jesus taught and did many other things not recorded in Scripture. The problem is that no one knows what they were.

BTW- Mary’s sinlessness is not grounded in Scripture and was unknown by the church for centuries.

he early Church didn’t need to teach Mary’s sinlessness much, because
pretty much everybody was convinced it was true. Mary was the New Eve
who unlike Eve remained sinless, the untier of Eve’s knots of disobedience by her unending obedience, the virgin earth that was never stained by sin, the spotless ewelamb, the poor man’s pet lamb fed from his own cup, the closed temple gate who had Heaven in her womb, the perfect model of a Christian disciple, and (as St. Augustine said) it was insulting to even think of applying “We have all fallen short” to her. (And Augie wasn’t slow to say what he thought of women falling short.)

The early Church wasn’t particularly concerned with the whys and wherefores of exactly how she didn’t sin ever; they were just pretty sure she didn’t.

Proto1:
“If you want to continue to claim this, then what’s to stop me from claiming Stephen and Andrew were kept from sinning since the NT never mentions their being sinners specifically?”
__
Because there’s no particular reason to think that this is true and a reasonable amount of reason to think that it’s not, and it’s not contained in the Tradition of the Church. Whereas the Apostolic Church does teach the Immaculate Conception, and the arguments for it make sense and the arguments against it don’t.

Mr Shea, please show me where the Bible says that the Immaculate Conception meant that God saved Mary from contracting original sin and committing actual sin.

The bible doesn’t have to say it specifically, that’s why we follow tradition also.  Jesus, the son of God could only be born of a sinless, pure human being and that is The Blessed Virgin Mary.  The Church founded by Jesus Christ cannot err, when it involves faith and morals.  Christ would not found a church that would be in error.  If you beleive in Jesus and follow his teachings, then you have no choice but to belong to his church which is the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church.

Jacob S—If something is true of Mary i.e. being sinless because the Scripture don’t mention it specifically we can easily say the same thing of others in Scripture where their sins are not specifically mentioned. As for the Tradition of your church, where did this Tradition first appear?
Did Mary die before she was assumed into heaven?

Eric:  Please show where the Bible says “Ecclesiastes is the inspired word of God.”  Please show where the Bible says that human persons come into existence at the moment of conception.  Please show where the Bible says “God the Son is God from God, consubstantial with the Father and the Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, to be worshiped with the Father and the Son.”  Please show where the Bible says that monogamy is the one and only valid form of Christian marriage.  Please show where the Bible tells us how to contract a valid Christian marriage?  Please show us where the Bible tells us Martin Luther was wrong to eject James, 2 Peter, Hebrews and Revelation from the canon of Scripture.  Please show where the Bible says that public revelation closed with the death of the apostles.

Meantime, I don’t have to show where the Bible says that the immaculate conception means that God saved Mary from contracting original sin and committing actual sin.  I only have to show that this is what Catholics mean by the dogma—and that therefore the Church is not saying that Mary did not require the salvation of Christ.

If something is true of Mary i.e. being sinless because the Scripture don’t mention it specifically we can easily say the same thing of others in Scripture where their sins are not specifically mentioned.

Only if you believe that Tradition consists of making stuff up.

As for the Tradition of your church, where did this Tradition first appear?

The tradition is not of “my Church”.  It is the Tradition of all apostolic communion (about 70% of Christianity) that Mary is without sin.  It is already reflected in the conversation between Mary and Gabriel in Luke 1.  Something you could know if you just took up the free offer of the book.  Why you avoid that and instead insist on going on haphazard remarks in comboxes is mysterious—to those who don’t understand that you have no interest in getting answers, but only in attacking and ignoring.

Did Mary die before she was assumed into heaven?

Eastern Tradition tends to say she did.  Western Tradition tends to say she didn’t.  All still agree she was assumed.  Even Luther and some early Reformers agreed on this.  Rejection of the Assumption is a very recent novelty.

Note that in your haste to attack, ignore, and abuse, you are now moving from the discussion of Mary’s sinlessness to the completely different question of her Assumption.  Do you ever wonder why you are so dishonest about “Just wanting to know?”

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/mark-shea/question-about-marys-sinlessness/#ixzz1Zq0qUtAg

There are dogmas or truths of the Bible that are “born” and recognisable right away, Jesus is God-Man and others that are embryonic and need to be developed. Luke 1 tells us from Gabriel the archangel that Mary was full of Grace, mmost highly favoured or given the most Grace for the role she was asked to choose freely. That was seen by the young Church as a Gift from Jesus who gave it to her in anticipation of His dying-rising sending the Holy Spirit. She can call God her Saviour not because Jesus forgave her sins but blocked her from sinning as she was made “Full of Grace” by His Grace. Whether she died or not is not clear; the Eastern Church has a placed marking her “Dormition” falling asleep. Pope Pius X11 said “whe her earthly life had finished” she was assumed into Heaven in his 1950 infallible dogma. The doctrine was accepted from the beginning in belief, veneration, by The Fathers, early bishop-theologian preachers and later scholars. It was not a dogma downloaded from some Vatican iPod but drawn ourt deveopled as a baby grown from cell to birth.
The Bible was written and finished long before the Fathers. It was for sure a Council that decided finally on the 27 books of the New Testament but they were completed, theey dumped some of the un-official non-canonical ones such as DaVinci Brown did with his fake “facts” in his books and films. The doctrine of Mary’s sinlessness has absolutely nothing to do with that not being mentioned in the NT. She could have hit Joseph on the head with a rolling pin in those silent years ! It is her title and being known by the apostles, being there at Pentecost and cared for by John after Jesus died,see the text in John behold your Son,  Son see your Mother and he took her to his own home” (Jn 19:27).
The Church’s teachings combine Revelation, what God said, and is guided by the Holy Spirit as Jesus promised and we use common sense, and reason to show they do not contradict reason and are not “made up” by anyone.

Proto1 :“If something is true of Mary i.e. being sinless because the Scripture don’t mention it specifically…”
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Not what anyone’s saying. It’s true because that’s the way things happened. The bible does not say it’s false, therefore we do not know with the certainty of scripture that it is false. That statement is not a proof of my position, but a counter to your argument against it.
—
That is, your argument that Mary was not sinless based on the bible fails because the bible says no such thing. The various arguments saying that Mary is sinless succeed based on the bible, reason, and the Tradition of the Church completely independently of the failure of the argument you made.

HermitTalker- “full of grace” does not mean or imply that she was “Jesus forgave her sins but blocked her from sinning. You can look up what this phrase means in Greek lexixon of the NT. We also know that none of the other authors of Scripture come close to implying she was without sin.
This is also significant since it was these men who wrote the NT knew her best. If anyone would have known it would be them. There are even church fathers who thought she had sinned.
There is a “tradition” a few centuries later that claims the apostles were at her bedside when she died. If she died then that is also another indicator she was not without sin since the wages of sin is death.

Jacob S- you are the one making the claim she was without sin, not me. It is up to you to demonstrate that with Scripture since all that we know of her is found only in Scripture. The Scriptures do say all men have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. This would include Mary. We also know from Scripture that sin entered the into the world through Adam. ” Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—” Romans 5:12.

No amount of church authority, reason or tradition can change the fact that all men and woman conceived of human parents are born sinners. This is why Jesus alone was conceived of the Holy Spirit and did not have a human father involved in His conception. That is why He was born without any sin.

I know of no passage in Scripture that says “having a human father involved in your conception makes you a sinner and having no human father involved in Jesus’ conception is why he was born without any sin”.  That appears to be a bit of theological superstition you are importing, Proto.  Yes, Jesus was born of a virgin and yes he is without sin.  But your supposition that the one *caused* the other is your own.  No biblical writer says this.  You appear to believe in human tradition after all, but only if you get to make it up.  God can preserve anybody he likes from original sin if it pleases him, however they are conceived.  He did so with Mary.  And as much as you pretend that everybody has to play by your sola scriptura fantasy, we still are not bound to.

Proto, in addition to what Mark said, if you insist on interpreting verses in isolation and without regard to expressions in that manner , then we need to have a talk about “unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you do not have life within you,” and the rockiness of Peter. (Actually, we probably need to have that talk anyway, but not here and now, and the ‘I’ part of that we might be someone else.)
—
I don’t buy your sin through the father thing, but if you’re going to play that game, then [WARNING: STUPID ARGUMENT WHICH I AM NOT ACTUALLY ENDORSING IN ANY WAY] you have to admit that Mary is not a man, and that verse only says all men. Plus, Christ was a Man (though also God) who most definitely neither sinned nor fell short of the glory of God. So clearly that verse is not a blanket condemnation of absolutely everyone, but one of those things we call a generalization - something which is generally true, but which may have the odd exception in very special cases.
—
Quibbling over what technicalities are artifacts of language or modes of speech and what are actually supposed to be there and misinterpretations can skew anything, so forgive me if I take the interpretation of the successors of the Apostles over yours.
—
And finally: as for the argument that needs to be presented to prove the position - see Mark’s post. And maybe actually respond to the argument instead of just saying the bible doesn’t say so. That gets old.

Mark—Notice what Romans 5:12 says about how sin entered the world—Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—
As you can see that sin is passed on through the race via the man and not the woman. It was in Adam that mankind fell. See Rom 5:13-21. Note also the comparison is between Adam and Christ because both of them represent a new beginning.  Both Adam and Christ are similar in that both of their actions affected others. Adam’ action alone caused the race to fall and Christ action saved those those who would trust in Him for eternal salvation. Those in Adam are dead while those in Christ are alive. 

That is why Jesus could not have a human father if He was to be totally without sin. If He had a human father then the sin of Adam would have been passed on to Him.

