Once I moved away from the not-as-airtight-as-I-thought passages in Romans and the false notion that Catholics think Mary did not need a Savior, my mind turned to the Gospels, most prominently Mark 3:13–35:
And he went up on the mountain, and called to him those whom he desired; and they came to him. And he appointed twelve, to be with him, and to be sent out to preach and have authority to cast out demons: Simon whom he surnamed Peter; James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, whom he surnamed Bo-anerges, that is, sons of thunder; Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
Then he went home; and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, “He is beside himself.” And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Be-elzebul, and by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.” And he called them to him, and said to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strongman’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man; then indeed he may plunder his house.
“Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”—for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”
And his mother and his brethren came; and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brethren are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brethren?” And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brethren! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.”
Some readers may suppose I made a mistake by including that chunk of Scripture at the beginning about Jesus calling his disciples. But part of Mark’s purpose in arranging these stories together is to get us to understand that Jesus is creating a new covenant family that’s greater than the biological family because it’s rooted in his divine power, not mere biological kinship. (Luke and Matthew make exactly the same point in Luke 11:27–28 and Matthew12:46–50.) So Mark shows Jesus calling his disciples and concludes with Jesus declaring that they are his family.
But it’s easy for a modern reader to perceive a different dynamic in this narrative than the one Mark intends. That’s partly because Jesus couches some of his affirmations in statements that sound to our ears like denials. To see what I mean, note this peculiar exchange:
And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone” (Mark 10:17–18).
This passage, taken in isolation, is a favorite among those who like to argue that Jesus denied he is God. The problem is, the same author who records this saying also records numerous sayings of Jesus that make it extremely clear Jesus did claim to be God. From Jesus’ forgiveness of sins (Mark 2:1–12) to his frank and open application of the divine name “I AM” to himself (Mark 14:61– 62), Mark records Jesus’ claim to deity. So why does Mark also record Jesus’ apparently problematic response to the young man’s question? Precisely because Jesus means for us to recognize that he is called good because he really is Good, and therefore really is God. What appears to be a denial is, when we think about it, actually another claim to deity.
Jesus’ seeming rebuke of Mary has the same character. It’s an apparent denial that turns out to be an affirmation. For neither Jesus nor Mark is saying that biological families are evil and should be repudiated, while only spiritual families are good. Rather, Jesus is saying that biological families are good, that spiritual families are even better and, in a larger context, calling us to unite these two aspects of family altogether. Jesus declares, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.” The only way we can take that as a rebuke of Mary would be to show that she refused to do God’s will. But Luke has already made clear that she eagerly obeyed God. Indeed, Mary’s words are those of the quintessential disciple, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). So she is Jesus’ mother in both the biological and the spiritual sense and he means us to understand this, just as he means us to understand that he really is good, and therefore really is God.
“Not so fast!” says the Evangelical reader, “Aren’t you forgetting that little incident in the middle of the passage: the one where his family thought he was nuts? How is that evidence of Mary’s faith?”
This is perhaps the favorite moment in the Gospels for critics of the Immaculate Conception. However, as I discovered upon a close reading, it’s plagued with difficulties when used for that purpose.
In the first place, this claim of Mary’s “faithlessness” is rather hard to square with the complaints lodged against her by Evangelical readers of the story of the wedding at Cana. If Mary believed in Jesus’ messianic powers so much that she was sinfully pushing him to do theatrical wonders in John 2, then what is the sense in saying she had no faith in him as Messiah in Mark 3? The complaints cannot both be true. Indeed, there is no reason to think either are true. For it is not Mary who says Jesus is beside himself (i.e., crazy or demon possessed). It is “people.” Second, Mark tells us precisely who was spreading this notion among “people.” It was not his family but Jesus’ worst enemies, the Jerusalem scribes. Indeed, Jesus himself makes clear the scribes’ enmity was so bitter that, in charging him with acting by demonic power, they were actually committing the unforgivable sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. They hated Jesus so much that they didn’t mind damning themselves if they could just score a good solid lie against him.
