Why do we inherit sin?

[St. Worm2]

I believe He did do that for "everyone" with Adam. Like Mary, Adam was free to choose sin and he did.

Well, we certainly agree on that point. Of course, concerning the "Fall", I'm a Reformed Protestant and you're RC, and I don't believe there's a lot of dissention concerning this particular issue from our two respective faiths. You continue:

Suppose God could have done a "do over" for all mankind, but that is not fair justice for an infinite offense. For God to then redeem us all at birth would mean there was no justice/punishment to pay for Adam's sin.

It's really has to be Christ who pays that penalty, yes? How can a limited number of finite beings ever fully pay for an infinite offense?

This reminds me of another important question I meant to ask you, how was Mary able to avoid sinning (as the RCC claims she did) when our races perfect progenitors were not able to do so? Especially since, unlike Mary, they needed only obey a single command from God to avoid sinning. Did God make her differently perhaps? And if so, what does that imply about the rest of us? You continue:

That He gave Mary the Grace to be born that way we believe is what made it possible for Jesus to fully inherit from her all that she was, making Him 100% human, rather than requiring God to block the stain of sin from Mary from being passed to Jesus. There is a sense that the stain of sin is a part of what we are and does get passed on. It would be unseemly for Jesus to get that from Mary. No just Mary born sinless or rather without the stain of Adam's sin. She was not "separated" from God from birth. We believe that is why the Angel could say to her, before she was pregnant, that God was with her, that she was blessed among women and had found favor with God.

Well, of course, some of His huMANity had to come from somewhere else, yes? If Mary was the only one who contributed to it, how is it that Jesus was born a man and not a woman?

Good question though. Never thought of anyone questioning Mary's humanity since we know who both her parents were.

Never questioned that one myself. In fact, I still don't. But earlier you wrote: "If Mary was not Holy when Jesus was conceived and God just prevented Jesus from getting that fallen state of Her humanity, then He would less than what His Mother was, less than 100% human."

But let's just step this back a generation and I think you'll see what I'm getting at. "If Mary's Mom was not Holy when Mary was conceived and God just prevented Mary from getting that fallen state of her humanity, then she would less than what her Mother was, less than 100% human." And if Mary is less than 100% human, what she had to pass on to Jesus could not have amounted to any more either, could it? You continue:

Given what the Angel said about Her before she was pregnant, she had to have been Holy at that moment.

Why would you think that? To say Mary was "holy" based on the words of Gabriel would take some serious and, IMHO, dubious, "reading between the lines", and a denial of what the rest fo the Canon tells us about the spiritual condition of all human beings. For instance, "Full of Grace", while indeed being a literal rendering of the Text, is not what the Text actually means (or is saying) here. Even 'The New American Bible", a RC Bible (as I'm sure you know) translates κεχαριτωμένη as, "Favored one", not "Full of Grace". Quite frankly, there's nothing about the word κεχαριτωμένη Biblically OR extra-Biblically that would lead one to believe what the RCC has said about its meaning, that Mary was born immaculately (save what has been extensively written by the RCC herself, of course).

I just wish there was more written about Mary in the Bible that would less cryptically support the RC views about her (if they are indeed true .. ). Again, for us Protestants, because of the lack of any foundational Biblical evidence to support these claims by the RCC, we have to hold that the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and lifelong Sinlessness of Mary were created extra-Biblically, and attempts at Biblical support for them garnered only after these doctrines were created.

I must say, you've given me a bit to chew on though. I'll look over your thoughts again and see if I'm missing something, somehow.

Yours and His,
David

 

[St. Worm2]

According to Strong's Lexicon the Greek word translated here "nature" can refer to both nature by birth or "a mode of feeling and acting which by long habit has become nature"
So, it doesn't have to mean that humanity is born "by nature children of wrath" - it can also mean that we become the objects of wrath.

It's also the same word used in Romans 1:26 "Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones." And in Romans 2:14 " Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law..."

The problem is that "all have sinned". The problem isn't that all have been born sinners by nature.

I contend that we are sinners because we sin, not the other way around.

Hey Holy, again, skipping over most of this and getting back to the point I was trying to make, if you are correct, and there is no "Original Sin" or "Fall" that affects all of mankind, and we're sinners because we've sinned (not the other way around), how does your theology allow God to escape being held as the 'Author of sin'. Human depravity is universal, and that could only be true for one of two reasons. Either our races' progenitor caused the problem for us by his actions, or God did in the way He made us. And if we were made this way by God, then how could we ever be held responsible for the sins we commit ..

Post Tenebras Lux,
David

 

[DrBubbaLove]

St Worm,
I think given the leanings of the writers and prevailing attitudes towards women in that day, we are lucky to have what we do about Mary.

You asked how we could say the Angel indicates Mary is Holy. If you look at any human besides Jesus in the Bible, Mary is the only one that gets three things said about her relationship with God and it is not only said about her but said to her by an Angel from God. She is "blessed among women",(we take to mean all women, but works either way as a position of honor and indication of gifts from God), the Lord is with her (we see the same as Enoch's having "walked" with the Lord) and the Lord found favor with Mary (same as many patriarchs from the OT as an indication of the individuals righteouness, Noah, Abraham, David..etc).

Enoch and Elijah get "assumed" body and soul straight into Heaven without experiencing death. Doubt any would argue that at that point on earth, those two had to have been Holy in order for them to step right into the Lord's presence from here. The only thing said about Enoch is that the God walked with him, it says less about Elijah's state with the Lord, but obviously these men were Holy, as in completely Holy like Jesus told us to be "be Holy as I am Holy". In order to be in that state, one could not possibly merit it as we already agreed, so it stands to reason if you were "Full of Grace" then there is no room for anything else since you are "full", so if you are "Full of Grace" as a gift from God then you must be Holy.

For us it follows from what the Angel said of Mary that at that moment she was Holy, which is the same as saying "Full of Grace". Whether she was always that way from conception to the end of her life on earth is left to reason and tradition. If you are looking for a magic verse or two that says all these things, forget it there is none. We say she was without sin because God gave her the Grace to live that way, in fact made her Full of Grace, Holy from conception for a purpose.

Yes we agree that only the infinite can pay for an infinite offense. Only Jesus makes saving Grace, redemption with God possible. That same Grace is applied to Enoch, Elijah and for us Mary, all prior to Jesus sacrifice, the same Grace that makes our own redemption possible now.

How and/or why did God preserve Mary from sin and not Adam and Eve? Not sure we can give a good answer for God's motives. But clearly even Mary had a choice. God does not force himself upon her but she is given a choice and she says yes to accepting the man Jesus within herself, the first to do so in a very real way. It makes since to me that God would not just choose anybody to be His mother and that He would prepare Her for that purpose. That God would make her Holy for a purpose, then disgard rather than preserve her in that state by having His Grace remain applied in Full in her, that seems, well, unfitting, even unseemly for God IMO. Let me dwell within, in the most intimate way that only a mother and child can experience and then I will abandon you; that just does not seem like honoring your mother.

Also since Adam and Eve are a perfect creation, they did not need God's Grace to remain sinless, they just needed to make the right choices on thier own, pass a test so to speak. Think we would say Mary made all the right choices in her life, not on her own as a test but was able to because she was Full of God's Grace.