Jacob S- Jesus is not part of the “all” that Romans 5:12 speaks of because of His unique conception that did not involve a human father. The only 2 other exceptions to the “all” of Romans 5:12 would be Adam and Eve who were direct creations of God. They were not conceived.
Mary, was conceived by human parents and so the sin of Adam was passed on to her. The Scripture does not make her an exception in any way.

How does your church interpret Romans 5:12?

Proto1 and other sola scriptura proponents. By what authority does your personal interpretations of Scripture bear any credibility whatsoever? As far as I can tell, that’s all you’ve got, and there are numerous mutually exclusive but reasonable ways to interpret the text. So why would anyone care about your claims?

Proto: It does not say “all those conceived by two human parents have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” You made that part up. First, it has no basis in anything authoritative, and second it has its own inherent problems - cloning for example.

RUs- I was expecting the authority card to be played and thank you for doing so. What is the official interpretation of Romans 5:12 by your church? I don’t want to hear your personal interpretation of it but what does the Roman Catholic church tell you what it means.

Jacob S—why was it necessary for Christ to be conceived by the HS? Why couldn’t Mary and Joseph conceive Him on their own?

Who is not fallen who is conceived by 2 human parents? Since the time of Adam there have been no exceptions.

[If you actually want answers to your question, then take up my *free* offer.? If you refuse the offer and insist I re-write my book in these comment boxes, then you are a troll and I will ask the Register web elves to ban you.? Your choice.]

Or, Proto1… you (and others) can always read and study the *free* Catholic Encyclopedia found online to get a better understanding of Catholic teaching.

For example, on the Immaculate Conception:

“No direct or categorical and stringent proof of the dogma can be brought forward from Scripture…”

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07674d.htm

Proto, you have to be careful when using the word “necessary” with God. God can do pretty much whatever He likes. He could have entered the world fully formed at age 30, He could have erased original sin with a thought, and He could even had made spinach poisonous and all the nutrients necessary to survive present in rare steak. Unless you are denying His omnipotence. What He does is what is most fitting, because He’s also perfect, but this isn’t because He’s somehow bound to by some outside requirements. And, if you go into the “most fitting” argument about the nature of Christ’s Birth, you end up in the argument presented in Mark’s post.
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Original sin persists because it would not be fitting for God to erase the consequences of Adams choice. It is present in all humans save those from which God specifically forbids it. This is what the Romans verse means. One of those humans was Christ, another was Mary. I am not aware of any others, and do not expect to become aware of them though it is possible because, as it is said, anything is possible with God.
—
And finally, you changed your argument. You said original sin comes through the male parent, hence Christ did not have it because He had no human male parent. What happens if you clone a human? Either: 1, that person does not have original sin because He has no male parent (don’t say he has it because the person he was cloned from had it, this is not genetic and they are different people) or 2) he has it unless God for some reason decides that he shouldn’t have it, in which case your theory is shown to be incorrect.

From the Book of Heaven: “all evil is in the will.  It was the will that overwhelmed man - that is, his nature; it was not his nature that overwhelmed the will of man.  His nature remained at its place, just as it was created by Me (Jesus) - nothing changed.  It was his will that changed; it put itself against no less than a Divine Will, and this rebellious will overwhelmed his nature, debilitated it, contaminated it, and rendered it a slave to most vile passions.  It happened as to a container full of perfumes or of precious things:  if it is emptied of those and then filled with rot or with vile things, does the container perhaps change?  What is placed inside of it changes, but the container is always the same; at the most, it becomes more or less estimable, depending on what it contains.  Such was man.

Now, being conceived in a creature from the human race did no harm to my Mama, because her soul was immune to any sin; there was no division between her will and that of her God.  The divine currents found no obstacle or opposition in pouring themselves upon her; in every instant she was under the pouring rain of new graces.  So, with this will and this soul, all holy, all pure, all beautiful, the container of her body which she received from her mother remained fragrant, rehabilitated, ordered, divinized, in such a way as to remain exempt also from all the natural maladies by which the human nature is invaded.

Note: I am not trying to imply that the sinless human nature of Christ and Mary is the same, merely mentioning that both were sinless and this is through God’s power. Just being careful, because once words like nature start showing up I’m likely to say something that has a technical meaning that’s incorrect without realizing it.

Jacob S—the clone argument has no merit since there is no such thing. There is no clone human being.
You still have not proven that Mary was concieved without sin, kept from sinning or was without sin from any passage of Scripture. All you and the others have done is to assert it. Asserting something is not proof but mere opinion. To change this you must show from Scripture that she was an exception to being without sin or kept from sin. That has not been done.

BTW- Christ is unique of all human beings. He is the only person to have 2 natures i.e. one human and one divine. Mary on the other hand has no divine nature but was fully human as all of us are. She to was beset with the sin nature.

Luis Marasigan- what is the Book of Heaven?

Proto1: There may be no clone now, but it’s a scientifically viable idea. It is possible, though perhaps not with currently available technology or with 100% success rate, and even if it has not occurred and even if it does not ever occur, the possibility is enough to derail your argument.
-
As for proving Mary’s sinlessness: the argument presented in Marks post is where you want to go for that. It is much more than mere assertion, though assertion by the right people at the right time in the right way would in fact be enough for us to know that it was true (if not to explain why it were unless it was very in depth assertion).
_
And of course Christ was unique. But in addition to being fully and completely divine, He is fully and completely human. And were it impossible for a sinless full and complete human to exist after the fall, then either He would not be fully and completely human, or He would be stained with sin. Neither case is acceptable. Ergo, such an exception is possible - even if Christ’s case and Mary’s case are completely different, came about in completely different ways or whatever, I don’t really know enough to compare such things, the mere existence of Christ demonstrates that a sinless human is possible. Perhaps Christ’s sinlessness is completely intertwined with His divinity, which Mary obviously lacks, but regardless it shows that a blanket statement that all humans after the fall are stained by sin is false.
-
The question remains: is it possible that another such exception occurred, and did one in fact occur? For that (you guessed it) see Mark’s post.

“You still have not proven that Mary was concieved [sic] without sin, kept from sinning or was without sin from any passage of Scripture. All you and the others have done is to assert it. Asserting something is not proof but mere opinion. To change this you must show from Scripture that she was an exception to being without sin or kept from sin. That has not been done.”

Proto1… apparently you are having
*GREAT* difficulty understanding this statement from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

“No direct or categorical and stringent proof of the dogma can be brought forward from Scripture…”

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07674d.htm

So… is this simply a case of ‘ignorance is bliss’ on your part, or is there actually something more to your *silly* comments?

Jacob S- There is nothing in Mark’ article that is any of kind of proof that Mary was sinless. Its all assertions and a disregard to what Scripture says clearly that all men are sinners. Those that knew Mary personally i.e. the Lord Jesus and some of His disciples (apostles) never hint at her being sinless.
I also gave you the only 3 exceptions to this: Adam and Eve were a direct creation of God and made without sin. Jesus, also is an exception because of His unique conception that came about by the HS.

If God were to save Mary from sinning why didn’t do that with Adam and Eve since there sin has brought such misery into the world? If He had done that there would have been no need for Christ and His death on the cross for our sins. The fact is that He saved no one or kept anyone from sinning including the Lord Jesus Who was tempted directly by Satan. If God did not spare His Son from sinning then He would not have kept Mary from sinning either.

Proto1,

All you’re doing is avoiding the question.

You already know what the Catholic Church teaches regarding original sin and how it relates to Mary, and Romans 5 12 is interpreted by Catholicism within the context of that knowledge. So instead of being coy, why don’t you just explain why your personal interpretation of that verse infallibly disputes Catholic doctrine.

Oh—except that I have no reason to accept your explanation, because you are just one man with an obvious agenda, who seems to have no interest in truth. If I’m mistaken and you do show interest in truth, put up, and tell us by what authority we should care about your pet interpretation.

I pray to the Holy Spirit for understanding with every verse I read, but neither I nor you can command Him to assure our interpretations are without error. Biblical interpretation must be undertaken with great humility, and assuming we can read a verse and disprove the other guy is just pure arrogance, and it pretends to have God-like mastery over language that is, quite frankly, impossible for any human being. (Here’s a hint: for every interpretation you give, I can, by myself, find a dozen more interpretations that are just as reasonable. Only with the context of Christ’s Church can I have any confidence at all in what it really means.)

So I ask you again. If you value your credibility you will address the question. Why should we accept your interpretations of Scripture at all? Unless you can demonstrate your personal infallibility and authority—your done.

RUs- you should accept my interpretation because it lines up with Scripture. That’s why I have spent time demonstrating from Scripture itself that:
1) Mary was not sinless because all have sinned.
2) The only exception is the Lord Jesus and it tells us explicitly and in a number of passages.
3) His conception was unique among all of humanity. Mary’ was not.
4) The only other 2 individuals who were not conceived were Adam and Eve. They had no sin when created but fell into sin.
5) No is ever kept from sinning including the Lord Jesus.
6) Mary acknowledgment of her Savior implies being aware of sin.
7) Mary died. The wages of sin is death.

BTW- no fallen human being is infallible. There has only been One and He lived 2000 years ago. Not even Peter was infallible for he was rebuked by Paul for being in error.

Proto1: “RUs- you should accept my interpretation because it lines up with Scripture.”

It does nothing of the sort. It lines up with your personal preferences. There’s nothing in Scripture that must be interpreted in a way that counters Catholic doctrine. Nothing. Period. It’s just wishful thinking on your part that your interpretation is right and infallible and disproves Catholicism. It is profoundly ignorant to operate in such a manner.

Catholicism lines up perfectly with Scripture when it is properly interpreted.

Besides, the only thing you did is to change the wording of the question. You are blatantly claiming authority over what “lines up with Scripture,” and you have not yet given us any reason to take your authority seriously. You obviously have no way to make that claim. Stick a fork in you—your done.

Proto1: “That’s why I have spent time demonstrating from Scripture itself that:
1) Mary was not sinless because all have sinned.”