So what’s the reaction of his family? They come to seize him. Why? Because they think he’s nuts? The text doesn’t say that. And that’s the point. They could just as easily have come to rescue Jesus from a feared attack by his enemies as to try to put him in the Home for Messianic Crazies. In fact, something rather similar takes place in Acts 19. Paul, like Jesus, has powerful enemies. A group of Ephesian silversmiths, whose trade in silver idols of the goddess Artemis was endangered by the spread of the faith, leads a crowd of Paul’s bitterest enemies to the theater and they begin shouting “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” Note the interaction between Paul and his friends:
Paul wished to go in among the crowd, but the disciples would not let him; some of the Asiarchs also, who were friends of his, sent to him and begged him not to venture into the theater (Acts 19:30– 31).
In short, Paul’s friends were primarily motivated by a desire to keep their friend from being lynched by his enemies, not by an urge to lock him in the goofy booth. Nobody charges them with lack of faith. Rather, we naturally commend them for faithfully sticking with their friend in a very difficult spot. Yet Mary frequently incurs the charge, not merely of faithlessness, but even of agreeing with his worst enemies that her Son was demon possessed! Once again, I began to realize that this tells us more about Evangelical attitudes to Mary than about anything in the text of Scripture. After all, we have already been told that Mary was the handmaid of the Lord. We have seen the scriptural testimony to her as a living sign of God’s perpetual fruitfulness in Jesus Christ, a woman whom all generations would call blessed, a woman who loved Jesus deeply and totally with the love of an adorer for her God and the love of a mother for her Son.
Yet, at the first opportunity to do so, we Evangelicals applied an astonishing double standard to her and concluded that, while the friends of St. Paul obviously had his best interests at heart, Jesus’ own mother “simply must” have thought he was a demonically possessed nutcase. And we said all this despite the fact that virtually the only thing sustaining this view of Mary is John’s remark that “even his brethren did not believe in him” ( John 7:5). But John never tells us, “Even his mother did not believe in him.” On the contrary, neither John nor Mark gives us anything to go on about Mary besides the fact that she was there and that Jesus told us a good disciple was basically like his mother.
Beyond that, we are left with only increasingly weak attempts to argue for Mary’s sinfulness from increasing frail evidence. Of which more next time.
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Cool Scriptural stuff. Question: how did the Fathers, medieval theologians, and the promulgators of the dogma argue, when they did so, for the immaculate conception of Mary? Were their arguments mostly scriptural, or based upon theological conclusions and/or suppositions, or holy tradition?
It’s true that you can assume the Immaculate Conception from certain readings of the gospel, but the fact is, it is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible and for that reason it shouldn’t be made into dogma. It makes more sense that Mary was chosen because she herself, without any divine aid, was a very good and pure woman. We can’t just assume that she was born without original sin or that she hadn’t sin because there’s nothing in the text that says or alludes to that. Another problem I have with the Immaculate conception is that it makes Mary something of a robot. She didn’t sin because God made her that way, not on her own merits. Wouldn’t it exhalt Mary EVEN more that she was a good and pious woman by herself alone? Take care.
@Al P, there’s also nothing in the text to say that the New Testament ought to be in the Bible but to continue down that path might constitute thread-jacking…
@Dan F. Except that there is. Matthew loves to say how Jesus is the Messiah prophesized in the Old Testament just as an example.
Al P you asked: “Wouldn’t it exhalt Mary EVEN more that she was a good and pious woman by herself alone? Take care.”
No. Because we are exalting God and God’s magnificent work in Mary. Also, none of us can be really good without God’s help. We are not to attribute our virtues and any good that we do to ourselves, but to God alone.
Yan: Stay tuned.
Al: There are lots of things not mentioned explicitly in the Bible (such as the word “Bible”), which are nonetheless central to Catholic faith and practice, the sinlessness of Mary among them.