Eve was directly involved with introducing sin in the world, yet Roman’s 5:12 claims it entered the world through one man. This is a stark omission. It would be a perfectly reasonable interpretation for one to interpret that as meaning women (or at least Eve) were faultless and inculpable of sin. In fact, since you are determined to interpret the verse in such an absolute fashion, I don’t think you have any choice but to do so. The verse continues to mention men, not explicitly including women. You could also interpret this to mean that Jesus also sinned—after all, he was *man*. Given time, I could come up with many more rational interpretations. It is also very common in language to refer to “all” people when it is common knowledge that there are exceptions. Jesus is one exception—and if there can be one, there can be another. Only by understanding the context and intention of the writer can we be confident in interpreting what he meant.

You haven’t demonstrated a thing—you’ve only revealed your bias and your agenda. We can play this game forever, and all we would do is hash and rehash different ways of interpreting and why you prefer your own interpretation over others. It gets you nowhere, and your self-proclaimed authority to determine what “lines up with Scripture” is laughable.

Proto1: “2) The only exception is the Lord Jesus and it tells us explicitly and in a number of passages.”

Wait! You say their can’t be exceptions when you read that verse alone—yet you say there are exceptions. Which is it? Either that verse stands alone stating an absolute with no exceptions, or it doesn’t. Since you admit it doesn’t, then you *cannot* with the slightest bit of credibility claim that an exception is not allowed.

There is not a verse that you can produce that cannot be interpreted counter to your personal claims. The game doesn’t end.

“3) His conception was unique among all of humanity. Mary’ was not.”

Just a bald-faced claim with absolutely no authority or credibility backing it up.

“4) The only other 2 individuals who were not conceived were Adam and Eve. They had no sin when created but fell into sin.”

This has absolutely no bearing upon the argument. What’s the point?

“5) No is ever kept from sinning including the Lord Jesus.”

I’m not sure what you mean by this, but if you are saying Jesus is a sinner, you’re hardly a Christian. If all you’re saying is that everyone is tempted, so what? What does that have to do with the Immaculate Conception and Mary’s refusal to sin? (Answer: nothing.)

“6) Mary acknowledgment of her Savior implies being aware of sin.”

So? Who said she wasn’t aware of sin? (Answer: No one.) This has already been handled above. All you are doing is making a claim that your interpretation is right, and the Catholic interpretation is wrong. But you still haven’t established your authority, so you’re done. Your interpretations are irrelevant to this discussion until you do.

“7) Mary died. The wages of sin is death.”

There’s some uncertainty about that, and even if she did, it doesn’t mean that sinning is the only way to die. Otherwise you would have to claim that Jesus was also a sinner. Is that what you are claiming?

You really, really haven’t thought this stuff through, have you?

“BTW- no fallen human being is infallible. There has only been One and He lived 2000 years ago. Not even Peter was infallible for he was rebuked by Paul for being in error.”

Thank you for validating the point that I have been making. You are not infallible, and you have no Scriptural authority. None. Not only that, but you clearly haven’t put your ideas through much rigor. No credibility. Your done.

We haven’t even scratched the surface regarding the complications of translation and variations that have occurred in the oldest of manuscripts. Trading arguments about interpretations is a never-ending game, and you will get nowhere with it. The only way you can settle this is to prove the authority you have claimed in order to say your interpretation “lines up with Scripture.”

I have patiently gone through this first iteration of exchanging interpretations of scripture by way of demonstration, but there is no sense in continuing that way. Like I said, it’s a never-ending game, and it will get you nowhere. Any interpretation you present is absolutely irrelevant until you prove your authority and the infallibility of them. Can’t do that? No?—Your done—

Proto, we’re running in circles now. To sum up before I call it quits:
Against your counter argument:
-We’ve demonstrated that the Romans verse is not meant to be exception-less
-The Romans verse does not mention any of the exceptions that we agree exist, or any others.
-Since there are exceptions, Romans does not dispute this, and Romans does not reference them in anyway, we know Romans is simply not meant to address this issue at all.
-Therefore, the Romans verse by itself says nothing about whether a specific person was one of the exceptions. For this we must use reason, other scripture, and Tradition. So stop using this verse as an argument.
—-Furthermore, I have no reason to accept your opinion on what any particular verse in scripture means.
—————
In favor of the possibility:
-We know that God is omnipotent. He can do whatever He likes.
-We know that God’s actions are perfect. What he actually does is the most fitting thing that can be done.
-We know that it would be fitting for Mary to be sinless. See Duns Scotus and above post, or google or Mark’s book should you want more info. I will just assert here to save room.
—
If you object to the argument, you must object to one of the 3 points: either God is not omnipotent, He does not do what is best, or it is not true that it would be most fitting for God’s mother to be sinless. I imagine you don’t object to the first two. If you have an objection to the third, raise it and support it or stop arguing. If you do not have an objection to any of the three, then you must admit that Mary is sinless and that all of your arguments are wrong and hence that you are misinterpreting scripture. If you disagree with this paragraph, then you do not believe that reality is logical. Until and unless you address something along these lines, you are wasting time and I just refer you to the above.
-God Bless,
Jacob

RUs—- Mary and Eve are not the same. Eve was created by God directly and without sin. Mary was conceived by her fallen parents as all human beings are. When Romans 5:12 speaks of men it also includes women.
All men means all men unless there are exceptions. I gave you the only 3 that Scripture mentions. Mary is not of the 3 because Scripture never makes her an exception in any way.
I showed that the temptations of Christ that no one is kept from sin. This shows that the idea that Mary was kept from sinning her entire life to have no merit. If God did not spare His Son, He would not spare anyone.
Jesus died for our sins. He allowed it to happen for our sakes otherwise He would not have died. Everyone else has died unless there is an exception such as with Elijah. He did not die but was taken up directly to heaven.

PS- when a JW or Mormon comes to your door run the other way. They will make a pretzel out of your interpretations. You may think Roman Catholic authority will carry the day but you will find no such acknowledgement in the world.

Here’s a thought - what if Satan wanted us Christians to always argue about our beliefs and create a split within the church and not do what Christ has told us to? I would say that he’s done a really good job in doing this for centuries. Why can’t the Church act like One Church (I’m not talking about New Age crap). Sounds like today’s church (or should I say churches) is sounding a whole like the Corinthian church. Aka 1 Cor 1:12…

And you just made more bald faced claims with no authority whatsoever. It’s just so much empty bluster. You continue to ignore the fact that you don’t have authority, and yet you want us to take you seriously. I’ll leave it to whatever poor souls are still reading to decide whether that’s wise, or not.

Oh, and BTW—why would I empower the Mormons and the JWs with any more credibility and authority than I empower you? (I shake my head)

Faith is a matter of Grace, God gives that Gift, favour, charism, all the same word. Faith also relies on reason. The Catholic Christian Church boasts of being both full of sinners and grace- Paul says where sin abounded grace did more abound. We are convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit and also forgiven by the authority of the same Spirit which Jesus gave His apostles in John 20 on Easter evening to forgive sins in His Name. We also believe that the Church is guided through sin, darkness of intellect, arrogance rivalry and jealousy to be free of doctrinal error on basic doctrines guided by the same Spirit through the whole Church whose final voice is the bishops worldwide with the Pope.
We also honour REASON. Mary is full of Grace as Gabriel said to her because her Son “graced” her to be His Mother before He came to her womb, God is outside time so the Holy Spirit was active before the great outpouring on Pentecost. Jesus was tempted, yes, and sweated blood in the Garden and almost gave up on the Cross, but yielded to “Not my will but yours be done.” Mary’s sinlessness did not mean she was not tempted or understood everything. Luke says she PONDERED things in her heart. She was not s programmed computer genius who said, no problem, i know it all and Jesus will rise nagain so dont cry at the Cross, He’s coming back. She was human and felt all those feelings when He was insulted, talked about in their home area and was stripped on the Cross.
Protrstantism’s major error is to cut off the Bible from the living WORD of God, who is Jesus working through the whole Church. Protestants say the Bible is infallible but deny that the Church which wrote and decied its validity is NOT infallible. That is why the Reformers fought with ech other and Main Street has contradictory messsages flowing out of those Churches every Sunday morning. A God of Truth who sent His Son as Way, TRUTH and Life allowed His kids to argue and fight and kill each other over what the Bible means. We argue and did our fighting also in less aware times but at a certain point we all surrender our own cussedness to accept the Holy Spirit’s voice speaking through the clamour and say “Where shall we go LORD, you have the words of Eternal Life” as Peter says in John 6. The topic was about Eucharist, This is MY BODY, BLOOD which the crowd rejected. Protetants for the most part still do which sows they cannot even read a simple chapter, the Last Supper narrative or Luke 24 the two disciples on the way to Emmaus,  Paul in I Cor and the Loaves and Fishes miracles without tying themselves in illogical knots and denying obvious TRUTH.
Now, you mentioned Romans 5:12????!!!! as an argument against I Luke and 2100 years of solid teaching guided by the same Spirit who keeps the whole Church from messing up every major teaching in the Book.

Mr Shea, I cannot find scriptures to validate your first, second, third,
and seventh assertions at this time. Regarding
“Please show where the Bible says that monogamy is the one and only valid form of Christian marriage” -  Genesis 2:24 “Therefore shall a man leave his father and is mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. ” A man is to cleave to his wife, not his wives.
“Please show where the Bible tells us how to contract a valid Christian marriage” - I don’t understand what you’re asking. Feel free to clarify.
“Please show us where the Bible tells us Martin Luther was wrong to eject James, 2 Peter, Hebrews and Revelation from the canon of Scripture”
- Matthew 4:4 - ” But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

I did not say that Jesus forgave Mary’s sins. I said that she called God her Saviour because HE had done that but that her being full of Grace, highly favoured by God was a result of His giving her that special fullness to ready her for His birth.
The where does the Bible say that is nonsense because the Gospel was proclaimed and worked on and applied to the life of the young Church before it was put in final form. The Bible nowhere says it has everthing in it, and Jesus said He would send the Holy Spirit as TEACHER, ADVOCATE to continue to draw out the meaning of what HE taught. The language of the Creed is from the GREEK Councils in Asia Minor (Turkey today) as the Church sought to put its Hebrew/Jewish language into a form that was rational as the Greek world championed.
I suggest a study of History,  not the selective, leave out what does not suit stuff of Mormonism and evvengelical-a historic bigoted Protestantism. Read Pelikan’s five volumes, former Lutheran, later Orthodox so get history and logic and doctrine not “Sola Scriptura” which is so non-biblical. Same goes for Luther attempting to drop the Bible books that condradicted his FALSE teaching that Faith alone, JAMES was an embarrassment, ne said FAITH WITHOUT GOOD WORKS is dead and PAUL makes that abundantly as Jesus did; How do we make it to heaven- Luke 26 by showing we believe and accept the gift of Faith by caring for the sick, prisoners and people who need food and clothes and water. Bible without a teaching authority gave us Protrstantism then and the bigoted beat goes on here and elsewhere by self-anointed “infallible” Bible readers
who cannot even read it through and keep everything in context.

HermitTalker—do you think Catholics can read the Bible in context?

Jacob S- you wrote about the “In favor of the possibility:
-We know that God is omnipotent. He can do whatever He likes.
-We know that God’s actions are perfect. What he actually does is the most fitting thing that can be done.
-We know that it would be fitting for Mary to be sinless. See Duns Scotus and above post, or google or Mark’s book should you want more info. I will just assert here to save room.
—
If you object to the argument, you must object to one of the 3 points: either God is not omnipotent, He does not do what is best, or it is not true that it would be most fitting for God’s mother to be sinless. I imagine you don’t object to the first two. If you have an objection to the third, raise it and support it or stop arguing. If you do not have an objection to any of the three, then you must admit that Mary is sinless and that all of your arguments are wrong and hence that you are misinterpreting scripture.”

This is faulty reasoning to claim that Mary is sinless because “God is omnipotent and God’s actions are perfect..” that it follows that Mary must then be sinless. If this were true the Scripture would have said so. Secondly, Scotus asserts but does not prove it is the case that Mary was indeed sinless-” Duns Scotus said that since Christ is a perfect savior, there must be at least one instance of somebody who is perfectly saved by Jesus—saved from top to bottom and from beginning to end—saved so perfectly that they were saved, not by being pulled out of the pit of sin, but by being kept from ever falling in at all.  And the fitting candidate for that perfect gift of preventative salvation is Mary:

  He who is the most perfect mediator must have a most perfect act of mediation in regard to some person on whose behalf he exercises the mediatorial office.  Now Christ is the most perfect . . . and he had no more exalted relation to any person than to the Blessed Virgin Mary . . . This could not be if he had not merited for her preservation from original sin.”

It is not necessarily true that “there must be at least one instance of somebody who is perfectly saved by Jesus—saved from top to bottom and from beginning to end—saved so perfectly that they were saved, not by being pulled out of the pit of sin, but by being kept from ever falling in at all.” This is faulty reasoning since the premises do not follow. There is nothing in the gospel message that says that Jesus must save someone perfectly or keep from sinning in this life. Jesus never promised such a thing.

I am not sure how many Catholics can read the Bible in context, I only know a few hundred or so if the over one billion we have. However, God was so smart He did not want us to do the protestant thing and make up a lot of conradictory stuff. So Jesus sent the Holy Spirit after HE named and restored Peter, the Rock to head His Church and gave Him the other leaders to be its pastors. Each of us is encouraged to read the Bible as I have done daily since my childhood and with more study and understanding since College in the 50s and have taught since the 60s aand still write and blog. We of course are not intelligent or arrogsant enough to figure it out without the guidance of the Spirit guiding the whole Church. As I noted earlier today, Protestants cannot accept that Jesus meant what HE said “THIS IS MY BODY/ MY BLOOD” and the Last Supper words and other witnesses to it as well as 2100 years of Tradition to explain, defend ad celebrate it. So who wants to accept them as guides and teachers?

Logic and common sense tells us that Jesus, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, could not possibly be born of a sinful person.  God, the Father from all eternity, chose Mary and made her spotless to carry his divine Son.  Why is this so hard to beleive?  Christ’s church tells us this.  That’s enough for me.

His Bible says it also.

Bernie—it does not follow that Mary had to be sinless to bear Christ. The Scripture never claims this for her. Christ on the other hand needed to be sinless so that He could bear our sins and pay the “price” for them.

St Luke was a Greek so his Gospel came from his culture and a language with which he was familiar, he was also a physician so better educated than most. His Luke 1:28 Gabriel to Mary is chare kecharitomene- this PC does not have foreign language characters. That is a perfect past participle which means she received God’s favour, his grace in the past and it is still operative. There are similar uses of that form of that construction in several Greek Fathers, again their medium, they are not translating from Hebrew or Latin, the other major language of the day. An example of another mis-trnslation is the angels’ Christmas song. Peace and goodwill to men is protestant to avoid saying what the Greek says and the Catholic Bible translates accurately: Peace to MEN OF GOODWILL. Protestants denied that we are, in favour of Augustine’s negative understanding of what original sin did. Same biased attitude we see here trying to deny 2100 years of understanding LUKE 1:28 and its correct translation from Greek to undermine the specialness of Jesus’ work with regard to bringing the Gospel to us via Mary’s preparation by HIS FAVOUR to ready her for His coming by her YES.

HermitTalker—This what “full of grace” of the more modern rendering of Luke 1:28—“hail favored one” as the New American Bible (Catholic translates it) means:
To grace, highly honor or greatly favor. In the NT spoken only of the divine favor, as to the virgin Mary in Luke 1:28, kecharit?mén?, the perf. pass. part. sing. fem. The verb charitó? declares the virgin Mary to be highly favored, approved of God to conceive the Son of God through the Holy Spirit. The only other use of charitó? is in Eph. 1:6 where believers are said to be “accepted in the beloved,” i.e., objects of grace. (See huiothesía [5206], adoption, occurring in Eph. 1:5) In charitó? there is not only the impartation of God’s grace, but also the adoption into God’s family in imparting special favor in distinction to charízomai (5483), to give grace, to remit, forgive.”
 
Zodhiates, S. (2000, c1992, c1993). The complete word study dictionary : New Testament (electronic ed.)

PROTO1 Do not understand, you deny she was sinless. seem to ignore the Greek meaning of the words of the angel and their Greek lingual-cultural context that SHE WAS IN THE PAST FILLED WITH GRACE AND STILL IS.  Anyway we rely on the 2100 hundred years of its being accepted, discussed and declared a TRUTH guaranteed by the H Spirit as well as the Greek pof Luke’s inspired words. Peace

HermitTalker- the reason I gave you the meaning of the phrase “hail favored one” was to show this greeting of the angel has nothing to do with being sinless. Just because someone is full of grace does not mean they are without sin. Take for example Acts 6:8 where it is said that Stephen was “full of grace and power”. Should we assume also that Stephen was without sin all his life because it says he was “full of grace”?

Proto1,  Scripture doesn’t have to spell it out,  it does infer it.  The early fathers of the church said it and the church founded by Christ teaches it,  that is all the proof I need.  When you pass into internity, you will find the truth and I don’t think you will like it.

Read The Mystical City of God by Mother Mary of Agreda if you want to understand the exalted nature of Our Blessed Mother.  It is an approbated autobiography of the Holy Family that I recommend highly.

Bernie- Scripture does not infer it. Not even close.

So you say Proto1.  I prefer to follow the teachings of Christs church, not yours.

No nun or Pope, not even Pied Pipers like Mr Obama can write a life of the HOLY FAMILY. The Holy Spirit would have seen to that if He thought it would help. We have enough, Jeus was born, was obedient after his Temple event at 12 and Mary stood by the Cross, caused the Cana miracle was there at Pentecost. Whether they had bagels for breakfast or what sort of stuff Jesus and Joseph made is irrelevant for Faith.

Wow, the discussion has involved many circles and repeated errors. As has been pointed out a couple of times, NT scripture is not dispositive on the matter of Mary (not to mention many other contentious topics). All the spinning and twisting in the discussion simply supports that very statement. Jesus could have been preserved from sin in the womb of a sinful woman or the woman could have been sinless. Of the two, the more poetic situation, and the one befitting a vessel carrying the Christ, is that Mary was preserved from original sin. Regardless, the issue either 1) cannot be resolved at all or 2) must depend on some outside, objective authority for an answer. Since the Church precedes NT scripture, all NT scripture proceeds from the Church, and NT scripture is not all-inclusive of history or revelation, then only the Church is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim 3:15). This is where Tradition (i.e. the full deposit of the faith guarded by the Church) comes in. It is Tradition that provides the answer. Why listen to Tradition? Well, Jesus did not hand the apostles a written encyclopedia of His teaching. Rather, He taught them by word and deed, and He told them that the Holy Spirit would empower them to recall all he had taught. The apostles, in turn, spread the gospel as commanded. Some of the teaching was written by members of the Church for various purposes, but certainly not all of it. So, anyone depending solely on written scripture but ignoring the rest of the deposit of faith (i.e. Tradition) chooses arbitrarily what he believes and thus places himself as the authority instead of the Church Christ founded. The problem is that he becomes one of billions of equal authorities and thus carries no weight of argument. [Note: I make assertions about scripture and authority here without detail because it is beyond the scope of this thread.] The bottom line: Unless there is some objective authority outside of NT scripture, then all discussion of proof is simply whistling in the wind. If we choose to leave proof and authority out of the discussion, then we still can have a civilized thought experiment on what would be most reasonable, which is what I took from the original article.