“It makes more sense that Mary was chosen because she herself, without any divine aid, was a very good and pure woman.”
Nobody is, by himself or herself, a good and pure person without divine aid. To fail to understand that is to fail to under the gospel in its entirety. “Apart from me, you can do nothing” says Jesus. Exactly the point of the Immaculate Conception is that Mary is the most saved person who ever lived. That’s why she says “My spirit exults in God my *Savior*”.
“We can’t just assume that she was born without original sin or that she hadn’t sin because there’s nothing in the text that says or alludes to that.”
Yes. There is. That’s what this entire series is about.
“Another problem I have with the Immaculate conception is that it makes Mary something of a robot.”
No. It doesn’t. It is Calvinism, not Catholic faith, that pits human freedom against the power of God. For Paul and for the Church, it is sin, not grace, that enslaves. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” says Paul. Mary’s sinlessness makes her not a robot but the freest person who ever lived (save only our Lord).
“She didn’t sin because God made her that way, not on her own merits. Wouldn’t it exhalt Mary EVEN more that she was a good and pious woman by herself alone? Take care.”
You really need to familiarize yourself with elementary teaching about Christianity if you think that it would exalt Mary or any believer to say that their virtues were due, not to God, but to themselves alone. That is the sin of pride and is what made the devil the devil.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God—not because of works, lest any man should boast.” - Ephesians 2:8-9
@Joanp62 I think you misunderstood me. What I mean is that she still could sin and that she overcame sin but not because she was born that way.
Good point about the context. I’ve heard the basic explanation before, but never linked to the calling of the Apostles.
@ Mark: “There are lots of things not mentioned explicitly in the Bible (such as the word “Bible”), which are nonetheless central to Catholic faith and practice, the sinlessness of Mary among them.”
Yeah, which is why I’m opposed to them being defined as dogma.
“Nobody is, by himself or herself, a good and pure person without divine aid. To fail to understand that is to fail to under the gospel in its entirety. “Apart from me, you can do nothing” says Jesus. Exactly the point of the Immaculate Conception is that Mary is the most saved person who ever lived. That’s why she says “My spirit exults in God my *Savior*”.
I never meant that she was only good by herself alone. What I meant to say is that just like saints decide to live a life according to God, so did Mary. That’s why I said “by herself”, not because she was born that way. Of course everyone needs God, I never denied that.
“Yes. There is. That’s what this entire series is about.”
No, like I said, certain readings of the text may make you assume it, just as certain readings may make you assume that Calvin’s predestination is true.
“No. It doesn’t. It is Calvinism, not Catholic faith, that pits human freedom against the power of God. For Paul and for the Church, it is sin, not grace, that enslaves. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” says Paul. Mary’s sinlessness makes her not a robot but the freest person who ever lived (save only our Lord).”
Yes it does because this doctrine says Mary was incapable of sin i.e. without free will, and was just there so that Jesus could be born.
“You really need to familiarize yourself with elementary teaching about Christianity if you think that it would exalt Mary or any believer to say that their virtues were due, not to God, but to themselves alone. That is the sin of pride and is what made the devil the devil.”
As I said, what I meant with “herself alone” is that she wasn’t born without the capacity to sin. I never meant that Mary didn’t need God. It’s just like the saints, they chose to live a life according to God by their own, of course, by help of God Himself.
Posted by Al P:
“it shouldn’t be made into dogma”
If you’re a Catholic, then ask not for whom the fagots crackle, they crackle for thee. :-) “Take care.”
Lots of verbiage here including some erudition, real or imagined. But: None of it is necessary if we stick to the Bible and keep away from the traditions of men. The Book explains itself. Jesus: son of God; sinless. Mary: daughter of men; sinner. All the “contradictions” disappear.