LEE: Tradition is not an iPOD added to the Bible. We teach nothing that is not rooted in the Bible. As I noted above, some teachings are more obvious -Jesus was born of a virgin and no human father BUT the Lucan 1:28 verse is a seed that developed to see Mary as prepared from the beginning of her human existence, Immaculate Conception.  to be ready to conceive and be mother of God’s son and therefore mother of the God-Man, the THEOTOKOS MOTHER OF GOD at the 431 AD Ephesus Council. From that the Church relies on its tradition, lower case c, and homilists and celebrations and names of churches and reason to arrive at the Assumption and crowning in Heaven. We are accused of making up dogma but we do not come close -unless the illogical butt in with irrational comments.

Brave Lee, very well said.

Lee—glad you wrote “NT scripture is not dispositive on the matter of Mary”. It is true that the sinless-ness cannot be gained from Scripture. I have repeatedly pointed that out. What this means is that the apostles did not teach this and therefore is not apostolic. That means its a doctrine of men. Now as for Tradition you have to ask where did this first appear and by whom?

HermitTalker- I already pointed out that Luke 1:28 has nothing to do with being without sin or the immaculate conception. To say that it does is to abuse the Scripture.

APOSTOLIC TRADITION is not necessarily what the 11 and Paul taught but it comes from the Bible they wrote and doctrines contained but not yet teased out.
Your arrogance/ ignorance Proto1 is unworthy of you. 2100 years and Greek grammar and the Holy Spirit guiding the Church trump you. Last comment on this point frpom me here.

To me the Immaculate Conception fits in very well with the ways of mystical contemplative prayer.  Purgation of the mystic/contemplative is part of the process where they are cleansed, and conformed to the will of God.  The highest state of mystical union with God is called the Seventh Mansions, or the Spiritual Marriage, by St. Teresa of Avila in the “Interior Castle.”  Contemplatives in the Seventh Mansions are at a very high level of spiritual purity.  Even with the full aid of all the spiritual resources of the Church, I am not aware of any contemplative operating at the level that Mary did during the Incarnation.
Mary is called Spouse of the Holy Spirit.  If contemplatives have to be at a very high level of spiritual purity in order to enter into the Seventh Mansions, how could any lesser level of purity be expected of Mary as Spouse of the Holy Spirit? During the Incarnation Mary was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit. In the hierarchy of purely human mystical union, this overshadowing during the Incarnation has to be the highest state of mystical union possible for someone of purely human estate.

Yay Lee - well said!

Lee: You wrote that the Church precedes NT scripture. This is not true. 2Timothy 3:16 instructs us that “All scripture is given by inspiration of God…” . NT scripture comes from God, who most definitely precedes the Church. NT scripture is not a product of the Church, it is merely the vessel by which God revealed His word. With regard to Mary, Scripture tells us that “all have sinned” except Jesus. Thus we are commanded to believe that all have sinned except Jesus. Period. You may think it more ‘poetic’ that Mary was sinless, but you are commanded to believe what Scripture says, not what you want it say. Scripture is not man talking to us. It is God talking to us.

Well spoken GregB. Mary PONDERED ALL THESE THINGS IN HER HEART as Luke says so one presumes she was a woman of deep contemplative prayer that prepared her for the Angel’s invitation.
ERIC; Paul was not speaking of the NT but the OT.The NT had not been written yet, one of his letters was the earliest and it was not seen by him at that time as Scripture. JOhn’s Gospel was not finalised until 100 or later and Paul was beheaded under Nero in the 60s AD. The teaching of Jesus came first, then its use for preaching and worship finally written down and then eventually a Council decided which of the 27 books belonged in the NT. St Augustine said ” I believe in the Scriptures because of the ChurcH, I do not believe in the Church because of the Scriptures.”
THERE is too much protestantism on here, presumning that the Bible has it all spelled out. As I insisted with Luke 1;28 the grammar and the use of that verse with the meditaton and study and discussion and prayer were part of a package that gradually saw Mary as immaculately conceived in her parents’ womb then at the end assumed into heaven. It is all due to and thanks to the GRACE, the favour of Jesus. LEE I repeat that we must absolitely root every dogma in the Bible, even as I said if only in embryonic form as this one and Peter’s role and the Bishop of Rome as heirs to his being Rock.

HermitTalker: Look at John 18:14 - “Now Caiaphas was he, which gave counsel to the Jews, that it was expedient that one man should die for the people.” When Caiaphas talked about “the people”, he thought he was talking about the Jews, but God meant the entire human race. Likewise, Paul thought he was talking about the OT, but the Holy Spirit-which inspired him to write, and in whom all Scripture has been since before the foundation of the world-meant both the Old and New Testaments.
More generally, the issue is not whether the Bible “has it all spelled out”. The issue is this: any doctrine which contradicts the Bible is wrong, no matter how wise may seem. “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” (1Cor 3:19)

ERIC;The High Priest’s line came precisely because he was HP and gave a prophecy which he did not really understand himself, he had a different outcome in mind. Paul was writing Scripture but was not aware he was so no contradiction. The bulk of the Bible was not written when he wrote that so he coudl noy have been talking about the future.
I know of no Catholic dogma (belief) or moral (conduct) that is proposed as fully authoritative that contradicts Bible principles or doctriines.
RUs ABOVE: Infallibility is a gift from GOD’S HOLY SPIRIT who guides the Church into deciding between grain and weeds. Peter and Paul clashed over the Jewish Law, not a disagreement on Dogma,  which was settled in COUNCIL with Peter speaking as leader Acts 14 and the whole group of leaders decided for the HS and US the Church. Human wesk and sinful people wrote the BIBLE, and David and his son Solomon were great leaders and also sinners as was Peter at Jesus’ trial God got hold of them and HE moved the Jews and Church along. infallibility covers DOCTRINE and MORAL PRINCILPES not something that keeps the Pope from a human error or a Council’s members from being free of fault or failing in their personal/private lives.  We all live on Earth so until HE RETURNS Jesus guides us into all TRUTH eventually as HIS BODY

HermitTalker—where did Jesus give the church this gift of infallibility?  What do you do with the errors your church has committed?

Jesus is the way, TRUTH and life. God the Father is Truth and Love. Jesus gave us the guarantee of the Holy Spirit and gave authority to Peter as Rock, his new name, was Simon and the 12 full authority. The Bible is infallible in its religious teaching which evolves, we no longer kill virgins who did not cry out for help when being raped as in the OT but guided by the HS we are guided into all truth. The sins and faults of the members of the Church have nothing to do with INFALLIBILITY,that is a specific teaching on Faith and morality. It does not say the Catholic Church claims sinlessness for all. St Paul, who wrote infallibly as a Bible author was angry and told the Galatian troublemakers who pushed for circumcision for converts “I wish the knife slipped and you castrated yourselves.” That is my kind of saint, loses it and gets into the Bible. Read Galations for yourself!

We already know that the Roman Catholic church has erred in matters of faith and morals in regards to the inquisitions that went on for centuries. The inquisitions were based on a theology (matters of faith) that was approved by the popes and the Magesterium of the church.

Proto1,  how rediculous, the inquisition has nothing to do with dogma or faith.  Also, you need to read the true history of the Inquisition, not the inaccurate Protestant versions.

Proto1: The InXuisition - cue” missing was not about DEFINING a matter of faith and morals for the whole Church. The Magisterium was not involved with it. Why waste your energy on that irrelevant issue and go after Moslems who are jailing and murdering Christians and each others’ divided entities.Then focus on Mr Obama and his cabibet who are depriving Catholics and other Christians of their own
and their hospitals’freedom of conscience and get his goons off their butts. Then ask why your government is killing so many, displacing 900000 five zeros of Afghanistan citizens and spends 2 billion a week- in ten years enough to build schools and hospitals worldwide AND disturbing the whole Islamic world with two years to go and Gen. McCrystal saying you are half-way there. In ten years and two to go. Do the math and lay off the Pope. JP11 sent a cardinal over who knew the Bush family as Delegate in DC and was rebuffed.

Thanks Bernie I am retired in my   late parents’ retirement home a mile rom the N Ireland where I have dead cousin buried thanks to N Ireland’s Protestant “glorious Reformation ” Christians, famly members’ businesses burned, UK soldiers stealing from them, my late father’s car stolen and found in a river two hours away. Pick a fresh target here Proto1 when you finish with US bigotry against native citizens, Catholics and Jews. Then work on your Arab-born Barry Obama, later Barach, supposed Christian who attended a bigoted minister’s Chicago church until he was finally outed in 2008 and has a moral compass on social issues that seems to have a magnetic stuck to its butt.

http://gkupsidedown.blogspot.com/2011/10/why-i-pray-to-mary.html
Here is some good reading Mr. Proto1

HermitTalker—how can you say that the inquisitions were not about faith and morals when it was about defending the Catholic faith against heresy? How can you say your Magisterium was not involved with it when the inquisitions had the full support of the popes for centuries?

It was not about DEFINING, as in deciding of a specific dogma - to be believed- or moral teaching - what we know from God is absolutely to be practiced.  I thoought that was clear above.

I think Proto1 is fighting the fact that he is being called into Christ’s one true Church.  We can all pray for him.

The only thing we know with certainty can only be found in Scripture. Correct?
If not, then its up to show that your Traditions outside of Scripture are also from God. Merely asserting them so is not proof.

The same Church with its sinful and holy members who decided what books belong to the Bible also know that IT does not say every teaching is spelled out like a mathematical formula.

If every teaching is not spelled out like a “mathematical formula” from Scripture then how do you know if your teachers are teaching the truth? To claim that your church is guided by the HS is not enough to tell someone they have the truth or not. Even the cults can claim the guidance of the HS in their teachings.