“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”
The absence of original sin in Mary no more makes her a robot than it made Adam & Eve robots- they were also free from original sin at the beginning. Yet clearly, sadly, they had it in them to assert their own wills above and against God’s.
Al, Mary was born without the stain of original sin, so she would not have had to deal with concupiscence, which is the propensity to sin, like we do. She still could have sinned, but by the grace of God she did not.
The doctrine does not say that Mary was incapable of sin, like Jesus was, only that she did NOT sin. Adam and Eve were created immaculately too, no concupiscence, but they ended up disobeying God and sinning. Mary obeyed God perfectly.
There is no doubt that Jesus loved his mother who stayed by her son from stable to the cross. When he told the crowd “you are my mother …” he was elevating them, including them in his family. It must have been a maginficient moment for all those who were present.
The Evangelicals are doing the work of the demon and don’t even know it. Satan will do anything to bite her heal despite that fact he’ll be crushed regardless. It’s a pitiful act of desperation from an eternally lost fallen angel whose weak arguments fall flat in the light of mere logic.
And Joan62: Well said.
All of us do the work of the devil, so I don’t see why Evangelicals should get singled out for blame. Indeed, not of a few of us Catholics, who ought to know better, do his work despite having more information and grace at our disposal to help us. Evangelicals, in contrast, often are heroic in their choice to follow Jesus, despite the fact that they lack the sacraments and are, through no fault of their own, deprived of the fulness of the gospel. We do much better to attend to the log in our own eyes than to accuse those with a speck in theirs.
I have a friend who is an Orthodox priest. When he meets Roman Catholic people they usually like to say “Oh, we believe just the same as you, but we believe in the Immaculate Conception and you don’t”. He always corrects them “We do believe in immaculate conception, we just think everybody has one. The Mother of God, you, me, everybody”. That’s out 2000 year teaching, that “original sin” isn’t a sexually transmitted disease. The Immaculate Conception dogma is seen as a non-answer to a non-existent problem.
I have a friend who is an Orthodox priest. When he meets Roman Catholic people they usually like to say “Oh, we believe just the same as you, but we believe in the Immaculate Conception and you don’t”.
I think your friend is either seriously mishearing Roman Catholics or is telling a bit of a porkie pie. I simply cannot believe any Catholic would say this to an Orthodox priest unless baited so that he can go into a tiresome schpeel.
@Al P said
“it is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible and for that reason it shouldn’t be made into dogma”
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1) It IS dogma.
2) Your reason is not reason. There is nothing, beyond your statement, that says dogma must be something mentioned in the bible. You are suffering from a lack of historic reference and lack of understanding of the church.
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It is anachronistic to think that the bible precedes the church or the Gospel and certainly to think that it precedes truth.
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It is also an error to think that all truth is captured in the bible. Why would Christ commit the Spirit to the church?
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If the church lacks the divine guidance of God, how could it have compiled the correct books of the bible? The creed? And dealt with hundreds of heresies, many of which were not clear to all in the wording of the bible?
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While you have a right to your personal doubts about what should be or not be, it is wrong to openly state that which is is dogma should not be.
No Scott, he was a Catholic seminarian (not an unhappy or otherwise traumatized, no shoes to drop here) and converted in his middle years, now 80 years old. The Immaculate Conception comment is usually from Eastern Rite Catholics. His answer may be tiresome to you, but *Orthodox* to Orthodox. That’s what we believe. You can see it’s an issue. We can’t see it as a dogma since it doesn’t solve anything that needs solving.
@bob
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I read a description of the unity of the eastern and western views on the Immaculate Conception and original sin. It does not align with what you are saying.
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While the Latin and Eastern church appear to use different words and might explain the mechanism of the original sin differently, they both translate this to be the reason that man sins and the reason that man needs salvation.
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http://www.east2west.org/doctrine.htm
(I do not normally post personal web pages wrt church doctrine and it is not my intent to establish this as authoritative, rather one man’s explanation).
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