Pentecost is the birthday of Christ’s church, this is when the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles.  Christ chose them to grow the church He founded and spread His message to the ends of the earth.  It didn’t end with the deaths of the Apostles, they passed it on to their sucessors up until the present day bishops and priests of the Catholic Church.  The tens of thousands of sects and cults founded some 1500 plus years later do not have this sucession or the full truth.  Look at the entertaining mega churches.  The center of attraction is the preacher standing in the middle of the stage giving his feel good sermon.  The center of attraction of the Mass in a Catholic church is Jesus Christ and the sacred alter just the same as it was nearly 2000 years ago.  There is no way Christ would found His church and let it flounder all by itself.

I did not say or intend to say that alll dogmas are spelled out like a mathematical formula, rather the opposite PROTO1. I like BERNIE’s post. Use this loogic: The protestant dissenter crowd claimsit is all in Scripture which most claim is sola scriptura. Scr does not claim that, and IF IT IS THEIR ONLY INFALLIBLE SOURCE how come they fall all over the place denying Jesus is God and Man, the HS is not God and the Last Supper and Peter as EOCK human foundation of the Church with the apostles. So much for God’s stability and Jesus’ promises as emmanuel with us to the end,

We should expect problems in Protestant churches for the fact that no one is infallible and inerrant in themselves. This goes perfectly well with what we see in the NT church.
The problem within Roman Catholicism is that it makes the claim that it alone is guided by the HS and cannot err in matters of faith and morals. When we compare its doctrines and its practices over the centuries, this claim that your church cannot err in matters of faith and morals we do not find this to be true. I have already given a number of examples.

PS- anyone who denies that Jesus is fully God and man is not a Christian.

The Catholic Church does not claim that the HS dwells only in it and that He does not operate anywhere else. Jesus compares the HS to a wind that blows where it wishes.
I repeat that the sins of some medieval Popes and the way some Crusaders acted and Spanish soldiers did in the New World were sins- JP11 apologised for those in the Millennium period.
I repeat thaT defining a MORAL TEACHING   - we have none defined as such but several accepted as final teachings, and defining DOGMA have to be formally stated as such. The Crusades were undertaken for a noble cause and some rules of those wars are still with us in international law as also there were violations in some cases of rogue soldiers. The Popes within the cultural limitations of their times did try to regulate the wars and colonies as they later curtailed slavery in the New World also. We would all like to think that they were 21st century aware of Human Rights but given what they knew at the time they did well.
I repeat that their infallible guidance by the Holy Spirit is as necessary today as it was to write the Scriptures and dump the books that did not belong which “Dan”  Vinci Brown in his books and Ron Howard in the movies touted in their works.  Sinning does not deny that the teaching is not valid. Lying in Courts, in Government and political propaganda and abuse of women’s dignity as “things” in pornography does not change the fact they are wrong, sadly today’s cultural gurus are making it all “choice” or “freedom of speech.” 
You may not be aware of some Protesant theology and how many of their pastors were trained to know how much denial of basic theology such as whether Jesus was just a nice man or God-Man is part of it. I already showed how they cannot even see the meaning of This is My Body/Blood is seen as play-acting and not what He says.  Same with you and Mary in the Lucan narrative and her role throughout the Bible and in Catholic hisotry and writings y saints and The Fathers and Councils.I repeat my euest you go after real SINS in today’s society, denying that moral evil is “choice” and leave us alone except tp cooperate where we can to defend civilisation. THIS IS MY LAST POST ON THIS TOPIC. I have books to write and a life to live outside my laptop! PEACE.

Proto1, that PS in your last post does not pertain to the Catholic church I am sure, as the Catholic church does not deny this.  It is obviously very difficult for you to understand our posts, so this will be my last one.  You need to open your heart and mind and do some reading about the early church and its fathers.  You will be in my prayers.

That Jesus s GOD-MAN was from me, see my reply to the whole postt just above yours Bernie to show that even something as basic as Who JESUS IS has been denied by Protestant scholars and preachers so they need a HS guided Teaching Authority.  Did you ever hear Joel preach that JESUS is GOD-MAN and Saviour or just feel-good positive thinking?

HermitTalker—I was talking with the head pastor of a Roman Catholic church in my area and he said that Jesus did not die for sin and we must “read between the lines” in the gospels to understand them. He also went on to tell me he did not believe the papacy was legit. I can easily find many examples of leaders in the Roman Catholic church that disagree with Rome. Just take the ordination of women to the priesthood or various Catholic scholars who are in opposition to Rome. We can also look at the various beliefs that Catholics have that are not in sync with Catholic teachings such as going to confession, birth control and abortion. The fact is the Roman Catholic church is no more unified than various protestant churches.

Your argument has been answered already above. SIN of teaching OR moral conduct is with us forever. Pray for more light, less heat and allow Jesus to sort out the wheat from the weeds and the good fish from the poison ones in the net- two of His parables. HE is in charge. Some awful sinners ecame saintS: Saul becamed Paul, Augustine became a Catholic and bishop later and a top brilliant saintly scholar.  Ignatius and Francis were soldiers and got converted and saints later and started religious communities.  Pro-abortionists today are becoming Catholic and prolife. MYOB care for your soul - including mine suffering in a wheel-chair since May- and pray for others and lay off the judging kick? Fair?

Proto1,  I doubt that he was a Roman Catholic pastor,  most likey Old Catholic or National Catholic, they break away because they don’t like the truth.  Any Roman Catholic priest with those views should be canned.

You’re talking about the cafeteria Catholics, the pick and choose ones.  We cannot judge them, only God can do that.

Bernie—he is a Jesuit priest.

Hermit talker.  Almighty God can certainly dictate an autobiography of the Holy Family.

I would say he has a problem and should not be in the position he is in.  We all have free will, with my will, I choose to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and his Church. Apparantly this Jesuit makes up his own rules. Jesus Christ is the Church.  He said to Saul, who was on his way to Damascus to persecute the church. “Saul, why do you persecute ME.

“From a Catholic angle in order for Jesus to be sinless, Mary would have to be sinless as well.”
_ _ _
## That doesn’t follow. Theologically considered, the Immaculate Conception is not strictly required by the logic of the Divine Maternity of the BVM; it is a grace bestowed on Mary in consideration of her future office as the Mother of God, & not something due to her. It is *fitting* that she should be conceived immaculate; but not strictly *necessary* that she should be. To say otherwise is to deny that the IC was a grace, that is, something freely given by God for no reason but the Divine good pleasure; if God was constrained by necessity to be gracious to a creature (that is, to a being with no claim whatever on God’s goodness), then grace is grace no more, and the IC ceases to be a grace. God granted the privilege of the IC to the then-as-yet-uncreated BVM because He “wanted to” - not because he was under any need or duty or compulsion to give it. He is not under any kind of constraint whatsoever.
*
Had it been God’s Will, Mary could have needed to be purified from original sin, and from actual sin; the basis of her exemption from the common lot of man was that it was *fitting* that the mother of the Holy One should be untouched by sin - not (again) because she is anything apart from her Son (no creature is anything apart from Him), but for His honour. All her graces and privileges have no other origin or goal but Him alone; they are far more truly his than hers. There is not even a hypothetical necessity of any kind - let alone a real one - that God “had to” predestine the BVM to be free from original sin, or actual sin: there would have been a certain “fittingness”, had the Saviour begun the conquest of sin by being born of a woman who had been a sinner.

“From a Catholic angle in order for Jesus to be sinless, Mary would have to be sinless as well.”
## That doesn’t follow. Theologically considered, the Immaculate Conception is not strictly required by the logic of the Divine Maternity of the BVM; it is a grace bestowed on Mary in consideration of her future office as the Mother of God, & not something *due to* her. It is *fitting* that she should be conceived immaculate; but not strictly *necessary* that she should be. To say otherwise is to deny that the IC was a grace, that is, something freely given by God for no reason but the Divine good pleasure; if God was constrained by necessity to be gracious to a creature (that is, to a being with no claim whatever on God’s goodness), then grace is grace no more, and the IC ceases to be a grace. God granted the privilege of the IC to the then-as-yet-uncreated BVM because He “wanted to” - not because he was under any need or duty or compulsion to give it. He is not under any kind of constraint whatsoever.
Had it been God’s Will, Mary could have needed to be purified from original sin, and from actual sin; the basis of her exemption from the common lot of man was that it was *fitting* that the mother of the Holy One should be untouched by sin - not (again) because she is anything apart from her Son (no creature is anything apart from Him), but for His honour. All her graces and privileges have no other origin or goal but Him alone; they are far more truly his than hers. There is not even a hypothetical necessity of any kind - let alone a real one - that God “had to” predestine the BVM to be free from original sin, or actual sin: there would have been a certain “fittingness”, had the Saviour begun the conquest of sin by being born of a woman who had been a sinner.

“From a Catholic angle in order for Jesus to be sinless, Mary would have to be sinless as well.”
_ _ _
## That doesn’t follow. Theologically considered, the Immaculate Conception is not strictly required by the logic of the Divine Maternity of the BVM; it is a grace bestowed on Mary in consideration of her future office as the Mother of God, & not something *due to* her. It is *fitting* that she should be conceived immaculate; but not strictly *necessary* that she should be. To say otherwise is to deny that the IC was a grace, that is, something freely given by God for no reason but the Divine good pleasure; if God was constrained by necessity to be gracious to a creature (that is, to a being with no claim whatever on God’s goodness), then grace is grace no more, and the IC ceases to be a grace. God granted the privilege of the IC to the then-as-yet-uncreated BVM because He “wanted to” - not because he was under any need or duty or compulsion to give it. He is not under any kind of constraint whatsoever…..

....Had it been God’s Will, Mary could have needed to be purified from original sin, and from actual sin; the basis of her exemption from the common lot of man was that it was *fitting* that the mother of the Holy One should be untouched by sin - not (again) because she is anything apart from her Son (no creature is anything apart from Him), but for His honour. All her graces and privileges have no other origin or goal but Him alone; they are far more truly his than hers. There is not even a hypothetical necessity of any kind - let alone a real one - that God “had to” predestine the BVM to be free from original sin, or actual sin: there would have been a certain “fittingness”, had the Saviour begun the conquest of sin by being born of a woman who had been a sinner.

I still think Lee hit straight on the head! :)

The Catholic Church has never been Sola Scriptura. In the New Testament itself we can see two examples of oral teaching.  One is in Lk 24.25-27 where Christ interpreted the Scriptures for the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.  The second one is in Acts 8.26-40 where Philip had an encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch where Philip interpreted Isaiah.
It is my understanding that Judaism, from out of which the Catholic Church arose, has a rabbinic teaching tradition where a student learns from a teacher (rabbi).  St. Paul was a student of Gamaliel Acts 22.16, the same Gamaliel who played a part in Acts 5.34-39.

First of all GRACE by definition means that it is freely given by God. It was the Holy Trinity’s plan to “make flesh” of their Love, and the Grace to free us from sin so THE WORD became Flesh in the womb of Mary. Having made that decision Mary was made full of Grace in anticipation of the outpouring from Jesus’ death and rising and sending of the Holy Spirit. Therefore making her ready for the Incarnation of Jesus in her womb was included in their FREE CHOICE. As a poster above said her role is the Catholic Church, despite Moslem and Protestant ignorance is absolutely for, in and with her role to nsay YES to Jesus’ coming into her womb.
NOW AS TO GOD DICTATING A BIOGRAPHY OF THE HOLY FAMILY. GOD is not a Mormon or an Islamist, dictating crud supposedly as His own. Human beings re inspiired by Him to write the Bible in their language guided by His Truth-giving Holy Spirit. he decided to hide the NAZARETH life of Jesus from 12 until 30 when he reched the age for rabbis to teach His Good News. Sorry we ave to wait for heavren to see home movies of the Boy Jesus and hear what Joseph said when he hit his thumb - perhaps,” Jesus, go ask your mother for some wine for this cut or take water and make the wine yourself!!!”

Good post Greg. New approach for me, same as Stephen in his trial - explained the Bible to their own official Gatekeepers at his trial.
ON Lee’s excellent post, I showed that Tradition offers nothing that is not in the Bible text; Tradition does not have a “revelation” as in the Salt Lake City Mormom head man. The doctrine is in the New Testament, asI wrote at least in embryonic form, as in the immaculate conception olf Mary in her Mamma’s womb; some is very clear, JESUS was born of a Virgin by the power of the Holy Spirit. Except for the nutters who say it was Joseph or a soldier passing through and other silly crud.

GregB—what does Sola Scriptura mean? Can you define it by those who believe and practice it?

“Sola Scriptura ” is LATIN for Scripture Alone (Scriptura is Latin for written. The phrase is not in the New Testament but became the rallying cry of the Lutheran revolt. IT officially means they reject philosophy and theology but he and others relied heavily on St Augustine (died 432) a philosopher and theologian, and they reject lithe early Councils officially but accept some of their creeds and teachings. The Pope is a non-starter for them officially. They are thus all over the parking lot with interpretations and fights with each other and demonstrate that God was smart enough to not write Books, Biblia in Greek, and not provide some guidance to its meaning. IF US Supreme Courts with nine members can rarely agree 9-0 in its decisions, about the application of the short US Constitution that is only 224 years old since the Bill of Rights and written in English you an see the point

I still don’t understand what you mean by Sola Scriptura. Can you articulate it in your own words?

BIBLE ONLY.

TO HELL WITH THE POPE OR PHILOSOPHY OR THEOLOGY OR TRADITION OR COUNCILS. CLEAR NOW?  TRY TO READ THEIR ILLOGICAL SPIN -THEY BROKE THEIR OWN RULES, RELIED ON AUGUSTINE’S INTERPRETATIONS, ESPECIALLY OF PAUL, FOUGHT AMONG THEMSELVES ABOUT WHAT THE BIBLE SAID. DUH.

If this is your understand of Sola Scriptura then now wonder you hate it. The problem is that this is no Sola Scriptura.

proto1 explain it your way or take an enema please.

LOL HermitTalker.

“Sola scriptura teaches that the Scriptures are the sole infallible rule of faith for the Church.  The doctrine does not say that there are not other, fallible, rules of faith, or even traditions, that we can refer to and even embrace.  It does say, however, that the only infallible rule of faith is Scripture.  This means that all other rules, whether we call them traditions, confessions of faith, creeds, or anything else, are by nature inferior to and subject to correction by, the Scriptures.  The Bible is an ultimate authority, allowing no equal, nor superior, in tradition or church.  It is so because it is theopneustos, God-breathed, and hence embodies the very speaking of God, and must, of necessity therefore be of the highest authority.” White
This is a good summation of what Sola Scriptura means and implies.

So, who has the authority to enterpret the Bible and where did they get it from?

We all do. Christians are responsible to know what it teaches. Look at whom the letters of the NT are addressed to. Its not to church leaders.

Timothy and Titus were bishops.  Paul’s letters are instructions to them.  It was not possible for “all” to even read scripture for most of the Church’s history because most Christians were illiterate.  That’s why Paul commands the Colossians, “And when this letter has been read among you, have it read also in the church of the La-odiceans; and see that you read also the letter from La-odicea.”  The letters were “read among” the Colossians and the other Churches in the liturgical assembly, precisely because most of the assembly couldn’t read. And there was no complete Bible for nearly four centuries. Indeed, the doctrine of the Trinity was formulated by a Church that had still not ironed out its canon of Scripture. Sola scriptura is a Protestant creation myth made possible by the invention of the printing press.

Well, no wonder we have 25,000 Protestant sects.  All teaching errors.  One example, the Eucharist, another confession, I could go on and on.  The letters are addressed to the churches and their various bishops.

Mark-Knowing the Scriptures was not limited to just reading it. Listening was also another way for them to know it. There are a number of examples of this in the OT. When Paul wrote Colossians 3:16 where it speaks of having the word of Christ to richly dwell in them, how was this to happen? How do Catholics carry this out and how well does it work? Catholics who I know who go to mass etc are not that well grounded in Scripture.
You and the others have not been able to demonstrate that the Scriptures are not the only inspired-inerrant source. No one that I know of claims Roman Catholic Traditions are inspired or inerrant. Do you know of any?

Bernie—where do the Scriptures teach that you are to confess your sins to a priest to be absolved of your sins? Where do the Scriptures teach you are to do penance for your sins?

Mark—where in the NT is Timothy and Titus called bishops? Chapter and verse please.

Proto1 wrote:
We all do. Christians are responsible to know what it teaches. Look at whom the letters of the NT are addressed to. Its not to church leaders.
****************************************************************
If you will look at the actual contents of the letters, many of them contained a fair amount of instruction and disciplinary correction, including putting down factions in the early Church.  It became necessary to hold the Council of Jerusalem to settle some of these disagreements.  The Apostles certainly acted like they had rule making authority.
As regards Sola Scriptura, I’ve taken enough Catholic Bible study classes at my parish to be aware that you can’t have a real understanding of the Bible without also understanding the cultures from out of which the books of the Bible came.  Another thing to consider is that the Bible can have multiple sense meanings.  The Bible is so rich in meaning that some passages contain multiple meanings, that require education, and discernment to unlock. The literal words on the pages are in many cases just the beginning of Biblical exegesis.

GregB—true. The Bible is rich and it should be a mandate for all Christians to understand it. Sadly so many do not if you read the studies on how many do in fact read it. Its pitiable.
The Bible in it various teachings has only one meaning though it can have countless applications for individuals.

You are Peter, which means Rock.  Upon this Rock I will build my church and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.  I will give to you the keys to the kingdom of Heaven.  Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven, whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.  Our validly ordained priests have the authority to forgive sins in Christs name because Christ gave it to them.  Being God, Christ knew he needed and established a teaching authority.  For 1500 plus years, most people could not read.  Thank God He had his Holy Catholic Church to teach and guide them.  The Catholic church founded great universities had great scholars and preserved art, the Bible, etc.  We need a teaching authority to interpret the bible.  Without one you can see where it has led many.

PROTO1, HERMITTALKER, and ERIC:

Regarding your 06 and 07 OCT comments about scripture and Tradition, I answer hesitantly because I don’t want to convert this thread into sola scripture versus Tradition/Church authority. The excerpt below from the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains the source of Tradition, that NT scripture came into being after Christ gave the deposit of faith to the apostles (as opposed to scripture referenced in the NT meaning existing OT scripture), that scripture is a product of Tradition (i.e. the NT as we know it proceeds from the Church and by authority of the Church, officially about 400 years later), and that Tradition and scripture are complementary (i.e. as opposed to Tradition being an iPOD add-on to scripture). Proto1’s comment that something missing from scripture means the apostles did not teach it does not hold because nowhere does NT scripture claim to be all-inclusive, nor did the Church authority creating the NT canon make that claim. I still stand by my bottom line from the previous post regarding how all this applies to the Marian discussion at hand.

80 “Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing and move towards the same goal.”(40) Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own “always, to the close of the age.”(41)

81 “Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit.”(42) “And [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound, and spread it abroad by their preaching.”(43)

82 As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, “does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.”(44)

83 The Tradition here in question comes from the apostles and hands on what they received from Jesus’ teaching and example and what they learned from the Holy Spirit. The first generation of Christians did not yet have a written New Testament, and the New Testament itself demonstrates the process of living Tradition.

84 The apostles entrusted the “Sacred deposit” of the faith (the depositum fidei),(45) contained in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, to the whole of the Church.

This has become an excellent topic. I would re-iterate: we must be most careful to avoid Gnosticism, groups at the beginning and today who claim a superior knowledge about th Bible or Revelation. Our TRADITION flows from the Revelation of God in Christ and the inspired wrtiings. There is no document, passed on or data that says Mary was immaculately conceived, assumed into heaven. Neither is there the same that Peter would be the infallible Bishop of Rome. The biblical data about Mary, the whole Angel Gabriel narrative, the meeting with Elizabeth, Cana,  the Cross and John and Revelation where the Ark of the Covenant is in heaven- Mary whose Boy Child was pursued by Satan. All that was taught within the Church, prayed over, preached by the Fathers, that is, saintly bishop-teachers and devotions and churches were named in honour of her different roles and titles.  Same for Peter, Rock, given the Keys see David in OT,  listed first, restored as Shepherd in John 21 after Easter by Jesus, spokesman for the Jerusalem community. Then he goes as bishop of Antioch, not in the Bible and onto Rome where he is crucified upside down, not in the Bible, a church was built over his remains by Constantine after his conversion, and his body was finally found to be the same under today’s St Peter’s in the 1970s (?) and so declared by Paul V1 after excavations and scientific exams. One can take a tour of the “scavi” I was there, right under the Pope’s high altar. There is the basic biblical data and human reason and story. NO iPod as Lee cited from me, as source of data that is somehow secret stuff the apostles left out of the NT. Tradition means handed on/passed on- Paul uses that in 1Cor for Eucharist but says he got it from Jesus - the divine revelation to him by Jesus as was practiced in the church of his day. SHALOM/PEACE.

Bernie—the Catholic church has done some very good things such as establishing universities (although today it seems many do adhere to Catholic teachings)  charities and its stand against abortion. My issue though is with the claim that the Catholic church alone is the only authority that can interpret Scripture correctly. That needs to be supported with facts and not mere assertions. I’m perplexed when I hear this but never seen any such work done by the Catholic church that tells a Catholic specifically what a passage means. Do you know of any such work that has officially interpreted the Scriptures that would tell a Catholic what a particular passage-verse means?

Have you read the writings of the early church fathers?  Also the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  An excellent book is the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible New Testament.

No. I know that the fathers quoted the Scriptures extensively. Have you read the fathers?
I have parts of the catechism. The catechism is not an exegesis of Scripture as much as what the various doctrines of the Catholic church are. Have you read and studied it?

Lee- can you name one teaching or saying of an apostle that is not recorded in the Scripture?

Yes, I have read some books on the early fathers, such as Ignatius of Antioch, Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons & Polycarp.  Amazon.com has some great books, one is “Four Witnesses” by Rod Bennett.  Scott Hahn, a former Presbyterian minister, now a Catholic theologian, has written many authoritative books on the subject.

Proto1 There are several Bible verses that are a direct reference to sacraments - Eucharrist, John 6 and Last Supper in MTM MK LUKE and First Cor, the sacrament of the sick James, confession-forgiveness John 20, Peter’s role MT 16 and the apostles together MT 18 and John 21. Mary as vurgin mother and Jesus as Son of God Luke, marriage as covenant Eph 5 baptism MT 27. We do not go to choose one stone aka Bible verse, from the Bible as huge pile of rocks to “prove” something, but see all in context, perspective and guided by the HS. We dealt with issues as they arose, the Trinity, Jesus as God Man and Mary as mother of God. Some were taken foir granted, the 27 NT books, some ejected,  the seven sacraments until later, Trent defined those after the Reformers. The Fathers were not all totally accurate on all points,  personally inspired and infallible, but the consensus was decided by the HS in Council where they spoke and argued their case, finslly okayed by the Bishop of Rome.

HermitTalker- how can John 6 be about the Eucharist i.e.  the Lord’ supper when it is never mentioned in any supper accounts of the gospels? In John 6 Jesus mentions that by eating His flesh and drinking His blood a person will gain eternal life. In the supper accounts there is no mention of eternal by eating the bread and drinking the wine.
There is no such office as a priest that functions in an official capacity in the NT. John 20 is not about confessing one’s sins to a priest. Rather it is about the gospel whereby a person is forgiven their sins by believing in Christ Who died for those sins. Those who reject the message of the gospel are not forgiven. We see this being worked out in Acts where the message of the gospel is preached and forgiveness is granted to those who believe in it. See Acts 2:38.

Proto1 wrote:

There is no such office as a priest that functions in an official capacity in the NT. 
***************************************************************
The word you are looking for is presbyter, also know as elder.

GregB—did the elders in the NT hear confessions, absolve sins and celebrate mass? Were they celibate?

The world knows that presbyter is used in James re anointing/ sac of the sick and that episcopus, epi-scopus,  overseer, translated as bishop - English for the Greek and deacon were used by Paul. The Church as usual reflected on the role of the presbyter and eventually made the connection between the Temple priests who offered sacrifice, to Jesus who was the victim, the sacrifice and its offer-er in His sacrificial death. Thus they used the word priest for the celebrant of Jesus’ sacrifice.  The tendency today is to use the word presbyter which more easily covers the teaching and authority role of the person, not just “offering Mass.” There is no NT record of the apostles hearing confessions, James says the sacrament of the sick forgives sins and to this day only a presbyter may anoint. Paul writes about ex-communicating a person who sinned greviously with the view to reconciling her/him which goes back to John 20,  forgive sin, bind and loose and Peter’s keys, in Mt 16 and 18,  the authority of King David. Later the forgiveness of sins and whether in Mt, to forgive more than once after baptism and the repetition won out.
JOHN 6 gives the words of Eucharist in the later verses, eat and drink. John wrote hisGospel last so uses the Foot Washing by Jesus to show that Eucharist is service, foot-washing, he already showed in John 6 that people rejected the idea of sacramentally consuming the body and blood of Jesus- very obviously He was not saying do a little play and “pretend.” THIS IS M Y BODY and BLOOD and since that is not mentioned in the Last Supper accounts it means nothing.

Proto1, one cannot fully answer all of your questions here in this blog.  If you really want answers, read the book “Crossing The Tiber” by Stephen K. Ray, a former evangelical Protestant and anti-Catholic, who studied and investegated the truths of the Catholic church.  He found that he had no choice but to accept them.

Bernie—I’m not asking for full answers just some articulation by you and the others that shows you know what you believe and can answer the counter arguments against it. That has not been done here.
I’m familiar with a lot of these ex-Protestants going over to Rome and one thing that is common is that they have not investigated all that Rome believes and compared it with Scripture. If they had they would not have converted. How could they when so much of what Roman Catholicism teaches does not line up with Scripture?

Proto1 IF I stubbornly believed that SOLA SCRIPTURA is what the Bible actually says, and blindly also refused to see as you insist, the Church’s Pilgrim Journey as it learned, grew and developed, I would be as stubborn as you write and persist in not opening my mind and soul to the other point of view.
IF you would, please READ our replies to you and other posts that bear on your concerns, and do some silent reflection. Mind and soul are engaged in the spiritual walk. Your mind is not really listening as I read your persistent rebuttals and repeated rejections of common sense and biblical Truth. PEACE Francis

Proto1,  you are so wrong.  Your mind is closed to all of our posts.  HermitTalker, your last post is so accurate, thank you.  Sola Scriptura is nowhere to be found in the Bible.  Where did Christ tell his followers to write everything down for future generations?  Tradition and word of mouth was the norm in the first couple of centuries.  Proto1, take some time and read what the early fathers said and practiced, you may learn something.  As I said in my previous post, those converts to Catholicism who wrote about it, did extensive research, some like Scott Hahn are theologians.  It all boils down to one thing, Christ founded one church and we all know which one it is.  The others were all manmade and in error.

We have answered, and answered very well.  There is nothing in Roman Catholicism that contradicts scripture.  There certainly is in Protestantism.

Bernie- did you understand what I wrote about Sola Scriptura? I asked you and the others a number of times to show me that the Roman Catholic Traditions are inspired-inerrant and you have not done so. Perhaps you believe so but your church does not teach that they are. Agreed?

PS- Jesus did not found the Roman Catholic church. The Roman Catholic church is not the church we see in structure, doctrine and practice in the NT. Just do a comparison with the Marian dogmas and Scripture. You won’t see the Lord Jesus nor His apostles teaching these dogmas.

Well, you are quite wrong, The Roman Catholic is the church founded by Jesus and Catholic dogmas have been developed and explained from the teachings and traditions of the early fathers.  The Holy Spirit guides and always will guide Christ’s true church.  Again, read the writings of the early church fathers who are the successors of the Apostles. You seem to ignore many of the facts we have given you.  Get the book I recommended to you and read it.  I am tired of this.  Have a good day.

“Stupidity is also a gift of God, but one mustn’t misuse it.” - Pope John Paul II
Source please, anyone? (I hate that all the quote websites never provide references.)

@Proto1: I have to agree that you do seem to be stubbornly wrong.     
Another quote: “Stupidity is the deliberate cultivation of ignorance” -William Gaddis
In any case, you wrote: “The Roman Catholic church is not the church we see in structure, doctrine and practice in the NT.”—Well, yes and know. No church is exactly “the church we see in structure, doctrine and practice in the NT.” But a baby is the same person, even when that baby becomes an adult. Since you seem not to grasp this intuitively obvious fact (which, I realize, Jesus, in the NT, only explained using parables, which of course you may not have correctly understood), perhaps you should read John Henry Newman’s “An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine.” It can be found online, last time I checked. (Or, for goodness’ sake, take Shea up on his kind offer.)

The JP11 line above makes no sense- what is true is that GOD does take our stupid, as our sins in words and actions AND brings good out of them. I do not recommend trying that pre-emptively!